If working people were a bit more desperate about their economic situations, some conservative thinkers & the uber wealthy believe, they’d be less likely to organize, protest, or even vote
Your point about education hit the mark with me. I was raised in a poor family with only high school educations. Fortunately for me, the Calif state college system was very inexpensive and I decided to attend while working nights. I recall paying about $50 for a load of classes and $100 for (used) books per semester. This was just before Reagan came into office in Calif and began the trashing the system. I (and my wife) were fortunate to both get degrees and begin careers while raising a family.
It was Reagan that stump my formal education and that of many other friends and relatives. Took me a while longer but while not easy, I overcame the battle.
I believe a key line in this entire report is at the end of the Burke quotation wherein he warns of the consequences of fair treatment to ordinary people: "In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.” The phrase "at war with nature" is a direct contradiction to the essential, revolutionary belief of America..."We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights among the are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Nature in Burke's view advocates that "nature" has created humans as essentially unequal and, therefore, any social inequality is justified as "natural". As Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of
Man" shows, much, if not most, of post-Darwinian American social science, focusing on craniology, eugenics, intelligence (IQ) testing, etc., had the implicit belief of inequality as its a priori assumption.
Human equality is also an a priori assumption which is beyond the pale of scientific proof. Nevertheless, if equality is assumed to be a human possession by the mere fact of existence, then the focus becomes the need to create and maintain the conditions that enable whatever personal qualities each individual may have to grow and flourish; rather than only for those who are deemed, by whatever superficial criteria, to be inherently superior. I can not see how society is thus harmed.
Americans tend to jingoistically pride ourselves as being the greatest society in the history of the world. Think how much greater the USA and the world in general would be if we did not intentionally or unintentionally handicap our citizens based on beliefs of inferiority based on race, gender, wealth,
Me too! "At war with nature!" Boom! Aren't the powers that be in love with the "naturalness" of the heirarchy! I also made a note that the continuum from the "Dark Ages" to the "Middle Ages" was not so fuzzy if viewed through the lens of the weaponization of RELIGION.
Yup. The "Seven Deadly Sins" are a badge of (natural) privilege. I would nominate "lust" for primacy, though. Females are ever the pawns and the prizes, and the SCAPEGOATS!
Just maybe it is because no one in our government is held accountable for their actions which has been going on for many, many decades. The constitution is not held highly even in the Supreme Court and in
lower courts.
The low lives in congress have learned that lies and corruption are tolerated and their will be no accountability. Now laws and institutions that have authority to hold people accountable are being removed from our laws.
I remember reading something about in 50's a couple was put to death for treason?? Anymore the incentive to run for public office is to get rich quick.
Jules and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for espionage. It was a mixture of real spying during the Manhattan Project, anti-Communist fears (Stalin had just gotten the atomic bomb and the Korean War was dragging on), Ethel's brother selling her out for a lighter sentence, and possibly Anti-Semitism. Jules was probably guilty of at least some things, she much less so. Nobody else involved was executed. It was a nasty story all the way through.
And now we had President who has secret meetings with Russian Oligarchs and Presidents, takes money from same Russians and no one cares except for a Paul Ryan who quietly whispers to his colleagues. "Let's not say that too loudly or all this goes away!" They say these things and have no fear of being put to death, which our constitution calls for. We really need to seriously "Dump the Incumbents"! From both parties.
If we are going to go deep, I think that we need to consider a few other aspects of what has been discussed in today’s piece. The part that evangelicals play is mentioned. However, there are more elemental ideas which undergird all of religion and large segments of our society as well as many other concepts which have had profound effects. There is a moralism that feeds into exceptionalism, supremacy, and the inherent value of prosperity. The wealthy, along with millions of ordinary people, including many of the poorest are god-fearing, evil-hating persons - - evil-hating being defined as hating those miscreants who defy god’s authority or the authority of the special people ostensibly doing their particular god’s bidding, who defy others in high positions, and those who offend certain traditions or select values, such as strict and rigid notions about acting and behaving. They often do not identify as religious but they have narrowly defined, if rather nebulous or vague beliefs about everything from capitalism to cultural practices.
I think that the need to avoid disruptive change or any significant re-evaluation of the status quo and the structure of the social order is quite strongly motivating and irrational. Change and questioning authority or convention threatens certain people, frequently causing them to reflexively react without much conscious awareness of the dynamics, typically leading to alliances or identification with ultra-conservative/reactionary groups and causes.
