VOX can go to hell
For pete f'ing sake! Must the Bernie wing fight neoliberal smears for eternity?
I just read David Roberts’s Vox piece, "Everything mattered: lessons from 2016's bizarre presidential election"--posted on FB by Ezra Klein (did Ezra actually write it? It was "updated by David Roberts," anyway). It poses as an attempt to be fair-minded and neutral. “Everything mattered,” he initially suggests, including the failure of Democrats to reach out to economically depressed areas in the Upper Midwest with any real economic message. Except that’s not what he argues at al. Quite the opposite; it's a hit piece on Sanders' economic message.
First he has us wade through interesting portraits from Nate Silver on demographic shifts and voting shifts from 2000 to 2016 … great great great … then suddenly we’re met with a deluge of cold water. For Roberts, everything matters EXCEPT the white working class of the Upper Midwest (and elsewhere). Those blue-collar Midwesterners “that make our eyes mist up when we watch those Chevy commercials”—the people that Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore are dumb enough to care about—are nothing but racist assholes. Rather than reaching out, we need to call them out. Because reaching out … well … that only leads to more Howard Deans saying “I want to be the candidate for the guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” or more demonizing of Sister Souljah and “passing punitive law-and-order policies,” or more of “supporting fossil fuels” like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, or more of “making a big show of, say, hunting” a la John Kerry in 2004. Get it? Bernie Sanders economic message is just like Howard Dean's appeal to neo-Confederates and Bill Clinton's carceral state and John Kerry's silly attempt to portray himself as a hunter.
I’m sure Roberts really could have been more sarcastic, bitter, and small-minded had he tried, but he was being restrained and objective. Yep, “everything mattered” in election 2016 he tells us, except what actually did matter: class. Indeed, to worry about class, he suggests, is to veer toward racism. Roberts includes a tweet from James Surowiecki. “Ppl. worry the concern with working-class whites will lead to PoC being marginalized for good reason: it's happened so many times before.”
Mr. Roberts and Mr. Surowiecki have an understanding of history that is two-inches deep. Mr. Roberts and Mr. Surowiecki … may I give you a brief tutorial in history? I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong, only that you’re half wrong. For every moment in U.S. history when economic populists have marginalized people of color, there is another moment when elites (like your beloved neoliberals) have used race to divide the working class. When workers in steel or coal or any number of other industries went on strike, employers brought in African-American scabs. When the People’s Party (the original “Populists”) recruited African-American farmers into their movement, the Bourbon Democrats responded with Jim Crow laws. When the Central Pacific was faced with paying living wages to build tracks eastward, it turned to cheap Chinese labor. When the Lowell, Massachusetts mills found that Yankee women were more than willing to strike, they brought in desperate Irish women. Republicans, moreover, have been playing that game for decades … appealing to the white Southern working class (and now a broader working class) in order to peel them off from the Democratic base. And your neoliberals have played right into their hands.
I’m not celebrating nativism here. I'm just reiterating what is obvious to anyone who studies history. Yes, working-class whites have been given to racism; and yes, economic elites have used race to undermine the working class ... which is just what you and your neoliberal friends are doing.
Okay, but here’s something that Roberts presents that is worth considering: Russ Feingold and Ted Strickland both “campaigned on economically populist platforms—but they did notably worse than Hillary Clinton.” (“notably worse” meaning a couple of points, as I recall, because apparently they didn’t get votes from conservative Republican women, whereas Clinton did). Good point. But what about a true progressive (with economic creds) like Tim Nolan whose Minnesota district went Trump by 17 points, but who won re-election over a well-funded Republican by a narrow margin? IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE! Does not compute! Or what about the largely working-class white voters of Placer County, CA, going for Trump by 11 but going for Kamala Harris, a black woman, by 28 points? IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE! Does not compute!
Roberts’s final takeaway on election 2016: “appeals to xenophobia and white resentment work. If I may coin a phrase: It’s the white resentment, stupid.” Well duh! Of course! The racial resentment message has been working since the Democratic Party of 1858 called Lincoln a “black Republican” and denied him a seat in the Senate. The politics of racial resentment shouldn’t be some big discovery in 2016. What we need to focus on is how the hell do we turn resentment into progressive politics? And Roberts knows that! He concludes with a vague statement about the need to create a coalition by giving Americans a common goal—a message and a platform—that they can rally around. He simply avoids saying what that common goal and message will be, because the answer is economics. That’s the only answer, but he can't bring himself to say it because it undermines everything he's written.
Before he gets to the vague common goal/message plea, meanwhile, he tells us that Clinton put forward “the most progressive economic platform in a half-century,” but that stories about email-gate, etc., drowned it out. But even if email-gate and “fake news” stories had not drowned out her wonderfully progressive economic message, he insists, the white working class of the upper Midwest wouldn’t have listened. Roberts doesn’t want to admit that Clinton’s economic package was compromised by her centrist, pro-TPP, anti-TPP waffling and her all-too-apparent crush on Wall Street. Trump was telling people “I’ll bring your jobs back by stopping free trade.” Hillary Clinton, in return, offered nothing but complex policy that couldn’t be easily translated easily into a campaign message, partly because her campaign didn’t even try. They were too focused on the character issue, though their own candidate had largely inoculated Trump on almost every charge (misogyny? Bill Clinton. Conflict of interest? Clinton Foundation. Tax evasion? Wall Street speeches. Competency? Emailgate. etc. etc.)
