Tag: Political Philosophy

Is Hyper-Capitalism Dead?

Is the “Witch Is Dead”?

Do you know what an “Objectivist” is?

Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically, Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person’s rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goals.

Politicians like Rand Paul (that is Rand not Rue) and ex Speaker Ryan were followers of the head honcho of this philosophy Ayn Rand….but in today’s society it looks as if the meth head may be losing her hold on the young…..

Eight rules governed the original Ayn Rand clubs that proliferated across college campuses in the 1960s, as they sought to seed Objectivism—Rand’s philosophical glorification of laissez-faire capitalism and heroic individualism—in the minds of impressionable youth. And of these eight, only two rules could ever be mentioned publicly: 1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived, and2) her novel Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

Objectivism has a serious youth problem, and the conference’s organizers were quite aware of it. They offered a discount rate for those under 30, a talent show, and extracurricular activities like “late night jams.” It made me wonder: Is Rand’s hyper-capitalist philosophy—which has influenced some of the most powerful political and economic giants of recent history, from Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan to Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs—running out of juice? There was only one way to find out. I would have to attend the conference’s various panels on the virtue of selfishness, the evils of regulation, and the greatness of capitalism’s dark patron saint, and try to fraternize with the next class of Paul Ryans in the making. So I went into the Objectivist sanctums of Cleveland, sporting an Ayn Rand tote bag outfitted with an “I ❤ fossil fuels” pin, to gauge the reach of Rand’s cult of unbridled capitalism on today’s political scene.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154705/last-ayn-rand-acolytes

The young seem to be leaning Left these days…..and that will not change as long as economic injustice is running rampant…..change that and it is possible that Rand’s (Ayn not Paul) could once again be popular…look at the new popularity of Orwell’s “1984”….any thing is possible.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

What Is Patriotism?

This is one of those nagging questions that needs a answer…

In this nation of tribes within tribes….the term patriot and patriotism have fallen into some sort of funk….once again I try to help my readers look into this phenom…I have my definition….but is it the best one….or is there any other definition that fits the term more properly.

I have asked this question many times for it is a political tool and can be used as an insult to opponents…..I have asked and I have written many times trying to get to the root of the answer to “what is patriotism”?

A few of the more recent writings……

https://lobotero.com/2016/07/07/patriotism-whats-it-good-for/

https://lobotero.com/2016/09/25/who-has-a-lock-on-patriotism/

https://lobotero.com/2017/04/21/what-happened-to-patriotism/

I still do not have a sufficient answer to the question.  I have my feelings on the term but what about others…do they feel the same as I?  It is a term that is batted around too easily to the point of becoming political slogan instead of a way of life.

Those lingering questions…….

What is patriotism?

Is it an ideology?

Is it love of country?

Is it a religion?

Is it values?

What makes it patriotism?

Answer me that.

What makes one a patriot?

Patriotism is not love of country, if by “country” you mean scenery—amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesty, and the like. Almost every country has pretty collections of rocks, water, and stuff that people grow and eat. If that’s what patriotism is all about, then Americans have precious little for which we can claim any special or unique love. And surely, patriotism cannot mean giving one’s life for a river or a mountain range.

Patriotism is not blind trust in anything our leaders tell us or do. That just replaces some lofty concepts with mindless goose-stepping.

https://fee.org/articles/the-true-meaning-of-patriotism/

Is there one overriding characteristic that will define patriotism?

I have questions with few answers.

Anyone that thinks they have the answers then please jump in and enlighten me and my readers.

If there are NO common definitions of patriotism then how can we have a united nation with freedom and justice for ALL?

Just a thought.

Any thoughts you would like to pass on?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego ergo Scribo”

What Do Democrats Stand For?

After the disaster of the Congressional Hearing…..the question needs asking and needs a good answer.

Look at the Democrats in Congress….what do they stand for?

