The Left has lost...........

[Mega]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ital-gangsters

Far too late the left has woken that people lean to the right......call it nation loving etc but we are all proud of our land & people & history.

To the Left i say this, its over.........the internet IS here to stay....& people are going to remain free. Yes there are dangers with in it, a on line lyuch mob etc, but we must fight this fight...............the leftist bastards are sussed, they lost the discussion so now they wish to close the debate.

There is a uprising coming, not a leftwing one, but a right

Mike

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left has lost...........

You could be right. I'm pretty sure the center will not hold. I'm not sure which way it will break. We could easily end up with something far to the right of Trump and Farage.

Much more traditionalist. Much stronger rejection of modernism and post-modernism. Much thirstier for action. Much less enamored with the enlightenment, empiricism, and second-guessing. Much less tolerant of degeneracy and diversity. Much greater appeal to social frustration and the the social order of the good ol' days. Much more xenophobic. Much more clearly defined internal enemies. Much more contempt for the weak and feminine. Much less willingness to sit back and let people be fat and lazy. Much more celebration of manhood and strength. Much clearer enunciation of the right as the true voice of the people. Much less academic jargon and technicality. Much more celebration of the future and technology. Something more along the lines of the old Futurists.

It's not hard to envision. Especially now.

[Techdread]

Re: The Left has lost...........

I think you meant to say the right thought they won the argument, especially when the Berlin Wall was taken down, However as my housemate who was reading Economics at the time remarked, we will now see how bankrupt Free-market Capitalism is.

Roll on a few Decades most of the developed nation's governments are debt laden, ditto to the citizens and companies, and you think the left has lost.

Freedom is a matter perspective do you think the people of the USA are as free as Europeans? They are free to go bankrupt when they fall ill, Free for their poor to get shot. Free for their poor to get incarcerated, Free to gate laden with huge debt for their education etc.. Give me high tax and spend governments then this right - wing winner takes all Anglo-Saxon crap we have today.

[Mega]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Oh i agree the west is bankupt, the Limey scum have very little of anything, Honda is shutting its UK production, Vauhall will be gone..Landrover in VERY big trouble....
Mike

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left has lost...........

But the people to whom they owe the debt are the only people that matter. They already pay fewer taxes than any time in living memory and are laughing all the way to the bank and the lobbyists' office. They already basically got themselves total criminal immunity. And they already basically legalized corruption by arguing that corporations are people and money is speech. It has basically gone uncommented and unnoticed that the first billionaire cabinet member in history arrived under Obama, and now we have several, including one in the Oval Office. Only a couple pesky things like the estate tax and an elimination of time limits on trusts and IP stands between their grandchildren and absolute power to rule over the ashes of the republic.

[vt]

Re: The Left has lost...........

The west may be may be debt laden but so is China. Socialism and Communism are totally bankrupt.

Those nations trying to give away too much "free" stuff are in worse shape economically then the U.S.
Free, fairly regulated markets always win out over socialist ones.

[FrankL]

Re: The Left has lost...........

The west may be may be debt laden but so is China. Socialism and Communism are totally bankrupt.

Those nations trying to give away too much "free" stuff are in worse shape economically then the U.S.
Free, fairly regulated markets always win out over socialist ones.

What is 'too much'?
Is universal healthcare 'too much'?
What about accessible higher education?

Also the US is very, very far removed from 'fairly regulated markets'.
Actually, you might be surprised how much more affordable education, healthcare, internet, cellphone plans, flying, etc. is in 'socialist Europe', because there tends to be more enforced anti-trust regulations leading to something resembling a 'fairly regulated' market.

[vt]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Unfortunately college degrees are not returning positive ROI in many instances. Institutions are pricing themselves out of the market,
and degrees in some areas have poor marketability.

However there is a major shift that is already reducing the need for a degree and many free courses to take advantage of these changes.

Major companies hiring without a college degree:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article...ollege-degree/

Institutions that offer many free courses:

https://www.nonprofitcollegesonline....llege-courses/

The entire concept of college may also be changing. In the near future we may send our kids to college for only two years to learn a skill,
then 20 years later they will go back and learn a new skill.

Technology and innovation will likely reduce the cost of higher education for the masses.

Health care needs major reform and that is coming.

Government does not have all the solutions; many others are already out there. You just need to look.

[jk]

Re: The Left has lost...........

some time ago, can't say when off hand, it was considered radical to offer kids free high school.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left has lost...........

vt, I hear this talking point a lot, but the stats don't really bear it out. I've gone over the employment and salary stats by major ad nauseum. There are anecdotes about people with no college making great money. And sure, it happen on occasion. But in the aggregate, generally it's not the case, and generally the ROI is positive. Doesn't mean it's smart to drop a quarter million on a psych degree from a no-name school with no intention on going to grad school. But for all the hate college gets, and for how expensive it is, online classes suck and always will, and ROI remains positive.

