Maybe you don’t pay too much attention to politics or maybe you do pay attention but you focus on what’s lousy about both parties. I get it. I understand. I mean “fuck those people” and “who has the time?”
But, you know, maybe pay attention to this:
[Charles] Murray is probably best known for co-authoring 1994’s The Bell Curve, a quasi-eugenic tract which argued that black people are genetically disposed to be less intelligent than white people. Yet, while The Bell Curve “practically spawned an entire field of scholarship devoted to debunking it,” Murray remains one of the most influential conservative thinkers in America today.
Dr. Murray’s pre-Bell Curve work shaped the welfare reforms enacted in the 1990s. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan cited Murray in 2014 to claim that there is a culture of laziness “in our inner cities in particular.”
Okay, so Paul Ryan was part of the last election. What about the one that’s coming up?
Last April, when Jeb Bush was asked what he liked to read, he replied “I like Charles Murray books to be honest with you, which means I’m a total nerd I guess.”
Does liking quasi-eugenic books about how lazy black people are genetically inferior make you a nerd? Or does it make you something else?
So, maybe you’re thinking that Charles Murray is more complicated than that and he has something more to say than that white supremacy is a scientific fact. That’s probably true. He does have more to say. Mainly, he says that billionaires should pool their money to form a fund that can challenge every effort of the elected Congress and the executive branch to regulate any kind of business activity. With enough frivolous lawsuits to contend with, the regulatory agencies would be neutered.
This, he explains in his new book By The People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, is a better way than trying to win elections.
By The People, however, rejects outright the idea that Murray’s vision for a less generous and well-regulated society can be achieved through appeals to elected officials — or even through appeals to unelected judges. The government Murray seeks is “not going to happen by winning presidential elections and getting the right people appointed to the Supreme Court.” Rather, By The People, is a call for people sympathetic to Murray’s goals — and most importantly, for fantastically rich people sympathetic to those goals — to subvert the legitimate constitutional process entirely.
Also, he’s still whistling to the racist dogs:
The Supreme Court, Murray claims, “destroyed” constitutional “limits on the federal government’s spending authority” when it upheld Social Security in 1937. Since then, the federal government has violated a “tacit compact” establishing that it would not “unilaterally impose a position on the moral disputes that divided America” (Murray traces the voiding of this compact to 1964, the year that Congress banned whites-only lunch counters).
So, this is who Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment candidate listens to. If you think there’s no difference between the two parties, you need to pay some more attention to American politics.
“[H]e says that billionaires should pool their money to form a fund that can challenge every effort of the elected Congress and the executive branch to regulate any kind of business activity.”
Or in other words, the rich should destroy representative democracy and stage a coup through phony litigation.
Nice.
Booman qwrites:
It’s not that there is “no difference” between the middle of both parties, Booman. It’s just that they are both wrong.
in a two-dimensional world, it’s either this or that.
We need a third choice. A third dimension. Right now we are all in the thrall of PermaGov flat-earthers.
I call BULLSHIT!!!
Look further.
Look wider.
Please.
AG
AG, you’re right and you’re also wrong.
You’re right that both parties are wrong and they’re wrong in different ways. A rational discussion would examine possibilities beyond the binary choice of GOP/Dem.
You’re wrong in that the realistic choices in the next congressional and presidential elections will be strictly binary. The winner will be either a Republican or a Democrat.
That’s why I welcome Bernie Sanders’ participation in the primaries. Open up the conversation. Let’s talk about possibilities. Including more perspectives in the conversation is what the Overton window is all about.
But there’s no escape from basic facts. The next president and your next senator or congressman will belong to one of the two major parties. A protest vote helps the candidate that you like the least.
Parties aren’t built in a day. If you only vote for the top two Parties, you’ll never get a real choice.
Right now, the only “real choice” is to vote in whatever way is most likely to destroy the clinically insane GOP. Anything less than that is a vote to destroy a modern America.
Protest votes and not voting don’t cut it.
You write:
Yes.
Indeed.
But…most of “modern America” is a disaster. This is perfectly clear to billions of people worldwide as they cope with the depredations of American (overt and covert) armed forces-enforced economic imperialism. It is also clear to many millions of Americans, especially to those who are living at or below the poverty line because the color of their skin has indelibly marked them as low-wage workers for generations. I will not vote for anyone who I believe will not attempt to change the basic structure of the American (white) exceptionalist dream. DemRat or RatPub, same same. The Dems paint a smiley face on the action while the Rats paint a scowly face. What’s the difference, really? It’s all part of the good cop/bad cop game, and all successful American big time political cops work for the 1%. If they don’t, they are harrassed out of the system by the media before they ascend to any position of real power. Bet on it. Many, many other Americans appear to agree with me, given the plummeting rate of voter participation over the least few decades. If that means the further destruction of this system, so be it. Maybe it has to fall so low that the basis of greed and racial hatred upon which it is now based will become clear to even more people.
