From Where I Sit Big Government is Great

Last week, I viewed Tavis Smiley's "Reawakening America" forum with such personalities as Cornel West, Suze Orman, Michael Moore, and a man with whom I had not been familiar before the broadcast--Roger Clay of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. Clay stood out to me from the crowd. About a third of the way through the forum, he stated that America needs a new system, and at the moment he uttered that thought I felt he had separated himself from the rest of the group. Clay was speaking outside of the box, and I believe outside of capitalism, and I couldn't help but to think that everyone else on the panel was thinking within it.

Despite Clay somewhat isolating himself philosophically, it was interesting that others seemed intrigued by his thinking--especially West, who at times has claimed to be a socialist. Near the end of the forum, it cetainly seemed very important to West to align himself with Clay. He in fact asked the man if the two of them were on the same page. It's interesting to think about why such philosophical alignment was so important to West. One of the things that has always bothered me about him is that he talks a certain talk and I think walks a different walk. Some years ago, West was interviewed by Charlie Rose, who in a seemingly innocent manner, reminded West that he had made a lot of money. I guess Rose assumed that all of the books had paid off for the philosopher, the speaking engagements, etc. As I recall, West nodded in agreement. I think the philosopher-king was taken a little by surprise, but not much, by the statement. In his usual form, West came back with a sense of victimization, claiming that he had had to pay a heavy price for his pubic life and of course for his politics. He said that he regularly receives death threats. I'm sure I believe West. Everyone on the "Reawakening America" panel has probably received death threats. It goes with the territory of public life. However, what bothered me about West's response to Rose's pointing out a possible contradiction between West's public politics and his material gain from them was that what Rose was really questioning, it seemed to me anyway, was whether a proclaimed socialist should look to "get paid." I think Rose wanted to know if West's soul was bothered by having made so much money that he had risen high above the masses for whom he claimed to fight. West could have and should have answered in that vein, but instead he skirted the issue by painting himself in the image of a victim rather than that of a wealthy man who had been making a mint off of the role of thinking for the public. Rose probably wasn't the first person to accuse West of a profit motive, and, years later, I think that the kind of money that American public intellectuals were able to make during the years of America's huge economic bubble makes their politics as questionable as anyone else's, maybe more since, at least West, is still claiming to be "down with the poor." Really? Again, I'd at least like to know if he feels on his worst days a bit of a hypocrite. In a previous Smiley forum, Julia Hare warned the audience to beware of "leading blacks" (which she distinguished from black leaders), for they often "get paid" while those they claim to lead "get played." As I recall, West slapped his leg at the jab and guffawed ridiculously. I see this earlier show as a similar reaction to that made in response to Clay. West seemed to be saying he was in agreement with Hare, but how could he have been when, without a doubt, he is one who has gotten paid?

For me, there is a larger issue that goes beyond West to African Americans in general who refuse to call money out, that is, to question whether capitalism achieves a fair society, or, less critically, if every way of making money is morally acceptable. And why aren't there more African American socialists? I don't mean among the degreed thinkers but among the masses? Do we fall for the same anti-socialist rhetoric as everyone else? How could we when we've always caught more hell than anyone else? How on earth do you trust capitalism when it had its origin in slavery? It doesn't make sense, does it? And if we overwhelmingly support a party that can still be said to be more for government than the other party, then why don't more of us regularly question the capitalist system itself that is both parties' religion, an economic system which inherently leads to inequality rather than parity? Have we not noticed this? Clay stated, "most people think they are going to be rich. For that reason, they protect the rich." Is this too the mindset of working class African Americans? Do we protect the rich not only by not pointing to their participation in an inherently corrupt system but also by secretly or not-so-secretly worshiping them? Do we admire capitalism that much? Why on earth? The answer to these questions certainly seems to be yes whenever anyone goes to criticize Oprah or Tyler Perry. Have they risen to the ranks of capitalists? People defend Oprah because she gives so much back. She does, and she should give more, much more, for she possesses nothing that the system we fail to criticize hasn't allowed her. In other words, she is rich because we live in a system that makes a few people so. She is not a genius but a benefactor of an unfair system that the rest of us patronize. Have we any righteous indignation that the capitalists, who have gotten filthy rich again, are not creating jobs for us? Not a handful of jobs or new cars for all in the Harpo Studios audience, but millions of jobs for the masses? Have we silenced ourselves because we have failed to articulate an alternative politics and relied instead on the likes of West and Smiley, who are so well housed within the sytem, to speak for us?

I know that plenty of African Americans are part of The Occupy Movement, and I am not, but I do wonder if some blacks who are a part of that movement just want things to return to the way they were during the bubble or whether they want revolution--in Clay's words, "a whole new system."

One of the underlying thoughts in Thomas Frank's piece "More Government, Please" (Harper's, Dec. 2011) is that many Americans--The Tea Party especially--defend "the job creators" in their refusal to create jobs. As Frank sees it, the rich have been escalated to a position in which they are not held accountable or responsible to society; The Tea Party lets them off the hook; they are, with their Republican friends, mad about anticipated taxation and regulation. The obvious question is why masses of barely middle class people would align themselves with big money rather than with big government. But together, these friends hate big government. What Frank doesn't say is that plenty of other Americans seem to give the rich a pass as well, not the relatively few blacks who have taken to the streets or those who have gone to Washington to fight for jobs but the masses of us who just sit by waiting for either the Democrats or the Republicans to win the philosophical and political battle. How have we come to be so lethargic? Why is there no workers movement on the level of the civil rights movement? Why don't we in fact see labor rights as a civil right? My guess is that it is because we too are recovering from the excesses of the bubble, false affluence that many of us in our own ways participated (and may still be participating in some way) in. We were as mesmerized by the appearance of growth as everyone else. I think it is ironic that many of the Occupiers were not railing about poverty during the golden days when the McMansions that Frank says need to be deconstructed now were first being built. We were in awe, and some of us thought those times would last forever. Some of us may believe also that those times will come back just as soon as someone makes the case well enough that outsourced jobs must return. I do not believe. The job creators are not on strike, but, as Frank concludes, they are unwilling to compromise and accept a greater tax burden and regulation of runaway capitalism. Their refusual is tantamount to saying the good old days of the middle class are gone, gone if its revitalization depends on workers making $20 an hour to start and having affordable health benefits and a pension. The job creators are waiting for us to accept a new standard--$13 an hour tops, unaffordable heath care, and definitely no pension.

Like Clay, I want a new system altogether. I love big government. Whenever I hear it being rejected, I think of all of the CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) workers, mere teenagers among them, who donned their red t-shirts in the summer in my city and held their free bus tickets as they walked to the end of the block to join gangs of young people employed by money from the federal government; they had government jobs that took them all over the city to work. That sea of government-supported jobs was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. I'm not old enough to have benefitted directly from WPA or CWA jobs, but CETA had the same or similar philosophical underpinning. The '70s was not so long ago. I suppose such a government-sponsored jobs program might in the end, if we don't overthrow the whole sytem, be only a temporary fix, but I know that in my city it forestalled the economy that replaced it--the drug economy.