The real truth is that people across the planet are fed up of

[malaise]

Last edited Fri Jun 24, 2016, 07:38 PM - Edit history (1)

fugging neo-liberalism - fed up of being used by politicians on behalf of the 1%.
Most don't understand that it is fascism most foul.

Those who control the corporate media and their hacks blame others for the mess and promote a variety of divide and rule tactics to prop up a virtually dead economic model.

I sense some serious ugliness ahead before the 1% and their tools run to the hills to hide.

[rhett o rick]

1. I hear we need to be "pragmatic" and accept our fate. Pragmatism is the excuse for

not fighting for our freedoms and liberties.

[malaise]

2. Of course - while they loot and plunder

Fugg 'Em!

[sangfroid]

3. Yes, and

"Just accept it."

"It is what it is."

"You can't change it."

"Don't worry, sooner or later, things will change."

It really does go on, doesn't it?

[ReRe]

35. Also...

... "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

... "Learn to live within your means."

... "You made your bed, now sleep in it."

... "Rome wasn't built in a day."

[SouthernDemLinda]

63. ... "Rome wasn't built in a day."

No, but I think the roads and bridges we a driving on were.

[ReRe]

67. Well, most of the...

... roads and bridges, plumbing, gas lines are over a hundred yrs old. Not good. There are some bridges with holes in the pavement over the Ohio River that I drive many miles around to a better bridge. Scares me to death.

[George Eliot]

94. Me, too. We have a bridge built same time as fallen MN bridge.

I drive around it as much as possible. Everyone who "hates gumment" is making me drive around that bridge.

[ReRe]

100. Yeah...

... and think of all that lost time and gasoline that's going down that hole, not to mention wear and tear on your tires/shocks, not to mention your nerves.

[George Eliot]

96. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps; get an education...

then consider bankruptcy like the Donald except, gee, you can't for ed loans. Bankruptcy just for the rich.

[ReRe]

98. I thought of the "bootstrap" thing...

... but I'm so sick of hearing it, I just couldn't do it.

[sulphurdunn]

43. Yea, and when you get to heaven

because you did what you were told, everything will be like spending eternity at Disneyland.

[ReRe]

44. Dayaam...

... they never told me that one!

[leveymg]

51. What's needed is a global revolution of the middle-class.

Some have said it's nostalgia for the '50s that's driving this. But, it's not The Bomb and White Citizens Councils that people miss. It's stable jobs with pensions.

Some clearly don't get what's driving this revolt. It's not nostalgia for tail fins and segregation, it's economic insecurity that drove Brexit. It's a gathering belief that unfettered multinational corporations and free trade deals present an existential threat to the middle-class in the post-industrialized US, UK and EU countries.

Economic stability and Social Security could be a guarantee again, but we and the rest of the world would have to regulate businesses, reign in global banks, and tax the 1% again. Tear up existing free trade deals and erect punative tariffs against companies and products made in countries that refuse to sign a Universal Declaration of Social Security. That needs a revolution - a global revolution of the middle-class and the poor against the Upper Class.

[Silver_Witch]

61. Standing ovation!!!

No one misses the 50's. We do miss good jobs and the hope of retirement! We do miss good raises and reasonable working hours!

[ReRe]

64. Ding, ding, ding! Stable jobs with pensions!

You win first prize! It's a conundrum for sure, between the young and the old. We elders were here when our parents had stable jobs, real pensions, UNIONS, and benefits like health insurance and life insurance. They think we really have lost our minds when we say that.

And yes, the natives are restless in most of the 1st world countries. France, Spain, England, for example. Germany not so much, as they have Unions to represent them. And I keep wondering when and if they are going to cancel the upcoming Olympics in Brazil. I truly don't think the athletes and fans are going to be safe in those venues. Some of them aren't even done yet! Their people have been in the streets in the past years too, understandably.

All the people want, all over the world, isn't gold and silver and a mansion. They just want the basics. A safe roof over their heads, that's not going to leak or fall through when the storm comes. A job with good wages in exchange for a hard day's work. Healthcare. A car to get to work and the hospital and back.

The middle class was/is over-extended on credit, to try to keep up with the way things used to be. This was to replace the cost-of-living raises we used to get, but those went by the wayside back around Ronald Reagan's time and up until now. Why? Because all the productivity that they are getting out of their hard workers is going directly into their pockets as profit. It's theft, if you ask me.

And now, the 1% doesn't even want to pay taxes, leveymg. They've been cleaning up for over 35 years now, and the middle class has been shriveled down. The only reason they went global is because they couldn't get and more out of us anymore, because they had it all! From our pockets to theirs. They have the cash and we have the credit card that will take the rest of our lives to pay off at the speed we're going now.

[leveymg]

68. "It's theft, if you ask me."

If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to remove a man's mind, will, and personality, is the power of life and death, and that it makes a man a slave. It is murder. Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is theft!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?

—?Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?

[SouthernDemLinda]

71. Watch the documentary: "Harlan County USA".

Harlan County USA is a documentary about the coal miners strike against Eastover Coal Company in the Brookside mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. The miners are trying to address safety issues during the Brookside strike of the 1970s. Organizers were pushing the owner, Eastover Coal Company, to sign a contract establishing a United Mine Workers local there, and negotiate a labor contract that would raise their wages, improve working conditions and other labor rights. The union is the United Mine Worker's Association. Their employer was Duke Power Company, which rejects their proposal, despite a climate of record profits. Duke Power Company profits had gone up 170% Meanwhile, employee salaries went up 4%, and employee living costs had gone up 7% that year. Then when the miners went on strike the compay hired gun-thugs. The company was reaping large profits, and none of those profits went to give the workers a better life, they stayed trapped in poverty. The workers worked in mines, and lived in terrible conditions, no batheroom or running water in their homes.

