Oct 1, 2022·edited Oct 1, 2022Liked by Robert Reich
I feel like we're not learning anything new. The GOP and corporations remain now as they have always been...believers in a government that bails them out, but not others....that taxpayer dollars must be used when they need help, when they need saving, when their poor planning or poor decision making or poor luck knocks them down...but not when children need to eat or see a doctor...not when people want to maybe learn something without going into lifelong debt to do so. Republican officials and voters will happily accept government help, complain that it isn't enough, and it will then be a brief countdown before they blast any attempt to help democratic voters suffering, even if it's for the exact same reason. The usual corporations will see the devastation as a wonderful buying opportunity, use endless government funds to rebuild residential and commercial properties that will all but ensure most residents can't return to their home towns given the new sky-high prices. And of course, the also-corporate-run Dems will not be able to or simply choose not to effectively use this blatant hypocrisy to call out these individual and institutional monsters. And then.... sometime soon, we will spend trillions invading another country in an attempt to spread democracy at gunpoint...because obviously...we're just so scary-talented at it.
You are speaking of course of "Corporate Wellfare." AMERICANS that need assistance are "wellfare queens." CORPORATIONS that STEAL assistance are "booming industries."
I’m surprised no one else mentioned the phrase welfare queen, Saint Ronnie”s ubiquitous minority women scamming the system to buy Cadillacs. And, Bush’s Willie Horton to demonize Gov. Dukakis’s liberal ideas. And when the GOP implements social programs, such as PPP, they do it so it can easily be scammed, to prove govt social programs never work
Beautifully said, Ian. And , of course, spending the $trillion dollars+ on the next war gets people rallying around the flag, and not thinking of all the Corporate welfare and lack of child tax credits.
'Corporate socialism' is one of the definitional descriptions of the economic program of Italian fascism: corporatism. Your accurate description of the American economy, with which I concur, is a simple and direct illustration that we do NOT live in a free market or capitalist system per se but in a veiled fascist economy of socialism and regulatory capture for the rich and the corporate paired with neo-feudalist structural impoverishment and outright debt slavery for most of the citizenry.
This will end when we have the revolution to transform our ever more warped system because the affluent and their bought political parties have less than no incentive to reform of their own volition: the rich of either political party have seceded from a common system of government for the functionally fascist oligarchy of their own untouchable enrichment. We vote now, but our outcomes remain _highly_ constrained by the Manchins and the Pelosis of 'the system,' as much and even more than the overtly hostile Repugnicant political factors. Those who already own assets, mortgages and the like are tied to them, and have no incentive for actual revolution. Those coming up who have no hope of EVER owning such assets due to the price inflation now rampant and their own debt slavery, have very different structural incentives. Few under 30 have any structural stake in the present system because corporate fascism has herded them into the cattle pens of a perverse economic system. We shall see.
I keep coming back to why. What is it in our species that embraces willful ignorance of intelligent people? Why are we so easily scammed? So easily deceived? I am watching the women who are standing up to the morality police and burning their hijabs. For years a belief has been accepted that men cannot control them selves so a woman’s hair must be covered. How insulting to men, The full .burka is even more sinister, It completely isolates a woman even from the friendly smile of a stranger, but also covers up the bruises from being beaten. We say we want to be respectful and tolerant of peoples choice of religion, but all the Abrhamic religions, ie Christianity, Judaism, Islam are based on paternalist, patriarchal teachings and each in its way keeps women as second class citizens, Why aren’t we all outraged at this injustice? This also keeps our ability to discern the truth, and when we are being exploited confused and in chaos. All religions are cults and use methods of exploitation and control for power and money. It is magical thinking to believe in an unprovable God, and if you question, the problem is that you are unworthy and lack faith. If E=MC2, matter equals the speed of light divided by energy. I can’t really understand this, but it is based in qualities of this existence that really exist. What a better world if our decisions were based on what nurtures and sustains the symbiotic relationships that are LIFE. What if we worshiped and stood in awe at the fact that this planet is so beautiful and rare because it can support LIFE and we were meat to have reflective thinking and be good stewards supporting the homeostasis of the planet. We would then see that we are mammals and come in the sam colors as many other mammals. red, yellow, black, brown!white just like horses, cows, pigs, cats, dogs, chickens, and we have the sam variations of normal in brain development and genitalia as other mammals leading to hetero, LGBTQ variations, and variations in being monogamous or not. We could no longer use race, sex, or sexual orientation to dominate and exploit others. If we believed in the teachings or most religions, love one another, do not steal, lie, cheat, murder, or covet, the best aspects of our species we might have a chance, but we also embrace teachings in al t support defending each religion even at the cost of genocide. I am not sure how we get past what we are indoctrinated into from birth and find the truth of our species and what it needs to do to truely support each other and all other life forms on the rare and precious planet
Simple answer: many Americans are WOEFULLY under-educated AND proudly bigoted. It's a deadly combination that keeps Bunkerboy as the "Dear Leader" of the dying _rumplican party.
Hi Linda. I love your post and agree with most of it. The problem with interfering with someone else's religious beliefs, they may interfere with yours. This is part of the reason I am an atheist. If I had my druthers there would be no religions, but people cling to their religious beliefs for the comfort it gives them. The one area of disagreement is your misinterpretation of Einsteins equation; E stands for Energy and it equals Mass (not matter) accelerated to the speed of light squared. So far we have only achieved this in terrible weapons of mass destruction (the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Hydrogen bomb - which so far has only been demonstrated but not used. I wish the United Nations would condemn Iran's killing of that young woman for the "crime" of wearing her hijab incorrectly. But then I am an American woman, not an Iranian man
Your confusion is in part the result of approaching sociological and social psychological frameworks cognitively, as if they were 'reasoned developments' like overtly deciding how to build a Tinkertoy airplane. This is not how conceptual systems and institutional frameworks develop, to my observation of them. Rather, they are driven by material context, political constraints, and, yes, self-interested beliefs, typically with few overt decisions, and invariably with no comprehension of unintended consequences of those actions both overt or uncomprehended.
