Paul Craig Roberts - why am I agreeing with him so much lately?
Dr. Roberts is an economist who had a cabinet level position under Reagan. His writing often has a rightwing slant, but he is an honest rightwinger (a paleocon?). He also has a distinct anti-Israel bias. Yet here he is begging the Left to rescue itself.
Without a strong and united working class there is nothing to balance corporate power. Capitalist greed ends up destroying itself by destroying working class income and consumer purchasing power. Greed then turns on public assets demanding that they be privatized or opened for looting as is now happening to protected national monuments and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
With the working class marginalized, now it is the influence of the environmental movement that is being rolled back. Next it will be Social Security and Medicare as the ruling oligarchy pushes the social system back to the era before the New Deal. In the absence of countervailing power, there is no limit to the unwinding of the reforms that made capitalist America a liveable society.
To prevent this we all have a stake in the resurrection of the American left.
Can the American Left be Resurrected?
I also find myself in complete agreement with his analysis of Antifa and Identity Politics:
Antifa and Identity Politics are the antithesis of the left. The real left is pro-working class, pro all of the working class, all races, genders, sexual preferences. Identity Politics splinters the working class and destroys the cohesiveness of the working class, thereby making it easier for exploiters to exploit. Antifa aids in this process by focusing hatred on whites by accusing only whites of racism.
And, the cherry on the sundae for me - he is appaled at what CounterPunch has degenerated into:
When I read in CounterPunch the attack by CounterPunch’s radio host Eric Draitser on the white working class “Trump deplorables,” I thought Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch’s founder, must be rolling over in his grave. With CounterPunch degenerating into Identity Politics, the working class was without an advocate except for the World Socialist Web Site.
The world is truly upside down when Dr. Roberts reflects my position better than CounterPunch.
Comments
Same here.
He's been popping up everywhere for me. I have windows with his essays open on my desktop.
Well, at least someone speaking for the Left is getting clicks.
Oh, and good catch on Counterpunch. So many online magazines have become charred twisted things. It's reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
[edited]
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Re: counterpunch
I've written two diaries on Counterpunch recently:
Counterpunch bashes us again.
There you go again, Counterpunch.
They are off my good guy list.
I imagine Roberts
Has realized that full frontal Reagonomics/Third Way/Neoliberalism... isn't the way to create a contented society/genuine economy for all.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Paging Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.....
Dr. Roberts, there's this little blogsite you need to pay attention to. It's https://www.caucus99percent.com . We'd love to have you!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Paul Craig Roberts At Anti-War.com
Dr. Roberts is one of the last very few honest conservatives. He is a contributor at Anti-war.com and a harsh critic of the National Security State. Here is the link to his Anti-war.com articles:
http://original.antiwar.com/paul-craig-roberts/
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I would say no.
Not yet anyway, not with this election thing looming. Much of the active left is going to be totally consumed with beating the republicans next election with their democratic party. Or with the "Brand New Congress", focused on electing republicans too, as long as they're "progressive". Sanders, the official "outreach coordinator" (DNC words, not mine) along with Obama who will get more involved, etc., will sheepdog all activity into the election. There is no way the democratic party can be a vehicle for a working class movement.
As for WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party, no chance of that morphing into a working class movement either imo. They are even less positioned than the Green party and their primary interest is "education" regarding Marxist socialism. I don't think a few people running around calling each other "comrade" is going to cut it with our working class.
Welp.
...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
the two sides of Paul Craig Roberts
Distasteful on race, yet good on the economy and freedom of the press
From: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/about-paul-craig-roberts/
He describes four systems that have degraded in the US
• Free speech rights
• National unity across racial differences
• Economic sustainability
• Media independence
Then gives his opinions on why they have degraded
• Identity politics
• Forced integration
• Unregulated free trade
• Government use of media as a propaganda channel
Two you agree with (presumably on the right) and two you find distasteful (presumably on the left).
What I want to know is, did you deliberately code that two column format or was it a happy accident?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
It is coded....
but I can't tell if it was deliberate or not because it's easy to lift HTML from another page/site and transfer it to the comments/essay here using a browser extension such as EasyCopy. Highlight and copy text, video and images from anywhere on the w.w.w. and then paste it here verbatim. It's easy to do and works great.
Then again GreyWolf may have coded it himself.
Thanks. I looked at the Source Code
…and wasn't sure if /
went in through this form.
When I saw the blockquote didn't hold… I began to wonder.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Well, one thing is for sure
It doesn't work for me.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I can copy the code...
here in a comment if your interested.
Here you go, Pluto...
