I was writing something on the topic of "The Will of the People", when I paused to listen to the President’s Thursday September 13th speech, in which he mentioned:
1. an “enduring relationship” with Iraq’s government,
2. that he was grateful for the contribution of troops from “36 nations,”
3. and that he follows the advice of his generals.
Huh?
1. An enduring relationship with a non-existing government that recently took a month’s vacation?
2. Troops from 36 nations? Was he counting the hometowns of his troops, from places like Harlem and Minneapolis and Kansas City?
3. Advice of his generals? Did he mean the list of four stars he fired who didn’t agree with his disastrous agenda?
Or is Bush, unlike Bill Clinton, inhaling something?
Hot News!:
1. Retired Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, in his new book says, “The Iraq war is largely about oil.” Really? When did he discover that?
2. There are as many private and unbelievably expensive contractors in Iraq as there are servicemen and women. And half of them, international mercenaries, are armed to the teeth, as are the bully boys of Blackwater, a far-right organization which has contributed funds to Republican coffers. This is news?
Okay.
Bush/Cheney and their neocon cohorts have simply never appreciated the concept of the will of the people; an example of which was loudly expressed in the November elections, a statement which they continue to ignore. It was a mandate which the wimpish Democrats, who can‘t get their act together, have failed to exploit to the satisfaction of their antiwar constituents. Unfortunately, the neocons and an incompetent Bush are the only ones with vision; albeit in the neocons case, cynically ideological; and in Bush’s case, messianic and dangerously hallucinatory.
So the will of the people in most matters, as usual, is too often discounted, especially by the far right who have long had a concept that is basically incompatible with the public will.
In our society conservative thinkers tend to frown on the possibility of unregulated voters having too much to say, and have a way of demonizing them by suggesting they may be too uninformed to understand anything nuanced, for instance the need for unregulated capitalism. Too uninformed to understand the conservative fairy tale of how the rising fortunes of corporations will always brim and trickle down to provide the societal paradise of Joe Six-Pack’s American Dream, which it did for awhile in the post-war era of this country.
Article comments
1 - Lumpy
The elitism in this piece makes my skin crawl. Don't talk about 'joe six pack'. You don't know him or what he wants. Your greatest mistake is thinking that the mob rule u advocate would lead to the results you want. In reality the elites of the left would be the first ones taken to the wall and shot.
2 - Sam
Yes this is the biggest bunch of garbage i have ever read, and it started off well too..... What you want is communism, which always turns into a depressed dictatorship and mass shootings for "traitors" to your government. Go say hi to Stalin and Hitler for me....
3 - Dave Nalle
The fatal arrogance of the self appointed 'intelligensia' is that they assume that because they show so much outward compassion for the workers, the workers will identify with them and join them in their struggle against the elites and the bougeoisie. The painful truth is that the workers just want to BE the bourgeosie and that's who they really identify with.
Dave
4 - Christopher Rose
That's almost right Dave, but my perception is that the working class or poor people generally just want not to be so poor, as opposed to wanting to be bourgeois.
I very much doubt that they would use words like bourgeoisie or intelligentsia either...
5 - bliffle
Nevertheless, Sammys characterizations of the prevailing rulers is accurate.
6 - JustOneMan
"Bush/Cheney and their neocon cohorts" are you serious? This crap is getting so old...
JOM
7 - Carson
Dream Act???
Why the special treatment?
Some of us once had dreams of our own.
Back in the 60’s the Federal Government came into the public schools and brainwashed us as little children with the message that the children we were about to have were unwanted because the population was rising so fast. They launched a program called, “Zero Population Growth”. They pushed Family Planning and birth control pills. Now they call the same programs, "Safe Sex" but the results are the same. I think you and I both know that you only have to trick people for their few child bearing years and there is no going back.
Many of us never had a say in the future of our unborn.
I am the result of two living cells. One from each of my parents. They are the result of two living cells, one from each of their parents. I wasn't just born. I am a continuation of life. I am a living thing that reaches back into time perhaps 400 million years and the result of billions of joining of pairs of cells. It is possible that if you were to follow my cells back to my parent’s cells and beyond that my family tree touches every living thing here on earth. That is if we limit ourselves to believing life was created here on earth. If it rained down from the immensity of the universe it could reach back into that immensity of time and space, and who knows what relationships and who knows what species.
My family line succeeded, at least until I came up against the Federal Government and their plan to control the population.
I have seen the Federal Government do little else to control the population.
The open border, United States laws only apply to some, is a serious slap in the face. No, not a slap in the face, it reaches well beyond that. Maybe back to the beginning of time and stretch to the bounds of the universe.
