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« Lasch | Main | Lakeshore Luxe »

July 17, 2006

 Hey Gang! ... Let's Invent a Society!

Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

The Sixties are about to return!!

So is the pious/nostalgic hope I see expressed from time to time in various left-hand corners of the Internet and elsewhere.

As for me, I hope and pray that the Sixties (circa 1964-75) are dead and gone forever. One trek through that wilderness was enough for my lifetime.

A salient characteristic of the Sixties was dissatisfaction with society as it existed. Often this dissatisfaction was expressed by adopting a Bohemian lifestyle or other kinds of youthful rebellion. But not always. If one was on a college campus (as I was from late 1964 into 1970) there also was an intellectualized component.

One vignette stands out in my mind.

It was during the 1969-70 school year and I was cooling my heels at the Husky Den cafeteria in the University of Washington student union building. A few tables away was a group of students busily discussing something.

What first caught my eye was a really beautiful girl in the group; the others ranged in looks and dress from average to scruffy (for the guys). Then I started to listen in on their conversation.

They were hashing over plans for a utopian society, perhaps one of only commune-scale.

Now, I don't know if this activity was a class assignment from a sociology/philosophy/political science professor or whether the group had to do with some sort of radical political organization. The impression I carry is that it was more likely the latter than the former. It doesn't really matter.

At the time I thought their enterprise was rather silly, and nothing since has led me to change my opinion. As a matter of fact, I'm even more convinced that "designed societies" -- be they tiny communes based in a single house or entire countries -- are doomed to fail to live up to expectations.

Actually they are doomed, period.

This is because detailed, "rational" criteria for all-encompassing organizational structure and the behavior of members do not and cannot deal adequately with what is loosely termed "human nature." My impression is that social designers simply do not believe human nature exists. They tend (or tended, in those days) to take the tabula rasa view of humans; we are born as blank slates that are shaped by culture, Skinnerian Operant Conditioning or a combination thereof. So what a society designer has to do is come up with a rational organizational plan that includes a foolproof means of "socializing" (sociology jargon for training or conditioning) children or other entrants.

A fundamental problem with this is that such "designs" are based on a narrow range of Big Ideas, maybe even just one Big Idea buttressed by a cluster of lesser ideas. Examples of such ideas include "equality," "each according to his abilities/needs" and radical "individualism." Such ideas are too confining for human temperaments and life-requirements. Which is why the plans never really work out.

And when designed societies do fail, proponents tend to blame outside forces ("enemies") rather than the design itself (the actual culprit).

Not that I have anything against inventing societies, mind you.

As a matter of fact, many of the science fiction books I've most enjoyed over the years are those dealing with invented societies where much differs from our own, yet are believable.

This is because a skilled Sci-Fi writer first sets forth a set of governing conditions. For example, these might have to do with physical nature of a planet or its solar system (think Frank Herbert's Dune books). These imagined societies, when done right, have developed "organically" from the conditions, just as real societies tend to do.

So those students at the Husky Den would have been better off to have given Herbert a quick phone call for a few tips. He was alive then, and didn't live far away.

Later,

Donald

posted by Donald at July 17, 2006




Comments

You know it's quite possible that they might in fact have been talking with Frank Herbert as he was the education editor for the Seattle P-I at that time.

Posted by: David Sucher on July 17, 2006 10:59 AM

Boy, we sure don't remember the 1960s in the same way. Here are some of the things I remember:

Civil rights took a momentous and decisive step forward. Women took a momentous and decisive step forward. We said no to a war we shouldn't have been in. Institutions like Ivy League colleges became open to many more people.

Here are some things I remember about before the sixties:

Our nation's capital was legally segregrated, with separate schools and separate bathrooms. Only one of the top New York law firms would have my father as a partner, because he wasn't in the Social Register. Catholics were second class citizens. Jews couldn't buy a house in the town where I lived. Amazing talents like Yogi Berra worked second jobs because they had so few job rights: meanwhile the owner of the Yankees lived in the largest house in Greenwich.

We were all expected to grow up to be The Organization Man and The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit. We didn't want to.

Posted by: john massengale on July 17, 2006 11:43 AM

In the Sixties I was on the rez where we were trying to recapture the 19th century, which they say didn't really end here until WWII. Maybe it's still lingering along just beneath the surface.

In the Seventies I was in Portland where most of the counter-culture stuff had sort of mellowed or been bought out, but the Unitarian Universalist church had a thing called Leadership School which taught salvation by Organizational Design. This OD stuff, in the hands of someone who really understood it (and what we messed with DID take human nature into account) was dynamite and I thought it would save the world. Put the showboats out front where they could shine, let the beavers build their ponds where it was quiet, and we would all be better for it. But the nature of congregations -- and I suspect the nature of society itself -- is to always move on. Instead of perfecting OD, the denomination rushed forward to the next theory movement. I'm out in part because I'm STILL pondering OD.

But one of the more informing books on all this is Peter Coyote's autobiography. He was one of the founders of the legendary Diggers in SF, then part of the drug culture, and -- of course -- then in the movies like those famous rebels, Dennis Banks and Russell Means. Everyone loves the microcosm of a movie set with the benign dictator of the producer class, who gets rid of the loafers and inepts.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 17, 2006 12:51 PM

Yeah, Peter Coyote knows stuff.

Seems to me rhat most societies are designed, and most are pretty proud of themselves for it. Sparta, Athens, the Roman Republic, British Constitutional Monarchy, and our own little experiment over here. They may not explicitly attempt to change human nature, but they seem to enjoy testing its limits.

Sparta has fascinated a lot of people thru the ages. Kill the smaller kids at birth, train youth brutally, no money or many personal possessions, no real marriage or romance or nuclear family life as we know it. Kind of a Ripley thing, impossible yet it happened! For centuries. Point being, lesson learned, we are a lot more free than we think we are.

Posted by: bob mcmanus on July 17, 2006 2:27 PM

John, there is no doubt that many good things were accomplished during the 60's, but I really think the baby was thrown out with the bath water.

It seems that every basic metric (i.e. Crime Rate, Murder Rate, Abortion Rate, Divorce, Illegitimacy, etc.) got much worse.

And I believe that many of the people that were involved in these great solutions during the 60's grew up and sent their children to white suburban schools or private schools (I am especially thinking of NY, Washington, Baltimore, Detroit, etc).

I am not trying to start a race war here, not at all. But I am hoping for a realistic view of the people that were involved in the 60's.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 17, 2006 3:15 PM

"And I believe that many of the people that were involved in these great solutions during the 60's grew up and sent their children to white suburban schools or private schools (I am especially thinking of NY, Washington, Baltimore, Detroit, etc)."

For one thing, that is an incredible generalization. Any statistics? For another, I'm not even doubting that assertion, but I also don't believe it negates or is contradictory to what was accomplished in the 60s. Private schools have always been "better," by and large, than public schools. That's not the point. The rich or merely well-off have always and will continue to procure the best services that money can buy for their families. What changed in the 60s is in the public realm. Things got a little more egalitarian for a lot of people. People who a generation earlier would been denied access to the chance of ever succeeding were given a chance to become well-ff enough to send their kids to private schools.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 17, 2006 3:58 PM

Doomed to fail?

So you think that gated communities are on the way out?

Posted by: Rob on July 17, 2006 4:09 PM

Taking the post seriously now, I am all with Massengale on this one. The sixties represnted an enormous step forward for the USA and world culture in general. Did we get everything right? Of course not. But the USA is a vastly better place now than it was before the progress of the 60s. Of course not everyone was happy about desegregation, women's rights and respect for the environment even then.

Now whether (or how much) it is practical to "design" a new society is a good question and an ideal one for the Founding Fathers, who certainly seem in retrospect to have had some real wisdom.

Posted by: David Sucher on July 17, 2006 4:52 PM

People in my congregations in the Eighties used to ask me whether the Sixties were a good thing to have happened. My answer has always been that it was a necessary harrowing of a root-bound society. What I see at the moment is the nostalgia of the older politicians for the Fifties when people were stuck in their marriages, abortion was criminal, poverty was rampant except for the elite few, homosexuals were illegal, and the Cold War served as the Homeland Security of the times.

They wouldn't have been able to "sell" this without the complicity of a lot of people born in the Seventies and Eighties, beneficiaries of the kind of new growth that generally follows harrowing.

And anyway, I think those "old days" only look good to Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, because they were young then and they are rootbound old men now.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 17, 2006 6:05 PM

Sigh. Mea culpa (as usual). When I wrote regarding how I destest the Sixties (and I do), I meant basically the cultural, lifestyle Sixties, and assumed readers would interpret "Sixties" the same way.

Sure the Sixties brought plenty of good things from a materialistic point of view -- communication via space satellites, the microchip, the original Oldsmobile Toronado.

Politically, the decade was a mixed bag, but that can be said for any era.

As for the cultural scene, I'll mention one forinstance now. It was the notion some people had that "dropping out" was a terrific thing. Yet unvoiced was the the fact that, if everyone (or even a large share of the population) dropped out, there would be economic collapse. The drop-out bunch could only do so if there remained plenty of those workers and organization man squares who foolishly showed up for work on schedule and kept the country running.

Rather than being a cultural vanguard, hippies and college campus wannabees were never more than parasites. Yet they were made out (by themselves and sympatheric parts of the news media) to be the wave of a wonderful future for us all.

