"Listen Liberal" Let's Finish This!

Thomas Frank's book "Listen Liberal" is among the best exposes of what is wrong with the Democratic Party, explaining how they abandoned the working class.

His book is one of the few books that the mainstream media covers at all, that comes close to exposing much if any of the scams that the political establishment is involved in; however even he doesn't expose all of it, although he hinted at it; and, if you paid attention he even indicated that he would cave and support the duopoly without challenging one of the biggest problems that enables the oligarchy to control candidates from both Parties. He stated, in his book, and in a few articles promoting his book, that he was so concerned about the fanatical front runners in the GOP primary including Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who seemed to be the two most likely nominees at the time his book went to press that he would probably vote for Hillary Clinton even though he had concerns about her.

In at least one interview before the election, he states that he was going to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary, but would probably probably vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, indicating that he was taking it as a forgone conclusion that she would be the nominee, yet he says little or nothing about the rigging of the election, which was obvious to well informed Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein voters at the time, even before the Wikileaks disclosures or more recent admissions by Donna Brazile, that the primaries were essentially rigged. Elizabeth Warren agreed that they were rigged but she also kept quiet during the primaries.

His book doesn't even mention Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein nor does he even discuss how to deal with the problem of the duopoly and how the media presents these two parties as the only viable options, which is because they're the only ones that can get name recognition thanks to the consolidated control of the mainstream media.

However, as I said he is among the best pundits that the mainstream media provides some degree of coverage for; and, perhaps, he does provide some hint of why he comes up short on this. A close look at some of the best researchers, in the mainstream media, and alternative media, as well as good published researchers that can be found in libraries or through little known publishing companies that only get attention in alternative media outlets, indicates that there is an inverse correlation between the best grassroots authors and the amount of coverage they get in the mainstream media.

The pundits that get enormous amounts of obsession coverage from the mainstream media are the worst and the best get the least amount of coverage. In some cases the authors getting an enormous amount of coverage from the mainstream media often even report an enormous amount of lies, not just propaganda, however they're often the easiest to recognize as unreliable. It is far more common for some of the authors to be more subtle and simply omit some of the best research so they're less likely to get caught in a lot of outright lies. Sometimes they do report some of the worst admissions, but only briefly and they're often buries where few people notice.

Thomas Frank isn't one of these; however he has gotten a significant amount of coverage, far more than some of the best researchers. A few of the researchers that have gotten a little coverage, from the mainstream media include, Jeremy Scahill, Glen Greenwald, John Nichols, Naomi Klein and even Richard Wolff (the economist, not Richard Wolffe who gets much more coverage and is typical of pundits).

Richard Wolff and Naomi Klein are among the few that provide better research than Thomas Frank, but they've only gotten a minimal amount of coverage from mainstream media, that I've seen and they didn't have time to explain their best work, or even come close. Jeremy Scahill, Glen Greenwald and John Nichols have all gotten more coverage than Thomas Frank at least for brief amounts of time, but when they do get on the mainstream media they don't get to explain their best work. At times I have been a little skeptical of some of Jeremy Scahill and Glen Greenwald's work although most of it has been very good. John Nichols best work has been what he does coauthoring with Robert McChesney, who is actually better when he does work on his own like "The Problem With the Media" and "Rich Media Poor Democracy," and he can't get any coverage from the mainstream media.

This is an indication that the biggest problem might be with the media, not Thomas Frank, and that if he did a better job that he might not even be able to get as much coverage as he does. However he does provide some good work, in his book, as far as it goes, and some of it might partially indicate why this problem exists, including the following excerpt that describes the basic premise of his book:

The Pathologies of Professionalism

Having people of talent run the vast federal apparatus is clearly a desirable thing. The EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ought to be under the direction of people who know what they’re doing, as surely as qualified engineers should design our bridges and historians should be the ones who teach history.

But what are we to make of our modern-day technocracy, a meritocracy of failure in which ineffectual people rise to the top and entire professions (accountants, real-estate agents appraisers, etc.) are roiled by corruption scandals?

