tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-152128922024-03-14T00:38:07.371-05:00LEFT IN EAST DAKOTASocial media, and pure laziness, have all but killed this blogGraemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.comBlogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-44464762441641691442023-04-08T09:11:00.001-05:002023-04-08T09:11:37.809-05:00Leftism is Just Exclamation Point Liberalism <p> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The February issue of Harper’s Magazine poses the question </span><a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2023/02/is-liberalism-worth-saving-francis-fukuyama-cornel-west-deirdre-mccloskey-patrick-deneen/" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Is Liberalism Worth Saving?”</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on its cover. The panel of four, who more or less cover the mainstream of the ideological spectrum, for the most part give familiar praise and criticism. One panelist, however, gives a forceful and fundamental critique of liberalism. That person is not the representative of the left. To be sure, the left representative makes all the standard criticisms of classical liberalism (imperialism, racism, inequality) but these issues have all been confronted, for decades, within forms of political liberalism like social democracy and even neoliberalism. The real underlying critique of liberalism, the one that challenges its foundational tenets, is coming from the post-liberal right. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is relatively new. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because being marginalized and uninfluential are baked into the ethos of the radical left, something I definitely internalized while attempting to organize first as an anarchist and then a Trotskyist, there is an absolute lack of understanding when it comes to how to handle successes. This is particularly true regarding any political introspection as to why certain ideas have been deemed acceptable and why that has created a lack of curiosity outside of these, largely cultural, categories. The categories (gender, race, sexuality, environmentalism, etc.) have been through decades of post-modernist leveling against not only class, but the very idea of politics as an emancipatory project. This has masked the ability of liberalism to fully address even the most seemingly radical demands that are being put forth. In other words, the left’s transitional demands are now capable of being met by friendly state and corporate powers with the results being absolutely compatible with liberalism. Indeed, they are often its driving force. The response from the left, completely engulfed by liberalism, is to be a liberal with an exclamation point, that is liberalism’s vanguards. A society of libertine self-expression has seemingly endless outlets which can each be marketed as a revolutionary identity without a fundamental altering of core societal structures. You can be a revolutionary without all the inconveniences of actually having to sort out how to run things. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am well aware that a lot has been written about class versus identity, or cultural issues versus material issues. My point here is that it is all an argument within liberalism. Even the much maligned “class first” socialist is a liberal creation. It was not too long ago that the “class first” distinction would have been seen as nonsensically redundant. (What other kind of socialist could you possibly be?) This has changed. While you will still find arguments about the revolutionary subject (Is it still workers? Maybe the lumpen? Maybe immigrants?), this is just an argument of strategy. That is, which group should be highlighted at which particular time, for social and/or political gains within liberalism. The revolution is permanent, perhaps, but permanently liberal. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a handful of people who still see the left as a project of human emancipation. Usually they are stuck in some sectarian organization with zero influence on the political process, embarrassingly still plastering their websites and pamphlets with busts of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. These holdouts will likely fade away as leftism continues as exclamation point liberalism, and eventually they will pick a side in one of the forever culture wars and assume that political identity. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This leads me to my final argument. The most effective leftist today is the leftist who defends the best of liberal bourgeois society, something elites have largely traded for a vulgar cosmopolitanism. The bourgeoisie are history’s most successful revolutionaries and not without many fine accomplishments even from a leftist perspective. You, my leftist friend, will be happier fully engaging with reality and living that anti-capitalist life that is completely compatible with liberalism(!). Take satisfaction in the contradiction that a critical defense of enlightenment values will seem anti-liberal to many. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the point is to fundamentally change the world, however, then I think we can finally say, with some genuine sadness for many of us, the left is not really part of the conversation. In order to be more than a jacobin, there will have to be an actual political break which would mean not voting for Democrats (even those endorsed by the DSA!) and a slow start from scratch process that refuses to opportunistically attach itself to one of the hot and ready culture wars. That seems incredibly unlikely, at least in most of our lifetimes. </span></p>Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-3825221118041076072020-10-29T22:05:00.002-05:002022-04-01T19:15:26.419-05:00<p> <span style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">I voted for Joe Biden and hope he wins. I’m also alarmed at the increasingly transparent alliance between the Democratic Party and influential sectors of corporate America, namely media conglomerates and the technology industry. (Their relationship reminds me of the Republican Party and the energy industry.)</span></p><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">It’s true there are conservative media outlets that are not friendly to Democrats, but it’s far less certain how objective the “paper of record” and other “serious” media would be to a post-Trump and post-COVID Biden administration that is politically and ascetically their peer. (I would say we are at a point of competing Pravdas, but that would be a slander against the Soviet newspaper’s pre-Stalinist period when it was a battleground of ideas.)</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Perhaps even more damning is the Democratic Party’s relationship to the technology industry, particularly when companies like Twitter and Facebook have shown they are prepared to unilaterally decide what’s true and what’s false. Not many are talking about it, but how vigorously would a Biden Administration pursue the current antitrust case against Google- one of Biden’s main campaign contributors? Google is already claiming the case is political, setting the stage for a slap on the wrist settlement from a new and friendlier justice department. