Truly, this type of working-class, cross-cultural political synthesis is anathema to the corporate duopoly. Democratic partisans will smear you for being sympathetic to the same voters that they relied on for a century, now that those voters are disillusioned. A coal worker in Ohio struggles to live in dignity, but you, reporter, by telling his story, are racist or xenophobic or whatever. Meanwhile, the working class continues to be crushed. The fact that democratic partisans cannot extend sympathy to these people is the very reason for their electoral failures.
The trouble started when the smart set substituted "climate" for "weather."
"Climate" has a vaguely scientific, and therefore intimidating connotation that pleases the smarty pants types, who are always looking for a new stick with which to beat the great unwashed.
"Weather," on the other hand, is just a good old noun that everyone understands so our rulers had to ditch it.
Same thing for "sex" and "gender." "Sex" is a real word that refers to something real, in this case, genitals, outward signs of your immutable identity as a man or a woman.
"Gender," on the other hand, is a phony, bullshit word like "climate." It's just another weapon in the arsenal of devices that our rulers use to beat us down.
They also call themselves "middle class". The REAL real book about the white working class is called "White Working Class" by Joan Williams. In it she makes the point that she couldn't call it white middle class because all the left elites bizarrely still think of themselves as middle class.
Climate change cannot be faked. It is as real as any physical phenomenon ever recorded and will continue to destroy species, spread fires, floods and increasingly violent storms, cause unlivable heat waves, diminish the richness of sea life, and erode coastlines. Combined with the growing pervasiveness of toxic industrial and mining wastes , it amounts to the largest area of criminal activity on earth.
Most of what you say is not happening. Fires are smaller than they once were in the U.S. (much less per year than in 1926 (when the records start) to 1950), floods are less, Violent storms are fewer, heat waves are fewer and less extreme than in the past (for example, the 1930s), Sea life is not decreasing, Polar bear population worldwide has more than doubled since the 1970s (partly due to human action: the local tribes no longer are allowed to hunt them), coastlines are doing well, etc.
You missed a major fact: far more people die from cool or cold weather than from warm or hot weather. A comprehensive study of all of the countries in Europe found ten times more people died from cool or cold weather than from warm or hot weather from 2000 to 2019. Other studies worldwide have shown the same thing. The lowest rate for hospital admissions from heart attacks in Japan occurs at 83 F, it increases rapidly as temperatures go below 40 F.
And you completely missed the great benefit of higher CO2 in the atmosphere for farming. Commercial greenhouses always add substantial amounts of CO2 to improve the quality and quantity of their produce. The overall benefit of our increase in CO2 over the past 200 years is now the equivalent of about $750 billion a year.
But the data used to drive the hysteria is fraudulent and manipulated so that people like you are gullible enough to believe it requires destroying all economies in order to rebuild a new world. That's called hubris. What destroys species is stronger predators, what causes violent storms, heat and other calamities is called weather and it's been occurring for thousands of years..The real criminal activity are those predators grifting off the gullible like you.
The trouble with you and your climate change hoax is that you are a stubborn ideologue. Living in NH I know the politics of Vermont and the California from where you came from and I guess you enjoy being the pied piper of lies. Oh well
I'm not sure about his stance on climate change, though the real argument is is it man made, not does it change. On the environment he has been stellar. More importantly he is for free speech and in his current lawsuit against Biden he admonishes the fact the Biden tried to squelch the free speech. .....Class action lawsuit alleging that federal defendants violated the First Amendment by by inducing social-media companies to censor others’ protected speech, including speech regarding climate change....so whether he believes it is man made or not he wants an open discussion. I can go with that.
I like what he says about resisting the marriage of government and big business.
I don't know if he's actually called that what it is, a hallmark of fascism. If so, good for him.
I also like his calling out Fauci as a liar and a fraud, and attacking the official story on the assassination of his uncle, an event that carries echoes down to the present day.
But his siding with Israel as it massacres defenseless civilians in Gaza is a deal breaker for me.
Hamas has made it impossible for the IDF to defeat them without going thru the civilians IE human shields . Hamas is responsible as they were in all of the terror they have committed in the past.
Zionists took over Palestine by violence and theft. They have killed at least 12 times as many as any Palestinian resistance actions. Their claims on the land are religious fairy tales with no basis in historical reality or oven their own 10 commandments. The Zionist God is a salesman for fascism, racism, theft. The Zionist persecution of Palestinians made no distinction between Christians and Muslims.
Not sure if you have noticed, but Hamas always manages to make a move when Israel wants an excuse for future expansion. As someone who grew up in a Hasbara Household, I heard about Israel making Hamas to control the Palestinians sometime around 1980.... Couple this with an admission in the Jerusalem Post in 2002 or so that Israeli Intelligence sits at the highest levels of Hamas, it should be obvious that Hamas (and most terrorism) is really Deep State performing as needed. Native patsies are always recruited to do the dirty work, which give "credibility" to the official stories.
It was clear to me that a Hamas attack was going to happen when Netanyahu visited USA in September 2023. Right on time...
Israel and Palestine have merely been the testing grounds of the Stakeholder Captialists. They took a terrorized population (Jewish refugees) and allowed them to terrorize and dominate others who had long dwelt on the land. The same tactics are being spread worldwide so the Stakeholders (this is what they call themselves - they are the fruits of the Frankist Movement of the 18th century) can gain dominance. Little by little we are inured to the horrors happening around us until we barely realize they are right at home and normalized everywhere. Israelis and Jews around the world have been subject to decades of propaganda to get where they are now. Instead of healing from the previous atrocities, now they become abusers themselves...and I fear for the abused Palestinians and Gazans when they finally have power, because they too will need healing.
When things go south, the Jews will be blamed yet again, but the Stakeholder Capitalists who use them will move on to continue their rape of the planet and her peoples. The new Eunuch class (aka Trans) is also under their spell and will be used similarly in the end. I pray daily for Jews and other manipulated groups to wake up to how they have been used in the Zionist/Frankist Project for decades...little do they know that early 20th c. Zionists concluded that antisemitism must exist in order for Jews to support the project. WWII traumatized them into submission.
Now all of us around the world are being traumatized by the encroaching surveillance State that the Stakeholders need to establish their power. They will not hesitate to unleash WWIII if it makes them money and allows them to "Build Back Better" and institute their 4th Industrial Revolution. Leaders around the world have been blackmailed and threatened with terror in their nations if they don't behave according to plan. This should be pretty obvious by now. I would say even Netanyahu is being blackmailed and controlled. He, like Hitler in the past, was only the "front man" for a larger project that would last over a century to establish...We are nearing the end stages of this project and we need to arise and work together across peoples and old hatred to unite against the actual oppressor who has us fighting one another instead of the actual threat.
Think of the Killdeer bird - who makes a nest on the ground and will come and do a "broken wing" dance to distract any potential nest visitors. The MSM are like these Killdeers - doing a distraction dance so we don't notice the actual eggs or chicks in the nest....Learn to ignore the Killdeer Dance and focus on the actual nest of corruption. The current powerholders like to bully and we need to call them out for what they are - bullies and immature adults still trying to rule the schoolyard. They think forcing the world to play their live action Squid Game gives them the right to prevail over us whether we wish to play or not. Time to refuse to play and change the nature of the game to a win/win outcome - even for those that would harm us in their scenario. We have the numbers, we have the power...we simply have to learn to reject our programming for "convenience" and "safety." The Stakeholders do not love humanity or the planet. They do not love Jews or Muslims or Atheists, or Transfolk but will use every possible angle to set us against one another in order to exploit us for our very living resources. This is true witchcraft and sorcery as warned against in the Bible...time to break the spell of Babylon, Egypt and Rome....which is the spirit of the Stakeholders who distort all that is good and lifegiving so that we are eternally dependent on their "mercy." This is real Satanism at work...the rejection of humanity and life and nature and a unity of the Cosmos beyond filthy lucre which cannot sustain.
Alexis de Tocqueville nailed it when he said “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
We the People are the Heirs of the American Experiment and We are Squandering Our American Inheritance!
If we have to have one of those two clowns, at least let it be Trump because he believes in attempting diplomacy, which has been completely lacking in the Biden regime. Biden and Blinken and Nuland are walking us into WWIII. The fix was in when the D's had 4 years to scream about "Russiagate" which was really about preparing the base for the Ukrainian conflict (started by USA).
It is truly sad that it has come to this...and Trump is the lesser evil if this is even possible??? Again - Meteor or other "Act of God" over Pentagon/DC! We need some kind of "wake up" call. Let's not forget the MSM which has done its part for decades in preparing us to accept more and more absurdities and lies. Nothing is going to change without the takedown of MSM propaganda. The Running Man comes to mind.
True, it is very disappointing. Not that any candidate other than Cornell West has strayed from AIPAC's money (and many feel West will drop out and endorse Genocide Joe late in the race. Blacks have voted 85 to 95% Democrat the last dozen or more Presidential races, according to Pew).
I've gone from initially viewing Kennedy's candidacy with enthusiasm to seeing him as a vanity candidate who's running on nostalgia for his uncle and father.
This is a conspiracy theory, or a loose, unattached chunk of conspiracy theory, hitherto unknown to me. Thanks for sharing. Might want to examine the connection between "Event 201" and "Area 51." Coincidence that both end in the number "1?"
Nothing is good about Genocide. Nothing is good about apartheid. Nothing is good about AIPAC deciding who can be in Congress and corrupting them with bribes. I liked RFK too til his actual support for mass murder became obvious.
Nothing is good about hostage taking. Nothing is good about rape. Nothing is good about religious zealotry. Nothing is good about morons who apologize for rapists and hostage takers and religious zealots.
Agreed on all counts, except there seems tt be no equal angst about what Hamas did, nor the fact the did it and then hide behind the Palistinians. How can you battle this tactic and insure it doesn't happen again. Over 12 hundred Isrealis were killed in brutal fashion. It's not a black and white as it seems, but again I completely agree Isreal has way too much influence in the USA
There shouldn't be equal angst about what Hamas did. Israel's response is so disproportionate to what Hamas did that this is not a real argument and it pretends that everything started on October 7
And unfornately RFK's energy policy would bankrupt 80% of America. I hope -if by chance he is elected--RFK would have a more open mind and at least listen to the thousands of credible scientists that reasonably question the cult of climate change.
