(Does this have something to do
with Jon Stewart's retirement &
Stephen Colbert 'going legit'?)
Wielding Claims of 'Fake News,' Conservatives
Take Aim at Mainstream Media http://nyti.ms/2iuFxRx
NYT - JEREMY W. PETERS - December 25, 2016
WASHINGTON - The CIA, the F.B.I. and the White House may all agree that Russia was behind
the hacking that interfered with the election. But that was of no import to the website Breitbart
News, which dismissed reports on the intelligence assessment as "left-wing fake news."
Rush Limbaugh has diagnosed a more fundamental problem. "The fake news is the everyday news"
in the mainstream media, he said on his radio show recently. "They just make it up."
Some supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump have also taken up the call. As reporters
were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts
of "Fake news!"
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are
meant to spread virally online. But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans
and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake stories may have helped swing
the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to
their agenda.
In defining "fake news" so broadly and seeking to dilute its meaning, they are capitalizing
on the declining credibility of all purveyors of information, one product of the country's increasing
political polarization. And conservatives, seeing an opening to undermine the mainstream media,
a longtime foe, are more than happy to dig the hole deeper.
"Over the years, we've effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything
that they disagree with. And now it's gone too far," said John Ziegler, a conservative radio host,
who has been critical of what he sees as excessive partisanship by pundits. "Because the gatekeepers
have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don't see how you reverse it."
Journalists who work to separate fact from fiction see a dangerous conflation of stories that
turn out to be wrong because of a legitimate misunderstanding with those whose clear intention
is to deceive. A report, shared more than a million times on social media, that the pope had endorsed
Mr. Trump was undeniably false. But was it "fake news" to report on data models that showed Hillary
Clinton with overwhelming odds of winning the presidency? Are opinion articles fake if they cherry-pick
facts to draw disputable conclusions?
"Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks
and revenue," said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes
bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we're doing a disservice
to lump all those things together."
The right's labeling of "fake news" evokes one of the most successful efforts by conservatives
to reorient how Americans think about news media objectivity: the move by Fox News to brand its
conservative-slanted coverage as "fair and balanced." Traditionally, mainstream media outlets
had thought of their own approach in those terms, viewing their coverage as strictly down the
middle. Republicans often found that laughable.
As with Fox's ubiquitous promotion of its slogan, conservatives' appropriation of the "fake
news" label is an effort to further erode the mainstream media's claim to be a reliable and accurate
source. ...
Martin Sklar's disaccumultion thesis * is a restatement and reinterpretation of passages in Marx's
Grundrisse that have come to be known as the "fragment on machines." Compare, for example, the following
two key excerpts.
Marx:
...to the degree that large industry develops, the creation of real wealth comes to depend
less on labour time and on the amount of labour employed than on the power of the agencies set
in motion during labour time, whose 'powerful effectiveness' is itself in turn out of all proportion
to the direct labour time spent on their production, but depends rather on the general state of
science and on the progress of technology, or the application of this science to production. ...
Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the
human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself. (What
holds for machinery holds likewise for the combination of human activities and the development
of human intercourse.)
Sklar:
In consequence [of the passage from the accumulation phase of capitalism to the "disaccumlation"
phase], and increasingly, human labor (i.e. the exercise of living labor-power) recedes from the
condition of serving as a 'factor' of goods production, and by the same token, the mode of goods-production
progressively undergoes reversion to a condition comparable to a gratuitous 'force of nature':
energy, harnessed and directed through technically sophisticated machinery, produces goods, as
trees produce fruit, without the involvement of, or need for, human labor-time in the immediate
production process itself. Living labor-power in goods-production devolves upon the quantitatively
declining role of watching, regulating, and superintending.
The main difference between the two arguments is that for Marx, the growing contradiction between
the forces of production and the social relations produce "the material conditions to blow this
foundation sky-high." For Sklar, with the benefit of another century of observation, disaccumulation
appears as simply another phase in the evolution of capitalism -- albeit with revolutionary potential.
But also with reactionary potential in that the reduced dependence on labor power also suggests
a reduced vulnerability to the withholding of labor power.
Carnival Corp. told about 200 IT employees that the company was transferring their work to Capgemini,
a large IT outsourcing firm
Notable quotes:
"... Senior IT engineer Matthew Culver told CBS that the requested "knowledge transfer activities" just meant training their own replacements , and "he isn't buying any of it," writes Slashdot reader dcblogs . ..."
"... Foreign workers are willing to do a job at a lower salary in most if not all cases b/c the cost of living in their respective countries is a fraction of ours. ..."
Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday December 25, 2016 @05:05PM from the Bob-Cratchit-vs-Scrooge dept.
ComputerWorld reports:
In early December, Carnival Corp.
told about 200 IT employees that the company was transferring their work to Capgemini, a large
IT outsourcing firm. The employees had a choice: Either agree to take a job with the contractor or
leave without severance. The employees had until the week before Christmas to make a decision about
their future with the cruise line.
By agreeing to a job with Paris-based Capgemini, employees are guaranteed employment for six
months, said Roger Frizzell, a Carnival spokesman.
"Our expectation is that many will continue to work on our account or placed into other open
positions within Capgemini" that go well beyond the six-month period, he said in an email.
Senior IT engineer Matthew Culver told CBS that the requested "knowledge transfer activities"
just meant training their own replacements , and "he isn't buying any of it," writes Slashdot
reader dcblogs . "After receiving
his offer letter from Capgemini, he sent a counteroffer.
It asked for $500,000...and apology letters to all the affected families," signed by the company's
CEO. In addition, the letter also demanded a $100,000 donation to any charity that provides services
to unemployed American workers. "I appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and I sincerely
hope that you can fulfill these terms."
Foreign workers are willing to do a job at a lower salary in most if not all cases b/c
the cost of living in their respective countries is a fraction of ours.
I would be willing to do my job at a fraction of what I am paid currently should that (that
being how expensive it is to live here) change. It is equally infuriating to me when American
companies use loopholes in our ridiculously complicated tax code to shelter revenues in foreign
tax shelters to avoid paying taxes while at the same time benefiting from our infrastructure,
emergency services, military, etc..
Its assholes like you that always spout off about free market this or that, about some companies
fiduciary responsibilities to it's shareholders blah blah blah... as justification for shitty
behavior.
It is equally infuriating to me when American companies use loopholes in our ridiculously
complicated tax code to shelter revenues in foreign tax shelters to avoid paying taxes
So who are you infuriated at? The companies that take advantage of those loopholes, or the
politicians that put them there? Fury doesn't help unless it is properly directed. Does your fury
influence who you vote for?
... while at the same time benefiting from our infrastructure, emergency services, military,
etc.
No. Taxes are only sheltered on income generated overseas, using overseas infrastructure, emergency
services, etc. I am baffled why Americans believe they have a "right" to tax the sale of a product
made in China and sold in France.
I suppose it's related to the idea that intellectual property "rights" granted by a country
of origin should still have the same benefits and drawbacks when transferred to another country.
Or at the very least should be treated as an export at such time a base of operations moves out
of country.
Except that calling, say iOS sales 'generated overseas' when the software was written in the
US, using US infrastructure, etc . And the company is making the bogus claim that their
Irish subsidiary owns the rights to that software. It's a scam - not a loophole.
They are the same thing. The only way to ensure that there are no tax dodges out there is to
simplify the tax code, and eliminate the words: "except", "but", "excluding", "omitting", "minus",
"exempt", "without", and any other words to those same effects.
Americans are too stupid to ever vote for a poltiician that states they will raise taxes. This
means that either politicians lie, or they actively undermine the tax base. Both of those situations
are bad for the majority of americans, but they vote for the same scumbags over and over, and
will soundly reject any politician who openly advocates tax increases. The result is a race to
the bottom. Welcome to reaping what you sow, brought to you by Democracy(tm).
Except that calling, say iOS sales 'generated overseas' when the software was written
in the US, using US infrastructure, etc .
That makes no sense. Plenty of non-American companies develop software in America. Yet only
if they are incorporated in America do they pay income tax on their overseas earnings, and it
is irrelevant where their engineering and development was done.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with "using infrastructure". It is just an extraterritorial
money grab that is almost certainly counterproductive since it incentivizes American companies
to invest and create jobs overseas.
Yes, taxes are based on profits. So Google, for instance, makes a bunch of money in the US.
Their Irish branch then charges about that much for "consulting" leaving the American part with
little to no profits to tax.
"I am baffled why Americans believe they have a "right" to tax the sale of a product made in
China and sold in France."
Because the manufacturing and sales are controlled by a US based company, as is the profit
benefit which results. If a US entity, which receives the benefits of US law, makes a profit by
any means, why should it not be taxed by the US?
"... Rich individuals (who are willing to be interviewed) also express concern about inequality but generally oppose using higher taxes on the rich to fight it. Scheiber is very willing to bluntly state his guess (and everyone's) that candidates are eager to please the rich, because they spend much of their time begging the rich for contributions. ..."
"... Of course another way to reduce inequality is to raise wages. Buried way down around paragraph 9 I found this gem: "Forty percent of the wealthy, versus 78 percent of the public, said the government should make the minimum wage "high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below the official poverty line." ..."
"... The current foundational rules embedded in tax law, intellectual property law, corporate construction law, and other elements of our legal and regulatory system result in distributions that favor those with capital or in a position to seek rents. This isn't a situation that calls for a Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. It is more a question of how elites have rigged the system to work primarily for them. ..."
"... the problem is incomes and demand, and the first and best answer for creating demand for workers and higher wages to compete for those workers is full employment. ..."
"... if you are proposing raising taxes on the rich SO THAT you can cut taxes on the non rich you are simply proposing theft. ..."
"... what we are looking at here is simple old fashioned greed just as stupid and ugly among the "non rich" as it is among the rich. ..."
"... you play into the hands of the Petersons who want to "cut taxes" and leave the poor elderly to die on the streets, and the poor non-elderly to spend their lives in anxiety and fear-driven greed trying to provide against desperate poverty in old age absent any reliable security for their savings.) ..."
"... made by the ayn rand faithful. it is wearisome. ..."
"... The only cure for organized greed is organized labor. ..."
"... A typical voice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues" ..."
The content should be familiar to AngryBear
readers. A majority of Americans are alarmed by high and increasing inequality and support government
action to reduce inequality. However, none of the important 2016 candidates has expressed any willingness
to raise taxes on the rich. The Republicans want to cut them and Clinton (and a spokesperson) dodge
the question.
Rich individuals (who are willing to be interviewed) also express concern about inequality but
generally oppose using higher taxes on the rich to fight it. Scheiber is very willing to bluntly
state his guess (and everyone's) that candidates are eager to please the rich, because they spend
much of their time begging the rich for contributions.
No suprise to anyone who has been paying attention except for the fact that it is on the front
page of www.nytimes.com and the article is printed in the business section not the opinion section.
Do click the link - it is brief, to the point, solid, alarming and a must read.
I clicked one of the links and found weaker evidence than I expected for Scheiber's view (which
of course I share
"By contrast, more than half of Americans and three-quarters of Democrats believe the "government
should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich," according to a
Gallup poll of about 1,000 adults in April 2013."
It is a small majority 52% favor and 47% oppose. This 52 % is noticeably smaller than the solid
majorities who have been telling Gallup that high income individuals pay less than their fair share
of taxes (click and search
for Gallup on the page).
I guess this isn't really surprising - the word "heavy" is heavy maaaan and "redistribute" evokes
the dreaded welfare (and conservatives have devoted gigantic effort to giving it pejorative connotations).
The 52% majority is remarkable given the phrasing of the question. But it isn't enough to win elections,
since it is 52% of adults which corresponds to well under 52% of actual voters.
My reading is that it is important for egalitarians to stress the tax cuts for the non rich and
that higher taxes on the rich are, unfortunately, necessary if we are to have lower taxes on the
non rich without huge budget deficits. This is exactly Obama's approach.
Comments (87)
Jerry Critter
March 29, 2015 10:40 pm
Get rid of tax breaks that only the wealthy can take advantage of and perhaps everyone will
pay their fair share. The same goes for corporations.
amateur socialist
March 30, 2015 11:42 am
Of course another way to reduce inequality is to raise wages. Buried way down around paragraph
9 I found this gem: "Forty percent of the wealthy, versus 78 percent of the public, said the government
should make the minimum wage "high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below
the official poverty line."
I'm fine with raising people's taxes by increasing their wages. A story I heard on NPR recently
indicated that a single person needs to make about $17-19 an hour to cover most basic necessities
nowadays (the story went on to say that most people in that situation are working 2 or more jobs
to get enough income, a "solution" that creates more problems with health/stress etc.). A full
time worker supporting kids needs more than $20.
You double the minimum wage and strengthen people's rights to organize union representation.
Tax revenues go up (including SS contributions btw) and we add significant growth to the economy
with the increased purchasing power of workers. People can go back to working 40-50 hours a week
and cut back on moonlighting which creates new job opportunities for the younger folks decimated
by this so called recovery.
Win Win Win Win. And the poor overburdened millionaires don't have to have their poor tax fee
fees hurt.
Mark Jamison, March 30, 2015 8:09 pm
How about if we get rid of the "re" and call it what it is "distribution". The current
foundational rules embedded in tax law, intellectual property law, corporate construction law,
and other elements of our legal and regulatory system result in distributions that favor those
with capital or in a position to seek rents.
This isn't a situation that calls for a Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to the
poor. It is more a question of how elites have rigged the system to work primarily for them.
Democrats cede the rhetoric to the Right when they allow the discussion to be about redistribution.
Even talk of inequality without reference to the basic legal constructs that are rigged to create
slanted outcomes tend to accepted premises that are in and of themselves false.
The issue shouldn't be rejiggering things after the the initial distribution but creating a
system with basic rules that level the opportunity playing field.
coberly, March 30, 2015 11:03 pm
Thank You Mark Jamison!
An elegant, informed writer who says it better than I can.
But here is how I would say it:
Addressing "inequality" by "tax the rich" is the wrong answer and a political loser.
Address inequality by re-criminalizing the criminal practices of the criminal rich. Address
inequality by creating well paying jobs with government jobs if necessary (and there is necessary
work to be done by the government), with government protection for unions, with government policies
that make it less profitable to off shore
etc. the direction to take is to make the economy more fair . actually more "free" though you'll
never get the free enterprise fundamentalists to admit that's what it is. You WILL get the honest
rich on your side. They don't like being robbed any more than you do.
But you will not, in America, get even poor people to vote to "take from the rich to give to
the poor." It has something to do with the "story" Americans have been telling themselves since
1776. A story heard round the world.
That said, there is nothing wrong with raising taxes on the rich to pay for the government
THEY need as well as you. But don't raise taxes to give the money to the poor. They won't do it,
and even the poor don't want it except as a last resort, which we hope we are not at yet.
urban legend, March 31, 2015 2:07 am
Coberly, you are dead-on. Right now, taxation is the least issue. Listen to Jared Bernstein
and Dean Baker: the problem is incomes and demand, and the first and best answer for creating
demand for workers and higher wages to compete for those workers is full employment. Minimum
wage will help at the margins to push incomes up, and it's the easiest initial legislative sell,
but the public will support policies - mainly big-big infrastructure modernization in a country
that has neglected its infrastructure for a generation - that signal a firm commitment to full
employment.
It's laying right there for the Democrats to pick it up. Will they? Having policies that are
traditional Democratic policies will not do the job. For believability - for convincing voters
they actually have a handle on what has been wrong and how to fix it - they need to have a story
for why we have seem unable to generate enough jobs for over a decade. The neglect of infrastructure
- the unfilled millions of jobs that should have gone to keeping it up to date and up to major-country
standards - should be a big part of that story. Trade and manufacturing, to be sure, is the other
big element that will connect with voters. Many Democrats (including you know who) are severely
compromised on trade, but they need to find a way to come own on the right side with the voters.
coberly, March 31, 2015 10:52 am
Robert
i wish you'd give some thought to the other comments on this post.
if you are proposing raising taxes on the rich SO THAT you can cut taxes on the non
rich you are simply proposing theft. if you were proposing raising taxes on the rich to provide
reasonable welfare to those who need it you would be asking the rich to contribute to the strength
of their own country and ultimately their own wealth.
i hope you can see the difference.
it is especially irritating to me because many of the "non rich" who want their taxes cut make
more than twice as much as i do. what we are looking at here is simple old fashioned greed
just as stupid and ugly among the "non rich" as it is among the rich.
"the poor" in this country do not pay a significant amount of taxes (Social Security and Medicare
are not "taxes," merely an efficient way for us to pay for our own direct needs . as long as you
call them taxes you play into the hands of the Petersons who want to "cut taxes" and leave
the poor elderly to die on the streets, and the poor non-elderly to spend their lives in anxiety
and fear-driven greed trying to provide against desperate poverty in old age absent any reliable
security for their savings.)
Kai-HK, April 4, 2015 12:23 am
coberly,
Thanks for your well-reasoned response.
You state, 'i personally am not much interested in the "poor capitalist will flee the country
if you tax him too much." in fact i'd say good riddance, and by the way watch out for that tarriff
when you try to sell your stuff here.'
(a) What happens after thy leave? Sure you can get one-time 'exit tax' but you lose all the
intellectual capital (think of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Steve Jobs leaving and taking their
intellectual property and human capital with them). These guys are great jobs creators it will
not only be the 'bad capitalists' that leave but also many of the 'job creating' good ones.
(b) I am less worried about existing job creating capitalists in America; what about the future
ones? The ones that either flee overseas and make their wealth there or are already overseas and
then have a plethora of places they can invest but why bother investing in the US if all they
are going to do is call me a predator and then seize my assets and or penalise me for investing
there? Right? It is the future investment that gets impacted not current wealth per se.
You also make a great point, 'the poor are in the worst position with respect to shifting their
tax burden on to others. the rich do it as a matter of course. it would be simpler just to tax
the rich there are fewer of them, and they know what is at stake, and they can afford accountants.
the rest of us would pay our "taxes" in the form of higher prices for what we buy.'
Investment capital will go where it is best treated and to attract investment capital a market
must provide a competitive return (profit margin or return on investment). Those companies and
investment that stay will do so because they are able to maintain that margin .and they will do
so by either reducing wages or increasing prices. Where they can do neither, their will exit the
market.
That is why, according to research, a bulk of the corporate taxation falls on workers and consumers
as a pass-on effect. The optimum corporate tax is 0. This will be the case as taxation increases
on the owners of businesses and capital .workers, the middle class, and the poor pay it. The margins
stay competitive for the owners of capital since capital is highly mobile and fungible.Workers
and the poor less so.
But thanks again for the tone and content of your response. I often get attacked personally
for my views instead of people focusing on the issue. I appreciate the respite.
K
coberly, April 4, 2015 12:34 pm
kai
yes, but you missed the point.
i am sick of the whining about taxes. it takes so much money to run the country (including
the kind of pernicious poverty that will turn the US into sub-saharan africa. and then who will
buy their products.
i can't do much about the poor whining about taxes. they are just people with limited understanding,
except for their own pressing needs. the rich know what the taxes are needed for, they are just
stupid about paying them. of course they would pass the taxes through to their customers. the
customers would still buy what they need/want at the new price. leaving everyone pretty much where
they are today financially. but the rich would be forced to be grownup about "paying" the taxes,
and maybe the politics of "don't tax me tax the other guy" would go away.
as for the sainted bill gates. there are plenty of other people in this country as smart as
he is and would be happy to sell us computer operating systems and pay the taxes on their billion
dollars a year profits.
nothing breaks my heart more than a whining millionaire.
Kai-HK
April 4, 2015 11:32 pm
Sure I got YOUR point, it just didn't address MY points as put forth in MY original post. And
it still doesn't.
More importantly, you have failed to defend YOUR point against even a rudimentary challenge.
K
coberly, April 5, 2015 12:45 pm
kai,
rudimentary is right.
i have read your "points" about sixteen hundred times in the last year alone. made by the
ayn rand faithful. it is wearisome.
and i have learned there is no point in trying to talk to true believers.
William Ryan, May 13, 2015 4:43 pm
Thanks again Coberly for your and K's very thoughtful insight. You guys really made me think
hard today and I do see your points about perverted capitalism being a big problem in US. I still
do like the progressive tax structure and balanced trade agenda better.
I realize as you say that we cannot compare US to Hong Kong just on size and scale alone. Without
all the obfuscation going Lean by building cultures that makes people want to take ownership and
sharing learning and growing together is a big part of the solution Ford once said "you cannot
learn in school what the world is going to do next".
Also never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level then beat you with
experience. The only cure for organized greed is organized labor. It's because no matter
what they do nothing get done about it. With all this manure around there must be a pony somewhere!
"
A typical voice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real
issues". FDR.
Rich people pay rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people
Earth doesn't matter, people don't matter, even economy doesn't matter . The only thing
that matters is R.W. nut bar total ownership of everything.
I'm sorry I put profits ahead of people, greed above need and the rule of gold above God's
golden rules.
I try to stay away from negative people who have a problem for every solution
We need capitalism that is based on justice and greater corporate responsibility. I do
not speak nor do I comprehend assholian.
"If you don't change direction , you may end up where you are headed". Lao-Tzu.
"The true strength of our nation comes not from our arm or wealth but from our ideas".
Obama..
Last one.
"If the soul is left to darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not the one
who commits the sins, but the one who caused the darkness". Victor Hugo.
coberly , May 16, 2015 9:57 pm
kai
as a matter of fact i disagree with the current "equality" fad at least insofar as it implies
taking from the rich and giving to the poor directly.
i don't believe people are "equal" in terms of their economic potential. i do beleive they
are equal in terms of being due the respect of human beings.
i also believe your simple view of "equality" is a closet way of guarantee that the rich can
prey upon the poor without interruption.
humans made their first big step in evolution when they learned to cooperate with each other
against the big predators.
Jerry Critter, May 17, 2015 12:10 am
it is mildly progressive up to about $75,000 per year where the rate hits 30%. But from there
up to $1.542 million the rate only increases to 33.3%.
I call that very flat!
Jerry Critter, May 17, 2015 11:20 am
"i assume there are people in this country who are truly poor. as far as i know they
don't pay taxes."
Read my reference and you will see that the "poor" indeed pay taxes, just not much income tax
because they don't have much income. You are fixated on income when we should be considering all
forms of taxation.
Jerry Critter, May 17, 2015 9:25 pm
Oh Kai, cut the crap. Paying taxes Is nothing like slavery. My oh my, how did we ever survive
with a top tax rate of around 90%, nearly 3 times the current rate? Some people would even say
that the economy then was pretty great and the middle class was doing terrific. So stop the deflection
and redirection. I think you just like to see how many words you can write. Sorry, but history
is not on your side.
"... Yes. I see editorials in WaPo and NYT where the writer claims they've "woken up in another country", they "don't know what happened to the real America", they "didn't realize the country was so full of awful people". They seem mighty disoriented by the neoliberal narrative, as given for the last 40 years, losing this election. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... The Republicans are the party of the rich; the Democrats are the party of the rich and poor. Those in between have no place. ..."
So that's the story, or one story. But stories have morals. What moral does identity politics
offer?
Adolph Reed on identity politics[2]:
[I]t is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression
and active agency of a political order and moral economy in which capitalist market forces are
treated as unassailable nature. An integral element of that moral economy is displacement of the
critique of the invidious outcomes produced by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized
categories of ascriptive identity that sort us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially
are rather than what we do. As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that
moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be
just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever
the appropriate proportions were LGBT people. It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that
expresses more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves candidates
for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class.
This perspective may help explain why, the more aggressively and openly capitalist class power
destroys and marketizes every shred of social protection working people of all races, genders,
and sexual orientations have fought for and won over the last century, the louder and more insistent
are the demands from the identitarian left that we focus our attention on statistical disparities
and episodic outrages that "prove" that the crucial injustices in the society should be understood
in the language of ascriptive identity.
So, if we ask an identitarian[3] whether shipping the Rust Belt's jobs off to China was fair -
the moral of the story - the answer we get is: "That depends. If the private equity firms that did
it were 12% black, 12% Latino, and half women, then yes." And that really is the answer that the
Clintonites give. And, to this day, they believe it's a winning one[4].
Yes. I see editorials in WaPo and NYT where the writer claims they've "woken up in another
country", they "don't know what happened to the real America", they "didn't realize the country
was so full of awful people". They seem mighty disoriented by the neoliberal narrative, as given
for the last 40 years, losing this election.
That's funny. Okay, I was soooo naive. I woke up finally in 2004 to the realization that the
"awful " people were the 01% including good friends. The Rest are trying to survive with dignity.
They are not awful.
The Hateful New York Times has been pushing the "Party Line" (narrative) since at least the
1920s, and has "artfully" facilitated the deaths (murder) of millions of deplorables – and the
subsequent cover-up of the crimes.
"My editor was dubious. I had been explaining that 50 years ago, in the spring and summer of
1933, Ukraine, the country of my forebears, had suffered a horrendous catastrophe. In a fertile,
populous country famed as the granary of Europe, a great famine had mowed down a sixth, a fifth
and in some regions even a fourth of the inhabitants. Natural forces – drought, flood, blight
– have been at least contributory causes of most famines. This one had been entirely man-made,
entirely the result of a dictator's genocidal policies. Its consequences, I said, are still being
felt.
Erudite, polyglot, herself a refugee from tyranny, the editor remained skeptical. "But isn't
all this ," she leaned back in her chair and smiled brightly, "isn't all this a bit recondite?"
My face must have flushed. Recondite? Suddenly I knew the impotent anger Jews and Armenians
have felt. Millions of my countrymen had been murdered, and their deaths were being dismissed
as obscure and little known.
Later I realized that the editor had said more than she had intended. The famine of 1933 was
rationalized and concealed when it was taking its toll, and it is still hidden away and trivialized
today. George Orwell need not have limited his observation to British intellectuals when he remarked
that "huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people,
have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English Russophiles."_1_
Still later, after I had set about uncovering the whole story by delving into newspaper files
and archives and talking to people who had witnessed the events of 1933, I came to understand
how Walter Duranty and The New York Times helped Stalin make the famine recondite.
Walter Duranty worked for The New York Times for 21 years "
" The combination of ambiguous policy signals and the cult of secrecy could produce absurd
results , as when certain categories of officials could not be informed of relevant instructions
because the instructions were secret. In one blatant example, the theater censorship and the Ministry
of Enlightenment, headed by A. V. Lunacharsky, spent weeks arguing at cross purposes about Mikhail
Bulgakov's controversial play Days of the Turbins, despite the fact that the Politburo had instructed
the Ministry that the play could be staged, because "this decree was secret, known to only key
officials in the administration of art, and Lunacharsky was not at liberty to divulge it." [42]
A few years later, after Stalin had expressed strong views on cultural policy in a private
letter that had circulated widely, if unofficially, on the grapevine, Lunacharsky begged him to
allow publication of the letter so that people would know what the party line on art actually
was.
Some of Stalin's cultural signals were even more minimalist, involving telephone calls to writers
or other cultural figures whose content was then instantly broadcast on the Moscow and Leningrad
intelligentsia grapevine. A case in point was his unexpected telephone call to Bulgakov in 1930
in response to Bulgakov's letter complaining of mistreatment by theater and censorship officials.
The overt message of the call was one of encouragement to Bulgakov. By extension, the "signal"
to the non-Communist intelligentsia was that it was not Stalin who harrassed them but only lower-level
officials and militants who did not understand Stalin's policy.
This case is particularly interesting because the security police (GPU, at this date) monitored
the effectiveness of the signal. In his report on the impact of Stalin's call, a GPU agent noted
that the literary and artistic intelligentsia had been enormously impressed. "It's as if a dam
had burst and everyone around saw the true face of comrade Stalin. "People speak of Stalin's simplicity
and accessibility. They "talk of him warmly and with love, retelling in various versions the legendary
history with Bulgakov's letter." They say that Stalin is not to blame for the bad things that
happen: He follows the right line, but around him are scoundrels. These scoundrels persecuted
Bulgakov, one of the most talented Soviet writers. Various literary rascals were making a career
out of persecution of Bulgakov, and now Stalin has given them a slap in the face. [44]
The signals with Stalin's personal signature usually pointed in the direction of greater relaxation
and tolerance, not increased repression. This was surely not because Stalin inclined to the "soft
line," but rather because he preferred to avoid too close an association with hard-line policies
that were likely to be
unpopular with domestic and foreign opinion. His signals often involved a "good Tsar" message:
"the Tsar is benevolent; it is the wicked boyars (a member of the old aristocracy) who are responsible
for all the injustice." Sometimes this ploy seems to have worked, but in other cases the message
evoked popular skepticism.
When Stalin deplored the excesses of local officials during collectivization in a letter, "Dizzy
with success," published in Pravda in 1930, the initial response in the villages was often favorable.
After the famine, however, Stalin's "good Tsar" ploy no longer worked in the countryside, and
was even mocked by its intended audience
People chose the devil they don't know over the absolute-slam-dunk-warmongering-elitist devil
who's been running for President since 2000 and fixed the (D) primary against the Roosevelt Democrat
who would have beaten Trump by 10+ points.
Don't blame me. I voted Sanders. Hindsight is 2020.
Yep. When the dominant financial venue is blatantly a "casino," why not resort to chance?
As the mood out in the hustings grows ever bleaker, the "kick the table over" strategy gains legitimacy
among a wider and wider circle of people.
The problem with identity politics is that unless everyone has an identity, identity politics
is a politics of exclusion. Something is carved out for those who have been "identified" (as worthy),
while the rest stay where they are, or get left behind.
But note that this is only because we insist on operating under the zero sum economics of monetarism.
Once this restriction is removed; once we acknowledge the power of the sovereign fiat, the zero
sum is left behind, and the either-or choices forced upon us by identity politics are no longer
necessary.
Fascinating to learn that it is at least in some cases not only a problem of reporters being
blind to problems because of their worldview, and that the frames they pick aren't 'just' due
to their education. In a way, it's hopeful, because it means that even here, alternatives are/must
be restricted in order to allow the world to be categorized into tiny little boxes, via Procrustes
doing his thing.
An early sign was the Procrustean "embedment" of journos in with the Army during the Gulf Wars.
The suspension of disbelief required of the reader to accept the resultant "narrative" was, by
any measure, a "stretch."
Yes, well. We must all do our bid to perpetuate the State - even those of us who are too weak-kneed
to serve as cannon fodder (no disrespect intended, of course - just observing). After all, it's
only
thanks to liberal "democracy" that our betters were able to create this best/least-worst of
all possible worlds in the first place. Being bothered by those few remaining necessary egg-shells
just goes to show I'm in the right place.
Oh, good sir, those "necessary egg shells" are needed to settle the grounds of the strong coffee
required to energize the masses to continue the work designed to bring on the Dawn of the Neoliberal
dispensation!
You are in the "right place."
As for States; some years ago, Louisiana had a motto on their automobile license plates that read;
"Louisiana: A Dream State." Truth in advertising. That motto didn't last long.
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing
the paper's daily Page One meeting: "We set the agenda for the country in that room."
They believe their own fake news. Now they can't believe their lying eyes.
Difficult for me to believe the NYT originates "The Narrative" any more than Pravda or Izvestia
did so in the USSR. I am more receptive to the idea that its senior editors coordinate with upstream
sources to assure news coverage and opinion pieces are consistent with policies favored by the
administration and other senior government officials, as well as other selected constituencies.
Also of interest to me is what is occurring at the Washington Post in this regard.
There may well be truth to that idea. I recall
reading a blog post by a Swedish journalist who
did an article on the NY Times. He writes that they
have a building that none of their journalists are allowed
to enter as it is sometimes visited by important dignitaries
who negotiate how they will be covered. He gave
Gaddafi of Libya as an example. I suppose this is possible if
you fixing the narrative.
The Michael Cieply story reminds me of this (from 9/14/2016):
This off-limits part of the building was not only where the president would sit in on editorial
board meetings, it was also the place where Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was received when
he successfully negotiated to be removed from "The Axis of Evil" list after 9/11. At that point
in time The New York Times was still considered perhaps the most important publication in the
world, and what it wrote was thought to have a direct impact on the life and death of nations.
Because of this, many powerful people would put a lot of effort and money into gaining preferable
coverage from The New York Times. These floors, Bill Keller told me, was where the proprietor
and the editors of the newspaper would meet with and negotiate deals with powerful visitors.
In retrospect, whatever "deal" that Gaddafi struck with The New York Times, the exonerating
article penned by Judith Miller didn't save his life, nor did it save his nation from the might
of the US air force.
Despite the brutal fate that Gaddafi came to face, the assumption that The New York Times
was capable of making meaningful deals with governments was not entirely unfounded. Bill Keller
spoke of how he successfully negotiated to freeze the NSA warrantless wiretapping-story uncovered
by Eric Lichtblau for two years until after the re-election of George W Bush. This top-floor
was also where the Iraq WMD evidence was concocted with the help of the Pentagon and handed
to reporter Judith Miller to pen, later letting her hang when the wind changed. This, Keller
also told me, was where the CIA and State Department officials were invited to take part in
daily editorial meetings when State Department Cables were published by WikiLeaks. I would
personally witness how this was the place where Sulzberger himself oversaw the re-election
coverage of president Obama. And this was much later where the main tax-evaders of the US would
make their cases so that the Panama Papers on their tax records would never reach the public
eye (which at the time of writing, they have yet to be).
Just an FYI, the reason that hardly any Americans featured in the Panama Papers was that Panama
was not a favored destination for US tax evaders. So the Times had nothing to protect.
I still think the story is evolutionary. In the sense that just as the central nervous system
of society, government, started as a privatized function and eventually evolved into a public
utility, for basic reasons of efficiency and scale, the financial system, as the medium and circulation
system of society, is going through a similar evolutionary process. The premise of vast notional
wealth, which is necessarily backed by debt, is insupportable, at its current levels, simply because
the debt is unsustainable. So collapse is inevitable and the only question is how well and quickly
we develop a viable alternative.
From The Devil's Chessboard: Allan Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
by David Talbot, which I am still reading. Regarding the overthrow of Arbenz of Guatemala:
"The U.S. press coverage of the Guatemala coup offered a sanitized account, one that smacked
of CIA manipulation. The leading newspapers treated the overthrow of Arbenz's government as a
topical adventure, an " opera bouffe ," in the words of Hanson Baldwin, one of Dulles's
trusted friends at The New York Times . Nonetheless, reported Baldwin, the operation
had "global importance." This is precisely how Dulles liked his overseas exploits to be chronicled
– as entertaining espionage capers, with serious consequences for the Cold War struggle. New
York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger was extremely accommodating to Dulles throughout
the covert operation, agreeing to keep foreign correspondent Sydney Gruson, whom Dulles considered
insufficiently compliant, out of Guatemala and even assuring the CIA director that Gruson's future
articles would be screened "with a great deal more care than usual."
The Republicans are the party of the rich; the Democrats are the party of the rich and
poor. Those in between have no place.
The Republicans and the Democrats are parties of the rich who use the poor. Both use the poor
as a lever to extract wealth from the shrinking resource known as middle class. There is only
a superficial difference in how they use them, and in both cases a real democracy has no place
in their governance.
For anyone interested in the inner workings of the print media I highly recommend 'Flat Earth
News' by Nick Davies. It is a little uk centric but Davies, the guy that broke Murdoch's phone
hacking conspiracy, is authoritative.
The chapter on the role of the security services in the press is quite interesting and gives important
context for understanding the current attempts to centralise control of the internet news narrative.
"... Excellent critique. Establishment Democrats are tone-deaf right now; the state of denial they live in is stunning. I'd like to think they can learn after the shock of defeat is over, but identity politics for non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual is what the Democratic party is about today and has been the last decade or so. ..."
"... That's the effect of incessant Dem propaganda pitting races and sexes against each other. ..."
"... And Democrats' labeling of every Republican president/candidate as a Nazi - including Trump - is desensitizing the public to the real danger created by discriminatory policies that punish [white] children and young adults, particularly boys. ..."
"... So, to make up for the alleged screw job that women and minorities have supposedly received, the plan will be screwing white/hetro/males for the forseeable future. My former employer is doing this very plan, as we speak. Passed over 100 plus males, who have been turning wrenches on airplanes for years, and installed a female shop manager who doesn't know jack-$##t about fixing airplanes. No experience, no certificate......but she has a management degree. But I guess you don't know how to do the job to manage it. ..."
"... Bernie Sanders was that standard bearer, but Krugman and the Neoliberal establishment Democrats (ie. Super Delegates) decided that they wanted to coronate Clinton. ..."
"... Evolution of political parties happens organically, through evolution (punctuated equilibrium - like species and technology - parties have periods of stability with some sudden jumps in differentiation). ..."
"... If Nancy Pelosi is re-elected (highly likely), it will be the best thing to happen to Republicans since Lincoln. They will lose even more seats. ..."
"... The Coastal Pelosi/Schumer wing is still in power, and it will take decimation at the ballot box to change the party. The same way the "Tea Party" revolution decimated the Republicans and led to Trump. Natural selection at work. ..."
"... The central fact of the election is that Hillary has always been extraordinarily unlikable, and it turned out that she was Nixonianly corrupt ..."
"... I'm from Dallas. Three of my closest friends growing up (and to this day), as well as my brother in law, are hispanic. They, and their families, all vote Republican, even for Trump. Generally speaking, the longer hispanics are in the US, the more likely they tend to vote Republican. ..."
"... The Democratic Establishment and their acolytes are caught in a credibility trap. ..."
"... I also think many Trump voters know they are voting against their own economic interest. The New York Times interviewed a number who acknowledge that they rely on insurance subsidies from Obamacare and that Trump has vowed to repeal it. I know one such person myself. She doesn't know what she will do if Obamacare is repealed but is quite happy with her vote. ..."
"... Krugman won his Nobel for arcane economic theory. So it isn't terribly surprising that he spectacularly fails whenever he applies his brain to anything remotely dealing with mainstream thought. He is the poster boy for condescending, smarter by half, elite liberals. In other words, he is an over educated, political hack who has yet to learn to keep his overtly bias opinions to himself. ..."
"... Funny how there's all this concern for the people whose jobs and security and money have vanished, leaving them at the mercy of faceless banks and turning to drugs and crime. Sad. Well, let's bash some more on those lazy, shiftless urban poors who lack moral strength and good, Protestant work ethic, shall we? ..."
"... Clinton slammed half the Trump supporters as deplorables, not half the public. She was correct; about half of them are various sorts of supremacists. The other half (she said this, too) made common cause with the deplorables for economic reasons even though it was a devil's bargain. ..."
"... I have never commented here but I will now because of the number of absurd statements. I happen to work with black and Hispanic youth and have also worked with undocumented immigrants. To pretend that trump and the Republican Party has their interest in mind is completely absurd. As for the white working class, please tell me what programs either trump or the republican have put forward to benefit them? I have lost a lot of respect for Duy ..."
"... The keys of the election were race, immigration and trade. Trump won on these points. What dems can do is to de-emphasize multiculturalism, racial equality, political correctness etc. Instead, emphasize economic equality and security, for all working class. ..."
"... Krugman more or less blames media, FBI, Russia entirely for Hillary's loss, which I think is wrong. As Tim said, Dems have long ceased to be the party of the working class, at least in public opinion, for legitimate reasons. ..."
"... All Mr. Krugman and the Democratic establishment need to do is to listen, with open ears and mind, to what Thomas Frank has been saying, and they will know where they went wrong and most likely what to do about it, if they can release themselves from their fatal embrace with Big Money covered up by identity politics. ..."
"... Pretty sad commentary by neoliberal left screaming at neoliberal right and vice versa. ..."
"... The neoliberals with their multi-culti/love them all front men have had it good for a while, now there's a reaction. Deal with it. ..."
Excellent critique. Establishment Democrats are tone-deaf right now; the state of denial they
live in is stunning. I'd like to think they can learn after the shock of defeat is over, but identity
politics for non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual is what the Democratic party is about today
and has been the last decade or so.
The only way Dems can make any headway by the midterms is if Trump really screws up,
which is a tall order even for him. He will pick the low-hanging fruit (e.g., tax reform, Obamacare
reform, etc), the economy will continue to recover (which will be attributed to Trump), and Dems
will lose even more seats in Congress. And why? Because they refuse to recognize that whites from
the middle-class and below are just as disadvantaged as minorities from the same social class.
If white privilege exists at all (its about as silly as the "Jews control the banks and media"
conspiracy theories), it exists for the upper classes. Poor whites need help too. And young men
in/out of college today are being displaced by women - not because the women have superior academic
qualification, but because they are women. I've seen it multiple times firsthand in some of the
country's largest companies and universities (as a lawyer, when an investigation or litigation
takes place, I get to see everyone's emails, all the way to CEO/board). There is a concerted effort
to hire only women and minorities, especially for executive/managerial positions. That's not equality.
That's the effect of incessant Dem propaganda pitting races and sexes against each other.
This election exposed the media's role, but its not over. Fortunately, Krugman et al. are
showing the Dems are too dumb to figure out why they lost. Hopefully they keep up their stupidity
so identity politics can fade into history and we can get back to pursuing equality.
"There is a concerted effort to hire only women and minorities, especially for executive/managerial
positions."
Goooooolllllllllllllly, gee. Now why would that be? I hope you're not saying there shouldn't
be such an effort. This is a good thing. It exactly and precisely IS equality. It may be a bit
harsh, but if certain folks continually find ways to crap of women and minorities, then public
policies would seem warranted.
Are you seriously telling us that pursuing public policies to curb racial and sexual discrimination
are a waste of time?
How, exactly, does your vision of "pursuit of equality" ameliorate the historical fact of discrimination?
You don't make up for past discrimination with discrimination. You make up for it by equal application
of the law. Today's young white men are not the cause of discrimination of the 20th century, or
of slavery. If you discriminate against them because of the harm caused by other people, you're
sowing the seeds of a REAL white nationalist movement. And Democrats' labeling of every Republican
president/candidate as a Nazi - including Trump - is desensitizing the public to the real danger
created by discriminatory policies that punish [white] children and young adults, particularly
boys.
Displacement of white men by lesser-qualified women and minorities is NOT equality.
So, to make up for the alleged screw job that women and minorities have supposedly received,
the plan will be screwing white/hetro/males for the forseeable future. My former employer is doing
this very plan, as we speak. Passed over 100 plus males, who have been turning wrenches on airplanes
for years, and installed a female shop manager who doesn't know jack-$##t about fixing airplanes.
No experience, no certificate......but she has a management degree. But I guess you don't know
how to do the job to manage it.
God forbid somebody have to "pay some dues" before setting them loose as suit trash.
Back when cultural conservatives ruled the roost (not that long ago), they didn't pursue equality
either. Rather, they favored (hetero Christian) white men. So hoping for Dem stupidity isn't going
to lead to equality. Most likely it would go back to favoring hetero Christian white men.
"...should they find a new standard bearer that can win the Sunbelt states and bridge the divide
with the white working class? I tend to think the latter strategy has the higher likelihood of
success."
Easy to say. What would that standard bearer or that strategy look like?
Bernie Sanders was that standard bearer, but Krugman and the Neoliberal establishment Democrats
(ie. Super Delegates) decided that they wanted to coronate Clinton. Big mistake that we are
now paying for...
Basic political math - Sanders would have been eaten alive with his tax proposals by the GOP anti-tax
propaganda machine on Trump steroids.
His call to raise the payroll tax to send more White working class hard-earn money to Washington
would have made election night completely different - Trump would have still won, it just wouldn't
have been a surprise but rather a known certainty weeks ahead.
Evolution of political parties happens organically, through evolution (punctuated equilibrium
- like species and technology - parties have periods of stability with some sudden jumps in differentiation).
Old politicians are defeated, new ones take over. The old guard, having been successful in
the past in their own niche rarely change.
If Nancy Pelosi is re-elected (highly likely), it will be the best thing to happen to Republicans
since Lincoln. They will lose even more seats.
The Coastal Pelosi/Schumer wing is still in power, and it will take decimation at the ballot
box to change the party. The same way the "Tea Party" revolution decimated the Republicans and
led to Trump. Natural selection at work.
In 1991, Republicans thought they would always win, Democrats thought the country was relegated
to Republican Presidents forever. Then along came a new genotype- Clinton. In 2012, Democrats
thought that they would always win, and Republicans were thought to be locked out of the electoral
college. Then along came a new genotype, Trump.
A new genotype of Democrat will have to emerge, but it will start with someone who can win
in flyover country and Texas. Hint: They will have to drop their hubris, disdain and lecturing,
some of their anti-growth energy policies, hate for the 2nd amendment, and become more fiscally
conservative. They have to realize that *no one* will vote for an increase in the labor supply
(aka immigration) when wages are stagnant and growth is anemic. And they also have to appreciate
people would rather be free to choose than have decisions made for them. Freedom means nothing
unless you are free to make mistakes.
But it won't happen until coastal elites like Krugman and Pelosi have retired.
My vote for the Democratic Tiktaalik is the extraordinarily Honorable John Bel Edwards, governor
of Louisiana. The central fact of the election is that Hillary has always been extraordinarily
unlikable, and it turned out that she was Nixonianly corrupt (i.e., deleted E-mails on her
illegal private server) as well - and she still only lost by 1% in the tipping point state (i.e.,
according to the current count, which could very well change).
You know what will win Texas? Demographic change. Economic growth. And it is looking pretty inevitable
on both counts.
I'm also pretty damned tired of being dismissed as "elitist", "smug" and condescending. I grew
up in a red state. I know their hate. I know their condescension (they're going to heaven, libruls
are not).
It cuts both ways. The Dems are going into a fetal crouch about this defeat. Did the GOP do
that after 2008? Nope. They dug in deeper.
Ahh yes, all Texas needs is demographic change, because all [Hispanics, Blacks, insert minority
here] will always and forever vote Democrat. Even though the Democrats take their votes for granted
and Chicago/Baltimore etc. are crappy places to live with no school choice, high taxes, fleeing
jobs, and crime. Even though Trump outperformed Romney among minorities.
Clinton was supposed to be swept up in the winds of demographics and the Democrats were supposed
to win the White House until 2083.
Funny things happen when you take votes for granted. Many urban areas are being crushed by
structural deficits and need some Detroit type relief. I predict that some time in the next 30
years, poles reverse, and urban areas are run by Republicans.
If you are tired of being dismissed as "elitist", "smug" and condescending, don't be those
things. Don't assume people will vote for your party because they have always voted that way,
or they are a certain color. Respect the voters and work to earn it.
The notion that hispanic=democrat that liberals like bob have is hopelessly ignorrant.
I'm from Dallas. Three of my closest friends growing up (and to this day), as well as my
brother in law, are hispanic. They, and their families, all vote Republican, even for Trump. Generally
speaking, the longer hispanics are in the US, the more likely they tend to vote Republican.
The Democratic Party's plan to wait out the Republicans and let demographics take over is ignorant,
racist and shortsighted, cooked up by coastal liberals that haven't got a clue, and will ultimately
fail.
In addition to losing hispanics, Democrats will also start losing the African American vote
they've been taking for granted the last several decades. Good riddance to the Democratic party,
they are simply unwilling to listen to what the people want.
This is a really shoddy piece that repeats the medias pulling of Clintons quote out of context.
She also said "that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them
down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens
to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even
matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope
that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid
to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize
with as well."
Now maybe it is okay to make gnore this part of the quote because you think calling racism
"deplorable" is patently offensive. But when the ignored context makes the same points that Duy
says she should have been making, that is shoddy.
There are zero electoral college votes in the State of Denial. Hopefully you understand a)the
difference between calling people deplorable and calling *behavior* deplorable; b) Godwin's Law:
when you resort to comparing people to Hitler you've lost the argument. Trump supporters were
not racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or any other phobic. As a moderate, educated, female Trump
supporter counseled: He was an a-hole, but I liked his policies.
Even my uber liberal friends cannot tell me what Clinton's economic plan was. Only that they
are anti-Trump.
Trump flanked Clinton on the most popular policies (the left used to be the anti-trade party
of union Democrats): Lower regulation, lower taxes, pro-2nd amendment, trade deals more weighted
in favor of US workers, and lower foreign labor supply. Turn's out, those policies are sufficiently
popular that people will vote for them, even when packaged into an a-hole. Trump's anti-trade
platform was preached for decades by rust belt unions.
The coastal Democrats have become hostages to pro-big-government municipal unions crushing
cities under structural deficits, high taxes, poorly run schools, and overbearing regulations.
The best thing that can happen for the Democrats is for the Republicans to push for reforms of
public pensions, school choice, and break municipal unions. Many areas see the disaster in Chicago
and Baltimore, run by Democrats for decades, and say no thank you. Freed of the need to cater
to urban municipal unions, Democrats may be able to appeal to people elsewhere.
Tim, I believe you've missed the point: by straightforward measures, Democratic voters in USA
are substantially under-represented. The problem is likely to get much worse, as the party whose
policies abet minority rule now controls all three branches of the federal government and a substantial
majority of state governments.
This is an outstanding takedown on what has been a never-ending series of garbage from Krugman.
I used to hang on every post he'd made for years after the 2008 crisis hit. But once the Clinton
coronation arose this year, the arrogant, condescending screed hit 11 - and has not slowed down
since. Threads of circular and illogical arguments have woven together pathetic - and often non-liberal
- editorials that have driven me away permanently.
Since he's chosen to ride it all on political commentary, Krugman's credibility is right there
with luminaries such as Nial Ferguson and Greg Mankiw.
Seems that everyone who chooses to hitch their wagon to the Clintons ends up covered in bilge.....
funny thing about that persistent coincidence...
"And it is an especially difficult pill given that the decline was forced upon the white working
class.... The tsunami of globalization washed over them....in many ways it was inevitable, just
as was the march of technology that had been eating away at manufacturing jobs for decades. But
the damage was intensified by trade deals.... Then came the housing crash and the ensuing humiliation
of the foreclosure crisis."
All the more amazing then that Trump pulled out such a squeaker of an election beating Clinton
by less than 2% in swing states and losing the popular vote overall. In the shine of Duy's lights
above, I would have imagined a true landslide for Trump... Just amazing.
"I don't know that the white working class voted against their economic interest".
I think you're pushing too hard here. Democrats have been for, and Republicans against many
policies that benefit the white working class: expansionary monetary policy, Obamacare, housing
refinance, higher minimum wage, tighter worker safety regulation, stricter tax collection, and
a host of others.
I also think many Trump voters know they are voting against their own economic interest.
The New York Times interviewed a number who acknowledge that they rely on insurance subsidies
from Obamacare and that Trump has vowed to repeal it. I know one such person myself. She doesn't
know what she will do if Obamacare is repealed but is quite happy with her vote.
There is zero evidence for this theory. It ignores the fact that Trump lied his way to the White
House with the help of a media unwilling to confront and expose his mendacity. And there was the
media's obsession with Clinton's Emails and the WikiLeaks daily release of stolen DNC documents.
And finally the Comey letter which came in the middle of early voting keeping the nation in suspense
for 11 days and which was probably a violation of the hatch act. Comey was advised against his
unjustified action by higher up DOJ officials but did it anyway. All of these factors loomed much
larger than the deplorables comment. Besides, the strong dollar fostered by the FOMC's obsession
with "normalization" helped Trump win because the strong dollar hurts exporters like farmers who
make up much of the rural vote as well as hurting US manufacturing located in the midwest states.
The FOMC was objectively pro Trump.
I was surrounded by Trump voters this past election. Trust me, an awful lot of them are deplorable.
My father is extremely anti semetic and once warned me not to go to Minneapolis because of there
being "too many Muslims." One of our neighbors thinks all Muslims are terrorists and want to do
horrible things to all Christians.
I know, its not a scientific study. But I've had enough one on one conversations with Trump
supporters (not just GOP voters, Trump supporters) to say that yes, as a group they have some
pretty horrible views.
Yep. I've got plenty of stories myself. From the fact that there are snooty liberals it does NOT
follow that the resentment fueling Trump's support is justified.
One should note that the "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name
it ... " voted for Obama last time around.
When the blue collar voter (for lack of a better class) figures out that the Republicans (Trump)
are not going to help them anymore than the Dems did -- it will be time for them to understand
they can only rely on themselves, namely: through rebuilding labor union density, which can be
done AT THE STATE BY PROGRESSIVE STATE LEVEL.
To keep it simple states may add to federal protections like the minimum wage or safety regs
-- just not subtract. At present the NLRB has zero (no) enforcement power to prevent union busting
(see Trump in Vegas) -- so illegal labor market muscling, firing of organizers and union joiners
go completely undeterred and unrecoursed.
Recourse, once we get Congress back might include mandating certification elections on finding
of union busting. Nothing too alien: Wisconsin, for instance, mandates RE-certification of all
public employee unions annually.
Progressive states first step should be making union busting a felony -- taking the power playing
in our most important and politically impacting market as seriously as taking a movie in the movies
(get you a couple of winters). For a more expansive look (including a look at the First Amendment
and the fed cannot preempt something with nothing, click here):
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2016/11/first-100-days-progressive-states-agenda.html
Labor unions -- returned to high density -- can act as the economic cop on every corner --
our everywhere advocates squelching such a variety of unhealthy practices as financialization,
big pharam gouging, for profit college fraud (Trump U. -- that's where we came into this movie).
6% private union density is like 20/10 bp; it starves every other healthy process (listening blue
collar?).
Don't panic if today's Repub Congress passes national right-to-work legislation. Germany, which
has the platinum standard labor institutions, does not have one majority union (mostly freeloaders!),
but is almost universally union or covered by union contracts (centralized bargaining -- look
it up) and that's what counts.
Trump took both sides of every issue. He wants high and low interest rates. He wants a depression
first, (Bannonomics) and inflation first, (Trumponomics), he wants people to make more and make
less. He is nasty and so he projected that his opponent was nasty.
Now he has to act instead of just talk out of both sides of his mouth. That should not be as
easy to do.
Hi Tim, nice post, and I particularly liked your last paragraph. The relevant question today if
you have accepted where we are is effectively: 'What would you prefer - a Trump victory now? Or
a Trump type election victory in a decade or so? (with todays corresponding social/economic/political
trends continuing).
I'm a Brit so I was just an observer to the US election but the same point is relevant here in
the UK - Would I rather leave the EU now with a (half sensible) Tory government? Or would I rather
leave later on with many more years of upheaval and a (probably by then quite nutty) UKIP government?
I know which one I prefer - recognise the protest vote sooner, rather than later.
Sure they're angry, and their plight makes that anger valid.
However, not so much their belief as to who and what caused their plight, and more importantly,
who can and how their plight would be successfully reversed.
Most people have had enough personal experiences to know that it is when we are most angry
that we do the stupidest of things.
Krugman won his Nobel for arcane economic theory. So it isn't terribly surprising that he
spectacularly fails whenever he applies his brain to anything remotely dealing with mainstream
thought. He is the poster boy for condescending, smarter by half, elite liberals. In other words,
he is an over educated, political hack who has yet to learn to keep his overtly bias opinions
to himself.
Tim's narrative felt like a cold shower. I was apprehensive that I found it too agreeable on one
level but were the building blocks stable and accurate?
Somewhat like finding a meal that is satisfying, but wondering later about the ingredients.
But, like Tim's posts on the Fed, they prompt that I move forward to ponder the presentation
and offer it to others for their comment. At this time, five-stars on a 1-5 system for bringing
a fresh approach to the discussion. Thanks, Professor Duy. This to me is Piketty-level pushing
us onto new ground.
Funny how there's all this concern for the people whose jobs and security and money have vanished,
leaving them at the mercy of faceless banks and turning to drugs and crime. Sad. Well, let's bash
some more on those lazy, shiftless urban poors who lack moral strength and good, Protestant work
ethic, shall we?
Clinton slammed half the Trump supporters as deplorables, not half the public. She was correct;
about half of them are various sorts of supremacists. The other half (she said this, too) made
common cause with the deplorables for economic reasons even though it was a devil's bargain.
Now, there's a problem with maternalism here; it's embarrassing to find out that the leader
of your political opponents knows you better than you know yourself, like your mother catching
you out in a lie. It was impolitic for Clinton to have said this But above all remember that when
push came to shove, the other basket made common cause with the Nazis, the Klan, and so on and
voted for a rapey fascist.
"Economic development" isn't (and can't) be the same thing as bringing back lost manufacturing
(or mining) jobs. We have had 30 years of shifting power between labor and capital. Restoring
labor market institutions (both unions and government regulation) and raising the floor through
higher minimum wages, single payer health care, fair wages for women and more support for child
and elder care, trade policies that care about working families, better safe retirement plans
and strengthened Social Security, etc. is key here, along with running a real full employment
economy, with a significant green component. See Bob Polllin's excellent program in
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/back-full-employment
That program runs up against racism, sexism, division, and fear of government and taxation,
and those are powerful forces. But we don't need all Trump supporters. We do need a real, positive
economic program that can attract those who care about the economics more than the cultural stuff.
How about people of color drop the democrats and their hand wringing about white people when they
do nothing about voter suppression!! White fragility is nauseating and I'm planning to arm myself
and tell all the people of color I know to do the same. I expect nothing from the democrats going
forward.
I have never commented here but I will now because of the number of absurd statements. I happen
to work with black and Hispanic youth and have also worked with undocumented immigrants. To pretend
that trump and the Republican Party has their interest in mind is completely absurd. As for the
white working class, please tell me what programs either trump or the republican have put forward
to benefit them? I have lost a lot of respect for Duy
I think much of appeal of DJT was in his political incorrectness. PC marginalises. Very. Of white
working class specifically. it tells one, one cannot rely on one's ideas any more. In no uncertain
terms. My brother, who voted for Trump, lost his job to PC without offending on purpose, but the
woman in question felt free to accuse him of violating her, with no regard to his fate. He was
never close enough to do that. Is that not some kind of McCarthyism?
Just to be correct. Clinton was saying that half (and that was a terrible error-should have said
"some") were people that were unreachable, but that they had to communicate effectively with the
other part of his support. People who echo the media dumb-ing down of complex statements are part
of the problem.
Still, I believe that if enough younger people and african-americans had come out in the numbers
they did for Obama in some of those states, Clinton would have won. Certainly, the media managed
to paint her in more negative light than she objectively deserved-- even if she deserved some
negatives.
I am in no way a fan of HRC. Still, the nature of the choice was blurred to an egregious degree.
