Rumor has it she made it selling cat tacos after her father, in true socialist fashion, destroyed the economy of the country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.
Thats the kicker, the left cannot point to a single example of success. You may not like their methods but at least the capitalist dogs had success with America.
No one is fleeing capitalism to the safety of socialism and communism, even Oswald knew that.
Leftists have destroyed every single society and economy they've ever seized control of, without exception, from the first American colonies, to the French Revolution, Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela.
In the process they slaughtered well over 100 million innocents and some 50 million combatants in their various wars of aggression.
They displaced and impoverished countless tens of millions more through forced migrations and collectivization.
Imagine the level of sheer depravity required, in this day and age, after that track record, to actually proclaim oneself a leftist or socialist of any stripe, and promote the same sorts of collectivism that lead to such horrors.
Today, legions of leftist swine are once again calling for the heads of their political enemies, for their children taken to re-education camps, etc., just as they have done everywhere and always. Can there be any doubt about their willingness to do now what they have done in the past?
They are barbarians.
As a species, we shall never be truly civilized until the ideological poison of leftism is finally flushed from the body politic once and for all.
If I could like your post 2x I would. Great post except that I would say its the leaders of the leftists more than the leftists themselves. Shockingly I somewhat agree with Art and Mona that the left has been co-opted by the elites in their party.
It is hard to argue that most of the rank and file are useful idiots.
No doubt largely thanks to government "education" they really don't know much of anything about much of anything, including the catastrophic history of their own ideology.
Engaging with most of them is akin to a discussion with a child.
But the co-option you describe is a feature, not a bug, of leftism, and it has occurred in every case.
This is because the core of leftism is the creation of an omnipotent State, which is inevitably inhabited by the scum of the earth, just as is the case today.
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
~ Lord Acton
This is as true today as it was in the days of Sumeria, and the days when Lord Acton wrote it.
And it is a fundamental reason that all leftist regimes will descend into tyranny, horror, and eventual collapse.
empowerment of the state at the expense of the individual.
Scandinavian countries are largely capitalist economies with welfare states. For example, technology entrepreneurs are thriving there due to free markets.
Remember when the Prime Minister of Denmark in essence told Comrade Bernie to piss off for calling them socialist, because they had a market economy?
Remember when Sweden nearly destroyed its economy with socialist nonsense but then drastically cut government spending and welfare benefits?
The fact that they had to do this to survive should be all the evidence one needs to understand that said nonsense makes nations poorer, while free markets make them wealthier.
You just keep rolling your eyes, Mona, and I'll just keep shaking my head.
"Scandinavian countries are largely capitalist economies with welfare states."
Yes, miced economies wiht a substanial safety net == what Bernie endorses.
As for the rest of your post claiming Denmark and Sweden have diminished their welfare states, that's bullshit. Last summer the Danes fired the neoliberal prime minister who slashed things and voted back in a socialist who restored them.
Bernie is a "socialist" in the sense that he's a Scandinavians-style social democrat, whether some Nordic people argue semantics about the term "socialist" or not.
As for this vicious bloodlust on your part:
>>"The best thing about socialists is they eventually start shooting each other."
~ Yuri Maltsev
One can only hope this noble tradition continues until none are left.<<
Those deaths would included Glenn Greenwald and his husband.
Your response is a perfect example of why reality-based people consider most leftists either useful idiots or duplicitous thugs.
I said that Sweden, not Denmark, had slashed government spending, which is absolutely true, unlike your reply.
I mean seriously. Even though I did not assert Denmark had reduced its welfare state, you accuse me of asserting it, and then admit that it actually happened, but was reversed!
As for Comrade Bernie, I couldn't care less what species of socialist feces he wallows in.
Anyone who ascribes to an ideology responsible for the murder of over 100 million people and the creation of too many horrors to list here is depraved beyond description.
As for the Maltsev quote, it is rather rich being accused of "vicious bloodlust" from a leftist, given the magnitude of the mountain of corpses your lot has created.
He was describing what socialists invariably do to each other, not what we libertarians would do to them. Except in self-defense, of course.
A not-so-subtle distinction that one would think would not escape an attorney.
So, as usual, just more duplicitous nonsensical leftist projection.