Then Roberts treats us to a tedious screed on white male pundits sticking up for the honor of the white working class by telling people “they’re not all racists, so don’t lump them all in that category.” This sort of thing, he argues, is what creates “racism without racists.” He cites studies and/or articles showing that whites (esp. men) have predispositions to sexism and racism … so to defend their honor is to defend their evil.
Here’s the kicker: “What American mainstream pundits often cannot see is that the latitude they extend white voters — ‘they know not what they do, they’re good people at heart, they’re just hurting’ — is the essence of white privilege.” In other words, anybody who supports an economic message—including all of us who were so ardent for Bernie Sanders—are racist hypocrites. Now that we’re in a real mess with Trump in the Oval Office, we even more desperately need to ramp up our disgust with the white working class!
In the end, he tells us, "everything" did not matter. The election was strictly evil people versus good people. The saved against the damned. So let’s just sail our ship onward in the same direction we were headed, folks! Let’s continue to allow neoliberals to make race a wedge issue rather than give people a common economic message that they can rally around. Let's pit people of color against white progressives so we continue to win--or in this case, lose--elections by narrow margins. Let's continue to lose Senate and House seats and state legislatures by the score!
Finally, since Mr. Roberts thought it necessary to lecture us economic progressives on "white privilege," I'll offer him my own lecture on neoliberal privilege. Privilege, Mr. Roberts, is when you have George Soros and a whole army of other multi-millionaires and billionaires funding your candidates, campaigns, think tanks, operatives, and wonks. Privilege is when you and your elite wonk friends are so far above the median income that you needn't worry whether you can pay the mortgage, or rent, or health insurance, or cost of drugs. Privilege is when you can be certain that your children will get a college education at an elite institution, and won't be debt-bound by doing so. Privilege is being beloved by tech and pharmaceutical and financial industry executives, who shower you with plaudits and expensive dinners and give your children internships and high-paying jobs. Privilege is using race as a wedge issue to divide the working class and protect your neoliberal agenda. Privilege is telling the world that offering Americans economic security is a way to evade the issues of racism and sexism, rather than a way to address those issues in the most effective way possible (by unifying people and giving them measurable gains). Privilege is writing off the white working class as racists and sexists and urging the Democratic Party to do likewise (which, in effect, is a way to write off the entire working class--of all races, sexes, and gender preferences--by dividing it against itself). Privilege is believing yourself to be progressive on racial and gender matters while continuing to support unfettered free trade, outsourcing, and neoliberal "globalism," including extra-national tribunals on trade issues that deny sovereignty to democratic nation states. Privilege is being able to assure yourself that billionaires who move industries to countries like China are actually humanitarians who bring poor people jobs, rather than self-seeking union-busters. Privilege is being able to support Third-Way Democrats who can win elections—sometimes—but cannot create a mandate for progressive change, and who continue to undermine grassroots organizing by looking upward for support rather than sideways or downwards. Privilege is standing by, blithely, while your supposedly strong party loses statehouse after statehouse because it cannot speak to rural and blue-collar electorates except via a politics of racial division. Yes, I grant, the Republicans are way way more dedicated to racial division than Democrats, but we play into their trap by putting our (very worthy) diversity message ahead of our economic message. That, my friend, is privilege. Look in the mirror.
Comments
Great essay.
They will never get it nor ever admit what they don't want to acknowledge. For that alone they should be ignored.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
This was one of those articles where
they told the writer what to write and, because he likes his cushy job, he came through.
The Neo-Lib wing of the party is so effing desperate to hold on to their "money" and their position in an increasingly irrelevant party that they could care less about winning elections. The sole reason the Dems exist now is to create the illusion of an opposition party. Meanwhile they push for the economic agenda of the 1% that both "major" parties promote with increasing savagery and indifference to the people the Dems claim to be fighting for.
Great response, great essay, just great all around especially your closing rant on privilege.
Thank you.
Steve
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
You said it:
"The sole reason the Dems exist now is to create the illusion of an opposition party. Meanwhile they push for the economic agenda of the 1% that both "major" parties promote with increasing savagery and indifference to the people the Dems claim to be fighting for."
This is exactly right! It keeps the 1% firmly in control.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Exactly. I finally got
around to more actively involving myself with the local yokel Dem party honchos here in my neck of the woods during the 2008 election cycle. By 2010 it had finally sunk in that the honchos were more interested in the social functions than electing candidates. I thought it was just my local honchos, but others in the cd here - NY-21 - reported the same. The Dem party has become more a Social Club than a political party.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Fantastic essay!