8 - Uncle Sammy Says
Lumpy--Where did I advocate mob rule? I pointed out that we couldn't do without the checks and balances which certainly prevent that. My point is, there is elitism in the minds of many people in power who discount the rest of us, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are today. And I know all about Joe Six-pack--it's where I come from.
9 - Uncle Sammy Says
"Communism, Mass shootings, Intelligensia & Bougeosie." C'mon! That's so over the top! So 1950s. I thought the Commies were impractical whackos back then, and still do. I've never thought any country could measure up to us, in spite of my distaste for recent events, post 9/11. It's apparent, everyone has completely missed the point. Bye.
10 - moonraven
The point--the ONLY point worth making--is that THERE IS NO WILL of the people of the US--unless you call belching your way through the aisles at Sam's Club the will of the people.
There is also no free lunch.
And there will be no "One Fine Day", Chochosan.
11 - Dave Nalle
That's almost right Dave, but my perception is that the working class or poor people generally just want not to be so poor, as opposed to wanting to be bourgeois.
The paradigm is that the desperately, truly poor aspire only to survive and improve their lot in tiny ways. It is the poor who have enough to see what they are missing who are liable to rebel and overthrow their masters.
I very much doubt that they would use words like bourgeoisie or intelligentsia either...
They do in societies where education is given away instead of earned.
Dave
12 - Christopher Rose
In absolute terms, there are no "desperately truly poor" in the USA, where even the poorest are far better off than the truly poor of this world. Wanting to be bourgeois and rebelling are entirely different issues and you have simply confused them - or yourself.
The poor do not use those kinds of words, which are inherently bourgeois, like you, regardless of the means of delivery of education. That's simply more of the wilful nonsense as opposed to meaningful conversation one expects from such a confused mind...
13 - bliffle
Gee, I feel bad because I didn't earn my education. The state and federal governments sported me to it, I suppose they expected that they'd get the bucks back in taxes that they could use to sport more kids to an education. Seems to work. Sorta like the way the feds sport US corps to $170billion a year in subsidies. By the way, how do those ROIs compare?
Looks to me like those homeless folks are truly poor.
14 - Clavos
"Looks to me like those homeless folks are truly poor."
Yup.
And not a few of 'em by choice, too.
15 - Doug Hunter
Most poor people are that way by choice, they had the choice to bear children as an unmarried teen, they had the choice to drop out of school, they have the choice to get out of bed and from in front of the TV and work, they chose what seemed the best and easiest for them. By subsidizing bad behavior and rewarding failures we've made the 'bad' choices that much easier.
16 - troll
...or one could say that poverty is systemically necessary to control the price of labor
17 - Cindy D
The paradigm is that the desperately, truly poor aspire only to survive and improve their lot in tiny ways. It is the poor who have enough to see what they are missing who are liable to rebel and overthrow their masters. (DN)
I have to laugh, almost hysterically. What an interesting point of view for someone who believes in freedom and liberty for all.
Let's have a system whereby the wealthy can be unleashed to abuse workers even more thoroughly than they are abusing them now.
Let's take a system that is already tilted in the direction of wealth being accumulated in the hands of the few and tilt it ever further in that direction. Let's drop public education, let's drop social security and welfare too (except for the corporate kind, because our mockery of a system of "free enterprise" couldn't exist without corporate welfare).
What is wanted, is not "free enterprise", but just enough government to protect the freedom and liberty of the wealthy.
This is not a result of the poor identifying with the bourgeois.
It is a result of those in the middle class who have found enough comfort to identify with the bourgeois. Along with an entrenchment of the notion that capitalism is good. (Although when these lose their pensions it sometimes shocks them.) Some might even hate the corporation they work for. But, they hate social welfare, even more and have been taught that this is where the drain on their resources comes from.
"Corporatists" is a better word than capitalists for what we have become. This moves in the direction of Fascism.
Ah, the poor and their masters...
Interesting choice of words.
18 - troll
...give that gal the kewpie doll - !
19 - Dave Nalle
In absolute terms, there are no "desperately truly poor" in the USA, where even the poorest are far better off than the truly poor of this world. Wanting to be bourgeois and rebelling are entirely different issues and you have simply confused them - or yourself.
I don't find myself confused at all. The confusion must lie with you. I've made a study of societies in transition and the causes of rebellion and am just trying to share some of that knowledge.
Everyone wants to advance their condition. Those who are truly downtrodden have smaller ambitions than those who have at least some leisure time and even the tiniest amount of disposable income. This is the logic behind Ricardo's 'Iron Laws'. If you want to keep a population controlled and fixed in place, make sure that they have neither excess time nor excess money nor excessive education.
In a stratified society the alternative to total oppression is to provide some sort of release mechanism for pressure which builds up at the bottom. Traditionally the answers to this problem have been war and emigration. If you offer the military as a way out for the poor, then you can remove the malcontents from normal society and reintroduce those who survive when they are much older and prepared to reenter society in a new and strictly defined role. Emigration, whether forced or voluntary, removes your malcontents from society equally effectively.
