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Of course, a general discussion of systems doesn’t preclude discussions of specifics under the current regime. As ZN mentions, we can do both/and.
But, IMO, it’s very important to zoom out, think in terms of systems, and ultimate goals. Attacking just the issues, without some kind of overall “prize” in mind, some kind of horizon to aspire to . . . . can lead to a very bad sort of “pragmatics.” A “crackpot realism” that eschews taking any chances, doing anything that might appear out of the box and upset people. That kind of pragmatics often seems far more worried about appearances, and “What will people say!!” than actually ending suffering. It seeks the appearance of being “sensible” above concrete, effective actions that benefit the many.
That’s my take, anyway.
In my opinion what we can do is -instead of debating the intellectualism of whether socialism is a better form of government than capitalism or whatever etc-is to look across the street at our neighbor who is less fortunate and suffering and say: what can I do.
Waterfield,
One of the biggest reasons for my passionate belief in real socialism replacing our current system is just that. That person across the street who suffers. Or anyone suffering anywhere. I see the vast majority of the suffering as due to capitalism. And from my POV, it’s not a matter of “unbridled capitalism.” It’s not something we can tame or reform. It’s the thing itself. It’s the way it unleashed competitive laws of motion on the world that weren’t there before it, how it destroyed local markets and local ways of life in order to unify all markets under one thumb. It did this violently when it rose. It still uses violence today, but, because it’s already conquered nearly everything, we don’t see that as blatantly as before. But its effects never go away. No economic system prior to it ever caused so much widespread suffering, as no previous economic system was inherently imperialistic like capitalism. No previous system ever had its imperatives to Grow or Die . . . so that it must take over time and space — the future and all geography, near and far.
Boiled down: I think real socialism is the answer. The real deal. Which means the people own the means of production directly, not through proxies like political parties. The entire economy is fully democratic, with everyone having an equal say, an equal voice, an equal share. No bosses. No gods, no masters. We are all co-owners. No employees. No employers.
No economic system in which everyone has an equal say, an equal share, an equal stake, is going to allow the kind of suffering you speak of. It will have its own problems, conflicts, make its own set of errors. But with the end of the class system, with all of the old hierarchies toppled, it’s not going to be a matter of haves and have-nots anymore. That’s the road to a better world, and it’s a “pragmatic” road, too.
Oh, and then along comes Trump to prove once again he’s a serial liar and piece of garbage:
Donald Trump told NBC News that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is “racist” and “a total fraud”
“She made up her heritage, which I think is racist. I think she’s a racist, actually because what she did was very racist,” Trump said in a phone interview
“She used the fact that she was Native American to advance her career. Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud. I know it. Other people who work with her know it. Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud,” Trump said.
First off, he lied about what Warren said regarding her Native American heritage. Second, it’s not “racist” to claim Native American heritage, and it’s pretty common for a lot of Americans that they were told they had Native American blood. I learned this about my own family as well. Genealogical research uncovered Cherokee blood for us.
Racism is the belief in the superiority of one’s “race” — a social construct, to begin with — and that it should rightfully dominate the nation or the world. It’s not in the slightest bit “racist” to claim one’s ancestors had this or that ethnic makeup. Trump is just being his usual asshole, lying self.
That is a weird exchange. Reminds me of some of the discussions I had or witnessed on a Lakers forum. I’ve been a Lakers fan just about as long as a Rams’ fan, and I’m pushing 50 years for that. But I was also critical of Kobe at times, cuz I think he took far too many dumb shots, and rarely tried to work the ball in for better ones. My own preference is for team-ball to the degree possible. Pass it. Set up others for the highest percentage shot, etc. And tried to explain that. Nothing was directed at any posters. Nothing was said about anyone other than Kobe, and I qualified that with a great deal of respect for his talents. “He’s one of the best, ever, but I wish . . . ” etc. etc. That caused an instant kind of rage, which turned personal and ugly.
