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Transcript #138-1 Social Darwinism: The Doctrine That Lets The
Right-Winger Sleep At Night Partially hyperlinked to sources.
For all sources, see the data
resources page. Sources you'll hear in this segment
include: commondreams.org, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics,
brainyquote.com, the New York Times, and mediamatters.org. Are you one the decent-minded people
in the world who wonders, how do right-wingers sleep at night?
When it's so obvious that so many of their
policies
hurt
the poor, increase human misery, suffering pain and death? Let me tell you a bit about a noxious
doctrine called Social Darwinism, since it's so critical to understanding the
right-wing mindset. Social Darwinism is sure to be
invoked whenever Obama or anyone else tries to pass legislation with economic
justice as a goal. Charles Darwin of the theory of
evolution fame had nothing to do with this doctrine.
The Social Darwinism doctrine was developed by an English philosopher
named Herbert Spencer, 30 years after Darwin's book On The Origin of Species was
published. Robert Reich was Bill Clinton's
Secretary of Labor, and much more progressive than Clinton and other DLC
Democrats on economic issues. He explains
Social Darwinism in words I can't improve upon: Extending Darwin into a
realm Darwin never intended, Spencer and his followers saw society as a
competitive struggle where only those with the strongest moral character should survive, or else the society would
weaken. It was Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase "survival of the
fittest." Social Darwinism thereby
offered a perfect moral justification for America’s Gilded Age, when robber
barons controlled much of American industry, the gap between rich and poor
turned into a chasm, urban slums festered, and politicians were bought off by
the wealthy. It allowed John D.
Rockefeller, for example, to claim that the fortune he accumulated through the
giant Standard Oil Trust was "merely a survival of the fittest...the
working out of a law of nature and a law of God." Reich goes on to explain how Social
Darwinism is the moral philosophy underpinning the right-wing legislative
agenda: …Social Darwinism gives
a moral justification for rejecting social insurance and supporting tax cuts for
the rich. "In America," says Robert Bork, "‘the rich’ are
overwhelmingly people – entrepreneurs, small businessmen, corporate
executives, doctors, lawyers, etc. – who have gained their higher incomes
through intelligence, imagination, and hard work." Any transfer of wealth
from rich to poor thereby undermines the nation’s moral fiber. Allow the
virtuous rich to keep more of their earnings and pay less in taxes, and
they’ll be even more virtuous. Give the non-virtuous poor food stamps,
Medicaid, and what’s left of welfare, and they’ll fall into deeper moral
torpor. So it hurts the
poor to help them, and helps the poor to take away what little help they
receive. Ah, a philosophy to soothe
the conscience of a greedy bastard if I ever heard one.
No one nailed
the right-wing better than John Kenneth Galbraith when he framed it thusly: The modern conservative is
engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the
search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. How about we now examine some
examples of right-winger's spouting Social Darwinism claptrap.
Best to have a finely developed antennae to detect this poison, however
subtly expressed it sometimes is. There
are many varieties. Maybe not 57,
but many. Ok, the most famous recent example
would be former Senator Phil Gramm, of Texas, a proponent of extreme right-wing,
law-of-the-jungle economics. His
comment was indirect. In the summer before the '08
election, when he was co-chairman of John McCain's campaign, Graham pooh-poohed
talk of a recession, and said
our country had become a "nation of whiners." Of course, there he was implicitly
attacking not only the poor for complaining, but the middle-class as well, and
that's a no-no. So Gramm was soon out
of that co-chairmanship gig. Sometimes the Social Darwinist
outlook comes out as contempt, phony pity, for people who obviously can't help
themselves and should be grateful for anything that comes their way. Here's Barbara Bush commenting
on an arena full of Hurricane Katrina victims: audio: Barbara Bush [S]o many of the people in
the arena here, you The apple doesn't fall far from the
tree. Yoshi Tsurumi had George Bush as a student at Harvard Business School.
Tsurumi wrote
that I still vividly remember
him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are
lazy"…To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." You want to now listen
to some explicit Social Darwinism rants? Here's radio talk show host Bill
Cunningham this past fall. He's
no obscure guy. Talker's Magazine
lists him on its Heavy Hundred list of important talk show hosts. One day he opined: audio: Bill Cunningham You know, people are poor
in America…not because they lack money; they're poor because they lack values,
morals, and ethics. And if government can't teach and instill that, we're
wasting our time simply giving poor people money. Another day he elaborated: audio: Bill Cunningham The reason people are poor
in America is not because they lack money, it's because poor people in America
lack values, character, and the ability to work hard. Now Cunningham just sort of stated
the doctrine as a matter of fact. Another
right-wing jock, Neal
Boortz, adds a healthy dose of venom. And
Boortz, again, is a major talk show host, and is on Hannity & Colmes all the
time. Take a listen.
I'll play a bit, so you can get the full flavor.
