Catherine Liu details how the professional managerial class (PMC) has betrayed workers for seats within the halls of power, all while they wag their fingers at the politically incorrect working class.
Yes Yes Yes !!! In case anyone doubts we blue collar workers aren't a bunch of undeserving, ignorant bigots, read the deep research and robust statistics in Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It)//.
Since 1996, 60 million workers (!) have been hit by mass layoffs. Why? To finance stock buybacks that only benefit CEOs and banksters. Behavior once tightly regulated by New Deal laws repealed under Clinton. Leopold begged the Dem leadership to take up the issue: *crickets*
Bear in mind the working class is the majority in the U.S. In 2016, Sen. Chuck Schumer said "For every blue collar Democratic vote we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." That proved a winning strategy, didn't it?! Leopold's stats show a direct correlation where as mass layoffs go up in a county, Democratic votes go down. And here's the kicker--at the same time, these same white working class voters have grown more and more progressive on social issues. So much for elitist denigration and so much for wedge issue.
I speak from decades of experience. My grandpa was a Wobbly (IWW.) I was a blue collar rank and file union activist for nearly 30 years. Trained in the late '60s by people who'd been leftist (C.I.O.) labor organizers in the 1930s; they told me "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts." Exactly what happened when the neolibs usurped the D party, then dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. We lessers know the Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering workers of the Rust Belt/Appalachia as they did TO the vultures who caused the '08 crash. NOTHING! No coincidence the same area leads in what are called 'deaths of despair.'
I'm also BIPOC (my avatar is my on artwork) and LGBTQ--trans, two-spirit {gasp!} I deeply resent armchair theorists who whitemansplain what we Others should or should not feel when they've never had to fight to be recognized as human nor, for that matter, ever held a tool in their lives. We're not ceding what was hard won (or still ongoing.) Same I feel about self-selected vanguards implying, in contrast to Eugene Debs, you think we're too stupid to lead ourselves. In a post-Einstein quantum world, the either/or of Aristotelian logic is no longer sufficient. Besides, politics is the art of coalition building. The leftist, liberal, and D party elites had best learn to talk with us, not down to us.
Catherine is amazing! Fun story. Hedges exposed me to Gretchen Morgenson in his Real News interview with her (which probably played a part in his dismissal!) I brought her to Oklahoma City to speak on private equity... shortly after I started talking with Liu and then connected the two of them.... really neat when stuff works out like that. Thanks for everything Chris, you're really helping.
The Left always purports to speak for the working class, while rejecting the values of the working class. Even worse, the left actually represents the interests of the PMC and does not know the extent of its ignorance on many many issues.
For instance, when the left promotes "Green Technology" it forgets who installs that Tech, who maintains that Tech, and most importantly who drives that Green Technology to the Landfill to be disposed of. The working class understands the world far better than the PMC because it knows where the bodies are buried, because they buried them.
There's a lot here, and it does feel a bit confusing...but I think I agree with the base line assertions.
There is no left in neoliberal, neocon America.......or only a very marginalized, and often under analysed one.
The problem is, the success of globalization happened so long ago (45 years?) that most people now take it for granted. Most people weren't alive....let alone politically conscious, during the Viet Nam years..............and its a long way we've come from any summer of love.
Having studied in America I don't really believe that there's ever been a left in America...at least not one I'd recognize. I'm Canadian, born into a CCF family and I think I understand socialism....the ideas and goals of socialism. I have no freaking idea what 'left' stands for...maybe left out is what it means. Just as being on the right means always having the correct answer, even if you don't know the question.
There seems to be a lack of analysis concerning what we need as societies in order to prosper, live well and not be afraid or hungry half the time. The virtue signalling is all around us....people with the most means seem the most progressive........in their attitudes. But few do much to change anything for the better........and yes, identity politics are silly politics......they only don't seem so in a culture that's intolerant and judgemental.
I read a Lebanese playrite recently who said "To have only one identity is to be a fascist". The comment lit up my brain, it was so obviously true. But America, and the west in general, is the culture of the Same. We gather in gaggles of Sameness....even when we endorse diversity, no one should assume we intend to live diversely.
The American gulag is self destructing. Perhaps the managereal class are largely to blame...but how the broken working class has decided to express its rage and despair is pathetically capitalist as well. And while we fight, and demonize each other.........the planet breaks down under the multiple attacks of our extractivist corporations........
I think most of us, on all sides, are fiddling.............WHILE THE PLANET BURNS.
Yes Yes Yes !!! In case anyone doubts we blue collar workers aren't a bunch of undeserving, ignorant bigots, read the deep research and robust statistics in Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It)//.
