A Lesson In Faith For Our Times

I know the headline of this column must have really excited the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer when it appeared last Saturday, and had the column been written by one of its typical corporate apologists or neocon naysayers, I would heap volumes of scorn and ridicule on it before it disappeared from cached Internet memory forever.

However, “The left has lost its nerve and its direction” was written by Chris Hedges (pictured), who has practiced what he has preached by reporting on some of the worst conflicts on earth for decades.

For that reason, I will take issue with some of what he has to say, but not in the usual manner…

"The mistake of the former left-wingers, from Tom Hayden to Todd Gitlin, is that they want to be players in the Democratic Party and academia," said John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's magazine, speaking of two prominent 1960s activists. "This is not what the left is supposed to be. The left is supposed to be outside the system. The attempt by the left to take control of the Democratic Party failed with [Eugene] McCarthy and George McGovern. The left, at that point, should have gone back to organizing, street protests, building labor unions, and the mobilization of grassroots activists. Instead, it went for respectability."

As important as it is to “build labor unions and organize street protests,” how much good is that going to do “the left” remains, for the most part, outside of political and economic power?

And as far as backing third-party candidates is concerned, again, that is a worthy goal when these individuals truly represent a progressive constituency. But you can only effect so much social change when shouting through a bullhorn at the corporate suites where boards of directors are in session or state and federal legislatures where bills are being debated and/or considered. You have a much better chance of getting the result you want when someone with a similar ideology is actually participating in those locations.

And yes, it is a devil’s bargain, but I believe that is preferable to rendering yourself a human sacrifice before those who would merely step on you anyway versus giving you a second thought for your courage and resolve.

The working class has every right to be, to steal a line from Obama, bitter with liberal elites. I am bitter. I have seen what the loss of manufacturing jobs and the death of the labor movement did to my relatives in the former mill towns in Maine. Their story is the story of tens of millions of Americans who can no longer find a job that supports a family and provides basic benefits. Human beings are not, despite what the well-heeled Democratic and Republican apologists for the free market tell you, commodities. They are not goods. They grieve, and suffer and feel despair. They raise children and struggle to maintain communities. The growing class divide is not understood, despite the glibness of many in the media, by complicated sets of statistics or the absurd, utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals. It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer making enough money to live with dignity and hope.

Yes, but then why is that the fault of “the left” that attempts to make inroads through politics and business (and by the way, Hedges should be careful with invoking Eugene McCarthy, who took a political right turn before the end of his Senate career in 1970). Is it Hedges’ wish that we remain ensconced in a ‘60s mindset, chanting for peace, economic opportunity and social justice while wearing our sandals, bell bottoms and tie-dye and reeking of incense and patchouli?

The failure of the left is the failure of well-meaning people who kept compromising and compromising in the name of effectiveness and a few scraps of influence until they had neither. The condemnations progressives utter - about the abuse of working men and women, the rapacious cannibalization of the country by an unchecked arms industry, our disastrous foreign wars, and the collapse of basic services from education to welfare - are not backed by action. The left has been transformed into anguished apologists for corporate greed. They have become hypocrites.

Perhaps in part, I’ll admit, though we all participate as our means allow. But to say that “our condemnations are not backed by action” is a blanket indictment that is neither appropriate nor correct; also, I cannot think of anyone I interact with online or in-person who would consider himself or herself “an apologist for corporate greed.” Just because we’re not fighting the battle to the same degree Hedges is does not mean that we’re not fighting the battle at all.

"The loss of nerve by the left comes down to this lack of faith," (the Rev. Susan B.) Thistlethwaite (president of Chicago Theological Seminary) said. "Having a soul means there is coherence between our actions and our values. The left can no longer claim this coherence. It has no moral compass. It does not know right from wrong. It has, in its confusion, lost the capacity to make moral judgments."

Hope, St. Augustine wrote, has two beautiful daughters. They are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to see they do not remain the way they are. We stand at the verge of a massive economic dislocation, one forcing millions of families from their homes and into severe financial distress, one that threatens to rend the fabric of our society. If we do not become angry, if we do not muster within us the courage to challenge the corporate state that is destroying our nation, we will have squandered our credibility and integrity at the moment we need it most.

I get the distinct sense that Hedges believes the battle is already lost, and that’s not true. Those who wish to advocate for the causes he states, such as yours truly in my own humble way, do so through a variety of means in the public arena (including exercising our franchise today in PA).

Hedges quoted St. Augustine earlier to a wonderful effect, and with that in mind, I’d like to quote St. Paul, who said that “faith is the evidence of things not seen.”

Anger and courage, when utilized properly, can achieve everlasting results. But without faith in the success of the cause (a shade of difference from hope, I’d argue), we become slaves of a sort regardless, I feel, to a mindset of protest-and-all-else-be-damned that was only slightly more successful in the ’60s than it ever could be again today.

And just because it’s not seen doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

Yes, when you get “on the inside” you can be corrupted. Or you can stand tall also. But it takes faith to believe the latter is possible.

And I have faith. And somehow I have a feeling that, if you’re reading this, you do too.