"The tough reality of economic development is that it will always be easier to move people to
jobs than the jobs to people."
This is indisputable, but I have never seen any discussion of the point that moving is not
cost-free. Back in the '90s I had a discussion with a very smart person, a systems analyst, who
insisted that poor people moved to wherever the welfare benefits were highest.
I tried to point out that moving from one town to another costs more than a bus ticket. You
have to pay to have your possessions transported. You have to have enough cash to pay at least
two months' rent and maybe an additional security deposit.
You have to have enough cash to pay for food for at least one month or however long it takes
for your first paycheck or welfare check to come in. There may be other costs like relocating
your kids to a new school system and maybe changing your health insurance provider.
There probably are other costs I'm not aware of, and the emotional cost of leaving your family
and your roots. The fact that some people succeed in moving is a great achievement. I'm amazed
it works at all in Europe where you also have the different languages to cope with.
I'm not sure the Hillary non-voters - which also include poor black neighborhoods - were voting
against their economic interests. Under Obama, they didn't do well. Many of them were foreclosed
on while Obama was giving the money to the banks. Jobs haven't improved, unless you want to work
at an Amazon warehouse or for Uber and still be broke. Obama tried to cut social security. He
made permanent Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Wars and more wars. Health premiums went up - right
before the election. The most Obama could say in campaigning for Hillary was "if you care about
my legacy, vote for Hillary." He's the only one that cares about his legacy. I don't know that
it's about resentment but about just having some hope for economic improvement - which Trump offered
(no matter how shallow and deceptive) and Hillary offered nothing but "Trump's an idiot and I'm
not."
I believe Bernie would have beat Trump's ass if 1) the DNC hadn't put their fingers on the
scale for Hillary and 2) same with the media for Hillary and Trump. The Dems need more than some
better campaign slogans. They really need a plan for serious economic equality. And the unions
need to get their shit together and stop thinking that supporting corrupt corporate Dems is working.
Or perhaps the rank and file need to get their shit together and get rid of union bosses.
The keys of the election were race, immigration and trade. Trump won on these points. What
dems can do is to de-emphasize multiculturalism, racial equality, political correctness etc. Instead,
emphasize economic equality and security, for all working class.
Lincoln billed the civil war as a war to preserve the union, to gain wide support, instead
of war to free slaves. Of course, the slaves were freed when the union won the war. Dems can benefit
from a similar strategy
Krugman more or less blames media, FBI, Russia entirely for Hillary's loss, which I think
is wrong. As Tim said, Dems have long ceased to be the party of the working class, at least in
public opinion, for legitimate reasons.
Besides, a lot voters are tired of stale faces and stale ideas. They yearn something new, especially
the voters in deep economic trouble.
Maybe it's time to try some old fashioned mercantilism, protectionism? America first is an
appealing idea, in this age of mindless globalization.
All Mr. Krugman and the Democratic establishment need to do is to listen, with open ears and
mind, to what Thomas Frank has been saying, and they will know where they went wrong and most
likely what to do about it, if they can release themselves from their fatal embrace with Big Money
covered up by identity politics.
But they cannot bring themselves to admit their error, and to give up their very personally
profitable current arrangement. And so they are caught up in a credibility trap which is painfully
obvious to the objective observer.
Pretty sad commentary by neoliberal left screaming at neoliberal right and vice versa.
It seems quite clear that the vast majority of commenters live as much in the ivory tower/bubble
as is claimed for their ideological opponent.
It is also quite interesting that most of these same commenters don't seem to get that the
voting public gets what the majority of it wants - not what every single group within the overall
population wants.
The neoliberals with their multi-culti/love them all front men have had it good for a while,
now there's a reaction. Deal with it.
"... The author missed the fact that pillage and plunder and rentier capitalism as defined by Reaganomics
has failed just as badly as communism for the same reason. ..."
"... If you want to be paid well, you must pay everyone else well. ..."
"Do unto Others " -might be an important Economic principle
The author missed the fact that pillage and plunder and rentier capitalism as defined by
Reaganomics has failed just as badly as communism for the same reason.
When you call for cost cuts which can only be done by cutting labor costs which means fewer
workers getting paid less, you are calling for your wages and income, or of your children and
grandchildren to be slashed as well.
Tax cuts mean paying fewer workers to provide public services whether roads, education, knowledge,
health, which means you will suffer losses of services AND eventual loss of income to your family.
Fewer paid workers forces wages and incomes lower for all workers.
If you want to be paid well, you must pay everyone else well.
Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday December
06, 2016 @07:05PM from the muscle-memory dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org:
Scientists have
developed a mind-controlled robotic hand
that allows people with certain types of spinal injuries
to perform everyday tasks such as using a fork or drinking from a cup. The low-cost device was tested
in Spain on six people with quadriplegia affecting their ability to grasp or manipulate objects.
By wearing a cap that measures electric brain activity and eye movement the users were able to send
signals to a tablet computer that controlled the glove-like device attached to their hand. Participants
in the small-scale study were able to perform daily activities better with the robotic hand than
without, according to results
published Tuesday in
the journal Science Robotics .
It took participants just 10 minutes to learn how to use the system
before they were able to carry out tasks such as picking up potato chips or signing a document. According
to Surjo R. Soekadar, a neuroscientist at the University Hospital Tuebingen in Germany and lead author
of the study, participants represented typical people with high spinal cord injuries, meaning they
were able to move their shoulders but not their fingers. There were some limitations to the system,
though. Users had to have sufficient function in their shoulder and arm to reach out with the robotic
hand. And mounting the system required another person's help.
An autonomous
shuttle from Auro Robotics is
picking up and dropping off students, faculty, and visitors
at the Santa Clara University Campus
seven days a week. It doesn't go fast, but it has to watch out for pedestrians, skateboarders, bicyclists,
and bold squirrels (engineers added a special squirrel lidar on the bumper). An Auro engineer rides
along at this point to keep the university happy, but soon will be replaced by a big red emergency
stop button (think Staples Easy button). If you want a test drive, just look for a "shuttle stop"
sign (there's one in front of the parking garage) and climb on, it doesn't ask for university ID.
More directly to the heart of American fast-food cuisine, Momentum Machines, a restaurant concept
with a robot that can supposedly
flip hundreds of burgers an hour
, applied for a building permit in San Francisco and started
listing job openings this January, reported Eater. Then there's Eatsa, the automat restaurant where
no human interaction is necessary, which has locations
popping up across California .
(businessinsider.co.id)
83 Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday December 11, 2016 @09:34PM from the damn-it-Jim-I'm-a-doctor-not-a-supercomputer
dept.
"Supercomputing has another use," writes Slashdot reader
rmdingler , sharing a story that
quotes David Kenny, the General Manager of IBM Watson:
"There's a 60-year-old woman in Tokyo. She was at the University of Tokyo. She had been diagnosed
with leukemia six years ago. She was living, but not healthy. So the University of Tokyo ran
her genomic sequence through Watson and
it was able to ascertain that they were off by one thing . Actually, she had two strains
of leukemia. They did treat her and she is healthy."
"That's one example. Statistically, we're seeing that about one third of the time, Watson is
proposing an additional diagnosis."
"... Skype Translator, available in nine languages, uses artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as deep-learning to train artificial neural networks and convert spoken chats in almost real time. The company says the app improves as it listens to more conversations. ..."
Posted by msmash on Monday December 12, 2016 @11:05AM from the worthwhile dept.
Microsoft has added the ability to use Skype Translator on calls to mobiles and landlines to its
latest Skype Preview app. From a report on ZDNet: Up until now, Skype Translator was available
to individuals making Skype-to-Skype calls. The new announcement of the expansion of Skype Translator
to mobiles and landlines
makes Skype Translator more widely available .
To test drive this, users need to be members
of the Windows Insider Program. They need to install the latest version of Skype Preview on their
Windows 10 PCs and to have Skype Credits or a subscription.
Skype Translator, available in
nine languages, uses artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as deep-learning to train artificial
neural networks and convert spoken chats in almost real time. The company says the app improves
as it listens to more conversations.
Fund
more research in robotics and artificial intelligence in order for the U.S. to
maintain its leadership in the global technology industry. The report calls on
the government to steer that research to support a diverse workforce and to
focus on combating algorithmic bias in AI.
Invest in and increase STEM education for youth and job retraining for
adults in technology-related fields. That means offering computer science
education for all K-12 students, as well as expanding national workforce
retraining by investing six times the current amount spent to keep American
workers competitive in a global economy.
Modernize and strengthen the federal social safety net, including public
health care, unemployment insurance, welfare and food stamps. The report also
calls for increasing the minimum wage, paying workers overtime and and
strengthening unions and worker bargaining power.
The report says the government, meaning the the incoming Trump administration,
will have to forge ahead with new policies and grapple with the complexities of
existing social services to protect the millions of Americans who face
displacement by advances in automation, robotics and artificial intelligence.
The report also calls on the government to keep a close eye on fostering
competition in the AI industry, since the companies with the most data will be
able to create the most advanced products, effectively preventing new startups
from having a chance to even compete.
Back in April, Stanford University professor
Oussama Khatib led
a team of researchers on an underwater archaeological expedition, 30 kilometers off the southern
coast of France, to La Lune , King Louis XIV's sunken 17th-century flagship. Rather than
dive to the site of the wreck 100 meters below the surface, which is a very bad idea for almost
everyone, Khatib's team
brought along a custom-made humanoid submarine robot called Ocean One . In this month's issue
of
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine , the Stanford researchers describe in detail
how they designed and built the robot , a hybrid between a humanoid and an underwater remotely
operated vehicle (ROV), and also how they managed to send it down to the resting place of
La Lune , where it used its three-fingered hands to retrieve a vase. Most ocean-ready ROVs
are boxy little submarines that might have an arm on them if you're lucky, but they're not really
designed for the kind of fine manipulation that underwater archaeology demands. You could send
down a human diver instead, but once you get past about 40 meters, things start to get both complicated
and dangerous. Ocean One's humanoid design means that it's easy and intuitive for a human to remotely
perform delicate archeological tasks through a telepresence interface.
schwit1 notes: "Ocean One is the best name they could come up with?"
Posted by msmash on Friday November 25, 2016 @12:10AM from the interesting-things dept.
BBC has a report today in which, citing several financial institutions and analysts, it claims that
in the not-too-distant future, our fields could be tilled, sown, tended and harvested entirely by
fleets of co-operating autonomous machines by land and air. An excerpt from the article:
Driverless
tractors that can follow pre-programmed routes are already being deployed at large farms around the
world. Drones are buzzing over fields assessing crop health and soil conditions. Ground sensors are
monitoring the amount of water and nutrients in the soil, triggering irrigation and fertilizer applications.
And in Japan, the world's first entirely automated lettuce farm is due for launch next year.
The future of farming is automated
. The World Bank says we'll need to produce 50% more food by 2050 if the global population continues
to rise at its current pace. But the effects of climate change could see crop yields falling by more
than a quarter. So autonomous tractors, ground-based sensors, flying drones and enclosed hydroponic
farms could all help farmers produce more food, more sustainably at lower cost.
The truck "will travel in regular traffic, and a driver in the truck will be positioned to
intervene should anything go awry, Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Bruning said Friday,
adding that 'safety is obviously No. 1.'"
Ohio sees this route as "a corridor where new technologies can be safely tested in real-life traffic,
aided by a fiber-optic cable network and sensor systems slated for installation next year" -- although
next week the truck will also start driving on the Ohio Turnpike.
Posted by BeauHD on Friday December 02,
2016 @05:00PM from the be-afraid-very-afraid dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider:
In
a column in The Guardian , the world-famous physicist wrote that "the automation of factories
has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the
rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle
classes , with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining." He adds his
voice to a growing chorus of experts concerned about the effects that technology will have on
workforce in the coming years and decades. The fear is that while artificial intelligence will
bring radical increases in efficiency in industry, for ordinary people this will translate into
unemployment and uncertainty, as their human jobs are replaced by machines.
Automation will, "in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the
world," Hawking wrote. "The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small
groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable,
it is progress, but it is also socially destructive." He frames this economic anxiety as a reason
for the rise in right-wing, populist politics in the West: "We are living in a world of widening,
not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of
living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they
are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent." Combined
with other issues -- overpopulation, climate change, disease -- we are, Hawking warns ominously,
at "the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity." Humanity must come together if
we are to overcome these challenges, he says.
"... The firm says that 44 percent of the CEOs surveyed agreed that robotics, automation and AI would reshape the future of many work places by making people "largely irrelevant." ..."
Posted by msmash on Monday December 05, 2016 @02:20PM from the shape-of-things-to-come
dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report on BetaNews:
Although artificial intelligence (AI),
robotics and other emerging technologies may reshape the world as we know it, a new global study
has revealed that the
many
CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses . The study
was conducted by the Los Angeles-based management consultant firm Korn Ferry that interviewed 800
business leaders across a variety of multi-million and multi-billion dollar global organizations.
The firm says that 44 percent of the CEOs surveyed agreed that robotics, automation and AI would
reshape the future of many work places by making people "largely irrelevant."
The global managing
director of solutions at Korn Ferry Jean-Marc Laouchez explains why many CEOs have adopted this controversial
mindset, saying:
"Leaders may be facing what experts call a tangibility bias. Facing uncertainty,
they are putting priority in their thinking, planning and execution on the tangible -- what they
can see, touch and measure, such as technology instruments."
Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday
December 06, 2016 @10:30PM from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from
The Verge:
Microsoft
polled 17 women working in its research organization about the technology advances they expect to
see in 2017 , as well as a decade later in 2027. The researchers' predictions touch on natural
language processing, machine learning, agricultural software, and virtual reality, among other topics.
For virtual reality,
Mar Gonzalez Franco
, a researcher in Microsoft's Redmond lab, believes body tracking will improve
next year, and then over the next decade we'll have "rich multi-sensorial experiences that will be
capable of producing hallucinations which blend or alter perceives reality."
Haptic devices will
simulate touch to further enhance the sensory experience. Meanwhile,
Susan Dumais
, a scientist and deputy managing director at the Redmond lab, believes deep learning
will help improve web search results next year.
In 2027, however, the search box will disappear,
she says.
It'll be replaced by search that's more "ubiquitous, embedded, and contextually sensitive."
She says we're already seeing some of this in voice-controlled searches through mobile and smart
home devices.
We might eventually be able to look things up with either sound, images, or video.
Plus, our searches will respond to "current location, content, entities, and activities" without
us explicitly mentioning them, she says.
Of course, it's worth noting that Microsoft has been losing
the search box war to Google, so it isn't surprising that the company thinks search will die. With
global warming as a looming threat,
Asta Roseway
, principal research designer, says by 2027 famers will use AI to maintain healthy
crop yields, even with "climate change, drought, and disaster."
Low-energy farming solutions, like
vertical farming and aquaponics, will also be essential to keeping the food supply high, she says. You can view all 17 predictions
here
"... Efforts which led to impoverishment of lower 80% the USA population with a large part of the US population living in a third world country. This "third world country" includes Wal-Mart and other retail employees, those who have McJobs in food sector, contractors, especially such as Uber "contractors", Amazon packers. This is a real third world country within the USA and probably 50% population living in it. ..."
"... While conversion of electricity supply from coal to wind and solar was more or less successful (much less then optimists claim, because it requires building of buffer gas powered plants and East-West high voltage transmission lines), the scarcity of oil is probably within the lifespan of boomers. Let's say within the next 20 years. That spells deep trouble to economic growth as we know it, even with all those machinations and number racket that now is called GDP (gambling now is a part of GDP). And in worst case might spell troubles to capitalism as social system, to say nothing about neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization. The latter (as well as dollar hegemony) is under considerable stress even now. But here "doomers" were wrong so often in the past, that there might be chance that this is not inevitable. ..."
"... Shale gas production in the USA is unsustainable even more then shale oil production. So the question is not if it declines, but when. The future decline (might be even Seneca Cliff decline) is beyond reasonable doubt. ..."
"What is good for wall st. is good for America". The remains of the late 19th century anti
trust/regulation momentum are democrat farmer labor wing in Minnesota, if it still exists. An
example: how farmers organized to keep railroads in their place. Today populists are called deplorable,
before they ever get going.
And US' "libruls" are corporatist war mongers.
Used to be the deplorable would be the libruls!
Division!
likbez -> pgl...
I browsed it and see more of less typical pro-neoliberal sentiments, despite some critique
of neoliberalism at the end.
This guy does not understand history and does not want to understand. He propagates or invents
historic myths. One thing that he really does not understand is how WWI and WWII propelled the
USA at the expense of Europe. He also does not understand why New Deal was adopted and why the
existence of the USSR was the key to "reasonable" (as in "not self-destructive" ) behaviour of
the US elite till late 70th. And how promptly the US elite changed to self-destructive habits
after 1991. In a way he is a preacher not a scientist. So is probably not second rate, but third
rate thinker in this area.
While Trump_vs_deep_state (aka "bastard neoliberalism") might not be an answer to challenges the USA is
facing, it is definitely a sign that "this time is different" and at least part of the US elite
realized that it is too dangerous to kick the can down the road. That's why Bush and Clinton political
clans were sidelined this time.
There are powerful factors that make the US economic position somewhat fragile and while Trump
is a very questionable answer to the challenges the USA society faces, unlike Hillary he might
be more reasonable in his foreign policy abandoning efforts to expand global neoliberal empire
led by the USA.
Efforts which led to impoverishment of lower 80% the USA population with a large part of
the US population living in a third world country. This "third world country" includes Wal-Mart
and other retail employees, those who have McJobs in food sector, contractors, especially such
as Uber "contractors", Amazon packers. This is a real third world country within the USA and probably
50% population living in it.
Add to this the decline of the US infrastructure due to overstretch of imperial building efforts
(which reminds British empire troubles).
I see several factors that IMHO make the current situation dangerous and unsustainable, Trump
or no Trump:
1. Rapid growth of population. The US population doubled in less them 70 years. Currently
at 318 million, the USA is the third most populous country on earth. That spells troubles for
democracy and ecology, to name just two. That might also catalyze separatists movements with two
already present (Alaska and Texas).
2. Plato oil. While conversion of electricity supply from coal to wind and solar
was more or less successful (much less then optimists claim, because it requires building of buffer
gas powered plants and East-West high voltage transmission lines), the scarcity of oil is probably
within the lifespan of boomers. Let's say within the next 20 years. That spells deep trouble to
economic growth as we know it, even with all those machinations and number racket that now is
called GDP (gambling now is a part of GDP). And in worst case might spell troubles to capitalism
as social system, to say nothing about neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization. The latter
(as well as dollar hegemony) is under considerable stress even now. But here "doomers" were wrong
so often in the past, that there might be chance that this is not inevitable.
3. Shale gas production in the USA is unsustainable even more then shale oil production.
So the question is not if it declines, but when. The future decline (might be even Seneca
Cliff decline) is beyond reasonable doubt.
4. Growth of automation endangers the remaining jobs, even jobs in service sector .
Cashiers and waiters are now on the firing line. Wall Mart, Shop Rite, etc, are already using
automatic cashiers machines in some stores. Wall-Mart also uses automatic machines in back office
eliminating staff in "cash office".
Waiters might be more difficult task but orders and checkouts are computerized in many restaurants.
So the function is reduced to bringing food. So much for the last refuge of recent college graduates.
The successes in speech recognition are such that Microsoft now provides on the fly translation
in Skype. There are also instances of successful use of computer in medical diagnostics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_diagnosis
IT will continue to be outsourced as profits are way too big for anything to stop this trend.
"... Companies can now test self-driving cars on Michigan public roads without a driver or steering wheel under new laws that could push the state to the forefront of autonomous vehicle development. ..."
Posted by msmash on Friday December 09, 2016 @01:00PM from the it's-coming dept.
Companies
can now test self-driving cars on Michigan public roads without a driver or steering wheel under
new laws that could push the state to the forefront of autonomous vehicle development.
From a report
on ABC:
The package of bills signed into law Friday comes with few specific state regulations
and leaves many decisions up to automakers and companies like Google and Uber. It also allows automakers
and tech companies to run autonomous taxi services and
permits test parades of self-driving tractor-trailers as long as humans are in each truck
. And
they allow the sale of self-driving vehicles to the public once they are tested and certified, according
to the state. The bills allow testing without burdensome regulations so the industry can move forward
with potential life-saving technology, said Gov. Rick Snyder, who was to sign the bills. "It makes
Michigan a place where particularly for the auto industry it's a good place to do work," he said.
DeepMind, which was acquired by Google for $400 million in 2014, announced
on Monday that it is open-sourcing its "Lab" from this week onwards so that others can try and make
advances in the notoriously complex field of AI.
The company says that the DeepMind Lab, which it
has been using internally for some time, is a 3D game-like platform tailored for agent-based AI research.
[...]
The DeepMind Lab aims to combine several different AI research areas into one environment.
Researchers will be able to test their AI agent's abilities on navigation, memory, and 3D vision,
while determining how good they are at planning and strategy.
(cnn.com)
255
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @12:34PM
from the
eat-different
dept.
An anonymous reader writes:
Apple has been
ordered to cut a $2 million check
for denying some of its retail workers
meal breaks. The lawsuit was first filed in 2011 by four Apple employees in San
Diego. They alleged that the company failed to give them meal and rest breaks
[as required by California law], and didn't pay them in a timely manner, among
other complaints. In 2013, the case became a class action lawsuit that included
California employees who had worked at Apple between 2007 and 2012,
approximately 21,000 people...
The complaint says Apple's culture of secrecy keeps employees from talking
about the company's poor working conditions. "If [employees] so much as discuss
the various labor policies, they run the risk of being fired, sued or
disciplined."
Apple changed their break policy in 2012, according to CNN, which reports that
the second half of the case should conclude later this week. The employees that
had been affected by Apple's original break policy could get as much as $95
each from Friday's settlement, according to CNN, "but it's likely some of the
money will go toward attorney fees."
(washingtonpost.com)
497
Posted by
BeauHD
on Thursday December 08, 2016 @10:30PM
from the
live-long-and-prosper
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post:
For the first time
in more than two decades,
life expectancy for Americans declined last year
(Warning: may be paywalled;
alternate source
) -- a troubling development linked to a panoply of
worsening health problems in the United States.
In all, death rates
rose for eight of the top 10 leading causes of death. The new report raises the
possibility that major illnesses may be eroding prospects for an even wider
group of Americans. Its findings show increases in "virtually every cause of
death. It's all ages," said David Weir, director of the health and retirement
study at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Over
the past five years, he noted, improvements in death rates were among the
smallest of the past four decades. "There's this just across-the-board
[phenomenon] of not doing very well in the United States." Overall, life
expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, from 78.9 in 2014 to 78.8 in 2015,
according to the latest data. The last time U.S. life expectancy at birth
declined was in 1993, when it dropped from 75.6 to 75.4, according to World
Bank data. The overall death rate rose 1.2 percent in 2015, its first uptick
since 1999. More than 2.7 million people died, about 45 percent of them from
heart disease or cancer.
"At least three tents have been spotted in woodland beside the online retail
giant's base," reports a Scottish newspaper -- hidden behind trees, but within
sight of Amazon's warehouse, and right next to a busy highway.
An anonymous
reader writes:
Despite Scotland's "bitterly cold winter nights" -- with lows
in the 30s -- the tent "
was
easier and cheaper than commuting from his home
," one Amazon worker told
the
Courier
. (Though yesterday someone stole all of his camping
equipment.)
Amazon charges its employees for shuttle service to the fulfillment
center, which "swallows up a lot of the weekly wage," one political party
leader told the
Courier
, "forcing people to seek ever more desperate
ways of making work pay.
"Amazon should be ashamed that they pay their workers so little that they have
to camp out in the dead of winter to make ends meet..." he continued. "They pay
a small amount of tax and received millions of pounds from the Scottish
National Party Government, so the least they should do is pay the proper living
wage." Though the newspaper reports that holiday shopping has created 4,000
temporary jobs in the small town of Dunfermline,
The
Disney IT employees, said Sara Blackwell, a Florida labor attorney who is
representing this group, "lost their jobs when their jobs were outsourced to
contracting companies. And those companies brought in mostly, or virtually all,
non-American national origin workers," she said. The lawsuit alleges that
Disney terminated the employment of the plaintiffs "based solely on their
national origin and race, replacing them with Indian nationals." The people who
were laid off were multiple races, but the people who came in were mostly one
race, said Blackwell. The lawsuit alleges that Disney terminated the employment
of the plaintiffs "based solely on their national origin and race, replacing
them with Indian nationals."
"As companies tighten their purse strings, they're spreading out their hires --
this year, and for years to come," reports Backchannel, citing interviews with
executives and other workplace analysts.
mirandakatz
writes:
Once a
cost-cutting strategy,
remote offices are becoming the new normal
: from GitHub to Mozilla and
Wordpress, more and more companies are eschewing the physical office in favor
of systems that allow employees to live out their wanderlust. As workplaces
increasingly go remote, they're adopting tools to keep employees connected and
socially fulfilled -- as Mozilla Chief of Staff David Slater tells Backchannel,
"The wiki becomes the water cooler."
The article describes budget-conscious startups realizing they can cut their
overhead and choose from talent located anywhere in the world. And one group of
analysts calculated that the number of telecommuting workers
doubled
between 2005 and 2014
, reporting that now "75% of employees who work from
home earn over $65,000 per year, putting them in the upper 80th percentile of
all employees, home or office-based."
Are Slashdot's readers seeing a surge in
telecommuting? And does anybody have any good stories about the digital nomad
lifestyle?
Posted by msmash
on Tuesday November 29, 2016 @11:40AM
from the
fight-for-money
dept.
Uber drivers will join forces with fast food, home care and airport workers in
a nationwide protest on Tuesday.
Their demand: higher pay
.
From a report on CNET:
Calling it the "Day of
Disruption," drivers for the ride-hailing company in two dozen cities,
including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, will march at
airports and in shopping areas carrying signs that read, "Your Uber Driver is
Arriving Striking." The protest underscores the dilemma Uber faces as it
balances the needs of its drivers with its business. Valued at $68 billion,
Uber is the highest-valued venture-backed company worldwide. But as it has cut
the cost of rides to compete with traditional taxi services, Uber reportedly
has experienced trouble turning a profit.
Unlike many other workers involved in
Tuesday's protests, Uber drivers are not members of a union. In fact, Uber
doesn't even classify its drivers as employees. Instead the company considers
drivers independent contractors. This classification means the company isn't
responsible for many costs, including health insurance, paid sick days, gas,
car maintenance and much more.
However, Uber still sets drivers' rates and the
commission it pays itself, which ranges between 20 percent and 30 percent.
"I'd
like a fair day's pay for my hard work," Adam Shahim, a 40-year-old driver from
Pittsburgh, California, said in a statement.
"So I'm joining with the
fast-food, airport, home care, child care and higher education workers who are
leading the way and showing the country how to build an economy that works for
everyone, not just the few at the top."
"... Uber treats its drivers as Victorian-style "sweated labor", with some taking home less than the minimum wage, ..."
"... Drivers at the taxi-hailing app company reported feeling forced to work extremely long hours, sometimes more than 70 a week , just to make a basic living, said Frank Field, the Labor MP and chair of the work and pensions committee. ..."
"... Field received testimony from 83 drivers who said they often took home significantly less than the "national living wage" after paying their running costs. The report says they described conditions that matched the Victorian definition of sweated labor: "when earnings were barely sufficient to sustain existence, hours of labor were such as to make lives of workers periods of ceaseless toil; and conditions were injurious to the health of workers and dangerous to the public. ..."
"... Uber controls what the drivers charge, what they drive (minimum standards and all) and punishes them if they don't work when told to (by locking them out of the app for declining low paying rides). That's not a contract gig, that's employment. ..."
"... the math on the purchase of the car doesn't work out. ..."
"... That's the essence of modern American Slavery. Nobody's _ever_ forcing you. You're completely free to starve to death and die in the streets. It's why the South abandoned real slavery. Wage Slavery is ever so much more cost effective. ..."
"... The aristocrats of our age are as detached from reality as the French aristocrats were, and as unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with vast accrual of wealth. ..."
"... The key is to run a business that is profitable enough to pay its workers a wage sufficient to cover food and medical and housing. Otherwise, my tax money does it and those dollars essentially make the business owner a welfare recipient by enabling him to be artificially enriched. ..."
Posted by msmash on Friday December 09, 2016 @05:40PM from the app-economy dept.
Uber treats its drivers as Victorian-style "sweated labor", with some taking home less than the minimum
wage, according to a report into its working conditions based on the testimony of dozens of drivers.
From a report on The Guardian:
Field received testimony from 83 drivers who said they often took home significantly less than
the "national living wage" after paying their running costs. The report says they described conditions
that matched the Victorian definition of sweated labor: "when earnings were barely sufficient to
sustain existence, hours of labor were such as to make lives of workers periods of ceaseless toil;
and conditions were injurious to the health of workers and dangerous to the public."
rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:13PM (#53456097)
Au contre mon cheri (Score:2)
they realized the exact opposite. Pity you didn't.
Uber controls what the drivers charge, what they drive (minimum standards and all) and
punishes them if they don't work when told to (by locking them out of the app for declining
low paying rides). That's not a contract gig, that's employment.
fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:54PM (#53456365)
Re:Was never meant to be full time... (Score:2)
I think then the whole problem is that the math on the purchase of the car doesn't work
out. They have to work a lot of hours to make anything once the vehicle expenses are
taken care of.
MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:42PM (#53456283) Journal
Re:Tough shit (Score:3)
Even brilliant people can find themselves out of work, and become prey for pretty predatory
companies happy to take advantage of them. I've worked in the employment industry for many
years and see even some pretty highly skilled people stuck in shit-ass jobs because they can't
afford to move.
That is why most jurisdictions have it least some basic level of worker protection, and why no
one seriously contemplates turning the industrialized world into a Libertarian fantasy land.
Dorianny ( 1847922 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @07:29PM (#53456597) Journal
Re:Mixed Metaphors (Score:2)
Antoinette's expression is in reference the tyranny of feudalism.
Pretty sure Uber drivers aren't indentured servants, much less serfs. Seeing as how, you
know, if you don't want to drive for Uber, you just don't load the app. The Gendarme isn't
going to break down your door and drag you to jail.
The expression "Let them eat cake" shows a complete lack of understanding that the absence
of basic food staples was due to poverty rather than a lack of supply. Serfdom was officially
abolished in France in 1789 by Antoinette's husband Louis XVI, although this was mostly a
formality as there were few if any actual Serfs left in France.
Most people were "free peasents" that were paid extremely low wages to work the lands of
the King and Nobility FYI: Even thou the expression "Let them eat cake" is commonly attributed
to Marie Antoinette there is no record of the phrase ever being said by her...
matbury ( 3458347 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:55PM (#53456367) Homepage
Re:"Feel forced?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Taxi drivers also have regulated hours. Being tired is as impairing and dangerous as being
drunk. Would you hail a cab if you knew the driver was drunk? If he's been working double the
recommended hours a week, like an Uber driver, he's likely to be severely impaired and very
likely to have an accident.
rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:09PM (#53456055)
Says a man or woman (Score:4, Insightful)
who's never had a rent check bounce. Or never had to pay out of pocket to fix a kid's
broken arm. Or been born in a rust belt town when the last factory just left and/or automated.
That's the essence of modern American Slavery. Nobody's _ever_ forcing you. You're
completely free to starve to death and die in the streets. It's why the South abandoned real
slavery. Wage Slavery is ever so much more cost effective.
Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @07:31PM (#53456603)
Re:Says a man or woman (Score:4, Interesting)
Wage slavery is never cost effective except for the slave owner. That's what makes it an
unstable system which can only be perpetuated by government collusion, or lack of willpower by
the employees to break out of slavery. e.g. Detroit used to have slave-level wages.
Henry Ford decided to set up shop there and paid his factory workers much more than the
prevailing wage. He accidentally discovered that when he paid people a fair wage, not only did
their productivity increase, but they used those wages to buy the very product they were
helping build.
The resulting feedback loop multiplied his company's revenue and turned the Ford Motor
Company into the behemoth it is today. No longer were cars affordable only to the privileged
elite; the average middle class worker (by Ford factory standards) could afford to buy one.
If the only options you see are being a wage slave or starving to death, then you haven't
really tried. A location where the people are being paid slave wages or starving is ripe for a
new company to set up shop and hire willing employees for less than they'd have to pay at
well-established locations. As more of these people become employed and spend their wages on
local merchants, the economy picks up.
There are fewer unemployed, resulting in wages increasing. This is how the market equalizes
geographic wage inequality. If this isn't happening, then there are fundamental problems with
the region not caused by slave wages. Maybe the location is too far from markets, or the
highway/railroad access is poor, or people just don't want to live in that location. Unless
the government is intentionally keeping business out, low wages are a symptom not a cause.
And yes I've had a rent check bounce. A rent check a tenant gave me. I was stupid and
deposited it directly into our payroll bank account since it almost exactly topped off the
amount we needed to make payroll. Normally I transfer the payroll money from our primary
checking account, but I was lazy and decided to save a little work by depositing the checks
directly into payroll.
As a result I got charged a bounced check fee, but more importantly a bunch of my
employees' paychecks bounced, causing more bounced check fees for both them and myself. The
whole thing was a disaster. I called in each employee who was affected, apologized to them in
person, and told them to bring in their bank statement so I could reimburse their bounced
check fee (or fees if they then wrote checks which bounced).
The ones who needed the money immediately, I paid in cash out of my own pocket. All told it
was over $1300 in bank fees incurred because I was stupid/lazy, and because the person who
wrote the first check did so knowing he didn't have enough money to cover it but thought it
would be easier turning his problem into my problem.
It's cliche, but it's true. Your employees are your most valuable asset. A good business will
do everything it can to protect them and to retain them. A business which pays slave wages is
just ripe to be squeezed out by a business which will pay better (fair) wages. The only way a
slave wage business can stay in business is if the government is blocking competing
businesses, or if people like you have so discouraged others with your gloom and doom hopeless
corporate feudalism talk that they don't even bother trying to start up their own business to
compete.
serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday December 10, 2016 @04:50AM (#53458279) Journal
Re:Says a man or woman (Score:5, Insightful)
or lack of willpower by the employees to break out of slavery
Ah, it's the slaves fault that they're slaves, then.
If the only options you see are being a wage slave or starving to death, then you haven't
really tried. A location where the people are being paid slave wages or starving is ripe for a
new company to set up shop and hire willing employees for less than they'd have to pay at
well-established locations.
Ah yes, it's so easy to set up a company when you're a wage slave and have no spare
resources with which to set up the company. If you don't you just lack the willpower to starve
to death for a few months or years before your company takes off.
Oh and if you don't have a head for business, you deserve to be a wage slave because fuck
you that's why.
A business which pays slave wages is just ripe to be squeezed out by a business which will
pay better (fair) wages.
Oh yes, that's precisely how things worked in Victorian England.
You know, or not. that they don't even bother trying to start up their own business to
compete.
Starting a business is the highest form of intellect and worth. If you can't, then die in
filth, scum. You deserve worse!
Jzanu ( 668651 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:02PM (#53456007)
Re:"Feel forced?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1: Create system where I make money doing nothing, we will call this being a
platform
Step 2: Force existing systems to work for me by under cutting prices and providing a
better way to interact
Step 3: Profit
Shit, Uber makes profit by undercutting cabs who already did not make much money... You can
tell people not to drive for them, but when you see the lease terms uber demands (weekly
payments, taken directly from your take, you dont pay we take the car) then you see that they
are required to drive, and drive long hours if riders are minimal.
This is a firm that has a master plan of shifting as much as it can on to other people so its
30% cut can be 90% profit. So far its working because people with no job will work any job in
a world where unskilled labor is not worth much (driving is definitely on the unskilled labor
side here) There are simply not many other jobs out there for a subset of people.
Uber's
real business [uber.com] (see bottom of page)
model [xchangeleasing.com] is incentivizing wage-slavery with poverty wages and binding
contract enforcement - it is just the vehicular version of the
company town [wikipedia.org].
MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @07:51PM (#53456707) Journal
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
It will certainly be screwed if it keeps allowing corporate interests to arguing away the
taxes they should be paying.
I'm genuinely concerned that events like Brexit and the Trump victory are the opening shots in
some sort of modern day French revolution. The aristocrats of our age are as detached from
reality as the French aristocrats were, and as unwilling to accept the responsibilities that
come with vast accrual of wealth.
They are creating a dangerously unstable situation, and when the Trumps of the world prove
as incapable or unwilling to rebalance economic and social issues, then we may be facing a far
less savory group of revolutionaries. And, as the French Revolution so ably demonstrated, even
wealth isn't an absolute shield.
jlowery ( 47102 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:19PM (#53456129)
Re: Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is to run a business that is profitable enough to pay its workers a wage
sufficient to cover food and medical and housing. Otherwise, my tax money does it and those
dollars essentially make the business owner a welfare recipient by enabling him to be
artificially enriched.
If your business doesn't sell a product people are willing to spend enough for you pay your
workers a living wage, then your business should go bankrupt. I'm not paying for your beach
house.
ghoul ( 157158 ) on Friday December 09, 2016 @06:20PM (#53456149)
Uber needs a recession (Score:5, Insightful)
The Uber business model only works for newly laid off workers who have a nice car with car
payments to make. Its not meant to be a fulltime job. The entire gig economy including iOS
apps only took off as in 2008 a lot of people lost their jobs but they still had cars,
computers and loads of time on their hand. As we closer to full employment people who have a
choice have moved away from gigs. Taxi companies are built upon the exploitation of illegal
immigrant drivers. Uber as a high visibility company cannot compete with Taxi companies as it
cant hire illegal immigrants and pay them sweat wages under the table. At the same time
driving a cab will not support a minimum wage so the best thing for Uber would be to go back
to being a gig company. Put a hard cap of 10 hours a week on driving for a driver - that will
remove the entire pool of drivers expecting to make a living from Uber, stop promoting Uber
driving as a full time job and stop giving leases to drivers to buy cars to drive for Uber.
Stop trying to grow for growth's sake. Stay at the size of a gig economy company like a temp
agency. They have some good software - license it to taxi companies and let them use it for
managing their own fleets in a mutli-tenant kind of model.
This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the
nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If
so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution
and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican
contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed
establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound
his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.
What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All
have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties
like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would
mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their
own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.
Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton
backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this
case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.
Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else
has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration,
while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.
The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all
faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is
this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?
Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial
Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this
New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding
the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between
managerial and New Class elites.
♦♦♦
The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier
stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed,
was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.
Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked
on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind
had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.
But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists,
while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run
by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.
Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading
Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet
mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs
of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to
the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.
Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not
own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise
and administrative prowess.
The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians
: "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as
to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy,
and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental"
power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.
The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain
their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between
big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex
to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with
the French-British Concorde.)
America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of
defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?"
Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system
of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded
forms of business enterprise."
McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But
the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart
19th-century classical liberals.
National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It
was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying.
The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes
in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.
More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class."
"This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall
Street Journal :
It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial
society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists
and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in
the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy,
and so on.
"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational
system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."
Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:
I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous
actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after
all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers
of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going
to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?
Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided
with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation
and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state
reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however,
amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.
The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism
of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and
Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.
Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach
to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree,
so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."
He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics.
The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were
evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.
Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers
or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following
the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie
to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.
Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous
militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory
state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like
Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.
Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment
to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the
protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare
is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.
The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also
enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps
keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like
many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining
managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.
The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange
for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian
ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its
class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize
its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony
helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.
♦♦♦
So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses
stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.
Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes,
"big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the
bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.
The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite
its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment,
minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right
faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders
had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.
The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of
the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype
of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.
This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might
welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .
Excellent analysis. What is important about the Trump phenomenon is not every individual issue, it's the potentially revolutionary
nature of the phenomenon. The opposition gets this. That's why they are hysterical about Trump. The conservative box checkers
do not.
"Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big
government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan
establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November."
My question is, if Trump is not himself of the managerial class, in fact, could be considered one of the original new class
members, how would he govern? What explains his conversion from the new class to the managerial class; is he merely taking advantage
of an opportunity or is there some other explanation?
I'm genuinely confused by the role you ascribe to the 'managerial class' here. Going back to Berle and Means ('The Modern Corporation
and Private Property') the managerial class emerged when management was split from ownership in mid C20th capitalism. Managers
focused on growth, not profits for shareholders. The Shareholder revolution of the 1980s destroyed the managerial class, and destroyed
their unwieldy corporations.
You seem to be identifying the managerial class with a kind of cultural opposition to the values of [neo]liberal capitalism. And
instead of identifying the 'new class' with the new owner-managers of shareholder-driven firms, you identify them by their superficial
cultural effects.
This raises a deeper problem in how you talk about class in this piece. Marx taught that you identify classes by their
structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system
of production. Does the 'new class' of journalists, academics, etc. actually own anything? If not, what is the point of ascribing
to them immense economic power?
I would agree that there is a new class of capitalists in America. But they are well known people like Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs,
Linda McMahon, the Waltons, Rick Scott the pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, and many many hedge fund
gazillionaires. These people represent the resurgence of a family-based, dynastic capitalism that is utterly different from the
managerial variety that prevailed in mid-century.
If there is a current competitor to international corporate capitalism, it is old-fashioned dynastic family capitalism. Not
Managerialism.
There is no "new class". That's simply a derogatory trope of the Right. The [neo]liberal elite– educated, cosmopolitan and possessed
of sufficient wealth to be influential in political affairs and claims to power grounded in moral stances– have a long pedigree
in both Western and non-Western lands. They were the Scribal Class in the ancient world, the Mandarins of China, and the Clergy
in the Middle Ages. This class for a time was eclipsed in the early modern period as first royal authority became dominant, followed
by the power of the Capitalist class (the latter has never really faded of course). But their reemergence in the late 20th century
is not a new or unique phenomenon.
In a year in which "trash Trump" and "trash Trump's supporters" are tricks-to-be-turned for more than 90% of mainstream journalists
and other media hacks, it's good to see Daniel McCarthy buck the "trash trend" and write a serious, honest analysis of the class
forces that are colliding during this election cycle.
Two thumbs way up for McCarthy, although his fine effort cannot save the reputation of those establishment whores who call
themselves journalists. Nothing can save them. They have earned the universality with which Americans hold them in contempt.
In 1976 when Gallup began asking about "the honesty and ethical standards" of various professions only 33% of Americans rated
journalists "very high or high."
By last December that "high or very high" rating for journalists had fallen to just 27%.
It is certain that by Election Day 2016 the American public's opinion of journalists will have fallen even further.
Most of your argument is confusing. The change I see is from a production economy to a finance economy. Wall Street rules, really.
Basically the stock market used to be a place where working folk invested their money for retirement, mostly through pensions
from unions and corporations. Now it's become a gambling casino, with the "house"-or the big banks-putting it's finger on the
roulette wheel. They changed the compensation package of CEO's, so they can rake in huge executive compensation–mostly through
stock options-to basically close down everything from manufacturing to customer service, and ship it off to contract manufacturers
and outside services in oligarchical countries like mainland China and India.
I don't know what exactly you mean about the "new class", basically its the finance industry against everyone else.
One thing you right-wingers always get wrong, is on Karl Marx he was really attacking the money-changers, the finance speculators,
the banks. Back in the day, so-called "capitalists" like Henry Ford or George Eastman or Thomas Edison always complained about
the access to financing through the big money finance capitalists.
Don't overlook the economic value of intellectual property rights (patents, in particular) in the economic equation.
A big chunk of the 21st century economy is generated due to the intellectual property developed and owned by the New Class
and its business enterprises.
The economic value of ideas and intellectual property rights is somewhat implied in McCarthy's explanation of the New Class,
but I didn't see an explicit mention (perhaps I overlooked it).
I think the consideration of intellectual property rights and the value generated by IP might help to clarify the economic
power of the New Class for those who feel the analysis isn't quite complete or on target.
I'm not saying that IP only provides value to the New Class. We can find examples of IP throughout the economy, at all levels.
It's just that the tech and financial sectors seem to focus more on (and benefit from) IP ownership, licensing, and the information
captured through use of digital technology.
"What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy."
But today we have this: Trump pledges big US military
expansion . Trump doesn't appear to have any coherent policy, he just says whatever seems to be useful at that particular
moment.
[New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative
think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous
Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the
Globalized Economy and financial markets.
Being white is not the defining characteristic of Trumpers because it if was then how come there are many white working class
voters for Hillary? The divide in the working class comes from being a member of a union or a member of the private non-unionized
working class.
Where the real class divide shows up is in those who are members of the Knowledge Class that made their living based on the
old Virtuous Economy where the elderly saved money in banks and the banks, in turn, lent that money out to young families to buy
houses, cars, and start businesses. The Virtuous Economy has been replaced by the Global Economy based on diverting money to the
stock market to fund global enterprises and prop up government pension funds.
The local bankers, realtors, private contractors, small savers and small business persons and others that depended on the Virtuous
Economy lost out to the global bankers, stock investors, pension fund managers, union contractors and intellectuals that propounded
rationales for the global economy as superior to the Virtuous Economy.
Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally
decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those
who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist
Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages
and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide.
Beginning in the 50's and 60's, baby boomers were warned in school and cultural media that "a college diploma would become what
a high school diploma is today." An extraordinary cohort of Americans took this advice seriously, creating the smartest and most
successful generation in history. But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who – knowing that college
educated people vote largely Democrat – launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what you see
now: millions of people unprepared for modern employment; meanwhile we have to import millions of college-educated Asians and
Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do.
Have to say, this seems like an attempt to put things into boxes that don't quite fit.
Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times –
nationalism vs. Globalism.
The core of it is that the government no longer serves the people. In the United States, that is kind of a bad thing, you know?
Like the EU in the UK, the people, who fought very hard for self-government, are seeing it undermined by the erosion of the nation
state in favor of international beaurocracy run by elites and the well connected.
Both this article and many comments on it show considerable confusion, and ideological opinion all over the map. What is happening
I think is that the world is changing –due to globalism, technology, and the sheer huge numbers of people on the planet. As a
result some of the rigid trenches of thought as well as class alignments are breaking down.
In America we no longer have capitalism, of either the 19th century industrial or 20th century managerial varieties. Money
and big money is still important of course, but it is increasingly both aligned with and in turn controlled by the government.
The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government
ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives
are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both
are right in a sense.
The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite
academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been
left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth
and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as
backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against
being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters."
The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties'
elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium
and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these
folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively
harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA.
I have one condition about which, Mr. Trump would lose my support - if he flinches on immigration, I will have to bow out.
I just don't buy the contentions about color here. He has made definitive moves to ensure that he intends to fight for US citizens
regardless of color. This nonsense about white racism, more bigotry in reality, doesn't pan out. The Republican party has been
comprised of mostly whites since forever and nearly all white sine the late 1960's. Anyone attempting to make hay out of what
has been the reality for than 40 years is really making the reverse pander. Of course most of those who have issues with blacks
and tend to be more expressive about it, are in the Republican party. But so what. Black Republicans would look at you askance,
should you attempt this FYI.
It's a so what. The reason you joining a party is not because the people in it like you, that is really beside the point. Both
Sec Rice and General Powell, are keenly aware of who's what it and that is the supposed educated elite. They are not members of
the party because it is composed of some pure untainted membership. But because they and many blacks align themselves with the
ideas of the party, or what the party used to believe, anyway.
It's the issues not their skin color that matters. And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes
on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to
Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and
used for their own liberal ends.
I remain convinced that if blacks wanted progress all they need do is swamp the Republican party as constituents and confront
whatever they thought was nonsense as constituents as they move on policy issues. Goodness democrats have embraced the lighter
tones despite having most black support. That is why the democrats are importing so many from other state run countries. They
could ignore blacks altogether. Sen Barbara Jordan and her deep voiced rebuke would do them all some good.
Let's face it - we are not going to remove the deeply rooted impact of skin color, once part of the legal frame of the country
for a quarter of the nations populous. What Republicans should stop doing is pretending, that everything concerning skin color
is the figment of black imagination. I am not budging an inch on the Daughters of the American Revolution, a perfect example of
the kind of peculiar treatment of the majority, even to those who fought for Independence and their descendants.
________________
I think that there are thousands and thousands of educated (degreed)people who now realize what a mess the educational and
social services system has become because of our immigration policy. The impact on social services here in Ca is no joke. In the
face of mounting deficits, the laxity of Ca has now come back to haunt them. The pressure to increase taxes weighed against the
loss of manual or hard labor to immigrants legal and otherwise is unmistakable here. There's debate about rsstroom etiquette in
the midst of serious financial issues - that's a joke. So this idea of dismissing people with degrees as being opposed to Mr.
Trump is deeply overplayed and misunderstood. If there is a class war, it's not because of Mr. Trump, those decks were stacked
in his favor long before the election cycle.
--------
"But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who–knowing that college educated people vote largely
Democrat–launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what . . . employment; meanwhile we have to
import millions of college-educated Asians and Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do."
Hmmmm,
Nope. Republicans are notorious for pushing education on everything and everybody. It's a signature of hard work, self reliance,
self motivation and responsibility. The shift that has been tragic is that conservatives and Republicans either by a shove or
by choice abandoned the fields by which we turn out most future generations - elementary, HS and college education. Especially
in HS, millions of students are fed a daily diet of liberal though unchecked by any opposing ideas. And that is become the staple
for college education - as it cannot be stated just how tragic this has become for the nation. There are lots of issues to moan
about concerning the Us, but there is far more to embrace or at the very least keep the moaning in its proper context. No, conservatives
and Republicans did engage in discouraging an education.
And there will always be a need for more people without degrees than with them. even people with degrees are now getting hit
even in the elite walls of WS finance. I think I posted an article by John Maulden about the growing tensions resulting fro the
shift in the way trading is conducting. I can build a computer from scratch, that's a technical skill, but the days of building
computers by hand went as fast it came. The accusation that the population should all be trained accountants, book keepers, managers,
data processors, programmers etc. Is nice, but hardly very realistic (despite my taking liberties with your exact phrasing). A
degree is not going to stop a company from selling and moving its production to China, Mexico or Vietnam - would that were true.
In fact, even high end degree positions are being outsourced, medicine, law, data processing, programming . . .
How about the changes in economy that have forced businesses to completely disappear. We will never know how many businesses
were lost in the 2007/2008 financial mess. Recovery doesn't exist until the country's growth is robust enough to put people back
to work full time in a manner that enables them to sustain themselves and family.
That income gap is real and its telling.
___________________
even if I bought the Karl Marx assessment. His solutions were anything but a limited assault on financial sector oligarchs
and wizards. And in practice it has been an unmitigated disaster with virtually not a single long term national benefit. It's
very nature has been destructive, not only to infrastructure, but literally the lifeblood of the people it was intended to rescue.
Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class"
are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector
and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector.
There are two middle classes in the US: the old Business Class and the New Knowledge Class. A manager would be in the Business
Class and a Bureaucrat in the New Class.
The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization,
industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial
revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization.
The New Class were those in the mostly government and nonprofit sectors that depended on knowledge for their livelihood without
it being coupled to any physical labor: teachers, intellectuals, social workers and psychiatrists, lawyers, media types, hedge
fund managers, real estate appraisers, financial advisors, architects, engineers, etc. The New Knowledge Class has only risen
since the New Deal created a permanent white collar, non-business class.
The Working Class are those who are employed for wages in manual work in an industry producing something tangible (houses,
cars, computers, etc.). The Working Class can also have managers, sometimes called supervisors. And the Working Class is comprised
mainly of two groups: unionized workers and private sector non-unionized workers. When we talk about the Working Class we typically
are referring to the latter.
The Trumpsters should not be distinguished as being a racial group or class (white) because there are many white people who
support Clinton. About 95% of Blacks vote Democratic in the US. Nowhere near that ratio of Whites are supporting Trump. So Trumps'
support should not be stereotyped as White.
The number one concern to Trumpsters is that they reflect the previous intergenerational economy where the elderly lent money
to the young to buy homes, cars and start small businesses. The Global bankers have shifted money into the stock market because
0.25% per year interest rates in a bank isn't making any money at all when money inflation runs at 1% to 2% (theft). This has
been replaced by a Global Economy that depends on financial bubbles and arbitraging of funds.
"The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated
by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right
in a sense."
Why other couching this. Ten years ago if some Hollywood exec had said, no same sex marriage, no production company in your
town, the town would have shrugged. Today before shrugging, the city clerk is checking the account balance. When the governors
of Michigan, and Arizona bent down in me culpa's on related issue, because business interests piped in, it was an indication that
the game had seriously changed. Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private
lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure
most of the public fully grasps or desires.
Same sex weddings in US military chapels - the concept still turns my stomach. Advocates control the megaphones, I don't think
they control the minds of the public, despite having convinced a good many people that those who have chosen this expression are
under some manner of assault – that demands a legal change - intelligent well educated, supposedly astute minded people actually
believe it. Even the Republican nominee believes it.
I love Barbara Streisand, but if the election means she moves to Canada, well, so be it. Take your "drag queens" impersonators
wit you. I enjoy Mr. and Mrs Pitt, I think have a social moral core but really? with millions of kids future at stake, endorsing
a terminal dynamic as if it will save society's ills - Hollywood doesn't even pretend to behave royally much less embody the sensitivities
of the same.
There is a lot to challenge about supporting Mr. Trump. He did support killing children in the womb and that is tragic. Unless
he has stood before his maker and made this right, he will have to answer for that. But no more than a trove of Republicans who
supported killing children in the womb and then came to their senses. I guess of there is one thing he and I agree on, it's not
drinking.
As for big budget military, it seems a waste, but if we are going to waste money, better it be for our own citizens. His Achilles
heel here is his intentions as to ISIS/ISIL. I think it's the big drain getting ready to suck him into the abyss of intervention
creep.
Missile defense just doesn't work. The tests are rigged and as Israel discovered, it's a hit and miss game with low probability
of success, but it makes for great propaganda.
I am supposed to be outraged by a football player stance on abusive government. While the democratic nominee is turning over
every deck chair she find, leaving hundreds of thousands of children homeless - let me guess, on the bright side, George Clooney
cheers the prospect of more democratic voters.
If Mr. Trumps only achievements are building a wall, over hauling immigration policy and expanding the size of the military.
He will be well on his way to getting ranked one of the US most successful presidents.
I never understood why an analysis needs to lard in every conceivable historical reference and simply assume its relevance, when
there are so many non constant facts and circumstances. There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it
falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes.
This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially
benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict
is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but
the underlying conflict will always remain.
State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there.
Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they
would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those.
The split on Trump is first by race (obviously), then be gender (also somewhat obviously), and then by education. Even among
self-declared conservatives it's the college educated who tend to oppose him. This is a lot broader than simply losing some "new"
Knowledge Class, unless all college educated people are put in that grouping. In fact he is on track to lose among college educated
whites, something no GOP candidate has suffered since the days of FDR and WWII.
People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's,
per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this
the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards.
People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not
impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions.
I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all
the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable.
Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American.
EliteComic beat me to the punch. I was disappointed that Ross Perot, who won over 20% of the popular vote twice, and was briefly
in the lead in early 1992, wasn't mentioned in this article.
Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli
interests above America's is un-American.
The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable
people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation
where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation,
but of justice being done period.
A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US
dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the
Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation
and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers
instead of a nation of producers.
Who really cares about the federal debt. REally? We can print dollars, exchange these worthless dollars with China for hard
goods, and then China lends the dollars back to us, to pay for our government. Get it?
It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt
dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya
Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market
utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on.
But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled.
And damn the utopianism of you "libertarians" you're worse then Marxists when it comes to ideology over reality.
"State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back
in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would
only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those."
Ah, not it's policy on some measure able effect. The seatbelt law was debate across the country. The data indicated that it
did in fact save lives. And it's impact was universal applicable to every man women or child that got into a vehicle.
That was not a private bedroom issue. Of course businesses have advocated policy. K street is not a K-street minus that reality.
But GM did not demand having relations in parked cars be legalized or else.
You are taking my apples and and calling them seatbelts - false comparison on multiple levels, all to get me to acknowledge
that businesses have influence. It what they have chosen to have influence on -
I do not think the issue of class is relevant here – whether it be new classes or old classes. There are essentially two classes
– those who win given whatever the current economic arrangements are or those who lose given those same arrangements. People who
think they are losing support Trump versus people who think they are winning support Clinton. The polls demonstrates this – Trump
supporters feel a great deal more anxiety about the future and are more inclined to think everything is falling apart whereas
Clinton supporters tend to see things as being okay and are optimistic about the future. The Vox work also shows this pervasive
sense that life will not be good for their children and grandchildren as a characteristic of Trump supporters.
The real shift I think is in the actual coalitions that are political parties. Both the GOP and the Dems have been coalitions
– political parties usually are. Primary areas of agreement with secondary areas of disagreement. Those coalitions no longer work.
The Dems can be seen as a coalition of the liberal knowledge types – who are winners in this economy and the worker types who
are often losers now in this economy. The GOP also is a coalition of globalist corporatist business types (winners) with workers
(losers) who they attracted in part because of culture wars and the Dixiecrats becoming GOPers. The needs of these two groups
in both parties no longer overlap. The crisis is more apparent in the GOP because well – Trump. If Sanders had won the nomination
for the Dems (and he got close) then their same crisis would be more apparent. The Dems can hold their creaky coalition together
because Trump went into the fevered swamps of the alt. right.
I think this is even more obvious in the UK where you have a Labor Party that allegedly represents the interests of working
people but includes the cosmopolitan knowledge types. The cosmopolitans are big on the usual identity politics, unlimited immigration
and staying in the EU. They benefit from the current economic arrangement. But the workers in the Labor party have been hammered
by the current economic arrangements and voted in droves to get out of the EU and limit immigration. It seems pretty obvious that
there is no longer a coalition to sustain the Labor Party. Same with Tories – some in the party love the EU,immigration, globalization
while others voted out of the EU, want immigration restricted and support localism. The crisis is about the inability of either
party to sustain its coalitions. Those in the Tory party who are leavers should be in a political party with the old Labor working
class while the Tory cosmopolitans should be in a party with the Labor cosmopolitans. The current coalitions not being in synch
is the political problem – not new classes etc.