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on July 17, 2006 6:10 PM

Disagree with your view of the cultural 60s, as well. I don't think the thrust of the "drop-outs" was that we all shouldn't do anything. It's that we should reevaluate just what it is we do all day long, how we expend our significant resources. I think a lot of good came out of that reevaluation, though of course there were some casualties along the way..

Posted by: the patriarch on July 17, 2006 6:17 PM

Patriarch -- Well, as I noted in the post, I was there (ages 25-35) and was left with a bad taste in my mind. I'll have to assume you were there too and got another impression, Roshomon-like. And, as you might suspect, I happened to like the 80s for the most part (even though I did very poorly economically). Still, in terms of culture and society in general, I think we've been using red ink in the ledger since the Fifties (which were better, IMHO, than "opinion leaders" tell us they were).

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on July 17, 2006 7:42 PM

Life in America was better for the vast majority of people under segregation than after. Ninety percent of population at that time was white, only ten percent black. We had far less crime, better schools, better neighborhods, better families, better culture, etc. Gosh, blacks had to drink at separate water fountains! As opposed to now, where blacks are slitting tourist throats and raping women at the Mall. Washington DC just issued a crime emergency. Help us out, John and Patriarch, what color are those committing these crimes? What area of any city or town where blacks (now hispanics) are the majority are good places to live? Almost none.

Of course, the story is the same all over the country. Huge swaths of every major city are now black-run ghettoes that are completely out of control--crime is rampant, from murder, to rape, to burglary, to drug selling, to gangs, bastard kids, the almost complete breakdown of the family, culture, education. But things are "better" now. The degradation of the infrastructure of these areas alone probably runs into the trillions, not to mention the hundreds of billions we give every year in race quota jobs, subsidies, handouts, "scholarships", and the like. For whom is life better--the vast majority of whites, whose incomes are shrinking (falling out of the middle class), who have to have two incomes to live in a decent neighborhood with good (non-minority) schools? Who are discriminated against routinely in schooling and employment in favor of low-achieving blacks and hispanics? How about those people's civil rights, like the right of free association, or the equal protection clause? Yes, a solution that works out for smallest number, rather than the larger, that is best! Typical liberal insanity. I could go on and on.

Oh, and that ugly, nasty, terrible Vietnam War! I mean, its such a good thing we pulled out! We saved many thousands of american soldiers' lives! It's just too bad the Communists killed three million innocent people, and have kept tens of millions in tyranny and poverty since we left. And of course, protesting the war and prolonging it only discouraged the enemy, and didn't cost any more American lives. Nice logic. Where's the "Civil Rights" concern there, guys? Hollow rhetoric. You know, every single goddamn buch of kooks and no-goods are using this "civil rights" BS to jam up the courts, run around the legislative process, etc. from gays, to inmates, to radical muslims, to atheists, to God knows what else. Its all a bunch of BS and its ruining the country.

And yes, the wonderful feminists! What's the abortion/death toll up to now--40-50 million? Some of those kids would be having kids of their own by now. The divorce rate is 45-50%, because both people are stressed out from working and raising kids, have money problems trying to pay for the house that costs so much because the blacks and hispanics are ruining the cities. Yep, its all good! Anti-First Amendment PC speech codes, gun grabbing, massive welfare and government waste. Where do I off this Utoipia?

And, oh, the horror of "conforming", whatever that means. don't most people who work at corporations still have to dress up is suits and ties? Maybe its about going to church once a week, which I'm sure is a fate worse than death and far less boring than an afternoon stuck in traffic or puttering around the mall.

Face it, life wasn't perfect back then, but it was much better for the vast majority of people than it is today. And you socialists burned America in the past 40 years, just like you did its flag back in the sixties. But the Church of Socialism has not formally recognized the decline, therfeore it doesn't exist. It would all work out if only more money was spent and more rights of the majority were taken away. Sure it would. All we have to do is close our eyes and wish it so. You idealists will ruin it all before you're done. And the funny thing is, all the minority ass you kissed won't mean a thing once they become the majority and steal everything you have. It couldn't happen to nicer bunch either.

Posted by: s on July 17, 2006 7:53 PM

I spent 1967-1975 in and near Portland and Seattle. I was one of the crazies. It was fun but pretty disruptive, long-term.

My own opinion is that it was experimental in the Thomas Edison sense -- finding a lot of things that don't work and a few that do. I still run into people working on various sorts of projects (e.g. Buddhist studies) that they started back then.

The kids of my sixties friends mostly went into the arts. One, out of about 20, had an interest in left politcs. The rest are mildly liberal and very apolitical.

The most famous sixties person I knew well was named Tony Valdez in Portland. There's some chance that Mary met him, if she was out and about much, because he was everywhere.

The most vivid unsuccessful sixties experiment was a large commune (spending someone's inheritance) which owned several houses. It was a Christian religious group whose sacrament was sniffing glue.

Speaking to something Mary said, I remember that illegitimacy and forced marriage was pretty high in my small Minnesota town up to 1964. A fair number of girls didn't finish HS, and if the boy ditched them their lives were pretty rough. (One of my sister's friends had her baby during Chirstmas break and missed almost no school. She's still married to the same guy.)

Posted by: John Emerson on July 17, 2006 10:35 PM

The most successful American designed society is the Mormons. They've adapted their design a bunch but they're one of the few survivors of the XIXc utopians.

Posted by: John Emerson on July 17, 2006 10:52 PM

I 'spose it's not American designed, but the Hutterites are kicking butt all over the West. "s" would love it -- men rule, women cook and obey. It's pure communism -- the in-group beyond all else. Hell with the out-group, even "standard" white Americans. Dress alike in homemade clothes. Eat in a big cafeteria. Go to town as a group. They've just bought a big chunk of the rez and they already own a lot of the state in general. Very Germanic. Very religion based. Very neat and clean.

As for "lifestyle," in the Seventies I was doing law enforcement in and out of houses in the SE part of Portland -- that's poor whites. The blonde who worked NE -- the poor blacks -- said she wouldn't work SE on a bet. The main difference is that her folks served jail time while mine got probation. I saw lots of stuff -- drug houses, neglected kids, abused women. I wouldn't say it was that different now.

My idea of the hippie life was being the theatre reviewer for the Portland Scribe, a volunteer-run, communally owned newspaper that eventually died on the rocks of advertising. Or maybe it was the night in Washington Park that Ken Kesey read us the first draft of "The Tranny Man" while finishing a bottle of wine while the air was so thick with marijuana smoke that even the many dogs were zonked. PPD was there -- an officer poet whose stuff was better than Kesey's. It was sure fun while it lasted.

Don't remember Tony Valdez, but our trails could have crossed.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 17, 2006 11:22 PM

I was at UC Berkeley in 1971, and I vividly remember being very uncomfortable whenever I entered or left a room. In those days, saying "hello" or "goodbye" was considered "straight." "Good manners" were obsolete. Consequently, social transitions were very uncomfortable.

I also remember sitting in restaurants on Telegraph Ave. and having total strangers help themselves to food off my plate. This was considered very cool in those days - sharing, love, communal, etc. In fact, I really didn't want a stranger's fingers in my plate of food because I was "materialistic" and "germ conscious" but I never would have admitted that back then.

I often think of my generation as the Stupid Generation. Some people actually took acid and jumped out of windows to see if they could fly.

Posted by: Heroic Dreamer on July 18, 2006 1:38 AM


I was in pre- and grade school in the 1960s so memories of that decade are understandably foggy. I vividly remember the 1970s, however. During that decade my friends' parents divorced, one marriage after the next, until few two-parent families were left. Late-boomers like myself (born 1955 to 1965) were essentially unparented and the angst of family disintegration is our deepest generational memory. No benefits accrued to feminists, civil rights activists or anyone else will heal the social wounds inflicted by the 1960s mentality. Enough said.
_______

Michael wrote about the futility of social planning. I agree, except ... as private neighborhoods were built in place of public ones, some sort of planning took place that reflected the sum of many individual decisions to opt out of a general or public community. For those who decided to live “small” or private, the reasoning behind that decision included the sense there wasn't enough "Americanness" or commonality to create viable public neighborhoods, and that the old, public way of looking at shared space wasn’t viable.

Planned communities, then, were exercises in creating the social limitations that used to happen … socially. Perhaps unconsciously, planners sought a vision of a well-ordered, good life that excluded or limited other visions. Residents believed their community reflected their values or needs. Theirs was a democratic decision -- private communities have been created by those who have voted with their feet, so to speak.

I guess I'm saying that community planning, writ very small, does seem to work in private -- not large or public -- spaces. It works because small, private communities have a vision of communal life that can be isolated from other visions. Successful planning, then, is that which targets, with precision accuracy, the vision of a microthin slice of society.

An interesting sidebar is how people in planned communities actually feel free to do things that they would hesitate to do in heterogeneous public spaces. Contrary to the whines of critics, one of the reasons planned communities are so attractive is that an increasing number of people feel freer to be themselves in a safe place where others share their values. Microslicing society increases felt freedom.

Posted by: kristen on July 18, 2006 1:55 AM

Donald,

Instead of "designing society" how about "designing an attractive place to live" or an "attractive alternative lifestyle" which people can choose or not choose as they wish, and which fits within the existing institutional structure?

For a concrete example see: http://luke.lea.googlepages.com/home

The trouble with the leftish sixties is that they wanted to replace, not work within, the existing institutional framework of modern capitalism -- a different thing altogether.

regards

Posted by: Luke Lea on July 18, 2006 7:57 AM

Well, now, Mr. Massengale, let's roll the tape back, shall we?

