Imagine this: by next spring, an intellectual consensus will have emerged that the concentration in the banking sector that developed from the 1980s until the crash of ‘08 was misguided. Voices as disparate as Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, meta- investor George Soros, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page will be in agreement on this point.
A few brave souls on the Right — recognizing that the Republican Party has been bereft of ideas in its attacks on President Obama — will then try to re-define a populist, conservative attack by asserting that the White House has been captured by Wall Street. Real populism and change, they will argue, will come from the Republican, not the Democratic, party…..
So the simple question remains: why aren’t we focusing on the problem that got us here in the first instance — the scope, range, and size of the mega-institutions whose risk taking has so far inflicted only enormous harm on our economy? If the Republicans pick up this issue before we do, the elections of 2010 could be even worse than we are now fearing.
Other Democrats say that if we shut our eyes and think happy thoughts, everything will turn out beautifully. Above all, they say, “we cannot allow ourselves to become like them. If the Republicans decide to behave despicably, we should let them hang themselves with their own rope. The American people know that populists are nothing but demagogues and charlatans.”
Who is right and who is wrong? It’s too early to be sure, and the truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes.
Trollblog 
November 4, 2009 at 2:43 am
This is an awfully generous reading of Spitzer. Spitzer is, in many ways, the sort of clueless technocrat that you mock, and he shows it here.
The idea that the Republicans will come out against concentration in banking is absurd – and if they did, it would be a political disaster for them. The Republican tripod rests on God, war and money, with money generally being the most important.
McCain spooked the investment bankers; imaginary Republican populists in this mold would freak ’em out, and they’ve got a veto. There is absolutely no circumstance in which the Journal editorial page would endorse a bank breakup. None.
That great populist, Rush Limbaugh, trash-talked McCain and Huckabee, but not Romney. Does anyone wonder why?
You could kind of see Glenn Beck’s ravings turn in that direction – but if he ever got any substantive traction behind a populist call to break up the banks, he’d be history. Beck is living proof that Paddy Chayefsky was a prophet, and you may remember how Network ended.
Spitzer, ever the clueless technocrat, proposes that the Right will win elections by adopting the vision of technocrats like Volcker or King or (seriously!) Soros. You gotta be kidding me.
And you know what? If Spitzer were right, why should I feel bad about that? If there’s a serious Republican movement to break up the banks, I might vote Republican.
November 4, 2009 at 2:58 am
I read him to be saying that they’d demagogue the issue, rather than that they’d break up the banks.
I’ve been saying for quite awhile that someone has to be blamed, and that the odds are that it will be the Democrats.
November 4, 2009 at 4:18 am
I read him to be saying that they’d demagogue the issue
As I said, a generous reading, but I don’t disagree with you otherwise.
November 4, 2009 at 4:58 am
I’m also contrasting him primarily to corrupt, complacent Democrats, which is a very low bar. At least he mentioned the gorilla in the room, which very few of the big Democrats will do.
November 4, 2009 at 12:58 pm
We are doomed, doomed I tell ya.
The American political system is very stable and slow, doesn’t like radical changes; there’s no possibility of a Gorby equivalent making 180 degree turn. It’ll slide right over the cliff. There’s nothing you can do. Cross over to Canada, save yourselves.
November 5, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Methinks Poli-futbol, market advocate, again plays the Gambit Disingenuous: what he really means is that he doesn’t care for Spitzer’s regulatory leanings. (Or maybe it’s Spitzer’s leanings to…er high-priced putains). Spitzner’s not claiming the Hucklebee-GOP will support the sort of anti-corporate populism; he’s suggesting it’s in their best interest or something. He may be dreaming, but ….somewhat sound pragmatic intentions.
As NY AG Spitzer did take on some of the money boys, including Countrywide–one reason the GOP turned on him (and may have had some hand in the scandals, etc). He may be a meshugginah, but a bit more engaged in taking down the financial barons than most Dinkocrats….
November 5, 2009 at 6:14 pm
A lot of people really dislike Spitzer for reasons they don’t quite communicate. Some of them are people whose instincts I trust.
November 5, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I suspect that’s due to your crypto-libertarianism (or PF’s), or …perhaps sunday-schoolism. As a person Spitzer’s got issues. What politician doesn’t? You could at least read a bit about the specific cases.
Palast knows the score on the Spitzer vs mortgage kings battles:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/
“”””””Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.””””
November 5, 2009 at 8:04 pm
It’s not me. I’ve been pushing Spitzer all along. The people I’m thinking of (not PF either) disliked him before the prostitution business.