Suffering and grueling work are also valued as subtle but steady producers of virtue, character, and superiority, ideas primarily generated by religion and religiosity or by those who are inclined to sacrifice everything to reign supreme or to defeat real or imagined competitors and enemies. Idle hands cause trouble and active critical minds lead to the sort of knowledge that has condemned women to subjugation and condemnation since Eve.
Conformity is king for many of these people. I’m afraid that woke voters may not be enough to get us out of the mess we are in. It’s starting to look as if we will have to see groups organizing like the French activist student group I recently read about called “Enrages” (translated “Angry People”) from 1967. They started out as a tiny group and quickly inspired thousands to raise holy hell, with large protests and riots until many of the social changes were forced which the French workers enjoy today.
This won’t happen here as long as conformity, good behavior, and the benevolence of authority are drilled into the brains of school students universally through compulsory indoctrination based on the Prussian academy model from the 1700’s or commercialized training academies for twelve formative years.
A democracy is only as good as its citizens. When we are cranking out drones and dumbed-down consumers and followers, we give the arrogant elites an excuse to step in as presumptuous problem solvers. Either citizens will learn democratic values by living them as children, or they will learn something else.
Funny coincidence, since Dickens is mentioned by Thom here. I just happen to be about 1/4 way thru Dickens' "Hard Times," which is excruciatingly about education of the young. Don't know if Dickens had the "Prussian academy model" in mind, but key characters are "Mr. Gradgrind" proprietor of the hellish school of stringent realism, and his star teacher, "Mr. McChoakumchild."
(Subtlety didn't sell serials, apparently.) In the context of this whole discussion, I am somewhat oppressed by the hoary, interminable perpetuity of the struggle we are talking about. I am not sure it is irrelevant to reflect back on the forever war to subjugate and discredit women. Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" just popped into my mind. I don't imagine Dickens as a conscious feminist, but so far it looks like the key disruptive plot-mover in "Hard Times" is a girl.
I thought I had sent an answer to you. But I'm just seeing a notice that my reply didn't get posted. I think it may be lost but will see if I can locate it later. I'm not sure I will be able to reproduce it. My apologies.
I am enjoying your through-lines. They just keep getting better!
All of these institutions and individuals used language as a weapon, and they did it with experts. Limbaugh and his ilk started stabbing civil discourse and Trump finished it off. The elites wielding their money and power started to call the activists "elites". The rich anointed themselves the "job creators". Worst of all, the Republicans made "money is speech" and "corporations are people" happen, and so far they have made it stick.
Can the words on a protest sign, on a website, or spoken by a wholehearted politician make a difference? It can and it has. Bernie changed everything, but he would be the first to say he didn't do it alone. Desperate doesn't play with the youth that follow him, not to mention their own outstanding leaders.
After all these years, I still think the ruling class is eternally fated to tighten the thumbscrews on the rest to a point at which murderous revolution erupts. A Promethean cycle, hardwired in DNA.
A lot of people in the Baby Boomer generation have long had a sense that a significant part of the cohort was either very unbalanced, or, at least, very selfish. This generation of voters 'sat' by while collectively the US squandered all the goodwill earned in the global community from America's support in two world wars. In addition, they stayed focused on their own well-being while corporations and media owners quietly herded everyone into a constant state of distractions with an endless state of wars to keep voters from examining the Game-at-Home.
During the 2023-24 extreme politicians will try to cut the only healthcare and pension system that many Americans have left, and ignore the pleas by 200 millionaires in Davos to tax the Rich before it's too late https://www.commondreams.org/news/tax-the-rich-davos. The BIG Question, of course, is whether the talkers have the will and the skills to actually go to work for America's future, with a passion equal to the task. The GOP challenge of the national debt limit of 33 Trillion dollars is not about money -as Mr. Hartman's analysis points out.
Let's see if the generations Post-the-Baby-Boomers has the skills, will and common sense to work for enough commonsense to attract enough voters from all parts of America - and shelve for the time being some of the more radical convictions espoused by the urban democrats. If not, the losses will be remarkable, for America and the world. Perhaps President Kennedy's call-to-duty says it best:
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
The middle class was out of control by the late 1960s, they believed, and something had to be done. There was too much democracy, and it was tearing America apart.
Looking back at the “solutions” England used around the time of the American Revolution (and for 1000 years before) and advocated by Edmund Burke and other conservative thinkers throughout history, Republicans saw a remedy to the crisis. As a bonus, it had the side effect of helping their biggest donors and thus boosting their political war-chests.
