Correctly Political: Tea and Sympathy for the Devil You Know

[jfxgillis]

Money quote:

Strange, I know, to cite the one of the Karl Marxiest of all the mid-20th century Marxist sociologists as one of the inspirations of the Tea Party movement, but if you ponder Herbert Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man not as a work of analysis but as a work of prophecy, can that conclusion be avoided? Marcuse developed or extended some of the most enduring and useful concepts in modern Marxist thinking, including, for example, the notion of “false consciousness,” the phenomena by which those on the bottom of the socio-economic scale adopt the ideology that favors exploitation of themselves in favor of the elites. . . .

What has happened, I think, is this: For most of the last century of highly-developed Capitalism, the working classes were in a position to live lives of Orwellian doublethink, to hold within their souls the illusion of Two Dimensions. President Obama famously touched on the theme (it was HOT so he rarely mentioned it so explicitly again) with his infamous “bitter” comment about working class Pennsylvania’s “clinging to guns and religion.” But of course, while impolitic, he was correct. Until quite recently the working classes were well able to BOTH console themselves with the enduring spiritual security of traditional values AND comfort themselves with the secure material prosperity of developed Capitalism.

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Correctly Political: Tea and Sympathy for the Devil You Know

[Democrats_win]

1. A good article. Addresses root of the problem and the future.

"during this period ahead as the social order either struggles back to something like a previous equilibrium, is deeply reformed or, possibly but not probably, is overthrown"

Some feel we would be lucky to go back to a "previous equilibrium." However Rwanda didn't really get there after its genocide. I can't imagine that the American people will put up with the old order of things. The 8 years of bush showed how things will have to be: an artificial prosperity followed by the consequences. It will only get worse unless our leaders get wise. The old order can never return. That's why Hillary was not elected president. Raise taxes on the rich, regulate banks back to respectability. To begin.