Okay, what the hell. This guy has been making too many dangerously-close-to-based takes lately, despite being dyed in the wool bourgeoisie. Is this an attempt to preemptively co-opt socialist rhetoric?
I don’t think so. A lot of US academics that aren’t either intellectually dishonest paid shills, or idiots, can’t ignore the damage that the US and neoliberalism has done to the world, or ignore the successes of those like China pursuing other models. Its pretty likely this neoliberal is not one anymore.
Someone has not been studying US history from before 1950 it seems.
I recommand reading “War is a Racket” by Smedly Butler
It’s in the public domain, here is an online version: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
And I found an audio book for those that prefer that: https://librivox.org/search?title=War+Is+a+Racket&author=Butler&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced
Relevant quote:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.
I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.
In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.
The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket
What is this weird world, where Elon Musk and Jeffrey Sachs are suddenly starting to say things which make sense?
It’s mostly the mainstream that went more to the right in the last half year than in the previous 25 years.
That makes sense. Honestly, I never understood how close liberalism is to fascism until this year. Pretty much from birth, it was drummed into me that “liberal democracies” like Britain and the US defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japan (role of USSR was glossed over), and that liberal “constitutional government” is the only defense against Hitlerism. Seeing the mainstream press openly refer to Russians as subhuman orcs is horrifying and surreal.
Exactly. Ngl that scares me to see how the inert masses of liberals can be moved so fast and easily into the most horrible direction. It’s kinda like in the horror movies when the mind control suddenly kicks in, on society scale.
Jeffrey what are you doing all of a sudden
The right wingers are doing infighting, they can’t stop copying us