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">This all might seem insignificant in comparison to a uniquely corrupt and repulsive Trump administration, but having this sort of relationship in place when a President Biden (or Harris) has a “Gulf of Tonkin” type incident (probably around the Gulf of Tonkin actually) strikes me as incredibly dangerous to the entire world. (It’s not hard to imagine antiwar voices being banned on social media as conspiracy theorists while an uncritical media does its part to wag the dog.)</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Considering how things are going it would be totally on brand to have the replacement to the wild and crazy Donald Trump start WWIII. </div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-27299190520492514842020-09-05T10:23:00.000-05:002020-09-05T10:23:01.137-05:00<p> Vicky Osterweil can be well received by the same people who thought Bernie Sanders “too radical” because Osterweil’s jargonized defense of looting is not supposed to be taken seriously while Bernie’s “political revolution” very much was. That particular stratum of the professional class, including many activist influencers, have a wink and nod built into the ideology with Osterweil. Everyone knows it’s opportunist bullshit, soon to be forgotten, but for the next few months keep a copy of the book on the coffee table so if anyone comes over they will know how “radical” you are. (Unless someone, you know, steals it.)</p>Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-59533117810306165272020-07-30T20:37:00.002-05:002020-08-01T16:18:54.393-05:00<div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">Middle class liberals went from arguing Bernie Sanders is too radical for the suburbs to supporting, at least tacitly, burning down buildings (disproportionately immigrant owned) as a political shortcut. Many then pivoted again to support the candidacy of Antone Melton-Meaux against Ilhan Omar. Melton-Meaux has been critical of both BLM and #metoo from the right and is the most transparent candidate of capital I’ve seen in a long time. (Strangely enough, he’s too chickenshit to run on “rebuilding Minneapolis,” something that might actually gain traction.) </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: uictfonttextstylebody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">This is why people outside of the states have so much trouble sorting out our politics. We’ve never had a party of labor, the populists were smashed by business and the state, so this professional managerial class muddle confuses everything. It’s incredibly frustrating. </div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-72656627035644940372020-07-30T20:34:00.001-05:002020-07-30T20:34:55.397-05:00<div>State power (that is the ability of the state to use brute force) has increased beyond any somewhat comparable moment in history, yet the state’s ability to everyday govern has decreased to historically poor levels. People (across the political spectrum) typically make sense of this through various conspiracy theories, some more attached to reality than others. (Many are nakedly conspiratorial, others have elements of structural analyses, usually done by trained post-structuralists of course.) America is ground zero, but this is not exclusively an American phenomenon. (China is a possible counter-example, though their competence is both exaggerated and relies heavily on the brute force part of the state.) </div><div>This creates a stalemate of sorts. The state lacks legitimacy, but also can’t be replaced. You can add Ross Douthat’s Laschian critique of societal “decadence” (drift may be a better word) to this context. His analysis is largely correct in my view and he’s also right that it’s relatively sustainable. (His solutions fall apart, however, limited by his conservatism.) Certain leaders might make it more transparent (Trump), but we could go on like this for at least our lifetimes no matter who is in charge.</div>Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-68661663910033763152020-06-21T10:28:00.000-05:002020-06-21T10:28:21.288-05:00A Letter From Saint Paul <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I write this we are about a half an hour from curfew. I’m in St. Paul. It has been hit far less than its counterpart across the river but my neighborhood, the city’s poorest and most diverse, is still boarded up. My neighbor is a mental health professional and helped out at a makeshift hospital for the protests. I mowed her lawn the other day and found a clear attempt to start a fire in the alley. It looks like they tried to set another neighbor’s garage on fire. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e974f747-7fff-c05d-83ca-35a0cbaff835" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things have been much calmer the last few nights. After George Floyd was murdered I felt sick to my stomach. (And I’m a white guy. I don’t pretend to know how people who have been attacked by those brutes for generations feel.) My view is that the first two nights were what you could call a rebellion, the pinnacle being the </span><a href="https://www.fox9.com/news/rioters-set-minneapolis-police-precinct-on-fire-as-protests-reignite-over-george-floyds-death" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">burning down of the third precinct</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (The city was reduced to abandoning it and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/CityMinneapolis/status/1266224316645027841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fus%2Fminneapolis-third-precinct-police-station-set-on-fire-after-rioters-break-in" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pretending there was a gas leak</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.) </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Night three saw a qualitative change. It was lumpenized to the point of the movement switching focus from directly challenging the police to protesters defending and protecting their own neighborhoods (particularly the predominantly black north side of Minneapolis). There were reports of white nationalists and </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/minnesota-governor-tim-walz-says-majority-of-protesters-are-outsiders/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“outside agitators”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This claim, however, was almost certainly exaggerated as a tactic to get people inside. (Dumb strategy. There is nothing self-styled revolutionaries like more than to pretend they’re in Orwell’s Catalonia fighting fascists. I remember the feeling.) Finding the balance between political action and opportunist criminality is impossible without organization, which is something that takes time. </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This realization puts the metaphorical brick in the window of these (mostly white and middle class) revolutionaries, as there’s no organized political force able to steer the narrative