November 5, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I like Spitzer just fine. There are many, many worse things than being a clueless technocrat. I’m sorry he’s not governor of New York. I might even be sorry he’s not president of the United States. Given his opinions on strategy, I really wish he were running the Republican Party.
I had a specific gripe about his argument here, which I described in some detail. Not everything needs to be an ad hominem.
what he really means is that he doesn’t care for Spitzer’s regulatory leanings.
Actually, no. That would be the exact opposite of my opinion. Spitzer was a great AG.
November 5, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I think Spitzer’s pretty f-ing sleazy (e.g., consider the million-shekel undisclosed loan he took from his papa for his campaign, as well as the escort biz. Who the F. cares really, but he’s married, has like three brats, etc).
As Palast says, however, Spitzer was the only top-ranking Demo taking on the mortgage barons, the AIGs, Countrywides, G-sachs, JP Morgans. Spitzer was the last FDR-ish trust-buster around. While he helped to take down Countrywide [really a complex money-laundering scheme based on the secondary mortgage market, most likely started by …some of Reagan’s aging palsies in the Five Points gang], it was subsequently bought out by BoA, the MotherShark, as GP yawped.
November 5, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Jesus Christ, horation, if you can’;t fling shit from one direction you just fling shit from the other.
November 5, 2009 at 9:46 pm
No, you simply don’t understand the extent of the problem, and as usual sort of object to any detailed, fact-based writing (did you, or can you read Palast? Or not PC enough for you).
I’ve worked in the wilshire district around bond traders and stock/future brokers, and KNOW people who worked at Countrywide. The start-up capital, circa early 80s, came mainly from the Mob.
During the BushCo years, Cheney made a habit of stopping by the Countrywide hdqtrs (like Calabasas way, for one) to pay his respects to the paysanos at times.
November 5, 2009 at 9:49 pm
The extent of which problem? Spitzer’s sleaziness?
November 5, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Nyet. The mortgage problem, the banking crisis, the predatory lending problem. It didn’t just start two or three years ago–but during Reagan (if not Nixon), and then helped along by the de-reg types during Clinton. Maybe try Palast again.
November 5, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I read Palast, asshole. I was referring to your opening attack on Spitzer.
You’re extremely hard to please.
November 5, 2009 at 10:01 pm
.
November 5, 2009 at 10:17 pm
You’re a reactionary not to say poor reader. I was the one DEFENDING Spitzer’s actions against the mortgage business (and quoting Palast), but also pointing out Spitzer’s own problems (like the campaign financing, which you have yet to acknowledge). You continually create false dichotomies (even Dewey warned against that).
November 5, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Dude, read the updated comment moderation policy.
There’s actually very little disagreement on this thread, icluding from PF, but you seem to feel the need to salt everything with insults. As soon as PF agreed with you you did a lame rant on Spitzer.
November 5, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Moderation policy on a troll site. How f-ing weak. Some of us remember the old-fashioned BBs and USENET where anything went, except for outright, Unabomber-level phunn (though even that went sometimes).
Anyway, you didn’t read the rant (#11). I mentioned Spitzer’s own failings (specifically, his failure to disclose campaign funds). THEN I agreed with Palast, and praised Spitzer’s actions against the Mortgage mafia, but even if we agree he did the right thing, he’s still a DNC insider, filthy rich, corporate, bourgeois, etc.
November 5, 2009 at 11:18 pm
MY troll site, not YOUR troll site.
When you started off by reversing direction and going after Spitzer, maybe I reacted too quick.
There have been few or no pristine radical groups or leaders.
November 5, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Spitzer is an interesting case in the context of our conversations about populism, because he demonstrates one of the practical weaknesses of a technocratic politician.
He built his reputation on professionalism and probity, and when he got caught behaving hypocritically, he was doomed. There have been plenty of successful populists with feet of clay (even outside of Louisiana).
November 5, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Spitzer might be a technocrat, insider, corporate liberal, ace-prosecutor, what have you, but certainly no populist. He went to Princeton, grew up in Riverdale, very posh section of New Yawk (where the millionaires reside).
In ways I got more respect for honest mafiosi, or, say, ex-CW boss Angelo Mozilo, than for the do-gooder, liberal-Tory mama’s boy like Spitzer who inherited his millions. Angelo earned his cash the old-fashioned way— by pimpin’ for it.
November 6, 2009 at 12:10 am
In ways I got more respect for….
Always a bad beginning.
