Is there anything you'd be willing to fight a war for?

[Eric the Green]

(11-03-2022, 04:46 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-03-2022, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 06:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(11-01-2022, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I am applauding the trend of people quitting work to make a statement, but it's not contemptuous and not especially social; just that people want to find work doing what they want to do or at least get better pay, which sure is not the case now under minimum wages of $7.25 an hour in red states.

That's easy for you to say. The first half of millennials (and this is one area I have much common ground with millennial democrats) have spent the last 15 years trying to convince people that we're not lazy...and then the second half of millennials and early wave Gen Z came along like "pfft! We never promised we wouldn't be lazy. Tough shit man, we're just gonna live off our parents while you do the real work". A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats have switched over to our side cuz they're sick of this.

A lot of the more reasonable millennial democrats are unreasonable then. Republicans are HORRIFIC! They only oppresse the people in the name of free enterprise and guns. You don't have any way of proving what you say about late-wave millennials and early Gen Z.

The people quitting their jobs recently are not of one sub-generation; they are of all ages!

Take this job and shove it! After a while, given the opportunity, people will quit their shitty neoliberalReaganomics-era job and look for better options after being subjected to horrific oppression by bosses and slave wages. Labor is asserting its rights! Under renewed neoliberalism after this shitty election, there will be more rebellion! God Damn America!

I'm really not a fan of the way "slave" is thrown around so dramatically by the left (it gets worse the further left you go). One of the reasons why PoC tend to think that white liberals are weirdos with some of their positions is that any immigrant from Nigeria, Pakistan, China or Russia would laugh at you if you tried to say that low wage earners in the US were "slaves". Even so, I'm happy we're at least focusing on the economic end of things, rather than presenting that the performative social posturing and empty appeals to solidarity/inclusiveness are really the root cause here.

I don't reject the spoken need for inclusiveness, especially these days when appeal to prejudice has become so much more open and seems to arouse racism and religious prejudice to levels in our politics not seen since the days of discrimination and lynching. I do agree that the "economic end of things" is more important to how people live these days. The social issues are used by the right-wing mainly for the purpose of empowering those who DO keep so many people as "wage slaves". No doubt people in less developed countries have it worse, but people in developed countries are entitled to whatever prosperity our economy can deliver, and they contribute just as much to it as the CEOs and owners who now are enabled by the Republicans to hog all the revenue it generates. The middle class in the USA has declined severely in the 42-year-and-counting neoliberal era, and this was the result of deliberate policy and was never necessary at all. The USA is the worst developed country in the world by any measure, and the South is the worst region of the USA by far by any measure. Descriptions of personal conditions and abilities are not relevant. Voters who only look at their own fortunes when deciding who to vote for are irresponsible. The Democrats might keep their majorities in Congress if they would stress this issue of middle class decline due to Republican policy, and not cower behind social issues, and to counter Republicans' use of the "inflation" which they themselves contribute to and have no answer for.

Quote:I'm skeptical of some of their authoritarian tendencies, but from what I've seen, some of these rising right wing politicians across Europe have more reasonable platforms than the "there's no such thing as society" types of right wingers in the US (I ordinarily like Thatcher, but that quote is painfully naive and is never going to win votes consistently during a 4T).

Thanks for that intelligent remark.

Quote:At present, the right is still playing too much of the "lone ranger conservatism" that isn't going to get anything done, and the left is too busy cannibalizing itself with ever harsher and more pedantic cancelations, appeals to singular demographics and witch hunts that pit them against each other even more than they do the right. Both have yet to return to any form of mindset that would ask "how do we get society functional again?" One of the reasons America tends to lean 3T is that we're eternally skeptical of institutions and have a rebellion-as-tradition approach to their entire lives. Mid-to-late 4Ts are necessary because they are a rare period where Americans are forced to revalue some form of institutions even as they grow increasingly cynical of the existing ones.

I don't think the Left's cancellations are any where near as "harmful" as what the right is doing to democracy and to mutual respect for all people, and all the violence and destruction that they enable and promote. The Left in blue states is doing things like taking down statues of Christopher Columbus and renaming holidays and schools and such. In the South fortunately some confederate statues and flags are coming down, and that's all to the good. It's all not that important to me, but I'm a white guy, and I feel the need to understand how indigenous and formerly-enslaved people feel when they see someone venerated who oppressed them. How do we get functional again is indeed the question though. The answer which I see as certain is repeal of neoliberalism and getting back to the progress we had in the sixties and seventies. An appropriate compromise in the culture wars is something I hope can happen. As I said though, and I stand by it, that cultural and social liberties are not often reversed for long, once attained.

I would say that rebellion-as-tradition does make itself felt in every turning, except maybe the first. But also our native authoritarianism is felt in all 4 turnings, and that is a tradition that is not as often recognized, but is even stronger in the USA (especially in the South) than our rebellious tradition. We need to reshape institutions in this 4T too, indeed, but this only happens after whatever the battle is, is won by the progressive side-- at the end of the turning. So I see this as possible at the end of this decade, but not if the right-wing wins. If it does, our republic and our world will start a continual decline that will last 4000 years. No more saecula, and no more progress; just what the right-wing thinks it wants.