you do need to take the time to understand yourself. Yeah, there is no shortage of diaries saying you need to understand midwestern voters and why they dumped you. But no matter what you do, they will continue to dump you (or occasionally vote for you as punishment against the republicans), until you are honest with who and what the democratic party is. I’ve been here quite a while, and I’m now convinced that the democratic party is a bunch of wall street lackies running a citizenship for votes racket and using minorities as human shields. It’s not that there is anything wrong with this. If you think the best way to advance civil rights is as wall street lackies, bully for you! But, be prepared to make enemies you otherwise don’t need.
For example, take immigration. The way I see it, there are 3 attitudes on immigration:
1) Immigration is just a number. Anyone throws a proposal on immigration numbers in the hat for any reason they desire, everyone votes, and that is what immigration levels we go with. After all, it’s just a number.
2) Immigration is a very important number that we plebes are too stupid to talk about. Best leave it to the man behind the mirror so the miracle of the free market can determine the ‘right’ value of immigration. And it’s definitely not a problem so no one better talk about it!!!!
3) Borders are obsolete. Any cap on immigration must be opposed!
It is pretty clear to me that for whatever reason, most people here are in camps 2 & 3, and the attitude is that if you are in camp 1, you must be a racist. Sorry, but when the attitude here on Britain went from “Gee, if we didn’t fight the revolutionary war, we might be better off for it and might have ended slavery earlier and peacefully” to “those racist assholes” because of brexit, calling people racists lost its sting. You might say ‘those people are racist and want to limit immigration to keep those people out’, but what about you? How many diaries on demographics do you have to right before you will realize you are simply using ‘those people’ and expect them to meekly follow your lead? They are coming here to find jobs, not be your political stooges. And are there no racists in Mexico? Are rural americans simpletons that you have to save, while rural mexicans (or rural people from the middle east) are beacons of enlightenment? If you want to be ruled by mexicans, why not cut to the chase and move to mexico? I’ve been there, it is quite nice and the people are friendly. You’ll probably like it. And, by the way, what is with the attitude that the worst thing you can do to a mexican is force him to stay in mexico? Condescension anyone? I don’t worry much about immigration, but I do worry about people in camps 2 & 3. If you are telling people there can’t have a dialog on immigration, people will go elsewhere and you’ll continue to make enemies you don’t need.
And by the way, when trump says hillary wants to open borders, everyone laughed. Then when this site elevates a Booh hooh, our plan to eliminate the nation state has been halted diary, you really turn this place into ”trumps crazy conspiracy theories are us”, and that is no small feat.
And let’s talk about trade. Again, tariffs are just a number. Any value is equally consequential as any other number. Who benefits and who loses differs though. But, to believe what is said on this site is to simultaneously believe that NAFTA is inconsequential, but the repeal of NAFTA will have dire consequences. The cognitive dissonance is stunning. The wall street lackie croud here will say & believe anything. They’ll reference youtube videos and advertisements of robots to claim “it is all automation!!!! Nothing to see here, move along, move along”. But if it is all robots and the free trade pacts are inconsequential, why not ditch the pacts? Because they know it is a lie. Increased automation requires increased capital spending and increased energy use, both of which are on a 20 year decline in the US (as a share of output), the only thing up is ‘material’ as finish-manufacturing of semi-finished imports becomes the rage. Whether it is cabinet makers buying pre-cut wood and assembling instead of cutting the wood themselves, or automakers importing engines and transmissions, it is all the same: outsourcing. If it were robots, tariffs wouldn’t matter or would even be helpful since automation benefits when labor prices rise. Everyone knows it is a lie. But wall street bankers love when tariffs drop and they can play 3rd world sweatshop against 3rd world sweatshop. So if you are a wall street lackie, this topic is verboten. It can never be the cause of anything. But if people can’t talk about this here, and they will go somewhere else. And if you rec up a diary that if it had an honest title, it would be there was only 16 million of you and we decided you aren't important, so fuck you and your community too, well, you won’t be making any friends that way either. Great wall street lackie position though. And since those people are mostly white, you get to call them racists (human shield anyone?).
And let’s look at foreign policy. It is a disaster. When Bush left office, Iraq was a basket case. Now Iraq, Syria, and Libya are basket cases. And what is the response? Hide the mess. Round up those war refugees, call them ‘migrants’, and force people to take them in. Apparently ending the conflict by withdrawing support for the rebellions isn’t an option. Neither is getting the gumption together to end the mess militarily an option. But hide the mess, and call anyone who won’t help a racist, that is gold. So the UK drops out of the EU and Hungary votes 98% to reject the resettlement plan, so they are all racists. But racial attitudes here are all peachy keen because only rural whites are culturally backward, those people are awesome though. Demographics!!!
And by the way, the EU going from a financial bully pillaging countries like Greece and Portugal to a champion of the working man because of brexit…??? That is some whiplash you are handing out. But when you define yourself by who you hate, manic swings like this are common.
Ultimately, this is all fine. Don’t let me tell you what to do or what to think. It is a free country. you might honestly think that an equal opportunity global corporate feudalism is a utopia. Nothing wrong with that. After all, with no borders and only symbolic nation states, you can chase from sweatshop job to sweatshop job all over the world. The opportunities will be endless (just the outcomes will be the same….). Now you won’t get many to agree, but hey, you won’t know until you propose it in an honest fashion. And if you are not looking forward to that, be careful of who you are making friends with…..
This isn’t a CBCW, but I won’t be commenting much after this...
