Month: April 2017
Worthwhile Reading
Sarah Hoyt: Hereditary monarchy, feudalism, and a vicious cycle of crazy….coming soon to a country near you?
Why Danusha Goska left the Left. Years of observing, and being subjected to, unpleasant and just-plain-nuts behavior.
There has been much discussion lately about the increased suicide rate and addictive behavior among white working-class men. Here’s a collection of comments to a Huffington Post article on that topic. (via The Arts Mechanical.)
In her ‘why I left the Left’ post, Danusha described the prevalence of hate, rather than a true desire to make things better, among today’s ‘progressives.’ That hate is very much on display in the Huffington Post comments.
The past of the future apocalypse: Stuart Schneiderman reviews some predictions of doom from back in 1970.
Are you a White man? Is it funny when you die?
Democrats in a public, political meeting cheer and laugh at the mention of the increased number of white men committing suicide.
The speaker says, maybe I should not say this in public, but when I heard more White men are committing suicide, I almost said “yeah, great!”.
But he does say it, and the crowd likes it, as he knew they would.
The speaker knows that he is talking about a group that has no organized capacity to oppose his despicable, dehumanizing, eliminationist hate speech. Attacking those who are not (yet) organized to resist is easy and fun.
About which other ethno-cultural community is it permitted to laugh and clap when they die by their own hands in larger numbers?
The despair that leads to this horrible increase in suicides is a gauge of the success of the policies the people in this video espouse. They are jeering over a defeated enemy. So for this crowd laughter and clapping is appropriate.
Every other group in American life is now self-consciously tribal, and mobilized to respond to any grievance, real or imaginary.
As noted elsewhere, liberal whites who believe themselves to be post-tribal cosmopolitans are merely a very wealthy and very powerful tribe, with their own rituals of recruitment and exclusion, who smugly believes themselves entitled to rule others.
The last group to self-consciously form a tribe will be non-liberal, lesser-educated, lower status white males. This will happen, and is happening, out of self-defense. This is a very large group. They do not think it is funny when they and their friends, neighbors, classmates, military buddies, coworkers, sons, brothers, fathers, people like them, are reduced to hopelessness and commit suicide in increasing numbers.
The younger members of this group, young white men, the generation aged 30 or so and under, are not easily shamed by accusations of political correctness. They see where this is going. This younger cohort is taking, and will take, the initiative.
The balkanization of America is moving along at an accelerating rate. There is only one domino left. The groups which have been directing their animosity against an inert and un-reacting mass will probably be shocked when they have finally awakened something that can and will push back.
Democrats who disagree with this kind of thinking and this kind of speech should insist that it stop. It is destructive, and it is even bad for their electoral prospects. But they won’t stop it. It is apparently intensely satisfying to enjoy the warmth of in-group solidarity, including expressing contempt for the disdained “other”, including laughing when they die in increasing numbers.
Identity politics is the core of what the Democrats stand for now. It feels so good, to so many people, it is apparently even better than winning elections. It is sick that our politics is reduced to this level. FDR, HST, JFK and the patriotic, civic nationalist Democrats of bygone days are scowling down from that great smoke-filled room in the sky.
Sad!
Have American Workers Been Chronically Exploited?
For centuries leading up to the Bicentennial in 1976 the American Dream of perpetually rising living standards has been paid for with wages that rose faster than prices. During the post WW II era worker productivity – as measured by output per hour – has continued to rise at a constant rate. Wages rose in lockstep with increasing productivity until the mid 1970s, but have since stagnated, rising only 15% as much (11% as compared to 75%) through 2016, as reported by the think tank EPI. The view from the left is that the wealthy owners and managers of capital have expropriated 85% of the fruits of labor, implicitly reflecting the decline of unionization of the private labor force from about one in three workers in the 1950s to one in twenty today. Their policy proposals reflect this perception of exploitation.
Politicians promote “Social Justice” through protection and redistribution
Even Karl Marx never expected capitalists to be this successful at exploiting workers, exceeding even that of 19th century robber barons and pre-Civil War southern plantation owners who at least provided their slaves basic sustenance. Politicians have responded with labor protections and income subsidies.
For example, the Obama Administration strongly supported (and was generously supported by) public sector unions. It also supported the expansion of private sector unionization through such policies as card check and Davis Bacon “prevailing,” i.e., union, wages for construction. It also supported “living wage” laws and raised the federal minimum wage, with states following and in some cases leading. In addition, restrictive state certification rules have increased five-fold since the 1950s.
Politicians also responded by supporting a rising standard of living with welfare state income redistribution policies. Obama-Care made health insurance universal and the percentage of the population receiving food stamps rose by 32%. In addition, those receiving disability payments rose about 50% during the last decade, despite the decline in risky manufacturing jobs.
These labor and subsidy policies all have roots in the response to the Depression of 1929/30, before it became “Great.” FDR – following Hoover – supported private – but strongly opposed public – sector unionization and a high wage policy, successfully keeping wages 40% above their market clearing rate according to a 2009 article. Social Security was introduced by FDR’s Labor Department and food stamps by his Agriculture Department (food perishables were purchased by the government to keep farm prices inflated and taken off the market, then distributed to the poor to save storage costs).
Worthwhile Visiting
The National Museum of Industrial History is located on the site of the former Bethlehem Steel complex. Most of the original buildings are derelict or partly torn-down, but the above array of blast furnaces and supporting equipment has been preserved.
Suggested musical accompaniment for a visit to the place that was Bethlehem Steel…features a different company and a slightly different geography, but basically the same sad story.