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David Sirota wrote about the failing public services in New York City due to lack of funding, New York Provides A Snowy Glimpse Into America’s Future but leaves out one important issue, it’s not an accident.
“Welcome to the New Normal.”
Those words should be displayed at New York’s airports as a welcome to bedraggled travelers during the Northeast’s latest “snowpocalypse.” Why? Because the Big Apple’s much-lamented paralysis this week is a critical cautionary tale for everyone. As I show in my new newspaper column, the episode warns us about the kind of thing that’s likely coming to the rest of America as we now willfully mix three toxic problems.
Those toxic issues are climate change denial, the “conservatives’ anti-tax, budget-cutting religion” and plutocracy. All of these are connected and on purpose. It’s all part of the bathtub scheme dreamed up by Grover Norquist.
When Government fails due to lack of funding it further puts people in the corner of seeing Government as incompetent and useless. This is a win for the anti-Government party of no. I don’t think Democrats ask Republicans who run for office during their campaigns this question enough, “Exactly why do you want to run something you so outwardly despise?”
Progressives see the flawed nature in our Government, the fact that it fails to work for most people, meaning the bottom 95%, is the reason we fight for tougher regulation, campaign finance reform, etc. But the outcome of the last 30 years has brought us regulations that’s too complex for most people and perfect for people who can afford legions of lawyers.
This is not an accident.
So those things meant to help people, like plowing the streets during a blizzard can’t be counted on anymore. California is a great example of this painful breakdown. As we stare down more massive cuts in basic services, many things that people take for granted may not be as reliable.
This is not an accident.
Living in Southern California I sometimes torture myself with listening to local talk radio hosts John & Ken. They love trashing the State Government, it’s like breathing for them. And they love quoting how California is the worst of everything, from taxation to what we spend per prisoner to how much teachers are paid compared to other States. Of course there is no context for their Stats, such as cost of living or when it comes to taxes on Corporations, the many tax loopholes and credits the State gives businesses, which actually brings California to be about average when compared to all fifty States.
Of course the other numbers they leave out are my favorites, like California is 48th when it comes to number of State Workers per capita. State Workers are spread pretty thin with a great deal of work on their plates. It also feeds into this whole Government is inept and can’t be efficient meme.
And it’s not an accident. Dismantling the greater good and right before our very eyes.
Education is going to be hard hit as well when we can least afford it and just as the reformers are on a rampage to disassemble public education, the great equalizer of our time. Education is what allows anyone become something better. Unions are not the issue (although they certainly haven’t helped their cause) and Charter schools are not the solution.
And lastly, the environment, the biggest thing to fail, where all these crisis won’t matter one bit if we can’t breathe, or have drinkable water (which 1 out of 5 human beings don’t have access to as it is, right now).
Of course I wish I had answers. My continued frustration with the Obama Administration has a great deal to do with his inability to turn a mandate into some meaningful reform. I understand that much was accomplished in the last two years but I do believe that more should have been done to help the economy first off, maybe even putting off health care reform in order to push through a much bigger stimulus package.
The middle is a lot bigger than either extreme and I believe that they don’t really care who gets shit done, they just want it done. If we had spent more in order get to the economy going right out of the gate, things might be different.
I know it’s been said better and more intelligently (Krugman) and by so many others (better and much better know bloggers and journalists), but it’s one of those issues that can’t be written about enough. It’s the shared good that makes our society worthwhile and the idea what we spend our money on shows how we prioritize our values. Dismantling this great good in the name of the tea party, austerity or conservatism not only destroys our very social fabric, it leaves our Country vulnerable to things that are going to be much worse in the next decade or two.
We have to demand that this stop. What are you going to do in the new year to stop the destruction happening before our very eyes?
68 Comments
you’re right, it’s not an accident
Snowstorm was a trifecta for the wingnuts.
Snowstorm proved climate change isn’t happening.
Bad NYC govt response proved govt is incompetent.
Propaganda from above got more people to vote for wingnuts.
These storms, whether icy or hot are the result of warming. You add heat to the pot and it boils faster and faster moving distant stuff closer to each other. Killer tornadoes in December? More energy speeds everything up.
We are at war but not with the middle easterners.It’s the ignorant brutes.
Without government cleaning the snow consumers don’t buy stuff during the holiday season because they can’t drive to stores.