After a long drawn out dangerous period of gun battles, explosions and vandalism, people started calling the place "Bloody Harlan", at the end of a long trying bloody strike, a 19 year old miner is murdered, the nightmare ends, and not a minute too soon, and a contract was negotiationed. The documentary shows the open casket of the very young man, and his very young wife and baby. His mother breaks down, and when she faints they carry her away. Coal is being mined there today, but not by union miners. There are no union mines in Kentucky today.


http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/theissue.htm
The most ancient mountains in North America, plundered for profit.


Mountaintop-removal mines in Appalachia are estimated to produce just 5 to 10 percent of total U.S. coal production, and generate less than 4 percent of our electricity—an amount that could be eliminated from the energy supply with small gains in energy efficiency and conservation. This highly destructive form of surface mining is disfiguring an entire region, the coalfield areas of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, because of one reason: profit.

Pete Seeger "Which Side Are You On?"- a song written by Florence Reece in 1931

[ReRe]

72. Thank you for that quote.

I did not know who this man was, so I wikied him and boy. He seemed like a tortured lonely soul. No wife or kids. He did accomplish allot in his life, especially his education. No formal education when a boy, but became a philosopher. I don't think I'm as far left as he was, though.

[Moostache]

74. Our world is more complex, but disturbingly simple minded at the same time.

All the people want, all over the world, isn't gold and silver and a mansion. They just want the basics. A safe roof over their heads, that's not going to leak or fall through when the storm comes. A job with good wages in exchange for a hard day's work. Healthcare. A car to get to work and the hospital and back.

I do not think this sentiment is level with the reality I observe.

People in dire financial situations may be focused only on the basics, but the rest of the populace (even those who are sliding off the decks and into the sea of debt and despair right now) is enslaved by advertising to an extent that is hard to believe. Phones alone are an amazingly depressing thing to behold with people "needing" to upgrade annually to keep up with their 'friends'. Blindly paying hundreds of dollars in extra fees and taxes to have a phone that in its primary function is unchanged since the last version and in many cases is barely different at all.

The amount of mental energy expended daily on things that truly do not matter - handbags, shoes, clothing, tattoos, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TV, Hollywood, mass media starlets of absolutely ZERO consequence and on and on and on - is truly depressing. The modern world is built on a foundation of telling everyone that whatever they have is not enough to be "happy", that whatever their 'net worth' its not enough to "be loved", and no matter what you accomplish, it is meaningless without material accolades that broadcast "success". One of the hidden reasons for the rise of an idiot like Trump is that he is the runaway, uncheck id... a bastion of non-introspection and bombast that tells everyone how great he is without anything remotely resembling an actual plan.

Our entire western society is profoundly sick.

The concepts that conservatives around the world find so hideous and offensive are the very things society needs to embrace if it is to survive the coming trials and tribulations. Accepting people FOR their differences, learning to coexist in peace and share pooled, public resources, moving beyond the concept of 'us' and 'them' as a dividing line of demarcation for the politics of the day instead of the solutions of tomorrow.

Reality has changed and conservative refuse to acknowledge it. Even many progressives are failing to see what is truly coming in the next decade or two. "Jobs" are disappearing everywhere. Manufacturing - outside of super-specialized and technologically complex operations - are being automated globally. The idea that "our" jobs were shipped to China and can be brought back is comically inept thinking in the 21st century. China is on a knife's edge of near collapse. Asia is likewise. There is no cheaper source of labor than a robot that cannot ask for a raise, does not take a break and never stops working. In the end, our entire social model - of partitioning value through money and allowing money to replace worth and utility in favor of advanced consumption and very advanced hording, is going to fail.

The question remains - will we destroy our very lives in an effort to protect the privilege of the few? Or, will enough people recognize the trap we are in, and crawl away in time? I am less optimistic with every Trump rally or fan I see...

[leveymg]

77. Thank you for that far-ranging, detailed and refreshingly realistic post. Sobering.

So, what is to be done, or are there only billions of partial answers the solutions to which are too complicated to ever be known?

[Moostache]

84. I wish I had an answer, all I circle back on is frustration.`

Division and separation is the only thing I am convinced is NOT a solution.

Humanity has reached a level of interconnectedness that dwarfs previous eras that ended in major conflicts - the Colonial era of the 1500-1800's, the Roman Empire circa 300 BC - 300 AD, the pre-Civil War America, the pre- WW I Europe. All of those and many other eras of human history saw things build to a head and end in violent conflict.

We are a war-like parochial species. We seem to be incapable of overcoming that serious limitation.

I sadly think we are in need of an evolutionary change that either rises from the ashes of the next conflict or sadly not at all.

Fascism is not the answer.
Empire is not the answer.
Capitalism is not the answer.
Feudalism is not the answer.
Communism is not the answer.

I believe that a model society based on the principles of Nordic Democratic Socialism is worth holding out as a model for humanity to TRY to emulate. Looking beyond our superficial differences to a deeper understanding of our internal similarities and designing a society that fosters the best of other systems would have my vote for a social experiment worth having ... at least BEFORE the bullets and bombs and missiles fly once more.

[libdem4life]

119. I second Democratic Socialism...but sharing is not easy and

governing thereby, seems not to last.

I secretly believe (I have no links) this might have been a part of Bernie staying in it until the end. I've been saying before this...it's a long time until November. And he's in there still fighting for we Peasants in the democratic Platform and at the Convention. This is his Cause. Brexit brings it up front and very personal.

And I agree...if everyone in the world had the guarantee of a modest roof, food, health care, contraception, transportation and basic education...we'd become a civilized world. Not that people can't work hard or be privileged and have more...but a guaranteed safety net.