Civil Rights, Vietnam, Feminism, and Affirmative Action: that's what you saw as great about the sixties even if you didn't call them that.

Civil Rights legislation had the one major impact of delegitimizing the Anglo-Saxon founders of our nation as the core ethnicity around which the U.S. is built. Now that there is no "defining" ethnic core, we have no basis upon which to claim "nationhood." The left loves this. They say the U.S. is an "idea." Sort of like the old Austro-Hungarian polyglot empire, huh? It was an idea, too. Down the line, as we continue to fracture ethnically, you'll see us ending up the same way Austria-Hungary did. Southerners will like the result, most of the rest of us will not.

Vietnam was an heroic attempt to do what should not have been done without the complete understanding of who and what we were fighting. We were fighting global communism at the time, which meant fighting them here in the U.S., as well. Because the Democrat party was and is full of traitors, there was never any way to win the war without enlarging it to confront both the Chinese, the Russians and the left in our midst. Especially the ones in our midst. It takes a lot of powerful leadership to pull off something as complex and dangerous as that. Neither Kennedy nor Johnson (liberal to the core) had that ability. They were children following in the footsteps of Eisenhower, who would never have allowed the conflict to get out of control. Vietnam was a liberal war with the typical catastrophic result of liberal instincts. Johnson was followed by two liberal Republicans, Nixon and Ford. Why should anyone be surprised at their failures?

Feminism was never anything more than cultural Marxism. Most smart women who actually wanted business careers were successful on their own terms. My own wife was extremely talented and successful in her own right. She hated the feminists and saw right through their leftist agenda. With few precedents in American political history, feminism has done more damage to women than any other single phenomenon in U.S. history. There are too many reasons to even begin to list them. Flagrant hypocricy in the face of pornography that degrades women will do as a starter. Feminists never said a word about it. Clinton abused women? You'd never know it if you listened to Betty Friedan. And so forth.

Oh, yes. Affirmative Action...what a winner that one is. Let's just pretend into perpetuity that we're "helping" black people by descriminating against whites. Got any idea when the problem will be "fixed?" Say, 25 years? Or 250? Sandra Dumb O'Connor and her ilk seem to have the crystal ball here. What a joke. Affirmative Action is going to be the "minimum wage" of the social sciences. Every time the left needs something to bash whites with, they'll debate a renewal of Affirmative Action. It's pathetic, and if I were a black person, I would hang my head in shame at the very thought that I might have gained my position because some liberal white schmuck didn't have confidence that I could do it own my own. So go ahead...live a lie.

As far as "growing up to be an Organization Man" is concerned, all the liberals I know grew up to be government bureaucrats, teachers, lawyers and party hacks. The left took over the very institutions they had earlier reviled. Talk about organization men! They've figured how to squeeze tax dollars from the system and get it into their pockets. An enterprising and successful group if ever I saw one.

Posted by: Bob Grier on July 18, 2006 9:05 AM

"For one thing, that is an incredible generalization. Any statistics?"

None off hand. But if you simply look at how many white children were enrolled in urban Public Schools (i.e. NYC, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, etc.) in the 1940's and 50's, then again in the 1970's, well, I think that you will get an idea.

Also, I believe that Mary mentioned something about the poverty in the 50's, and implied how that improved from the 60's revolution. I am not sure that is accurate. I believe that the unemployment rate during the early and mid 60's for blacks was something like 5% or 6%. This remained true up until the Watts riots, and other late 60'r riots. However, by 1970 the unemployment rate started to rise considerably. Now, I believe the unemployment rate for young black men is around 30%.

I am not implying that we are not wealthier nowadays, we certainly are. But the growth is not affecting everyone.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 9:49 AM

The sixties (culturally speaking) were created by people who were very unhappy with the family (Dad working, Mom at home, a couple of decently socialized kids, white picket fence). This was all called repressive by such people. These people were simply unhappy. And they succeeded. They killed millions of such families.

If, on the other hand, you grew up happily in such a stable family, as I did, you consider it to be the supreme human (and humanizing) achievement. And you hate the sixties. Passionately.

Posted by: ricpic on July 18, 2006 9:53 AM

Yeah, but Ian, you didn't answer the second part of my comment, the one where I argue there is no contradiction in fighting for better public services for lower-income people while sending your children to private schools, if you can afford it. This is where the "right" misunderstands the "left." We have no problem with people working hard, making loads of money and reaping the benefits. But why not help out those who are not so forunate. You know, like Jesus taught?

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 11:02 AM

Prairie Mary may have inadvertently answered a question for me in all this. Before moving back to Chicago last fall, I lived for about 14 years in Phoenix. There were a couple of occasions where I saw people in seemingly pioneer-type clothes. The first time was a group of teenage girls at the mall wearing long dresses and bonnets. My first thought was they were some kind of reenactment group although I knew of no such pageant or show going on, then it struck me that the clothes had a sort of _lived-in_ look. The second time was taking a hike on one of the local mountains, where a family group on the trail ahead of me was wearing pioneer-type clothes (with running shoes). Again, the clothes had a lived-in look that made them seem like the everyday wear of these people. My guess was some religious sect, though whether Mennonite or Amish or what I couldn't say. The paterfamilias had a pair of binoculars, so there were some concessions to modernity. It was all a great mystery, but now that Prairie Mary mentioned Hutterites, maybe now I have a name for what I saw.

Posted by: Dwight Decker on July 18, 2006 11:50 AM

Well, I should say that I am not on the right-wing, nor am I religious. I don't know if you were implying that, but I figured I should say so.

And I am not sure you are correct with this statement: "We have no problem with people working hard, making loads of money and reaping the benefits."

From what I have seen and read, leftists have a real problem with that. But that is an argument for another day.

To your point: What changed in the 60s is in the public realm. I think you are right. But I also think that things got worse in the private realm. Government is now more accountable and, I believe, more transparent, but life has become worse for many.

That is why I said that the baby got thrown out with the bath water. Some new good things came along with a lot of bad things.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 12:35 PM

There's a big difference between what the victorians called "the deserving poor" and the undeserving poor--deserving poor being those with good family values who work hard, and who just have bad luck or are employed in very low-paying jobs. Not the able-bodied derelicts.

Please desist in trying to throw religion back in people's faces. You probably don't know it well enough. St. Paul said that if you don't work in the Christian community, you don't eat. It appears there were a lot of freeloaders then, too.

As far as Mary's experiences with the poor white trash, we are all aware that that goes on. But trying to pass off those people as the norm is ridiculous. I guess when you're in the saving business, you see a lot of problems. But most of us aren't in that business, so we just see mostly normal people. Also, if conformity is so terrible, why are the Mormons thriving with large, healthy families and growing wealth? They must be doing something right.

Posted by: s on July 18, 2006 12:38 PM

I 'spose it's not American designed, but the Hutterites are kicking butt all over the West. "s" would love it -- men rule, women cook and obey. It's pure communism -- the in-group beyond all else. Hell with the out-group, even "standard" white Americans. Dress alike in homemade clothes. Eat in a big cafeteria. Go to town as a group. They've just bought a big chunk of the rez and they already own a lot of the state in general. Very Germanic. Very religion-based. Very neat and clean. They probably wouldn't let you just join up, which is one of their secrets of success. It's CLOSED.

As for "lifestyle," in the Seventies I was doing law enforcement in and out of houses in the SE part of Portland -- that's poor whites. The blonde who worked NE -- the poor blacks -- said she wouldn't work SE on a bet. The main difference is that her folks served jail time while mine got probation. I saw lots of stuff -- drug houses, neglected kids, abused women, paroled murderers. I wouldn't say it was that different now.

My idea of the hippie life was being the theatre reviewer for the Portland Scribe, a volunteer-run, communally owned newspaper that eventually died on the rocks of advertising. Or maybe it was the night in Washington Park that Ken Kesey read us the first draft of "The Tranny Man" while finishing a bottle of wine. The air was so thick with marijuana smoke that even the many dogs were zonked. PPD was there -- an officer poet whose stuff was better than Kesey's. It was sure fun while it lasted. But the times probably destroyed my brother.

Don't remember Tony Valdez, but our trails could have crossed.

Many of the comments seem to be coming from would-be high rollers. To me, who had fight hard and be legally entitled to a job that paid me the same as a man for the same work, "feminism" wasn't about burning my bra -- it was about buying groceries. In the village where I live now, people rarely divorce, both parents work hard, and most kids seem to have it maybe a little too easy. Houses are much better than they were and equipped with every modern gizmo. Everyone owns a boat.

Once I was in an elevator in a Helena governmental building. One man in a suit said to the other man in a suit, "What do you think the REAL unemployment figures are?" At the time they were officially maybe 8%. The second suit said, "I'd guess around a third. More than half on the rez." I've always remembered that as the reality of "damn lies."

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 18, 2006 12:59 PM

"There's a big difference between what the victorians called "the deserving poor" and the undeserving poor--deserving poor being those with good family values who work hard, and who just have bad luck or are employed in very low-paying jobs. Not the able-bodied derelicts."

