Links 7/13/2021 | naked capitalism nakedcapitalism.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nakedcapitalism.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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About Lambert Strether
Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.
Tracey definitely has the “mental capacity” to differentiate between social and economic issues; his primary concern is that what he calls “the left” has been using the former in a way that completely mystifies the latter. But you are right that he uses “the left” in a way similar to right-wingers – which is one reason why “the left” (Tracey’s “left”) accuses him of being a right-winger.
Though I tend to agree with you on terminology, there is a rationale for Tracey’s usage. The CIA has a long history of ideological manipulation, and even recruitment, of the educated “non-communist left” in the postwar US. The current complete break between “new left” and “old (socialist) left” also has a long (and not unrelated) history going back to the sixties. The latter pretty much disappeared; the remnants of the former were domesticated, laundered through our elite educational institutions, and have become our cultural leaders whose job it is to mystify c
This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on
About Lambert Strether
Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.
I’m no stallion but if I were that antidote du jour would have my pretty worked up…scrolling through links I had to laugh this morning. I don’t know if Norman Spinrad is still alive but he could write a novel just by stitching together some NC headline links.
Coronavirus is Plotting a Comeback, Qanon Shaman, Falling spirm counts threaten human survival, Mr. Potato Head, Big Tech in hot seat at political gala, Boys from Brazil goes into lockdown, Money is too good to pass up, AI Teaches itself I have to stop at American Cynicism has reached a Breaking Point