Humanism is the 'Left-Wing' perspective I subscribe to, if people keep wanting to pidgeon-hole me, not Liberalism. Can't you get that part correct at least?
In response to Sony's post quoting the unidentified friend bearing oodles of right-winger wisdom, I posted my reply in the comments.
My favorite line from my comment is:
I just disagree that money spent on socially positive things (helping poor people eat, live, etc) is "wasting money" -- and I don't believe CEO's (I'll specify for this argument only CEO's that took NO RISK in starting a company) should be paid 100 million +.
It's interesting b/c we really are communicating from different worlds. Most of my friends, family, and entertainment media that I watch (Daily Show, Realtime w/Bill Maher, Democracy Now, Link TV, Pacifica Radio, etc) are Left or Leftish. For me, what's happening today is straight from "1984" by Orwell, where double-think is now a virus that's out of control.
When I watch the right-wing media for too long, I honestly get ill. If Bush can get away with saying "They hate our freedoms" as he passes the Patriot act, and no-one in the Press says to him, "But it's you that is the one attacking American freedoms", I see that as a problem.
As a Berkeley professor recently said at a garage sale (we chatted in the street about this stuff), 'The Nazi's are back in power, they just haven't formally announced their racist plans yet' (although Bush did 'accidentally' say Crusade, briefly -- woops! There he goes again, that silly dumb President making those accidental comments. He just doesn't know what he's saying, right? ... Or maybe it's what he accused Bin Laden of doing, speaking w/code words).
The Professor thought that the racism of Nazis in WWII actually lost them the war, and this time the racism would be better strategized and propogandized. Perhaps the strategy is to make everyone FEAR the poor non-whites that are targetted? Maybe it's to make us HATE them for doing something horrible to us?
As I see it, the Neo-Cons are on the same campaign as the Nazi's of WWII:
- Global Empire of whites ruling over lower races.
- Lower the global net population, most preferably non-white population, to increase available wealth for white consumption.
- Utilize military for dominant power positions around the world, and esp use lots of force in non-white areas.
- Unite Business with Military with Government (and possibly Religion, although that's not really necessary).
- Keep the white wealth in power.
All this "Right-Wing Neo Con" stuff to me just advocates racial oppression and global empire / exploitation under white rulership.
Maybe you don't see it that way, or maybe that's acceptable to you?
But I for one am not going to say "Gee, what a great plan" as people are hyping this point of view under WHATEVER label, either "free markets", "free trade", "capitalism", or "pure supply demand economy".
I'm going to say, loudly, "that plan is crap" because PEOPLE are more important than concepts like supply & demand, capitalism, free markets or free trade.
And I'm not the only 'kook' that's saying this. There is a GREEN 'triple bottom line' that you might be interested in learning about: People, then Planet, then Profits. Once that limitation is established, I think I'll be ok with 'capitalism' doing it's thing.
posted by R·E @ 12:55 PM
3 Comments:
Funny, I was going to invoke Godwin's law, although teh name irritates me because we were using it on old Yahoo boards before he ever came on the scene.
As for the meat of the post, its just the same old non-constructive magical realism. All negative, no sense of a plan, an approach, an understanding of history or the human conditions. If I want unceasing complaints, I can tease my kids.
The fact remains, this is the best time to be alive in histroy. If you are born today, you are less likely to die an infant, you are less likely to spend the majority of your time looking for food or fightings diseases, you are more likely to have extensive leisure time, you have better access to books, more mobility, more sources of news and you will live longer to enjoy it all.
(It is child's play to say that the world is bad for a lot of people. That is the human condition and it was always like that. If you really think things are bad, you have to argue that they are worse than 100 years ago, before Penicillin, Aspirin, hygenie, modern agriculture, etc.)
That truth- that this is a better time than any that came before-- the beginning point of any conversation. The next step is to find out how we have such bounty? What social system of organization has provided these increased probabilities?
You forgot to say, "this is the best time to be alive ..." in USA.
And clearly, a country that can vacuum-like pull in over 60% of the world's resources will have a higher standard of living & life quality.
But you are focussing on the 'noble' parts of the history. Why MUST it be b/c of the success of capitalism that all this has come to be? Exploitation and slavery were also clearly a part of the wealth of this country.
I'm not unhappy w/your comment of 'non-constructive magical realism'. Actually, my viewpoint is not all negative at all, but I do criticize and focus on areas that I perceive to be truly and deeply damaged, such as: military overspending, the need for an ongoing wartime economy, and the concepts of "free market" and "pure capitalism" alongside corporate subsidies / attacks on social infrastructure / use of military (and secret military) to influence markets and govts.
A quick overview of a positive plan:
Less military spending.
More collaboration with UN.
Dismantling nukes (and bio/chem weapons) in the USA and promoting test-bans around the world.
Allowing living standards in USA to lower a bit in order to allow other countries a chance.
Require a reasonable percentage of 'free enterprise' windfall profits (oil, military, etc) to go into taxes for public works (*NOT for more military spending*).
States requiring all corp charters to include "Triple Bottom Line": People, Planet, then Profits into their charters. (Google has the clause "we will not be evil" in theirs, so I don't think this is an outrageous requirement.)
What do you think?
Ari, feel free to name an example of a country that has a poorer standard of living today than 100 or 1000 years ago.
Also, "Promoting test bans around the world"? So, get rid of our weapons and ask all the nice neighbors to do the same? Make that work at least once on a local level -- like, say, an apartment building -- and we'll see about expanding from there.
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