Death of the Liberal Class

by Chris Hedges

  24 Quoted in Sidney Lens, Labor Wars: From the Molly Maguires to the Sitdowns (New York: Doubleday, 1973), 152.

  25 Dwight Macdonald, The Root Is Man (Brooklyn, NY:Autonomedia, 1995), 67.

  26 Ibid., 146.

  27 John Houseman, Unfinished Business (London: Chatto and Windos, 1986), 87.

  28 Mark Blitzstein, The Cradle Will Rock, 31, Sketch 6.

  29 Ibid., 13, Sketch 3.

  30 Hallie Flanagan, Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre (New York: Benjamin Bloom, 1940), 202-203.

  31 Blitzstein, The Cradle Will Rock, page 15, Sketch 4.

  32 Karen Malpede, interview, New York, June 6, 2010.

  33 Flanagan, 364-365.

  34 Ibid., 366.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Malpede., 367.

  37 Malcom Cowley, Exile’s Return (New York: Penguin, 1994), 58.

  38 Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 67-68.

  39 Ibid., 71.

  40 Cowley, Exile’s Return, 60-61.

  41 Ibid., 62-63.

  42 Ibid., 66-67.

  43 Ibid., 149.

  44 Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 501, cited in Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals.

  45 Quoted in Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking 1980), 48.

  46 Walter Bernstein, Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 185.

  47 Drama Mailbag, New York Times, October 16, 1955, x3.

  48 Bernstein, Inside Out, 186.

  49 Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998), 412.

  CHAPTER 4: POLITICS AS SPECTACLE

  1 Philip Roth. “On the Air,” New American Review 10 (August 1970), 20.

  2 Peter B. Levy, The New Left and Labor in the 1960s (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 47-48.

  3 Sharon Smith, Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 216-217.

  4 Murray Bookchin, Towards an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980), 11-12.

  5 Irving Howe, “The Age of Conformity,” 151.

  6 Ibid., 152.

  7 Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (New York: Vintage, 1988), 132.

  8 Ibid., 135.

  9 Eva Cockroft, “Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,” in Francis Frascina, ed., Pollock and After: The Critical Debate (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 132.

  10 Carol Becker, Zones of Contention: Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender and Anxiety (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 9.

  11 Alan Magee, interview, New York, March 30, 2010.

  12 Rob Shetterly, interview, New York, July 11, 2010.

  13 Ben Fulton, “Calling on artists to lead the way; Fine arts: Columbia University dean Carol Becker to speak at U,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 27, 2010.

  14 C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 318-319.

  15 C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 130-131, 158-159.

  16 Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998), 413.

  17 Ian Buchanan, Frederick Jameson: Live Theory (New York: Continuum, 2007), 81.

  18 Russell Jacoby, The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 63.

  19 Ibid., 63-64.

  20 Zachary Karabell, What’s College For? The Struggle to Define American Higher Education (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 94-95.

  21 James W. Carey, Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (New York: Routledge, 1992), 81.

  22 Ibid., 77.

  23 Ibid., 84.

  24 C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 314.

  25 Doug McGill, interview by phone from Rochester, Minnesota, January 8, 2010.

  26 Jackson J. Benson, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck (New York: Viking, 1984), 333.

  27 Cited by Doug McGill in The McGill Report.

  CHAPTER 5: LIBERAL DEFECTORS

  1 Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 34-35.

  2 Edward W. Said, Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (New York: Vintage, 1996), 100-101.

  3 Stanley Hoffman, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Daedalus, 106:3, “Discoveries and Interpretations: Studies in Contemporary Scholarship, Vol. I,” (Summer 1977), 49-55.

  4 Julien Benda, The Treason of Intellectuals (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 43-45.

  5 “Fear and Favor at The New York Times” by Pete Hamill, The Village Voice, October 1, 1985.

  6 Sydney Schanberg, interview, New York, January 18, 2010.

  7 Norman Finkelstein, interview, New York, March 14, 2010.

  8 Brian Knowlton and Michael M. Grynbaum, “Greenspan ‘Shocked’ that Free Markets Are Flawed,” New York Times, October 23, 2008.

  9 Tom Friedman, interview on Charlie Rose, Public Broadcasting System, May 30, 2003, http:video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3800770925110269 212#.

