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Sep. 18th, 2012 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupI've been wanting to make a politically-focused post for a while. There's a lot of blah blah blah blah going on in American politics right now, a lot of hyperbole and obfuscation and I wanted to say a few words on it.
I think the most frustrating thing about this election has been that so many people seem to have forgotten the lessons we learned during the Industrial Revolution. Unchecked and unregulated corporate power not only led to gross disparities in income it also took a horrific human and environmental toll. Industrial accidents were horrific and took a huge personal and communal toll (the horrible fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is one of the most-cited worker tragedies of the time and is indicative of contemporary worker situations). And this article referencing the Irish Potato Famine certainly puts the effects of laissez-faire economic theory into perspective.
I'm always astounded by the naivete and selfishness of people who espouse a pure free market ideology and it's amazing how many of them preach it with a religious fervor. When it comes right down to it we have to decide what is more important; creating an environment where a few select individuals will be able to succeed or one where we all help each other succeed. In a lot of ways this is the basic question at the heart of our current American dialgoue, what is more important, the individual or the community?
Of course, it doesn't help that free market rhetoric over the past hundred years has been infused with so much Christian religious symbolism. Personally, I think the Christ would be horrified to see how fundamentally his teachings have been misappropriated. The remnants of Social Darwinism are still alive and well in modern political thought and that is absolutely sickening.
I'm always astounded by how hard it is for us Americans to remember our own history.
Romney isn't the devil. His personality rubs me the wrong way and even though we share a religion his religious ideology is on the opposite spectrum of my own (in fact, I think that Mormons like Romney are indicative of all of the things I hate about the current Mormon Church). The danger of a Romney presidency doesn't lie in Romney himself but rather in the extreme political ideologies that would be advanced during his administration. His economic policies have already been proven ineffective and his social policies would only serve to bolster the fragile egos of scared white men.
My biggest problem with Mitt Romney is that he doesn't realize how good he's always had it, how lucky he's been. He can't see his own privilege and honestly thinks that hard work is the answer to every question. He can't seem to understand that hard work can only get you part of the way and that institutional inequalities, be they economic, racial, gendered, or class-based, can hold you down regardless of how "deserving" you happen to be.
But then, I'm clearly a hippie socialist, so what do I know?
comments at http://liptonrm.dreamwidth.org/48485.html.
I think the most frustrating thing about this election has been that so many people seem to have forgotten the lessons we learned during the Industrial Revolution. Unchecked and unregulated corporate power not only led to gross disparities in income it also took a horrific human and environmental toll. Industrial accidents were horrific and took a huge personal and communal toll (the horrible fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is one of the most-cited worker tragedies of the time and is indicative of contemporary worker situations). And this article referencing the Irish Potato Famine certainly puts the effects of laissez-faire economic theory into perspective.
I'm always astounded by the naivete and selfishness of people who espouse a pure free market ideology and it's amazing how many of them preach it with a religious fervor. When it comes right down to it we have to decide what is more important; creating an environment where a few select individuals will be able to succeed or one where we all help each other succeed. In a lot of ways this is the basic question at the heart of our current American dialgoue, what is more important, the individual or the community?
Of course, it doesn't help that free market rhetoric over the past hundred years has been infused with so much Christian religious symbolism. Personally, I think the Christ would be horrified to see how fundamentally his teachings have been misappropriated. The remnants of Social Darwinism are still alive and well in modern political thought and that is absolutely sickening.
I'm always astounded by how hard it is for us Americans to remember our own history.
Romney isn't the devil. His personality rubs me the wrong way and even though we share a religion his religious ideology is on the opposite spectrum of my own (in fact, I think that Mormons like Romney are indicative of all of the things I hate about the current Mormon Church). The danger of a Romney presidency doesn't lie in Romney himself but rather in the extreme political ideologies that would be advanced during his administration. His economic policies have already been proven ineffective and his social policies would only serve to bolster the fragile egos of scared white men.
My biggest problem with Mitt Romney is that he doesn't realize how good he's always had it, how lucky he's been. He can't see his own privilege and honestly thinks that hard work is the answer to every question. He can't seem to understand that hard work can only get you part of the way and that institutional inequalities, be they economic, racial, gendered, or class-based, can hold you down regardless of how "deserving" you happen to be.
But then, I'm clearly a hippie socialist, so what do I know?
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-19 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-03 08:15 pm (UTC)Yep. And was it you or J that said you wish he would stop trying because he just keeps sounding like a jackass who is totally out of touch? Every time he tells a story about his 'tough times' I kind of want to punch him in the face. Hard work doesn't get you everywhere. I worked my ass off for ten years - had three jobs when I was 17, what's harder work than that? It still didn't stop the spread of my very progress disease, no matter how hard I worked. I still ended up dependant on other people for the rest of my life.