GAT_00: Neoliberalism

It doesn't even mean what people probably think it means.

Domestically, liberalism is dead in America as well it should be. What hasn't died is the Rockefeller Republican view of America and the Aryn Rand/Fundie view. The failure of the Aryn Rand/Fundie view is the same reason the Liberalism view failed; you can't legislate a perfect moral society.

"But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to government, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." - Madison, Federalist 51

Only the Rockefeller/TR/Ike(They all shared the same view of American governance) is universally accepted in American domestic policy. From a policy standpoint, once you accept that you must guard the many from the few in business policy, and the few from the many in social policy. You realize the true failure of our current elected officials and pundits.

GAT_00: Liberalism is what keeps senior citizens from dying in poverty and it keeps hungry children fed from government support. It's the whole reason for the safety net.

The reason for the safety net is two-fold. A ingrained human response to help those in need(which is the only reason Rand truly fails), and it's an economic investment since people using the safety net spend all their money on goods and services and save very little. Medicare and Medicaid keep the workforce healthy so the productivity remains constant.

Liberalism, as it's been from 70's - 90's was the European model of governance, aka "The Nanny State".

GAT_00: The GOP disproves that.

You do understand the idea that charities should deal with welfare and not the government right? Because that's what I'm referring too. Government is made up of people, and people have certain normal sociological needs to fulfill. Helping their fellow man is one of them, which is why Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" is so inhuman a character in the beginning.

GAT_00: The happiest and best countries in the world reside within that model of governance. The reason it isn't as good here is because we have been held back, forced to half-ass it, that we've been forced into measures that don't help anything, that we've been forced away from actually helping people. You're decrying the failure of something that was never allowed to happen.

It's amazing what you can provide as a government when you have a very small military, a homogenized society, a strong economy, and are surrounded by stable economies and governments.(Well not anymore)

WTF Indeed: GAT_00: The GOP disproves that.

You do understand the idea that charities should deal with welfare and not the government right? Because that's what I'm referring too. Government is made up of people, and people have certain normal sociological needs to fulfill. Helping their fellow man is one of them, which is why Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" is so inhuman a character in the beginning.

But remember if your church has social justice programs, that's communism and you should flee immediately!

Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

WTF Indeed: a homogenized society

It's not that their society is homogenized, it's that our society is farked up. Most non-Scandinavian European countries are pretty diverse.

Christianity is Best Communism!

Democrats have a golden opportunity to shift the debate by attacking Republicans for being too Neoliberal -- but Democrats couldn't stay on message even if you could find enough that were against neoliberalism to begin with.

I couldn't finish reading the article because I could not stop laughing at this picture.

"Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newspaper"

You don't say?

Obama = neoBush

DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

Well, dead among politicians in office, anyway.

DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

"Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newspaper"

10 years ago he would on the street corner handing out poorly xeroxed copies.

Exqueeze me? Baking powder?

GAT_00: Charity is partial and incomplete, and often subject to helping only those it wants to help, and is limited by what it has. Equality over all is what government is for.

Oh for f*cks sake....I'm arguing that while people have very different views on how and who should deal with welfare, it remains a basic human need to help those around them. Do you ever wonder why the idea of no government welfare is popular? It's because a large portion of the populace believes that charities do a better job than the government when it comes to helping the poor.

GAT_00: None of which actually helps the people it is there for. We had that government in the 1850s. This isn't the 1850s anymore, and we need to stop trying to go back to it.

We had a homogenized populace in the 1850's? We had a stable government in 1850's?

make me some tea: Part of the reason conservative failures matter so little is surely because of conservatives themselves, particularly, the most politically active ones: They fight hard for what they believe in, and they never let facts stand in their way. They have faith in faith, and facts are merely temporary setbacks, at best.

When conservative policies fail, their first instinct is to look for policies that are even more conservative than the ones that have failed - even if those policies, too, have failed in the past.

It's so bizarre.

We didn't pray hard enough. Pray harder.

Obama is a neolib(eral) just like George Dubya was a neocon(servative).
In other words, Obama was NOT a liberal and Dubya was NOT a conservative.

The liberals and conservatives have all been flummoxed and alienated by their respective poster boys. They talk to pander to those bases, but their actions define their ideologies.

Sinclair Lewis was right (new window).

physt: DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

[www.soloseo.com image 250x272]

Free markets are free to fark you over.

This is a good video series on what neoliberalism is doing to western culture.

make me some tea: Part of the reason conservative failures matter so little is surely because of conservatives themselves, particularly, the most politically active ones: They fight hard for what they believe in, and they never let facts stand in their way. They have faith in faith, and facts are merely temporary setbacks, at best.