I just don’t get that kind of response. And, IMO, it’s a lot worse online, cuz, well, people feel empowered cuz of the anonymity of it all, and they aren’t seeing the other person while speaking.
Oh, well.
How does that work exactly? How do Bernie and Trump supporters get thrown in the same boat? And how do leftists become ‘extremists’ ? And how does a closet-neocon like Hillary become a “non-extremist” to the mass-media ?
Good questions.
I think it’s pretty much who controls the narrative. Sometimes, just a matter of who has the numbers in their favor. But, yeah. From my POV, “leftists” are the sane, rational, logical folks, and centrists, the center-right and especially the far right are the crazies, in general. Again, in general. Like, Single Payer to me is just a “duh” kind of thing. Not “extreme” in the slightest, though it was portrayed that way by some.
Bart Ehrman wrote a really good book on early Christianity, Lost Christianities. In it he talks about the way various factions took control of the Christian narrative, booted out others who thought differently, and sometimes were themselves booted out in turn. The folks who ended up writing the history (and putting together the canon) called all of the losers everything from “extremists” to heretics. And that was when they were being really nice. And, he points out, most of those losers were lost to history, so we never got the chance to hear their side of the story. Not prior to their losing, or in response to their banishment. They were basically erased from history.
By way of contrast . . . I think the leftists here have it pretty much spot on. Big contrast with those other sites.
Also, a qualification: It goes without saying that my descriptions above aren’t meant to be definitive — or claim that. They’re just anecdotal, and just my own experience — so far.
I recently had an interesting set of experiences online, regarding the Clinton/Sanders food fight. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. And just when I thought I had gotten some idea about the lay of the land, I was surprised again.
I left two sites because they seemed completely intolerant when it came to Sanders supporters. There wasn’t any middle ground. You were either a Clinton supporter, or you were some deranged “Bernie bro,” basically automatically thought of as sexist and racist and always rude to everyone else.
I found another site that seemed, at least at first, to be far more welcoming to we leftists. But, bit by bit, I discovered this place was basically just the flipside of the previous two. If you weren’t howling at the moon angry with Clinton, 24/7, you were some secret ringer for her. And if you responded by talking about leftist ideals, you were supposedly making all of that up.
Fear, suspicion and paranoia beset all three sites. Snap judgments, massive assumptions and a complete inability to read beset both.
I thought the Clinton supporters on the first two sites were crazy, the way they described “Bernie bros.” But the third site made their descriptions a bit closer to reality. Any general claim about the far right’s racism and xenophobia almost instantly caused a ruckus and howls of protest. Even the mildest criticism of Trump was all but forbidden. Again, this really surprised me.
Anyway, to make a long story short: I think some of the most passionate Sanders supporters online are right-wingers, including ex-Ron Paul supporters, and people who really like Trump too. Leftists and liberals as well, of course. And they’re likely the majority by a good margin. But I think his most vocal fans online are often righties.
It’s a very strange mix — the folks whom Hillary has pissed off to no end.
It probably has the biggest body count on TV. Which, if we stop and think about it, should make us stop watching it. Along with several other problematics, mostly involved with its treatment of women. Though I have a feeling the show runners have finally accepted that as a problem.
Anyway . . . it’s a guilty pleasure. And it really is a magnificently done guilty pleasure.
First impressions of the finale? Wow. Just wow. What is the term? Prestige TV? Sheesh. This show epitomizes that and more. I don’t think anything can actually touch it for its range, its cinematography, locations, drama, climatic moments, suspense, etc. etc.
Love the aesthetics of the show and pretty much everything about it. My only quibble is something it really can’t help. The nature of the books forces them to move from story arc to story arc, and sometimes this feels like . . . wait a second. Stay with what you’re doing and don’t shift to another story arc!! But I can forgive them for this, because I pretty much love all of them . . . . well, with the exception of the Dorne stuff, which is better in the books than it is on TV . . . and it really should be great on TV. The source material is there, especially with the Sand Snakes. Great material, kinda squandered on the show.
