There are ways to defeat the billionaire class and many of these tactics have been pioneered by Socialist City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and the Socialist Alternative (SA) party in Seattle.
The need to abandon identity politics is very important.
When I speak to right wing types, Trumpies, rednecks, anyone, so long as they’re mostly rational, I never stress my socialist leanings, I simply point out that we all want to feed our kids we all want healthcare, and we all want to live happy stable lives. And one more thing that we have in common, that I usually say with a smile, we both despise liberals. That always gets a laugh, and a laugh is a great way to form alliances.
I also know this is effective because it drives New York Times reading zombies nuts.
Once upon a time, "classical liberalism" created western civilization, democracy, and expanding medieval urban commoner class, literacy, increases in education, high-social-trust national institutions and the modern nation state system. Conservatives were the "alter and crown types". Romanticism had not yet given birth to Marxism and Fascism.
ILLIBERALS on either the "far left" (Marxists/Neo-Marxists/"woke" totalitarians) or "far right" (Appalachian Neo-confederates, "Fascists"*, Duginists) have various dystopian visions that will never be palatable to the majority.
As appalling and revolting as globalist neoliberalism is, it has accomplished the reduction of poverty for several billion people worldwide by something like 90% (Pinker, Stewart Brand), and it is heading to 3-5% soon. Marxism/socialism/class revolution would have never accomplished that, which is why China merged "capitalism" into its one-party system.
You may not have been allowed to study politcal history from the Reagan era (he was POTUS during most of the ancient 1980s), but one of his greatest propaganda accomplishments was making the word "liberal" equate to "socialist-communist-pinko-bad-bad-bad!". Prior to Reagan, many people were proud to call themselves liberals, meaning that they were open to change. They welcomed government (socialist) programs of assistance introduced by liberal POTUS Roosevelt during The Great Depression, like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, etc. So, during the Roosevelt to post-Reagan era, the liberals were considered socialists, and the conservatives were alter, crown and cross-idolizing, racist, change-hating thugs (not fascists?), just as they still are today. Now, that you've had a lesson in ancient history, I hope you have a better understanding of my comment. Also, using the word "senile" to slur an older person is, well, what can I say, childish?
You are a mindless ideological tribalist that apparently can't imagine escaping your echo chamber or the groupthink narratives that rattle around in it endlessly.
Whoa!, Pierce, sounds like you need to increase the dosage! Unless "proven otherwise," Mr Ganer is, "ignorant, lost, senile, scientifically illiterate"? Really? OK, so you've found YOUR Magic Talisman in Henrich. And you worship at its altar. The Guardian and The Atlantic, among others, have reviews of The Weirdest People in the World raising very problematic issues and difficult questions with Henrich's grand- unified-theory-of-everything (and, by implication, your piety towards it). Your exuberant fealty here raises the spectre that: 1) your intellectual instincts do not inspire confidence and, moreover; 2) you have somewhat strained relationship with reality. Have a better one!
I'm betting that you can't coherently argue anything factual, from a rational, fact and evidence-based perspective, about Henrich's work, or evolutionary theory in general.
I agree with her but there is not enough time to mobilize the working class across the country to block Trump or Desantis from taking power. Maybe at some time after that if we're still around.
The wheels are coming off the empire and profound changes that don't seem remotely possible now will become possible sooner that we may think. Some of what could happen is terrible, but other possibilities that may well arise could be good, even revolutionary, if enough of us are organizationally and mentally prepared for them. This is not the time to think small. Incrementalism is irrelevance and death in times like this.
The word itself is a clue: to revolve just means moving things around, replacing one set of psychopathic with another one.
In rare cases, revolutions arise from a deep, authentic paradigm shift in the structure of civilization, but "socialism" is not that kind of paradigm shift, it is just a rehash of existing modernist rationalism, minus mythic religion.
I think the impending collapse of the malignant American form of advanced hegemonic and unustainable "capitalism" now afflicting humanity is part of a deep, authentic paradigm shift that's clearly on the horizon. No one knows yet what form it will take, but it may well include some form of "socialism," of which there are many varieties, some yet to be invented. When the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone was surprised. Looking back the rot should have been apparent, but nobody predicted it, especially how it happened and how quickly things fell apart. And only now are we beginning to seeing the consequences, good and bad. I think the collapse of the American hegemon will similarly surprising, swift and mysterious. There will be winners and losers. Fasten your seatbelt. Keep your eyes open, your wits about you and hope for the best, if not for yourself, for your kids.
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
I am not necessarily predicting violent class revolution, although that could happen given the extreme wealth and income inequality that is a primary feature of the current system. In my view it would be preferable to some of the perhaps more likely dystopian alternatives available. Please note that all past empires, from the Mayans to the Mongols to the British to the Soviets, have fallen apart, quickly or slowly, with a wide variety of results. Human societies and political economies tend to eventually develop irreconcilable internal contradictions which eventually, and sometimes suddenly, work themselves out in unpredictable and stressful ways. I could be wrong, but my sense after 75 years of observation is that we are approaching such an inflection point.
I've also been exceptic of doomsters , but observing the current inequality in our land I have to conclude that the dooms day is already here for most Americans just by comparing the general welfare of the population in the years prior to the Reagan era, and its " trickle down economics", with what we have been left today. The last step to complete our doom is the total collapse of our political system and that is why I love leaders like Ms. Sawant that are trying to prevent it.
I already explained (in another comment) why Sawant's agenda isn't very "socialist", rather it is just a re-invention of FDR type liberalism, which will not be capable of forming a national consensus.
FDR liberalism is NOT anti-fragile to disruption by the "Dictatorship of the Intolerant, Small Minority", no matter how much superficial "socialist" wallpaper is glued over it.
If Sawant's supporters think she is going to drive "socialism" through the back door of FDR liberalism at anything, and then see a "class revolution" other than a local level in coastal urban voting districts, they are going to have a very rude awakening.
Socialist "class revolutions" are inherently regressive to cultural evolution to post-capitalist culture.
The fact that Sawant is using "class revolution rhetoric dooms her to irrelevance beyond some enclaves of ingrown urban leftism.
The problem with this approach to tax the billionaires' business (including the tax of mandated wages and benefits) is that it hurts small business more, and then reduces the competition that the billionaires fear more than anything else.
Also, it gives the billionaires more incentives to automate their workforce.
If socialism worked, Cuba and Venezuela would be attractive places to live.
The US federal govt alone gives almost $700 BILLION in subsidies to corporations and businesses, wiping out competition and innovation on a massive scale, replacing it with oligarchies and corporate cartels/monopolies.