Democrats seem to be completely invested in wedge politics. Nancy Pelosi says we don't want a new direction and that everything is hunky dory, just poor messaging. Democrats could define the word 'moribund'. Can they be as bad as they are unconsciously? David Brock is calling for an "audit" of what went wrong in the election. The idea of David Brock wanting accountability for what went wrong, when he himself has got to be in the top 5 is off the irony charts.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
A double dose of irony
When the GOP did their audit and were told they needed to start including more POC into their party and their message, the Dems all laughed.
If the Dems do an audit and are told they need to include the working class into their party and their message, the Republicans will laugh.
Who is not laughing in all this? Anyone whose retirement plan is basically a well timed suicide.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
And in the meantime,
And in the meantime, everything is kept divvied up by such things as politicians speaking of appealing to the 'male White working-class' rather than of the working-class in its entirety, of whatever gender or historical nationality they may happen to be, 'othering' everyone else outside each narrow range.
If everybody was thought of and spoken of as deserving a living wage and fair and 'equal rights, treatment and opportunity', as is guaranteed under the US Constitution, such a lot of problems would not exist...
A melting-pot, in the sense used to describe countries such as Canada and the US, has no dividers but lets the contents mingle freely to form a thereby enriched mixture.
One of the things noticeable to various observers in much of the rest of the world is the way in which people in the US are divvied up (and set against each other) in any corporate media/official electoral/policy discussion, a tactic to which Americans have become so inured they often don't even seem to notice it... PR is based upon language and association affecting perception and it can be very hard to fight, once affected by it. Especially when it's being imposed by those forming what's supposed to be, whatever the party name, democratic government representing the public interest, not just that of the greediest few already having sucked up most of what everyone should have had enough of for a decent and comfortable life all along. And hanging onto it, indeed, ever increasing it, in great part, by such divisive tactics.
The people united will never be defeated. And if the people of the United States ever stand up for their actual Constitutional rights to be protected and enforced, the parasites will be appropriately expelled from their inappropriate position of power in draining the body politic of America (and of other countries, by using their theft of wealth and power from Americans and elsewhere) and the very life from the planet.
If not, we all go out either with a nuclear bang or an impoverished, polluted and dry-throated, gasping whimper for lack of income, shelter, safe food, breathable air or potable water, all for corporate/billionaire and their government lackey's insatiable and pathological greed.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Thanks for a terrific essay.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Negative sum game
The reason that people like Roberts think that you can separate race from class is that they (correctly) see the pie as smaller and shrinking. Given that, it makes sense from a historical perspective to give someone else a turn. Does that phrase sound familiar?
The real problem is that the pie is shrinking in the first place. This is what happens when r > g (return on investment is greater than economic growth). The only solution is to make the pie grow through wealth redistribution. With a growing pie, you can solve both the collapse of the white working class and the disenfranchisement of everyone else.
Roberts and his ilk will never do this, though, partly because their donors will watch civilization burn before they do anything, and partly because they are intellectual racists who hope to get a place on the island with their owners.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
As a white person these racial attacks by the DNC types
make me even less likely to even consider voting Democratic. Why should I vote for candidates that despise me? It is abundantly clear that white working people are not wanted in the Democratic Party. I mourn for the '70s when Democrats stood for a color blind society.
Republican platforms are a bundle of zombie economic lies, religious prejudice, and obsession with women's organs. Until there is a viable third option, I'm joining the majority that don't vote.
I voted for the Greens, but Jill Stein's efforts to put Hillary Clinton in the White House has turned me completely off.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I'm sort of with you.
If things don't change, I'm seriously thinking my next step is to stay home. Particularly since I'm in Michigan, and our votes are not even good enough to be eligible for a recount.
As far as Stein goes, what "evidence" do you have she was "helping Hillary"? If she was, Hillary did a really crappy job of picking up the ball. Trump had 100s of lawyers present where recounts were taking place, Jill had none. If this was for Hillary or Soros was funding Jill, I'm pretty sure they'd have watch dogs present.
Jill's efforts exposed Michigan's voting system to be a pile of shit. If you want to steal an election, throw away one ballot and it guarantees no recount and the whatever count is submitted will stand.
Thanks to Jill, MI learned that our voting equipment is broken and outdated. It works with Windows XP and is not compatible with newer Window's products. So I guess, they're making tick marks on paper. I learned that Michigan law guarantees that recounts cannot happen in our state because they are certifying votes that are not able to be reconciled. Obama's judge reversed himself and ended the recount because voters have no standing and right to know if their vote was counted. Only those elites with enough money to run for President have standing and a right to demand a recount of my vote.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Did I mention Stein at all?
Did I mention Stein at all? I don't think so!! I think Stein hurt Clinton but didn't take the election from her. I'm fairly certain that Gary Johnson took a lot more votes from Trump than Stein took from Clinton. And even if you added all of Stein's votes to Clinton's, the only state that then goes Hillary is Michigan, I think. The Hillary campaign and their media supporters, moreover, hypothesize that ALL Stein voters would have gone HRC, had Stein not been running, but that is absurd. Stein has a base that will always support her, and did so in 2012. She doubled her 2012 numbers ... so potentially she took 350,000 total votes that Clinton might have gotten. But still not enough to change the results, had Stein not been running.