One reason driving the extreme sequestration of women in some societies is that those were often conquered societies with slavetaking from one's own women and collaborationist marriages willing and unwilling endemic. Those practices are in many respects driven by past desires for communal survival, which required keeping 'one's own women' where there wasn't the legal or military capability of securing them other than by moral pressure.
To me, this is a subsidiary element in the sudden surge of anti-abortion sentiment amongst white nativist Americans: many of their own children, especially the best and the brightest, are migrating from their jerkwater towns and rural tracts to colleges, big cities, and personal assimilation to the dominant culture. Anti-abortion sentiment has knotty conceptual roots apart from this, but the _emotional_ commitment to the issue from a community who couldn't have cared less about abortion prior to the major, liberal successes of the dominant culture 50-60 years ago is goosed by the fact that their children and especially their daughters are defecting from 'their' culture to another in non-trivial numbers, to the point where white rural communities are very definitely in demographic decline---and they know it.
Individuals are irrational for individual reasons, which are diverse and yet particular to their circumstances. Communities are irrational, in my view, when active circumstances constrain or begin to interdict primary aspects of their cultural identity and, more overtly, their material sustenance. White nativist Americans are being economically driven off their lands by the decline of the family agriculture and pastoralism which are the central components of their worldview, and as precarious 'workers' in suburbs and elsewhere are seeing their culture-definitional kin networks break down and the gradual defection of the talented part of each generation coming up. There IS a real situational pressure on their communal status and continuance, they are not wrong about that. They are wrong that anyone is, actively, planning to 'replace' them: Union America just doesn't care about them much one way or the other unless they're acting as a threat, which they are now. White nativist Americans are terrified of losing their privileged 'whiteness' due to demographic and political decline, and being driven down by American capitalism to become isolated, individual, competitors for crumbs with all those putative, more numerous 'hordes' of immigrant and othercolored 'others' who they have often themselves oppressed directly whenever they had the whip hand and with whom they patently have no direct solidarity. They are not wrong that oligarchical capitalism has it in for them in that---just like it has it in for everybody else too. But their solution is to cut the othercolors out of the equation and to enforce their communal control over 'their women,' constituencies who have no such desire to those outcomes come about. Others _not_ them see those as illegitimate goals, but for their cultural community these are respectively cultural strategies of millennia practiced to success far too often historically. So the effort of _their_ community to keep on doing what ‘made them great’ is not delusional, it’s basic communal strategy (ask any Native American about how that went).
Irrational communal behaviors have real drivers, even if the causality is not direct but in fact only precipitative and in the nature of shaping an 'outcome space.' Intent is seen where it may not be, but your community may have just as bad an outcome from incidental conquest and dispersal as it might from presumed but in fact nonexistent deliberate, hostile, initiatives. Q Klux Anons experience a real erosion of communal and personal standing, and make up viciously deluded 'explanations' for that . . . but the erosion is to a degree real, and that gives energy to their flailings.
Oh, and people are dumb; including smart people. You'll never lose money betting on the stupidity of any human aggregation, even if the degree of the boneheadedness fluctuates time by time. Exhibit A: homeowners in the State of Florida without insurance. That’s a bet with a whirling devil, which is no smart play. People do dumb things all the time because they are easy whereas doing anything else is hard. Dying is easy too; just sit still and wait for it. Standing up, or walking on when one does takes an effort, and humanity is a ‘path of least resistance’ enterprise—except an irrational few, who break trail where their vision tells them; sometimes.
I agree with your rationale, you have stated it succinctly and beautifully. The problem still remains, how do we re-enfold these disoriented people into the diverse American culture, giving them a reason to once again be proud of the whole country as those of us on this forum are. How can we get them to embrace others who share a common dignity even if there are physical differences between them?
There isn't a 'common dignity;' that is the self-serving delusion of Blue America. The White nationalist historical community I mention has ever allied _situationally_ with the power structure wherever they were if they couldn't dominate it or run that themselves---but those alliances have ever been ENTIRELY opportunistic. As soon as the drift of power shifted, that community turned their coat, swapped cockades, and sucked up to any power structure they have thought could better serve them. Or simply staged a coup and took over themselves. I could go into historical particulars on that, but just consider this yourself: the South despised the Union, got the shit finally kicked out of them in the Civil War, came back waving the Stars and Stripes in both World Wars when agricultural prices were supported by the Federal government, then turned on Blue American in the 1970s and now is looking to emplace their own Fuerhrer to get in good with instead, their own Donald ‘King James.' The appearance of 'common patriotism' is not the actuality of sectional self-interest. What we see now again has _always_ been there beneath the surface flag waving. White nativist America has ALWAYS defied a common, national, government to the extent of their power projection whenever they didn’t get every speck of what they saw as in their own interest. Crack your history book and you’ll see just what I’m talking about.
There are three aspects to restoring 'common goals' to the American population as a whole. A) Buy off white nativist American by better services and fairer economic conditions. B) Kick the shit out of them if they decide to try insurrection again. C) Assimilate their sons and daughters into the dominant 'common [sic]' culture. Not to be too fine about it, or paint the process in niceties. Those are the choices. Or we could surrender to them and let them run their caste driven society over the faces and hides of everyone else, that's an 'option' too, but one with a particularist outcome rather than a common one, because the only satisfactory end for that macro culture is caste domination by their own, looking at the multi-millennial history of that community. We can forget 'gentle persuasion' as an effective modality of re-unity, although that should always be used too. I am largely commenting in this space to undercut the liberal delusion that 'gentle, righteous, persuasion' is anything other than a self-serving and self-defeating program, just as it has been through 40 years. If you and I believe our way is better, or even if we want to preserve it for ourselves, Red America must be defeated and know that they are defeated, though a generous peace would be preferable to the scorched earth, ethnic cleansing, and slavery that we would see from them if they ever had the chance---as they have in times and places past. This isn't a process of peace, love, and understanding, is what I'm saying. It's about power, and they play to win all. So we'd better get down to it if we want to hold onto what we have built alongside them. Blue America is not perfect, and there’s needless and undeserved blood much on our hands. But if we want to hold what we’ve thus far won and do better with it, we’d better get on with things.
