He's actually a great version of a liberal intellectual of today because he seems to feel this nagging sense that the earlier, as you call it, desiderata of the creed should create more of a gravitational pull on his position, but time and again he seems bound to frame his message as if it is only the neo-liberals that have any truly rational claims.
s
On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 00:56, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> saw Moore's Capitalism: a love story tonight.
>
> Interesting factoid. Moore shows footage filmed by Roosevelt, a couple of
> months before he died. Roosevelt was too sick to do his State of the Union
> address, 1944, in front of cameras. Instead, he did it on the radio. After
> the addres, he asked reporters to go to a special room to film him outlining
> a Second Bill of Rights.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights
>
> Moore uncovered the footage in 2008 while doing research for the film.
>
> We've talked here about whether there has ever been a desiderata for
> Liberalism. Michael Pollack, SA, and Doug discussed it on the "more noxious
> crap" thread.
>
> I was going to respond, have a draft somewhere, to take issue with the idea
> that Liberalism is largely contentless, that it's pragmatic, simply swaying
> like a blade of grass swaying to whatever pragmatic possibility seems
> possible at the moment. I don't agree with that at all. There is some
> substance to Liberalism. Obama is, quite obviously, not a Liberal, at least
> not the kind that I remember.
>
> I was going to describe the ideas of high school teachers I'd had, ideas
> which seemed at one time to be so ordinary and worthy that high school
> teachers held them and discussed them with ninth graders. A time when people
> weren't yet ashamed to call themselves Liberal.
>
> Decided not to bother. Just anecdata.
>
> Meanwhile, what Roosevelt said in that footage? *that* is what Liberalism
> used to mean. It's exemplary of a reformist impulse that preserves and
> strengthens capitalism. The goal of prosperity for property is still there,
> it's just that the means to that end is to create a stability and
> regularity, to mitigate chaotic turmoil in the polity and economy so that
> business will thrive. A recognition that, contrary to an auto exec in
> Moore's film who claims that it's imperative to prevent a company's
> bankruptcy and that means laying off however many people it takes, even if
> it means laying off all of them.
>
> I thought the proposed second bill of rights was the best statement I've
> read as to what Liberalism once meant in this country. It's certainly not
> contentless, but makes specific demands on behalf of "duh people."
>
> shag
>
>
>
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