Henry A. Giroux: Liberalism's Failures in a Time of Increasing Violence, Racism, Inequality and State Terrorism by Eric Poulin, Truthout | Interview

             

(Image: Deep thought, broken glass via Shutterstock; Edited: JR/TO)

In these two far-reaching interviews on the "Soap Box" with Eric Poulin, Henry Giroux talks about the failure of liberalism in a time of increasing violence, racism, inequality, state terrorism, and the rule of the financial elite over every commanding social, cultural and political institution in the United States. He elaborates on the failure of many liberals to move both beyond the call for weak reforms that do not challenge the fundamental structures of domination and their willingness to often align themselves with repressive policies that benefit the rich and powerful. He points, for instance, to liberalism’s refusal to name the corruption and misery produced by neoliberal capitalism and its willingness to align itself with policies of the right such as the Iraqi War, state torture, a health-care program that largely benefits big insurance companies, and the massive suffering caused by the growing inequality in wealth, income and power. He also points to the refusal on the part of liberals to protest a grotesque and dangerous incarceration and surveillance state, and the failure to address the issue of what it takes to reinvent politics so as not to serve the interests of the rich and powerful - the failure in short to name a counter-revolution politics that has corrupted both political parties. He argues that liberals are more afraid of the left than the right and have consistently, especially under President Obama, gone out of their way to compromise with the right while moving the Democratic Party into more conservative territory, all the while refusing to bear responsibility for destroying the conditions that make a real democracy possible.

Read more at http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30527-giroux-liberalism-s-failures-in-a-time-of-increasing-violence-racism-inequality-and-state-terrorism