The answer is that the professional ideology brings with it certain predictable, recurring weakness. The first of these pitfalls of professionalism is that the people with the highest status aren’t necessarily creative or original thinkers. Although the professions are thought to represent the pinnacle of human brilliance, what they are actually brilliant at is defending and applying a given philosophy. In DISCIPLINED MINDS, an important description of the work-life of professionals, the physicist Jeff Schmidt tells us that “ideological discipline is the master key to the professionals.” Despite the favorite Sixties slogan, professionals do not question authority; their job is to apply it. This is the very nature of their work and the object of their training, according to Schmidt; who “implement their employers’ attitudes” and carefully internalize the reigning doctrine of their discipline, whatever this happens to be.

In addition the professions are structured to shield insiders from accountability. This is what defines the category: professionals do not have to listen. They are the only occupational group, as the sociologist Eliot Freidson put it many years ago, with “the recognized right to declare … ‘outside’ evaluation illegitimate and intolerable.”

Exhibit A of these interlocking pathologies is economics, a discipline that often acts like an ideological cartel set up to silence the heterodox. James K. Galbraith has written a classic description of how it works:

Leading active members of today’s economics profession, the generation presently in their 40s and 50s, have joined together into a kind of politburo for correct economic thinking. As a general rule–as one might expect from a gentleman’s club–this has placed them on the wrong side of every important policy issue, and not just recently but for decades. They predict disaster where none occurs. They deny the possibility of events that then happen. ...... No one loses face, in this club, for having been wrong. No one is disinvited from presenting papers at later annual meetings. And still less is anyone from the outside invited in. (Original source: How the Economists Got It Wrong James K. Galbraith 12/19/2001)

Professional economists screw up again and again, and no one cares. The only real accountability they face is from their endlessly forgiving peers in economics departments across the country. Granted, economics is an extreme case, but its thoroughgoing application of the right to disregard criticism has made it a kind of fascinating anti-profession, a brotherhood of folly rather than of expertise.

The peril of orthodoxy is the second great pitfall of professionalism, and it’s not limited to economics. Every academic discipline with which I have some experience is similar: international relations, political science, cultural studies, even American history. None of them are as outrageous as economics, it is true, but each of them is dominated by some convention or ideology. Those who succeed in a professional discipline are those who best absorb and apply its master narrative. (Thomas Frank "Listen Liberal" 2016 p.36-9)

(Additional excerpts)

This is a variation of a classic quote by George Bernard-Shaw who said, “All professions are conspiracies against the laity,” which might not quite fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy, since a large portion of the academic work behind a variety of professions isn't secret, however, it takes a lot of time to learn and the vast majority of the public doesn't have the time to do this so they rely on the so-called experts presented to them by the mass media, which creates the same result.

One thing that Thomas Frank fails to mention is that one of those so-called professionals that he's criticizing is himself!

The problem isn't just what he calls "The Pathologies of Professionalism," but something bigger, that all the people in these profession are all from the same class of people, or in a few cases they rise up to that class with the help of people in the upper classes. Thomas Frank comes from a family of Ph.ds and the vast majority of politicians, media pundits and powerful people from other major professions either come from well connected families, or get their jobs by mingling with well connected families and learning how to go along with the program.

A major part of this does fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy if a large portion of it is done in secret; however a lot of it can't be kept secret and can be confirmed with good research.



This doesn't mean that Thomas Frank's work has no credibility, however we can't rely solely on him or any other pundit from the educated ruling class to implement the most important reform, and many more people from the working class need to become more involve and learn more about how these various trades work, and how they're rigged by the ruling class, for the benefit of the ruling class.

One simple thing that Thomas Frank fails to mention is that all these economists he criticizes for legitimate reasons, who support what they call "the free market," aren't subject to the "free market" they pretend to advocate for at all.

When was the last time you went into a store and decided to buy services or products from from one economist or another?

It's not just economists that aren't subject to the so-called free market that they pretend to champion it's the majority, if not the entire class of professionals that Thomas Frank writes about, including himself. The fiscal ideology about the free market is a sham and when the largest corporations were allowed to consolidate into a small amount of oligarchies the last shreds of a free market were eliminated!

