Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Ramanan — Glenn Greenwald On The New Yorker‘s Admission


It was the effects of neoliberal globalization that disadvantaged the middle class economically while enriching the top of town rather than "Russian hacking" or RT propaganda. This is what brought Hillary Clinton down, drove Brexit, and is stoking the resurgence of formerly right and left European fringe parties into the mainstream. Immigration is a stub context to that as citizens see immigration as imported completion for employment along with the labor embedded in imports and exported factories. Even the refugee crisis is the result of neoliberal globalization's siblings, neo-imperialism and neocolonialism, whose parents are economic liberalism and transnational corporate capitalism.

The Case for Concerted Action
Glenn Greenwald On The New Yorker‘s Admission
V. Ramanan

7 comments:

Magpie said...

It's true that currently "Putler" is the preferred "explanation", and all the VSP are peddling it, maybe because it places the blame on a foreign character and does not further offend people whose votes may be needed in the future.

But to forget all the "explanations" proposed at one moment or another does a disservice to the public, particularly because the US elections were held less than 3 months ago. Can people forget things that easily?

Off the top of my head, all these were advanced at one moment or another as "causes" of the Clintonette's loss before the VSP settled for "Putler":

(1) Jill Stein and the Greens (believe it or not).
(2) Misoginy.
(3) Voter fraud/electoral college.
(4) The Huma & Weiner Show.
(5) Bernie Sanders and the Berniebros.
(6) OMG! The FBI director! THE FBI DIRECTOR!!!!
(7) Fake news: HRC was really ill; the pedophile ring in the dungeons of the restaurant.
(8) Wikileaks and Julian Assange.
(9) That evil -- evil, I tells ya -- white working class.

A few cartoons from those long-ago days, making fun of that:

https://anticap.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/universal-glenn-mccoy.jpg
https://anticap.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/187446_600.jpg

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Just wait until this wave passes as it, sooner or later, must.

Then they'll come up with another explanation: chem-trails, subliminal propaganda, the Illuminati, reptilian aliens.

Penguin pop said...

Magpie, I never realized it was so many reasons these people try to use. I love using Occam's Razor in these situations and going with the much simpler explanations rather than dozens upon dozens of different reasons why HRC lost the election. I feel a lot of those "reasons" you mention above are distractions from talking about the core root of the problem. As I have said before, getting over 2.5 million more votes is a respectable show. It was those swing states out in places like Michigan where she lost and had the understanding many years ago that Electoral College is the only thing that matters. Simplest explanation is she should have campaigned in those states way more than she did, though gerrymandering and other things like that are factors too.

Schofield said...

If there's one thing MMT supporters are it's Alt-Center simply because they do nuance and balance better than most.

Matt Franko said...

"Then they'll come up with another explanation: chem-trails, subliminal propaganda, the Illuminati, reptilian aliens."

Dont forget the "neo-liberal conspiracy!!!!"

Tom Hickey said...

Probably the biggest reason that HRC lost the election is that the neoliberals rolled the Keynesians in the Obama administration. If Obama had even been told about Christina Romer's recommendation for a 1.8T spending stimulus and argued for it successfully, the Democrats would still be in power, but neoliberal Larry Summers never even told him about it .

In the first place Obama wasn't told what he would take, and secondly he caved to neoliberals in the name of "bipartisanship, on one hand, and neoliberal New Democrats as the dominant wing of the party on the other.

The ensuing economic depredation of the middle class and working class ensured that voters of the Rust Belt would not be voting to return a Democrat to office, especially when the other candidate was saying at least that he was felling their pain, while the Democrat was saying how good things got under Obama after W trashed the economy.

New Democrat = neoliberalism (deregulation, privatization, "expansionary fiscal austerity," and technocracy led by the financial sector) = losers.

Joe said...

Did Obama "cave" to the neoliberal wing, or did he behave as he truly is?
It looks to me that Obama is exactly what he appears to be: cautious, politically conservative, mildly socially liberal, deeply supportive of the establishment, elitist, in love with wall street and silicon valley, but smart enough to talk a progressive game when it counts. Change on the outside, continuity on the inside. Hilary tried to pull the same trick, except with more neoconservativism, but no one likes her. Obama put a nice face to shitty things.

Magpie said...

You guys remember Jill Stein collecting money for a vote recount, yes?

Well, at the time the rank-and-file HRC supporters were hopeful that at long last justice would be served.

What was my surprise when a professor of law (who shall remain anonymous, btw) who once was well-connected to the then senator Barack Obama published a comment in his FB opposing Stein's initiative.

How come? Why would a Democrat throw that cold water bucket on his fellow HRC fans?

Well, he argued, because Trump could win the recount and if that happened, his presidency would gain legitimacy.

Let's be clear now. That professor did not write what follows. He is a lawyer and he knows to be very careful with the ideas he expresses: it is I who am reading between his lines. Maybe I'm being too cynical.

At any event, note that the professor had no problem with HRC fans casting probably unfounded doubts on the election process. No. Either that was okay or it didn't matter.

His problem was that a recount could dispel those doubts and backfire politically.

How do you like that? Doesn't it sound to you like, for that professor, the truth of the accusation is secondary to the damage it may inflict on its intended target (aka The Pussy-Grabber in Chief) or on his opponents?

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The point is that, while I advice you guys take that story with a grain of salt, it may be relevant to assess the feasibility of a leftist Tea Party-like insurgency against the Democratic establishment.