He's speaking about victims of Hurricane Katrina, just this year: audio: Neal Boortz Cries of the downtrodden, my left
butt cheek. That wasn't the cries of the downtrodden; that's the cries of the
useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a
city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have
a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for
somebody else to come rescue them. "It's somebody else's job to get me out
of here. It's somebody else's job to save my life. Not mine.
Send me a bus, send me a limo, send me a boat, send me a helicopter, send me a
taxi, send me something. But you certainly don't expect me to actually work to
get myself out of this situation, do you? Haven't you been watching me for
generations? I've never done anything to improve my own lot in life. I've never
done anything to rescue myself. Why do you expect me to do that now, just
because a levee broke?" Here are a few more choice excerpts: audio: Neal Boortz When these Katrina so-called
refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of
putting out the garbage. [T]heir entire lifestyle prior to
Katrina was sitting around on their asses and waiting for checks. I am fed up with this conventional
wisdom that Katrina and the disaster that followed was George Bush's fault. It
was not. The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New
Orleans who you -- couldn't even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way
of the water when that levee broke. The slyest, most effective approach
is Bill O'Reilly's, who frames his deception as a supposed moral teaching.
O'Reilly had this to say, commenting on frantic people waiting to be rescued
from New Orleans rooftops after Hurricane Katrina: Every American kid should
be required to watch videotape of the poor in New Orleans and see how they
suffered because they couldn't get out of town.
And then every teacher should tell the students, "If you refuse to
learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta
life, you will be poor and powerless just like man of those in New
Orleans." In other words, they deserved it!
The victim deserved what happened to them. Think about this for a minute.
Under Bill Clinton poverty
went down. Under George Bush it went
up. What, did the poor become more
intelligent, more moral and more hard-working under Clinton?
And less intelligent, less moral and less hard-working under Bush? Of course not. There are millions
of working poor in America, who are intelligent, moral and work hard.
They're still in poverty because, among other things, the minimum wage is
so low,
and union-busting
is rampant.
Whether wrapped up in O'Reilly's fig
leaf of a lesson to children, or nakedly stated in Boortz's thinly-veiled racist
rant, O'Reilly and Boortz are expressing the right-wing's underlying credo. Condemnation of the poor, blaming
them for their situation, is always a sure-fire crowd-pleaser among
right-wingers. We progressives have to be able to
detect it and renounce it at every turn. Transcript #138-2 Paraguay Rejects Right, Elects As President
The "Bishop Of The Poor" Partially hyperlinked to sources.
For all sources, see the data
resources page. Your sources for this segment
include: the New York Times, the CIA Factbook, the BBC, several Papal
encyclicals, msnbc.com, the National Catholic Reporter, and dictionary.com. You've probably barely heard of the
small Latin American country of Paraguay. Well, something pretty amazing has
happened there. First a bit of background. Paraguay has a little under 7
million people, a full third living
in poverty. One percent of the
population owns 77% of the land. It
has one of the most skewed distributions of wealth in the world. That means death to many. A country's infant mortality rate is
the number of infants who die before one year old, per thousand live births. Paraguay's infant mortality rate
is four times that
of the United States. If Paraguay
had as low an infant mortality rate as the United States, over 3,700 babies in
Paraguay would live, not die, each year. This is among a population far less
than just New York City. Such injustice was perpetuated by the
longest one-party rule in the world. It
was the right-wing Colorado party. For much of its 61 years of control,
torture and murder were
used to
prevent progressive challenges to its power.
Perhaps you've heard of Operation Condor? Well, there was a stunning
development that I've been following since early this year, but haven't gotten
around to speaking about because of our own presidential campaign. A priest who ministered to the poor
for 11 years, and later became a bishop, was elected
president of Paraguay. He was
known as the Bishop of the Poor. The impoverished masses, along with
many others, rise up, and elect
Fernando Lugo, the Bishop of the Poor, as president. Lugo's platform? Overall, redistributing
wealth to Paraguay's poor. How? Two methods: Land reform to lift
the landless out of poverty And increasing agricultural export
tariffs, which are near zero now. That's
so that some of the profits can be shared
by the nation as a whole. Paraguay
is the fourth largest exporter
of soybeans in the world, yet so many of its people go hungry
. As Lugo succinctly put it, he pledged
to be "implacable with the robbers of the people." And symbolically, Lugo renounced his $US40,000
($46,100) salary and urged other politicians to do the same as a symbol of his
vows for economic austerity and transparency. Lugo still faces
an entrenched Colorado party. This will be most interesting to keep
an eye on, and inspiring if Lugo can make a go of it. OK, let's now expand the frame a bit. A former Roman Catholic Bishop being
elected on a leftist platform brings me back to the late 70's and 80's.
The Sandinistas overthrew the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.
There were at least four
priests that I remember holding Cabinet posts in the Sandinista government.
Miguel D'Escoto was foreign minister.
Ernesto Cardenal was Culture Minister.
Minister of Public Welfare was Edgar Parreles.
And Fernando Cardenal was Minister of Education.