[ReRe]

90. Those are consumers who are...

... being consumed. I, myself, have a phone with so many bells and whistles I don't know how to work it. It was a gift (or instrument of torture) from my husband. That's about as deep as I go into consumerism. I was basically speaking of the lower middle class. Ha! I used to get sick and pass out when I went shopping because I lived on a strict budget and could barely buy what I needed, much less all those other things I would love to have had. (That was back quite a few years before I became a member of the middle class.) Definitely not a keep-up-with-the-Jones's ilk here. My Mother, on the other hand (rest her sweet soul,) loved to shop until she dropped.

I find that young people are the ones who are bitten by the consumerism bug big-time because of peer pressure. Christmas time is absolutely horrid anymore.

Your question is so dower, Moostache. Guess you didn't catch those "inspirational" articles a few weeks ago about the death of capitalism? I do think we're going to come to our senses, and that everything's going to be alright.

Donald Trump? This too shall Pass. Especially if you just watch more of your local stations and stay away from the cable news. I've been taking in some very interesting documentaries on FreeSpeech TV and Link TV.

[nikto]

85. Beautifully said!!!!

Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

89. After the election

the fight and revolution will continue and I will do all in my power for it to succeed.

[malaise]

92. Excellent post leveymg

[leveymg]

102. Back at you.

Enjoy a Dark and Stormy on me.

[malaise]

105. LOL

[George Eliot]

114. Brave to admit it: I am nostalgic for fifties...

because we had low unemployment, high taxes on rich, and were ready to go through of strife to make the gains of the sixties and beyond doable. Can you say the same about today?

Civil rights on the decline. Trade unions almost decimated. Voter suppression. Abortion rights. Political churches. Evangelicals. Soldiers Underpaid women. Education degraded, polarized and expensive. Privatization over public good. Bought-and-paid-for congress. Minority/white economic disparity on the rise. Impoverishment. Homelessness. Jobs sent overseas or temporary worker visas replacing jobs in US. Gerrymandered districts for permanent voting blocks. Message control by corporations which is now global. A whole cable news network supported one candidate and censored news. And it wasn't Fox. Fox had a circus of idiots and yet they did not campaign for one over the other. Trump simply made himself available to all. Controlled media. Even the internet. And Climate change which is the final unaddressed straw.

How do these things bode well for a positive outlook on the future? Everyone has lost so much of what was gained. And there is no common support to get them back. DU is populated by people who are politically interested. Even here you see more and less informed people. I learn things here all the time. And still I am surprised how at little good liberals are often willing to accept.

But the fifties were a time when people felt they could change the country and a strong middle class emerged that responded. King demanded and drew crowds. Feminism arose and made strides. The ADA became law. Everyone was included. Today, everyone is fighting to survive. I don't have a positive outlook anymore.

Maybe we really are on the verge of another mass extinction. And maybe it is a good thing.

[Rex]

122. I think some of it they do get and just cannot let go of the status quo.

First we have to stop class warfare, it is the main tool of the elite class and it needs to stop. The uber wealthy can only fool the some what rich can only fool the 99% never of the time anymore.

[George Eliot]

108. I hope I don't offend but religion - globally - is a problem. Tax 'em.

I'm including US. Churches now routinely involve themselves in politics and should be taxed.

[bvar22]

79. ....but we don't have 60 votes!!!!!

[sufrommich]

4. There's a growing middle class worldwide,our problem is

it's no longer growing in 1st world countries.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027950032

[Betty Karlson]

41. No: the problem is financialisation of everything.

Some middle classes benefit from that financialisation (the middle classes running the starvation wage facturies and calling centres, probably do) but most middle classes (in 1st world and 3rd world alike) are under stress.

[George Eliot]

107. Many thrd world countries experienced the heavy hand of corporatists first...

they were brown. Financiers and corporatists earned great wealth of those countries below the equator and off the Native Americans in this new frontier.

[Scootaloo]

78. Unfortunately we're not in a world of inifinite accessable resources

Which means that your financial gain is always going to be someone else's financial loss. Not on a 1:1 basis (it's not zero-sum) but yes, if you're gaining, someone else is losing.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. The real truth is that people who oppose neoliberalism have no plan

They flap around stupidly and dream of a return to the 1950s rather than inventing strategies of actual value given the neoliberal crisis. They are devoid of creativity and so easy pickings for the reactionary neofascists who trick them every time.

[rhett o rick]

8. Are you saying you don't oppose neoliberalism?

[ReRe]

36. Yip...

... that's what he said, rhettorick. I've been hearing that all over this place.

[rhett o rick]

40. Yes I have also. I don't understand how it fits into Democratic Values. Are these

Reagan Democrats? Kill the government controls and Big Corps uber alles!

[Else You Are Mad]

53. I believe that these democrats

Have the 'I already got mine so fuck the rest mentality' It is very easy to accept neoliberal ideals when one doesn't have to worry and is living comfortably. Many of these are upperclass Republican refugees from the reagan era that found a home in the Democrat party.

[alarimer]

88. Maybe, but one of the biggest proponents of Neoliberalism was Bill Clinton

And various members of his administration. Probably also Hillary, since she has said she would put him in charge (?) of the economy. I don't know to what that would look like. Advisory only, hopefully. But her supporters here and elsewhere deny that neoliberalism is a problem. Either they don't care about the issues (possibly, but unlikely) or it's a team thing. I think this is why Bernie was so threatening to them.

Certainly most mainstream Democrats subscribe now to various aspects of neoliberalism. And this is a problem because it leaves out the people who are most at risk, the poor and working classes. The middle class, not so much. But they are still plenty of issues there, like stagnating wages, out of control housing costs, etc. The Democrats seem to want to nibble around the edges of these issues, rather than tackling them head on.