away from “law and order” let alone take state power. I sometimes get the feeling these self-styled revolutionaries are fine with changing the definition of revolution. I think they will eventually end up working in advertising, but I digress. </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am also getting fatigued with people, most of whom are completely unaffected by the arson and looting, talking about rebuilding. Just as when they tried to seperate people from the economy during the pandemic (remember that?), they are missing the point. Yes, the Super Target will get rebuilt. But they still have neglected to rebuild parts of Newark and Washington D.C. (etc.) that were destroyed during the 1968 riots (or rebellions or uprisings, whatever is most palatable for you). Guess who lives in those neighborhoods? </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What they are really talking about is rebuilding their brand, giving it an edgy pro-rebellion tint. That way, when we give the brutes more NGO human resource sensitivity training, they will be first on the job list. </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most sober assessment of social forces thus far has come from--wait for it--Ross Douthat. (Even if you disagree with his assessment that </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/sunday/riots-george-floyd.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">riots don’t work.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) Bernie Sanders, who has been more or less absent from public life after a pathetic endorsement of Joe Biden for President, appears to be the last attempt by the democratic socialist left to gain mainstream appeal for the foreseeable future. The best hope we have is Trump overplaying his hand. Strangely, as political timing is usually his strength, he seems to be doing just that with this idiotic focus on “antifa,” which even the </span><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/antifa-trump-fbi/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FBI considers bullshit</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and his threat to send in federal troops, which also </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-backs-off-insurrection-act-george-floyd-protests-9c299e4f-03da-4dc9-9857-bedebe5e4dd0.html?fbclid=IwAR0Bu9IZevDyPMIY3Qm5DK5CTShWJ4sZi98tH10GRluc9kF3mbDycEhdzag" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">appears to be bluster</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
<b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Community defense groups saved the protest. They built true solidarity. They show a better way to protect neighborhoods than the brutes. America does not appear to have the stomach to actually do anything about wealth and income inequality, the foundation of so many social pathologies, so we are left to demand we stop giving massive portions of city budgets to people who reliably kill its black inhabitants. This may be a case where that supposed American pragmatism comes in handy. </span><a href="https://www.startribune.com/after-four-nights-without-police-presence-mpls-neighborhoods-protect-themselves/570901702/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will protect our own neighborhoods, thank you very much.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The big question is, how long can we keep it going? And even if we do, without fundamentally changing how we allocate resources, </span><a href="http://www.citypages.com/news/how-to-keep-your-neighborhood-watch-from-becoming-a-police-squad/570951421" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do we just turn into cops?</span></a></div>
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June 2nd, 2020Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-40496427600521704902020-05-06T12:51:00.001-05:002020-05-06T12:51:00.186-05:00I’m somewhat familiar with the story, but haven’t seen the tv series “the plot against America.” Is it any good? I’ll admit I have doubts that will be difficult to overcome. My guess is it’s a well stylized but historically simplified attempt to frame international liberalism, particularly the US dominated post war order, as something deeper than what it has become- a value championed almost exclusively by the cosmopolitan elite and global corporations. I also predict that the entire post WW1 context (three months involvement and almost 120,000 Americans dead, split evenly between fighting and the flu pandemic) is lost to Lindbergh and his anti-Semitism. Is this accurate? “The man in the high castle,” another alternative history book made into a tv series that I actually did watch, missed an opportunity to dig into American militarism by not really explaining why so many high level American military members joined the Nazis. (We were supposed to believe it’s just because the Germans won.) I suspect both Roth and David Simon wouldn’t make that mistake with the dreaded “isolationists.” The whole thing is ripe for that sudden fake relevance because of an obvious misinterpretation of the Trump era. Liberal American exceptionalism has hit fever pitch with Trump in the White House and is a proven cash cow.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-34908973321536095482020-03-03T10:38:00.002-06:002020-03-03T10:38:23.051-06:00South Carolina the BulwarkPutting South Carolina’s primary right before Super Tuesday is a stroke of genius. There is not a better state to serve as a bulwark for any left candidate who manages to do well in the first three states.<br />
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South Carolina is probably the most conservative state in the country. This, of course, means that its Democratic Party is also conservative, at least relative to more liberal states. South Carolina also has a significant African American population. To the punditry, this is an early test of the “black vote.” (Despite their purported wokeness, media types love to treat African Americans as though they are a monolithic voting bloc separated from the larger culture of their communities.) There are black conservatives. Both relative to other Democrats in the Democratic Party and also relative to the universally recognized ideological spectrum. (Indeed, Tim Scott is from South Carolina.) This context is overwhelmingly ignored by the media.<br />
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So instead of talking about a socialist Jew from the Northeast getting 20 percent of the vote in the Deep South, we’re talking about Biden, who is as close to a Dixiecrat as the Dems still have, mildly over-performing at the expense of a couple other conservative Dems in an ultra conservative state that will never vote Democratic. It’s really clever.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-26417203024899891742020-01-31T22:38:00.001-06:002020-01-31T22:42:51.153-06:00<ul class="ul1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; list-style-type: circle;">