If you aren't going to have these kinds of controls, then you need to provide genuine opportunities for upward mobility. A significant enough portion of the lowest classes has to be able to move into the middle class for the rest to see it as a real possibility. For this to work they need to be provided with education, there needs to be skilled work available for them, and there needs to be a source of new labor to fill the place of those who move up in society - likely through immigration.
In a society with upward mobility what you need to avoid is large gaps between the different strata in society. The gap between poor and the tradesman class (skilled workers and managers) needs to be small. The gap between the tradesman class and the capital class (business owners) needs to be small. The gap between the capital class and the wealthy (those with self-sustaining wealth) needs to be small. The size of the gap between rich and poor is largely irrelevant, so long as the middle classes are not hugely separated from those above them.
Pre-revolutionary Russia is a good example of a society where upward mobility existed but the division between rich and middle class was insurmountable, producing a class of skilled or educated people with leisure time and some resources who saw no possibility of advancement and became discontented.
In recent years in America we've seen a growth in the gap between the rich and the poor, but at the same time we've seen the middle class expand and diversify to fill that gap, so we don't have the conditions which would be likely to support a revolution, at least not the type of revolution one normally expects. Radical ideological change or a revolution based on some criteria other than economic oppression might be possible.
The poor do not use those kinds of words, which are inherently bourgeois
They do if they are TAUGHT to use them. This is what happened in Russia prior to the revolution. Well-meaning social progressives began teaching the factory workers and villagers and along with reading and writing they more or less unintentionally taught them discontent with their lot in life.
, like you,
Ah yes, I'm the essence of the petit bourgeousie. If you were any more clueless you'd qualify for the clue dole.
regardless of the means of delivery of education. That's simply more of the wilful nonsense as opposed to meaningful conversation one expects from such a confused mind...
Christopher, you know you're playing out of your league when you have to resort to this sort of insult.
Dave
20 - bliffle
I feel so bad, now, that I accepted the free education that was thrust upon me starting when I was 5. Had I known enough to be a proper little corporatist I would have stoutly refused such welfare and waited until I was 20 or so and had accumulated enough cash to pay for my own education.
Welfare cheating starts early. It must haunt every waking moment of the Good Capitalists day that there are millions of little 5 year old welfare cheats running around.
They should, instead, be impressed into labor. Perhaps in a nice Shirtwaist Factory in New York City.
21 - Doug Hunter
blif,
There's a difference between a benefit available equally to all such as public education and a reward system for failure. Education does not reward failure, neither would universal healthcare. Free lunch programs, medicaid, pre-K, welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing, and anything else with an maximum income requirement is a discriminatory incentive for failure.
Being against failure subsidies is not being against every social program.
22 - moonraven
Except in Doug's case, of course.
He is clearly against anyone but him having more than 50 cents in his or her pocket. [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
23 - Dave Nalle
Made a study of--as if you were an academic!
MR, unlike you I can provide proof of my academic credentials and teaching experience, because like most real academics, course schedules in which my name appears on the courses I taught have appeared on the web.
Sadly no one seems to have put the programs of various conferences as which I've given papers online, but I've got hard copies of all that stuff too.
Dave
24 - moonraven
Sure you do, Dave.
If you had not lied about everything else, maybe I would have believed you.
But you did.
So I don't.
25 - Christopher Rose
Dave, you just simply can't ever admit you were wrong, can you? The fact that you don't find yourself confused in no way means you aren't, it simply means you can't tell or didn't notice.
You said the poor want to be the bourgeoisie, then you shifted ground to some specious mention of rebellion. Pleae keep your "knowledge", I find it too ideologically loaded and mostly pretty dated thinking.
You don't really know what the poor think or do. You may know some poor people but that isn't the same as being one. I would bet everything I own that the instances of poor people using those words since the Russian Revolution are lower than your IQ number - but only just!
I didn't say you were a member of the petite bourgeoisie, that was just another of your complete failure to deal with my remarks. I said you were bourgeois, which is simply true. you are sure having a hard time dealing with that for someone who, falsely, claims to deal with facts rather than prejudices.
As to your cheap shot insult about me being clueless, if you're what being clued up is like, I'd rather be clueless. Your shifty and unprincipled devotion to your perception of yourself as being right rather than actually being right by displaying a little more intellectual humility and a whole lot less elitist piggery is gross and revolting. Rather like your photo, sweetie!
Dave, any time you want to step up to my league or even into my century, you're welcome to try. Good luck getting those leaden datedideologue boots off though; I think they're made of fine corinthian lead, and we all know what lead does to people...