The Sage Garden

[Simfan34]

"The Muslim" didn't phase me (JCL has been prattling on about "the Musselman" for a while), but I guffawed at "the Western man."

The Musselman?

[H. Ross Peron]

He's fine, but his naive leftism and focus exclusively on the interests of white male union workers are annoying.

[MATTROSE94]

Churchill, in fairness, was one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century depending on how responsible you hold him for the Bengal famine and for the various unnecessary and ineffective British strikes on civilian targets in occupied Europe (as opposed to the more effective American bombing campaigns).

[free my dawg]

It's not so much that most Muslims aren't ready for democracy, it's that most Muslims aren't ready for human rights.

[IceSpear]

Obama literally saves another person's life.

Has he made up for that Yemeni wedding he turned into a Yemeni funeral?

[Donerail]

Obama literally saves another person's life.

Has he made up for that Yemeni wedding he turned into a Yemeni funeral?

This garden is only for cultivating the most exceptional varieties of sage. Not all Snowstalker posts are.

[IceSpear]

Basically any "progressive." As we've seen the past five years, "progressives" can cloak the imperialism of their "opponents" in Nobel Peace prizes and "cultured" affectations (e.g., Pahh-kee-stahhn).  In other words, "progressives" can get away with more peace droning and humanitarian occupations that "tough" "hawkish" types.

[Oakvale]

Oh, fantastic, tarheel leftist is back. The original True Leftist and one of our few posters who literally should  be institutionalised.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Oh, fantastic, tarheel leftist is back. The original True Leftist and one of our few posters who literally should  be institutionalised.

I don't know, I for one find his 'gai marriage for bankster brahs' argument original, fascinating, and compelling.

[free my dawg]

College used to be inexpensive enough that students could work their way through college on menial jobs without becoming laden with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Is it so much better now that one can justify the price increase?

I think not. I have seen depictions of colleges from the old days -- and the college classroom looked about as austere as a high-school classroom of similar time. What great infrastructure does one need for the old, reliable Great Books approach to education? Maybe the Great Books themselves are next to nothing in cost as downloads from Project Gutenberg.  There could be some twentieth century writers whose works are not yet in the public domain (let us say Kundera)... but that should not pose much of a difficulty. Full literacy now requires exposure to film and other 20th-century media, so maybe a fully-educated person needs five years instead of four.

Colleges are preparing young adults to be members of some Leisure Class by exposing them to 'luxury' that never was a part of education. How large a Leisure Class can we afford? The focus was on preparation to be a full adult ready to take on grown-up roles in the economy. College grads might often end up with such unglamorous careers as "teacher", "circuit preacher",  "fish and wildlife officer", "forest ranger", "traveling salesman", "county agricultural agent", or "librarian" -- but those all required some level of intellectual sophistication, and colleges had to accommodate such people who sought such careers.  People may have been attending college because they knew that they could never tolerate the grinding, mindless sameness of factory work even if it paid better than "circuit preacher".

So colleges are competing with each other to offer nicer dorms, successful athletic teams, bigger libraries, more concerts by bigger stars, and better college sports teams? Why? Is such the purpose of education? Next thing you know they will start building horse tracks.  

Anyone can learn materialistic hedonism.  Just look at pimps and pushers. Know also why you aren't one of those scum even if you are a file clerk with a huge student loan to pay off.

[Oakvale]

With guns, I would be against banning them entirely.  But, I would require a license and registration as well as a legitimate reason to own a gun, whether it's working as a law enforcement officer or hunting.

A government by and for the 1% which violates human rights at home and abroad isn't reason enough?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

China and Vietnam have been at war for 1,000 years. This specific incident is part of Obama's "Asian Pivot" to contain China/expand American influence in the Pacific.

[free my dawg]

China and Vietnam have been at war for 1,000 years. This specific incident is part of Obama's "Asian Pivot" to contain China/expand American influence in the Pacific.

This is not sage.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

China and Vietnam have been at war for 1,000 years. This specific incident is part of Obama's "Asian Pivot" to contain China/expand American influence in the Pacific.

This is not sage.

Yeah, I'd go so far as to say it's a simple truth, even, except it's a bit too banal and unadorned for that. This is...just a post. I know, what a shocking concept.

[tik 🪀✨]

College used to be inexpensive enough that students could work their way through college on menial jobs without becoming laden with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Is it so much better now that one can justify the price increase?

