[lbo-talk] Signs of the Times

[mart]

yeah that stuff is wild.  i remember someone brought up the idea which is almost mainstream (i think bloomberg endorsed it) of a tax increase for people making 1/2M or 1/4 M and it was like, say, outing someone who's spouse is there and didn't know.  sweep that under the rug.  and the people involved while not poor were no where near the 250k range.  
   the fact is it seems that people have been accustomed to this form of order and feel really insecure about changing it, and don't even want to think about it (partly because that means you have to recognize you've been ripped off for a long time)---if you fire the boss, or overthrow the king, or get rid of the massuh, or leave yourt cage,  then the whole edifice will go.   its easier to just enjoy your soaps. quiet fascism i call it.  
 
i actually often have the same reaction when i come across ideologues (one for example who baasically 'knows' that equal incomes for all, sent as a check by the govt, is the solution, simple as that.    i think this really is less an ideological position than a pragmatic one, similar to ones such as 'abortion' or 'immigration' or immorality is the problem, or anarchy is the solution, class analyses is the solution, or...----you got yourself an identity, an agenda, and maybe a group and paycheck too.  i probably done this, but like rereading Ulysses  http://scienceoflivingonline.com).
 
the devil is in the details is my view.    and im with ambrose bierce here.   the easy solutions stuff is another kind of quiet facism, or way to shut down the discussion.
 
another example  was when discussing teaching the stock market game in school, for economics.  i was saying why not teach socialism, or anarchism, or better, all of them.  the response was 'we live in this system, so we have to learn how to adapt to it, and since there is only so much time in a day, deciding how much to invest in disney or mcdonalds' as a class project is quite acceptable.' 
     i'd say maybe 1/2 time theory, and 1/2 time prediction markets..  (whose going to be in jail in 10 years?)  ) 
 
chomsky is right----people have been completely programmed to put everything in a spam filter which is out of sync with the system.     this is why to a large extent i don't  give a f-k about politics.  even the radicals seem to have just installed a different set of spam filters.  one person's spam, is another person's 'sardines, and pork and beans' (junkyard band-----almost all you need to know if you're crusoe; for links  www..axiomsandchoices.blogspot.com ).
 
as an aside i actually do like the rand idea (not exactlty the 'greedy algorithm' of computer science) of everyone fighting tooth and claw, and then it maximizes everyone's utility (by the invisible fist).   people get what they fight for and deserve.   has anyone tested this?  
 
  i guess if there are any constraints, and unlike the true Walrasian (platonic and timeless) world reasonable people such as myself live in, the system 'evolves' (a human conceit----after all,  st/eve started this, time and life history eolution),  then the equilibrium is unstable,  so greenspan may be right and crises are natural.   (eg 'personality crisis'--Ny dolls.)      (but everything is natural, even whats artificial.   its like 'mental illness'---who's to say?  (excepting rev. ike, and amma the hugging st.)    
 
   but crises themselves may just be conceits, or statistical artifcats (specially if you read your vintage 30's econometrica, or  even ludwig boltzmann.)   wasn't ww2 good for bebop? and vietnam for rock and soul? then there's NWA.  ('if you really want it...'by that alumnus, now gone.)
 

--- On Sun, 9/13/09, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:

From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu>
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Signs of the Times
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Date: Sunday, September 13, 2009, 5:22 PM

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> On Sep 13, 2009, at 3:38 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
> 
>> Is equality such a turn-off to Americans?
> 
> To a large portion, yes. To much of the portion that's not, they're delusional from the febrile disease known as Obamamania.
> 
> Doug

--A relevant anecdote: My wife and daughter went to a health care town hall with our House rep, Brian Baird.  When one of the speakers mentioned the health insurance corps' massive profits and huge CEO salaries, the teabaggers cheered.  It's almost grotesque the way they valorize the very people who are screwing them over.  It's like an economic version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Miles

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