When conservative policies fail, their first instinct is to look for policies that are even more conservative than the ones that have failed - even if those policies, too, have failed in the past.

It's so bizarre.

Do you know why the GOP thrives despite what us from the middle and on left see as failures? I will tell you:

What Republicans say they are for:
-Smaller Government
-Fiscal Conservativism
-Social Conservativism
-Freedom

What Republicans are actually for:
-Oppress Gays
-Oppress minorities
-Legislate Christian Morality

All of the other stuff doesn't really matter to republicans. If you live in a trailer park in the south chewing tobacco and seething with anger at all those damn minorities takin' yer jobs and homos holding hands in public, do you really, deep down, care (or understand anything about) the economy or freedom?

Alphax: DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

Well, dead among politicians in office, anyway.

God Bless Bernie Sanders is all can say.

WTF Indeed: You do understand the idea that charities should deal with welfare and not the government right?

You know that doesn't work, right? The number of people helped by a local charity is minuscule compared to the number of people helped by, for example, a small clinic paid for by Federal grants. Dozens vs. thousands.

DarnoKonrad: Alphax: DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

Well, dead among politicians in office, anyway.

God Bless Bernie Sanders is all can say.

Amen.

With the emergence of a more definable political class, coupled with the intertwining of government and the financial sectors, liberalism/conservatism have become merely false flags flown by varying degrees of authoritarianism.

The two words mean very little outside of a classroom.

DarnoKonrad: Indeed. New Deal Liberalism is all but dead. Even among so called liberals. Neoliberalism is now the assumed wisdom -- which sux because it's caused most of our problems.

I can't help but think it all goes back to the Pentagon and the various other "national security" institutions. People like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul are ostracized by the ruling elites because they want to throw a wrench into this whole thing: downsize the military, quit focusing on national security to the exclusion of all else, give power to people rather than the CIA/FBI/TSA/NSA.

Neoliberalism is the belief that the military should be active and engaged throughout the world, that national security (and power) is tantamount, with a pro-choice veneer.

When people say there is no difference between the parties, THIS is what they are talking about.

FuturePastNow: You know that doesn't work, right? The number of people helped by a local charity is minuscule compared to the number of people helped by, for example, a small clinic paid for by Federal grants. Dozens vs. thousands.

Yes I do, however that doesn't keep me from being able to discuss the range of views on the topic that one finds in America.

Where is your God now?

Agree with it or not can you picture that kind of writing on foxnews or cnn, I've gotten so used to the 1st grade writing that was a bit of a chore to read.

beta_plus: [www.aljazeera.com image 89x89]

I couldn't finish reading the article because I could not stop laughing at this picture.

"Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly alternative community newspaper"

You don't say?

Rasputin is alive and well

Excellent article; it really describes the problems with our current politics. As I've long said, the Republicans came in with their (at the time) extreme rhetoric about the free market. The problem was that, for a time, the implementation of those policies corresponded with growth. The public, stupid as they are, assumed the correlation was due to causation; and, within a few years, 'free market' and 'deregulation' became synonymous with 'growth'. Democrats, ever the thinkers, started to second-guess New Deal governance and wondered if the 'free market' actually was the preferred approach. Of course, when you have one side of the aisle filled with zealots towards a particular line of action while the other other side gives it some credence and only half-hearted opposition, of course that is the direction that you continue down. To this day, Democrats are so fearful of appearing anti-market that even when we implement massive social programmes they end up being government handouts direct to big business. It's like we are willing to be socialist but only under the veneer of private enterprise. As the article correctly states, efficiency is the goal of the modern Democrat, not effectiveness. The New Deal liberals died out in the 1980s.

That was a damn good article. The New Deal was perhaps the greatest economic success in history, and the fact that something like half the country think it was a miserable failure is both utterly astonishing to me, and a testament to the effectiveness of propaganda.

I note that despite the resident right-wingers on fark voicing their disaproval, they haven't managed to come up with any actual criticisms of the article other than "The writer looks like a hippie!".

Al-Jezeera has the best article I've read about the problems with our government? This is why we can't have nice things, America!

When history looks back at us, we'll be the best example of a society that just gave up governing itself.

Bob Dolemite: ugh.

i cant read any more of that garbage.

Exactly what do you disagree with?
Barack Obama and most Democrats certainly aren't liberals, and the GOP favors a large but completely dysfunctional government instead of just lesser government.

xanadian: See, I'm for all of these, except for item #3. I took some silly survey a while back, and it came back and said I most identify with Rockefeller Republicans. Made sense to me...