I mean, if online socialization didn't suck badly, why would every tech company and every VC company insist on being physically cloistered in one little valley? Couldn't they do their programming remotely? Surely they could pay that kid from Case Western who wants to stay in Cleveland less money than it would cost to make the kid move to Silicon Valley and pay the outrageous cost of living there. So if online collaborative work and socialization worked so well, why don't they? Why would tech execs keep their kids off social media and the internet if it was such a valuable education and socialization tool? Really, I think the proof's in the pudding, and technology fails at a lot of this stuff. Can it be useful in specific instances? Sure! But is it useful as a general remote education method in general? No. We've had the internet for more than a generation now. It's not going to magically solve huge new problems it hasn't been able to solve already.

I talk to kids in Cambridge sometimes. Smart kids. Kids who are planning on working for big tech. All of them for the past 5 years or so, to a tee, have expressed dread about moving to the Bay Area. They've already spent summers out there interning. And they do not want to move there. But they figure they have to if they want to have a good career in the field. They don't even think they can do that in the Boston area, which is probably the 2nd biggest tech hub. That's how geographically concentrated it is. That's how much 'being there in person' is worth.

[Woodsman]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Much more traditionalist. Much stronger rejection of modernism and post-modernism. Much thirstier for action. Much less enamored with the enlightenment, empiricism, and second-guessing. Much less tolerant of degeneracy and diversity. Much greater appeal to social frustration and the the social order of the good ol' days. Much more xenophobic. Much more clearly defined internal enemies. Much more contempt for the weak and feminine. Much less willingness to sit back and let people be fat and lazy. Much more celebration of manhood and strength. Much clearer enunciation of the right as the true voice of the people. Much less academic jargon and technicality. Much more celebration of the future and technology. Something more along the lines of the old Futurists...

Imagine it. One day we might be able to raze the District of Columbia and turn it into a beautiful nature preserve; maybe even move the national capitol of this new and dynamic America you envision to say, Omaha, and turn it into our own Esposizione Universale Roma. Dude, you're giving me the chills just thinking about it.

But before we can get there we need to look at the world with clarity. Like EJ is fond of saying, we're not in the how things should be business, but in the how things are business. With that in mind, we need to be clear that the Left hasn't lost at all. Hell, they're just getting started.

Only that's the good news. Because the faster we get "literally Socialism" going full steam in America, the faster both The Empire AND Socialism die.

So that's why I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you all to get on board the Bernie/Tulsi team. All you Trump haters out there, especially, let me be the first to welcome you aboard. Because there's no better way to send the Bad Orange Man back to the hotel business than getting behind the Bernie/Tulsi ticket in 2020.



Mark my words. I called it in 2016 and I'm feeling even better about things this next go around.

But in my heart of hearts and dearest dreams, I do wish we could get more creative and move things along towards the inevitable collapse even faster. The way I figure it, Trump set the process in motion and allowed the factions to fly their freak flags high. But he just doesn't seem up to the task before him, pains me to say. To his credit, he was able to get the Democrats to finally abandon any pretext they had to democracy, free speech and liberalism, generally, and go wild in their naked pursuit of power. And they've made such a fine example for the Republican mainstream and periphery to emulate.

I'm extremely optimistic that things will go well no matter who wins, since neither side will accept the outcome. If by miracle Trump manages to win a second term, the degree of civil unrest and chaos will be the likes we haven't seen since the late sixties, or maybe even the draft riots during the Civil War. And if my girl Tulsi and my man Bernie win, as I expect they will, the MAGA folks in flyover country will follow their lead and show these special snowflakes how a real resistance does business. Heck, you might even see some honest-to-goodness Russian collusion this time around. Only they won't screw around with leaks and memes, but concentrate on their unique and proven ability to nurture insurgent groups. And they won't make the same mistake their predecessors made, especially if the neocons and neolibs get their way and this new cold war goes hot. They'll encourage right wing insurgencies, left wing ones, black, Hispanic, heck maybe even some sort of transgender liberation front thing, considering how easily manipulated those poor kids have shown themselves to be. And all of this within the context of the financial crisis and recession EJ has been telegraphing since his return to active duty. Ka-BOOM? You betcha!

So think out of the box, iTulipers. What this country really needs to throw it over the edge is socialism, good and hard. And not this namby-pamby hybrid the status-quo'ers have been giving us, but the real, dialectical materialist, central planning, gulag and NKVD, deal. Because nothing has been shown to do a better job of precipitating collapse than socialism. So let's get on with it. "To the hilt!" What I'd love to see us do is amend the Constitution to let Ocasio-Cortez run for President. Hell, let's tear it up, appoint her Princeps, dissolve the Congress and call her Imperator Caesara Divi filias Augusta, if that's what it takes.

With Bernie/Tulsi 2020, we have a real fighting chance to elevate the prodigal and diminish the productive. My only fear is that they'll be too timid at a time when we'll need bold, decisive action. So lets do! Open the borders and welcome all comers. Confiscate property, assets, wages, dividends. Ban guns, close churches, arrest clergy. Make social and sexual indoctrination compulsory starting at Pre-K. Organize defense committees and inform on the slightest heterodoxy. Arrest and reeducate dissenters. Build labor camps, punitive camps, liquidation camps and exile or otherwise disappear the hard cases.