But the Progressive/Soros/Gates fascination with creating 15 minute cities (more correct to say 15 minute ghettos) and packing everyone into early Soviet housing is a worry and this is related closely to the Climate Change presumptions. Did no one learn from the Chicago projects debacle? And just what type of jobs is everyone supposed to do? Also, I gave up when he chose his google derivative VP... But I am grateful and really do appreciate RFK's loud and clear message of corruption and deceit in the current Democratic power group. Its critical more politicians call out the Biden adminstrations desire and attempt to censor anything they deem "misinformation".
While they constantly fly around the globe on private jets cuz, ya know, they're "expertise" and mere existence are, ya know, indispensable. Just die already and join the graveyards full of "indispensable" people.
EU Court just came out with ruling that a new human right is to not be subject to climate change. Or something like that: it’s hard to enumerate something that is probably beyond human control. I can see why the UK left that conglomeration (EU).
The Luddites were a grand lot. The reaction to them, of course, exhibited the violence inherent in the system. I say, back to the times of King Arthur, when a watery tart lying in a pond distributing swords in a farcical watery ceremony could determine the basis for a system of government. Those were the days. Yeah.
Israel and his VP pick are a problem. Boteach proved RFK Jr. can still be bullied by certain forces. We really need an "act of God" like a meteor over the Pentagon instead of our current "choices."
IMHO, the issues that most people have with RFK Jr.’s stances on things such as climate change, Israel, the Second Amendment, etc. are all worthy of reasoned discussion. And I have no doubt that RFK Jr. will debate them thoughtfully and respectfully. The issues with Biden, censorship, endless wars, rampant illegal immigration, are not only extremely divisive they will never be honestly debated by Biden. Even if he were capable of such debate. Does anyone honestly believe the man has anything close to the cogent ability to do so? As for Trump, if elected, his opponents will wage war on him and his administration from day one. To the detriment of the entire nation.
Speaking on the Twins Pod, he caved on Ukraine, too. Said ethnic Russians "wanted to be taken over" to be part of Russia, that Zelensky is a "puppet" of America that "we put in there" (somehow convincing the Ukrainians to vote for him), "if he crosses the U.S. his own ultra-right people will kill him . . . so he does what we say," and that "there's a huge Nazi problem in Ukraine" (prompted by one of the hosts). As a Camelot remnant, his intellectual failings are irrelevant to his role as a spoiler.
Zelensky is desperate for American arms so is averse to criticizing our failures to defend against Russian ambitions. If that makes him puppet, his people voted for a puppet. Any Nazis in Ukraine fighting Stalin, who starved them during Holodomor, would be very old by now. Might want to double check your well established facts.
I just see him as another grifter. I doubt he'll get ballot access in all 50 states. None of the independent candidates seem like anything other than people trying to fundraise off of people's misery and grab a little attention for themselves. I'll probably just vote for Jill Stein in protest and maybe the Green Party will get the 5% they need for public election funding.
Excellent. Buybacks are, it seems, the core problem with Boeing, too, and the reason America went from producing some of the best products in the world to producing crap.
Re: the working class getting crushed. Twas ever thus. The Versailles liberals couldn't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves. Don't expect that to change.
It's amazingly short-sighted. They couldn't/wouldn't see the cumulative affect of tossing millions of Americans into the poor house year upon year. I believe the election will be a representation of how Americans see themselves. I certainly hope there's more of us poor-house people. It's sad that our best hope is a rich asshole. What a country!
Don’t disagree with anything you’ve said except: what electoral failures? That red ripple in 2022 doesn’t add up. We’ll see if anything changes in 2024.
The democrats held a majority in the house of representatives for four consecutive decades in the 20th century. Compared to that, their success in recent elections just doesn't stack up.
The Democratic party never stood for anything. They were forced to do things when threatened electorally by left-wing populists and socialisists. Remember, W.E.B. Duboise got million votes and 6% of the popular vote as a socialist while in prison. Democrat Wilson deported and, prosecuted and persecuted left-wingers and anti war activists. The corporate Dems have helped destroy the New Deal policies in a good cop/bad cop kabuki theater since the beginning. The Dem party has never been anything but a cheap, soulless pliable whore to whichever direction the wind and money are coming from.
"Du Bois." He never ran for President nor was he ever incarcerated---obviously you're confusing him with Eugene Debs. Strange. Put the bottle down and pick up the book.
Like both Malcolm X and MLK said: the only difference between conservatives and lib'rels is they both hate you but the conservatives do it up front and libs welcome you to their house, then stab you in the back when we you leave.
The efforts with the media psyops are laughable, yet effective. As with covid, the media tells their audience that only intelligent, educated people think a certain way. It's the hicks and hayseeds that disagree with the intelligent, educated people; like them. And their minions fall in lockstep as they pat themselves on the head.
"Look at you, so sophisticated. You'd never fall for being manipulated! Not like those toothless hillbillies that don't even want an electric car, because they're being lied to by the bad, evil media. Can you believe that? Aren't you glad you're here, with the good, right, smart people?"
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"The best way to oppose fake news is for people to watch outlets like MSNBC."
- Congressman Ted Lieu (no shit, really!), who'd like to watch your wallet for you please.
I don't understand why all these formerly proud workers are so angry. We sent almost of their work overseas to save on labor and they are left to fight over the tiny portion of jobs that remain. I don't understand why they don't just move to a really expensive city and load themselves up with debt for a degree that might make them employable at a real job. I guess we'll just call them racists and sexists and try to prevent who they want to vote for from getting on the ballots. That should make them come around.
I grew up in the 70's. It is funny to watch old TV that still has the original commercials intact. Commercials for Garment Unions and Car companies showcasing a mighty diverse workforce. I grew up in a factory town. People of all 'races' worked at the factories and led pretty typical middle class lives. Our schools were well funded and taught us rather than indoctrinated us. This all was destroyed in our neck of the woods about 1980 when most of our industry got shipped to Mexico and Asia. I've been an economic refugee since. I graduated to no jobs in my town which made it really easy to leave it behind for good or ill. I've had some interesting times in my wandering, and yet wonder what might have happened if I had had economic reasons to stay put.
The racists and sexists are the Wall Street types who deprived people of their livings and then blamed them for it. We are now reaping nearly 50 years of these policies and I cannot say that we are progressing socially, economically or educationally.
And Wall Street post-Occupy, through simply making their logo a rainbow every June, managed to convince black and gay people that straight white blue collar men were the enemy.
To see those same jobs for the debt-ladened also conveniently outsourced the same way the old ones were. The manufacturers bemoan the ability to find people willing to work for them - gee, I wonder why? Now, reports say no one wants to become an accountant. Gosh, that too? Puzzling for sure. I mean, why wouldn't someone want a job that could be shifted to some place far-flung the first time the AI driven spreadsheet says it will up the margin?
The laptop aristocracy now has its wish - everyone part of the new gig economy. But it came around to bite them in the ass. What didn't they get about "everyone"?
Of course they didn’t want to pay - Marxist will never admit fault. They appealed it and were rejected at the state Supreme Court level. They were paid in full in 2022 to the tune of $46+ million including interest on the judgement. Oberlin’s endowment is well over a billion $$$’s - concrete evidence that there are a lot of stupid rich people who contribute to their Alma mater.
Ultimately, the problem is that the money is fake. When DC is printing cash and handing it out to their buddies, OF COURSE people who work in the 'real' economy will fall behind. And solutions coming from DC will only exacerbate the problem, because DC solutions ALWAYS grow the government -- usually by borrowing and printing.
“It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.”
"The reason QE is “good for the rich and bad for the poor” is obvious: by pouring trillions in jet-fuel cash into the inequity engine that is the banking sector, we’ve seen massive increases in share prices and corporate profits, without any resulting increases in wages."
That guy knows what's up! And the nature of the beast is that it requires more and more jetfuel to run the fake economy, and eventually that completely overwhelms the real economy.
"It should be obvious to anyone that printing two trillion new dollars and handing it to the corrupt financial sector to play with will not result in higher wages for ordinary people. This ought to be an issue for the left/progressives, but thanks to Barack Obama’s ownership of the program, it’s now turning into a campaign issue for Republicans."
Agreed 100 percent and its made worse because the money doesn't actually gdt spent on producing anything anymore. The government hates actual infrastructure projects and doesn't do them because if you spend 10 billion building brisges this year next year you dont need 10 billion because the bridges are built and just need ro be maintained so they prefer to tske tax dollars and turn them into 5000 gov employees cause they have to be paid every year
White Rural Rage is just more proof of how much hostility and disdain the professional managerial class has for the average American.
As if ordinary, hard-working people of middle America are the real threat to Our Democracy™, and not the PMC scheming to ensure rule of the elites in perpetuity and eternal left-wing institutional control.
The White thing is just a tool / dog whistle for the race baiters. The rage is in everyone in rural areas. Here in California it's mostly Mexican Americans that are pissed off.
That’s where the whole Dem narrative disintegrates. There are millions of struggling middle class Americans and they are Black, White, Hispanic, Asian and they’re all being screwed by the corporate puppets in DC.
I think this explains the mysterious reason democrats suddenly fell collectively in sync with LBT- trans madness pushing it like it is the most important social issue of humanity.
They already knew they had lost the working class vote as such they had to demonize them.
Sometimes people are so tempermentally or professionally analytical, so inclined to view an issue from an empyrean perspective, that they focus entirely on the map and ignore the territory.
This issue is not that complicated and someone like Chris Lasch nailed it 30 years ago in "Revolt of the Elites".
Our elite ownership class, its managerial aspirants, and the liberal class in its entirety, all having converted to a vague syrupy faith based on cosmopolitan humanitarianism where the struggles of someone on another continent become more important than the struggles of your fellow citizens (they're more telegenic! all the cool kids are talking about it!) have become a tribe of Mrs. Jellybys who have ZERO allegiance to their own country and people.