Stop the subsidies, and the market will begin to regain some of its sanity, and the bazzhole billionaire oligarchs will see their wealth vanish (which is mostly "on paper" anyway) pretty quickly.
Raising taxes just perpetuates the power of the oligarchs, as can be seen in California, where the corporate D-party is completely servile to the billionaires and the dysfunctional state bureaucracy.
The best way to beat the corporatist cabal is to provide incentives and benefits to the small business that would compete with the big corporations. However, the corporatist cabal includes the same politicians that don't want to see their big corporation gravvy train to end.
Of course, if socialism didn't work there'd be no need for the U.S. to apply years and years of economic and political sanctions against these two countries to punish their populations and to "prove" how bad socialism is.
LOL. So we refuse to do business with them... so they benefit from our capitalist system... and this is the reason that their socialist system fails? Got it. The victim mindset is endemic with the collectivists. It is always someone else fault that collectivism does not work.
China would be a shell of itself today without the US. The US would be much better off if China never existed.
The ruling "leftist" elites in Cuba and Venezuela have been saying for many decades that they want to destroy the USA and western civilization.
How is that not clear???
Cuba and Venezuela were historically based on Caudillo (warlord patronage) politics, "socialism" is just a thin veneer over vicious tribalism, as Bolivar explained succinctly:
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
[] 1º) La [latin] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
[] 2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
[] 3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en América es emigrar.
[--->] 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
[] 5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
[] 6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
Certainly a little adjustment to your ideological lenses would be useful. What I see with no need of eye glasses is that Cuba and Venezuela are not our enemies. We are their enemies.
Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
As you know, I have led for twenty years and have obtained only a few certain results:
[latin] America is ungovernable.
He who serves a revolution plows the sea.
The only thing one can do in [latin] America is emigrate.
[----->] This country will fall unfailingly into the hands of the unbridled crowd and then pass almost imperceptibly to
[----->] tyrants of all colors and races.
Devoured by all crimes and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans will not deign to conquer us.
If it were possible for one part of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be the last period of [latin] America.
Gutiérrez Escudero, Antonio, ed. (2005),
"6. Carta al general Juan José Flores, jefe del estado de Ecuador (Barranquilla, 9 de noviembre de 1830)
[Letter to General Juan José Flores, head of state of Ecuador, Barranquilla, November 9, 1830"]
(in Spanish), Simón Bolívar: aproximación al pensamiento del Libertador (approximations to the thoughts of the liberator), Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (CSIC), Sevilla, p. 12, retrieved on 2017-11-06
How about just taxing the billionaires not their businesses?
For example you could tax the value of their non tangible property, such as stocks and bonds as you would tangible property such as homes and automobile. You could also stop them from putting their assets in tax havens.
The appreciation of their non-retirement designated investments are taxed at capital gain rates at liquidation or at income tax rates of the ownership-share of profit if a partnership. Are you suggesting that the appreciation of passive investments are taxed? What a mess that would create. What happens when those investments lose value... is the government going to pay the investor a reverse tax benefit? If we do this we will destroy equity investment for all business. If you eliminate tax shelters for them you eliminate them for everyone.
Paper investment wealth is just that. It is not real until it is liquidated for real cash. It is taxed at the lower capital gains rate, but again taxing it at income tax rates would destroy small business investment.
Non tangible property, such as stocks and bonds would be taxed based on their value, as would tangible property such as a home and automobiles. Right now billionaires mainly are getting a huge tax break because this property is not being taxed.
You can depreciate real property as you pay taxes on it. Stocks and bonds are paper assets that don't wear out. Again, I don't think you have thought this through or otherwise are just not knowledgeable enough to be commenting about this.
Elon Musk has lost tens of billion in the value of his paper wealth (stocks and bonds) because the bear market. Is the government going to write him a check when that happens?
Elon will get taxed when he cashes out his holdings. Unless like Bill Gates he just puts it all in a non-profit foundation before he liquidates.
That is a stupid move as it would destroy a primary engine of invention, entrepreneurialism and enterprise. It would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The design of capitalism is primarily a social system. Domestic capital invested is supposed to share returns with the domestic population (labor and individual investors) and not just three guys at the top that work on Wall Street. I think any gains on investments of other people's money need to be taxed at income tax levels. That would help a bit.
But in general, we need to just apply our existing anti-trust laws on the books, while providing more helps and assistance to small business to start and grow.
Look what the administrative state did during the pandemic... the opposite. They destroyed small business while the giant corporations bough up their struggling smaller competitors for a discount and then increased their market share.
I don't think that is correct. Private unlisted investment has always existed, it just wasn't labeled as "private equity" for tax and regulatory purposes. Private equity investment is higher risk and betting on value appreciation. Public offering isn't available to startups. So that leave only debt financing. I am a small business lender. It is almost impossible for startups to get debt financing. I own other businesses with passive nvestment partners. Those businesses would not exist without venture capital.
Private Equity (corporate marauders) exists because of unintentional tax loopholes that were exploited by cheaters, and then when reforms were proposed (by Bush!) the cheaters bought off congress critters in both parties to block the reforms.
Medicine is being destroyed by Private Equity scammers, just as many "big box" and other retail businesses were a decade ago.
"If Radical New Deal Type Reforms are not Implemented, Right-wing populism and Christian Fascism Will Flourish". Radical New Deal type reforms will not be implemented, nor even considered appropriate for thought by the right-thinking, patriotic-version-of-history learning, faux-democracy indoctrinated, war-mongering, censor-and-cancel-approving culture that exists in America today. Right wing populism and Christian fascism are considered by many to be preferrable to the authority-reliant identity politics fascism that has replaced what was once a left that despised the thought of war and fought for an open and free society where "content of character" was the only thing that should matter. The current fad (I hope not trend) of people insisting that others use certain pronouns when addressing or referring to them does nothing to breed unity; it seems absurd to many, and will only lead to further divisions and isolation. The right wing and the Christian fascists are already united, and are becoming ever more united. The left is dead.
What can be seen "everywhere" are people on the "left" that are deeply mentally ill and incapable of forming coherent, rational, objective thoughts that are fact and evidence based.
A brief description of ACTUAL, historical fascism makes the gross absurdity of your delusional assertion obvious, just another example of the addiction to hysteria and outrage on the "left".
Well I guess you are a trained Psychiatrist?? All your posts inform us of our psychological or psychiatric flaws, does this really help our situation ? How will it help the factory worker, who wants a better wage?
I guess you are too stupid to understand that it is common to observe ACTUAL CRAZY PEOPLE, and by observation, notice the behavioral patterns of the ACTUAL CRAZY PEOPLE????????
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Do you have enough IQ/reading comprehension to actually understand science?
