NYT: Don’t Be Progressive, Be a ‘Liberal’

A New York Times op-ed by political scientist (and former Bob Kerrey aide) Greg Weiner (7/13/18) may well be the New York Times–iest op-ed ever.

Its ostensible subject is why Democrats should call themselves “liberals” and not “progressives.” But in making that case, it hits most of the main points of the New York Times‘ ideology—one that has guided the paper since the late 19th century.

First and foremost, it’s a defense of the status quo. “The basic premise of liberal politics,” Weiner writes, “is the capacity of government to do good, especially in ameliorating economic ills.” But not too much good, mind you:  “A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less,” he stresses. Weiner draws a contrast with progressives: “Where liberalism seeks to ameliorate economic ills, progressivism’s goal is to eradicate them.”

So Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is cited negatively as an example of “a progressive effort to remake society by eradicating poverty’s causes”—in the process supporting  “community action” and  financing the “political activism”—presented without explanation as a self-evident evil.  The explanation, presumably, is that the poor should remain passive as they remain poor, gratefully accepting the handouts that “alleviate” their plight, as “cutting checks,” as Weiner puts it, is “something government does competently.”

Coupled with this anxiety about “eradicating poverty’s causes” is the confident assurance that the truth is always somewhere in the middle. “Unlike liberalism, progressivism is intrinsically opposed to conservation,” Weiner warns:

Nothing structurally impedes compromise between conservatives, who hold that the accumulated wisdom of tradition is a better guide than the hypercharged rationality of the present, and liberals, because both philosophies exist on a spectrum.

Conservatives make better partners for liberals than progressives, because “one can debate how much to conserve.” But you can’t debate how much to progress, apparently: “Progressivism is inherently hostile to moderation because progress is an unmitigated good.”

In other words: Equality and justice, sure, but let’s not rush into things, is the “liberal’s” advice. He endorses “policies develop gradually and command wide consensus—at least under normal circumstances.” (Progressives have an unnerving desire to “depress the accelerator.”)

Something that doesn’t change is the right wing of the left’s attraction to redbaiting. Weiner praises “the Cold War liberal who stood for social amelioration and against Soviet Communism,” a figure who “was often maligned by progressives.” Without coming out and accusing progressives of Stalinism, he describes progressives’ response to critics as “a passive-aggressive form of re-education,” one that “supersedes the rights of its opponents.” The example he gives of this is the “progressive indifference to the rights of those who oppose progressive policies in areas like sexual liberation”—an odd arena to cite, since the main “rights” that opponents of “sexual liberation” have demanded in recent years are the “right” of small businesses to discriminate against gay customers and the “right” to check the chromosome status of people who use public restrooms.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
No worries. I'll swap for these.

I’m a pedophile, but not a monster

 Lazy8 wrote: 
I didn't search it out but the mangling of language in the subhead tipped me off...

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Yes, this is the only Salon article Mirkison wrote yesterday.

 rotekz wrote:
Really? Oh, right. It's just the usual.

 rotekz wrote: 
that is of course nonsense

Chicago Trump Rally: What Really Happened And How The Left Exposed Their True Form

The Rise Of The #Regressiveleft Hashtag

What the alt-right’s newest explosively popular hashtag is all about.

It seemed the Messiah had finally come,but it was to good to be true.

California pony in unicorn getup captured after 3-hour hunt

 

Fake Blood and War Chants: Milo Yiannopoulos Event at Rutgers Disrupted by Feminists, Black Lives Matter Activists

sirdroseph wrote: 
Hehe. Montel was famous for like 6 months in the early 90's. Somebody needs to tell his agent that his day passed 25 years ago and that he should just retire.

This is just a publicity stunt. Montel is no less a jackass than he was in the 90s...  

Montel Williams calls for ‘massive use of deadly force’ against Oregon refuge occupiers

"Mr. Williams hasn't always been against armed militias in the United States.  In November he tweeted: "If the Government ever makes Muslims carry ID cards or shuts down mosques, I will have no choice but to take up arms against my government."
   

 kurtster wrote: 
As far as I can see, there isn't anything like a revolution going on in your country at the moment. It's been averted through corporate welfare (and some suppression of dissent. See Occupy).

A bit of a collapse is ok for elites, they can still profit/recoup from it when the gov provides their welfare and restores confidence/trust (to most of the system). Total collapse isn't.

But... you can't avoid it forever. See the structural analysis of Marx.

Cyclical crises are a feature of the system, not a bug. Deregulation enables those crises.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
So tell me how we avoid revolution with economic collapse ?  The elites are engineering this collapse.  Do they really think they can do it and not have a revolution ?

Yeah, you never have been worried much about others' feelings ...   

