Death of the Liberal Class

I / Resistance
 
To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate
of human beings and their natural environment, indeed,
even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would
result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity
“labor power” cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately,
or even left unused, without affecting the human individual
who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In
disposing of a man’s labor power the system would, incidentally,
dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity
of “man” attached to the tag. Robbed of the protective covering
of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from
the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of
acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and
starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods
and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted, military
safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw material
destroyed.
—Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation1
 
 
ERNEST LOGAN BELL, an unemployed twenty-five-year-old Marine Corps veteran, walks along Route 12 in Upstate New York. A large American flag is strapped to the side of his green backpack. There is a light drizzle and he is wearing a green Army poncho. Short, muscular, and affable, with his brown hair in a close military crop, Bell tells me when I stop my car that he is on a six-day, ninety-mile, self-styled “Liberty Walk” from Binghamton to Utica. He plans to mount a quixotic campaign to challenge Democratic incumbent Rep. Michael Arcuri in the 24th Congressional District as the Republican candidate. Bell has camped out along the road for three nights and stayed in cheap motels the other nights. He opposes the health-care bill recently passed by the Democratic-majority Congress, calls for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates the abolishment of the Federal Reserve, is against the Federal Government’s Wall Street bailouts, and wants to see immediate government relief for workers, including himself, trapped in prolonged unemployment. He carries a handwritten sign: “End the Fed,” echoing the title of a book by U.S. Representative Ron Paul he keeps in his backpack, along with a copy of U.S. Constitution for Dummies by Michael Arnheim. He says he plans to deliver Paul’s book to Arcuri’s office in Utica.
 
“I just walked through the town of Norwich,” he says as a car passes and the driver honks in support, “and there is a strong Tea Party movement there”:
 
The Tea Party movement, for the most part, is just a bunch of disgruntled
Americans. They know something is wrong and they are
ready to be engaged. A lot of the people in my area who are in the Tea
Party are Democrats. People are confused. They are shell-shocked.
They don’t know what to think. But acting like these problems started
January 20 [the date of the presidential inauguration] is absurd. To
single out the current president and not the presidents before him is
not productive for trying to figure out what is going on.2
 
Bell, who lives in Lansing, New York, is the new face of resistance. He is young, at home in the culture of the military, deeply suspicious of the Federal Government, dismissive of the liberal class, unable to find work, and angry. He swings between right-wing and left-wing populism, expressing admiration for both Paul and U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich, as well as the Tea Party movement. He started out as a supporter of John McCain in the last presidential election but soured on the Arizona senator and the Republican Party’s ties to Wall Street. He ended up not voting in that election. He has raised about $1,000 from neighbors and friends for his own campaign. Adept at martial arts, he made it to the semifinals of the 2010 Army National Guard Combative Championship at Fort Benning in Georgia, where, in his last bout, he suffered a broken nose, bruised his opponent’s ribs and thighs, and lost in a split decision.
 
“I am truly terrified when I think about our future,” he says:
 
I believe all signs point to a real systemic economic collapse in the
near future, maybe even before the midterm elections. I believe this is
why many incumbents are stepping down. They seem to know what
is coming and of course the rats are jumping ship and taking their
pensions with them. There will be nothing the government or the Fed
can do to slow the pain, no more tricks in the bag. I assure you it’s
going to hurt everyone, except of course, the corporate and banking
elite. I say let the empire collapse; sometimes we must die to be
reborn. The political system as it stands offers little hope for influencing
real change or social justice. I propose we attempt to reverse this
coup d’état by attempting a coup of our own. First, we must try to
retake the traditional means of control, power and discourse by
restoring integrity to our sold-out democratic election system. Unfortunately,
this will probably do little good but it is a worthy effort. It is
our patriotic duty to resist tyranny. We must break these chains of
oppression and restore our government to principles based on liberty
and justice for all. I am not confident that standing outside buildings
with signs is going to provide any fundamental power shifts, as power
is not often transferred without a struggle. Inalienable rights are not a
courtesy of the Federal Government. We must stand in the streets and
refuse to be silenced. We must reject corporate-controlled politics
and focus on rebuilding a localized political structure and society. A
revolution is the only alternative to complete surrender and defeat.
Cold, hard suffering and pain will be the only hope for a real revolution,
and this is all but guaranteed. At this point protest must be
transformed into acts of defiance. We must be bold.
 
Bell grew up in Oakwood, a small town in East Texas between Dallas and Houston. His father struggled with alcoholism and is now in recovery. His parents, who frequently fought, separated, and reunited, divorced when Bell was thirteen. His mother was left to raise Bell, along with his younger brother (currently in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division) and his younger sister in a one-bedroom apartment. There was little money, and his mother worked sporadically at odd jobs. There were eighteen people in his high-school graduating class. With few jobs in Oakwood, Bell, along with several of his classmates, joined the military.
 
“My father worked two jobs to support us; he suffered from the disease of alcoholism but is a good guy and tried to be supportive father,” Bell says:
 
My mom had her own set of problems. She is now living in a oneroom
shack. She had breast cancer four years ago and has no insurance
and is living in poverty. I know the system is not working. She
lives at the little house, a one-bedroom cabin on her mother’s land,
where me and my brother lived off and on when my parents were
arguing. We lived in several different houses and apartments with
both my mom and dad. I left home when I was seventeen, drifting
between friends’ houses, then moved back to Oakwood, where I finished
high school, living with my grandparents, who had a profound
effect on my life and values. My life was inconsistent, chaotic, and
working-class. I believe this environment helped develop my character
and perspective. I have to give credit where it’s due. My dad tried.
 
“You couldn’t stay in Oakwood, Texas, and have a job,” he adds.
 
Bell moved to upstate New York two years ago after leaving the Marine Corps to be near Shianne, his three-year-old daughter. He and the girl’s mother are separated. Bell found work as a carpenter with a traveling construction crew. He earned $14.50 an hour and could sometimes make as much as $800 a week. Then the financial meltdown knocked the wind out of the local economy.
 
“Everybody in my apartment building has had their hours cut, are unemployed, or have taken minimum-wage jobs,” he says. “I was laid off last year. I try to find work as an independent carpenter. I don’t have health insurance.”
 
The dearth of work, which left him attempting to survive at times on $600 a month, saw him enlist last year in the New York National Guard, even though it means almost certain deployment to Afghanistan. The enticement of a $20,000 signing bonus was too lucrative to pass up. The National Guard unit he joined recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.
 
“We are training to go back to Afghanistan,” he says. “The fact that they are still using Army National Guard, state-level troops, to police the streets of Afghanistan is not good. These units are really overstretched. We do not get the benefits. We don’t get health insurance like active-duty military. But the guard gets deployed just as much. Some of these guys have been on three and four tours.
 
“I got out of the Marine Corps and went back to Texas for ten months and was involved in the John McCain campaign,” he says:
 
I really got disillusioned with the neoconservatism. I had never been
involved in politics. The idea that we needed all these troops all around
the world “defending freedom,” as they called it, when we were actually
engaged in nation-building and supporting special interests that drive
these wars, was something I began to understand. As far as foreign and
economic policy, I could see there was no difference between the two...