Wisdom and knowledge are not on the side of the rich. The economics and politics of the rich is a fool’s errand – great for the rich but disastrous for everyone else. This is why the rich buy up all the media and the state and use both to push 24-7 propaganda lies about how the economics of the rich is the best thing for your everyday person.
They have to lie about this all the time because it is so manifestly untrue. This is why conservatism, at least the political economic variety, is always undemocratic and completely dishonest.
If the rich were honest about this matter, they would say, “The political economy that we push is great for us but terrible for most of the rest of you. But you all should support because reasons.” Incredibly enough, many ordinary Americans more or less believe this, but they see their non-wealthy status as a failure for which they blame themselves, and they tell themselves their whole lives that they are going to be rich too one day.
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Conservatism at its core, is anti-human. It supports a tribal mindset which basically states that one’s family, ethnic group, or nationality are the only things what matter. Everyone else can go to hell.
Conservatism is the fountain of bigotry, exclusion, and xenophobia. It’s a majoritarian world view unfairly targeting the disadvantaged groups; the poor, the homeless – anyone who can’t fight the system.
Human beings are better than that. We don’t need an us versus them dichotomy to feel good about ourselves.
Anyone who’s ever volunteered with organizations working for poverty-stricken children, refugees, war survivors or cancer patients is immediately transformed by the experience. I bet someone like Donald Trump has never spent time in a homeless shelter listening to the problems of the downtrodden and sharing their miseries. He thinks they’re losers anyway.
You don’t have to be a Mother Teresa to understand human suffering, just an average human. I have noticed that wealthy people avoid these very conversations as it makes them feel very miserable.
You could talk to me about the poor, unfortunate Rohingyas in the middle of a cocktail party and I’ll listen with empathy. The same can’t be expected of a conservative jackass. They’ll either change the topic or immediately leave. They simply can’t stand the idea of poor and unfortunate people.
Really lol?????
Ha ha. Good job, Jason.
Don’t you just hate it when pro-bullying people – make egalitarian speeches!
How does bullying weaker kids in my college years make me somehow unqualified today to hold charitable views on other issues? That’s like saying a burglar cannot be trusted to rescue someone in a ditch. Maybe I’ll pick your pockets clean, but at least I saved your life. 😃
I don’t support adults bullying each other, but it’s going to exist whether one likes it or not is irrelevant.
Bullying never disappears among boys – it just assumes different forms.
My point of view was that those belonging to the religious right with conservative mindsets are very anti-poor for some reason. At least it’s been my experience – I am sure there are a few exceptions. If I bring up the topic of wars and poverty, they’ll simply walk away because it makes them feel very uncomfortable and guilty.
Genocide>Dehumanizing>Bullying. Bullying is something siblings do to each other. If it gets taken to another level, it’s called abuse.
This isn’t fair, Jason. SHI’s not pro-bullying. He doesn’t bully anyone anymore, and he says adults shouldn’t bully each other. So can’t say he bullied as a boy and in college and therefore, he’s pro-bullying. That’s not going to fly.
I have to add that I got bullied a bit myself. But I’m an early to mid ’90s kid, the Internet wasn’t a thing back then in my neck of the woods.
Even so there was no choice but to take it in the chin. No counselors, no safe spaces, nor squealing to the teachers. You did that, you got beaten up a lot worse.
Back then in my place, it wasn’t unheard of for kids to die of injuries after schoolfights. Parents would get so worried. Yes, the police would chase the bullies later but that was only possible after a serious incident. I have to add there were no cellphones back then either.
Bullies had many ways to cover their tracks. They’d just drag you behind the bushes or an empty parking lot. One time I really got the beating of my life and had to be hospitalized. They wrapped a plastic bag around my head and mercilessly whacked me. I got a bloody nose and I couldn’t breathe. I was swallowing my own blood. It was horrible. The most frightening 2 minutes of my life.
Luckily I had taken swimming lessons and could hold my breath but it was getting impossible as my hands were tied behind my backs. I couldn’t maneuver an inch. One of the bullies was sympathetic enough (for his own good) to pull out the plastic wrap in the nick of time. The other two didn’t really care if I died.
“Kill this bastard.”
“We’ll send you to your grandma now” (those bastards knew my grandmother died a few months ago).
After that, they started kicking me in my stomach. I was sputtering my own blood, tears, sweat. My brain oxygen ran out. I really thought I’d be dead in a few minutes now.
Then one of them pulled me by the hair and growled: “All right, asshole. Apologize now. And we’ll let you live.”
That was really all this was about. They wanted me to apologize for mocking them previously. But, I wasn’t going to succumb to that. I just collected myself for a minute or two. Then, I retaliated with a punch. It came as a real shock to him and threw him off balance. They were surprised. But I got overpowered real soon. How long do you think a 5th grader can last among 9th grade goons? They decided not to kill me that day (mainly because of that one bully who wasn’t a total maniac. He had some common sense and he asked his buddies to leave me alone.)
They quickly scampered after that. I just got up and was bleeding all over. I dragged myself for a distance before I could be seen by others. At the hospital, they gave me anesthesia and had to be treated for severe wounds. I had shock injuries but the police were never involved. It took me nearly two weeks to recover. I had the schoolteachers coming to visit me. They asked me to name the culprits. But, no, you didn’t do that. The bullies did warn me not to squeal or they’d kill me for sure next time. I did not name them.