It's actually even simpler: we live in a country where those who've most benefited from this country, our entire elite class—professional, academic and cultural—HATE their own people, their own countries, their (our) culture, history and tradition. And they display and express it every day in every way.
What happens when a ruling class coalesces that has nothing but disdain for the people it rules over? Either they must be made to care (and not just rhetorically) or deposed.
While I am probably demographically part of that class (lower end) you hit the nail on the head. As i have said elsewhere, behavior is trending toward that of 18th century French aristocracy
I am ensconced deep in the Blue Bubble—is how I got my degree in cognitive dissonance🤣—and among the disturbing things I deal w constantly are:
1) the monumental tension and constant cognitive brain-twisting required for people to keep saying both We Must Defend Democracy! while at the same time saying, Everyone who disagrees with me is an obvious bigot who needs re-education and all their political beliefs need to be denounced and erased—well, what the hell do you think Democracy is except negotiating w and compromising w people w very different beliefs!? You really think the purpose of Democracy is achieving uniformity of belief and of values!? (But explaining this to anyone still doesn't stop the bigotry accusations, modern liberals can't help themselves, it's how they've been programmed!)
2) but even more maddening is how with just a few sprinkles of civics and common sense so much of our modern madness could be defused. The people who work with their brains don't need to vilify and immiserate the people who pick their food, drive the trucks that deliver their food, who police their streets or who mine their coal—they are cutting off the limb they sit on! We could easily have a saner political situation if everyone recognized that as much as you think you may hate your political opponents, you'll miss them if in your hatred you kill off this thing called America. It shouldn't be too hard to agree that political decisions need to be made that are in the best interests of citizens and not of international capital flows.
But there are times when all the incentives pull toward division, vilification and the denunciation of what exists in the name of some imaginary utopia, whether past or future, and unfortunately it seems we're living through one of those times.
You're doing far better than the others in bubble-land. They're still pumped up on fear and class anxiety.
But be clear - things have never been better equality wise, which is at least a plausible fiction now, rather than an apostasy to be feared and condemned. The disastrous experiments with social perfectionism of the 20th century taught us a few things - curtail state power as much as possible. Killing the FISA bill was a good start - but in the end the deep state will have its way.
The first thing the French revolutionaries did after taking power was ensure that the rights of man would not extend to women and the poor. Protecting property rights (including slaves) and the right exploit others was at the top of their to-do list. France banned slavery and legalized divorce for about fifteen minutes. The ban on slavery lasted less than a decade and the practice continued until 1848. Then things got worse, in some respects. Divorce disappeared in 1816; women in France were still trying to claw back property rights in the 1970s. People should get out more.
Also see the Levellers - twas a dirty word almost up to the present. People don't want equality. How are we supposed to feel good if we can't look down on someone else - like the blue-red-pink bubbleheads, for example. Inter-racial marriage was a thing and an illegal thing in 1968. And things are getting worse? Reagan, Iran-Contra etc. etc. What we're experiencing is simple one chapter in a long history of exploitation which isn't likely to end anytime soon short of a meteor strike.
Re-read Matt's interview - Leo comes off like a grifter trying to make a buck off the screwed. Probably just me.
In fairness, social justice warriors need someone to war against. Rural people they've never met offer the opportunity to mentally depict them like posters of Tojo in WWII.
With respect, the key point missing from your excellent is that America's aristocrats have never been shy about expressing their disdain for the great unwashed.
Taking a gigantic dump all over the worse off all day, every day is how they get off and they're not shy about the pleasure they derive from doing so. The notion that the rich are somehow going to be made to pay is delusional.
The only thing that's going to happen when/if Trump wins is that the poorest may be able to finally purchase lubricants for four years. After that screwing of the public will continue unabated. Count on it and plan accordingly.
"The notion that the rich are somehow going to be made to pay is delusional."
I have no (or few) illusions about "Democracy" and think all societies have always had an aristocratic/oligarchic class who exist to privatize profits, socialize losses, and to bribe, scheme and maybe unleash a few Pinkertons to lock in all their privileges—and that this has never changed and never will change.
But it comes down to degree—there are certain points where the hoggishness becomes too gross to ignore, and a little more sharing of the pie is in everyone's best interests, aristocrats first and foremost. But what I was getting at was separate of, or adjacen to, economics: the turn our cultural, educational and managerial mandarins have taken against 50% of the country, shitting on them as secret Nazis, and making it clear that these people are not to be compromised w, but have to be muzzled, if not replaced.
This I think is recent, ugly, somewhat historically unprecendented, massively hypocritical, and bound to bring us all to a bad end.
In my more paranoid moments, I can't help thinking that the 1 to (5? 10?) %ers are being prepared to at least not care and possibly cheer for the AI controlled humanoid robot roll outs on the near horizon. Amazon and BMW are both well along into their projects to replace people who are employed for having a pair of hands, legs a back & only being used to pick, load, unload & etc.. If those (still slightly) privileged and not quite yet replaceable knowledge workers have no sympathy with the newly cut loose grunts, they won't be tempted to do anything about it all, and a precedent will be set for when it is the NEXT cadres up the ladder being rendered surplus and unemployable.
even if that's the plan, humans propose but god/fate/unforeseen consequences dispose. if there are any major social disruptions up ahead (and history says there usually are), many of our Masters of the Universe will not escape unscathed.
for all those people fantasizing a posthuman future: be careful what you wish for (you just might get it!) if and when global corporate capitalism collapses, it will be real ugly for awhile, but who knows, there may be a newer, much more human, future coming in its wake.
We went from slave based agriculture to plowing with horses (the horse collar, introduced after end of western Roman empire had a HUGE social impact!), disruption. From hand made textiles to factory made, disruption, look at "the enclosure acts" in England & Scotland, where the village commons were taken from farmers so industrialists could have wool and cheap, desperate workers. Human and animal powered equipment to steam engines in mining and manufacturing, more disruption. Again, with introduction of petroleum powered internal combustion on farms. Every such disruption has been associated with plenty of conflict.
This one is going to be a bastard if those idiots who talk about "the invisible hand" just let the chips fall where they may.
A rising tide drowns people who can't afford boats while the yachting classes enjoy their new possibilities.
History is full of precedents, but every situation is unique. Universal suffrage is an extremely recent and rare development. Exploitation and domination are the norms, social stratification exists in many species, and behavioral conformity is rule one of all herd species. So, there's that.
Things are actually looking up, relatively speaking. There is no mythic eden of equality. As soon as there's a surplus in labor, us serfs get a double dose of screwing. We can be nice to others and try to initiate chain reactions of random acts of kindness. Have a better one!
One last point (really!). I spent part of my childhood in the UK - when there was ZERO chance of class and social mobility. The UK and Ireland are today leading the charge towards stripping their citizens of all civil rights and protections. Mike Lee has a piece in the Hill calling for an end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict at the negotiating table. There's never been a better time to get in the game and focus on positive doable solutions. The powers-that-be aren't going anywhere, but the powers-that-be aren't all powerful.
We can win on an issue by issue basis. But it's not going to happen without joining hands with people we can't stand - union organizing 101.
I guess. But Henry Ford (for his own selfish reasons) made an automobile attainable by by more, more regular people. Now Pres. Joey, who by the way never made or did anything of value, is dictating to the rest of us to drive to the hymnal of climate change. Sure. Aviator President, Slurring Speech Joey. Ick.
Isn't it getting a bit too easy and commonplace to rag on the PMC? It's like a ritual of hate now. Plenty of them are just as precarious as working class people. Nothing is coming to reduce debt burdens or stabilize housing, health, education, or other living costs so we can expect many more to fall in status. Hence I say we should welcome the repentant ex-PMCs weighed down by debts with loving embraces and encourage those remaining to abandon their masochistic ass-kissing ways and come join us barbarians.
This article hits me in a very personal way because I am a victim of this war against the working class. In the face of endless amounts of articles about how great the economy is and how low unemployment is, I have struggled for over 10 years to find full-time employment. My family has been scraping by, mostly on just my wife's income (though I have at least had part-time employment the last two years. Many of these jobs that liberals brag so much about are part-time low wage jobs and many people have to work multiple of these jobs just to scrape by. And then (mostly white) affluent liberals seriously have the fucking gall to ask why keeping Trump out of office isn't our number one priority when we have seen the utter decimation of our personal economies and our dignity. I know that Trump and Republicans aren't going to make things any better for people like me and that's why they don't get my votes either, but honestly, if Trump does win the Presidency against and all of these self-important white affluent liberals have to experience just a small portion of the pain I've been living with, I might just do something socially unacceptable and laugh at their expense. Heartily.
Ignorant rube , inflation is down almost 5.5 percent from its high! 9 to 3.5 ! Of course 2 percent is the target but Dr. Krugman knows best and maybe you should get a 4th job .
I suspect that at least some of the condescending neo-liberal elites in government, the media, and academia are beginning to figure out how unpopular they are. But, instead of responding with better government, etc., they are doubling down by rigging the electoral process and censoring anyone who questions their ridiculous narratives.
I think it's clear you suspect right. Part of what makes any realistic discussion today so difficult is the PMC became so strict in enforcing its orthodoxy and severely punitive of dissent. It's heresy to suggest that, for example, political parties should get themselves elected by credibly offering economic policies that help people. So, for now anyway, those that figure out how unpopular they are keep their mouths shut or use carefully coded speech.
But the situation not stable. The USA is in an economic bind that it cannot escape from without private debt cancellation and taxing economic rent, which is naga happen. So things will get worse and eventually politics will break one way or another.
Every Democrat politician and pollster should be made to read your post. You hit the nail on the head about why working people are hurting and angry, and the hypocrisy of liberal elites who bang on about each and every kind of oppression except the one they are complicit in: oppression of working people by big business and governments who are in their pockets.