Distasteful on race, yet good on the economy and freedom of the press
<p><br><p>
<div style="float: left; width: 48%;">
<blockquote><ul>
<li>Multiculturalism and group rights based on victim status, Roberts is convinced, are eroding equality in law and free speech. “Both the United States and Europe now have crimes of opinion. Americans and Europeans are subject to arrest and imprisonment for words judged offensive to the therapeutic state. The frightening departure from Western tradition is justified in the name of curtailing hate and advancing human rights.”</li>
<li>In <em>The New Color Line</em> Roberts argues that the United States took a wrong turn when the Supreme Court decided to forcefully impose integration on the country. In doing so it discarded the fundamental presumption of any democratic order, namely, good will among the citizens regardless of race, class, or color. Without good will there is no basis for uniting different people under democratic self-rule.</li>
</ul></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="float: right; width: 48%;">
<blockquote><ul>
<li>In <em>How the Economy Was Lost</em> he surveys the damage done by free trade and the off-shoring of the American manufacturing base. When goods and services are created off shore and then brought back to America to be sold, they increase the trade deficit. Satisfaction of that deficit inevitably results in a transfer of ownership from U.S. assets to foreign hands. Because the trade deficit is financed by foreigners, this means that profits, dividends, capital gains, interest, rents, and tolls leave American pockets for foreign accounts. The American economy has gone away, Roberts insists, and is not coming back until we free ourselves of the free trade myth.</li>
<li>Roberts’ exclusion from what he calls “corporate media” is understandable given his assessment of its reliability. In the farewell column cited above he wrote: “Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home.” He is convinced that with the present administration, mainstream media have become a propaganda ministry for the U.S. government.</li>
</ul></blockquote>
</div>
From: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/about-paul-craig-roberts/
Edited to add: moved the blockquote tags inside of the <div> tags so they wrap properly.
If you're wondering...
The main tags used to do that are:
<ul> </ul>
<il> </il>
The columns are done by:
<div style="float: left; width: 48%;"> </div>
<div style="float: right; width: 48%;"> </div>
Thanks very much, JtC
Formatting is a big deal to me. I appreciate this and everything else you do.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
pulled to discontinue tangent
nothing to read here... move along.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
i use old style copy and paste, code & paul craig
Yeah, I just pasted ...
<div style="float: left; width: 50%;"><ul>
<li>Left Item 1</li>
<li>Left Item 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="float: right; width: 50%;">
<ul>
<li>Right Item 1</li>
<li>Right Item 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
... because I was trying to show two sides
(and then I realized the bullets were out, so I switched 50% to 48%)
JtC if it's mucking with people's browsers you can fix, or blank it out except for the link
No one has mentioned it...
the 48% attribute should keep it within the margins.
I'm not sure but I think the blockquote didn't wrap because you entered it outside of the <div> tags.
I moved the blockquote tags...
inside of the divs in both instances and that wrapped it.
It looks good
I knew you were a techie. I liked the effect. I was thinking about doing a simple table the other day, for the same purpose.
So, how'd you do that colored block?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Blockquotes...
within each <div> (see the code I posted above).
I am in total agreement.
1. It was (at least in New York) the "Rockefeller wing" of the Republican party that created identity politics and the government dependency of the welfare state. They thought that it was easier and cheaper to buy off the poor rather than to admit them to society. (the resulting crime and racism was only a bonus)
2. Unregulated free trade we all agree on, as all but the most deluded pro-capitalists do.
3. forced integration has been a nuclear level disaster. That is indisputable. It can be argued that it was the racist backlash that was the disaster, but that backlash was inevitable. America's minorities are more segregated than they were in the 1950s - in fact, more segregated than blacks were in South Africa under apartheid, or so it has been argued. The only argument is if it could have been cured more quickly. (or at all)
3. Free speech in America has always been the freedom to say anything that "everyone" agrees about. This is a natural flaw. (deTouqueville wrote about it in the 19th century) Even the staunchest small d democrat has to admit to the limits of the "common" mind or be a completely deluded fool. Examples of the failure of the majority of voters - Reagan (twice) and Hillary. Case closed.
4. Media as government propaganda? Only if you also admit that Dictatorial capitalism is the true government.
On to Biden since 1973
Is this satire?
The very term "forced integration" says it all. No. It was "Equal Rights under the law". Jim Crow separate-but-(un-)equal laws were a hair's breadth from open air slavery. The only "forcing" was to get people to obey Constitutional mandates that had been on the books since the country was founded, to let blacks get their fair share of their own tax dollars. The country was so racist that it took Soviet propaganda about Jim Crow giving us a bad reputation in the Third World to get the US to deal with a policy so vile that Nazi Germany used it as a model.
And you say the backlash was "inevitable". No. The backlash was created and amplified by rightwing money. Blacks did not ask for forced quotas. Nixon cynically started the quota system in Federal employment. He admitted he did it to screw with labor unions, who were pushing a different plan.
Racism was and continues to be a horrible problem in America. Until the recent immigration crisis, it was not so bad in the rest of the First World. There was very little racism in France, which is why generations of American black artists were appreciated there. Scandanavia had been color-blind. Even the British, who abolished their slavery 20 years before the US, had been much less racist than America.