If private business is so efficient where where the WallMart snow plows?
How many businesses will go under this year because states can’t plow the roads and can’t afford to call out the National Guard trucks to plow the roads?
If people can’t fly into New York they will fly into Canada and take the train in to New York. Plus they can then avoid the Pornoscan.
Yes closed system add in more heat energy and uneven heating due to seasons and day night temperature difference the GOPers don’t know physics.
When Government fails due to lack of funding it further puts people in the corner of seeing Government as incompetent and useless. This is a win for the anti-Government party of no. I don’t think Democrats ask Republicans who run for office during their campaigns this question enough, “Exactly why do you want to run something you so outwardly despise?”
that’s an easy one
they want private industry running everything, they actually believe private industry will do things for less money and more efficiently, a depraved point of view and most intelligent people know better but the republican constituents have been feed the propaganda that government industry costs more then private due to union labor and retirement funds, as well as that 500 dollar toilet seat and corruption
these republican constituents do not understand that a well paid labor class is good for the economy, they do not understand that union labor raises their personal income and work conditions, they do not understand that the mythical 500 dollar toilet seat and corruption are dwarfed by the expense of the profit model private industry uses
they want privitization of everything, roads, water, tunnels, air, the courts, the police, the fire dept
they want everything based on a profit model and they do not understand that becomes a robber baron economic system
the bottom line is this
this happened becuase the fairness doctrine was rescinded, peopl;e only hear one side of the story and do not get the facts at all, democrats actually are beginning to believe there is a such thing as “trickle down economics” to wit, take one look at obama, every single thing he has done is based on the rediculous “from the top down” when anyone with a brain knows it goes from the bottom up.
but there it is, so long as corporate america run the media we will be in consistant economic decline
How many small business need holiday sales to break even? States shut down by snow will suffer more bankruptcies than they otherwise would have if the States had more money for snowplows.
How many airlines are losing money because of airport shutdowns? Pennywise Pound foolish is GOPer economic thinking.
we made a big mistake marketing this as “global warming”, now it’s correctly called “climate change” and I’m sure if we began with that the republicans would have found something else to use as their claim that the science is somehow gamed, but never the less, “climate change” is the term we must use, not global warming, “global warming” plays into the rushball ditto head idiocity
You know the science community is not doing a good job of presenting these simply facts in understandable language.
The enemy is more pervasive than we think. I am seeing such a decline in the quality of some of the scientific journals that I have revered for many years.
They want to be in gov’t for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks – that’s where the money is.
People need to lead political action that costs the right some real money to make it stop.
Really, I can’t imagine that there’s *nearly* enough time to “course correct” at this point. I’m grateful that DDay pointed out, rightly, that besides EVERYTHING else problematic in the world, the sustainability of the world’s water supply — indisputably the most important possible thing on earth — is in serious question, with conservative estimates predicting that it will disappear by 2050 at present rates of consumption. Forget everything else; without water, it doesn’t matter. And yet “we” (our ruling class, that is) are still “debating” how to “deal with” climate change. Completely insane. DDay is one of the best, and I would be open to optimism if it seemed remotely realistic, but what can anyone possibly do, *at this point* about halting the destruction of the common good?
I agree. The brutes can’t follow even two step logic.
they want private industry running everything, they actually believe private industry will do things for less money and more efficiently
Bwahahaha! They privatized the airline industry only to bail it out. The phone companies charge American’s more for phone, cell, cable, internet than other countries, we are captive consumers to health insurance companies and drug companies who charge us more than the rest of the world.
Healthcare in America is so bad illegal Hispanic immigrants live longer than Whites with healthcare.
What more proof do we need private industry puts short term profits over customer service? What more proof we need that captive consumers don’t have a free market, only business is free to prey on captive consumers.
“Republicans are the party that says that government doesn’t work, then they get elected and prove it.” – PJ O’Rourke
That was from Bill Maher, right? I like this as a flip side to that equation:
“Democrats are the party that says they stand for the middle class, then they get elected and destroy it.”
–Me
these republican constituents do not understand that a well paid labor class is good for the economy,
They understand that if there kids have to compete against our kids on a more level playing field then Bushes and Quayles would have to sink their natural level of stocking shelves at Jewel.