I'm glad Michigan is now aware of the flaws in its voting system! I wish the country would wake up to this. I have no idea whether the election machines were hacked in 2004, or 2016. They certainly could have been! The only way we'll know is to do recounts. But even that won't definitively prove anything, will it? Not without a paper trail.
NO, I did.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
If you follow the formatting,
you will see that I was responding to VitW.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
The total Florida vote showed Stein with around 30,000+ votes.
No way did it cost $hrill. Add them in, and tRump is still ahead. Johnson, the yahoo who couldn't name 2 world leaders, got a lot more votes. He pulled them from the idiots who would have voted tRump. Very disgustingly sad, but true! Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Why did she only pick the counties that Hillary lost?
She (Stein) can't possibly win. BTW, I fully expect Hillary to be inaugurated in January between recounts and EC shenanigans. If so, I hope the (R)'s start impeachment proceedings immediately, but the will probably pass relaxed (gutted) banking regulations and TPP first.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
In Michigan, she asked for the whole state.
You are entitled to your opinion, but your statement is opinion. If you had a reliable source for that statement, I'm sure you would have linked it back to me.
I hope Hillary does steal it, and it ends up with four years of squabbling, impeachment, and obstruction. The only way either team of assholes will do no harm is to do nothing. Even then they manage to fuck something up.
I have never experienced an election as awful and blatantly corrupt as this one. The duopoly and its parties suck. I don't believe there is any escape but a full out collapse, and even then, to the victors go the spoils.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
That's also opinion, but I agree with you.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Sorry. I'm not with you on this.
I was born in Holy Cross Hospital on the East Side of Detroit in 1955. I grew up in the Charles Terrace housing project until the mid-1960s, when my family moved to Warren. That was a big jump for us -- 3 miles north, from McNichols (6 Mile Rd) to 9 Mile Rd. I lived in Michigan until 1984, or nearly half my life.
The reason Hillary didn't release the hounds for the recount in Michigan is that she knew the truth. The truth is the Wayne County's voting systems are so fucked up that there were more votes than ballots. Scanners malfunctioned and people pushed their ballots through again. But instead of only counting a single pass, the dysfunctional software counted every time a voter pushed the same damn ballot in again.
If there were a recount of Detroit and Wayne Country, Hillary Clinton would lose votes. Which would make her loss even worse.
The judge correctly ruled that a candidate without standing could not force a recount. Hillary Clinton could have gotten a recount. She was the allegedly aggrieved party. Jill Stein was an asterisk in this election. There is no way a recount could or would benefit her.
Lastly, you're jumping to an unsupported conclusion. You said voters have no standing. That's nonsense. It was correctly determined that Stein had no standing. Voters of Michigan were not part of the recount effort because Michigan law limits them to only requesting recounts on ballot initiatives and questions.
I understand you're upset by the outcome of the election. However, I feel your anger is aimed at the wrong targets. If you don't like Michigan's current law, work to change it. If you don't like the voting systems, work to get them replaced. If you don't like Michigan being run by a Republican governor and legislature, work to get the SOBs thrown out. Focus on what needs to be fixed and set about fixing it.
You make a lot of good points.
I am not angry as much as disgusted. You left in 1984. You have no idea how bad this state has gotten under one-party GOP rule. I blame the Democrats for that too. Just like the Senate race that is going on in LA.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rallies-louisiana-republican-voters-fo...
Where the fuck is our cute, cuddly and oh so popular Obama or the other Dems who only need to tweak their marketing message. They abandoned the states. There is no doubt in my mind that the elections will show another GOP win in Michigan, and if our voting equipment and laws are this fucked, who can contest it?
I truly believe the only escape is for a group of states to secede. This country is too big and too divided. I dumped all red friends. I barely tolerate relatives that are red. So obviously I am extremely aggrieved at having to put up with strangers who are red. I want my own country and a wall to keep those people out.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
"I dumped all my red friends" - I don't think people ask
themselves often enough: "Am I better off with him/her or without him/her"
Life's tough enough without constant static, in my opinion.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
You say the only escape
Is for a group of states to secede. I live in California. A state that is also talking about seceding. So where do the people living in California who feel economically disenfranchised by both parties go? And how do the "new" states that secede deal with Social Security, UnEmployment Benefits, and Medicare when a large portion of taxes paying for that are coming from the country they are no longer a part of? Maybe I'm missing something here?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Fri, 12/09/2016 - 1:31pm —
Fri, 12/09/2016 - 1:31pm — zoebear
Well, they don't actually have to go anywhere to go to hell, but with robots about to displace people, the move is on to get those non-billionaire poors the hell out to anywhere else that the wealthiest won't have to step over their starved bodies when leaving the (driverless) limo.
This is interesting, though, in view of something I recently read (and now can't seem to find) regarding the tech industry starting their own countries/rule of law and California seceding, assuming that I can find anything on this again. (Couldn't find what I had read, seem to be getting mostly older and more unrelated stuff on this now in searches... probably using wrong terms, being rather tired and having to go do things rather often, due to imperative puppy issues.)