Whether it's the mass media, the health care system, the manufacturing industry, retail industry or any other industry, they're all controlled by the same fraction of one percent, and the media only covers candidates that collect an enormous amount of money from those oligarchies. Thomas Frank is right that we need nuclear engineers to ensure that power plants are safe, structural engineers to ensure that bridges are safe, people with medical expertise to ensure that health care is as good as it could be, and many other profession; however there are some entire professions that are based on fraud starting with the basics, and even the best pundits like Thomas Frank don't even expose this.

The entire advertising industry is based on fraud, so is public relations, which is advertising by another name; union busting is shrouded in secrecy because it involves dirty tricks that even lead to violence because it's also based on fraud, but the most obvious union busting tactics is outsourcing which the entire working class is opposed to, with the possible exception of those so gullible they believe the propaganda from the pundits; and of course, the entire media industry is now controlled by six oligarchies and they only hire those that support their own ideology.



Even some of the worthwhile professions that we do need are heavily corrupted by influence from the oligarchies, especially professions like historians, which is one of the ones that Thomas Frank cites as necessary to be done by experts; however the historians that the media do cover, like Michael Beschloss, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and the Schlesinger's hide the most important history where most people don't read it and the version that is presented by the pundits that get more air time make it seem like the United States is "fighting for freedom," even though those that look closer at the details know this isn't true.

The fact that many people from prominent trades like the family of Schlesinger's pass the trade down from one generation to the next should also raise some questions; and on top of that some of the most prominent historians like Goodwin are married into members of the political class should also raise some questions. And the historians like Howard Zinn are treated like fringe historians and eased out of the spotlight. History is controlled by the ruling class like many other trades that help control the masses.



Thomas Frank spends an enormous amount of time exposing how both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton cave on one issue after another, but then he says that he "agreed with Obama that she was very qualified. She deserved to be president. I didn’t think she’d be a great president, but I thought she’d be OK—certainly better than Donald Trump." I'm no fan of Donald Trump but it least it should be incredibly easy to see how terrible he is; however for those paying attention to the news it should also be incredibly easy to see how bad Clinton is even if people don't read Thomas Frank's book exposing one flip flop after another where she's obviously selling out to Wall Street which is why she may have been the only one that could lose to a pathetic clown like Trump. I try to avoid name-calling and think it should be kept out of politics when ever possible, but he's more pathetic than any candidates should be and there's no way that he could have gotten the nomination, if not for the obsession coverage by the media; and the same goes for Hillary Clinton.

If more people were willing to speak out sooner about better candidates there's little or no chance that Hillary would have gotten the nomination, which would have ensured that Trump never could have gotten elected, for that matter, if the Republican Party actually tried to provide decent candidates he never could have gotten the nomination either!

If Thomas Frank had spoken out earlier he could have at least tried to give Bernie Sanders a boost, or he could have spoken out about the oligarchy system rigging it for two corrupt parties and spoken out about Jill Stein, or for that matter all the candidates that most of us never heard of because the mainstream media only covers a small fraction of candidates supporting their interests. Instead he said that he thought this should have been establishment candidate Elizabeth Warren's chance if she had run saying, "Look, my own opinion about this is that this is Elizabeth Warren’s year. She’s the one who should be up there running. If she had run, she would be, I think, crushing it in the polls. And I’m really sorry that she didn’t run. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the one who has best articulated all of the things that I’m describing. Bernie Sanders, yeah, he’s great. But she’s a better candidate in my view."

Elizabeth Warren was an establishment candidate from the start, although the mainstream media has been repeating the false claim that she's a progressive. she actually follows a common pattern for fabricating the anti-establishment image which is repeated over and over again and it mazes me that most people can't see through this. She first became well known in approximately 2011, when she started getting an enormous amount of coverage from the mainstream media, which seemed sudden at a time when I was finding out more about other candidates that really were progressive like Jill Stein and a few more that couldn't get any coverage from the mainstream media.

