David Sirota: The populist uprising

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_9494677

Article Launched: 06/06/2008 12:30:00 AM MDT

American history is the history of populist uprisings. From the Revolutionary War to the coalfield wars, from labor organizers to anti-tax crusaders, from the New Deal to the current conservative era, backlashes to the status quo have defined every major political era.

These uprisings have given us candidates from Goldwater to Dean, and presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan — and the populist uprising that delivered Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nomination means history could be forged once again.

What are populist uprisings? Loosely defined, they are a welling up of anger toward the established order — revolts that are often the precursor to a full-fledged social movement. The uprising against inequality during the Great Depression fueled the labor movement and the New Deal, which raised wages and created the middle class. The uprising against Jim Crow laws in the 1960s became the civil rights movement, which made America more equal. The uprising against liberalism during the late 1970s became the conservative movement of the 1980s, which deregulated the economy and fed the military-industrial complex.

It is that rebellion three decades ago that tells us we are indeed experiencing another uprising. America again faces the telltale signs of all insurrections: an economic emergency, a financial meltdown, an energy crisis and a national security quagmire.

Analysts say this is bad news for the right because George W. Bush sits atop today's mess, and conservatives have responded by running away from the president and by attempting to channel the outrage into their old anti-tax, anti-immigrant, anti-government agenda. But that misunderstands what has changed.

According to Gallup's survey data, the public has not only lost confidence in the political system, but also in corporations. In 1979, one in three Americans told Gallup's pollsters they had confidence in big business. By 2007, a little less than one in five expressed the same confidence. In 1979, almost two out of three citizens said they had faith in banks. Today, only two out of five do.

FULL story at link.

[fed-up]

1. k/r nt

[Peace Patriot]

2. I'm sorry, but to call Reaganism a "populist uprising" is simply false.

To call it a highly manipulated ILLUSION of a "populist uprising" would be more accurate. To compare it to the civil rights movement, or the labor movement, is just mind-bogglingly, gaggingly, pukishly UNTRUE--not to mention insulting to the souls of the 200,000 slaughtered Mayan villagers in Guatemala, and the tens of thousands of tortured and dead in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and other places, with Reagan's direct complicity.

Reagan was a monster, and to call him a "populist" leader--in anything but the Stalinist sense--is a lie.

To begin with, Reagan was a TRAITOR to this country, when he negotiated with Iran, to KEEP HOLD OF U.S. hostages unto after the 1980 election between Reagan and President Jimmy Carter. That was fucking treason! And this was after the oil corporations created a FALSE oil crisis, with long gas lines, as another tactic against Carter--and another act of treason. That election was also the first sign of severe fascist disorder in our corporate 'news' media--indeed, the first "swift-boating"--the victim, Jimmy Carter (the infamous "giant rabbit" incident).

Reagan--a lousy movie actor (and venomous red-baiter and McCarthyite in Hollywood)--turned out to have political acting skills, however, in our increasingly personality-driven, glitz-driven, shallow, manipulable, corporate-dominated political life. Reagan was HORRIBLE for ordinary people--for workers, for labor, for the poor, for the middle-class, for small savers (yes, we had savers in those days--millions of them--people who actually put pennies away in S&L's to buy a home, for their retirement, or for a "rainy day"). And this liar, this tool of the super-rich, this slayer of Mayan villagers, this perpetrator of Congressionally-forbidden war, this de-regulator of the S&Ls, this union-buster, this thief of our tax dollars for war profiteers, this traitor, this creator of the first homeless on the streets of America since the Great Depression, got SOLD TO PEOPLE as a POPULIST!

It was a lie. It was an illusion. I still gag on it--Reagan worship--as do many others. I lived through it. It. Was. Not. A. Populist. Uprising.

It was a FASCIST COUP via the FASCIST corporate media.