[libdem4life]

120. ^^^This^^^

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. All too often this is true. All hat and no cattle.

The young in the Brexit vote voted overwhelmingly for globalism to Remain in Europe (see chart in my other post below). Globalism delivers innovative forward-looking technology like what the Germans are doing with solar power. Globalism demolishes barriers between people around the world. Globalism makes it easier for Brits to work across Europe and fall in love and for races to mix.

Brexit erects barriers.

[flamingdem]

10. The elders and working class are fine with everything BUT

"the races to mix" part.

The most popular baby name in London is Mohammed, etc. What do they have other than their "identity". Young people are more fluid about that to their credit.

[arendt]

33. Chamber of Commerce propaganda

Globalism means a race to the bottom.

That is why factories across the former First World are empty and workers laid off.

It is freedom for corporations to search for slave wages, union busting, no environmental rules etc

The opportunities are for banks and multinational corps.

You are dreaming to think globalization is good for anyone but elite workers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

34. The aspects you name are only part of the total picture of globalism.

Yes, there are problems. But globalism is not defined simply as corporatism the way you have.

I could equally say (and equally uselessly dismissively say) "Anarchists propaganda". But I won't because the picture is complex.

Avoid binary thinking.

[ancianita]

46. Then what, besides the capitalist model, IS the total picture of globalism. If you can't say, then

you're talking tool talk.

Avoid attacking binary thinking when only three models present themselves -- church-run authoritarianism, ideology-run authoritarianism or economics-run authoritarianism.

So.

What else you got?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

62. The problem is not globalism, the problem is wealth inequality and income inequality.

Along with that and "part and parcel" with it is low wages and bad working conditions.

I do not begrudge low wage jobs moving out of the country to advance middle classes elsewhere.

[font size = "+1"]The sooner there are healthy middle classes in every country, the more war becomes unimaginable to the majority of the public and the healthier the world and the population of the world will be.[/font]

The problem is not that the iPhones and iPads of the people complaining about globalism are made in China and Vietnam. The problem is that the minimum wage in the US is ridiculously low.

When you have a robust working poor who can make a decent wage to live a decent (if a bit hard) life and provide a future for their children with health care, then you have a strong base for the nation.

But there is too much wealth at the top in the 1% and the 0.1% and the 0.01%. That wealth is invested offshore and dodges taxes and does not pay its fair share of the load.

There are NOT only three models that are all forms of authoritarianism.

The California model, the Canadian model, and the Scandinavian models do very well. Look there. That's what we got. Lots of options.

[ReRe]

37. You've got it right, arendt

It's unbelievable, isn't it? This is the hardest thing of all to manage on DU anymore: running up against people who you could swear are pure-T Republicans.

[rhett o rick]

15. No one is dreaming of returning to the 1950's and shame on you for the nasty

remarks. One doesn't have to develop a new economic system to be able to complain about the millions of American children living in poverty because the neo-liberal Powers That Be view poverty as collateral damage to making profits. In the last 30 years the neo-liberals have been running amok. Regulating corporations is essential as Greenspan finally found out too late.

[Rex]

18. Yeah that was sad, I guess Sanders really pissed off a lot of status quo folks.

So now they have to make up something out of whole cloth. Sad ain't it? This is why I have a hard time taking some posters here seriously, they just make up stuff - because someone disagrees with their worldview.

[rhett o rick]

19. They are not interested in discussing the issue but blasting out crap. nm

[Rex]

24. It does however do my heart good to see so many young new voters gravitating around BS.

And then the same status quo folks will say, "bah young folks what do they know" well for starters they know their grandparents and some of their parents had it better then they do now as far as retirement, job security and opportunity. They understand what predatory capitalism is.

This Brexit vote, for good or bad, is proof that people will not trust their livelihood's to some corporate court. They saw how badly the working class got treated in Greece...so this reaction is not too surprising.

[Rex]

16. lulz

What a load...progressives want to go back to the 1950s? Your talking points are devoid of any facts.

[NJCher]

54. do you read?

There are plans. I don't even see how a reasonable person could make a statement like this.





Cher

[Scootaloo]

81. You have no idea what most of the words and terms you just used actually mean, do you?

I swear, sometimes it's like listening to someone with no sense of comedy trying to tell a joke they have been told makes people laugh "every time"

[bvar22]

83. ?

"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."[/size]
----Bolivian Reform President Evo Morales*

The above statement by Morales is not so very different
than FDR's Economic Bill of Rights in 1944 where he stated much the same thing.
THAT used to be the core values of the Democratic Party.
Sadly, that is no longer true.

*(Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959), popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and cocalero activist who has served as President of Bolivia since 2006. Widely regarded as the country's first president to come from the indigenous population, his administration has focused on the implementation of leftist policies, poverty reduction, and combating the influence of the United States and multinational corporations in Bolivia. A democratic socialist, he is the head of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.)

[libdem4life]

121. That's currently how I describe myself...an FDR Democrat.

[lumberjack_jeff]

99. The people only have a couple of tools at their disposal. Votes, torches and pitchforks.

By design, the elites constrain their ability to choose social policy beyond a few meaningless and symbolic ones.

In the accidental event that they're given the opportunity to pull a meaningful lever, they'll pull it hard.

[George Eliot]

106. What do you mean by neoliberalism?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. The Brexit vote was about bigotted fear of immigrants and Brexit liers (UKIP party)

Neoliberalism had precious little to do with it. That doesn't mean the 1% (some of them anyway) don't have a lot to answer for around the world. Just that the Brexit was dominated by lies about immigrants and EuroMyths about losing sovereignty that were fully debunked but repeated anyway.