At first it seemed odd, but once I started looking closer it quickly became obvious that she's been supporting the oligarchy all along following the same pattern of behavior that Barack Obama did sky-rocketing to fame thanks to obsession coverage from the media. I wrote about her in a series of articles that started in 2011, when I first became suspicious of the obsession coverage of her, when real grassroots candidates couldn't get any coverage at all and wrote at least nine articles about her since then starting with How sincere is Elizabeth Warren? and most recently Elizabeth Warren Makes Me Scream! Despite the phony progressive reputation the media repeats over and over again she routinely does the same things any other politician does coming up with great rhetoric during the campaign and betraying promises after being elected. Before she was elected she wrote about how Hillary Clinton caved after opposing what she called "that awful" bill supported by the bankers, then supported the same bill after the bankers donated to Hillary's Senate campaign; then after getting elected Elizabeth Warren also caved by speaking about how Hillary opposed the bill as first lady without mentioning her selling out as Senator.

She did it again with Lawrence Summers writing in her second book which omitted, the caving by Hillary, that Summers had a conversation with her during a meeting and as she said, "But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders. I had been warned." The clear implication was that she intended to continue standing up to the establishment, however, later she said, Lawrence Summers "made terrific contributions to the field of economics," and ignored the fact that her candidate, Janet Yellen also Urged Glass-Steagall Repeal And Social Security Cuts, Supported NAFTA.

The latest about Elizabeth Warren indicates that after admitting, the obvious, that the primary system was rigged then, possibly after meeting with establishment members of the Democratic Party Warren walks back claim Democratic primary was rigged. 11/09/2017 This is quite common, when many politicians say things that are obvious, but the establishment is trying to bury or spin it they often start spinning it after meeting behind doors, and possibly discussing how best to convince the public to believe their views, no matter how absurd, in some cases.



This is the same pattern of behavior from one politician or pundit after another; they say one thing during the campaign but then after getting elected they support the oligarchy. It's a little different for the pundits, of course, since they're not directly accountable to the voters on election day but when it came time to support a candidate in the general election Thomas Frank caved like everyone else involved in the political establishment or mainstream media. The pundits that don't cave are only able to get any coverage from alternative media outlets and even some of them are influenced by the oligarchy.

Even Bernie Sander's caved after losing the rigged primary and remained silent about the worst rigging of the primary while campaigning for the incredibly corrupt candidate that rigged it; and followed that up by campaigning for tom Perez after they rigged the election for the chairman of the DNC. this pattern is repeated so often we should be prepared for more so-called progressives, perhaps even Jill Stein, to cave once they get power, assuming she ever does win an election.

If this is going to change then the grassroots needs to do their own research and when a reasonably good pundit like Thomas Frank exposes Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton doing a good job showing the work then we should believe them; but as soon as they cave and start saying we should accept the lesser of two evils we need to drop them like a hot rock until they start standing by their own principles.

Instead of settle for the candidates that the media and political parties are willing to cover we need to start supporting candidates they refuse to cover; and the something goes for alternative media outlets. If Democracy Now of the Daily Kos do good work, at least for a little while then we should be willing to learn from them and support the grassroots candidates they cover; but the moment that an alternative media outlet like the Daily Kos start's trying to rig the coverage for a Wall Street insider and bans authors for their views we need to drop them like a hot potato too.

We're not going to have a democracy until the majority of the public is better educated and they start electing people from their own ranks. When we get more candidates elected from the grassroots then perhaps we can get some media reform so that we have a diverse media or let the public know that the mainstream media can't be trusted for anything and abandon them!



Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals, perhaps including Thomas Frank, put him there 11/09/2016 by Thomas Frank

Tom Frank: On the Road in Trump Country How Trump won, and why Clinton lost. 04/14/2017 You want to know the biggest lesson I learned touring Trumpland? People hated Hillary Clinton. To a degree that even I, with my cynicism, did not understand. I did not hate Hillary Clinton. I voted for her, and I agreed with Obama that she was very qualified. She deserved to be president. I didn’t think she’d be a great president, but I thought she’d be OK—certainly better than Donald Trump.

Author Thomas Frank Talks Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and His New Book, ‘Listen Liberal’ 03/22/2016 The author is from a family of Ph.Ds (his is from the University of Chicago in 20th century history and culture), and he’s a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland, a leafy Washington bedroom community where nearly 60 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher — twice the national average.

Look, my own opinion about this is that this is Elizabeth Warren’s year. She’s the one who should be up there running.