Cal wrote:

BT wrote

I’d also disagree with Trump voters who claim the government’s social safety net is out of control. It’s actually been curtailed

The number of people who receive benefits like SNAP has steadily increased since the 1970’s. Back then, it was 7-9% of the population that received SNAP benefits.

Currently that number is 13% or so. When the US pays SNAP benefits for an extra 4% of the population that’s over a billion dollars a year. It’d be nice to put those billions dollars a year to solve some other problems.

And that’s just SNAP. I’d bet there’s been a similar increase in the percent of people who receive WIC, EIC, Mecicaid, housing, and other benefits.

Cal,

SNAP goes to mostly children and the elderly. They are the largest recipients, by far. That’s food they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. It keeps those 45 million people from going hungry. To me, there isn’t a better way to spend that money . . . and it all works its way through the economy too. Not only does it feed children and the elderly, it also boosts the economy, from farms to grocery stores, etc. etc.

As for why the numbers have grown: Wages for the rank and file in America have been largely flat since 1973, which was the end of our one and only middle class boom. Since then, more and more families had to switch from one income to two, and then use a credit card, and then mortgage their house, just to keep above water. If business owners/corporations paid better wages, we wouldn’t need the SNAP program, or most of the rest of the safety net. It’s there because of the immense greed at the top of the pyramid.

If the private sector paid fair wages, we could do without a great many of the programs that bother you. Walmart is a great example of this. Many of their employees are on SNAP — this while their CEO makes 1200 times as much as their rank and file.

A side note on the “self-interest” thing.

Read an excellent history of the Paris Commune of 1871, its backstory and the philosophy of several of its major thinkers, especially Peter Kropotkin, William Morris and Elisee Reclus:

Communal Luxury
The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune
by Kristin Ross

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2253-communal-luxury

She touches upon a very interesting divergence between Western and Eastern (in this case, Russian) evolutionists. We in the West take for granted the idea of the survival of the fittest, and a kind of endless battle to stay alive. The Russian evolutionists of the time — mid to late 19th century — were convinced that a very different scenario took place, that we survived as a species because we worked together, worked cooperatively, and instead of fighting each other to the end, as if we were automatically each other’s enemies, we joined forces to fight against our real enemies, or obstacles, or dangers . . . the elements, predators in the wild, etc. etc.

I took this to also mean that Darwinian theory may well have been influenced by capitalism and its modus operandi . . . competition. That Darwin and his followers may well have been overly influenced by their own day’s economic system, back-dating its rules and internal logic . . . and forcing it to fit our earliest days on this planet.

Personally, I think the Russian evolutionists make a hell of a lot more sense. I don’t think we ever would have survived if we had the dog eat dog mentality of the capitalist world back then. Hobbes’ war of all against all would have meant some other species would have surpassed us, most likely.

waterfield wrote:

I have many republican friends. Some are wayyyyyy to the right whom I don’t care for. Others are moderate. But to a person they ALL say they would vote for Trump again notwithstanding their distaste to the man himself.Their reasons? His policies.

Notwithstanding the polls-I think this is a real problem. We are born with “self interest” and he preaches to that. We want what WE want-not what others need. The capitalistic system teaches us that our happiness is dependent on what we “gather” not what we can give. Trump’s claimer is “hey I may be an Ass hole but I can give you (not others in need ) more toys you can enjoy.

So what can be done?

While I have been an optimist for soooooo many years I no longer am. Not because of Trump but because of my “friends” who I talk to. Where in the world did they learn its all about “them”. Is there anything that can practically be done?

Here’s what I think we should do: Stop trying to understand, court, pamper, coddle or work with right-wingers when it comes to making public policy. Instead, we on the left should do everything we can to defeat them and keep them from power. Just utterly defeat them, keep them from power, and once we’re in power, make the best public policy we can for everyone — which necessarily means ignoring right-wingers.

The reason I say the above: It goes to your discussion via “self-interest.” That view is itself “self-serving,” because it’s not at all supported by science, common sense, history or logic. As in, we never would have survived as a species if not for literally hundreds of thousands of years of communal organization, sharing everything, cooperating with each other, helping each other out. I think the vast majority of people prefer that way of life to the dog eat dog world promoted by capitalist propaganda, and I know it’s the better way to view things when making public policy.