If working people, women, minorities, and students were a bit more desperate about their economic situations, these conservative thinkers asserted, then they’d be less likely to organize, protest, strike, or even vote. The unevenness, the instability, the turbulence of democracy in the 1960s would be calmed.
— To accomplish this, Reagan massively cut taxes on rich people and raised taxes on working-class people 11 times.
— He put a tax on Social Security income and unemployment benefits and put in a mechanism to track and tax tips income, all of which had previously been tax-free but were exclusively needed and used by working-class people.
— He ended the deductibility of credit-card, car-loan and student-debt interest, overwhelmingly claimed by working-class people. At the same time, he cut the top tax bracket for millionaires and multimillionaires from 74% to 27%. (There were no billionaires in America then, in large part because of FDR’s previous tax policies; the modern explosion of billionaires followed Reagan’s massive tax cuts for the rich.)
— He declared war on labor unions, crushed PATCO in less than a week, and over the next decade the result of his war on labor was that union membership went from about a third of the American non-government workforce when he came into office to around 10% today.
— He brought a young lawyer named John Roberts into the White House to work out ways to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision. His VP brought in his son, George W., to build bridges between the GOP and the most fanatical branches of evangelical Christianity, who opposed both women’s rights and the Civil Rights movement.
— He and Bush also husbanded the moribund 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT, which let Clinton help create the WTO) and NAFTA, which opened a floodgate for American companies to move manufacturing overseas, leaving American workers underemployed while cutting corporate donor’s labor costs and union membership.
Darlin', I read your stuff just to see where you stick the stiletto in: "...and shelve for the time being some of the more radical convictions espoused by the urban democrats." I'm the ultimate farm/horse-doodoo/ backwoods tree-farmer/urban amalgamation there is, and it's clear to me that those "urban democrats" have some real good ideas for all of us! You betcha!
- "... they’d have enough spare time to use democratic processes to challenge the social order and collapse the British kingdom."
- "Too much democracy, Burke believed, was a dangerous thing: deadly to nations and a violation of evolution and nature itself."
- "Young people would cease to respect their elders, they warned. Women would stop respecting (and depending on) their husbands. Minorities would begin making outrageous demands and set the country on fire."
- “ … the project of the Reagan Revolution was to dial back democracy while taking the middle class down a peg, …”
Authoritarian Social Hierarchy and Severe Punishment - Strong Moral Values of the Wealthy Class.
As John Dean and Professor Robert Altemeyer have documented the Republican Party is the Party for the authoritarian personality and its subclasses of followers, social dominators and double highs. As you and others have documented the Republican Party, and SCOTUS, are owned by, and protect and empower the wealthy class. The implication is that the wealthy represent the social dominators.
Professor Richard Wolff has documented that the authoritarian nature of Capitalism, like feudalism, is to put the wealthy class, social dominators, at the top of the capitalist economic system. From this leadership position they will maintain the right-wing authoritarian social hierarchy through punishment legalized by SCOTUS and the GQP - the GOP on authoritarian steroids.
As documented by the research of cognitive linguist, Professor George Lakoff, the authoritarian personality is nurtured within the Strict Father family model. This family model includes beliefs in an imagined social hierarchy - which is referenced by quotes from your article and listed above - and a belief in severe punishment to maintain that social hierarchy.
These two authoritarian core beliefs, or moral values, promote maintaining this social hierarchy by rewarding the wealthy at the top and punishing all others to keep them where the fit in the authoritarian ranking of inequality. The moral goal is to maximize inequality.
- “The plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide down or at least remain frozen for a few decades; end free college across the nation so students would study in fear rather than be willing to protest; and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding participation in democracy.”
There is some truth to authoritarian fears. Those abused by the wealthy and their lackeys will revolt against the maximization of inequality driven by the moral values of social hierarchy and severe punishment.
As Professor Lakoff concludes from his research on cognitive linguistics, moral values like inequality and severe punishment as a primary teaching tool, drive the authoritarian policies of the strict father family model.
Where to start? Note to self: get Dean's most recent book. "Conservatives Without Conscience" saved my sanity along the way. Pretty sure my mother was a "double high." Absolutely daughter of "Strict Father." Enough with the personal. The wild card in mass social adjustment now is technology and media. We truly are still at the threshold of how our very brain function copes with "input", and the "input" itself is just the beginning of blink of an eye in terms of the historical time frames our biology previously had to cope with.