Populism isn’t mostly about resentment, and as I said just above, there are well-off people in every populist or left movement everywhere. Genuinely poor people don’t have the resources to form groups of any scope.
Rep. William Lemke of ND was as populist as you can get, in both the good and the bad sense, but he came from a moderately well-off family and attended Georgetown and Yale. It never took, though; FDR didn’t take him seriously because he was so country.
November 6, 2009 at 12:20 am
In ways I got more respect for….a bit of noir jargon (or N.Jour.), than for Deweyan do-gooder rhetoric.
Is the mafia populist? It was back in the day. The point was merely that a Mozilo started from scratch (Bronx, I believe)–and they didn’t really pin any serious crimes on him, maybe insider trading, but like, blame the SEC, and blame the Gingrich/Clinton Admin that voted in de-reg, and allowed subprime loans (a point Palast sort of overlooks). Spitzer was to the manor born. A Mozilo’s gulag-meat; Spitzer, mineshaft-meat.
November 6, 2009 at 12:29 am
The Mafia in Sicily were classic primitive bandits evolving into local warlords. They sort of arbitraged the oppressiveness of the rulers and the general lawlessness of the area. I believe that Hobsbawm wrote about them.
In NYC the Mafia were a non-rural version of that. They were wired into the police and took over local law enforcement for some areas, conditional on their deciding which laws to enforce.
I’ve hated CLinton since more or less the beginning. He was, nonetheless, better than the immediately available alternatives. Alas.
November 6, 2009 at 4:45 pm
The idea that the Republicans will come out against concentration in banking is absurd – and if they did, it would be a political disaster for them. The Republican tripod rests on God, war and money, with money generally being the most important.McCain spooked the investment bankers; imaginary Republican populists in this mold would freak ‘em out, and they’ve got a veto. There is absolutely no circumstance in which the Journal editorial page would endorse a bank breakup. None.
I think this would be an argument with lots of plausibility, if the R’s hadn’t just spent the summer defending Medicare, the thing they wish to rid us of.
I have no problem with envisioning the R’s coming back next summer and saying we have to get the Federal Reserve under control, we believe in free market banking, we’re going to stop the stealing. And then D types will run around calling them hypocrites.
That doesn’t mean they’ll actually do that. Those guys have demonstrated no fidelity to truth or honor or integrity or intellectual honesty, so I don’t see why those things would be barriers in the future.
Who is right and who is wrong? It’s too early to be sure, and the truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes.
I don’t know what to tell you, John. They won’t fight for ANYTHING, as near I can tell. Useless in a real fight. Of course, it is interesting that the inter-D fights of late have been between the rich kids and the midwesterners (broadly construed). I suppose if your entire life has worked out well, you would expect it to continue to do so. In such a circumstance, getting yelled at by people on the internet might very well be traumatic. MEAN!
Lord, it’s not like the Republicans faced a base revolt until well after they had screwed everything up.
max
[‘Pity Obama decided to be Hoover.’]
November 6, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I think this would be an argument with lots of plausibility, if the R’s hadn’t just spent the summer defending Medicare, the thing they wish to rid us of.
Defending Medicare against what, exactly? To be clear, I certainly agree with Emerson that the Republicans are going to demagogue any issue that they can, and banking is certainly an issue ripe for demagoguery.
But they’ll do it the way they did it with Medicare. They’ll fight bogey-men and propose pie-in-the-sky. They certainly won’t have anything to say (above a whisper) about breaking up banks.
November 7, 2009 at 12:12 am
Actually, I believe that there are republicans talking about auditing the Fed. Probably just the Ron Paul teabag fringes, but some. Huckabee is a guy who could ride that issue.
November 7, 2009 at 5:04 am
They’ll fight bogey-men and propose pie-in-the-sky. They certainly won’t have anything to say (above a whisper) about breaking up banks.
Well, no, but they can restrict the Fed, or pull back the bailout money or go after ‘white-collar criminals’ or deregulate everything and demand everyone be allowed to fail or lots of other things. Hell, they can just say they’re going to withdraw the deposit guarantees. For your mother of all bank runs.
Probably just the Ron Paul teabag fringes, but some.
Paul wrote a bill, got a shitload of cosponsors and it appears to have been gutted in the committee by a D. That would not, in fact, have necessarily been a bad bill to pass.
max
[‘I mean, if you wanted to know what kind of crap the Fed was buying.’]
November 7, 2009 at 10:04 am
Ron Paul teabag fringes
Nice going, for admirer of populism.
November 7, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Paul is not much of a populist. He’s a goldbug, for one.