I agree there isn't a common dignity, but there should be. We are all one species, none of us are "better" than others, we all have flaws. But, the least we can do is respect (if possible) the good in others. Having said that, unfortunately I also agree that in some individuals there is no good to be found.
Did anyone here get taught in school the definitions of socialism, communism, capitalism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism? No? Why not? Did you get all your notions of socialism from rabid television commentators and rabid politicians?
I think too much of American secondary education relies on short or multiple choice answers rather than examining concepts in any depth. We sometimes congratulate ourselves if young people can define something without concerning ourselves with their ability to apply that information.
Thank you progwoman, That was exactly why I refused to administer that type of test when I was teaching. I have always said that low grades from students means the teacher failed to teach. When I taught science my tests were tell me in your own words what----- means. Got some really good, and occasionally funny responses, but it taught me where I needed to improve and it made my students think about what they had learned.
No I didn't get it in school - some short discussion in the two semesters of Political Science I took before changing majors to biology and chemistry. I got most of my information from extensive reading and from history.
I voted other. I think the answers are most of the above. #1 and #2 are the GOP's default positions just like abortion is a default position/buzzword. Socialism riles up the poorly educated. The MAGAt crowd thinks the only handouts are to migrants, refugees, black, and brown people.
#3 and #4 need to be explained to the poorly educated crowd. Especially #3. Sadly, there is a good deal of the population who prefer to be willfully ignorant. They have no idea where SS comes from. They have no idea that Medicaid is a social safety net that is taxpayer funded and one they may be using! Medicare is the same. I remember when town hall meetings were a big thing. Barney Frank took a statement from a woman who said, the government better keep their hands off of her SS. WTH? Democrats have got to explain these programs and how they're funded.
Four states, three which precede the Constitution, are commonwealths. One of the reasons for the development of this country was the reaction to "Enclosure Acts" in England. The rich discovered that they could make more profits from their estates if they kicked out the common people, built fences (enclosed the land), and raised sheep. People whose ancestors had lived in an area for centuries suddenly found themselves jobless & homeless. Whole villages were emptied. Territory was being converted to property. People wanted separation- private space. Private property became a symbol of rank. Many common people emigrated. The commonwealths protected common peoples' rights. In most places parks, other areas were held "in common." A farmer could, for example, take his livestock to the commons to graze.
The commons is a property term, i.e, a citizen is entitled to state property held for the benefit of all. Commons refers to elements in the natural environment, held by citizens in common and sheltered from the market, because their value to the well-being of the community exceeds any monetary value that could be ascribed to them. Traditional examples of commons include forests, fisheries, or groundwater resources, but increasingly the term commons is used for a broader set of domains, such as knowledge commons, digital commons, urban commons, health commons, cultural commons, etc.. In some states, any citizen may use public parks and beaches. In the Western United States and Canada, open range is rangeland where cattle roam freely regardless of land ownership. Where there are "open range" laws, those wanting to keep animals off their property must erect a fence to keep animals out; this applies to public roads as well.
Our notion off "socialism" comes mostly from Marxism. But as I documented earlier, we had communal communities in the US long before Marx. Some of our communal institutions, like the post office are enshrined in the Constitution. Lands were given to Revolutionary War veterans. The government built post roads and post offices. Washington created a welfare system for the new city of DC..
Another notion of the commons is common law, also known as case law, is a body of unwritten laws based on legal precedents established by the courts. Common law draws from institutionalized opinions and interpretations from judicial authorities and public juries. .IMHO common law is bootstrapped into the constitution through the 9th Amendment. In some states, common law rights may not be have to be expressed in writing, even in state constitutions E.G. States that still have common law marriages are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and the District of Columbia.
Good information, thanks! I voted "other" also. I have different and opposing information re open range lands. But in re "other," as previously stated my view of the future is based on all the different horses Death can now come riding on.
Thank you, Daniel, for this succinct, and necessary explanation of "common(s)" And, also for the explanation of Marx interpretation of Socialism and how it came to be confused with Communism. We really need to have the many forms of governing clearly explained in all high schools in the US with no 'moral', 'religious', or 'wealth' input. It might be good to add teaching of capitalism both the Adam Smith version and the current American 'Welfare Queen' version.
Oct 1, 2022Liked by Robert Reich, Heather Lofthouse
While listening to Michael Hoppe's exit theme, I had the image of the end of the film The Third Man, with Robert Reich as Joseph Cotton, leaning up against a parked car -- an electric vehicle-- and Heather (Alida Valli) walking down that Vienna street. But instead of walking past, she turns to Robert, and he's there with two large cups of coffee -- extending one out to her.
What Americans have been brainwashed to believe: Capitalism equals democracy. Anything (or anyone) that threatens capitalism is therefore a threat to democracy. What a brilliant and diabolical sales job.
Yes it serves corporate interests. If demonizing socialism cost corporations a dime it would stop in a heartbeat.instead it makes them money. yeah just Outsource everything. Amazon will look out after you.
I'm leaning toward "all of the above". I don't believe that we Dems don't aren't trying to fight the good fight, but I do think that our presentation needs work. I hope that we can take Ian in Florida as a moment to explain what the federal government can, and does, provide in emergencies because of the federal policies we have which are designed to maintain a social safety net. DeSantis advocates the Grover Norquist theory of government, but now that his state is suffering, he will happily take the federal money to provide the safety net (and then turn around and criticize everything the federal government does). I am not advocating that we try to profit from human suffering (the GOP owns that), but I think we need to use the response to this suffering to illustrate the value of liberal social policies, and the importance of a federal response to ensure that the distribution is equitable.
Agreed. The federal government should make it clear where the money is coming from. What I find despicable is that real estate interests can erect all kinds of vulnerable properties and then bear no responsibility for their folly.
I sure love your voice, but I wonder if it would be possible to have these chats transcribed. I'm a much quicker reader than a listener, And I can retain better.