It really does become tiresome.
Finally, I am not aware of Glenn or his husband declaring that they are socialists, and I have been reading and following him for the better part of a decade.
I don't suppose you'd be able to substantiate your assertion of such a declaration, by any chance?
Don't worry, should I get the usual crickets, I won't be holding my breath.
Currently in America, that appears to be their goal, a bigger, more powerful state. As an anti-government troublemaker I could not be more against a larger state. You would be too, if the state was all people on the right.
"You would be too, if the state was all people on the right."
This bit here hits on the heart of the matter.
What leftists seem utterly incapable of understanding is that once their goal of an omnipotent State is achieved, that sooner or later they will lose control of it, and the power they granted will be used for evil.
All of this blathering about what is "left" and what is not is reminiscent of the fighting between the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries over one absurdity or another.
My favorite Soviet defector had this lovely quip about the inevitable result:
"The best thing about socialists is they eventually start shooting each other."
~ Yuri Maltsev
One can only hope this noble tradition continues until none are left.
Indeed, the Left appears to value the state above all, the right appears to value profits above all, and individuals like myself who value freedom above all, are reduced to impotently posting on a 3rd tier message board for a journalist who has been exiled from the mainstream.
Hmm - do you think if we all sat down and talked about what we actually had in common as human beings, instead of approaching as ideologues, we might come to some sort of actual working plan as to how to proceed?
Corruption galore. Let's work to make the "left" honest. Earlier today I complained that Jacobin magazine has a magazine that has a glitzy format with heavy paper more elegant than any magazine. I commented that they should save the money and talk to people on the street. Rather than organizing they are talking to themselves.
" Shockingly I somewhat agree with Art and Mona that the left has been co-opted by the elites in their party."
You do NOT agree with us.
I am not a Democrat and I'm, reasonably certain Art is not either. So it isn't correct to speak of "their party" in reference to us vis-a-vis the Democratic Party. You are misstating what we write and believe.
The Democratic Party -- and they neoliberals who almost wholly constitute it -- are not "leftists. I am a leftists and so is Art.
Establishment Democrats are not "the left," They could be the moderate Republicans of the 70s into the 80s.
>>WHERE DOES this bipartisan convergence on apocalyptic rhetoric come from? In my book Neoliberalism’s Demons, I argue that neoliberalism—which I define as the political agenda to remake as much of society as possible on the model of a competitive market, an agenda that has been broadly shared by both major US parties for the past forty years—has always been an apocalyptic discourse. During the postwar era, neoliberal theorists were self-styled prophets crying out in the wilderness that the postwar economic settlement, which aimed to temper the effects of capitalism through welfare provision and an active role for the state in economic planning, was leading us down the road to full Soviet-style communism.
When Reagan began to put neoliberal theory into practice, he presented it as a last-ditch effort to restore American greatness and save the ideal of freedom itself from liberal decadence. Centrist liberals who took up neoliberal ideas took a slightly different tack, presenting themselves as holding off apocalyptic forces. On the domestic front, their sensible moderation was all that stood between their left-wing constituents and the more militant agenda of the Republicans, while on the international level, neoliberal normalcy was put forward as the only alternative to chaos and terrorism.
This emphasis on the end times served to give neoliberalism a veneer of urgency and meaning that was objectively missing in its agenda to use market mechanisms to reinforce and exacerbate social hierarchies. Apocalyptic patterns of thought also gave neoliberalism a false moral gravitas, in that it treated the decisions of the market as a kind of Last Judgment, the final word on the moral worthiness of every member of society. Millionaires and billionaires were lionized as heroes, while the poor were dismissed as losers and scroungers who were suffering the consequences of their bad choices. Where previous models of capitalism presented the destructive side of market competition as a necessary evil, neoliberals embraced the market’s separation of society into winners and losers as a positive good—almost a divine revelation. Democrats focused on tinkering with market mechanisms to ensure truly equal opportunity, while Republicans were more concerned to make sure the market’s more punitive side was not unduly restrained. But that difference in emphasis took place in the context of a greater consensus on the morality of the market.<<
Neoliberalism was "invented" by Hayek and Mises beginning in possibly the 1930s. Their thought was that free markets are the way to prosperity. Well, prosperity for business at the expense of workers. Part of the trickle down theory of how business can build prosperity for alll. A great book is "Globalists" by Slobodian to understand neoliberal theories and their actual consequences. On the other hand, the "left" generally has the opposite view. Destruction of unions and "right to work" states in which workers have no say in pay or how they work. The left today can be called Social Democratic in that they advocate healthcare for all and benefits such as pay and control over hours and working conditions. Payed leave for various reasons is one demand. The US is the only western democracy that does not offer worker protections, free medical care and decent standards of living for all. Read Slobodian. An eye opener. Next up: Piketty.