I met Fernando Cardenal when I visited Nicaragua in 1984. These Christians understood the true
meaning of Matthew 25's Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, of being on the side
of the poor. See podcast
111 for more on that. Anyway, Ernesto Cardenal lived to attend
Lugo's inauguration. How cool is
that? It's not just 1980's Nicaragua and
present-day Paraguay. As the
National Catholic Reporter recently put
it: [A]new generation of Latin leaders schooled in the social teachings of the
Catholic church is emerging, augmenting moves that are taking their nations
further from the U.S. orbit. Lugo's platform literally came directly from the social justice teachings of the Catholic church,
which focused on human and cultural rights of indigenous peoples and the need
for a more equitable distribution of the nation’s resources for the common
good. I want to tell you some of the
elements of Catholic social teaching. It
amazed me when I did the research. I've
done an entire show on this, complete with citations to relevant Papal
encyclicals and other official church documents.
That's podcast
53. I also have a separate document
on this. I'll put a link to it on
the podcast blog, and there's a link in the transcript at this point as well. I've distilled the social justice
teachings down to some basic principles. Here
are some of them: Both faith and works are
required The world's resources were
meant for all to share equitably, so that each individual and people have a
sufficient share Christian duty must be
similarly global in scope, our responsibility being to all of humanity The market alone can not
address all human needs, and its shortcomings need to be addressed The existence of unjust
political and economic structures must be recognized So harmful are these
structures that they can even be called "structures of sin" Working to remove these
structural injustices, or "structures of sin," is critical I really like that term, structures
of sin. Continuing on with some more
principles: Individual acts of charity
are not enough A government role can be
appropriate in effectuating the social Gospel Extreme, life-threatening
poverty is caused by injustice, not laziness Demonization of the poor
is therefore wrong Hear that, all you Social Darwinists? A few final ones: Christians must exercise a
"preferential option for the poor" A living wage is required
by fundamental justice Help for immigrants, even
for undocumented aliens, is required Fundamental changes in
global economic structures and practices are necessary Intrigued?
To find out more, you can check out that podcast
53. Up next after
the music, as we continue in this realm: the most powerful words I ever heard. BREAK This whole discussion of Catholic
social teachings, and Lugo when he said he would be "implacable with the
robbers of the people", also brings to my mind some of the most powerful
words I've ever heard, spoken to me face-to-face across a kitchen table. I was on an educational travel
seminar, a "reality tour" to Central America.
We went to Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
This is the trip I met Fernando Cardenal on.
He was quite an impressive man, but nothing he said blew me away like
what I'm about to tell you. There are impoverished people who are
inspired by Catholic social teachings. They
work to organize their communities both for social betterment, and political
empowerment to achieve systemic social change. Adela was one such person.
She was visiting us in the little group house we were staying in.
Telling us how she saw the world, as we listened to her around the
kitchen table. Now an aphorism is defined
as a "comprehensive maxim or principle expressed in a few words." Well, check this out as maybe,
certainly in my eyes, the mother of all aphorisms: God gave the earth to
everyone equally, and if some have too much and some too little, the ones with
too much must have stolen it some way. Let me repeat that: God gave the earth to
everyone equally, and if some have too much and some too little, the ones with
too much must have stolen it some way. Let's break down the three parts of
this statement. The first part is
"God gave the earth to everyone equally."
Whether you believe in a God or not, could it really be denied that every
human being has the right to a fair share of the earth's resources, at least
enough to keep them alive if they fulfill their part of the social contract, and
work hard and play by the rules? About the second part , "if some
have too much and some too little," Adela
wasn't talking about if some people have Mercedes and some people Honda Civics.
She was talking about true, death-causing want. She was talking about the hundreds
of millions, if not billions
of people, who have too little, in the sense of barely enough to survive, and in
many cases, not enough to survive. She was talking about the over
9 million children under the age of five who die needlessly every year on
planet Earth from preventable hunger and preventable disease. And the third part, "the ones
with too much must have stolen it some way"? The way I look at it, nobody
is going to willingly give up the food that could keep them alive or the
medicine that would let them recover from a sickness.
Nobody is going to willingly give up
the opportunity to work to be able to purchase that food and medicine. If someone doesn't have food or
medicine, and they're willing to work for it, then yes, the ones with too much
must have stolen it in some way, through fraud or force, from the person dying
because they're without. They must
be preventing that person, either directly or indirectly through structures of
sin, from securing that food and medicine. How about right-wing, reverse Robin
Hood, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer policies? How about, as we discussed last
podcast, the Four Pillars, the ways right-wing ideology is employed by the
Western World to economically exploit the Third World? All of this is encapsulated in
Adela's mere 28 words. The true progressive fights to stop
the fraud and the theft and to change the political and economic structures of
sin which perpetuate the fraud and the theft and the human suffering and dying. That's, frankly, what I've committed
a great part of my life to. I hope you're willing to join and
help me, and certainly more importantly the millions of others on this quest.
Not just President Lugo in Paraguay, but all the Lugo's and all the
peoples of the world rising up for justice against right-wing policies of death
and suffering. I'm on Adela's side.
Are you?
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