Thank you for your kind words. I don't think I said anything that hasn't been said as well or better by other folks, but this particular issue is personal to me. Society does not look well upon men who fail at providing for their families.
Ultimately it's the donors that want you impoverished and hence both parties work to make it so. And trust me that hard times are arriving now for the Professional and Managerial Class too. Our only hope for a better future is to unite on our common economic class interest, repudiate the BS R-D politics in the news, and Eat The Rich.
Oberlin? Didn't Gibsons Bakery give Oberlin $36 million reasons to lay off Oberlin workers? The villains in that story, as I recall, were not Wall Streeters.
While I agree with the criticism of Schaller (his "RAGE" means the horrendous act of... voting the wrong way), and I'm not completely unsympathetic to the points of Leopold, the idea of the working class banding together to defeat the greedy capitalists of the world does not resonate with me.
Speaking as just one of those rednecks underneath the microscope, I think the return of merit and accountability would go a long way toward lowering "rage." As would slowing down on the bald-faced lies we're constantly force-fed.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to tabby and brown and black and yellow and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email sig.
The navel gazers just cannot tolerate people who work hard and know how to fix a problem, efficiently, effectively and at a reasonable price. You can't grift off that.
BINGO! USSR gone, competition gone, alternative gone. Wall Street party time. Oh wait, China and BRICS and the end of the Free lunch; the end of the Petro $, the reserve currency, SWIFT, what can we do? War baby, that always works
I grew up in Steubenville OH, a former steel town, The folks I'm still in touch with are not angry racist whites. They were mostly all Dems until the jobs left and the Dems didn't help them. Then the Dems got so progressive, these people, with very strong family values kept those values and the Dems just left them in the lurch. I'm sure the progressives like to look down their noses at them and make them their scapegoats. Think they are uneducated and stupid. Tell you what, they are a hell of a lot smarter than those colich snobs.
I can't even remember the number of times I've been laid-off, or had a contract cancelled with no notice. And I live on a coast, FFS. I've also lost track of the vulture capitalists who'd run companies into the ground, cash out right before the shit hit the fan, then rinse-repeat at some new company they'd founded on the side. One of those rich fucks even got investigated by the FTC for pump-and-dump, but of course he got off. They blamed everything on some frat brother they'd brought in as VP of Finance, and he took the fall. And even that was a slap on the wrist. Dude had nothing to do with it, too - he was just another corporate stiff trying to provide for his family like the rest of us.
The rich keep on robbing from us and stepping on our necks, their sycophant toadies in the media tell us it's our fault, and the only way to be better than those base, disgusting workers is to aspire to be an elite bigoted scumbag carrying water for the elites. And it's working.
America is a failed state - we need to hit the reset button and attempt to rebuild it again.
Isn’t it a sort of racism to call all rural people racist. Or deplorable. I’ve been a lower to middle class person all my life. Lived on a farm and the people around me were decent people. They weren’t racist or deplorable.
It always surprises my fellow Yankees when I tell them that the races get along better in the South, especially the rural South. Southerners are (in general) more polite, value personal friendships, and are loyal to one another. If they had a chance to live there and see it for themselves, they would discover that their liberal narratives are a myth.
"We looked at 23 social issue questions that were really divisive, and the white working class in fact got more liberal, not more conservative over that period. Should gay couples be allowed to adopt in the last 20 years? It’s gone from 38% approval to 76% approval. They have a question there about legalizing illegal immigrants who’ve been here three years, paid their taxes, and have no felonies. That went from 32% support of that 15 years ago, now it’s 62% support. And we compared the white working class versus white working class management on a whole slew of questions. There’s hardly any difference, so you can’t put it on them."
Sorry, but I believe this is called "cherry-picking." He's picked the social issues of 30 years ago, or framed them in such a way as to guarantee approval (" illegal immigrants who’ve been here three years, paid their taxes, and have no felonies"). That is not the issue with migration, and anyone who's honest surely knows that.
Did he ask current ones, like:
"Should men be able to play women's sports, if they 'identify' as women? Should they be able to use the women's restrooms?"
"Should minorities be given preference in hiring?"
"Do we owe reparations to black people?"
"Should student loans be forgiven?"
Secondly, the connection between layoffs and stock buybacks is something that could easily studied rigorously. It's interesting, but he only has anecdotes and assertions.
Legitimate points. I think the article is still on the right track. I would also mention that unions cause a great deal of the problems. I am working on a large apartment project that is bound to use prevailing wage rates due to government participation and financing requirements. I could easily add 30 to 40% more units but for this requirement. The workers get huge checks each week, but the potential to provide housing is greatly impacted.
Yeah. I'm writing on the Pullman strike, and I see no contradiction on being FOR unions back in 1894, and generally negative on them now. Power corrupts.
I am not anti-union, it;s just sometimes the leadership isn't god at reading the tea leaves. They commit suicide. This is what will happen to the fast food workers here in California. The legislature caved to the unions, they raised minimum wage in the middle a inflationay period. Items that people don't have to buy will suffer. Jobs will be lost.
The whole point of fake politics is distract from the real one. Chase the squirrel of all the woke-ish, socially divisive hot button "issues" that affect 1% of people to distract from being robbed blind. It is the variation on the "divide et impera" rule (with a lot of social engineering thrown in, mostly through illegal immigration) adapted to the post-modern era.
Yes. And I have argued several times that discussion of the nonsense in the overt (fake) politics, as often practiced by Matt and other admirable journos and media people, can reinforce the perception that it is in fact real. To explain I have my hierarchy of narratives:
Level 1: The actual daily overt political discourse in MSM.
Level 2: The discussion of L1 politics, pointing out its falsities, e.g. as practiced by Matt, K Halper or G Greenwald.
Level 3 is the unspoken narrative says that the Level 1 narrative is real politics and real politics is what we see in MSM. The flip side is equally important: L3 says that real politics is not economic class politics, e.g. that Eat The Rich is lunatic fringe nonsense.
Level 4: This explains how L1, 2, and 3 all work together to maintain the status quo power relations in society. Herman and Chomsky operates here. C Hedges. Sometimes also J Dore.
L3 is the most insidious and impressive narrative since I think most people accept it as true without any thought. It is a pervasive unconscious ideology, an unknown known.
So you can see how I can get tired of listening to L2 when it only talks about the L1 noise and not about the rest. L2 talk can validate L1 as real and as such becomes also L3. And why I'm pleased that C Hedges nudged Matt into some class economics.
This is the Killdeer move. The Killdeer bird builds its nest on open fields. To protect the nest, the bird comes away and does a broken wing dance to distract from the nest. This is what most msm and politics do now. They do a distraction dance so we don't notice the nest of eggs - symbolic of our real issues we should be discussing. NO KILLDEERS faking their broken wings! Time to call them out when they do their dance.
Truly, this type of working-class, cross-cultural political synthesis is anathema to the corporate duopoly. Democratic partisans will smear you for being sympathetic to the same voters that they relied on for a century, now that those voters are disillusioned. A coal worker in Ohio struggles to live in dignity, but you, reporter, by telling his story, are racist or xenophobic or whatever. Meanwhile, the working class continues to be crushed. The fact that democratic partisans cannot extend sympathy to these people is the very reason for their electoral failures.
RFK Jr. the only choice I see. But maybe that’s just me.
I liked RFK Jr. until he caved to the Israel lobby.
On everything else he is great. Perfect is the enemy of good.
Is he? Climate change? The hoax that started in `72 and just keeps getting dumber.
True that.
The trouble started when the smart set substituted "climate" for "weather."
"Climate" has a vaguely scientific, and therefore intimidating connotation that pleases the smarty pants types, who are always looking for a new stick with which to beat the great unwashed.
"Weather," on the other hand, is just a good old noun that everyone understands so our rulers had to ditch it.
Same thing for "sex" and "gender." "Sex" is a real word that refers to something real, in this case, genitals, outward signs of your immutable identity as a man or a woman.
"Gender," on the other hand, is a phony, bullshit word like "climate." It's just another weapon in the arsenal of devices that our rulers use to beat us down.
They also call themselves "middle class". The REAL real book about the white working class is called "White Working Class" by Joan Williams. In it she makes the point that she couldn't call it white middle class because all the left elites bizarrely still think of themselves as middle class.
Climate change cannot be faked. It is as real as any physical phenomenon ever recorded and will continue to destroy species, spread fires, floods and increasingly violent storms, cause unlivable heat waves, diminish the richness of sea life, and erode coastlines. Combined with the growing pervasiveness of toxic industrial and mining wastes , it amounts to the largest area of criminal activity on earth.
Most of what you say is not happening. Fires are smaller than they once were in the U.S. (much less per year than in 1926 (when the records start) to 1950), floods are less, Violent storms are fewer, heat waves are fewer and less extreme than in the past (for example, the 1930s), Sea life is not decreasing, Polar bear population worldwide has more than doubled since the 1970s (partly due to human action: the local tribes no longer are allowed to hunt them), coastlines are doing well, etc.
You missed a major fact: far more people die from cool or cold weather than from warm or hot weather. A comprehensive study of all of the countries in Europe found ten times more people died from cool or cold weather than from warm or hot weather from 2000 to 2019. Other studies worldwide have shown the same thing. The lowest rate for hospital admissions from heart attacks in Japan occurs at 83 F, it increases rapidly as temperatures go below 40 F.
And you completely missed the great benefit of higher CO2 in the atmosphere for farming. Commercial greenhouses always add substantial amounts of CO2 to improve the quality and quantity of their produce. The overall benefit of our increase in CO2 over the past 200 years is now the equivalent of about $750 billion a year.
But the data used to drive the hysteria is fraudulent and manipulated so that people like you are gullible enough to believe it requires destroying all economies in order to rebuild a new world. That's called hubris. What destroys species is stronger predators, what causes violent storms, heat and other calamities is called weather and it's been occurring for thousands of years..The real criminal activity are those predators grifting off the gullible like you.
