In any country, there’s some group that has the real power. It’s not a big secret where power is in the United States. It basically lies in the hands of the people who determine investment decisions — what’s produced, what’s distributed. They staff the government, by and large, choose the planners, and set the general conditions for the doctrinal system.
One of the things they want is a passive, quiescent population. So one of the things that you can do to make life uncomfortable for them is not be passive and quiescent. There are lots of ways of doing that. Even just asking questions can have an important effect. Demonstrations, writing letters and voting can all be meaningful — it depends on the situation. But the main point is — it’s got to be sustained and organized.
If you go to one demonstration and then go home*, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.
That’s a little lie – I tricked you. He wrote that in 1992. Nineteen years later we are starting to see some meaningful organization on the ground, and it must be significant. The owning class is worried. That’s why this legislation passed the Senate, and why the president will sign it. The government wants to be able to throw protesters in jail indefinitely, even put the more forceful ones in Guantanamo (good thing Obama forgot to close the place!). This provision, for which a public hearing was never offered, did not come from lackeys like Carl Levin and John McCain, who are trained circus dogs.
It came from the 1%.
It is a very good sign. They are indeed worried. It’s on.
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*Are you listening, Jon Stewart?
PS: I’ve been reminded that Obama has threatened to veto this bill, as he must. I am aware of that threat, and hope it is real, but remind readers that the veto threat In the hands of a Democrat usually serves merely as a vehicle to keep opposition to a bill from getting organized. Republican preisdents really are free to veto bills, but Obama is not. It is also a little scary, as Waco only happened because BATF wanted an event to justify some budget and new powers. There could easily be an event that gives him necessary political cover to sign the bill.
Piece of Mindful 
It would be nice if Chomsky would apply this love to his own field of linguistics, which has become a backwater thanks to his side’s heavy handed suppression of dissent.
He also means to encourage a certain kind of dissent. Some, such as pointing out biological differences in people, need not apply.
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Huh? Focus Fred! Focus.
What else has Horowitz said?
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Your reply reinforces my point, in that Chomsky and his robotic sycophants call for dissent, but only dissent that reinforces their vague political views, which they don’t really want.
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My political views are not vague. You may not like them, but I know what I believe and why. I can construct a broad picture that is internally consistent. Bet you cab’t.
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Vague in the sense of an impractical utopia. A big catchword is equality, but human nature dictates otherwise. Tolerance is another catchword, but we move into the future by being pointedly intolerant.
These contradictory notions are embraced, then when things don’t work out the counter-revolutionaries are hunted and punished ad infinitum.
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I am not utopian. When we disagree on how the world works, you say that I am a sycophant who believes lies. When you realize that I have an evidence-based outlook, you say it is utopian to want anything else.
I’m not troubled by any of this. I only want to know what is true.
“Human nature” – most of us are kind and considerate, sharing and forgiving. 2% are not. What is human nature then?
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Yes, sometimes you follow the crowd, sometimes you follow rainbows.
I can’t chapter and verse everything, but I notice inconsistencies: you favor labor unions, but also are not all that much against illegal immigration; two polar opposites. Where’s the truth?
You are generally in favor of a big, regulating central government, yet you want to decriminalize drugs so Monsanto and WalMart can cram meth and coke down our throats along with high fructose corn syrup. Where’s the truth?
You pooh-pooh racial and ethnic differences, yet it is blindingly obvious that Boulder, CO; Bell, CA; and Detroit are what they are because of the ethnicity and race of the inhabitants. I don’t think you really search for the truth, I think you are more interested in pushing a particular point of view that gives you some emotional solace.
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The economics of labor unionization is not rocket science – it’s a means of countering monopolization of wealth by what we now call the 1%. If there were no monopolies, labor unions would be goliaths that would destroy productive capacity. It’s all about balance, and we are out of whack.
And you suffer from the right-wing Randian impulse that equates government with unbridled power. This comes out of her experience in the Soviet Union, where government indeed destroyed human capacity. So it creates an intellectual void in your mind, as despotism, which is all that system was, is equated with socialism and democracy. Of course unbridled government is despotic, was was feudalism, as is corporatism, as is oligarchy. We need a system where voting matters, where government is reined in by ground-level power, where we have the ability to periodically take people out of power and put in new people.*
I believe that immigration needs to be controlled. We don’t disagree about that, but I don’t hold out that people who are trying to survive by coming here, after we have destroyed their economies at home via free trade, are the threat. It is the free trade agreements that we need to remove so that we can protect our wages. And the reason why we don’t regulate immigration is not hard to discern – the people who put the free trade agreements in place have from the beginning been intent on destroying labor unions. So we come the full circle.
Your attitudes on race are unsettling.
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*The genius of our current system of ersatz democracy is the illusion that switching back and forth between Democrats and Republicans achieves this end. the greatest threat to the current oligarchy is the rise of a second party, which is why Democrats so vilify Nader.
