AFAICT ‘neo-liberal’ refers to the sham of a political position concocted in order to disenfranchise everybody in favour of the corporations.
4 Likes
All the better. People think they can get away with doing as they please until a reason is needed to run whoever in. Then you’re suddenly guilty of enough to be held even if the reason your’e there is bogus. I do not like the devil may care attitude over enforceability. You or I might never get trapped like this. However we might, or someone that is a threat to someone in power might.
If is an uncertain thing, but given potential consequences I don’t want to pin the hopes of future outspoken critics of the way things are to depend on a maybe and a prayer to not get run through on something.
2 Likes
Well, they won’t get very far with that argument unless I misunderstand you. The Supreme Court precedent is clear and long standing; treaties have the same status as federal legislation, they override prior laws and are overridden by later laws.
People have gotten off their collective asses. It’s usually futile in the face of astronomical sums of money. As a case study, Governor Walker of Wisconsin:
When he signed a bill to remove collective bargaining rights of most state employees, approximately 85,000-100,000 people showed up to protest at the state capitol. Later, when there was an effort to recall him, the petition to recall received one million signatures - about twice the number needed.
Walker raised $30.5 million dollars to defeat the recall (opponent Barrett only managed to raise $3.9 million). Approximately 2/3 of the money Walker raised came from out of state. Barrett was limited to $10,000 max for individual donations; Walker had no limit whatsoever, opening the proverbial money floodgates. In a totally unsurprising outcome, Barrett lost.
And a few are still protesting at the state capitol in spite of arrests that took place for the heinous crime of annoying singing.
There are many other factors in these events, of course, but it’s clear to me that the money of Koch Bros & Co handily defeated enormous efforts by and for the public. I realize you said “most Americans” won’t get off their asses, not “all Americans.” Yet when we do take action in large numbers, it seems that we’re still beaten by money and corporate interests.
I’m not asking whether we should stand up for ourselves against seemingly terrible odds just because it’s the right thing to do. That is a different question. But most don’t bother, and it’s at least partly because they know the powers that be only give a damn about money and self-interest.
6 Likes
What do you have in mind, besides calling reps? If you start a very large lobbying group, that might work. But you need to get the amount of little people on board with money that could rival the Koch Brothers or corporations.
1 Like
Neoliberal is a term of art from prior to WW2, orthogonal to “liberalism” on the American political spectrum.
As such, it’s a shitty term, resurrected recently for the express purpose of intentionally conflating the two positions. It’s essentially command economics run by corporations through complete capture of government.
Think of it, instead, as Thomas Friedmanism.
1 Like
I was confused because someone, the other day, told me that liberal has a different meaning in Europe in terms of capitalism. I find it completely baffling. I think labeling the terrible direction of global capitalism, under any particular brand of politics, is dangerous because it is devised specifically to create rifts and deter from viewing this clusterfuck for what it is, enriching the uber wealthy further and taking away rights and input from the populace. Separating this along political lines and manufacturing argument has been the divide and conquer plan by those truly in power for too long.
1 Like
But does it need that tag?
I sincerely hope TPP will pass. It’s the final coffin nail for copyright.
I’ve long since been saying, copyright needs to be abolished altogether, because the copytrolls make it impossible to reform and keep making it worse.
TPP is proof of that beyond any doubt. After TPP is trough, the only way forward is to abolish copyright entirely.
Unfortunately, the American government is quite capable of keeping draconian, sporadically enforced laws, and of torturing activists against it, with pain compliance from the police, solitary confinement without trial from the courts when people refuse to testify, entrapment, and so on.
4 Likes
Hell, “Capitalism” itself is a term that was created to describe one of the several ways that a free market could destroy itself by allowing mercantile trusts to concentrate so much wealth that they could dismantle the balancing power of democratic governments.
Though upon reflection I suppose the original meaning has become quite accurate today.
3 Likes
Did you think this was going to be easy? Did you think that big money was just going to roll over? What happened in Wisconsin and the inertia behind Walker has been building for 40 years. It may take that long to get improvements in this country. Most Americans don’t know what their interests are. I would start there. Most Americans don’t know who the Koch brothers are but if you tell them they will get angry very quickly.
America need to turn off the TV for starters.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