The trouble with you and your climate change hoax is that you are a stubborn ideologue. Living in NH I know the politics of Vermont and the California from where you came from and I guess you enjoy being the pied piper of lies. Oh well
I'm not sure about his stance on climate change, though the real argument is is it man made, not does it change. On the environment he has been stellar. More importantly he is for free speech and in his current lawsuit against Biden he admonishes the fact the Biden tried to squelch the free speech. .....Class action lawsuit alleging that federal defendants violated the First Amendment by by inducing social-media companies to censor others’ protected speech, including speech regarding climate change....so whether he believes it is man made or not he wants an open discussion. I can go with that.
That’s a long-running hoax—they wrapped up Apollo 11 and the moon landing in less than a decade.
On a soundstage.
I like what he says about resisting the marriage of government and big business.
I don't know if he's actually called that what it is, a hallmark of fascism. If so, good for him.
I also like his calling out Fauci as a liar and a fraud, and attacking the official story on the assassination of his uncle, an event that carries echoes down to the present day.
But his siding with Israel as it massacres defenseless civilians in Gaza is a deal breaker for me.
Hamas has made it impossible for the IDF to defeat them without going thru the civilians IE human shields . Hamas is responsible as they were in all of the terror they have committed in the past.
Zionists took over Palestine by violence and theft. They have killed at least 12 times as many as any Palestinian resistance actions. Their claims on the land are religious fairy tales with no basis in historical reality or oven their own 10 commandments. The Zionist God is a salesman for fascism, racism, theft. The Zionist persecution of Palestinians made no distinction between Christians and Muslims.
I think the situation is much more complicated than that.
Not sure if you have noticed, but Hamas always manages to make a move when Israel wants an excuse for future expansion. As someone who grew up in a Hasbara Household, I heard about Israel making Hamas to control the Palestinians sometime around 1980.... Couple this with an admission in the Jerusalem Post in 2002 or so that Israeli Intelligence sits at the highest levels of Hamas, it should be obvious that Hamas (and most terrorism) is really Deep State performing as needed. Native patsies are always recruited to do the dirty work, which give "credibility" to the official stories.
It was clear to me that a Hamas attack was going to happen when Netanyahu visited USA in September 2023. Right on time...
Israel and Palestine have merely been the testing grounds of the Stakeholder Captialists. They took a terrorized population (Jewish refugees) and allowed them to terrorize and dominate others who had long dwelt on the land. The same tactics are being spread worldwide so the Stakeholders (this is what they call themselves - they are the fruits of the Frankist Movement of the 18th century) can gain dominance. Little by little we are inured to the horrors happening around us until we barely realize they are right at home and normalized everywhere. Israelis and Jews around the world have been subject to decades of propaganda to get where they are now. Instead of healing from the previous atrocities, now they become abusers themselves...and I fear for the abused Palestinians and Gazans when they finally have power, because they too will need healing.
When things go south, the Jews will be blamed yet again, but the Stakeholder Capitalists who use them will move on to continue their rape of the planet and her peoples. The new Eunuch class (aka Trans) is also under their spell and will be used similarly in the end. I pray daily for Jews and other manipulated groups to wake up to how they have been used in the Zionist/Frankist Project for decades...little do they know that early 20th c. Zionists concluded that antisemitism must exist in order for Jews to support the project. WWII traumatized them into submission.
Now all of us around the world are being traumatized by the encroaching surveillance State that the Stakeholders need to establish their power. They will not hesitate to unleash WWIII if it makes them money and allows them to "Build Back Better" and institute their 4th Industrial Revolution. Leaders around the world have been blackmailed and threatened with terror in their nations if they don't behave according to plan. This should be pretty obvious by now. I would say even Netanyahu is being blackmailed and controlled. He, like Hitler in the past, was only the "front man" for a larger project that would last over a century to establish...We are nearing the end stages of this project and we need to arise and work together across peoples and old hatred to unite against the actual oppressor who has us fighting one another instead of the actual threat.
Think of the Killdeer bird - who makes a nest on the ground and will come and do a "broken wing" dance to distract any potential nest visitors. The MSM are like these Killdeers - doing a distraction dance so we don't notice the actual eggs or chicks in the nest....Learn to ignore the Killdeer Dance and focus on the actual nest of corruption. The current powerholders like to bully and we need to call them out for what they are - bullies and immature adults still trying to rule the schoolyard. They think forcing the world to play their live action Squid Game gives them the right to prevail over us whether we wish to play or not. Time to refuse to play and change the nature of the game to a win/win outcome - even for those that would harm us in their scenario. We have the numbers, we have the power...we simply have to learn to reject our programming for "convenience" and "safety." The Stakeholders do not love humanity or the planet. They do not love Jews or Muslims or Atheists, or Transfolk but will use every possible angle to set us against one another in order to exploit us for our very living resources. This is true witchcraft and sorcery as warned against in the Bible...time to break the spell of Babylon, Egypt and Rome....which is the spirit of the Stakeholders who distort all that is good and lifegiving so that we are eternally dependent on their "mercy." This is real Satanism at work...the rejection of humanity and life and nature and a unity of the Cosmos beyond filthy lucre which cannot sustain.
Well, you can chose between Trump and Biden. Both of them are perfect, right?
Alexis de Tocqueville nailed it when he said “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
We the People are the Heirs of the American Experiment and We are Squandering Our American Inheritance!
If we have to have one of those two clowns, at least let it be Trump because he believes in attempting diplomacy, which has been completely lacking in the Biden regime. Biden and Blinken and Nuland are walking us into WWIII. The fix was in when the D's had 4 years to scream about "Russiagate" which was really about preparing the base for the Ukrainian conflict (started by USA).
It is truly sad that it has come to this...and Trump is the lesser evil if this is even possible??? Again - Meteor or other "Act of God" over Pentagon/DC! We need some kind of "wake up" call. Let's not forget the MSM which has done its part for decades in preparing us to accept more and more absurdities and lies. Nothing is going to change without the takedown of MSM propaganda. The Running Man comes to mind.
True, it is very disappointing. Not that any candidate other than Cornell West has strayed from AIPAC's money (and many feel West will drop out and endorse Genocide Joe late in the race. Blacks have voted 85 to 95% Democrat the last dozen or more Presidential races, according to Pew).
West's job is to herd disaffected people into the Democratic corral, like "Bernie."
Jill Stein and whoever the Libertarians are running I think are also not on the AIPAC trough.
A VP pick that was part of Event 201 is a bit suspicious as well.
I've gone from initially viewing Kennedy's candidacy with enthusiasm to seeing him as a vanity candidate who's running on nostalgia for his uncle and father.
This is a conspiracy theory, or a loose, unattached chunk of conspiracy theory, hitherto unknown to me. Thanks for sharing. Might want to examine the connection between "Event 201" and "Area 51." Coincidence that both end in the number "1?"
Nothing is good about Genocide. Nothing is good about apartheid. Nothing is good about AIPAC deciding who can be in Congress and corrupting them with bribes. I liked RFK too til his actual support for mass murder became obvious.
Nothing is good about hostage taking. Nothing is good about rape. Nothing is good about religious zealotry. Nothing is good about morons who apologize for rapists and hostage takers and religious zealots.
Agreed on all counts, except there seems tt be no equal angst about what Hamas did, nor the fact the did it and then hide behind the Palistinians. How can you battle this tactic and insure it doesn't happen again. Over 12 hundred Isrealis were killed in brutal fashion. It's not a black and white as it seems, but again I completely agree Isreal has way too much influence in the USA
Yeah, my grandparents had the same issue with FDR killing all those Germans. Not.
There shouldn't be equal angst about what Hamas did. Israel's response is so disproportionate to what Hamas did that this is not a real argument and it pretends that everything started on October 7
And unfornately RFK's energy policy would bankrupt 80% of America. I hope -if by chance he is elected--RFK would have a more open mind and at least listen to the thousands of credible scientists that reasonably question the cult of climate change.
But the Progressive/Soros/Gates fascination with creating 15 minute cities (more correct to say 15 minute ghettos) and packing everyone into early Soviet housing is a worry and this is related closely to the Climate Change presumptions. Did no one learn from the Chicago projects debacle? And just what type of jobs is everyone supposed to do? Also, I gave up when he chose his google derivative VP... But I am grateful and really do appreciate RFK's loud and clear message of corruption and deceit in the current Democratic power group. Its critical more politicians call out the Biden adminstrations desire and attempt to censor anything they deem "misinformation".
Another public service announcement from the Kremlin.
RFK Jr. at least listens to counter arguments. His choice for VP is better than Trumps last choice and better exponentially than Bidens.
40 year environmental lawyer not at all captured by the climate political narrative.
"Climate change" (or whatever the hell these clowns are calling it now) is an effort by the one percent to impoverish everyone else.
They want to drag the world back to the pre-industrial age.
While they constantly fly around the globe on private jets cuz, ya know, they're "expertise" and mere existence are, ya know, indispensable. Just die already and join the graveyards full of "indispensable" people.
*their "expertise"
EU Court just came out with ruling that a new human right is to not be subject to climate change. Or something like that: it’s hard to enumerate something that is probably beyond human control. I can see why the UK left that conglomeration (EU).
The notion that humans affect the weather in a significant way is the latest sign that we are in a post-enlightenment era of superstition.
It's only a matter of time before we start burning people at the stake.
The EU will now control the sun.
I'm with the climate change board and we don't want to impoverish you we want to enslave you. A common enough misconception.
Thanks for clearing that up!
What’s your beef with the pre-industrial age?
Poverty, disease, ignorance.
Other than that I am sure it was a good time for all.
The Luddites were a grand lot. The reaction to them, of course, exhibited the violence inherent in the system. I say, back to the times of King Arthur, when a watery tart lying in a pond distributing swords in a farcical watery ceremony could determine the basis for a system of government. Those were the days. Yeah.
insects
pretty sure if he had somehow won the Democratic nomination he would go full bore machine politician, with one or two variations
I just think of Greta Thunberg’s face and move on.
You mean when she was squalling about stealing her dreams and her childhood? She can bite me.
Yup. ‘Thunberg Face’ enters the lexicon ;)
He's also full on witless stupidity on the climate change hoax.
