tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post5037065292853286661..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Academic Left more populist than media Left: Immigration editionagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-50309278413159293052019-06-06T09:50:42.334-04:002019-06-06T09:50:42.334-04:00Mark Blyth certainly fits this mold and is very go...Mark Blyth certainly fits this mold and is very good for boning up on the specifics of the global economic system since WWII and for perspective on just how much power elite interest groups wield (much like Chomsky but more into the technical financial details). He sometimes jumps over into SJW speak but he's very diligent about reminding folks that many of those hollowed out Rust Belt counties voted for Obama twice and then took a chance on old Trumpy. That factoid always sends the delusional into debilitating cog dis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-42997376003144334612018-12-02T04:15:16.549-05:002018-12-02T04:15:16.549-05:00We want disarmament in the economic arms race, not...We want disarmament in the economic arms race, not everyone driving around in tanks that are loaded up with anti-tank missiles.<br /><br />One leads toward harmony and egalitarian outcomes, the other toward chaos and inequality -- the greater the stakes of a competition, the greater the wins and the greater the losses.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-23261430082690263532018-12-02T03:49:13.297-05:002018-12-02T03:49:13.297-05:00She says she's a cultural conservative, and th...She says she's a cultural conservative, and that it must be linked to political / economic progressivism, or socialism (16:00 to 20:00):<br /><br />https://soundcloud.com/red-scare-727066439/thot-save-america<br /><br />She's ragging on cultural conservatives who promote hyper-competitive individualism in the economic / political arena, arguing that you need a strong welfare state to keep all the members of the tribe happy and belonging. With economic Darwinism, those bonds come apart, and there is no more tribalism (of the good or bad kind).<br /><br />I don't see how she's any different -- at the big-picture level -- from me, a big chunk of the old gang at 2Blowhards (she's also a Camille Paglia fan), the swing Trump voters, or the part of the Alt-Right that isn't nazi (don't know how big that fraction is anymore).<br /><br />The anti-competitive, anti-individualist angle also places her (and us) against the neolibs and frankly a large slice of the socialist Left, for whom socialism means the state providing enough goods and services to enable individuals to fully realize their own ambitions -- in an economic and social context that will, however, remain a hyper-competitive arms race and war of all against all.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-89755740163556778802018-12-01T13:03:17.719-05:002018-12-01T13:03:17.719-05:00Just looked her up: wow! At first blush, we have ...Just looked her up: wow! At first blush, we have nothing in common, it seems, but then I find her blog<br />http://www.annakhachiyan.com/blog/<br />Post about narcissism? And that Open Marriage essay where she observes how so many proponents lack the charm of Astronaut Diaper Lady, lol! Great stuff.<br />I can't help but notice that she's beautiful and her (mostly male?) detractors are not. I suspect that the modern media selects for a certain type and they cannot help but be drawn to ID politics. I thought of asking for a list of women worth reading, but that might cause them trouble, so no?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-54684754954435560672018-12-01T11:37:01.323-05:002018-12-01T11:37:01.323-05:00In this case, think of students as being the "...In this case, think of students as being the "customers" of a professor, who support his livelihood. A professor will adopt the same views as the students of the school he teaches at.<br /><br />Based on that, we can assume that professors who teach in nationalist regions of the country will be more nationalist in outlook. Curtisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-190927220348052392018-12-01T01:31:11.969-05:002018-12-01T01:31:11.969-05:00Anna Khachiyan also not buying "open borders,...Anna Khachiyan also not buying "open borders," "abolish prisons," etc. She's in the same orbit as Nagle, Frost, Terese, and other non-radlib feminists / socialists. (Woketard leftists got her booted from Twitter for saying "retard".)<br /><br />From a podcast on Ali O-C's primary win during the summer (5:30 to 8:10):<br /><br />https://soundcloud.com/red-scare-727066439/big-cunt-energy<br /><br />Like the other secure-the-borders socialists, she's a former PhD student (not a mediaite) who had to interact with audiences not already inclined to resonate with her words and feelings.<br /><br />In fact, she agrees with me in identifying the "open borders" Left as coming especially from "the media class," and that only "researchers" at think tanks have put any actual thought into immigration policy, whether Left, socialist, or whatever.