"it is not too early to think about a new political campaign, the gist of which is "mainstream economics is full of shit."
" question is what additional, simple (if major) actions, such as currency and capital controls, spending the budget surpluses, etc., are also called for presently. I'm thinking in terms of points of political agitation."
Absolutely. Time to get on the offensive is when the invisible hand is grasping for the worker's life jacket.
Another q. is why, in the face of all this, Greenspan and the Fed reacting Shpinx-like
They're trying not to laugh?
"Jack Kemp is a hoot."
But a dangerous, unchallenged hoot admired by millions of people.
Is this Jim Cullen of the Progressive Populist Cullens?
Because of the reasonable costs I gave serveral PP subs as Cristmas gifts
to non-politicals. If any one on the list knows any one at the various left zines, please suggest offering under $10 dollar mini-subs for gift giving. I know I would have taken advantage of it over the years. Then hopefully some of the reciprients will get interested enough to subscribe themselves.
But even if they don't, they'll see some alternative is out there.
Thanks whoever posted the STRATFOR site. Very interesting.
Doug the Left had better learn to speak to people in terms that they are likely to use themselves or we'll just be talking to ourselves (very correctly, of course).
How about language like:
"A working class hero is something to be. Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV...but you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see." ( I still think this sort of thing got him killed.)
or
"I owe my soul to the company store"
or
"don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters... I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.."( remember when Dylan was the enigma?)
or
"I got the bourgoisblues, I'm gonna spread the news all around"
While all you folks are arguing the best way to reach the masses, there are whole squads of cyberlibertarian drones out there dominating political discussions at sites where there OUGHT to be a real political contest going on.
Right on!
Greg- No offense taken, really. I really just used your waittress reference, which followed a bunch of stuff I agreed with, to jump in with a rant against the Left's PERPETUAL MOTION CIRCLE JERK! and bring working people, real people, warts and all, into the foreground.
Reading Julie's remarks about revolution, it occurred to me that havin g a revolution in this country would be like dumping my contented, clueless cats in the middle of an 8-lane interstate highway. Safety at any cost would be an unfortunate motivator. Enter Dr. Stangelove on steroids! Polititical/social evolution may be less satisfying, no "burning bush", no escape from daily drudgery, just nudge, nudge, nudge and few obvious, "sexy" results. But it Be-s that way sometimes.
SWEDEN gets foriegn aid. Why? I know that, among other things, US. "competitiveness" has put social democracies under pressure to get "realistic" but why wouldn't most working people be better off under those systems? I ask because I have long thought that a deep knowledge of the different responses of European govs to the everyday problems of working people is a good way to change their expectations. When I was active around Single-Payer health care, the many people I discussed it with were the most impressed by things like the fact that in other systems if you need an operation, making sure you have money to live while you're recovering is covered.
Soviet Russia, where nothing could be obtained without the help of a friend, was not capitalist,
Does this mean a system of social climbing and cliques?
But bit by bit, we will get closer. The rachet will turn another notch. The history of humanity's millenia of struggle against oppression allows no other conclusion.
Is any one familiar with a poem, Russian I think, eluding to the sky and the connection of present struggles with far off progress. All I remember was the touching beauty of it and would love to find it. Help?
ut doesn't he ever think *they are touching your food* Why do you insult people who are touching your food.
Your damn right we're touching your food. And handling your money, and watching your children, etc. As I've mentioned, sometimes in stores I ask the clerk about benefits(being kept at part-time to avoid paying them) over-time for Sunday's and holidays (a now too unfamilier concept it seems), etc, and suddenly I have something in my bag that I wasn't charged for. I think stealing for strangers is a newer level of resentment. When is somebody going to tell the workers something obvious that I just figured out-the place I work now, and countless other bisnesses are in flagrant violation of the law concerning offering access to retirement plans. I just found out that my bosses retirement vehicle, whether a SIMPLE, SEP-IRA, or Keogh requires him to not only offer me access to the plan but requires a match from him!!!!!!!!!!! No small, but flourishing place I've worked has complied with this! Union guys, I'm pissed and I don't know what to do? This reminds me of the countless radio finance shows I've heard over the years explaining how to get rid of your parents money so that Medicaid will pick up the tab for their long term care. These are the same folks who blame programs for the poor for everything. Clinton talks about people who "play by the rules", but there are no rules when it comes to screwing the working class.
I have inquired of my bosses more humane, but willingly blind wife about gaining access to their retirement vehicle (didn"t mention anything about the match, just said I'd maxed out my IRA and needed other options. She referred to their financial planner, noting she didn't think it was possible. I said I read in the book by the PBS money lady that if they had a retirement vehicle that allowed for more than their $4000 IRA contribution (I know they do, their 28 year old restaurant & catering does quite well) then they must have such a plan. That was yesterday, now she and Charlie are down in Hilton Head and I'm wondering if she's going to bring this up and the attitude I'll face on Tuesday. Charlie(my boss) already seems to resent that his wife and I talk art,politics, etc. I think he's very annoyed that I told him in the middle of July that now was the time to take profits in his portfolio and I seem to have been right. ( I heard him tell a friend he'd lost $150,000). Charlie is desperately attached to his class bias and for four years, there I've been. This guy, whose better to work for than many, has many long, long time employees that have in no way shared in his success and now I know he had to be consciously breaking the law too, by not offering access to a retirement plan. He needs to think of his people as, I don't know what, to justify this on some level. He needs to think of his employees as stupid and irresponsible.
