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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#951
post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really align any more. Some of the largest, most powerful corporations are now led by ideological leftists, and right wing politicians aren't shy about attacking them.

Which corporations are you thinking of?

Some examples: Disney, Netflix, Salesforce (Marc Benioff used to host fund raisers for Hillary Clinton), New York Times. Larry Page made donations to Democrat candidates, 88% of Google staff made donations to Democrats so maybe we can include Google as well?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#952
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like these points: * We engineered away stability for JIT Yep. It would not kill us to recognize that globalization went 20% too far, and that supply chains in the US is good for us. We also have to deal with the fact that job loss v. cheaper goods has gone too far too. We need to swing back to a more US focused economy. Ex: I recently ordered brakes from a US company. They were out of stock of my model. I asked wh…

It's funny, because this should be a point of crossover for the (populist) left and the right. Basic nationalism on the one hand, "Buy Local" on the other. They all want the same thing, or close to it. The potential for alliance on economic topics like this is so blindingly obvious, and it's so frustrating that it gets derailed by "cultural" sideshows so that no one can talk to each other or realize they have the sam…

Am I the only one that thinks corporations really pulled a veil over the American people's eyes? And that Republican and Democrat parties really differ only on social issues, but when it comes to economics they both favor the corporations? My investing strategy has been to stay in the stock market until there is a constitutional amendment that forbids money in politics. Until then corporations will continue to buy the Senate and Congress (and Supreme Court too which is no longer a-political and thus can be bought)

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#953
post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and some numbers are wacky. > I guess teaching kids to trust in science and not in imaginary friends is slowly paying off.

They still have imaginary friends on facebook though. At least god has morals. We haven't replace those and the number of mass shootings seems to be going up as belief in god goes down.

It would surprise me if there were any statistics that didn't indicate the opposite of your implications.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#954
post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really align any more. Some of the largest, most powerful corporations are now led by ideological leftists, and right wing politicians aren't shy about attacking them.

Which corporations are you thinking of?

There is a common misconception that being willing to market products at LGBT people is "ideological leftism". Even worse is if they think supporting a center-right candidate like Hillary Clinton is "ideological leftism".

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#955
post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which corporations are you thinking of?

Some examples: Disney, Netflix, Salesforce (Marc Benioff used to host fund raisers for Hillary Clinton), New York Times. Larry Page made donations to Democrat candidates, 88% of Google staff made donations to Democrats so maybe we can include Google as well?

Disney has supported basic rights for LGBTQ+ people. This is one of those things which pretty much isn't up for debate anymore in most other developed countries. Beyond that, Disney has been solidly pro-corporate, anti-union, and generally right wing in its policies. I'm unaware of any stances Netflix and Salesforce have taken beyond similar support for LGBTQ and lip service to "racism is bad". Again, as far as I know, their economic stances are solidly anti-union, anti-worker, and pro-corporate.

None of those are "leftist".

Staff support is entirely different than institutional corporate support. Is Amazon leftist because one of its warehouses just unionized? No, it fought (and is fighting) that union effort tooth and nail. Similarly, Google has punished staff who were too open with their leftist beliefs.

Nor is support for the Democratic party "leftist". The Democratic party is split between neoliberals (who would be considered right of center anywhere else) and social democrats (who would be considered center left anywhere else) for the most part (with some rare Democratic Socialists who might actually qualify as leftist).

Hillary Clinton is a prime example of this. Anywhere but the United States, she would be considered solidly center right. It is only in the United States, where Fox News, et al have dragged the spectrum so far to the right that anything less than neo-fascist or anarcho-capitalist is considered left, where you could even pretend these corporations had a less than rightward slant.

Edit: I will note, this dragging of the spectrum is one of many, many reasons why I try to avoid spectrum based labels (left/right, etc) and stick to actual ideological labels. There is no single "leftist". There are Democratic Socialists, State Socialists, Communists, various flavors of Anarchist, etc who all get grouped together as "leftist", but generally don't agree on much. The other group of ideologies that get grouped with leftist are those supporting historically oppressed minorities - antiracism, antipatriarchy, and pro-lgbtq+ rights. Again, these are discrete ideologies and while people who subscribe to one often subscribe to the others, just as often they don't.