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-19091619829478866542018-11-27T00:48:23.709-05:002018-11-27T00:48:23.709-05:00These people are somehow managing to get worse. W...These people are somehow managing to get worse. Was reading reactions to Nagle going on Tucker tonight at Chapo Reddit and Michael Tracey's post about it....<br />I wish I'd been content to just read you about them. This stuff isn't healthy. I got kind of the same vibe that I did during Kavanaugh, but less shrill, *more menacing*. During that fight, I strongly intuited that something very deep was at play. Everyone kept attributing it to abortion, but as deep as that is, it went beyond even that. So, I'm getting that same feeling again. It frightens me, frankly.<br /><br />Perhaps it's the different environments leading to this, and that's kind of tragic, getting locked into this bizarre feedback loop. I was just noticing today how much worse Twitter has gotten, across the spectrum, for people foresaking being informed and just wanting to pick exactly the movie/reality they want to see. Someone was kvetching about the millions thrown away on the Mueller probe, but I look at the baying, sadistic mob, and I feel, "No, this is *exactly* how a few million Americans want their taxes spent and they really want the whistleblowers and supporters executed, jailed, or tortured."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-15869965156322663602018-11-23T21:57:42.701-05:002018-11-23T21:57:42.701-05:00"New Deal Democrats oversaw a plummeting &quo..."New Deal Democrats oversaw a plummeting "share of population that's foreign-born"."<br /><br />This strikes a chord w/something else: The GOP's pathetic inability to actually live up to their rhetoric. They haven't practically managed to:<br />- reduce divorce rates and abortion rates, which have only declined insofar as people (Millennials and some Gen X-ers) opt to not irresponsibly get married, break-off marriages, and have unwanted pregnancies. They did so by choice, not because of GOP "family values" being enforced.<br /><br />- made the government smaller. https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/how-military-spending-has-changed/. If one considers the military a government agency (and who doesn't?), then the GOP has been abysmal at placing accountability on government. Carter and Clinton did far more to responsibly run our government than the post-1980 GOP has.<br /><br />-effectively reformed the government. The Reaganite generations (Silents and Boomers) can only make everything they touch more dysfunctional. They bitch that the government can't do anything right, but to quote P.J. O'Rourke, it is they themselves who see to it that government remains a mess.<br /><br />-maintained cultural stability. High immigration levels and a lack of accountability applied to the rich and powerful ensure that nothing is off-limits from the scourge of consumerist individualism and "free-agency". The seeking of excess wealth is inherently destructive to the the tradition and tranquility of communities.Ferylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01336057631877941839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-57952206212349616862018-11-23T20:07:08.725-05:002018-11-23T20:07:08.725-05:00Good friends of my oldest kids, they've been t...Good friends of my oldest kids, they've been to our house, have a mother who is a Mexican strawberry field worker and for normal people, this is not remarkable... Serious question: what is the likelihood that the Open Borders people you talk of have people like this in their social circle? What I've seen on the internet I'd guess the answer is mostly no. I'm not sure if they actually wish they truly did and would value such associations or would such people just be "tokens" to be kept at arm's length after their social utility is exploited.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-35473508535548595392018-11-23T16:01:12.381-05:002018-11-23T16:01:12.381-05:00Thanks for your reply. You sound like you know the...Thanks for your reply. You sound like you know these people really well, Ag, but I'm Pauline Kael: I have only known one person who is for open borders, I flat-out do not understand them. The one I knew: oh boy, I'll never forget him, but I never got a chance to ask him about this. Ag, please put on your anthropology hat and explain these people to us. I find it very strange how they can profess so much empathy for the working class and "real people" and yet still in their hearts be so aspirational and concerned with others seeing them as popular, having status, etc. Hierarchical in their thinking still, but at least with the guy I knew, he did seem as if he genuinely admired (and even copied) "authenticity".