1) If we want a better idea why national news is not disclosing who is giving how much to whom it is because the billionaires are buying into national news and reining in who can say what.
2) Ginni Thomas is a grand example of why the spouse of SCOTUS justice should be banned from ANYTHING political. Ginny is not afraid to tell us that she believes the BIG LIE. So, Clarence should not be allowed to vote on anything related to the previous national election.
3) The GOPers have out-organized and brain-washed their adherents. There Is no middle anymore in the GOP. You either adhere or they throw you out.
No, not "we". The Republican Party, Libertarians and other people who actually believe in the "self-made man [sic]" have made a project out of conflating socialism, communism, social welfare and any other "welfare" initiatives with Soviet style communism. Democrats have made a huge mistake though, and they continue to make the same mistake today - we allow the right to define the terms of the debate, then we fall victim to their definitions. Democrats insist on using the word "social" to describe all manner of policies and programs. This is just dumb. And dumber. It seems we finally start getting smart with programs named "Aid for Dependent Children"; the title is good but the debate is still conducted in Republican terms, e.g. social welfare. The Republicans have weaponized almost all of the language that Democrats use to explain, justify and advertise their efforts to help people. They "own the libs" alright because we have allowed them to own the language. A culture war is partly a language war with the battle being fought over labels that most people don't even know what they mean. Change the language, beat them at their own game!
"Debate." Actually I think that they have no agenda except power and any "discussion" of any "issue" is a rationalization. They demagogue to a racist collective subconscious.
I think the reason "socialism" resonates as the bogey man is the age-old issue of racism. When government helps people, Black people may be included, and still a substantial proportion of the population, including many members of Congress, just don't want to do anything positive for Black people.
As for hurricane damage in Florida, I suspect Ron DeSantis will try to usurp as much of the credit as he can. Sad to say, I don't think the help from federal agencies will affect people's perception of the federal government. And most of the affected people shown on the TV news seem to be white.
With respect to down ballot voting, it seems that the Democratic Party, over the past twenty years at least, has trained its voters to care only about president. That puts an extra burden on each down ballot Democratic candidate to convince people to vote for the office at all before proceeding to convincing them to vote for the candidate for the office. The Democratic Party has thus put itself at a serious disadvantage, which is manifested in many of the problems discussed in this coffee klatch.
Long term problem. In Florida, Cubans are convinced that Kennedy was their enemy and any Democrat is guilty by association. They remind us daily that Castro evokes "Socialismo o muerrte."
Pa., for example, has never recovered from the Homestead Strike, IL from the Haymarket Riot.
Racism. In the south easy to understand the Civil War. In the north, blacks were used as strikebreakers. The Nixon Southern Strategy worked.
Dems need to start saying "The republicans are really planning at the taking away YOUR social security" much like Republicans do with " they are planning about taking away your guns".
(It is true about misunderstanding of socialism v. social safety net and about communicating how it works - but I see the "guns" fear being seeming effective - I dont know why cause it is killing everyone to have more guns than people in the US.
It is worth a try: its concise and true and we generally are increasing in older americans who need social security to survive. The alternative is to let the republicans will brain wash everyone that it will never be there for the / you once we age into it.
Can we make it a choice: Guns (danger and death) v. Social Security (Security - Safety - Support when we most need it)
Republicans own the media and have an outsized 'voice' ; (remember : money is speech). they have more money than Democrats, and, therefore, more influence. The Disclose Act being shot down by the un Democratic Senate is a good example. If the public at large had a heads up about that bill ; there may have been a strong push for it that might have influenced their 'representatives' to act. But, as has been pointed out on this forum ; even Democrats are 'on the take' with the dark money, The way this is set up now, how else could they compete? Look at once 'pristine' and idealistic Krysten Sinema now. At one time she actually cared about regular folks. Got a taste of the big bucks and power and Shazam! Ms. Super sellout! Only a saint (or a Bernie Sanders), can keep on keeping on ; and even such a stalwart as he is done in by the all destroying lying media. They kill us again and again.
The problem in the United States goes back even further than a century and is not just a Republican problem. The robber barons of the 19th century got it started as an anti-union tactic. There was a socialist vein in American life going back to the earlier 19th century when there were Evangelical socialists! Various unions and worker's movements, often influenced by immigrants from Europe where socialism was a valid political option, embraced various forms of socialism and the plutocrats went after them. Both political parties went right along. Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party, was jailed for objecting to WW I, and Wilson's AG, Palmer, led the first Red Scare after the war. Republicans became the preeminent Commie hunters in opposition to FDR and the New Deal, and produced Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). Ever since, any attempt at social progress has been labeled Communism or Socialism. It is allowed to stand because so few Americans actually know what socialism is (Witness people calling Barak Obama and Joe Biden socialists) What I learned growing up in California public schools was all from the perspective of anti-communist propaganda. I had to read the actual sources on my own, and generally keep what I was learning to myself. People in every European country, as well as Canada and Mexico know more about socialism than Americans, sadly. This ignorance is what allows Republicans to get away with calling Democratic centrism "socialism."
There's a great article in today's Washington Post by Allyson Chiu on the big surprise people are getting at the relative lack of destroyed homes and buildings in Punta Gorda -- which faced the worst of Ian for several hours.
The answer: the implementation of much stricter building codes after all the damage caused by Charlie in 2004.
Building codes are an important form of government regulation, based on science. Can we get back to more of this?
I feel like we're not learning anything new. The GOP and corporations remain now as they have always been...believers in a government that bails them out, but not others....that taxpayer dollars must be used when they need help, when they need saving, when their poor planning or poor decision making or poor luck knocks them down...but not when children need to eat or see a doctor...not when people want to maybe learn something without going into lifelong debt to do so. Republican officials and voters will happily accept government help, complain that it isn't enough, and it will then be a brief countdown before they blast any attempt to help democratic voters suffering, even if it's for the exact same reason. The usual corporations will see the devastation as a wonderful buying opportunity, use endless government funds to rebuild residential and commercial properties that will all but ensure most residents can't return to their home towns given the new sky-high prices. And of course, the also-corporate-run Dems will not be able to or simply choose not to effectively use this blatant hypocrisy to call out these individual and institutional monsters. And then.... sometime soon, we will spend trillions invading another country in an attempt to spread democracy at gunpoint...because obviously...we're just so scary-talented at it.