Really, I can’t imagine that there’s *nearly* enough time to “course correct” at this point. I’m grateful that the author pointed out, rightly, that besides EVERYTHING else problematic in the world, the sustainability of the world’s water supply — indisputably the most important possible thing on earth — is in serious question, with conservative estimates predicting that it will disappear by 2050 at present rates of consumption. Forget everything else; without water, it doesn’t matter. And yet “we” (our ruling class, that is) are still “debating” how to “deal with” climate change. Completely insane. So I would be open to optimism if it seemed remotely realistic, but what can anyone possibly do, *at this point* about halting the destruction of the common good?
The Bush Crime Family is set to go in the water business. They bought thousands of acres on the primary aquifer of Paraguay.
This fact has gone unnoticed by the MSM.
All the big Wallstreet corporations are growing because they are expanding overseas instead of creating jobs here. Just imagine how much tax revenue that would generate for states.
Too bad we don’t have a tariff on foreign goods. Too bad we just gave the rich a tax cut so they now have more money to invest overseas.
Too bad we tax income and not assets. A 10% assets tax on the richest 10% would do wonders for the National debt. It would do even more if we used it to create green jobs.
Gee, ya think that shrinking the number of sanitation workers in NYC over the past 20 years from 15,000 to 5,000 might have had anything to do with the mess caused by the snowstorm?
The conservative mantra is a self fulfilling prophecy.
Thanks for reminding me about that — it truly is one of the biggest disgraces that exists. (I don’t know why I thought this article was by DDay, btw, that was an error.) The privatization of water is evil beyond any comprehension.
One of the best ways to hit back at them is to use their own tax anology.
I hear them calling for a new tax system or a consumer tax. I urge everyone not to fall that consumer tax idea. It will put even more hardship on the regular citizens than we have now.
The NeoCons know that the increasing unemployment will result in more and more problems with income tax. They are thinking up ways not to create a new jobs program to remove that problem, but a new tax plan to go beyond the problems.
(an asset tax would be an unconstitutional “direct tax;” to levy it we’d need an amendment)
Exactly…Republicans go on and proclaim that gov’t is the problem and as soon as they get into office (as Ray-gun did) they enact legislation and policies that ensure that gov’t is the problem for decades to come.
Yes this is the New Normal for now…but I say even the new normal is going to get worse.
“I understand that much was accomplished in the last two years …”
With all due respect, we need to drop this bullshit. More damage was done to the progressive cause in the last two year than ever before. We have a jackass in the WH still reaching out for “good ideas” from folks determined to destroy “the greater good.”
He is NOT part of the answer to preserving, much less advancing, “the greater good.” Until we realize that he poses the biggest danger to “the greater good,” we’re participating in our own demise.
It’s insanity for the federal government not to support the states. Granted, in the case of California, they could begin to help themselves by ending the tax break on commercial real estate.
Time to head to Ohio and dig up some dead presidents to show our nation of RINO’s how it’s done:
“The question we have to consider for the immediate welfare of those States of the Union is the question of government or no government; of social order and all the peaceful industries and the happiness that belongs to it, or a return to barbarism. ”
- President Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877 Inaugural
“The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible for my Administration to prevent.”
- President James Garfield, 1881 Inaugural
Both of those gentlemen were Republicans, what we have today are RINO’s…. two parties full of RINO’s.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hayes.asp
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/jg20/speeches/garfield.htm
Such a good point to emphasize. Truly acknowledging how decrepit the state of our governing forces are means that you must acknowledge that “much” has NOT been accomplished in the last two years — unless by “accomplished,” you are referring to what has been accomplished for the benefit of the oligarchs. Anyone actually representing “the left” should be ashamed by the notion that any good has come from Barack Obama’s presidency.
Of course, it’s about the severity of the change. And it’s why we talk about climate and not weather. It’s a pattern that we need to focus on and not ONE weather system, one storm but the gathering evidence of a lot of different issues.
It’s why it’s not global warming and we refer to it now as CLIMATE change. It’s neither just warming or weather.
But ultimately we have people like the Koch Brothers to thank for the barrage of misinformation. Personally I don’t really care what caused it, we need to start discussing what we’re going to do.