It also has a lot to do about the Stay side not Getting Out The Young Vote to vote for their future.

The young voted overwhelmingly to stay.

The fearful old-fogeys wanted Britain to be Great Again and voted to Leave. They got out and voted in large numbers.

Look at the bars for Capitalism in this chart. You can put a neoliberal cast on the vote but that is just a fantasy. Better to pay attention to the Immigration bars and the Social Liberalism (Bernie Sanders type of liberalism) bars.

[rhett o rick]

17. The neo-liberals promote bigotry to keep the masses distracted. They militarize the local

police for the same reason. They promote laws that see AA locked up at a disproportionate rate for marijuana drug charges.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

32. You just took hard evidence that eviscerated your position...

...and completely ignored it, substituting instead a new fanciful allegation, another in complete opposition to the facts, that "neo-liberals" somehow "promote bigotry".

Of course, your entire theory about these neoliberals being in favor of "AA locked up at a disproportionate rate for marijuana drug" falls completely flat on its face, since the pure neoliberal party - the Libertarians - are completely in favor of it. While in Britain. David Cameron when serving in opposition, sat on the Select Committee on Home Affairs and voted to call on the Government to "initiate a discussion" within the UN about "alternative ways — including the possibility of legalization and regulation — to tackle the global drugs dilemma.

At this point, it's plainly clear that "neo-liberal" is just your code word for some sort of boogieman, who are responsible for everything bad in the world. Poor racist assholes, can't be just, well, racist assholes. No, they have to be "tricked" into it somehow by the people you hate.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[ReRe]

45. Did you read...

... Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

56. Another overwrought book that engaged in conspiracy theories...

Like Thatcher creating the Falkland Islands crisis to crush unions.

This is why the kook-left are called kooks, and then don't get anywhere with their political aspirations. Instead of sticking to defensible arguments about why government services should be borne principally or exclusively by the mega-wealthy, they spout off laughable lies that reduce the world to cartoonish moral black and white. George Bush, the incompetent dolt, is somehow simultaneously a mastermind who "Made 9/11 Happen On Purpose".

There are poor white racists, who despite being poor, are still racist assholes. And no one, not even these evil "neo-liberal" boogiemen, made them that way. When you can take that as a matter of simple fact, then you might start being able to persuade people to adopt your other positions. But not until.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[ReRe]

65. I see. You didn't read it.

If you didn't read that book in it's entirety, you have absolutely NO idea what "Neoliberalism" really means.

How can you describe yourself as "a member of the reality based community," when you have a closed mind? If you are against reading Naomi Klein's book, you probably aren't that much
into allot of the things we discuss here. I am a bit puzzled.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

75. I know plenty about what "neoliberalism" is

And that book doesn't define it.

You do have one thing correct though. I just couldn't finish the thing. It read like one of those execrable Limbaugh or FOX-News-personality polemics, just with the political affiliations of the boogiemen reversed. A mix of half-truths (sometimes with nuggets of actual truth), black and white thinking, tons of mischaracterizations, and outright conspiracy theories that are laughable on its face. It is worthwhile only preaching to the choir, but mostly dangerous in its mindless conflation of individual villainy with systemic criticism.

The reality based community, on the other hand, knows that, in the immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Specifically, all of the problems with wealth, or lack thereof, can pretty easily be traced back to the unwillingness of many third world societies to use birth control, literally doubling the population of the planet since the 1970s. Regardless of economic system, this is simply unsustainable. And that some people have gotten rich keeping hundreds of millions of people from literally starving to death (by taking advantage of dirt cheap desperate labor) is only the symptom, not the cause.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Scootaloo]

87. Wait, what?

The reality based community, on the other hand, knows that, in the immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Specifically, all of the problems with wealth, or lack thereof, can pretty easily be traced back to the unwillingness of many third world societies to use birth control, literally doubling the population of the planet since the 1970s. Regardless of economic system, this is simply unsustainable. And that some people have gotten rich keeping hundreds of millions of people from literally starving to death (by taking advantage of dirt cheap desperate labor) is only the symptom, not the cause.

Your financial woes are not because someone in Malawi has seven kids.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

115. Our financial woes are absolutely tied to that...

When those seven kids in Malawi grow up, and are desperate for any kind of money to buy bowls of rice to stay alive, they'll work for pennies an hour.

In steps an investor who steps in to undercut someone working in a US manufacturing job by taking advantage of this situation, providing the jobs so that those seven Malawi kids don't end up starving to death. This, in turn, causes the US guy to lose his job, and either A) Blame the brown people (if he's right wing), or B) Blame the investor giving them a job so they can eat, while keeping the majority of the proceeds (if he's left wing).

But the real problem, should the US employee lose his job or should third world kids starve, comes directly from overpopulation.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[ReRe]

91. On last question

Who could be called "The Father Of Neoliberalism?"

[rhett o rick]

101. A clue would be that he served as a source of inspiration for Thatcher, Pinochet, and Reagan.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

116. These ideas have been around a lot longer than Friedrich von Hayek

Frédéric Bastiat is the true source of many of these ideas. He could be confused with a modern day Libertarian today:

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

One might say that compared to Bastiat, Hayek was a squishy moderate.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[rhett o rick]

118. Do you admire Reagan, Thatcher and Pinochet? nm

[ConservativeDemocrat]

125. Well of course not.

No more than I admire Hugo Chavez. Extremists of all kinds cause terrible problems.

Are you voting for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[ReRe]

123. Wrong

This is in reference to Naomi Klein's book. Try again.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

126. Oh! Sorry. I thought you meant who economists usually use that term about...

...not screed writers like Klein, who seem to imagine that history started with FDR. I think she, in her ignorance, credited Milton Friedman with that label.

