Richard D. Wolff was here in Ithaca last year, talking about economic justice, cooperatives, and more. Here he’s got a great piece up at Truthout that should speak to us all. He describes the potential evolution to fascism (he’s being nice); here’s a useful excerpt:
"'Resistance' has quickly become the watchword of an impressive opposition to the Trump-Bannon government and its fascist potential. However, the lessons of capitalism's dysfunctional politics will have gone unlearned if opposition remains at the level of resisting this particular administration. Exchanging the Trump-Bannon regime for a return to "normal" capitalism returns us to precisely the system that produced Trump and Bannon.” Maura http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40068-capitalism-produced-trump-another-reason-to-move-beyond-it <http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40068-capitalism-produced-trump-another-reason-to-move-beyond-it> Capitalism Produced Trump: Another Reason to Move Beyond It Sunday, April 02, 2017 By Richard D. Wolff <http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44661> The fact that Trump, Bannon and the rest of their coterie do not think through the implications of their acts is not unusual. One marked peculiarity of politics in capitalist systems is how those systems train politicians. Corporations and the rich provide the funds that enable election victories. They expect specific favors in return: a government order, a tariff, crisis bailouts, or a foreign intervention, for example. Politicians in office must deliver those, or risk removal. Politicians must also veneer those deliveries with verbiage about the national interest, the people's safety, job creation and other vague yet vital-sounding priorities. The act of thinking through their actions' implications -- let alone publicly explaining such complexities -- exceeds the capacity and need of many political leaders. They usually do the favors (or, at least, most of them) while allaying popular concerns with public posturing. If and when that fails, they repress those concerns. It is impossible to identify, measure and trace the influences on every political decision. Politicians hope that their positions are strengthened, or at least not too badly damaged, by whatever consequences are attributed to their actions. No matter how confident they are in predicting these consequences, politicians generally focus on preparing either to plausibly dispute any negative consequences or deflect responsibility. Taking a different tack, we might ask what must happen for Trump and Bannon's actions to yield the outcomes they claim to hope for. Our answers will suggest some sense of where this theatrical new administration will likely push us. Read the whole story at Truthout. <http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40068-capitalism-produced-trump-another-reason-to-move-beyond-it> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ If you have questions about this list please contact the list manager, Tom Shelley, at t...@cornell.edu.
