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Old 12-28-2021, 06:35 PM   #199 (permalink)
TheBig3
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
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Originally Posted by The Batlord View Post
I'm not sure where you got that, I mean in looking back at historical instances of pandemics people tend to be pretty irresponsible and have little patience for being told to do things. In this instance there's right wing conspiracy theories about masks and vaccines but historically speaking people are being as dumb as they tend to be.



If you're just using this post to respond to all of the posts criticizing you then that's kind of schizophrenic cause I never called you cryptofascist. I just said your phrasing of new generations being weak cause they're comfortable while older generations being strong cause they had hardship was a simplistic right wing idea.

I then explained that it was the WW2 generation who gave up their union militancy for a welfare state (private and public) that gave them pensions, minimum wage, legally recognized unions, social security, etc. Meaning that it wasn't the weakness of later generations of workers that gave into comfort but an original sin of a militant working class who capitulated to the false promises of capitalism.



This is wrongheaded because the comfort given by liberal democracy was given when WW2 gave America half of the world's wealth and once Europe had been rebuilt after the Marshall Plan and China and Japan became industrial power houses that all undercut America's hegemony and neoliberalism and a falling rate of profit in the 70s brought the agreement between a weakened US labor movement into conflict with the profits of American capital the comforts of liberal capitalist democracy became unsustainable and so the financialization of the 80s and onward tightened the belts of the working class more and more and more as decades went on, stagnation of wages and such, so that basic needs were met ever less and less.

That is what leads to fascism. The upper classes consolidate more and more and the middle class becomes ever more economically tenuous.



Do you think that the rust belt has the same level of comfort as the 50s? There's a reason they call it the rust belt.
I'll be dead in my grave before people stop split-quoting. I'm not going to go through all items since the end result is 40 pages worth of responses, but a few corrections:

Quote:
If you're just using this post to respond to all of the posts criticizing you then that's kind of schizophrenic cause I never called you cryptofascist. I just said your phrasing of new generations being weak cause they're comfortable while older generations being strong cause they had hardship was a simplistic right wing idea.
1. That's fair. I read X responses and just gave my response generally.

2. I'm not calling new generations weak. I'm calling older generations weak. I was born in 1982 and this ride has sucked pretty hard in general. If you were born in 1946 to the early 60's, you've got too comfortable. I assume we agree on that so I'll leave it there. But those people are looking for threats and don't recognize real problems.


Quote:
I then explained that it was the WW2 generation who gave up their union militancy for a welfare state (private and public) that gave them pensions, minimum wage, legally recognized unions, social security, etc. Meaning that it wasn't the weakness of later generations of workers that gave into comfort but an original sin of a militant working class who capitulated to the false promises of capitalism.
Maybe. But it was less about believing the promise and more about being OK with pulling up the ladder after they'd be given theirs. That and the economies protectionist policies had left the industry pretty bad. The recalls issued on Detroit cars when Japan hit the American market was insane. The whole "lets store Government cheese" in a cave" period was just the death of the New Deal. Something needed to change - not everything, but some stuff wasn't working.


Quote:
That is what leads to fascism. The upper classes consolidate more and more and the middle class becomes ever more economically tenuous.
Yeah? I don't know where you're getting that from. Germany in WW2 wasn't exactly a bastion of wealth.

Quote:
Do you think that the rust belt has the same level of comfort as the 50s? There's a reason they call it the rust belt.
No. I don't think they're comfortable at all. But if they'd rather have god and guns than a paycheck, I don't know how we can help them.
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