There is a serious lack of authority from a committee of the US House of Representatives….they all sat there let some half-wit thug show them the door.  Basically Lewandowsky dropped his pants the wiggling his penis at the Committee and the Nadler let him get away with it.

We know what the candidates have on their minds……there is Medicare For All…..and a Green New Deal……and some vague criminal justice thoughts and financial reforms by the boat load…but in reality there is nothing to their “policies” because NONE of it will ever see the light of day.

We are talking about a full time body that works on a part time schedule….about 3 days a week when in session…..weekends off with Friday and Monday for travel to meet with the high dollar donors.

Democrats of old knew how the game of politics was played…….the Dems of today are willfully unqualified to play the game. 

As the saying goes….”Democrats have great ideas but suck at the game of politics.”

They spend their time on the short term goals and never have formulated a long term plan and it shows…..their inefficiency screams everyday out of the “Idiot Box” as one and then another is interviewed and there is NO unified message….no matter the topic….there is NO unified message.

And this is why the so-called “moderates”….have proven what I suspected for many years…..Dems are cowards and truly SUCK at politics and a doable message.

In January of 2019 I wrote that the Dems would be a major disappointment and my opinion of them has not changed……https://lobotero.com/2019/01/03/democrats-will-be-a-major-disappointment/

If you are a Dem then please tell me what do the Dems running for the presidency stand for?  Then take a look at the Dems in Congress and give me the same answer….do they truly stand for anything other than being re-elected?

Back in May of 2019 I tried to help my reader with this probing question about our Dem candidates……https://lobotero.com/2019/05/13/party-politics-for-2020/

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Capitalism Has Failed!

I realize this post will not sit well with those individuals that have more money than brains…….but let’s look at it….capitalism has failed.

The truth is that the “economy” is booming according to some….then why are most Americans are overworked and underpaid and the future looks no brighter than now……

Let’s look shall we?

Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting true things about America’s disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family.

It’s true that they didn’t work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in the summer), they had time to enjoy a hike in the forest or a swim with the kids or a beer with friends — which helps explain why, unlike so many Americans, they are pleased with their jobs.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/american-capitalism-failed-us-overworked-underemployed-powerless-ever/

Now we see a debate taking hold should the US embrace socialism over the soul sucking capitalism we have today?

In 2016, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ran on a platform that many thought would’ve ruined his political chances. He ran as a democratic socialist, disavowing America’s longtime capitalist consensus and proudly wrapping himself in a label pundits considered political poison. And it worked.

In American politics, and particularly in the Democratic Party, the primacy of capitalism is, for the first time in ages, an open question. Sanders is expected to run again in 2020, and to run with the support of a grassroots movement that thrills to his break with capitalist convention. He’ll face, among others, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who says one key difference between her and Sanders is that she’s “a capitalist to my bones.”

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2019/1/7/18167691/what-is-socialism-capitalism-sanders-warren

Personally I do not care what we call it…..as long as the children get educated, people make a living wage, health is for everyone, etc……so can a bit of socialism help capitalism?

Larry Fink, the chief executive and founder of BlackRock, published his annual letter to the chief executives of all the companies around the world in which it invests last week.

And Fink’s message was: don’t put profits first. Put “purpose” first. “Purpose is not the sole pursuit of profits, but the animating force for achieving them,” Fink explained.

“Profits are in no way inconsistent with purpose – in fact, profits and purpose are inextricably linked.”

This corporate purpose, he went on, means investing for the long term, serving a community, developing the talents of a workforce. And so on. BlackRock also says that bosses’ pay should not rise faster than that of the firm’s workers and has threatened to vote against remuneration committees that agree to excessive awards.

It’s enough to make the libertarian epigoni of Milton Friedman, the economist who famously asserted “there is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits”, choke on their cornflakes.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/blackrock-socialism-capitalism-stock-market-sacha-romanovitch-grant-thornton-a8737131.html

We need some help……this deal is just not working the way it was intended…..reform NOW or face the consequences.