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Well, if you are going to put it THAT way, I can’t disagree too much.
And you suffer from the right-wing Randian impulse…
I’m not suffering. I enjoy it. Maybe I’m a junkie and need intervention.
Don’t paint me too far into the corner. I’m not all that anti-gov’t. But the more I see, the less I like. The thing is inherently a monopoly with all the attendant problems. Your sentiments on democracy are nice, but the thing is prone to being bought off.
but I don’t hold out that people who are trying to survive by coming here, after we have destroyed their economies at home via free trade, are the threat.
This is just false in fact and sentiment. We have not destroyed their economies, more likely the opposite. And if we did destroy their economies, why is it fair for them to come here and destroy ours? (I realize it is unfair to characterize them as destroying our economy, but I’m making a point.)
Your attitudes on race are unsettling.
I realize I tack counter to you partly as a debating stance, but I find the left/liberal/progressive position to be untenable: the notion that we shouldn’t notice race except when it is time to register a grievance against White people.
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That pesky constitution. If only we could just use the parts that suits a given party.
Let me see, who controls the senate? Only one “R” vote? I take it no kudos for our side.
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Again, Swede, it’s all D v R for you. sigh … If you ever get your head out of that dark place, call. We’ll do beers.
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PS: 14 members of the Democratic half to The Party voted for the bill, oddly making it filibuster proof. Go figure, DvR man.
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Mark, your distaste for the DvR does have some merit.
So in the future I’m going to concentrate on the classic clash of the economic titans Hayek and Keynes. Let’s call it HvK.
And since about 90% of D’s are Kers I just going to have to tweak my arguments slightly.
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Neoclassical economics, be it hard right like Hayek, or soft right like Keynes, is misguided, in my view. so argue with yourself. I happen to be of the school that says that economics is not a science, in the case of Hayek, disguised fascism, in the case of Keynes, the right path, just not followed.
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By the way, it was not Keynesian economics, long a whipping boy even though implemented in an abusive manner, that got us into our mess, and we are indeed deep in a mess. It was neoclassical economists like Greenspan who told us that the speculative bubble would self-regulate, that personal excesses taken as a whole tend to evaporate the negative consequences. It was utter nonsense, but cannot be defeated due to the intellectual pretenses of the neoclassical set, who often do what you just did – harken back to some misguided but highly intelligent source, like Hayek, and stake out the high ground in spite of the painfully apparent failure of his prescriptions.
In other words, unless you can show me some aspect of economic thought that benefits ordinary people over the wealthy class, let’s not have this debate. If you think that somehow “Keynes v Hayek” holds any illuminating light you need new batteries in your flashlight.
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In other words, unless you can show me some aspect of economic thought that benefits ordinary people over the wealthy class
Seems history has always been such, even more so, until modern economic thought raised ordinary people up a bit more.
What have you got for us that improves the situation? You generally advocate European style socialism, but that is unsustainable.
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“Unsustainable”? Not hardly. They are in much better shape than us. They made a huge mistake in signing on to the Maastricht Treaty, forcing austerity measures on them during a world-wide downturn. That’s insanity, and will probalby bring down the Euro.
No, the US was doing fine until the neo’s took over in 1980. At that time, we entered a bubble era, with the first crash in 1987, followed by the S&L, then dot.com, and now sub-prime. We are probably in depression right now as a result. That is your boys, the Chicago Boys who did this to us.
And in case you haven’t noticed, people are suffering. Wealth has stratified, pressure on wages is downward, people have used up their credit and home equity, foreclosures at all time highs, real estate depressed.
Did I forget to say thanks? Thank you, Fred!
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I’m kind of modest, and I would hate to credit for things I didn’t advocate; things like risky/corrupt lending, and immigrant labor to drive down wages.
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Big-I,
What are you saying? Does this mean the Tea Party has become “passive and quiescent?” Or is co-opted perhaps a better characterization?
The Occupy crowd, on the other hand, is still flirting with whether or not to be subsumed by Act Blue, and union bosses, who always trudge down that same dead-end road. With each biennnial trip their median age increased, and numbers decline. An organized, non-party, decentralized, approach has a chance.
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“An organized, non-party, decentralized, approach has a chance.”
Really. Can you put a number on that chance. Better yet, predict which non-party organizations do better next fall, OWS or the TPers?
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Predicting a percentage chance number, or whether OWS vs. TPers “do better,” really makes no sense to me at all. TP may be a reasonable proxy for Republicans, but as I think I mentioned above, the Os have not been coopted by the usual Democrat apparatchiks. If the Os resist, and remain unaligned, the potential exists for a growing movement. Money buys silence. Heard any TP anything lately? We’re back to the Boehner and McConnell filter on everything Republican. With 25-30% devoted to each major party, there’s a lot of unregistered, and registered, voters out there tired of both. An opportunity, no? Best numbers I know.
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