You are speaking of course of "Corporate Wellfare." AMERICANS that need assistance are "wellfare queens." CORPORATIONS that STEAL assistance are "booming industries."
Pathetic that we just accept that.
I would love to see pictures of these guys in drag with the caption “Welfare Queens.” Can you imagine? 😀
https://deadline.com/2022/08/daily-show-rupauls-drag-race-crossover-1235095607/
So it wasn’t an original idea. I still love it.
I’m surprised no one else mentioned the phrase welfare queen, Saint Ronnie”s ubiquitous minority women scamming the system to buy Cadillacs. And, Bush’s Willie Horton to demonize Gov. Dukakis’s liberal ideas. And when the GOP implements social programs, such as PPP, they do it so it can easily be scammed, to prove govt social programs never work
How right you are
Be careful with your pronouns. We do not accept that, I would guess not a single one of the readers here.
Ms Page:
You are right!
"We" use the first-person plural pronoun too carelessly.
Anything can be justified if "we" approve or "we" look the other way.
The use of "we," "us," and "our" are very often a signal of lazy thinking . . . or of a covert form of coercion.
Beautifully said, Ian. And , of course, spending the $trillion dollars+ on the next war gets people rallying around the flag, and not thinking of all the Corporate welfare and lack of child tax credits.
'Corporate socialism' is one of the definitional descriptions of the economic program of Italian fascism: corporatism. Your accurate description of the American economy, with which I concur, is a simple and direct illustration that we do NOT live in a free market or capitalist system per se but in a veiled fascist economy of socialism and regulatory capture for the rich and the corporate paired with neo-feudalist structural impoverishment and outright debt slavery for most of the citizenry.
This will end when we have the revolution to transform our ever more warped system because the affluent and their bought political parties have less than no incentive to reform of their own volition: the rich of either political party have seceded from a common system of government for the functionally fascist oligarchy of their own untouchable enrichment. We vote now, but our outcomes remain _highly_ constrained by the Manchins and the Pelosis of 'the system,' as much and even more than the overtly hostile Repugnicant political factors. Those who already own assets, mortgages and the like are tied to them, and have no incentive for actual revolution. Those coming up who have no hope of EVER owning such assets due to the price inflation now rampant and their own debt slavery, have very different structural incentives. Few under 30 have any structural stake in the present system because corporate fascism has herded them into the cattle pens of a perverse economic system. We shall see.
I keep coming back to why. What is it in our species that embraces willful ignorance of intelligent people? Why are we so easily scammed? So easily deceived? I am watching the women who are standing up to the morality police and burning their hijabs. For years a belief has been accepted that men cannot control them selves so a woman’s hair must be covered. How insulting to men, The full .burka is even more sinister, It completely isolates a woman even from the friendly smile of a stranger, but also covers up the bruises from being beaten. We say we want to be respectful and tolerant of peoples choice of religion, but all the Abrhamic religions, ie Christianity, Judaism, Islam are based on paternalist, patriarchal teachings and each in its way keeps women as second class citizens, Why aren’t we all outraged at this injustice? This also keeps our ability to discern the truth, and when we are being exploited confused and in chaos. All religions are cults and use methods of exploitation and control for power and money. It is magical thinking to believe in an unprovable God, and if you question, the problem is that you are unworthy and lack faith. If E=MC2, matter equals the speed of light divided by energy. I can’t really understand this, but it is based in qualities of this existence that really exist. What a better world if our decisions were based on what nurtures and sustains the symbiotic relationships that are LIFE. What if we worshiped and stood in awe at the fact that this planet is so beautiful and rare because it can support LIFE and we were meat to have reflective thinking and be good stewards supporting the homeostasis of the planet. We would then see that we are mammals and come in the sam colors as many other mammals. red, yellow, black, brown!white just like horses, cows, pigs, cats, dogs, chickens, and we have the sam variations of normal in brain development and genitalia as other mammals leading to hetero, LGBTQ variations, and variations in being monogamous or not. We could no longer use race, sex, or sexual orientation to dominate and exploit others. If we believed in the teachings or most religions, love one another, do not steal, lie, cheat, murder, or covet, the best aspects of our species we might have a chance, but we also embrace teachings in al t support defending each religion even at the cost of genocide. I am not sure how we get past what we are indoctrinated into from birth and find the truth of our species and what it needs to do to truely support each other and all other life forms on the rare and precious planet
Simple answer: many Americans are WOEFULLY under-educated AND proudly bigoted. It's a deadly combination that keeps Bunkerboy as the "Dear Leader" of the dying _rumplican party.
Hi Linda. I love your post and agree with most of it. The problem with interfering with someone else's religious beliefs, they may interfere with yours. This is part of the reason I am an atheist. If I had my druthers there would be no religions, but people cling to their religious beliefs for the comfort it gives them. The one area of disagreement is your misinterpretation of Einsteins equation; E stands for Energy and it equals Mass (not matter) accelerated to the speed of light squared. So far we have only achieved this in terrible weapons of mass destruction (the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Hydrogen bomb - which so far has only been demonstrated but not used. I wish the United Nations would condemn Iran's killing of that young woman for the "crime" of wearing her hijab incorrectly. But then I am an American woman, not an Iranian man
Your confusion is in part the result of approaching sociological and social psychological frameworks cognitively, as if they were 'reasoned developments' like overtly deciding how to build a Tinkertoy airplane. This is not how conceptual systems and institutional frameworks develop, to my observation of them. Rather, they are driven by material context, political constraints, and, yes, self-interested beliefs, typically with few overt decisions, and invariably with no comprehension of unintended consequences of those actions both overt or uncomprehended.
One reason driving the extreme sequestration of women in some societies is that those were often conquered societies with slavetaking from one's own women and collaborationist marriages willing and unwilling endemic. Those practices are in many respects driven by past desires for communal survival, which required keeping 'one's own women' where there wasn't the legal or military capability of securing them other than by moral pressure.