(To keep the post relatively short, I’ll add to this later)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

This reminds me a bit of football games and referees who see the last punch thrown, not what preceded it.

Israel restarted the conflict with Iran AND the Palestinians, attacking both, provoking a response. They responded in their various ways, and Israel hit back, saying they had the right to defend themselves. Blamed Hamas and Iran for it all.

Israel was like the offensive linemen who cuts blocks the DE, trying to end his career. The DE sees what just happened and responds. The referee ONLY sees that response.

Of course, it’s far, far worse than that, because, when it comes to the Palestinians, it’s like a thousand NFL offensive linemen trying to end the career of a Pop Warner DE.

I despise bullies.

Meanwhile, we had split screen images of Trump, his family, the Kushners oblivious to all this, talking about peace while they no doubt cut their kickback deals to enrich both families. And they brought with them among the most despicable and odious far-right pastors on the planet.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I was thinking this morning about Cohen’s pay to play stuff, in relation to Maher’s bit about the mob.

DC, prior to Trump, did its graft, grifting, bribery and pay to play in a much different manner. Most of it was legal, and was almost always done according to Hoyle. Trump campaigns on a promise to end all of that, and his fans bought it, hook, line and sinker.

In reality, what Trump has done is to break apart the process and go direct. Instead of doing the deals according to Hoyle, and filling out all the paperwork — like, if you’re a foreign agent or domestic lobbyist, you fill out the paperwork for this, etc. etc. . . . Trump, Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Pruitt, et al, have basically just bypassed the usual channels.

One could say this is “refreshing.” Or, one could step back and think of a third option. Rather than accept the old ways, the legalized graft, grifting and bribery, end all of it. Trump could have gone that way. But he chose, instead, to innovate off the old system while retaining the graft, the grifting and the pay to play.

I hope smart people don’t see him as some kind of heroic rebel against the establishment. Cuz that’s not what any of this is. To be heroic would mean to end the corruption, period, not redirect it and cut out most of the middlemen.

==================

And now that Trump has lowered the bar so completely — and now that people see that IT WORKS — things will never be the same.

I’m not sayin everyone will be as bad as Trump but things will never go back to the pre-trump level of corruption and loathsomeness.

…i really wish i could get a Finland-English newspaper everyday. One assumes humanity looks a bit better from Finland. Are there more critical thinkers in Finland, BT? Or am i just imagining a place where peoples brains havent been so damaged and colonized…

Is it fair to say Fox News, Talk Radio, and the Corporate-MSM do ‘violence’ to citizens’ brains? The lies/propaganda is incessant now. 24 hours a day. Lies beaming into citizens brains. Has there been anything quite like this before?
Can we compare this to Nazi Germany or not? Is propaganda more effective now or not? More subtle?

w
v

I agree with what you say above, and your questions are beyond fair.

Finland? I have no first hand experience, but judging from results, pretty much all of Europe has better education than we do, better public access to cultural venues, free tuition for colleges . . . with some countries (like Germany) even willing to pay overseas tuition . . . They live happier, healthier, longer lives . . . and they beat us on pretty much every quality of life metric there is.

I’m guessing they have their issues too, like anywhere else, but in relative terms? It’s a better overall place to grow up and grow old. It’s a better place to try to cut through the bullshit.

I would have moved there long ago if I could have afforded it . . . well, plus family matters, health issues, etc. etc. But I’m still hoping to retire to Portugal, or France, or Spain, or Ireland, if the fates allow.

I was thinking this morning about Cohen’s pay to play stuff, in relation to Maher’s bit about the mob.

DC, prior to Trump, did its graft, grifting, bribery and pay to play in a much different manner. Most of it was legal, and was almost always done according to Hoyle. Trump campaigns on a promise to end all of that, and his fans bought it, hook, line and sinker.

In reality, what Trump has done is to break apart the process and go direct. Instead of doing the deals according to Hoyle, and filling out all the paperwork — like, if you’re a foreign agent or domestic lobbyist, you fill out the paperwork for this, etc. etc. . . . Trump, Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Pruitt, et al, have basically just bypassed the usual channels.

One could say this is “refreshing.” Or, one could step back and think of a third option. Rather than accept the old ways, the legalized graft, grifting and bribery, end all of it. Trump could have gone that way. But he chose, instead, to innovate off the old system while retaining the graft, the grifting and the pay to play.