As opposed to full on general witless stupidity?
Israel and his VP pick are a problem. Boteach proved RFK Jr. can still be bullied by certain forces. We really need an "act of God" like a meteor over the Pentagon instead of our current "choices."
I'm increasingly convinced that the problem is that the US is too big and powerful.
We should have remained a relatively small country of farmers, artisans and mechanics.
Instead we became this militarized monstrosity. We're as dangerous to each other as we are to the world at large.
IMHO, the issues that most people have with RFK Jr.’s stances on things such as climate change, Israel, the Second Amendment, etc. are all worthy of reasoned discussion. And I have no doubt that RFK Jr. will debate them thoughtfully and respectfully. The issues with Biden, censorship, endless wars, rampant illegal immigration, are not only extremely divisive they will never be honestly debated by Biden. Even if he were capable of such debate. Does anyone honestly believe the man has anything close to the cogent ability to do so? As for Trump, if elected, his opponents will wage war on him and his administration from day one. To the detriment of the entire nation.
Yeah, people who get mad because they are raped. tortured, and murdered are evil people.
Speaking on the Twins Pod, he caved on Ukraine, too. Said ethnic Russians "wanted to be taken over" to be part of Russia, that Zelensky is a "puppet" of America that "we put in there" (somehow convincing the Ukrainians to vote for him), "if he crosses the U.S. his own ultra-right people will kill him . . . so he does what we say," and that "there's a huge Nazi problem in Ukraine" (prompted by one of the hosts). As a Camelot remnant, his intellectual failings are irrelevant to his role as a spoiler.
Sorry to disagree but I believe Kennedy is correct in describing Zelensky as a US puppet.
The "comedian" wouldn't last five minutes without boatloads of cash from his American sugar daddies.
Hell, he might have to go back to playing the piano with his you know what. We must, at all costs, spare him that terrible fate!
As for Nazis in Ukraine, I think it's a well-established fact that they are there and have been since WWII.
Zelensky is desperate for American arms so is averse to criticizing our failures to defend against Russian ambitions. If that makes him puppet, his people voted for a puppet. Any Nazis in Ukraine fighting Stalin, who starved them during Holodomor, would be very old by now. Might want to double check your well established facts.
Whatever.
I could care less about Zelensky and Nazis.
What I care about is the fact that no vital US interests are at stake in Ukraine.
Let the Ukrainians have it. Let the Russians have it. Let Ukraine vanish off the face of the earth. Just get us the hell out of the place.
But their children & grand children would not be very old.
There are nazis in Ukraine. Then again there are more nazis in Idaho than there are in Ukraine.
If you say so.
However they are not dragging us into a war.
Before WWII I believe...
I get it, but RFK knows that U can’t get elected in America if you go against the Israel lobby.
RFK isn't going to be elected regardless of what he says
That's no excuse for knuckling under to the Israel lobby.
Exactly.
I think you mean "he caved" - interesting slip.
Or he looked at the facts and decided what was right to do.
He’s a cabinet level guy. He doesn’t have the management or business prowess for the whole job.
I felt the same way, now a bit hopeful as I hear he is softening on his pro Israel stance.
I just see him as another grifter. I doubt he'll get ballot access in all 50 states. None of the independent candidates seem like anything other than people trying to fundraise off of people's misery and grab a little attention for themselves. I'll probably just vote for Jill Stein in protest and maybe the Green Party will get the 5% they need for public election funding.
If there are future elections to be funded, that is.
I'd love to hear his stance on this issue. I think it would be perfect for him. No-one is asking for special favours, just to be treated fairly.
Excellent. Buybacks are, it seems, the core problem with Boeing, too, and the reason America went from producing some of the best products in the world to producing crap.
Re: the working class getting crushed. Twas ever thus. The Versailles liberals couldn't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves. Don't expect that to change.
Spot on. A bit more about Boeing case from local source: https://www.thestranger.com/transportation/2024/04/09/79460588/seattle-times-admits-mudede-was-right-about-boeings-downfall
It's amazingly short-sighted. They couldn't/wouldn't see the cumulative affect of tossing millions of Americans into the poor house year upon year. I believe the election will be a representation of how Americans see themselves. I certainly hope there's more of us poor-house people. It's sad that our best hope is a rich asshole. What a country!
Don’t disagree with anything you’ve said except: what electoral failures? That red ripple in 2022 doesn’t add up. We’ll see if anything changes in 2024.
The democrats held a majority in the house of representatives for four consecutive decades in the 20th century. Compared to that, their success in recent elections just doesn't stack up.
That's back when they stood for working people and good government.
The Democratic party never stood for anything. They were forced to do things when threatened electorally by left-wing populists and socialisists. Remember, W.E.B. Duboise got million votes and 6% of the popular vote as a socialist while in prison. Democrat Wilson deported and, prosecuted and persecuted left-wingers and anti war activists. The corporate Dems have helped destroy the New Deal policies in a good cop/bad cop kabuki theater since the beginning. The Dem party has never been anything but a cheap, soulless pliable whore to whichever direction the wind and money are coming from.
I think you might mean Eugene Debs, who was in prison and received that large number of votes.
"Du Bois." He never ran for President nor was he ever incarcerated---obviously you're confusing him with Eugene Debs. Strange. Put the bottle down and pick up the book.
Like both Malcolm X and MLK said: the only difference between conservatives and lib'rels is they both hate you but the conservatives do it up front and libs welcome you to their house, then stab you in the back when we you leave.
Don't hold back, now. Nice!
It's also back before conservatives in the Democratic Party got fed up and left it in droves.
One can only hope.
The efforts with the media psyops are laughable, yet effective. As with covid, the media tells their audience that only intelligent, educated people think a certain way. It's the hicks and hayseeds that disagree with the intelligent, educated people; like them. And their minions fall in lockstep as they pat themselves on the head.
"Look at you, so sophisticated. You'd never fall for being manipulated! Not like those toothless hillbillies that don't even want an electric car, because they're being lied to by the bad, evil media. Can you believe that? Aren't you glad you're here, with the good, right, smart people?"
--------
"The best way to oppose fake news is for people to watch outlets like MSNBC."
- Congressman Ted Lieu (no shit, really!), who'd like to watch your wallet for you please.
Uh-huh. Speed kills, John.
Meanwhile half the Dems' voter base walks away.
Please, Jesus, I pray that's true. There's not much time left.
No problem, they'll make it up on college graduates!
I don't understand why all these formerly proud workers are so angry. We sent almost of their work overseas to save on labor and they are left to fight over the tiny portion of jobs that remain. I don't understand why they don't just move to a really expensive city and load themselves up with debt for a degree that might make them employable at a real job. I guess we'll just call them racists and sexists and try to prevent who they want to vote for from getting on the ballots. That should make them come around.
I grew up in the 70's. It is funny to watch old TV that still has the original commercials intact. Commercials for Garment Unions and Car companies showcasing a mighty diverse workforce. I grew up in a factory town. People of all 'races' worked at the factories and led pretty typical middle class lives. Our schools were well funded and taught us rather than indoctrinated us. This all was destroyed in our neck of the woods about 1980 when most of our industry got shipped to Mexico and Asia. I've been an economic refugee since. I graduated to no jobs in my town which made it really easy to leave it behind for good or ill. I've had some interesting times in my wandering, and yet wonder what might have happened if I had had economic reasons to stay put.
The racists and sexists are the Wall Street types who deprived people of their livings and then blamed them for it. We are now reaping nearly 50 years of these policies and I cannot say that we are progressing socially, economically or educationally.
And Wall Street post-Occupy, through simply making their logo a rainbow every June, managed to convince black and gay people that straight white blue collar men were the enemy.
Really? How so?
I grew up in the 70s and I don't recall any of that shit.
Learn to code
Learn to do something else… coding is going to be one of the first industries AI takes over. Learn to fix pipes or be an electrician.
How about an AI-dominated Racket News comment section? That would be fun I should think. Perhaps we're already there or at least on our merry way.
To see those same jobs for the debt-ladened also conveniently outsourced the same way the old ones were. The manufacturers bemoan the ability to find people willing to work for them - gee, I wonder why? Now, reports say no one wants to become an accountant. Gosh, that too? Puzzling for sure. I mean, why wouldn't someone want a job that could be shifted to some place far-flung the first time the AI driven spreadsheet says it will up the margin?
The laptop aristocracy now has its wish - everyone part of the new gig economy. But it came around to bite them in the ass. What didn't they get about "everyone"?
For added context about Oberlin College firing unionized cafeteria workers, read what the college did to Gibson's Bakery.
Oberlin paid that bakery a sh!t ton of money after slandering them endlessly is what they did!
Not exactly voluntarily
Oberlin exhausted all appeals before their insurance company reluctantly started to pay
Of course they didn’t want to pay - Marxist will never admit fault. They appealed it and were rejected at the state Supreme Court level. They were paid in full in 2022 to the tune of $46+ million including interest on the judgement. Oberlin’s endowment is well over a billion $$$’s - concrete evidence that there are a lot of stupid rich people who contribute to their Alma mater.
I was just thinking about that case.
Ultimately, the problem is that the money is fake. When DC is printing cash and handing it out to their buddies, OF COURSE people who work in the 'real' economy will fall behind. And solutions coming from DC will only exacerbate the problem, because DC solutions ALWAYS grow the government -- usually by borrowing and printing.
“It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.”
- Ludwig von Mises
Didn't Ludwig invent Bitcoin?
End The Fed!
"The reason QE is “good for the rich and bad for the poor” is obvious: by pouring trillions in jet-fuel cash into the inequity engine that is the banking sector, we’ve seen massive increases in share prices and corporate profits, without any resulting increases in wages."
- Matt Taibbi 2011
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rick-perry-vs-ben-bernanke-round-one-99389/
That guy knows what's up! And the nature of the beast is that it requires more and more jetfuel to run the fake economy, and eventually that completely overwhelms the real economy.