To me, this is a subsidiary element in the sudden surge of anti-abortion sentiment amongst white nativist Americans: many of their own children, especially the best and the brightest, are migrating from their jerkwater towns and rural tracts to colleges, big cities, and personal assimilation to the dominant culture. Anti-abortion sentiment has knotty conceptual roots apart from this, but the _emotional_ commitment to the issue from a community who couldn't have cared less about abortion prior to the major, liberal successes of the dominant culture 50-60 years ago is goosed by the fact that their children and especially their daughters are defecting from 'their' culture to another in non-trivial numbers, to the point where white rural communities are very definitely in demographic decline---and they know it.
Individuals are irrational for individual reasons, which are diverse and yet particular to their circumstances. Communities are irrational, in my view, when active circumstances constrain or begin to interdict primary aspects of their cultural identity and, more overtly, their material sustenance. White nativist Americans are being economically driven off their lands by the decline of the family agriculture and pastoralism which are the central components of their worldview, and as precarious 'workers' in suburbs and elsewhere are seeing their culture-definitional kin networks break down and the gradual defection of the talented part of each generation coming up. There IS a real situational pressure on their communal status and continuance, they are not wrong about that. They are wrong that anyone is, actively, planning to 'replace' them: Union America just doesn't care about them much one way or the other unless they're acting as a threat, which they are now. White nativist Americans are terrified of losing their privileged 'whiteness' due to demographic and political decline, and being driven down by American capitalism to become isolated, individual, competitors for crumbs with all those putative, more numerous 'hordes' of immigrant and othercolored 'others' who they have often themselves oppressed directly whenever they had the whip hand and with whom they patently have no direct solidarity. They are not wrong that oligarchical capitalism has it in for them in that---just like it has it in for everybody else too. But their solution is to cut the othercolors out of the equation and to enforce their communal control over 'their women,' constituencies who have no such desire to those outcomes come about. Others _not_ them see those as illegitimate goals, but for their cultural community these are respectively cultural strategies of millennia practiced to success far too often historically. So the effort of _their_ community to keep on doing what ‘made them great’ is not delusional, it’s basic communal strategy (ask any Native American about how that went).
Irrational communal behaviors have real drivers, even if the causality is not direct but in fact only precipitative and in the nature of shaping an 'outcome space.' Intent is seen where it may not be, but your community may have just as bad an outcome from incidental conquest and dispersal as it might from presumed but in fact nonexistent deliberate, hostile, initiatives. Q Klux Anons experience a real erosion of communal and personal standing, and make up viciously deluded 'explanations' for that . . . but the erosion is to a degree real, and that gives energy to their flailings.
Oh, and people are dumb; including smart people. You'll never lose money betting on the stupidity of any human aggregation, even if the degree of the boneheadedness fluctuates time by time. Exhibit A: homeowners in the State of Florida without insurance. That’s a bet with a whirling devil, which is no smart play. People do dumb things all the time because they are easy whereas doing anything else is hard. Dying is easy too; just sit still and wait for it. Standing up, or walking on when one does takes an effort, and humanity is a ‘path of least resistance’ enterprise—except an irrational few, who break trail where their vision tells them; sometimes.
I agree with your rationale, you have stated it succinctly and beautifully. The problem still remains, how do we re-enfold these disoriented people into the diverse American culture, giving them a reason to once again be proud of the whole country as those of us on this forum are. How can we get them to embrace others who share a common dignity even if there are physical differences between them?
There isn't a 'common dignity;' that is the self-serving delusion of Blue America. The White nationalist historical community I mention has ever allied _situationally_ with the power structure wherever they were if they couldn't dominate it or run that themselves---but those alliances have ever been ENTIRELY opportunistic. As soon as the drift of power shifted, that community turned their coat, swapped cockades, and sucked up to any power structure they have thought could better serve them. Or simply staged a coup and took over themselves. I could go into historical particulars on that, but just consider this yourself: the South despised the Union, got the shit finally kicked out of them in the Civil War, came back waving the Stars and Stripes in both World Wars when agricultural prices were supported by the Federal government, then turned on Blue American in the 1970s and now is looking to emplace their own Fuerhrer to get in good with instead, their own Donald ‘King James.' The appearance of 'common patriotism' is not the actuality of sectional self-interest. What we see now again has _always_ been there beneath the surface flag waving. White nativist America has ALWAYS defied a common, national, government to the extent of their power projection whenever they didn’t get every speck of what they saw as in their own interest. Crack your history book and you’ll see just what I’m talking about.
There are three aspects to restoring 'common goals' to the American population as a whole. A) Buy off white nativist American by better services and fairer economic conditions. B) Kick the shit out of them if they decide to try insurrection again. C) Assimilate their sons and daughters into the dominant 'common [sic]' culture. Not to be too fine about it, or paint the process in niceties. Those are the choices. Or we could surrender to them and let them run their caste driven society over the faces and hides of everyone else, that's an 'option' too, but one with a particularist outcome rather than a common one, because the only satisfactory end for that macro culture is caste domination by their own, looking at the multi-millennial history of that community. We can forget 'gentle persuasion' as an effective modality of re-unity, although that should always be used too. I am largely commenting in this space to undercut the liberal delusion that 'gentle, righteous, persuasion' is anything other than a self-serving and self-defeating program, just as it has been through 40 years. If you and I believe our way is better, or even if we want to preserve it for ourselves, Red America must be defeated and know that they are defeated, though a generous peace would be preferable to the scorched earth, ethnic cleansing, and slavery that we would see from them if they ever had the chance---as they have in times and places past. This isn't a process of peace, love, and understanding, is what I'm saying. It's about power, and they play to win all. So we'd better get down to it if we want to hold onto what we have built alongside them. Blue America is not perfect, and there’s needless and undeserved blood much on our hands. But if we want to hold what we’ve thus far won and do better with it, we’d better get on with things.
