Yeah, you always pay a big price for being somewhere in the middle & the worst part is how both sides come running to you when they want a small escape from the cult they have joined from time to time & if they get caught, they turn around & blame you. Being moderate is an occupational hazard.
Great post. I'm more heterodox than centrist- the centrist dads are too conformist to be punk!
My view is that Neoliberals never apologised for the downsides of their globalist vision. Sure, it raised a billion people out of poverty in the developing world, but it also hollowed out huge swathes of the blue collar West. Even today, 25% of Americans would trade in their jobs tomorrow, if offered a job in manufacturing. That's a huge portion of the working population. The figure drops somewhat for the younger generations to 15%, but that's because they've passed outside of the testaments of living witnesses to the holistic pride that comes from being a Doozer (Fraggle Rock).
My view on Trump is that some of his aims might be right, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he's going about things using the right tools. The real problem with neoliberals is that they imagined that anyone could be educated to do the new jobs of the neoliberal economy. Only about 30% of the working population can be helped at all by academic tertiary education, and for many the help is marginal at best. Once one eliminates remaining manufacturing, extraction, farming and the trades and those suitable for the third of jobs in the service sector which are worth more than $35 an hour, that leaves a sizeable portion of Americans (and other Westerners) consigned to perpetual loserdom.
And, of course, there is the other problem. Just as Trump, or someone like him, was an inevitable result of the Faustian bargain of neoliberalism, he's also polarised politics to the point that the lunatic extremes on both sides have become more numerous, louder and more obnoxious.
Here a great quote that every centrist or heterodox thinker should swear by:
"Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." - Albert Maysles
The Trump administration is nowhere near as malicious and incompetent as the Biden administration, but they are indulging in a certain amount of revenge porn. Which is totally understandable but they don’t seem to realize they aren’t teaching the left that their wrongdoings were wrong: They’re teaching them to forget who started it. So when things swing left it’s going to be even worse than before.
The Leftt refuses to learn because of the progressive zeal. At the fringe, it often means that they would rather be right than win. The more pragmatic centre Left is more willing to compromise, but they do it in the wrong. The citizenry is generally somewhat left of the corporate centre on issues like healthcare, worker protections and opposition to corporate interests they see as predatory (finance, medical insurance), but they are somewhat centre right on many cultural issues like trans kids/sports, outright anti-white racial discrimination and other culturally progressive issues. The so-called moderate centre Left is absolutely opposite in terms of compromise to what people want.
I have wished and dreamed of a factory job for the majority of my life. I refuse to believe there was no way to lift up the third world without fucking over the people whose ancestors built the first.
China was in a doom spiral before Trump. They had a real estate crisis based on lending ratios for homeowners which were insane (x35 average annual earnings!) as well as the fact that the Chinese preferred saving to consumer spending in a way which screwed the domestic economy (they only spend about 38% of disposable income, compared to 62% or so in the West).
That being said, they learning from our mistakes on offshoring labour. They shifted the lower value work like textiles and lower value parts to Africa, but kept all the medium and higher value manufacturing for themselves. If the West had done the same, we would have been living in an age of unprecedented wealth, emerging developing economies, and still have well-paid secure jobs for the blue collar class.
I worked as a factory administer for a PVC windows and doors company, the largest in the UK. Did a lot of project work, and was a manufacturing superuser working on structuralising problems and getting the most out of systems like bar coding and tracking. I used to bitch about it- definitely stressful- but it was great work. Young lads would start their job woody, feckless and without a clue. Within six months they had transformed, had bought their first new car on the loans offered by the dealerships and usually had a girlfriend. I used to take the piss out of them about the interest rates- when you've got a steady job there are cheaper ways to finance and even get the creditor protection at a song compared to HP or dealers finance company loans.
I’ll check back in. Your writing always makes me laugh, think, etc
You definitely have it. Whatever it is.
Hey, it’s never too late.
Thank you! I feel like I should have been a stand-up comedian.
And us 'Dontgivafuckitsts' marginalised by ourselves.
Yeah, you always pay a big price for being somewhere in the middle & the worst part is how both sides come running to you when they want a small escape from the cult they have joined from time to time & if they get caught, they turn around & blame you. Being moderate is an occupational hazard.