<li class="li1" style="font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">The DNC changed its debate requirements so Bloomberg, who’s not even a Democrat, could participate. They’re in an open panic at this point. Klobuchar didn’t stick, she’s got a problematic past (and no one has even looked into her foreign policy yet, particularly that NYE trip to Ukraine where she was palling around with a Poroshenko government full of open neo-nazis along with her bffs McCain and Graham). They warmed up to Warren after she went dirty against Sanders but she took a nose dive as Warren vs Sanders turned into CNN vs Sanders. Mayor Pete’s campaign is always on the verge of imploding, good riddance when it finally does. Biden, who no one really actually likes, should be running away with this thing but is just sticking around. His gaffs aren’t endearing but senior moments, some of which seem purposely creepy. To top it all off, politico is reporting some DNC executive committee members want to give superdelegates a first ballot vote at the nomination convention in order to stop Sanders! No hackers needed this time around, this is pretty transparent. </span></li>
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Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-62883970206181580762020-01-25T10:04:00.001-06:002020-01-25T10:05:45.989-06:00<span style="font-size: 17px;">Ilhan Omar could have had a job for life in Congress, no questions asked, if she would have just kept her head down and played the part. The Minneapolis elite primarily wanted her to represent their supposed enlightened wokeness. They had/have no desire for her politics that go far beyond their squishy (mainly cultural) liberalism. In a surprise twist of history, she is more Farmer Labor than Democrat, a throwback politician who understands what it takes to significantly change society and isn’t beholden to the rad lib politics that permeate the liberal left. I don’t live in her district, but am donating to her reelection campaign. </span>Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-33800649540488096022020-01-25T10:03:00.001-06:002020-01-25T10:06:01.790-06:00People before Trump’s Presidency:<br />
He’s going to be a dictator! The country may never recover! We must resist! This is the most important election in history!!! If you don’t vote for Clinton you support Trump!!!<br />
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Same people when Sanders emerges as the clear frontrunner for the Dem nomination:<br />
The presidency actually isn’t that important. (You know we have a system of checks and balances.) It doesn’t really matter who’s elected. Congress is what’s really important.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-14809158478910778112020-01-04T17:43:00.002-06:002020-01-04T18:04:21.495-06:00It’s fashionable for the media, political and cultural elite to define social pathologies in such a post-modern way that activist influencers can build cultural capital off of definition creep. At the same time our elite is still as xenophobic as ever, projecting this historic European anxiety regarding Asian development that goes back to the Mongol Empire. While you can build a brand showcasing your awareness of personal guilt regarding day to day interactions (within a system, always have to add that part or else you’re just a dick), it’s much less lucrative to situate your biases within a grand historical context. A fear of the Russians, Chinese, and apparently even the Iranians, is punching up for this crowd.<br />
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Air strike assassinations get met with “no angel” tropes and above the fray “this is a bad strategy” cop-outs. These guys don’t like our half-wit president’s bluster. But you can’t build much of an anti-war movement on questioning the empire’s aesthetics. I don’t trust them. We saw some “don’t bomb Iran” signs hanging off an interstate bridge on the way home earlier today. My brother and I hung some “George Bush is a war criminal” signs off interstate bridges in Fargo something like fifteen years ago now. He’s now seen as a decent man.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-27354997956227619632019-12-18T17:25:00.001-06:002019-12-19T12:04:19.469-06:00<div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1">Bernie’s social democracy has a libertarian feel, not only because Sanders himself is a stout civil libertarian, but because for lots of reasons (good and bad) the US doesn’t have the same overarching officialdom (Josie Appleton’s “busybody state”) that has taken over many of the European welfare states, even as they implement austerity. (My brother and his wife have horror stories of the layers of bureaucracy sewn into everyday life when they lived in England.) Bernie’s plans play to the good parts of that as they are universal, easy to understand (Medicare for all paid for by a progressive payroll tax), and not only don’t infringe on personal freedoms they substantially increase them. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s often the Vox inspired liberal, the one who fetishizes means testing and builds policies based on nudge theory, who wants to enshrine officialdom into our lives. (The Obamacare disaster is a key example.) This is mayor Pete’s, and even Elizabeth Warren’s, constituency. They represent the public/private partnership for perpetual paperwork. (How’s that for alliteration?)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This is one reason why Bernie does well outside the cities. People understand the difference between something like social security and another convoluted targeted policy plan. Populist universalism sells, technocratic wonkishness does not. </span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-42254715594553479882019-12-05T17:08:00.001-06:002019-12-05T18:01:48.150-06:00<div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #454545; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1">Trevor Noah has this bit (on The Daily Show) about Trump being shunned by the “cool kids” at the recent NATO gala. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a </span>teetotalling blowhard (the worst kind) who I love to see ostracized, but who are the “cool kids” in this scenario? Macron? He’s about as well liked as the US Congress. He was elected on the platform of being slightly more agreeable than an open fascist and his major accomplishment is furthering France’s descent into a full-on police state. Trudeau? He is the ultimate cynical politician. He’ll march for the climate in the morning and sign an oil deal in the afternoon. He’s an image of his father, though that imagine is in a wavy piss puddle. No, forget that. The best thing Trudeau has going for him is that persistent rumor that he’s Fidel Castro’s bastard son. I’m not even going to say anything about Boris Johnson because he’s already Boris Johnson for Christ’s sake. </div>
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<span class="s1">Also, NATO is an unnecessary organization that is a danger to world peace.</span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-63719741216725319122019-12-04T10:16:00.001-06:002019-12-04T10:16:17.805-06:00As the fickle centrists continue to fold in the Democratic primaries, we are starting to see the usual suspects talk about how the system actually does work if you just get the right people involved and the executive branch doesn’t have much power anyway so getting Congress is really the more important battle.<br />