(I think. I'd have to dig the damned thing out of my attic to be sure, and I'm not doing that.)

Regardless, the book is what it is - a polemic.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[ReRe]

124. Thank you for joining this quizzing...

... of our Dear fellow, ConservaDem.

[rhett o rick]

104. Do you see the audacity when someone claims that they, at the exclusion of all others, know what

reality is. And holy schite, you think "the problems with wealth, or lack thereof, can pretty easily be traced back to the unwillingness of many third world societies to use birth control," That is amazing. So when the banksters in 2008 stole $25 trillion dollars from the 99% in one easy move they called a "banking crisis", that shift in wealth balance had it's roots in over population??

The extreme of neoliberalism is fascism, not Libertarianism.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

127. You need to read books outside of your comfort zone...

...maybe a little economic history.

And also stop making up "poopiehead" type words like "banksters". It betrays a lack of actual critical thinking skills.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[rhett o rick]

103. Wow, looks like I stepped on someone's foot. There is a huuuge difference between

Libertarians and neoliberals.

[malaise]

93. Precisely

Divide and rule while the 1% loot and plunder.

[roomtomove]

23. Brexit will not significantly impact

any of the above except the neoliberal globalist ruling corporatists, which is a good thing.

To think otherwise is misguided.

[shenmue]

29. Or, everyone in the U.K.

[libdem4life]

55. You have got to be kidding. Losing their "colonies", losing markets,

losing preferential trade agreement, probably having to go through customs/Papers Please, the market dropped 5% in a nanosecond. That's some chunk of change. What does a good NLBRC do when there are few products and even fewer workers and no smooth path to export/import.

Do some more reading...lots of good Real Information here. Also, go to Google News...lots of good Intelectual Reading by Experts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027949740

[newthinking]

26. Lord Ashcroft's polls are not what they seem - The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11401622/Lord-Ashcrofts-polls-are-not-what-they-seem.html


Lord Ashcroft is a former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party



And, in fact, there is no such thing as “The Ashcroft Poll”. Lord Ashcroft is not a pollster. He buys in polling from other companies, and then publishes the results. He says he uses several companies, but declines to name which ones. They are, he says, all members of the British Polling Council. But according to the New Statesman, his polls have now been dropped from Sky’s regular election poll of polls, because he personally is not a member.

It’s also odd that Lord Ashcroft’s increasing influence has coincided with increasing general concern over the influence of big money in the British political process. Although he holds joint British citizenship, until 2010 Lord Ashcroft was domiciled in Belize for UK tax purposes. He has also been a major financial donor to the Liberal party in Australia. Yet again, Lord Ashcroft seems to have evaded the scrutiny that would normally be directed at someone buying such an overt stake in British politics.

And it’s not just polling he’s bought up. He owns or has owned political web-sites, publishing houses, magazines. After I’d first met him, one MP who is a friend of his told me “yes, that’s what Michael does. He tries to collect people”.

[newthinking]

27. Lord Ashcroft's Scottish polling: mums, dodgy sums and naked politics - The Guardian

This guy is a conservative spin master -

Lord Ashcroft's Scottish polling: mums, dodgy sums and naked politics

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/scottish-independence-blog/2013/sep/09/scottish-independence-scotland

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Thanks for the info. Interesting background. . . nt

[ReRe]

42. When the economy goes south...

... some ordinarily-selfish-by-nature people look for scapegoats. Someone to blame for all of their financial woes. And they have lots of cheerleaders on TV/radio: Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, about every Republican in the United States Congress, Fox News and a world wide web for all of them to plug into. UK is not a big as the USA, so maybe it seems like there were some crazies on the "leave" side.

The difference between us and UK is the voting system. Did you see how they count their paper ballots? All the cameras? The openness of the room? One thing you can be sure of was that the counting of those votes was fair and square. Everyone that wanted to vote got in to vote.

Over here, they don't even ASK us if we want to go along with some cockamamie gimmick they have cooked up. Over here, they just do it, tell us it's be the best thing since sliced bread and proceed to cram it down our throats. 30 yrs later, the middle class is a ghost of itself, everyone's working 2-3 jobs to be able to give their children what WE had when we was kids and just the father was able to support a whole family and put the kids through college.

This is happening to all middle class people all over the world in the industrialized countries. Have you noticed the protests all over the world for the last many years? Austerity is NOT a comfortable way to live, Bernardo.

Me? I have never blamed immigrants for the plight of the middle class in this country. You know what I hear when someone blames an immigrant or a minority for all of our problems? A bigot. Cause that is exactly what they are. That is pretty damn shitty, when someone blames someone who is in a lower caste than them for all of his problems.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

60. +1. And Austerity is the worst response to tough economic times.

It makes perfect sense to go into deficit when the economy needs a boost.

Infrastructure projects especially put spending money directly into the economy and lay the ground work for recovery, when the existing infrastructure becomes more strained.

When a recovery starts going strongly, pull back on spending a bit and increase taxes a bit. That is the time to run a surplus to pay down public debt. When there is extra money.

Just like a true business.

Republicans and conservatives who say they are "running the government like a business" just want to strangle it all the time 24/7/365. Like the travesty in Kansas.

Compared to the success a Democratic Governor is having in California.

And you are spot on about bigots and immigrants.

+1 for paper ballots.

[ReRe]

66. We're on the same side, Bernardo.

Thank God I ran into someone who understands something that I'm typing.