A number of top government officials - starting with the TPP et al/corporate coup-initiating Bush Admin - seem to have also gone into venture capital (having inside info and all) in the fairly recent past, while Google has been buying up robotics, including companies producing military robots, and hired from DARPA as well, while working on the Singularity. Obama, however, is specifically going to Silicone Valley.
http://www.recode.net/2016/4/26/11586424/google-white-house-visits
Please note that this is specified as covering up to October 31st 2015, and that 2016 is now virtually over.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3554953/Google-staffers-meetings...
Is anyone outside of the actual American public intended to be shut out of foreign policy and other 'secret' state business?
https://googletransparencyproject.org/articles/googles-white-house-meetings
(Gotta read this in full at source: Obama asks the same questions of 'any great investor'? 'Great' investor, as in special because of having lots of money? Or just investing great sums of money? I initially thought it must be a typo-ed 'great inventor'... but in this group, I suppose that having lots of money makes you 'great' automatically.)
http://qz.com/715765/hes-kind-of-perfect-for-the-job-obama-hints-at-a-fu...
Makes you wonder if the Smartphone is just that much better for Google to keep (edit: tabs on) than was the Blackberry...
'Singularity' is rather interesting as a name-choice for a university, considering.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-google-ray-kur...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
(And the colours, man, the colours!)
But a 'new and improved' 'apparent reality' which only you can perceive isn't actual reality, as is the cliff you walk over, thinking there's a lovely, unicorn-bespeckled bridge stretching all the way to Valhalla before you... In the real world, we term that 'delusional' in the notes we take, watching what they do, in our white coats and concern for the real, irreplaceable world and billion of years of evolution so mindlessly and pathologically destroyed by a few greed-blinded lunatics with no respect for reality itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/30/rise-of-robots-evil-a...
What could possibly go wrong?
But at least they don't need humans anymore. (And the robots replacing life on the planet won't be thinking that they need them, either, lol.)
.. Then there’s Eatsa, the automat restaurant where no human interaction is necessary, which has locations popping up across California. ...
http://www.recode.net/2016/12/9/13903264/trump-robots-fast-food-workers-...
Lol, they glitch, need maintenance and eliminate those generally older/isolated humans going out to pick up food/coffee mainly to have human contact - and they can't deal with anything on a human level, or which they aren't programmed to deal with, such as a female customer being groped or harassed or a child bullied. Or anyone just shoving ahead in line, picking someone's pocket or walking off with their order.
Not that any but the very few would be able to afford to eat, period, once even these sorts of jobs are gone - who will these outlets serve and where will profits come from when we're all dead or dying and there's no way for even the able-bodied among the 99 & 1/2% to survive but by resorting to crime?
http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/09/technology/shervin-pishevar-california/i...
Tech founders want California to secede
by Seth Fiegerman @sfiegerman November 9, 2016:
https://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-ashore-to-st...
And the same holds true for America, in its carefully created crises. Nothing like the company store made into a 'legal state' ruling by corporate priorities and the standards of a pathological corporate culture - and absolutely uncontrollable regarding 'cost-cutting' pollution affecting other places and people or regarding unsafe products and inhumane procedures and laws.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/09/trump-win-california-...
Yeah, innovation cannot possibly occur without extreme exploitation of the most vulnerable groups and areas which can be accessed. Enormous profits are never enough...
However, this was a thing prior to the election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/us/silicon-valley-roused-by-secession-...
The quantified self movement appears to be rather like... was it Christian Science, a belief that the body could not be ill, only mistaken? Only here tracking everything replaces the more traditionally religious element. I suppose that if you know you're being industrially poisoned, you can somehow overcome the effects by sheer will-power, or at least feel as though you're doing something in a situation in which no sane person can exert any control over the corporations nd billionaires running everything.
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/science.htm
http://quantifiedself.com/about/
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-quantified-self-movement?share=1
(And Google will be tracking all of this right along with you, as, apparently, will be numerous learning machines studying you, so as to know more about you than you know yourself. As will Google. No, not intrusive at all, not like, for example, democratic government wanting you to register a gun or corporations to reveal what toxic chemicals are in your food and water, or anything.)
Hey, those disgusting non-billionaire poors are being cleared out of Silicone Valley prior to seceding! What a clever notion. Isn't it wonderful that housing prices are so high, said to be a good sign for the economy? (Not the real one, of course, but only reality-based poors need to worry about that.)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/silicon-valley-housin...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/07/silicon-valley-larges...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/21/silicon-valley-evicti...
And in the meantime, it's really the billionaires who need help against law and the public!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/17/silicon-valley-vinod-kho...
And small entrepreneurs making a (bare) living is something simply not to be tolerated! Surely these brilliant money-accumulators should be making their own law over these disgusting non-billionaire poors!
(Edited below, for removal of a duplicate sentence))
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/02/mark-woodward-faceboo...
Obviously, these poors should not be allowed into Silicon Valley unless they travel in from their distant ghettos (without pointless, costly public transportation) to do any work for which robots have not yet been purchased. And if California only secedes, laws can be made to properly deal with them. And a wall, perhaps, to post heads on?
