03-01-2018, 06:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-01-2018, 06:54 AM by Eric the Green.)
(02-28-2018, 03:20 PM)David Horn Wrote:(02-27-2018, 11:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:Sadly, Obama was inspiring but detached and Bill Clinton was the neo-liberal who created much of the chaos we need to escape. I posted a link to a NY Times editorial on another thread that covers most of this. What's needed is Obama's inspiration linked with the ability to get things done that Clinton knew instinctively, but it needs to be focused away from the neo-liberal alliance between corporations and government and back to an alliance between the public sector and the people of the nation.(02-27-2018, 11:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-26-2018, 01:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-26-2018, 12:51 PM)David Horn Wrote: We may be heading for a time a lot like the late 19th and early 20th centuries, if the government decays further. The absence of communal power opens the door to private power, and stalemated government is as good a way to kill communal power as I can see: no coup required.
We may be, and this is exactly the 4T crisis that we face. The competition with this red culture during the remaining 10-11 years of THIS 4T will decide what kind of 1T and 2T we will have, and what kind of country we will have for the foreseeable future.
This assumes that a counter-narrative can be offered, defended and act as a rallying point for the alternative to neo-liberalism. Count me skeptical. I don't see any evidence that the Democrats will abandon their culture-warrior stances, and, barring that, there is no other way to create the commonality needed to move hoi polloi, who pay minimal attention to details. It's like living in a loop. Atrocious behavior generates anger. Anger generates action, but the action is split by cultural demands that tend to anger most of the populace. Atrocious behavior arises, and the loop repeats.
Until someone with charisma and stature focuses the anger on communal action, this won't change. The Dems seem incapable of seeing that, or too cowardly to take the risk.
As you suggest, it will take a good candidate, like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, who can convince people (as Obama and Clinton tried to do, somewhat successfully) to see that the concerns of their own cultural identity are being held back by the same private-power-enforced stalemate that holds back those of other cultural identities. Hillary made it clear too, using the slogan "stronger together." I don't think that's hard for people to understand; there just needs to be a candidate who can communicate well and give the impression that (s)he can be a leader.
Who, how and when? You think this 4T. I'm less convinced of that. We still lack the leader, and nothing else can get done without her ... and I use that pronoun intentionally.
Yes, you're right. It would be nice if it were a her, but I don't see a her on the horizon who measures up yet.
Reagan was the neo-liberal who created much of the chaos we need to escape. Bill Clinton was a compromise candidate who managed to be acceptable in the neo-liberal era that Reagan created, and he did some good things that put things marginally on the right track; IOW he created a slight dent in the overall post-Reagan neo-liberal trend, while at the same time caving in too much to it. That's why I didn't vote for him in 1996.