So it goes. Step by step, it will continue to go down like a motherfucker unless things change for the better in Washington, DC.
We shall see, soon enough.
Won’t we.
Watch.
AG
At least you’re not getting in anyone’s way.
No more corporatist neoliberals. “Fascism with a human face”.
The Overton window!!!???
What basement are you living in, Quaker?
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about that jive Overton Window.
You should feel your bullshit detector antennae start to quiver ight from the get-go when your see the words “In political theory.”
WWhat “political theory?”
Whose “political theory,” to be more precise?
Joseph P. Overton’s?
Oh.
Great.
And who exactly is he? Somebody involved with “Mackinac Center for Public Policy.”
Oh BOY!!!
Another think tank filled with little fishies who dream up labels that the political pundits can mouth when they are busy being front men for the 1%, the real political theory of whom is basically “Keep the plebes under heavy economic pressure so that they will be too frightened to do anything other than submit to our will.”
Once again from Wikipedia. (Emphasis mine.)
I will assume that you consider yourself some sort of liberal or you would not be posing on this (used to be) “progressive” site.
I repeat, just in case you missed it: “Mackinac Center scholars generally recommend lower taxes, reduced regulatory authority for state agencies, right-to-work laws, school choice, and enhanced protection of individual property rights.”
Hmmm…right there you should begin to wonder. It sounds like…well, to put it plainly, it sounds like the domestic planks of the next Republican presidential platform. That’s OK by me because the Dem platform will simply be that one turned upside down, and neither one will be telling the truth about what the candidate actually plans on doing. All disinfo, all the time.
This Republican connection is thoroughly proven by a quick perusal of its its executives and ex-executives.
HOO boy!!!
Nice buncha fellers, eh? <URocke</u>fellers, most likely.
And even more interesting is its funding info. Why? Because there isn’t any, that’s why.
A “tremendous diversion,”, eh? I almost lost my mouthful of coffee when I read that little statement.
And then we come to the Overton Window itself.
Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Admirable academic poppycock, I will give it that.
He says: “As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable.”
Great. It’s very simple as long as you ignore the monster seated in the corner of whatever media you consume. Or maybe better, whatever media consume you. How? Why? Because it is the mass media that define what is “politically acceptable” for most of the voters of this country by MASSIVE propaganda activity, fool!!!
Unbelievable.
i got yer “Overton Window,” right here!!!
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Uprated for details about the Mackinac Center.
The idea is intuitively appealing, which explains its frequent reference on blogs.
It works as theory only if you allow the window to move along some dimension of values or policy.
Overton’s selection of freedom as that dimension is not the only one possible, but it has the effect of fixing the window instead of allowing it to move as an indication of the de facto instantaneous political center. The scaling of epithets still hold with this more relativized version.
As “theory”, it is in fact a disguised strategy recommendation, based on the proportion of the audience dissuaded by the epithets.
“It’s policy” dissuades very few and even attracts a majority.
“It’s radical” intends to dissuade a large majority.
The classic example of GOP use was their calling President Obama “radical” without answer from Democratic elected officials. In fact the Blue Dogs scattered, which is why they lost.
The idea is still useful, once relativized. It is more an analytical tool than a theory. And it becomes a strategy through the conscious use of rhetoric. Bernie Sanders becomes popular by countering strategically the oppositional rhetoric that he is unthinkable and radical and building the rhetoric that not only is he acceptible, he’s sensible and not only is he sensible, he’s popular and so are his policies.
And you are engaging in exactly the same sort of rhetoric with regard to Rand Paul. And also making the argument that the observation that the two major parties operate as a uni-party is neither unthinkable nor radical but sensible, acceptable, and increasingly popular.
Quaker in Basement argues that those opinions are all very well, but the structure and mechanics of US elections privileges the two major parties in the same way that structurally two companies through mirror competitive strategies can institutionally define markets that perpetuate their binary oligopoly or oligopsony. Although not yet whittled down to two players, the US media companies come close to illustrating how that works institutionally even if it comes through collusion with some large vendors (like telecoms) to purchase the regulatory environment they want.
The next President will likely be either a Republican or a Democrat. The appearance of Rand Paul in the Republican primary and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary seems to indicate that those seeking to break up the duopoly have either a strategy to do so from the inside or have been reluctantly co-opted by the duopoly. We will have to see how this works in the next 18 months. Most especially we will have to see how it works relative to the general public opinion that will be crucial in electing the Congress, governors, legislators, and other critical downticket public offices (a counter-duopoly state secretary of state, for example).
We will also see if there is a way for the Citizens-United-type big money spenders to completely waste the large amounts of money in a fruitless media fight against the public will. Is that even possible? It will need to be if we are to get out of the status quo.
“Wake the fuck up”?
Is this spittle-flecked invective day? I missed the memo.
Whether you like the Mackinac Center or the concept of the Overton window is irrelevant and so is your long-winded diatribe. That there are topics or proposed policies that simply won’t gain traction in an election cycle because they’re too far out of the mainstream is just plain common sense.