Here in the US the southern Dixiecrats who went to the GOP and are losers in this economy might find a better coalition with
the black, Latino and white workers who are still in the Dem party. But as in the UK ideological culture wars have become more
prominent and hence the coalitions are no longer economically based. If people recognized that politics can only address the economic
issues and they aligned themselves accordingly – the membership of the parties would radically change.
The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia
and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come
up in the morning now,"
"Trump's voters were most strongly characterized by their "racial isolation": they live in places with little ethnic diversity.
"
During the primaries whites in more diverse areas voted Trump. The only real exception was West Virginia. Utah, Wyoming, Iowa?
All voted for Cruz and "muh values".
In white enclaves like Paul Ryans district, which is 91%, whites are able to signal against white identity without having to
face the consequences.
"All three major African, Hispanic, & Asian-American overwhelming support HRC in the election."
That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics
simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data
point would look just the same.
"On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would
benefit hard industry and managerial interests."
This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas
in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute
ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves
versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities
in which they lived.
The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large
institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused.
"... Each of these was based fundamentally upon the principle that language was the key to all power. That is, that language was not a tool that described reality but the power that created it, and s/he who controlled language controlled everything through the shaping of "discourse", as opposed to the objective existence of any truth at all ..."
"... When you globalise capital, you globalise labour. That meant jobs shifting from expensive markets to cheap. Before long the incomes of those swimming in the stream of global capital began to seriously outstrip the incomes of those trapped in old and withering Western labour markets. As a result, inflation in those markets also began to fall and so did interest rates. Thus asset prices took off as Western nation labour markets got hollowed out, and standard of living inequality widened much more quickly as a new landed aristocracy developed. ..."
"... With a Republican Party on its knees, Obama was positioned to restore the kind of New Deal rules that global capitalism enjoyed under Franklin D. Roosevelt. ..."
"... But instead he opted to patch up financialised capitalism. The banks were bailed out and the bonus culture returned. Yes, there were some new rules but they were weak. There was no seizing of the agenda. No imprisonments of the guilty. The US Department of Justice is still issuing $14bn fines to banks involved yet still today there is no justice. Think about that a minute. How can a crime be worthy of a $14bn fine but no prison time?!? ..."
"... Alas, for all of his efforts to restore Wall Street, Obama provided no reset for Main Street economics to restore the fortunes of the US lower classes. Sure Obama fought a hostile Capitol but, let's face it, he had other priorities. ..."
"... This comment is a perfect example of the author's (and Adolf Reed's) point: that the so-called "Left" is so bogged down in issues of language that it has completely lost sight of class politics. ..."
"... It's why Trump won. He was a Viking swinging an ax at nuanced hair-splitters. It was inelegant and ugly, but effective. We will find out if the hair-splitters win again in their inner circle with the Democratic Minority Leader vote. I suspect they missed the point of the election and will vote Pelosi back in, thereby missing the chance for significant gains in the mid-term elections. ..."
"... One of the great triumphs of Those Who Continue To Be Our Rulers has been the infiltration and cooptation of 'the left', hand in hand with the 'dumbing down' of the last 30+ years so few people really understand what is going on. ..."
"... That the Global Left appears to be intellectually weak regarding identity politics and "political correctness" vs. class politics, there is no doubt. But to skim over Global Corporate leverage of this attitude seems wrong to me. The right has also embraced identity politics in order to keep the 90% fully divided in order to justify it's continual economic rape of both human and physical ecology. ..."
"... Every "identity politics" charge starts here, with one group wanting a more equitable social order and the other group defending the existing power structure. Identity politics is adjusting the social order and rattling the power structure, which is why it is so effective. ..."
"... I think it can be effectively argued that Trump voters in PA, WI, OH, MI chose to rattle the power structure and you could think of that as identity politics as well. ..."
"... On the contrary, the (Neo-)Liberal establishment uses identity politics to co-opt and neutralise the left. It keeps them occupied without threatening the real power structure in the least. ..."
"... Hillary (Neoliberal establishment) has many supporters who think of themselves as 'left' or 'liberal'. The Democratic Party leadership is neither 'left' nor 'liberal'. It keeps the votes and the love of the 'liberals' by talking up harmless 'liberal' identity politics and soft peddling the Liberal power politics which they are really about. ..."
"... Just from historical perspective, the right wing had more money to forward its agenda and an OCD like affliction [biblical] to drive simple memes relentlessly via its increasing private ownership of education and media. Thereby creating an institutional network over time to gain dominate market share in crafting the social narrative. Bloodly hell anyone remember Bush Jr Christian crusade after politicizing religion to get elected and the ramifications – neocon – R2P thingy . ..."
"... Its not hard once neoliberalism became dominate in the 70s [wages and productivity diverged] the proceeds have gone to the top and everyone else got credit IOUs based mostly on asset inflation via the Casino or RE [home and IP]. ..."
"... Foucault in particular advanced a greatly expanded wariness regarding the use of power. It was not just that left politics could only lead to ossified Soviet Marxism or the dogmatic petty despotism of the left splinters. Institutions in general mapped out social practices and attendant identities to impose on the individual. His position tended to promote a distrust not only of "grand narratives" but of organizational bonds as such. As far as I can tell, the idea of people joining together to form an institution that would enhance their social power as well as allow them to become personally empowered/enhanced was something of a categorial impossibility. ..."
"... There is no global left. We have only global state capitalists and global social democrats – a pseudo left. The countries where Marxist class analysis was supposedly adopted were not industrial countries where "alienation" had brought the "proletariat" to an inevitable communal mentality. The largest of these countries killed millions in order to industrialize rapidly – pretending the goal was to get to that state. ..."
"... Bigotry. Identity centered thinking. Neither serves egalitarianism. But people cling to them. "I gotta look out for myself first." And so called left thinkers constantly pontificate about "benefits" and "privileges" that some class, sex, and race confer. Hmmm. The logic is that many of us struggling daily to keep our jobs and pay the bills must give up something in order to be fair, in order to build a better society. Given this thinking it is no surprise that so many have retreated into the illusion of safety offered by identity based thinking. ..."
"... "Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and rebranded every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself back to new emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated itself instead to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference that capitalism turned into a cultural supermarket." ..."
"... But why does the Dem estab embrace the conservative neoliberal agenda? The Dem estab are smart people, can think on multiple levels, are not limited in scope, are not racist. So, why then does the Dem estab accept and promote the conservative GOP neoliberal economic agenda? ..."
"... Because the Dem estab isn't very smart. ..."
"... Conservative is: private property, capitalism, limited taxes and transfer payments plus national security and religion. ..."
"... Liberalism is not in opposition to any of that. Identity politics arose at the same time the Ds were purging the reds (socialists and communists) from their party. Liberalism/progressivism is an ameliorating position of conservatism (progressive support of labor unions to work within a private property/corporatist structure not to eliminate the system and replace it with public/employee ownership) Not too far, too fast, maybe toss out a few more crumbs. ..."
"... There is a foundation for identity politics on the liberal-left (see what I did there?) – it rests in the sense of moral superiority of just this liberal-left, which superiority is then patronisingly spread all over the social world – until it meets those who deny the moral superiority claim, whereupon it becomes murderous (in, of course, the name of humanity and humanitarianism). ..."
"... This is why the 1% continue to prevail over the 99%. If the 1% wasn't so incompetent this would continue forever. They know how to divide, conquer and rule the 99%, however they don't know how to run a society in a sustainable way. ..."
"... But I will say one thing for the Right over the Left: they have taken the initiative and are now the sole force for change. Granted, supporting a carnival barker for president is an act of desperation. Nevertheless he was the only option for change and the Right took it. Perhaps the Left offering little to nothing in the way of change reflects its lack of desperation. ..."
"... Excellent comment, EoinW! You just summed up years of content and commentary on this site. Obviously as the "Left" continues to defend the status quo as you describe it stops being "Left" in any meaningful way anymore. ..."
"... The Koch brothers are economically to the very right. They are socially to the left, perhaps even more socially liberal than many of your liberal friends. No joke. There's a point here, if I can figure out what it is. ..."
"... Trump isn't Right or Left. Trump is a can of gasoline and a match. His voters weren't voting for a Left or Right agenda. They were voting for a battering ram. That is why he got a pass on racist, misogynist, fascist statements that would have killed any other candidate. ..."
"... PC is a parody of the 20th Century reform movements. ..."
"... In the 70's the feminists worked against legal disabilities written into law. Since the Depression, the unions fought corporate management create a livable relationship between management and labor. Real struggles, real problems, real people. ..."
"... What's interesting is that in an article pushing class over identity. he never tried to set his class ethos in order to convince working class people or the bourgeoisie why they should listen to him. ..."
"... "This site, along with the MSM, has flown way off the handle since the election loss." ..."
"... "Our nation's problems can be remedied with one dramatic change" ..."
"... Bringing C level pay packages at major corporations in line with the real contributions of the recipients would be great. How would we do it? With laws or regulations or executive orders banning the federal government from doing business with any firm that failed to comply with some basic guidelines? ..."
"... It's an academic point right now in any event. The Trump administration – working together with the Ryan House – is not going to make legislation or sign executive orders to do anything remotely like this. Which is one of the many reasons why bashing Democrats has taken off here I suspect. This election was theirs to lose, and they did everything in their power to toss it. ..."
"... You do realize that the wealthy are both part of and connected to the legislative branch of every single country on this planet right? As long as that remains so (as it has since the dawn of humans) then good luck trying to cap any sort of hording behavior of the wealthy. ..."
"... The post-structural revolution transpired [in the U.S.] before and during the end of the Cold War just as the collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison detre. ..."
"... Foucault was not entirely sympathetic to the Left, at least the unions, but he was trying to articulate a politics that was just as much about liberation from capitalism as classic Marxism. To that end, discourse analysis was the means to discovering those subtle articulations of power in human relations, not an end in itself as it was for, say, Barthes. ..."
"... Imagine inequality plotted on two axes. Inequality between genders, races and cultures is what liberals have been concentrating on. This is the x-axis and the focus of identity politics and the liberal left. ..."
"... On the y-axis we have inequality from top to bottom. 2014 – "85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world" 2016– "Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population" ..."
"... The neoliberal view L As long as everyone, from all genders, races and cultures, is visiting the same food bank this is equality. ..."
"... You can see why liberals love identity politics. ..."
"... labor is being co-opted by the right: the Republican Workers Party I think this rhymes with Fascist. But then, in a world soon to be literally scrambling for high ground and rebuilding housing for 50 million people the time honored "worker" might actually have a renaissance. ..."
"... But the simple act of writing checks cost me n-o-t-h-i-n-g in terms of time, energy, education, physical or mental exertion. ..."
"... A much more nuanced discussion of the primacy of identity politics on the Left in Britain and the US is http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/29/prospects-for-an-alt-left/ "Prospects for an Alt-Left," November 29, 2016, by Elliot Murphy, who teaches in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College, London. ..."
"... The electorate is angry (true liberals at the Dems, voters in select electoral states at "everything"). If democracy is messy, then that's what we've got; a mess. Unfortunately, it's coming at the absolutely wrong time (Climate Change, lethal policing, financial elite impunity). ..."
"... But certainly the fall of the USSR was the thing that forced capitalism's hand. At that point capitalism had no choice but to step up and prove that it could really bring a better life to the world. ..."
"... A Minsky event of biblical proportions soon followed (it only took about 10 years!) and now all is devastation and nobody has clue. But the 1990 effort could have been in earnest. Capitalists mean well but they are always in denial about the inequality they create which finally started a chain reaction in "identity politics" as reactions to the stress of economic competition bounced around in every society like a pinball machine. A tedious and insufferable game which seems to have culminated in Hillary the Relentless. I won't say capitalism is idiotic. But something is. ..."
"... Left and Right only really make sense in the context of the distribution of power and wealth, and only when there is a difference between them about that distribution. This was historically the case for more than 150 years after the French Revolution. By the mid-1960s, there was a sense that the Left was winning, and would continue to win. Progressive taxation, zero unemployment, little real poverty by today's standards, free education and healthcare . and many influential political figures (Tony Crosland for example) saw the major task of the future as deciding where the fruits of economic growth could be most justly applied. ..."
"... So until class-based politics and struggles over power and money re-start (if they ever do) I respectfully suggest that "Left" and "Right" be retired as terms that no longer have any meaning. ..."
"... powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone weaker than you, which is why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force, with a vested interest in the problems it has chosen to identify ..."
"... Identity politics is a disaster ongoing for the Democratic Party, for reasons they seem to have overlooked. First, the additional identity group is white. We already see this in the South, where 90% of the white population in many states votes Republican. ..."
"... When that spreads to the rest of the country, there will be a permanent Republican majority until the Republicans create a new major disaster. ..."
"... So soon we forget the Battle of Seattle. The Left has been opposed to globalization, deregulation, etc., all along. Partly he's talking about an academic pseudo-left, partly confusing the left with the Democrats and other "center-left," captured parties. ..."
"... I mean, Barack Obama was our first black president, but most blacks didn't do very well. George W. Bush was our first retard president, and most people with cognitive handicaps didn't do very well. ..."
"... But we can boil it all down to something even simpler and more primal: divide and conquer. ..."
Yves here. This piece gives a useful, real-world perspective on the issues discussed in
a seminal Adolph Reed article . Key section:
race politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics
of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression and active agency of a political order
and moral economy in which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature. An integral
element of that moral economy is displacement of the critique of the invidious outcomes produced
by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that sort
us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we do. As I have
argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1%
of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of
the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were
LGBT people. It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses more unambiguously
the social position of people who consider themselves candidates for inclusion in, or at least
significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class.
This perspective may help explain why, the more aggressively and openly capitalist class power
destroys and marketizes every shred of social protection working people of all races, genders,
and sexual orientations have fought for and won over the last century, the louder and more insistent
are the demands from the identitarian left that we focus our attention on statistical disparities
and episodic outrages that "prove" that the crucial injustices in the society should be understood
in the language of ascriptive identity.
My take on this issue is that the neoliberal use of identity politics continue and extends the
cultural inculcation of individuals seeing themselves engaging with other in one-to-one transactions
(commerce, struggles over power and status) and has the effect of diverting their focus and energy
on seeing themselves as members of groups with common interests and operating that way, and in particular,
of seeing the role of money and property, which are social constructs, in power dynamics.
By David Llewellyn-Smith, founding publisher and former editor-in-chief of The Diplomat
magazine, now the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics website. Originally posted at
MacroBusiness
Let's begin this little tale with a personal anecdote. Back in 1990 I met and fell in love with
a bisexual, African American ballerina. She was studying Liberal Arts at US Ivy League Smith College
at the time (which Aussies may recall was being run by our Jill Kerr Conway back then). So I moved
in with my dancing beauty and we lived happily on her old man's purse for a year.
I was fortunate to arrive at Smith during a period of intellectual tumult. It was the early years
of the US political correctness revolution when the academy was writhing through a post-structuralist
shift. Traditional dialectical history was being supplanted by a new suite of studies based around
truth as "discourse". Driven by the French post-modern thinkers of the 70s and 80s, the US academy
was adopting and adapting the ideas Foucault, Derrida and Barthe to a variety of civil rights movements
that spawned gender and racial studies.
Each of these was based fundamentally upon the principle that language was the key to all
power. That is, that language was not a tool that described reality but the power that created it,
and s/he who controlled language controlled everything through the shaping of "discourse", as opposed
to the objective existence of any truth at all .
... ... ...
The post-structural revolution transpired before and during the end of the Cold War just as the
collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison detre. But its social justice
impulse didn't die, it turned inwards from a notion of the historic inevitability of the decline
of capitalism and the rise of oppressed classes, towards the liberation of oppressed minorities within
capitalism, empowered by control over the language that defined who they were.
Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and rebranded
every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself back to new
emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated itself instead
to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference that capitalism turned
into a cultural supermarket.
As the Left turned inwards, capitalism turned outwards and went truly, madly global, lifting previously
isolated nations into a single planet-wide market, pretty much all of it revolving around Americana
replete with its identity-branded products.
But, of course, this came at a cost. When you globalise capital, you globalise labour. That
meant jobs shifting from expensive markets to cheap. Before long the incomes of those swimming in
the stream of global capital began to seriously outstrip the incomes of those trapped in old and
withering Western labour markets. As a result, inflation in those markets also began to fall and
so did interest rates. Thus asset prices took off as Western nation labour markets got hollowed out,
and standard of living inequality widened much more quickly as a new landed aristocracy developed.
Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some losers
in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence. Indeed, it went further. So
satisfied was it with human progress, and so satisfied with its own role in producing it, that it
turned the power of language that it held most dear back upon those that opposed the new order. Those
losers in Western labour markets that dared complain or fight back against the free movement of capital
and labour were labelled and marginalised as "racist", "xenophobic" and "sexist".
This great confluence of forces reached its apogee in the Global Financial Crisis when a ribaldly
treasonous Wall St destroyed the American financial system just as America's first ever African American
President, Barack Obama, was elected . One might have expected this convergence to result in a revival
of some class politics. Obama ran on a platform of "hope and change" very much cultured in the vein
of seventies art and inherited a global capitalism that had just openly ravaged its most celebrated
host nation.
But alas, it was just a bit of "retro". With a Republican Party on its knees, Obama was positioned
to restore the kind of New Deal rules that global capitalism enjoyed under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A gobalisation like the one promised in the brochures, that benefited the majority via competition
and productivity gains, driven by trade and meritocracy, with counter-balanced private risk and public
equity.
But instead he opted to patch up financialised capitalism. The banks were bailed out and the
bonus culture returned. Yes, there were some new rules but they were weak. There was no seizing of
the agenda. No imprisonments of the guilty. The US Department of Justice is still issuing $14bn fines
to banks involved yet still today there is no justice. Think about that a minute. How can a crime
be worthy of a $14bn fine but no prison time?!?
Alas, for all of his efforts to restore Wall Street, Obama provided no reset for Main Street
economics to restore the fortunes of the US lower classes. Sure Obama fought a hostile Capitol but,
let's face it, he had other priorities. And so the US working and middle classes, as well as
those worldwide, were sold another pup. Now more than ever, if they said say so they were quickly
shut down as "racist", "xenophobic", or "sexist".
Thus it came to pass that the global Left somehow did a complete back-flip and positioned itself
directly behind the same unreconstructed global capitalism that was still sucking the life from the
lower classes that it always had. Only now it was doing so with explicit public backing and with
an abandon it had not enjoyed since the roaring twenties.
Which brings us back to today. And we wonder how it is that an abuse-spouting guy like Donald
Trump can succeed Barack Obama. Trump is a member of the very same "trickle down" capitalist class
that ripped the income from US households. But he is smart enough, smarter than the Left at least,
to know that the decades long rage of the middle and working classes is a formidable political force
and has tapped it spectacularly to rise to power.
And, he has done more. He has also recognised that the Left's obsession with post-structural identity
politics has totally paralysed it. It is so traumatised and pre-occupied by his mis-use of the language
of power – the "racist", "sexist" and "xenophobic" comments – that it is further wedging itself from
its natural constituents every day.
Don't get me wrong, I am very doubtful that Trump will succeed with his proposed policies but
he has at least mentioned the elephant in the room, making the American worker visible again.
Returning to that innocent Aussie boy and his wild romp at Smith College, I might ask what he
would have made of all of this. None of the above should be taken as a repudiation of the experience
of racism or sexism. Indeed, the one thing I took away from Smith College over my lifetime was an
understanding at just how scarred by slavery are the generations of African Americans that lived
it and today inherit its memory (as well as other persecuted). I felt terribly inadequate before
that pain then and I remain so today.
But, if the global Left is to have any meaning in the future of the world, and I would argue that
the global Right will destroy us all if it doesn't, then it must get beyond post-structural paralysis
and go back to the future of fighting not just for social justice issues but for equity based upon
class. Empowerment is not just about language, it's about capital, who's got it, who hasn't and what
role government plays between them.
This comment is a perfect example of the author's (and Adolf Reed's) point: that the so-called
"Left" is so bogged down in issues of language that it has completely lost sight of class politics.
Essentially, the comment vividly displays the exact methodology the author lambasts in the
piece - it hijacks the discussion about an economic issue, attempts to turn it into a mere distraction
about semantics, and in the end contributes absolutely nothing of substance to the "discourse".
It's why Trump won. He was a Viking swinging an ax at nuanced hair-splitters. It was inelegant
and ugly, but effective. We will find out if the hair-splitters win again in their inner circle with the Democratic
Minority Leader vote. I suspect they missed the point of the election and will vote Pelosi back
in, thereby missing the chance for significant gains in the mid-term elections.
One of the great triumphs of Those Who Continue To Be Our Rulers has been the infiltration
and cooptation of 'the left', hand in hand with the 'dumbing down' of the last 30+ years so few
people really understand what is going on.
Explained in more detail here if anyone interested in some truly 'out of the box' perspectives
– It's not 'the left' trying to take over the world and shut down free speech and all that other
bad stuff – it's 'the right'!! http://tinyurl.com/h4h2kay
.
Although I haven't yet read the article you posted, my "feeling" as I read this was that the
author inferred that the right was in the mix somehow, but it was primarily the fault of the left.
That the Global Left appears to be intellectually weak regarding identity politics and "political
correctness" vs. class politics, there is no doubt. But to skim over Global Corporate leverage
of this attitude seems wrong to me. The right has also embraced identity politics in order to
keep the 90% fully divided in order to justify it's continual economic rape of both human and
physical ecology.
Exactly. My guess is that this plays out somewhat like this:
Dems: This group _____ should be free to have _____ civil right.
Reps: NO. We are a society built on _____ tradition, no need to change that because it upends
our patriarchal, Christian, Caucasian power structure.
Every "identity politics" charge starts here, with one group wanting a more equitable social
order and the other group defending the existing power structure. Identity politics is adjusting
the social order and rattling the power structure, which is why it is so effective.
I think it can be effectively argued that Trump voters in PA, WI, OH, MI chose to rattle
the power structure and you could think of that as identity politics as well.
Identity politics is adjusting the social order and rattling the power structure, which
is why it is so effective.
On the contrary, the (Neo-)Liberal establishment uses identity politics to co-opt and neutralise
the left. It keeps them occupied without threatening the real power structure in the least.
When have they ever done any such thing? Vote for Hillary because she's a woman isn't even
any kind of politics it's more like marketing branding. It's the real thing. Taste great, less
filling. I'm loving it.
Hillary (Neoliberal establishment) has many supporters who think of themselves as 'left'
or 'liberal'. The Democratic Party leadership is neither 'left' nor 'liberal'. It keeps the votes
and the love of the 'liberals' by talking up harmless 'liberal' identity politics and soft peddling
the Liberal power politics which they are really about.
They exploit the happy historical accident of the coincidence of names. The Liberal ideology
was so called because it was slightly less right-wing than the Feudalism it displaced. In today's
terms however, it is not very liberal, and Neoliberalism is even less so.
If I was in charge of the DNC and wanted to commission a very cleverly written piece to exonerate
the DLC and the New Democrats from the 30 odd years of corruption and self-aggrandizement they
indulged in and laughed all the way to the Bank then I would definitely give this chap a call.
I mean, where do we start? No attempt at learning the history of neoliberalism, no attempt at
any serious research about how and why it fastened itself into the brains of people like Tony
Coelho and Al From, nothing, zilch. If someone who did not know the history of the DLC read this
piece, they would walk away thinking, 'wow, it was all happenstance, it all just happened, no
one deliberately set off this run away train'. Sometime in the 90s the 'Left' decided to just
pursue identity politics. Amazing. I would ask the Author to start with the Powell memo and then
make an investigation as to why the Democrats then and the DLC later decided to merely sit on
their hands when all the forces the Powell memo unleashed proceeded to wreak their havoc in every
established institution of the Left, principally the Universities which had always been the bastion
of the Progressives. That might be a good starting point.
Sigh . the left was marginalized and relentlessly hunted down by the right [grab bag of corporatists,
free marketers, neocons, evangelicals, and a whole cornucopia of wing nut ideologists (file under
creative class gig writers)].
Just from historical perspective, the right wing had more money to forward its agenda and
an OCD like affliction [biblical] to drive simple memes relentlessly via its increasing private
ownership of education and media. Thereby creating an institutional network over time to gain
dominate market share in crafting the social narrative. Bloodly hell anyone remember Bush Jr Christian
crusade after politicizing religion to get elected and the ramifications – neocon – R2P thingy .
Its not hard once neoliberalism became dominate in the 70s [wages and productivity diverged]
the proceeds have gone to the top and everyone else got credit IOUs based mostly on asset inflation
via the Casino or RE [home and IP].
Yes, it's interesting that the academic "left" (aka liberals), who so prize language to accurately,
and to the finest degree distinguish 'this' from 'that', have avoided addressing the difference
between 'left' and 'liberal' and are content to leave the two terms interchangable.
The reason for that is that when academic leftists attempted a more in depth critique, of one
sort or another, of the actually existing historical liberal welfare state, the liberals threw
the "New Deal-under-siege" attack at them and attempted to shut them down.
There is very little left perspective in public. All this whining about identity politics is
not left either. It is reactionary. I can think of plenty of old labor left academics who have
done a much better job of wrapping their minds around why sex, gender, and race matter with respect
to all matters economic than this incessant childish whine. The "let me make you feel more comfortable"
denialism of Uncle Tom Reed.
Right now, I would say that these reactionaries don't want to hear from the academic left any
more than New Deal liberals did. Not going to stop them from blaming them for all their problems
though.
Maybe people should shoulder their own failures for a change. As for the Trumpertantrums, I
am totally not having them.
Since the writer led off talking about an academic setting, it would be useful to flesh out
a bit more how trends in academic theoretical discussion in the 70s and 80s reflected and reinforced
what was going on politically. He refers to postructuralism, which was certainly involved, but
doesn't give enough emphasis to how deliberately poststructuralists - and here I'm lumping together
writers like Lyotard, Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari - were all reacting to the failure of
French Maoism and Trotskyism to, as far as they were concerned, provide a satisfactory alternative
to Soviet Marxism.
As groups espousing those position flailed about in the 70s, the drive to maintain
hope in revolutionary prospects in the midst of macroeconomic stabilization and union reconciliation
to capitalism frequently brought out the worst sectarian tendencies. While writers like Andre Gorz bid adieu to the proletariat as an agent of change and tried to tread water as social democratic
reformists, the poststructuralists disjoined the critique of power from class analysis.
Foucault in particular advanced a greatly expanded wariness regarding the use of power. It
was not just that left politics could only lead to ossified Soviet Marxism or the dogmatic petty
despotism of the left splinters. Institutions in general mapped out social practices and attendant
identities to impose on the individual. His position tended to promote a distrust not only of
"grand narratives" but of organizational bonds as such. As far as I can tell, the idea of people
joining together to form an institution that would enhance their social power as well as allow
them to become personally empowered/enhanced was something of a categorial impossibility.
When imported to US academia, traditionally much more disengaged from organized politics than
their European counterparts, these tendencies flourished. Aside from being socially cut off from
increasingly anodyne political organizations, poststructuralists in the US often had backgrounds
with little orientation to history or social science research addressing class relations. To them
the experience of a much more immediate and palpable form of oppression through the use of language
offered an immediate critical target. This dovetailed perfectly with the legalistic use of state
power to end discrimination against various groups, A European disillusionment with class politics
helped to fortify an American evasion or ignorance of it.
There is no global left. We have only global state capitalists and global social democrats
– a pseudo left. The countries where Marxist class analysis was supposedly adopted were not industrial
countries where "alienation" had brought the "proletariat" to an inevitable communal mentality.
The largest of these countries killed millions in order to industrialize rapidly – pretending
the goal was to get to that state.
The terms left and right may not be adequate for those of us who want an egalitarian society
but also see many of the obstacles to egalitarianism as human failings that are independent of
and not caused by ruling elites – although they frequently serve the interests of those elites.
Bigotry. Identity centered thinking. Neither serves egalitarianism. But people cling to
them. "I gotta look out for myself first." And so called left thinkers constantly pontificate
about "benefits" and "privileges" that some class, sex, and race confer. Hmmm. The logic is that
many of us struggling daily to keep our jobs and pay the bills must give up something in order
to be fair, in order to build a better society. Given this thinking it is no surprise that so
many have retreated into the illusion of safety offered by identity based thinking.
Hopefully those of us who yearn for an egalitarian movement can develop and articulate an alternate
view of reality.
"Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and
rebranded every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself
back to new emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated
itself instead to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference
that capitalism turned into a cultural supermarket."
"Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some
losers in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence. Indeed, it went
further. So satisfied was it with human progress, and so satisfied with its own role in producing
it, that it turned the power of language that it held most dear back upon those that opposed
the new order. Those losers in Western labour markets that dared complain or fight back against
the free movement of capital and labour were labelled and marginalised as "racist", "xenophobic"
and "sexist". "
That is not it at all. The real reason is the right wing played white identity politics starting
with the southern strategy, and those running into the waiting arms of Trump today, took the poisoned
bait. Enter Bill Clinton.
People need to start taking responsibility for their own actions, and stop blaming the academics
and the leftists and the wimmins and the N-ers.
But why does the Dem estab embrace the conservative neoliberal agenda? The Dem estab are
smart people, can think on multiple levels, are not limited in scope, are not racist. So, why
then does the Dem estab accept and promote the conservative GOP neoliberal economic agenda?
Because the Dem estab isn't very smart. I doubt more than half of them could define neoliberalism
much less describe how it has destroyed the country. They are mostly motivated by the identity
politics aspects.
Conservative is: private property, capitalism, limited taxes and transfer payments plus
national security and religion.
Liberalism is not in opposition to any of that. Identity politics arose at the same time
the Ds were purging the reds (socialists and communists) from their party. Liberalism/progressivism
is an ameliorating position of conservatism (progressive support of labor unions to work within
a private property/corporatist structure not to eliminate the system and replace it with public/employee
ownership) Not too far, too fast, maybe toss out a few more crumbs.
There is a foundation for identity politics on the liberal-left (see what I did there?)
– it rests in the sense of moral superiority of just this liberal-left, which superiority is then
patronisingly spread all over the social world – until it meets those who deny the moral superiority
claim, whereupon it becomes murderous (in, of course, the name of humanity and humanitarianism).
We live in a society where no one gets what they want. The Left sees the standard of living
fall and is powerless to stop it. The Right see the culture war lost 25 years ago and can't even
offer a public protest, let alone move things in a conservative direction. Instead we get the
agenda of the political Left to sell out at every opportunity. Plus we get the agenda of the political
Right of endless war and endless security state. Eventually the political Left and Right merge
and support the exact same things. Now when will the real Left and Right recognize their true
enemy and join forces against it? This is why the 1% continue to prevail over the 99%. If
the 1% wasn't so incompetent this would continue forever. They know how to divide, conquer and
rule the 99%, however they don't know how to run a society in a sustainable way.
But I will say one thing for the Right over the Left: they have taken the initiative and
are now the sole force for change. Granted, supporting a carnival barker for president is an act
of desperation. Nevertheless he was the only option for change and the Right took it. Perhaps
the Left offering little to nothing in the way of change reflects its lack of desperation.
After all, the Left won the culture war and continues to push its agenda to extremes(even though
such extremes will guarantee a back lash that will send people running back to their closets to
hide). The Left still has the MSM media on its side when it comes to cultural issues. Thus the
Left is satisfied with the status quo, with gorging themselves on the crumbs which fall from the
1% table. Consequently, you not only have a political Left that has sold out, you also have the
rest of the Left content to accept that sell out so long as they get their symbolic victories
over their ancient enemy – the Right.
Until the Left recognize its true enemy, the fight will only come from the Right. During that
process more people will filter from the Left to the Right as the latter will offer the only hope
for change.
I think left and right as political shorthand is too limited. Perhaps the NC commentariat could
define up and down versions of each of these political philosophies (ie. left and right) and start
to take control of the framing. Hence we would have up-left, down-left, up-right, and down-right.
I would suggest that up and down could relate to environmental viewpoints.
Just a thought that I haven't given much thought, but it would be funny (to me at least) to
be able to quantify one's political stance in terms of radians.
Excellent comment, EoinW! You just summed up years of content and commentary on this site.
Obviously as the "Left" continues to defend the status quo as you describe it stops being "Left"
in any meaningful way anymore.
This seems to assume that change is an intrinsic good, so that change produced by the right
will necessarily be improvement. Unfortunately, change for the worse is probably more likely than
change for the better under this regime. Equally unfortunately, we may have reached the point
where that is the only thing that will make people reconsider what constitutes a just society
and how to achieve it. In any case, this is where we are now.
The economic left sees its standard of living fall. The social right sees its
cultural verities fall.
The Koch brothers are economically to the very right. They are socially to the
left, perhaps even more socially liberal than many of your liberal friends. No joke. There's
a point here, if I can figure out what it is.
"He [Trump] was the only option for change and the Right took it."
You forget Bernie. The Left tried, and Bernie bowed out, not wanting to be another "Nader"
spoiler. Now, for 2020, the Left thinks it's the "their turn."
The problem is, the Left tends to blow it too (e.g. McGovern in 1972), in part because their
"language" also exudes power and tends to alienate other, more moderate, parts of the coalition
with arcane (and rather elitist) arguments from Derrida et. al.
Trump isn't Right or Left. Trump is a can of gasoline and a match. His voters weren't voting
for a Left or Right agenda. They were voting for a battering ram. That is why he got a pass on
racist, misogynist, fascist statements that would have killed any other candidate.
Trump is starting out with some rallies in the near-future. The Republicans in Congress think
they are going to play patty-cake on policy to push the Koch Brothers agenda. We are going to
see a populist who promised jobs duke it out publicly with small government austerity deficit
cutters. It will be interesting to see what happens when he calls out Republican Congressmen standing
in the way of his agenda by name.
PC is a parody of the 20th Century reform movements. I n the 60's the Black churches
and the labor unions fought Jim Crow laws and explicit institutional discrimination. In the 70's
the feminists worked against legal disabilities written into law. Since the Depression, the unions
fought corporate management create a livable relationship between management and labor. Real struggles,
real problems, real people.
[Tinfoil hat on)]
At the same time the reformist subset was losing themselves in style points, being 'nice',
and passive aggressive intimidation, the corporate community was promoting the anti-government
screech for the masses. That is, at the same time the people lost sight of government as their
counterweight to capital, the left elite was becoming the vile joke Limbaugh and the other talk
radio blowhards said they were. This may be coincidental timing, or their may be someone behind
the French connection and Hamilton Fish touring college campuses in the 80's promoting subjectivism.
It's true the question of 'how they feel' seems to loom large in discussions where social justice
used to be.
[Tinfoil hat off]
There are many words but no communication between the laboring masses and the specialist readers.
Fainting couch feminists have nothing to say to wives and mothers, the slippery redefinitions
out of non-white studies turn off people who work for a living, and the promotion of smaller and
more neurotic minorities are just more friction in a society growing steeper uphill.
"She was studying Liberal Arts at US Ivy League Smith College at the time (which Aussies may
recall was being run by our Jill Kerr Conway back then). So I moved in with my dancing beauty
and we lived happily on her old man's purse for a year."
I hate to be overly pedantic, but Smith College is one of the historically female colleges
known as the Seven Sisters: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe
College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. While Barnard is connected to Columbia,
and Radcliffe to Harvard, none of the other Sisters has ever been considered any part of the Ancient
Eight (Ivy League) schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton,
and Yale.
I find it highly doubtful that someone, unaware of this elementary fact, actually lived off
a beautiful bisexual black ballerina's (wonderful alliteration!) "old man's purse," for a full
year in Northampton, MA. He may well have dated briefly someone like this, but it strains credulity
that– after a full year in this environment– he would never have learned of the distinction between
the Seven Sisters and the Ivy League.
The truth of the matter is not so important. The black ballerina riff had two functions. First
it helped push an ethos for the author of openness and acceptance of various races and sexual
orientations. This is a highly charged subject and so accusations of racism, etc, are never far
away for someone pushing class over identity.
Second it served as a nice hook to get dawgs like me to read through the whole thing; which
was a very good article. Kind of like the opening paragraph of a Penthouse Forum entry, I was
hoping that the author would eventually elaborate on what happened when she pirouetted over him
What's interesting is that in an article pushing class over identity. he never tried to set
his class ethos in order to convince working class people or the bourgeoisie why they should listen
to him.
I have never, ever known Brits to claim an "Oxbridge education" if they haven't attended either
Oxford or Cambridge. Similarly, over several decades of knowing quite well many alumnae from Wellesley,
Smith, etc. I have never once heard them speak of their colleges as "Ivy League."
I do get your point, however. Perhaps Mr. Llewellyn-Smith was deliberately writing for a non-U.S.
audience, and chose to use "Ivy League" as synonymous with "prestigious." I have seen graduates
of Stanford, for example, described as "Ivy Leaguers" in the foreign press.
I think the gradual process whereby the left, or more specifically, the middle class left,
have been consumed by an intellectually vacant went hand in hand with what I found the bizarre
abandonment of interest by the left in economics and in public intellectualism. The manner in
which the left simply surrendered the intellectual arguments over issues like taxes and privatisation
and trade still puzzles me. I suspect it was related to a cleavage between middle class left wingers
and working class activists. They simple stopped talking the same language, so there was nobody
to shout 'stop' when the right simply colonised the most important areas of public policy and
shut down all discussion.*
A related issue is I think a strong authoritarianist strain which runs through some identity
politics. Its common to have liberals discuss how intolerant the religious or right wingers are
of intellectual discussion, but even try to question some of of the shibboleths of gender/race
discussions and you can immediately find yourself labelled a misogynist/homophobe/racist. Just
see some of the things you can get banned from the Guardian CIF for saying.
This site, along with the MSM, has flown way off the handle since the election loss. Democrat-bashing
is the new pastime.
Our nation's problems can be remedied with one dramatic change:
Caps on executive gains in terms of multiples in both public and private companies of a big
enough size. For example, the CEO at most can make 50 times the average salary. Something to that
effect. And any net income gains at the end of the year that are going to be dispersed as dividends,
must proportionally reach the internal laborers as well. Presto, a robust economy.
All employees must share in gains. You don't like it? Tough. The owner will still be rich.
Historically, executives topped out at 20-30 times average salary. Now it's normal for the
number to reach 500-2,000. It's absurd. As if a CEO is manufacturing products, marketing, and
selling them all by himself/herself. As if Tim Cook assembles iPhones and iMacs by hand and sells
them. As if Leslie Moonves writes, directs, acts in, and markets each show.
Put the redistributive mechanism in the private sphere as well as in government. Then America
will be great again.
Bringing C level pay packages at major corporations in line with the real contributions of
the recipients would be great. How would we do it? With laws or regulations or executive orders
banning the federal government from doing business with any firm that failed to comply with some
basic guidelines?
It's an academic point right now in any event. The Trump administration – working together
with the Ryan House – is not going to make legislation or sign executive orders to do anything
remotely like this. Which is one of the many reasons why bashing Democrats has taken off here
I suspect. This election was theirs to lose, and they did everything in their power to toss it.
You do realize that the wealthy are both part of and connected to the legislative branch
of every single country on this planet right? As long as that remains so (as it has since the
dawn of humans) then good luck trying to cap any sort of hording behavior of the wealthy.
As someone who grew up in and participated in those discussions:
1) It was "women's studies" back then. "Gender studies" is actually a major improvement in
how the issues are examined.
2) We'd already long since lost by then, and we were looking to make our own lives better.
Creating a space where we could have good sex and a minimum of violence was better. Reagan's election,
and his re-election, destroyed the Left.
I feel like this piece could use the yellow waders as well. Instead of simply repeating myself
every time these things come up, I proffer an annotation of a important paragraph, to give a sense
of what bothers me here.
The post-structural revolution transpired [in the U.S.] before and during the end of the
Cold War just as the collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison
detre. But its social justice impulse didn't die, [a certain, largely liberal tendency in the
North American academy] turned inwards from a notion of the historic inevitability of the decline
of capitalism and the rise of oppressed classes, towards the liberation of oppressed minorities
within capitalism[, which, if you paid close attention to what was being called for, implied
and sometimes even outright demanded clear restraints be placed upon the power of capital in
order to meet those goals], empowered by control over the [images, public statements, and widespread
ideologies–i.e. discourse {which is about more than just language}] that defined who they were.
The post-structural turn was just as much about Derrida at Johns Hopkins as it was about Foucault
trying to demonstrate the subtle and not-so-subtle effects of power in the explicit context of
the May '68 events in France. The economy ground to a halt, and at one point de Gaulle was so
afraid of a violent revolution that he briefly left the country, leaving the government helpless
to do much of anything, until de Gaulle returned shortly thereafter.
Foucault was not entirely sympathetic to the Left, at least the unions, but he was trying to
articulate a politics that was just as much about liberation from capitalism as classic Marxism.
To that end, discourse analysis was the means to discovering those subtle articulations of power
in human relations, not an end in itself as it was for, say, Barthes.
A claim is being made here regarding the "global left" that clearly comes from a parochial,
North American perspective. Indian academics, for one, never abandoned political economy for identity
politics, especially since in India identity politics, religion, regionalism, castes, etc. were
always a concern and remain so. It seems rather odd to me that the other major current in academia
from the '90s on, namely postcolonialism, is entirely left out of this story, especially when
critiques of militarism and political economy were at the heart of it.
The saddest point of the events of '68 is that looking back society has never been so equal
as at that point in time. That was more or less the time of peak working class living standard
relative to the wealthy classes. It is no accident, at least in my book, that these mostly bourgeois
student activists have a tard at the end of their name in French: soixante-huitards.
In the Sixites the "Left" had control of the economic levers or power - and by Left I mean
those interested in smaller differences between the classes. There is no doubt the Cold War helped
the working classes as the wealthy knew it was in their interest to make capitalism a showcase
of rough egalitarianism. But during the 60's the RIght held cultural sway. It was Berkeley pushing
Free Speech and Lenny Bruce trying to break boundaries while the right tried to keep the Overton
Window as tight and squeaky clean as possible.
But now the "Right" in the sense of those who want to increase the difference between rich
and poor hold economic power while the Left police culture and speech. The provocateurs come from
the right nowadays as they run roughshod over the PC police and try to smash open the racial,
gender. and sexual orientation speech restrictions put in place as the left now control the Overton
Window.
The Left and Liberal are two different things entirely.
In the UK we have three parties:
Labour – the left
Liberal – middle/ liberal
Conservative – the right
Mapping this across to the US:
Labour – X
Liberal – Democrat
Conservative – Republican
The US has been conned from the start and has never had a real party of the Left.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century US ideas changed and the view of those
at the top was that it would be dangerous for the masses to get any real power, a liberal Democratic
party would suffice to listen to the wants of the masses and interpret them in a sensible way
in accordance with the interests of the wealthy.
We don't want the masses to vote for a clean slate redistribution of land and wealth for heaven's
sake.
In the UK the Liberals were descendents of the Whigs, an elitist Left (like the US Democrats).
Once everyone got the vote, a real Left Labour party appeared and the Whigs/Liberals faded
into insignificance.
It is much easier to see today's trends when you see liberals as an elitist Left.
They have just got so elitist they have lost touch with the working class.
The working class used to be their pet project, now it is other minorities like LGBT and immigration.
Liberals need a pet project to feel self-righteous and good about themselves but they come
from the elite and don't want any real distribution of wealth and privilege as they and their
children benefit from it themselves.
Liberals are the more caring side of the elite, but they care mainly about themselves rather
than wanting a really fair society.
They call themselves progressive, but they like progressing very slowly and never want to reach
their destination where there is real equality.
The US needs its version of the UK Labour party – a real Left – people who like Bernie Sanders
way of thinking should start one up, Bernie might even join up.
In the UK our three parties all went neo-liberal, we had three liberal parties!
No one really likes liberals and they take to hiding in the other two parties, you need to
be careful.
Jeremy Corbyn is taking the Labour party back where it belongs slowly.
Imagine inequality plotted on two axes. Inequality between genders, races and cultures is what liberals have been concentrating on.
This is the x-axis and the focus of identity politics and the liberal left.
On the y-axis we have inequality from top to bottom. 2014 – "85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world"
2016– "Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population"
Doing the maths and assuming a straight line .
5.4 years until one person is as wealthy as poorest half of the world.
This is what the traditional left normally concentrate on, but as they have switched to identity
politics this inequality has gone through the roof. They were over-run by liberals.
Some more attention to the y-axis please.
The neoliberal view L
As long as everyone, from all genders, races and cultures, is visiting the same food bank this
is equality.
left – traditional left – y-axis inequality
liberal – elitist left – x -axis inequality (this doesn't affect my background of wealth and privilege)
labor is being co-opted by the right: the Republican Workers Party I think this rhymes with
Fascist. But then, in a world soon to be literally scrambling for high ground and rebuilding housing
for 50 million people the time honored "worker" might actually have a renaissance.
Identity politics does make democrats lose. The message needs to be economic. It can have the
caveat that various sub groups will be paid special attention to, but if identity is the only
thing talked about then get used to right wing governments.
Empowerment is not just about language, it's about capital, who's got it, who hasn't
and what role government plays between them.
Empowerment is very much about capital, but the Left has never had the cajones to
stare down and take apart the Right's view of 'capital' as some kind of magical elixir that mysteriously
produces 'wealth'.
I ponder my own experiences, which many here probably share:
First: slogging through college(s), showing up to do a defined list of tasks (a 'job', if you
will) to be remunerated with some kind of payment/salary. That was actual 'work' in order to get
my hands on very small amounts of 'capital' (i.e., 'money').
Second: a few times, I just read up on science or looked at the stock pages and did a little
research, and then wrote checks that purchased stock shares in companies that seemed to be exploring
some intriguing technologies. In my case, I got lucky a few times, and presto! That simple act
of writing a few checks made me look like a smarty. Also, paid a few bills. But the simple
act of writing checks cost me n-o-t-h-i-n-g in terms of time, energy, education, physical or mental
exertion.
Third: I have also had the experience of working (start ups) in situations where - literally!!!
- I made less in a day in salary than I'd have made if I'd simply taken a couple thousand dollars
and bought stock in the place I was working.
To summarize:
- I've had capital that I worked long and hard to obtain.
- I've had capital that took me a little research, about one minute to write a check, and brought
me a handsome amount of 'capital'. (Magic!)
- I've worked in situations in which I created MORE capital for others than I created for myself.
And the value of that capital expanded exponentially.
If the Left had a spine and some guts, it would offer a better analysis about what 'capital'
is, the myriad forms it can take, and why any of this matters.
Currently, the Left cannot explain to a whole lot of people why their hard work ended up in
other people's bank accounts. If they had to actually explain that process by which people's hard
work turned into fortunes for others, they'd have a few epiphanies about how wealth is actually
created, and whether some forms of wealth creation are more sustainable than other forms.
IMVHO, I never saw Hillary Clinton as able to address this elemental question of the nature
of wealth creation. The Left has not traditionally given a shrewd analysis of this core problem,
so the Right has been able to control this issue. Which is tragic, because the Right is trapped
in the hedge fund mentality, in the tight grip of realtors and mortgage brokers; they obsess on
assets, and asset classes, and resource extraction. When your mind is trapped by that kind of
thinking, you obsess on the tax code, and on how to use it to generate wealth for yourself. Enter
Trump.
One small correction: Smith is not an Ivy League school, it is one of the "Seven Sisters:
Ivy League:
Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Penn
Princeton
Yale
Seven Sisters:
Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Mount Holyoke
Radcliffe
Smith
Vassar
Wellesley
A much more nuanced discussion of the primacy of identity politics on the Left in Britain and
the US is
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/29/prospects-for-an-alt-left/
"Prospects for an Alt-Left," November 29, 2016, by Elliot Murphy, who teaches in the Division
of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College, London.
And let's not forget that identity politics arose in the first place because of genuine discrimination,
which still exists today. In forsaking identity politics in favor of one of class, we should not
forget the original reasons for the rise of the phenomena, however poorly employed by some of
its practitioners, and however mined by capitalism to give the semblance of tolerance and equality
while obscuring the reality of intolerance and inequality.
Trivially, I would think the last thing to do is adopt the "alt-" moniker, thereby cementing
the impression in the mind of the public that the two are in some sense similar.
The blogger Lord Keynes at Social Democracy for the 21st Century at blogspot suggests Realist
Left instead of alt-left. I think how people are using the term "identity politics" at the moment
isn't "actual anti-racism in policy and recruitment" but "pandering to various demographics to
get their loyalty and votes so that the party machine doesn't have to try and gain votes by doing
economic stuff that frightens donors, lobbyists and the media". Clinton improved the female vote
for Democratic president by 1 percentage point, and the black and Latino shares of the Republican
were unchanged from Romney in 2012. Thus, identity politics is not working when the economy needs
attention, even against the most offensive opponent.
So to repress class conflicts, the kleptocracy splintered them into opposition between racists
and POC, bigots and LGBTQ, patriarchal oppressors and women, etc., etc. The US state-authorized
parties used it for divide and rule. The left fell for it and neutered itself. Good. Fuck the
left.
Outside the Western bloc the left got supplanted with a more sensible opposition: between humans
and the overreaching state. That alternative view subsumes US-style identity politics in antidiscrimination
and cultural rights. It subsumes traditional class struggle in labor, migrant, and economic rights.
It reforms and improves discredited US constitutional rights, and integrates it all into the concepts
of peace and development. It's up and running with binding
law and authoritative
institutions
.
So good riddance to the old left and the new left.
Human rights have already replaced
them in the 80-plus per cent of the world represented by UNCTAD and the G-77. That's why the USA
fights tooth and nail to keep them out of your reach.
To All Commenters: thanks for the discussion. Many good, thoughtful ideas/perspectives.
Mine? Living in California (a minority white populace, broad economic engine, high living expenses
(and huge homeless population) and a leader in alternative energy: Trump is what happens when
you don't allow the "people" to vote for their preferred candidates (Bernie) and don't listen
to a select few voters in key electoral states (WI,MI,PA).
The electorate is angry (true liberals at the Dems, voters in select electoral states at "everything").
If democracy is messy, then that's what we've got; a mess. Unfortunately, it's coming at the absolutely
wrong time (Climate Change, lethal policing, financial elite impunity).
Hold this same election with different (multiple) candidates and the outcome is likely different.
In the end, we all need to work and demand a more fair and Just society. (Or California is likely
to secede.)
"Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some
losers in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence."
I can only imagine the glee of the wealthy feminists at Smith while they witnessed the white,
lunch pailed, working class American male thrown out of work and into the gutter of irrelevance
and despair. The perfect comeuppance for a demographic believed to be the arch-nemesis of women
and minorities. Nothing seems quite so fashionable at the moment as hating white male Republicans
that live outside of proper-thinking coastal enclaves of prosperity. Unfortunately I fail to see
how this attitude helps the country. Seems like more divide and conquer from our overlords on
high.
just more whining from the Weekly Standard. While men may have been disproportionately displaced
in jobs that require physical strength, many women (nurses?) likely lost their homes during the
Great Financial Scam and its fallout.
The enemy is a rigged political, financial, and judicial system.
Identity Politics gestated for a while before the 90s. Beginning with a backlash against Affirmative
Action in the 70s, the Left began to turn Liberal. East Coast intellectuals who were anxious they
would be precluded from entering the best schools may have been the catalyst (article from Jacobin
I think).
But certainly the fall of the USSR was the thing that forced capitalism's hand. At that
point capitalism had no choice but to step up and prove that it could really bring a better life
to the world.
A Minsky event of biblical proportions soon followed (it only took about 10 years!)
and now all is devastation and nobody has clue. But the 1990 effort could have been in earnest.
Capitalists mean well but they are always in denial about the inequality they create which finally
started a chain reaction in "identity politics" as reactions to the stress of economic competition
bounced around in every society like a pinball machine. A tedious and insufferable game which
seems to have culminated in Hillary the Relentless. I won't say capitalism is idiotic. But something
is.
"Perhaps the NC commentariat could define up and down versions of each of these political
philosophies (ie. left and right) and start to take control of the framing."
Well, I'll have a first go, since I was around at the time.
Left and Right only really make sense in the context of the distribution of power and wealth,
and only when there is a difference between them about that distribution. This was historically
the case for more than 150 years after the French Revolution. By the mid-1960s, there was a sense
that the Left was winning, and would continue to win. Progressive taxation, zero unemployment,
little real poverty by today's standards, free education and healthcare . and many influential
political figures (Tony Crosland for example) saw the major task of the future as deciding where
the fruits of economic growth could be most justly applied.
Three things happened that made the Left completely unprepared for the counter-attack in the 1970s.
First, simple complacency. When Thatcher appeared, most people thought she'd escaped from a Monty
Python sketch. The idea that she might actually take power and use it was incredible.
Secondly, the endless factionalism and struggles for power within the Left, usually over arcane
points of ideology, mixed with vicious personal rivalries. The Left loves defeats, and picks over
them obsessively, looking for someone else to blame.
Third, the influence of 1968 and the turning away from the real world, towards LSD and the New
Age, and the search for dark and hidden truths and structures of power in the world. Fueled by
careless and superficial readings of bad translations of Foucault and Derrida, leftists discovered
an entire new intellectual continent into which they could extend their wars and feuds, which
was much more congenial, since it involved eviscerating each other, rather than seriously taking
on the forces of capitalism and the state.
And that's the very short version. We've been living with the consequences ever since. The
Left has been essentially powerless, and powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone
weaker than you, which is why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force,
with a vested interest in the problems it has chosen to identify continuing, or it would have
no reason to exist.
So until class-based politics and struggles over power and money re-start (if they ever do) I
respectfully suggest that "Left" and "Right" be retired as terms that no longer have any meaning.
" powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone weaker than you, which is
why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force, with a vested interest
in the problems it has chosen to identify "
Yes. As long as the doyens of identity politics don't have any real fear of being homeless
they can happily indulge in internecine warfare. It's a lot more fun than working to get $20/hour
for a bunch of snaggle-toothed guys who kind of don't like you.
I read: "Traditional dialectical history was being supplanted by a new suite of studies based
around truth as "discourse". Driven by the French post-modern thinkers of the 70s and 80s, the
US academy was adopting and adapting the ideas Foucault, Derrida and Barthe to a variety of civil
rights movements that spawned gender and racial studies."
Of course, I have been a college professor since the late 1970s. On the other hand, I am a
physicist. The notion that truth is discourse is, in my opinion, daft, and says much about the
nature of the modern liberal arts, at least as understood by many undergraduates. I have actually
heard of the folks referenced in the above, and to my knowledge their influence in science, engineering,
technology, and mathematics–the academic fields that are in this century actually central*–is
negligible.
*Yes, I am in favor of a small number of students becoming professional historians, dramatists,
and composers, but the number of these is limited.
Identity politics is a disaster ongoing for the Democratic Party, for reasons they seem to
have overlooked. First, the additional identity group is white. We already see this in the South,
where 90% of the white population in many states votes Republican.
When that spreads to the rest
of the country, there will be a permanent Republican majority until the Republicans create a new
major disaster.
Second, some Democratic commentators appear to have assumed that if your forebearers
spoke Spanish, you can not be white. This belief is properly grouped with the belief that if your
forebearers spoke Gaelic or Italian, you were from one of the colored races of Europe (a phrase
that has faded into antiquity, but some of my friends specialize in American history of the relevant
period), and were therefore not White.
Identity politics is a losing strategy, as will it appears
be noticed by the losers only after it is too late.
An extremely important point, but overblown in a way that may reflect the author's background
and is certainly rhetorical.
So soon we forget the Battle of Seattle. The Left has been opposed to globalization, deregulation,
etc., all along. Partly he's talking about an academic pseudo-left, partly confusing the left
with the Democrats and other "center-left," captured parties.
That doesn't invalidate his point. If you want to see it in full-blown, unadorned action, try
Democrat sites like Salon and Raw Story. A factor he doesn't do justice to is the extreme self-righteousness
that accompanies it, supported, I suppose, by the very real injustices perpetrated against minorities
– and women, not a minority.
The whole thing is essentially a category error, so it would be nice to see a followup that
doesn't perpetuate the error. But it's valuable for stating the problem, which can be hard to
present, especially in the face of gales of self-righteousness.
Well said. An excellent attack on 'identity politics.'
I mean, Barack Obama was our first black president, but most blacks didn't do very well.
George W. Bush was our first retard president, and most people with cognitive handicaps didn't
do very well.
But we can boil it all down to something even simpler and more primal: divide and conquer.
'Identity politics' is both more accurate, and more useful, a term than any alternative such as
racism, fascism, ethnonationalism, etc. It's just the identity in question is that of the majority.
Voters voted for Trump, or Brexit, because they identified with him, or it. In doing so, they
found that whatever they wanted is what that represents.
But the action always comes before the consequences; you can't get upset about Trump supporters
being called racists unless you already identify with them. The action is the choice of identity,
the consequence is the adoption of opinion.
"... CNN is Paul's biggest alleged culprit, with nine entries, followed by the NY Times and MSNBC, with six each. The NY Times has recently come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump, who accuses them of being "totally wrong" on news regarding his transition team, while describing them as "failing." ..."
"... CNN's Wolf Blitzer is also amongst those named on the list. In an email from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) released by WikiLeaks, the DNC staff discusses sending questions to CNN for an interview with Donald Trump. ..."
"... So-called 'fake news' has been recently attacked by US President Barack Obama, who claimed that false news shared online may have played a role in Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election. ..."
"This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and
lied us into multiple bogus wars,"according to a report on his website, Ron Paul Liberty Report.
Paul claims the list is sourced and "holds a lot more water" than a list previously released by
Melissa Zimdars, who is described on Paul's website as "a leftist feminist professor."
"These are the news sources that told us 'if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,'"
he said. "They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in
a never-ending loop that 'The economy is in great shape!'"
Paul's list includes the full names of the "fake news" journalists as well as the publications
they write for, with what appears to be hyperlinks to where the allegations are sourced from.
In most cases, this is WikiLeaks, but none of the hyperlinks are working at present, leaving the
exact sources of the list unknown.
CNN is Paul's biggest alleged culprit, with nine entries, followed by the NY Times and MSNBC,
with six each. The NY Times has recently come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump, who
accuses them of being "totally wrong" on news regarding his transition team, while describing
them as "failing."