It’s too bad that those idiots don’t have a clue how weather works. That upper level high at the North Pole (where it’s balmy and melting the ice cap)pushed all the cooler moist air South. That’s one of the reasons there was such a tremendous snow dump on the East Coast (and elsewhere in the Northern Hemi).
TalkingStick below has it right. More energy speeds things up and storms become more violent and dire.
Fucking idiots
Ah yes, that is a huge part of it, that brings those profits into less and less hands, less regulation, etc. Private fire, private parks, etc. Our toll roads in So Cal is a good example of why that’s a failure. As tax payers we had to pay to get them built, we pay to drive on them and tax payer money goes to continue to maintain them. And guess what, when enough people don’t want to pay to drive on them? We bail them out.
Perfect.
It’s what is happening to our education system. Piritization of our schools by blaming teacher’s unions, bust them and there you go, you can privatize. But the thing is this, there is a line. In South Orange County, where I live, people, not just people, but a lot of Republicans got pissed off when they felt public education was threatened by this and they recalled two school board trustees and ousted another by very good candidates backed by the local teacher’s union.
My husband is now on the School Board and he wouldn’t have won without the support of Republicans. Sometimes things work when they need to. Locally, things tend to not be as divisive and insane. I think National politics is far more dysfunctional and it concerns me that it’s poisoning local discourse. We need to stop it in its tracks.
You think Bloomberg hiring a Harvard management expert who knows nothing about NYC, works business hours and manages by spreadsheet rather then reality didn’t have anything to do with it?
Just a couple of years ago the city weathered a comparable storm with little disruption. This time they didn’t declare a snow emergency despite plenty of warning and transferred deployment decisions to a central office rather then using the old system letting the actual depots direct it.
Yes, the shrinking force is a factor. No doubt. But the biggest aspect of this debacle was the destruction of a system that worked in order to run the city like an American business run by Ivy League MBAs.
And one thing that gets me about the government doesn’t work theme is that so much of that private sector doesn’t either – you know the one where it is all about the numbers and not about actually producing or doing something well.
thank you.
As long as people are deluded into thinking that the only issue is that they must vote to outlaw abortion – that is, to force wnwilling women to bear unwanted children, then Party of NO will always win and turn us into a third world bannana reublic.
They just don’t think, do they?
I still believe it, it was just half measures and not good enough. So it gives moderates something to say, he did SOMETHING, even Rachel Maddow touts his record as President as being productive but it’s not enough and doesn’t go far enough. And because corporate media and Fox news has won the austerity bullshit message regarding the deficit and painting Obama as far left when he is nothing more than a centrist, it’s even stifled moderate progress.
I believe in progressive causes but I don’t think it is going to win by bringing people to the left. I think making our mainstream is what’s going to win. Bringing progressive causes to the middle is what’s going to make them more widely accepted, at least in this political climate and in our current culture.
Excellent hopeful post on Altnet…rapidly becoming my faveortie blog. the idiot troll rarely make an appearance there….yet:
Some hope; REAL grassroots:
Vision: 8 Ways We’re Making America a Better Place — in Spite of the Disasters Coming out of Washington
We can have the kind of economy, government, environment, and country we want, if we keep pushing, organizing, building, and otherwise doing the work of democracy.
http://www.alternet.org/vision/149376/vision%3A_8_ways_we%27re_making_america_a_better_place_–_in_spite_of_the_disasters_coming_out_of_washington/?page=1
One of my ancestors was among the group that formed the Republican Party. I now have a cousin who has read my book with the ancestor’s biography and the account of his version of how it came about. This cousin who is a rabid Tea Party nut says that is proof that his conservatism is in his DNA. What a crock. Not the party of Lincoln and our ancestor, certainly not our ancestor who while in the military and later federal judiciary who not only abhorred slavery but strove to protect the Native Americans. He certainly never believed in the faux states rights and all the rest that define the Tea Party and other RWNs. The current GOP and fringe are formed from racism and class and little more.
There is absolutely no definition of “moderate” progressive causes that, if they were accomplished, could possibly have ANY noticeable effect — let ALONE a monumental shift — in the present political culture. For government to work in America at this point would require a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT political culture.
Spot on……you nailed it
thanks Kass!
I have been an avid fan of Alternet for a while now. They do great stuff. Thanks for sharing.
“I believe in progressive causes but I don’t think it is going to win by bringing people to the left.”