I spent a whole day at Crooked Timber arguing with people who thought that Populist = angry demagogue. Now I come over here and find someone who agrees.
November 7, 2009 at 2:04 pm
It just came out that the Koch oil billionaires, two of the ten richest men in the U.S., paid for 40 buses to go to Michelle Bachmann’s recent capital event. That amounts to as much as half of the whole turnout.
I refuse to accept a definition of populism that includes movements financed by oil billionaires for the purpose of lowering their taxes and deregulating their businesses.
The people pushing the demeaning definition of populism (populist as a simple tactic, one involving angry stupidity and demagoguery) mostly have their own agenda as social scientists sympathetic to formerly-left formerly-populist neoliberal parties that provide access to jobs in various bureaucracies.
Zizek. Haven’t read it yet, though I don’t expect much. (This is one of the worst-formatted web pages ever. I suggest copying and pasting into Word or whatever you use.)
November 8, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Zizek’s leftist Hegelianism shouldn’t bother you, assuming you’re authentically anti-capitalist—he does tend to bother the “official” academics of course, even on the left. His rips of Chomsky, and in this essay Lakoff are quite entertaining (his Lacanian phunn on other hand not so copacetic). Lakoff was the liberal darling for a while, with his “framing” idea–Lakoff insists America doesn’t just face an economic or military crisis–it’s merely a problem in semantics! shades of Hayakawa…
Zizek’s not affirming rightist-populism (though some hysterical liberals–and leftists have read it as such). He’s sort of suggesting that the European right of skinheads, and Le Pen et al. represent, at least in part, traditional working-class nationalism, and the liberals, academic economists, and pop- marxists who demanded a Yes (on France’s accepting EU constitution) do not. By even suggesting someone like LePen might have anything of value to say SZ pissed off many (that one broad “Chabert,” now escondido, just started calling SZ a nazi), but Hegelian tradition, whether left-marxist or right-nationalism has never affirmed the sort of Koombaya liberal “inclusiveness” of the Democrats. Politics proceeds via Violence, opposition, war. SZ seems slightly anti-marxist here–yet closer to Hegel’s own german nationalism or at least euro-centrism of some sort (however dangerous).
This could be applied to illegal immigration in the US. It’s not necessarily the case that being in favor of illegals, open border means that one upholds the progressive or even leftist view. The mainstream GOP stopped whining about the border issue–why?? Because Californian agribusiness, millionaire developers and contractors depend on cheap wetback labor. The liberals who demand an open border fancy themselves great humanitarians, but they mostly help out the agri. and developer mafia, and do little or nothing to solve the real problems (ie mex.economy itself, not to say agribusiness).
November 8, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I’m looking at Zizek, Laclau, and a few others as soon as their books get here.
Zizek’s “Elusive something something something” made me think me of what Rexroth said about Sung dynasty neo-Confucianism, which was an amalgam of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, I Ching, etc.: that it was abstruse and all-comprehending that it almost ceased to exist.
Continental writers, following Hegel’s Phenomenology I suppose, write these parade philosophies, where you see all the same philosophical players in history go by in order one more time, neatly critiqued and transcended, until you finally get to whatever it was that the author of the parade thought he himself had to contribute.
One of the problems with being anti-analytic is that people assume that you must be a Brand X ,Column B, Hamilton Burger, Washington General, Workers and Peasants Party official opposition continental philosopher.
November 8, 2009 at 4:13 pm
The Phenomenology remains a key conty.text, and rather overwhelming (and one of Hegel’s early texts), but the politically relevant material comes from the Phil. Of History, Right AND the Encyclopedia (along with the Logic).
Historicism of any sort bothers anglo-American philosophasters (and Econo-men as well). That wasn’t always the case. Even the dastardly David Hume, proto-positivist wrote respectable history (as did his protege Gibbon) . A historical process on the grand Hegelian scale, however, simply does not function as input for a Steinford—Quineford!—-sort of logician, anymore than Beethoven does. That said, Im not sure you grasp the conceptual integrity of Hegelian process, dewd (which even CS Pierce at times echoes).
November 8, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I have been told that Hume’s historical writing broke all his philosophical rules.
As for history, I’m much more comfortable with history than philosophy. It was Hegel’s philosophization of history that bugged me.
I spent enough time with Hegel to have no doubts about not wanting to learn more. There are dozens of thinkers that no one fully understands, and you can’t study all of them.
November 8, 2009 at 10:14 pm
It was Hegel’s philosophization of history that bugged me.