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-55819732929270035102018-11-23T15:45:27.085-05:002018-11-23T15:45:27.085-05:00Clintonian triangulation to appease GOP is open bo...Clintonian triangulation to appease GOP is open borders plus tougher labor laws -- not restricting immigration (of refugees, or whoever), a la Hillary's recent remarks on Europe.<br /><br />Contra the sentiment below that restricting immigration would be the old-guard Dem capitulation to the Reaganite GOP:<br /><br />https://twitter.com/CoreyRobin/status/1065642668288614400<br /><br />It has been the neolib Reaganite GOP that has thrown open the borders and provided and sought massive amnesties since the regime began in the 1980s. And it is that same Reaganite GOP that has thwarted the would-be realigner Trump from getting anything done whatsoever on restricting immigration.<br /><br />New Deal Democrats oversaw a plummeting "share of population that's foreign-born".<br /><br />Open borders serves the material interests of labor-intensive economic sectors, which control the GOP. Closing the borders would win the GOP some more votes, but they care more about the material interests of elites in agriculture and small business, who get free profits from lowering the price of labor by importing cheap foreigners.<br /><br />With Dems stuck in a weak opposition role, their triangulation would be adhering to the basic framework of the Reaganites -- open borders to bring in cheap labor -- while trying to soften the blow, e.g. welfare to those domestic workers affected by immigration. Akin to trade-related adjustment handouts for workers in off-shored industries (the twin of importing cheap labor here -- sending the worksite over there to the cheap labor).<br /><br />The realigning Dems, to become dominant, would have to do something different than open borders, since that's already the Reaganite orthodoxy and praxis. It would have to be restricting immigration, along with strong labor laws, as part of a generalized protectionism for labor.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-42880664838764921042018-11-23T05:15:12.971-05:002018-11-23T05:15:12.971-05:00The New Deal history shows why it's impossible...The New Deal history shows why it's impossible to have both rising immigration and stronger labor protections.<br /><br />Some Leftists think you could keep immigration as sky-high as it already is, even increasing it, so long as you counter-balance that by implementing tougher labor laws to keep the elites from exploiting this expanding supply of labor / demand for housing.<br /><br />But then why would the coalition that managed to wield enough power to get New Deal-style labor protections outside of immigration, want to dilute those gains by keeping the borders half-way or fully open?<br /><br />True, a balance would be better than their current loss -- but what's even better than a balance is a maximum. And they maximize their standard of living by toughening labor protections in areas outside of immigration, as well as restricting immigration -- which they see as just another form of protecting labor, not a competing or incoherent side goal.<br /><br />So the benefit is greater with tough labor laws and closed borders, than tough labor laws and open borders. What about the cost of achieving either outcome?<br /><br />The fully protectionist platform is cheaper and easier to achieve -- it's the most natural mindset and set of motivations for anyone who would join a major coalition. "We need to protect our people, especially those struggling to get by."<br /><br />The half-way protectionist platform that has open borders relies on a mindset or motivation about "globalization from below" or "helping out the global poor" etc. Very few people can resonate with that, let alone to such a degree that they'd put their lives on the line in order to achieve it. Getting enough on board, and committing enough blood sweat and tears to implement their policies, would be far more costly and difficult than the "protect our downtrodden" project.<br /><br />Nationally oriented populism delivers greater benefits at a lower cost -- it's no wonder that's was the only successful movement in every developed nation during the egalitarian Midcentury, and why it will be the way forward the next time around.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-63623395511322545162018-11-23T03:43:25.405-05:002018-11-23T03:43:25.405-05:00"Socialism in one country" also applies ..."Socialism in one country" also applies to New Deal / social democracy societies, not just the communist ones.<br /><br />During the Midcentury, the developed nations did not have international supply chains, labor markets, or capital and currency flows. Each nation did its own thing, within its own borders.<br /><br />There were international agreements to mediate the relations between these de-globalized societies -- the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Bretton Woods system of currency regulation, with immigration done largely at the national level (closed borders everywhere).