Robert Reich, enemy of the public sphere

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 8:15am

The “I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils” rubbish

The naive reader might click on this Substack entry thinking that Reich was planning to vote for Donald Trump, the lesser of two evils, and be disappointed. Here's CJ:

Some people tell me they hate Trump but don’t particularly like Biden. They say Biden is too old, or he’s not doing enough to stop Israel’s bombing of Gaza, or he’s caved to Big Oil, or he isn’t tough enough.

That's interesting. I suppose you could hate Trump. Anyone who's paying attention, though, would know he's not what the Democrats think he is.

People are telling Robert Reich that Biden is "too old." Nobody wants to say "dementia."

Reich seems to have no clue that Biden is participating in genocide. Biden doesn't cave to Big Oil: he represents Big Oil. And Biden's plenty tough enough -- his foreign policy results in great heaps of dead bodies and he just moves on to the next massacre.

Here’s what I tell them: By not voting or voting for a third party, they’re actually casting a vote for Trump.

If they really are adding up the third party votes and the nonvotes and handing them to Trump, we really and genuinely don't live in a democracy. Such a judgment would vindicate the nonvoters more than anything else.

Biden is not evil. Trump is truly evil.

If you think genocide is good, you should say so outright, rather than just implying it. Or is your objection to Trump's staring at his face on the TV screen while eating junk food and planning his next golf dates? I'm sure Satan does all of those things too, for what it's worth.

The fact is, America has a two-party system. You may not like it, but that’s our reality. The founders did not opt for a parliamentary system, where citizens have more options of whom to vote for.

Reich does not seem to have noticed that there is nowhere in the Constitution where the two-party system is enshrined. The two-party system is enshrined in the movement of political money. There could easily be several parties, if the possessors of money wished to fund them.

And if you don’t vote, or you vote for a third-party candidate, you’re inevitably hurting the candidate from one of the major parties who’s closest to you in values

Reich's values, apparently, lie in the heaps of dead bodies, which is why he's voting Biden. My values have nothing to do with Biden or Trump.

But as the Republican Party has gone fascist,

Once again: it took Adolf Hitler eight weeks to establish an absolute dictatorship over Germany. Donald Trump had four years: he lost Congress after two, and the White House after four. Either Reich does not know what a fascist is, or it's another hot-button word to be equated with "someone I don't like."

I might add that if the people who invented Reich's talking points were actually afraid of Trump, they wouldn't be running Biden against him. So, no, this is all pretend-fear.

I will skip the debate with Hedges. Reich is uninterested in examining his assertions. With him, we have neither inquiry, nor argument, but rather talking points, which are meant to give the appearance of a public sphere while preventing its realization.

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Robert Reich

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Comments

Submitted by doh1304 on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 9:07am

I suggest Mr. Reich reread The Federaliat Papers

he will find that the founders were actually afraid of not a balkanized electorate but a two party system, and that the examples they always gave to illustrate the evil of one of the two was economic. In other words they feared that the rich would take over one of only two partys and destroy society. But the only idea they had to stop this from happening was to allow enough democracy (whic they also feared) to allow the rise of only two partys.

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On to Biden since 1973

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 9:54am

I like Caity's piece on voting this week...

Nobody With Real Power Cares If You Refuse To Vote For Biden

The unelected empire managers who actually run the US power structure also don’t care who wins the election. They know they’ll still get their murder and militarism and capitalism and imperialism no matter who gets sworn in next year, whether it’s Biden or Trump or Harris or someone else. Nobody with any real power cares about your vote.

And that’s the real issue. That’s the real point that keeps getting missed here. The problem is not that the wrong people keep getting elected, it’s that the elections don’t matter and voters don’t have a say. It’s that humanity is dominated by a murderous globe-spanning power structure loosely centralized around Washington whose actual movements and behavior have effectively zero responsiveness to the will of the electorate.

The election is a con to make you think you have a voice.
My 2 cents.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 1:18pm

Well...

@Lookout

You’re never going to be able to vote your way out of this mess, and you’re never going to be able to not-vote your way out of this mess, because the power of your vote has been undermined to a value of zero. That doesn’t mean there’s no way out of this mess, it just means there’s no way to get out of this mess using the fake plastic diversion toy they handed you to shut you up and trick you into thinking you have a say.