The publication hit back, however, saying their business has increased since his election,
with a surge in new subscriptions.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer is also amongst those named on the list. In an email from the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) released by WikiLeaks, the DNC staff discusses sending questions to CNN
for an interview with Donald Trump.
Also listed is NY Times journalist Maggie Haberman, whom leaked emails showed working closely
with Clinton's campaign to present the Democratic candidate in a favorable light.
So-called 'fake news' has been recently attacked by US President Barack Obama, who claimed
that false news shared online may have played a role in Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential
election.
Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg has now said that the social media site may begin entrusting
third parties with filtering the news.
At least with Trump I expect him to talk crap but
Obama talks crap as well when he should know better:
The values that we talked about -- the values of democracy, and free speech, and international
norms, and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny
and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity -- those things are not something
that we can set aside.
We've seen the make-shift "fake news" list created by a
leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed
and this one holds a lot more water.
This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied
us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us "if you like your doctor, you
can keep your doctor." They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They
tell us in a never-ending loop that "The economy is in great shape!"
It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all
need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism has been disastrous for the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial heartland, now little more than its wasteland ..."
"... The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate. ..."
"... two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair: offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. ..."
"... Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime. ..."
"... In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus, a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic) minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate, stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined. ..."
"... But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital (which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century capitalism. ..."
"... Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. ..."
"... Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ..."
"... Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too, along with a number of social drivers. ..."
"... The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico. ..."
"... I contend that in some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision appeared in sharp relief with Brexit. ..."
"... Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity, so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions that predate the emergence of identity politics. ..."
"... It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the plight of their cherished white working class. ..."
"... The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity. Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory present. ..."
"... Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'. ..."
"... Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness' threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation. Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like a minority vote. ..."
"... Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority, much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'? ..."
"... I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective. ..."
"... In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s." ..."
"... Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate." ..."
"... In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.' ..."
"... In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country, and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time, more and more power. ..."
"... To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their 2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced to pay. ..."
"... This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman white underclass (or so they see it). ..."
"... You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you), you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back. Nobody trusts the elite at all. ..."
"... You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem. ..."
"... One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016: the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people. This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party. ..."
"... Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery. ..."
"... None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it. ..."
"... . It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part. ..."
"... This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to the Ivy League, which is 90% of them. ..."
"... Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a "boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win? ..."
"... "The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians." ..."
"... "It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of rubble.' ..."
"... "One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken." ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response, governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to, and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time, is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon known as Goodhart's law. (..) ..."
"... " what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically, and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right to vote. ..."
"... "The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened. ..."
"... "The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism. It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun." ..."
"... They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue collar work. ..."
"... trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been "correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic party, have to accept. ..."
"... trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama was defending keeping what was already there. ..."
"... "Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html ..."
"... Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. "" ..."
The question is no longer her neoliberalism, but yours. Keep it or throw it away?
I wish this issue was being seriously discussed. Neoliberalism has been disastrous for
the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial
heartland, now little more than its wasteland (cf. "flyover zone" – a pejorative term which
inhabitants of the zone are not too stupid to understand perfectly, btw).
The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied
them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary
production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent
living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate.
As noted upthread, two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair:
offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. The jobs that have been lost will not return,
and indeed will be lost in ever greater numbers – just consider what will happen to the trucking
sector when self-driving trucks hit the roads sometime in the next 10-20 years (3.5 million truckers;
8.7 in allied jobs).
Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable
giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that
would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations
for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum
wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence
life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime.
In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus,
a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal
distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic)
minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate,
stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined.
I appreciate and espouse the goals of identity politics in all their multiplicity, and also
understand that the institutions of slavery and sexism predated modern capitalist economies.
But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital
(which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired
as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their
capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse
or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century
capitalism.
Also: Faustusnotes@100
For example Indiana took the ACA Medicaid expansion but did so with additional conditions that
make it worse than in neighboring states run by democratic governors.
And what states would those be? IL, IA, MI, OH, WI, KY, and TN have Republican governors. Were
you thinking pre-2014? pre-2012?
To conclude and return to my original point: what's to become of the Rust Belt in future? Did
the Democratic platform include a New New Deal for PA, OH, MI, WI, and IA (to name only the five
Rust Belt states Trump flipped)?
" Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic
and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive
governments to deal with this.
Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization
launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial
and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though,
was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the
Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. "
What should have been one comment came out as 4, so apologies on that front.
I spent the last week explaining the US election to my students in Japan in pretty much the
terms outlined by Lilla and PIketty, so I was delighted to discover these two articles.
Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too,
along with a number of social drivers. It was therefore very easy to call for a show of hands
to identify students studying here in Tokyo who are trying to decide whether or not to return
to areas such as Tohoku to build their lives; or remain in Kanto/Tokyo – the NY/Washington/LA
of Japan put crudely.
I asked students from regions close to Tohoku how they might feel if the Japanese prime minister
decided not to visit the region following Fukushima after the disaster, or preceding an election.
The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an
apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained
that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans
did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico.
I then asked the students, particularly those from outlying regions whether they believe Japan
needed a leader who would 'bring back Japanese jobs' from Viet Nam and China, etc. Many/most agreed
wholeheartedly. I then asked whether they believed Tokyo people treated those outside Kanto as
'inferiors.' Many do.
Piketty may be right regarding Trump's long-term effects on income inequality. He is wrong,
I suggest, to argue that Democrats failed to respond to Sanders' support. I contend that in
some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root
and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed
was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision
appeared in sharp relief with Brexit.
Also worth noting is that the rust belts problems are as old as Reagan – even the term dates
from the 80s, the issue is so uncool that there is a dire straits song about it. Some portion
of the decline of manufacturing there is due to manufacturers shifting to the south, where the
anti Union states have an advantage. Also there has been new investment – there were no Japanese
car companies in the us in the 1980s, so they are new job creators, yet insufficient to make up
the losses. Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity,
so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions
that predate the emergence of identity politics.
It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves
on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the
plight of their cherished white working class. Suddenly it's not the forces of capital and
the objective facts of history, but a bunch of whiny black trannies demanding safe spaces and
protesting police violence, that drove those towns to ruin.
And what solutions do they think the dems should have proposed? It can't be welfare, since
we got the ACA (watered down by representatives of the rust belt states). Is it, seriously, tariffs?
Short of going to an election promising w revolution, what should the dems have done? Give us
a clear answer so we can see what the alternative to identity politics is.
basil 11.19.16 at 5:11 am
Did this go through?
Thinking with WLGR @15, Yan @81, engels variously above,
The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people
and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of
the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great
injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation
of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic
vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan
C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity.
Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory
present.
I get that the tropes around race are easy, and super-available. Privilege confessing is very
in vogue as a prophylactic against charges of racism. But does it threaten the structures that
produce this abjection – either as embittered, immiserated 'white working class' or as threatened
minority group? It is always *those* 'white' people, the South, the Working Class, and never the
accusers some of whom are themselves happy to vote for a party that drowns out anti-war protesters
with chants of USA! USA!
Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces
ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'.
--
Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making
that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness'
threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans
are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation.
Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like
a minority vote.
Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder
if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of
the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority,
much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are
denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape
really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'?
I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants
in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but
this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective.
The 'racialisation' of class in Britain has been a consequence of the weakening of 'class'
as a political idea since the 1970s – it is a new construction, not an historic one.
.
This is not to deny the existence of working-class racism, or to suggest that racism is
somehow acceptable if rooted in perceived socio-economic grievances. But it is to suggest that
the concept of a 'white working class' needs problematizing, as does the claim that the British
working-class was strongly committed to a post-war vision of 'White Britain' analogous to the
politics which sustained the idea of a 'White Australia' until the 1960s.
Yes, old, settled neighbourhoods could be profoundly distrustful of outsiders – all outsiders,
including the researchers seeking to study them – but, when it came to race, they were internally
divided. We certainly hear working-class racist voices – often echoing stock racist complaints
about over-crowding, welfare dependency or exploitative landlords and small businessmen, but
we don't hear the deep pathological racial fears laid bare in the letters sent to Enoch Powell
after his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 (Whipple, 2009).
But more importantly, we also hear strong anti-racist voices loudly and clearly. At Wallsend
on Tyneside, where the researchers were gathering their data just as Powell shot to notoriety,
we find workers expressing casual racism, but we also find eloquent expressions of an internationalist,
solidaristic perspective in which, crucially, black and white are seen as sharing the same
working-class interests.
Racism is denounced as a deliberate capitalist strategy to divide workers against themselves,
weakening their ability to challenge those with power over their lives (shipbuilding had long
been a very fractious industry and its workers had plenty of experience of the dangers of internal
sectarian battles).
To be able to mobilize across across racialised divisions, to have race wither away entirely
would, for me, be the beginning of a politics that allowed humanity to deal with the inescapable
violence of climate change and corporate power.
*To add to the bibliography – David R. Roediger, Elizabeth D. Esch – The Production of Difference
– Race and the Management of Labour, and Denise Ferreira da Silva – Toward a Global Idea of Race.
And I have just been pointed at Ian Haney-López, White By Law – The Legal Construction of Race.
FWIW 'merica's constitutional democracy is going to collapse.
Some day - not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change
forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies - there is going to be a collapse of the
legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent.
If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better,
more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen .
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from
the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional
continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly
important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the
Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When
they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the
basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote:
"the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly
legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate."
In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing
of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found,
a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a
period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative
and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.'
Given that the basic point is polarisation (i.e. that both the President and Congress have
equally strong arguments to be the the 'voice of the people') and that under the US appalling
constitutional set up, there is no way to decide between them, one can easily imagine the so to
speak 'hyperpolarisation' of a Trump Presidency as being the straw (or anvil) that breaks the
camel's back.
In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country,
and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral
result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious
democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time,
more and more power.
nastywoman @ 150
Just study the program of the 'Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland' or the Program of 'Die
Grünen' in Germany (take it through google translate) and you get all the answers you are looking
for.
No need to run it through google translate, it's available in English on their site. [Or one
could refer to the Green Party of the U.S. site/platform, which is very similar in scope and overall
philosophy. (www.gp.org).]
I looked at several of their topic areas (Agricultural, Global, Health, Rural) and yes, these
are general theses I would support. But they're hardly policy/project proposals for specific regions
or communities – the Greens espouse "think global, act local", so programs and projects must be
tailored to individual communities and regions.
To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the
Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their
2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced
to pay.
This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring
that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the
neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes
upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman
white underclass (or so they see it).
I expect at this point that Trump will be reelected comfortably. If not only the party itself,
but also most of its activists, refuse to actually change, it's more or less inevitable.
You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going
to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that
your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you),
you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't
stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or
not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back.
Nobody trusts the elite at all.
You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror
at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem.
One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016:
the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people.
This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party.
Folks, we have seen this before. Let's not descend in backbiting and recriminations, okay?
We've got some commenters charging that other commenters are "mansplaining," meanwhile we've got
other commenters claiming that it's economics and not racism/misogyny. It's all of the above.
Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists
also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has
happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising
to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the
existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able
to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery.
None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a
modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The
problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it.
Instead, what we're seeing is a whirlwind of finger-pointing from the Democratic leadership
that lost this election and probably let the entire New Deal get rolled back and wiped out. Putin
is to blame! Julian Assange is to blame! The biased media are to blame! Voter suppression is to
blame! Bernie Sanders is to blame! Jill Stein is to blame! Everyone and anyone except the current
out-of-touch influence-peddling elites who currently have run the Democratic party into the ground.
We need the feminists and the black lives matter groups and we also need the green party people
and the Bernie Sanders activists. But everyone has to understand that this is not an isolated
event. Trump did not just happen by accident. First there was Greece, then there was Brexit, then
there was Trump, next it'll be Renzi losing the referendum in Italy and a constitutional crisis
there, and after that, Marine Le Pen in France is going to win the first round of elections. (Probably
not the presidency, since all the other French parties will band together to stop her, but the
National Front is currently polling at 40% of all registered French voters.) And Marine LePen
is the real deal, a genuine full-on out-and-out fascist. Not a closet fascist like Steve Bannon,
LePen is the full monty with everything but a Hugo Boss suit and the death's heads on the cap.
Does anyone notice a pattern here?
This is an international movement. It is sweeping the world . It is the end of neoliberalism
and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp
out the authoritarian part.
Feminists, BLM, black bloc anarchiest anti-globalists, Sandernistas, and, yes, the former Hillary
supporters. Because it not just a coincidence that all these things are happening in all these
countries at the same time. The bottom 90% of the population in the developed world has been ripped
off by a managerial and financial and political class for the last 30 years and they have all
noticed that while the world GDP was skyrocketing and international trade agreements were getting
signed with zero input from the average citizen, a few people were getting very very rich but
nobody else was getting anything.
This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially
single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings
and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to
the Ivy League, which is 90% of them.
And the Democratic party is so helpless and so hopeless that it is letting the American Nazi
Party run to the left of them on health care, fer cripes sake! We are now in a situation
where the American Nazi Party is advocating single-payer nationalized health care, while the former
Democratic presidential nominee who just got defeated assured everyone that single-payer "will
never, ever happen."
C'mon! Is anyone surprised that Hillary lost? Let's cut the crap with the "Hillary
was a flawed candidate" arguments. The plain fact of the matter is that Hillary was running mainly
on getting rid of the problems she and her husband created 25 years ago. Hillary promised criminal
justice reform and Black Lives Matter-friendly policing policies - and guess who started the mass
incarceration trend and gave speeches calling black kids "superpredators" 20 years ago? Hillary
promised to fix the problems with the wretched mandate law forcing everyone to buy unaffordable
for-profit private insurance with no cost controls - and guess who originally ran for president
in 2008 on a policy of health care mandates with no cost controls? Yes, Hillary (ironically, Obama's
big surge in popularity as a candidate came when he ran against Hillary from the left, ridiculing
helath care mandates). Hillary promises to reform an out-of-control deregulated financial system
run amok - and guess who signed all those laws revoking Glass-Steagal and setting up the Securities
Trading Modernization Act? Yes, Bill Clinton, and Hillary was right there with him cheering the
whole process on.
So pardon me and lots of other folks for being less than impressed by Hillary's trustworthiness
and honesty. Run for president by promising to undo the damage you did to the country 25 years
ago is (let say) a suboptimal campaign strategy, and a distinctly suboptimal choice of presidential
candidate for a party in the same sense that the Hiroshima air defense was suboptimal in 1945.
Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a
"boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win?
Because we're back in the 1930s again, the economy has crashed hard and still hasn't recovered
(maybe because we still haven't convened a Pecora Commission and jailed a bunch of the thieves,
and we also haven't set up any alphabet government job programs like the CCC) so fascists and
racists and all kinds of other bottom-feeders are crawling out of the political woodwork to promise
to fix the problems that the Democratic party establishment won't.
Rule of thumb: any social or political or economic writer virulently hated by the current Democratic
party establishment is someone we should listen to closely right now.
Cornel West is at the top of the current Democratic establishment's hate list, and he has got
a great article in The Guardian that I think is spot-on:
"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph
of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded
to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians."
Glenn Greenwald is another writer who has been showered with more hate by the Democratic establishment
recently than even Trump or Steve Bannon, so you know Greenwald is saying something important.
He has a great piece in The Intercept on the head-in-the-ground attitude of Democratic
elites toward their recent loss:
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political
force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite
a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the
Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local
levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced
no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of
rubble.'
"One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked
political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce
a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats,
one would be quite mistaken."
Last but far from least, Scottish economist Mark Blyth has what looks to me like the single
best analysis of the entire global Trump_vs_deep_state tidal wave in Foreign Affairs magazine:
"At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass
unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response,
governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to,
and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time,
is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon
known as Goodhart's law. (..)
" what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary
regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this
world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at
all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically,
and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right
to vote.
"The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary
order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as
the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from
those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that
are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened.
"In short, to understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing
everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them.
"The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism.
It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing
above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun."
You don't live here, do you? I'm really asking a genuine question because the way you are framing
the question ("SPECIFICS!!!!!!) suggests you don't. (Just to show my background, born and raised
in Australia (In the electoral division of Kooyong, home of Menzies) but I've lived in the US
since 2000 in the midwest (MO, OH) and currently in the south (GA))
If this election has taught us anything it's no one cared about "specifics". It was a mood,
a feeling which brought trump over the top (and I'm not talking about the "average" trump voter
because that is meaningless. The average trunp voter was a republican voter in the south who the
Dems will never get so examining their motivations is immaterial to future strategy. I'm talking
about the voters in the Upper Midwest from places which voted for Obama twice then switched to
trump this year to give him his margin of victory).
trump voters have been pretty clear they don't actually care about the way trump does (or even
doesn't) do what he said he would do during the campaign. It was important to them he showed he
was "with" people like them. They way he did that was partially racialized (law and order, islamophobia)
but also a particular emphasis on blue collar work that focused on the work. Unfortunately these
voters, however much you tell them they should suck it up and accept their generations of familial
experience as relatively highly paid industrial workers (even if it is something only their fathers
and grandfathers experienced because the factories were closing when the voters came of age in
the 80s and 90s) is never coming back and they should be happy to retrain as something else, don't
want it. They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue
collar work.
trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs
and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been
"correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about
how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic
party, have to accept.
The idea they don't want "government help" is ridiculous. They love the government. They just
want the government to do things for them and not for other people (which unfortunately includes
blah people but also "the coasts", "sillicon valley", etc.). Obama won in 2008 and 2012 in part
due to the auto bailout.
trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like
the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama
was defending keeping what was already there.
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the
automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable
labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
So yes. Clinton needed vague promises. She needed something more than retraining and "jobs
of the future" and "restructuring". She needed to show she was committed to their way of life,
however those voters saw it, and would do something, anything, to keep it alive. trump did that
even though his plan won't work. And maybe he'll be punished for it. In 4 years. But in the interim
the gop will destroy so many things we need and rely on as well as entrench their power for generations
through the Supreme Court.
But really, it was hard for Clinton to be trusted to act like she cared about these peoples'
way of life because she (through her husband fairly or unfairly) was associated with some of the
larger actions and choices which helped usher in the decline.
Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned
out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump
economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's
economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. ""
What is the Democratic Party's former constituency of labor and progressive reformers to do?
Are they to stand by and let the party be captured in Hillary's wake by Robert Rubin's Goldman
Sachs-Citigroup gang that backed her and Obama?
The 2016 election sounded the death knell for the identity politics. Its aim was to persuade
voters not to think of their identity in economic terms, but to think of themselves as women or
as racial and ethnic groups first and foremost, not as having common economic interests. This
strategy to distract voters from economic policies has obviously failed...
This election showed that voters have a sense of when they're being lied to. After eight years of
Obama's demagogy, pretending to support the people but delivering his constituency to his
financial backers on Wall Street. 'Identity politics' has given way to the stronger force of
economic distress. Mobilizing identity politics behind a Wall Street program will no longer
work."
Does Finance care about bigotry?
Finance has a history of recognizing bigotry and promoting it if it makes loans more predictable.
Home values could drop if too many blacks moved to a neighborhood so finance created red-lining
to protect their investments while promoting bigotry.
Finance is all in favor of tearing down minority neighborhoods or funding polluters in those neighborhoods
to protect investments in gated communities and white sundown towns.
Finance is often part of the problem, not the solution.
All of what you say is true but I have some contrarian/devil's advocate thoughts.
Some finance people are smart and have an enlightened self-interest. Think of Robert Rubin,
George Soros or Warren Buffet. They often back Democrats. Think of Chuck Schumer. Think of Hillary
Clinton's speeches to the banks.
Finance often knocks down walls and will back whatever makes a profit. Often though as you
say it conforms to prejudice and past practices, like red-lining.
I think of the lines from the Communist Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal,
idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his
"natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest,
than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour,
of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.
It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible
chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word,
for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless,
direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to
with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of
science, into its paid wage labourers."
But the cash nexus isn't enough spiritually or emotionally and when living standards stagnate
or decline, anxious people retreat into tribalism.
When I first glances at your question I immediately answered your query like you everyone here
did, 'no, finance does not care about bigotry except to the degree finance can profit from it.'
Then I realized there are too many assumptions contained in your question for me to respond
b/c I was thinking inside the box and not taking in all that impacts Finance and bigotry.
Your question assumes "Finance" is Private and for profit. But that is not true is it, since
there is Public, NGO, Charity, Socialistic, Communistic, et. al., Finance.
And, then there is the problem with the word "bigotry."
Your post makes clear to me that you are referring to American bigotry in housing, but that
means you ignore that "bigotry" exists largely from ones individual perspective, which we know
depends upon from where one sees it.
What I mean by that is Russia, China, Syria, Turkey, Iran, etc., all see and proclaim bigotry
in the USA but deny bigotry in their own countries.
If your point is simply that America Finance discriminates against people of color in Housing
or that such discrimination perpetuates bigotry then no one can disagree with you, imo, however,
your implication that that is done to perpetuate bigotry and racism is probably false since Finance
is amoral, looking to secure profit, and not out to discriminate against a particular group such
as people of color as long as they can profit.
"... "He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren't raw deals for the American people," she said. "He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy for working people." ..."
"... And economic populists really care about race gender etc, we just think that focusing on social justice as a priority over economic equality inevitably leads to Trump or someone like him. ..."
"... I don't know who Clinton might represent more than American feminists, and they, or at least the ones over thirty with power and wealth, certainly seemed to feel possessive and empowered by her campaign and possible election. ..."
"... And white American feminists could not even get 50% of white working class women nationwide, and I suspect the numbers are even worse in the Upper Midwest swing states. In comparison, African-Americans delivered as always, 90% of their vote, across all classes and educational levels. Latinos delivered somewhere around 60-70%. ..."
"... You seem to have just ignored what Val, small, Helen, faustusnotes have been saying and inserted a straw man into the conversation. No you don't have to be a Marxist to worry about social discrimination, but being sensitive to social discrimination does make you sensitive to injustice in general. Who exactly are these people you are talking about? ..."
"... Over the past decade, a small but growing movement has realized that the Rube Goldberg neoliberalism of Obamacare–and many other parts of modern Democratic policy–is not sustainable. I've come to that conclusion painfully and slowly. I've taught the law for six years, and each year I get better at explaining how its many parts work, and fit together." ..."
"... I offered in an earlier comment, that the left looks askance at identity politics because of the recuperation of these – gender emancipation, anti-racism and anti-colonial struggles – by capital and the state. engels, above has offered Nancy Fraser linked here. ..."
"... I have no argument with the notion that Clinton was an imperfect candidate. Almost all candidates are (even a top-notch one like Obama) ..."
The idea that people who are against capitalism (or neoliberalism, if you want) are also not
generally against patriarchy and racist colonialism ( as a system ) is obviously false.
On the contrary it's people who are 'into' identity politics who generally are not against
these things (again, as a system). People who are into identity politics are against racism and
sexism, sure, but seem to have little if any idea as to why these ideas came into being and what
social purposes they serve: they seem to think they are just arbitrary lifestyle choices, like
not liking people with red hair, or preferring The Beatles to the Rolling Stones or something.
And if this is true, all we have to do is 'persuade' people not to 'be racist' or 'be sexist'
and then the problem goes away. Hence dehistoricised (and, let's face it, depoliticised) 'political
correctness'. which seems to insist that as long as you don't, personally , call any African-American
the N word and don't use the C word when talking about women, all problems of racism and sexism
will be solved.
The inability to look at History, and social structures, and the history of social structures,
and the purpose of these structures as a pattern of domination, inevitably leads to Clintonism
(or, in the UK, Blairism), which, essentially, equals 'neoliberalism plus don't use the N word'.
I'm not going to argue directly with people because some people are obviously a bit angry about
this but the question is not whether or not sexism or homophobia are good things (they obviously
aren't): the question is whether or not fighting against these things are necessarily left-wing,
and the answer is: depends on how you do it. For example, in both cases we have seen right-wing
feminism ('spice girls feminism') and right wing gay rights (cf Peter Thiel, Milo Yiannopoulos)
which sees 'breaking the glass ceiling' for women and gays as being the key point of the struggle.
I know Americans got terribly excised about having the first American female President and that's
understandable for its symbolic value, but here in the UK we now have our second female Prime
Minister.
So what? Who gives a shit? What's changed (not least, what's changed for women?)?. Nothing.
Eventually you are going to get your first female President. You will probably even someday
get your first gay President. Both of them may be Republicans. Think about that.
What's wrong with -(from the NYT):
'Democrats, who lost the White House and made only nominal gains in the House and Senate, face
a profound decision after last week's stunning defeat: Make common cause where they can with Mr.
Trump to try to win back the white, working-class voters he took from them
– while always reminding the people that F face von Clownstick actually is a Fascistic Racist
Birther.
and at the same time (from E. Warren):
"He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren't raw deals for the American
people," she said. "He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need
to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the
high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure
and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that
their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy
for working people."
Straw man much, hidari? Just to pick a random example of someone who thinks these things are important,
Ursula le guin Sure she's never made any state,nets about systematic oppression, and economic
systems? The problem you have when you try to claim that these ideas "cameo to being" through
social and structural factors is that you're wrong.
Everyone knows rape is as old as sex, the idea it's a product of a distorted economic system
is a fiction produced by Beardy white dudes to shut the girls up until after the revolution.
Which is exactly what you "reformers" of liberalism, who think it has lost its way in the maze
of identity politics, want to do. Look at the response of people like rich puchalsky to BLM –
trying to pretend it's equivalent to the system of police violence directed against occupy, as
if violence against white people for protesting is the same as e murder of black people simply
for being in public.
It's facile, it's shallow and it's a desperate attempt to stop the Democratic Party being forced
to respond to issues outside the concerns of white rust belt men – it's no coincidence that this
uprising g of shallow complaints against identity politics from the hard left occurs at the same
time we see a rust belt reaction against the new left. And the reaction from the hard left will
be as destructive for the dems as the rust belt reaction is for the country.
nastywoman 11.17.16 at 8:04 am
– and what a 'feast' for historians this whole 'deal' must be?
– as there are all kind of fascinating thought experiment around this man who orders so loudly and
in fureign language a Pizza on you-tube.
And wasn't it time that our fellow Americans find out that Adolf Hitler not only ordered Pizza
or complained about his I-Phone – NO! – that he also is very upset that Trump also won the erection?
And there are endless possibilities for histerical conferences about who is the 'Cuter Fascist
– or what Neo Nazis in germany sometimes like to discuss: What if Hitler only would have done 'good'
fascistic things?
Wouldn't he be the role model for all of US?
Or – as there are so many other funny hypotheticals
1) And economic populists really care about race gender etc, we just think that focusing on social
justice as a priority over economic equality inevitably leads to Trump or someone like him.
2) I don't know who Clinton might represent more than American feminists, and they, or at least
the ones over thirty with power and wealth, certainly seemed to feel possessive and empowered
by her campaign and possible election.
And white American feminists could not even get 50% of white working class women nationwide,
and I suspect the numbers are even worse in the Upper Midwest swing states. In comparison, African-Americans
delivered as always, 90% of their vote, across all classes and educational levels. Latinos delivered
somewhere around 60-70%.
American feminism has catastrophically, an understatement, failed over the last couple
generations, and class had very much to do with it, upper middle class advanced degreed liberal
women largely followed Clinton's model, leaned in, and went for the bucks rather than reaching
ou to their non-college sisters in the Midwest. Kinda like Mao staying in Shanghai, or Lenin in
Zurich and expecting the Feminist Revolution to happen in the countryside while they profit.
Feminism, also playing to its base of upper middle class women, has also shifted its focus
from economic and labor force issues, to a range of social and sexuality issues that are of
less concern to most women. Personally, I feel betrayed. The male-female wage gap has not narrow
appreciably since the 1990s, glass ceilings are still in place and, for me most importantly,
horizontal sex segregation in the market for jobs that don't require a college degree, where
roughly 2/3 of American women compete, is unabated. I looked at the most recent BLS stats for
occupations by gender recently. Of the two aggregated categories of occupations that would
be characterized as 'blue collar' work, women represent a little over 2 and 3 percent respectively.
For specific occupations under those categories more than half (eyeballing) don't even include
a sufficient number of women to report.
Again, it isn't hard to see why. Upper middle class women can easily imagine themselves, or
their daughters, needing abortions. The possibility that that option would not be available is
a real fear. They do not worry that they or their daughters would be stuck for most of their adult
lives cashiering at Walmart, working in a call center, or doing any of the other boring, dead-end
pink-collar work which are the only options most women have. And they don't even think of blue-collar
work.
Which Marxists always have expected and why we strongly prefer that the UMC and bourgeois be
kept out of the Party. It's called opportunism and is connected to reformism, IOW, wanting to
keep the system, just replace the old bosses with your owm.
You backed the war-mongering plutocrat and handed the world to fascism. Can you show responsibility
and humility for even a week?
You seem to have just ignored what Val, small, Helen, faustusnotes have been saying and inserted
a straw man into the conversation. No you don't have to be a Marxist to worry about social discrimination,
but being sensitive to social discrimination does make you sensitive to injustice in general.
Who exactly are these people you are talking about?
reason 11.17.16 at 8:43 am
Of course Hidari might have had a point if he was making an argument
about campaign strategy and emphasis, but he seems to be saying more that that, or are I wrong?
Over the past decade, a small but growing movement has realized that the
Rube Goldberg neoliberalism of Obamacare–and many other parts of modern Democratic policy–is not
sustainable. I've come to that conclusion painfully and slowly. I've taught the law for six years,
and each year I get better at explaining how its many parts work, and fit together."
basil 11.17.16 at 9:09 am
I offered in an earlier comment, that the left looks askance at identity
politics because of the recuperation of these – gender emancipation, anti-racism and anti-colonial
struggles – by capital and the state.
engels, above has offered Nancy Fraser linked here.
CT's really weird on identity. Whose work are we thinking through? 'Gender'and 'Race' are political
constructions that are most explicitly economic in nature. There were no black people before racism
made certain bodies available for the inhumanity of enslavement, and thus the enrichment of the slaver
class. Commentators oughtn't, I don't think, write as if there are actually existing black and white
people. As Dorothy Roberts – Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race
in the 21st Century (and Paul Gilroy – Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color
Line, and Karen and Barbara Fields – Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, etc put
it, it is racism that creates and naturalises race. Of course liberalism's logics of governance,
the necessity of making bodies available for control and exploitation constantly reproduce and entrench
race (and gender).
I offered that racialised people, particularly those gendered as women/queer, the ones who have
been refused whiteness, are also super suspicious of these deployments of identity politics, especially
by non-subjugated persons who've a political project for which they are weaponising subordinated
identities. It really is abusive and exploitative.
We must listen better. As the racialised and gendered are pointing out, it is incredible that
it has taken the threat of Trump, and now their ascension for liberals to tune in to the violence
waged against racialised, gendered, queer lives and bodies by White Supremacy. History will remember
that #BLM (like the record deportations, the Clintons' actual-existing-but-to-liberals invisible
border wall, the Obamacare farce in the OP, de Blasio's undocumented persons list, Rahm in Chicago,
the employment of David Brock, Melania's nudes, the crushing poverty of racialised women, the exploitation
of those violated by Trump, the re-invasion and desecration of Native American territory) happened
under a liberal presidency. That liberal presidency responded to BLM with a Blue Lives Matter law.
This is evidence of liberalism's inherently violent attitude towards those it pretends to care about.
All this preceded Trump.
If you are for gender emancipation or anti-race/racism, be against these all the time, not just
to tar your temporary electoral foes. Be feminist when dancing Yemenis gendered as women – some of
the poorest, most vulnerable humans – are droned at weddings. Be feminist when Mexico's farmers gendered
as women are dying at NAFTA's hand. Be feminist when poor racialised queer teens are dying in the
streets as you celebrate the right of wealthy gays to marry. Be feminist and reject people who've
got multiple sexual violence accusations against them and those who help them cover these up and
shame the victims. Be feminist and anti-racist and reject people who glory in making war on poor
defenceless people. Be feminist and anti-racist and reject white nationalists gendered female who
call racialised groups 'super-predators' to court racists. Reject people who say of public welfare
improvements – it will never, ever happen, this is not Denmark. The people who need those services
the most are vulnerable humans, racialised and gendered as women. Never say that politicians who
put poor migrants in cages on isolated islands are nice people. They absolutely aren't. Some of this
is really easy.
These puerile rhetorical gestures reveal the people for whom 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday was simply
a glass ceiling left unbroken by a woman who launched a massive Yemeni bombing campaign. Perhaps
as a mechanic of coping, it has become incredibly sexy for a certain class of liberals to dodge
any responsibility for the lives they, too, have compromised. They aren't the same ones who have
to worry about who will be the first person to call them a terrorist faggot ..For the rest of
us, the victory of this fascist is a confirmation of the biases we have known all along, no matter
public liberal consciousness's inabilities to wrangle them into submission."
– and just a suggestion I have learned from touring the rust belt – waaay before it was as 'fashionable'
as it is right now.
While we in some hotel room in Scranton fought our Ideological fights -(we had a French Camera
Assistant who insisted that America one day will elect 'a Fascist like Hitler') –
the mechanic we had scheduled to interview about his Camaro SS for the next day – had exchanged
all the spark plucks of his car.
bob mcmanus above, I really think social justice and economic justice are bound together, and that Universal Healthcare,
for example, as a fundamental right is a basic feminist and anti-racist goal. Most particularly because
the vulnerability of these groups, their economic hardship, their very capacity to live, to survive
is at stake in a marketised health care system.
Racialised outcomes for ACA.
Similarly with marketised higher education and skills training. How cynical that HRC used HBCUs
to argue that racialised people would suffer from free public tertiary education!
Dorothy Roberts' work for example has interesting perspectives on how race is created in part
through the differentiated access to healthcare. They discuss how this plays out for both maternal
and child mortality, and for breast cancer survival. 'Oh, the evidence shows that racialised women
are more vulnerable to x condition'. Exactly, because a racist and marketised system denies them
necessary healthcare.
A funny thing about the new comment moderation regime is that you can get two people posting in
rapid succession saying pretty much opposite things like me then Hidari. It seems as if (although
again it's not very clear) Hidari is suggesting capitalism created sexism and racism? Or something
like that? I'm definitely on better ground there though: patriarchy and sexism predate capitalism.
In fairness though, I think I understand what Hidari and engels are getting at. I know lots
of young people, women and people of colour, who probably fit their description in a way. They
are young, smart, probably a bit naive, and at least some of them probably from privileged backgrounds.
They appear driven by desire to succeed in a hierarchical academic system that still tends to
be dominated by white men at the upper levels, and they don't seem to question the system much,
at least not openly.
But can I just mention, some of our hosts here are actually fairly high up in that system.
Why aren't they being attacked as liberals or proponents of "identity politics"? Why is it only
when women or people of colour try to succeed in that very same academic system that it becomes
so wrong?
Another Nick, yes I can comment on that. I think it's fascinating that the old beardy leftists
and berniebros are fixated on Lena Dunham. Who else is fixated on Lena Dunham? The right bloggers,
who are inflamed with rage at everything she does. Who else is fixated on identity politics? The
right bloggers, who present it as everything wrong with the modern left, PC gone mad, censorship
etc. You guys should get together and have a party – you're made for each other.
Also, the Democrats don't have a "celebrity campaign mascot." So what are you actually talking
about?
basil @ 64
basil what in any conceivable world makes you think that feminists on CT don't know about the
issues you're talking about? I work in a school of public health and my entire work consists of
trying to address those sorts of issues, plus ecological sustainability.
Seriously this has all gone beyond straw-wo/manning. Some people here are talking to others
who exist only in their minds or something. The world's gone mad.
engels 11.17.16 at 12:06 pm
Umm Val and FaustusNoted, which part of-
identity politics isn't the same thing as feminism, anti-racism, LGBT politics, etc. They're
all needed now more than ever.
-was unclear to you?
I DON'T want to live in a world in which 'patriarchy and racism' are okay, I want to live in a
world in which America has a real Left, which represents the working class (black, white, gay, straight,
female, male-like other countries do to a greater lesser degree), and which is the only thing that
has a shot at stopping its descent into outright fascism.
it often gets thrown around as a kind of all-encompassing epithet
Point taken-but there's really nothing I can do to stop other people misusing terms (until
the Dictatorship of the Prolerariat anyway :) )
Cranky Observer 11.17.16 at 12:27 pm
= = = faustnotes @ 4:14 am The reason these conservative Dems come from those states is
that those states don't support radical welfare provisions – they don't want other people getting
a free lunch, and value personal responsibility over welfarism. = = =
As long as you don't count enormous agricultural, highway, postal service, and military base subsidies
as any form of "welfare", sure. And that's not even counting the colossal expenditures on military
force and bribes in the Middle East to keep the diesel-fuel-to-corn unroofed chemical factory (i.e.
farming) industry running profitably. Apparently the Republicans who hate the US Postal Service with
a vengeance, for example, are unaware that in 40% of the land area of the United States FedEx, UPS,
etc turn over the 'last hundred mile' delivery to the USPS.
Ps I'm kind of surprised this thread has been allowed to go on so long but I'm going to bow out
now-feel free to continue trying to smear me behind my back
bob mcmanus 11.17.16 at 12:35 pm
Would a real leftist let her daughter marry a hedge-fund trader?
I suppose they are a step above serial killers and child molesters, but c'mon. Quotes from Wiki,
rearranged in chronological order.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Mezvinsky used a wide variety of 419 scams. According to a federal
prosecutor, Mezvinsky conned using "just about every different kind of African-based scam we've ever
seen."[11] The scams promise that the victim will receive large profits, but first a small down payment
is required. To raise the funds needed to front the money for the fraudulent investment schemes he
was being offered, Mezvinsky tapped his network of former political contacts, dropping the name of
the Clinton family to convince unwitting marks to give him money.[12]
In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony charges of bank
fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud
"In July 2010, Mezvinsky married Chelsea Clinton in an interfaith ceremony in Rhinebeck, New York.[12]
The senior Clintons and Mezvinskys were friends in the 1990s ; their children met on a Renaissance
Weekend retreat in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina."
Subsequent to his graduations, he worked for eight years as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs
before leaving to join a private equity firm, but later quit. In 2011, he co-founded a Manhattan-based
hedge fund firm, Eaglevale Partners, with two longtime partners, Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon.[1][8]
In May 2016, The New York Times reported that the Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity Fund is said to
have lost nearly 90 percent of its value, [which equated to a 90% loss to investors] and sources
say it will be shutting down.[9][10] Emails discovered as part of Wikileaks' release of the "Podesta
emails" seemed to indicate that Mezvinsky had used his ties to the Clinton family to obtain investors
for his hedge fund through Clinton Foundation events.
Marcotte, Sady Doyle, Valenti, the Clinton operatives knew this stuff.
Prioritizing women's liberation over economic populism, just a little bit, doesn't quite cover
it. Buying fully into the most rapacious aspects of predatory capitalism is more lie it.
If Clinton is your champion, and I am still seeing sads at Jezebel, you have zero credilibity
on economic issues. She's one of the worst crooks to ever run for President. And we will see how
Obama fares on his immediate switch from President to his ambition to be a venture capitalist for
Silicon Valley. I'll bet Obama gets very very lucky!
Val @49 &
"they (at some confused and probably not fully conscious level) do seem to assume that violence
and oppression of women and people of colour never used to happen when white men (including white
working class men) had 'good jobs' .. patriarchy and racism predate neoliberalism by centuries."
"patriarchy and sexism predate capitalism."
I think this framing is misleading, because you're historically comparing forms of oppression
with economic systems, rather than varieties of one or the other.
Wouldn't the more relevant comparison be something like: patriarchy and sexism are coeval with
classism and economic inequality?
What concretely are racism and sexism, after all, but ideologies dependent upon power inequalities,
and what are those but inequalities of social position (man, father) and wealth and ownership
that make possible that power difference? How could sexism or racism have existed without class
or inequality?
novakant 11.17.16 at 1:32 pm
I have no argument with the notion that Clinton was an imperfect candidate. Almost all
candidates are (even a top-notch one like Obama)
Strawman (I have heard a lot of times before):
nobody criticizes Clinton for being imperfect, people criticize her for being a terrible, terrible
candidate and the DNC establishment for supporting this terrible, terrible candidate: she lost
against TRUMP for goodness' sake.
bob mcmanus: "In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony
charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud "
Well, either I'm shocked to discover that Clinton was involved in her daughter's husband's
father's crimes some 20 years ago, or you've demonstrated that Clinton's daughter married a man
whose father was a crook. I'm guessing the latter, though I'm left wondering WTF that has to do
with Clinton's character.
engels 11.17.16 at 2:03 pm
One more:
"we cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of white men and a majority of white women,
across class lines, voted for a platform and a message of white supremacy, Islamophobia, misogyny,
xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-science, anti-Earth, militarism, torture, and policies
that blatantly maintain income inequality. The vast majority of people of color voted against
Trump, with black women registering the highest voting percentage for Clinton of any other demographic
(93 percent). It is an astounding number when we consider that her husband's administration oversaw
the virtual destruction of the social safety net by turning welfare into workfare, cutting food
stamps, preventing undocumented workers from receiving benefits, and denying former drug felons
and users access to public housing; a dramatic expansion of the border patrol, immigrant detention
centers, and the fence on Mexico's border; a crime bill that escalated the war on drugs and accelerated
mass incarceration; as well as NAFTA and legislation deregulating financial institutions.
"Still, had Trump received only a third of the votes he did and been defeated, we still would
have had ample reason to worry about our future.
"I am not suggesting that white racism alone explains Trump's victory. Nor am I dismissing
the white working class's very real economic grievances. It is not a matter of disaffection versus
racism or sexism versus fear. Rather, racism, class anxieties, and prevailing gender ideologies
operate together, inseparably, or as Kimberlé Crenshaw would say, intersectionally."
https://bostonreview.net/forum/after-trump/robin-d-g-kelley-trump-says-go-back-we-say-fight-back
Bob, a real feminist would not tell her daughter who to marry.
You claim to be an intersectional feminist but you say things like this, and you blamed feminists
for white dudes voting for trump. Are you a parody account?
Michael Sullivan 11.17.16 at 2:41 pm
Mclaren @ 25 "As for 63.7% home ownership stats in 2016, vast numbers of those "owned" homes
were snapped up by giant banks and other financial entities like hedge funds which then rented
those homes out. So the home ownership stats in 2016 are extremely deceptive."
There may be ways in which the home ownership statistic is deceptive or fuzzy, but it's hard
for me to imagine this being one of them.
The definition you seem to imply for home ownership (somebody somewhere owns the home) would
result in by definition 100% home ownership every year.
I'm pretty sure that the measure is designed to look at whether one of the people who live
in a home actually owns it. Ok, let's stuff the pretty sure, etc. and use our friend google. So
turns out that the rate in question is the percentage of households where one of the people in
the household owns the apartment/house. If some banker or landlord buys a foreclosure and then
rents the house out, that will be captured in the homeownership rate.
Where that rate may understate issues is that it doesn't consider how many people are in a
household. So if lots of people are moving into their parent's basements, or renting rooms to/from
unrelated people in their houses, those people won't be counted as renters or homeowners, since
the rate tracks households, not people. Where that will be captured is in something called the
headship rate, and represents the ratio of households to adults. That number dropped by about
1.5% between the housing bust and the recession, and appears to be recovering or at worst near
bottom (mixed data from two different surveys) as of 2013. So, yes, the drop in home ownership
rate is probably understated (hence the headline of my source article below) somewhat, but not
enormously as you imply, and the difference is NOT foreclosures - unless they are purchased by
another owner occupier, they DO show up in the home ownership rate. The difference is larger average
households: more adults living with other adults.
engels @70, "I DON'T want to live in a world in which 'patriarchy and racism' are okay, I want
to live in a world in which America has a real Left, which represents the working class (black,
white, gay, straight, female, male-like other countries do to a greater lesser degree), and which
is the only thing that has a shot at stopping its descent into outright fascism."
So many prominent people and such a large majority of voters have be so completely wrong, so
many times, on everything, for a year that I really am not confident about making any strong political
claims anymore. However, it has opened me to possibilities I wouldn't have previously considered.
One is this: I'm beginning to wonder (not believe, wonder), if a lot of working class and lower-to-middle
middle class Americans, including a lot of the ones who didn't vote or who switched from Obama
to Trump (not including those who were always on the right) would already be on board, or in the
long run be able of getting on board, with the picture Engels paints at 70.
That possibility seems outrageous because we assume this general group are motivated *primarily*
by resentment against women and people of color. But the more I read news stories that directly
interview them–not the rally goers, but the others–the more it seems that they will side with
*almost anyone* who they think is on their side, and *against anyone* who they think has contempt
or indifference for them. Put another way: they are driven by equal opportunity resentment to
whatever prejudices serve their resentment, rather than by a deeply engrained, fixed, rigid, kind
of prejudice. (I have in mind a number of recent articles, but one thing that struck me is interviews
with racially diverse factory workers, with Latinos and women, who voted for Trump.)
I also begin to wonder if there is as much, if not more, resistance to wide solidarity among
the left than among this group of voters who aren't really committed to either party. I begin
to think that many on the left are strongly, deeply, viscerally opposed to the middle range working
class, period, and not *just* to the racism and sexism that are all too often found there. I worry
the Democrats' class contempt, their conservative disgust for their social, educational, professional,
and economic inferiors is growing–partly based in reasonable disgust at the horrendous excesses
of the right, but partly class-based, pathological, and subterranean, independent of that reasonable
side.
I say this not to justify Trump voters or non-voters or to vilify Democrats, but actually with
a bit of optimism. For a very long time even many on the far left has looked at the old Marxist
model of wide solidarity among the proletariat with skepticism. But I'm wondering if that skepticism
is still justified. I wonder if what stands in the way of a truly diverse working class movement
is not the right but the left. If they're ready, and we've not been paying attention.
Are we really faced with a working class that rejects diversity? Are we really opposing to
them a professional class that truly accepts diversity? Isn't there a kind of popular solidarity
appearing, in awkward and sometimes ugly ways, that is destroying the presumptions of that opposition?
engels 11.17.16 at 3:32 pm Cornel West:
In short, the abysmal failure of the Democratic party to speak to the arrested mobility and
escalating poverty of working people unleashed a hate-filled populism and protectionism that threaten
to tear apart the fragile fiber of what is left of US democracy. And since the most explosive
fault lines in present-day America are first and foremost racial, then gender, homophobic, ethnic
and religious, we gird ourselves for a frightening future. What is to be done? First we must try
to tell the truth and a condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. For 40 years, neoliberals
lived in a world of denial and indifference to the suffering of poor and working people and obsessed
with the spectacle of success. Second we must bear witness to justice. We must ground our truth-telling
in a willingness to suffer and sacrifice as we resist domination. Third we must remember courageous
exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr, who provide moral and spiritual inspiration as we build
multiracial alliances to combat poverty and xenophobia, Wall Street crimes and war crimes, global
warming and police abuse – and to protect precious rights and liberties .
Val: "It seems as if (although again it's not very clear) Hidari is suggesting capitalism created
sexism and racism? Or something like that? I'm definitely on better ground there though, patriarchy
and sexism predate capitalism."
If Hidari is coming from a more-or-less mainline contemporary Marxist position, this is a misunderstanding
of their argument, which is no more a claim that capitalism "created sexism and racism" than it
would be a claim that capitalism created class antagonism. What's instead being suggested is that
just as capitalism has systematized a specific form of class antagonism (wage laborer vs.
capitalist) as a perceived default whose hegemony and expansion shapes our perception of all other
potential antagonisms as anachronistic exceptions, so it has done the same with specific forms
of sexism and racism, the forms we might call "patriarchy" and "white supremacy". In fact the
argument is typically that antagonisms like white vs. POC and man vs. woman function as normalized
exceptions to the normalized general antagonism of wage laborer vs. capitalist, a space where
the process known since Marx as "primitive accumulation" can take place through the dispossession
of women and POC (up to and including the dispossession of their very bodies) in what might otherwise
be considered flagrant violation of liberal norms.
As theorists like
Rosa Luxemburg and
Silvia Federici
have elaborated, this process of accumulation is absolutely essential to the continued functioning
of capitalism - the implication being that as much as capitalism and its ideologists pretend to
oppose oppressions like racism and sexism, it can never actually destroy these oppressions without
destroying its own social basis in the process. Hence neoliberal "identity politics", in which
changing the composition of the ruling elite (now the politician shaking hands with Netanyahu
on the latest multibillion-dollar arms deal can be a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name! now
the CEO of a company that employs teenaged girls to stitch T-shirts for 12 hours a day can be
a woman!) is ideologically akin to wholesale liberation, functions not as a way to destroy racism
and sexism but as a compromise gambit to preserve them.
Another Nick 11.17.16 at 4:01 pm f
austusnotes, I asked if you could comment on the "identity politics" behind the Dem choice
of Lena Dunham for celebrity campaign mascot. ie. their strategy. What they were planning and
thinking? And how you think it played out for them?
Not a list of your favourite boogeymen.
"So what are you actually talking about?"
I was attempting to discuss the role of identity politics in the Clinton campaign. I asked
about Dunham because she was the most prominent of the celebrities employed by the Clinton campaign
to deploy identity politics. ie. she appeared most frequently in the media on their behalf.
Not seeing much discussion about actual policies there, economic or otherwise. It's really
just an entire interview based on identity politics. With bonus meta-commentary on identity politics.
Lena blames "white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look
past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves," for the election loss.
Why didn't the majority of white women vote for Hillary? Because they "hate themselves".
"... "Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis. "I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity." ..."
"Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the
Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who
would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate,
was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis.
"I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about
those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little
levity."
####
While I do have some quibbles with the piece (RuAF pilots are getting much more than 90 hours
a year flight time & equipment is overrated and unaffordable in any decent numbers), it is pretty
solid.
"... The "my way" or the highway rhetoric from Clinton supporters on the campaign was sickening. When Bush was called a warmonger for Iraq, that was fine. When Clinton was called a warmonger for Iraq and Libya, the Clintonites went on the offensive, often throwing around crap like "if she was a man, she wouldn't be a warmonger!" ..."
"... On racism: "what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they passed. What I did hear was several million comments about how if you ever ventured into the city, winding up in the "wrong neighborhood" meant you'd get dragged from your car, raped, and burned alive. Looking back, I think the idea was that the local minorities were fine as long as they acted exactly like us." ..."
"... I'm telling you, the hopelessness eats you alive. And if you dare complain, some liberal elite will pull out their iPad and type up a rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone has replied to this with a comment saying, "You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!" Exactly. To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away white cries for help. Meanwhile, the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit, at least politicians act like they care about the inner cities." ..."
"... And the rural folk are called a "basket of deplorables" and other names. If you want to fight racism, a battle that is Noble and Honorable, you have to understand the nuances between racism and hopelessness. The wizard-wannabe idiots are a tiny fringe. The "deplorables" are a huge part of rural America. If you alienate them, you're helping the idiots mentioned above. ..."
Erm, atheist groups are known to target smaller Christian groups with lawsuits. A baker was sued
for refusing to bake a cake for a Gay Wedding. She was perfectly willing to serve the couple,
just not at the wedding. In California we had a lawsuit over a cross in a park. Atheists threatened
a lawsuit over a seal. Look, I get that there are people with no life out there, but why are they
bringing the rest of us into their insanity, with constant lawsuits. There's actually a concept
known as "Freedom from Religion" – what the heck? Can you imagine someone arguing about "Freedom
from Speech" in America? But it's ok to do it to religious folk! And yes, that includes Muslims,
who had to fight to build a Mosque in New York. They should've just said it was a Scientology
Center
The "my way" or the highway rhetoric from Clinton supporters on the campaign was sickening.
When Bush was called a warmonger for Iraq, that was fine. When Clinton was called a warmonger
for Iraq and Libya, the Clintonites went on the offensive, often throwing around crap like "if
she was a man, she wouldn't be a warmonger!"
The problem with healthcare in the US deserves its own thread, but Obamacare did not fix it;
Obamacare made it worse, especially in the rural communities. The laws in schools are fundamentally
retarded. A kid was suspended for giving a friend Advil. Another kid suspended for bringing in
a paper gun. I could go on and on. A girl was expelled from college for trying to look gangsta
in a L'Oreal mask. How many examples do you need? Look at all of the new "child safety laws" which
force kids to leave in a bubble. And when they enter the Real World, they're fucked, so they pick
up the drugs. In cities it's crack, in farmvilles it's meth.
Hillary didn't win jack shit. She got a plurality of the popular vote. She didn't win it, since
winning implies getting the majority. How many Johnson votes would've gone to Trump if it was
based on popular vote, in a safe state? Of course the biggest issue is the attack on the way of
life, which is all too real. I encourage you to read this, in order to understand where they're
coming from:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
"Nothing that happens outside the city matters!" they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully
unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind
of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and
avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd
barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and
doing an astounding $125 billion in damage. But who cares about those people, right? What's newsworthy
about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally
important. It matters. To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through
the window of the elites. "Are you assholes listening now?"
On racism: "what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always
one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black
people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they
passed. What I did hear was several million comments about how if you ever ventured into the city,
winding up in the "wrong neighborhood" meant you'd get dragged from your car, raped, and burned
alive. Looking back, I think the idea was that the local minorities were fine as long as they
acted exactly like us."
"They're getting the shit kicked out of them. I know, I was there. Step outside of the city,
and the suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded rural communities,
but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has
utterly collapsed."
^ That, I'd say, is known as destroying their lives. Also this:
"In a city, you can plausibly aspire to start a band, or become an actor, or get a medical
degree. You can actually have dreams. In a small town, there may be no venues for performing arts
aside from country music bars and churches. There may only be two doctors in town - aspiring to
that job means waiting for one of them to retire or die. You open the classifieds and all of the
job listings will be for fast food or convenience stores. The "downtown" is just the corpses of
mom and pop stores left shattered in Walmart's blast crater, the "suburbs" are trailer parks.
There are parts of these towns that look post-apocalyptic.
I'm telling you, the hopelessness eats you alive. And if you dare complain, some liberal elite
will pull out their iPad and type up a rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone
has replied to this with a comment saying, "You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!"
Exactly. To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away
white cries for help. Meanwhile, the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit,
at least politicians act like they care about the inner cities."
And the rural folk are called a "basket of deplorables" and other names. If you want to fight
racism, a battle that is Noble and Honorable, you have to understand the nuances between racism
and hopelessness. The wizard-wannabe idiots are a tiny fringe. The "deplorables" are a huge part
of rural America. If you alienate them, you're helping the idiots mentioned above.
"... "Class first" amongst men of the left has always signaled "ME first." What else could it mean? ..."
"... So "Black Lives Matter" actually means "Black Lives Matter First". Got it. So damn tired of identity politics. ..."
"... Meanwhile, in the usual way of such things, #BlackLivesMatter hashtag activism became fashionable, as the usual suspects were elevated to celebrity status by elites. Nothing, of course, was changed in policy, and so in a year or so, matters began to bubble on the ground again. ..."
"... I'm not tired of identity politics. I'm just tired of some identity-groups accusing other identity-groups of "identity-politics". I speak in particular of the Identity Left. ..."
"... Identity politics, any identity, is going to automatically split voters into camps and force people to 'pick' a side. ..."
"... The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I and many other writers argued that the bourgeois feminism Clinton represents works against the interests of the vast majority of women. This has turned out to be even more true than we anticipated. That branding of feminism has delivered to us the most sexist and racist president in recent history: Donald Trump. ..."
"... Hillary spoke to the million-dollar feminists-of-privilege who identified with her multi-million dollar self and her efforts to break her own Tiffany Glass ceiling. And she worked to get many other women with nothing to gain to identify with Hillary's own breaking of Hillary's own Tiffany Glass ceiling. ..."
"... For me (at least) the essence of the "Left" is justice. When we speak of Class we are putting focus on issues of economic justice. Class is the material expression of economic (and therefore political) stratification. Class is the template for analysing the power dynamics at play in such stratification. ..."
"... in the absence of economic justice, it's very difficult to obtain ANY kind of justice - whether such justice be of race, gender, legal, religious or sexual orientation. ..."
"... I find it indicative that the 1% (now) simply don't care one way or another about race or gender etc, PROVIDED it benefits or, has no negative effects on their economic/political interests. ..."
"... "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ..."
"... In ship sinking incidents, where a lot of people are dumped in the water, many adopt the strategy of trying to use others as flotation devices, pushing them under while the "rich class" tootle off in the lifeboats. Sounds like a winner, all right. ..."
"... The rich class has enlisted the white indentured servants as their Praetorian Guard. The same play as after Bacon's Rebellion. ..."
"... Is what is actually occurring another Kristallnacht, or the irreducible susurrus of meanness and idiocy that is part of every collection of humans? It would be nice not to get suckered into elevating the painful minima over the importance of getting ordinary people to agree on a real common enemy, and organizing to claim and protect. ..."
"... If even one single banker had gone to jail for the mess (fed by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II) that blew up in 2008, we would be having a different conversation. We are in a huge legitimacy crisis, in part because justice was never served on those who made tens of millions via fraud. ..."
"... The Malignant Overlords - the King or Queen, the Financial Masters of the Universe,, the tribal witch doctor- live by grazing on the wealth of the natural world and the productivity of their underlings. There are only a few thousand of them but they control finance and the Money system, propaganda organizations (in the USA called the Media) land and agriculture, "educational" institutions and entire armies of Homeland Insecurity police. ..."
"... Under them there are the sycophants– generals and officers, war profiteers and corporate CEO's, the intelligentsia, journalists, fake economists, and entertainment and sports heroes who grow fat feasting on the morsels left over after the .0001% have fed. And far below the Overlords are the millions of professional Bureaucrats whose job security requires unquestioning servitude. ..."
"... Race, gender identity, religion, etc. are the false dichotomies by which the oligarchs divide us. Saudi princes, African American millionaires, gay millionaires etc. are generally treated the same by the oligarchs as wasp millionaires. The true dichotomy is class, that is the dichotomy which dare not speak its name. ..."
"... For Trump it was so easy. He just says something that could be thought of as racist and then his supporters watch as the media morphs his words, removes context, or just ignores any possible non-racist motivations for his words. ..."
