On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chuck: " We are living in dark times with no end in sight."
>
> [WS:] I would say that we are deep deep down in a tunnel and the only
> light that we see is that of an incoming locomotive. Obama is the least of
> my worries - he is well within the expectations of a center-right
> politician. It can be much worse.
>
> What worries me is the general attitude of the American public. The center
> of political activity shifted way to the right and the traditional left has
> all but disappeared. What used to be democratic socialists now became
> libertarians or center-right, and rest of the left moved way to the
> anarchist of lit-crit fringes. The tenor of public discourse is decidedly
> right wing populist or pro-business libertarian. I know that from perusing
> comments posted to news articles. Comments to outlets like NYT, WP, LAT,
> or Bloomberg overwhelmingly tend to be libertarian or center-right, whereas
> comments to other outlets are predominantly right wing populism and rabidly
> racist. That is the the state of the American mind for you - a big
> wasteland.
>
> In that political climate, the fact that the guy who was elected by a
> rather narrow margin on popular vote does not live up to his liberal
> campaign promises is the least of my worries. The Bushes broke their
> campaign premises too, making an even bigger U turn than Obama did ("no new
> taxes" "no nation building"). That kind of behavior comes with the
> territory and it is pretty naive to expect anything else, given the nature
> of the American political system. What worries me is what ordinary people
> in this country think. It is really scary. I can deal with right wing
> populism in the hinterland, it has always been there, but the pro-business
> libertarianism of people who think of themselves as "liberals" is scary.
> It offers no hope for anything else than what we have seen in the past
> decade or so.
>
> I am not sure how things look outside the US of A - it is difficult to see
> through the filter of the English language media - but Europe looks very
> similar to the US. The only bright spot I have seen was in a place that
> many would have difficulty finding it on the map - Uzbekistan where I was
> at a conference a few weeks ago. There the unions appeared to be the
> dominant voice in the so-called civil society, the government committed to
> socialist policies (employment development, gender equality, environmental
> protection), the "markets" firmly under government control, and
> libertarianism unheard of. And the people tend to be very friendly - not
> the nasty obnoxious arrogant in-your-face variety you see in the US - or at
> least in the US public sphere.
>
> America is economically, politically, and intellectually bankrupt - all
> that it has left is brute military force and bribery. And the Potemkin
> village image created by the army of marketing hacks. But the whole thing
> is slowly falling apart and the downhill movement produces some really
> nasty attitudes in the population. It always has - historically, the only
> outcome of political and economic decline is right wing reaction, if not
> outright fascism. This is a far greater concern than Obama, or for that
> matter any POTUS, not fulfilling his campaign promises. I wish it was only
> this.
>
>
> --
> Wojtek
>
> "An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>