Many socially liberal policies and ideas require government agencies and said agencies have to grow correspondingly to scale with population growth and service demand. So Socially liberal practices are kind of at odds with the "smaller government" part of fiscal conservatism if only because you can't really trust a business to uphold its CSR.

So far we have half a dozen butt-hurt right wingers who can't refute the article so they're making fun of the photo, and one person misusing big words but still not refuting the article.

In other words, they're demonstrating the article's premise, that right-wingers fight hard for what they believe in, and they never let facts stand in their way. They have faith in faith, and facts are merely temporary setbacks, at best.

Bob Dolemite: Wow. I read the first two paragraphs and it's some revisionist history with op-ed thrown in.

this should be good.

Bob Dolemite: ugh.

i cant read any more of that garbage.

You just gonna keep commenting on how terrible and unreadable the article is, champ? Dying for a little attention? Here you go. Now run along and find another article you don't like and comment in that thread for a while.

Like how it's important what Newt Gingrich says, not what he does, and Newt can line up whores like the race cars at Daytona, while berating Clinton for his immorality.

darcsun: Al-Jezeera has the best article I've read about the problems with our government? This is why we can't have nice things, America!

Al-Jezeera English has been the best mainstream news media available since the BBC started sucking a few years back (not their fault - funding and political pressure were to blame). It's unbelievably refreshing to read articles that are pitched at an adult reading level and that don't consist of a mixture of truth and bullshiat under the pretense of giving you "both sides" of the story, the way pretty much every American channel has done since the rise of Fox.

WTF Indeed: GAT_00: The GOP disproves that.

You do understand the idea that charities should deal with welfare and not the government right? Because that's what I'm referring too. Government is made up of people, and people have certain normal sociological needs to fulfill. Helping their fellow man is one of them, which is why Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" is so inhuman a character in the beginning.

Your theory is that the current Republican leadership is not, in fact, filled with sociopaths?

You've clearly not been paying attention.

I do not, for one instant, believe John Boehner or Mitch McConnell give two shiats about people dying in the streets as a result of their policies. They have amply demonstrated they have no concern for anyone but those who line their pockets.

Captain_Ballbeard: [www.biography.com image 402x402]
Where is your God now?

Looks like a cross between Robert Guillaume (Benson from Soap, or Isaac from SportsNight) and Paul Mooney.

Neoconservatives are neoliberals. It's just that "liberal" is such a dirty word. They kept "conservative" in the title, added "neo" to differentiate themselves from Nixon and Ike (fairly liberal by today's standards) because they'd found Jesus (so they wouldn't be seen as all secretive and megalomaniacal like Nixon).

They want to change just as much as "liberals" do - things like legislating morality, increasing the role and size of the military to project American power beyond our borders (without official declarations of war), "letting" people "keep more" of what "they earn" (jiggering the tax code to favor those Jesus favored with money), and crushing dissent.

And lo, it has changed radically. Since 1980.

// some a bit before, but it's really gotten out of hand since the fundies got God to do everything
// like Barry Goldwater said: "If you believe that God is on your side, how can you compromise?"

The New Deal system took the US from the depths of the Great Depression to the pinnacle of world power while also giving birth to the largest middle class ever known in human history, and tearing down the legal barriers to full citizenship for women and minorities.

But conservatives saw this triumphant success as a nightmare that threatened the "natural order" of established privilege and power.

This is disturbingly true.

Johnny Savage: With the emergence of a more definable political class, coupled with the intertwining of government and the financial sectors, liberalism/conservatism have become merely false flags flown by varying degrees of authoritarianism.

The two words mean very little outside of a classroom.

America is not a republic, or a democracy. It is an oligarchy, and deserves the appropriate respect from its people.

That was the most well written and succinct articles regarding our political issues that I've read in a long time.

what is al-jazeera doing publishing neo-communist works? they're hardly "spreading the wealth" over there in the u.a.e...

I skipped the article for the comments earlier, but it's worth going back for. Very interesting.

WTF Indeed: You do understand the idea that charities should deal with welfare and not the government right?

Countries where government deals with welfare, and are nice places to live for the average person:

Canada
Germany
France
Sweden
Japan
Norway
Denmark
Belgium
Austria

Countries where charities deal with welfare, and are nice places to live for the average person:

*crickets chirping*

Countries where charities deal with welfare, and are not very nice places to live for the average person:

Mexico
Brazil
Chile
Zambia
Yemen
Niger

Countries where nobody deals with welfare, and are not very nice places to live for the average person:

Uzbekistan
China
Mongolia
Iraq
Somalia
Paraguay
Chad