The war on "Critical Race Theory" is a war on critical thinking. The American Exceptionalism these folks want to teach is the "koolaid" to keep the masses subdued. Remove all critical thinking from the curriculum, teach the children to be happy-clappy "patriots." They not only won't have the resources to question you or the basis of your authority, they won't have the cognitive skills. There have been many sci fi books and movies on this theme.
My current question is if my Union dues cannot be used by my Union to support my elected officials, I have to donate to a separate PAC for that.... why can my health insurance company use my healthcare premiums to make donations to the campaigns of my elected officials? Should they not be using money from their own salaries donated to a separate PAC?
I was pleased to read this, so pleased I just became a paid subscriber. I have long realized the threat a prosperous and large middle class poses to the plutocrats. It has been as obvious to me as the noses on our faces. I suggest, if you have not read it, "Beyond Originalism," by Adrian Vermeule (constitutional scholar at Harvard Law School) who openly advocates a version of this, arguing the position that the plutocrats know what is best for us. He ends the article with: "Originalism has done useful work, and can now give way to a new confidence in authoritative rule for the common good" Apparently he has expanded his thinking in a book entitled "Common Good Constitutionalism." It seems, according to Vermeule, we should all relinquish our feeble attempts at self-determinism and accept the rule of our "betters." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/ I have added the link to the Atlantic article.
Thanks Thom -- The most disturbing thing to me -- and there is a fierce competition -- may be that it seems that a very small cadre of the ultra wealthy is creating almost all of the damage, while the rest of that crew simply enjoy the extra spoils, and believe in their hubris that nothing can happen to them.
They should pay more attention to what Putin did to the billionaires, and MBS. The very rich need the rule of law, and the respect for rules, more than anybody.
For wealthy people to want tax breaks for themselves is human -- but to want the rest of their wanker cohort to not pay much is just moronic. So you pay, to make sure the losers do too. But no. Moronic is where I keep ending up, with the rich.
It's those damn immigrants . . . ! named Murdoch, I mean, of course, and only a few of those.
We need to tell people that we have $135 Trillion of net wealth, and that $32 Trillion of partially hand waving debt is on the wealthy, not the rest of us, and we the wealthy could pay it, this year, if that is truly what is wanted. <http://uswealthclock.com>
Renters pay wealth tax. Renters pay *all* of the property tax their landlords owe -- but the landlords get the deduction. There is logic for paying it, but the payment should be on the renter and deductible. We have generations who have missed that. Mortgage holders pay wealth tax -- on the bank's wealth too. Wealthy people, you will be shocked to hear, don't pay wealth tax, in any sane comparison.
Important: At $135 Trillion, a $130 Billion fortune is about 1/1000. We need to tell that story, over and over. Even the very richest among us have only 1/1000 of our wealth -- and therefore they are not the boss. If any one of them went poof bankrupt tomorrow, our economy wouldn't even notice, dollar wise.
The narrative is that the very richest are in control of our economy. They are not, by a factor of 1000.
That is empowering, to me, and a comfort. It should be a comfort to them, too. We need more of that.
I recalled William Buckly and his magazine which I did not agreed with, plus, the Heritage Foundation.
The HF used to send me surveys periodically, but I always returned them with my own questions, on their dime.
Eventually, they took me off their mailing list. It was frustrating but they did not win with me or get money from me. Didn't they hire Gennie Thomas and paid her $750, 000.00 which the Thomases conveniently forgot to report it on their income tax return? That was around early 2010 or so. That offense should have been enough to oust him (impeached) for "Appearances of Impropriety." But here we are.
Don't ignore the effects of new technologies. Instant electronic communication at first brings together like-minded, distant folks but then becomes an echo chamber for hatrid and fear. Yet I see in the comments here a hopeful impact of Thom's guidance. History tells so much, when it is fairly protected from revision and broadened as Dickens did, reflecting his own impoverished childhood.
Your point about education hit the mark with me. I was raised in a poor family with only high school educations. Fortunately for me, the Calif state college system was very inexpensive and I decided to attend while working nights. I recall paying about $50 for a load of classes and $100 for (used) books per semester. This was just before Reagan came into office in Calif and began the trashing the system. I (and my wife) were fortunate to both get degrees and begin careers while raising a family.