Okay, I'm down with the Venn shared middle and we are in agreement that every point therein is evil.
As for the lengthly quote, however, I must point out what what he is talking about is most certainly NOT capitalism, which has not really existed in the U.S. since FDR.
What we have had since then is Corporatism, which Mussolini said was a better name for his demon spawn than Fascism.
Every single evil in the Venn, and most of those mentioned in the quote, would not be possible without a powerful State.
The State is the real enemy.
"It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white, worker and businessman alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind."
María Gabriela Chávez was worth a cool US$4.2 billion in 2015.
https://www.latinpost.com/articles/71424/20150812/maria-gabriela-ch%C3%A1vez-net-worth-hugo-ch%C3%A1vezs-daughter-richest-woman-in-venezuela-worth-4-2-billion.htm
Rumor has it she made it selling cat tacos after her father, in true socialist fashion, destroyed the economy of the country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.
Another triumph of leftism.
Thats the kicker, the left cannot point to a single example of success. You may not like their methods but at least the capitalist dogs had success with America.
No one is fleeing capitalism to the safety of socialism and communism, even Oswald knew that.
Leftists have destroyed every single society and economy they've ever seized control of, without exception, from the first American colonies, to the French Revolution, Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela.
In the process they slaughtered well over 100 million innocents and some 50 million combatants in their various wars of aggression.
They displaced and impoverished countless tens of millions more through forced migrations and collectivization.
Imagine the level of sheer depravity required, in this day and age, after that track record, to actually proclaim oneself a leftist or socialist of any stripe, and promote the same sorts of collectivism that lead to such horrors.
Today, legions of leftist swine are once again calling for the heads of their political enemies, for their children taken to re-education camps, etc., just as they have done everywhere and always. Can there be any doubt about their willingness to do now what they have done in the past?
They are barbarians.
As a species, we shall never be truly civilized until the ideological poison of leftism is finally flushed from the body politic once and for all.
If I could like your post 2x I would. Great post except that I would say its the leaders of the leftists more than the leftists themselves. Shockingly I somewhat agree with Art and Mona that the left has been co-opted by the elites in their party.
It is hard to argue that most of the rank and file are useful idiots.
No doubt largely thanks to government "education" they really don't know much of anything about much of anything, including the catastrophic history of their own ideology.
Engaging with most of them is akin to a discussion with a child.
But the co-option you describe is a feature, not a bug, of leftism, and it has occurred in every case.
This is because the core of leftism is the creation of an omnipotent State, which is inevitably inhabited by the scum of the earth, just as is the case today.
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
~ Lord Acton
This is as true today as it was in the days of Sumeria, and the days when Lord Acton wrote it.
And it is a fundamental reason that all leftist regimes will descend into tyranny, horror, and eventual collapse.
empowerment of the state at the expense of the individual.
"This is because the core of leftism is the creation of an omnipotent State,"
Yes, those Scandinavians with their Nordic Model economies are in Stalinist hellholes. [eyes rolling]
Scandinavian countries are largely capitalist economies with welfare states. For example, technology entrepreneurs are thriving there due to free markets.
Remember when the Prime Minister of Denmark in essence told Comrade Bernie to piss off for calling them socialist, because they had a market economy?
Remember when Sweden nearly destroyed its economy with socialist nonsense but then drastically cut government spending and welfare benefits?
The fact that they had to do this to survive should be all the evidence one needs to understand that said nonsense makes nations poorer, while free markets make them wealthier.
You just keep rolling your eyes, Mona, and I'll just keep shaking my head.
"Scandinavian countries are largely capitalist economies with welfare states."