(Sticking this in, in view of the attempted global hostile corporate take-over of everything, while various industries/corporations seem to be attempting to take over control of individual areas. Countries, like people, are individuals, and businesses must choose whether they want to sell goods or not, rather than trying to control the people and countries. But the US should be a model to avoid.)
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/a-global-view-of-corporate-go...
Need to get rid of all of these damn burdensome regulations messing with Those Who Matter, even with licensed-to-kill Henry Kissinger on the board!
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/13/theranos-regulators-t...
If only California was a separate country, with law made and enforced by the tech giants and billionaires! Sorta like now, only waaaaay more so.
And if you aren't a billionaire unconcerned about Social Security, UnEmployment Benefits, and Medicare (or some currently still-necessary labour expected to keep track of your pollutants and mood for Google study and self-quantification which is apparently somehow to do away with any or most need for health-care,) you shouldn't be there anyway. They don't need The People any more than did the DNC.
(Edited above to add a bracket gone MIA.)
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Windows XP?
They run on Windows XP? XP was probably Microsofty's best OS but it's still Microsofty. Wow.
I would have thought that all electronic voting machine would run on a unix/linux firmware OS.
That's how it should be. Open source to make it easy to see any unauthorized code changes. Firmware as opposed to standard OS because it's far more effort to flash a chip to make changes than it is to load a corrupt self-destructing module in a system files folder using a standard OS installation.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
But there's no $$$MONEY$$$ in using Linux,
while Mightysoft has plenty of bucks to spend on "influencing" elections. One dollar, one vote, you know - that's the new rule.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
ug. i know. you are correct.
edit: actually, they could make some money. A fair amount. You can charge even in the open source world. Just not gazillions.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
If you're Jill Stein's Facebook friend --
you might have caught her live videos. When the recount topic came up, guess who was the guest star on the video? If you guessed "David Cobb," award yourself a free carbon easement. On the other hand, when Ajamu Baraka was the guest star, the topic was "Black-owned cooperative businesses."
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
"Black folks suffer under populists", "FDR wasn't perfect",
and things like "don't tell me what Dr. King said" are all part of the same theme: couching the debate in terms that make concern about working class the same as concern about the white working class, and therefore about racism by definition.
They are meant to shut down discussion, not to engage in it. It's also almost always someone in my age cohort (just under 40) or older, if you've noticed. Not always, but much of the time. There was a deep divide by age in communities of color during the primaries.
What these older folks don't seem to get is that millennials simply aren't constrained by systemic racism and sexism in the same way we gen-X and boomers were. It's still there--personally I don't believe our society will ever be entirely free of racism or sexism--but folks that are just a few years younger than me have a completely different view of how these things impact society. They're generally much more tolerant, open to other cultures and ideas, and generally not racist or sexist in the same numbers as my generation and older.
But, instead of allowing the modern generation of younger folks to address the issues that affect all of us, including the pernicious and deadly racism that affects people who aren't white at the same time, these folks pushing the "class concern is racist" narrative want those deadly issues of racism to supersede any others, and viciously attack any approach that doesn't put their issues first (and, in some cases, as the sole set of issues to care about). I understand the sentiment. I lived, grew up, witnessing just how differently I was treated compared to my peers (who weren't white). But that is, frankly, almost as alien a view toward the younger generation as explicit, open racism is. It makes me sad to see this kind of divide. We have (or, perhaps, had) an opening to finally treat everybody in the working class with the same respect and concern about our (economics, racism, sexism, all are "our" issues, one way or another). Folks like the author of the article that is the subject of this essay do more to close that window than to take advantage of it.
Very nice essay, by the way.
It transcends race.
The blue collar black men and women I worked with were primarily concerned with job security, better wages, and retirement security in that order. Medical security was not an issue for any of us because we had the best of employer plans, FEHB.
There were concerned with racism too, of course, but economics was foremost and we all stood together there. Our local union officials were a mix of races/sexes because we wanted the best man/women representing us.
But the Democrats would divide us to satisfy their Wall Street paymasters.
EDIT: Will the DNC approach even work? How many black men or women are willing to suffer economically just to stick it to Whitey? I found them to be even more practical than my white co-workers, some of whom agonized over the poor rich people and their inheritance tax or "the unborn".
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
TVITW, agree with your analysis, except
that I think it's probably fair to mention that minorities have very strong job protections built into the Civil Service merit system, unlike many workers in private industry, or, in many instances, workers in state and local government systems.
Of course, this will likely not be true much longer, since the VA 'Choice' Act of 2014 opened the door to dismantling many vital employee protections (regarding firing, demotions, suspensions, etc.). Naturally, addressing the VA SES employees was only 'the Camel's nose under the tent'--legislation is currently pending approval (or, has already passed--I've not been able to follow up as closely as I would have liked), which will erode the protections of all VA personnel.
And, the natural course of things means that these new 'rules' will extend to all federal employees--in time.
Mollie
“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)
The SOSD Fantastic Four
Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD
Taro
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Yes, I agree.
They blamed the workers for management's sins.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Thanks for this comment.
