MaxSpeak, You Listen!
thanks for introducing us to mr palley.
also.. shouldn't the post title be karlito's way?
Hey, I have been saying this for at least 7 years now. I'm an office manager for a doctor's office in Salt Lake City, UT. I am also a history nut. If I could figure out that Karl Marx hit the nail on the head re globalization, etc. Why couldn't our genuis policymakers figure it out? Government for the corporations by the corporations?
That is an excellent article.
But Marx had the luxury of a philosophy of history that led him to believe that an era of justice was at hand. We don't have that luxury. We have the unsettling intuition that when things get worse- they may very well stay worse.
That's why we are obligated to fight defensive actions to save the vulnerable achievements of the New Deal, etc. If we lose them, we may never get them back.
Do today's corporate management, ie Republicans, ever think about the future? As in, at some point most people in this country won't be able to buy the crap they sell.
Aluvius.....do you really think the Republican's are the only party of corporate America? It was Clinton and his minions who got NAFTA and GATT passed.
The only difference between the two major political parties are basically a few
squabbles about social issues that have little if any relationship to economics.
Both Democrats and Republicans are nursing from the same corporate teat.
Glass....
Until we have something better than the Dems- which will be....never?...someday?... I think we better appreciate the real differences between the 2 parties. It's those seemingly small differences that make all the difference.
How come we don't see a link like this on DeLong's site?
For a look at the other side of globalization, read Bill McKibben's "The Great Leap" in the December Harper's. Folks in Detroit aren't the only ones suffering.
I'm reminded of a graph I saw in the economist a while ago...
Well, what Marx called cosmopolitan exploitation desperately needs to be be met with a cosmopolitics of the left that puts the legal architecture of neoliberalism on the chopping block. That means that merely nationalist approaches to the problem will not work at all. Greens are way ahead of labor on this stuff even as that image of the "Teamsters and Turtles together at last" is a faded memory from my hometown in Seattle and the little party we had in 1999, still calling out to the workers of the world to unite for utterly different reasons than Marx imagined. We're on the only planet with fresh water and air in our neighborhood of space-time. Our kids will be toast if the plundering isn't stopped. Let's get on with it.
Dale...
I can't really argue with your logic. But I think it is important to recognize that the
Democratic party will not change the trend of corporate hegemony. It is, however,
the lesser of two evils. I worry that the end result is a little like the choice of lethal injection vs. hanging. Same outcome but one is uglier and more painful than the other.
You're correct Glassishalfempty. I suppose its just that the Republicans don't try to hide it heh. That and the fact that every asshole boss I've had was a right wing Republican. But yeah, DLC Democrats are just as bad. Is it just plain old greed that has made it so hard to find a middle ground between social responsibility and dog eat dog capitalism?
Down with corporatist America! Up with....up with......uh......hmmm (the preceding was brought you by "democrats for a different future".....they're just not sure what the difference is.....)
A left Democratic country wouldn't look at lot different MM. Universal health care. Full employment policies. Work towards reducing the clout of large financial donors to politics. Break up mass media conglomorates.
Reduce the rate of budget deficit growth. Reduce military spending.
Energy policy that promotes sustainable economic growth.
Redistribute most of the gains from economic globalization.
Dale- This sounds familiar......didn't some other countrys try this....what were their names? Before they went under.......remind me.....
These have been themes of every decent democratic country. I suppose that's why they seem familiar. I don't think decency and democracy have gone under. Not yet.
Dale- How dare you bring up such puritanical ideas that invoke the patriarchical hegemony of our racist and bigoted past! Decency was slowly aborted somewhere between sucking the brains out of partially birthed children and sex change operations for our cats...somewhere in there.....I couldn't give you an exact time but we I know we celebrate our abandonment every few months with a new lawsuit. But if it makes you feel any better, I still believe in Santa
MM-
I thought you were traumatized by the IRS.
Now it's women's reproductive freedom that keeps you up at night.
It's our unrealized ideals of a decent democratic society that brought to the fore the previously unchallenged assumptions of patriarchy, racism and bigotry that lay hidden in traditional puritanical beliefs. You know that.
We honor our predecessors for their insights. We try to overcome their blind spots.
That's called Enlightenment and progress.
.
Dale- As a friend, I'll pretend you didn't just wade into the "Sea of Hack-kneed Rhetoric"....but lucky for you, I brought my speedo.
Although I spend most nights traumatized by the IRS, I sometimes slip in a few "toss and turn" moments for women...I mean...well...you know what I mean and wipe that smile off your face! So I understand you correctly, the whole "suck the brains out of a partially birthed child" is a womans reproductive right? Would the whole "I shot everybody in my neighborhood with my glock" be a woman's 2nd amendment unproductive right? I need your help here, I'm trying to catalog "America's Funniest Euphamisms" into a coffee table book so I can sell a million copies and wet the bed worrying about the IRS and a woman's unproductive right to choose death......
P.S. The word "decency", is that YOUR definition or someone elses? Who is to say what is good? God Bless you, Dale. You've given me another reason to blog.
Max's link has disappeared behind the NY Times' archives. Here's the weblog safe link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/1...serland&
emc=rss
Dale and Glass:
The way I think about things: Republicans are the party of slavery, Democrats are the party of indenturehood.
LB,
I admit that I'm cautious. I feel protective about the gains we've made in previous generations. Under a regime of the Radical Right I feel justified in my caution.
One of my mentors says that with the collapse of Utopian thinking the only vialble alternative is careful experimentation.
With prodding from the left, I see the Dems as the party of careful experimentation in the realm of social progress. But I hope we get on with things.
I worry about the mounting level of problems in the world. we share the world with 6 billion people who want the good life that so many of us have.
I don't think any party or anyone at all has all the answers to the world's needs.
And when you see otherwise intelligent people like Marco equating abortion with a shooting rampage it's easy to feel hopeless about the chances for reaching any sort of consensus on what our problems are- never mind finding consensus on solving problems.
But it seems to me that the Dems are the only viable political alternative. Everything is ambiguous. We do what we can with the tools at hand.
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