Progressive Politics

[Pies4shaw]

Don't call David. He'll call you.

[David]

Free VPT? Free of Mods? Free to go hell for leather?

I'm interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZX-H5pxW0

[David]

Just saw this short video of the late David Graeber talking about centrism and thought of this thread. Reckon he sums up the status quo of contemporary two-party political systems pretty well:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-9afwZON8dU

[roar]

^^ That was a very interesting and morbidly funny view of the current situation. Thanks for posting it, David..

[stui magpie]

^

Ditto, as far as political commentary goes, pretty sharp.

[pietillidie]

He's right in terms of general herd behaviour, but there is a sophisticated market/bureaucratic thesis, which he waves away with a straw man at the beginning.

[David]

While I’m sure he’d disagree with your view on that (from what I know of his work), I don’t think he’s dismissing the possibility of an effective market/bureaucratic synthesis here so much as describing how such political forces are and tend to operate right now. While there are at least some meaningful differences between the policy agendas of, say, Blair and Obama, and Macron and Albanese, can we say confidently that there are any major centre or centre-left political parties in the Western world that don’t function exactly as he describes? And can you say that any of them are effectively prosecuting (or, if in opposition, arguing for) a positive and transformative agenda?

[pietillidie]

While I’m sure he’d disagree with your view on that (from what I know of his work), I don’t think he’s dismissing the possibility of an effective market/bureaucratic synthesis here so much as describing how such political forces are and tend to operate right now. While there are at least some meaningful differences between the policy agendas of, say, Blair and Obama, and Macron and Albanese, can we say confidently that there are any major centre or centre-left political parties in the Western world that don’t function exactly as he describes? And can you say that any of them are effectively prosecuting (or, if in opposition, arguing for) a positive and transformative agenda?

That's a bizarre way of framing the world as we know it, though. There are no governments anywhere at any scale implementing transformative agendas, except of the radically bad variety.

It took a world war to get post-war growth, a Marshall Plan and a New Deal. It took a world war and atomic bombs to get a post-war Japan. It took the same war and a string of dictators to get modern South Korea.

That's the degree of social shift needed to get 'transformative' change. So this frustration with the world not looking like someone's mind's eye strikes me as very self unaware. Change is not Lego in the toddler's hands. Vision exists to help get you 10% betterment, not the new earth.

As I said with Biden, I'd take a 10% shift in a sensible direction, but still expect 25% of the country to be crazed. That's not because of some imaginary 'centrism'; it's because of centuries of geographically isolated weirdo religion, delusional exceptionalism and massive inequality. There's no switch to flick or posture to take on the political spectrum to get you beyond two centuries of social trends in five minutes. Well, unless you send the Enola Gay back to do its 'transformative' work.

As for someone like Macron, he does seem useless which is to say incapable of even getting that 10% improvement in many areas. But there is no one 'transformative' in French politics to replace him, except some extremist group ardently driven to transform things 30% to the worse.

This obsession with 'transformation' leads people to sit around stewing in their imaginations and dreaming up nonsense, instead of working out how they can get that first 10%, lock it in, and build on it.

[David]

[pietillidie]

This poll perhaps gets to the crux of the matter: only 25% of Dems and 6% of Trumplicans rate inequality as their primary economic concern. That's nowhere near enough people worried about the biggest problem of the lot.

That 25% makes the Dems meaningfully preferable without being enough to fix the problem, thus the periodic lashing out at the 'centre'. But it's a hopeless equation anyhow if only 6% of the religious nutters on the other side are moved by it, if not being radically driven to oppose anything that might alleviate it.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-america ... ong-voters

[stui magpie]

[David]

[stui magpie]

Agree,

It's not an indictment on all Left Leaning people, it's an observation about a subset, particularly Labor fanbois and gurls who inhabit Twitter.

The example of the restriction of movement was a good one. You could make a balanced argument about why border closures are wrong and also why they're necessary but simply viciously attacking anyone who criticises decisions made by your political party of choice isn't the sign of a balanced human.

[Pies4shaw]

One might quibble about the tenuous connection between the ALP and "progressive politics", too, of course.

[stui magpie]

^

Fair comment, I don't believe I made that link even tenuously.