Man, every time I think about this I get more annoyed
Very well said.
“You’re the only person I can confess in…”
Two years later: “Hey, can you hold this knife between your shoulderblades for me?”
Or please help me stalk, I mean ‘meet’ this guy I really need to talk to him only you can help me
Great post. I'm more heterodox than centrist- the centrist dads are too conformist to be punk!
My view is that Neoliberals never apologised for the downsides of their globalist vision. Sure, it raised a billion people out of poverty in the developing world, but it also hollowed out huge swathes of the blue collar West. Even today, 25% of Americans would trade in their jobs tomorrow, if offered a job in manufacturing. That's a huge portion of the working population. The figure drops somewhat for the younger generations to 15%, but that's because they've passed outside of the testaments of living witnesses to the holistic pride that comes from being a Doozer (Fraggle Rock).
My view on Trump is that some of his aims might be right, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he's going about things using the right tools. The real problem with neoliberals is that they imagined that anyone could be educated to do the new jobs of the neoliberal economy. Only about 30% of the working population can be helped at all by academic tertiary education, and for many the help is marginal at best. Once one eliminates remaining manufacturing, extraction, farming and the trades and those suitable for the third of jobs in the service sector which are worth more than $35 an hour, that leaves a sizeable portion of Americans (and other Westerners) consigned to perpetual loserdom.
And, of course, there is the other problem. Just as Trump, or someone like him, was an inevitable result of the Faustian bargain of neoliberalism, he's also polarised politics to the point that the lunatic extremes on both sides have become more numerous, louder and more obnoxious.
Here a great quote that every centrist or heterodox thinker should swear by:
"Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." - Albert Maysles
I still can’t get over the idiocy of arguing whether Trump or Obama is Satan when Satan was obviously Bush AND Biden.
Dudess! Satan was Richard M. Nixon (but I actually like him).
And before that, FDR was Satan.
Being Satan is an American Presidential prerogative, though not enumerated in Article II.
The Trump administration is nowhere near as malicious and incompetent as the Biden administration, but they are indulging in a certain amount of revenge porn. Which is totally understandable but they don’t seem to realize they aren’t teaching the left that their wrongdoings were wrong: They’re teaching them to forget who started it. So when things swing left it’s going to be even worse than before.
The Leftt refuses to learn because of the progressive zeal. At the fringe, it often means that they would rather be right than win. The more pragmatic centre Left is more willing to compromise, but they do it in the wrong. The citizenry is generally somewhat left of the corporate centre on issues like healthcare, worker protections and opposition to corporate interests they see as predatory (finance, medical insurance), but they are somewhat centre right on many cultural issues like trans kids/sports, outright anti-white racial discrimination and other culturally progressive issues. The so-called moderate centre Left is absolutely opposite in terms of compromise to what people want.
I have wished and dreamed of a factory job for the majority of my life. I refuse to believe there was no way to lift up the third world without fucking over the people whose ancestors built the first.
China was in a doom spiral before Trump. They had a real estate crisis based on lending ratios for homeowners which were insane (x35 average annual earnings!) as well as the fact that the Chinese preferred saving to consumer spending in a way which screwed the domestic economy (they only spend about 38% of disposable income, compared to 62% or so in the West).
That being said, they learning from our mistakes on offshoring labour. They shifted the lower value work like textiles and lower value parts to Africa, but kept all the medium and higher value manufacturing for themselves. If the West had done the same, we would have been living in an age of unprecedented wealth, emerging developing economies, and still have well-paid secure jobs for the blue collar class.
I worked as a factory administer for a PVC windows and doors company, the largest in the UK. Did a lot of project work, and was a manufacturing superuser working on structuralising problems and getting the most out of systems like bar coding and tracking. I used to bitch about it- definitely stressful- but it was great work. Young lads would start their job woody, feckless and without a clue. Within six months they had transformed, had bought their first new car on the loans offered by the dealerships and usually had a girlfriend. I used to take the piss out of them about the interest rates- when you've got a steady job there are cheaper ways to finance and even get the creditor protection at a song compared to HP or dealers finance company loans.