Over the long term, that can change. Look at the public policy shifts on civil rights, equal pay, fair housing, and marriage equality. All of those were once taboo subjects that politicians couldn’t touch if they expected to have a realistic shot at winning. Those topics and proposals became mainstream over time, but only gradually.
So, as I was saying, I’m glad to see Bernie Sanders get into the race to start dragging topics into the spotlight that need to be there. See what I’m saying?
Oh, and uh, go jerk off in your hat.
You write:
Apparently so.
Further:
Who…or more accurately, what…do you think dictates what is and what isn’t “too far out of the mainstream” or “just plain common sense” for the majority of American citizens?
Please!!!
And:
Who…or again, “what”…system in this culture do you think promoted this cultural change over time?
C’mon.
The media control the minds of the voting majority of this country and also the minds of most of the non-voting minorities.
You do not undersatnd that? Then you understand nothing, and “wake the fuck up” is simply the most polite way that i can find to state your problem.
AG
P.S. I don’t “jerk off,” and I rarely wear a hat unless the shit is really raining from above.
You?
Are you always this angry and confrontational with strangers? If so, I bet ‘ m not the first to suggest you discuss this with your health care provider.
Not always, Quaker.
Only when they say stupid shit about things that concern me.
AG
P.S. I don’t have a “health care provider.” Not in the sense that you seem to mean it, anyway. The use of the term “health care provider” in itself provides evidence that you have your head buried so deeply in the media’s ass that you wouldn’t know which way is up even if t=you had an altimeter. The entire U.S. so-caled health care system is one giant scam. Big Med, Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big (Poisonous) Food have played the system (both through the media and by buying federal representatives and other bureaucratic functionaries) so well that people sit helplessly glomming massive ad campaigns for food, pharmaceuticals and other products that are so bad for human beings that they need hurried, whispered disclaimers at the end of the glossily produced ads in order to sneak through even the bought-and-sold federal bureaucracy that is supposed to regulate things like that.
I take that “wake he fuck up” thing back, though.
In your case?
Sleep tight, bubba.
Awakening to the truths of the matter at hand would probably fuck you up even more than you are now.
Eyes wide shut?
Sleep tight.
You have no doubt earned it.
Later…
AG
Are you always this angry and confrontational with strangers? If so, I bet ‘ m not the first to suggest you discuss this with your health care provider.
Isn’t that TPP in a nutshell?
Among the many institutions holding racism in being in the US in the 21st century is the Republican Party. Among the many apologists for racism that the Republican Party trots out is Charles Murray. In a lot of respects, Charles Murray is the Edmund Ruffin of the 21st century.
But outside of elite circles of racism, folks don’t need or use Charles Murray to defend their racism. They are content with the old saws from Ronald Reagan or even Thomas Jefferson.
It’s really folks like David Brooks that need someone like Charles Murray to cite. And would-be “centrist” Republicans like JEB Bush, who are angling for the neo-Confederates without waving that flag too proudly.
The difference between the two parties are how openly elected officials can be about their respect for Charles Murray. Many Democrats still believe, but few dare cite the book or the name.
The fraction of 1% who run the country with their monetary influence are culturally all white supremacists regardless or ethnic background. Of course, Charles Murray appeals to them as his trump card. It’s the demographics on the horizon.
Murray is advocating a plutocratic coup, nothing less.
But then, so did Edmund Ruffin. Ask the politicians who followed his lead how that worked out. For that matter, Ruffin himself is a witness to how that worked out.
To be fair, Murray’s walked back the thesis of the Bell Curve a bit, and in the 2012 book Coming Apart (fulsomely praised by Ross Douthat, David Brooks, and Andrew Sullivan) he finds that it’s poor people, not black people, that are genetically inferior.
Yes, poor white people are subhuman too. Like the white trash that Abraham Lincoln came from? When do they read him out of their Party? Oh, I forgot, their Party history starts with 1984 and the effort by Goldwater to purge their Party of the evil “me-too” Republicans (now known as RINO’s). After that “great patriotic struggle”, America was rescued by Saint Ronnie, hallowed be his name.
It takes race out of it. Which for many of us in the upper class left, means it’s OK.
Poor bashing, and bashing people from poor areas is OK. Bashing off race or sex is not. And anything that allows the great socially liberal cities like NYC, DC, LA, SanFran, to keep more of our money and not have it shipped out to flyover losers is fine by me.
I guess Jeb is as intellectual as another old-money guy:
F. Scott had these assholes’ numbers 90 years ago.
I am not convinced that Jeb Bush really wants to be President. He seems to be staking out positions designed to lose popular votes in the general election. Perhaps he was pressured into running. He’s going to need to say something more serious before I’m convinced – on the other hand I really don’t give a fig what he or any of his GOP cohorts do. They have no ideas of any consequence. Besides Huckabee’s defense of SS and Rand’s coming out against arming more people in the middle east – the rest is the same old failed policies we’ve seen for decades. Yawn.