Post by tagardner on Apr 1, 2008 18:29:43 GMT -8
Like Sun Tzu said: Know yourself and your enemy and you will triumph in a thousand battles. So, in reading the Leftist magazine The Nation (I guess I should say "Progressive" as that's what they call it) I came across an article by Naomi Klein titled "Disowned by the Ownership Society" (see the February 18 2008 issue).
Her thesis was that the "Right-wing" came up with the idea of an "Ownership society" as a central tenant of their economic policy. The concept as she puts it is "...simple: if working-class people owned a small piece of the market - a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension - they would cease to identify as workers and start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses."
The outcome she states would be " ...they could (then) vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a relic."
Basically, Ms. Klein advocates that the Left promote class warfare and classical Marxist economics through denying workers the ability or chance to do the above. By using government to promote ends that keep workers seperated from the fruits of their labor they will be inclined to ..."vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down."
If the above thinking represents what is typical on the Left one can only hope they never attain power in America and achieve their goals. If anything, the above is completely anti-American. It is foreign to what traditionally were seen as American values. That is, with hard work, preservation, and a bit of luck one could rise to their potential and beyond. Class stratifications of the sort common in Europe even today were irrelevant in the American values system.
All I can conclude from this, and other Leftist economic discussion, is that they do not believe in or are willing to participate in traditional American values. Instead, they demand that America look like the rest of the world; and the failed states of Socialism in particular.
note: I plan to stick this on the THC board too and see the fireworks from the Left there....
Her thesis was that the "Right-wing" came up with the idea of an "Ownership society" as a central tenant of their economic policy. The concept as she puts it is "...simple: if working-class people owned a small piece of the market - a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension - they would cease to identify as workers and start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses."
The outcome she states would be " ...they could (then) vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a relic."
Basically, Ms. Klein advocates that the Left promote class warfare and classical Marxist economics through denying workers the ability or chance to do the above. By using government to promote ends that keep workers seperated from the fruits of their labor they will be inclined to ..."vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down."
If the above thinking represents what is typical on the Left one can only hope they never attain power in America and achieve their goals. If anything, the above is completely anti-American. It is foreign to what traditionally were seen as American values. That is, with hard work, preservation, and a bit of luck one could rise to their potential and beyond. Class stratifications of the sort common in Europe even today were irrelevant in the American values system.
All I can conclude from this, and other Leftist economic discussion, is that they do not believe in or are willing to participate in traditional American values. Instead, they demand that America look like the rest of the world; and the failed states of Socialism in particular.
note: I plan to stick this on the THC board too and see the fireworks from the Left there....