All of your comments inform "us" that your reading comprehension is extremely low, and you are imprisoned inside of an ideologically tribalistic echo chamber and a slave to groupthink and conformism.
I've already explained why "socialism" is a failure. Read the comments.
Wake up. Seek psychiatric treatment, or at least take a basic class on how to think rationally.
Very solid proscriptive and prescriptive advice: the corporate power structure, private/political elites, the donor class, party organizations and political personalities, employers, law enforcement, and even some unions are NOT your friends. Stick to the core issues, turn your efforts toward, and make the appeals exclusively to the working class. VIVE LA COMMUNE!
Ever heard of reflexivity? You would do well to familiarize yourself with it. The gross inherent bias in your comments and, in turn, distorted interpretation of reality, relegates your commentary to the level of risible tosh. Were you not as literate a chap a you seem, one would refer to you as a man of commendable innocence.
I think identity politics is really just a canard.
I've always wondered why elite private elementary and secondary schools in Manhattan would become immersed in identity politics and political movements which are clearly contrary to their class interests. The Brearley School, The Dalton School, and Grace Church among others further eroding Enlightenment thought and the history of Western Civilization. Certainly, part of it comes from the so-called elite colleges (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.) for which they are feeders. Has a sudden wave of contrition come from institutions for the depredations of European expansion, hundreds of years of colonialism, and the depredations of Capitalism? Until I see substantive legislation that: 1) eliminates all forms of individual donations to candidates and funds elections through taxpayer dollars; 2) enforcement of anti-trust laws; 3) a more sober defense budget; 4) emphasis of returning manufacturing to the United States; 5) an end to efforts by energy and fossil fuel companies to block the introduction of alternative energy; 6) Medicare for All; 7) a repeal of Program 1033; 8) decriminalization of all drugs; 9) repeal of various tax laws and tax strategies which allow the significant sheltering of wealth from taxation; and 10) increases in the taxes for the very wealthy, etc., I will consider all of this to be "smoke and mirrors". This change of policy needs to come from the "seats of power". Pending this progressivism, I think much of the so-called Progressivism is just a kabuki play to keep the peasants fighting amongst themselves.
Certainly what passes for progressivism today is just more of the same-old-same-old misdirection.
Agreed 100% with your suggestions. Today, Our two political parties are like the teams that professional wrestling entrepreneurs have created to increase the ticket sales and stir up the emotions of their fans by fabricating two fake personas: the Good team fighting the Evil one while in real life they are the same and enjoy the profits.
IdPol is an attempt by the rising power elites (PMC, etc.) to legitimate their power, via quasi religious conformism. It has been wildly successful in the cultural realm, there is a lot of documentation of how the "Small Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority" on the cultural-left has used psychological terrorism to enforce conformity and expand its power.
Agreed. One of the few things that I remember of Gore Vidal's "United States of Amnesia" is his insight that our political system is composed of only one party with two wright wings. And as you said completely worthless. I would add my irreverence to change the name of those wings as DemonRats and Ratpublicans.
Per Noam Chomsky, The Soviet Union was actually a form of state capitalism, the same as the US. He mentions that the only three internationally completive industries the US has are highly subsidized and intervened in by the government. Namely: Agriculture ( huge subsidies and market supports), Pharmaceuticals (public research
- private profits) & Technology ( supported by the Pentagon system).
Chomsky is daft, at least about the USSR. It was explicitly anti-capitalist and totalitarian.
I was in the USSR in 1974 and it was horrible, nothing like the USA/West (which Chomsky is correct about: the west has declined because of globalism and neoliberalism, as supported by massive "anti-free-market" govt subsidies).
This is a better explanation of how bourgeois capitalism morphed into managerial (Prussian) capitalism, which has morphed into digital capitalism, with the result that there is a deep conflict within the power elites that actually control things:
The article completely avoids talking about what "class revolution" and "socialism" actually mean in the real world, which is typically not pretty.
Being against corrupt corporations and the corrupt D-party establishment does not require "socialism". This movement has been successful IN SPITE OF being "socialist", not BECAUSE OF IT.
The article jumps through some strange hoops trying to be "populist" in some ways, but being elitist and obnoxious about "right wing populists".
Those kinds of contradictions and incoherent constructs are typical of the old "left" and "socialists" because there is no way to reconcile revolutionary class war with the populist-liberal tendencies of most actual working class people, who are patriotic and nationalistic "liberals".
That failure was what gave rise to the hyper toxic Frankfurters, neo-marxists, and postmoderns (Id Pol).
To live in this climate one must have backbone, and a fearless approach to dealing with the evil elite. They will use and tactic no matter how vile to defeat us. The people must stand up to oust Big Business from ALL influence it has in Politics, Media, Education,etc. Big business should not affect Policy ever. Legal Corporate Status must be revoked and removed from the Law Books. Making all corporations and their Directosr liable for any misdeed.
Having lived in a socialist country, I don't quite understand the current debate. Can anyone point me to a successful socialist experiment as far as economics go? The best socialist economy I can think of and, which I've also seen, is the former DDR = East Germany. It was a sad and gray affair overall. And we know how happy the people were, don't we? The idea that a strong state that rids itself off the billionaire class (then the millionaire class, then anyone with private property until no-one is left to get rid off) will somehow prosper is highly questionable. If the Left is suspicious of human nature and its weakness towards corruption of all sorts, why does it assume that that changes when all productions are controlled by the state? And speaking of environmental destruction: I would argue that the Soviet Union was probably #1 in environmental damage. Air and water pollution, chemical dumping, no checks on any prodution processes... none of it. And have any of those countries advance the rights and life quality of their populations? What has Socialism ever achieved worth debating? It's one thing to be pro unions, discuss issues like minimum wage, environmental policies, checks on unfettered capital. But the jump to "Revolution" and "Socialism"? Historically that was destruction and misery so far. That was the result everywhere where it actually happened, no?
The sooner people abandon the fairy tale of a Socialist Utopia the more practical we can all be. My only experience of a socialist country was visiting East Berlin (DDR) in the early 1970s. All the rubble from WW2 was neatly piled, trees were growing from the roofs of the old government buildings and the whole atmosphere reminded me of Billy Wilder's comedy: One, Two, Three...
I returned to the reunified Berlin in the early 1990's to find people selling Russian army memorability near the Brandenburg Gate. Construction cranes were to be found throughout the East (the major part of the original city), the neatly piled rubble was gone, and the former East was vibrant.
ID politics alone is political death, but to disregard the importance of identification and, ever more importantly, recognition (to wit: I see me in you and vice versa), means to avoid/ignore the potential to build robust coalitions to force real economic and social change. Bottom line, humans run on affinities, alliances, and allegiances, temporary though they often times may be. Instead of sawing ID politics off from our trunks as though they were useless appendages, we must add more to our quiver and acknowledge our common core -- CLASS -- and start sharing the bow!!