Since 1996, 60 million workers (!) have been hit by mass layoffs. Why? To finance stock buybacks that only benefit CEOs and banksters. Behavior once tightly regulated by New Deal laws repealed under Clinton. Leopold begged the Dem leadership to take up the issue: *crickets*
Bear in mind the working class is the majority in the U.S. In 2016, Sen. Chuck Schumer said "For every blue collar Democratic vote we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." That proved a winning strategy, didn't it?! Leopold's stats show a direct correlation where as mass layoffs go up in a county, Democratic votes go down. And here's the kicker--at the same time, these same white working class voters have grown more and more progressive on social issues. So much for elitist denigration and so much for wedge issue.
I speak from decades of experience. My grandpa was a Wobbly (IWW.) I was a blue collar rank and file union activist for nearly 30 years. Trained in the late '60s by people who'd been leftist (C.I.O.) labor organizers in the 1930s; they told me "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts." Exactly what happened when the neolibs usurped the D party, then dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. We lessers know the Ds did FOR the unemployed, suffering workers of the Rust Belt/Appalachia as they did TO the vultures who caused the '08 crash. NOTHING! No coincidence the same area leads in what are called 'deaths of despair.'
I'm also BIPOC (my avatar is my on artwork) and LGBTQ--trans, two-spirit {gasp!} I deeply resent armchair theorists who whitemansplain what we Others should or should not feel when they've never had to fight to be recognized as human nor, for that matter, ever held a tool in their lives. We're not ceding what was hard won (or still ongoing.) Same I feel about self-selected vanguards implying, in contrast to Eugene Debs, you think we're too stupid to lead ourselves. In a post-Einstein quantum world, the either/or of Aristotelian logic is no longer sufficient. Besides, politics is the art of coalition building. The leftist, liberal, and D party elites had best learn to talk with us, not down to us.
Catherine is amazing! Fun story. Hedges exposed me to Gretchen Morgenson in his Real News interview with her (which probably played a part in his dismissal!) I brought her to Oklahoma City to speak on private equity... shortly after I started talking with Liu and then connected the two of them.... really neat when stuff works out like that. Thanks for everything Chris, you're really helping.
Catherine hits the nail on the head.
The Left always purports to speak for the working class, while rejecting the values of the working class. Even worse, the left actually represents the interests of the PMC and does not know the extent of its ignorance on many many issues.
For instance, when the left promotes "Green Technology" it forgets who installs that Tech, who maintains that Tech, and most importantly who drives that Green Technology to the Landfill to be disposed of. The working class understands the world far better than the PMC because it knows where the bodies are buried, because they buried them.
Catherine’s rhetoric is refreshingly candid. Great interview.
There's a lot here, and it does feel a bit confusing...but I think I agree with the base line assertions.
There is no left in neoliberal, neocon America.......or only a very marginalized, and often under analysed one.
The problem is, the success of globalization happened so long ago (45 years?) that most people now take it for granted. Most people weren't alive....let alone politically conscious, during the Viet Nam years..............and its a long way we've come from any summer of love.
Having studied in America I don't really believe that there's ever been a left in America...at least not one I'd recognize. I'm Canadian, born into a CCF family and I think I understand socialism....the ideas and goals of socialism. I have no freaking idea what 'left' stands for...maybe left out is what it means. Just as being on the right means always having the correct answer, even if you don't know the question.
There seems to be a lack of analysis concerning what we need as societies in order to prosper, live well and not be afraid or hungry half the time. The virtue signalling is all around us....people with the most means seem the most progressive........in their attitudes. But few do much to change anything for the better........and yes, identity politics are silly politics......they only don't seem so in a culture that's intolerant and judgemental.
I read a Lebanese playrite recently who said "To have only one identity is to be a fascist". The comment lit up my brain, it was so obviously true. But America, and the west in general, is the culture of the Same. We gather in gaggles of Sameness....even when we endorse diversity, no one should assume we intend to live diversely.
The American gulag is self destructing. Perhaps the managereal class are largely to blame...but how the broken working class has decided to express its rage and despair is pathetically capitalist as well. And while we fight, and demonize each other.........the planet breaks down under the multiple attacks of our extractivist corporations........
I think most of us, on all sides, are fiddling.............WHILE THE PLANET BURNS.
This interview might be a little more coherent... A better intro to Liu
https://youtu.be/Ia6m3pIIS2k?si=zOqYMFUm4iwGFtNu
Feb. 13, 2025
I read this whole transcript and found it informative on the whole.
I agree with Super Bowl Steve Hunt that "This interview might be a little more coherent"
Great interview!