  

I meant it as a compliment  

 kurtster wrote: 
As we I learned in Economics 101, institutional trust is essential to the working of an economy, incl. for money/capital. Calling me names doesn't change that simple fact.

I wasn't talking about me that was worried about revolution, but rather the elites and government that were. Generally speaking, revolution is bad for business and general security. Your feelings are irrelevant (save them for topics that end in an question mark).

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Yes, it is all about trust, yet trust is only a fleeting perception, oh master of propaganda.

Like that is no longer a problem ?  The downside is worse now than it was then.  And now you are worried about revolution ?  I always had the feeling you are trying to incite revolution.

Yeah there would have been damage, but no where near the level facing us today.  The stimulus has been a massive transfer of wealth by the governments from the people to the banks and then back to the .gov.  Does Fannie or Freddie hold the note for your home, if it does who owns the "F's", why the US gov, when it bailed them out and took them over.  The .gov now holds the note on your all's home.  What is one of the definitions of socialism ?  Government taking ownership of private property or something to that effect ?  We are already there and I tried to point this out when it was happening.  Then who owns the .gov's notes ?  The Fed.  So who really owns the country / .gov now, as in already ? 

But I'll disagree with the assertion that capitalism is failing due to built in defect.  It is failing because of corruption, sanctioned corruption, where the .gov overlooks the corruption, by just taking a piece of the action calling it a criminal fine / penalty, while no one meaningful goes to jail and really stop it from starting in the first place.  Who won't give up 20% to the gov and be allowed to keep the rest and walk the streets freely, in style ?  Or even 50% ?  

The elites are the elites, they will corrupt any system.  Its just that because capitalism is the best of all systems, it took much longer to corrupt.  And the US Constitution has been the strongest deterrent to corruption ever.  But we have a constitutions scholar deconstructing it right in front of our eyes.  He was re elected, giving him approval to keep doing it.  

And no one is bitching about the "appearance"  of laughably widespread corruption with the Clinton Foundation.  Sure looks like a duck to me. And it will be ignored and approved by the election of Billary in 2016.

Pawleeeze ...  

 kurtster wrote: 
It's all about trust. In your scenario there would likely (also) have been a snowball effect affecting much, much more than just those banks. Not just the toxic assets would be affected, but also regular business and common folks with their mortgages/loans/credit, aside of course from that trust/reputation. A serious potential for revolution.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Later in the article...

What we saw in 2008 was the enactment of a welfare state for the rich, a kind of state socialism for the financial elites that Marx predicted. But with this comes an increased and volatile cycle of boom and bust, bringing the system closer to disintegration and collapse. We have undergone two major stock market crashes and the implosion of real estate prices in just the first decade of the 21st century.

I remember saying back then and often since ... we should let the house burn down and the banks fail, to prevent what is mentioned above.  We will never get a second chance to wipe out the banksters ...

And I remember the reaction I got to that sentiment ... you're crazy, you have no idea what you are talking about ...

If the house did burn down, we would largely be free of the big banks as they would be gone.  Their money was only on paper in the first place making the destruction largely imaginary, but they fooled everyone into bailing them out with more phony paper, but this time the government put us, the tax payer up for collateral.  Yeah, I'm just a stupid stoner who is clueless, full of pixie dust ...

 

Chris Hedges: Karl Marx Was Right

(...) The final stages of capitalism, Marx wrote, would be marked by developments that are intimately familiar to most of us. Unable to expand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system would begin to consume the structures that sustained it. It would prey upon, in the name of austerity, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens. It would, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturing and professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of laborers. Industries would mechanize their workplaces. This would trigger an economic assault on not only the working class but the middle class—the bulwark of a capitalist system—that would be disguised by the imposition of massive personal debt as incomes declined or remained stagnant. Politics would in the late stages of capitalism become subordinate to economics, leading to political parties hollowed out of any real political content and abjectly subservient to the dictates and money of global capitalism.

But as Marx warned, there is a limit to an economy built on scaffolding of debt expansion. There comes a moment, Marx knew, when there would be no new markets available and no new pools of people who could take on more debt. This is what happened with the subprime mortgage crisis. Once the banks cannot conjure up new subprime borrowers, the scheme falls apart and the system crashes.

Capitalist oligarchs, meanwhile, hoard huge sums of wealth—$18 trillion stashed in overseas tax havens—exacted as tribute from those they dominate, indebt and impoverish. Capitalism would, in the end, Marx said, turn on the so-called free market, along with the values and traditions it claims to defend. It would in its final stages pillage the systems and structures that made capitalism possible. It would resort, as it caused widespread suffering, to harsher forms of repression. It would attempt in a frantic last stand to maintain its profits by looting and pillaging state institutions, contradicting its stated nature. (...)