Sort of hard to determine. My personal metric is anyone without kids is not poor. Once kids are thrown into the mix, it gets hard to deny them some help because of how one feels about their parents.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 1:10 PM

I should amend that to "anyone without dependants is not poor," as there are many people taking care of various family members.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 1:12 PM

So, Mary, if you look at your 2 paragraphs and try to think logically: if half of the people in the rezervation aren't working, and still they all have nice houses, nobody starves and every family have a boat: where does it all comes from? Don't you think those who work support those who don't, albeit involuntarily, thru compulsive taxation?
And do you think it's fair to the working half?

Posted by: Tat on July 18, 2006 1:38 PM

"What do you think the REAL unemployment figures are?" At the time they were officially maybe 8%. The second suit said, "I'd guess around a third. More than half on the rez." I've always remembered that as the reality of "damn lies."

There is no doubt that stats can be used to say almost anything. That is why I think it is important to combine stats with general obeservation. Now, I can not comment on life or things in general with Native Americans. I am simply too ignorant.

But as these numbers pertain to Blacks and Whites (and Asians) in America, we can look at the rise in the official unemployment rate in the 1950's relative to the 1970's (with the 60's being the difference) and also compare Murder Rate, Crime Rate, Abortion Rate, Divorce Rate, Illegitimacy, etc.

I think that here we can be a little more confident in what direction unemployment went, if not certian about the actual numbers.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 1:46 PM

"Once kids are thrown into the mix, it gets hard to deny them some help because of how one feels about their parents."

Patriarch, I am curious, would extend more to those with more children and less to those with fewer children? That is, more to those with 2 children, and even more to those with 3, and on and on.

I am being serious, I am not trying to be a jerk.

Also, how much would go to those that get married and work and save and with to have children, relative to those that that dont and become mothers in their teens?

I am asking because the more we believe in some system (i.e. Public School, Welfare, Interstate Highways, etc.) the more we need to think about it would actually work. Especially those systems that seem to be failing or working poorly.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 1:52 PM

Regarding Vietnam:

I often wonder, how American Left, from 60's forward, can look in the eye of all Vietnamese, Kambodians and Laos (what's the right word?) and don't burn in shame.

Or, better yet, go hang themselves, for the crimes against those poor Asian nations that you've committed.

Posted by: Tat on July 18, 2006 1:58 PM

One of the bumper sticker slogans of the sixties was "Let It All Hang Out".

OK we've seen it, now please put it back here it was.

Posted by: Bill on July 18, 2006 2:23 PM

Tat, I usually love your comments, but I think that this is a little harsh. I think that the Left in America during the 50's and 60's was not the same as the Left of the Soviet Union or Red Asia.

Many people on the left had a problem with Interventionism the way that many on the Old Right did as well (I am thinking of Anti-Wilsonian, Anti-Roosevelt ilk).

Also, many blacks (and poor whites) felt like they were being sent to die for a war that the Elites wanted.

I think that with this logic we should invade North Korea and liberate as many as possible, even though we know that we will be going into a Hornet's Nest and that many Americans will die in the process.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 2:26 PM

Ian, I don't understand your questions. Are you asking me if parents with, say, 3 kids should get more than parents with 2 kids? I guess that already happens under current programs, as assistance is usually based on number of children up to a certain point.

"Also, how much would go to those that get married and work and save and with to have children, relative to those that that dont and become mothers in their teens?"

My answer to that question is none to the former, and I am among those in that category. For me, this isn't about "fairness." Most of us are able to put food on the table without any direct governmental assistance. Some of us aren't for a variety of reasons. I have no problem with regulated assistance for those people. I do think efforts in this area are off-track. Focusing more on childcare and job training, period, would do much to help, and would be cheaper to boot.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 2:34 PM

Are you asking me if parents with, say, 3 kids should get more than parents with 2 kids?

Yeah, basically. My point was that since you implied some would deny help ("...it gets hard to deny them some help..."), say libertarians or some fiscal conservatives, and you wouldn't, then, to get an idea of how you might structure it.

One of the libertarian ideas is that most people want to help others. Not all, but most. But that these giving and caring people would care and give the most to those that worked to help themselves.

And, therefore, little help would go to girls who get impregnated by some dead-beat. Societal pressure to act in a certian fashion, to be a better and more responsible person.

But, back to my point. I think that some people woud find this unfair: "My answer to that question is none to the former..."

That is, that you would give no help to the people who at least seem to be doing the right thing. They might as well not work as hard as they did and be more impulsive, since they would have gotten the help.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 3:07 PM

Ian, I can't spend time at work searching for links, so I'll just say something that's obvious to me w/o statistical back-up. (but anybody who can do my work for me is welcome)

How many people after USA left the South Asia wer killed there? Tens of thousands? Millions?

Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia -don't you think these countries would be another case of famous "Asian miracle" economically and socially, like Japan and Korea (South one, naturally), if US finished what it started and didn't leave them to die and suffer in the hands of the Reds, literally - in blood up to their shoulders?

For all "humanitarian" demagoguery of the American Left, how many humans lived and died in inhuman torture because of Left Americans' adherence to the high ground principles of "defence of the Little Man" and "anti-imperialism"?

American Army and Navy didn't lose that war. The collectivists won it, in Soviet Union and America.

I wonder what a Vietnamese would say if asked about Americans...

Posted by: Tat on July 18, 2006 3:40 PM

Tat, sorry -- I guess I didn't make it clear that on the rez (the boundary is Birch Creek which runs just north of Valier) there are people starving in shacks and unable to find work. In Valier where I live and which is a little homesteading community of Belgian immigrants, most people are white, land-owning, and own boats.

The US Government was responsible for holding all Indian assets "in trust" because Indians were not supposed to be able to manage them. But the US Government just TOOK the assets and never dispersed them to the Indians. Oil, timber, grazing, minerals, rights-of-way, etc. were all mysteriously "lost." This is why Eloise Cobell is suing the government and why the presiding judge for the last ten years has become so bitter and enraged by what he has heard that he has been removed from the case. Billions are at stake.

In the meantime, able-bodied Indians (both sexes) have organized themselves into fire-fighting, flood rehabilitation, and other emergency response teams who go where they are needed. For instance, when the space shuttle that disintegrated was scattered all over the SW, it was Blackfeet who went down to search the desert for pieces.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 18, 2006 3:48 PM

Tat, what I meant was that regardless of any positive outcomes (like liberated Vietnamese and Cambodians), doesnt mean that it was the right decision. That is why I gave the example of attacking North Korea. We could certianly liberate some, but it would be a terrible decision.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 18, 2006 4:12 PM

"That is, that you would give no help to the people who at least seem to be doing the right thing. They might as well not work as hard as they did and be more impulsive, since they would have gotten the help."

I might not have been clear, sorry. I interpreted "those that get married and work and save and with to have children" as people who were doing OK and not in need of gov't assistance. If you actually meant the working poor, then of course, they should be helped, along with the teenager who gets pregnant. I guess that last part is where we differ. That teenager will not be living high on the hog on gov't assistance, believe me. I taught a few of those girls when I was teaching high school. They struggled BIG TIME and absolutely would not have been able to finish high school without some financial help, mostly in the form of daycare vouchers.

I may be off, but from what I glean in your comments, you would not give these girls any assistance, or perhaps less assistance than the traditional working poor. I don't see how that helps anyone, as those girls would not finish school and languish, unskilled and un-hirable.

Also, I'm all for either more rigorous enforcement of "deadbeat dad" laws or tougher new legislation.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 4:55 PM

The treatment of South Vietnam by the US and other SEATO members in 1975 is in no material way different from the treatment of Czechoslovakia by the UK and France in 1938. In both cases, the territorial integrity of the nation was guaranteed by solemn treaty. In both cases, the guarantors made solemn assurances of support. In both cases, the guarantors turned their backs on their allies when the alliance became momentarily inconvenient.

And the more recent betrayal can be layed directly at the feet of the Democratic majority in the US Congress and similar leftist majorities in other member governing bodies. (The French, not surprisingly, had previously abjured their treaty responsibilities and actively attempted to prevent other members from fulfilling their own.)

Note that we have no such treaty obligation to destroy North Korea or Iran, though it is certainly prudent to discuss such a course of action.

The betrayal of South Vietnam, like the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, remains a stain on the honor of every derelict country, and a personal stain on the honor of every person who supported it.

Posted by: Doug Sundseth on July 18, 2006 5:12 PM

Mary, sorry, I don't understand why people stay on rezervation if they are living in shacks and unable to find work there. Even Mexican illegals understand survival: why would you seat on your ass if you and your family are starving? Go someplace else and cut grass or mop the floors in school; in the nice Belgian village, may be? Btw, how people from that village find jobs? Or you're saying it's special jobs, with "belgian decendant only" tag attached?

There are two attitudes in life: you can whine or you can work. Sue the government for your legitimate (or not) claims and spend your life in courtrooms, or cut your losses and start anew. Like American Pioneers of the Wild West, you know.

Posted by: Tat on July 18, 2006 5:16 PM

Ian, you can speculate what would be the right decision before making the decision. You can't back up and out of the country, once you made the decision to help people and gave them hope; otherwise even your own side's sacrifices get devalued.

Doug, thank you, you've summed it up much better than I attempted (I was typing while you posted the comment).

But what about the North Vietnamese? If their country was defeated, they would still had a chance, like Japanese, to rebuild their economy in a decade and live prosperous life; now they are stuck in poverty and stiffling totalitarian regime. And, Ian, don' tell me this was not our business: even from the point of view of global trade, it's absolutely in our interest to have as many democratic countries in the world as possible.