I agree there isn't a common dignity, but there should be. We are all one species, none of us are "better" than others, we all have flaws. But, the least we can do is respect (if possible) the good in others. Having said that, unfortunately I also agree that in some individuals there is no good to be found.
Well said but so sad
Did anyone here get taught in school the definitions of socialism, communism, capitalism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism? No? Why not? Did you get all your notions of socialism from rabid television commentators and rabid politicians?
Yes, I "learned" them but without sufficient context/examples, I think, as applicable to the US.
I did not learn until I was in my 50's that in the United States, one of the most powerful coalitions is the Christian group who fill state school book boards. They censor school books, and they select school text books in every state. And they send the printing contracts, worth big $$$, to a small number of textbook printers - no more than 10 companies print high school textbooks. https://www.textbookrush.com/blog/post/largest-textbook-publishers/. This is an old battle: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/textbooks/opposing_the_textbooks.html
Hence, the "reading wars" and "new math" and constant pendulum swinging in choosing curricula.
I think too much of American secondary education relies on short or multiple choice answers rather than examining concepts in any depth. We sometimes congratulate ourselves if young people can define something without concerning ourselves with their ability to apply that information.
Thank you progwoman, That was exactly why I refused to administer that type of test when I was teaching. I have always said that low grades from students means the teacher failed to teach. When I taught science my tests were tell me in your own words what----- means. Got some really good, and occasionally funny responses, but it taught me where I needed to improve and it made my students think about what they had learned.
It starts in middle school and elementary school.
No I didn't get it in school - some short discussion in the two semesters of Political Science I took before changing majors to biology and chemistry. I got most of my information from extensive reading and from history.
I voted other. I think the answers are most of the above. #1 and #2 are the GOP's default positions just like abortion is a default position/buzzword. Socialism riles up the poorly educated. The MAGAt crowd thinks the only handouts are to migrants, refugees, black, and brown people.
#3 and #4 need to be explained to the poorly educated crowd. Especially #3. Sadly, there is a good deal of the population who prefer to be willfully ignorant. They have no idea where SS comes from. They have no idea that Medicaid is a social safety net that is taxpayer funded and one they may be using! Medicare is the same. I remember when town hall meetings were a big thing. Barney Frank took a statement from a woman who said, the government better keep their hands off of her SS. WTH? Democrats have got to explain these programs and how they're funded.
I vote "other" too.
Four states, three which precede the Constitution, are commonwealths. One of the reasons for the development of this country was the reaction to "Enclosure Acts" in England. The rich discovered that they could make more profits from their estates if they kicked out the common people, built fences (enclosed the land), and raised sheep. People whose ancestors had lived in an area for centuries suddenly found themselves jobless & homeless. Whole villages were emptied. Territory was being converted to property. People wanted separation- private space. Private property became a symbol of rank. Many common people emigrated. The commonwealths protected common peoples' rights. In most places parks, other areas were held "in common." A farmer could, for example, take his livestock to the commons to graze.
The commons is a property term, i.e, a citizen is entitled to state property held for the benefit of all. Commons refers to elements in the natural environment, held by citizens in common and sheltered from the market, because their value to the well-being of the community exceeds any monetary value that could be ascribed to them. Traditional examples of commons include forests, fisheries, or groundwater resources, but increasingly the term commons is used for a broader set of domains, such as knowledge commons, digital commons, urban commons, health commons, cultural commons, etc.. In some states, any citizen may use public parks and beaches. In the Western United States and Canada, open range is rangeland where cattle roam freely regardless of land ownership. Where there are "open range" laws, those wanting to keep animals off their property must erect a fence to keep animals out; this applies to public roads as well.
Our notion off "socialism" comes mostly from Marxism. But as I documented earlier, we had communal communities in the US long before Marx. Some of our communal institutions, like the post office are enshrined in the Constitution. Lands were given to Revolutionary War veterans. The government built post roads and post offices. Washington created a welfare system for the new city of DC..
Another notion of the commons is common law, also known as case law, is a body of unwritten laws based on legal precedents established by the courts. Common law draws from institutionalized opinions and interpretations from judicial authorities and public juries. .IMHO common law is bootstrapped into the constitution through the 9th Amendment. In some states, common law rights may not be have to be expressed in writing, even in state constitutions E.G. States that still have common law marriages are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and the District of Columbia.
Good information, thanks! I voted "other" also. I have different and opposing information re open range lands. But in re "other," as previously stated my view of the future is based on all the different horses Death can now come riding on.
Thank you, Daniel, for this succinct, and necessary explanation of "common(s)" And, also for the explanation of Marx interpretation of Socialism and how it came to be confused with Communism. We really need to have the many forms of governing clearly explained in all high schools in the US with no 'moral', 'religious', or 'wealth' input. It might be good to add teaching of capitalism both the Adam Smith version and the current American 'Welfare Queen' version.
While listening to Michael Hoppe's exit theme, I had the image of the end of the film The Third Man, with Robert Reich as Joseph Cotton, leaning up against a parked car -- an electric vehicle-- and Heather (Alida Valli) walking down that Vienna street. But instead of walking past, she turns to Robert, and he's there with two large cups of coffee -- extending one out to her.
Loved Sylvia Brestel's opening theme too.
What Americans have been brainwashed to believe: Capitalism equals democracy. Anything (or anyone) that threatens capitalism is therefore a threat to democracy. What a brilliant and diabolical sales job.
Yes it serves corporate interests. If demonizing socialism cost corporations a dime it would stop in a heartbeat.instead it makes them money. yeah just Outsource everything. Amazon will look out after you.
I'm leaning toward "all of the above". I don't believe that we Dems don't aren't trying to fight the good fight, but I do think that our presentation needs work. I hope that we can take Ian in Florida as a moment to explain what the federal government can, and does, provide in emergencies because of the federal policies we have which are designed to maintain a social safety net. DeSantis advocates the Grover Norquist theory of government, but now that his state is suffering, he will happily take the federal money to provide the safety net (and then turn around and criticize everything the federal government does). I am not advocating that we try to profit from human suffering (the GOP owns that), but I think we need to use the response to this suffering to illustrate the value of liberal social policies, and the importance of a federal response to ensure that the distribution is equitable.