IdPol is totalitarian neo-marxism. The founders of CRT openly admit to their desire to destroy western civilization.
The "common core" needs to evolve to be anti-fragile to disruption, class struggle is obviously fragile and being "colonized" by pathological tendencies.
It's really hard to believe such an ill-informed comment would appear on a Chris Hedges Report discussion thread but hey, it takes all kinds. Politics is *always* about identity, identifying, and identification. Don't believe me? Get on the horn with the GOP. They've been promoting family values and right to work nonsense even when Marx was alive and actively writing. By your logic, that's the core of their "totalitarian neo-marxism." HA!!
What's daft is assuming identification in politics and political activity is the sole prevue of the "the left" (whatever that means) when, clearly, it is not. And that's why you got your hackles up: you haven't questioned any of these moronic assertions spun through the media. Don't believe me? Riddle me this: who originally proposed the holiday of Thanksgiving in the United States, when, and why? The answers you find might surprise you.
Again, you are DAFT, and adrift in some bizarro echo chamber that has nothing to do with the article being discussed, and probably nothing to do with reality in general.
-----
From another discussion:
TOXIC Leftist/ Cultural Marxist, PC left, CRT/SJW/BLM rhetoric*, explained:
000. use absurd SMEARS
00. project
0. gaslight
......
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done (move goal posts)
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as straw manning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative / shift goal posts
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
-----
*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.
You seem to have an allergy to facts that creates severe delusions and a desire for ideological conformity. In other words, you are presumably a leftist.
You are either another disingenuous asshole, or truly ignorant as to what "Identity Politics" actually is (postmodern relativism).
Not even remotely accurate. Rather, I have a clear understanding of both history and the present and thus do not allow myself to be manipulated by either. Try it -- it's liberating. Or don't they offer historically accurate classes at Prager U?
The long list of grievances/accusations you now seek to project onto me -- a person whom, it should be noted, you do not know but claim to understand *precisely* and *definitively* based on four or five thoughts I shared (re: common misunderstandings of identity in politics and how they pertain/apply to all gradients on the political spectrum) -- seems to apply more to you than anyone else, let alone me. If I am mistaken here, then by all means feel free to address the points in my OP. Barring that, disengaging from this 'discussion' might be in your best emotional, psychological, and intellectual interests. I know it would help me, but what I know and what I do are often not in alignment -- as I am sure you must understand from your own personal perspective. All the best to you, e.pierce.
The need to abandon identity politics is very important.
When I speak to right wing types, Trumpies, rednecks, anyone, so long as they’re mostly rational, I never stress my socialist leanings, I simply point out that we all want to feed our kids we all want healthcare, and we all want to live happy stable lives. And one more thing that we have in common, that I usually say with a smile, we both despise liberals. That always gets a laugh, and a laugh is a great way to form alliances.
I also know this is effective because it drives New York Times reading zombies nuts.
Once upon a time, the liberals were the socialists, and the conservatives were the fascists. Now, they're both war-mongering fascists.
You are extremely confused, and probably senile.
Once upon a time, "classical liberalism" created western civilization, democracy, and expanding medieval urban commoner class, literacy, increases in education, high-social-trust national institutions and the modern nation state system. Conservatives were the "alter and crown types". Romanticism had not yet given birth to Marxism and Fascism.
ILLIBERALS on either the "far left" (Marxists/Neo-Marxists/"woke" totalitarians) or "far right" (Appalachian Neo-confederates, "Fascists"*, Duginists) have various dystopian visions that will never be palatable to the majority.
As appalling and revolting as globalist neoliberalism is, it has accomplished the reduction of poverty for several billion people worldwide by something like 90% (Pinker, Stewart Brand), and it is heading to 3-5% soon. Marxism/socialism/class revolution would have never accomplished that, which is why China merged "capitalism" into its one-party system.
You may not have been allowed to study politcal history from the Reagan era (he was POTUS during most of the ancient 1980s), but one of his greatest propaganda accomplishments was making the word "liberal" equate to "socialist-communist-pinko-bad-bad-bad!". Prior to Reagan, many people were proud to call themselves liberals, meaning that they were open to change. They welcomed government (socialist) programs of assistance introduced by liberal POTUS Roosevelt during The Great Depression, like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, etc. So, during the Roosevelt to post-Reagan era, the liberals were considered socialists, and the conservatives were alter, crown and cross-idolizing, racist, change-hating thugs (not fascists?), just as they still are today. Now, that you've had a lesson in ancient history, I hope you have a better understanding of my comment. Also, using the word "senile" to slur an older person is, well, what can I say, childish?
THANK YOU for being here!
Groupthink. Low IQ.
You are a mindless ideological tribalist that apparently can't imagine escaping your echo chamber or the groupthink narratives that rattle around in it endlessly.
You actually just proved my point, you are either seriously ignorant and lost in an echo chamber, or senile, or both.
The best social science I've seen that explains the cultural evolution of "classical liberalism" and modern rationalism is Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model:
https://weirdpeople.fas.harvard.edu/
Unless you prove otherwise, I'm going to assume you are too scientifically illiterate to actually understand it.
Whoa!, Pierce, sounds like you need to increase the dosage! Unless "proven otherwise," Mr Ganer is, "ignorant, lost, senile, scientifically illiterate"? Really? OK, so you've found YOUR Magic Talisman in Henrich. And you worship at its altar. The Guardian and The Atlantic, among others, have reviews of The Weirdest People in the World raising very problematic issues and difficult questions with Henrich's grand- unified-theory-of-everything (and, by implication, your piety towards it). Your exuberant fealty here raises the spectre that: 1) your intellectual instincts do not inspire confidence and, moreover; 2) you have somewhat strained relationship with reality. Have a better one!
I'm betting that you can't coherently argue anything factual, from a rational, fact and evidence-based perspective, about Henrich's work, or evolutionary theory in general.
You cite ideological bullshit from the "woke" cancel culture mob compliant "authors" on the cultural-left, of course.
You ignorant blubberings are mindless and meaningless.
Anyone whose work becomes noticed will attract a small mob of lunatics that attempt to contradict ("refute") the work.
Did you bother to look for the refutations of the people claiming to refute Henrich???
The Humanities, including cultural anthropology have been breeding grounds for radical and extremist, cultural-left totalitarianism for many decades.
See the cases of the vicious attacks on E.O. Wilson and Napoleon Chagnon (and Bret Weinstein) for a well known examples.