Posted by: Tat on July 18, 2006 5:32 PM

Patriarch,

Hard to determine who is able-bodied, but doesn't want to work, as opposed to those who do, and take any job they can find, rather than hang out on the dole? Is this statement a joke?

See, when confronted with their failures, and their lack of understanding of human nature, liberals just deny reality. Its easy being liberal. Liberalism has failed because it hasn't fully been implemented, don't you know. When every last nickel is taken from your pocket, and all your rights have been turned over to the liberal ruling elite, then liberalism will be fully implemented. I'm sure we will all see just how successful it is when that happens. But until then, we just cannot pass judgement. That would be hasty. No, no, that would be hasty.

Notice also how the liberals here couldn't care less about the civil rights of the majority and keep harping about the civil rights of the minority, even while 70% of population has its rights trampled on every day! Yet they prattle on about civil rights! Either they are just plain ignorant, or they are liars, and don't really care about civil rights at all--they just want to think they are morally superior to everybody else, by using other people's money and opportunities, not their own. Look at them dance! They don't even know the music they are dancing to, which is anthem of tyranny.

Posted by: s on July 18, 2006 6:25 PM

I'm going to try and bring this conversation back to the original post about the success of organic versus invented societies.

My major issue with conservatism, or at least neoconservatism (as they would like use to believe, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt), is the use of warfare to spread democracy and capitalism to every corner of the globe in order to obtain world peace.

This is naive and not very creative. Too much negativity is created by warfare.

Throughout history, nations have tried to impose its way on other countries through warfare without much long-term success.

Why? In a way, imposition is most similar to invention. We are trying to invent a society, based on ours, in other areas of the world, rather than letting them grow/evolve organically.

It seems some countries, like China, are starting to get their feet wet. In order to compete on a global scale maybe a freer, more democratic society will evolve?

If Democracy/Capitalism is truly the best approach, then it will grow organically over time in other areas of the world. Or maybe these areas will develop something better?

Who knows, but I don't see warfare accelerating the process. If anything it will hinder it.

Posted by: Steven on July 18, 2006 10:47 PM

And one more quick thing, if I can beg your patience once again. In reference to Ms. Scriver's comments on the poor treatment of american indians, I would ask, what would the alternative be? You see, the indians were enemies who fought the armies of the United States of America--you know, the same entity that gave you all your civil rights. We solved our land disputes the way the indians solved all of their own land disputes-we fought a war, and we won. The beef seems to be that we all should have folded up the country and gone home--that the country that has liberated hundereds of millions of people worldwide, who was the first democracy the world has ever seen! Then we herded the indians onto crummy land. I guess we should have given them choice, fertile land, so they could replenish their populations and attack us again? How smart is that? Or maybe we were trying to discourage them, so they would leave their failing nations and assimilate into the white population? Those that did seemed to do fairly well. Those that stayed paid. That's how you should treat your enemies, not pander to them so they prosper.

I would say the same thing about the logging, mining, agriculture, and even gambling (gaming). Why let these people who want to live in a separate nation prosper? All they would have done with the money is start and fund their own grievance industry, like they are now (trying to force schools to abandon indian mascots, etc.). Its only the start too, as they try to take away our money, property, rights of free speech, freedom of association, and equal protection under the law. Also, I don't see why they deserve any of the profits--its not like businesses are run as some sort of industrial charity, and the indians didn't discover or develop any of the natural resources, bring them to the market, and let the wider society use them to prosper, build houses, heat their new homes, etc.

There's more than one way to look at things, Ms. Scriver. We just choose to look at how it benefits or threatens us, just like the indians. Being someone who tries to see the other side, I think you would appreciate that.

Posted by: s on July 18, 2006 11:17 PM

Hey s, I never said anything about civil rights. I don't believe federal assistance is a civil right, but as an immensely wealthy nation, I think we can afford to attempt to alleviate poverty within our own citizenry. I'm not advocating unending handouts. In fact, that type of program does not work, as I'm sure you will agree.

I'm also not attempting to be morally superior. Just stating an opinion. I'm more than willing to put my own tax dollars behind it, so I don't see how I'm shirking responsibility or "using other people's money and opportunities, not their own."

Posted by: the patriarch on July 18, 2006 11:47 PM

The betrayal of South Vietnam, like the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, remains a stain on the honor of every derelict country, and a personal stain on the honor of every person who supported it.

Perhaps. But I think that we can all understand why we got out. And I also think that we can understand why many Americans never wanted to get involved in the first place.

Note that we have no such treaty obligation to destroy North Korea or Iran, though it is certainly prudent to discuss such a course of action.

At this point, I think that you would have an extremely hard time convincing a majority of Americans that an invasion of either or both countries is a good idea.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 8:03 AM

You can't back up and out of the country, once you made the decision to help people and gave them hope;
I think you can. Whether we are involved in Korea, or Viet Nam, or Somalia, or Iraq or anywhere else; If the losses go from 1%, to 5%, the 10%, 20%, and so on, at some point we would definitely pull out. No matter how much hope we may have given someone.

...it's absolutely in our interest to have as many democratic countries in the world as possible.

So I am guessing that we should invade all countries that are not democratic? Should we invade Iran, and North Korea, and Syria, and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and Cambodia? How about China? They are hardly democratic.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 8:10 AM

When I first encountered this stream there were already 45 comments, so it might take me a bit to catch up ... and decide which and how many of the internal Point/Counterpoint slug fests to comment on. Imagining a better society ("a more perfect union") and then seeking to bring it about is even more American than apple pie.

To return to the original post about the Sixties and Utopianism: I was on the East coast and during the last half of the decade went to a suburban public high school. My crowd was an eclectic bunch that included some freaks and brainy geeks, would be poets, musicians and artists, along with a cheerleader and the captain of the basketball team. One thing we had in common was an ecumenical youth group that was part group therapy, part debating society, and part chaperoned opportunity to hang out with the opposite sex. Taken as a whole you could say we were a somewhat mild clan of idealistic left leaning hippies.

We mostly considered ourselves Utopians and discussed the positive aspects and pitfalls of various models, religious, literary, economic and political. Emotionally the consensus among us for a Utopian model to draw inspiration from was "Islandia" by Austin Tappan Wright. He gave us tiny country that might be best imagined as New England in the wrong hemisphere. It was a closed society, agrarian, heterogeneous, and feudal. It was also, in certain ways, liberated and libertarian and yet extremely constrained by tradition. Whatever the emotional draw, we knew we'd never be Islandians. We also drew inspiration from Christian beliefs (love thy neighbor, forgive) and the politics of Jefferson, Thoreau, Martin Luther King and the Kennedys.

A few of us marched for Peace in the Memorial Day parade and were mostly jeered. I was kicked out of a classroom by the teacher (who later kicked me with her pointy toed shoes) for expressing my opinion; the United States should stop arguing about the shape of the table, sit down and negotiate a peace with Ho Chi Minh. I entered college in 69; dropped out after a year; spent a year or so in a series of house shares; took classes at another school [studied Utopian Literature, in fact]; left school and got married; my wife & I lived in another series of house shares. We talked about a commune (still do from time to time) but never quite got the right combination of timing, interested companions, opportunity and finances to pull it off. These days we're poking around the idea of joining a co-housing venture.

My wife and I still consider a few of my high school crowd "voluntary relatives." Others we keep in touch with second and third hand. They are now educators and a judge, computer programmers and a union organizer, editors, writers, musicians, etc. Most of the marriages have, like ours, been strong and egalitarian. Do I know anyone who blew their mind with too much drug usage? A couple. Was there a divorce or two along the way? Yeah. So what? The idealism and social/political activism of the Sixties remain very positive forces for me.

"s" offers a somewhat extreme example of the thinking we rejected. He distorts and simplifies American history and politics to justify racism and sexism. In the Fifties his views would have been considered much more mainstream. "ricpic" also offers a totally distorted view of those he seemingly thinks were rebelling against marriage and family. There was rebellion against hypocrisy; against the abusive father who went to church every Sunday and was deemed a pillar of the community. My views are more in line with "the patriarch."

Well, enough for now.

Posted by: Chris White on July 19, 2006 8:22 AM

They struggled BIG TIME and absolutely would not have been able to finish high school without some financial help, mostly in the form of daycare vouchers.

I definitely believe you.

...you would not give these girls any assistance, or perhaps less assistance than the traditional working poor. I don't see how that helps anyone, as those girls would not finish school and languish, unskilled and un-hirable.

I hope you don't mind if I answer your question with a question. Understanding that gov't programs can operate at different levels (i.e. Federal, or State, or Local) and assuming that you were Mayor of Detroit, or Camden, or Gary, Indiana, how much assistance would you give these girls? Or anyone? Where would you get the resources from?

I think that you understand where I am going with this. I purposely chose 3 place that have high crime rates. Also, these places have a very small tax base. No coincidence.

I personally think that most of the old answers have failed. That is, the answers that became increasing popular during the 20th century produced some poor results. And that if we truly care about the people of Detroit, Camden, Gary, Glasgow, Scotland, Liberia, etc. then we need to start looking at what has actually produced results.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 8:25 AM

"I personally think that most of the old answers have failed. That is, the answers that became increasing popular during the 20th century produced some poor results. And that if we truly care about the people of Detroit, Camden, Gary, Glasgow, Scotland, Liberia, etc. then we need to start looking at what has actually produced results."