"... Just read the actual Mexican- rapists quote. Completely different then reported by the media. Fifteen years ago my native born Mexican friend said almost exactlly the same thing. ..."
"... whilst his GOP colleagues publicly recoiled in horror, there is no question that Trump was merely making explicit what Republicans had been doing for decades – since the days of Nixon in 1968. The dog whistle was merely replaced by a bull horn. ..."
"... Yes, class identity can be a bond that unites. However, in the US the sense of class identity remains underdeveloped. In fact, it is only with the Sanders campaign that large swaths of the American public have had practical and sustained exposure to the concept of class as a political force. For most of the electorate, the language of class is still rather alien, particularly since the "equality of opportunity" narrative even now is not completely overthrown. ..."
"... It seems inevitable that populist sentiment, which both Sanders and Trump have used to electoral advantage, will spill over into a variety of economic nationalism. ..."
"... Obama was a perfect identity candidate, i.e., not only capable of getting the dem nomination, but the presidency and than not jailing banksters NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID, OR WILL DO… ..."
"... One truism about immigration, to pick a topical item, is that uncontrolled immigration leads to overwhelming an area whether city, state or country. Regardless of how one feels about the other aspects of immigration, there are some real, unacknowledged limits to the viability of the various systems that must accommodate arrivals, particularly in the short term. Too much of a perceived ..."
"... There is an entrenched royal court, not unlike Versailles in some respects, where the sinecures, access to the White House tennis court (remember Jimmy Carter and his forest for the trees issues) or to paid "lunches in Georgetown" or similar trappings. Inflow of populist or other foreign ideas behind the veil of media and class secrecy represents a threat to overwhelm, downgrade (Sayeth Yogi Berra: It is so popular that nobody goes there anymore) or remove those perks, and to cause some financial, psychic or other pain to the hangers-on. ..."
"... Pretty soon, word filters out through WikiLeaks, or just on the front page of a newspaper in the case of the real and present corruption (What do you mean nobody went to jail for the frauds?). In those instances, the tendency of a populace to remain aloof with their bread and circuses and reality shows and such gets strained. ..."
"... Some people began noticing and the cognitive dissonance became to great to ignore no matter how many times the messages were delivered from on high. That led to many apparent outbursts of rational behavior ..."
if poor whites were being shot by cops at the rate urban blacks are, they would be screaming
too. blm is not a corporate front to divide us, any more than acorn was a scam to help election
fraud.
It's lazy analysis to suggest Race was a contributing factor. On the fringes, Trump supporters
may have racial overtones, but this election was all about class. I applaud sites like NC in continually
educating me. What you do is a valuable service.
"We won't need a majority of the dying "white working class" in our present and future feminine,
multiracial American working class. Just a minority."
Indeed, this site has featured links to articles elaborating the demographic composition of
today's "working class". And yet we still have people insisting that appeals to the working class,
and policies directed thereof, must "transcend" race and gender.
And, of course this "class first" orientation became a bone of contention between some loud
mouthed "men of the left" during the D-Party primary and "everyone else" and that's why the "Bernie
Bro" label stuck. It didn't help the Sanders campaign either.
"Class first" amongst men of the left has always signaled "ME first." What else could it
mean?
This is, actually, complicated. It's a reasonable position that black lives don't
matter because they keep getting whacked by cops and the cops are never held accountable. Nobody
else did anything, so people on the ground stood up, asserted themselves, and as part
of that created #BlackLivesMatter as an online gathering point; all entirely reasonable. #AllLivesMatter
was created, mostly as deflection/distraction, by people who either didn't like the movement,
or supported cops, and of course if all lives did matter to this crowd, they would have
done something about all the police killings in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the usual way of such things, #BlackLivesMatter hashtag activism became fashionable,
as the usual suspects were elevated to celebrity status by elites. Nothing, of course, was changed
in policy, and so in a year or so, matters began to bubble on the ground again.
Activist time (we might say) is often slower than electoral time. But sometimes it's faster;
see today's Water Cooler on the #AllOfUs people who occupied Schumer's office (and high time,
too). To me, that's a very hopefully sign. Hopefully, not a bundle of groups still siloed by identity
(and if that's to happen, I bet that will happen by working together. Nothing abstract).
I'm not tired of identity politics. I'm just tired of some identity-groups accusing other
identity-groups of "identity-politics". I speak in particular of the Identity Left.
"We won't need a majority of the dying "white working class" in our present and future
feminine, multiracial American working class. Just a minority."
That statement is as myopic a vision as the current political class is today. The statement
offends another minority, or even a possible majority. Identity politics, any identity, is
going to automatically split voters into camps and force people to 'pick' a side.
In False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I and many other writers
argued that the bourgeois feminism Clinton represents works against the interests of the vast
majority of women. This has turned out to be even more true than we anticipated. That branding
of feminism has delivered to us the most sexist and racist president in recent history: Donald
Trump.
I wonder if there is an even simpler more colorful way to say that. Hillary spoke to the
million-dollar feminists-of-privilege who identified with her multi-million dollar self and her
efforts to break her own Tiffany Glass ceiling. And she worked to get many other women with nothing
to gain to identify with Hillary's own breaking of Hillary's own Tiffany Glass ceiling.
If the phrase "Tiffany Glass ceiling" seems good enough to re-use, feel free to re-use it one
and all.
For me (at least) the essence of the "Left" is justice. When we speak of Class we are putting
focus on issues of economic justice. Class is the material expression of economic (and therefore
political) stratification. Class is the template for analysing the power dynamics at play in such
stratification.
Class is the primary political issue because it not only affects everyone, but in the absence
of economic justice, it's very difficult to obtain ANY kind of justice - whether such justice
be of race, gender, legal, religious or sexual orientation.
I find it indicative that the 1% (now) simply don't care one way or another about race or gender
etc, PROVIDED it benefits or, has no negative effects on their economic/political interests.
"Just how large a spike in hate crime there has been remains uncertain, however. Several reports
have been proven false, and Potok cautioned that most incidents reported to the Southern Poverty
Law Center did not amount to hate crime.
All us ordinary people are insecure. Planet is becoming less habitable, war everywhere, ISDS
whether we want it or not, group sentiments driving mass behaviors with extra weapons from our
masters, soil depletion, water becoming a Nestle subsidiary, all that. But let us focus on maintaining
our favored position as more insecure than others, with a "Yes, but" response to what seems to
me the fundamental strategic scene:
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war,
and we're winning."
Those mostly white guys, but a lot of women too, the "rich classs," are ORGANIZED, they have
a pretty simple organizing principle ("Everything belong us") that leads to straightforward strategies
and tactics to control all the levers and fulcrums of power. The senators in Oregon are "on the
right side" of a couple of social issues, but they both are all in for "trade deals" and other
big pieces of the "rich class's" ground game. In ship sinking incidents, where a lot of people
are dumped in the water, many adopt the strategy of trying to use others as flotation devices,
pushing them under while the "rich class" tootle off in the lifeboats. Sounds like a winner, all
right.
The comparison with 9/11 is instructive. That is not minimizing hate crimes. Within days after
9/11, my Sikh neighbor was assaulted and called a "terrorist". He finally decided to stop wearing
a turban, cut his hair, and dress "American". My neighborhood was not ethnically tense, but it is ethnically diverse, and my neighbor had
never seen his assailant before.
Yes, the rich classes are organized…organized to fleece us with unending wars. But don't minimize
other people's experience of what constitutes a hate crime.
In 1875, the first step toward the assassination of a black, "scalawag", or "carpetbagger"
public official in the South was a friendly visit from prominent people asking him to resign,
the second was night riders with torches, the third was night riders who killed the public official.
Jury nullification (surprise, surprise) made sure that no one was punished at the time. In 1876,
the restoration of "home rule' in Southern states elected in a bargain Rutherford B. Hayes, who
ended Reconstruction and the South entered a period that cleansed "Negroes, carpetbaggers, and
scalawags" from their state governments and put the Confederate generals and former plantation
owners back in charge. That was then called The Restoration. Coincidence that that is the name
of David Horowitz's conference where Donna Brazile was hobnobbing with James O'Keefe?
The rich class has enlisted the white indentured servants as their Praetorian Guard. The
same play as after Bacon's Rebellion.
Not minimizing - my very peaches-and-cream Scots-English daughter is married to a gentleman
from Ghana whose skin tones are about as dark as possible.
the have three beautiful children, and are fortunate to live in an area that is a hotbed of
"tolerance." I have many anecdotes too.
Do anecdotes = reality in all its complexity? Do anecdotes = policy? Is what is
actually occurring another Kristallnacht, or the irreducible susurrus of meanness and idiocy
that is part of every collection of humans? It would be nice not to get suckered into
elevating the painful minima over the importance of getting ordinary people to agree on a real
common enemy, and organizing to claim and protect.
If even one single banker had gone to jail for the mess (fed by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush
II) that blew up in 2008, we would be having a different conversation. We are in a huge legitimacy
crisis, in part because justice was never served on those who made tens of millions via fraud.
When there's no justice, its as if the society's immune system is not functioning.
Expect more strange things to appear, almost all of them aimed at sucking the remaining resources
out of the system with the knowledge that they'll never face consequences for looting. The fact
that they're killing the host does not bother them.
Corruption is both cause & effect of gross wealth inequities. Of course to the 1% it's not
corruption so much as merely what is owed as of a right to the privileged. (Thus, the most fundamental
basis of liberal democracy turns malignant: that ALL, even rulers & law makers are EQUALLY bound
by the Law).
The Malignant Overlords - the King or Queen, the Financial Masters of the Universe,, the
tribal witch doctor- live by grazing on the wealth of the natural world and the productivity of
their underlings. There are only a few thousand of them but they control finance and the Money
system, propaganda organizations (in the USA called the Media) land and agriculture, "educational"
institutions and entire armies of Homeland Insecurity police.
Under them there are the sycophants– generals and officers, war profiteers and corporate
CEO's, the intelligentsia, journalists, fake economists, and entertainment and sports heroes who
grow fat feasting on the morsels left over after the .0001% have fed. And far below the Overlords
are the millions of professional Bureaucrats whose job security requires unquestioning servitude.
Once upon a time there was what was known as the Middle Class who taught school or built things
in factories, made mortgage payments on a home, and bought a new Ford every other year. But they
now are renters, moving from one insecure job in one state to an insecure one across the country.
How else are they to maintain their sense of self-worth except by identifying a tribe that is
under them? If the members of the inferior tribe look just like you they might actually be more
successful and not a proper object of scorn. But if they have a black or brown skin and speak
differently they are the perfect target to make you feel that your life is not a total failure.
It's either that or go home and kick the dog or beat the wife. Or join the Army where you can
go kill a few foreigners and will always know your place in the hierarchy.
Class "trumps" race, but racial prejudice has its roots far back in human social history as
a tribal species where the "other" was always a threat to the tribe's existence.
Anyone who thinks it is only class and not also race is wearing some very strange blinders
No one with any sense is saying that, Katharine, and constantly bringing it up as some kind
of necessary argument (which, you may recall, was done as a way of trying to persuade people of
color Sanders wasn't working for them in the face of his entire history) perpetuates the falsehood
dichotomy that it has to be one or the other.
I can understand the desire to reduce the problems to a single issue that can then be subjected
to our total focus, but that's what's been done for the last fifty years; it doesn't work. Life
is too complex and messy to be fixed using magic pills, and Trump's success because those who've
given up hope of a cure are still enormously vulnerable to snake oil.
Race, gender identity, religion, etc. are the false dichotomies by which the oligarchs divide
us. Saudi princes, African American millionaires, gay millionaires etc. are generally treated
the same by the oligarchs as wasp millionaires. The true dichotomy is class, that is the dichotomy
which dare not speak its name.
yes, racism still exist, but the Democrats want to make it the primary issue of every election
because it is costs them nothing. I've never liked the idea of race based reparations because
they seem like another form of racism.
However, if the neolibs really believe racial disparity
and gender issues are the primary problems, why don't they ever support reparations or a large
tax on rich white people to pay the victims of racism and sexism and all the other isms?
Perhaps
its because that would actually cost them something. I think what bothers most of the Trumpets
out here in rural America is not race but the elevation of race to the top of the political todo
list.
For Trump it was so easy. He just says something that could be thought of as racist and
then his supporters watch as the media morphs his words, removes context, or just ignores any
possible non-racist motivations for his words.
Just read the actual Mexican- rapists quote. Completely
different then reported by the media. Fifteen years ago my native born Mexican friend said almost exactlly the same thing. Its a trap the media walks right into. I think most poor people of whiteness
do see racism as a sin, just not the only or most awful sin. As for Trump being a racist, I think
he would have to be human first.
… whilst his GOP colleagues publicly recoiled in horror, there is no question that Trump
was merely making explicit what Republicans had been doing for decades – since the days of Nixon
in 1968. The dog whistle was merely replaced by a bull horn.
Spot-on statement. Was watching Fareed Zakaria (yeah, I know, but he makes legit points from
time to time) and was pleasantly surprised that he called Bret Stephens, who was strongly opposed
to Trump, out on this. To see Stephens squirm like a worm on a hook was priceless.
"…what divides people rather than what unites people…"
Yes, class identity can be a bond that unites. However, in the US the sense of class identity
remains underdeveloped. In fact, it is only with the Sanders campaign that large swaths of the
American public have had practical and sustained exposure to the concept of class as a political
force. For most of the electorate, the language of class is still rather alien, particularly since
the "equality of opportunity" narrative even now is not completely overthrown.
Sanders and others on an ascendant left in the Democratic Party - and outside the Party - will
continue to do the important work of building a sense of class consciousness. But more is needed,
if the left wants to transform education into political power. Of course, organizing and electing
candidates at the local and state level is enormously important both to leverage control of local
institutions and - even more important - train and create leaders who can effectively use the
tools of political power. But besides this practical requirement, the left also needs to address
- or co-opt, if you will - the language of economic populism, which sounds a lot like economic
nationalism.
It seems inevitable that populist sentiment, which both Sanders and Trump have used to
electoral advantage, will spill over into a variety of economic nationalism. Nationalist
sentiment is the single most powerful unifying principle available, certainly more so than the
concept of class, at least in America. I don't see that changing anytime soon, and I do see the
Alt-Right using nationalism as a lever to try to coax the white working class into their brand
of identity politics. But America's assimilationist, "melting pot" narrative continues to be attractive
to most people, even if it is under assault in some quarters. So I think moving from nationalism
to white identity politics will not so easy for the Alt-Right. On the other hand, picking up the
thread of economic nationalism can provide the left with a powerful tool for bringing together
women, minorities and all who are struggling in this economy. This becomes particularly important
if it is the case that technology already makes the ideal of full (or nearly full) employment
nothing more than a chimera, thus forcing the question of a guaranteed annual income. Establishing
that kind of permanent safety net will only be possible in a polity where there are firm bonds
between citizens and a marked sense of responsibility for the welfare of all.
And if the Democratic Party is honest, it will have to concede that even the popular incumbent
President has played a huge role in contributing to the overall sense of despair that drove people
to seek a radical outlet such as Trump. The Obama Administration rapidly broke with its Hope and
"Change you can believe in" the minute he appointed some of the architects of the 2008 crisis
as his main economic advisors, who in turn and gave us a Wall Street friendly bank bailout that
effectively restored the status quo ante (and refused to jail one single banker, even though many
were engaged in explicitly criminal activity).
====================================================================
For those who think its just Hillary, its not. There is no way there will ever be any acknowledgement
of Obama;s real failures – he will no more be viewed honestly by dems than he could be viewed
honestly by repubs. Obama was a perfect identity candidate, i.e., not only capable of getting
the dem nomination, but the presidency and than not jailing banksters NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID,
OR WILL DO…
I imagine Trump will be one term, and I imagine we return in short order to our nominally different
parties squabbling but in lock step with regard to their wall street masters…
Democrats seem to be the more visible or clumsy in their attempts to govern themselves and
the populace, let alone understand their world. By way of illustration, consider the following.
One truism about immigration, to pick a topical item, is that uncontrolled immigration leads to
overwhelming an area whether city, state or country. Regardless of how one feels about the other
aspects of immigration, there are some real, unacknowledged limits to the viability of the various
systems that must accommodate arrivals, particularly in the short term. Too much of a perceived
good thing may be hazardous to one's health. Too much free stuff exhausts the producers,
infrastructure and support networks.
To extend and torture that concept further, just because, consider the immigration of populist
ideas to Washington. There is an entrenched royal court, not unlike Versailles in some respects,
where the sinecures, access to the White House tennis court (remember Jimmy Carter and his forest
for the trees issues) or to paid "lunches in Georgetown" or similar trappings. Inflow of populist
or other foreign ideas behind the veil of media and class secrecy represents a threat to overwhelm,
downgrade (Sayeth Yogi Berra: It is so popular that nobody goes there anymore) or remove those
perks, and to cause some financial, psychic or other pain to the hangers-on.
Pretty soon, word filters out through WikiLeaks, or just on the front page of a newspaper in
the case of the real and present corruption (What do you mean nobody went to jail for the frauds?).
In those instances, the tendency of a populace to remain aloof with their bread and circuses and
reality shows and such gets strained.
Some people began noticing and the cognitive dissonance
became to great to ignore no matter how many times the messages were delivered from on high. That
led to many apparent outbursts of rational behavior (What, you sold my family and me out and reduced
our prospects, so why should we vote for a party that takes us for granted, at best), which would
be counter-intuitive by some in our media.
"... The funny thing is that they've so learned to love the smell of their own farts (or propaganda) that they internalized an image of enlightened progressivism for themselves. This Trump election was probably the first clue that their self image is faulty and not widely shared by others. They are not taking it well. ..."
NYTimes still blames race on Trump's winning over Obama supporters in Iowa:
Trump clearly sensed the fragility of the coalition that Obama put
together - that the president's support in heavily white areas was built not
on racial egalitarianism but on a feeling of self-interest. Many white
Americans were no longer feeling that belonging to this coalition benefited
them.
Racial egalitarianism wasn't the reason for white support for Obama in 2008
and 2012 in Iowa. It reflected racial egalitarianism, but that support had to
do with perceived economic self-interest, just as the switch to Trump in 2016
did.
And what on earth is wrong with self-interest as a reason for voting?
Right. These corporatists use identity politics as a stalking horse to
rob the public blind, and then they spew invectives about racism and
mysogony wherever the public stops buying the bullcrap.
The funny thing is that they've so learned to love the smell of their own
farts (or propaganda) that they internalized an image of enlightened
progressivism for themselves. This Trump election was probably the first
clue that their self image is faulty and not widely shared by others. They
are not taking it well.
"... Judging by the volume of complaints from Clinton sycophants insisting that people did not get behind Clinton or that it was purely her gender, they won't. Why would anyone get behind Clinton save the 1%? Her policies were pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and at odds with what the American people needed. Also, we should judge based on policy, not gender and Clinton comes way short of Sanders in that regard – in many regards, she is the antithesis of Sanders. ..."
"... "Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The only question is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility" I disagree. In my view, it is not a question at all. They have never taken responsibility for anything, and they never will. ..."
"... What would make Democrats focus on the working class? Nothing. They have lost and brought about destruction of the the Unions, which was the Democratic Base, and have become beholden to the money. The have noting in common with the working class, and no sympathy for their situation, either. ..."
"... What does Bill Clinton, who drive much of the policy in the '90s, and spent his early years running away form the rural poor in Arkansas (Law School, Rhodes Scholarship), have in common with working class people anywhere? ..."
"... Iron law of institutions applies. Position in the D apparatus is more important than political power – because with power come blame. ..."
"... I notice Obama worked hard to lose majorities in the house and Senate so he could point to the Republicans and say "it was their fault" except when he actually wanted something, and made it happen (such as TPP). ..."
"... Agreed with the first but not the second. It's typical liberal identity politics guilt tripping. That won't get you too far on the "white side" of Youngstown Ohio. ..."
"... Also suspect that the working-class, Rust-Belt Trump supporters will soon be thrown under the bus by their Standard Bearer, if the Transition Team appointments are any indicator: e.g. Privateers at SSA. ..."
"... My wife teaches primary grades in an inner city school. She has made it clear to me over the years that the challenges her children are facing are related to poverty, not race. She sees a big correlation between the financial status of a family and its family structure (one or more parents not present or on drugs) and the kids' success in school. Race is a minor factor. ..."
"... The problem with running on a class based platform in America is, well, it's America; and in good ol' America, we are taught that anyone can become a successful squillionare – ya know, hard work, nose-to-the-grindstone, blah, blah, blah. ..."
"... The rags to riches American success fable is so ingrained that ideas like taxing the rich a bit more fall flat because everyone thinks "that could be me someday. Just a few house flips, a clever new app, that ten-bagger (or winning lottery ticket) and I'm there" ("there" being part of the 1%). ..."
"... The idea that anyone can be successful (i.e. rich) is constantly promoted. ..."
"... I think this fantasy is beginning to fade a bit but the "wealth = success" idea is so deeply rooted in the American psyche I don't think it will ever fade completely away. ..."
"... If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy - which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog - you will come to an awful realization. It wasn't Beijing. It wasn't even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn't immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn't any of that. ..."
"... Nothing happened to them. There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence - and the incomprehensible malice - of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain't what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down. ..."
"... The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump's speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. ..."
"... White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America ..."
"... Poor or Poorer whites have been demonised since the founding of the original Colonies, and were continuously pushed west to the frontiers by the ruling elites of New England and the South as a way of ridding themselves of "undesirables", who were then left to their own resources, and clung together for mutual assistance. ..."
"... White trash is a central, if disturbing, thread in our national narrative. The very existence of such people – both in their visibility and invisibility – is proof that American society obsesses over the mutable labels we give to the neighbors we wish not to notice. "They are not who we are". But they are who we are and have been a fundamental part of our history, whether we like it or not". ..."
"... "To be sure, Donald Trump did make a strong appeal to racists, homophobes, and misogynists " ..."
"... working class white women ..."
"... Obama is personally likeable ..."
"... History tells us the party establishment will move further right after election losses. And among the activist class there are identity purity battles going on. ..."
"... Watch as this happens yet again: "In most elections, U.S. politicians of both parties pretend to be concerned about their issues, then conveniently ignore them when they reach power and implement policies from the same Washington Consensus that has dominated the past 40 years." That is why we need a strong third party, a reformed election system with public support of campaigns and no private money, and free and fair media coverage. But it ain't gonna happen. ..."
"... Obviously, if the Democrats nominate yet another Clintonite Obamacrat all over again, I may have to vote for Trump all over again . . . to stop the next Clintonite before it kills again. ..."
Ultimately the Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The
only question is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility for what happened.
Judging by the volume of complaints from Clinton sycophants insisting that people did not
get behind Clinton or that it was purely her gender, they won't. Why would anyone get behind Clinton
save the 1%? Her policies were pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and at odds with what the American people
needed. Also, we should judge based on policy, not gender and Clinton comes way short of Sanders
in that regard – in many regards, she is the antithesis of Sanders.
Class trumps race, to make a pun. If the left doesn't take the Democratic Party back and clean
house, I expect that there is a high probability that 2020's election will look at lot like the
2004 elections.
I'd recommend someone like Sanders to run. Amongst the current crop, maybe Tulsi Gabbard or
Nina Turner seem like the best candidates.
"Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The only question
is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility" I disagree. In my view, it is not a
question at all. They have never taken responsibility for anything, and they never will.
What would make Democrats focus on the working class? Nothing. They have lost and brought
about destruction of the the Unions, which was the Democratic Base, and have become beholden to
the money. The have noting in common with the working class, and no sympathy for their situation,
either.
What does Bill Clinton, who drive much of the policy in the '90s, and spent his early years
running away form the rural poor in Arkansas (Law School, Rhodes Scholarship), have in common
with working class people anywhere?
The same question applies to Hillary, to Trump and the remainder of our "representatives" in
Congress.
Without Unions, how are US Representatives from the working class elected?
What we are seeing is a shift in the US for the Republicans to become the populist party. They
already have the churches, and with Trump they can gain the working class – although I do not
underestimate the contempt help by our elected leaders for the Working Class and poor.
The have forgotten, if they ever believed: "There, but for the grace of God, go I".
Iron law of institutions applies. Position in the D apparatus is more important than political
power – because with power come blame.
I notice Obama worked hard to lose majorities in the house and Senate so he could point
to the Republicans and say "it was their fault" except when he actually wanted something, and
made it happen (such as TPP).
We know that class and economic insecurity drove many white people to vote for Trump. That's
understandable. And now we are seeing a rise in hate incidents inspired by his victory. So obviously
there is a race component in his support as well. So, if you, white person, didn't vote for Trump
out of white supremacy, would you consider making a statement that disavows the acts of extremist
whites? Do you vow to stand up and help if you see people being victimized? Do you vow not to
stay silent when you encounter Trump supporters who ARE obviously in thrall to the white supremacist
siren call?
Agreed with the first but not the second. It's typical liberal identity politics guilt
tripping. That won't get you too far on the "white side" of Youngstown Ohio.
And I wouldn't worry about it. When I worked at the at the USX Fairless works in Levittown
PA in 1988, I was befriended by one steelworker who was a clear raving white supremacist racist.
(Actually rather nonchalant about about it). However he was the only one I encountered who was
like this, and eventually I figured out that he befriended a "newbie" like me because he had no
friends among the other workers, including the whites. He was not popular at all.
I've always thought that Class, not Race, was the Third Rail of American Politics, and that
the US was fast-tracking to a more shiny, happy feudalism.
Also suspect that the working-class, Rust-Belt Trump supporters will soon be thrown under
the bus by their Standard Bearer, if the Transition Team appointments are any indicator: e.g.
Privateers at SSA.
My wife teaches primary grades in an inner city school. She has made it clear to me over
the years that the challenges her children are facing are related to poverty, not race. She sees
a big correlation between the financial status of a family and its family structure (one or more
parents not present or on drugs) and the kids' success in school. Race is a minor factor.
She also makes it clear to me that the Somali/Syrian/Iraqi etc. immigrant kids are going to
do very well even though they come in without a word of English because they are working their
butts off and they have the full support of their parents and community. These people left bad
places and came to their future and they are determined to grab it with both hands. 40% of her
class this year is ENL (English as a non-native language). Since it is an inner city school, they
don't have teacher's aides in the class, so it is just one teacher in a class of 26-28 kids, of
which a dozen struggle to understand English. Surprisingly, the class typically falls short of
the "standards" that the state sets for the standardized exams. Yet many of the immigrant kids
end up going to university after high school through sheer effort.
Bullying and extreme misbehavior (teachers are actually getting injured by violent elementary
kids) is largely done by kids born in the US. The immigrant kids tend to be fairly well-behaved.
On a side note, the CSA at our local farmer's market said they couldn't find people to pick
the last of their fall crops (it is in a rural community so a car is needed to get there). So
the food bank was going out this week to pick produce like squash, onions etc. and we were told
we could come out and pick what we wanted. Full employment?
The problem with running on a class based platform in America is, well, it's America; and
in good ol' America, we are taught that anyone can become a successful squillionare – ya know,
hard work, nose-to-the-grindstone, blah, blah, blah.
The rags to riches American success fable is so ingrained that ideas like taxing the rich
a bit more fall flat because everyone thinks "that could be me someday. Just a few house flips,
a clever new app, that ten-bagger (or winning lottery ticket) and I'm there" ("there" being part
of the 1%).
The idea that anyone can be successful (i.e. rich) is constantly promoted.
I think this fantasy is beginning to fade a bit but the "wealth = success" idea is so deeply
rooted in the American psyche I don't think it will ever fade completely away.
I'm recalling (too lazy to find the link) a poll a couple years ago that showed the number
of American's identifying as "working class" increased, and the number as "middle class" decreased.
It is both. And it is a deliberate mechanism of class division to preserve power. Bill Cecil-Fronsman,
Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina identifies nine classes
in the class structure of a state that mixed modern capitalist practice (plantations), agrarian
YOYO independence (the non-slaveowning subsistence farms), town economies, and subsistence (farm
labor). Those classes were typed racially and had certain economic, power, and social relations
associated with them. For both credit and wages, few escaped the plantation economy and being
subservient to the planter capitalists locally.
Moreover, ethnic identity was embedded in the law as a class marker. This system was developed
independently or exported through imitation in various ways to the states outside North Carolina
and the slave-owning states. The abolition of slavery meant free labor in multiple senses and
the capitalist use of ethnic minorities and immigrants as scabs integrated them into an ethnic-class
system, where it was broad ethnicity and not just skin-color that defined classes. Other ethnic
groups, except Latinos and Muslim adherents, now have earned their "whiteness".
One suspects that every settler colonial society develops this combined ethnic-class structure
in which the indigenous ("Indians" in colonial law) occupy one group of classes and imported laborers
or slaves or intermixtures ("Indian", "Cape Colored" in South Africa) occupy another group of
classes available for employment in production. Once employed, the relationship is exactly that
of the slaveowner to the slave no matter how nicely the harsh labor management techniques of 17th
century Barbados and Jamaica have been made kinder and gentler. But outside the workplace (and
often still inside) the broader class structure applies even contrary to the laws trying to restrict
the relationship to boss and worker.
Blacks are not singling themselves out to police; police are shooting unarmed black people
without punishment. The race of the cop does not matter, but the institution of impunity makes
it open season on a certain class of victims.
It is complicated because every legal and often managerial attempt has been made to reduce
the class structure of previous economies to the pure capitalism demanded by current politics.
So when in a post Joe McCarthy, post-Cold War propaganda society, someone wants to protest
the domination of capitalism, attacking who they perceive as de facto scabs to their higher incomes
(true or not) is the chosen mode of political attack. Not standing up for the political rights
of the victims of ethnically-marked violence and discrimination allows the future depression of
wages and salaries by their selective use as a threat in firms. And at the individual firm and
interpersonal level even this gets complicated because in spite of the pressure to just be businesslike,
people do still care for each other.
This is a perennial mistake. In the 1930s Southern Textile Strike, some organizing was of both
black and white workers; the unions outside the South rarely stood in solidarity with those efforts
because they were excluding ethnic minorities from their unions; indeed, some locals were organized
by ethnicity. That attitude also carried over to solidarity with white workers in the textile
mills. And those white workers who went out on a limb to organize a union never forgot that failure
in their labor struggle. It is the former textile areas of the South that are most into Trump's
politics and not so much the now minority-majority plantation areas.
It still is race in the inner ring suburbs of ethnically diverse cities like St. Louis that
hold the political lock on a lot of states. Because Ferguson to them seems like an invasion of
the lower class. Class politics, of cultural status, based on ethnicity. Still called by that
19h century scientific racism terminology that now has been debunked - race - Caucasoid, Mongoloid,
Negroid. Indigenous, at least in the Americas, got stuck under Mongoloid.
You go organize the black, Latino, and white working class to form unions and gain power, and
it will happen. It is why Smithfield Foods in North Carolina had to negotiate a contract. Race
can be transcended in action.
Pretending the ethnic discrimination and even segregation does not exist and have its own problems
is political suicide in the emerging demographics. Might not be a majority, but it is an important
segment of the vote. Which is why the GOP suppressed minority voters through a variety of legal
and shady electoral techniques. Why Trump wants to deport up to 12 million potential US citizens
and some millions of already birthright minor citizens. And why we are likely to see the National
Labor Review Board gutted of what little power it retains from 70 years of attack. Interesting
what the now celebrated white working class was not offered in this election, likely because they
would vote it down quicker because, you know, socialism.
Your comment reminded me of an episode in Seattle's history.
Link . The
unions realized they were getting beat in their strikes, by scabs, who were black. The trick was
for the unions to bring the blacks into the union. This was a breakthrough, and it worked in Seattle,
in 1934. There is a cool mural the union commissioned by,
Pablo O'Higgins , to
celebrate the accomplishment.
Speaking of class, and class contempt , one must recall the infamous screed published
by National Review columnist Kevin Williamson early this year, writing about marginalised white
people here is a choice excerpt:
If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my
own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and
alcohol addiction, the family anarchy - which is to say, the whelping of human children with
all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog - you will come to an awful realization. It wasn't
Beijing. It wasn't even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn't immigrants from
Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn't any of that.
Nothing happened to them. There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine
or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very
little to explain the dysfunction and negligence - and the incomprehensible malice - of poor
white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain't what it used to be. There is more to
life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the
factories down.
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die.
Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap
theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory
towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your
goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American
underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used
heroin needles. Donald Trump's speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.
Now it's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to state that Williamson's animus can
be replicated amongst many of the moneyed elite currently pushing and shoving their way into a
position within the incoming Trump Administration. The Trump campaign has openly and cynically
courted and won the votes of white people similar to those mentioned in Williamson's article,
and who – doubtlessly – will be stiffed by policies vigourously opposed to their welfare that
will be enacted during the Trump years. The truly intriguing aspect of the Trump election is:
what will be the consequences of further degradation of the "lower orders' " quality of life by
such actions? Wholesale retreat from electoral politics? Further embitterment and anger NOT toward
those in Washington responsible for their lot but directed against ethnic and racial minorities
"stealing their jawbs" and "getting welfare while we scrounge for a living"? I sincerely doubt
whether the current or a reconstructed Democratic Party can at all rally this large chunk of white
America by posing as their "champions" the class divide in the US is as profound as the racial
chasm, and neither major party – because of internal contradictions – can offer a credible answer.
[In addition to the growing inequality and concomitant wage stagnation for the middle and working
classes, 9/11 and its aftermath has certainly has contributed to it as well, as, making PEOPLE
LONG FOR the the Golden Age of Managerial Capitalism of the post-WWII era,]
Oh yeah, I noticed a big ol' hankerin' for that from the electorate. What definition could
the author be using for Managerial Capitalism that could make it the opposite of inequality? The
fight for power between administration and shareholders does not lead to equality for workers.
[So this gave force to the idea that the government was nothing but a viper's nest full of
crony capitalist enablers,]
I don't think it's an 'idea' that the govt is crony capitalists and enablers. Ds need to get
away from emotive descriptions. Being under/unemployed, houseless, homeless, unable to pay for
rent, utilities, food . aren't feelings/ideas. When that type of language is used, it comes across
as hand waving. There needs to be a shift of talking to rather than talking about.
If crony capitalism is an idea, it's simply a matter for Ds to identify a group (workers),
create a hierarchy (elite!) and come up with a propaganda campaign (celebrities and musicians
spending time in flyover country-think hanging out in coffee shops in a flannel shirt) to get
votes. Promise to toss them a couple of crumbs with transfer payments (retraining!) or a couple
of regulations (mandatory 3 week severance!) and bring out the obligatory D fall back- it would
be better than the Rs would give them. On the other hand, if it's factual, the cronies need to
be stripped of power and kicked out or the nature of the capitalist structure needs to be changed.
It's laughable to imagine liberals or progressives would be open to changing the power and nature
of the corporate charter (it makes me smile to think of the gasps).
The author admits that politicians lie and continue the march to the right yet uses the ACA,
a march to the right, as a connection to Obama's (bombing, spying, shrinking middle class) likability.
[[But emphasizing class-based policies, rather than gender or race-based solutions, will achieve
more for the broad swathe of voters, who comprehensively rejected the "neo-liberal lite" identity
politics]
Oops. I got a little lost with the neo-liberal lite identity politics. Financialized identity
politics? Privatized identity politics?
I believe women and poc have lost ground (economic and rights) so I would like examples of
successful gender and race-based (liberal identity politics) solutions that would demonstrate
that identity politics targeting is going to work on the working class.
If workers have lost power, to balance that structure, you give workers more power (I predict
that will fail as unions fall under the generic definition of corporatist and the power does not
rest with the members but with the CEOs of the unions – an example is a union that block the members
from voting to endorse a candidate, go against the member preference and endorse the corporatist
candidate), or you remove power from the corporation. Libs/progs can't merely propose something
like vesting more power with shareholders to remove executives as an ameliorating maneuver which
fails to address the power imbalance.
[This is likely only to accelerate the disintegration of the political system and economic
system until the elephant in the room – class – is honestly and comprehensively addressed.]
For a thorough exposition of lower-class white America from the inception of the Republic to
today, a must-read is Nancy Isenberg's White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in
America . Poor or Poorer whites have been demonised since the founding of the original
Colonies, and were continuously pushed west to the frontiers by the ruling elites of New England
and the South as a way of ridding themselves of "undesirables", who were then left to their own
resources, and clung together for mutual assistance.
Thus became the economic and cultural subset of "crackers", "hillbillies", "rednecks", and
later, "Okies", a source of contempt and scorn by more economically and culturally endowed whites.
The anti-bellum white Southern aristocracy cynically used poor whites as cheap tenant farming,
all the while laying down race-based distinctions between them and black slaves – there is always
someone lower on the totem pole, and that distinction remains in place today. Post-Reconstruction,
the South maintained the cult of white superiority, all the while preserving the status of upper-class
whites, and, by race-based public policies, assured lower-class whites that such "superiority"
would be maintained by denying the black populations access to education, commerce, the vote,
etc. And today, "white trash", or "trailer trash", or poorer whites in general are ubiquitous
and as American as apple pie, in the North, the Midwest, and the West, not just the South. Let
me quote Isenberg's final paragraph of her book:
White trash is a central, if disturbing, thread in our national narrative. The very
existence of such people – both in their visibility and invisibility – is proof that American
society obsesses over the mutable labels we give to the neighbors we wish not to notice. "They
are not who we are". But they are who we are and have been a fundamental part of our history,
whether we like it or not".
Presenting a plan for the future, which has a chance to be supported by the electorate, must
start with scrupulous, unwavering honesty and a willingness to acknowledge inconvenient facts.
The missing topic from the 2016 campaigns was declining energy surpluses and their pervasive,
negative impact on the prosperity to which we feel entitled. Because of the energy cost of producing
oil, a barrel today represents a declining fraction of a barrel in terms of net energy. This is
the major factor in sluggish economic performance. Failing to make this case and, at the same
time, offering glib and vacuous promises of growth and economic revival, are just cynical exercises
in pandering.
Our only option is to mange the coming decline in a way that does not descend into chaos and
anarchy. This can only be done with a clear vision of causes and effects and the wisdom and courage
to accept facts. The alternative is yet more delusions and wishful thinking, whose shelf life
is getting shorter.
To be fair to the article, Marshall did in fact say:
"To be sure, Donald Trump did make a strong appeal to racists, homophobes, and misogynists
"
IMO the point Marshall is making that race was not the primary reason #DJT
won. And I concur.
This is borne out by the vote tallies which show that the number of R voters from 2012 to 2016
was pretty much on the level (final counts pending):
2016 R Vote: 60,925,616
2012 R Vote: 60,934,407
(Source:
US Election Atlas )
Stop and think about this for a minute. Every hard core racist had their guy this
time around; and yet, the R's could barely muster the same amount of votes as Mittens
in 2012. This is huge, and supports the case that other things contributed far more than just
race.
Class played in several ways:
Indifference/apathy/fatigue: Lambert posted some data from Carl Beijer on this yesterday in his
Clinton Myths piece yesterday.
Anger: #HRC could not convince many people who voted for Bernie that she was interested in his
outreach to the working class. More importantly, #HRC could not convince working class white
women that she had anything other than her gender and Trump's boorishness as a counterpoint
to offer.
Outsider v Insider: Working class people skeptical of political insiders rejected #HRC.
If black workers were losing ground and white workers were gaining, one could indeed claim
that racism is a problem. However, both black and white workers are losing ground – racism simply
cannot be the major issue here. It's not racism, it's class war.
The fixation on race, the corporate funding of screaming 'black lives matter' agitators, the
crude attempts to tie Donald Trump to the KKK (really? really?) are just divide and conquer, all
over again.
Whatever his other faults, Donald Trump has been vigorous in trying to reach out to working
class blacks, even though he knew he wouldn't get much of their vote and he knew that the media
mostly would not cover it. Last I heard, he was continuing to try and reach out, despite the black
'leadership' class demanding that he is a racist. Because as was so well pointed out here, the
one thing the super-rich fear is a united working class.
Divide and conquer. It's an old trick, but a powerful one.
Suggestion: if (and it's a big if) Trump really does enact policies that help working class
blacks, and the Republicans peel away a significant fraction of the black vote, that would set
the elites' hair on fire. Because it would mean that the black vote would be in play, and the
Neoliberal Democrats couldn't just take their votes for granted. And wouldn't that be a thing.
that was good for 2016. I will look to see if he has stats for other years. i certainly agree
that poor whites are more likely to be shot; executions of homeless people by police are one example.
the kind of system that was imposed on the people of ferguson has often been imposed on poor whites,
too. i do object to the characterization of black lives matter protestors as "screaming agitators";
that's all too reminiscent of the meme of "outside agitators" riling up the local peaceful black
people to stand up for their rights that was characteristically used to smear the civil rights
movement in the 60's.
I might not have much in common at all with certain minorities, but it's highly likely that
we share class status.
That's why the status quo allows identity politics and suppresses class politics.
Having been around for sometime, I often wonder what The Guardian is going on about in the
UK as it is supposed to be our left wing broadsheet.
It isn't a left I even recognised, what was it?
I do read it to try and find out what nonsense it is these people think.
Having been confused for many a year, I think I have just understood this identity based politics
as it is about to disappear.
I now think it was a cunning ploy to split the electorate in a different way, to leave the
UK working class with no political outlet.
Being more traditional left I often commented on our privately educated elite and private schools
but the Guardian readership were firmly in favour of them.
How is this left?
Thank god this is now failing, get back to the old left, the working class and those lower
down the scale.
It was clever while it lasted in enabling neoliberalism and a neglect of the working class,
but clever in a cunning, nasty and underhand way.
Thinking about it, so many of these recent elections have been nearly 50% / 50% splits, has
there been a careful analysis of who neoliberalism disadvantages and what minorities need to be
bought into the fold to make it work in a democracy.
Women are not a minority, but obviously that is a big chunk if you can get them under your
wing. The black vote is another big group when split away and so on.
Brexit nearly 50/50; Austria nearly 50/50; US election nearly 50/50.
So, 85% of Blacks vote Hillary against Sanders (left) and 92% vote Hillary against Trump (right),
but is no race. It's the class issue that sends them to the Clintons. Kindly explain how.
Funny think about likeability, likeable people can be real sh*ts. So I started looking into
hanging out with less likeable people. I found that they can be considerably more appreciative
of friendship and loyalty, maybe because they don't have such easy access to it.
Entertainment media has cautiously explored some aspect so fthis, but in politics, "nice" is
still disproportionately values, and not appreciated as a possible flag.
Watch out buddy. They are onto you. I have seen some comments on democratic party sites claiming
the use of class to explain Hillary's loss is racist. The democratic party is a goner. History
tells us the party establishment will move further right after election losses. And among the
activist class there are identity purity battles going on.
Watch as this happens yet again: "In most elections, U.S. politicians of both parties pretend
to be concerned about their issues, then conveniently ignore them when they reach power and implement
policies from the same Washington Consensus that has dominated the past 40 years." That is why
we need a strong third party, a reformed election system with public support of campaigns and
no private money, and free and fair media coverage. But it ain't gonna happen.
Well it certainly won't happen by itself. People are going to have to make it happen. Here
in Michigan we have a tiny new party called Working Class Party running 3 people here and there.
I voted for two of them. If the Democrats run somebody no worse than Trump next time, I will be
free to vote Working Class Party to see what happens.
Obviously, if the Democrats nominate yet another Clintonite Obamacrat all over again, I
may have to vote for Trump all over again . . . to stop the next Clintonite before it kills again.
"... when "capitalism" failed to remedy class inequity, in fact worked to cause it, propaganda took over and focused on all sorts of things that float around the edges of class like race, opportunity, civil rights, etc – but not a word about money. ..."
"... "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ..."
"... "The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class division that forms against their class, once organized, is large enough to take them on." ..."
"... Class divides the 99% from the small elite who lead both political parties. That makes it an explosive threat. I'm speaking of actual economic class, not the media BS of pork rinds and NASCAR versus brie and art museums. ..."
"... I've always maintained that Class is the real third rail of American politics, and the US is fast tracking to a shiny, prettified version of feudalism. ..."
"... There are two elephants in the room, class and technology. Both are distorted by those in power in order to ensure their continued rule. It seems to me the technology adopted by a society determines its class structure. ..."
"... Add to that HRC's neocon foreign policy instincts ..."
"... This goes beyond corruption. It is one thing to be selling public infrastructure construction contracts to crony capitalist contributors (in the Clintons' case do we call them philanthropists?) – entirely another to be selling guns and bombs used by Middle Eastern despots to grind down (IOW blow up, murder) opposition to their corrupt regimes. ..."
"... In fact, most of Western Civilization (sic?) seems to be happy with the status quo of a 'post-industrial' America as the "exceptional nation" whose only two functions are consuming the world's wealth and employing military Keynesianism to maintain a global social order based on money created ex nihilo by US and international bankers and financiers. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is a political crisis because the system is geared against the citizen. ..."
"... And journalists/media are complicit. Where is the cutting investigative journalism? There is none – the headlines should be screaming it. Thanks God (or whoever) for blogs like these. ..."
"... Sooo, they spent a generation telling the white worker that he was a racist, sexist bigot, mocking his religion, making his kids read "Heather Has Two Mommies" in school, and blaming him for economic woes caused in New York and DC. ..."
"... Tryng lately to get my terminology straight, and I think the policies you itemized should be labeled neoliberal, not liberal/progressive. Neoliberalism seems to be the one that combines the worst features of the private sector with the worst features of the public sector, without the good points of either one. ..."
when "capitalism" failed to remedy class inequity, in fact worked to cause
it, propaganda took over and focused on all sorts of things that float around
the edges of class like race, opportunity, civil rights, etc – but not a
word about money.
That's why Hillary was so irrelevant and boring. If class
itself (money) becomes a topic of discussion, the free-market orgy will be
seen as a last ditch effort to keep the elite in a class by themselves by
"trading" stuff that can just as easily be made domestically, and just not
worth the effort anymore.
Identity politics divides just as well as class politics. It simply divides
into smaller (less powerful) groups. The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class division that forms against their
class, once organized, is large enough to take them on.
"The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class
division that forms against their class, once organized, is large enough
to take them on."
I believe there is another aspect to the shift we are seeing, and it
is demographics.
Specifically deplorable demographics.
It should be noted that the deplorable generation, gen x, are very much a mixed racial cohort.
They have not participated in politics much because they have been under attack since they were
children. They have been ignored up to now.
Deplorable means wretched, poor.
This non participation is what has begun to change, and will accelerate for the next 20 years
and beyond.
Demographically speaking, with analysis of the numbers right now are approximately…
GEN GI and Silent Gen – 22,265,021
Baby Boomers 50,854,027
Gen X 90,010,283
Millenials 62,649,947 18 Years to 34
25,630,521 (12-17 Years old)
Total 88,280,468
Artist Gen 48,820,896 and growing…
* Using the Fourth Turning Cultural Demographic Measurement vs. the politically convenient,
MSM supported, propaganda demographics. They would NEVER do such a thing right? Sure.
Class divides the 99% from the small elite who lead both political parties.
That makes it an explosive threat. I'm speaking of actual economic class, not the media BS of pork rinds and NASCAR versus brie and
art museums.
Hi Yves – great post!
I've always maintained that Class is the real third rail
of American politics, and the US is fast tracking to a shiny, prettified version
of feudalism.
I suspect that the working-class Trump voters in the Rust Belt will eventually disappointed in their
standard bearer, Transition Team staffing is any indication: e.g. Privateers back at SSA.
In the post-Reconstruction South poor whites and blacks alike were the victims
of political and legal institutions designed to create a divided and disenfranchised
work force for the benefit of landlords, capitalists and corporations. Poor whites
as well as poor blacks were ensnared in a system of sharecropping and debt peonage.
Poll taxes, literacy tests and other voter restrictions disenfranchised blacks
and almost all poor whites creating an electorate dominated by a white southern
gentry class.
Martin Luther King, Jr. clarified this at the end of his address at the conclusion of the Selma March
on March 25, 1965.
…You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in
the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied
with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro
slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. That is what was known
as the Populist Movement. The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the
former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not
only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc that threatened to drive
the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated
society…. If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro
Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and
gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for
the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him
that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate
Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could
not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in
the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological
oblivion.
Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike resulted
in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they
segregated southern mores from the rich whites; they segregated southern churches from Christianity;
they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; and they segregated the Negro from everything.
That's what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great
society: a society of justice where none would prey upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty
where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the
dignity and worth of human personality.
There are two elephants in the room, class and technology. Both are distorted
by those in power in order to ensure their continued rule. It seems to me the technology
adopted by a society determines its class structure.
So much of todays discussion revolves around justifying the inappropriate use of
technology, it seems inevitable that only a major breakdown of essential technological
systems will afford the necessary space to address growing social problems.
E.F. Schumacher addressed all this in the 70's with his work on appropriate technologies. Revisiting
the ideas of human scale systems offers a way to actively and effectively deal with todays needs while
simultaneously trying to change larger perspectives and understanding of the citizenry. While Schumacher's
work was directed at developing countries, the impoverishment of the working class makes it relevant
in the US today.
Addressing our technology question honestly will lead to more productive changes in class structure
than taking on the class issue directly. Direct class confrontation is violent. Adopting human scale
technology is peaceful. In the end what stands for a good life will win out. I'm working for human scale.
Thought experiment: If you opposed Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin does that
make you a racist and a sexist?
Or, is it only when someone votes against a supposed liberal? And when Hillary
supported Cuomo over Teachout for NY Governor, none of her supporters labeled her
a Cuomobros.
Hillary received millions fewer votes than Obama because she was a seriously flawed candidate who
could not muster any excitement. The only reason she received 60 million is because she was running
against Trump. The play on identity politics was pure desperation.
"So this gave force to the idea that
the government was nothing but a viper's nest full
of crony capitalist enablers
, which in turn helped to unleash populism on the right (the
Left being marginalised or co-opted by their Wall Street/Silicon Valley donor class). And this
gave us Trump.
Add to that HRC's neocon foreign policy instincts
, which could have got
us in a war with Russia and maybe the American electorate wasn't so dumb after all."
I voted for Hillary, but it was not easy.
I agree that identity politics of the DNC variety have passed their pull date. Good riddance.
Here's another thought experiment: were voters who chose Obama over Hillary
in the 2008 primary sexists? Were Hillary's voters racists?
I don't think you give the Democratic establishment enough credit for obtuseness by characterizing
their identity politics play as "desperation". I have several sisters who were sucked in by Hillary's
"woman" card, and it made them less than receptive to hearing about her record of pay-for-play, proxy
warmongering, and baseless Russia-bashing.
And it turned people like me – who would choose a woman over a man, other things being equal –
into sexists for not backing Hillary (I voted for Stein).
Yes. If Hillary had been elected I felt like we would have been played by someone
who is corrupt and with no real interest in the working/middle class. We would
have slogged through another 4 years with someone who arrogantly had both a private
and public position and had no real interest in climate change (she was very pro
fracking), financial change (giving hour long $250,000 speeches to banks) or health
care (she laughed at the idea of single payer although that's what most people
want).
Sanders had opposite views on these 3 issues and would have been an advocate of real change which
is why he was so actively opposed by the establishment and very popular with the people as evidenced
by his huge rallies.
Trump was seen by many as the only real hope for some change. As mentioned previously we've already
seen 2 very beneficial outcomes of his being elected by things calming down with Syria and Russia and
with TPP apparently being dead in the water.
Another positive could be a change in the DOJ to go after white collar criminals of which we have
a lot.
Climate change is I think an important blind spot but he has shown the capacity to be flexible and
not as much of an ideologue as some. It's possible that as he sees some of his golf courses go under
water he could change his mind. It can be helpful if someone in power changes his mind on an important
issue as this can relate better to other doubters to come to the same conclusion.
Getting back to class I watched the 2003 movie Seabiscuit a few days ago. This film was set in the
depression period and had clips of FDR putting people back to work. It emphasized the dignity that this
restored to them. It's a tall order but I think that's what much of Trump's base is looking for.
Whilst I agree with the points made, there is a BIG miss for me.
Unless I missed it – where are the comments on corruption? This is not a partisan point of view,
but to make the issue entirely focussed on class misses the point that the game is rigged.
Holder, an Obama pick, unless I am mistaken, looked the other way when it came to investigating and
prosecuting miscreants on Wall Street. The next in line for that job was meeting Bill behind closed
so that Hillary could be kept safe. Outrageous.
The Democratic party's attempts to make this an issue about race is so obviously a crass attempt
at manipulation that only the hard of thinking could swallow it.
The vote for Trump was a vote against corrupt insiders. Maybe he will turn out to be the same.
To your point; dumbfounded that a country that proposes to be waging a "War on Drugs" pardons
home grown banking entities that laundered money for drug dealers.
If you or I attempted such foolishness – we'd be incarcerate in a heartbeat.
Monty Python (big fan), at it's most silly and sophomoric – could not write this stuff…
Yep – para 7. A bit of a passing reference to the embedded corruption
and payola for congress and the writing of laws by lobbyists.
And yes, war on drugs is pretty much a diversionary tactic to give the impression that the
rule of law is still in force. It is for you an me……. for the connected, corrupt, not so much!
This goes beyond corruption. It is one thing to be selling public infrastructure
construction contracts to crony capitalist contributors (in the Clintons' case
do we call them philanthropists?) – entirely another to be selling guns and
bombs used by Middle Eastern despots to grind down (IOW blow up, murder) opposition
to their corrupt regimes.
In fact, most of Western Civilization (sic?) seems
to be happy with the status quo of a 'post-industrial' America as the "exceptional
nation" whose only two functions are consuming the world's wealth and employing
military Keynesianism to maintain a global social order based on money created
ex nihilo by US and international bankers and financiers.
This conspiracy has emerged from the Podesta emails. It was Clinton conspiring with mainstream
media to elevate Trump and then tear him down. We have to now look at all the media who endorsed
Hillary as simply corrupt. Simultaneously, Hillary said that Bernie had to be ground down to the
pulp. Further leaked emails showed how the Democratic National Committee sabotaged Sanders' presidential
campaign. It was Hillary manipulating the entire media for her personal gain. She obviously did
not want a fair election because she was too corrupt.
What is very clear putting all the emails together, the rise of Donald Trump was orchestrated
by Hillary herself conspiring with mainstream media, and they they sought to burn him to the ground.
Their strategy backfired and now this is why she has not come out to to speak against the violence
she has manipulated and inspired.
It seems to be clear the Democratic Party needs to purge itself of the Clinton – Obama influence.
Is Sanders' suggestion for the DNC head a good start or do we need to look elsewhere?
What are are getting now are attempts by the Dems (and let me state here I am not fan of the
Repubs – the distinction is a false one) to point to anything other than the problem that is right
in front of them.
What we are witnessing is a political crisis because the system is geared against the citizen.
And journalists/media are complicit. Where is the cutting investigative journalism? There is
none – the headlines should be screaming it. Thanks God (or whoever) for blogs like these.
There has been a coup I believe. The cooperation and melding of corporate and political power,
and the interchange of power players between the two has left the ordinary person nowhere to go.
This is not a left vs right, Dem vs Repub argument. Those are distinctions are there to keep us
busy and to provide the illusion.
Chris Hedges likend politics to American Pro Wrestling – that is what we are watching!
The idea that a guy who ran casinos in New Jersey, and whose background was
too murky to get a casino license in Nevada, will be the one to clean up corruption
in DC is a level of gullibility beyond my comprehension.
a lot of people out there need 10 baggers. I sure do.
Why work? I mean really. It sucks but what's your choice? The free market solution is to kill yourself
- that's what slaves could have done. If you don't like slavery, then just kill yourself! Why complain?
You're your own boss of "You Incorporated" and you can choose who to work for! Even nobody.
the 10-bagger should be just for billionaires. Even a millionaire has a hard time because there's
only so much you can lose before you're not a millionaire. Then you might have to work!
If most jobs didn't suck work wouldn't be so bad. That's the main thing, make jobs that don't suck
so you don't drown yourself in tattoos and drugs. It's amazing how many people have tattoos. Drugs are
less "deplorable" haha. Some are good - like alcohol, Xanax, Tylenol, red wine, beer, caffeine, sugar,
donuts, cake, cookies, chocolate. Some are bad, like the shlt stringy haired meth freaks take. If they
had good jobs it might give them something better to do,
How do you get good jobs and not shlt jobs? That's not entirely self evident. In the meantime, the
10 bagger at least gets you some breathing room so you can think about it. Even if you think for free,
it's OK since you don't have to work. Working gets in the way of a lot of stuff that you'd rather be
doing. Like nothing,
The amazing thing is this: no matter how much we whinge, whine, bitch moan, complain, rant, rail,
fulminate, gripe, huarrange (that mght be speled wrong), incite, joculate, kriticize, lambaste, malign,
naysay, prevaricate, query, ridicule, syllogize, temporize, ululate (even Baudelaire did that I red
on the internet), yell and (what can "Z" be? I don't want to have to look something up I'm too lazy,
how about "zenophobiasize" hahahahahahahah,
The amazing thing is: million of fkkkers want to come here and - get this! - THEY WON'T COMPLAIN
ABOUT ANY OF THE SHT WE DO!
""By making him aware he has more in common with the black steel workers by
being a worker, than with the boss by being white."
Sooo, they spent a generation telling the white worker that he was a racist, sexist bigot, mocking
his religion, making his kids read "Heather Has Two Mommies" in school, and blaming him for economic
woes caused in New York and DC.
Actually, too many white workers are racist, sexist, and think everyone is
a rabid Christian just like them. I ought to know because I live in red rural
Pennsylvania. I'm not mocking you folks, but I am greatly pissed off that you
just don't mind your own damn business and stop trying to force your beliefs
on others. And I don't want to hear that liberals are forcing their beliefs
on others; we're just asking you follow our laws and our Constitution when it
comes to liberty and justice for all.
And for every school that might have copies of "Heather Has Two Mommies," I can give you a giant
list of schools that want to ban a ton of titles because some parent is offended. One example is
the classic "Brave New World" by Aldus Huxley. "Challenged in an Advanced Placement language composition
class at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Del. (2014). Two school board members contend that while
the book has long been a staple in high school classrooms, students can now grasp the sexual and
drug-related references through a quick Internet search." Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,
May 2014, p. 80.