That’s one of his most effective counter-jabs against anglo-empiricist tradition, isn’t it. Life, history, civilizations, wars, empires have meaning for Hegel. Not sure they did for say, a Locke (or even Kant). He’s not just working with “sense data” but a grand romantic vision. The world exists for Hegel, including the natural world–it’s not merely phenomena. (Zizek’s references to Ludwig Van in his populist rant have a certain Hegelian resonance).
I’m not saying Hegelianism should replace all evidentialism or traditional fact-based inquiries, but as a political model it’s a sound alternative to the Darwinian bottlewashers (and many Econo-men–not to say positivists– are more or less closet-cased Darwinian bottlewashers), or for that matter to the usual religiously orthodox vision.
November 9, 2009 at 3:58 am
Hey, John, did you make it back to that thread
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/10/31/the-wages-of-populism-political-death/#comments
I think it ended rather well. I don’t think Chris Bertram will be using “populist” in a pejorative way again without a rich bouquet of caveats. I did pass on a general Hofstadter critique in a dying thread though.
November 9, 2009 at 2:37 pm
By mutual agreement I’m not posting at CT any more. I did follow the argument. I’ll continue at Open Left, and of course here.
I’ve been frenemies with those guys for years, trolling their threads, and several of them hate me by now. I really don’t hate them, and I don’t plan to fight it. They really do seem to have constricted imaginations and a complacent perception of political reality, but I’ll let them go in peace.
November 9, 2009 at 5:20 pm
There’s another possible explanation for the shadowy proceedings and general deceit of the Crooked Timber gang (and other corporate liberal sites): they are a secret society of sort, quasi-masonic–or minor-ranking members of the Illuminati. Blogland as a whole has become far more conspiratorial over the last few years. Captchas themselves–a secret handshake of sorts, or at least a virtual bar code.
Check the wiki on Icke:
“””In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.[23] They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created “hybrids” who are “possessed” by the full-blooded reptilians…. The reptiles’ hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. ….
…. the reptilian group includes many prominent people and practically every world leader from Britain’s late Queen Mother to George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair.
I don’t think the leading CTers are powerful or sinister enough to be actual Shapeshifters at a Hillary C sort of Draco-creature level, but………aspirants, or apprentices of a sort. As with that Henry dweeb. Definite shapeshifter potential.
November 9, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Sorry to hear you were banned or muscled out John. I apologize for encouraging you to post in that thread: maybe you knew you were playing with fire, but I didn’t. For a while, my posts in that thread were being subject to moderation, but that stopped after I invoked Edwards and pretty much won the point. But I may have been flirting with bannery too without realizing it. Tim Wilkinson’s last series of posts suggest he had trouble getting stuff posted too. I like the level of discussion at Timber and would not like to be excluded, but first abb1 and now you; maybe my views are unacceptable too.
November 9, 2009 at 7:17 pm
It was pretty much fated. I don’t enjoy their threads much except when I’m trolling them, and most of them hate that. I was tolerated for a considerable period. I have no hard feelings, it’s like an amicable divorce where both sides feel enormous relief.
The fact of it is that I can only get an audience by trolling. I’m the intellectual equivalent of an unlicensed or non-union worker, living by my wits.
I think that the academic left will only push its politics up until the point that it impacts their biz, and then will fade. Their leftist heros are mostly 75 years dead.
Actually, with the Berlin quote, CT has always been center-left, and not in a good way. And upper-middle-class center-left at that.
I’ve been gradually disengaging from my mission to the liberals for some time now.
November 9, 2009 at 8:28 pm
What Berlin quote?
November 9, 2009 at 8:59 pm
CT has always been center-left, and not in a good way. And upper-middle-class center-left at that.
“Bloggers who think Paul Krugman is a progressive”-left–that’s the CT gang AKA. the acolytes of the Illuminati. And Herr Doktor Krugman himself–nothin’ but a mutha-f-ing Shapeshifter
November 9, 2009 at 9:20 pm
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made”, originally Kant.
In the context of 1945-2009, the message of this (shouted as with one voice by the turbulent mob of frenzied centrists) is that people shouldn’t hope for much from politics, and really should just sit down and shut up.
November 10, 2009 at 12:20 am
The CTster don’t seem overly Kantian.
Crooked Timber serves as the mothership of that entire liberal-leftist ring, including Unfogged, Berube, the Valve, Holblo, Kotzko, and Ygglesia perhaps (tho’ he’s a bit more high-powered)–the long sunday kids were involved at one point, but a bit too weird and real leftist for blogland.