Did Neoliberals Get The Memo?

I smell a new war brewing……

Neoliberalism is the bane of humanity and it has been a driving force in politics for decades…..these are the people that fear that “creeping socialism” because they are doing more damage to a country that anything socialist.

But first for those that are scratching their heads and thinking this is something about Dems need to step back and read…….neoliberalism knows NO political party……

What is this magical thing called “Neoliberalism”?

The main points of neo-liberalism include:

  1. THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating “free” enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers’ rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say “an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone.” It’s like Reagan’s “supply-side” and “trickle-down” economics — but somehow the wealth didn’t trickle down very much.
  2. CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply — again in the name of reducing government’s role. Of course, they don’t oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.

3. DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on the job.

4. PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

5. ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF “THE PUBLIC GOOD” or “COMMUNITY” and replacing it with “individual responsibility.” Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves — then blaming them, if they fail, as “lazy.”

But if they is too confusing and you need a visual…..

Most everything was written by me awhile back……https://lobotero.com/2018/08/24/is-neoliberalism-dead/

I bring this up because too many of the Dems are in the column for neoliberalism and it is a dying or dead political philosophy and yet candidates like Biden keep pushing neoliberal ideas as solutions to this world’s problems….and we see how those solutions have worked out, huh?

The evidence keeps piling up. Neoliberalism is dead.

Just look at the record. Trump—a cross between a carney barker and a conman—beat a neoliberal in 2016. Right-wing populists have scored big in Austria, Italy, Britain, and Brazil since then.  Just recently, Australia’s right-of-center Labor coalition won their election. And in the European Union’s latest contest, Greens won big while right-wing parties made gains in some areas.  All these victories came at the expense of neoliberal centrists.

Bottom line: Across the world, people are finally wising up to the fact that neoliberalism has failed them economically, politically, and environmentally. In fact, the climate crisis—an existential threat to human civilization—is a direct result of the global neoliberal juggernaut that has swept the developed world.  So are the record levels of income and wealth disparity, and the subversion of democracy by a powerful oligarchy—particularly in the US.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/03/neoliberalism-dead-neoliberal-elite-didnt-get-memo

Please look at the candidates carefully.  Please make a decision that will produce solutions or at least real solutions.

Most of the candidates are in the pocket of corporate America and their solutions will only help their handlers….not the people.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Vote!

Catch 2020–

WAIT! Before anyone’s tiny head explodes read the post and the accompanying articles.

These days there is lots of lip service to the failing of the American political process…..and many say the Trump is merely a symptom……

Don’t try to deny it! The political temperature of this country is rising fast. Call it Trump change or Trump warming, if you want, but grasp one thing: increasingly, you’re in a different land and, whatever happens to Donald Trump, the results down the line are likely to be ever less pretty. Trump change isn’t just an American phenomenon, it’s distinctly global. After all, from Australia to India, the Philippines to Hungary, Donald Trumps and their supporters keep getting elected or reelected and, according to a recent CNN poll, a majority of Americans think Trump himself will win again in 2020 (though, at the moment, battleground-state polls look grim for him).

Still, whether or not he gets a second term in the White House, he only seems like the problem, partially because no president, no politician, no one in history has ever gotten such 24/7 media coverage of every twitch, tweet, bizarre statement, falsehood, or fantasy he expresses (or even the clothes he wears). Think of it this way: we’re in a moment in which the only thing the media can’t imagine saying about Donald Trump is: “You’re fired!” And believe me, that’s just one sign of a media — and a country — with a temperature that’s anything but 98.6.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/17/if-donald-trump-symptom-then-whats-disease

And then there is the “F” word being applied to Mr. Trump and his policies……

There are so many people going on the TV machine to call Trump a fascist and too many people that will shake their tiny heads in agreement…..So this post is to try and help answer that burning question for so many of Trump’s detractors.