Yes, miced economies wiht a substanial safety net == what Bernie endorses.
As for the rest of your post claiming Denmark and Sweden have diminished their welfare states, that's bullshit. Last summer the Danes fired the neoliberal prime minister who slashed things and voted back in a socialist who restored them.
Bernie is a "socialist" in the sense that he's a Scandinavians-style social democrat, whether some Nordic people argue semantics about the term "socialist" or not.
As for this vicious bloodlust on your part:
>>"The best thing about socialists is they eventually start shooting each other."
~ Yuri Maltsev
One can only hope this noble tradition continues until none are left.<<
Those deaths would included Glenn Greenwald and his husband.
Your response is a perfect example of why reality-based people consider most leftists either useful idiots or duplicitous thugs.
I said that Sweden, not Denmark, had slashed government spending, which is absolutely true, unlike your reply.
I mean seriously. Even though I did not assert Denmark had reduced its welfare state, you accuse me of asserting it, and then admit that it actually happened, but was reversed!
As for Comrade Bernie, I couldn't care less what species of socialist feces he wallows in.
Anyone who ascribes to an ideology responsible for the murder of over 100 million people and the creation of too many horrors to list here is depraved beyond description.
As for the Maltsev quote, it is rather rich being accused of "vicious bloodlust" from a leftist, given the magnitude of the mountain of corpses your lot has created.
He was describing what socialists invariably do to each other, not what we libertarians would do to them. Except in self-defense, of course.
A not-so-subtle distinction that one would think would not escape an attorney.
So, as usual, just more duplicitous nonsensical leftist projection.
It really does become tiresome.
Finally, I am not aware of Glenn or his husband declaring that they are socialists, and I have been reading and following him for the better part of a decade.
I don't suppose you'd be able to substantiate your assertion of such a declaration, by any chance?
Don't worry, should I get the usual crickets, I won't be holding my breath.
I think that Glenn lives on a fine line between honesty and capitulation. I love Glenn and he has taught me so much.
Currently in America, that appears to be their goal, a bigger, more powerful state. As an anti-government troublemaker I could not be more against a larger state. You would be too, if the state was all people on the right.
"You would be too, if the state was all people on the right."
This bit here hits on the heart of the matter.
What leftists seem utterly incapable of understanding is that once their goal of an omnipotent State is achieved, that sooner or later they will lose control of it, and the power they granted will be used for evil.
All of this blathering about what is "left" and what is not is reminiscent of the fighting between the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries over one absurdity or another.
My favorite Soviet defector had this lovely quip about the inevitable result:
"The best thing about socialists is they eventually start shooting each other."
~ Yuri Maltsev
One can only hope this noble tradition continues until none are left.
Indeed, the Left appears to value the state above all, the right appears to value profits above all, and individuals like myself who value freedom above all, are reduced to impotently posting on a 3rd tier message board for a journalist who has been exiled from the mainstream.
At least it's not 4th tier... yet. ;-)
It may get "shut down to prevent violence" I mean substack was funded by Andreessen Horowitz.
I've got two pretty powerful backup servers in a colo in SV... maybe I'll end up hosting Glenn and Taibbi!
Hmm - do you think if we all sat down and talked about what we actually had in common as human beings, instead of approaching as ideologues, we might come to some sort of actual working plan as to how to proceed?
Honestly no, because different people have different goals and 99% of people's egos won't allow them to give up things they want.
Corruption galore. Let's work to make the "left" honest. Earlier today I complained that Jacobin magazine has a magazine that has a glitzy format with heavy paper more elegant than any magazine. I commented that they should save the money and talk to people on the street. Rather than organizing they are talking to themselves.
" Shockingly I somewhat agree with Art and Mona that the left has been co-opted by the elites in their party."
You do NOT agree with us.
I am not a Democrat and I'm, reasonably certain Art is not either. So it isn't correct to speak of "their party" in reference to us vis-a-vis the Democratic Party. You are misstating what we write and believe.
The Democratic Party -- and they neoliberals who almost wholly constitute it -- are not "leftists. I am a leftists and so is Art.
Establishment Democrats are not "the left," They could be the moderate Republicans of the 70s into the 80s.
"He who has the gold makes the rules." Words to live by.