Your ignorance is astonishing.
https://quillette.com/2019/10/05/the-dangerous-life-of-an-anthropologist/
Calm down Mr. Pierce. While reading your comments, I was inspired with the following little song that I dedicate to you:
Isn't it nice, isn't it great?
in our beautiful land of the free and the brave
all our opinions can be expressed
Everybody stays happy and nobody falls off grace.
Isn't it nice, isn't it great!
You are an irrelevant buffoon that is pandering to a senile dotard out of ideological tribalism.
DEFLECTION.
From another discussion:
Leftist/ Cultural Marxist, PC left, CRT/SJW/BLM rhetoric*, explained:
000. use absurd SMEARS
00. project
0. gaslight
......
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done (move goal posts)
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as straw manning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative / shift goal posts
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
-----
*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.
DEFLECTION.
From another discussion:
Leftist/ Cultural Marxist, PC left, CRT/SJW/BLM rhetoric*, explained:
000. use absurd SMEARS
00. project
0. gaslight
......
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done (move goal posts)
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as straw manning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative / shift goal posts
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
-----
*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.
👌🏼
I'm proud to say that I donated to and supported her first campaign 9 years ago and have supported her ever since.
I agree with her but there is not enough time to mobilize the working class across the country to block Trump or Desantis from taking power. Maybe at some time after that if we're still around.
That is a perfect example of the fear-based tendency in leftist ideology, which is one of the many reasons why leftists are dismal failures.
I think you are misunderstanding how Marxism works.
Or doesn't.
If the establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to co-opt, whom to buy off, whom to neutralize, whom to ignore.
Be wary of this, stay alert, use your bean!
The wheels are coming off the empire and profound changes that don't seem remotely possible now will become possible sooner that we may think. Some of what could happen is terrible, but other possibilities that may well arise could be good, even revolutionary, if enough of us are organizationally and mentally prepared for them. This is not the time to think small. Incrementalism is irrelevance and death in times like this.
Revolutions are almost always bad.
The word itself is a clue: to revolve just means moving things around, replacing one set of psychopathic with another one.
In rare cases, revolutions arise from a deep, authentic paradigm shift in the structure of civilization, but "socialism" is not that kind of paradigm shift, it is just a rehash of existing modernist rationalism, minus mythic religion.
I think the impending collapse of the malignant American form of advanced hegemonic and unustainable "capitalism" now afflicting humanity is part of a deep, authentic paradigm shift that's clearly on the horizon. No one knows yet what form it will take, but it may well include some form of "socialism," of which there are many varieties, some yet to be invented. When the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone was surprised. Looking back the rot should have been apparent, but nobody predicted it, especially how it happened and how quickly things fell apart. And only now are we beginning to seeing the consequences, good and bad. I think the collapse of the American hegemon will similarly surprising, swift and mysterious. There will be winners and losers. Fasten your seatbelt. Keep your eyes open, your wits about you and hope for the best, if not for yourself, for your kids.
I've been hearing doomster blather for over 50 years.
There is a "crisis of meaning" that underlies the collapse of high-social-trust in the modern nation state system.
I don't see violent class revolution providing a coherent response.
What is more likely, based on evolutionary psychology, is that a new value system will emerge that will leave the "left-vs-right" narrative behind.
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at higher level / social form
https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html
---excerpts---
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
...
---end excerpts---
I am not necessarily predicting violent class revolution, although that could happen given the extreme wealth and income inequality that is a primary feature of the current system. In my view it would be preferable to some of the perhaps more likely dystopian alternatives available. Please note that all past empires, from the Mayans to the Mongols to the British to the Soviets, have fallen apart, quickly or slowly, with a wide variety of results. Human societies and political economies tend to eventually develop irreconcilable internal contradictions which eventually, and sometimes suddenly, work themselves out in unpredictable and stressful ways. I could be wrong, but my sense after 75 years of observation is that we are approaching such an inflection point.
An AI expert discusses the "meaning crisis" and ways out of it, which will also be required for a transformation beyond the inflection point:
https://metarationality.com/credibility-post-truth
Yes*, but you aren't actually talking about Sawant's "socialism" or her "class revolution" rhetoric anymore.
Which is my point.
---
* https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
I've also been exceptic of doomsters , but observing the current inequality in our land I have to conclude that the dooms day is already here for most Americans just by comparing the general welfare of the population in the years prior to the Reagan era, and its " trickle down economics", with what we have been left today. The last step to complete our doom is the total collapse of our political system and that is why I love leaders like Ms. Sawant that are trying to prevent it.
I already explained (in another comment) why Sawant's agenda isn't very "socialist", rather it is just a re-invention of FDR type liberalism, which will not be capable of forming a national consensus.
FDR liberalism is NOT anti-fragile to disruption by the "Dictatorship of the Intolerant, Small Minority", no matter how much superficial "socialist" wallpaper is glued over it.
If Sawant's supporters think she is going to drive "socialism" through the back door of FDR liberalism at anything, and then see a "class revolution" other than a local level in coastal urban voting districts, they are going to have a very rude awakening.
Socialist "class revolutions" are inherently regressive to cultural evolution to post-capitalist culture.
The fact that Sawant is using "class revolution rhetoric dooms her to irrelevance beyond some enclaves of ingrown urban leftism.
👌🏼
The problem with this approach to tax the billionaires' business (including the tax of mandated wages and benefits) is that it hurts small business more, and then reduces the competition that the billionaires fear more than anything else.
Also, it gives the billionaires more incentives to automate their workforce.
If socialism worked, Cuba and Venezuela would be attractive places to live.
Correct.
The US federal govt alone gives almost $700 BILLION in subsidies to corporations and businesses, wiping out competition and innovation on a massive scale, replacing it with oligarchies and corporate cartels/monopolies.
Stop the subsidies, and the market will begin to regain some of its sanity, and the bazzhole billionaire oligarchs will see their wealth vanish (which is mostly "on paper" anyway) pretty quickly.
Raising taxes just perpetuates the power of the oligarchs, as can be seen in California, where the corporate D-party is completely servile to the billionaires and the dysfunctional state bureaucracy.
The best way to beat the corporatist cabal is to provide incentives and benefits to the small business that would compete with the big corporations. However, the corporatist cabal includes the same politicians that don't want to see their big corporation gravvy train to end.
How is that better than removing the monopolistic state supports and subsidies of corporations???
Because private equity serves small startups. Monopolistic state supports always gravitate to propping up the largest coprorations.
Private Equity has destroyed vast areas of the economy, including medicine (in progress).
You are cherry picking the data that makes Private Equity look as good as possible while ignoring its incredible destruction.