Thanks for this comment. Agree completely! My hopes are with the younger generation. And yes, race (and gender) must be central issues to the Democratic Party ... along with class. I don't think identity politics are bad in themselves, I just think they shouldn't be put ahead of basic economic issues.
That seems fair except that's not what's happening.
They are being used as a substitute for economic equality.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Thank you
For doing what I can't bring myself to do, which is read their self interested mental masterbatory version of journalism. Instead, I can come here, read your interpretation of it, along with a trenchant point by point rebuttal of it, and not have my head explode.
The takeaway?
You should be compensated in some way for that one. How do you feel about apple pies?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
The Dems have gotten very weird and disjointed
and believers of their own Fake News that Hillary was both inevitable and invincible.
I think that they were terrified that Bernie would make inroads in the African American voter bloc which HRC lost once before to Obama. IMO they got started early with their bizarre "Bernie doesn't appeal to black voters" bit in an effort to make it a self-fulfilling prophesy, although there was no reason Bernie shouldn't have appealed to black voters. Then that was followed up by a more assertive campaign that Bernie's followers themselves were a bunch of racist, sexist, college educated white elitist liberals (anyone else think that is just a complete symphony of cognitive dissonance?) in the effort to stigmatize them as Bernie Bros, which was nothing but a version of "deplorable" deployed against their own potential future voters! Another high point of moronic reasoning was the one promoted by Kos that an old white guy didn't have the moral authority to lead a societal or voter revolution.
Honestly, I have never witnessed such a f-ed up campaign with so many nonsensical and idiotic tropes, compounded by what I call their "Elephant Man" strategy wherein HRC was hidden away from the press and the public as much as it was possible to do so.
And to this day in Hillary World only voter ignorance, sexism and racism can explain the rejection of the American public for a flawed candidate running a terrible campaign. It couldn't be anything like their own lack of understanding about how the Electoral College works, could it? Nah. . . .
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
Yep n/t
Beware the bullshit factories.
"Elephant Woman fits, and the image confirms
…the uneasy strangeness that many have not experienced before.
There are two things than continue to trouble me. One is the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" experience that so many here have described. Democrats and fellow travelers — folks that people here have known and shared themselves with online, daily, for years and years — were abruptly replaced by impostors. Their personalities were wiped and replaced with manufactured "units" with no ability think critically or to feel empathy. Their minds were flash-frozen with information that was 100 percent wrong. And they were ugly about it. We watched them walk off a cliff and and pull the country behind them.
When has that happened before? Sure, the wrong guy won in the past, but people's personalities did not flatline in such a creepy way. This experience in RL, among family and friends, has silenced people.
Two, I find it troubling that I cannot remember a time when blacks have been socially devolved by an election. Doubly so. And there was no discussion about the reverse course of the gains and possibilities they were building on. They were tokenized and betrayed by the very people they blindly trusted. And then tokenized again to explain the defeat:
As this plays out, it is going to leave a cultural mark.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
It is the main reason
why I am currently leaning towards building a new Party, as opposed to reforming the old one. I am also on the fence about the Green Party... but I am very open to their message, but I do question their strategy. The next 2 years will be very interesting.
Yes, we will be smeared into eternity because we are at this point almost diametrically opposed on too many issues. Not to mention watching Democrats lining-up to make the same mistakes (neoliberalism or bust) in 2018-2020 and into the great beyond.
They want to keep all the corporate money pouring in, we don't. It is the root of all our problems imho.
Great diary.
Progressive to the bone.
"White Privilege"
is a very clever construct. The reality is that the only privilege is class, in fact it's the definition of class. The constant repetition of "white privilege" obscures the fundamental issues of class to try to paint contemporary issues as race issues. Racial issues certainly exist, but 99% of the issues that the 99% have are class issues.
To rephrase an old joke:
A rich Democrat, a black working class guy, and a white working class guy are sitting at a table with 40 cookies on it. The rich Democrat takes 39 cookies. Then, in a bold new political direction, he leans over to the black working class guy and whispers "don't look now, but that white guy is trying to take your cookie".
When a rich Republican does this, he whispers to the white guy. That makes him an evil racist.
My new slogan: "Cookies for everybody".
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
White privilege is real enough, all right...
The problem with calling it "white privilege," however, is to allow the nice "antiracist" neoliberals over at Daily Kos to pick up on some small-time matter of etiquette in political conversations while ignoring the real white privilege, as multiple generations exposed to slavery/ Jim Crow/ economic racism have left as progeny multiple Black communities with next to nothing in net worth and a misleadership class keeping them in tow when it comes to voting for neoliberal Democratic Party candidates.
Remember, once upon a time, the antiracist goal used to be called "integration," and the bad reality was called "segregation"? Well nowadays segregation is worse than it was in the Sixties, but nobody talks about that anymore.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
White privilege
There absolutely is white privilege. I agree with you! I just think you can't fix it easily, and can't fix it at all if you play races against one another. You have to create common ground. I think we're on the same page!
Got a good chuckle out of the
Got a good chuckle out of the joke! So true!
