Soviet Union part 2
SU2.0
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Umair Haque is an interesting and thoughtful dude. I read him with some regularity.
At a certain point though, I feel a certain amount of alarmist fatigue. It’s hard to distinguish if some kinda bad stuff is happening but we can recover, or if the sky just hasn’t quite fallen yet.
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Hoisted with our own dotard. We destabilized the USSR economically and polically over many years and outspent it until it toppled. But the consequence is that we have a nation built on lies and deceit, and it should not surprise us when our union collapses in the coming decades.
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I don’t live in the US so I’m not qualified to comment, but this article does put me in mind of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here”.
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The real galaxy brain moment comes when you realize that actors like Snowden and Wikileaks and all the fun hactivism going on mirror the effect that reporting on of the atrocities of Stalinism (and more recent) that Glasnost enabled
Glasnost was taken to mean increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union (USSR).[4] Glasnost apparently reflected a commitment to getting Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of their system and seek solutions.[5] Gorbachev encouraged popular scrutiny and criticism of leaders, as well as a certain level of exposure by the mass media.
Assange has written about how his goal is to use the openness of America to force it to confront it’s misdeeds, and force it to be less effective in order to carry them out:
For example, even if you snarf up all the world’s data, if you’re so petrified of the next Snowden you don’t let your analysts make good use of it, you’ve kneecapped yourself:
Our cyberpunk future mirrors our past.
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Well, I don’t know about other peoples’ pundits, but my daily pundit is Cory…
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- The Democratic Party would take polar opposite stances on several important issues that mean life and death right now for many people.
- The Republican Party will take over and cement their rule forever if radical changes to healthcare, labor, and voting rights are not enacted.
- The Democratic Party won’t enact the radical changes necessary (even when they can and it is popular, such as with single payer in 2009).
1, 2, and 3 can all be simultaneously true, and if they are all true then you can assert that Democrats are really just placeholders for future Republican one-party rule rather than a proper opposition to them. They say they disapprove of everything the Republicans are doing but materially allow them to do those things.
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I have a hard time believing that one. The ACA is already an approach to universal health insurance. Do you mean single-payer?
Other than that, yes, there are very big differences between the two.
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On this one, I have a bit more faith. Not so much in the Democrats enacting progressive changes for their own sake but because they will want to make the Republicans hurt when the pendulum swings back to the “D” position.
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But they supposedly had the means and the motivation back in 2009 after the Republican Party had pushed through a historically unpopular war founded on lies and caused a global recession. They had a chance to prove that the Democratic Party means real change and to break through voter apathy by giving them something radical that Republicans could never take away without invoking massive backlash, yet they chose to preserve the status quo as closely as possible.
Why? The only answer that makes any sense is that they are not there to oppose the Republican Party, but rather to minimize shocks to the status quo / reinforce the status quo.
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Two years pulling every string to get the ACA through?
That’s all I got. Not much.
However, I do think we’re looking at a situation much different than 2009. The gloves seem to be off.
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It’s helpful to distinguish between the D establishment and the progressive wing, and your personal dream candidate. I find it heartening that establishment figures like Pelosi appear to be interested in working with progressives. She probably won’t charge right into the full progressive agenda, and probably won’t turn into anybody’s idea of perfection. But she’s still pushing in the right direction.
That said, I know there are some regulars here who are disgusted with anything less than perfection. I don’t know how to make them happy. I don’t think anybody does.
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I just feel really let down that we didn’t get the awesome propaganda art. Is it so much to ask of our evil overlords that they invest in some decent propaganda posters before they line us up for the sausage machine?
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Yeah, about that…
Sorry to dash your hopes.
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Lately with the ‘new blood’ in congress I see them actually taking down the smug bullshit with simple statements and facts that all of us have thought a million times and wonder ‘why won’t anyone call them out’?
But I figured that out - sadly. The reason why simple arguments that shut down the ‘republican’ agenda are never used - and the reason the democrats run like spinless jellyfish when attacked - is because deep down they all believe the same thing.
Argue about healthcare? Oh they’ll talk single payer but they believe it won’t work - so they can’t - in good faith - find a way to argue for it… because they don’t actually believe in it.
The new crop believes in things, that are different. This is why they terrify the GoP - this is why the Democrat leadership tries to marginalize them (AoC and her wing… “like 5 people” - ugh). This is exactly why I was against Nancy Pelosi getting speaker - even when the wagons circled and the popular refrain was if you didn’t want Nancy you were sexist (after voting for a woman as president no less) - the old guard needs to go. Now isn’t soon enough.
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Read that Orlov book the year it came out, which now feels like several lifetimes ago. Hard to believe right now that I can even feel nostalgic for that period (George W. Bush was U.S. president, Dick Cheney was the puppeteer… and rents were still quasi-manageable in ATX).
Had read The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs quite some time ago. Thanks for the recommendation.
Wanted to add this, I feel it is relevant. Had read it right around the same time as Orlov’s Reinventing Collapse:
A review of it:
It’s a very human book.
I mean that in the best possible way.
ETA: finish. the. sentences.
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I’m not a huge Pelosi fan, and a lot of the Democratic establishment. But you know, a lot of them? I can GUARANTEE they won’t be in politics for much longer. Because when you’re in your 80s…
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The tables will turn, we can but stall them
Every empire on this earth has fallen
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If people need to look up the definition of ‘progress’ to determine whether something is right or wrong, then that article just got even better.
It is not only the USA. The situation is similar in most if not all western countries. The reason is the same everywhere: 60 years after WW2 reseted the economy, we are back at the situation where one group of people have enough power to control the systems which were designed to insure a balance of power. I think that Thomas Pickety got the Nobel prize in economics because he demonstrated that this evolution is inevitable. He calls the present system “neo-feodality”.
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