(Or, you are too ignorant to even understand the bad side of PE, so you don't need to ignore that which you don't even see.)
Of course, if socialism didn't work there'd be no need for the U.S. to apply years and years of economic and political sanctions against these two countries to punish their populations and to "prove" how bad socialism is.
LOL. So we refuse to do business with them... so they benefit from our capitalist system... and this is the reason that their socialist system fails? Got it. The victim mindset is endemic with the collectivists. It is always someone else fault that collectivism does not work.
China would be a shell of itself today without the US. The US would be much better off if China never existed.
If you did not see everything through an ideological lens you might see more clearly.
The ruling "leftist" elites in Cuba and Venezuela have been saying for many decades that they want to destroy the USA and western civilization.
How is that not clear???
Cuba and Venezuela were historically based on Caudillo (warlord patronage) politics, "socialism" is just a thin veneer over vicious tribalism, as Bolivar explained succinctly:
digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/28362/1/BolivarPen.pdf
...
Vd. sabe que yo he mandado veinte años y de ellos no he sacado más que pocos resultados ciertos:
[] 1º) La [latin] América es ingobernable para nosotros.
[] 2º) El que sirve una revolución ara en el mar.
[] 3º) La única cosa que se puede hacer en América es emigrar.
[--->] 4º) Este país caerá infaliblemente en manos de la multitud desenfrenada, para después pasar a tiranuelos casi imperceptibles, de to dos colores y razas.
[] 5º) devorados por todos los crímenes y extinguidos por la ferocidad, los europeos no se dignarán conquistarnos.
[] 6º) Si fuera posible que una parte del mundo volviera al caos primitivo, éste sería el último periodo de la [latin] América...
Certainly a little adjustment to your ideological lenses would be useful. What I see with no need of eye glasses is that Cuba and Venezuela are not our enemies. We are their enemies.
I repeat, thank you for being here ...
Seek psychiatric treatment.
Learn to think rationally, based on facts and evidence.
Stop being a TROLL that intellectually masturbates in public and defends grossly stupid bullshit for no coherent reason.
My previous comment about ideologically induced blindness still applies.
Your previous comment is pure bullshit.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar#Letter_near_the_end_of_his_life_(November_9,_1830)
Letter near the end of his life (November 9, 1830)
As you know, I have led for twenty years and have obtained only a few certain results:
[latin] America is ungovernable.
He who serves a revolution plows the sea.
The only thing one can do in [latin] America is emigrate.
[----->] This country will fall unfailingly into the hands of the unbridled crowd and then pass almost imperceptibly to
[----->] tyrants of all colors and races.
Devoured by all crimes and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans will not deign to conquer us.
If it were possible for one part of the world to return to primitive chaos, this would be the last period of [latin] America.
Gutiérrez Escudero, Antonio, ed. (2005),
"6. Carta al general Juan José Flores, jefe del estado de Ecuador (Barranquilla, 9 de noviembre de 1830)
[Letter to General Juan José Flores, head of state of Ecuador, Barranquilla, November 9, 1830"]
(in Spanish), Simón Bolívar: aproximación al pensamiento del Libertador (approximations to the thoughts of the liberator), Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (CSIC), Sevilla, p. 12, retrieved on 2017-11-06
How about just taxing the billionaires not their businesses?
For example you could tax the value of their non tangible property, such as stocks and bonds as you would tangible property such as homes and automobile. You could also stop them from putting their assets in tax havens.
The appreciation of their non-retirement designated investments are taxed at capital gain rates at liquidation or at income tax rates of the ownership-share of profit if a partnership. Are you suggesting that the appreciation of passive investments are taxed? What a mess that would create. What happens when those investments lose value... is the government going to pay the investor a reverse tax benefit? If we do this we will destroy equity investment for all business. If you eliminate tax shelters for them you eliminate them for everyone.
Paper investment wealth is just that. It is not real until it is liquidated for real cash. It is taxed at the lower capital gains rate, but again taxing it at income tax rates would destroy small business investment.
Non tangible property, such as stocks and bonds would be taxed based on their value, as would tangible property such as a home and automobiles. Right now billionaires mainly are getting a huge tax break because this property is not being taxed.
You can depreciate real property as you pay taxes on it. Stocks and bonds are paper assets that don't wear out. Again, I don't think you have thought this through or otherwise are just not knowledgeable enough to be commenting about this.
Elon Musk has lost tens of billion in the value of his paper wealth (stocks and bonds) because the bear market. Is the government going to write him a check when that happens?
Elon will get taxed when he cashes out his holdings. Unless like Bill Gates he just puts it all in a non-profit foundation before he liquidates.
Banning Private Equity is probably the single most important issue for transpartisans that want to restore "democracy".
That is a stupid move as it would destroy a primary engine of invention, entrepreneurialism and enterprise. It would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The design of capitalism is primarily a social system. Domestic capital invested is supposed to share returns with the domestic population (labor and individual investors) and not just three guys at the top that work on Wall Street. I think any gains on investments of other people's money need to be taxed at income tax levels. That would help a bit.
But in general, we need to just apply our existing anti-trust laws on the books, while providing more helps and assistance to small business to start and grow.
Look what the administrative state did during the pandemic... the opposite. They destroyed small business while the giant corporations bough up their struggling smaller competitors for a discount and then increased their market share.
You do understand that invention, entrepreneurialism and enterprise existed loooooong before Private Equity scams "accidentally" came into being???
Private Equity is primarily parasitic and predatory, exactly the opposite of what "free market" reforms should be.
I don't think that is correct. Private unlisted investment has always existed, it just wasn't labeled as "private equity" for tax and regulatory purposes. Private equity investment is higher risk and betting on value appreciation. Public offering isn't available to startups. So that leave only debt financing. I am a small business lender. It is almost impossible for startups to get debt financing. I own other businesses with passive nvestment partners. Those businesses would not exist without venture capital.
You are trying to move the goal posts.
Private Equity (corporate marauders) exists because of unintentional tax loopholes that were exploited by cheaters, and then when reforms were proposed (by Bush!) the cheaters bought off congress critters in both parties to block the reforms.
Medicine is being destroyed by Private Equity scammers, just as many "big box" and other retail businesses were a decade ago.
Wow. Someone who thinks like I do. I thought I was all alone.
Thank you Chris Hedges for providing us with weekly, interesting, informative, thought provoking columns and podcasts.
