Forum Post: The Occupy Movement Is Actually A Very Traditional Movement, Circa 1906
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 22, 2011, 12:29 a.m. EST by puff6962
(4052)
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The irony or ironies, is that the Occupy movement is one the most traditional, conservative, of groups in America today....The protesters want:
Honest politicians
Honest banks
An honest pay for an honest day's work
Safe food and water
Quality Education
An end to predatory trade policies
Protection of our national parks
Truth in media
An end to the Robber Barons and the Trusts
Progressive Taxation
Economic Opportunity
Worker's Rights
The Occupy Movement wants to return America to 1906, of all times, when progressivism had a voice, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Square Deal policies were begun. Neoconservatives would rub one out if they could return the world to 1986, but we have them beat by 80 years! We are the true traditionalists. My Grandma would be proud.
To research the Square Deal, and TR's other progressive policies, look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Deal
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_%28United_States,_1912%29
Neoliberals and Neoconservatives - 2 wings of the same bird - the plutocrats
What the hell is a neoliberal? Someone who is smarter version of a smart person?
Please educate me.
Every president since Reagan, really...
My thread ( http://occupywallst.org/forum/liberalism-is-not-socialism/ ) and several others have covered it Puff. Also recommend Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, now available as a film online (free): http://vimeo.com/14847387
Mostly lines up with your thoughts, but some different terminology. I really recommend the film.. Book is better of course, bu who has the time right now? :)
So, Eisenhower would be a neo-neoliberal, Nixon would be a neocommunist, and Reagan would just be a liberal.
I agree it's silly, but even neologisms have meaning. Sorry to make you think. ;-)
So, I'm the first to admit that liberal-consensus-era conservatives were really just moderate liberals. Eisenhower and Nixon included. Just as Lincoln was obviously a progressive, along with Teddy and Wilson. Times change.
Reagan was the first neoliberal president. There is very little liberal about neoliberalism - except liberalized (as in free) markets and trade.
"Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the country."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
I like to read alternative history fiction and there is a guy named Harry Turtledove who writes some great ones.
He wrote one where the South won the civil war and Lincoln was never assassinated. Lincoln, rather than being remembered as a hero, becomes something of a pariah and, over time, begins studying the writings of some European economists......Marx and Engels.
Quit making me think.
We live in a time when governments are trying to capture corporations due to internationalization. In a sense, corporations have become the Medieval Catholic Church.....they are the kingmakers and they decide who gets into heaven.
It's a sick dynamic, but government has allowed it's role to be subsumed by the dogma that private entities can perform an inefficient role efficiently.
Look at what the administration costs of government run medicare are versus private insurers.....it will make you nauseous.
Neoliberalism is no different than corporatism......and Italy's last dictator equated fascism with corporatism. That may be a leap, but I think it is fair to characterize the modern Republican Right as the closest thing to closeted, organized, fascism this nation has encountered.
Berlusconi said that?? Oh, the first Il Duce, the trains on time one, not the bunga bunga one, got it!
"Look at what the administration costs of government run medicare are versus private insurers.....it will make you nauseous. "
Yep, I know. I'll take bureaucratic overhead over inflated profit margins for necessities like healthcare, any day.
"Neoliberalism is no different than corporatism....fascism" Definitely true, especially when you consider that neoliberalism's patron saint, Milton Friedman, was the prime mover of the "reforms" of Pinochet, Thatcher, Yeltsin (and obviously, Reagan).
"That may be a leap, but I think it is fair to characterize the modern Republican Right as the closest thing to closeted, organized, fascism this nation has encountered."
I make that leap on a daily basis. It's more of a hop..
if liberals had any brains they would be conservatives.
So, Ronald Reagan would be a liberal who needs re-education by Fox News?
Explain to me what conservatism has done for this country? Was George Bush part two better than the stewardship under Bill Clinton?
What great things has conservatism brought us besides suburbia and school prayer?
Fiscal conservatism, The separation of church and state, The separation of investment banks from retail banks. 95% top tax rate Eisenhower would be proud. Nowadays those ideas are the radical hippie left ---crazy right?
Frightening actually.
classical conservative is the rage for all the young repubs these days. They are tired of all the corruption as well.
The definition of conservatism used to be paying your bills. Now, it is simply cutting taxes.....and force the democrats to cut programs for the poor and elderly while raising taxes. It's a checkmate strategy. They sell a fairy tale.....tax cuts pay for themselves.....then they don't.....then they blame the problem on Democrats......and their solution is.....you guessed it.....MORE tax cuts.
It's like reading Through The Looking Glass after dropping a lude.
Yes, but keep 'em watching Fox news and they'll come around.....sometimes a poison takes it's time to have the desired effect.
I thought it was more like a traditional democratic movement of the '50s. This is according to my grandmom who called the democratic party a "big tent" - i.e. a lot of people who came together to support their respective causes.
Edit: but actually, I think it is different. Fueled by technology and more aware. I would recommend looking at http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/ .
I think it is fair to say that the wisdom that must be gleamed in correcting our current economic disharmony would be that from the good parts of the 50's and 60's. You just need to subtract out the racial intolerance, Vietnam, and Joe McCarthy.
Speaking of old days, I was getting the feeling that we could go back to the "silver days" or something, where currency was backed by silver and our currency's value was simply value, with no surcharge to subsidize the rich.
Be careful what you wish for. If the value of money was pegged to gold or silver prices today, there would be imperialism of a type you cannot imagine. Rare metals would be used as a weapon to inflict harm on another country's currency.
That was back when the phrase, "big tent," meant something nonsexual and "happy ending" was something for which you didn't have to pay 50 dollars extra.
Gosh, The Big Bang Theory reminds me of this forum.
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teddy roosevelt believed in eugenics. Is that what you want?
Ronald Reagan believed in Astrology. Is that what you are for?
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America was the birthplace of eugenics. At the time, it was thought that society's ills could be ameliorated by selective sterilization. Oliver Wendall Holmes actually provided legal arguments for such a policy.
Eugenics continued to have firm adherents until the evils of Nazi Germany were revealed to all.
Teddy Roosevelt is the one man in history who was both genius and mad at the same time, but somehow is character channeled only his better nature.
Roosevelt, in an indirect manner, was also responsible for the rise of Imperial Japan and World War II.
The man had some interesting ideas, all great men do, and sometimes those ideas are not viewed with the lens of the period in which the great man lived.