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These, of course, are the same people who after Clinton’s loss claimed the system was absolutely broken (the electoral college was supposed to prevent a demagogue like Trump!) and the White House was in the hands of a dictator and the very fabric of our democracy was being destroyed! They continued to be incredibly wrong about Russiagate, to an embarrassing extent, and now they are clueless when it comes to how the general public feels about the impeachment inquiry.<br />
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Yet they just keep talking.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-58868387049313320022019-11-23T10:31:00.003-06:002019-11-23T10:33:11.803-06:00Revenge of the Bureaucrats <div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #454545; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1">I understand polls can sometimes be about as helpful as chatting with a soothsayer, but at some level, amongst other sources, they can help discern the general mood of the country. The latest <a href="http://emersonpolling.com/2019/11/21/november-national-poll-support-for-impeachment-declines-biden-and-sanders-lead-democratic-primary/" target="_blank">Emerson college national poll</a> has support for Sanders up (tied with Biden for first) and support for impeachment (the hearings of which apparently nobody is watching) down. This corresponds with the anti-establishment sentiment that is pretty obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention. </span><br />
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<span class="s1">My point in bringing this up is the Democratic leadership, with a floundering Biden and a Buttigieg who simply isn’t popular outside a small obsessive clique, have now taken to try and make heroes out of career bureaucrats in the permanent state as a way to rid us of Trump. I have no particular dislike of those who pull the levers behind the scenes, indeed if you know your history they are often the most impressive people around. But they’re simply the wrong people at the wrong time, assuming you want electoral success that is. And that’s just it. The Dem leadership either lives in such an impenetrable bubble they are completely tone deaf to your average person, or they would rather lose to Trump than have someone like Sanders win. (Probably a bit of both actually.)</span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-547449342485132252019-04-06T15:02:00.001-05:002019-04-06T15:02:48.823-05:00Vote for Bernie!<div class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">For what it’s worth, which admittedly isn’t much, I decided to write down why I support Bernie Sanders:</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">People sorting out their politics right now could be forgiven for viewing the global corporation as a source for social justice and the state an extension of Donald Trump’s toxic personality. This helps create this somewhat strange situation where there’s hostility towards corporations coming from the right (with a small section even critiquing markets) and a large swath of the liberal/left coming to terms with a globalized capitalism that shares many of their cultural values. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">This situation, it is important to say, is within the context of a growing wealth inequality we haven’t seen since the 1920s. (The richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.) </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">The sectarian left is useless, only worth mentioning to point that out, and the mainstream of the Democratic Party sees the progressive corporation as the best possible ally to have. Many within the professional/managerial class more or less agree. (Understandably, I might add, as a more inclusive capitalism is indeed better than the opposite.) They have young, smart candidates who are actively trying to perfect this merger between corporate and liberal values. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">This situation also, however, offers us great historical conditions for populism. The populist right, prone to bigoted scapegoating already, will have plenty options to choose from the more liberal and corporate values merge. Sooner or later they will figure out Trump is a phony and his mix of bombastic bigotry and Reaganomics won’t be enough. Someone far worse will come along and judging from people’s reactions to Trump, we are not ready for that </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">A better scenario, one I’m trying to help happen, is the Sander’s wing of the political spectrum gains serious and lasting power. (Most important, of course, the presidency of the United Stages.) They are the only progressive political force that can capture some of the discontent that would otherwise go to the populist right. This means not only power within the Democratic Party, which we have to deal with as a sort of accident of history, but also within all the organizations that are sympathetic to major social democratic reforms. (Call it social democratic, democratic socialism, left populism, whatever you want.) This means real reforms. Medicare for all. Free tuition for public colleges. A living wage for all. Sick pay. Actually fighting climate change. A coming to terms with our history of racism, sexism and various other issues that people are still dealing with today. A coming to terms with the cost, in dollars and lives, of our military presence throughout the world. All very big issues, some more tangible than others, but all issues that overlap greatly with wealth inequality. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">The only serious political movement that has made wealth redistribution its core theme is the Sander’s left. This has been his personal mission for decades. This is the fundamental reason I support them, and think you should too. </span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-87290857317581389942019-03-04T21:30:00.003-06:002019-03-05T10:46:54.090-06:00Against Empire <span style="color: #454545; font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;">It seems like no one outside of the <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/america-indispensable-nation-no-more/" target="_blank">“American Conservative”</a> is thinking about the US as a declining empire. Contrary to what some thought, Trump has no interest in scaling back the US to a “normal” country. That wasn’t what MAGA meant. Quite the opposite, Trump and his goons think the post war international order isn’t US-centric enough. This is where Trump and the neoconservatives find common ground. </span><br />