I do not entirely agree. Voting can play a role in "getting out of this mess." The fact that it won't, apparently, do so this year doesn't prohibit it from possibly doing so in some future year.

Obviously there are some prerequisites that need to be met before voting can really be something more to the individual than worthless "civic duty." Most importantly, the shadow government needs to be exposed.

One tragedy of the forthcoming election is that too many people still buy into the "two-party system" line and so their vote can be said to be worthless without further deliberation. With the "two-party system," worst of all, the President is elected by voters in "swing states," and we can observe that phenomenon to point to the disenfranchisement of everyone else. Reich is an echo of the "two-party system" line. Think of Reich as an operator, one among many, of a Halloween fun-house, only it's a boring one, using the same scares every year, and mass-produced, so it's the same everywhere. The business would die if people just stopped going.

We still have a chance to vote outside of the duopoly as a mass public, but so far too few people have organized any intent to take advantage. Contra Johnstone, this tragedy does not blend seamlessly into the general tragedy. What an actual "third party" revolt would do would be to put the elites on notice that we do indeed have the right to vote. Today, they feel secure they can run Trump vs. Biden, showing the world for all to see that they don't care.

You might have once been able to ask the residents of Gaza about what it's like not to have the right to vote, but you can't do so now, because they're all starving to death. I don't think this is a coincidence.

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The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 3:23pm

An excellent example of voting having meaning...

@Cassiodorus

...is George Galloway's election in the UK.
(BTW his live stream MOATS is today)

I'm not disparaging voting. We all make our own decisions...it is the nature of voting.

#2 You’re never going to be able to vote your way out of this mess, and you’re never going to be able to not-vote your way out of this mess, because the power of your vote has been undermined to a value of zero. That doesn’t mean there’s no way out of this mess, it just means there’s no way to get out of this mess using the fake plastic diversion toy they handed you to shut you up and trick you into thinking you have a say. I do not entirely agree. Voting can play a role in "getting out of this mess." The fact that it won't, apparently, do so this year doesn't prohibit it from possibly doing so in some future year. Obviously there are some prerequisites that need to be met before voting can really be something more to the individual than worthless "civic duty." Most importantly, the shadow government needs to be exposed. One tragedy of the forthcoming election is that too many people still buy into the "two-party system" line and so their vote can be said to be worthless without further deliberation. With the "two-party system," worst of all, the President is elected by voters in "swing states," and we can observe that phenomenon to point to the disenfranchisement of everyone else. Reich is an echo of the "two-party system" line. Think of Reich as an operator, one among many, of a Halloween fun-house, only it's a boring one, using the same scares every year, and mass-produced, so it's the same everywhere. The business would die if people just stopped going. We still have a chance to vote outside of the duopoly as a mass public, but so far too few people have organized any intent to take advantage. Contra Johnstone, this tragedy does not blend seamlessly into the general tragedy. What an actual "third party" revolt would do would be to put the elites on notice that we do indeed have the right to vote. Today, they feel secure they can run Trump vs. Biden, showing the world for all to see that they don't care. You might have once been able to ask the residents of Gaza about what it's like not to have the right to vote, but you can't do so now, because they're all starving to death. I don't think this is a coincidence.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by earthling1 on Sun, 03/10/2024 - 7:33pm

Reich

seems to be the key word today.
Ohh the irony.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 03/11/2024 - 5:25am

Oh I would recommend protesting Robert Reich

@earthling1 Tell him: you can't run
you can't hide
you're supporting genocide

Make sure he hears those words in his sleep

Here's Max Blumenthal on the genocide Democrats. Don't watch it in one sitting.

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The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 03/11/2024 - 2:50am

Jeffrey Sachs is the sane & moral opposite pole to Robert Reich.

https://twitter.com/broseph_stalin/status/1766567918593335672

Submitted by Marie1 on Thu, 03/14/2024 - 12:00am

A truthteller extrodinaire.

https://youtu.be/KLODGhEyLvk?si=VrTK6EjWhxkS_sjt

Nobody around to update Carlin's critique as Amazon, TicTok, Instagram, etc. have replaced the malls. Fast food delivered; so, we're still eating. But now diabetes meds can take off the excess protoplasm.