Apart from a few semi-talented hacks (like Holblo—he sort of knows his stuff, but is a miserable writer), it’s nearly all bogus, light-weight careerism, instantly forgotten gonzo-lite by suburban liberals. It gets phonier as time goes on.
November 10, 2009 at 12:34 am
They’re Berlinian. Berlin took the phrase from Kant.
Cut the crap, ToS.
November 10, 2009 at 12:47 am
You’re too tame, Emo. Come on, bring in some bidness: Pubic Hair styles of the Unfogged gals, now on T-blog!
November 10, 2009 at 1:54 am
“Bloggers who think Paul Krugman is a progressive”-left–that’s the CT gang AKA.
I like this as a dismissive description of a certain type of clueless liberal, though I’m not certain it describes CT. In any sensible society, Krugman is center-right, but I don’t think the CT folks are uniformly insensible to that fact.
Crooked Timber serves as the mothership of that entire liberal-leftist ring,
You ever read Oliver Sachs? He writes in entertaining fashion about people who lack some key chunk of their brains – who can’t, for example, recognize faces.
I think you’d be an interesting case-study for Sachs. You seem to lack the ability to distinguish one intellectual concept from another. Republicans = Democrats; unions = corporations; Yglesias = Crooked Timber.
(Though I admit I’d agree that Yglesias is a lot like Krugman.)
Everything is not the same as everything else; listening to you is like listening to the subject of a Sachs case study about someone who can’t distinguish his wife from a hat.
November 10, 2009 at 2:00 am
Not exactly. Listening to YOU is about like listening to some phony, academic centrist like Krugman.
Have you ever even read a page of Hegel or Kant (or even Veblen?/) I strongly doubt it.
November 10, 2009 at 2:15 am
You just can’t handle someone who tells you that your Demo heroes like Bill Clinton (and his econ people) are , with just a few exceptions (say in regards to the IWE), every bit as culpable for the economic and political disasters of the last 10 years as the GOP is (ie DE-REG, pointed out ad nauseam, but still has not sunk in the liberal hipster brain).
November 10, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Seriously, I doubt that any of my ten readers is a Clinton admirer. So your insults are off the mark, but still annoying because obviously the intent is to annoy.
November 10, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Like the Chairgal Pelosi—nothin’ but skanky Lady Shapeshifter there
Pelosi got a decent healthcare bill through the house and an inadequate-but-actual climate change bill, too. Your notion that she’s functionally the same as the Republicans is silly and so indefensible that you don’t even try to defend it.
Same with Clinton. Does it make me a Clinton admirer to note that he was noticeably better than HW Bush, Dole or Gingrich? Does it make me a Clinton admirer to note that he was, on the whole, a notch above the despicable American electorate of his time? Sure, those aren’t very high standards, but if you refuse to make these distinctions, you end up not caring if, say, Gore beats Bush – and that indifference turned out to be incredibly damaging to the world.
November 10, 2009 at 8:19 pm
This is tedious, but what are the Republicans saying about health care?
In what sense is what the Democrats are saying about health care just as bad or not much better than that?
A high proportion of the Democrats would prefer single payer, but there’s no way to reach 50%+1 with that.
November 10, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Starting to moderate like a standard issue KOS-lib, JE. Make the unfogged frat-boys happy (and PF, like the unf’ed gang have NOTHING to do with agrarian populism)
Have you read anything on the climate-change issue? How about Pelosi’s h-c bill? Do you even know what they are proposing? It’s not the bill that Leahy/Durbin wanted, at all–but all about massive bureaucracy, insurance crops, contractor hustles. The usual gangsta-crat BS.
November 10, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I’m a troll moderater, basing everything on whim.
All that’s at stake is whether Democrats are distinguishable from Republicans in a generally good way. The answer is yes on almost every issue.
November 10, 2009 at 10:37 pm
What party is Leahy in again? Durbin?
You could argue that Pelosi dragged her caucus to the right – it’d be a dubious argument, but you could make it. What you can’t argue is that her caucus is indistinguishable from the other caucus.
November 10, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Leahy, Durbin? that’s like the party of Irish-professional politicians-on-their knees. Not synonymous with Gangsta-crats.
All that’s at stake is whether Democrats are distinguishable from Republicans in a generally good way. The answer is yes on almost every issue.
BS. On most topics they are quite close–even say defense spending, usually thought to be all GOP good ol boy. Obama’s earmarked more for defense than even Bushco did. And what about the bailout? 1/4 trillion shekel bipartisan corporate-statist par-tay.