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What’s more interesting to me is the Democratic Party, and the liberal/left in general. The Dems are historically the war party, and they have renewed that patriotic passion in the Trump era. The shameful treatment of Ilhan Omar is a good example. This charge of her being “anti-Semitic” for questioning Israel’s influence in US foreign policy is disingenuous and disgraceful. (People are acting like we didn’t already go through this silly “debate” when Walt and Mearsheimer’s book came out over a decade ago. It’s infuriating. These are also the same people who can’t go a half an hour without calling Trump a foreign agent beholden to Putin, who secretly controls the world through some sort of Slavic curse, but I digress.) Omar is a principled anti-interventionist. That’s what has really pissed off the war party, and pleasantly surprised me. Although groomed to be part of the new look Democratic Party, Rolling Stone cover and all, her brave insistence on criticizing US empire is pushing her into Tulsi Gabbardish persona non grata territory. (The Dem leadership is willing to put up with stuff like “the green new deal” so long as AOC continues to refrain from criticizing US empire in any substantive way.) </div>
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Even a section of the left, sensitive to the aesthetics of outright supporting US empire, has bought into cheering on phony internationalism as a substitute. A few weeks ago, or maybe years ago who knows anymore with these sorts of things, author and long time left activist Barbara Ehrenreich tweeted: “I <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-decoration: none;">will be convinced that America is not in decline only when our de-cluttering guru Marie Kondo learns to speak English.” This was attacked as xenophobic, racist, etc. This is unsurprising as Twitter is full of people waiting on seat’s edge for someone to say something stupid so they can own the cleverest tweet during the pile on and maybe gain some fake fame. The interesting thing about the reaction to me though, if I’m allowed to humor myself with a little armchair psychoanalysis, is the underlying support of empire in the denunciations of Ehrenreich. The critics all pretended the tweet was about an immigrant being told to speak English by an old white lady rather than an acknowledgement that US cultural power couldn’t compel an international tv star in America to learn English as was once the case. The Twitter left didn’t see middle America reading subtitles as a decline in US power, but rather a win for their phony internationalism, which of course is still dominated by the US. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-decoration: none;">The sun will set on the US empire, as it has on every one before it. Right now those true believers tend to go for Trump’s Pax Americana or liberal interventionism. Those who reject both will be attacked by both. We need to make this the issue, regardless of the attacks. The same way evangelicals, when pressed, will admit almost everything they do politically is to end legal abortion, we should be ending empire. Indeed, we should end the very notion of American exceptionalism. Should the United States be a Republic or an empire? This, dare I say, is the fundamental question of the century. At some point (sooner rather than later) we won’t be able to be both. </span></span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-64681984358425246092019-01-16T16:09:00.002-06:002019-01-16T16:10:43.201-06:00The Best a Man Can Get<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">Paralleling the socially conscious corporation is the conservative critique of capitalism. Tucker Carlson, an odious character to be sure, has gone as far as saying family values are being “crushed” by market forces. How is the left going to explain this, let alone fight it, when to your average person the left is indiscernible from a massive corporation like Gillette? The right has already taken a chunk of what it means to be transgressive, particularly in England as they pretty well own the counter-culture, now they are set to become the new anti-capitalists while we cheer on advertisements. This is going to be a rough year. </span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-56001164727341234602018-12-29T11:56:00.002-06:002018-12-29T13:41:02.949-06:00“Against Responsibility”<a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n21/william-davies/against-responsibility" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n21/william-davies/against-responsibility</a><br />
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There is an interesting historical narrative starting to be told about the political context in which I grew up in. I remember the period well, as I first starting following politics during this time. I ordered Cooper’s book based on the superb outline in this review. Davies gets to the heart of it when he says,</div>
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“What is brilliant and original in Cooper’s analysis is her demonstration that there are clear continuities between traditional forms of moral accountability (to parents, children, husbands, the church) and entirely new ones (intrusive systems of welfare reform, new forms of student and consumer credit). She suggests, for example, that gay marriage could only be introduced thanks to the demand for equality not in cultural or political status but for equal rights under inheritance law. What unites neoliberal and neoconservative mentalities is an insistence on personal bonds of one kind or another, whether financial, familial or some combination of the two. In the panic surrounding the libidinous insurrections of the 1960s, some form of superego had to be revived or reconstructed if an inflationary counterculture nightmare was to be averted.”</div>
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This romance between the neoliberals and neoconservatives is notable because before this alliance there was a period where, at least to many social conservatives, the neoliberals where effectively part of the counterculture. (The marriage between Bill and Hillary Clinton seems to be a perfect analogy for this. A former Goldwater girl meets an ideologically malleable “hippie” who is only as smart as the last book he read.) </div>
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While the results of this alliance are well known, there is an interesting aside I’m hoping the book might take on a bit. What about the relationship between the New Left and the neoliberals? We could probably say society has become far more progressive culturally because of the neoliberals more than those who remained on the left. The cultural turn of the New Left was such a heated debate internally because, as the adage goes, so little was at stake. The left was already effectively powerless. </div>
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This pretty well brings us to where we are today. Right now, for the most part, the radical left is not differentiated by its economics. Indeed, any stray from economic orthodoxy is typically associated with the “populist” right (e.g., Brexit, Trump tariffs). The radical left, in the minds of much of the populous, is differentiated by being more radical than the neoliberal establishment when it comes to cultural demands. Outflanked and overpowered on economics, the left distances itself from established structures the only way it has had (or at least thinks it’s had) past successes. (Here again I think of the Clintons. Hillary Clinton can have some over-educated staffer tweet out her 401-k plan for social justice, ripe with all the Twitter-woke keywords like “intersectionality,” and people forget the Clintons had unpaid black inmates doing household chores around the governor’s mansion in Arkansas. Yes, you read right, the Clinton’s had slaves courtesy of the Arkansas penal system. How’s that for tradition!) </div>