[suffragette]

48. More about Lord Ashcroft - a combo of Rove and Koch

He is as devious as they come and has used AstroTurf campaigns in the past to put the right wing in power and huge profits in his pocket, part of which he then uses to keep the right wing in power.



http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/10/oxford-universitywealth-school

Lord Ashcroft, 62
Conservative Party deputy chairman
Education Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Mid-Essex Technical College
Wealth £1.1bn
Lord Ashcroft, the Tories' fairy godmother, has donated millions to the Conservative Party since the 1980s, personally guaranteeing its overdraft when it was reportedly £3m in the red. He makes a habit of political donation, and has been accused of wielding undue political influence in Belize, where he has extensive business interests. He does not say whether he pays tax in the UK, and the Electoral Commission is investigating whether his company fits strict rules on overseas donations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7904212.stm

The UK-born 63-year-old's fortune has enabled him to pay millions of pounds in donations to the Tories since the early 1980s.

He has been credited with helping to rescue the party's finances in the past, once stepping in to personally guarantee its overdraft when it was reportedly £3m in the red.

~~~
Lord Ashcroft's dealings in Belize have also generated controversy in the past, with some politicians in the central American country having suggested an influence that has been far from healthy.
The tycoon made large donations - rumoured to total about $1m - to the right-wing People's United Party (PUP) when it was in opposition.
In 1998 the PUP came to power after defeating the centre-left United Democratic Party (UDP), and subsequently introduced several pieces of legislation financially advantageous to Lord Ashcroft.

http://www.vice.com/read/lord-ashcroft-the-man-behind-call-me-dave-001

Who really did something really outrageous in the back in 1980s? Dave with a pig? My vote goes for Lord Ashcroft. Back then his main business, Hawley Group, was heavily into contract cleaning. Behind the scenes, Ashcroft funded a political lobby to privatize the cleaning of schools and NHS hospitals—until that point were run by the public sector. The lobby group he funded, called PULSE (the "Public and Local Service Efficiency" Campaign) was set up in 1985 to persuade the public sector to contract out services like cleaning and catering. Ashcroft gave PULSE around £500,000 [$759,000]. The campaign's advisory council included a handful of right-wing Tory MPs including Gerald Howarth, Neil Hamilton, and Michael Portillo, as well as former Westminster Council leader Lady Shirley Porter. It was very successful.

Peter Clarke, the man who ran the privatize-cleaning campaign told the Scotsman newspaper "nothing unlawful nor improper took place," but "this was very successful political engineering," because "Mr. Ashcroft's Hawley Services Group prospered in the new market created by PULSE's lobbying. PULSE appeared to be a popular campaign but in truth it was a money-making venture for Mr. Ashcroft."

Ashcroft's firm, Hawley Group, got a round a third of the new NHS contracts in 1983-1988. After privatization the number of hospital cleaners dropped massively. Their wages and conditions were also cut. Thanks to this privatization, we were left with dirty hospitals and MRSA—trade union Unison estimated the number of hospital cleaners dropped from over 100,000 in 1984 to around 55,000 in 2005, because of the privatization drive. Even the moderate Royal College of Nursing called for an end to the privatization that made Ashcroft rich, asking that cleaning should be brought back in-house to help stop the hundreds of deaths from MRSA and other infections every year.

Ashcroft's companies also moved into hospital catering, which was also privatized thanks to the political campaign he funded: the poor state of hospital food is one of his legacies.

[Old Codger]

7. TPTB

Jumped all over us this last 6 months or so even more that usual. I know that the American people are generally slow to rise up and take the steps that are necessary to get things onto a more acceptable level of slavery.... The MSM took us to the cleaners during this primary season, they fucked us over while taking the big money for advertisement and laughing all the way to the bank.We,meaning basically the lower 75% mainly are being screwed and apparently the majority are perfectly wiling to let it happen..We were cheated out of the truth with a pack of lies packaged in a way to make it palatable to the low end/low information voter.. until we get the truth out to the masses it will not change..

[Johnny2X2X]

11. The real truth

The real truth is with more and more false information being sold as the news more and more people are getting duped. There is so much info coming at people now that many just cannot separate real from bullshit. So you have an insane decision like last night that was largely based on info from tabloids. People can't tell the difference and right wingers are using that and accelerating it.

[spanone]

12. good observation...most folks don't follow the news....

too busy living life.

[malaise]

14. Valid point

but they know things are harder today for them and their kids

[840high]

13. I'll tell you what

I"m tired of - candidates making promises they never intend to keep. No jobs except measly part time if you're lucky. No universal health insurance. No real SS increase - as food prices go up and up. The media not reporting news without their own bias. Seniors and children going to bed hungry as we spend a lot on wars.

[malaise]

21. Just like the rest of us

and neo-liberalism is the reason for our economic problems

[Rex]

20. Well it is sad, I respect a lot of posters here until they see something the disagree with or don't

understand what something means - so they go all silly making up stuff that they have no way to prove. The 1% have never had such wonderful protectors as the low information voter.

[malaise]

22. So true

but it's not merely that they are low information voters - many buy the divide and rule tactics of those with the 1% agenda.

[IronLionZion]

25. It seems to be a general anti-establishment anti-elite sentiment

rather than about the actual political and economic alliances of the EU. The leave vote seems to be mainly to spite those who benefit from the trade and travel rather than to see any other benefits.

I'm still not sure who benefits from leaving.

[marmar]

28. Da truth

[zonkers]

30. Yes.

[The Wizard]

38. Pitchforks, torches and rope

may be the only things the wealthy elite owners of this country understand. But before it gets to that, maybe public horse whippings of some Wall Street bankers might send a message. We've had enough of the strongly worded letters.

[socialist_n_TN]

39. I've said this before and I've seen nothing to change my mind.........