Similarly on the right, neo-facist, neoconservative, paleoconservative, evangelical theocrat, and anarcho-capitalist (the proper term for US libertarians) all get grouped together under the heading "right". When many of these ideologies are (or should be) completely at odds with each other.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#956

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

> journalism and Silicon Valley

Facebook, Google and others are in the advertising business, competing with newspapers who have seen 2/3 of their revenue lost since 2000

It is not surprising journalists hate "tech-bros"

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#957
post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some examples: Disney, Netflix, Salesforce (Marc Benioff used to host fund raisers for Hillary Clinton), New York Times. Larry Page made donations to Democrat candidates, 88% of Google staff made donations to Democrats so maybe we can include Google as well?

Disney has supported basic rights for LGBTQ+ people. This is one of those things which pretty much isn't up for debate anymore in most other developed countries. Beyond that, Disney has been solidly pro-corporate, anti-union, and generally right wing in its policies. I'm unaware of any stances Netflix and Salesforce have taken beyond similar support for LGBTQ and lip service to "racism is bad". Again, as far as I kno…

But, but, but... can someone like her be wrong?

[3840x2160px jpg of Shannon Bream] https://gn-imgx.fubo.tv/assets/p14696422_i_h8_ae.jpg

[1080x1080px jpg of Shannon Bream] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/65/08/f46508d597bef8ddb558...

/me crawling back into his hide, making fox noises ;->

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#958

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Steven Tyler for creating the hit song "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)". Before that it was all so clear.

It was actually John Money who formed the basis of modern so-called Gender Theory by his twisted experiments on twin boys who he abused so thoroughly that they ended up taking their own lives. Check out the book "As Nature Made Him: The Boy who was Raised as a Girl" by John Colapinto

Perhaps, but consider the words of those great gender theorists, The Kinks, in their hit song, "Lola" - boys will be girls and girls will be boys; it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#959

I remember watching the universal disdain Americans shared for high finance after 2008 and even movements like Occupy Wall Street resonated with a lot more people than one would have predicted. Then, all of the sudden, a whole new field of social engineering algorithms are unleashed on the populace, convincing everyone that their neighbor is the true enemy.

The greatest minds of our generation are engaged in the production of these social engineering algorithms.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#960
post #952

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, because this should be a point of crossover for the (populist) left and the right. Basic nationalism on the one hand, "Buy Local" on the other. They all want the same thing, or close to it. The potential for alliance on economic topics like this is so blindingly obvious, and it's so frustrating that it gets derailed by "cultural" sideshows so that no one can talk to each other or realize they have the sam…

Am I the only one that thinks corporations really pulled a veil over the American people's eyes? And that Republican and Democrat parties really differ only on social issues, but when it comes to economics they both favor the corporations? My investing strategy has been to stay in the stock market until there is a constitutional amendment that forbids money in politics. Until then corporations will continue to buy th…

Corporations and black money from rich people giving to american political parties does provide an endless pressure on both parties to cater to the needs of rich people and companies, of course. But it's not that simple. The republican party has been the party that supported large companies directly, but the populism of Trump and culture war pushed most recently by DeSantis in Florida shows they are happy to score points against say Disney. The democrats have been pushing for people to have nationalized health insurance if they want it, which would definitely reduce the power of corporations - at the same time the dems go along with needs of big business very frequently. Yet dems support unions, repubs are very against them.

I agree with you that the core of this is money in politics leads to money having too much influence with politics. On the supreme court, I think that republican federalism has control over the court, that's the clear place where the 'ideology' of dems would lead to different results. But this isn't a secret, the parties encompass multitudes of views, because we squish all views into two fairly narrow groups with our accidentally designed for two-parties political system.

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