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<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">None of this is to say there’s a sort of cut and dry version of history. Often cultural and economic issues overlap, and one is not necessarily more important than the other. I also think that while there is something to this notion our current hyper-focus on cultural alienates parts of the working class and spurs a right wing backlash (I’ve worked in manufacturing for nearly 20 years if you want anecdotes), it’s also true the left has suffered from reluctantly defending tax and spend liberalism and nanny state “nudging” as a least worst option. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">One great thing about getting older is reflecting on histories you actually remember. One not so great thing is remembering how cyclical these debates on the margins are. It’s nothing less than a miracle people like Bernie Sanders have been able to stay consistent for so long. </span></div>
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Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-19576268847094748532018-11-09T20:02:00.001-06:002018-11-10T00:09:21.510-06:00<div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
I’m really glad to see Paulsen and Lewis gone (especially Lewis who is particularly ghoulish), but I would be much more confident if the DFL would have kept Walz’s and Nolan’s seats. Many powerful Dems were already convinced of the “suburban strategy” (basically a mad dash away from anything labeled “populist”) and the midterm results are going to make them even more zealous. The problem is that this strategy is based almost solely on moral outrage and that burns people out. It’s simply not sustainable. And while I’m sure they’re good people who know how to say the right things, I don’t trust the political instincts of Craig or Phillips. </div>
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The Sanders wing of the Democratic Party is the most interesting thing to happen to it since Vietnam and there is a real possibility it will be manuvered into irrelevance during the 2020 nomination process. This will make the Dems turn to suburban white collar professionals complete. It will also cede all populism to the right which will open the door to nasty shit. Nastier shit than we have now by far. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. (Thomas Frank has been arguing for a left populism for some time now. Look him up, he makes a great case. I think he’s right and really hope the midterm results, which are hardly impressive by historical standards, don’t cloud sympathic minds.)</div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-71790069090215866282018-07-28T17:20:00.004-05:002018-07-28T17:20:28.108-05:00<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m listening to Christopher Hitchens’ fine collection of essays, “arguably.” I’d read many of these years ago, but had forgotten how good of a writer he was. Listening to him take down JFK is pure poetry. However his post 9/11 theme, that fundamentalist Islam is the threat most comparable to 20th century fascism for the enlightenment influenced democracies, stands on even shakier ground today. His realpolitik version of Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” had our enlightenment influenced democracy with Puritan characteristics as some sort of revolutionary regime spreading the best we can do to some despotic areas. It’s quite a twist that Iraq ended up being a boon to Iran, which caused the gulf monarchies to freak out. Of course Trump and his goons are now trying to make amends by demonizing Iran to an absurd degree. I wonder if America allying itself with al-Qaeda in Syria would be enough to cause Hitchens to rethink some things? Maybe his weird hatred for the Baathists extended to the Syrian sort? I wonder what he would have made of Rojava? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The only one who could write like him was Gore Vidal, and 9/11 also kind of did him in, allowing his more crackpot side to take hold.</span></div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-25809968912101518062018-07-23T11:18:00.001-05:002018-07-23T11:18:07.056-05:00The threat to liberal values (liberal in the philosophical sense) coming from right-wing populism is pretty unconvincing considering that the self-appointed gatekeepers of those values, from EU technocrats to Thomas Friedman to Emmanuel Macron, have pretty well opposed all secularism and republicanism in the Middle East for decades while simultaneously championing the Gulf monarchies. If you compare human rights abuses between places like Iran and Syria (pre civil war) on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other, it’s a wash. Sure Iran is a theocracy, but it’s a republican theocracy, meaning they’ve fundamentally adopted western thought into their state. Doesn’t that count for anything Mr. Friedman? Nothing the monarchs do seems to matter, but the world is close to over because Hungary, Poland, and Italy embrace some mild illiberalism. Trump can be a mixed bag. Those liberal thought leaders love him when he passes tax cuts, bombs Syria and threatens Iran, but we also have the ongoing Russia freakout, NATO skepticism, tariffs, etc. I’m not one of those edgy leftists who poo-poos liberal values, I think they very much need to be defended, we just need better people defending them.Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-76932334177571075702018-07-20T08:18:00.001-05:002018-07-20T08:18:35.605-05:00Spinning Boris <div style="caret-color: rgb(69, 69, 69); color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
During the 1996 Russian Presidential election the Clinton administration sent advisers to secure electoral victory for Boris Yeltsin. The election was fraudulent, by all credible accounts, as the deeply unpopular Yeltsin had already effectively sold off the country to the highest bidders causing millions of people to lose their pensions and plunging tens of thousands into life threatening poverty. The general chaos of the Yeltsin years provided the framework for Putin’s rise as the one to bring back order. </div>
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This collusion between the Yeltsin and Clinton governments was such a non-issue there was even a goofy Jeff Goldblum movie made about it. (Google “Spinning Boris.”) </div>