  10 Martha Hennessy, interview, New York, September 24, 2008.

  11 Dorthy Day, By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorthy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 98.

  12 Father Daniel Berrigan, interview, New York, May 7, 2009.

  13 Father Daniel Berrigan, interview, New York, May 13, 2008.

  14 Davidson Loehr, interview, Austin, Texas, June 19, 2010.

  15 D.D. Guttenplan, American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), x.

  16 Ibid.

  17 Ibid., 232.

  18 Ibid., 475.

  19 Ibid., 473.

  20 Ibid., 232.

  21 Ibid., xiii.

  22 Ibid., 408-409.

  23 Ibid., 431.

  24 Abe Peck, Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press (New York: Citadel Press, 1991), 142.

  25 Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 300.

  26 Ralph Nader, interview, Washington, DC, March 30, 2010.

  27 David Cay Johnston, interview, by phone from Rochester, New York, March 7, 2010.

  28 Lewis F. Powell, “Attack on th eAmerican Free Enterprise System,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce, August 23, 1971, http:www.reclaimdemocracy.org/ corporate _acountability/Powell_memo_lewis.html.

  29 Ralph Nader, in Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan, Directors, An Unreasonable Man, Submarine Entertainment, 2006.

  30 Warren P. Strobel, “Dealt a Setback, Bush Now Faces a Difficult Choice,” Philadelphis Inquirer, February 15, 2003, A01.

  31 James Cone, interview, Princeton, New Jersey, January, 16, 2010.

  32 Malcolm X, Corey Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1964.

  33 See King’s address, “Some Things We Must Do,” given December 5, 1957, on the second anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.

  34 Malcolm X, panel discussion on WNDT-TV, New York, 1963.

  35 Martin Luther King, “Guidelines for a Conservative Church,” Sermon given June 5, 1966, at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta.

  36 Dean Henderson, interview, Fairfax, Virginia, February 20, 2010.

  CHAPTER 6: REBELLION

  1 Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” in The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (New York: Everyman, 2004), 536.

  2 Chris Rojek, Celebrity (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 90-91.

  3 Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 55.

  4 Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, “Data Show ‘Arctic Is Screaming,’ Scientists Say,” New York Sun, December 12, 2007, http:www.nysun.com/foreign/data-show-arctic-is-screaming-scientists-say/67928.

  5 James Hansen, “Global Warmi
ng Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near,” speech to the National Press Club, Washington, June, 23 2008, www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf.

  6 Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change (Washington, DC: Earthscan, 2010), 27-28.

  7 Ibid., 22.

  8 Clive Hamilton, “Is It Too Late to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?,” lecture, Royal Society of the Arts, Sydney, Australia, October 21, 2009, http:www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=articles.

  9 Letter of October 13, 1953, from Payne Best to George Bell, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 16, Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 1940-1945, trans. by Lisa E. Dahill (Minneapolis, NM: Fortress Press, 2006), 468.

  10 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin, 1985), 73.

  11 Jason Lanier, interview, San Francisco, February 12, 2010.

  12 E. M. Forester, “The Machine Stops,” in Selected Stories (New York: Penguin, 2001), 91-123.

  13 Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. by Anthony Bower (New York: Vintage, 1956), 238.

  14 Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against State in Central Europe, ed. John Keane (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), 63.

  15 Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa,” in Lyrical and Critical Essays, ed. Philip Thody, trans. by Ellen Conroy Kenny (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 169-170.

  16 Mario Savio, speech on the steps of Sproul Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement Sit-in, December 2, 1964. http:www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariosaviosproulhallsitin.htm.

  Acknowledgments

  Eunice Wong is my most astute critic, my most important and trusted editor, and as talented a writer as she is an actor. Every idea and theme in this book was discussed, dissected, and debated with her. All that I write passes through her hands, usually a few times. Our marriage is a rare mixture of the intellectual, the emotional, the physical, and the spiritual. I want to weigh time down with boulders to prolong and hold every moment I have with her.