Yes, if you are a certain age (Reagan was in business as Governor when I was at UC) you feel like you dodged a bullet!
Of course it hit the three children who are still saddled with debt in their 40s and 50s.
It was Reagan that stump my formal education and that of many other friends and relatives. Took me a while longer but while not easy, I overcame the battle.
I believe a key line in this entire report is at the end of the Burke quotation wherein he warns of the consequences of fair treatment to ordinary people: "In this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.” The phrase "at war with nature" is a direct contradiction to the essential, revolutionary belief of America..."We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights among the are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Nature in Burke's view advocates that "nature" has created humans as essentially unequal and, therefore, any social inequality is justified as "natural". As Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of
Man" shows, much, if not most, of post-Darwinian American social science, focusing on craniology, eugenics, intelligence (IQ) testing, etc., had the implicit belief of inequality as its a priori assumption.
Human equality is also an a priori assumption which is beyond the pale of scientific proof. Nevertheless, if equality is assumed to be a human possession by the mere fact of existence, then the focus becomes the need to create and maintain the conditions that enable whatever personal qualities each individual may have to grow and flourish; rather than only for those who are deemed, by whatever superficial criteria, to be inherently superior. I can not see how society is thus harmed.
Americans tend to jingoistically pride ourselves as being the greatest society in the history of the world. Think how much greater the USA and the world in general would be if we did not intentionally or unintentionally handicap our citizens based on beliefs of inferiority based on race, gender, wealth,
and social status.
Me too! "At war with nature!" Boom! Aren't the powers that be in love with the "naturalness" of the heirarchy! I also made a note that the continuum from the "Dark Ages" to the "Middle Ages" was not so fuzzy if viewed through the lens of the weaponization of RELIGION.
It was for the protection of the white men! period. Not even white women counted at the time.
Pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth; in that order.
Yup. The "Seven Deadly Sins" are a badge of (natural) privilege. I would nominate "lust" for primacy, though. Females are ever the pawns and the prizes, and the SCAPEGOATS!
Just maybe it is because no one in our government is held accountable for their actions which has been going on for many, many decades. The constitution is not held highly even in the Supreme Court and in
lower courts.
The low lives in congress have learned that lies and corruption are tolerated and their will be no accountability. Now laws and institutions that have authority to hold people accountable are being removed from our laws.
I remember reading something about in 50's a couple was put to death for treason?? Anymore the incentive to run for public office is to get rich quick.
Jules and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for espionage. It was a mixture of real spying during the Manhattan Project, anti-Communist fears (Stalin had just gotten the atomic bomb and the Korean War was dragging on), Ethel's brother selling her out for a lighter sentence, and possibly Anti-Semitism. Jules was probably guilty of at least some things, she much less so. Nobody else involved was executed. It was a nasty story all the way through.
And now we had President who has secret meetings with Russian Oligarchs and Presidents, takes money from same Russians and no one cares except for a Paul Ryan who quietly whispers to his colleagues. "Let's not say that too loudly or all this goes away!" They say these things and have no fear of being put to death, which our constitution calls for. We really need to seriously "Dump the Incumbents"! From both parties.
Thanks
If we are going to go deep, I think that we need to consider a few other aspects of what has been discussed in today’s piece. The part that evangelicals play is mentioned. However, there are more elemental ideas which undergird all of religion and large segments of our society as well as many other concepts which have had profound effects. There is a moralism that feeds into exceptionalism, supremacy, and the inherent value of prosperity. The wealthy, along with millions of ordinary people, including many of the poorest are god-fearing, evil-hating persons - - evil-hating being defined as hating those miscreants who defy god’s authority or the authority of the special people ostensibly doing their particular god’s bidding, who defy others in high positions, and those who offend certain traditions or select values, such as strict and rigid notions about acting and behaving. They often do not identify as religious but they have narrowly defined, if rather nebulous or vague beliefs about everything from capitalism to cultural practices.
I think that the need to avoid disruptive change or any significant re-evaluation of the status quo and the structure of the social order is quite strongly motivating and irrational. Change and questioning authority or convention threatens certain people, frequently causing them to reflexively react without much conscious awareness of the dynamics, typically leading to alliances or identification with ultra-conservative/reactionary groups and causes.
Suffering and grueling work are also valued as subtle but steady producers of virtue, character, and superiority, ideas primarily generated by religion and religiosity or by those who are inclined to sacrifice everything to reign supreme or to defeat real or imagined competitors and enemies. Idle hands cause trouble and active critical minds lead to the sort of knowledge that has condemned women to subjugation and condemnation since Eve.