Quick internet search, my ass. Too many conservatives won't even use the internet to find real
facts because that would counter the right-wing meme.
And for every school that might have copies of "Heather Has Two Mommies,"
I can give you a giant list of schools that want to ban a ton of titles
because some parent is offended.
And for every liberal/progressive politician, I can give a you basket of shitty policies, such
as charter schools, shipping jobs overseas, cutting social security, austerity, the grand bargain,
Obamacare, drones, etc.
Great. So the library has a copy of "Heather Has Two Mommies." Or not. Who cares? The United
Colors of Benetton worldview doesn't matter a fig when I'm trying to pay for rising health care,
rent, College education, retirement costs, etc.
Tryng lately to get my terminology straight, and I think the policies
you itemized should be labeled neoliberal, not liberal/progressive. Neoliberalism
seems to be the one that combines the worst features of the private sector
with the worst features of the public sector, without the good points
of either one.
It seems to me that you're referencing a certain historical model
of "liberal" that doesn't, nay, cannot exist anymore. A No-True-Scotsman
fallacy, as I see it.
We can only deal with what we have in play, not some pure historical
abstraction.
But for the sake of argument, let's say that a distinction can be made between neoliberal
and "real" liberalism. Both entities, however you want to differentiate/describe them, serve
as managers to capital. In other words, they just want to manage things, to fiddle with
the levers at the margin.
We need a transfer of power, not a new set of smart managers.
The right has spent a generation supporting rabidly bigoted media like Rush
Limbaugh and Fox News making sure the white working class blame all their ills
on immigrants, minorities, feminists and stirring up a Foaming Outrage of the
Week at what some sociology professor said at a tiny college somewhere.
Kiss up, kick down authoritarianism. It's never the fault of the people with all the money and
all the power who control their economic lives.
"... The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by 11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent. ..."
"... Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation ..."
"... Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the working class, regardless of race or gender. ..."
The elections saw a massive shift in party support among the poorest and wealthiest voters. The share
of votes for the Republicans amongst the most impoverished section of workers, those with family
incomes under $30,000, increased by 10 percentage points from 2012. In several key Midwestern states,
the swing of the poorest voters toward Trump was even larger: Wisconsin (17-point swing), Iowa (20
points), Indiana (19 points) and Pennsylvania (18 points).
The swing to Republicans among the $30,000 to $50,000 family income range was 6 percentage points.
Those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 swung away from the Republicans compared to 2012
by 2 points.
The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the
Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited
from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by
11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased
from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent.
Clinton was unable to make up for the vote decline among women (2.1 million), African Americans
(3.2 million), and youth (1.2 million), who came overwhelmingly from the poor and working class,
with the increase among the rich (1.3 million).
Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance
of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle
class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation.
Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses
of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade
unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the
working class, regardless of race or gender.
"... Because the following talking points prevent a (vulgar) identity politics -dominated Democrat Party from owning its loss, debunking them is then important beyond winning your Twitter wars. I'm trying to spike the Blame Cannons! ..."
"... Remember, Trump won Wisconsin by a whisker. So for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that black voters stayed home because they were racist, costing Clinton Wisconsin. ..."
"... These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump. Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House, a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump . ..."
"... The Obama-Trump counties were critical in delivering electoral victories for Trump. Many of them fall in states that supported Obama in 2012, but Trump in 2016. In all, these flipped states accounted for 83 electoral votes. (Michigan and New Hampshire could add to this total, but their results were not finalized as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.) ..."
"... And so, for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that counties who voted for the black man in 2012 were racist because they didn't vote for the white women in 2016. Bringing me, I suppose, to sexism. ..."
"... These are resilient women, often working two or three jobs, for whom boorish men are an occasional occupational hazard, not an existential threat. They rolled their eyes over Trump's unmitigated coarseness, but still bought into his spiel that he'd be the greatest job producer who ever lived. Oh, and they wondered why his behaviour was any worse than Bill's. ..."
"... pink slips have hit entire neighbourhoods, and towns. The angry white working class men who voted in such strength for Trump do not live in an emotional vacuum. They are loved by white working class women – their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers, who participate in their remaindered pain. I t is everywhere in the interviews. "My dad lost his business", "My husband hasn't been the same since his job at the factory went away" . ..."
"... So, for this talking point to be true, you have to believe that sexism simultaneously increased the male vote for Trump, yet did not increase the female vote for Clinton. Shouldn't they move in opposite directions? ..."
"... First, even assuming that the author's happy but unconscious conflation of credentials with education is correct, it wasn't the "dunces" who lost two wars, butchered the health care system, caused the financial system to collapse through accounting control fraud, or invented the neoliberal ideology that was kept real wages flat for forty years and turned the industrial heartland into a wasteland. That is solely, solely down to - only some , to be fair - college-educated voters. It is totally and 100% not down to the "dunces"; they didn't have the political or financial power to achieve debacles on the grand scale. ..."
"... Second, the "dunces" were an important part of Obama's victories ..."
"... Not only has polling repeatedly underplayed the importance of white voters without college degrees, it's underplayed their importance to the Obama coalition: They were one-third of Obama votes in 2012. They filled the gap between upper-class whites and working-class nonwhites. Trump gained roughly 15 percentage points with them compared to Romney in 2012. ..."
"... "No, you are ignorant! You threw away the vote and put Trump in charge." Please, it will be important to know what derogatory camp you belong in when the blame game swings into full gear. *snark ..."
"... 'Stupid' was the word I got very tired of in my social net. Two variant targets: ..."
"... 1) Blacks for not voting their interests. The responses included 'we know who our enemies are' and 'don't tell me what to think.' ..."
"... Mostly it was vs rural, non-college educated. iirc, it was the Secretary of Agriculture, pleading for funds, who said the rural areas were where military recruits came from. A young fella I know, elite football player on elite non-urban HS team, said most of his teammates had enlisted. So they are the ones getting shot at, having relatives and friends come back missing pieces of body and self. ..."
"... My guy in the Reserves said the consensus was that if HRC got elected, they were going to war with Russia. Not enthused. Infantry IQ is supposedly average-80, but they know who Yossarian says the enemy is, e'en if they hant read the book. ..."
This post is not an explainer about why and how Clinton lost (and Trump won). I think we're going
to be sorting that out for awhile. Rather, it's a simple debunking of common talking points by Clinton
loyalists and Democrat Establishment operatives; the sort of talking point you might hear on Twitter,
entirely shorn of caveats and context. For each of the three talking points, I'll present an especially
egregious version of the myth, followed by a rebuttals.
How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states
Of the more than 120 million votes cast in the 2016 election, 107,000 votes in three states
[Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania] effectively decided the election.
Of course, America's first-past-the-post system and the electoral college amplify small margins
into decisive results. And it was the job of the Clinton campaign to find those 107,000 votes and
win them;
the Clinton operation turned out to be weaker than anyone would have imagined when
it counted . However, because Trump has what might be called an institutional mandate - both
the executive and legislative branches and soon, perhaps, the judicial - the narrowness of his margin
means he doesn't have a popular mandate. Trump has captured the state, but by no means civil society;
therefore, the opposition that seeks to delegitimize him is in a stronger position than it may realize.
Hence the necessity for reflection; seeking truth from facts, as the saying goes. Because
the following talking points prevent a
(vulgar) identity politics -dominated Democrat Party from owning its loss, debunking them is
then important beyond winning your Twitter wars. I'm trying to spike the Blame Cannons!
Trump's win is a reminder of the incredible, unbeatable power of racism
The subtext here is usually that if you don't chime in with vehement agreement, you're a racist
yourself, and possibly a racist Trump supporter. There are two reasons this talking point is false.
First, voter caring levels dropped from 2012 to 2016, especially among black Democrats
.
Carl
Beijer :
From 2012 to 2016, both men and women went from caring about the outcome to not caring.
Among Democratic men and women, as well as Republican women, care levels dropped about 3-4
points; Republican men cared a little less too, but only by one point. Across the board, in
any case, the plurality of voters simply didn't care.
Beijer includes the following chart (based on Edison exit polling cross-referenced with total
population numbers from the US Census):
Beijer interprets:
White voters cared even less in 2016 then in 2012, when they also didn't care; most of that
apathy came from white Republicans compared to white Democrats, who dropped off a little less.
Voters of color, in contrast, continued to care – but their care levels dropped even more,
by 8 points (compared to the 6 point drop-off among white voters). Incredibly, that drop was
driven entirely by a 9 point drop among Democratic voters of color which left Democrats
with only slim majority 51% support; Republicans, meanwhile, actually gained support
among people of color.
Urban areas, where black and Hispanic voters are concentrated along with college-educated
voters, already leaned toward the Democrats, but Clinton did not get the turnout from these
groups that she needed. For instance, black voters did not show up in the same numbers they
did for Barack Obama, the first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
Remember, Trump won Wisconsin by a whisker. So for this talking point to be true, we have to
believe that black voters stayed home because they were racist, costing Clinton Wisconsin.
Second, counties that voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016 .
The Washington Post :
These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump. Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House,
a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump
.
The Obama-Trump counties were critical in delivering electoral victories for Trump. Many
of them fall in states that supported Obama in 2012, but Trump in 2016. In all, these flipped
states accounted for 83 electoral votes. (Michigan and New Hampshire could add to this total,
but their results were not finalized as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.)
Here's the chart:
And so, for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that counties who voted for the
black man in 2012 were racist because they didn't vote for the white women in 2016. Bringing me,
I suppose, to sexism.
Talking Point: Clinton was Defeated by Sexism
Here's an article showing the talking point from
Newsweek :
This often vitriolic campaign was a national referendum on women and power.
(The subtext here is usually that if you don't join the consensus cluster, you're a sexist
yourself, and possibly a sexist Trump supporter). And if you only look at the averages this claim
might seem true :
On Election Day, women responded accordingly, as Clinton beat Trump among women 54 percent
to 42 percent. They were voting not so much for her as against him and what he brought to the
surface during his campaign: quotidian misogyny.
There are two reasons this talking point is not true. First, averages conceal, and what
they conceal is class . As you read further into the article, you can see it fall apart:
In fact, Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent, with
white women without college degrees going for [Trump]
two to one .
So, taking lack of a college degree as a proxy for being working class, for Newsweek's claim
to be true, you have to believe that working class women don't get a vote in their referendum,
and for the talking point to be true, you have to believe that working class women are sexist.
Which leads me to ask: Who died and left the bourgeois feminists in Clinton's base in charge of
the definition of sexism, or feminism? Class traitor
Tina Brown is worth repeating:
Here's my own beef. Liberal feminists, young and old, need to question the role they played
in Hillary's demise. The two weeks of media hyperventilation over grab-her-by-the-pussygate,
when the airwaves were saturated with aghast liberal women equating Trump's gross comments
with sexual assault, had the opposite effect on multiple women voters in the Heartland.
These are resilient women, often working two or three jobs, for whom boorish men are an
occasional occupational hazard, not an existential threat. They rolled their eyes over Trump's
unmitigated coarseness, but still bought into his spiel that he'd be the greatest job producer
who ever lived. Oh, and they wondered why his behaviour was any worse than Bill's.
Missing this pragmatic response by so many women was another mistake of Robbie Mook's campaign
data nerds. They computed that America's women would all be as outraged as the ones they came
home to at night. But pink slips have hit entire neighbourhoods, and towns. The angry white
working class men who voted in such strength for Trump do not live in an emotional vacuum.
They are loved by white working class women – their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers,
who participate in their remaindered pain. I t is
everywhere in the interviews. "My dad lost his business", "My husband hasn't been the same
since his job at the factory went away" .
Second, Clinton in 2016 did no better than Obama in 2008 with women (although she did
better than Obama in 2012). From
the New York Times analysis of the exit polls, this chart...
So, for this talking point to be true, you have to believe that sexism simultaneously increased
the male vote for Trump, yet did not increase the female vote for Clinton. Shouldn't they move
in opposite directions?
Talking Point: Clinton was Defeated by Stupidity
Here's an example of this talking point from
Foreign Policy , the heart of The Blob. The headline:
Trump Won Because Voters Are Ignorant, Literally
And the lead:
OK, so that just happened. Donald Trump always enjoyed massive support from uneducated,
low-information white people. As Bloomberg Politics reported back in August, Hillary Clinton
was enjoying a giant 25 percentage-point lead among college-educated voters going into the
election. (Whether that trend held up remains to be seen.) In contrast, in the 2012 election,
college-educated voters just barely favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Last night we saw
something historic: the dance of the dunces. Never have educated voters so uniformly rejected
a candidate. But never before have the lesser-educated so uniformly supported a candidate.
The subtext here is usually that if you don't accept nod your head vigorously, you're stupid,
and possibly a stupid Trump supporter. There are two reasons this talking point is not true.
First, even assuming that the author's happy but unconscious conflation of credentials with
education is correct, it wasn't the "dunces" who lost two wars, butchered the health care
system, caused the financial system to collapse through accounting control fraud, or invented
the neoliberal ideology that was kept real wages flat for forty years and turned the industrial
heartland into a wasteland. That is solely, solely down to - only some , to be fair
- college-educated voters. It is totally and 100% not down to the "dunces"; they didn't have the
political or financial power to achieve debacles on the grand scale.
Second, the "dunces" were an important part of Obama's victories. From
The Week :
Not only has polling repeatedly underplayed the importance of white voters without college
degrees, it's underplayed their importance to the Obama coalition: They were one-third of Obama
votes in 2012. They filled the gap between upper-class whites and working-class nonwhites.
Trump gained roughly 15 percentage points with them compared to Romney in 2012.
So, to believe this talking point, you have to believe that voters who were smart when they
voted for Obama suddenly became stupid when it came time to vote for Clinton. You also have to
believe that credentialed policy makers have an unblemished record of success, and that only they
are worth paying attention to.
By just about every metric imaginable, Hillary Clinton led one of the worst presidential campaigns
in modern history. It was a profoundly reactionary campaign, built entirely on rolling back the
horizons of the politically possible, fracturing left solidarity, undermining longstanding left
priorities like universal healthcare, pandering to Wall Street oligarchs, fomenting nationalism
against Denmark and Russia, and rehabilitating some of history's greatest monsters – from Bush
I to Kissinger. It was a grossly unprincipled campaign that belligerently violated FEC Super PAC
coordination rules and conspired with party officials on everything from political attacks to
debate questions. It was an obscenely stupid campaign that all but ignored Wisconsin during the
general election, that pitched Clinton to Latino voters as their abuela, that centered an entire
high-profile speech over the national menace of a few thousand anime nazis on Twitter, and that
repeatedly deployed Lena Dunham as a media surrogate.
Which is rather like running a David Letterman ad in a Pennsylvania steel town. It must have seemed
like a good idea in Brooklyn. After all, they had so many celebrities to choose from.
* * *
All three talking points oversimplify. I'm not saying racism is not powerful; of course it is.
I'm not saying that sexism is not powerful; of course it is. But monocausal explanations in an election
this close - and in a country this vast - are foolish. And narratives that ignore economics and erase
class are worse than foolish; buying into them will cause us to make the same mistakes over and over
and over again.[1] The trick will be to integrate multiple causes, and that's down to the left; identity
politics liberals don't merely not want to do this; they actively oppose it. Ditto their opposite
numbers in America's neoliberal fun house mirror, the conservatives.
NOTES
[1] For some, that's not a bug. It's a feature.
NOTE
You will have noticed that I haven't covered economics (class), or election fraud at all. More
myths are coming.
Lambert Strether has been blogging, managing online communities, and doing system administration
24/7 since 2003, in Drupal and WordPress. Besides political economy and the political scene, he blogs
about rhetoric, software engineering, permaculture, history, literature, local politics, international
travel, food, and fixing stuff around the house. The nom de plume "Lambert Strether" comes from Henry
James's The Ambassadors: "Live all you can. It's a mistake not to." You can follow him on Twitter
at @lambertstrether. http://www.correntewire.com
"No, you are ignorant! You threw away the vote and put Trump in charge." Please, it will be
important to know what derogatory camp you belong in when the blame game swings into full gear.
*snark
'Stupid' was the word I got very tired of in my social net. Two variant targets:
1) Blacks
for not voting their interests. The responses included 'we know who our enemies are' and 'don't
tell me what to think.'
2) Mostly it was vs rural, non-college educated. iirc, it was the Secretary of Agriculture,
pleading for funds, who said the rural areas were where military recruits came from. A young fella
I know, elite football player on elite non-urban HS team, said most of his teammates had enlisted.
So they are the ones getting shot at, having relatives and friends come back missing pieces of
body and self.
My guy in the Reserves said the consensus was that if HRC got elected, they were going
to war with Russia. Not enthused. Infantry IQ is supposedly average-80, but they know who Yossarian
says the enemy is, e'en if they hant read the book.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests,
is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have
too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.
Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications
clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications
Commission.
Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds
the "energy independence" portfolio.
Michael Torrey, a lobbyist who runs a firm that has earned millions of dollars helping food
industry players such as the American Beverage Association and the dairy giant Dean Foods, is
helping set up the new team at the Department of Agriculture.
What? No steelworker? No auto-plant worker? Not even a family farmer? Might y'all have been
had ?
Who'd a thunk?
Bernie and Elizabeth to the rescue.
Now, please . Now .
But, hey, white blue collar folks: You get what you vote for. The problem for me is that I
get what you vote for. I said roughly 540 times here at AB in the last year: Trump isn't conquering
the Republican Party; he's the Republican Party's Trojan Horse. What was that y'all were saying about
wanting change so badly? Here it is.
Welcome to the concept of
industry regulatory capture
. Perfected to a science, and jaw-droppingly brazen.
LOL . Funny, but Bernie talked about this. Some of you listened. Then. Elizabeth Warren has talked
about it, a lot. Some of you listened. Back then. But she wasn't running for president. Hillary Clinton
was, instead. And
she couldn't talk about it because she had needed all those speaking fees , all the way up to
about a minute before she announced her candidacy.
Aaaaand, here come the judges. And of course the justices. Industry regulatory capture of the
judicial-branch variety.
I called this one right, in the title of
this post yesterday . I mean, why even wait until the body is buried? No reason at all.
So he thinks. But what if he's wrong?
Anyway can't wait for the political cartoons showing Trump on Ryan's lap, with Ryan's arm showing
reaching up under Trump's suit jacket.
It's effing asinine . Everyone's entitled to their little personal delusions, but why the
obsessiveness about this patent silliness? What is exactly is the emotional hold that Hillary Clinton
holds on these people? It's climate-change-denial-like.
Elizabeth Warren would have beaten Donald Trump in a landslide. So would have Bernie Sanders.
And brought in a Democratic-controlled Senate and House. Because both would have run a remarkably
campaign, under normal standards, not a special low bar.
An
organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists,
representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer,
Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is
positively
salivating over all the new opportunities they'll have to deliver goodies to their clients
in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?
The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is
considering
for his cabinet, and you won't find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little
guy. It's a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats - not much different
from who you'd find in any Republican administration.
And from reader EMichael in the Comments thread to this post about 35 minutes ago:
OH, it will be worse than that, much worse.
Bank regulation will go back to the "glory days" of the housing bubble, and Warren's CFPB will
be toast.
Buddy of mine works HR for a large bank. He has been flooded with resumes from current employees
of the CFPB the last couple of days.
Yup. HSBC ain't in that list for nothing. But, not to worry. Trump's kids will pick up lots of
real estate on the (real) cheap, after the crash. Their dad will give them all the tips, from experience.
And the breaking news this afternoon is that Pence–uh-ha;
this Mike Pence –has
replaced Christie as transition team head. Wanna bet that Comey told Trump today that Christie is
likely to be indicted in Bridgegate?
Next up, although down the road a few months: rumors that a grand jury has been convened to try
to learn how, exactly, Giuliani got all that info from inside the FBI two weeks ago. Once the FBI
inspector general completes his investigation. Or once New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman,
begins looking into violations of NY state criminal law.
"... my equation of Neoliberalism (or Post-Capitalism) = Wall Street + Identity Politics generated by the dematerialization of Capital. CDO's are nothing but words on paper or bytes in the stream; and identity politics has much less to do with the Body than the culture and language. Trumpists were interpellated as White by the Democrats and became ideological. Capital is Language. ..."
"... "Sanders and Trump inflamed their audiences with searing critiques of Capitalism's unfairness. Then what? Then Trump's response to what he has genuinely seen is, analytically speaking, word salad. Trump is sound and fury and garble. Yet - and this is key - the noise in his message increases the apparent value of what's clear about it. The ways he's right seem more powerful, somehow, in relief against the ways he's blabbing." ..."
"... But Trump's people don't use suffering as a metric of virtue. They want fairness of a sort, but mainly they seek freedom from shame. Civil rights and feminism aren't just about the law after all, they are about manners, and emotions too: those "interest groups" get right in there and reject what feels like people's spontaneous, ingrained responses. People get shamed, or lose their jobs, for example, when they're just having a little fun making fun. Anti-PC means "I feel unfree. ..."
"... The Trump Emotion Machine is delivering feeling ok, acting free. Being ok with one's internal noise, and saying it, and demanding that it matter. Internal Noise Matters. " my emp ..."
I thought someone above talked about Trump's rhetoric
1) Tom Ferguson at Real News Network post at Naked Capitalism says (and said in 2014) that
the Democratic coalition of Wall Street (Silicon Valley) + Identity Politics is imploding, because
it can't deliver populist goodies without losing part of it's core base.
Noted no for that, but for my equation of Neoliberalism (or Post-Capitalism) = Wall Street
+ Identity Politics generated by the dematerialization of Capital. CDO's are nothing but words
on paper or bytes in the stream; and identity politics has much less to do with the Body than
the culture and language. Trumpists were interpellated as White by the Democrats and became ideological.
Capital is Language.
2) Consider the above an intro to
Lauren
Berlant at the New Inquiry "Trump or Political Emotions" which I think is smart. Just a phrase
cloud that stood out for me. All following from Berlant, except parenthetical
It is a scene where structural antagonisms - genuinely conflicting interests - are described
in rhetoric that intensifies fantasy.
People would like to feel free. They would like the world to have a generous cushion for all
their aggression and inclination. They would like there to be a general plane of okayness governing
social relations
( Safe Space defined as the site where being nasty to those not inside is admired and approved.
We all have them, we all want them, we create our communities and identities for this purpose.)
"Sanders and Trump inflamed their audiences with searing critiques of Capitalism's unfairness.
Then what? Then Trump's response to what he has genuinely seen is, analytically speaking, word
salad. Trump is sound and fury and garble. Yet - and this is key - the noise in his message
increases the apparent value of what's clear about it. The ways he's right seem more powerful,
somehow, in relief against the ways he's blabbing."
(Wonderful, and a comprehension of New Media I rarely see. Cybernetics? Does noise increase
the value of signal? The grammatically correct tight argument crowd will not get this. A problem
I have with CT's new policy)
"You watch him calculating, yet not seeming to care about the consequences of what he says,
and you listen to his supporters enjoying the feel of his freedom. "
(If "civil speech" is socially approved signal, then noise = freedom and feeling. Every two
year old and teenage guitarist understands)
"But Trump's people don't use suffering as a metric of virtue. They want fairness of a
sort, but mainly they seek freedom from shame. Civil rights and feminism aren't just about the
law after all, they are about manners, and emotions too: those "interest groups" get right in
there and reject what feels like people's spontaneous, ingrained responses. People get shamed,
or lose their jobs, for example, when they're just having a little fun making fun. Anti-PC means
"I feel unfree."
The Trump Emotion Machine is delivering feeling ok, acting free. Being ok with one's internal
noise, and saying it, and demanding that it matter. Internal Noise Matters. " my emp
Noise again. Berlant worth reading, and thinking about.
What's bought [sic] us to this stage is a policy – whether it's been intentional
or unintentional or a mixture of both – of divide and rule, where society is broken down into
neat little boxes and were told how to behave towards the contents of each one rather than,
say, just behaving well towards all of them.
And this right here is why neoliberalism = identity politics and why both ought to be crushed
ruthlessly.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests,
is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have
too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.
Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications
clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications
Commission.
Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds
the "energy independence" portfolio.
Michael Torrey, a lobbyist who runs a firm that has earned millions of dollars helping food
industry players such as the American Beverage Association and the dairy giant Dean Foods, is
helping set up the new team at the Department of Agriculture.
What? No steelworker? No auto-plant worker? Not even a family farmer? Might y'all have been
had ?
Who'd a thunk?
Bernie and Elizabeth to the rescue.
Now, please . Now .
But, hey, white blue collar folks: You get what you vote for. The problem for me is that I
get what you vote for. I said roughly 540 times here at AB in the last year: Trump isn't conquering
the Republican Party; he's the Republican Party's Trojan Horse. What was that y'all were saying about
wanting change so badly? Here it is.
Welcome to the concept of
industry regulatory capture
. Perfected to a science, and jaw-droppingly brazen.
LOL . Funny, but Bernie talked about this. Some of you listened. Then. Elizabeth Warren has talked
about it, a lot. Some of you listened. Back then. But she wasn't running for president. Hillary Clinton
was, instead. And
she couldn't talk about it because she had needed all those speaking fees , all the way up to
about a minute before she announced her candidacy.
Aaaaand, here come the judges. And of course the justices. Industry regulatory capture of the
judicial-branch variety.
I called this one right, in the title of
this post yesterday . I mean, why even wait until the body is buried? No reason at all.
So he thinks. But what if he's wrong?
Anyway … can't wait for the political cartoons showing Trump on Ryan's lap, with Ryan's arm showing
reaching up under Trump's suit jacket.
It's effing asinine . Everyone's entitled to their little personal delusions, but why the
obsessiveness about this patent silliness? What is exactly is the emotional hold that Hillary Clinton
holds on these people? It's climate-change-denial-like.
Elizabeth Warren would have beaten Donald Trump in a landslide. So would have Bernie Sanders.
And brought in a Democratic-controlled Senate and House. Because both would have run a remarkably
campaign, under normal standards, not a special low bar.
An
organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists,
representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer,
Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is
positively
salivating over all the new opportunities they'll have to deliver goodies to their clients
in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?
The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is
considering
for his cabinet, and you won't find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little
guy. It's a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats - not much different
from who you'd find in any Republican administration.
And from reader EMichael in the Comments thread to this post about 35 minutes ago:
OH, it will be worse than that, much worse.
Bank regulation will go back to the "glory days" of the housing bubble, and Warren's CFPB will
be toast.
Buddy of mine works HR for a large bank. He has been flooded with resumes from current employees
of the CFPB the last couple of days.
Yup. HSBC ain't in that list for nothing. But, not to worry. Trump's kids will pick up lots of
real estate on the (real) cheap, after the crash. Their dad will give them all the tips, from experience.
And the breaking news this afternoon is that Pence–uh-ha;
this Mike Pence –has
replaced Christie as transition team head. Wanna bet that Comey told Trump today that Christie is
likely to be indicted in Bridgegate?
Next up, although down the road a few months: rumors that a grand jury has been convened to try
to learn how, exactly, Giuliani got all that info from inside the FBI two weeks ago. Once the FBI
inspector general completes his investigation. Or once New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman,
begins looking into violations of NY state criminal law.
"... fundamentally antiracism and other identitarian programs are not only the left wing of neoliberalism
but active agencies in its imposition of a notion of the boundaries of the politically thinkable " ..."
"... Feminism…? gender discrimination….? racial equality ? …. racism ? Yes, OK, looks good, let's
see what works best for us…. ..."
"... There is still the issue that some professions are more prestigious or lucrative than others
and attract many individuals with a skill set that would better serve other functions. ..."
"... Valuing people for who they are and integrating them into the social order implies that they
have something to contribute and that they have a responsibility for making things better for others,
not just making themselves more comfortable in public. ..."
"... The idea that we have progressed past prior barbarisms … we have forgotten that "the past is
prologue" among other things. ..."
"... This label of progressivism is just so coy and unconvincing in the face of neoliberalism's
full spectrum dominance of all facets of society and culture. ..."
"... I know Reagan was no conservative and Thatcher lost all moorings as an enlightened Tory as
the "project" became all consuming to the detriment of all else. The Tory today isn't conservative –
far from it – a real ideolgical zealot for the promotion of "me, myself and (at most) my class" in most
cases. ..."
"... Is Progressivism just a balm for those who want to feel good about themselves but don't want
to do think about anything in particular? In fact, it is just a cover for I'm ok, screw you pal when
the chips are down? ..."
"These responses [show] how fundamentally antiracism and other identitarian programs
are not only the left wing of neoliberalism but active agencies in its imposition of a notion
of the boundaries of the politically thinkable "
Yes: there we have it.
Neoliberalism (unlike conservatism, often mistaken for each other) has NO social/cultural
values…or, perhaps, more precisely, it has ANY social/cultural values which directly/indirectly
advance the 0.1%'s Will to wealth & power. (Likely, "wealth" is redundant, as it's a manifestation
of power). Neoliberalism is powerful, like all great "evils" because it is completely protean.
( It makes the Nazi's look child-like & naive: after all, the Nazi's actually "believed"
in certain things… [ evil nonsense, but that's not the point at the moment].
Feminism…? gender discrimination….? racial equality ? …. racism ? Yes, OK, looks good,
let's see what works best for us….
I often wonder if liberalism goes hand in hand with the availability of energy and resources…
shrink these and witness a surge in all types of discrimination.
You will notice that genocides are closely tied to the availability and distribution of
resources… we humans seem to be masters at inventing all kinds of reasons to explain why we deserve
the loot and not others.
There is still the issue that some professions are more prestigious or lucrative than others
and attract many individuals with a skill set that would better serve other functions. And
we do this under the guise that we can do whatever we want if we try hard enough.
There is a difference between PC and truly valuing every individual in society no matter their
job or profession.
There is a difference between PC and truly valuing every individual in society no matter
their job or profession.
This.
Mere inclusiveness, while not in itself a bad thing–being aware of other people's circumstances
is simply polite–it doesn't really get you much further past where you already are and in large
part can be satisfied with better rhetoric (or better PR, if you insist on being cynical about
such things), all the while capitalism goes on its merry way, because no real pressure to change
has been applied. Valuing people for who they are and integrating them into the social order
implies that they have something to contribute and that they have a responsibility for making
things better for others, not just making themselves more comfortable in public.
What so often gets lost in these conversations about safe spaces and what have you is that
we should have a sense of shared responsibility, responding TO others' circumstances while also
being responsible FOR the conditions that oppress us all to greater and lesser degrees.
In other words, it's about checking your privilege AND seizing the means of production, because
without the second one, the first just ends up being mere window dressing.
EATF – I really like these. I'll be sad when they conclude!
The idea that we have progressed past prior barbarisms … we have forgotten that "the past
is prologue" among other things. Progressives think that if we completely forget the past,
then the memes that created the sins of the past will become unthinkable, that like interrupted
family violence, a chain will be broken and we can heal. Such people don't believe in the existence
of Evil.
As a socialist, what I miss is the conservative (small c) conversation in our daily affairs.
This label of progressivism is just so coy and unconvincing in the face of neoliberalism's
full spectrum dominance of all facets of society and culture. The conservative gave voice
and depth to our internal doubts about how the future was all brite and new – at least the few
conservatives I knew.
I wonder would a conservative voice (seemingly non-existent any more) have argued for a more
instructive change from industrialisation into what we've now become – might they have mitigated
the course and provided pointers to alternatives?
Maybe they did and I wasn't listening.
I know Reagan was no conservative and Thatcher lost all moorings as an enlightened Tory
as the "project" became all consuming to the detriment of all else. The Tory today isn't conservative
– far from it – a real ideolgical zealot for the promotion of "me, myself and (at most) my class"
in most cases.
Is Progressivism just a balm for those who want to feel good about themselves but don't
want to do think about anything in particular? In fact, it is just a cover for I'm ok, screw you
pal when the chips are down?
I never really liked Disney films as a kid and I certainly don't like them now – but each to
their own.
I'm glad you're making these points. The arc of the story mirrors a number of conversations
I've been having lately with people from poor, white, rural backgrounds. The insistence by good
liberals of making a show of their concern for, and outrage over, both major and minor affronts
to people of color, women, LGBTQI people, etc., while at the same time making jokes about toothless,
inbred trailer-trash, is starting to really piss some people off. These are not conservative people.
These are people to the left of Chomsky.
For some reason, you can slander and shame poor white folks all you want…oh yeah, it's because
they're deplorable racist, fundamentalist Christians who vote for evil Republicans and probably
don't even have a GED, much less a college degree…so f- 'em. The good liberals, on the other hand,
are highly-educated, fundamentalist secular humanists, who've been to college and vote for evil
Democrats…which makes them God's chosen people, apparently. The rest are blasphemers, barely even
human, and deserve whatever they get.
Until we make a real commitment to both listening to everyone's suffering and then to doing
practical things, now, to remedy that suffering, we'll be doomed to Dollary Clump elections and
divide-and-conquer tactics forever after. Let's not go down that road, how about? How's about
let's try treating each other with respect and compassion for once, just to see how it goes? Every
other way lies damnation, imho.
Sorry: I'm not buying this episode: For instance, maybe the reason for the stress on smartness
is plain old class warfare.
The U.S. slavishly follows English fashions, and one of the fashions in England (with which
we have that Special Relationship) is that the upper classes made sure that their kids got into
Eton, Cambridge, Oxford–the whole self-perpetuating educational system of the Pythonesque English
"smart" twit.
So the U S of A has imitated its betters in producing a lot of Tony Blairs. Exhibit A: Chelsea
Clinton.
This has little to do with smartness. It is all about class privilege. (Which has little
to do with postmodernism and its supposed piercing insights.)
The title- Neoliberalisms Boarder Guard" – and this quote:
"Looking now at the other two principles – postmodernism and suffering – Wendy Brown
foretold that, as foci, they would be unable to coexist. Since the time of her prediction,
the balance between the two has shifted dramatically, and it has become clear that Brown was
rooting for the losing side. "
combine to make me wonder. Does liberalism simply accommodate itself to the prevailing ruling
power structure, regardless of that structure's philosophy? Is liberalism today a philosophy or
a social emollient? Desirable social traits do not challenge the ruling neoliberal philosophy,
although they make create a nice space within neoliberalism.
Not buying this episode: "High profile instances of genocide and torture don't appear every
day, and commitment flags without regular stimulation. And so we have taken seriously at least
one idea from postmodernism, the fascination with slight conceptual nuances, and the faith or
fear that these nuances can produce enormously consequential effects."
Oh really?
This sentence is on the order of, Who speaks of the Armenians?
Guantanamo is high profile. Homan Square is high profile. Yemen is genocide. What are the Dakota
Pipeline protests about? Genocide. Your bourgeois eyeglasses just don't allow you to look. It
has nothing to do with micro-aggressions.
The success of [civil rights and anti-apartheid] movements did not end racism, but drove
it underground, allowing neoliberals to exploit racist and tribalist political support while
pursuing the interests of wealth and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white)
poor.
That coalition has now been replaced by one in which the tribalists and racists are dominant.
For the moment at least, [hard] neoliberals continue to support the parties they formerly controlled,
with the result that the balance of political forces between the right and the opposing coalition
of soft neoliberals and the left has not changed significantly.
There's an ambiguity in this narrative and in the three-party analysis.
Do we acknowledge that the soft neoliberals in control of the coalition that includes the inchoate
left also "exploit racist and tribalist political support while pursuing the interests of wealth
and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white) poor."? They do it with a different
style and maybe with some concession to economic melioration, as well as supporting anti-racist
and feminist policy to keep the inchoate left on board, but . . .
The new politics of the right has lost faith in the hard neoliberalism that formerly furnished
its policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich, war in the Middle East and so on, leaving the impure
resentment ungoverned and unfocused, as you say.
The soft neoliberals, it seems to me, are using anti-racism to discredit economic populism
and its motivations, using the new politics of the right as a foil.
The problem of how to oppose racism and tribalism effectively is now entangled with soft neoliberal
control of the remaining party coalition, which is to say with the credibility of the left party
as a vehicle for economic populism and the credibility of economic populism as an antidote for
racism or sexism. (cf js. @ 1,2)
The form of tribalism used to mobilize the left entails denying that an agenda of economic
populism is relevant to the problems of sexism and racism, because the deplorables must be deplored
to get out the vote. And, because the (soft) neoliberals in charge must keep economic populism
under control to deliver the goods to their donor base.
"... Grenville regards understanding the opposition to globalization by the Trump constituency as essential. If we are discussing America, we do not need to look to illegal immigration, or undocumented workers to find hostility to out-group immigrants along religious and ethnic lines. ..."
"... These tendencies are thrown into sharper relief when this hostility is directed towards successfully assimilated immigrants of a different color who threaten the current occupants of a space – witness the open racism and hostility displayed towards Japanese immigrants on the west coast 1900-1924, or so. A similar level of hostility is sometimes/often displayed towards Koreans. The out-grouping in Japan is tiered and extends to ethnicity and language of groups within the larger Japanese community, as it does in the UK, although not as commonly along religious lines as it does elsewhere. ..."
"... European workers have done much better in the new global economy.(The problems in Europe center around mass migration of people who resist assimilation and adoption of a Humanistic world view.) The answer is simple and horrifying. ..."
"... A large percentage of American workers consistently vote against their own interest which has allowed the republican party in service to a powerful elite billionaire class ..."
"... The combination of these reliable cadre of deplorables , controlled by faux news and hate radio , and the lack of political engagement by the low income Americans , has essentially turned power over to the billionaire class. ..."
I read an interesting piece in the Nikkei, hardly an left-leaning publication citing Arlie
Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right."
Doubtless some here would like to see more misery heaped upon those who do not look to the
Democratic party as saviors, but Hochschild is rarely regarded as a defender of the American right.
Few dispute that a significant subset of any given population is going to regard in-group/out-group
distinctions along the highly imprecise lines of 'race' and ethnicity, or religion. The question,
for some, is what percentage?
The Nikkei article by Stephen Grenville concludes: Over the longer term, the constituency for
globalization has to be rebuilt, the methodology for multilateral trade agreements has to be revived…"
Grenville regards understanding the opposition to globalization by the Trump constituency
as essential. If we are discussing America, we do not need to look to illegal immigration, or
undocumented workers to find hostility to out-group immigrants along religious and ethnic lines.
These tendencies are thrown into sharper relief when this hostility is directed towards
successfully assimilated immigrants of a different color who threaten the current occupants of
a space – witness the open racism and hostility displayed towards Japanese immigrants on the west
coast 1900-1924, or so. A similar level of hostility is sometimes/often displayed towards Koreans.
The out-grouping in Japan is tiered and extends to ethnicity and language of groups within
the larger Japanese community, as it does in the UK, although not as commonly along religious
lines as it does elsewhere.
Generally, I think John is right. The term 'racist' no longer carries any of the stigma
it once held in part because the term is deployed so cynically and freely as to render it practically
meaningless. HRC and Bill and their supporters (including me, at one time) are racists for as
long as its convenient and politically expedient to call them racists. Once that moment has passed,
the term 'racist' is withdrawn and replaced with something like Secretary of State, or some other
such title.
I've no clear 'solution' other than to support a more exact and thoughtful discussion of the
causes of fear and anxiety that compels people to bind together into in-groups and out-groups,
and to encourage the fearful to take a few risks now and again.
I've no clear 'solution' other than to support a more exact and thoughtful discussion of the causes
of fear and anxiety that compels people to bind together into in-groups and out-groups, and to
encourage the fearful to take a few risks now and again.
Here's my take on this. The question
to ask is why has this happened? European workers have done much better in the new global
economy.(The problems in Europe center around mass migration of people who resist assimilation
and adoption of a Humanistic world view.) The answer is simple and horrifying.
A large percentage of American workers consistently vote against their own interest which
has allowed the republican party in service to a powerful elite billionaire class form a
reliable cadre of highly visible and highly vocal deplorables which even though slightly less
than half the population of those who bother to vote have virtually shut down democratic safeguards
which could have mitigated what has happened due to globalization. The combination of these
reliable cadre of deplorables , controlled by faux news and hate radio , and the lack of political
engagement by the low income Americans , has essentially turned power over to the billionaire
class.
... ... ...
Alesis 10.30.16 at 12:13 pm
A strategy that doesn't work inside the tent is DOA outside it. As it stands many liberals (largely
white and this is an important distinction) share with the right a deep discomfort with acknowledging
the centrality of racism to American politics.
Race is the foundational organizing principle
of American life and it represents a considerable strain to keep it in focus. Donald Trump will
win the majority of white voters as the racial resentment coalition has since the 1930s. An effective
strategy for the long term is focused on breaking that near century long hold.
I'd suggest the direct approach. Call racism what it is and ask white voters directly what
good it has done for them lately. Did railing against Mexican rapists brings any jobs back?
Or the racism of the middle class. People are tribal and arguably it is baked into our DNA.
That doesn't excuse the mental laziness of trafficking in stereotypes but one could make a case
that racism is as much a matter of ignorance as of evil character.
Obama with his "bitter clingers" and HIllary with her "deplorables" are talking about people
about whom they probably know almost nothing.
One of the long ago arguments for school integration was that propinquity fosters mutual understanding.
This met with a lot of resistance. And for people like our Pres and would be Pres a broader view
of the electorate would be inconvenient.
Identity politics provides cover for, and diversion from, class rule and from the deeper structures
of class, race, gender, empire, and eco-cide that haunt American and global life today – structures
that place children of liberal white North Side Chicago professionals in posh 40 th -story
apartments overlooking scenic Lake Michigan while consigning children of felony-branded Black custodians
and fast food workers to cramped apartments in crime-ridden South Side neighborhoods where nearly
half the kids are growing up at less than half the federal government's notoriously inadequate poverty
level. Most of the Black kids in deeply impoverished and hyper-segregated neighborhoods like Woodlawn
and Englewood (South Side) or North Lawndale and Garfield Park (West Side) can forget not only about
going to a World Series game but even about watching one on television. Their parents don't have
cable and the Fox Sports 1 channel. There's few if any local restaurants and taverns with big-screen
televisions in safe walking distance from their homes. Major League Baseball ticket prices being
what they are, few of the South Side kids have even seen the White Sox – Chicago's South Side American
League team, whose ballpark lacks the affluent white and gentrified surroundings of Wrigley Field.
(Thanks in no small part to the urban social geography of race and class in Chicago, the White Sox
winning the World Series in 2005 – thei
... ... ...
There is, yes, I know, the problem of Democrats in the White House functioning to stifle social movements
and especially peace activism (the antiwar movement has still yet to recover from the Obama experience).
But there's more good news here about a Hillary presidency. Not all Democratic presidents are equally
good at shutting progressive activism down. As the likely Green Party presidential candidate Jill
Stein (for whom I took five minutes to early vote in a "contested state" three weeks ago) noted in
an interview with me last April (when the White Sox still held first place in their division), Hillary
Clinton will have considerably less capacity to deceive and bamboozle progressive and young workers
and citizens than Barack Obama enjoyed in 2007-08 . "Obama," Stein noted, was fairly new on the
scene. Hillary," by contrast, "has been a warmonger who never found a war she didn't love forever!"
Hillary's corporatist track record – ably documented in Doug Henwood's book
My
Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency (her imperial track record receives equally
impressive treatment in Diana Johnstone's volume
Queen of Chaos:
The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton ) – is also long and transparently bad. All that and
Mrs. Clinton's remarkable lacks of charisma and trustworthiness could be useful for left activism
and politics in coming years.
For what it's worth, the first and most urgent place to restore such activism and politics
is in the area where Barack Obama has been most deadening: foreign policy, also known (when conducted
by the U.S.) as imperialism. When it comes to prospects for World War III, it is by no means clear
that the saber-rattling, regime-changing, NATO-expanding, and Russia-baiting Hillary Clinton is the
"lesser evil" compared to the preposterous Trump. That's no small matter. During a friend's birthday
party the night the Cubs clinched the National League pennant, I asked fellow celebrants and inebriates
if they were prepared for the fundamental realignment of the space-time continuum that was coming
when the North Siders won the league championship. That was a joke, of course, but there's nothing
funny about the heightened chances of a real downward existential adjustment resulting from war between
nuclear superpowers when the "lying neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton gets into office and insists
on recklessly imposing a so-called no-fly zone over Russia-allied Syria.
"... In two party politics, generally political parties are mediating institutions, which moderate the claims of the interest groups composing them. However, when it switches to immutable characteristics, political parties become the vehicles of extremism, as each party tries to the "outbid" the other party in claims for dominance for its members. Further, each victory by the rival party spurs fears and polarization by the losers. Generally, you see de-stablization and violence in its wake. Its a good way to destroy a democracy. ..."
Then comes the final punchline, "Lives That Matter." Obviously, the answer to the question
is "black." But Doug has "a lot to say about this." Which suggests that he doesn't think the answer
is that simple. Perhaps he thinks "all lives matter," or that "blue lives matter," the phrasing
used by those who defend the status quo of policing and criminal justice. Either way, this puts
him in direct conflict with the black people he's befriended. As viewers, we know that "Black
Lives Matter" is a movement against police violence, for the essential safety and security of
black Americans. It's a demand for fair and equal treatment as citizens, as opposed to a pervasive
assumption of criminality.
Thompson, Zamata, and Jones might see a lot to like in Doug, but if he can't sign on to the
fact that black Americans face unique challenges and dangers, then that's the end of the game.
Tucked into this six-minute sketch is a subtle and sophisticated analysis of American politics.
It's not that working blacks and working whites are unable to see the things they have in common;
it's that the material interests of the former-freedom from unfair scrutiny, unfair detention,
and unjust killings-are in direct tension with the identity politics of the latter (as represented
in the sketch by the Trump hat). And in fact, if Hanks' character is a Trump supporter, then all
the personal goodwill in the world doesn't change the fact that his political preferences are
a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of his new friends, a fact they recognize.
What Bouie doesn't seem to get is that black identity politics and the preferences of those who
espouse them are a direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites - and even, at times,
their lives (
hello, Brian Ogle! ).
Consider this insanity from Michigan State University, pointed out by a reader this morning. It's
the Facebook page of Which Side
Are You On? , radical student organization whose stated purpose is:
Michigan State University has chosen to remain silent on the issue of racial injustice and
police brutality. We demand that the administration release a statement in support of the Movement
for Black Lives; and, in doing so, affirms the value of the lives of its students, alumni, and
future Spartans of color while recognizing the alienation and oppression that they face on campus.
In the absence of open support, MSU is taking the side of the oppressor.
Got that? Either 100 percent agree with them, or you are a racist oppressor. It's fanatical, and
it's an example of bullying. But as we have seen over the past year, year and a half, Black Lives
Matter and related identity politics movements (Which Side Are You On? says it is not affiliated
with BLM) are by no means only about police brutality. If they were, this wouldn't be a hard call.
No decent person of any race supports police brutality. To use Bouie's terms, the material interests
of non-progressive white people are often in direct tension with the identity politics of many blacks
and their progressive non-black allies. This is true beyond racial identity politics. It's true of
LGBT identity politics also. But progressives can't see that, because to them, what they do is not
identity politics; it's just politics.
You cannot practice and extol identity politics for groups favored by progressives without
implicitly legitimizing identity politics for groups disfavored by progressives.
Some of my best friends are supporters of police brutality.
In all seriousness, if one's identity preference is for dominance by your group, then obviously,
a member of your group dominating the other group isn't going to bother you. Nor, on the other
side, will you be troubled if your group shoots perceived agents of the other side. But note,
the justification for racial primacy or racial supremacy is always rhetorically made by asserting
claims or the threat of racial primacy or racial supremacy by the Other. Further, racial tensions
are always caused by the behavior of the Other, and your groups actions are always "self defense".
Of course, your actions are always portrayed as "aggression" by the Other, and lead to ratcheting
up of anti-social behavior, but hey.
I sort of assume that is not how most whites feel, but the reality is whether it is or not,
if you turn the political question from legal equality for blacks to legal primacy or dominance,
then you will push whites into taking the adversary position.
In two party politics, generally political parties are mediating institutions, which moderate
the claims of the interest groups composing them. However, when it switches to immutable characteristics,
political parties become the vehicles of extremism, as each party tries to the "outbid" the other
party in claims for dominance for its members. Further, each victory by the rival party spurs
fears and polarization by the losers. Generally, you see de-stablization and violence in its wake.
Its a good way to destroy a democracy.
I love "Black Lives Matter" as a slogan, because it is ambiguous enough to be either a claim
for dominance or primacy. Obviously, whether a BLM will support the assertion "All Lives Matter"
is a litmus test for whether they are asserting racial supremacy or racial primacy. But plausible
deniability is baked in.
I don't mind identity politics, by which I assume you mean people appealing to voters to vote
for their pet interest because it will help people with a particular set of characteristics or
"identity". This is just people looking out for and lobbying the voting public on their interests,
which is what democracy is all about.
What I don't like is the stunning illogic and flawed reasoning behind some of the appeals,
such as the "you're either with BLM or against black people" arguments, the policing of miniscule
variations in speech (eg pronouns) as signs of haaaaaaaate, and the labeling of all white people
as "white supremacists" unless they self-flagellate and take personal blame for all the police
shootings. And, I think these people know that the reasoning is flawed. It's just that they also
know that if you repeat it long and loud enough and have enough leaders behind you willing to
fire or otherwise silence anyone who points out the flaws in your arguments, then you can convince
everyone that it all makes sense.
I think what is being lost is really the underlying logic of morality itself. Kids are being
taught that it doesn't matter what your intention is, it doesn't matter what your reasoning is,
it doesn't even matter whether an outcome is predictable from your action. What matters is how
the people in identity groups feel about your action. It's consequentialism run amok.
It's as if someone took Catholic reasoning on morality (grave matter, full knowledge, deliberate
consent, don't do wrong things in order to achieve good ends, principle of double effect), reversed
it, and then decided that this upside-down reasoning will be our new publicly mandated morality.
It's fascinating to watch but I feel a bit frightened for my children, because they will have
to deal with this new and deeply flawed public morality.
"Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come as a shock.
Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people fought
and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some
sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that progress towards
equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy."
For the most part, probably a fair observation. And it only took a couple of hundred years
(or more, depending on where you chose to say "white identity politics" started and when (or if)
you chose to say it ended).
Low long have black identity politics had any influence?
How long does it take, and at what "price" to atone for the past? Haven't we been grappling
with that since Lincoln's second inaugural address?
Will black identity politics be around longer than that? And when will white identity politics
end? Not to mention all of the other identity politics in society. But, identity politics always
takes at least two sides. You can never have identity politics without "the other." Black identity
politics wouldn't last without white identity politics, and vice versa. So too for feminism identity
politics, religious identity politics…and…so…on… Each has its counterpart on the other side.
In a perfect world, identity politics would not exist, but in the real world, they have existed
for as long as politics.
Not that I don't see some hope. By and large, the younger generation gives me every hope that,
some day, we might get over this, but probably not until a few score more generational replacements
happen. But that too, might be a source of reassurance. A few score generations isn't really that
long a time, after all.
How in the blue blazes do you possibly do you go from folks having confidence in the police
to them ALSO NOT being bothered by police brutality? How are those two things linked in your mind?
Can you not possibly fathom that another human being could have confidence in an institution (or
a group) while ALSO condemning the bad actors in that institution (or group)? Or in your mind
do a few bad actors condemn an entire group?
Here is your "logic" re-written in another way. Does it help you see my point?
61% of non-white people have either "very little" or a "no" of confidence in the police. I'm not
saying all 61% of those people are OK with attacking or murdering the police, but they seem not
to be that bothered by it.
Now possibly I am the only who finds your thought process disturbing and wonders how many other
folks make the same leap of absurdity.
In reply the religious liberty comments, I think almost everyone who supports BLM would say that
it is about giving African Americans basic human rights in the United States. You might not agree
with that, but that's how things stand from their point of view. To many liberals, religious liberty
seems like special pleading, even though to you it seems like the advancement of a universal principal.
"Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing
another." Karl Marx
"All that is not race in this world is trash… All historical events… are only the expression
of the race's instinct of self-preservation." Adolf Hitler
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly
and applying the wrong remedies." Groucho Marx
I do not think that all politics is "identity" politics.
The Populists going after the gold standard, or the New Dealers attempting to deal with the
problems of labor and capital, where not primarily about identity politics.
Certainly, there was lots of identity politics on the state level, whether in the South, or
in states like NY, in the battle between upstate WASPs and ethnic political machines in NYC.
Today we are increasingly nationalizing identity politics. Moreover, we are mainstreaming a
slogan based on racial primacy /supremacy, e.g. "Black Lives Matter". You are seeing increasing
attacks on traditional American symbols and calls for their replacement with "diverse" symbols.
This is not just identity politics, it is ethnopolitics.
The reality is that the political symbol is in the heart of the people a promise that they'll
be treated preferentially. I think that is part of the racial tension post-Obama. We elected an
African-American, who appointed a lot of African-Americans, but on the street, he hasn't done
$#!+ to help Blacks.
Now, if I thought that whites would just lay down and not resist racial subjugation and discrimination,
I wouldn't be concerned. But I doubt whites are seriously going to go gracefully into that good
night as the bottom rung of a racial caste system.
"Virtue signaling" is very different from "virtue"–you can't tell a white nationalist from
a white liberal based on their housing or dating preferences.
If whites collectively grow to FEAR other groups politically, say due to demographic displacement
and claims by minorities for primacy/supremacy, they will change teams overnight. All this anti-racism
rhetoric presupposes white noblese oblige and security.
Any serious movement from equality to some claim of primacy or supremacy is likely to trigger
a counter-movement toward a claim of primacy or supremacy by the other group. Moreover, once you
polarize racially, the political process encourages extremism, not moderation.
One reason not to worship the U.S. Constitution is the limited understanding of factionalism
by Madison, who accounted for interest group factions (which can break up or wax and wane) but
failed to consider identity group factions based on immutable characteristics. It is these identity-based
factions which frequently destroy attempts to create liberal democracy the world over.
The reality is that representative democracy is only an effective system in ethnically homogeneous
societies with a strong ethic of individualism (rooted in Protestant ancestors). While Korea and
Japan get along politically, their political systems are "different" from a Western perspective,
mostly due to lower levels of individualism.
China is probably a better model for most countries than liberal democracy, because multiethnic
societies generally degenerate into authoritarianism anyway.
This is why, given multiculturalism and secularism, the likelihood of a serious institutional
transformation in America seems increasingly a certain bet.
Here's the brutal truth. We created Black Lives Matter.
We did it with 400 years of brutal policies, physical violence, economic apartheid and ill
conceived do gooder nonsense that could not even begin to counter the former impacts.
In the 1950's and 1960's you had one branch of the Federal Government - the Federal Housing
Authority– both building low income housing in the decaying neighborhoods that were the result
of FHA red-lining polices that were was causing the decay - total madness. The black community
has yet to recover from that by the way - trillions in lost equity in today's dollars.
We are incredibly lucky to JUST have Black Lives Matter. It's a miracle that the black community
hasn't amassed in force and burned large swaths of this country to the ground peppering us with
automatic weapons fire along the way for good measure.
It's a testament to their fortitude, generosity and patience as a people. That they have formed
this group is inevitable.
To lump BLM in with the white coddled SJW ignores their unique history and context. BLM has
no obligation whatsoever to be rational, or contrite, or forgiving, or magnanimous.
What has that ever gotten them in this country? Here's a hint, f%$k all. That's what it's gotten
them.
[NFR: Well, BLM can behave however it wants to, but don't be surprised if being irrational
and bullying gets you nowhere, except on campus run by noodle-spined administrators. - RD]
On the other hand, the notion of color-blind standards is a joke.
If you belong to a group that has an average IQ of 100 in economic competition with a group
that has an average IQ of 85, and you believe that hiring/firing be based on merit, you are promoting
a standard that benefits your group over the other guys.
Likewise, if you are from the second group, you are arguing for proportional representation
in the work force (and especially the elite), and you are promoting a standard that benefits your
group over the other guys.
If you look at Anglo-Saxons v. Blacks, Anglo-Saxons always want meritocracy.
However, if you look at elite admissions in the early 20th Century, when Anglo-Saxons were
competing against Jews, they implemented a quota system that benefited Anglo-Saxons. They also
generated a lot of Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories blaming their failures on Jewish nepotism,
rather than say Jews just being smarter.
The problem for America is someone will decide on a standard, and that decision will privilege
one group over another. Always.
The more groups, the more divisive and polarizing each decision becomes, until democracy stops
being capable of functioning, e.g. making decisions, even bad ones.
You can have "racial equality", but not "racial equality" in accordance with a definition that
all groups will ever agree upon. Further, many persons in all groups will secretly desire supremacy
no matter the rhetoric, so will work to undermine and limit nominal "equality" every political
chance they get.
" A lot of people fought and died to end white supremacy"
And what has it done? American social capital has been destroyed, our society is slowly turning
into an atomized hell, and our politics will increasingly resemble tribal warfare. The fiction
that we could make race irrelevant needs to die, group differences are real and ethnic tribalism
is hardwired into humans by our DNA. Our founders chose to limit citizenship to whites of good
character for a reason, just as Japan seeks to remain Japanese for a reason. Diversity + close
proximity = war
All politics is not identity politics. America has a rich tradition in positions of relative privilege
taking on the political cause of disenfranchised groups.
Given how many well off white people, including men, are Democrats, I really don't see why
progressives would even make that argument.
This article showed me how many people in the US live a completely different life than I do. Not
only did it change my understanding of race relations and prompt a great deal more study but it
made me more aware, generally, of how little I know of how the other 99.9% live.
Lots of hypocrites in this comment thread commenting that "identity politics is just politics,
period." Okay, white nationalism it is, then! Time to bring David Duke back out from whatever
rock he's been under and put him at the top of the ticket. Maybe Louis Farrakhan can run for something,
too. After all, why would anti-semitism ever go out of fashion, anyway! Isnt' that just identity
politics which is just regular politics, like marginal tax cuts and subsidies for electric cars?
-I don't think it's that difficult to understand the anger, stridency, and even vitriol coming
from SJW/BLM supporters. With BLM, it's a mostly righteous indignation over a long history of
abusive police tactics and laws, exploded by multiple recent captured instances of police abuse.