I hope smart people don’t see him as some kind of heroic rebel against the establishment. Cuz that’s not what any of this is. To be heroic would mean to end the corruption, period, not redirect it and cut out most of the middlemen.

Strangely enough, WV, there ARE some ways the MSM actually help Trump tremendously and hurt the Dems’ chance to return to power.

One biggie I’m noticing now? The normalization of corruption. It’s almost as if they all got the same memo. Whenever they talk about Cohen taking all of that money from corporate America and a few corporations overseas, they feel the need to add, “Well, this is the way DC works.” I rarely ever see their talking heads outraged over this direct Pay for Play, even though they covered it whenever Trump accused HRC of this during the campaign. Now it’s all supposed to be normal and A okay.

They did the same with Kushner when he took meetings with two large corporations in the Oval Office and then got 500 million in loans from them.

Trump has set new records for grifting while in office, and before he got there, and as mentioned earlier, Americans are being overwhelmed by this. I think the MSM too often treats it as just another day in the neighborhood, and might as well just add “blah blah blah” to each story.

Naturalizing and normalizing Trump era corruption helps him and the GOP and hurts the Dems.

As usual, the caveat for me is: I want BOTH parties to get the hell out of Dodge. Forever. They make me sicker than the chemo.

So, again, WV, I probably misunderstand you. But if you’re seeing a symmetrical dynamic of some kind between a “Dem-MSM” and a right-wing MSM . . . . I don’t agree. It’s asymmetrical, to begin with, and, as mentioned, I don’t think the first part exists.

I think ALL of the MSM tilts right, and that the only reason it appears, in places, at times, to prefer the Dems to the GOP is when it’s just impossible for them to maintain the lie regarding “balance” or “both sides are the same” or “they both have equally valid positions.”

When they can no longer play that game, and they finally come out and show the reality that the GOP engages in more destructive shhht than the Dems, it just seems they back the Dems.

It’s not going to happen in my lifetime, but I hope America evolves beyond the two party system, cuz it’s killing us. Both parties are horrifically bad for us, and the planet, with the GOP being substantially worse. Our only chance is to move beyond them to include the far, far better voices, ideas, ideals and policies to the left of the Dems. Well to the left of them, IMO.

. . . . The Dems are the real “conservative party” now, and have been, really, since the early 1970s. In order to actually represent the entire political spectrum, they should be considered America’s “right-wing” party, and they should be opposed by true left-wing alternatives which I’d support . . . again, like the DSA platform and further to the left. My own preference being for staunchly anticapitalist, small is beautiful, localized, egalitarian, cooperative economies, federated, under a fully democratized economy and society . . . . antiwar, mind-your-own business, protector of the environment, etc. etc.

wv wrote:

Well before we even get to the changed landscape between now and the 70’s — there’s the issue of THE TAPES. Nixon taped himself doing all this shit. Without that unique dynamic, Nixon would have stonewalled and survived.

But as to the video — 70 percent of Americans trusted the MSM back in the 70s. Was that a ‘good‘ thing? Good ole days of trusting the corporate media?

I agree with the commentator that things are a dumpster-fire now. And i agree that things have changed with the rise of the rightwing-lie-machine.

But things were not good in the olden days either. It was a different kind of dumpster-fire back in the 50’s, 60s, and 70s, etc. Back then i was listening to TV-MSM and i was being mislead every night. (Now, with the internet I have at least a small chance of finding my way toward the light.)

I think the vid makes some good points about the change, but where I’d disagree is that he kinda tries to make the case that the MSM was more truthful back in the 70’s — because there was hardly any rightwing media. But i think the MSM has always been in the pocket of the Corps, as Chomsky talked about in the 80’s in Manufacturing Consent. Its just that now we have the Right-MSM lying to us from the right, and the Dem-MSM lying to us from the ‘left’. What do we do with that?

Its also been my experience that Tucker Carlson (wacko that he is) is sometimes way more insightful on some issues than the Dem-MSM. On Syria for example. What to do with ‘that’ ?

To me the voters are staggering toward catastrophe because they DO trust EITHER Fox OR NPR/MSNBC. They ought look at both behemoths as Factories-Of-Lies. But they trust one or the other. They ‘say’ they dont trust the MSM but they do — they trust one of the lie-machines. Or the other.