The issue is not “bringing people to the left.” That’s not what was required. The majority of Americans were solidly behind ALL of the most important progressive causes. We and they were sold out by Obama — to corporate interests.
Obama and his asshole buddies love this left-right framing. It’s bullshit. He sold out the majority of Americans on all of the issues.
True. What I was saying is this, single payer? What if we could get people to see it as a mainstream idea rather than a radical one? Rather than trying to move people to the left, move the ideas to the center.
I’m new here, I’m rather daft, but I will put things out there and probably fall flat on my face, but our culture, not political, but the way our culture is, everyone clumps to the middle, I figure, try to move some of our more progressive ideas to the middle.
Politically, we’re broken, the money is the huge problem. Publicly funded campaigns should be brought to the middle, it’s not a progressive idea, it’s commons sense, middle of the road. I don’t see my ideas as radical but essential if we’re going to save our Democracy, our very planet. This is what drives me crazy, progressives are not extreme and as soon as we can embrace that, that idea that were not far left and push that we are not out of the mainstream, which WE ARE NOT, then maybe we can move people to support our ideas.
Just a thought.
Yes, he took that mandate and pissed it away, I get that. And the people who voted for him thinking he was going to do progressive things were delusional. That’s what really bugs me. He was never a progressive and never claimed to be one. Neither was Clinton.
That’s why I said, people don’t care who gets shit done, just get it done. I also don’t think the outward hostility towards Obama is going to help anything either because people WANT to believe that he is still doing his best. It’s that catch 22.
But we really just have two parties working for corporations, I see that as well.
Here is a petition to reform U.S. federal elections, so that Congress will obey the people not corporations: http://www.petitiononline.com/PoliTru3/petition.html
If we act together now, we can still save our country.
thurbers has it
The name that needs to be mentioned is Steven Goldsmith Deputy Mayor of Operations.
The wiki link is rather selective in omitting any criticism- but there are a few details that give it all away.
After his run as Mayor of Indianapolis he was a government reform hero. See what Indianapolis sources have to say about the quality of life and messes he left for them. Next step?
“Goldsmith was chief domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign and then served as Special Advisor to President Bush on faith-based and not-for-profit initiatives. He was appointed chair of the Board of Directors for the Corporation for National and Community Service in 2001, a position he still holds.”
Pray the snow away? Not-for-profit? While at the same time:
“Goldsmith was a Partner of Knowledge Universe, which invests in internet-oriented education companies, day care and childhood learning companies, and B2B companies, principally in business and human resources consulting and online training.
“He also was the Chairman Emeritus of the Manhattan Institute’s (a policy research think tank) Center for Civic Innovation.”
n addition to contributing to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Times, and Wall Street Journal, Goldsmith has written several books on government such as:
* The Power of Social Innovation, Jossey Bass, 2010,
* Governing By Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector: Brookings Institution. 2004.
* Putting Faith In Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work Through Grassroots Citizenship: Hudson Institute. 2002.
* The Twenty-First Century City Resurrecting Urban America: Regnery 1997
* The Entrepreneurial City: A How-To Handbook for Urban Innovators. Editor, Manhattan Institute. 1999.”
There are some other details overlooked at the wiki bio such as:
“From 2001 to 2005, he served as Senior Vice President of ACS State and Local Solutions.” link.
You’re so wrong about the middle, they do want to get shit done, they just don’t want to pay for anything to get done. They’re believe in pink unicorns and in leprechauns with pots of gold. They bemoan the taxes they pay, and in the same breath, they bemoan the state of this nation, as if the two have nothing to do with the other. You see, what the middle represents is a sort of fairyland, similar to the right, but more realistic. They see and recognize the dangers, but believe in a mythical solution to the problems. The right just plain ignores any problems exist at all.
The two favorite words of the middle are pragmatism and bipartisanship, two words that progressives and liberals should understand by now means one thing, and one thing only, the wealthy wins, and everyone else loses. We have witnessed DLC Democrats like Obama and Clinton pass policies that sustaing Reaganomics and disdain any progressive solutions. Until progressives face the fact it took conservative, moderate Democrats including the Blue Dogs, the DLC, the New Democrat Coalition, and now the No Labels to help the right perpetuate the power and control of the wealthy, we will continue to fail again, and again.