Conformity is king for many of these people. I’m afraid that woke voters may not be enough to get us out of the mess we are in. It’s starting to look as if we will have to see groups organizing like the French activist student group I recently read about called “Enrages” (translated “Angry People”) from 1967. They started out as a tiny group and quickly inspired thousands to raise holy hell, with large protests and riots until many of the social changes were forced which the French workers enjoy today.
This won’t happen here as long as conformity, good behavior, and the benevolence of authority are drilled into the brains of school students universally through compulsory indoctrination based on the Prussian academy model from the 1700’s or commercialized training academies for twelve formative years.
A democracy is only as good as its citizens. When we are cranking out drones and dumbed-down consumers and followers, we give the arrogant elites an excuse to step in as presumptuous problem solvers. Either citizens will learn democratic values by living them as children, or they will learn something else.
Funny coincidence, since Dickens is mentioned by Thom here. I just happen to be about 1/4 way thru Dickens' "Hard Times," which is excruciatingly about education of the young. Don't know if Dickens had the "Prussian academy model" in mind, but key characters are "Mr. Gradgrind" proprietor of the hellish school of stringent realism, and his star teacher, "Mr. McChoakumchild."
(Subtlety didn't sell serials, apparently.) In the context of this whole discussion, I am somewhat oppressed by the hoary, interminable perpetuity of the struggle we are talking about. I am not sure it is irrelevant to reflect back on the forever war to subjugate and discredit women. Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" just popped into my mind. I don't imagine Dickens as a conscious feminist, but so far it looks like the key disruptive plot-mover in "Hard Times" is a girl.
I thought I had sent an answer to you. But I'm just seeing a notice that my reply didn't get posted. I think it may be lost but will see if I can locate it later. I'm not sure I will be able to reproduce it. My apologies.
I am enjoying your through-lines. They just keep getting better!
All of these institutions and individuals used language as a weapon, and they did it with experts. Limbaugh and his ilk started stabbing civil discourse and Trump finished it off. The elites wielding their money and power started to call the activists "elites". The rich anointed themselves the "job creators". Worst of all, the Republicans made "money is speech" and "corporations are people" happen, and so far they have made it stick.
Can the words on a protest sign, on a website, or spoken by a wholehearted politician make a difference? It can and it has. Bernie changed everything, but he would be the first to say he didn't do it alone. Desperate doesn't play with the youth that follow him, not to mention their own outstanding leaders.
And the greatest corrupting neo-slang of all: truncating "Democratic" for the Party to "Democrat."
After all these years, I still think the ruling class is eternally fated to tighten the thumbscrews on the rest to a point at which murderous revolution erupts. A Promethean cycle, hardwired in DNA.
A lot of people in the Baby Boomer generation have long had a sense that a significant part of the cohort was either very unbalanced, or, at least, very selfish. This generation of voters 'sat' by while collectively the US squandered all the goodwill earned in the global community from America's support in two world wars. In addition, they stayed focused on their own well-being while corporations and media owners quietly herded everyone into a constant state of distractions with an endless state of wars to keep voters from examining the Game-at-Home.
Fortunately, the 80-year memory limitation https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210623-generational-amnesia-the-memory-loss-that-harms-the-planet is kicking in and the next generation has an excellent chance at 'walking' their political and philosophical convictions by voting regularly and donating regularly to candidates and non-profits that have their interests at heart.
During the 2023-24 extreme politicians will try to cut the only healthcare and pension system that many Americans have left, and ignore the pleas by 200 millionaires in Davos to tax the Rich before it's too late https://www.commondreams.org/news/tax-the-rich-davos. The BIG Question, of course, is whether the talkers have the will and the skills to actually go to work for America's future, with a passion equal to the task. The GOP challenge of the national debt limit of 33 Trillion dollars is not about money -as Mr. Hartman's analysis points out.
Let's see if the generations Post-the-Baby-Boomers has the skills, will and common sense to work for enough commonsense to attract enough voters from all parts of America - and shelve for the time being some of the more radical convictions espoused by the urban democrats. If not, the losses will be remarkable, for America and the world. Perhaps President Kennedy's call-to-duty says it best:
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
― John F. Kennedy
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/53-ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-ask
Mr. Hartman's citations:
The middle class was out of control by the late 1960s, they believed, and something had to be done. There was too much democracy, and it was tearing America apart.