"If Radical New Deal Type Reforms are not Implemented, Right-wing populism and Christian Fascism Will Flourish". Radical New Deal type reforms will not be implemented, nor even considered appropriate for thought by the right-thinking, patriotic-version-of-history learning, faux-democracy indoctrinated, war-mongering, censor-and-cancel-approving culture that exists in America today. Right wing populism and Christian fascism are considered by many to be preferrable to the authority-reliant identity politics fascism that has replaced what was once a left that despised the thought of war and fought for an open and free society where "content of character" was the only thing that should matter. The current fad (I hope not trend) of people insisting that others use certain pronouns when addressing or referring to them does nothing to breed unity; it seems absurd to many, and will only lead to further divisions and isolation. The right wing and the Christian fascists are already united, and are becoming ever more united. The left is dead.
Your use of the word "fascism" is absurd (to put it mildly), but so is Chris Hedges' use of the word.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/projection
Not at all, you can see it everywhere the US is heading towards fascism ... and Freud is soooooo old and outdated ...
What can be seen "everywhere" are people on the "left" that are deeply mentally ill and incapable of forming coherent, rational, objective thoughts that are fact and evidence based.
https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/large-study-indicates-left-wing-authoritarianism-exists-and-is-a-key-predictor-of-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-61318
A brief description of ACTUAL, historical fascism makes the gross absurdity of your delusional assertion obvious, just another example of the addiction to hysteria and outrage on the "left".
https://web.archive.org/web/20041217124550/http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/world/lectures/fascism.html
Your opinion. Certainly my mental illness is quite different than yours but I will try to find coherence and rationality to understand it.
You are far too brainwashed a TROLL to "understand" anything rationally.
Well I guess you are a trained Psychiatrist?? All your posts inform us of our psychological or psychiatric flaws, does this really help our situation ? How will it help the factory worker, who wants a better wage?
I guess you are too stupid to understand that it is common to observe ACTUAL CRAZY PEOPLE, and by observation, notice the behavioral patterns of the ACTUAL CRAZY PEOPLE????????
???????????????????????????
???????????????????????????
???????????????????????????
Do you have enough IQ/reading comprehension to actually understand science?
https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/large-study-indicates-left-wing-authoritarianism-exists-and-is-a-key-predictor-of-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-61318
All of your comments inform "us" that your reading comprehension is extremely low, and you are imprisoned inside of an ideologically tribalistic echo chamber and a slave to groupthink and conformism.
I've already explained why "socialism" is a failure. Read the comments.
Wake up. Seek psychiatric treatment, or at least take a basic class on how to think rationally.
Very solid proscriptive and prescriptive advice: the corporate power structure, private/political elites, the donor class, party organizations and political personalities, employers, law enforcement, and even some unions are NOT your friends. Stick to the core issues, turn your efforts toward, and make the appeals exclusively to the working class. VIVE LA COMMUNE!
Actual "communes" tend to be full of dysfunctional, parasitic, predatory personality types, which is why the "left" has reached a dead end.
I was referencing the the 1871 event of the Paris Commune. Your reference is non-related and irrelevant.
A failed, 2 month "revolution"
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
Dysfunctional, toxic romanticism (Rousseau) and anti-rationalism that has been a continuous thread woven into most forms of leftism for 100s of years.
Your opinion, your tiresome characterizations. They have no value or weight beyond that.
Also to you, thank you for being here ...
Groupthink. Low IQ.
You are an irrelevant buffoon that is pandering to a senile dotard out of ideological tribalism.
You are projecting you own delusions and inner emptiness, which is about all I have seen from the "left" for 50 years.
Your complete lack of self-awareness is no surprise.
https://www.psypost.org/2021/06/large-study-indicates-left-wing-authoritarianism-exists-and-is-a-key-predictor-of-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-61318
Ever heard of reflexivity? You would do well to familiarize yourself with it. The gross inherent bias in your comments and, in turn, distorted interpretation of reality, relegates your commentary to the level of risible tosh. Were you not as literate a chap a you seem, one would refer to you as a man of commendable innocence.
Are you a member of the APA??? Which means a trained Psychiatrist?
I think identity politics is really just a canard.
I've always wondered why elite private elementary and secondary schools in Manhattan would become immersed in identity politics and political movements which are clearly contrary to their class interests. The Brearley School, The Dalton School, and Grace Church among others further eroding Enlightenment thought and the history of Western Civilization. Certainly, part of it comes from the so-called elite colleges (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.) for which they are feeders. Has a sudden wave of contrition come from institutions for the depredations of European expansion, hundreds of years of colonialism, and the depredations of Capitalism? Until I see substantive legislation that: 1) eliminates all forms of individual donations to candidates and funds elections through taxpayer dollars; 2) enforcement of anti-trust laws; 3) a more sober defense budget; 4) emphasis of returning manufacturing to the United States; 5) an end to efforts by energy and fossil fuel companies to block the introduction of alternative energy; 6) Medicare for All; 7) a repeal of Program 1033; 8) decriminalization of all drugs; 9) repeal of various tax laws and tax strategies which allow the significant sheltering of wealth from taxation; and 10) increases in the taxes for the very wealthy, etc., I will consider all of this to be "smoke and mirrors". This change of policy needs to come from the "seats of power". Pending this progressivism, I think much of the so-called Progressivism is just a kabuki play to keep the peasants fighting amongst themselves.
Certainly what passes for progressivism today is just more of the same-old-same-old misdirection.
Agreed 100% with your suggestions. Today, Our two political parties are like the teams that professional wrestling entrepreneurs have created to increase the ticket sales and stir up the emotions of their fans by fabricating two fake personas: the Good team fighting the Evil one while in real life they are the same and enjoy the profits.
IdPol is an attempt by the rising power elites (PMC, etc.) to legitimate their power, via quasi religious conformism. It has been wildly successful in the cultural realm, there is a lot of documentation of how the "Small Dictatorship of the Intolerant Minority" on the cultural-left has used psychological terrorism to enforce conformity and expand its power.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58133534-woke-racism
It's tough to argue with success. Both the political parties are worthless.
Agreed. One of the few things that I remember of Gore Vidal's "United States of Amnesia" is his insight that our political system is composed of only one party with two wright wings. And as you said completely worthless. I would add my irreverence to change the name of those wings as DemonRats and Ratpublicans.
Surprising anyone falls for this stuff. Sorry, good try but more of the same, it’s already been tried and has failed on quite epic scales.
Per Noam Chomsky, The Soviet Union was actually a form of state capitalism, the same as the US. He mentions that the only three internationally completive industries the US has are highly subsidized and intervened in by the government. Namely: Agriculture ( huge subsidies and market supports), Pharmaceuticals (public research
- private profits) & Technology ( supported by the Pentagon system).
Chomsky is daft, at least about the USSR. It was explicitly anti-capitalist and totalitarian.
I was in the USSR in 1974 and it was horrible, nothing like the USA/West (which Chomsky is correct about: the west has declined because of globalism and neoliberalism, as supported by massive "anti-free-market" govt subsidies).