Later when I started school again. The bullies left me alone and would not even look in my direction. I also got the message not to mess with them again. But I felt glad that I did not accept their dominance over me, although the lessons were painful.
However in retrospect, I’m somehow grateful to my 9th grade bullies who helped me learn how to fight back. Heck if I meet them today, we’ll most likely have a beer together. I am sure they are in some kind of prison though. That kind of asshole cannot reform.
I have noticed that supporters of pre-Castro Cuba always say that Cuba had the highest per capita income in Latin America, highest standard of living and other things to show that Castro was wrong to overthrow the government. They rarely show the poverty.
I assume you know better than me Robert about this issue, since you write about Latin America a lot. I just want to know how bad was Cuba before Castro? The right wing say Cuba would have been better off without Castro, but I don’t think the rightwing Cubans would have done anything to help the working class Whites and Blacks, and Cuba would have still be a US lapdog.
I think Cuba was in a no-win situation. I personally think Cuba should abandon communism and switch to a regulated free market economy and form economic relations with Russia and China. Moreover, I think the Cuban government should issue their currency interest-free like Lincoln did with the Greenbacks to avoid financial dependence on other countries.
There are sites on the Net you can go to that show how bad it was before the Revolution and how much better it got afterwards. It’s hard to argue with the statistics. They also have rejoinders for all the lame arguments the contras (yeah, that’s what they are) throw up.
There was a lot of poverty. For instance, 50% of the rural people were malnourished. The rural areas were not wired up for electricity at all. There was the worst Jim Crow for Blacks, just like the US South if not worse.
Yes, there were a lot of doctors, but they were all in Havana! And they all accepted cash only, no exceptions. So if you had money and lived in Havana, you might be ok. I believe outside of Havana, there was one doctor in the whole place. Bottom line is that a lot of people who lived before the Revolution think there was a huge improvement afterwards. Why do you think the Revolution was so popular.
They already have an internal market. I don’t see why they need to make more changes. If they open it up, the international capitalists will come in and buy up the whole place. Screw that. We really have no idea how well the situation works, because they’ve been embargoed since nearly Day One. So all we see is a seriously fucked up and hampered, hobbled version of what it could be.
I would not mind a “socialism with Cuban characteristics” though along the lines of what the Chinese are doing. Come to think of it, I would like to see a “socialism with Indian characteristics” in India, too along the same lines.
Cuban Americans are angry with Bernie Sanders comments about Fidel Castro literacy program. You can’t deny that Castro had concentration camps and killed people. What is your opinion about that? https://www.yahoo.com/news/after-sanders-praise-for-castro-cuban-americans-like-him-even-less-195233809.html
What concentration camps?
600 people were executed after the revolution. They were police and military officers who were running death squads that had murdered many civilian supporters of Castro. They all got what they deserved.
There were 10,000 executions between 1959-1970, presumably including the above. In most cases, the charge was “rebellion.” These were people who had taken up arms against the state. An anti-Castro insurgency ran off and on for 11 years after Castro took over. They did some bad things like blowing up factories full of workers. Driving down the coast in speedboats shooting machine guns and anyone within shooting distance of the boats.
The prisons are not that bad for a dictatorship. Torture is actually rather rare. The International Red Cross has inspected the prisons.
The anti-Castro Cubans are fanatics. They’re lunatic nutcase kooks, pure ideologues. They are not to be reasoned with. And they were never going to vote for him anyway. They vote straight Republican and they are far rightwing. A lot of them are simply fascists. Very racist too. Miami is one of the most openly racist cities in the US.
Also, have you ever talked to any actual Cubans in Cuba? I have. They’re not all on the Intranet either. The guy I talked to was on the regular Internet via some university. Most people are with the system, especially nowadays that things have been loosened up so much. They don’t even do much to the dissidents anymore, and 10-20 years ago, there were literally hundreds of dissident organizations.
Even most of the dissidents call themselves social democrats. There’s no support on the island for any US-style neoliberal crap. Cubans have been there and done that. There are fewer than 100 political prisoners, and they got what they deserved.
Robert, I agree with your response on Cuba. I want to know do you think Communism is a bad system? Do you think Communist economic planning is a failure? There is a lot of evidence around the world that it is.
I think the extremes Communism on one side and rightwing laissez-faire libertarian capitalism on the other side are failures; I think a more centrist pragmatic approach to economics and government is the best. Do you agree? Of course conservatives and libertarians would demonize that way of thinking and call that person a Marxist.
Conservatives attack Communism and say that it causes mass poverty, but how does rightwing Libertarian economics cause poverty like in Brazil or in other Latin American countries?
A final question I have is did rightwing governments do anything to help the poor in Latin America? What do you think of this article about Venezuela before Chavez came to power:
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Venezuela-the-most-prosperous-and-stable-country-of-Latin-America-during-the-50s-60s-and-70s
https://www.gregpalast.com/in-venezuela-white-supremacy-is-a-key-to-trump-coup/
I thought that the Cuban American exile community was monolithic; the media never interviews these people. Why haven’t you responded to my post that I posted on March 3, 2020? I was interested in your thoughts.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article240924271.html
I’ll get to your comment. Yes the Cuban American community is nuanced. Most Normies can’t seem to get that through their heads.
Did you use to come here before, Lou Reed? I’m not sure if I remember you from before, Transformer.
Who is Lou Reed? I am a new person.
Lou Reed was a rock singer who made an album called Transformer, lol.
Welcome to the board!