And again you make a normative claim, yet don’t have any system of objective ethics handy. Demo policies might be “good” for many (mainly public employees, cops, teachers,janitor unions, et al). But not good for all (assuming such a Good could even be defended. Like LBJ-ism. Yes, ol LBJ helped out the po’ folks, and the bureaucracy itself–mainly by f-ing over middle class (and wealthy).
November 10, 2009 at 11:00 pm
ToS, are you really saying that no one can use normative language without having an adequate normative philosophy? That’s nihilism, since there’s no adequate moral philosophy. Normative language is mostly used by unphilosophical people, and few philosophers have much to add.
You tell me about the good things about the Republicans.
You are correct that on military issues the Democratic Party as a whole is more or less as bad as the Republican Party, regardless of what most Democrats and many Congressmen think.
One of the annoying things about these arguments is that the target moves around. I have little idea what your actual opinions are.
November 10, 2009 at 11:32 pm
What do Democratic politicians, even in your area, do for you ? NADA, I’m pretty sure. You don’t understand their game, their tactics, their hustle. The college-town liberals think this is like about helping the po’, and so on—sort of Hillaryism, everywhere. That’s a small part of what’s going down. It’s about power, money, rackets, bureaucratic control–and sex.
Maybe come out to California and hang out in some El Lay demo precincts, say Maxine Waters’ ‘hood (or f**k, Oakland). Not the granola, grass and my old school sort of college town phunn man. It’s multicultural Tweedism, if not outright gangsterism, across the state.
November 10, 2009 at 11:46 pm
All I’ve ever said is that the Democrats are better than the Republicans. What do you disagree with about that?
November 11, 2009 at 1:46 am
Let’s just keep it real as fuck, as Tweenky Sifoo says. When the freaks hit the streets say 67 68, were they like pulling for LBJ, or your homie Hubert Humphrey, or even his farmer-labor- agenda? Hell no. The counterculture was libertarian-left, not really liberal or democratic. The authentic freaks, at least Merican sort, were Thoreauvian. Not Adornoian (though a few factions, and parisian left still dreamt of the marxist Rev.–)
November 11, 2009 at 2:02 am
The freaks were a can of worms, sometimes visionary but about as philosophical or political as any other man on the street.
Humphrey was the one who destroyed the Farmer Labor Party. First he merged the Democrats with the left as the isolationists moved to the right, and then in 1948 he purged the left, and even though Humphrey was then on the far left of the Democratic Party, he had committed the merged DFL party to a rightward slide. The DFL is now a rather flabby machine, though Keith Ellison, Paul Wellstone, and Alan Page have been able to be elected via grass roots campaigns.
November 11, 2009 at 2:25 am
In other words, the Humphrey-esque statist liberal-populist tradition carries on, even in PC-multicultural form ala Ellison (and Thoreauvian and/or Kropotkin alternative has been mostly eliminated, or taken over by the Church of Gore (a multi-millionaire))
November 11, 2009 at 2:36 am
Put up or shut up. State your own political philosophy in a hundred words or less. I can’t deal with sniping from every direction.
My cards are on the table and yours aren’t.
November 11, 2009 at 3:04 am
Kropotkin should be one hint–at least in theory. Some aspects of social contract tradition still appeal to me as well (even Rousseau read Locke). But any vision of an agrarian Beulahland runs into historical realism. So, in brief….Nietzsche. Hegel. Entropy. Nurse Ratcheds. Corporate-statist Dystopia. Blood-drinking Illuminati—–Shapeshifters.
November 11, 2009 at 3:12 am
Fail.
November 11, 2009 at 3:25 am
According to your own Hubert Humphrey Farmer-Labor code, perhaps. You still believe in democracy. Some of us…never did.
That doesn’t mean “anything goes”, or even HL Mencken/Nietzsche, so forth (I’ve never claimed to be Nietzsche, or Nozick, etc). It does mean one has a certain realism about politics, and doesn’t expect much–and thus, is rarely let down (like Obama turning out to be centrist, hypocritical, another Anubis etc).
November 11, 2009 at 3:36 am
Your philosophy is a spatter. You have patches of right / left / libertarian / bigot / nihilist united only by writing style. But if your most recent expression is what you really think: if I were as pessimistic as you claim / want / try to be, I wouldn’t be messing with this BS. I’d just be reading non-political books.
Or to put it rather differently, if I thought that the consequences of the present BS would be minor and survivable, I probably wouldn’t mess with politics either.