The average person in the world is NOT a political junkie and doesn't really keep up with what's going on in politics RE: positions and policies. They just know whether their personal situation is getting better or worse. When the average person's situation continues to either stagnate at a low level or continues to get worse, they then focus on politics. BUT THEY STILL DON'T HAVE A GRIP ON WHAT THE POSITIONS AND POLICIES MEAN TO THEM INDIVIDUALLY. So they vacillate between the various political poles, left and right, desperately seeking relief for their individual situations.

This is all the result of the failure of capitalism since the Great Recession. Expansion is the lifeblood of capitalism and expansion (economic growth) has been minimal resulting in a Long Depression that has devastated the economic situation of the individual. They will continue to swing left to right in more and more radical directions until they get relief. Unfortunately, there is no more relief to be had under capitalism.

[NorthCarolina]

47. Neoliberal Capitalism has hit an iceberg and is taking on water.

[malaise]

97. +1,000

[Android3.14]

49. Take note, Clinton Campaign

If you continue to alienate the progressive populists, you will only represent the corporate interests at the expense of regular Americans, and you will run the risk of losing the race or facing a redneck revolution following an ugly win.

[libdem4life]

58. Hardly think there is much middle ground here. It's not politics so

much as it is life-ingrained social status determined by money. Haves vs. Have Nots. The continuum is becoming a dyad, as in focused on the opposite poles, rather than spread out along said continuum.

This polarization is global...think The Hundredth Monkey. The Brexit vote caught Britian's elite off guard (maybe that's a pun?) and removed their Leader, Cameron. That's a BFD and the colonies have already begun to figure a way out...literally.

Bernie's popularity caught America's elite off guard as well. And I don't think they huddled about it. Time will tell, but monied power does not share itself easily.

[suffragette]

50. Looks like serious astroturfing going on in post Brexit poll

See post #48

Particularly suspect to me is the result for 'globalisation.'

I've noticed posts around DU connecting viewing it positively to youth in the UK wanting to work and live in EU nations, then extrapolating that means young people are in favor of more globalization.

Yet, I think it very unlikely that those same young people would be in favor of the types of actions Ashcroft or his neocon friends have actually done as part of what they view as globalization.

It brings into question how the polling questions were worded and what people actually though they were responding to as well as what exactly is being pushed here.

[Rex]

52. It is funny watching folks lose their shit over neo-liberalism, you would think they are

hardcore libertarians! Such interesting times we live in.

[malaise]

95. To be honest

it pisses me off

[Rex]

109. It pissed me off at one time too, then I finally realized just how common these folks are.

How little they actually care about the human race, I realized that they are not worthy of my time. Most of them are here just to play stupid games with DU posters that do care.

[malaise]

111. I ignore them most of the time

but not all of the time

[Rex]

112. I hear ya, sometimes ya just have to say something.

[n2doc]

57. Agree

And the amount of vitriol against the brexit voters on a supposedly 'liberal' site is pretty telling. Basically some people aren't interested anything but belittling and name-calling. No interest in understanding why people might be unhappy with the current deal they have been handed with no real choice. Blair or Cameron, sane shit, different day.

I will say this, JFK's words about revolution still ring true, and those on the 'left' and 'right' who think globalism and trade agreements are they greatest thing since sliced bread may find themselves on the wrong end of JFK's 'inevitable' .

[ymetca]

59. What's that old saying?

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Perhaps we should add polling to the list.

To me the democracy dilemma has always been the bell curve. The Brexit vote was split pretty evenly. On another day it might have gone the other way for a multitude of different reasons.

Which begs the question -- does mass democracy of millions of people actually work? It seems to me that the larger the number of voters the more closely we approximate the even distribution of the bell curve. Like dropping balls through a peg board. No clear majority is ever really achieved.

So maybe voting should become a more gradient and continual process, with voters able to adjust their sentiment by degrees over a period of time, and governments being more able to tweak laws as sentiments ebb and flow based on regular voter feedback. This whole "call your congressman" mentality is way outdated.

A global direct democracy, it seems to me at least, would have to work something more like that. Representative democracy has long exceeded its utility.

We have the technology to implement a global direct democracy. But everyone seems afraid of it. Most likely that is because we have been programmed by centuries of deprivation to believe that there is not enough to go around. That there are simply not enough resources for us all to pursue happiness. That fear will be hard to overcome until sufficient numbers of us can at least have some time to do what I just did here.

[Buzz Clik]

70. Our only chance to beat the man is to speak truth to power.

[rateyes]

73. Yep.

[guillaumeb]

76. And fed up with "incrementalism", the cousin to neo-liberalism.

People do not understand why the rich must constantly be given more while the bottom 90% are advised to "tighten their belts".

[seabeckind]

80. It's a lot easier to blame it on prejudice.

Goes down a little easier.

Good thread.

[Vinca]

82. You're exactly right.

It seems there is a finger on the scale for the super wealthy and the rest of us are just waiting for something to trickle on down. So far the trickle hasn't been money.

[Teamster Jeff]

86. kick

[Recursion]

110. "Across the planet"?

The 2 billion people who have joined the global middle class over the past 20 years are absolutely, 100% not sick of the liberal economic system that got them there, sorry.

[riderinthestorm]

113. Preach! nt

[Odin2005]

117. The answer to Globalist Late Stage Capitalism is Globalist Socialism, not romantic nationalism.

There seem to be many on the Left who have fallen for the backward looking economic nationalism being espoused by the populist far-right that looks back on a "golden age" allowed by the colonialist exploitation of the developing world.

[TubbersUK]

129. + 1000000000

[ReRe]

128. You'll probably run onto this soon...

... but just in case you somehow miss it:

https://www.facebook.com/AthensLiveGr/videos/1723377684600928/

[malaise]

130. Thanks ReRe