don phillips

She looks nice.

I posted this elsewhere. Some of you might appreciate it.

The fact that you've tried to hijack this thread and distract attention from the important economic analysis in the first post proves the point I'm about to make. The linked book explains the destructive 'cultural turn' in detail. Not only are you wrong, you're catastrophically wrong. Important civil rights movements were effortlessly hijacked and incorporated by the right to energise 'progressive neoliberalism'. The belief that inclusion, fairness and equality can be achieved in the neoliberal economic system as it stands became dominant - as the fraud Foucault averred, "let's give the market a chance". Corporate DEI policies systematically promoted individuals representing formerly marginalised groups, making any commitment they had to the left at best tenuous and at worst irrational. It was a clever political move. In neoliberalism's divisive context, the focus on culture and identity created a weak, fragmented and economically illiterate left dominated by middle-class liberals whose contempt for the traditional working class was palpable. The right and the faux-left 'Spiked' crew didn't need to construct a divisive 'woke' identity politics narrative - it was handed to them by the stupid liberalised left. In 2008 the left had no solution to the financial crisis. Even Corbynomics fell significantly short. The traditional left founded on socieconomic concerns shared by the multiethnic working class as a whole despite cultural prejudices and tensions died. National populism thrived in the vacuum - it was too easy for the fake 'far right' and assorted racists to convince an electorally significant number of working-class whites that the liberalised left was at best useless and at worst their mortal enemy. Polanski is doing his best to refocus the left on economic concerns and promote economic literacy without abandoning civil rights. Good luck to him. But the chasm opened by 'progressive neoliberalism' is deep and wide. I hope it isn't too late.

RT @MarkAmesExiled: Zelensky's new state hero, Andrii Melnyk, in July 1941: "We collaborate closely with Germany and invest everything in t…

Trying to have a conversation about glyphosate, and someone falsely brings up the IARC classifying it as a carcinogen? I am here to the rescue, with exactly the ammunition you need to fight back and stand up for science: open.substack.com/pub/briandunni…

Must read.

The article linked is excellent and needs to be read more widely.

@MarksLarks Question is. How do you practise that? Until you get good at it?

OMFG

@kmflett Sort of disagree, but in an amiable way.

Going electric: 60 years (17th May 1966) since Dylan played Manchester Free Trade Hall kmflett.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/50-… via @kmflett

RT @widespreadhaze: @DanielJHannan First, “the markets” do not care whether the budget is “in balance” in the abstract. Bond pricing is not…

This is so funny

@DiscussingFilm Natasha Lyonne.

Amazon has officially begun auditions to cast the next James Bond. Who do you want to be the next James Bond?

RT @ProfHall1955: Who precisely are the 'bond vigilantes', the true enemies of democracy who sell off and manipulate government bonds to ja…

Yes. I was around at the time and heard rumours that Denis Healey was compromised - he has also served on the committee of the Bildeberg Group since the early 1950s. His credit swaps and IMF loan in 1976 were totally unnecessary, and so were the wage freezes that caused the strikes - all this gave the Tory media the ammunition to crucify Labour. Stuart Holland and others had suggested ways of combating stagflation and Labour's manifesto in 1978 was the best I had ever read - Peter Shore had worked out ways of refurbishing British industry. This terrifed the City. 1979 was virtually a neoliberal coup.

Whereas 1945-73 was the golden age: an era that raised working class people and gave them welfare, health care and education and enabled working class people like me to go from single-parent dole underclass to University lecturer. This wasn;t 'serfdom' this was real freedom

“A person afflicted with nationalism believes that his own country is the most civilised and humane country in the world while its enemies are guilty of every imaginable atrocity and vileness. Since they are so vile and atrocious, while we are so civilised and humane, there is no degree of vileness and atrocity which we may not legitimately practise towards them. This is the underlying creed of nationalism.” ― Bertrand Russell

What a book! One of the best I’ve read in a while. End Times by @Peter_Turchin uses mathematical models and historical data to explain why societies become unstable: rising inequality, too many elites competing for power, weaker institutions, and public anger. It makes social collapse feel less random and more understandable 👌 goodreads.com/book/show/6292…

RT @prodnose: Six years. The Beatles changed the world in six years. Like band from 2020 now overwhelming everything in culture, fashion, t…

The midwits' favourite midwit talks about midwit things to a room full of midwits thinking midwit thoughts. Last century gave us Einstein and Keynes, now we suffer a plague of Poundshop grifters.