Looking back at the “solutions” England used around the time of the American Revolution (and for 1000 years before) and advocated by Edmund Burke and other conservative thinkers throughout history, Republicans saw a remedy to the crisis. As a bonus, it had the side effect of helping their biggest donors and thus boosting their political war-chests.
If working people, women, minorities, and students were a bit more desperate about their economic situations, these conservative thinkers asserted, then they’d be less likely to organize, protest, strike, or even vote. The unevenness, the instability, the turbulence of democracy in the 1960s would be calmed.
— To accomplish this, Reagan massively cut taxes on rich people and raised taxes on working-class people 11 times.
— He put a tax on Social Security income and unemployment benefits and put in a mechanism to track and tax tips income, all of which had previously been tax-free but were exclusively needed and used by working-class people.
— He ended the deductibility of credit-card, car-loan and student-debt interest, overwhelmingly claimed by working-class people. At the same time, he cut the top tax bracket for millionaires and multimillionaires from 74% to 27%. (There were no billionaires in America then, in large part because of FDR’s previous tax policies; the modern explosion of billionaires followed Reagan’s massive tax cuts for the rich.)
— He declared war on labor unions, crushed PATCO in less than a week, and over the next decade the result of his war on labor was that union membership went from about a third of the American non-government workforce when he came into office to around 10% today.
— He brought a young lawyer named John Roberts into the White House to work out ways to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision. His VP brought in his son, George W., to build bridges between the GOP and the most fanatical branches of evangelical Christianity, who opposed both women’s rights and the Civil Rights movement.
— He and Bush also husbanded the moribund 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT, which let Clinton help create the WTO) and NAFTA, which opened a floodgate for American companies to move manufacturing overseas, leaving American workers underemployed while cutting corporate donor’s labor costs and union membership.
And, sure enough, it worked.
Darlin', I read your stuff just to see where you stick the stiletto in: "...and shelve for the time being some of the more radical convictions espoused by the urban democrats." I'm the ultimate farm/horse-doodoo/ backwoods tree-farmer/urban amalgamation there is, and it's clear to me that those "urban democrats" have some real good ideas for all of us! You betcha!
RE:
- "... they’d have enough spare time to use democratic processes to challenge the social order and collapse the British kingdom."
- "Too much democracy, Burke believed, was a dangerous thing: deadly to nations and a violation of evolution and nature itself."
- "Young people would cease to respect their elders, they warned. Women would stop respecting (and depending on) their husbands. Minorities would begin making outrageous demands and set the country on fire."
- “ … the project of the Reagan Revolution was to dial back democracy while taking the middle class down a peg, …”
Authoritarian Social Hierarchy and Severe Punishment - Strong Moral Values of the Wealthy Class.
As John Dean and Professor Robert Altemeyer have documented the Republican Party is the Party for the authoritarian personality and its subclasses of followers, social dominators and double highs. As you and others have documented the Republican Party, and SCOTUS, are owned by, and protect and empower the wealthy class. The implication is that the wealthy represent the social dominators.
Professor Richard Wolff has documented that the authoritarian nature of Capitalism, like feudalism, is to put the wealthy class, social dominators, at the top of the capitalist economic system. From this leadership position they will maintain the right-wing authoritarian social hierarchy through punishment legalized by SCOTUS and the GQP - the GOP on authoritarian steroids.
As documented by the research of cognitive linguist, Professor George Lakoff, the authoritarian personality is nurtured within the Strict Father family model. This family model includes beliefs in an imagined social hierarchy - which is referenced by quotes from your article and listed above - and a belief in severe punishment to maintain that social hierarchy.
These two authoritarian core beliefs, or moral values, promote maintaining this social hierarchy by rewarding the wealthy at the top and punishing all others to keep them where the fit in the authoritarian ranking of inequality. The moral goal is to maximize inequality.
- “The plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide down or at least remain frozen for a few decades; end free college across the nation so students would study in fear rather than be willing to protest; and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding participation in democracy.”
There is some truth to authoritarian fears. Those abused by the wealthy and their lackeys will revolt against the maximization of inequality driven by the moral values of social hierarchy and severe punishment.
As Professor Lakoff concludes from his research on cognitive linguistics, moral values like inequality and severe punishment as a primary teaching tool, drive the authoritarian policies of the strict father family model.