As for LGBTQ-issues, I think many advocates–especially those in the vanguard–view themselves
as participants in the Second Civil Rights Movement–that the laws and cultural attitudes they
are fighting against are analogous to Jim Crow and racism. There is some degree of truth to this.
The danger comes with the disturbingly common–or at least effective–practice of refusing to
grant their opponents *any* goodwill. Like racists, opponents of full legal and cultural inclusion–if
not acceptance–are deemed to be totally devoid of any redeeming features, and thus ought to be
opposed relentlessly and by any means necessary. The same goes for those who aren't indulgent
or repentant enough. We can partly thank the poisonous legacy of Marcuse's "tolerance" for this.
We can also thank old-fashioned lust for power–especially to take down "the elite" or to take
revenge–and the intoxicating feeling of being on the cutting edge of righteousness.
How do you deal with this? As KD suggested above, if one group sees itself as against others
and acts accordingly, then those others will fall into the "tribal struggle" mindset as well.
If extremist social justice advocates (SJAs) define themselves in opposition to other attitudes,
values, etc–and more importantly, if they refuse to engage in respectful dialogue and are not
willing to compromise–then those who endorse those attitudes, values, etc will inevitably see
themselves as being defined through opposition to SJAs. Thus the poison of identity politics–it
exacerbates, rather than seeks to contain Us vs Them antagonism.
The only ways I see out of it are direct, full-throated defenses of SJA's targets–such as last
year's "Coddling of the American Mind" and U Chicago's defense of free expression and respectful
challenging debate. Ignoring it–as many seem wont to do by dismissals of "oh, they're just stupid
college kids, they'll grow out of it"–isn't viable because though many will, some will pursue
positions of power and influence. Besides, the less challenged, the more the extreme views will
be seen as respectable if not correct.
-The debate over which groups are or are not practicing identity politics: In (academic) political
theory, "identity politics" narrowly refers to a style of politics based on the self-organization
of *oppressed* groups and pursuit of policy changes to their advantage. Identity comes to the
forefront of members of oppressed groups' consciousness because it is that defining characteristic
that puts them in an inferior position.
The way some have described it here suggests it's more like practicing politics in a way meant
to provide benefits for oneself–but that's just self-interest. A better broad view of identity
politics would focus on the deliberate and open advocacy of benefits for a particular group one
is a member of, when that group is defined by a specific and fundamental trait relevant to one's
sense of self. In other words, if the phrase "As a (adjective) (personal-characteristic noun),
I believe/support/oppose X" is central to your approach to politics, you're practicing identity
politics.
JWJ, you are missing the entire point of identity politics.
The morality inheres in the identity, not in the behavior.
If brutality occurs, it is not a behavior, it is an identity ("Police"). If you are confident
in "Police" you are thus confident in "brutality" because the behavior is not separable from the
identity. And for similar reasons, your confidence in brutes means that you, too are a brute (of
course this goes double if you are white, since all whites are brutes, for similar reasons).
Identity politics is the refusal to separate identity from acts. Whiteness *is* slaveowning,
blackness *is* victimhood, and so on, regardless of whether one has ever owned or been a slave;
these things are irrelevant; they inhere in the identity.
How long does it take, and at what "price" to atone for the past? Haven't we been grappling
with that since Lincoln's second inaugural address?
But here's the problem. It's not like the whites who are supporting Trump got fat, rich and
happy during their period of "white identity." Whatever privilege attaches to whiteness it hasn't
exactly trickled down (even in a Trumped-up fashion) to Trump voters. No doubt Mr. Bonner is either
upper middle class or high status (academic, journalist or government employee). But low status
whites see the world a bit differently. This is the real tragedy (or, if you're a fat cat, the
beauty) of the situation. The lower classes will always fight among themselves for scraps, the
high status (but often low pay) elites would scold the various parties for their various thoughtcrimes
and the fat cats will high five and do the truffle shuffle, bouncing their greased bellies against
each other. Thanks for doing your part.
"Now, you can try to make an argument that they are wrong, that they *are* getting equal treatment
from law enforcement and that this is all in their heads. You can try, but in all fairness, the
anecdotal and empirical evidence seem not to be on your side."
No, when correcting for crime rates, there is no racial discrepancy in police killings. In
fact, blacks are underrepresented and whites overrepresent, given the underlying proportion of
criminality in the communities.
"Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people because
of the color of their skin is regress,
Who, exactly, is making this argument? Not BLM and not the mainstream liberal political establishment.
"
Uh, Hilary "whites must listen" Clinton. And lots more.
"However, if you look at elite admissions in the early 20th Century, when Anglo-Saxons were competing
against Jews, they implemented a quota system that benefited Anglo-Saxons. "
Why shouldn't the people who, you know, built the universities remain in charge of them? No
one asks Brandeis to become a WASP bastion.
"In the 1950's and 1960's you had one branch of the Federal Government - the Federal Housing Authority–
both building low income housing in the decaying neighborhoods that were the result of FHA red-lining
polices that were was causing the decay - total madness. The black community has yet to recover
from that by the way - trillions in lost equity in today's dollars"
LOL, someone's been drinking the TNC Kool-aid (purple, I imagine). It causes people to reverse
causality.
The neighborhoods were redlined because they were poor risk. They were poor risk because of
their demographic composition.
"It's a miracle that the black community hasn't amassed in force and burned large swaths of this
country to the ground peppering us with automatic weapons fire along the way for good measure."
There's not one word in the BLM guiding principles page about the police. Not one word. If you
go to their home pager and click on "what we believe" this is what you get.
If we would look into how much blacks have been killed by the police last year, the figure will
be about few hundred at maximum. If we would look into the same category for whites, the result
will be few thouthands, minimum. If we look into the statistics abut the main cause of death for
the same period, it will be black on black homicide for blacks and car accident for whites. Also,
blacks are about 13% of the American population or so, but make at least as much homicides as
whites do. And most homicides are comitted within offenders race group.
If anything, whites become targets of poluce brutality much more often. And yet, BLM are out
there preching, as if police is hunting them for no reason. That's everything you need to know
about BLM and their so called care about black lives.
That's the main problems with such groups. They don't really want to improve the lot of the
groups they are supposedly fighting for. They are just exaggerating the problem and imitating
fighting for something important, because they'll get money and recognition for it. Without real
risk to boot.
The BLM radical movement is built on a lie. Blacks are 12% of the population yet commit 53% of
murders and 70% of gun crime. In this era of cell phones, know the number of black people who
have dubious interactions with police, thanks to the scandalous behavior of the news media. We
can be sure police brutality is not an epidemic because the examples offered as evidence are,at
best , dubious. Each example given, eg Ferguson Missouri or Trayvon Martin, are at best arguably
due to the bad behavior by the black person. The real epidemic is black crime, black fatherlessness,
and too many people indulging this "I'm a victim" culture. Shame on you Mr. Dreher for delineation
this into a black and white cipher in this article. The entire country suffers from this epidemic
of black crime and the false narrative that black people are mistreated by society. This is just
another example of the madness on the political left the radical extreme hateful positions that
are exposed on that side it seems solely.
"What Bouie doesn't seem to get is that black identity politics and the preferences of those who
espouse them are a direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites - and even, at
times, their lives (hello, Brian Ogle!)."
OK, livelihoods and interests I can understand even if there's the fact that if you're an average
white dude, an international student, a student with a soccer scholarship, an out of state student,
or a a legacy admission is just as likely to knock you out of your preferred school as a non-white
student is.
However, can you point me to the radio host, politician, TV commentator, or even popular Twitter
celebrity who says the people who killed Brian Ogle should go free?
Because on the other hand, there's plenty of politicians, TV commentators, writers, radio hosts,
etc. who think the police are doing a great job and that police brutality is just a liberal myth.
But in general, the whole paragraph is why for the most part, black Americans will never trust
white conservatives – you seem to imply that black Americans want carte blanche to kill white
people while in reality, black people just want to be treated as well as a confirmed mass murderer
was treated by police – to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps.
A moderate, peaceful, and democratic form of white identity politics that was widely representative
of the white population would be acceptable as far as I am concerned. The problem is that white
nationalists can't go two seconds without demonizing Jews, denying the holocaust, trying to justify
the Confederacy, attacking the basic assumptions of liberal democracy, and admiring various obscure
mid-20th century fascist/pseudo-fascist far right intellectuals. In that sense, white nationalists
are the equivalent of the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, as opposed to the NAACP
or BLM. That does not mean that BLM and the NAACP are not harmful to the interests of whites,
but they do not advocate a separate black ethnostate, antisemitism, or ethnic cleansing of whites.
Just watched the SNL skit. Best thing they have done all election season. It's important we understand
the motivations behind Trump's rise instead of pushing them under the surface where they fester.
I hate the term "identity politics." Identity politics are politics. Straight white people, even
liberals (hello Bernie bros), often try to exclude themselves from the definition by casting their
own thoughts as neutral while casting everyone with a marked "identity" as practicing identity
politics. People are always speaking from a point of view, and in politics they are usually advocating
to change things that negatively impact a group they are associated with.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
I agree that certain groups, especially at the university level, take into a totalitarian direction,
but casting some activism as "identity politics" while excluding other forms of special pleading
makes no sense to me.
I agree that *all* identity politics are a moral poison, white, black, Christian, Muslim, or anything
else. It is a sad fact of human nature that we are tribal and care more for people like ourselves.
This reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan. If we are to follow the parable, then
we are to treat others of different religions and different countries exactly as if they our neighbors,
meaning as if they are in our tribe. This is quite the opposite of identity politics.
"freedom from unfair scrutiny, unfair detention, and unjust killings" for blacks…. are a
direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites.
I've moved things around a bit but in essence this is correct.
If I've got this wrong Rod, kindly let me know how.
Huh.
I didn't realize that oppressing blacks was such a huge industry for white people.
It seems somehow relevant in the context of this discussion.
I'm amazed. Truly and utterly amazed. The demand of blacks to be treated like citizens deserving
the respect and protection of the law and agents of the law like everyone else is "a direct threat
to the livelihoods and interests of many whites."
I mean, I know that white supremacy is a thing in the U.S., but is it really that ingrained
and tenacious? Really?
form of white identity politics that was widely representative of the white population
That's an oxymoron. No form of "white identity" politics would be or could be "widely representative
of the white population."
A lot of the black rhetoric we're getting lately is belated recognition that "black people"
don't really have enduring common interests that bind them all, and the defensive necessity to
provide safety for each other in the face of vicious and pervasive persecution just isn't really
strong enough to maintain a tenuous identity or unity much longer. As Jesse B. Semple remarked
when his "white boss" asked "What does The Negro want now?" … there are fifty eleven different
kinds of Negroes in the USA. That's even more true of "whites," always has been, and the hue an
cry that a bit of affirmative action is tantamount to creating a massive common race interest
is just nonsense.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
Because religion is a search for truth, and religious liberty affirms that there are lots of
different searches going on, which are neither binding upon nonbelievers, nor to be suppressed
by the skeptical or powerful?
It is nice to see America can laugh about things this year!
While we can be complain about SJWs and BLMs, doesn't the conservative movement need the same
exact lecture here? What was the speech that made Trump popular with Republicans? It was "Mexicans
are rapist" speech that originally made 35 – 40% of the party support him the summer of 2015.
(And Donald's speeches to African-Americans is not the way to win their votes either!)
I almost think the best thing for the Republican Party this year is for Trump to lose Texas
so the Party learns to better respect Hispanic-Americans. (Unlikely to happen though and Texas
is not turning blue long term.)
Jesse: "However, can you point me to the radio host, politician, TV commentator, or even popular
Twitter celebrity who says the people who killed Brian Ogle should go free?
Because on the other hand, there's plenty of politicians, TV commentators, writers, radio hosts,
etc. who think the police are doing a great job and that police brutality is just a liberal myth….
But in general, the whole paragraph is why for the most part, black Americans will never trust
white conservatives – you seem to imply that black Americans want carte blanche to kill white
people while in reality, black people just want to be treated as well as a confirmed mass murderer
was treated by police – to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps."
+1,000.
I'd add that there are commentators, politicians, writers, etc. who seem to think that police
brutality is justified because of crime rates, as though the Constitution, not to mention just
basic fairness and protection against needless violence, applies only to the law-abiding.
"That does not mean that BLM and the NAACP are not harmful to the interests of whites, but they
do not advocate a separate black ethnostate, "
If they did, they'd be working for the interests of whites.
[NFR: You longtime readers know that I reject M_Young's white identity politics. I want
to take this opportunity to remind you all that when you cheer on left-wing, racial and sexual
identity politics, you implicitly cheer on his. - RD]
There is a literature on the collective behavior of groups in cooperation/competition models.
Groups (even artificial ones created by randomly assigning college undergraduates) will compete
to maximize their relative power against other groups, even if it leads to collectively a lower
standard of living (in other words, they would rather be relatively richer in a poorer world than
than relatively poorer in a richer world).
In interest group politics, say labor v. capital, you have groups which, while fighting each
other for power, are permeable. People move from one group or the other, and even if they don't,
it is possible to move.
Identity groups are based on putatively immutable characteristics. In identity politics, identity
groups struggle against each other for dominance. Claims can be of three varieties: equality ("All
Lives Matter"), primacy ("Black Lives Matter"), and dominance ("Only Black Lives Matter").
When political parties are defined on identity grounds, elections become censuses rather than
"free" elections. You vote for the party that represents your group, because you are afraid of
dominance by the other group. Further, you justify claims for primacy or dominance based on fears
about the relative power of the other group.
Political systems that polarize on identity end up in a census election where the winning coalition
of groups dominates the other groups, and the group in the electoral minority has no possibility
of exercising power. Because elections are censuses, and you don't have the numbers. What typically
happens is that minorities turn to violence, and often racial unrest results in military rule.
It is pretty clear that multiculturalism is precipitating the resurgence of identity politics,
and if we believe the polls, that trend is about to accelerate. Further, ethnic polarization of
one political party always triggers ethnic polarization in other parties, even over elite objections,
as it becomes necessary to appeal to voters.
This is why some version the Alt-Right represents the future of Conservative politics, even
if the Conservative Establishment doesn't like the Alt-Right. It is structural, and you see the
same type of political dynamic in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, post-Independence India, as well as places
like the Ottoman Empire or Germany.
What is fueling the Alt-Right is the policies around immigration and non-assimilation/multiculturalism,
combined with demands for racial primacy and racial dominance by minorities (e.g. safe spaces
where others are forcibly excluded).
It could be halted today, but instead we are doubling down on the root causes of ethnic anxieties.
Further, I don't know what would be "Left-Wing" about pushing whites into a white ethnic voting
block intended to subordinate opponents, given their majority status for a few decades, and even
as a plurality, they would have the largest plurality.
Much as many people desire "racial equality", when one group argues for "primacy", politically,
you are never going to get "equality" unless a rival group claims primacy for itself. This is
basic bargaining theory. Hence, the inevitability of white with egalitarian preferences going
over toward white nationalism. Unfortunately, the most probable result will be greater polarization,
not compromise.
P.S. Yes, I understand "racial primacy" for certain racial groups means "racial equality",
just as "war is peace".
"I hate the term "identity politics." Identity politics are politics. Straight white people,
even liberals (hello Bernie bros), often try to exclude themselves from the definition by casting
their own thoughts as neutral while casting everyone with a marked "identity" as practicing identity
politics. People are always speaking from a point of view, and in politics they are usually advocating
to change things that negatively impact a group they are associated with.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?"
Exactly.
The phrase "identity politics" is meant to render illegitimate the concerns of the person who
is accused of practicing them. Thus, people don't have to grapple with the actual issue and see
whether or not there's a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed. Rod spends a lot of time
here complaining about the failings of Black Lives Matter, and very little acknowledging that
they have a very legitimate issue that they are pushing to solve.
Religious liberty is not strictly identity politics, because religious affiliations in American
society are voluntary. However, religious preferences are pretty inelastic, so you have approximate
features of identity politics.
However, LGBT ideology claims "sexual orientation" is an immutable characteristic. So LGBT
is identity politics.
In some Islamic societies, apostacy is punished by death, so Islam is pretty immutable. So
in a strict Muslim society seeking to crack down on alcohol sales, the crack down would be an
exercise in identity politics, even if alcohol vendors weren't an identity group.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
Religious liberty is a universal freedom and it applies to all, including atheists and agnostics.
(and, contrary to the narrative, being itself a civic right, it doesn't impinge on other "civil
rights")
Identity politics, on the other hand, is the fostering of tribalism. It's a degrading thing: it
considers humans as dogs that have to bite at each other to get a greater share of the kibble
bowl.
If you look at politics post-independence in Trinidad and Guyana, or Sri Lanka, you see the emergence
of ethnic identity politics converting Communist and Socialist parties, and their leaders, from
universalist political programs to ethnic-based programs, depending on what ethnic groups they
derived more political support from.
Although, I suppose some people think that because America is majority white, the same kind
of political trends won't play out here. I think human nature is human nature, and identity politics
is identity politics, and the result is never good for someone.
"No decent person of any race supports police brutality"
I've known FAR too many "decent" middle and upper-middle class burb-dwellers who are perfectly
comfortable with police brutality. They believe that citizens get the policing they deserve. Rodney
King? "If you saw the entire tape, not just the excerpt on the evening news, you'd understand
why the officers acted that way". Black Lives Matter? "All they have to do is follow the law and
not disrespect the police". Unarmed, non-threatening, law-abiding minority killed by police? "There
must be more to the story".
moral blindness? all politics is identity politics. the fact that white, Christian, property-owning,
heterosexual, males looked out for their interests for the first 200+ years of the plutocracy
was identity politics in spades. the push-back from BLM, NOW, the LGBT community, and even Trump
supporters are as well. I had a very good History professor in the 80's. he taught politics is
merely a group or individual looking out for its vested, economic interests. the Karl Marx vs.
Adam Smith stuff (ideology) is merely a demographic extension of this. what you call identity
politics is more about the relationship between wealth and power, than left or right.
It is certainly a peculiar advance that in a country founded on identity color politics those
who have benefited and manipulated color politics to their advantage in every way --
are finding logical flaws in the very system they have created for themselves.
On its face - should raise serious doubts about the veracity of the complaint.
"No decent person of any race supports police brutality." Explain what you mean by "decent" person.
This is a term similar to the term "elites" be bandied about in this election without anyone saying
who they include in that group. All I get in response to my inquiries are quotations from dictionaries.
So, please explain what is meant by "decent person."
[NFR: If you believe it's okay for the police to brutalize people because of their race,
or to brutalize anyone, you are not a decent person, in my view. - RD]
This bit is much better than everything else SNL has commented on the 2016 election. I still think
SNL caters way too much to African American chauvinism though.
How much traction would BLM have if it were not funded by George Soros?, or any other identity
group if they had not been funded by billionaires with an interest in destabilizing the American
polity??
BTW, although it is not necessarily identity politics, the political principle that groups maximize
their relative power over say the welfare of the totality also explains the problem of elites.
All elites want to maximize their relative power over other groups, and so it is really competition
(e.g. fear of revolution or being conquered) that keeps them "honest", otherwise they will grind
the common man down to subsidence if they have the chance.
All of American history includes the strong presence of white identity politics.
Stop pretending otherwise. What else explains racialized chattel slavery and Jim crow and redlining
and so forth?
[NFR: Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come
as a shock. Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of
people fought and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats
blacks as some sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that
progress towards equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy. - RD]
…to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps.
You're either ignorant of the context of that situation, or you're deliberately taking it out
of context. Roof was arrested by a tiny police department and held until the FBI showed up. He
was arrested after 10pm and had not eaten for a while. The police department didn't even have
the facilities to prepare a meal. Instead of automatically being suspicious, maybe you should
consider that the police were making sure to not do something that could harm the prosecution
in such an important case.
But that's how it's done, huh? Exaggerate things to the extreme, and then wonder why white
people don't understand.
"Black Lives Matter and related identity politics movements (Which Side Are You On? says it is
not affiliated with BLM) are by no means only about police brutality."
Yep. It's also about Israeli "genocide" of Palestinians, if you haven't heard:
http://bit.ly/2eJeXDZ
I remember libertarians complaining in the aughts that it was almost impossible to partake
in antiwar demonstrations with the left because it was never about MERELY war. Environmental degradation,
environmental racism (yes, that's a thing), and all manner of other unrelated items were seen
as a mandatory part of what naive libertarians thought was the goal of simply extracting the US
military from the Middle East.
Ideology is a helluva thing. It's an all-encompassing worldview that looks bizarre to people
who aren't already steeped in one.
[NFR: Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come as
a shock. Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people
fought and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks
as some sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that progress
towards equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy. - RD]
Let me explain something to you too! I'd ask you to sit down, but you're probably already in
your fainting couch!
We have, sort of, in some parts of the country, in some ways moved away from white identity
politics! Just because white identity politics doesn't look like lynching doesn't mean it doesn't
exist.
All politics is identity politics! Why wouldn't it be? We create visions of the good and we
view it through our prism of identity. The fact that in our nation the axis about race doesn't
change that it does exist.
And no one is asking for 'blacks' to be treated as some chosen people – at even the most exaggerated,
most 'blacks' are asking for some acknowledgement that racial damage was done and it's going to
take racially conscious solutions (and some people like reparations!).
But also, here's the reality – the damage to large groups of people in this country was explicitly
because of who they were. Why would the solutions necessarily be universal?
If we both could have had 5, but then I was allowed to unfairly steal 4 from you, it wouldn't
then be fair if my solution to the problem was to give both of us 5 again.
Quote: Taken all in all, though, I am proud to call myself a philosemite, and even at low
points like the Spectator affair still, at the very least, an anti-antisemite. I recall the numberless
kindnesses I have received at the hands of Jews, friendships I treasure and lessons I have learnt.
I cherish those recollections.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics."
The word 'steadily' is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting here. It seems the distance from
full on Jim Crow to 'young bucks eating T bone steaks' is vanishingly small in historical time.
If we could quantify and graph the prevalence of white identity politics, would that graph be
pointing up or down?
The comment made above is entirely correct: identity politics is just ordinary politics. Anyone
who tells you differently is selling something.
"Thompson, Zamata, and Jones might see a lot to like in Doug, but if he can't sign on to the fact
that black Americans face unique challenges and dangers,"
There's the BS right there. Doug might well admit that and accept it and still think that BLM
is full of crap. That's my position. Bouie doesn't get to own the conversation like that and neither
does BLM.
Just like the NRA doesn't get to claim that anyone who fails to bow to its agenda and policies
hates safety.
Just because I disagree with the Sierra Clubs position on zero-cut goals on public land do
they get to say I hate the earth?
"So the desire to be treated fairly is framed as identity politics?"
So black people want to be killed more often by police?
There's at least one famous study famously made famous in the NYT, by a really great black
economist from Harvard, indicating that black people are killed LESS often in interactions with
cops.
Yep. That data is limited and incomplete. But so is the data you prefer.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people fought and died
to end white supremacy… RD"
In fact, the idea of a biologically-based white supremacy never held the political or social
field to itself during the last two centuries in either Europe or America.
This was because it was contested by important currents of both Christian and liberal thought
on human equality. These ideas of Christian and liberal equality were powerful enough to sustain
the successful 60 year international campaign of the world's leading 19th century Empire. the
British, to abolish slavery and were as well a significant factor behind the U.S. civil war.
Any serious reading of the history of the late 19th and early 20th century reveals how ethnic
and "racial" conflicts were created and manipulated by unscrupulous politicians of that time and
how these "identities" contributed to the radical destabilization and destruction of domestic
and international peace.
The 20th century Nazis represented the apogee of "white" supremacy and their European and American
opponents in World War II repudiated with extreme force their odious race "science."
Contemporary identity politics seeks to reassert and re-legitimize a supposed biological basis
for political conflict. The historical evidence is clear that this is not a story that can in
any way end well.
Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people..
Chosen people that are still more likely to be the victims of police brutality. I'm pretty
sure they'd rather pass on being chosen and get on with being treated like everyone else.
You act as if "identity politics" only happens on the left. Small-o "orthodox Christians" are
a tribe who practice "identity politics." All politics is local, Tip O'Neill taught us. A corollary
of that is "all politics are tribal."
I (and other liberals) get dismissed as being nonsensical for wanting to be respected on the
basis of our identity, but the minute a Christian baker has to do business equally with a gay
person, it's tyranny.
What is the Benedict Option, if not Christian identity politics put into maximum effect?
The thing that infuriates me (and people like me) is the assumption that we are the "other"
and the view expressed here is the "default." As I see it, it's our tribe against yours. Your
right to lead is no more evident than mine. We fight for the right to lead. Someone wins, and
someone loses.
I realize this a conservative blog, but try approaching the other side as moral equals, instead
of with an a priori assumption that the left is tribal, and the right has the voice of G-d Himself
as their trumpeter of all that is good and true.
In any given society, the dominant majority defines the norm – in every area of life and culture
– by using themselves as the yardstick. They are normal, everybody different (and their different
stuff) is abnormal.
This is all perfectly natural. It's why there's pretty much no such thing as "white music"
or "white food" in America – whatever was traditional to whites was just called music and food.
If it comes from white culture, it doesn't get a special name, and it doesn't get widely recognized
as something specific to white people. It's just the norm.
This is why white identity politics isn't usually called white identity politics, yet any politics
arising out of a nonwhite experience is defined as abnormal and gets a special name.
Seen from any perspective other than the traditionally dominant one, it's rather clear that
the driving force on the American right has long been white identity politics. The Republican
Party didn't get over 90% white by accident. Some people may have the privilege of calling their
own politics the norm and assigning a name to the rest, but it's all identity politics whether
they want to see it or not.
Then comes the final punchline, "Lives That Matter." Obviously, the answer to the question
is "black." But Doug has "a lot to say about this."
The beautiful thing about the skit is that it left all this hanging… it didn't try to write
the final outcome, but left a range of variables and a variety of possible outcomes to the viewer's
imagination.
The problem with over-analysis is that it erases this well done ending, by trying to pin down
exactly what the outcome is or was or would have been or should have been. Of course, each analysis
erases many possibilities, which is a form of vandalism.
In a small way, this reminds me of when I heard a woman state during Bible study that she likes
the New International Version because it makes everything clear. This cemented my late in life
preference for the King James Version, because by trying to make "everything clear," many nuances
and layers of meaning are erased. The KJV is sufficiently poetic, and sufficiently archaic, that
sometimes there may be five or ten or twenty layers of meaning there, and perhaps that is exactly
what God intended.
(Dain, the term "identity politics" was "coined" as much by Nigel Farage, who openly espouses
it, as it was by "the campus left.")
Environmental degradation, environmental racism (yes, that's a thing), and all manner of
other unrelated items were seen as a mandatory part…
This is a mislocation coined by the campus left… more precisely, by 1970s would-be Marxists,
who latched onto the fuzzy notion that Marxism explains everything and that culture is all a "superstructure"
resting on an economic "base." They then promulgated, spontaneously, not with much thought, that
whatever your pet issue is, Marxism will deliver the desired result. And the Maoist slogan "unite
the many to defeat the few" was best served by including everyone's favorite issue in one big
happy family of agendas. There was even a short-lived "Lavender and Red League." It doesn't work,
Marx and Mao may both be turning in their graves over such petty horse manure, Lenin would certainly
call it an infantile disorder, but nobody every accused the post-1970 would-be leftists of professionalism,
or profound strategic thinking, or even ability to articulate a coherent working class demand.
Joe the Plutocrat: "moral blindness? all politics is identity politics."
No, it can and should be a contest of universal principles and ideas. The Marxian idea that
such is just "false consciousness" is bunk and commits the genetic fallacy.
I want to take this opportunity to remind you all that when you cheer on left-wing, racial
and sexual identity politics, you implicitly cheer on his.
Yeppers. Because if "people of color" can have their "safe spaces," off limits to white people,
then white people are utterly and completely justified in seeking "white spaces," off limits to
people of color.
The assertion is that since people of color have historically been oppressed, they now have
additional rights to request accommodations that would never be granted to their historic oppressors.
Nope. Don't work that way. What's good for the goose is indeed good for the gander – no matter
how many "microagressions' the geese detect.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics."
Right… because both political parties in America are just so diverse. Oh wait, one's the white
people party and one is everyone else. In short, the everyone else party isn't the divisive one…
[NFR: It is in the nature of progressive protest movements that they portray all things
as having gotten no better, because if things *have* improved, it's harder for them to hold on
to power and raise money. That's what's happening here. Anybody who doesn't think white supremacy
and the identity politics that supported it is vastly weaker today than it was in 1960 is either
a fool, or willfully blind. - RD]
The original sin of conservatism is not giving "the other" equal rights and privileges. Whether
it is blacks getting shot by police, the war on drugs (that disproportionately affects the poor),
jim crow like immigration laws, not letting gays marry, not giving equal funding to poor school
districts or any of the other many inequalities conservatives want to perpetuate.
Nobody is "the chosen people" just because they gain some kind of right or privilege white
middle class straight people already have.
Thanks for the clarification. I had just assumed that the Narrative - the cops being buddy
buddy with Roof and getting him some BK in the middle of the day on the way back to Charleston
- was correct. I should have known better.
As an interesting comparison, look at the treatment of one Trenton Trenton (I kid you not)
Lovell, killer of LA Sheriff Deputy Steve Owen. Shot himself, he was patched up by paramedics,
sent to the hospital where he was treated at taxpayer expense, and when fit enough for trial,
arraigned.
Good luck getting anyone on the left to recognize the fallacy of special pleading when it's
right in front of their eyes.
This special pleading, I do not think it means what you think it does. BLM is not asking to
that African Americans be treated in a different fashion than anyone else. Rather, their argument
is that they are disproportionately burdened by the manner in which police interact with them
and that they are asking that they be just be treated the same as the majority of the country.
A basic argument for fairness and equality, in other words.
Now, you can try to make an argument that they are wrong, that they *are* getting equal treatment
from law enforcement and that this is all in their heads. You can try, but in all fairness, the
anecdotal and empirical evidence seem not to be on your side.
Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people because
of the color of their skin is regress,
Who, exactly, is making this argument? Not BLM and not the mainstream liberal political establishment.
I'm sorry, but I appear to have missed the mainstreaming of black nationalism.
That's explains vicious campaign by neoliberal MSM against Trump and swiping under the carpet all
criminal deeds of Clinton family. They feel the threat...
Notable quotes:
"... It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives: socialism and communism. ..."
"... That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness. That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. ..."
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by
race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously
the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge.
The North's abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War
had more to do a desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from
the competition of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.[…]
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to
screw Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core
of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten
her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In other words it's all part of a grand plan when the Clintonoids aren't busy debating the finer
points of her marketing and "mark"–a term normally applied to the graphic logo on a commercial product.
"... Hillary Clinton's nomination and the euphoria in the press (one NPR female reporter said she has seen women weeping over the possibility of Hillary becoming president) eclipses any discussion about the real issues facing the country. ..."
"... Notice how the term "women's issues" is used by the media and certain politicians to suggest that there is only one acceptable position for females on any given topic. To the left, women's issues appear to mean abortion rights, same-sex marriage, higher taxes, bigger government and electing more women who favor such things. ..."
"... As the husband of a successful woman with a master's degree and accomplished daughters and granddaughters, that's how we feel about Hillary Clinton. We're all for a female president, just not this one. ..."
Have you heard that Hillary Clinton is the "first woman" ever to be nominated for president by a
major political party? Of course you have. The media have repeated the line so often it is broken
news.
Hillary Clinton's nomination and the euphoria in the press (one NPR female reporter said
she has seen women weeping over the possibility of Hillary becoming president) eclipses any discussion
about the real issues facing the country.
To quote Clinton in another context, "what difference does it make" that she is a woman? A liberal
is a liberal, regardless of gender, race or ethnicity.
Must we go through an entire list of "firsts" before we get to someone who can solve our collective
problems, instead of making them worse? Many of those cheering this supposed progress in American
culture, which follows the historic election of the "first African-American president," are insincere,
if not disingenuous. Otherwise, they would have applauded the advancement of African-Americans like
Gen. Colin Powell, Justice Clarence Thomas, former one-term Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Sen. Tim Scott
(R-SC) and conservative women like Sarah Palin, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), former presidential
candidate Carly Fiorina, Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) and many others.
Immigrants who entered the country legally and became citizens are virtually ignored by the media.
They champion instead illegal immigrants and the liberals who support them.
The reason for this disparity in attitude and coverage is that conservative blacks, women and
Hispanics hold positions anathema to the left. Conservative African-Americans have been called all
kinds of derogatory names in an effort to get them to convert to liberal orthodoxy, and they're ostracized
if they don't convert. If conservative, a female is likely to be labeled a traitor to her gender,
or worse.
Notice how the term "women's issues" is used by the media and certain politicians to suggest
that there is only one acceptable position for females on any given topic. To the left, women's issues
appear to mean abortion rights, same-sex marriage, higher taxes, bigger government and electing more
women who favor such things.
When it comes to accomplished conservative female leaders, one of the greatest and smartest of
our time was the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's consequential U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations. As Jay Nordlinger wrote in his review of Peter Collier's book "Political Woman" for National
Review, "In a saner world, Jeane Kirkpatrick would have been lionized by feminists. She had risen
from the oil patch to the commanding heights of U.S. foreign policy. But her views were 'wrong.'"
Collier writes that Kirkpatrick, who was a Democrat most of her life, recalled feminist icon Gloria
Steinem once referring to her as "a female impersonator." Author Naomi Wolf called her "a woman without
a uterus" and claimed that she had been "unaffected by the experiences of the female body." Kirkpatrick
responded, "I have three kids, while she, when she made this comment had none."
The left gets away with these kinds of smears because they largely control the media and the message.
No Republican could escape shunning, or worse, if such language were employed against a female Democrat.
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, born in Philadelphia to Philippine citizens, has written
about some of the printable things she's been called -- "race traitor," "white man's puppet," "Tokyo
Rose," "Aunt Tomasina."
As the cliche goes, if liberals didn't have a double standard, they would have no standards at
all.
There's an old joke about a woman with five children who was asked if she had it to do over again
would she have five kids. "Yes," she replied, "just not these five."
As the husband of a successful woman with a master's degree and accomplished daughters and
granddaughters, that's how we feel about Hillary Clinton. We're all for a female president, just
not this one.
"... I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the U.S. racial situation. ..."
"... And it prevents the constant attacks on recipients of benefits as being unworthy, criminal, drug-taking, undeserving folk who should be drug-tested, monitored, controlled, suspected. ..."
"... Privileges like the selection of judges or the creation of special loopholes in the tax law, or other privileges only a political donation of the right amount might purchase. And it should be plain that some of the privileges described are not privileges at all but basic rights of human kind borne within any notion of the just. ..."
"... I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the U.S. racial situation. ..."
"... When the BLM (I think) asked Bernie about reparations, he said he didn't think it was a good idea, that free college etc would help everyone. ..."
PlutoniumKun is 100% on-target. Moreover, non-universal benefits have tremendous overhead cost
in terms of paperwork, qualifications, etc., while a universal benefit can be minimally bureaucratic.
I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but
universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the
U.S. racial situation.
On the baby bonds, it's foolish to have a "$50 endowment for a child of Bill Gates". Instead
it would be better to just provide $50,000 to ALL babies including Bill Gates' child, and tax
Bill Gates more.
As the saying goes, "programs for the poor are poor programs." Bill Gates' child should be
allowed to use the same public libraries, go to the same (free) public universities, etc. etc.
I doubt Bill Gates' child will need to take up the guaranteed job, but if he needs or wants to
(perhaps because of a quarrel with his parent) he should be able to.
And it prevents the constant attacks on recipients of benefits as being unworthy, criminal,
drug-taking, undeserving folk who should be drug-tested, monitored, controlled, suspected.
Universality removes many of the privileges the rich enjoy - $50K for all babies including
Bill Gates child - and as privileges are dismantled in this way the remaining privileges of the
rich will stand all the more glaring for their unfairness - to all. Privileges like the selection
of judges or the creation of special loopholes in the tax law, or other privileges only a political
donation of the right amount might purchase. And it should be plain that some of the privileges
described are not privileges at all but basic rights of human kind borne within any notion of
the just.
I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment,
but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving
the U.S. racial situation.
I've been thinking about this bit a lot. When the BLM (I think) asked Bernie about reparations,
he said he didn't think it was a good idea, that free college etc would help everyone.
I don't recall any elaboration on his part, but I wondered at the time, how would they be allocated?
Full black, one-half black, one quarter, quadroon, octoroon, mulatto, 'yaller'? That's wholly
back to Jim Crow, or worse. I refer, of course to the
artificial division
of Huttus and Tutsis which, you may recall,
did not work out so well
. Barack Obama, would he qualify? None of his ancestors were slaves.
I am looking forward to the book by Darity and Muller, but they would have to do a lot of persuading
to get me to get comfy with reparations.
The country that gives every expecting mother a new baby package is Finland. They started the
practice in the 1930's when their infant mortality rate was at ten percent. Now they have one
of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
"... Clinton says publically she believes that. Meanwhile supposedly smart economists like Tyler Cowen say they don't. Boston Fed President Rosengren says there are too many jobs. We need more unemployed. I'm Fed Up with regional Fed Presidents like him. ..."
"... Class issues are now a tough nut to crack, partly I think because the Democrats and some liberals take demands for economic fairness and try to give us identity politics instead, ..."
"... The meritocratic class who Krugman speaks for and centrist politicians like Clinton will slow-walk class issues like how Tim Geithner slow-walked financial reform. It's part of their job description and milieu. ..."
"... It's funny when neo-liberals/libertarians hate an activity engaged in by workers in what is clearly the product of a free market -- exercising the right of free association and organizing to do collective bargaining -- while think it is perfectly OK -- indeed, so "natural" that any question wouldn't even occur to them -- for owners of capital to organize themselves under the special protections of the state-created corporation. ..."
"... It's understandable, though, that they would consider the corporation to be ordained by natural law: the Founding Fathers, after all, were dedicated to the proposition that all men and corporations are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. (Never mind that the creator of the corporations is the state.) ..."
I liked how Hillary said in the third debate that she was for raising the minimum wage because
people who work full time shouldn't live in poverty. And "Donald" is against it. That's why people
are voting for her.
That's an ethical or moral notion, combined with "morally neutral" economics. People who work
hard full time, play by the rules and pay their dues shouldn't live in poverty.
Clinton says publically she believes that. Meanwhile supposedly smart economists like Tyler
Cowen say they don't. Boston Fed President Rosengren says there are too many jobs. We need more
unemployed. I'm Fed Up with regional Fed Presidents like him.
Think about the debate between the centrists and progressives over Trump supporters. The centrists
argue Trump supporters (nor anyone else besides a few) aren't suffering from economic anxiety
- that it's racism all of the way down. Matt Yglesias. Dylan Matthews. Krugman. Meyerson. Etc.
The progressives admit there's racism, but there's a wider context. The Nazis were racists,
but there was also the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression. And Germany got better in
the decades after the war just as the American South is better than it once was. Steve Randy Waldman
and James Kwak discussed in blog post how the wider context should be taken into consideration.
On some "non-economic issues" there has been progress even though the recent decades haven't
been as booming as the post-WWII decades were with rising living standards for all.
A black President. Legalized gay marriage. Legalized pot. I wouldn't have thought these things
as likely to happen when I was a teenager because of the bigoted authoritarian nature of many
voters and elites. During the Progressive era and when the New Deal was enacted, racism and sexism
and bigotry and anti-science thinking was virulent. Yet economic progress was made on the class
front.
Class issues are now a tough nut to crack, partly I think because the Democrats and some
liberals take demands for economic fairness and try to give us identity politics instead,
not that the latter isn't worthwhile. Partly b/c of what Mike Konczal discussed in his recent
Medium piece.
If we can just apply the morality and politics of electing a black President and legalizing
gay marriage and pot, to class issues. The meritocratic class who Krugman speaks for and centrist
politicians like Clinton will slow-walk class issues like how Tim Geithner slow-walked financial
reform. It's part of their job description and milieu.
But Clinton did talk to it during the third debate when she said she'd raise the minimum wage
because people who work full time shouldn't live in poverty. That is a morale issue as the new
Pope has been talking about.
Hillary should have joked last night about what God's Catholic representative here on Earth
had to say about Trump.
urban legend said...
It's funny when neo-liberals/libertarians hate an activity engaged in by workers in what is
clearly the product of a free market -- exercising the right of free association and organizing
to do collective bargaining -- while think it is perfectly OK -- indeed, so "natural" that any
question wouldn't even occur to them -- for owners of capital to organize themselves under the
special protections of the state-created corporation.
It's understandable, though, that they would consider the corporation to be ordained by
natural law: the Founding Fathers, after all, were dedicated to the proposition that all men and
corporations are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. (Never mind that the
creator of the corporations is the state.)
"... As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word for
maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political fixing,
price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated version of Medieval
feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines of wealth and governs
the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and taxes--all
of which benefit the financiers and political grifters. ..."
"... The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the privileged
ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry ) and political
influence. ..."
"... If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
..."
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed. This reality is being masked by
the mainstream media, mouthpiece of the ruling class, which is ceaselessly promoting two false narratives:
The "great divide" in American politics is between left and right, Democrat/Republican
The ruling Elite has delivered "prosperity" not just to the privileged few but to the unprivileged
many they govern.
Both of these assertions are false. The Great Divide in America is between the ruling Elite and
the governed that the Elite has stripmined. The ruling Elite is privileged and protected, the governed
are unprivileged and unprotected. That's the divide that counts and the divide that is finally becoming
visible to the marginalized, unprivileged class of debt-serfs.
The "prosperity" of the 21st century has flowed solely to the ruling Elite and its army of technocrat
toadies, factotums, flunkies, apparatchiks and apologists. The Elite's army of technocrats and its
media apologists have engineered and promoted an endless spew of ginned-up phony statistics (the
super-low unemployment rate, etc.) to create the illusion of "growth" and "prosperity" that benefit
everyone rather than just the top 5%. The media is 100% committed to promoting these two false narratives
because the jig is up once the bottom 95% wake up to the reality that the ruling Elite has been stripmining
them for decades.
As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word
for maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political
fixing, price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated
version of Medieval feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines
of wealth and governs the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit
cards, mortgages and taxes--all of which benefit the financiers and political grifters.
The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the
privileged ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry
) and political influence.
The cold truth is the ruling Elite has shredded the social contract by skimming the income/wealth
of the unprivileged. The fake-"progressive" pandering apologists of the ruling Elite--Robert Reich,
Paul Krugman and the rest of the Keynesian Cargo Cultists--turn a blind eye to the suppression of
dissent and the looting the bottom 95% because they have cushy, protected positions as tenured faculty
(or equivalent). They cheerlead for more state-funded bread and circuses for the marginalized
rather than demand an end to exploitive privileges of the sort they themselves enjoy.
Consider just three of the unsustainably costly broken systems that enrich the privileged Elite
by stripmining the unprivileged:
healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare because sickness is profitable, prevention is unprofitable),
higher education
Imperial over-reach (the National Security State and its partner the privately owned Military-Industrial
Complex).
While the unprivileged and unprotected watch their healthcare premiums and co-pays soar year after
year, the CEOs of various sickcare cartels skim off tens of millions of dollars annually in pay and
stock options. The system works great if you get a $20 million paycheck. If you get a 30% increase
in monthly premiums for fewer actual healthcare services--the system is broken.
If you're skimming $250,000 as under-assistant dean to the provost for student services (or equivalent)
plus gold-plated benefits, higher education is working great. If you're a student burdened with tens
of thousands of dollars in student loan debt who is receiving a low-quality, essentially worthless
"education" from poorly paid graduate students ("adjuncts") and a handful of online courses that
you could get for free or for a low cost outside the university cartel--the system is broken.
If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
If you joined the Armed Forces to escape rural poverty and served at the point of the spear somewhere
in the Imperial Project--your perspective may well be considerably different.
Unfortunately for the ruling Elite and their army of engorged enablers and apologists, they have
already lost the consent of the governed.
They have bamboozled, conned and misled the bottom 95% for decades, but their phony facade of
political legitimacy and "the rising tide raises all boats" has cracked wide open, and the machinery
of oppression, looting and propaganda is now visible to everyone who isn't being paid to cover their
eyes. Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this
epochal shift of the tides yet, either. They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own
declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday
life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately
self-destructive ruling Elite.
"... At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in
the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt
establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight
of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect
threats to their personal safety. ..."
"... The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. ..."
"... People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. ..."
"... They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences
for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner,
whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they
forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently
culled. ..."
"... The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from
connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out
organized forms of activism. ..."
"... In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced.
Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are
instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate
entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent
ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their
own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state. ..."
"... Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads
to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything
resembling a solution, even despotism. ..."
"... Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding
liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level
of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly
distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that
their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them. ..."
"... When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines
that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant
exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police
no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
..."
"... Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent
to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating
even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares
to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses. ..."
"... Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive
boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their
anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments
are able to kill two birds with one stone. ..."
"... Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen
spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities.
..."
"... Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think
..."
"... Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is
sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled
as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is done discretely,
but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it. ..."
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular
question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice
what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their
cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage
of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately,
such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day.
For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness
in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on
corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect
the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent
indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies,
and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless
herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment
and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have
to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition
a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger's
day is never quite done. In my recent article
'The
Essential Rules of Liberty' we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations
required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let's examine the frequently
wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually
confronted and defeated.
Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill
apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for
standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every
corner, whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal
that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have
been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another
religion, another political ideology, a "hidden" and ominous villain created out of thin air.
Autocrats assert that we "need them" in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters
bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken,
even those that dissolve our freedoms, are "for the greater good". Frightened people tend to shirk
their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective
is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality
almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked
for the sake of the group.
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public
gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount
to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms.
The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting
with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized
forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant's can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating
and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of
a nation on the verge of revolution. These "false paradigms" give us the illusion of proactive
organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us
from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into
meaningless battles over "left and right", or "Democrat versus Republican", for example. Only
movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of
their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to
the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are
enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required.
Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust
each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures
are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support.
People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore,
a potential risk to the state.
You'll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government
gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty,
and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly
hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine
upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake;
they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime
leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance
of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while
demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain
a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation
keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously
chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end
them.
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived
notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny
right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on
every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naďve position.
Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed
nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation,
terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed.
The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority
emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of
the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards
out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and
small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers,
behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous
and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their
ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed,
and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person
or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the
minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders
of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already
disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media
in an attempt to make the public believe that "everyone else" must have the same exact views,
and those who express contrary positions must be "crazy", or "extremist". Events are even engineered
by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive
anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them
directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an
elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention,
and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the
truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself,
but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our
propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother
bureaucracies around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted
to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and "service" to this collective, sadly, is
the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and
soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for
power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate
the destinies of perfect strangers.
Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery.
Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons
of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly
unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with
persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and
a hero's status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin
to see "extremists" and "terrorists" everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start
to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members.
Free speech is effectively neutralized.
In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord
over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies
are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they
can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of
conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware.
However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put
in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America
today.
Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality
is sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those
labeled as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is
done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it.
All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within
their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real
question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At
what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and
take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities,
their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment
constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the
line, and how many will flee?
For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable
in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again
into the very best in us all.
"... Any argument that democracy can't work because of mass ignorance also has to answer the question: what evidence is there that people are worse informed/more actively mislead than in the twentieth century? Yellow journalism, for example, is nothing new historically. ..."
"... The Left get a bloody nose from the electorate over a major shift in the course society is going to take for the first time in 30 years and suddenly democracy isn't a satisfactory way of deciding things. ..."
"... How convenient. I've always said the Left don't really give a sh*t about the people they purport to represent, its all just a facade to gain power. I think the response to the Brexit vote pretty much settles it. ..."
"... So much for Democracy http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html ..."
"... I think direct democracy is untenable. It would bring forth every economically bankrupt and socially disastrous policy under the sun. Don't be under any illusions about that. ..."
I suppose immigration is particularly sensitive because the newcomers will likely settle and become British citizens, thus giving
them the vote and a say in how the country is run. If the newcomers fail to assimilate then they may vote in ways that the "native"
population object to and bring about changes that would not otherwise have occurred.
Imagine for example a referendum on the
monarchy that is won by republicans based on the votes from first generation immigrants who, understandably, are less likely to
have attachment to the institution. I suppose another way to put it is: do the original inhabitants of a territory have a right
to prevent social/cultural/political/economic change brought about by newcomers?
@AndrewD what is your point? That there are no such people as British people? That those who live here have no more rights than
those who don't?
Brexit in a nutshell: decades of treating the population of the UK as if they are nobodies: ask them "are you happy to continue
being treated as if you are worthless nobodies?" Answer "no".
My point is that the concept of "original inhabitents" for any part of the world (save possibly a small part of East Africa) is
meaningless in historical terms. Historically, immigrants came with "fire and slaughter". Justify your statement about the rights
of those here over other immigrants to come in any way other than a claim we were here first.
The difference between Daniel Kahnemann and Jason Brennan is that Kahnemann talks about the biases we all (including him) have
and Brennan talks about the biases that "they" have. Which is why I take Kahnemann seriously and not Brennan. What's more, Dan
Kahan's work on motivated reasoning suggests that it affects Type 2 (slow) thinking as well and that the bias is greatest among
the most educated. In other words, we're all prone to cognitive biases and there's no justification from that to restrict the
franchise.
Any argument that democracy can't work because of mass ignorance also has to answer the question: what evidence is there
that people are worse informed/more actively mislead than in the twentieth century? Yellow journalism, for example, is nothing
new historically.
The Left get a bloody nose from the electorate over a major shift in the course society is going to take for the first time
in 30 years and suddenly democracy isn't a satisfactory way of deciding things.
How convenient. I've always said the Left don't really give a sh*t about the people they purport to represent, its all
just a facade to gain power. I think the response to the Brexit vote pretty much settles it.
AndrewD - "Justify your statement about the rights of those here over other immigrants to come in any way other than a claim we
were here first."
well that's just about the whole of human history. If everyone has rights to be everywhere then no-one gets to influence what
happens in "their" area. I like my neighbours but they live in their house and I live in mine.
More specifically and recently, the switch of who "we" are from the UK to Europe has created a bonanza for some people and
left others on the scrap heap.
For example, you're relying on the idea of an in group and an out group. What about the Scots, who are pro-immigration ATM? Are
they part of your in group or not? What about people in your street that like immigration? Where are your borders? Then think
about Europe where, to put it mildly, there has been a recent history of "fluid" boundaries.
@aragon Ah good, I wondered how long it would be before the Appeal to Nature fallacy reared its head. Social Darwinism anybody?
How do you reconcile the fact that the areas of the UK that saw the most EU immigration were the areas that were the most tolerant
of it, and vice versa?
Lastly your wisdom of crowds reference is a bit silly. What we saw in the referendum was crowd psychology rather than diverse
collections of independently deciding individuals, because the media drip fed them their views over 20 years or more.Crowds can
be made to behave stupidly too.
"What about the Scots, who are pro-immigration ATM? Are they part of your in group or not?" this is a critical question that
recent referenda have thrown up, even more so than left/right and class. The scots are part of my group but I suspect increasingly
I am not part of theirs.
"What about people in your street that like immigration?" well once out of the EU we can all vote for parties that reflect
our views on immigration. While in the EU over 450 million people have the right of residence and our various opinions matter
not a jot.
@ Tonybirte. so people who disagree with you have been drop fed views over 20 years and are too stupid to see the truth.
Are you sure its not you who has been drip-fed views over the past 20 years? Are you absolutely sure you are not the one behaving
stupidly? Have you done your due diligence?
Gastro George, the Scots are not pro-immigration. Opinion polling suggests they are less opposed to it than the UK as a whole,
but still opposed overall.
I think direct democracy is untenable. It would bring forth every economically bankrupt and socially disastrous policy
under the sun. Don't be under any illusions about that.
"... With polling data being quantized and plugged into sophisticated computer models allowing Clinton
to tailor her message for each region and for each venue. ..."
"... As I said before, this is likely something that is being fed to her by her no doubt well paid
consultants. ..."
"... Still, I have made an interesting observation that I wonder if you noticed. You presented two
charts, one with holding corporations accountable placed at the top, and the other placing decline in
manufacturing jobs at the top in the same position. ..."
"... They are the same network; point by point. I even compared them using paint and found them
to be a perfect match. The only difference is that one is negative and the other is positive. ..."
"... This completely misunderstand Clinton's approach to the Vulgar people of the United States,
which is: Insectionality, not intersectionality, that is the Vulgar People are treated as Insects. ..."
"... The only Intersection understood by Hilarity Clinton is the one between herself, money and
power. All else is irrelevant. ..."
"... Hillary is an intersectional feminist? ..."
"... As another untrained clown in intersectional feminism, I'm skeptical about Clinton, especially
reading Thomas Frank's description of the International Women's Day event at the Clinton Foundation
one year ago: ..."
"... Microlending is a perfect expression of Clintonism, since it brings together wealthy financial
interests with rhetoric that sounds outrageously idealistic. Microlending permits all manner of networking,
posturing, and profit taking among the lenders while doing nothing to change actual power relations-the
ultimate win-win." ..."
"... Wait a minute that tangle of buzz phrases connected helter-skelter by lines is a REAL post
from the Clinton campaign? Until I read the whole piece I thought it was well done satire. I guess The
Onion being bought out doesn't really matter much. In modern American politics satire now seems roughly
as difficult a task as exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum or measuring the position and velocity
of an electron simultaneously. ..."
DFA = Democracy for America. This was Howard Dean's organization and part of his 50 state strategies.
During non-campaign seasons, he sent campaign organizers touring the country giving short classes
on how to organize and manage a political campaign. They came to Wichita and it was something
to see, a lot of local Democratic office holders, some even in the State House had signed up.
One guy had held his house seat for 8 years and much of the information they were bringing was
completely new to him. Yes, a state level Democrat had won 4 election cycles without even knowing
the basics. This was the state of the Democratic Party back then – and is largely that way now.
Now I am going from memory here, but Clinton's "intersectional" was covered in these classes,
with at least the basic idea. The idea was to consider how different elements within your campaign
plank are connected. And where those connections are poor, to build up a rhetorical foundation
on how to address the contradictions. As I said, the idea is not to build connections between
different parts of the planks, but how to present separate planks to the voter as being relevant.
It's a good exercise, a way of organizing your issues and thinking how they all might fit together.
Now Clintion's hairball – good word by the way – likely takes it to the absurd degree.
With polling data being quantized and plugged into sophisticated computer models allowing Clinton
to tailor her message for each region and for each venue.
–KACHING- As I said before, this is likely something that is being fed to her by her no
doubt well paid consultants.
Still, I have made an interesting observation that I wonder if you noticed. You presented
two charts, one with holding corporations accountable placed at the top, and the other placing
decline in manufacturing jobs at the top in the same position.
They are the same network; point by point. I even compared them using paint and found them
to be a perfect match. The only difference is that one is negative and the other is positive.
This completely misunderstand Clinton's approach to the Vulgar people of the United States,
which is: Insectionality, not intersectionality, that is the Vulgar People are treated as Insects.
The only Intersection understood by Hilarity Clinton is the one between herself, money
and power. All else is irrelevant.
As another untrained clown in intersectional feminism, I'm skeptical about Clinton, especially
reading Thomas Frank's description of the International Women's Day event at the Clinton Foundation
one year ago:
"What this lineup suggested is that there is a kind of naturally occurring solidarity between
the millions of women at the bottom of the world's pyramid and the tiny handful of women at its
very top The mystic bond between high-achieving American professionals and the planet's most victimized
people is a recurring theme in [Hillary Clinton's] life and work What the spectacle had to offer
ordinary working American women was another story.
She enshrined a version of feminism in which liberation is, in part, a matter of taking out
loans from banks in order to become an entrepreneur the theology of microfinance Merely by providing
impoverished individuals with a tiny loan of fifty or a hundred dollars, it was thought, you could
put them on the road to entrepreneurial self-sufficiency, you could make entire countries prosper,
you could bring about economic development itself What was most attractive about microlending
was what it was not, what it made unnecessary: any sort of collective action by poor people coming
together in governments or unions The key to development was not doing something to limit the
grasp of Western banks, in other words; it was extending Western banking methods to encompass
every last individual on earth.
Microlending is a perfect expression of Clintonism, since it brings together wealthy financial
interests with rhetoric that sounds outrageously idealistic. Microlending permits all manner of
networking, posturing, and profit taking among the lenders while doing nothing to change actual
power relations-the ultimate win-win."
I'm too confused with all of this, but it sounds to me like a concept called "interlocking
systems of oppression" and your figure two seems to provide useful diagrammatic example.
The diagram offers no understanding of the intersectional dynamics of oppression, carefully
cropping out the oppressors - most of whom are Hillary backers - along with the oppressed, who
are all affected differently in their lived experiences by their particular relationship
to oppressive conditions.
Lumping these focus-tested ill conditions together with a rat's nest of undistinguished connections
misleadingly equates the interests of persons with their set of group memberships (Fascism is
Italian for bundle-ism) and sets the stage for those conditions to be traded off and weighed against
each other on net in the future. I believe this is the essence of what is called "triangulation".
Wait a minute that tangle of buzz phrases connected helter-skelter by lines is a REAL post
from the Clinton campaign? Until I read the whole piece I thought it was well done satire. I guess
The Onion being bought out doesn't really matter much. In modern American politics satire now
seems roughly as difficult a task as exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum or measuring the
position and velocity of an electron simultaneously.
What is amazing is that such column was published is such a sycophantic for Hillary and openly anti-Trump
rag as NYT. In foreign policy Hillary is the second incarnation of Cheney... Neocons rules NYT coverage
of Presidential race and, of course, they all favor Hillary. Of course chances that some on neocons
who so enthusiastically support her, crossing Party lines are drafted, get M16 and send to kill brown
people for Wall Street interests now is close to zero. Everything is outsourced now. But still, it is
simply amazing that even a lonely voice against neocon campaign of demonization of Trump got published
in NYT ...
MSM shilling for Hillary is simply overwhelming, so why this was in NYT is a mystery to me. But
this article of Maureen Dowd in on spot. Simply amazing how she manage to publish it !!!