Is Donald Trump a fascist? The question is usually posed as an insult rather than as a serious inquiry. A common response is that “he is not as bad as Hitler”, but this rather dodges the issue. Hitler was one hideous exponent of fascism, which comes in different flavours but he was by no means the only one.

The answer is that fascist leaders and fascism in the 1920s and 1930s were similar in many respects to Trump and Trumpism. But they had additional toxic characteristics, born out of a different era and a historic experience different from the United States.

What are the most important features of fascism? They include ultra-nationalism and authoritarianism; the demonisation and persecution of minorities; a cult of the leader; a demagogic appeal to the “ignored” masses and against a “treacherous” establishment; contempt for parliamentary institutions; disregard for the law while standing on a law and order platform; control of the media and the crushing of criticism; slogans promising everything to everybody; a promotion of force as a means to an end leading to violence, militarism and war.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/11/is-trump-a-fascist-well-hes-not-hitler-or-mussolini-yet-but-hes-getting-closer/

In my opinion he is not a fascist at all….just a self-centered megalomaniac that got elected because of nothing he did just a luck of the electorate.

Again I can help those that are not capable of reading a book……

NO!  Our Dear Beloved Supreme Leader is no fascist…..however he is a horrible president for all Americans…..his ideas will only benefit a few not all….. should stop using the word “Fascist” as well as the word “Socialist”….for these words are used to scare not explain anything.  Keep it scary for the simpler minds.

But what is Trump’s political end game?

The President has consistently manufactured spectacles and provocative tirades on Twitter and elsewhere as a means of exploring the limitations of his purview and assailing opposition.

In characteristically authoritarian form, Trump regularly releases trial balloons, which if not met with significant resistance create dangerous precedents used to revoke, confiscate and monetize public assets. This anti-democratic, hyper-capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal pattern will continue until Trump is either removed from office or the entire public sphere is gutted and privatized.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/18/catch-2020-trumps-authoritarian-endgame/

Try focusing on issues and stands and not some terminology that has lost all its meaning other than inciting fear.

Do you have any idea what is happening in this country?

2020 is approaching and we should be consuming all data on candidates….

Learn Stuff!

Then VOTE!

The Growing Hate

By the title one might surmise that this post is about the tensions between races or religions or whatever else us humans attempt to hate……well if so….you would be mistaken.

I have been writing and attempt to teach people about war and its complexities and in that time I have also been an antiwar activist and because I have been such I have hated those we call “Neocons”….or if you prefer “warmongers”….or if you would like a more political correct title….”hawks”……

Since 9/11 it has been out of fashion to hate these people because they are keeping us “safe” from another attack by taking the fight to the terrorists. Since those days slowly but slowly the US has expanded its reach with war all in the name of fighting terrorists…..this overreach was sold to the people by the MSM with their constant drumming of propaganda….

But I can glad announce that the “old days” seem to be returning (at least for others…… for I never stopped hating)…..the public is starting to wake up to the reach of the M-IC and the propaganda of the MSM……

American Conservative has published an article titled “Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around?”, an excerpt from a book by Fox’s Tucker Carlson, which documents neoconservative thought leaders Max Boot and Bill Kristol’s consistent track record of supporting spectacularly awful US war policies. Carlson goes over the many, many acts of military interventionism which have been pushed for by these two legendary failmeisters, documents what they predicted would happen as the result of that interventionism (freedom, democracy and prosperity) and what actually ended up happening instead (needless death, terrorism and chaos), and marvels at how they both somehow remain in positions of high esteem with high-profile, high-paying jobs.

The article was shared today on Twitter by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who commented that Carlson “offers a devastating critique [of] interventionism and shows how much of the foreign policy establishment has failed the American people. There is an emerging, left right coalition of common sense for a foreign policy of restraint.”

https://theantimedia.com/hating-neocons-is-excellent/
 
I am an old fart but it is good to see a trend developing to maybe check the expansion of our many many wars.
 
We can only hope.