This is a better explanation of how bourgeois capitalism morphed into managerial (Prussian) capitalism, which has morphed into digital capitalism, with the result that there is a deep conflict within the power elites that actually control things:
https://attackthesystem.com/2021/12/06/curtis-yarvin-mencius-moldbug-on-tucker-carlson-today-09-08-21/
Excellent points. Thank you.
If you want to see, open your eyes! This is a practical strategy which is showing concrete results. Try actually reading the article.
The article completely avoids talking about what "class revolution" and "socialism" actually mean in the real world, which is typically not pretty.
Being against corrupt corporations and the corrupt D-party establishment does not require "socialism". This movement has been successful IN SPITE OF being "socialist", not BECAUSE OF IT.
The article jumps through some strange hoops trying to be "populist" in some ways, but being elitist and obnoxious about "right wing populists".
Those kinds of contradictions and incoherent constructs are typical of the old "left" and "socialists" because there is no way to reconcile revolutionary class war with the populist-liberal tendencies of most actual working class people, who are patriotic and nationalistic "liberals".
That failure was what gave rise to the hyper toxic Frankfurters, neo-marxists, and postmoderns (Id Pol).
To live in this climate one must have backbone, and a fearless approach to dealing with the evil elite. They will use and tactic no matter how vile to defeat us. The people must stand up to oust Big Business from ALL influence it has in Politics, Media, Education,etc. Big business should not affect Policy ever. Legal Corporate Status must be revoked and removed from the Law Books. Making all corporations and their Directosr liable for any misdeed.
And, Thank You for being here!
Is that some kind of stupid leftist code? For _________ (what?)
Virtue signaling about your echo chamber??????
Having lived in a socialist country, I don't quite understand the current debate. Can anyone point me to a successful socialist experiment as far as economics go? The best socialist economy I can think of and, which I've also seen, is the former DDR = East Germany. It was a sad and gray affair overall. And we know how happy the people were, don't we? The idea that a strong state that rids itself off the billionaire class (then the millionaire class, then anyone with private property until no-one is left to get rid off) will somehow prosper is highly questionable. If the Left is suspicious of human nature and its weakness towards corruption of all sorts, why does it assume that that changes when all productions are controlled by the state? And speaking of environmental destruction: I would argue that the Soviet Union was probably #1 in environmental damage. Air and water pollution, chemical dumping, no checks on any prodution processes... none of it. And have any of those countries advance the rights and life quality of their populations? What has Socialism ever achieved worth debating? It's one thing to be pro unions, discuss issues like minimum wage, environmental policies, checks on unfettered capital. But the jump to "Revolution" and "Socialism"? Historically that was destruction and misery so far. That was the result everywhere where it actually happened, no?
The sooner people abandon the fairy tale of a Socialist Utopia the more practical we can all be. My only experience of a socialist country was visiting East Berlin (DDR) in the early 1970s. All the rubble from WW2 was neatly piled, trees were growing from the roofs of the old government buildings and the whole atmosphere reminded me of Billy Wilder's comedy: One, Two, Three...
I returned to the reunified Berlin in the early 1990's to find people selling Russian army memorability near the Brandenburg Gate. Construction cranes were to be found throughout the East (the major part of the original city), the neatly piled rubble was gone, and the former East was vibrant.
ID politics alone is political death, but to disregard the importance of identification and, ever more importantly, recognition (to wit: I see me in you and vice versa), means to avoid/ignore the potential to build robust coalitions to force real economic and social change. Bottom line, humans run on affinities, alliances, and allegiances, temporary though they often times may be. Instead of sawing ID politics off from our trunks as though they were useless appendages, we must add more to our quiver and acknowledge our common core -- CLASS -- and start sharing the bow!!
IdPol is totalitarian neo-marxism. The founders of CRT openly admit to their desire to destroy western civilization.
The "common core" needs to evolve to be anti-fragile to disruption, class struggle is obviously fragile and being "colonized" by pathological tendencies.
It's really hard to believe such an ill-informed comment would appear on a Chris Hedges Report discussion thread but hey, it takes all kinds. Politics is *always* about identity, identifying, and identification. Don't believe me? Get on the horn with the GOP. They've been promoting family values and right to work nonsense even when Marx was alive and actively writing. By your logic, that's the core of their "totalitarian neo-marxism." HA!!
Do you even understand what Sawant is saying?????
"Woke" cancel culture (another phrase meaning IdPol) is toxic and undermines class struggle.
Are you actually such an idiot that you can't understand basic facts???
Adolph Reed's "cancellation" by the DSA a while ago is another example.
You can't even understand what other leftists that are against "woke" Id Pol are talking about?????
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DAFT
What's daft is assuming identification in politics and political activity is the sole prevue of the "the left" (whatever that means) when, clearly, it is not. And that's why you got your hackles up: you haven't questioned any of these moronic assertions spun through the media. Don't believe me? Riddle me this: who originally proposed the holiday of Thanksgiving in the United States, when, and why? The answers you find might surprise you.
Again, you are DAFT, and adrift in some bizarro echo chamber that has nothing to do with the article being discussed, and probably nothing to do with reality in general.
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From another discussion:
TOXIC Leftist/ Cultural Marxist, PC left, CRT/SJW/BLM rhetoric*, explained:
000. use absurd SMEARS
00. project
0. gaslight
......
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done (move goal posts)
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as straw manning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative / shift goal posts
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
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*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.
You seem to have an allergy to facts that creates severe delusions and a desire for ideological conformity. In other words, you are presumably a leftist.
You are either another disingenuous asshole, or truly ignorant as to what "Identity Politics" actually is (postmodern relativism).
Dumb cluck.
Not even remotely accurate. Rather, I have a clear understanding of both history and the present and thus do not allow myself to be manipulated by either. Try it -- it's liberating. Or don't they offer historically accurate classes at Prager U?
You are a reactionary buffoon lost in an echo chamber that is manipulated by your own delusions.
SEEK PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT, ASAP.
The long list of grievances/accusations you now seek to project onto me -- a person whom, it should be noted, you do not know but claim to understand *precisely* and *definitively* based on four or five thoughts I shared (re: common misunderstandings of identity in politics and how they pertain/apply to all gradients on the political spectrum) -- seems to apply more to you than anyone else, let alone me. If I am mistaken here, then by all means feel free to address the points in my OP. Barring that, disengaging from this 'discussion' might be in your best emotional, psychological, and intellectual interests. I know it would help me, but what I know and what I do are often not in alignment -- as I am sure you must understand from your own personal perspective. All the best to you, e.pierce.