The argument of the anti-liberals goes something like this: Our truest identities are rooted in the land in which weâre born and the kin among whom weâre raised. Our lives are given order and meaning because they are embedded in the larger structure and struggle of our people. Liberalism and, to some degree, Christianity have poisoned our cultural soil, setting us adrift in a world that prizes pleasure and derides tradition. Multiculturalism, in this telling, becomes a conservative ideal: We should celebrate the strength in cultural difference, reject the hollow universalist pieties of liberals and insist on the preservation of what sets people apart.
The genius of this critique, as Rose writes, is that it recasts liberalismâs virtues into vices:
In theory, liberalism protects individuals from unjust authority, allowing them to pursue fulfilling lives apart from government coercion. In reality, it severs deep bonds of belonging, leaving isolated individuals exposed to, and dependent on, the power of the state. In theory, liberalism proposes a neutral vision of human nature, cleansed of historical residues and free of ideological distortions. In reality, it promotes a bourgeois view of life, placing a higher value on acquisition than virtue. In theory, liberalism makes politics more peaceful by focusing on the mundane rather than the metaphysical. In reality, it makes political life chaotic by splintering communities into rival factions and parties.
And yet the process runs in reverse, too. Both liberalism and Christianity become thrilling when described by their critics. Far from the technocratic slog of trade regulations and the deadening work of dragging laws past the filibuster, this liberalism is a marvel of imagination and ambition. Itâs an ideology that believes human beings capable of new forms of social organization and a movement capable of untethering them from hierarchies so deeply embedded in our societies that they were thought to represent a natural, or even divine, order.
In more than a decade in power, Mr. Orban has not hesitated to use the levers of government power to erode democratic norms and cement one-party rule. He has rewritten the Constitution, remade the courts and used state-run and privately owned television stations â even school textbooks â to advance his agenda or push misinformation about his rivals.
He has always justified his brand of what he calls âilliberal democracyâ by pointing out that, like other European leaders, he has won free and fair elections. Now, though, as he stands on Sunday for re-election against an unexpectedly organized opposition, Mr. Orban is using the power of his office to shape the contours of the election more to his liking.
He has unleashed a fresh round of election law changes that benefit his party. He put an inflammatory but ultimately symbolic L.G.B.T. referendum up for a vote, a move that is likely to rally his most strident supporters. And he legalized the registration of voters outside of their home districts â a common practice, until now criminal, that is known as âvoter tourism.â
All of that is playing out in a media echo chamber, since Mr. Orban has cemented control of public television to the point where stories, photos and guests are handpicked to align with his talking points. Many of the largest independent news outlets have been taken over by Mr. Orbanâs supporters. (...)
,,,there’s $18 trillion in negative yield and long-term government debt in the world today....what it means is investors are willing to buy government debt at a loss. And if they’re willing to buy government debt at a loss simply because they want to purchase security, because they’re uncertain about the future, then by definition they cannot be expecting an inflation. Because if they were, they would insist on a higher interest rate, not a negative one. So the very fact that we have this world out there where we have interest rates which are on the floor and are going to go nowhere for at least a decade, put that one in the book, I will bet the house on it.
...how long will the Orange Menace stay gone? Not long; soon either Trump will make a comeback or the corporate media will inflate another racist straw man to run against. The only way the corporate Democrats can mobilize their base to eek out slim national victories while keeping Joe Biden’s promise to the rich that “nothing would fundamentally change,” is to position themselves as the sole defense against the racist hordes.
...a self-employed electrical contractor is not a small business person or an entrepreneur. He is a skilled worker whom construction companies refuse to hire because they do not want to pay Social Security or worker’s comp or health insurance for employees. Instead, they contract with him and he assumes the cost of those programs, and takes orders from a manager and shuffles through the farce that he is one of America’s ever-growing crop of dynamic self-employed entrepreneurs.
— Deer Hunting with Jesus (2007), by Joe Bageant (following Michael Zweig)
Bageant’s sequel (Rainbow Pie) is also very good, an antidote to Hillbilly-Elegy-type propaganda.
"As the Babbitt story was amping up, another was gaining steam, about an 18-year-old who publicly turned in her own parents for attending the Capitol riot and punching a guard in the face. Helena Duke became a hero of the Internet, was interviewed on Good Morning America, and set up a GoFundMe page to help her pay for college (she’s raised $55,000 as of this writing). ...
"People testify against or turn in relatives for various offenses, sometimes justifiably, but we’re usually not tempted to celebrate those occasions, because it’s understood they’re tragedies above all. This was once obvious to Americans taught in school about the likes of Pavlik Morozov, the little boy who in the thirties became a celebrity for denouncing his parents’ anti-Soviet activities. The reason that story struck us as horrible once was not that Pavlik’s parents were innocent, but because we had a hard time imagining more generally: what kind of society would celebrate the dissolution of the family?
...you can't explain a rise is racism by reference to a rise in the number of racists. That's just circular, right? Something has to be causing it. — Mark Blyth
"As the Babbitt story was amping up, another was gaining steam, about an 18-year-old who publicly turned in her own parents for attending the Capitol riot and punching a guard in the face. Helena Duke became a hero of the Internet, was interviewed on Good Morning America, and set up a GoFundMe page to help her pay for college (she’s raised $55,000 as of this writing). ...
"People testify against or turn in relatives for various offenses, sometimes justifiably, but we’re usually not tempted to celebrate those occasions, because it’s understood they’re tragedies above all. This was once obvious to Americans taught in school about the likes of Pavlik Morozov, the little boy who in the thirties became a celebrity for denouncing his parents’ anti-Soviet activities. The reason that story struck us as horrible once was not that Pavlik’s parents were innocent, but because we had a hard time imagining more generally: what kind of society would celebrate the dissolution of the family?
