That’s right, they’re wrong! Two of the most respected voices of the Left, and and they are decidedly not right!
Let’s start with Krugman and this ridiculous statement…
So what did we learn from this [Cheering at Chicago’s lost Olympic bid] moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.
But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it – whether or not it’s good for America.
As amazing as it might seem for a Nobel Prize winner and an economist…he is off by a factor of ten. Ten years that is! Republicans are NOT bratty 13-year-olds.
They are bratty 3 year-olds!
.
Other than that, Krugman is right about just about everything.
Except that tie, really do you look in the mirror before you go out Paul???
(Especially, he was right about that stimulus thing, you know when he said we needed a BUNCH of more money to create jobs? Yeah, look around, Krugman was right! So WHY didn’t we put more money in the Stimulus Bill? Why…bratty three year old Republicans of course!)
Which brings us to Michael Moore, who is also wrong, even though he never wears a tie.
Sure, he was right about the now Socialized GM in Roger and Me…prescient even! Yes, yes, he was dead on about Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11, he was right about the state of American fear and angst and the screwed up national psychology it produces in Bowling for Columbine/ Yes he was prescient and hugely influential again with the masterpiece he called Sicko….
Yes. yes I agree, he is without a doubt the greatest and most influential political filmmaker of the modern era by far and not only has his finger firmly planted on the pulse AND the psyche of modern America and expresses it in an emotionally and intellectually stunning way and I think it is easily safe to say has changed for the better America with his work.
But…he is still wrong!
It is not Capitalism that is the problem per se…
It is Republicanism.
Properly regulated and overseen Capitalism that did NOT contain the Corporate Personhood that makes our current system immune to Corporations being held responsible for all the downright EVIL things they do…
…and an OUTRAGEOUSLY out of proportion ability to bribe and corrupt Congress (and own Republican President’s and Congress members outright) and thus to be our de facto government…
…Capitalism with politically, socially, and environmentally responsible CEO’s, Boards of Directors and perhaps most importantly, powerful and responsible shareholders…
…Capitalism that actually cared about something, anything, besides raw unremitting greed…
MIGHT not be THAT bad!
But of course, Capitalism is not what we actually have…as an economic system in America. America’s economic system, if called by it’s actual descriptive and unvarnished name is Republicanism.
Which brings us back to Krugman.
Our economy is run by bratty three year-olds…
Because the philosophy of three year-olds IS the philosophy of Republicanism. IF you take away all of the constraints of parenthood and socialization that a normal three year old has to deal with.
That picture sums up the philosophy of Republicans. (the major, if not only, practitioners of Republicanism) Except for the fact that it leaves out the one preambulatory phrase that proceeds every declaration, nay every utterance, of Republicanists….Screw You.
Yes the philosophy of Republicanism can be boiled down to (just as the rest of their incredibly simplistic worldview can be, which is thier only real strength) a catchy four word slogan…
Screw You, it’s mine.
The economy, Health Care, environmental policy, race relations and immigration, domestic policy, foreign policy…war….TORTURE…
ALL of the ‘policies,’ actions, and behavior of Republicans and Republicanism can be traced back to those four words.
Four words first uttered by the knuckle dragging neanderthals (who they don’t think existed, because the world is only six thousand years old) that are the antecedents and originators of Republicanism, today’s Republican party, and those who are (cough, Max Baucus, cough) so shamefully over-influenced by them.
Four words….Screw You, it’s mine that are the enemy of ALL progress in the world. Four words that are without a doubt the root of all evil, since they inherently contain the Love of Money. Four words that are stopping us from relating to every one of the other seven billion people on earth intelligently, that keep some in starving abject poverty (2 million slum children a year die in India) while one percent of Americans (most but not all Republicanists) control enough wealth to feed the entire world.
Four words that are killing the only planet we have.
Four words, the motto of Republicanism, that represent or are THE cause of just about every problem our lonely little planet (the only one we have) faces.
So Mike, you are WRONG! Capitalism is not the problem. Republicanism and it’s motto…Screw You, it’s mine …are the problem.
How do we fix this problem?
We replace the four word motto of Republicanism with a different, three word motto….
… Let me help …
That should do it!
(Update Note: updated to correct the quote, see comments at Dkos!)
So get busy folks! It is time to take Republicanism DOWN! And replace it with….a new ism! An ism that represents the vast majority of humans who want peace, love, prosperity, justice and equality not just for themselves but for all of their fellow humans as well.
I for one am sick and tired of being ruled by Oligarchs and living in a Plutonomy!
And all we have to do to end the Republicanism that produces that is…
Find a way to regulate each others greed in a way that doe not infringe on our individual rights. Maybe we can call the new ism….Humanism. An ism that holds up and respects both the rights…and responsibilities…of being a human living amongst seven billion other humans, each of them just as important and ‘valuable’ as us, on the only planet we have…in the 21st Century.
Piece O Cake, let’s get to work!
First step? To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare: First we nonviolently and with great compassion get rid of all of the Republicanists!
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for the first person who can identify where the phrase “How can I help” was first proposed as a world changing philosophy!
he’s for them.
And Moore is right about capitalism. It’s the problem.
to the Dark Ages–with no more middle class–as long as they can continue to live in their castles, and continue to accumulate their treasures and their toys.
All they have to do is continue to dupe their zombie followers into keeping them in power, by offering them the circuses of hate-talk radio, the hysterical rantings of insane cable “news” personalities, and the kabuki theater shows offered by obediently elected representatives.
We know why they are. We know what they are. Their tantrums are just entertainment for their ignorant and easily duped masses who are so entertained by the
“circuses” that they forget that they don’t have the “bread”.
IMHO, what we have to find a way to do is to interrupt the entertainment and show the reality to those who still have enough functioning brain matter to listen and learn.
I have a hard time identifying our obstacles on a political party. It seems it has to be deeper than that. The same dynamic plays out in nearly every country. The top 1% isn’t unique to the US.
the choice was made here in the US a century or more ago to abandon (lower case r) republicanism precisely to pursue capitalism. I’m not sure what people think capitalism is, but the reality of its history everywhere has been to the concentration of wealth and power in ever fewer hands, the rewards going not to the industrious or the innovative but to those who hold or can capture the purse-strings. Only by the antitheses of capitalism, by the exercise of state power or the flexing of workers’ collective power have these universal attributes of capitalism been rolled back for longer or shorter periods of time. Observe the nations where there have never been any substantive checks on the free exercise of capitalism, and you see places like Honduras and Guatemala. And it’s well-nigh impossible to blame the social and economic conditions there on the US Republican party, except insofar as there has been a long-term bipartisan US consensus to maintain unchecked unfettered capitalism in its purest form in Central America.
It’s really easy to research whether or not Capitalism is evil. I would recommend Parecon, by Michael Albert, or Enemy of Nature, by Joel Kovel. These guys took the time to do the research and put together the entire argument, using full power philosophy and political theory. It’s totally irresponsible and superficial to say that Capitalism might be okay if we mitigated its symptoms, if in fact that is not true. It’s like pointing someone on the wrong path.
(from a correspondent – take what you will from this)