Used to be we had one lie machine. Now we have two. So yes, things have changed.

Just my opin-yun. Call me Mary Sunshine.

w
v

Good point about the tapes.

We agree about so much of the above . . . but I part ways with you on the concept of a Dem-MSM and a right-wing MSM. Though I’m probably misreading you . . .

I don’t see NPR or MSNBC as necessarily pro-Dem or anti-Republican. I see some individual water-carriers for the Dems, like Maddow and Hayes, but if you look at their entire lineup, it leans to the right. They have as many conservative hosts as so-called “liberal” hosts. It’s just that their conservatives can’t stand Trump, but they don’t support the Dems, at all.

NPR is deathly afraid of offending conservatives, so it tends to be as straight down the middle as possible, which will always skew reality. The reality is, from empirical evidence, that the right’s view of the world, on down to its individual issues, is just not in sync with that world, and wrong on solutions. So if media try to be “fair and balanced,” and give as much validity to right-wing thought as left of center, it’s not telling us the truth. If you have an argument between a flat-earther and a normal human, and you set things up as equally valid, you do the nation a huge disservice.

But that’s what the MSM does. And it doesn’t want the Dems to win more often than the GOP. It wants a a horse race, a food fight, a conflict — that sells. It doesn’t want reality, evidence or facts to overcome “fake news” as presented by the right, because that hurts ratings. It wants a horse race between the two parties . . . which wouldn’t occur if Americans actually knew what was going on and voted their own best interests. Roughly 90% of them, at least, would vote Dem over Republican, with just those two choices.

wv wrote:

Yep. Campbell was a huge influence for me.

The shattering came first, as a kid. A good kind, a necessary kind of shattering. When I got older, mythology did help heal, like he said it would. And led to magic everywhere.

Another coincidence of sorts, it would appear: You “got” Chomsky back in 1988, a long time before I did. I think Campbell’s Power of Myth series with Moyers was the next year?

Moyers himself seemed to have undergone mini-epiphanies during that series of interviews. It may just have been his way, the way he did all interviews, but I remember thinking Campbell was breaking through to him, unlike what would happen to most journalists in that kind of process.

wv wrote:

Anybody remember a time when you read a book and it had a big effect on you. A transformation. A significant change.

Back in 1988, i was on the ninth floor of WVU’s old Library, and it was late at night, and i was all alone on the ninth floor. I think it was a Friday night. And i remember coming across “The Culture of Terrorism” – an old Chomsky book.
And i read it for a coupla hours, and it kinda cracked up or cracked open my mind. It was like when you dial in the numbers on a combination lock and that last number lines up and there’s a “click”. My brain went “click”. Things were never the same after that. Newsweek and Time never seemed the same after that. I was no longer a mainstreamer politically. I didnt know much but I knew somethin had changed and i couldnt go back to Time/Newsweek/Face-The-Nation world.

James Joyce would have called that an “epiphany.”

I think I’ve probably had too many of those moments for my own good.

May have the dates wrong for this one, but reading Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces, followed by Robert Graves’ Greek Myths — those were the first profound reading experiences I can recall. I think I was 9 or 10. Weird, but it wasn’t that far removed from becoming a Rams’ fan.

I could never look at Christianity, god, gods, religion the same again. It shattered all those things for me. The biggest, brightest light came on . . . that if there were thousands of different gods and goddesses, and thousands of varieties of belief through the millennia, all across the world . . . how could there be any thing like “the one true god”?

Fast forward to a much later epiphany: Reading William Barrett’s Irrational Man. Perhaps the best single intro to Existentialism ever written. Nothing was the same after that, either. I think that was 1983.

A lot of mini-epiphanies since that time, with some launching many others.

Most recently reread a book that did that, but in an odd sort of way: George Scialabba’s awesome What Are Intellectuals Good For? It’s odd because it’s a collection of essays and reviews (primarily) about intellectuals who caused some of those mini-epiphanies in the past, or would have caused them if I had know about them before. Rereading the book made me want to chase them down all over again, or for the first time. A great collection for leftists, especially.

I’m not seeing anyone talk about this in the MSM:

How was this deal supposedly so bad for the USA in the first place?

