On 10/31/2020 4:21 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
I guess I have to respond to this nonsense. The American middle class
was at its apex in the 1950-80 period when the New Deal programs were
at their most robust, the WWII was over and the American economy
hummed along soundly with high taxation rates on the wealthy and
corporations. I has been since the time of Reaganomics and the onward
march into the right winged reality that things have become more
uncertain and income gaps have yawned. CEOs of corporations have had a
3500% income growth while those in the middle class have seen a modest
10% growth and those at the bottom have fallen off into negative
territory. The class warfare did not start because of some lurch into
the far left and Marxism.
BTW, what is being called radical socialism by the GOP is really just
plain centrist stuff a few decades ago.
Very few people are talking about Marxism. Even Sanders' socialism is
far removed from Eugene Debs socialism of 100 to 110 years ago.
Sanders really fits somewhere in the average leftist political party
in Europe. The Democratic Party is really a very centrist party, even
a bit center right.
I wish before people invoked Karl Marx that they would actually take
the time to read something of his. The Communist Manifesto is an
interesting read, and curiously you might find yourself shaking your
head in some agreement. Marx wrote about the fetishization of money or
capital, and Wall Street with its myriad gimmicks from computerized
microtrades to short selling and pre-trading are perfect cases of
this. Marx wrote about how more of life is becoming a market sector,
and today so much of life is a market activity. We have lost so many
skill people had. Even with computers, people write programs less and
less. It goes on. Marx's solution to things is a social metaphysics
based on Hegel's dialectics. The dialectic of capital and labor was
seen by him as producing a synthesis. This part, mostly in Das
Kapital, is dubious. Also Das Kapital is complicated and confusing
thing. I only got 50 pages into the first volume. You can skip this.
I am not a Marxist, nor am I a believer in capitalism. In my minor in
philosophy I found the worldly philosophers the least interesting,
which includes both Marx and Smith. These ideologies are a matter of
opinion, not logic. I refrain from delving into silly things that
ultimately involve opinion, which to a degree is politics.
Physics suggests that we should be prudent with the use of energy.
Does this prove that we must conserve energy? David Hume argued that
saying some state of affairs that “IS” does not logically imply an
“OUGHT.” This is the “is-ought” fallacy. It is not hard to prove this
within the context of modal logic, but I will skip that for now.
It's not so fallacious as Hume thought in the real world though. If
your "oughts" are inconsistent with what "is" you're likely to go
extinct (e.g. consider any cult whose "oughts" include drinking Kool-aid).
So, principles of physics offer up the second law of thermodynamics,
which tells us that given thermal energy we wish to convert to
mechanical energy, we can only do so with some fraction of that. Some
of this goes into internal energy that is a bounded or unavailable
form of energy. This does suggest that maybe some care is needed in
using energy and resources. It does not prove this. Much the same can
be said of global warming or other things. It may be wise to behave in
some accord with what we learn, but there is no proof of this. Whether
to do so or not is about opinion, and this where we get into the muddy
field of politics.
For this reason I do not become particularly angry if someone tells me
they accept global warming as real science, but think we really do not
need to do anything about it. At least that is an opinion honestly
expressed. If on the other hand people try to say it is fake-science
and all a hoax and so forth, that gets my anger level up. The reason
is because it is a lie, and this lie is being expressed to convince
other people of it. My general sense of opinions of this form is based
on what I see according to empathy and a sense of my connectedness to
others. For that reason I have liberal proclivities. For those who
dismiss these things and think everything should be economic, well
that is an opinion and I can accept that.
But purely transactional, economic relations are inconsistent with the
fact that humans are social animals and live and die by social organization.
Brent
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
--- John Donne, 1623 Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris
I might disagree with it and they disagree with me, but at least these
can be expressed without overt lying.
LC
On Friday, October 30, 2020 at 11:20:08 PM UTC-5 [email protected] wrote:
For a long time to come, the middle class would do well, to retain
the current status of the US, as a nation-state, rather than some
alternative, that is never explained, by the progressives. They
just know what they hate, and what they hate is the rest of us,
those who identify as Americans as opposed to citizens of the
world. The middle class is increasingly oppressed by the
globalists, the ruling class that fund both parties, in an
exchange of campaign donations, for favorable treatment,
regulations, and laws from the paying corporations. This is a
class war unlike what Engel's and Marx dreamed of. I would say
that the trend of human history is now, not in favor of globalism,
because of its predatory treatment of the middle class, thus,
making it on the wrong side of history. For example, Sony's
funding of BLM seems disingenuous to the extreme, and the board of
directors, Sony, definitively, have zero to do, much, with their
paying customers. So what is really going on here? Whatever it is,
the result will never be a redress of legitimate grievances, but
rather the exacerbation of extremist actions.
-----Original Message-----
From: PGC <[email protected]>
To: Everything List <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, Oct 30, 2020 11:17 pm
Subject: Re: This is the man who says he found Hunter Biden's laptop
On Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 3:00:11 AM UTC+1 [email protected]
wrote:
Saving the earth is a scam if what somebody recommends won't
work. If I promise that nuclear will save us all, and it
doesn't makes me either ill-informed or a deliberate scam
artist to gain political power. My suspicion is that it isn't
a direct scam, but a real phenomena that will affect everyone
eventually. How soon and how bad are always left to the public
imagination. This is what global warming becomes global
heating becomes climate change. You want me to rush to defend
anti-abortionists so your amygdala can be happy? My reco is
look into artificial wombs. You want a stable climate? R&D on
energy. You want 4 more years of orange man? Your peeps in the
streets doing riots and arson is how you get 4 more years of Don.
There are no "my peeps" or "your peeps". That's what simplistic
propagandistic disinformation will have readers believe to amplify
engagement. Racist content has enormous engagement capacity. And
it's always easier to believe the loud, blaring
oversimplifications than sit down and engage with what we don't
know and therefore learn the hard and slow way, adapting to a
changing world, working on ourselves... instead of cherry picking
content/data to validate pre-existing prejudice to self-flatter
ourselves.
4 more years of Don, so what? Like people should be frightened
lol? I'm ok looking in the mirror, warts and all. All people can
adapt and change. Maybe at some point you'll mature to the point
where ideological content, identity propaganda and existential
prejudice, scapegoating other groups, the comforting clarity of
conspiracy theories, boredom with personal delusions etc. will no
longer convince you and turn you towards actual policy and their
implementation. No "my peeps" and "your peeps". There are just
people, who's needs are quite similar. PGC
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