I picked you for a purist utopian based on the amount of energy you spend shitting on the impure. But defeatist nihilism is the flip of that.
November 11, 2009 at 3:47 am
No. It’s not a spatter. I favor meritocracy and republicanism in euro sense, but not necessarily democracy. It would be swell if democratic processes worked, but history shows otherwise (including the most recent electoral-farces, whether at national, state, or local levels ).
Voting’s not sacrosanct. You want real reform, think up some clever alternatives to mere majority rule. Like, one, requirements of voters AND candidates. Doesn’t it bother you that the local Demo or GOP gang can run whatever semi-successful hick or hickette they choose to?? Does me. At least education requirements on candidates (and voters, as well, really). Kerry for instance took college towns of USA. He nearly won (and usually the urban areas will follow college people–not always). It was the rednecks who kept him out.
November 11, 2009 at 4:26 am
Yr right though–I am not trollblog material. Hubert lives man!
Ciao
November 11, 2009 at 12:38 pm
People huff off all the time, but they always come back.
71 was just added spatter.
November 13, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Re #33/Zizek.
Donde esta El Carne, Emerto?
Zizek apparently objects to the liberal-romantic populism (shall we say democratic, or Rousseauian), but not the rightist-nationalist sort (Hegelian). Is there some clear distinction, JE? Not sure. That’s one problem with the grand continental jargon (really, Dewey still engaged in that on a lesser scale). Though many bandy about the term, Populism does not appear to be easily defined.
At any rate, the populist of whatever sort places his faith in Vox Populi does he not: that’s what’s problematic. That holds for both Rousseauian sorts (sanscullotes–or perhaps maoists, when gone rogue), or Hegelian sorts (brownshirts, taken to the extreme). Elites of various types (academic or executive) might not be overly interested in egalitarianism either, of course but they don’t seem quite as potentially dangerous, except when having the power to control govt. or military, etc.
Ergo I don’t think merely invoking populism accomplishes much. The word connotes a WJ Bryan, or a few of yr yankee LaFollette types, and now Hucklebees–and they all were fairly conservative WASPs, even if times siding with labor. Americans don’t really understand the Hegelian sort of nationalism; Hegel translated into America becomes mere moral majority BS, or skinheads. On left, labor unionism, marxist proles. The center generally cannot hold (another reason for a ramped-up Federalism, or Rawlsian approach, unless you care to work with union jefes, labor etc.)
November 13, 2009 at 6:24 pm
As I keep saying, “populism” is a contested term, as political terms usually are. The current wonk definition is little more than a smear. The populist’s definition of populism would necessarily be different, and would amount to a proposal rather than a generalization from fact. This, again, is characteristic of political terminology.
November 13, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Well, you linked to Zizek. Euro-populism is not the Merican sort. You are invoking the LaFollette-ish, vaguely progressive, and labor oriented populism–mostly limited to small midwestern farmers, ie property owners. A nice concept—that is for those inherited a cornfield, or dairy farm, etc. I don’t think LaFollete or even Shipstead represented the workers and laborers (regardless of the L-word in some parties).
November 13, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Read up a little. These things are not true.
November 13, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I’ve read up. Have you? Most of the LaFollette types were isolationists, pro-german, and moved to the right. Including Shipstead. Later Humphrey sort of brings in labor, urban demos, big govt. but that’s no longer really populism but merely the Demos Inc.
Either way, you linked to the Zizek essay; SZ seems to hold that populism’s not so great in liberal, do-gooder form, but possibly good, if dangerous in the nationalist aspect–but I doubt you want to bless like the Minutemen (if not …’skins) battling immigration in CA (as SZ nearly does, –he seems opposed to immigration).
November 13, 2009 at 7:03 pm
They were pro labor. Isolationism is the key issue, and I think that the isolationists have been unfairly maligned. It may have been inevitable, but the US has been in a continual state of war since 1941, and increasingly dominated by big money. Humphrey was the transition — his hawkishness in 1968 was no surprise, and ever since 1968, the game has been over.
November 13, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Isolationism not too hip with the PC left now. Do you mean, Osiris forbid, Pat Buchanan??
Either way, you overlook the immigration issue in Zizek’s rant. His view in brief seems to be that the real populist does not support open borders, and holds to a certain nationalism (and perhaps protectionism in terms of economic policies). Not real profound, but runs counter to usual multiculturalism, and shall we say naive universalism of PC-liberals (and in ways, he was correct). Let’s not forget Clinton also wanted NAFTA…