I agree completely. I am certainly not advocating for continuing down the same path we are on, but I am also not ready to throw in the towel. I don't have all the answers, but I would start with revamping the welfare program. "Welfare to work" is not a bad idea, as well as providing some assistance with childcare, which really is the primary stumbling block for many families, particularly single parent households. Also, far more stringent legislation and enforcement in the area of paternal responsibilities is needed.

As for where to get funding, I say state and federal when the local tax base is insufficient. Every state has affluent and low-income areas.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 19, 2006 9:51 AM

I say state and federal when the local tax base is insufficient.
But the question is, how did these places become so bad. Detroit used to be one of the best cities in America. Walt Whitman used to live in Camden. Gary, Indiana used to be full of middle class black families (like the Jacksons or Jackson 5 fame). How did they get to the point where they now need to look outside themeselves to find a socialist welfare-state solution?

Also, do you look to the State to subsidize the city when the State itself is swimming in red ink?

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 10:09 AM

... I would start with revamping the welfare program...

What happened when the Welfare program was first started in the mid-60's? What was life like before hand and what was life like afterwards. This get's to the heart of what I am saying. I think that the traditional Welfare-State has failed miserably. That is, the people who depend on Welfare the most have done the worst.

If we truly care about the poor, then we need to look at what has actually produced results. And the track-record for Welfare has been horrible. And not just in America.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 10:14 AM

I agree, but that goes way beyond the scope of what I can squeeze in here at work.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 19, 2006 10:47 AM

I understand.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 19, 2006 11:34 AM

"Because the Democrat party was and is full of traitors, there was never any way to win the war without enlarging it to confront both the Chinese, the Russians and the left in our midst."

Which means that there was never any way to win the war without risking a nuclear exchange. So we were stuck with a choice between surrendering the area (which would leave us with the same choice when the Communists set their sights on another area) and fighting a decades-long war of attrition. (With respect to Europe, of course, we opted with choice (a), risk a nuclear exchange and hope the Russians never called our bluff. They didn't. But would you bet the continued existence of humanity on the Russians believing we'd blow up the world over Vietnam?)

Fighting a decades-long war of attrition was really our best bet. Trying to fight it with decades-long conscription was a disastrous mistake.

"Throughout history, nations have tried to impose its way on other countries through warfare without much long-term success."

Really? Conquering the Confederacy seems to have achieved long-term success... after 140 years, there still isn't a single slave around these parts. And the American Way is alive and well in what used to be northern Mexico. And of course the Germans and Japanese keep having elections and not slaughtering civilians after 60 years, if you count that as "long-term".

Posted by: Ken on July 19, 2006 2:46 PM

Patriarch,

I fully support you donating your own dough to the poor. But I doubt you ever gave up any job or other opportunities willingly to one of the poor souls. There are, of course, limits to liberal charity. If you want to fund Utopia, fine, but why can't you guys keep your hands out of the rest of our pockets? See, that's the trouble. And the charity is mostly ineffective anyway.

Chris White says I justified racism and sexism. I just pointed out that the majority of people (whites) were better off when the races were segregated than today. Its just a fact. I never said one thing about women though, except that abortion is obviously offing a kid. We all know it. But I wouldn't characterize that as "sexist", would you? its also interesting that Chris White was silent about the racist discrimination against whites that goes on every day. He probably has lots of rationalizations for that racism too. So calling the kettle black doesn't mean much to me. I guess it takes one to know one. The real question is why someone who is so sensitive to civil rights thinks 70% of the population should face racial discrimination, and then shrug it off. Like I said before, the supposed committment is either a lie, or the civil libertarian must be tremendously ignorant. Practice what you preach, buddy. I'll believe you when you finally start carrying signs and protesting for and end to anti-white discrimination. You'd think people wouldn't be so stupid as to endorse discrimnation against THEIR OWN GROUP, but I guess not if you are a liberal Utopian. I also don't think that I distorted anything. I just am far more practical than ideological. I look at what works and what has worked best for the greatest number, and there is no question we are worse off now in many cases than we were then. And we know why, too.

My take on civil rights is that the government has a responsiblity to treat all citizens equally. No racial favoritism. And no fiddling with our rights to freely associate, have equal protection, and also to keep our own property. Separate but equal is fine with me, if the majority wants it. But if so, the government should be made to truly make government services equal. Most people want racial segregation--just look at housing, schools, and neighborhoods--they just don't say it. The government has no business trying to force us to associate with one another. People will hire anybody of any color if they think they will make money off of them--I don't buy that either. Just look at the Hispanics and the chinese--we can't get enough of their cheap labor. Blacks have a terrible reputation for doing poor work. That's the problem--they have to compete in the wider labor pool, especially now, and they don't look as good as the others. But mandating that people hire them just makes them feel entitled and perform worse, because they think they are untouchable. Ridiculous. Cut 'em loose and make them compete. If they do poorly, that's their problem, and they should have to fix their own problems, not burden the rest of us with them. If someone discriminates against them, its like any othe crime--get the evidence and prove it in court. I'm not giving up my presumption of innocence and my right to a trial before I am punished either. And I'm not responsible for other's misdeeds. That's a bunch of baloney.

The government has no business redistributing income either. They make no moral test or requirements of those to whom they hand out the welfare. The local institutions should do that, and be able to cut off the funds if people are abusing the system. People should be free to donate money if they choose. If its coerced, its not charity, its theft. I used to give, until I realized that I already do, through taxation, probably 20% of what I make is simply redistributed to others. And a lot of it is wasted. Why? Sure, lots of people are helped but become dependent, and lots more scam the system.

Also, how can we have a welfare state with open borders? Liberal insanity!

Posted by: s on July 19, 2006 5:56 PM

"I often wonder, how American Left, from 60's forward, can look in the eye of all Vietnamese, Kambodians and Laos (what's the right word?) and don't burn in shame."

In Vietnam the U.S. prolongation of the war & bombing campaigns killed more civilians than the Communists did after they achieved power. In Cambodia (where Pol Pot committed genocide), the Khmer Rouge only got into power because the U.S. strategic bombing of the countryside (which seems to have killed several hundred thousand civilians) shredded the neutralist Sihanouk government and allowed the Khmer Rouge to take over. The Cambodian genocide was in many ways a consequence of the U.S. intervention in the Vietnamese civil war. Thus the left should only be ashamed that it did not stop that misguided and tragic intervention sooner, before it spread to neighboring nations.

Of course, the Vietnamese communists were eventually the ones who threw Pol Pot out of power in Cambodia (the U.S. supported the Khmer during that campaign), and they also fought against China. Thus demonstrating that the U.S. motivations for the war -- stopping an Asian communist bloc from conquering the region -- were truly silly. Today, Vietnam is in the thick of the competition for new Nike plants. Do you think that perhaps this outcome -- a Vietnam that is hostile to China and competes eagerly for international corporate investment -- could perhaps have been achieved without a civil war that killed millions? I do.

Posted by: MQ on July 19, 2006 6:21 PM

"If you want to fund Utopia, fine, but why can't you guys keep your hands out of the rest of our pockets?"

That a fairly typical libertarian response to taxation in general, and yet taxation is needed in our society for reasons to numerous to recount here. I will say that my hard-earned tax dollars go to many programs I oppose, yet that's part of living within a society. We do not have line-item approval of our tax dollars. It's not practical. What we can do is advocate for programs we agree with and vote accordingly.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 19, 2006 6:44 PM

MQ--usual redefinition of what happened by socialist apologists, who blame America for the genocide committed by their socialist brothers.

Patriarch--redistribution of income is not a necessary function of government. We have a private sector means of redistributing income--its called work. I see you danced around the issue of how stealing other people's money to give to your favorite group of "victims" is wrong and wasteful, by renaming it "necessary". Nice trick. But I ain't buying it. Its not part of living in a society if the mass of us don't agree to it--I mean a democratic society, that is, not the tyrannical one you seem to be comfortable with. If put to a vote, most welfare would be put to an immediate end, and only a restricted form of Social Security and Medicare would probably survive.

I'm not a libertarian. I'm a social conservative. Law and order, some regulation of business, bridges, and bombs. The state is a poor replacement for the local church or charity. And not only do you know that, so do the free-loaders. Less money and much higher moral demands. That's why you both vote democratic (socialist). Its also why the country is going bankrupt, both morally and financially.

Posted by: s on July 19, 2006 7:38 PM

I don't know anything about "socialist apologists", and I'm not a socialist myself, even by the mild U.S. or European definitions. The historical record is clear on the catastrophic results of the misguided U.S. intervention in Vietnam. As for "socialist brothers", I just described how the Vietnamese socialists overthrew the Khmer Rouge and fought the Chinese Communists. The idea that all socialists are part of some brotherhood is the same kind of silly ignorance as the idea that all A-rabs and all Muslims are the same, typical American parochialism.

Posted by: MQ on July 19, 2006 8:50 PM

The historical record is also clear on the deeds of Mao, Castro, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Il, and the host of other violent and pathological socialist mass murderers, who, if left unchecked and contained by the only free country powerful enough and committed enough to do so, would have murdered tens of millions more. I find it unfathomable that the United States of America, whose people gave their lives and a great deal of their prosperity for (now) centuries in order to free peoples by the millions, even billions, not only domestically, but around the world, is somehow cast as the villian in trying to prevent the scourge of communism from victimizing another group of innocent people who bought into the socialist philosophical snake oil of a "better" society.