This was also prescient from the same link:
"It should be obvious to anyone that printing two trillion new dollars and handing it to the corrupt financial sector to play with will not result in higher wages for ordinary people. This ought to be an issue for the left/progressives, but thanks to Barack Obama’s ownership of the program, it’s now turning into a campaign issue for Republicans."
The "real" economy was "overwhelmed" decades ago. How it all ends only the Shadow knows.
Agreed 100 percent and its made worse because the money doesn't actually gdt spent on producing anything anymore. The government hates actual infrastructure projects and doesn't do them because if you spend 10 billion building brisges this year next year you dont need 10 billion because the bridges are built and just need ro be maintained so they prefer to tske tax dollars and turn them into 5000 gov employees cause they have to be paid every year
White Rural Rage is just more proof of how much hostility and disdain the professional managerial class has for the average American.
As if ordinary, hard-working people of middle America are the real threat to Our Democracy™, and not the PMC scheming to ensure rule of the elites in perpetuity and eternal left-wing institutional control.
The White thing is just a tool / dog whistle for the race baiters. The rage is in everyone in rural areas. Here in California it's mostly Mexican Americans that are pissed off.
That’s where the whole Dem narrative disintegrates. There are millions of struggling middle class Americans and they are Black, White, Hispanic, Asian and they’re all being screwed by the corporate puppets in DC.
I think this explains the mysterious reason democrats suddenly fell collectively in sync with LBT- trans madness pushing it like it is the most important social issue of humanity.
They already knew they had lost the working class vote as such they had to demonize them.
Sometimes people are so tempermentally or professionally analytical, so inclined to view an issue from an empyrean perspective, that they focus entirely on the map and ignore the territory.
This issue is not that complicated and someone like Chris Lasch nailed it 30 years ago in "Revolt of the Elites".
Our elite ownership class, its managerial aspirants, and the liberal class in its entirety, all having converted to a vague syrupy faith based on cosmopolitan humanitarianism where the struggles of someone on another continent become more important than the struggles of your fellow citizens (they're more telegenic! all the cool kids are talking about it!) have become a tribe of Mrs. Jellybys who have ZERO allegiance to their own country and people.
It's actually even simpler: we live in a country where those who've most benefited from this country, our entire elite class—professional, academic and cultural—HATE their own people, their own countries, their (our) culture, history and tradition. And they display and express it every day in every way.
What happens when a ruling class coalesces that has nothing but disdain for the people it rules over? Either they must be made to care (and not just rhetorically) or deposed.
While I am probably demographically part of that class (lower end) you hit the nail on the head. As i have said elsewhere, behavior is trending toward that of 18th century French aristocracy
I am ensconced deep in the Blue Bubble—is how I got my degree in cognitive dissonance🤣—and among the disturbing things I deal w constantly are:
1) the monumental tension and constant cognitive brain-twisting required for people to keep saying both We Must Defend Democracy! while at the same time saying, Everyone who disagrees with me is an obvious bigot who needs re-education and all their political beliefs need to be denounced and erased—well, what the hell do you think Democracy is except negotiating w and compromising w people w very different beliefs!? You really think the purpose of Democracy is achieving uniformity of belief and of values!? (But explaining this to anyone still doesn't stop the bigotry accusations, modern liberals can't help themselves, it's how they've been programmed!)
2) but even more maddening is how with just a few sprinkles of civics and common sense so much of our modern madness could be defused. The people who work with their brains don't need to vilify and immiserate the people who pick their food, drive the trucks that deliver their food, who police their streets or who mine their coal—they are cutting off the limb they sit on! We could easily have a saner political situation if everyone recognized that as much as you think you may hate your political opponents, you'll miss them if in your hatred you kill off this thing called America. It shouldn't be too hard to agree that political decisions need to be made that are in the best interests of citizens and not of international capital flows.
But there are times when all the incentives pull toward division, vilification and the denunciation of what exists in the name of some imaginary utopia, whether past or future, and unfortunately it seems we're living through one of those times.
You're doing far better than the others in bubble-land. They're still pumped up on fear and class anxiety.
But be clear - things have never been better equality wise, which is at least a plausible fiction now, rather than an apostasy to be feared and condemned. The disastrous experiments with social perfectionism of the 20th century taught us a few things - curtail state power as much as possible. Killing the FISA bill was a good start - but in the end the deep state will have its way.
The first thing the French revolutionaries did after taking power was ensure that the rights of man would not extend to women and the poor. Protecting property rights (including slaves) and the right exploit others was at the top of their to-do list. France banned slavery and legalized divorce for about fifteen minutes. The ban on slavery lasted less than a decade and the practice continued until 1848. Then things got worse, in some respects. Divorce disappeared in 1816; women in France were still trying to claw back property rights in the 1970s. People should get out more.
Also see the Levellers - twas a dirty word almost up to the present. People don't want equality. How are we supposed to feel good if we can't look down on someone else - like the blue-red-pink bubbleheads, for example. Inter-racial marriage was a thing and an illegal thing in 1968. And things are getting worse? Reagan, Iran-Contra etc. etc. What we're experiencing is simple one chapter in a long history of exploitation which isn't likely to end anytime soon short of a meteor strike.
Re-read Matt's interview - Leo comes off like a grifter trying to make a buck off the screwed. Probably just me.
amen
Yes! I keep thinking of pre-revolutionary France also. Who knew Thomas Friedman and Marie Antoinette had anything in common?!😅
Off with their heads!
In fairness, social justice warriors need someone to war against. Rural people they've never met offer the opportunity to mentally depict them like posters of Tojo in WWII.
The map is not the territory.
- Alfred Korzybski
it never is!
You and I know that. Yet the corrupt ruling class uniparty relentlessly tries to convince us otherwise.
With respect, the key point missing from your excellent is that America's aristocrats have never been shy about expressing their disdain for the great unwashed.
Taking a gigantic dump all over the worse off all day, every day is how they get off and they're not shy about the pleasure they derive from doing so. The notion that the rich are somehow going to be made to pay is delusional.
The only thing that's going to happen when/if Trump wins is that the poorest may be able to finally purchase lubricants for four years. After that screwing of the public will continue unabated. Count on it and plan accordingly.
"The notion that the rich are somehow going to be made to pay is delusional."
I have no (or few) illusions about "Democracy" and think all societies have always had an aristocratic/oligarchic class who exist to privatize profits, socialize losses, and to bribe, scheme and maybe unleash a few Pinkertons to lock in all their privileges—and that this has never changed and never will change.
But it comes down to degree—there are certain points where the hoggishness becomes too gross to ignore, and a little more sharing of the pie is in everyone's best interests, aristocrats first and foremost. But what I was getting at was separate of, or adjacen to, economics: the turn our cultural, educational and managerial mandarins have taken against 50% of the country, shitting on them as secret Nazis, and making it clear that these people are not to be compromised w, but have to be muzzled, if not replaced.
This I think is recent, ugly, somewhat historically unprecendented, massively hypocritical, and bound to bring us all to a bad end.
In my more paranoid moments, I can't help thinking that the 1 to (5? 10?) %ers are being prepared to at least not care and possibly cheer for the AI controlled humanoid robot roll outs on the near horizon. Amazon and BMW are both well along into their projects to replace people who are employed for having a pair of hands, legs a back & only being used to pick, load, unload & etc.. If those (still slightly) privileged and not quite yet replaceable knowledge workers have no sympathy with the newly cut loose grunts, they won't be tempted to do anything about it all, and a precedent will be set for when it is the NEXT cadres up the ladder being rendered surplus and unemployable.
even if that's the plan, humans propose but god/fate/unforeseen consequences dispose. if there are any major social disruptions up ahead (and history says there usually are), many of our Masters of the Universe will not escape unscathed.
for all those people fantasizing a posthuman future: be careful what you wish for (you just might get it!) if and when global corporate capitalism collapses, it will be real ugly for awhile, but who knows, there may be a newer, much more human, future coming in its wake.
@Clever Pseudonym
We went from slave based agriculture to plowing with horses (the horse collar, introduced after end of western Roman empire had a HUGE social impact!), disruption. From hand made textiles to factory made, disruption, look at "the enclosure acts" in England & Scotland, where the village commons were taken from farmers so industrialists could have wool and cheap, desperate workers. Human and animal powered equipment to steam engines in mining and manufacturing, more disruption. Again, with introduction of petroleum powered internal combustion on farms. Every such disruption has been associated with plenty of conflict.
This one is going to be a bastard if those idiots who talk about "the invisible hand" just let the chips fall where they may.
A rising tide drowns people who can't afford boats while the yachting classes enjoy their new possibilities.
A few really big solar storms and poof…
History is full of precedents, but every situation is unique. Universal suffrage is an extremely recent and rare development. Exploitation and domination are the norms, social stratification exists in many species, and behavioral conformity is rule one of all herd species. So, there's that.
Things are actually looking up, relatively speaking. There is no mythic eden of equality. As soon as there's a surplus in labor, us serfs get a double dose of screwing. We can be nice to others and try to initiate chain reactions of random acts of kindness. Have a better one!
One last point (really!). I spent part of my childhood in the UK - when there was ZERO chance of class and social mobility. The UK and Ireland are today leading the charge towards stripping their citizens of all civil rights and protections. Mike Lee has a piece in the Hill calling for an end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict at the negotiating table. There's never been a better time to get in the game and focus on positive doable solutions. The powers-that-be aren't going anywhere, but the powers-that-be aren't all powerful.
We can win on an issue by issue basis. But it's not going to happen without joining hands with people we can't stand - union organizing 101.
I guess. But Henry Ford (for his own selfish reasons) made an automobile attainable by by more, more regular people. Now Pres. Joey, who by the way never made or did anything of value, is dictating to the rest of us to drive to the hymnal of climate change. Sure. Aviator President, Slurring Speech Joey. Ick.
What’s missing is noblesse oblige. OTOH, how can you miss something that was never part of our tradition?