We need to go full Bolshie and make no apologies about. I think we can all pull together and show the Sovs, the Cubans and Norks how real Americans do socialism. I say immanentize the eschaton or die tryin'. Whatever gets us to the end game of the final collapse of empire and socialism faster; whatever pain, loss, and sacrifice is required to put a stake into the heart of Marxism in the West, once and for all, I'm all in! If we're lucky, we might even see a breakup along the lines of the Soviet collapse.

I know, I know. Call me a dreamer, but without vision, the people perish. And with it, even faster.

Bernie/Tulsi 2020!

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Eh c'est la vie. What either of us want is largely irrelevant. The central truth is that the center cannot hold. The whole rationale for neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus was growth. Meatballs like Friedman still can't stop talking about "growing the pie." What they miss, and what the essential truth is, is this: Not only did neoliberal centrists insist that we ha to swallow massive inequality to get growth, but the growth never materialized. We lost our pensions. We lost our healthcare. We lost our job security and gold watches after 30 years. We gave up our raises. Life expectancy's down. Home ownership rates are down. Not much is going good for Joe 6 Pack. But at least we gave it all up for growth, right? I mean, tax rates have been cut for 40 years, administration after administration. That alone ought to have revved the growth machine up, right?



So there's the rub. The center cannot hold because the conceit that underpins the ideology of the center is false and the last 10 years have made its falsehood abundantly clear to everyone, even people who can't put it into words. The center's only plan is to use whatever state tools it can to increase inequality under the theory that doing so will increase growth. Problem is the theory's not panning out. Not in the US, nor in the UK, nor in Germany or France. And when the lynchpin of your candidacy is a few billion more tax breaks for Bezos to "grow the pie," it's a hard sell. We're getting to the bottom of the barrel on this stuff. Just suspending Trump's corporate tax cuts for 8 years would pay for free college for the next 100. Not even eliminating them.

I'm much less interested in the goofball socialism debate. I never wanted it. It's one of those words that's getting its own meaning in the US anyways. If universal healthcare and universal federal public tuition support are socialist, then the only difference between socialism and capitalism is means testing, because we already have Medicaid and Pell Grants. Plenty of countries where they give the same benefits to people making $40k or $60k as people making $20k. The vast majority of them aren't socialist either. The distinction seems petty, and largely one of degree. Especially on the college side. That's like $75 billion per year, less than 2% of the budget. Anyways, spending that 2% on college kids instead of tax cuts for wrinkled rich folk I guess makes one socialist and the other capitalist now. But the US ain't Europe. This is pretty much the extreme-most the left has to offer. A milder version of new deal liberals. We're so deeply entrenched in the Reagan era, that this seems extreme. But it's more Eisenhower than Chavez, Venezuela socialism jokes not withstanding.

Anyways, I seriously doubt ol' Tulsi will be anything but a passing curiosity who pulls Chris Dodd's numbers in a primary. All but the most stoned crystal worshipers doing downward facing dog are gonna be turned off by that whole Krinshna cult thing anyways. Sanders on the other hand, I wouldn't write off yet. But the dude's four years older and the field's much bigger. Regardless, even if a much more moderate candidate got the nod, say one deep in with Private Equity and Venture Capital like Booker, they'd just call him a socialist anyways. That's what they said about Obama too. There are kids in their 20s who never knew a president who wasn't derided as a socialist or a fascist openly on the nightly news on the regular. The words lose their meaning. People grow numb. Eventually maybe the old terms of derision are adapted as a badge of honor; a way to set yourself apart from 'them.' Not sure how much substance there is to it, or to what extent it's just rebranding and slapping a new shade of lipstick on an old dirty pig. I'm not terribly sure how much substantive policy daylight there really ever was between Bernie Sanders and Ted Kennedy. At the same time whether you call yourself part of the Tea Party or a libertarian or part of the alt-right probably just depends on whether it's 2010, 2014, or 2016. I'm not sure how much the substance changes. The rhetoric does, and it can matter. But a ton of it is much ado about nothing.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Left has lost...........

I guess we can declare election season officially open.
Woodsman is back making inflammatory political posts.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Everything old is new again.
Even old stodgy right wing slogans that I thought died out when the last YAF bumper sticker on its AMC Gremlin hit the compactor...
As if undoing Reagan's tax code is somehow tantamount to tearing open the 7th seal.
But alluding to the second coming's always a gas.

[vt]

Re: The Left has lost...........

Woodsman speaks the truth.

You want all the free stuff the left raves about. Prepare to have everyone pay 50% plus taxes. The "rich" would pay 70% to 80%. The economy would not grow.
Are millennials, who are used to much of the internet being free, willing to pay the real cost of "free"?

Here are real tax rates across the world. Note don't just look at income tax; add in high sales taxes, social security taxes, etc.

https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/...ncome-tax-rate.

By the way these countries with high tax rates are mostly homogenous in population. How will a very diverse, politically divided U.S. react to super high taxes for everyone?