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This basic context, and I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to the US inserting itself into Russian affairs after the fall of the Soviet Union, is almost never given when the media reports on Russia. This is likely because it makes “Russian agents” exposing the DNC’s bias against Bernie Sanders and placing a relative handful of ridiculous Facebook ads look like child’s play. It’s a much more compelling story when Putin is exaggerated to be an evil genius when really he’s a somewhat competent right wing leader who primarily reacts to things beyond his control. I’m not one to make much of this “Putin hates Hillary Clinton” argument, but it is pretty easy to see, from his perspective, why he would prefer Trump to Clinton given their history. It would be stupid not to. </div>
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I first started really following politics when I was outraged by the Iraq war. Trying to provide some historical context to war mongering conservatives was maddening. I feel that madness again. Trump is a terrible president and an even worse human being. The Republican Party, once the party of Thaddeus Stevens, has reached a new level of disgustingness. Vote them out of office. But do it because they have terrible politics, awful ideas, and worse policies. Don’t rely on xenophobic fear and ridiculous conspiracies. </div>
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Know your history. Trump is not Hitler. And no matter what Vice news says, there are not hordes of nazis waiting to take over cities across the country. (Poor Vice, they’ve been reduced to reporting on <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59kq93/racists-are-threatening-to-take-over-paganism" target="_blank">nazis taking over paganism</a>. Yes, white nationalists are going to win a mass following through a religion Julian couldn’t impose on people as emperor of Rome nearly 2000 years ago. Lol.) </div>
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Not only do the liberals who want to be the jingoists not convince the conservatives who already are the jingoists, they turn off your average voter. Poll after poll shows most people aren’t having this bizarre meltdown over Putin and Trump, but the chattering class reads how Russian hacking is “our Pearl Harbor” in politico and starts foaming at the mouth. As the meme says, Rachael Maddow has become Alex Jones for people who drove a Prius. Liberalism is in serious trouble. It’s not as much Trump as it is the reaction to Trump. It feels sadder than I would have expected. </div>
Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15212892.post-82551914806305072562018-05-12T11:53:00.000-05:002018-05-13T18:15:27.273-05:00Austerity Ecology and The Collapse-Porn Addicts<span style="font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;">I just finished Leigh Phillip’s left defense of humanity, “Austerity Ecology And The Collapse-Porn Addicts.” I think it’s important to frame it that way, as one of the main point he makes (and I fully agree) is that the earth doesn’t need us to survive. What we should focus on is our species. And not just surviving, but prospering, even conquering (I know people don’t like that word, but we ought not be scared of power). Phillips goes through every argument that I grew up with, from green austerity to that overpopulation nonsense, and convincingly does away with them. (I read Derrick Jensen was I was younger and had completely spaced out how truly terrible his arguments are. Embarrassingly bad. When I tried John Bellamy Foster I luckily found him too dense to get through. Just like George Ciccariello-Maher is a caricature of your “edgy” left wing professor, Foster is a caricature of what a Marxist is, tough to understand but you should know what he’s saying is super important!) </span><br />
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Phillip’s defense of economic growth needs to be understood on the left. It’s exaggerated by the activist class, but there’s this really annoying current of moral righteousness that plays far too great a role in defining what the left is to the general public. Instead of focusing on issues that have broad public support, like economic growth distributed rationally, this influential contingent of the left sets the conversation in a way that makes them the parental figure scolding the public who doesn’t understand what’s good for them. Yes you fester in political obscurity, but you get the moral satisfaction on knowing you’re “right.” Trying to build a political movement on people willfully lowering their standard of living, for example, because we have to “save the planet” has got to have the right laughing all the way to the ballot box. </div>
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My favorite part was towards the end of the book when Phillips went after the politically self-defeating fetishization of small. On an individual level there are plenty of things I like about a localized, more isolated existence. I grew up in the country in one of the most rural parts of the United States and enjoy going back. But the political implications of that sort of lifestyle are pretty much exactly the opposite of what people think. Far from self-sustaining, these rural communities are reliant on urban areas for much of their standard of living. This is acknowledged through the inferiority complex that runs thick throughout rural life, but few politicians are brave enough to make the point and even fewer question the over-representation rural areas have, built into our political process. </div>
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There is much more (technology!) to discuss, but the book does a far better job than I in describing it all, so I won’t bother. One thing I did want to mention before I’m done, and the book takes this on a bit, is how utterly unconvincing post-modernism is as an explanation and critique of the post-war world. A generation (or two) of leftists have been completely bogged down by this pessimistic view of humanity and it has done a great deal to push the left into political irrelevance. Now, mixed with a sort of hyper identity politics, the right has taken to calling it “cultural Marxism.” While the right sees any critique of a society long infected by racism, sexism, etc., as evidence of the great power of “cultural Marxism,” in reality much of the materialist demands of anti-oppression movements have been ignored and forgotten while the idealist ones have been enhanced. The ruling class isn’t threatened in the slightest by “cultural Marxism,” but when you stop talking about hearts and minds and start talking about a redistribution of wealth the foundation grants often stop coming. </div>
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Over the years I’ve grown more or less in line with Phillip’s arguments and I knew that before I read the book, so I’m not surprised I enjoyed it. The main point- we need to take control of the machine, not turn it off- is the fundamental definition of what it means to be on the left. Moreover, the only way we could possibly gain control of the machine is to convince the people that it should work for all of us, not that it needs to be turned off. We have to get back to that if we want to have any sort of relevance in the 21st century. </div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Graemehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.com1