Anyway . . . loved all kinds of moments, but especially when the little Mormont queen declared for Jon Snow. And the final scene of the armada on its way to Westeros. Too cool. Dragons, Daenarys, etc. etc. Now, seriously, how on earth is Cersei going to stop that! And, personally, I don’t want her to, at all.
A bummer that I have to wait a year to find out.
;>)
Thanks, WV.
In Kristin Ross’s excellent Communal Luxury, she talks of Marx’s discovering Russian evolutionists, and their quite different theory of the rise of humans. Rather than seeing it all as “survival of the fittest,” they tended to view it as “survival of the cooperative.” That humans lived on if they banded together to fight the elements, not each other. My own take from this was that perhaps Darwin and others in Britain had been unduly influenced by Capitalism and its laws of competitive motion — consciously or unconsciously. Perhaps they read the present back into the past, at least a bit.
It’s also the case that inside any business with employees, they can’t survive via internal competition. If they don’t have cooperation, they fall. So there are dueling aspects happening, even under capitalism, constantly. And that internal cooperation, its necessity, tells me that the external, competitive kind isn’t at all necessary, because it (cooperation) could be scaled up between businesses. Though that would, of course, mean the end of capitalism, which I fervently desire.
So, anyway . . . . I just think it’s really interesting that the Brits and the Russians had wildly different ideas about what “evolution” actually meant for human beings.
Excellent list, ZN. I’ve read all of those except for Otsuka and Adichie. Should have named Faulkner in my list for the greatest prose stylists, too.
Riffing off of Garcia Marquez, I think people who haven’t read the “Boom” artists of Latin American, and Magic Realism in general, would greatly enjoy them. Jose Donoso, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino and Jose Maria Arguedas, for starters. Another cool thing is they also wrote great short stories, especially Borges, Fuentes, Cortazar and the Italian, Calvino. Strange, weird, beautiful, fantastical stories.
Also long those lines, Franz Kafka (Czech), Bruno Schulz (Pole) and Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese) — and a contemporary of ours, Haruki Murakami (Japanese). Kafka is, in my view, the most important writer of the 20th century. Not necessarily the best, though he was great. But the most important. Primarily because of how he seemed to capture what would become the zeitgeist, the political imaginary that hit so much of the world after Kafka escaped it in 1924. Less “magical,” but nearly as astute, I’m also a huge fan of the novels of Joseph Roth (Austrian). He wrote of the dying world of 19th and early 20th century Mitteleuropa. Central Europe, etc. They make a great pair: Roth and Kafka. Tribune of the past. Herald of the future. Pessoa seems all to himself with his Book of Unquiet and his many masks, his separate, invented biographies. Schulz died in the Holocaust, but left us brilliant fantasies and drawings.
Murakami’s best work, IMO, is his earlier stuff. Dance Dance Dance, Wild Sheep Chase, Norwegian Wood. But it’s all very good.
WV,
Hope you and yours are more than just okay. Just heard your state has had massive flooding, with loss of life, and nearly every county is considered a disaster area.
We were hit with heavy rains, lightning storms and flooding too, but not nearly like the other Virginia.
Again, hope all is well.
I think I’m the one that needs coffee Billy. What I meant was that the youngsters wanted to stay the oldsters wanted to leave. Which would make my earlier post about racism nonsensical.
No worries, Waterfield. It’s a very confusing world out there. To be really Zen about it all, we need to go with the flow and be confused and confusing ourselves. Something I’ve always been really good at . . . even before I discovered Zazen.
;>)
Waterfield, unless I misread you, I think you’re contradicting yourself.
It looks like you first said the older voters were more likely to want to stay, and then with the last comment, more likely to want to leave.
Then, again, I think I may need some more coffee. So I might be wrong.
:>)
