Comments on: Politics in the Era of Marketing

By: ernaternat

ernaternat — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:37:50 +0000

thanks!

By: sammler

sammler — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:53:29 +0000

Because voting for the Democrats has worked so well for inner cities over the past several decades?

Big-government policies that empirically make their recipients poorer are an “actual carrot” only under a very odd definition.

By: izforever

izforever — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:02:38 +0000

Yeah okay, but he does stipulate to a concrete distinction:

The Democrats are offering a carrot while the Republicans proffer an illusion.

By: Alan Gunn

Alan Gunn — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:32:43 +0000

There was a time when many Democrats did try to help the poor. They weren't good at it, though, and it has been decades since they've even talked about it much. Now it's “the middle class,” which, if it's lucky, wont have as much done to it as the poor did in the 60s.

By: mk

mk — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:41:15 +0000

Actually “tickle-down economics” sounds like a lot of fun.

By: manuelg

manuelg — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:34:46 +0000

> Whereas in reality you have two corporate imperialist factions who differ on how best to keep hoi polloi in line…

If the Republicans were offering “competency at governance at the Presidential level” on the menu in 2008, they kept it well hidden from corporate donors. That is why Obama could turn down public financing.

Christ, re-animate Nixon's corpse! “Tickle-down”, deficits, and Neo-Conservatism are all hardly Conservative policies. Give businesspeople a Republican governor they can vote for, without the guilt of handing down to their own children a more abused United States. The loudness and frequency of Bible-Thumping hardly enters into it.

By: Paul Opinion

Paul Opinion — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:43:10 +0000

By now it should be obvious that both parties have more in common with each other than they will ever let on. The amount of money spent on the recent campaigns by both parties, despite claims to the contrary, indicates that there are special and uber-special interests to be served. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that “the people” have spoken.

By: Sigivald

Sigivald — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:35:34 +0000

I'd second mk's first sentence, with the addendum that whenever someone starts out by saying "corporate" (in the sense used here, equally "corporatist") or "imperialist", it's been a very accurate heuristic to simply assume they're completely full of dung.

(Corporate masters? If we take "corporate masters" as being simply "they care about there being jobs and production", then it's ridiculous [indeed, harmful] to expect or want anything else.

If we take it as meaning, rather, "beholden to protect some specific company for some reason", then I'd like more evidence as to who and by what means, because I don't think it stands up to much scrutiny. Certainly it has failed to any of the previous times I've seen it asserted and asked for evidence.)

Alan: I submit that something too small to measure (or to measure the effect of) is in fact "negligible". It just isn't zero.

By: AlanSmithee

AlanSmithee — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:25:54 +0000

“…their capacity for being duped is not infinite…”

Too large to be accurately measured, but not infinite.

“…their impact on the political process is not negligible.”

Too small to be accurately measured, but not negligible.

By: mk

mk — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:15:26 +0000

(On the other hand, if these statements are intended to be an exaggeration to get attention and get people to think deeper about these issues, that's fine. But on the face of it, I think people are being too monocausal when they say these things.)