Isn't it getting a bit too easy and commonplace to rag on the PMC? It's like a ritual of hate now. Plenty of them are just as precarious as working class people. Nothing is coming to reduce debt burdens or stabilize housing, health, education, or other living costs so we can expect many more to fall in status. Hence I say we should welcome the repentant ex-PMCs weighed down by debts with loving embraces and encourage those remaining to abandon their masochistic ass-kissing ways and come join us barbarians.
This article hits me in a very personal way because I am a victim of this war against the working class. In the face of endless amounts of articles about how great the economy is and how low unemployment is, I have struggled for over 10 years to find full-time employment. My family has been scraping by, mostly on just my wife's income (though I have at least had part-time employment the last two years. Many of these jobs that liberals brag so much about are part-time low wage jobs and many people have to work multiple of these jobs just to scrape by. And then (mostly white) affluent liberals seriously have the fucking gall to ask why keeping Trump out of office isn't our number one priority when we have seen the utter decimation of our personal economies and our dignity. I know that Trump and Republicans aren't going to make things any better for people like me and that's why they don't get my votes either, but honestly, if Trump does win the Presidency against and all of these self-important white affluent liberals have to experience just a small portion of the pain I've been living with, I might just do something socially unacceptable and laugh at their expense. Heartily.
Ignorant rube , inflation is down almost 5.5 percent from its high! 9 to 3.5 ! Of course 2 percent is the target but Dr. Krugman knows best and maybe you should get a 4th job .
Exactly so! And don't forget eating cereal for dinner! Also, click on that FB add and give some money to Ukraine!
I forgot about the cereal. Also, you should let your dog die.
Those are all logical next steps after we dropped fancy lattes and avocado on toast!
Have you seen the price of cereal lately?
I suspect that at least some of the condescending neo-liberal elites in government, the media, and academia are beginning to figure out how unpopular they are. But, instead of responding with better government, etc., they are doubling down by rigging the electoral process and censoring anyone who questions their ridiculous narratives.
I think it's clear you suspect right. Part of what makes any realistic discussion today so difficult is the PMC became so strict in enforcing its orthodoxy and severely punitive of dissent. It's heresy to suggest that, for example, political parties should get themselves elected by credibly offering economic policies that help people. So, for now anyway, those that figure out how unpopular they are keep their mouths shut or use carefully coded speech.
But the situation not stable. The USA is in an economic bind that it cannot escape from without private debt cancellation and taxing economic rent, which is naga happen. So things will get worse and eventually politics will break one way or another.
Every Democrat politician and pollster should be made to read your post. You hit the nail on the head about why working people are hurting and angry, and the hypocrisy of liberal elites who bang on about each and every kind of oppression except the one they are complicit in: oppression of working people by big business and governments who are in their pockets.
Thank you for your kind words. I don't think I said anything that hasn't been said as well or better by other folks, but this particular issue is personal to me. Society does not look well upon men who fail at providing for their families.
Ultimately it's the donors that want you impoverished and hence both parties work to make it so. And trust me that hard times are arriving now for the Professional and Managerial Class too. Our only hope for a better future is to unite on our common economic class interest, repudiate the BS R-D politics in the news, and Eat The Rich.
I'll leave this for you here: "Neo-liberalism Expressed as Simple Rules" by Lambert Strether https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/neo-liberalism-expressed-simple-rules.html
Rule #1: Because markets.
Rule #2: Go die!
Oberlin? Didn't Gibsons Bakery give Oberlin $36 million reasons to lay off Oberlin workers? The villains in that story, as I recall, were not Wall Streeters.
While I agree with the criticism of Schaller (his "RAGE" means the horrendous act of... voting the wrong way), and I'm not completely unsympathetic to the points of Leopold, the idea of the working class banding together to defeat the greedy capitalists of the world does not resonate with me.
Speaking as just one of those rednecks underneath the microscope, I think the return of merit and accountability would go a long way toward lowering "rage." As would slowing down on the bald-faced lies we're constantly force-fed.
Liked just for not using "bold-faced" here
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to tabby and brown and black and yellow and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email sig.
Which is precisely why they will not do this.
It was the Frankfurt School that gutted Marxism of it's materialism and replaced it with oppression via identity.
The navel gazers just cannot tolerate people who work hard and know how to fix a problem, efficiently, effectively and at a reasonable price. You can't grift off that.
BINGO! USSR gone, competition gone, alternative gone. Wall Street party time. Oh wait, China and BRICS and the end of the Free lunch; the end of the Petro $, the reserve currency, SWIFT, what can we do? War baby, that always works
The labor movement did not cover itself in glory in the 60's & 70's. (you can say the same about management.) Need more effective leadership.
I grew up in Steubenville OH, a former steel town, The folks I'm still in touch with are not angry racist whites. They were mostly all Dems until the jobs left and the Dems didn't help them. Then the Dems got so progressive, these people, with very strong family values kept those values and the Dems just left them in the lurch. I'm sure the progressives like to look down their noses at them and make them their scapegoats. Think they are uneducated and stupid. Tell you what, they are a hell of a lot smarter than those colich snobs.
I can't even remember the number of times I've been laid-off, or had a contract cancelled with no notice. And I live on a coast, FFS. I've also lost track of the vulture capitalists who'd run companies into the ground, cash out right before the shit hit the fan, then rinse-repeat at some new company they'd founded on the side. One of those rich fucks even got investigated by the FTC for pump-and-dump, but of course he got off. They blamed everything on some frat brother they'd brought in as VP of Finance, and he took the fall. And even that was a slap on the wrist. Dude had nothing to do with it, too - he was just another corporate stiff trying to provide for his family like the rest of us.
The rich keep on robbing from us and stepping on our necks, their sycophant toadies in the media tell us it's our fault, and the only way to be better than those base, disgusting workers is to aspire to be an elite bigoted scumbag carrying water for the elites. And it's working.
America is a failed state - we need to hit the reset button and attempt to rebuild it again.
Isn’t it a sort of racism to call all rural people racist. Or deplorable. I’ve been a lower to middle class person all my life. Lived on a farm and the people around me were decent people. They weren’t racist or deplorable.
It always surprises my fellow Yankees when I tell them that the races get along better in the South, especially the rural South. Southerners are (in general) more polite, value personal friendships, and are loyal to one another. If they had a chance to live there and see it for themselves, they would discover that their liberal narratives are a myth.
"We looked at 23 social issue questions that were really divisive, and the white working class in fact got more liberal, not more conservative over that period. Should gay couples be allowed to adopt in the last 20 years? It’s gone from 38% approval to 76% approval. They have a question there about legalizing illegal immigrants who’ve been here three years, paid their taxes, and have no felonies. That went from 32% support of that 15 years ago, now it’s 62% support. And we compared the white working class versus white working class management on a whole slew of questions. There’s hardly any difference, so you can’t put it on them."
Sorry, but I believe this is called "cherry-picking." He's picked the social issues of 30 years ago, or framed them in such a way as to guarantee approval (" illegal immigrants who’ve been here three years, paid their taxes, and have no felonies"). That is not the issue with migration, and anyone who's honest surely knows that.
Did he ask current ones, like:
"Should men be able to play women's sports, if they 'identify' as women? Should they be able to use the women's restrooms?"
"Should minorities be given preference in hiring?"
"Do we owe reparations to black people?"
"Should student loans be forgiven?"
Secondly, the connection between layoffs and stock buybacks is something that could easily studied rigorously. It's interesting, but he only has anecdotes and assertions.
Legitimate points. I think the article is still on the right track. I would also mention that unions cause a great deal of the problems. I am working on a large apartment project that is bound to use prevailing wage rates due to government participation and financing requirements. I could easily add 30 to 40% more units but for this requirement. The workers get huge checks each week, but the potential to provide housing is greatly impacted.
Yeah. I'm writing on the Pullman strike, and I see no contradiction on being FOR unions back in 1894, and generally negative on them now. Power corrupts.
I am not anti-union, it;s just sometimes the leadership isn't god at reading the tea leaves. They commit suicide. This is what will happen to the fast food workers here in California. The legislature caved to the unions, they raised minimum wage in the middle a inflationay period. Items that people don't have to buy will suffer. Jobs will be lost.
Any chance you would compare/contrast this book to Batya Ungar-Sargon's new book "Second Class?"
Nice to see you get back on real politics (i.e. economics) Matt.
I sometimes get a bit bored with all the in-depth analysis of how silly our normal (i.e. fake) politics is.
The whole point of fake politics is distract from the real one. Chase the squirrel of all the woke-ish, socially divisive hot button "issues" that affect 1% of people to distract from being robbed blind. It is the variation on the "divide et impera" rule (with a lot of social engineering thrown in, mostly through illegal immigration) adapted to the post-modern era.
Yes. And I have argued several times that discussion of the nonsense in the overt (fake) politics, as often practiced by Matt and other admirable journos and media people, can reinforce the perception that it is in fact real. To explain I have my hierarchy of narratives:
Level 1: The actual daily overt political discourse in MSM.
Level 2: The discussion of L1 politics, pointing out its falsities, e.g. as practiced by Matt, K Halper or G Greenwald.
Level 3 is the unspoken narrative says that the Level 1 narrative is real politics and real politics is what we see in MSM. The flip side is equally important: L3 says that real politics is not economic class politics, e.g. that Eat The Rich is lunatic fringe nonsense.
Level 4: This explains how L1, 2, and 3 all work together to maintain the status quo power relations in society. Herman and Chomsky operates here. C Hedges. Sometimes also J Dore.
L3 is the most insidious and impressive narrative since I think most people accept it as true without any thought. It is a pervasive unconscious ideology, an unknown known.
So you can see how I can get tired of listening to L2 when it only talks about the L1 noise and not about the rest. L2 talk can validate L1 as real and as such becomes also L3. And why I'm pleased that C Hedges nudged Matt into some class economics.
This is the Killdeer move. The Killdeer bird builds its nest on open fields. To protect the nest, the bird comes away and does a broken wing dance to distract from the nest. This is what most msm and politics do now. They do a distraction dance so we don't notice the nest of eggs - symbolic of our real issues we should be discussing. NO KILLDEERS faking their broken wings! Time to call them out when they do their dance.