<br /><br />But there was no international body that was above the nation-state or national economies, in the way that NAFTA / WTO / IMF / etc. have done during the neoliberal era.<br /><br />"But that system only holds up if every nation obeys the rules, and crumbles when one nation defects and begins to globalize, let alone if they all get the same idea at the same time."<br /><br />Yeah well, that's why history goes in cycles. People forget, individually and even institutionally, why it was such a disaster to have the globalized societies of the Gilded Age. They had only grown up during the de-globalized Great Compression, and took those outcomes for granted, rather than stemming from a certain structure that needed to be maintained, or else the outcomes would vanish.<br /><br />On the other hand, a global / international system "from below," or even on behalf of the low, has never happened -- and therefore, never will. Similar sentiments and actions occurring independently, acting sympathetically, OK. But not a polity that transcends the nation-state, or a labor union that organizes workers across large diverse nations.<br /><br />One nation at a time, for as long as it lasts -- that's the best that can be done.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-50248191393325033902018-11-23T01:09:18.900-05:002018-11-23T01:09:18.900-05:00The audience for open borders is huge, just see th...The audience for open borders is huge, just see the reaction to Nagle's left-wing article, or Trump's right-wing 2016 campaign (not results from 2017 and after).<br /><br />Not normal people or working-class people, of course, but among just about all of the elite and aspiring-elite class, whether lib or con, open borders is sacrosanct.<br /><br />"Sean" is Sean McElwee, some dweeb on Twitter who is big enough to get interviewed by Chris Hayes on his podcast side-gig. He called not only for abolishing ICE, but deregulation of migration.<br /><br />Some of the "abolish ICE" people may simply be asking for a return to the INS, which was under the DoJ rather than DHS, and was less militarized. But it's clear a good chunk want to go further, to deregulate migration altogether.<br /><br />Deregulating labor markets? -- in *my* socialist movement? Welcome to the era of the radlib.<br /><br />Since they're so much more numerous and aligned with wealth and power, I expect open borders to continue / worsen under the Bernie realignment, and therefore inequality will get much worse under the Bernie era, despite the big game they will talk.<br /><br />Just like with the Lincoln era, which dethroned the Jacksonian slaveholder regime. It just replaced Southern plantation slaveholders with Northern industrialist robber barons, as the dominant coalition. That's where we are in historical cycles -- coming up to another Civil War, or polarized breakdown.<br /><br />That was great for the slaves, and I'm sure there will be some group under the Bernie era that catches a big break like that. But in the overall big picture, it wasn't that much better living under the Gilded Age than under the Jacksonian era. Especially regarding immigration -- the Northern industrialists imported orders of magnitude more cheap foreign labor to toil in their factories than the slaveholders did for their plantations. Good old Ellis Island.<br /><br />We are at least two full realignments away from anything getting better overall -- the McKinley realignment / Progressive Era, which superseded the Lincolnian Gilded Age.<br /><br />The one bright spot will be militarism. Imperialism basically stopped during the Lincoln era, with the Southern military elites dethroned, and the nation focused more on internal reconstruction. Hopefully the Bernie-crats can at least manage to shut down our zillions of military bases all over the world.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-12537806962847520392018-11-22T20:49:33.244-05:002018-11-22T20:49:33.244-05:00"In the media and entertainment sector, the a..."In the media and entertainment sector, the audience comes first, and the customer is always right. The writers and performers must either tell them what they want to hear, and make them feel what they want to feel, or the crowd will simply take their attention and/or business elsewhere."<br /><br />I completely agree with this. I find the deplatforming phenomenon odd because of this, but my personal experience with someone who does this is that such a person is far, far out in the extreme for being controlling; this behavior is emotional, not rational. But I guess if they get no pushback from their "enemies", a kind of Stockholm Syndrome could occur for regular people.<br /><br />Anyway, I would think the audience for Open Borders uber alles would be rather small. Whose emotional needs are being met by such nonsense? I mean, who is this Sean guy who needs to be abolished, lol! Who is gravitating to, and/or relating to Sean-who-wants-to-abolish-ICE, lol!?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com