This nation is firmly in the grips of Reaganomics, and a right wing stranglehold on just about everything else, including the leadership of the Democratic party, and we have a huge battle ahead of us to wrest control from the people who have spent the last 30 years restructuring our society for the benefit of the wealthy. This includes Obama and his wall street friendly administration. Is he movable, maybe. I recognize some people might not be ready to give up on him just yet, but there must be a recognition of his nature soon. Lest, we will all fail!
Yep, if anything, the Teaparty reminds me of Andrew Jackson’s brand of politics. Pretty much the opposite of the original Republicans.
It sure as fuck isn’t.
The New World Order is upon us and it looks like a Global Plantation.
Serfs don’t need educations. The land grab by the banks is the reassertion of the landed gentry and disenfranchisement of the rest of us.
No accident, at all.
Yes. Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine and its concomitant Equal Time Amendment as his very FIRST official act.
That also was no accident.
But remember, they were defeated by the media in Vietnam and by Watergate. They had to have control of it, first and foremost to do what they have done.
I don’t believe that, I think when asked, people are willing to pay for things if they get the value of what they are paying for. The problem is this, people pay a lot and don’t get much in return. Maher said it best, We’re paying for socialism we’re just not getting it (To paraphrase). Republicans have done a very good job of making Government run for shit in a lot of places, the amount of money that goes to defense is ridiculous, how many people actually benefit from that outright? Not many, not tangibly. And as we spent BILLIONS on tarp, hamp etc. those bailouts actually haven’t saved homes, etc. and we see our money going to all the wrong people.
Now I won’t argue that our Democracy has been taken over for the benefit of the rich, it comes in the form of lobbyists, subsidies, campaign finance to corporate welfare, and while this happens people want to blame the unemployed and poor for our Countries problems. The message on the right has won, what we need to do is wrest control back from the people who hate Government, resuscitate its image and prove that it can work. It’s only as good as the people that run it and when you’ve got a lot of corrupt people who don’t believe in the thing they run, it’s going to run like shit.
When I talk to people though and explain why it is we have Government, from FDA to other regulations, that there are reasons why we have these things, they understand a bit more. Sadly, the US Government does shitty marketing and that isn’t an accident either. They just are tired of paying for things and not getting what they’ve paid for. It’s been going on for a long time. It’s not going to get better either until we fix a lot of things, from campaign finance reform to lobbyist reform. And we need a lot more angry people and the problem is this, the only angry people I see are the Tea Party and they are angry for all the wrong reasons, they just don’t get it.
I’m going to keep blogging the truth about fiscal policy in opposition to fiscal austerity and the dismantling of the welfare State. My latest effort is here; here, and here. There were very interesting discussions at all three sites.
Sorry. I thought I’d be able to edit the comment using the interface to enter the links. Here they are:
http://my.firedoglake.com/letsgetitdone/2010/12/26/altogether-now-there-is-no-deficitdebt-problem/
http://www.correntewire.com/altogether_now_there_no_deficitdebt_problem
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/29/203614/82?new=true
basically.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe trying to make this mainstream first is the way to go.
The way the left ever got their way was by dragging the country, kicking and screaming, where *we* wanted them to go, and telling everyone else to deal with it. Let our agenda become the new normal.
Simply asking for permission simply gives the knuckledraggers another chance to say “no,” and drag out the process, eliminating time for other things that we need to address.
That’s why Obama has been so frustrating; he’s dragged *us* kicking and screaming towards McCain/Palin policies. The whole thing has been backwards.
So nicely said, Ellinoranne. Wonderful post! I couldn’t agree more.
Unfortunately, the more the conservatives destroy government, the more people see government as useless. The rightwing has planned this evil for years now.
The neoliberal centrists/Democrats are just as committed to destroying the commons – yet when I read posts/replys like this, it’s Grover Norquist and the Republicans who get the lion’s share of the blame.
There is one word which provides a potential solution; it’s a word seldom heard in the U.S. over the past fifty years, but capitalistic excesses beginning with Reagan and continued (even enhanced) through Clinton and Obama may well have provided new impetus for action. That word, once so roundly (and mistakenly) despised by (stupid) Americans is…….drumroll, please,………SOCIALISM.