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary will keep the establishment safe. Who is more of an establishment figure, after all? Her husband was president, and he repealed Glass-Steagall, signed the Defense of Marriage Act and got rid of those pesky welfare queens. ..."
"... Hillary often seems more Republican than the Gotham bling king, who used to be a Democrat and donor to Democratic candidates before he jumped the turnstile. ..."
"... Hillary is a reliable creature of Wall Street. Her tax return showed the Clintons made $10.6 million last year, and like other superrich families, they incorporated with the Clinton Executive Services Corporation (which was billed for the infamous server). Trump has started holding up goofy charts at rallies showing Hillary has gotten $48,500,000 in contributions from hedge funders, compared to his $19,000. ..."
"... Unlike Trump, she hasn't been trashing leading Republicans. You know that her pals John McCain and Lindsey Graham are secretly rooting for her. There is a cascade of prominent Republicans endorsing Hillary, donating to Hillary, appearing in Hillary ads, talking up Hillary's charms. ..."
"... Robert Kagan, a former Reagan State Department aide, adviser to the McCain and Mitt Romney campaigns and Iraq war booster, headlined a Hillary fund-raiser this summer. Another neocon, James Kirchick, keened in The Daily Beast , "Hillary Clinton is the one person standing between America and the abyss." ..."
"... The Democratic nominee put out an ad featuring Trump-bashing Michael Hayden, an N.S.A. and CIA chief under W. who was deemed "incongruent" by the Senate when he testified about torture methods. And she earned an endorsement from John Negroponte, a Reagan hand linked to American-trained death squads in Latin America. ..."
"... Politico reports that the Clinton team sent out feelers to see if Kissinger, the Voldemort of Vietnam, and Condi Rice, the conjurer of Saddam's apocalyptic mushroom cloud, would back Hillary. ..."
"... The Hillary team seems giddy over its windfall of Republicans and neocons running from the Trump sharknado. But as David Weigel wrote in The Washington Post, the specter of Kissinger, the man who advised Nixon to prolong the Vietnam War to help with his re-election, fed a perception that "the Democratic nominee has returned to her old, hawkish ways and is again taking progressives for granted." ..."
"... Hillary is a safer bet in many ways for conservatives. Trump likes to say he is flexible. What if he returns to his liberal New York positions on gun control and abortion rights? ..."
"... Trump is far too incendiary in his manner of speaking, throwing around dangerous and self-destructive taunts about "Second Amendment people" taking out Hillary, or President Obama and Hillary being the founders of ISIS ..."
"... Hillary, on the other hand, understands her way around political language and Washington rituals. Of course you do favors for wealthy donors. And if you want to do something incredibly damaging to the country, like enabling George W. Bush to make the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history, don't shout inflammatory and fabricated taunts from a microphone. ..."
"... You must walk up to the microphone calmly, as Hillary did on the Senate floor the day of the Iraq war vote, and accuse Saddam of giving "aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda," repeating the Bush administration's phony case for war. If you want to carry the GOP banner, your fabrications have to be more sneaky. ..."
"... "You must walk up to the microphone calmly, as Hillary did on the Senate floor the day of the Iraq war vote, and accuse Saddam of giving "aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda," repeating the Bush administration's phony case for war." ..."
"... Anyone who believes Bill Clinton didn't know exactly what was going on is just kidding themselves. One clue, for example. They moved the WMD 'intelligence" investigation to the DOD under Paul Wolfowitz. LOL! ..."
"... Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and "Listen Liberal: Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?" echoes Ms. Dowd's sentiments. In a recent column Frank says that with Trump certain to lose, you can forget about a progressive Clinton. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/13/trump-clinton-elec... ..."
"... "America's two-party system itself has temporarily become a one-party system. And within that one party, the political process bears a striking resemblance to dynastic succession. Come November, Clinton will have won her great victory – not as a champion of working people's concerns, but as the greatest moderate of them all." ..."
"... We've also managed to select one of biggest dissemblers, enablers, war hawks, fungible flip-floppers, pay for play con artists, scandal mongerers candidates since Tricky Dicky. Congratulations America! We did it. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, "Wet get the government we deserve." ..."
"... The reaction by many to Ms Dowd's column clearly shows that the "save the world" "lesser evil" argument only works is one is willing to suspend belief on the demonstrated evil of Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Clinton could well take us to war against Russia. In Syria, Clinton is spoiling to give Russia a punch in the nose, on the theory that Russia will back down and the US will have a free hand there. She advocates a a no-fly zone for Russian jets in Syria. The idea there is to create a confrontation, shoot down a couple of Russian jets and teach them a lesson. There is also the CIA and Pentagon "Plan B" for the Syrian negotiations. ..."
"... It's always wonderful to see when the truth comes out in the end: Hillary is the perfect Repulican candidate and this is also prove of the fact that on finance and economic issues Democrats and old mainstream Republicans have been in in the same pocket...even under Obama. ..."
"... One night after the election on the Carson show Goldwater quipped that he didn't know how unpopular a president he would have been until Johnson adopted his policies... ..."
"... All the things you say about Hillary are true. She is an establishment favorite. She did indeed vote to support Bush and his insane desire to invade Iraq. ..."
"... Did we all forget the millions who went for Bernie and his direct and aggressive confrontation of Hillary's Wall Street/corporate ties? That was a contest between what used to be the Dem party of the people and the corporate friendly Dem party of today. We understood then that Hillary represented the Right; why the surprise now? (The right pointing arrow on the "H" logo is so appropriate.) ..."
"... There are reasons Hillary is disliked and distrusted by nearly a majority of us. My reasons are she is of and for the oligarchs and deceitful enough to run as a populist. ..."
"... America tried to liberalize in the 1960's and the response was swift and violent as three of the greatest liberal lions and voices the country has ever known - JFK, MLK and RFK - were gunned down. ..."
"... While one can endlessly argue the specific details of those ghastly assassinations of America's liberal superstars, in my view, all three of those murders rest on the violent, nefarious right-wing shoulders and fumes of moneyed American 'conservatism' that couldn't stand to share the profits of their economic parasitism with society. ..."
"... I truly believe that Congressional Republicans in the House are already drafting articles of impeachment should Hillary become President. Dowd may claim that Republicans are in lock step with her, but don't be surprised when the talk of impeachment starts soon after Jan 20, 2017. ..."
"... We need a multi party system. With 2 parties dominating the politics, its like having a monopoly of liberalism or conservatism which just does not represent the width and depth of views our citizens resonate with. Having voted democrat all my life, to me Hillary does not represent my choice (Bernie does). ..."
"... This annoys me..."like enabling George W. Bush to make the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history" Maureen is talking about Hillary, but she might as well be talking about her own newspaper. Hillary got it wrong, but so did the New York Times editorial board. ..."
"... The Bush Administration hinted that the anti-war people were traitors and terrorist sympathizers and everybody got steamrolled. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/opinion/culture-war-with-b-2-s.html ..."
"... HRC couldn't have asked for a better opponent if she'd constructed him out of a six-foot pile of mildewed straw. By running against Trump, the whole Trump and nothing but the Trump, and openly courting neocon war criminals and "establishment" Republicans, she's outrageously giving CPR to what should have been a rotting corpse of a political party by now. ..."
"... By giving new life to the pathocrats who made Trump possible, Clinton is only making her own party weaker and more right-wing, only making it easier for down-ticket Republicans to slither their way back into power.... the better to triangulate with during the Clinton restoration. Grand Bargain, here we come. TPP, (just waiting for that fig leaf of meager aid for displaced American workers) here we come. Bombs away. ..."
"... She'll have to stop hoarding her campaign cash and share it with the down-ticket Democrats running against the same well-heeled GOPers she is now courting with such naked abandon. ..."
"... The Empress needs some new clothes to hide that inner Goldwater Girl. ..."
All these woebegone Republicans whining that they can't rally behind their flawed candidate is
crazy. The G.O.P. angst, the gnashing and wailing and searching for last-minute substitutes and exit
strategies, is getting old. They already have a 1-percenter who will be totally fine in the Oval
Office, someone they can trust to help Wall Street, boost the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, cuddle with
hedge funds, secure the trade deals beloved by corporate America, seek guidance from Henry Kissinger
and hawk it up - unleashing hell on Syria and heaven knows where else.
The Republicans have their candidate: It's Hillary. They can't go with Donald Trump. He's too
volatile and unhinged. The erstwhile Goldwater Girl and Goldman Sachs busker can be counted on to
do the normal political things, not the abnormal haywire things. Trump's propounding could drag us
into war, plunge us into a recession and shatter Washington into a thousand tiny bits.
Hillary will keep the establishment safe. Who is more of an establishment figure, after all?
Her husband was president, and he repealed Glass-Steagall, signed the Defense of Marriage Act and
got rid of those pesky welfare queens.
Pushing her Midwestern Methodist roots, taking advantage of primogeniture, Hillary often seems
more Republican than the Gotham bling king, who used to be a Democrat and donor to Democratic candidates
before he jumped the turnstile.
Hillary is a reliable creature of Wall Street. Her tax return showed the Clintons made $10.6
million last year, and like other superrich families, they incorporated with the Clinton Executive
Services Corporation (which was billed for the infamous server). Trump has started holding up goofy
charts at rallies showing Hillary has gotten $48,500,000 in contributions from hedge funders, compared
to his $19,000.
Unlike Trump, she hasn't been trashing leading Republicans. You know that her pals John McCain
and Lindsey Graham are secretly rooting for her. There is a cascade of prominent Republicans endorsing
Hillary, donating to Hillary, appearing in Hillary ads, talking up Hillary's charms.
Robert Kagan, a former Reagan State Department aide, adviser to the McCain and Mitt Romney
campaigns and Iraq war booster, headlined a Hillary fund-raiser this summer. Another neocon, James
Kirchick,
keened in The Daily Beast , "Hillary Clinton is the one person standing between America and the
abyss."
She has finally stirred up some emotion in women, even if it is just moderate suburban Republican
women palpitating to leave their own nominee, who has the retro air of a guy who just left the dim
recesses of a Playboy bunny club.
The Democratic nominee put out an ad featuring Trump-bashing Michael Hayden, an N.S.A. and
CIA chief under W. who was deemed "incongruent" by the Senate when he testified about torture
methods. And she earned an endorsement from John Negroponte, a Reagan hand linked to American-trained
death squads in Latin America.
Politico reports that the Clinton team sent out feelers to see if Kissinger, the Voldemort
of Vietnam, and Condi Rice, the conjurer of Saddam's apocalyptic mushroom cloud, would back Hillary.
Hillary has written that Kissinger is an "idealistic" friend whose counsel she valued as secretary
of state, drawing a rebuke from Bernie Sanders during the primaries: "I'm proud to say Henry Kissinger
is not my friend."
The Hillary team seems giddy over its windfall of Republicans and neocons running from the
Trump sharknado. But as
David Weigel wrote in The Washington Post, the specter of Kissinger, the man who advised Nixon
to prolong the Vietnam War to help with his re-election, fed a perception that "the Democratic nominee
has returned to her old, hawkish ways and is again taking progressives for granted."
And
Isaac Chotiner wrote in Slate, "The prospect of Kissinger having influence in a Clinton White
House is downright scary."
Hillary is a safer bet in many ways for conservatives. Trump likes to say he is flexible.
What if he returns to his liberal New York positions on gun control and abortion rights?
Trump is far too incendiary in his manner of speaking, throwing around dangerous and self-destructive
taunts about "Second Amendment people" taking out Hillary, or President Obama and Hillary being the
founders of ISIS. And he still blindly follows his ego, failing to understand the fundamentals
of a campaign. "I don't know that we need to get out the vote," he told Fox News Thursday. "I think
people that really wanna vote are gonna get out and they're gonna vote for Trump."
Hillary, on the other hand, understands her way around political language and Washington rituals.
Of course you do favors for wealthy donors. And if you want to do something incredibly damaging to
the country, like enabling George W. Bush to make the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history,
don't shout inflammatory and fabricated taunts from a microphone.
You must walk up to the microphone calmly, as Hillary did on the Senate floor the day of the
Iraq war vote, and accuse Saddam of giving "aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al
Qaeda," repeating the Bush administration's phony case for war. If you want to carry the GOP banner,
your fabrications have to be more sneaky.
As
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt noted on MSNBC, "the candidate in the race most like George
W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a foreign policy perspective is in fact Hillary Clinton, not the Republican
nominee."
And that's how Republicans prefer their crazy - not like Trump, but like Cheney.
JohnNJ, New jersey August 14, 2016
For me, this is her strongest point:
"You must walk up to the microphone calmly, as Hillary did on the Senate floor the day
of the Iraq war vote, and accuse Saddam of giving "aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including
Al Qaeda," repeating the Bush administration's phony case for war."
There are still people who believe her excuse that she only voted for authorization, blah,
blah, blah.
Anyone who believes Bill Clinton didn't know exactly what was going on is just kidding
themselves. One clue, for example. They moved the WMD 'intelligence" investigation to the DOD
under Paul Wolfowitz. LOL!
Red_Dog , Denver CO August 14, 2016
Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and "Listen Liberal: Or What
Ever Happened to the Party of the People?" echoes Ms. Dowd's sentiments. In a recent column Frank
says that with Trump certain to lose, you can forget about a progressive Clinton.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/13/trump-clinton-elec...
"America's two-party system itself has temporarily become a one-party system. And within
that one party, the political process bears a striking resemblance to dynastic succession. Come
November, Clinton will have won her great victory – not as a champion of working people's concerns,
but as the greatest moderate of them all."
And great populist uprising of our times will be gone --- probably for many years.
FDR Liberal , Sparks, NV August 14, 2016
Spot on column Ms. Dowd.
As Americans we are to blame that these two major party candidates are the only viable ones
seeking the presidency. Yes, fellow citizens we are to blame because in the end we are the ones
that voted for them in various primaries and caucuses. And if you didn't attend a caucus or vote
in a primary, you are also part of problem.
In short, it is not the media's fault, nor is it the top .1%, 1% or 10% fault, nor your kids'
fault, nor your parents' fault, nor your neighbors' fault, etc.
It is our fault because we did this together. Yes, we managed y to select a narcissist, xenophobe,
anti-Muslim, racist, misogynist, and dare I say buffoon to the GOP ticket.
We've also managed to select one of biggest dissemblers, enablers, war hawks, fungible
flip-floppers, pay for play con artists, scandal mongerers candidates since Tricky Dicky. Congratulations
America! We did it. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, "Wet get the government we deserve."
Martin Brod, NYC August 14, 2016
The reaction by many to Ms Dowd's column clearly shows that the "save the world" "lesser
evil" argument only works is one is willing to suspend belief on the demonstrated evil of Hillary
Clinton.
The Green Party and Libertarian parties provide sane alternatives to the two most distrusted
candidates of the major parties. As debate participants they
would offer an alternative to evil at a time when the planets count-down clock is racing to mid-night.
pathenry, berkeley August 14, 2016
Clinton could well take us to war against Russia. In Syria, Clinton is spoiling to give
Russia a punch in the nose, on the theory that Russia will back down and the US will have a free
hand there. She advocates a a no-fly zone for Russian jets in Syria. The idea there is to create
a confrontation, shoot down a couple of Russian jets and teach them a lesson. There is also the
CIA and Pentagon "Plan B" for the Syrian negotiations.
If the negotiations fail, give stingers to our "vetted allies". Who will those stingers be
used against? Russia. At least the ones not smuggled to Brussels. And then there is the plan being
bandied about by our best and brightest to organize, arm and lead our "vetted allies" in attacks
on Russian bases in Syria. A Bay of Pigs in the desert. A dime to a dollar, Clinton is supportive
of these plans.
All of this is dangerous brinksmanship which is how you go to war.
Mike A. , East Providence, RI August 14, 2016
The second Pulitzer quality piece from the NYT op-ed columnists in less than a month (see Charles
Blow's "Incandescent With Rage" for the first).
heinrich zwahlen , brooklyn August 14, 2016
It's always wonderful to see when the truth comes out in the end: Hillary is the perfect
Repulican candidate and this is also prove of the fact that on finance and economic issues Democrats
and old mainstream Republicans have been in in the same pocket...even under Obama.
For real progressives it's useless to vote for her and high time to start a new party. Cultural
issues are not the main issues that pain America, it's all about the money stupid.
JohnD, New York August 14, 2016
... One night after the election on the Carson show Goldwater quipped that he didn't know
how unpopular a president he would have been until Johnson adopted his policies...
Lee Elliott , Rochester August 14, 2016
You've written the most depressing column I've read lately. All the things you say about
Hillary are true. She is an establishment favorite. She did indeed vote to support Bush and his
insane desire to invade Iraq. But it was that vote kept her from being president in 2008.
Perhaps that will convince her to keep the establishment a little more at arm's length. When there
is no other behind for them to kiss, then you can afford to be a little hard to get.
As for Trump, he is proving to be too much like Ross Perot. He looks great at first but begins
to fade when his underlying lunacy begins to bubble to the surface.
Speaking of Perot, I find it an interesting coincidence that Bill Clinton and now Hillary Clinton
will depend on the ravings of an apparent lunatic in order to get elected.
citizen vox, San Francisco August 14, 2016
Why the vitriol against Dowd? Did we all forget the millions who went for Bernie and his
direct and aggressive confrontation of Hillary's Wall Street/corporate ties? That was a contest
between what used to be the Dem party of the people and the corporate friendly Dem party of today.
We understood then that Hillary represented the Right; why the surprise now? (The right pointing
arrow on the "H" logo is so appropriate.)
Last week's article on how Hillary came to love money was horrifying; because Bill lost a Governor's
race, Hillary felt so insecure she called all her wealthy friends for donations. Huh?! Two Harvard
trained lawyers asking for financial help?! And never getting enough money to feel secure?! GIVE
ME A BREAK (to coin a phrase).
There are reasons Hillary is disliked and distrusted by nearly a majority of us. My reasons
are she is of and for the oligarchs and deceitful enough to run as a populist.
If readers bemoan anything, let it be that the populist movement of the Dem party was put down
by the Dem establishment. We have a choice between a crazy candidate of no particular persuasion
and a cold, calculating Republican. How discouraging.
Thanks, Maureen Dowd.
Chris, Louisville August 14, 2016
Maureen please don't ever give up on Hillary bashing. It needs to be done before someone accidentally
elects her as President. She is most like Angela Merkel of Germany. Take a look what's happening
there. That is enough never to vote for Hillary.
Susan e, AZ August 14, 2016
I recall the outrage I, a peace loving liberal who despised W and Cheney, felt while watching
the made for TV "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq. I recall how the"liberal Democrats" who supported
that disaster with a vote for the IRW could never quite bring themselves to admit their mistake
- and I realized that many, like Hillary, didn't feel it was a mistake. Not really. It was necessary
for their political careers.
For me, its not a vote for Hillary, its a vote for a candidate that sees killing innocent people
in Syria (or Libya, or Gaza, etc.) as the only way to be viewed as a serious candidate for CIC.
I'm old enough to remember another endless war, as the old Vietnam anti-war ballad went: "I ain't
gonna vote for war no more."
John, Switzerland August 14, 2016
Maureen Dowd is not being nasty, but rather accurate. It is nasty to support and start wars
throughout the ME. It is nasty to say (on mic) "We came, we saw, he died" referring to the gruesome
torture-murder of Qaddafi.
Will Hillary start a war against Syria? Yes or no? That is the the "six trillion dollar" question.
Socrates , is a trusted commenter Downtown Verona, NJ August 13, 2016
It's hard to a find a good liberal in these United States, not because there's anything wrong
with liberalism or progressivism, but because Americans have been taught, hypnotized and beaten
by a powerfully insidious and filthy rich right-wing to think that liberalism, progressivism and
socialism is a form of fatal cancer.
America tried to liberalize in the 1960's and the response was swift and violent as three
of the greatest liberal lions and voices the country has ever known - JFK, MLK and RFK - were
gunned down.
While one can endlessly argue the specific details of those ghastly assassinations of America's
liberal superstars, in my view, all three of those murders rest on the violent, nefarious right-wing
shoulders and fumes of moneyed American 'conservatism' that couldn't stand to share the profits
of their economic parasitism with society.
The end result is that political liberals are forced to triangulate for their survival in right-wing
America, and you wind up with Presidents like Bill Clinton and (soon) Hillary Clinton who know
how to survive in a pool of right-wing knives, assassins and psychopaths lurking everywhere representing
Grand Old Profit.
... ... ...
Dotconnector, New York August 14, 2016
The trickery deep within the dark art of Clintonism is triangulation. By breeding a nominal
Democratic donkey with a de facto Republican elephant, what you get is a corporatist chameleon.
There's precious little solace in knowing that this cynical political hybrid is only slightly
less risky than Trumpenstein.
And the fact that Henry Kissinger still has a seat at the table ought to chill the spine of
anyone who considers human lives -- those of U.S. service members and foreign noncombatants alike
-- to have greater value than pawns in a global chess game.
Bj, is a trusted commenter Washington,dc August 13, 2016
I truly believe that Congressional Republicans in the House are already drafting articles
of impeachment should Hillary become President. Dowd may claim that Republicans are in lock step
with her, but don't be surprised when the talk of impeachment starts soon after Jan 20, 2017.
They didn't succeed with Bill. And they were chomping at the bit to try to impeach Obama
over his use of executive orders and his decision not to defend an early same sex marriage case.
They are just waiting for inauguration to start this process all over again - another circus and
waste of taxpayer money.
petey tonei, Massachusetts August 14, 2016
Two party system is not enough for a country this big, with such a wide spectrum of political
beliefs. We need a multi party system. With 2 parties dominating the politics, its like having
a monopoly of liberalism or conservatism which just does not represent the width and depth of
views our citizens resonate with. Having voted democrat all my life, to me Hillary does not represent
my choice (Bernie does). Heard on NPR just today from on the ground reporters in Terre Haute,
Indiana, the bellwether of presidential elections, the 2 names that were most heard were Trump
and Bernie Sanders, not Hillary. Sadly, Bernie is not even the nominee but he truly represents
the guts, soul of mid America
Schrodinger, is a trusted commenter Northern California August 14, 2016
This annoys me..."like enabling George W. Bush to make the worst foreign policy blunder
in U.S. history" Maureen is talking about Hillary, but she might as well be talking about her
own newspaper. Hillary got it wrong, but so did the New York Times editorial board.
What about Ms Dowd herself? Of the four columns she wrote before the vote on October 11th,
2002, only two mentioned the war vote, and one of those was mostly about Hillary. Dowd said of
Hillary that, "Whatever doubts she may have privately about the war, she is not articulating her
angst as loudly as some of her Democratic colleagues. She knows that any woman who hopes to be
elected president cannot have love beads in her jewelry case."
In her column 'Culture war with B-2's', Dowd comes out as mildly anti-war. "Don't feel bad
if you have the uneasy feeling that you're being steamrolled", Dowd writes, "You are not alone."
Fourteen years later that column still looks good, and I link to it at the bottom. However, Dowd
could and should have done a lot more. I don't think that anybody who draws a paycheck from the
New York Times has a right to get on their high horse and lecture Hillary about her vote. They
ignored the antiwar protests just like they ignored Bernie Sanders' large crowds.
Karen Garcia , is a trusted commenter New Paltz, NY August 13, 2016
HRC couldn't have asked for a better opponent if she'd constructed him out of a six-foot
pile of mildewed straw. By running against Trump, the whole Trump and nothing but the Trump, and
openly courting neocon war criminals and "establishment" Republicans, she's outrageously giving
CPR to what should have been a rotting corpse of a political party by now.
By giving new life to the pathocrats who made Trump possible, Clinton is only making her
own party weaker and more right-wing, only making it easier for down-ticket Republicans to slither
their way back into power.... the better to triangulate with during the Clinton restoration. Grand
Bargain, here we come. TPP, (just waiting for that fig leaf of meager aid for displaced American
workers) here we come. Bombs away.
With three months to go before this grotesque circus ends, Trump is giving every indication
that he wants out, getting more reckless by the day. And that's a good thing, because with her
rise in the polls, Hillary will now have to do more on the stump than inform us she is not Trump.
She'll have to ditch the fear factor. She'll have to start sending emails and Tweets with something
other than "OMG! Did you hear what Trump just said?!?" on them to convince voters.
She'll have to stop hoarding her campaign cash and share it with the down-ticket Democrats
running against the same well-heeled GOPers she is now courting with such naked abandon.
The Empress needs some new clothes to hide that inner Goldwater Girl.
The content should be familiar to AngryBear
readers. A majority of Americans are alarmed by high and increasing inequality and support government
action to reduce inequality. However, none of the important 2016 candidates has expressed any willingness
to raise taxes on the rich. The Republicans want to cut them and Clinton (and a spokesperson) dodge
the question.
Rich individuals (who are willing to be interviewed) also express concern about inequality but
generally oppose using higher taxes on the rich to fight it. Scheiber is very willing to bluntly
state his guess (and everyone's) that candidates are eager to please the rich, because they spend
much of their time begging the rich for contributions.
No suprise to anyone who has been paying attention except for the fact that it is on the front
page of www.nytimes.com and the article is printed in the business section not the opinion section.
Do click the link - it is brief, to the point, solid, alarming and a must read.
I clicked one of the links and found weaker evidence than I expected for Scheiber's view (which
of course I share
"By contrast, more than half of Americans and three-quarters of Democrats believe the "government
should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich," according to a
Gallup poll of about 1,000 adults in April 2013."
It is a small majority 52% favor and 47% oppose. This 52% is noticeably smaller than the solid
majorities who have been telling Gallup that high income individuals pay less than their fair share
of taxes (click
and search for gallup on the page).
I guess this isn't really surprising - the word "heavy" is heavy maaaan and "redistribute" evokes
the dreaded welfare (and conservatives have devoted gigantic effort to giving it pejorative connotations).
The 52% majority is remarkable given the phrasing of the question. But it isn't enough to win elections,
since it is 52% of adults which corresponds to well under 52% of actual voters.
My reading is that it is important for egalitarians to stress the tax cuts for the non rich and
that higher taxes on the rich are, unfortunately, necessary if we are to have lower taxes on the
non rich without huge budget deficits. This is exactly Obama's approach.
"... Clinton bigotry against working with inconvenient facts. Read applicable US code one for security, one for federal records, Clinton gets away with calling law that protect security as 'spin'. ..."
The burgeoning neolib dog whistle "alt-right" is short for "a$$hole who thinks Clinton should
go to jail for 1000 times the misconduct that would get that a$$hole 10 years hard time".
Neoliberals use the term "alt-right" as shorthand for those who don't drink the Clinton neocon
Kool-Aid.
The bigotry of warmongering neoliberals against anyone who disagrees. There isn't enough fascism
going around?
Clinton bigotry against working with inconvenient facts. Read applicable US code one for security,
one for federal records, Clinton gets away with calling law that protect security as 'spin'.
ilsm -> Paine... , -1
The 'soft bigotry of GLBT and war for fascist allies' types criticizing racists' morals.
ilsm -> anne... , -1
In the same category as Brooks and Friedman. I regard Dowd better!
"... The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their wealth and power, and now the unprivileged, unprotected non-Elites are rebelling in the only way left open to them: voting for anyone who claims to be outside the privileged Elites that dominate our society and economy. ..."
The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their
wealth and power.
Ours is an
Age of Fracture (the 2011 book by Daniel Rodgers) in which "earlier notions of history and society
that stressed solidity, collective institutions, and social circumstances gave way to a more individualized
human nature that emphasized choice, agency, performance, and desire."
A society that is fragmenting into cultural groups that are themselves fracturing into smaller
units of temporary and highly contingent solidarity is ideal for Elites bent on maintaining political
and financial control.
A society that has fragmented into a media-fed cultural war of hot-button identity-gender-religious
politics is a society that is incapable of resisting concentrations of power and wealth in the hands
of the few at the expense of the many.
If we set aside the authentic desire of individuals for equal rights and cultural liberation and
examine the political and financial ramifications of social fragmentation, we come face to face with
Christopher Lasch's insightful analysis on
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1996 book).
"The new elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn
and apprehension.... Middle Americans, as they appear to the makers of educated opinion, are hopelessly
shabby, unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends,
addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television.
They are at once absurd and vaguely menacing."
Extreme concentrations of wealth and power are incompatible with democracy, as Elites buy political
influence and promote cultural narratives that distract the citizenry with emotionally charged issues.
A focus on individual liberation from all constraints precludes an awareness of common economic-political
interests beyond the narrow boundaries of fragmenting culturally defined identities.
In a society stripped of broad-based social contracts and narratives that focus on the structural
forces dismantling democracy and social mobility, the Elites have a free hand to consolidate their
own personal wealth and power and use those tools to further fragment any potential political resistance
to their dominance.
The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their
wealth and power, and now the unprivileged, unprotected non-Elites are rebelling in the only way
left open to them: voting for anyone who claims to be outside the privileged Elites that dominate
our society and economy.
"... "Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and that's all you need to know" is a narrative thesis, like the narrative thesis that Trump is Putin's stooge, very convenient to Clinton's candidacy, but ultimately corrosive to American politics and political discourse. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign has whipped up a high dudgeon about racism and Putin and how unsuited Trump is, to be President. I don't disagree about the core conclusion: Trump does not seem to me to be suited to be President. That's hardly a difficult judgment: an impulsive, self-promoting reality teevee star with no experience of public office - hmmm, let me think about that for two seconds. But, the high dudgeon serves other purposes, to which I object strongly. ..."
"... People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea. ..."
"... Everything should not be about electing Clinton. ..."
"... Pundits like Josh Marshall of TPM or Ezra Klein of Vox are betraying their public trust by carrying Clinton's water so slavishly. ..."
"... People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea ..."
"... Or, as Ian Welsh points out, her position on Syria. She seems to have advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria after Russia came in, which would presumably put us in the position of shooting down Russian warplanes or having a good chance of doing so. Maybe if she does take on Kissinger as an advisor he'll tell her that superpower conflicts have to be done through proxies or they're too dangerous. ..."
"... This is what 40 years of two-party neoliberalism gives us: an unhinged demagogue or the point person for Democratic policies that have systematically gutted the middle class, screwed the poor, increase inequality, slowed productivity, caused multiple wars, and made them personally rich. ..."
"... The moral righteousness of identity politics adds in an element that goes way beyond the lazy failure to hold politicians accountable or the tendency to explain away their more Machiavellian maneuvers. There's both an actual blindness to the reactionary conservatism of equal opportunity exploitation and a peremptory challenge to any other claim or analysis. If police practices and procedures are trending in an authoritarian direction, they can only be challenged on grounds of racist effect or intent. The authoritarianism cannot be challenged on its own merit, so the building of the authoritarian state goes on unimpeded, since the principle that is challenged is not authoritarianism, but a particular claim of racism or sexism. ..."
"... As for LFC, he finished up his not a counter with "Assad and Putin are authoritarians (plus in Assad's case especially being a murderous thug), but I don't recall b.w. being too exercised about their authoritarianism." That's perfectly familiar [line] too: I well remember it from the GWB Iraq War days. Do you oppose the Iraq War? Well I never heard of you being very exercised about Saddam Hussein being a murderous thug. You must really support Saddam, or not really care about authoritarianism. The people who liked to say this were called the "Decents", a word like many other political words that was perfect because it meant exactly the opposite of what it sounded like. ..."
"... What's being critiqued is the idea that nothing but racism matters. What's being critiqued is the idea that it's useful or even correct to do mind-reading and to confidently pronounce that people who disagree with you do so because they're stupid and evil – excuse me, because they're racists. What I find illuminating here is the graphic evidence of why this approach is so toxic. People get furious and hostile when you call them bigots. It's an insult, not an invitation to dialog – because it doubles as a character judgment and as a personal attack. ..."
"... I am also saying, worry that the charge of racism may be all we have left that is capable of getting reforms. And, worry that charges of racism, without useful nuance, may not get the political reaction and reform one ought to desire. ..."
"... Police misconduct is not a problem solely and originally about race and racism ..."
I think all you've really shown is that blue-collar, less-educated people tend
to not know much about politics and to have the political attitudes of authoritarian followers
and Trump is willing to be demagogic enough to attract their attention as an alternative to the
status quo candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
"Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and that's all you need to know" is a narrative
thesis, like the narrative thesis that Trump is Putin's stooge, very convenient to Clinton's candidacy,
but ultimately corrosive to American politics and political discourse. It isn't a question
of whether statistics suggest racism is an efficient instrumental variable. It is a question of
whether this politics of invective and distraction is going anywhere good, could go anywhere good.
No one in these comment threads has been defending Trump or the political ignorance and resentments
of his supporters. Some of us have questioned the wisdom of a political tactic of treating them
as pariahs and dismissing their concerns and economic distress as fake or illegitimate.
The Clinton campaign has whipped up a high dudgeon about racism and Putin and how unsuited
Trump is, to be President. I don't disagree about the core conclusion: Trump does not seem to
me to be suited to be President. That's hardly a difficult judgment: an impulsive, self-promoting
reality teevee star with no experience of public office - hmmm, let me think about that for two
seconds. But, the high dudgeon serves other purposes, to which I object strongly.
Even though, and especially because Clinton is very likely to become President, her suitability
ought to be scrutinized. Not just boxed away as, "well, she is obviously better than Trump
so let's not even trouble our beautiful minds", when by the way it is not so obvious as
all that, as several commenters have tried to point out. People, who argue Trump might start
a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine
Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion
or the South China Sea.
Everything should not be about electing Clinton. Clinton's election is pretty much
assured, despite her deep flaws as a candidate of the center-left (to wit, her war-mongering and
epic corruption and economic conservatism). Pundits like Josh Marshall of TPM or Ezra Klein
of Vox are betraying their public trust by carrying Clinton's water so slavishly. Ezra may
be gaining all important access to the Clinton White House comparable to what he had in Obama's
White House, but he spent his credibility with his readers to get it. And, he's deprived his readers
of the opportunity to learn about issues of vital importance, like the TPP and corporate business
power, or NATO expansion and the relationship with Russia, or the swirling vortex forming in the
Middle East where American Empire is going down the drain of failed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
and ill-conceived "alliances" with fundamentally hostile powers like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
I don't think these comment threads are a good place to campaign or advocate on the behalf
of any candidate. A modicum of advocacy might be welcome for the fodder it provides for reflective
rumination, but mirroring the Clinton campaign's themes seems to require systematic misreadings
of counter-argument and that has become disruptive. (RNB's volume and habitual tendentiousness
puts RNB into a special category in this regard.)
There ought to be room in this discussions to move the conversation to more of a meta-level,
where we consider trends and dynamics without the partisan's hyper-narrow focus.
BW: "People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he
insults people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and
positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea."
Or, as Ian Welsh points out, her position on Syria. She seems to have advocated for a no-fly
zone in Syria after Russia came in, which would presumably put us in the position of shooting
down Russian warplanes or having a good chance of doing so. Maybe if she does take on Kissinger
as an advisor he'll tell her that superpower conflicts have to be done through proxies or they're
too dangerous.
For the larger question of whether these comment threads are a good place to campaign or advocate,
I sort of come down in a different place than you do. If these comment threads were about good-faith
argument, then sure this kind of advocacy might be bad, but I don't think that most people here
are capable of good-faith argument even if they were attempting it (most of the time they aren't
attempting it). In that case the comment threads serve an alternate purpose of seeing what kinds
of beliefs are out there, at least among the limited group of people likely to comment on CT threads.
Of course people can be kicked out if they habitually make the threads too difficult to moderate
(or really, for whatever other reason an OP decides on), but the well has long since been poisoned
and one more drop isn't really going to do much more damage.
There's a reason the electorate hates both Trump and Clinton. This is what 40 years of
two-party neoliberalism gives us: an unhinged demagogue or the point person for Democratic policies
that have systematically gutted the middle class, screwed the poor, increase inequality, slowed
productivity, caused multiple wars, and made them personally rich.
Let's not forget the Clintons were the Democratic Party point people in causing the vast incarceration
of black men while simultaneously gutting welfare for black mothers and their children. (Yay 3rd
Way!) They were the point people for letting 300 million Chinese workers compete with American
workers. They deregulated the banks. And was there a war she didn't like?
So Layman finds that the 80% of the Evangelicals that support Trump are racist. And so are
the white voters in manufacturing regions. (Excuse me. "Principally" racist.) And Layman's exact
counterpart on some unnamed right-wing site thinks all the blacks voting for HRC are in it for
the welfare and affirmative action. (Yes, your exact counterpart. Oh, and they, like you, would
say blacks are "principally" scammers cause, you know, there are other minor reasons to vote HRC.)
I take a different view. I think most voters are going to have the taste of vomit in the their
mouths when they pull the lever.
If there's a populist politics in our future, it will have to have a
much sharper edge. It can talk about growth, but it has to mean smashing the rich and taking their
stuff. There's very rapidly going to come a point where there's no other option, other than just
accepting cramdown by the authoritarian surveillance state built by the neoliberals. that's a
much taller order than Sanders or Trump have been offering.
Fit for inscription (keeps me smashingly awake after hundreds of comments :-))
The moral righteousness of identity politics adds in an element that goes way beyond
the lazy failure to hold politicians accountable or the tendency to explain away their more
Machiavellian maneuvers. There's both an actual blindness to the reactionary conservatism of
equal opportunity exploitation and a peremptory challenge to any other claim or analysis. If
police practices and procedures are trending in an authoritarian direction, they can only be
challenged on grounds of racist effect or intent. The authoritarianism cannot be challenged
on its own merit, so the building of the authoritarian state goes on unimpeded, since the principle
that is challenged is not authoritarianism, but a particular claim of racism or sexism.
So in the same week that the Justice Department report on the Baltimore police force comes
out, showing systematic police discrimination - e.g. lots of people stopped in black neighborhoods,
esp. two in particular, for petty reasons or no reason, versus very few people stopped in other
neighborhoods - bruce wilder informs us that identity politics somehow prevents us from criticizing
police behavior on grounds of authoritarianism, that it can only be criticized on grounds of racism
(or subconscious racial bias) - of course, that wd appear to be a main problem w police behavior
in Baltimore and some other places.
"Rich where is the evidence people can no longer criticize police for broad authoritarianism?"
The last time I talked about this with faustusnotes, he told me that it was entirely understandable
and indeed good that Obama and the Democratic Party were passing laws to make non-violent protestors
even more likely to be arrested, because Obama was black and there was a scary white protestor
holding an assault rifle at a town meeting somewhere.
As for LFC, he finished up his not a counter with "Assad and Putin are authoritarians (plus
in Assad's case especially being a murderous thug), but I don't recall b.w. being too exercised
about their authoritarianism." That's perfectly familiar [line] too: I well remember it from the
GWB Iraq War days. Do you oppose the Iraq War? Well I never heard of you being very exercised
about Saddam Hussein being a murderous thug. You must really support Saddam, or not really care
about authoritarianism. The people who liked to say this were called the "Decents", a word like
many other political words that was perfect because it meant exactly the opposite of what it sounded
like.
Marc 08.14.16 at 2:09 am
What's being critiqued is the idea that nothing but racism matters. What's being critiqued
is the idea that it's useful or even correct to do mind-reading and to confidently pronounce that
people who disagree with you do so because they're stupid and evil – excuse me, because they're
racists.
What I find illuminating here is the graphic evidence of why this approach is so toxic. People
get furious and hostile when you call them bigots. It's an insult, not an invitation to dialog
– because it doubles as a character judgment and as a personal attack.
Now, when someone actually says something bigoted that's one thing. But that's not what's going
on, and that's why the pushback is so serious.
And – faustnotes – you're minimizing the real suffering of people by claiming that the mortality
rise in lower income US whites isn't real, and it certainly isn't important to you. I'm getting
zero sense of empathy from you towards the plight of these people – the real important thing is
to tell them why they're racist scum.
I think that the left has a moral obligation to try and build a decent society even for people
that don't like the left much. I think that working class voters across the Western world are
susceptible to racial appeals not because they're scum, but because they've been screwed by the
system and the left has nothing to offer them but moral lectures. And that's a failure that we
can address, and it starts with listening to people with respect. You can stand for your principles
without assuming bad faith, without mind-reading, and without the stereotyping.
For me at least, those are the grounds of debate, and they're very different in kind from pretending
that there is no such thing as racism.
I am aware that the claim of racism is potent and where it can be made to effect reform,
I am all in favor. Take what you can get, I say.
I am also saying, worry that the charge of racism may be all we have left that is capable
of getting reforms. And, worry that charges of racism, without useful nuance, may not get the
political reaction and reform one ought to desire.
Police misconduct is not a problem solely and originally about race and racism. I
hope Baltimore gets useful and effective reform.
"... "Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and that's all you need to know" is a narrative thesis, like the narrative thesis that Trump is Putin's stooge, very convenient to Clinton's candidacy, but ultimately corrosive to American politics and political discourse. ..."
"... Not just boxed away as, "well, she is obviously better than Trump so let's not even trouble our beautiful minds", when by the way it is not so obvious as all that, as several commenters have tried to point out. People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea. ..."
"... Everything should not be about electing Clinton. Clinton's election is pretty much assured, despite her deep flaws as a candidate of the center-left (to wit, her war-mongering and epic corruption and economic conservatism). Pundits like Josh Marshall of TPM or Ezra Klein of Vox are betraying their public trust by carrying Clinton's water so slavishly. ..."
"... People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea ..."
"... Let's not forget the Clintons were the Democratic Party point people in causing the vast incarceration of black men while simultaneously gutting welfare for black mothers and their children. (Yay 3rd Way!) They were the point people for letting 300 million Chinese workers compete with American workers. They deregulated the banks. And was there a war she didn't like? ..."
"... If there's a populist politics in our future, it will have to have a much sharper edge. It can talk about growth, but it has to mean smashing the rich and taking their stuff. There's very rapidly going to come a point where there's no other option, other than just accepting cramdown by the authoritarian surveillance state built by the neoliberals. that's a much taller order than Sanders or Trump have been offering. ..."
I think all you've really shown is that blue-collar, less-educated people tend
to not know much about politics and to have the political attitudes of authoritarian followers
and Trump is willing to be demagogic enough to attract their attention as an alternative to the
status quo candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
"Trump is a racist and his followers are racist and that's all you need to know" is a narrative
thesis, like the narrative thesis that Trump is Putin's stooge, very convenient to Clinton's candidacy,
but ultimately corrosive to American politics and political discourse. It isn't a question
of whether statistics suggest racism is an efficient instrumental variable. It is a question of
whether this politics of invective and distraction is going anywhere good, could go anywhere good.
No one in these comment threads has been defending Trump or the political ignorance and resentments
of his supporters. Some of us have questioned the wisdom of a political tactic of treating them
as pariahs and dismissing their concerns and economic distress as fake or illegitimate.
The Clinton campaign has whipped up a high dudgeon about racism and Putin and how unsuited
Trump is, to be President. I don't disagree about the core conclusion: Trump does not seem to
me to be suited to be President. That's hardly a difficult judgment: an impulsive, self-promoting
reality teevee star with no experience of public office - hmmm, let me think about that for two
seconds. But, the high dudgeon serves other purposes, to which I object strongly.
Even though, and especially because Clinton is very likely to become President, her suitability
ought to be scrutinized. Not just boxed away as, "well, she is obviously better than
Trump so let's not even trouble our beautiful minds", when by the way it is not so obvious
as all that, as several commenters have tried to point out. People, who argue Trump might start
a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults people on teevee might want to examine
Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion
or the South China Sea.
Everything should not be about electing Clinton. Clinton's election is pretty much assured,
despite her deep flaws as a candidate of the center-left (to wit, her war-mongering and epic corruption
and economic conservatism). Pundits like Josh Marshall of TPM or Ezra Klein of Vox are betraying
their public trust by carrying Clinton's water so slavishly. Ezra may be gaining all important
access to the Clinton White House comparable to what he had in Obama's White House, but he spent
his credibility with his readers to get it. And, he's deprived his readers of the opportunity
to learn about issues of vital importance, like the TPP and corporate business power, or NATO
expansion and the relationship with Russia, or the swirling vortex forming in the Middle East
where American Empire is going down the drain of failed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and
ill-conceived "alliances" with fundamentally hostile powers like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
I don't think these comment threads are a good place to campaign or advocate on the behalf
of any candidate. A modicum of advocacy might be welcome for the fodder it provides for reflective
rumination, but mirroring the Clinton campaign's themes seems to require systematic misreadings
of counter-argument and that has become disruptive. (RNB's volume and habitual tendentiousness
puts RNB into a special category in this regard.) There ought to be room in this discussions to
move the conversation to more of a meta-level, where we consider trends and dynamics without the
partisan's hyper-narrow focus.
@ 793 Hi Rich, that's a fair question. If memory serves, there were several very close calls under
Nixon more from errors in the 'fail safe' system. Nixon is a complicated amoral actor fairly obviously
guilty of some extremely serious crimes. He was not the only nasty actor at the time, however.
In the specific case you're describing, I don't think any president would have handled things
much differently. Russian missiles 90 miles from US soil during the cold war was unacceptable.
Many of our students have absolutely no idea of what life was like during the 20th century.
It's literally another world. The one we share today seems infinitely safer and more tolerant.
Cheers.
BW: "People, who argue Trump might start a nuclear war out of personal pique because he insults
people on teevee might want to examine Clinton's bellicose foreign policy record and positions
on, say, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, NATO expansion or the South China Sea."
Or, as Ian Welsh
points out, her position on Syria. She seems to have advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria after
Russia came in, which would presumably put us in the position of shooting down Russian warplanes
or having a good chance of doing so. Maybe if she does take on Kissinger as an advisor he'll tell
her that superpower conflicts have to be done through proxies or they're too dangerous.
For the larger question of whether these comment threads are a good place to campaign or advocate,
I sort of come down in a different place than you do. If these comment threads were about good-faith
argument, then sure this kind of advocacy might be bad, but I don't think that most people here
are capable of good-faith argument even if they were attempting it (most of the time they aren't
attempting it). In that case the comment threads serve an alternate purpose of seeing what kinds
of beliefs are out there, at least among the limited group of people likely to comment on CT threads.
Of course people can be kicked out if they habitually make the threads too difficult to moderate
(or really, for whatever other reason an OP decides on), but the well has long since been poisoned
and one more drop isn't really going to do much more damage.
T 08.13.16 at 9:13 pm
BW@798
Amen.
There's a reason the electorate hates both Trump and Clinton. This is what 40 years of two-party
neoliberism gives us: an unhinged demagogue or the point person for Democratic policies that have
systematically gutted the middle class, screwed the poor, increase inequality, slowed productivity,
caused multiple wars, and made them personally rich.
Let's not forget the Clintons were the Democratic Party point people in causing the vast
incarceration of black men while simultaneously gutting welfare for black mothers and their children.
(Yay 3rd Way!) They were the point people for letting 300 million Chinese workers compete with
American workers. They deregulated the banks. And was there a war she didn't like?
So Layman finds that the 80% of the Evangelicals that support Trump are racist. And so are
the white voters in manufacturing regions. (Excuse me. "Principally" racist.) And Layman's exact
counterpart on some unnamed right-wing site thinks all the blacks voting for HRC are in it for
the welfare and affirmative action. (Yes, your exact counterpart. Oh, and they, like you, would
say blacks are "principally" scammers cause, you know, there are other minor reasons to vote HRC.)
I take a different view. I think most voters are going to have the taste of vomit in the their
mouths when they pull the lever.
If there's a populist politics in our future, it will have to have a much sharper edge.
It can talk about growth, but it has to mean smashing the rich and taking their stuff. There's
very rapidly going to come a point where there's no other option, other than just accepting cramdown
by the authoritarian surveillance state built by the neoliberals. that's a much taller order than
Sanders or Trump have been offering.
Fit for inscription (keeps me smashingly awake after hundreds of comments :-))
The moral righteousness of identity politics adds in an element that goes
way beyond the lazy failure to hold politicians accountable or the tendency to explain away their
more Machiavellian maneuvers. There's both an actual blindness to the reactionary conservatism
of equal opportunity exploitation and a peremptory challenge to any other claim or analysis. If
police practices and procedures are trending in an authoritarian direction, they can only be challenged
on grounds of racist effect or intent. The authoritarianism cannot be challenged on its own merit,
so the building of the authoritarian state goes on unimpeded, since the principle that is challenged
is not authoritarianism, but a particular claim of racism or sexism.
So in the same week that the Justice Department report on the Baltimore police force comes
out, showing systematic police discrimination - e.g. lots of people stopped in black neighborhoods,
esp. two in particular, for petty reasons or no reason, versus very few people stopped in other
neighborhoods - bruce wilder informs us that identity politics somehow prevents us from criticizing
police behavior on grounds of authoritarianism, that it can only be criticized on grounds of racism
(or subconscious racial bias) - of course, that wd appear to be a main problem w police behavior
in Baltimore and some other places.
Their dirty ways: " One day last October, when employees at Cenovus Energy showed up at the office, many discovered that they couldn't
access their computer files on the company's internal system. That's how they found out they were being laid off.
Companies that fought to attract and keep staff have been learning the hard way how to shed them in a hurry. But that doesn't mean
it can't – and shouldn't – be done right
One day last October, when employees at Cenovus Energy showed up at the office, many discovered that they couldn't access their
computer files on the company's internal system. That's how they found out they were being laid off. Two months earlier, employees
at Hutchison Ports Australia in Sydney and Brisbane got a text message, then an email in the middle of the night inviting them to
a beachside hotel. They, too, were being laid off.
Cenovus called its move a mistake. Hutchison Ports Australia said it had begun its consultations with staff and unions regarding
redundancies in June. Whatever the explanation, companies need to start approaching layoffs more carefully. And though everyone in
the energy business is hoping the bloodletting is over, if it isn't, there are ways to soften the blow of layoffs, and do them fairly
and transparently.
Communication
A company should keep its employees informed of the economic forces acting on the business and their employment prospects, says
Martin Birt, president of HRaskme.com and a human resources consultant with 30 years in the business. "Closures should never, in
my view, be a surprise," he says. Neither should layoffs. You can communicate messages with your employees such as how decisions
will be made in what Birt calls a "long-game communications plan," a set of HR principles that will be applied should anything be
decided regarding the company's long-term employment potential. That way, employees have some context as to what to expect when market
circumstances change.
If you choose not to share your long-game communications plan in your employee manual, when speaking to the people you're laying
off, at least communicate how, why and when you made the decision, Birt says. Your actions will get back to suppliers, contractors
and layoff survivors. And if you've communicated fairly and awarded appropriate compensation and benefits, the external environment
will understand what kind of corporate citizen you are.
Listen to Your Experts
Involve the correct teams – operations, human resources and legal – and involve them as early in the decision-making process as
possible, says Birt. These teams will protect you as a corporation from any liability associated with a layoff.
Soften the Blow
Henry Hornstein is an assistant professor at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario's Algoma University, specializing in organizational change
management. In the early 1990s, he was among the staff let go from Imperial Oil's Strathcona refinery. "It was not pleasant," says
Hornstein, "but the way Imperial Oil handled that at the time cushioned the blow." They provided him with a year's worth of salary
and benefits, and services with an outplacement firm. These included resumé writing, interview training and networking support. "Rather
than treating people as commodities, people are treated compassionately," says Hornstein of the experience. You can provide your
employees with psychological support in addition to proper severance, benefits and outplacement services, he says. Consider offering
group meetings where people can talk to others about the negative psychological impacts of downsizing that they've experienced. "Downsizing
is a significant assault on an individual's self-esteem Everybody has a story, and when somebody is downsized, the organization can
[seem to] take an approach that they don't care what the background story is, they just want to get rid of the people." says Hornstein.
Birt agrees, saying companies should be prepared to offer an employee assistance program (EAP), a short-term counseling service for
employees in need of support. This can also add a buffer against the company's liability.
Confidentiality
Having said that, to maintain confidentiality, limit the planning group to only those whose participation is necessary, says Birt.
Consider using specific project-related confidentiality agreements, as well, and clearly describe the consequences for breaching
confidentiality. He also suggests reminding participants with pre-existing confidentiality agreements of the terms of those agreements.
If you are a publicly traded company, you should know if you are required to first inform the markets of your actions. If that is
the case, managers must be prepared to communicate with employees immediately after informing the markets.
Finalize the Details
Before you deliver the news of layoffs, finalize all the details with human resources and legal, including severance, benefits
and pension entitlements, says Birt. You'll be prepared to immediately answer individual questions. Everything you say orally in
a termination meeting should be captured in a termination letter as well, he says. However, give terminated employees a few days
to review their termination package and ask any questions, says Fraser Johnson, a professor at the Ivey School of Business in London,
Ontario. "As soon as you hear the words that you're being laid off, your mind might go blank," he says.
Share the Pain
Rather than targeting employees with layoffs, share the cuts across the corporation, just as Canadian Natural Resources did when
all staff pay was cut by up to 10 percent. Or, introduce flexible work arrangements like part-time work, voluntary leaves of absence,
or deferred compensation in which an employee can work full-time at 80 percent salary for several years before taking a paid sabbatical.
"... His motto (which he shares with me every other day), is, "Never throw anything away". And damned if he can't find exactly what I need when I come over to scrounge at what I call, "Our Store". ..."
"... We wear our clothes out and watch what we buy. We don't travel by air, and limit trips to local visits with family. In the future, perhaps this will be the norm for most instead of today's extravagent consumption which is thought of as normal for Canadians and a birthright. ..."
"... Perhaps as a group, as a species, it seems as if we never learn and make the same and even greater mistakes over and over. But as individuals we can try to do things better, live better; until we can't go on. That is my plan, and I am sticking with it until I can't go on. ..."
"... the banjo prevailed and damned if it isn't getting better. I am well on the way to mastering (to use that term loosely) an Iris Dement version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", "I can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, and "I Believe In You" by Don Williams. I think I have sub-conciously chosen these songs to combat my own confessions of doom and gloom. ..."
Back in early 2012, the Premier of Ontario
suggested that the loonie (Canadian
dollar) was becoming a petro-dollar. He was slapped down by the Cons, and
walked back his comment.
"That has knocked the wind out of Ontario exporters and manufacturing in particular," explained McGuinty.
"The only reason the dollar is high - it's a petro dollar , right? It's been driven by the global demand for oil
and gas to be sourced in Western Canada.
"So if I had my preferences, as to whether we have a rapidly growing oil-and-gas sector in the West or a lower dollar benefiting
Ontario, I'll tell you where I'd stand - with the lower dollar."
By the middle of 2014, oil's share of Canada's total exports reached 19 percent from about 6 percent a decade earlier. Meanwhile,
the Ontario-based auto industry was seeing its share of the export pie fall to to 14 percent from 22 percent. The heavier reliance
on crude became an issue in last October's national election, as Harper and his Western-based Conservatives were accused by
all their opponents of having favored oil to the detriment of other regions.
In the process, the Canadian dollar had effectively joined the ranks of petro-currencies. The correlation between movements
in the price of oil and the loonie has increased five-fold since 2000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2015, while
all commodity-exporting countries faced currency pressure, the Canadian dollar was more sensitive to oil price movements
than such petro-states as Mexico, Norway and Russia.
I don't actually see low oil prices re-balanacing the Canadian economy. The cure for low oil prices is low oil prices. Would
you invest in an export dependent industry in Canada? One can reasonably model a scenario where the price of oil goes up to $100/barrel,
the loonie returns to parity with the greenback and an exporters competitiveness disappears with our petro-loonie's parity with
the U.S. dollar.
Being a petro-state makes for a pretty ugly domestic economy.
I believe the decline will bring us Canadians back to our roots and strengths. Personally, I have been disgusted with our past
30 year transformation into urban consumers, no matter what part of the country we live in.
I remember my Grandparents playing penny poker on winter evenings. I grew up with stories of the Depression. While I am 60,
my good friend down the road is 75. He often tells me about living in our Valley from '46 onwards ..a time of bailing water from
the river into a 45 for home supply, canned venison and salmon for winter, oil lamps because Hydro did not arrive until the latter
'60s. His Dad built up a sawmill and his folks provided room and board for 'the crew'. His mom washed their clothing by hand on
Saturdays and finally got a gas powered ringer washer to make it easier. Nowadays, he scrounges scrap steel (old bedframes and
the like) from the recycling bins for our welding projects. He helps me make up power saw chains from scraps and pieces. His
motto (which he shares with me every other day), is, "Never throw anything away". And damned if he can't find exactly what I need
when I come over to scrounge at what I call, "Our Store".
I don't know what will happen to the Vancouverites or Torontonians when property values dive. I imagine that many will lose
everything they think they have, (when their debt bomb blows). I guess then we will see what people are made of. Will they whine?
Or will they pick themselves up and make the best of it?
As for Ron's post, it is similar to one last year. I could hardly read that one as well. Yes, there are deserts and sewers
made by man, and that will be the best that many can hope for. But what is your sphere of influence and power to change things?
I have replanted several thousand trees on our property and let most of it regen into a bramble-filled mixed forest. I have put
in a pond that trout have found from the drainage ditches and flooded wetlands next door. I have cut trails for deer and elk crossing
routes. We grow our gardens without pesticides and with as much compost as possible. We wear our clothes out and watch what
we buy. We don't travel by air, and limit trips to local visits with family. In the future, perhaps this will be the norm for
most instead of today's extravagent consumption which is thought of as normal for Canadians and a birthright.
Ron, the facts are glum. Your story is true. I accept that. What I don't accept is allowing it to bring me down and giving
up .on myself, my loved ones, and my people. Perhaps as a group, as a species, it seems as if we never learn and make the
same and even greater mistakes over and over. But as individuals we can try to do things better, live better; until we can't go
on. That is my plan, and I am sticking with it until I can't go on.
I am teaching myself to play the banjo. (My blessed wife is so so patient). Today, the weather was cold and foggy, my lumber
is frozen into ice lumps, and I was quite house bound being sick of crunching around my frozen yard trying to be productive. So,
the banjo prevailed and damned if it isn't getting better. I am well on the way to mastering (to use that term loosely) an
Iris Dement version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", "I can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, and "I Believe In You" by Don
Williams. I think I have sub-conciously chosen these songs to combat my own confessions of doom and gloom. Sometimes, it
is all we have. For you post readers, I will provide the Youtube links for a pick-me-up. A nice glass of whiskey makes for a good
listening partner.
regards and thanks for your heartfelt honesty and efforts
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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