Nixon is no more responsible for the Cambodian genocide than you are. The bombing was done to hit the enemy who crossed borders to hide from the US forces, and to destroy supply lines in order to END THE WAR BY WINNING THE WAR. You see, there are two ways to end a war. One is to run away from it and surrender and the other is to fight and win it, until the other side surrenders. The communists were the bad guys. We were the good guys. I don't see how the historical record can be twisted to deny that statement, but I'm sure if you're committed to the misrepresentation of reality, you'll find a way.

Nice words and high sentiments don't liberate people and keep them free. Guns do. From the cops patrolling your neighborhood, to the armies of the West, all of it has been brought about by force and fear. Fear by the bad guys, who don't care about nice words and high sentiments, for their very lives. And the force wielded by the good guys to inspire that fear, by making it real. I'm sorry the world is not as perfect and high-minded as you would like, but that doesn't change reality, nor should it be used to unjustly impugn the motives and reputations of those who have engaged in this Great Battle, from which you and many billions of others are the beneficiaries. For my part, I just try to get the facts straight, and I am lucky to have the opportunity to do my small part in keeping that movement going, by countering your false assertions. And I am thankful and happy to do so.

Posted by: s on July 19, 2006 10:52 PM

"s" It seems you've got all the answers. Many of them, however, appear based on a combination of unsubstantiated opinions, misinformation, extreme simplification and stereotypes.

Concerned that pure democracy would too easily descend into mob rule, the Founders carefully constructed a republic that also protects the rights of individuals and minority groups. They devised a moderately complex system for electing our representative legislators hoping to ensure a more deliberative process. Checks and balances between the three branches of government function as safeguards against an unfettered President or a runaway Congress.

You are seemingly still operating from a very polarized, Cold War era, set of assumptions. These assumptions were distorted enough in the Fifties when they had some small basis in reality. It's US in the USA we're democracy and THEM communist/socialist. We are Good; they are Evil. We are Right; they are Wrong. With this perspective you can label anyone whose opinion you do not share a 'socialist apologist' or, in the Ann Coulter tradition, a traitor.

If we're looking for opposing polarities politically we can use democracy vs. authoritarian dictatorship, economically we can posit capitalism vs. communism. Now if we imagine these as the two axis we might begin to discuss charting where China, for example, falls today or thirty years ago. Today it seems to be an authoritarian regime only ever so slightly more democratic than thirty years ago but it has been shifting very rapidly from a communist collective economy to an oligarchic capitalist one. The current trend in South and Central America seems toward increased democracy along with increased restraints on unfettered capitalism.

I think one of MQ's points to be considered is that the US has repeatedly supported various regimes NOT due to ideological or moral issues, but based on shifting economic or strategic aims. We have regularly supported authoritarian dictators who were friendly to global free market capitalism while directly or indirectly working to overthrow democratically elected socialists. Anyone remember the pictures of Dick Cheney, back in the Reagan/Bush Sr. years, grinning his crooked grin as he shook Saddam's hand? That's when we were supplying Iraq with the chemical weapons Saddam used when he attacked the Kurds. At the time we were supporting him in his battle with Iran and would have preferred he use them against the Iranians, but what the heck. Sometimes these things catch up with us.

Tying this back to the original topic of the Sixties and Utopianism, the underlying basis for all social, political, religious and economic systems are fundamentally utopian. The Hippie Utopians (for want of more accurate description) of the Sixties were mostly aiming for a political shift toward a more inclusive democracy with stronger individual rights. The dominant tilt economically was toward communalism or small scale, entrepreneurial capitalism and away from corporate capitalism. Culturally it was toward an open and somewhat anarchistic freedom.

Beginning in the Seventies and in full flower during the Eighties, was a backlash of sorts. The sharing, communal ethic was beaten back by a "what's in it for me?" greed. This is in part a product of the exaggeration of the autonomy of the individual combined with a concerted effort by the beneficiaries of corporate capitalism to reinforce their dominant status. Culturally, the boundaries began to contract again, although remain beyond their 1950s borders. I'd like to think that I, like Donald in his original posting, see something of a renewal of the Utopian impulses from the Sixties which gave us, all in all, more net gains than losses from where I sit.

Posted by: Chris White on July 20, 2006 7:20 PM

Chris White.

The gains you speak of were mostly ideological, not real gains. For instance, as I stated before, only 10% (blacks) of the population was routinely discriminated against because of their race. Now 70% is. We have a huge welfare state that has not improved poverty rates much at all, but is bankrupting the country (see US Treasury projections of the Social Security and Medicare deficits--44 trillion dollars and counting). Not to mention the many millions dependent on welfare, housing subsidies, food subsidies, monies flushed down the "education" racket/toilet, etc. Higher crime rates, more racial tension and animosity, a veritable 24/7 cable/movie/pop culture sewer. And yes, the 40-50 million or so killed by abortion. Also the disintegration of the nuclear family, etc. I'm not a Baby Boomer, as most of the posters here are. I was born in the late 60's and remember the 70's. My parents got divorced (and we had a large family). I see what the job opportunities are like now, with all the illegal immigration and H1-b visa scams going on. Many of you Baby Boomers are beyond that, higher up on the managerial chain, with good pensions and retirement savings, unlike most of my generation. I actually did volunteer work for years with poor people (tutoring/ education), and I have lived in a big city for about a decade now. I used to be a liberal. My views were simply eroded away by reality. The final straw came when I found out that Social Security was actually bankrupt. That was the only program I saw that I thought actually worked. After that, I simply became more conservative, though I kept my idealism. Now I am simply practical, and keep my idealism for my own behavior, without extending my expectations to the rest of humanity. I observe and respect human nature, both good and bad.

As I said previously, the world is not a perfect place, and America is not a perfect country. MQ noted that the US supported the Khmer Rouge. This was started of course, by the liberal failure Jimmy Carter, who also helped the Shah of Iran out the door, giving rise to the radical Islamic state we see today. Reagan also carried on that policy. But I see it as keeping the armed communists fighting against each other, draining their limited resources, rather than allowing them to expand their revolutions to places nearby, or even far away, as Cuba did with Angola. I also see the US support of Saddam Hussein as trying to keep both Iran and Iraq from conquering the other, letting them fight until they were exhausted, and heavily decimated. You saw what we did to Hussein when he went after Kuwait--we gutted the country. Now this thug is out of power, and all the left can do is whine that the situation isn't pretty, and that it costs too much. Well, I'd rather spend a trillion dollars liberating 50 million people from tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq, protecting America's interests abroad, and have two fewer states who are enemies of our country that we no longer have to live in fear of, than spending it on lazy, dumb welfare cheats who do nothing productive and try to bring America down from within.

I also see the kids of the past 30-40 years since the liberal Utopianists started implementing their agenda. The crop gets worse and worse. Its staggering. Most come from some sort of poor or broken family, as opposed to a minority then. Their values are screwed up, they delay the onset of adulthood because they are not taught how to be responsibe, or are afraid of making committments and having them blow up, and as you noted above, they tend to see realationships like business transactions, where they hope to come out ahead, i.e. turn a profit, at the expense of the other. Of course, not all, but a huge number neverthertheless.

Outside of more money and technology, I disagreee completely that we are better off. I challenge you to tell me how. I would expect a long list of minority rights gains, but you will not list the majority rights losses, or the disintegration of the family, or of the culture. Most, like I said, are poorer, in the protection of their civil liberties, in their personal safety, in their emotional security, financially, morally, and spiritually. That's what I SEE, not what I selectively filter, nor what I wish were so.

Posted by: s on July 21, 2006 2:49 AM

"the underlying basis for all social, political, religious and economic systems are fundamentally utopian"

Hi Chris, I need to disagree with this statement. I may just be picking at semantics, but I dont think all politcal and economic systems are Utopian.

Our own political and economic system is almost anti-Utopian. The Father of our Constitution, James Madison, was devoutly anti-Utopian. As was, to a lesser degree, Alexander Hamilton (co-author of the Federalist Papers).

So much of our Constitution is devised so that politicians and beaurecrats get as little power as possible. And that the power they do get, will likely be used to battle each other, therefore canceling each other out.

Well, I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Posted by: Ian Lewis on July 21, 2006 7:21 AM

We you really living in fear of Afghanistan and Iraq? I wasn't. Iran, maybe. The Saudis, sure.

Also, I'm fairly certain that crime rates have heading down in the past 15 years.

Posted by: the patriarch on July 21, 2006 9:35 AM

s

You state: "only 10% (blacks) of the population was routinely discriminated against because of their race. Now 70% is." Where do you get these statistics? Or are they rough approximates based upon your own observations?

In your first paragraph Social Security and Medicaid are lumped into the rest of the "welfare state" programs with which you find at fault, although a bit later you are dismayed to note that Social Security is at risk.

Whatever the demographic skew of other 2blowhards' commentators, I may be a Boomer but I'll never be able to retire because I have no trust fund, pension or IRAs to fall back on. I've worked either in the not for profit arts sector or been self employed, spent most of my life a hair's breadth above the line where I would be eligible for public assistance of one sort or another and have received specific benefits a few times. I am well aware of the inefficiencies and pitfalls inherent in the complex bureaucratic systems that administer welfare programs. That doesn't, however, mean I'd want to see them done away with. I would like to see them approached more holistically and humanely. Greater efficiency and accountability (in both directions) should also be priorities ... as should increasing their funds and scope. (I'll bet Prairie Mary can offer a lot of insight into things that do and do not work based upon Rez models. BIA vs. casinos must not be the only ones being used.)