Now, here is where the “stupid” comes in. There are always the idiots who conflate socialism with….Communism. Oops, you just fell into the “trap”. That is exactly what the self-aggrandizing, greedy and often corrupt “Capitalists” want you to believe. When you do, it obviously advances their agenda and insulates them from attack.
If you don’t know the answer, you need to read some objective description of the concept (or perhaps both) which is too long an undertaking to pursue here.
The important thing is that such a discusion is BEGINNING…or perhaps “beginning again”. That, in itself, suggests that capitalist excesses have already gone too far; when the needs of the people become subjugated to the GREED of those who have connived to control power, then a new way forward is worthy of examination.
In the period from 1940 to 1980, many “socialist” concepts were advanced: unionization, Social Security, unemployment compensation, etc. They produced significant gains for the “common man”…and just because YOU happen to have a college degree, don’t think that YOU aren’t the “common man”! That wasn’t even true in 1950 when I got my B.A., and it certainly isn’t true today.
If you, like I, would like to believe that people advance and are rewarded largely by their own merit, you just fell into the second “trap”. The notion that society can “self-regulate” and thus avoid imbalances should be “dog meat” by now….(just think “Wall Street bankers” and “bailouts” and “GREED”…that should “get the juices flowing”!
LET THE DISCUSSION BEGIN!!! And may it prove rewarding for those who would BENEFIT from it….the PEOPLE of the WORLD! (You should know that Europe already has a long head start).
Yes, what we need for them is a new national property tax plan based on square footage of their homes. That one would really be progressive.
You’re right, of course.
The way I deal with “communism” or “socialism” labels is to re-orient the issue and ask whether something “works” for people, or doesn’t.
If it doesn’t work it’s “un-American. If it works it’s American. And if it’s “American” it can’t be either “socialist” or “communist,” because if it works we like it, and if we like it, it can’t be “socialist” or “communist,” whatever the right wing says.
My comment follows after I briefly list some remarks upthread by Econobuzz and Perris.
Econobuzz made some great points that bear repeating.
First, in response to this comment in Ellinoreianne’s piece,
“I understand that much was accomplished in the last two years …”
Econobuzz said,
“With all due respect, we need to drop this bullshit. More damage was done to the progressive cause in the last two year than ever before. We have a jackass in the WH still reaching out for “good ideas” from folks determined to destroy “the greater good.”
He is NOT part of the answer to preserving, much less advancing, “the greater good.” Until we realize that he poses the biggest danger to “the greater good,” we’re participating in our own demise.”
Second, in response to Ellinorianne’s comment where she said,
“I believe in progressive causes but I don’t think it is going to win by bringing people to the left.”
Econobuzz said,
“The issue is not “bringing people to the left.” That’s not what was required. The majority of Americans were solidly behind ALL of the most important progressive causes. We and they were sold out by Obama — to corporate interests.
Obama and his asshole buddies love this left-right framing. It’s bullshit. He sold out the majority of Americans on all of the issues.”
Farther upthread, Perris said the following about Republicans in Congress and the people who vote for them,
“They want private industry running everything, they actually believe private industry will do things for less money and more efficiently, a depraved point of view and most intelligent people know better but the republican constituents have been feed the propaganda that government industry costs more then private due to union labor and retirement funds, as well as that 500 dollar toilet seat and corruption
‘these republican constituents do not understand that a well paid labor class is good for the economy, they do not understand that union labor raises their personal income and work conditions, they do not understand that the mythical 500 dollar toilet seat and corruption are dwarfed by the expense of the profit model private industry uses
‘they want privitization of everything, roads, water, tunnels, air, the courts, the police, the fire dept
‘they want everything based on a profit model and they do not understand that becomes a robber baron economic system.”
***
My comment begins here:
The left-right-center classification system that the villagers are using no longer is relevant and we should reject it every time we read it or hear someone use it.
Econobuzz is right: Polls have consistently shown that 60% to 80% of the people support basic progressive issues. The curious thing is that most people don’t self-identify as progressives and in many cases they would be shocked to discover that they have progressive views about anything. I recall reading an article about a poll sometime within the past six months that concluded that a majority of Americans would prefer to be living in a society like Sweden that provides substantial benefits for the common good. Gasp!
Sweden, of course, is a social democracy that most Americans regard as the epitome of a socialist society. How did this happen? The questions and possible answers in the poll did not mention any isms, countries, or other loaded terms.
