On Aug 21, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Carl Remick wrote:
> Yes, and it was great to catch up with that linked masterpiece of
> stygian gloom "LBO at 20," an unbeatable tour d'horizon of reasons
> why despair should be any thinking person's default mode. I wish,
> though, that you'd give the old heave-ho to Noam Chomsky's
> whistling-past-the-graveyard mantra that the US is "incomparably
> more civilized" than it was in the early 1960s.
Ah, but the uncrushable optimism pokes its head out at the end.
> BTW, re your "LBO at 20" comment, "... the lesson I learned from
> the 1987 crash was that the ruling class had mastered the art of
> state-led bailouts" -- I was reminded of Ralph Nader's recollection
> of paternal wisdom recently in Counterpunch: "My father many years
> ago asked his children during dinner table conversation: 'Why will
> capitalism always survive?' His answer: 'Because socialism will
> always be used to save it.'" Sagacious guy, Nader père.
I scratched my head on reading that. It's as if "socialism" is a cuss word in Naderland, and he really prefers capitalism unmodified as a system. Why not use socialism to socialize it?