The Lost Left

As a lifelong leftist, the dismal political fortunes of the U.S. Left have long depressed me. A big part of this political failure, of course, comes from the fact that we tilt against the biggest capitalist superpower in the world. The elite in this country does anything and everything to hold onto and extend its power. But the Left itself is also to blame for its repeated failures to take power.

Let's talk about one key way. We don't protect our leaders. (Some on the Left don't even want leaders. Instead, they talk endlessly about "process" and "identity"-- that's how unserious about taking power they are.) Historically, when our leaders get too powerful, too threatening to the ruling elite, they kill them. Good liberals don't like to acknowledge this. But, yes, that's how the powerful in America have imposed their rule -- through the barrel of a gun.

Of course, the powerful prefer to assassinate the CHARACTER of oppositional leaders. The other way is messy and can produce martyrs. And since the elite control the Big Media in this country, that's easy.

There are countless supine lapdog journalists who eagerly will do the bidding of media moguls. They do it because that's their jobs. And that's what their colleagues, the rest of the news pack, think. They go along and get along. They never question authority. Frankly, they're not that brave or bright. They are, in fact, pathetic creatures. I know.

Look what the Big Media did to Senator Bernie Sanders when he threatened the Democratic Party's ruling elite. The New York Times, Washington Post etc. ran more than one NEWS article a day in their pages smearing him.

The corporate media is doing even more to tear down Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A barrage of hit pieces. Some subsidized by the pharmaceutical industry, one of his most powerful antagonists. Some produced by news organizations that essentially now function as propaganda arms of the national security state, another big target of Kennedy. Yes, in the land of the free, the CIA and other security agencies run our free press. (And we won't even get into Hollywood here, what movies and TV shows are allowed to say.)

We'll end where we started. The Left NEVER understood the Kennedy presidency, its sharp break from the Cold War orthodoxy of its day (allied with the highly lucrative military-industrial complex). The Left never understood why JFK was killed and why it still matters.

I have great admiration for progressive intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and investigative journalists like Seymour Hersh. But when it came to President Kennedy, they were clueless.

The Left's intelligentsia helped create a false and destructive narrative for the JFK assassination and cover-up. They argued that the killing did not much matter, because President Kennedy was a Cold Warrior and there was a continuity of power after he was violently removed. They were (and are) dead wrong.

It matters, too, that the Left is now gleefully participating in the character assassination of RFK Jr. When has a serious critic of corporate power ever climbed so close to the White House?

Some on the Left excuse and even applaud President Biden's perverse decision to withhold Secret Service protection from Kennedy. Despite the recent threats to his safety. Despite the controversy (some of it generated by the corporate media) that swirls around him. Despite what happened to his uncle and father.

Yes, the American Left is partly to blame for its chronic loser status. We fail to protect (or even appreciate) our leaders. We eat our own.

Noam Chomsky