What’s going on here? The problem is that people who actually want a socialist type society think of socialism as a label that represents an horrific evil that must be resisted and overcome. They accept as a given that Capitalism is the best system of government. They don’t understand that Capitalism is the problem. Obviously, they don’t understand socialism, or progressivism for that matter, and the same is true of their understanding of the word “left.”
Therefore, Ellinorianne, the “real” center of American politics is far left of the so-called center that the politicians and the village punditocracy talk about. Our job as intelligent and well educated progressives is to teach our brothers and sisters this fundamental truth and real change will happen fast when they finally get it.
“Center” sounds so much safer to Americans today than left or right, which tend to be regarded as ominously threatening danger zones inhabited by noisy radical fringe extremists like drugged out hippies and gun freaks. People avoid controversy by calling themselves centrists. Within the village echo chamber, centrists are taken seriously. They wonder why everybody can’t see the wisdom of moving to the center, embracing each other in an orgy of intellectual intercourse and ejaculating a torrent of bipartisan solutions that will keep us safe from the terrorists, restore the economy, and save the country.
With all due respect, I suspect you are falling into that trap because the “center” that the politicians and the village punditocracy are talking about is considerably to the right of what mainstream Americans actually want. However, because mainstream Americans do not understand that and accept the definition of centrism that the politicians and the village punditocracy use, they do not recoil in shock and dismay when they hear Obama say that he’s going to stress bipartisanship and govern from the center.
Corporatist Democrats like Obama are neoliberal capitalists who believe in unregulated free markets, free trade, outsourcing jobs and moving business to foreign countries to increase profits, tax cuts, corporate socialism, privatization of government and education, and trickle-down economics. As Perris said, this set of beliefs leads to what we have today: a vast wasteland of rampant corruption, robber baron capitalism, joblessness, and incomprehensible human suffering in a land of plenty.
When Obama says he’s going to move to the right and govern as a bipartisan centrist, look out. Translated into regular English that means he’s going to move from governing as a Blue Dog Democrat to governing as a conservative Republican.
Put another way, he’s telling us that he’s not only going to continue, he’s going to increase fighting illegal wars, privatizing government, destroying unions, and cutting government spending on public education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what little remains of the safety net. He won’t spend a dime on creating jobs, or restoring our tattered infrastructure.
We have to reorient the way people think in order to have any chance to reverse the collapse of the United States.
Ellinorianne, you said,
“I don’t believe that, I think when asked, people are willing to pay for things if they get the value of what they are paying for. The problem is this, people pay a lot and don’t get much in return. Maher said it best, We’re paying for socialism we’re just not getting it (To paraphrase).”
That is absolutely not true. We pay less in taxes than any other developed nation in the world and the rich hardly pay any taxes at all.
Yes, LGID.
Your point is absolutely true and what you propose is one of the keys to reversing our slide into economic devastation.
That’s why I also stated the fact that we’ve done a horrible job of marketing these ideas. They aren’t left ideas, they are mainstream but Republicans have done a great job of making them and labeling them “progressive”. I think we’re actually in agreement.
We are until you say we need to go to the center and not to the left, unless you’re speaking about the real center, as opposed to the fake center that the politicians and the villagers talk about. If that’s what you mean, then you have to explain that so that no one is confused by what you’re saying.
Please take this as friendly advice and not criticism. I mean no harm. I’m just trying to clarify language.
The real center, just as you say and I absolutely take it as friendly. I welcome the back and forth as long as there is no name calling or personal attacks, I can handle it. Since we’ve been conceding the center and it’s been moving more and more to the right, I guess it is the perception I’m talking about rather than the reality.
Right now everything is so out of whack and we’ve a corporate media that feeds that fire and Fox News that just fabricates reality to fit the meme.
Does that help :)
Yep.
Unless by “that,” you’re referring to Fox News.
Relax, that’s just me slingin’ a wee bit of zee snark.
BTW, when things are out of whack, I always go to Walmart and ask somebody who works there if they have any whack, because everybody else in town is sold out.
I do the same thing when I decide to make something from scratch . . .
Needless to say, I’m on their watch list, but that’s not so bad ‘cuz I need a watch.
See ya next time.
Same bat time,
Same bat channel.
Over and out.