Agreed. The federal government should make it clear where the money is coming from. What I find despicable is that real estate interests can erect all kinds of vulnerable properties and then bear no responsibility for their folly.
I sure love your voice, but I wonder if it would be possible to have these chats transcribed. I'm a much quicker reader than a listener, And I can retain better.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." —Dom Hélder Câmara
1) If we want a better idea why national news is not disclosing who is giving how much to whom it is because the billionaires are buying into national news and reining in who can say what.
2) Ginni Thomas is a grand example of why the spouse of SCOTUS justice should be banned from ANYTHING political. Ginny is not afraid to tell us that she believes the BIG LIE. So, Clarence should not be allowed to vote on anything related to the previous national election.
3) The GOPers have out-organized and brain-washed their adherents. There Is no middle anymore in the GOP. You either adhere or they throw you out.
"We equate socialism with communism"...
No, not "we". The Republican Party, Libertarians and other people who actually believe in the "self-made man [sic]" have made a project out of conflating socialism, communism, social welfare and any other "welfare" initiatives with Soviet style communism. Democrats have made a huge mistake though, and they continue to make the same mistake today - we allow the right to define the terms of the debate, then we fall victim to their definitions. Democrats insist on using the word "social" to describe all manner of policies and programs. This is just dumb. And dumber. It seems we finally start getting smart with programs named "Aid for Dependent Children"; the title is good but the debate is still conducted in Republican terms, e.g. social welfare. The Republicans have weaponized almost all of the language that Democrats use to explain, justify and advertise their efforts to help people. They "own the libs" alright because we have allowed them to own the language. A culture war is partly a language war with the battle being fought over labels that most people don't even know what they mean. Change the language, beat them at their own game!
They confabulate communism with socialism.
"Debate." Actually I think that they have no agenda except power and any "discussion" of any "issue" is a rationalization. They demagogue to a racist collective subconscious.
I think the reason "socialism" resonates as the bogey man is the age-old issue of racism. When government helps people, Black people may be included, and still a substantial proportion of the population, including many members of Congress, just don't want to do anything positive for Black people.
As for hurricane damage in Florida, I suspect Ron DeSantis will try to usurp as much of the credit as he can. Sad to say, I don't think the help from federal agencies will affect people's perception of the federal government. And most of the affected people shown on the TV news seem to be white.
With respect to down ballot voting, it seems that the Democratic Party, over the past twenty years at least, has trained its voters to care only about president. That puts an extra burden on each down ballot Democratic candidate to convince people to vote for the office at all before proceeding to convincing them to vote for the candidate for the office. The Democratic Party has thus put itself at a serious disadvantage, which is manifested in many of the problems discussed in this coffee klatch.
Long term problem. In Florida, Cubans are convinced that Kennedy was their enemy and any Democrat is guilty by association. They remind us daily that Castro evokes "Socialismo o muerrte."
Pa., for example, has never recovered from the Homestead Strike, IL from the Haymarket Riot.
Racism. In the south easy to understand the Civil War. In the north, blacks were used as strikebreakers. The Nixon Southern Strategy worked.
Dems need to start saying "The republicans are really planning at the taking away YOUR social security" much like Republicans do with " they are planning about taking away your guns".
(It is true about misunderstanding of socialism v. social safety net and about communicating how it works - but I see the "guns" fear being seeming effective - I dont know why cause it is killing everyone to have more guns than people in the US.
It is worth a try: its concise and true and we generally are increasing in older americans who need social security to survive. The alternative is to let the republicans will brain wash everyone that it will never be there for the / you once we age into it.
Can we make it a choice: Guns (danger and death) v. Social Security (Security - Safety - Support when we most need it)
Remember FDR!
Labels and name calling works. That's why calling Fascists, Fascist is effective.
People don't know what Socialism means and they don't know what Fascism means, but they know they don't like them.
Republicans own the media and have an outsized 'voice' ; (remember : money is speech). they have more money than Democrats, and, therefore, more influence. The Disclose Act being shot down by the un Democratic Senate is a good example. If the public at large had a heads up about that bill ; there may have been a strong push for it that might have influenced their 'representatives' to act. But, as has been pointed out on this forum ; even Democrats are 'on the take' with the dark money, The way this is set up now, how else could they compete? Look at once 'pristine' and idealistic Krysten Sinema now. At one time she actually cared about regular folks. Got a taste of the big bucks and power and Shazam! Ms. Super sellout! Only a saint (or a Bernie Sanders), can keep on keeping on ; and even such a stalwart as he is done in by the all destroying lying media. They kill us again and again.
The problem in the United States goes back even further than a century and is not just a Republican problem. The robber barons of the 19th century got it started as an anti-union tactic. There was a socialist vein in American life going back to the earlier 19th century when there were Evangelical socialists! Various unions and worker's movements, often influenced by immigrants from Europe where socialism was a valid political option, embraced various forms of socialism and the plutocrats went after them. Both political parties went right along. Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party, was jailed for objecting to WW I, and Wilson's AG, Palmer, led the first Red Scare after the war. Republicans became the preeminent Commie hunters in opposition to FDR and the New Deal, and produced Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). Ever since, any attempt at social progress has been labeled Communism or Socialism. It is allowed to stand because so few Americans actually know what socialism is (Witness people calling Barak Obama and Joe Biden socialists) What I learned growing up in California public schools was all from the perspective of anti-communist propaganda. I had to read the actual sources on my own, and generally keep what I was learning to myself. People in every European country, as well as Canada and Mexico know more about socialism than Americans, sadly. This ignorance is what allows Republicans to get away with calling Democratic centrism "socialism."
There's a great article in today's Washington Post by Allyson Chiu on the big surprise people are getting at the relative lack of destroyed homes and buildings in Punta Gorda -- which faced the worst of Ian for several hours.
The answer: the implementation of much stricter building codes after all the damage caused by Charlie in 2004.
Building codes are an important form of government regulation, based on science. Can we get back to more of this?