This guy is nothing more than a toady for the 'folks' who are
responsible for most of the greed and hardship that is afflicting people all over the America. This guy's working for the people who cannot stand seeing anybody, not a white person or black person, no Native American or Eastern/Far Eastern/Middle Eastern person, who isn't a member of their 'club', have any rights whatsoever. No human rights, no civil rights, no right to economic security, none, because everything of worth is the exclusive property of those who keep telling pushing this bullshit that all whites, regardless of class, are a bunch of pathetic, selfish, disgusting racists who are only concerned with OUR own white well-being and are standing on the backs of all minorities to live this lavish and 'privileged' lifestyle. All whites but them, of course. They're actually looking out for minorities when they look out of the windows of those Wall Street ivory towers, protecting them from the rest of the white racist/sexist/bigots that constitute the rest of ***White Amurika***.
The REAL problem for TPTB is that we (all races/genders/political persuasions) haven't fallen in line and acquiesced to our new role as serf and cannon fodder to our 'corporate' overlords. So they HAVE to keep us at each other's throats. Just think what a pain in the ass 'we' could be if 'we' actually got together and confronted the REAL racists and elitists who are actually pulling all our strings?
And people who write garbage like this are parasitic life forms. They suck the life out of everyone who believes this crap and who suffers because they can't see past the propaganda. They do the dirty work for those whose best interests are served when we are divided and angry and unorganized. The elite have their shit together, they have a plan that has worked since before recorded history, the powerful and those with the most 'wealth' have always known how to manipulate the masses. The names and faces of the guys/gals at the top of the heap may change from time to time, but the concept is still the same. Divide and conquer. Play on our anger and our fear and our pain. And to use despicable amoral tools like this guy to be the public face associated with their finger pointing. They're misery pimps for the 1%.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Great rant!
I remember reading in one of Matt Taibbi's books on the financial crisis he mentioned that in reality any "party fight" in this country should really be between the 300 million angry indebted credit card owners against the 10 million bankers/Corps/vampire squids who've indebted so many and sucked the life out of this country. If that battle ever got fought the 300 million would win. I'm paraphrasing it but you obviously get the gist. The LAST thing they want is for us to be united, they'll pit the young against the old, black against white, women against men and vice versa, but they'll never mention that big elephant in the room - economics and class. Nope, those two are not for us to worry our empty racist little heads about.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
You can't pull that off unless you a) dumb down/wreck public
education over decades, b) buy up as many public megaphones (radio and boob tube) over the same time period. The FRWnutjobs knew what they had to do. Political defeats at first? No problem. They just doubled up on their efforts, and had plenty of patience. tRump horrow show is just a culmination of those efforts. Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
It bears pointing out again
Hermann Goering – The People Can Always Be Brought to the Bidding of the Leaders
“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
– Hermann Goering (as told to Gustav Gilbert during the Nuremberg trials)
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Time to denounce the delusional proto-fascists
for lack of patriotism. We're the dam patriots.
Beware the bullshit factories.
They will never get it
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Meant horror not horrow.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Too much money involved for the Dems to admit they f*cked up.
Five stages of Dem grief:
1. Anger
2. Denial
3. Angry denial
4. Denial
5. Anger
Outstanding essay
This is one of the best essays I have read in a while. The vox article is so reeking of elitist disdain for real people (not just white people), but real people with real problems, all of which would be solvable if the Democratic party would break its addiction to big money. The excuses for Hillary Clinton, the very embodiment of corrupt neoliberalism, not winning are being made everywhere except where they belong and that is upon a horrible candidate representing a political party that has no message, only identity politics. These are the very same people who took large groups of voters for granted and were dependent upon demographics for wins.
In the end with everything else being equal, people will vote their wallets above anything else. Identity politics does not pay the bills or put food on the table, something the elitists in the Democratic party seem to ignore. I never thought I would say this, but the Democratic party needs to go the way of the Whigs. They are useless, hopelessly corrupt, and arrogant toward the very voters they need.
Thank you for this most excellent essay. You hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Awesome definition of privilege
that should be repeated as much as possible. So easy for them from their bubble to dismiss real people's concerns, a perfect definition.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Why does this matter?
Did Hillary's white privilege cause her the election?
So like many a Bernie supporter I was regaled with the accusations of being racist, sexist, etc.
After Hillary won the nomination, I thought she would chose an African American or Hispanic as her running mate. First, more than any groups, African Americans and Hispanics were critical for her winning (aside from the cheating). I thought she would solidify the "identify coalition" in this way. Second, there was the matter the succession of leadership in the party. By appointing a younger person of color/gender, she would handed the leadership and White House to the VP, also ensuring the identity coalition.
So when Hillary chose Kaine I thought first what bullshit. She chose a guy that represented everything her supporters complained about with Bernie and his supporters. I thought at the time Hillary was in trouble as the Kaine choice could hurt turnout among particularly African Americans. And in a way which democrats refused to talk about, this was a slap in the face of her minority and female supporters. And from the numbers I have been seeing, African American turnout in some key states was lower for Hillary compared to Obama.
Some people think the VP pick does not matter. Well, in this case I suspect it did. The Clinton's have always used black people in cynical and ugly ways--maybe this time they undid themselves with it.