So, virulent racism is a uniquely American phenomenon, but is in no way "inevitable". In America, blacks have been the designated scapegoat. Jews also used to be; but being largely Caucasian and willing to marry people of other faiths allowed them to be assimilated. If the racism against Jews could be eliminated, so could that against blacks. NOT INEVITABLE.
forced integration via quotas
Likewise the worst single set of events in our history of integration: forced busing of minority kids to integrate whites-only public schools. Again, a "band-aid" fix to avoid having to actually cure the disease -- discrimination in housing. Like your unions, the "different plan" would have taken longer but worked better. But the cynical right wingers wouldn't have had what they consider a benefit -- piles of angry minority kids, the fruits of doing things the way they ended up being done.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides Force busing was
Force busing was dreamed up by people whose kids wouldn't be caught dead in a public school. Little kids stuck on a bus for over an hour each way, having to get up way early, parents who couldn't swing by and walk their kid home, siblings in different school districts. Better off districts had to raise taxes to comply with added costs (I know boohoo) and poorer districts never got the extra funding to really make a difference. Parents had little say because even though their kid is in the district, they couldn't vote for school boards because they lived out of district. I wonder if any of it helped any kids.
Ah, we may be on the same page after all
The left barely got out of the gate in the late 60s/early 70s before the recession and the oil price shocks left everyone reeling and opened the way for the counterattack outlined in the Powell Memorandum. The right understood, and had infinite money, to guide and support the racist backlash and demonize the left.
Discrimination is so hard to eradicate. Studies have shown that if only 10% of a population discriminates in housing, neighborhoods become or stay segregated. Its a guerilla war that cannot be won short of educating everyone from birth not to discriminate. (Like the song from the musical South Pacific says: "You've got to be carefully taught" to discriminate.)
Discrimination is the foundation of the divide-and-conquer tactic that has served the elites for millenia. The 1960s left didn't have a clue what it was up against; and it got tarred with crap, like forced busing and quotas, that it did not invent or advocate for. Then TPTB got on board the Identity Politics bandwagon, and all true left ideas got trampled. Let's you (working class whites) and him (poor blacks) fight while we (TPTB) rob you both blind.
IMHO, the disaster was not the forced busing, but that the genuine left got blamed for this. "Forced integration" just another insult to hang on the "dirty f-ing hippies".
dirty effing hippies
We are indeed on the same page, arendt!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@arendt You're right.
You're right.
Forced integration...just kind of boggles the mind. If it was forced it needed to be forced.
media as government propaganda
And you don't "admit that Dictatorial capitalism is the true government"?
-- M. Corleone
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Aargh! My thread has been hijacked by HTML formatting :-)
Let me pop back up a level or two to the actual content of what GreyWolf posted.
I was unaware that PCR (polymerase chain reaction to my biological avatar) was a racist. Christ on a crutch - he can't tell the difference between free association and Jim Crow slavery!
Well, he is just a perfect case study of why politics has to be about policies, not personalities. The only personal traits that matter are honesty, consistency (that will change if new facts come to light), and openness (no hidden agendas).
He has those three points. Unfortunately, he also happens to be a racist. An open, honest, consistent racist.
So I use his economics and ignore his racism. I'm not suggestion he should run for office; but his economic analysis is so sharp that it would be criminal to shitcan it on account of his racism.
"So use his economics and ignore his racism." Exactly
"So use his economics and ignore his racism." Exactly.
Sorry that HTML hijacked the thread -- i was just trying to show that he has two sides, like night and day, ying and yang ...
Meta-discussions about user interface stuff...
are a sore point with me. I appreciate that you meant no harm. I just find the phenomenon to be toxic.
I'm going to post something I wrote back in 2015. Look for "Random Interface Palsy and the Death of Democracy".
Some folks...
are interested in enhancing their essays and comments using, columns, tables, etc. and these enhancements add professional type improvements to the formatting. As these particular HTML formatting procedures are advanced this proved to be an excellent educational opportunity to those that are interested.
I understand. Its just an issue with me.
Please see the OP I just posted: "Random Interface Palsy and the Death of Democracy"
Like I've been saying for years,
the right and left overlap significantly on issues like economics and Medicare - some of my right-wing associates even care about the environment.
Paul Craig Roberts has been making such noises for years.
We only need to open our ears to notice the overlap. Yes, commentators on Fox news, like Hannity, talk about jobs and wage growth all of the time. They talk about it more than most of the dem politicians, who really don't talk about it very much.
A politician like Bernie can easily appeal across the political spectrum.
dfarrah
It's hard to view some one like
Paul Craig Roberts in any light if he is a racist. We've been taught to shun them in their entirety for their views. I am not sure that is the best way to deal with them. There are talented people, intelligent people who contribute greatly to society that are absolutely terrible people. Racist, jew haters, death to gays, misogynists. They're in science, medicine the arts, do things to uplift society, and yet they seem born with this hole inside that can only be filled by hatred.....some people are racist,anti Semitic at their core, like their blood type, others you can know for years and they blurt out something venomous, and then never again. Can we accept their contributions, and pity their broken character? Because that almost sounds like you'd condone their racism, but Roberts views could influence economic policy that would help all people, like Bernie's. I just don't know.
Yes, it is a conundrum
That's why I look at consistent, genuine policies. Take the policies you want and leave the rest. As long as PCR makes his economic arguments without reference to racism, they are good solid arguments; and I will use them - perhaps without attributing them to PCR.
I can't change, and I do not condone his racism. But to leave his ammunition lying on the ground when we are fighting for our lives is a level of idealism that I cannot reach.