We gave up absolutely nothing, and Iran gave up its sovereignty via its nuclear program. This didn’t cost us a penny. We ceded no ground. We merely eased up on sanctions that we didn’t really have a right to impose in the first place, for inspections of a sovereign nation’s own nuclear program which was none of our business either.

(America is also the only nation to use the bomb to murder nearly 300,000 innocent civilians on two already defenseless islands.)

Easing up on sanctions is kinda like this:

Joe Smith is pounding the much, much smaller John Doe, smashing him into the ground, stomping on him. They finally cut a deal for Joe Smith to stop doing that. In this case, Smith stops because Doe says he will open up his home to the entire neighborhood to inspect, even though no one else in the neighborhood has to do this, and he hasn’t done anything illegal, or anything that Smith hasn’t done himself already.

I don’t get it.

To me, the Iran deal is one of the most one-sided deals ever, but in the opposite direction. It greatly benefited America, cost us nothing, and hurt Iran. Why rip that up?

wv wrote:

waterfield wrote:

Interesting article about the eroding-or changing face of communism over the years/

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gitlin-communism-anniversary-20180504-story.html

=========================

“…During the preceding half-century, despite all of Communism’s recorded crimes, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries had remained committed to the absolute rule of a single party as the only viable remedy for capitalism. Around the world, Soviet-style governments enjoyed a reputation as the best imaginable route to social progress….”
——–

Thank goodness we have something so much better than a SINGLE party here in America.

I mean we have TWO whole parties that rule everyone. 🙂

w
v
“I will say is that there are particular features of the American constitutional system that renders a third party futile – at best.” Todd Gitlin

I’ve been having that argument with Dems on another forum. They were trashing Jill Stein, as usual, and calling the Green party reprehensible, and “spoilers” and so on.

I made the point that in an actual democracy, you can’t have “spoilers,” cuz everyone would be welcome to run for office, try to win hearts and minds, try to win the ability to represent us. None of our votes are owed to the duopoly. They don’t own them. No one who votes for another party is “stealing” votes from the Dems. Those votes were never the Dems’ property in the first place.

They never get it.

And when I point out that, no, Nader didn’t cost Gore the 2000 election, Gore did that himself, they scream. And then I ask them which number if higher:

The 350,000 Dems who voted for Bush directly in Florida, or the 23,000 Nader voters who might have voted for Gore if the Greens had not run?

350,000 versus 23,000. And beyond that, half of the Dems stayed home.

A two-party system is waaaay too close to a one-party system. They don’t get that one, either.

wv wrote:

Banking and War:https://www.truthdig.com/articles/i-know-which-country-the-u-s-will-invade-next/

“….I think I’m noticing a trend. In fact, on Jan. 4, it was reported that Pakistan was ditching the dollar in its trade with China, and that same day, the U.S. placed it on the watch list for religious freedom violations. The same day? Are we really supposed to believe that it just so happened that Pakistan stopped using the dollar with China on the same day it started punching Christians in the nose for no good reason? No, clearly Pakistan had violated our religion of cold hard cash.

This leaves only one question: Who will be next on the list of U.S. illegal invasions cloaked in bullshit justifications? Well, last week, Iran finally did it: It switched from the dollar to the euro. And sure enough, this week, the U.S. military-industrial complex, the corporate media and Israel all got together to claim that Iran is lying about its nuclear weapons development. What are the odds that this news would break within days of Iran dropping the dollar? What. Are. The. Odds?…see link

I read this today, over at Truthdig, while I was getting chemo. Really excellent. Um, well, not the chemo, the article. One of his best, evah. Thought about posting it here, in fact, and then I noticed you had already done so.

There aren’t that many people who can drive home deadly serious points, while throwing in the occasional bit of humor, and make it work. He does. Consistently. It’s not going to happen, and we both know why . . . but I wish he had his own prime time show, on a network that wasn’t shunted over to the side or hidden, etc.

What’s your own take on what he says, WV?

nittany ram wrote:

Wow.

Come on, Nittany. Not everyone has the time to read through your voluminous verbosity regarding current movies. I mean, some of us are just too busy with our semi-retirement days for any such laborious endeavor.

Would you mind summarizing your take a bit, please? Could you please put all of that in a “Hack-size” post, instead?