What Driftglass Said

John Cole brought this excellent smackdown of David Brooks to my attention.  It's not that long, so just go and read the whole thing.  The last two paragraphs are for the ages.

A Leopard Cannot Change Its Spots

I am shocked, shocked!  Imagine my surprise that the Conservative government in Britain is imposing policies that will disproportionately hurt those at the lower end of the income scale.

Then and Now

If you look at Robert Reich's graph, you get the impression that something big happened around 1980.  I wonder what that was...?

Labour Day

Just a short reminder that Labo(u)r Day has not been around that long.  According to Wikipedia, we owe its origins to typographical workers in Toronto, who were striking for a 58 hour (!!!) work week.  When the leaders of the strike were arrested under Canada's antiquated labour laws, another demonstration was held in early September, and this became an annual "labour festival" that inspired the creation of an official holiday...first in Canada, then in the US.

Given the currently ascendant Galtian philosophy that human capital is a "fungible resource" made up of easily interchangeable "parts" (i.e., workers), one wonders when the previously fringe idea of abolishing this holiday will work its way into the mainstream of Republican ideology.

Rewarded for Treason

Great post by Thers.  The destructive practices of the entrenched right wing establishment have been very lucrative over the last couple of decades.  Given the existing reward system, what is the incentive to change?  The question:  can those incentives be reduced, or can suitable disincentives be implemented?

This Is How Empires End

Great quote at the end of a post from the interesting labor-oriented New Zealand blog, The Standard:

This is what happens at the end of empires. The interests of the elite become completely divorced from the interests of the ordinary people. Factions in the elite fight intensely amongst themselves, rather than looking outwards to tackle their shared challenges. They create crises for petty political advantage, which ultimately weaken the empire and accelerate the fall.

The millionaires in Congress and the millionaires who back them feel no personal sake in the health of their economy and don’t feel the need to plan responsibly for the future. They do not think about the future of their country anymore, they think about how to win the next battle. How to hurt the other side, even if it means hurting the economy. Everything becomes just a political pawn, even defaulting on debt, even decimating the services that millions rely on when they are sick or out of work.

Just belatedly discovered Freddie deBoer's post from last January.  It's lengthy, but includes a lot of good stuff about the absence of any truly left-wing viewpoint in our discourse.  Being new to his blog, I looked at some of his recent posts and found this one, stating his basic political creed, to be excellent.  In particular, I enjoyed this:

Can anyone claim that the Obama administration has done anything whatsoever to advance my interests? Not a day goes by where I argue politics online without some Obama supporter hurling invective at me and insisting that I have no choice, that if I refuse to vote for Obama I am in essence voting for Michelle Bachmann, that it's a two party system and I should just take it and like it, or, most absurdly, that he secretly is pursuing my agenda and I'm just too stupid to read the tea leaves and SEE.