I think not. I have seen depictions of colleges from the old days -- and the college classroom looked about as austere as a high-school classroom of similar time. What great infrastructure does one need for the old, reliable Great Books approach to education? Maybe the Great Books themselves are next to nothing in cost as downloads from Project Gutenberg.  There could be some twentieth century writers whose works are not yet in the public domain (let us say Kundera)... but that should not pose much of a difficulty. Full literacy now requires exposure to film and other 20th-century media, so maybe a fully-educated person needs five years instead of four.

Colleges are preparing young adults to be members of some Leisure Class by exposing them to 'luxury' that never was a part of education. How large a Leisure Class can we afford? The focus was on preparation to be a full adult ready to take on grown-up roles in the economy. College grads might often end up with such unglamorous careers as "teacher", "circuit preacher",  "fish and wildlife officer", "forest ranger", "traveling salesman", "county agricultural agent", or "librarian" -- but those all required some level of intellectual sophistication, and colleges had to accommodate such people who sought such careers.  People may have been attending college because they knew that they could never tolerate the grinding, mindless sameness of factory work even if it paid better than "circuit preacher".

So colleges are competing with each other to offer nicer dorms, successful athletic teams, bigger libraries, more concerts by bigger stars, and better college sports teams? Why? Is such the purpose of education? Next thing you know they will start building horse tracks. 

Anyone can learn materialistic hedonism.  Just look at pimps and pushers. Know also why you aren't one of those scum even if you are a file clerk with a huge student loan to pay off.

Besides picking on the phrase "materialistic hedonism" what is so sage about this?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Normally I wouldn't consider that post Sage except for that he blames Obama for that specific incident.

[free my dawg]

Normally I wouldn't consider that post Sage except for that he blames Obama for that specific incident.

Blaming Obama is not sage. It's well-known that Obama has an Asian pivot, and I guarantee you that if I posted that instead of Snowstalker, then this wouldn't be here.

This, especially the first paragraph, is one of the most sage posts I've ever read here.

I hold that we are still in early capitalism, and that the system will not enter middle age, as it were, until technology reaches the point that manufacturing capacity in some form is available to everyone - likely sometime in the second half of this century. (Desktop manufacturing, three-dimensional printers capable of material conversion, rapid fabricators, etc.)

At that level of personalization, the concept of investment capital should slowly begin to dissolve.

More precisely -- the ruling elites of a bureaucratic-capitalist order seek a return to the norms of "early capitalism" -- that is, the harsh rules that allow luxury for elites and deprivation for others that allegedly created the rapid growth of the Gilded Age. Such rules must be iron-clad -- enforced with murder, torture, and travesties of justice.

In fact, a return to early capitalism takes away the assumption that the proletariat has a role as a market for the objects that they produce.

I once saw a book by a Soviet dissident (Andrei Amalrik?) who discussed the concept of economic alienation. Unless people can associate their economic activities with potential improvements of their lives, they endure economic alienation. This transcends even the relation between employer and employee.

Thus a slave in ancient Egypt who is compelled to clear an irrigation canal that will bring water to get more food for himself and his family is not economically alienated in that work. A slave compelled to carry stones to build the definitive show project of the time (a pyramid as a tomb for a pharaoh) is in an activity of economic alienation.  

So if you are a German worker in an armaments factory in WWII and your production is to go into the subjection of people who don't want to be ruled by "your" Fuehrer, then your production is alienation. If you are a Soviet worker in an armament factory that produces munitions for driving out the Nazis once and for all, then your effort is not alienation.

But those have nothing to do with capitalism.

If you are producing the ordinary dinnerware of fellow workers while working at a Wedgwood facility in the early 1800s, then your effort is not alienation -- if you too can afford to use those dinner plates in your daily life. That happens when capitalism needs a mass market. Work in a Ford plant was hard and regimented -- but it produced cars that people could afford. Henry Ford may have been a piece of work, but he wanted his production workers capable of buying the vehicles that he produced.

The work may be indirect. So nobody in a steel mill could ever be a customer for raw steel -- but if the steel is going into consumer products such as refrigerators, into the construction of buildings and transportation --  it's not alienation. If it is going into military weapons to be used to mow down strikers then it is alienation.

Services? If one works for a motel chain that one can afford as a traveler, then it is not alienation. Out of range of the hotel worker by price? I trust that the high-end hotels ensure that their employers can afford to stay in them on occasion. In essence, if one works for the "Luxury Hotel" chain even if it is beyond reach on the pay -- well, if one works for "Luxury Hotel" in  Pittsburgh, one can afford a heavily-discounted stay in "Luxury Hotel" in  Boston, Chicago, Miami, or even San Francisco. "Luxury Hotel" might want its employees to understand what it is like to be a customer.