  The Nation Institute, the Ford Foundation and the Lannan Foundation offered generous support. I am grateful to Hamilton Fish, Ruth Baldwin, Taya Grobow and Jonathan Schell, as well as Roane Carey and Katrina vanden Heuvel at the Nation magazine. Carl Bromley at Nation Books once again lifted my writing to another level. His editing is always marked by his deep intelligence, his skill as a writer, and his profound erudition. Michele Jacob, whom I have worked with on several books, again handled publicity and book events with her usual charm, patience, and efficiency. Patrick Lannan and Jo Chap-man at the Lannan Foundation have for several years provided steady and invaluable support. I would find it hard to survive as a writer without them. Calvin Sims at the Ford Foundation got immediately what I was trying to do, which is not surprising, given the skill and intelligence he exhibited as reporter and foreign correspondent for the New York Times, and made my grant and work with Ford possible.

  I run all my ideas and thoughts past the Reverend Coleman Brown, my former professor of religion and ethics at Colgate University. He has been my moral and intellectual mentor for more than three decades, and his counsel is invaluable.

  John Timpane again edited the final manuscript. He has an amazing mind, an infectious love of learning, and a breadth of knowledge that is as expansive as it is intimidating. He is also endowed with a wide array of talents. He is a gifted writer, poet, and musician. It is not fair to the rest of us.

  Deena Guzder did much of the research for the book. She is a great writer, a tenacious journalist, and woman with a conscience that will save her from the contamination of commercial journalism. Jake Willard-Crist assisted me with the final editing of the book. I was very fortunate to have their help. I would like to thank Robert Scheer, one of the most courageous and important journalists in the country, and Zuade Kaufmann, who together run the Web magazine Truthdig, where I write a weekly column. They provide the reading public with a precious gift. I have, over the years, received encouragement, support, and advice from Henry Giroux, who helped me with sections of this book; Dud and Jean Hendrick, who let us stay in their cottage on Deer Isle in Maine; Bernard Rapoport, Peter Lewis, and Jean Stein; Ralph Nader, whom I am proud to have supported for president; Robert Jensen, Larry Joseph, Steve Kinzer, Sami and Laila al-Arian, Peter Scheer, Ann and Walter Pincus, Maria-Christina Keller, Lauren B. Davis, June Ballinger, Michael Goldstein, Gerald Stern, Anne Marie Macari, Robert J. Lifton, and Tom Artin; James Cone, one of our nation’s most important theologians; Ray Close, the Reverend Michael Granzen, the Reverend Karen Hernandez, Joe and Heidi Hough, Mark Kurlansky, Margaret Maurer, Irene Brown, Sam Hynes, the great graphic novelist Joe Sacco, Dennis Kucinich, Ernest Logan Bell, Sonali Kolhatkar, Francine Prose, Russell Banks, Celia and Bernard Chazelle, Esther Kaplan, James Ridgeway; the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who became a friend when we received honorary doctorates together at Starr King School for the Ministry; Paul Woodruff; Sheldon Wolin, our greatest living political philosopher; “Rocky” Anderson; Tom Cornell; Noam Chomsky, who sets the intellectual gold standard for the rest of us; Father Michael Doyle and Father Daniel Berrigan, two Catholic priests who remind us that the church can once in a while produce prophets; Pam Diamond, James Kane, the Reverend Davidson Loehr, and Karen Malpede; Stuart Ewen, whose books proved vital to my understanding of the rise of the propaganda state; Norman Finkelstein, whose moral courage I admire; John Ralston Saul, a philosopher who gave me a vocabulary to understand much of what is happening in contemporary culture; the uncompromising Cindy Sheehan; Sydney Schanberg, Malalai Joya, Michael Moore, Jeremy Scahill, Sam Smith, Rob Shatterly, Alan Magee, Doug McGill, Jaron Lanier, Mae Sakharov, Kasia Anderson, and Charlie and Catherine Williams, as well as Dorothea von Moltke and Cliff Simms, whom we are fortunate to have as friends and owners of one of the nation’s best independent bookstores.

  Lisa Bankoff of International Creative Management, whom I have been with since I published my first book nearly a decade ago, is a talented, smart, and gracious agent who negotiated contracts and manages an end of this industry that still mystifies me.

  I have three deeply sensitive, inquisitive, and caring children: Thomas, Noëlle, and Konrad. When they knock at my office door, it is not always good for my writing, but it is very good for my life. It is with them and Eunice that I find a joy and meaning that, after all the human suffering I have witnessed, defy articulation.

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