Anyway I'm not sure what I should do about this pension-plan thing. I know he won't comply. What should my next step be? I work a short week for really decent money, that's hard to find, but..
ordid fact that organised crime has the world economy by the throat. For most families, increases in net income have come from more hours of work, not increases in hourly pay"
Thanks Mark, for the convenient recap of the real deal. I've long wondered when the "Left" was going to vigorously point out that it has been conservative policy (from Republicrats) that have forced women out of the home, not women's lib. The right simply does a better spin job and I'm thinking it's more than higher funding. Again I recomend a look at the Cato take on woman and the privatization of Social Sec. Which will be back, and anyway the real point is that the idea of social insurance for old age has already been buried with the defined contribution thing. The Cato spin is brillient. The right focuses on communicateing with the people on their own terms and co-opts every idea of the left that's been osmosed into the mainstream.WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
I used to daydream of writing to Opray and explaining how capitalist pawn Steadman had lead her astray politically. Now I daydream of writing Roseanne and reminding her of the person who wrote her first book, and encourageing to invite more vicious attacks by useing her new talk show to be a working class hero. The commercials do not bode well. But I just think she's been burned and needs support. The woman is a born subversive.
"Real hourly pay of wives increased for most families, but for 60 percent of families, the decline in hourly pay of husbands was greater than the increase in wives' hourly pay" (Ibid).
The pie is pre-sliced. I remember thinking in the 70's that now that blacks and women were more aggressively nibbling the pie, that the pie would disappear.
. I also remember wishing that woman and blacks and scary militants would just lay low while McGovern got elected. I guess that means I'm bad. Still bad, though.
"The US, with just 5 times the population of Italy, has 150 times more children in detention" (Ibid).
Share of global income going to richest 20% and poorest 20% of world's population: year share of richest 20% share of poorest 20% ratio rich/poor 1960 70.2% 2.3% 30 to 1 1970 73.9% 2.3% 32 to 1 1980 76.3% 1.7% 45 to 1 1989 82.7% 1.4% 59 to 1
[UN, Human Development Report, 1992] - - The U.S. has the highest infant mortality, AIDS, road accident, pesticide consumption, homicide, reported rapes, imprisonment and hazardous waste production rates among Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria, France, Finland and Canada (The World Bank,
The Left has to confront the fact that when Americans hear these stats they dismiss them because they think they are brought down by those "others" who lead irresponsible lives, ie.mostly poor blacks. Almost all the black people I talk to, unless they're politically sofisticated(rarely), agree. Everybodies got to feel better than somebody, this is about soul sickness as much as racism. "The School of the Better-Than-Thou" is why "we remain in the treall of a society of commodities and spectacle."
It's hard to start a revolution or influence evolution when many of the participants, at the core, don't own that they have a right to exist. Isn't the complexity miraculous. It is truly as the late, great Donny Hathaway said.."Everything is everything"
How come we don't hear more about this now? Have we really gotten rid of spousal abuse? Alcoholism?
>From what I've seen, Capitalism couldn't work without Alcoholism.
Restaurants and retail are full of people capable of keeping the ball
rolling smoothly, often despite management, but suffering from alcohol or
depression induced lack of ambition. I used to be one of them not too long
ago.
Also someone mentioned productivity increases because of more educated workers or something. But what about productivity outputs when the system to succeed at the higher feeding levels one must often follow the formula: SUCCESS: 30% SELF-PROMOTION 30% WATCHING YOUR BACK 30% ASS-KISSING 10% WORK/OUTPUT Isn't this really how the world works a lot of the time?
As for the Dalai fucking Lama, though I'm always suspicious of pop-cult lib causes, my therapist(a non-money gruber), who was interested enough to go hear him speak was most impressed by two occurances. 1) At the end of his talk he said he hoped the audience would find something useful in what he said,"but if not, fuck it" 2)She heard that when he went to the WH his demeanor towards the household staff was the same as towards the Pres. Now, true or not, it just goes to show the popular appeal of the subversive and self-liberateing idea that WE'RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS.
sMOOCHES-paula
Sorry about this mess. Suddenly my editor won't edit, and as usual, my questions are below the radar of theHelp menu so I have no clue and will be signing of until i can figure it out.
Maybe in this millenium-pms
BTW-the internal contradiction of Capitalism seems to be the very human nature that drives it. It's based on greed and fear right? And greed and fear are impossibe to constrain. The Big Dogs may own all the kibble, but being what they are, they're bound to fight over it. And speaking of big dog fights, those defense figures Mark posted remind me to wonder-is the drum-beat building for more defense spending simply the song of greed and gravy, or do those maniacs invision, as I have, Fortress America, us against, oh, most everybody. Maybe the bull-shit defense of three fronts Pentegon ploy is more than a Lockheed-Martin-Marietta-GE-Bectel....subsidy.
I really need input from you union folk about this pension situation Thanks-Bye