Where to start? Note to self: get Dean's most recent book. "Conservatives Without Conscience" saved my sanity along the way. Pretty sure my mother was a "double high." Absolutely daughter of "Strict Father." Enough with the personal. The wild card in mass social adjustment now is technology and media. We truly are still at the threshold of how our very brain function copes with "input", and the "input" itself is just the beginning of blink of an eye in terms of the historical time frames our biology previously had to cope with.
The war on "Critical Race Theory" is a war on critical thinking. The American Exceptionalism these folks want to teach is the "koolaid" to keep the masses subdued. Remove all critical thinking from the curriculum, teach the children to be happy-clappy "patriots." They not only won't have the resources to question you or the basis of your authority, they won't have the cognitive skills. There have been many sci fi books and movies on this theme.
My current question is if my Union dues cannot be used by my Union to support my elected officials, I have to donate to a separate PAC for that.... why can my health insurance company use my healthcare premiums to make donations to the campaigns of my elected officials? Should they not be using money from their own salaries donated to a separate PAC?
I was pleased to read this, so pleased I just became a paid subscriber. I have long realized the threat a prosperous and large middle class poses to the plutocrats. It has been as obvious to me as the noses on our faces. I suggest, if you have not read it, "Beyond Originalism," by Adrian Vermeule (constitutional scholar at Harvard Law School) who openly advocates a version of this, arguing the position that the plutocrats know what is best for us. He ends the article with: "Originalism has done useful work, and can now give way to a new confidence in authoritative rule for the common good" Apparently he has expanded his thinking in a book entitled "Common Good Constitutionalism." It seems, according to Vermeule, we should all relinquish our feeble attempts at self-determinism and accept the rule of our "betters." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/ I have added the link to the Atlantic article.
Thanks Thom -- The most disturbing thing to me -- and there is a fierce competition -- may be that it seems that a very small cadre of the ultra wealthy is creating almost all of the damage, while the rest of that crew simply enjoy the extra spoils, and believe in their hubris that nothing can happen to them.
They should pay more attention to what Putin did to the billionaires, and MBS. The very rich need the rule of law, and the respect for rules, more than anybody.
For wealthy people to want tax breaks for themselves is human -- but to want the rest of their wanker cohort to not pay much is just moronic. So you pay, to make sure the losers do too. But no. Moronic is where I keep ending up, with the rich.
It's those damn immigrants . . . ! named Murdoch, I mean, of course, and only a few of those.
We need to tell people that we have $135 Trillion of net wealth, and that $32 Trillion of partially hand waving debt is on the wealthy, not the rest of us, and we the wealthy could pay it, this year, if that is truly what is wanted. <http://uswealthclock.com>
Renters pay wealth tax. Renters pay *all* of the property tax their landlords owe -- but the landlords get the deduction. There is logic for paying it, but the payment should be on the renter and deductible. We have generations who have missed that. Mortgage holders pay wealth tax -- on the bank's wealth too. Wealthy people, you will be shocked to hear, don't pay wealth tax, in any sane comparison.
Important: At $135 Trillion, a $130 Billion fortune is about 1/1000. We need to tell that story, over and over. Even the very richest among us have only 1/1000 of our wealth -- and therefore they are not the boss. If any one of them went poof bankrupt tomorrow, our economy wouldn't even notice, dollar wise.
The narrative is that the very richest are in control of our economy. They are not, by a factor of 1000.
That is empowering, to me, and a comfort. It should be a comfort to them, too. We need more of that.
all for now, best luck to US -- b.rad
I recalled William Buckly and his magazine which I did not agreed with, plus, the Heritage Foundation.
The HF used to send me surveys periodically, but I always returned them with my own questions, on their dime.
Eventually, they took me off their mailing list. It was frustrating but they did not win with me or get money from me. Didn't they hire Gennie Thomas and paid her $750, 000.00 which the Thomases conveniently forgot to report it on their income tax return? That was around early 2010 or so. That offense should have been enough to oust him (impeached) for "Appearances of Impropriety." But here we are.
Anti - democratic sentiment won the day by 1975 and was reflected by this report of the trilateral commission:
https://archive.org/details/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975/mode/1up
Don't ignore the effects of new technologies. Instant electronic communication at first brings together like-minded, distant folks but then becomes an echo chamber for hatrid and fear. Yet I see in the comments here a hopeful impact of Thom's guidance. History tells so much, when it is fairly protected from revision and broadened as Dickens did, reflecting his own impoverished childhood.