An Imbecile speaks Faux Truth

Robert Reich has revealed his true Gentrified Demorat colours. "We must fight Bullies, whether they be Putin, Trump or Tech Billionaires" he writes in the FemWoke Guardian.

What brilliance from the comfort of his second home!

Lessee... Reich wants to fight Putin. As a man? Well why not...MAN to man. I'd love to see Reich and Putin in the slosh pit. Laurel and Hardy could not have done better.

Oh? no...? You mean, not Putin qua man, man but as head of state of a sovereign nation? Ah.... So how do you fight Putin-the-President without fighting the thing he is president of? So... you well paid, well connected ex-cabinet imbecile, you mean we should go to war with Russia?

You must be out of your dimwit mind.

Alright enough of that. We need to fight Trump-the-Bully. Again, Reich says "Trump must be held accountable!" For what? Reich doesn't say, except to add in the next sentence that politicians Christian nationalism must be condemned and voted out of office.

How about politicians who encourage Jewish Nationalism?

[pin drop]

Reich goes on to say:

standing up against all forms of bullying and brutality – is essential to preserving a civil society.

Throughout history, the central struggle of civilization has been against brutality by the powerful

A civil society doesn’t allow the strong to brutalize the weak

When inequalities become too wide, they invite abuses. Such abuses invite further abuses until society degenerates into a Hobbesian survival of the most powerful

The struggle for social justice is the most basic struggle of all because it defines how far a civilization has come from a Hobbesian survival of the most powerful.

CEOs who treat their employees badly must be exposed and penalized. Billionaires who bribe lawmakers to cut their taxes or exempt them from regulations must be sanctioned, as should lawmakers who accept such bribes.

This is what civilization demands.

This is not a poison pill. It is a paradoxical effect pill.

What is that? "Paradoxical effect is the effect of a medical drug, that is opposite to what would usually be expected. An example of a paradoxical reaction is pain caused by a pain relief medication."

What Reich has done is to bury a classic Marxist thesis under a pile of roughage and rubble, distracting from the true cause of things while purporting to talk about the true cause of things. This is precisely why American politics more than any other remains so impossibly infantilized.

"Social justice is the most basic struggle of all because it defines how far a civilization has come from" savage survival of the most ruthless,"  Reich says.

√.

But from that point which echoes Genesis, Jeremiah and Jesus...and yes Marx... Reich derails into talking about "bullying" and "brutalizing."

No... what it concerns is CLASS WARFARE. The rich against the poor. The haves against the have-nots. Those who have capital against those who sell their labour for less than its worth so that those who have capital can increase their capital.

Now... you can call capitalism a form of economic bullying. The problem with that, however, is that the word "bullying" implies a personal character defect and what we are really concerend with -- in economics -- are systemic effects. By characterizing the issue as one of "bullying" Reich derails from the principle and underlying point.

The derailing is underscored by statements such as "CEOs who treat their employees badly must be exposed ..." In casting the issue in those terms, Reich makes it appear that treating employees badly is a personal and incidental failing... AKIN TO .. treating women badly... or being nasty to transgender bi-spirits...

St. Jerome (450 A.D.) was much more blunt and on point: "The rich man is either a thief or the son of a thief." Period. No bullshit about thieves who treat their victims badly as contrasted with those thieves who steal compassionately.

WHAT THE FUCK???

Reich makes the matter even more confused by writing that we must stand "against all forms" of "bullying." "These things are connected" he writes.

In so saying he makes clear that he is using the word "bully" as an equivocation point to switch from talking about the war of the classes to yapping about the war of the sexes. And of course, by defining "social justice" (the opposite of bullying) to include treating women and workers right, somehow the worker part, the economic part, gets subsumed and forgotten in the cultural issue part.

Pseudo leftists always do this. They will start out talking about means of production and control of social capital and then will add something like "...and abolish the oppressive institution of marriage..." Suddenly everyone gets in a dither about the institution of marriage and goes to war over that issue while the underlying question of political-economy gets lost in a pixie dust of "social reforms."

Then cometh Hillary to announce that "we are making progress..."

So... Reich makes (sort of) a correct point about the savage nature of capitalism which he then buries in a lot of blather and nonsense of GOING TO WAR AGAINST TOXIC MALES, DEFENDING THE RIGHT TO FETUS FLUSH or be to be an adolescent ALT SHE MALE.

"These things" are NOT "connected." The structural inequities of capitalism, and gender norms, roles and violence are two different issues. That's why we have categories like "political-economy" and "socio-cultural."

Fake leftists have been doing this blur, ever since Max Weber derailed Marxist analysis into the mushy world of socio-cultural issues.

Reich tops all this off with a call for politically correct censorship saying: "Celebrity pundits who fuel racism and xenophobia must be denounced and defunded."

Oh... just celebrities? Yeah well, I'm fine with that. Needless to say, Reich skips over the inconvenient fact that in order to track what "celebrities" are saying the public conversation has to be monitored in the first place. Wonderful. And if anyone thinks it will stop with celebrities, he or she can join the Reichian Ranks of Imbeciles.

I am very dubious that capitalism can be reformed not to do what it was intended to do: exploit the worker. No wealth comes out of nowhere and ultimately somebody has to pay the piper. It may be some hottentot out of sight in another continent; it may be some deforested jungle... But the price has to be paid.

In the words of Lenin, social-democratic reforms only end up producing an "aristocracy of labour" in favoured countries. The German or American worker lives well; travels to some exotic place on his holiday and wonders at the poverty those poor people live under....

But OK... we ought not let theory be the enemy of practice. At the end of the day, I don't know if capitalism can be reformed or what will be the consequence if we try. I am willing to vote for Bernie. I'd have vote for FDR or Ferdinand Lasalle. Fuck... I'd even vote for Bismarck at this point.

But what I will NOT vote for is some confused Gentrified Liberal confusing issues and peddling the notion that if we control speech and put an end to pussy grabbing we will have taken a significant step in remedying the savages injustices of our economy.

C'mon Reich...you can do it: call for an end to for proft hospitals! Demand price (and rent) controls... including caps on doctor's salaries. Demand free college education, debt relief and a single payer pension funds. You actually do know where the nuts and bolts are... you are just hoping to pogey bait the rest of us to follow you down some stupid primrose reformist path. ... while drumming for war with a nukular power.

Asshole.