Notice I said "somewhat"? The party of the left currently is the DNC. Please don't pretend otherwise.
Where does Bernie fit in?
The "prog" mask the DP party wears to keep any restless natives enamored.
Iconoclast doesn't have a clue what he's talking about when it comes to anything "left."
Not according to AOC :)
I am very interested to learn what you think are the primary characteristics that distinguish "the left" and "neoliberals"?
Then there's this longform discussion by a Christian leftist on the sickness in both major parties -- including neoliberalism -- that leftists reject: "An Apocalypse About Nothing" https://christiansocialism.com/trump-capitol-gop-neoliberalism-adam-kotsko/
Lengthy quote:
>>WHERE DOES this bipartisan convergence on apocalyptic rhetoric come from? In my book Neoliberalism’s Demons, I argue that neoliberalism—which I define as the political agenda to remake as much of society as possible on the model of a competitive market, an agenda that has been broadly shared by both major US parties for the past forty years—has always been an apocalyptic discourse. During the postwar era, neoliberal theorists were self-styled prophets crying out in the wilderness that the postwar economic settlement, which aimed to temper the effects of capitalism through welfare provision and an active role for the state in economic planning, was leading us down the road to full Soviet-style communism.
When Reagan began to put neoliberal theory into practice, he presented it as a last-ditch effort to restore American greatness and save the ideal of freedom itself from liberal decadence. Centrist liberals who took up neoliberal ideas took a slightly different tack, presenting themselves as holding off apocalyptic forces. On the domestic front, their sensible moderation was all that stood between their left-wing constituents and the more militant agenda of the Republicans, while on the international level, neoliberal normalcy was put forward as the only alternative to chaos and terrorism.
This emphasis on the end times served to give neoliberalism a veneer of urgency and meaning that was objectively missing in its agenda to use market mechanisms to reinforce and exacerbate social hierarchies. Apocalyptic patterns of thought also gave neoliberalism a false moral gravitas, in that it treated the decisions of the market as a kind of Last Judgment, the final word on the moral worthiness of every member of society. Millionaires and billionaires were lionized as heroes, while the poor were dismissed as losers and scroungers who were suffering the consequences of their bad choices. Where previous models of capitalism presented the destructive side of market competition as a necessary evil, neoliberals embraced the market’s separation of society into winners and losers as a positive good—almost a divine revelation. Democrats focused on tinkering with market mechanisms to ensure truly equal opportunity, while Republicans were more concerned to make sure the market’s more punitive side was not unduly restrained. But that difference in emphasis took place in the context of a greater consensus on the morality of the market.<<
great analysis
Neoliberalism was "invented" by Hayek and Mises beginning in possibly the 1930s. Their thought was that free markets are the way to prosperity. Well, prosperity for business at the expense of workers. Part of the trickle down theory of how business can build prosperity for alll. A great book is "Globalists" by Slobodian to understand neoliberal theories and their actual consequences. On the other hand, the "left" generally has the opposite view. Destruction of unions and "right to work" states in which workers have no say in pay or how they work. The left today can be called Social Democratic in that they advocate healthcare for all and benefits such as pay and control over hours and working conditions. Payed leave for various reasons is one demand. The US is the only western democracy that does not offer worker protections, free medical care and decent standards of living for all. Read Slobodian. An eye opener. Next up: Piketty.
>>I am very interested to learn what you think are the primary characteristics that distinguish "the left" and "neoliberals"?<<
You can start with this Venn diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/democraticparty/comments/8afpfo/venn_diagram_republicans_and_democrats/
All that stuff in the shared middle? Leftists aren't down with it.
Okay, I'm down with the Venn shared middle and we are in agreement that every point therein is evil.
As for the lengthly quote, however, I must point out what what he is talking about is most certainly NOT capitalism, which has not really existed in the U.S. since FDR.
What we have had since then is Corporatism, which Mussolini said was a better name for his demon spawn than Fascism.
Every single evil in the Venn, and most of those mentioned in the quote, would not be possible without a powerful State.
The State is the real enemy.
"It is the state that is robbing all classes, rich and poor, black and white, worker and businessman alike; it is the state that is ripping us all off; it is the state that is the common enemy of mankind."
~ Murray Rothbard