The state highway patrol officer who spends most of his time nailing speeders and intoxicated drivers uses the road, too.  The secret policeman who beats a dissident ultimately destroys his possibility to oppose the thug regime that hires him.  The public-sector DA who prosecutes meth traffickers does good. The private-sector PR executive may be paid well for his ad campaign "Pollution is your Best Friend", but his worth is ultimately contrary to the public interest.

Whether it involves private or public activity, the relevance of one's work to the public good determines the health of the economy. To the extent that what people do does good for people like them is the norm, the economy is healthy.
 

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I'm aware BRTD has an irrational hateboner for me and I'll actually let it slide for that reason.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I guess we can expect a leftist anti-war backlash soon then.

Why?

Obama using the CIA to give info to a regime with questionable human rights record. Obama sending troops to kill Muslim boogeymen. I mean, I'm all for it personally but that's what I imagine people are going to start saying.

Shouldn't good leftists also hate the idea of theocratic fundamentalists victimizing young girls and depriving them of the right to a secular education?

Obviously Boko Haram are disgusting reactionaries, but the fact that Obama is sending ground troops to fight Islamists in an oil-rich country with a spotty human rights record and a government clearly unable (or more likely, unwilling) to deal with the terrorists on their own leads one to many questions.

Are you able to comment on any issue without somehow mentioning how horrible Obama is?

Not when Obama is invading an oil-rich nation under the pretext of fighting Islamist terrorists.

Only True Leftists define "invade" as sending some special forces with cooperation of that country's government. By that logic the US is invading Canada if it carries out joint training operations with the Canadian military.

[free my dawg]

Pakistan has, for most of its short existence, been governed by reactionary autocrats who manage to combine the regressivism of Islamic traditionalism with the over-the-top pageantry of British Raj-style military government.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The same reason liberals were against those yellow ribbons during the Iraq war; it's all meaningless guff that helps people feel good about about themselves.

This exactly. And it's disappointing that liberal activism is now (well, arguably has always been) consistently a force in the bidding of The Empire's interests. More blood for oil!

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

The same reason liberals were against those yellow ribbons during the Iraq war; it's all meaningless guff that helps people feel good about about themselves.

This exactly. And it's disappointing that liberal activism is now (well, arguably has always been) consistently a force in the bidding of The Empire's interests. More blood for oil!

That's just lazy sage and I don't think we should encourage lazyness.

[RogueBeaver]

Everything he posted in that thread.

Recycled 2008 "argument." I guess Obama's peace drones, bankster coddling, and unprecedented upward wealth transfer were the progressive ideal*. The thing about Hillary is that people would at least be on guard for drone imperialism and upward wealth transfer (remember when Dembots and progressives didn't have to rationalize TBTF and droning people?). Obie and his brObot followers hide behind gay marriage "progressivism" and the ubiquitous race card while they drone American citizens, absolve the banksters of crimes, and force people to buy junk *private* insurance (while censoring single-payer).

* Sarah Palin made him do it, brah. Or he's playing 11-dimensional chess, just wait and see. Or we just need to sign more MoveOn/Liz Warren petitions to help Obama be Obama...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So, BigSkyBob is back, and his inimitable combination of grammar-Nazi (pun intended, for reasons that we shall see) sagery and willful ignorance as to substance is back with him:

Sbane, could you please stop hijacking this thread? This isn't the Indian equivalent of RedState: socialism isn't a slur and privatization is objectionable from the standpoint of many academic economists. We get it, you like Modi and hate the Indian left. You've made your point.

Privatization may very well be "objectionable from the standpoint of many academic economists," but, isn't the real issue here whether, or not, it is objectionable from the standpoint of the Truth? And, more to the point, since this is an Indian election the question is whether, or not, it is objectionable from the perspective of the Indian electorate.

Seems it isn't based on the most recent election.

Aside from the fact that Sbane seems more in line with reason.com than readstate.com, I find it odd that in a thread that seems dominated with poster after poster issuing content-less ad hominem slurs about Modi being a "murderer" and a "fascist,"  [A quick lesson. A communist is a person who believes in nationalizing the means of production without compensation. A socialist is a person who believes in nationalizing the means of production with compensation. A fascist is a person who believes in nationalizing the goals of the means of production while allowing it to remain in private hands. A market liberal believes that the owners of the means of production should set their own goals.] one poster has the audacity to take the side of the governing plurality in India, and question the validity of the ad hominems and is accused of "hijacking" the thread as a result.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Oh, God. Wasn't he banned?