On the geopolitical front, I honestly believe your understanding of the different conflicts and their major players is so simplified and distorted that it is difficult to discuss reasonably. During the three or four years prior to the ousting of the Shah I remember arguing with my brother (seven years younger than I and an ardent conservative at the time) that the longer the US propped up the Shah rather than shifting our support to the developing secular, democratic opposition the more likely it was an extreme religious fundamentalist movement would take over. This wasn't "liberal thinking" or "socialist apology" but rather an opinion based on my understanding of human nature, political dynamics and history. Carter just happened to be holding the bag when the inevitable overtook us.

Virtually none of the conflicts under discussion have anything to do with "armed communists." Most would not be attacking the US were we not, supposedly, keeping them fighting amongst themselves. This is a view through a very distorted lens. The greatest threat to peace today around the world seems to be the rise of religious fascism, most obviously of the Islamic fundamentalist variety. Any tangential connection to "communism" is because in so many of the regions where these movements are taking root the majority of the population has been exploited, abused, and kept in abject poverty by the elite. The elite may be "royalty" as in Saudi Arabia or a dictatorial oligarchy such as in Indonesia. Because the US and outside global capitalist groups like the World Trade Organization support the elite, we become an enemy.

Much of your commentary, especially regarding welfare and race relations in the US, strikes me as misplacing the blame. If a hospital has a high rate of patients dying, and if the numbers show a clear likelihood that poor patients are much more likely to die in the hospital than wealthy ones, do you leap to the conclusion that the patients are to blame? And furthermore assume that poor patients (who are disproportionately minorities) are somehow responsible for their higher death rate? Or do you look at the staff and administration for more likely culprits?

Based on my Sixties Utopianism I'll continue to argue for such things as increasing taxes on the profits of big corporations and the wealthiest until their rates begin to approach 1950's levels, a national health care system (I prefer government bureaucrats to HMO and insurance company bureaucrats whose primary legal responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders), tighter regulations for environmental protection and worker safety, and so on.

As for things being better, I can find a set of statistics or reports by this or that think tank to say things are much better or much worse relative to 1956. Anecdotally I can say this, whatever personal trials and tribulations I've experienced, I'm convinced I've been living pretty close to the top of the global heap on a Millennial (if not History of All Mankind) scale. This is no reflection on me, just the accident of being born in the right place and time.

I also think it is inevitable that such a situation cannot sustain itself for generations. What Sixties Utopianism, Islamist Fundamentalism, Global Capitalism and The Church of Latter Day Saints each offer are different ideas about the better paradigm to replace it, how hard the transition will be and who gets hurt worse than whom.

Following my Sixties Utopian ideals as much as possible, I've enjoyed a great marriage, done satisfying and challenging work and tried to be honest in my dealings with others. My wife and I raised a productive, caring, voting, adult citizen. We've remained for the most part close with all of our extended family members. We try to buy as much as we can from smaller local businesses, especially food, where we favor organic over conventional. We vote and write letters to the editor and elected officials expressing our views. Most of our Boomer friends fit a pretty similar profile.

Ian the ubiquitous Wikipedia says; "Utopia, in its most common and general positive meaning, refers to the human efforts to create a better, or perhaps perfect society. Ideas which could be/are considered able to radically change our world are often called utopian ideas." I certainly count the effort to make "a more perfect union" as Utopian.

[I apologize for the long comment. Sometimes I just can't bring myself to reduce ideas to a sound bite. I also apologize if I already posted a variation of this comment. I can't get used to the lagtime.]

Posted by: Chris White on July 21, 2006 8:11 PM

Thank, MQ, for answering my question.
Now I know how the liberals manage not to look the truth in the eye.

[aside: "liberal" is an example how the perfectly respectable word was hijacked by the Left and made to mean its opposite; to get the original meaning you have to add "classical" to it. Same fate awaits "socialist" now? Felix, at least, is not hiding.

Posted by: Tat on July 21, 2006 9:41 PM

Patriarch,

A lot of New Yorkers were scared of Afghanistan after OBL and Al Queda dropped those buildings a few years back, remember? Oh well, you take out a killer and this is the type of thanks you get from the holier-than-thou left, which does nothing.

CW,

Seventy percent of the population is white. Race quotas and leftists obviously discriminate against whites in favor of their pet minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. Again, the dance around the obvious. I guess you would say that's okay because whites are doing better than blacks. I'm sure you would let anti-semites off the hook for the same reason, right? Most people who are poor are rather dim and lack valuable skills, thus poverty. They also make bad decisions in life. They are not victims. The hospital analogy is ridiculous.

We aren't fighting too many communiists anymore because the Soviet Union is gone. We beat them. The chinese are laying low, until they are stong enough to make their moves. No country in the Middle East has ever been democratic except Israel. Iran wouldn't have either, and Carter actively helped remove the Shah, turning over the reigns to what is now the modern day equivalent of a Hitler who is close to getting the Bomb. Way to go, Jimmy! But in your eyes, Carter was just a passive victim. When the schemes of the left fall apart, the leftist heroes are all just passive victims, rather than active desroyers. Thus, I use the term apologists, and you gave me a prime example. The beat goes on.

I think the definition of the welfare state is the transfer of wealth from one hand to another by means of government redistribution. Social Security and Medicare are welfare programs, because its a pay as you go system--there are no separate accounts. It all a scam and a lie, which will also fall apart, as the financial projections show. Another crack in the foundation of Utopia.

Also, there is no other form of "religious fascism" today other than Islamic fundamentalism. Please don't insult any other religion with that smear. Again you blame the US for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, when we had nothing to do with it. In your world, is anybody responsible for their own actions?

I guess when you don't want to compare today to the immediate post-war era, you compare it to to some other time, like the time of Christ or the Medieval Era to make it look good. I knew you would back out.

If you have had a good, traditional life, following the precepts of your Socialist religion, that's fine. But please don't force your fundamentalism on the rest of us. We do have religious freedom in this country, you know. There should be separation of Church and State. It's the law. Have a nice evening.

Posted by: s on July 21, 2006 10:05 PM

Afghanistan, OBL and Al Queda:

We keep hearing from OBL who was never caught or killed. Al Qaeda has gained more than they've lost due to our misdirected focus and ideologically skewed assessment of what would happen after the initial invasion phase in Iraq and our lack of diplomatic engagement throughout the Middle East. The effects are all too evident from the India Pakistan standoff to Lebanon.

Race quotas and leftists obviously discriminate against whites:

What "race quotas" are you referring to? Is this about the odd university applicant who decides to sue for reverse discrimination because, by a given metric (let's say GED scores), he was not admitted but a minority applicant with a lower GED score was? Why doesn't he sue over the party boy whose father is a wealthy alumnus? Can you give me any examples of a major manufacturer or retail chain forced to comply with "race quotas"? Where, exactly, do you see this discrimination against whites?


Most people who are poor are rather dim and lack valuable skills, thus poverty. They also make bad decisions in life. They are not victims.

So, I presume we should assume the converse; Paris Hilton is in all likelihood, therefore, brilliant, supremely talented and making an endless series of excellent decisions. No, wait; could it be she was born fabulously wealthy?

All it takes for a working class family to become destitute clients of various welfare services is one major emergency like a huge medical expense, despite brains, skills and a job. Are there willfully lazy, unmotivated, slow-witted, poor folks? Absolutely. Where I live that mostly describes the very white New England version of those pejoratively referred to as Trailer Trash.


We aren't fighting communists anymore because the Soviet Union is gone. We beat them. The Chinese are laying low, until they are strong enough to make their moves.

Seeing Putin at work in Chechnya, Ukraine, and Georgia, I'd say that a few years down the road we might find the demise of the USSR to be less significant than originally thought. And as for China, an authoritarian regime that holds more and more US IOUs, why are the "Global Capitalist Elites", especially the Republican Right (although perhaps not the Republican Christian Right), doing everything in their power to ignore human rights in favor of most favored nation trade status? Oh, right; billions of compliant worker/consumers with few political rights.

No country in the Middle East has ever been democratic except Israel. Iran wouldn't have either ...

Shall I then assume that you do not believe the Bush administration's current stated goal of making Iraq a beacon of democratic inspiration in the Middle East? Whenever we set up false and extreme dichotomies we run the risk of missing the nuances of the middle ground. We also fall into the worst form of hubris when we take a position that only white Europeans have the capacity for democracy. That said, when the US continually props up despotic authoritarian governments to insure our big business interests' exploitation of natural resources, cheap workers, or lax environmental protection we create the very discontent that feeds revolutionary and radical opposition to those same interests.


religious fascism

Hmm, could we go back for an example to Hitler and Vichy France for Christian fascism? Might we not imagine the crisis in Israel reaching the point where a radical Zionist faction assumes power? Do any of the more militant Indian Hindu or Sikh parties count? There seems to be a growing connection in this country between fundamentalist Christians and politics. It would be a huge overstatement to suggest this is a nascent fascist movement, however, certain of the preacher/politicians on the fringe give one pause.

Socialist religious fundamentalism

Huh?

To attempt once more to return to the original topic, I continue to see far more positive results from Sixties Utopianism than negative ones. More equality among the races and between the sexes, loads of entrepreneurial small businesses, a far more diverse array voices and visions in art, music, theater and literature. If the baby supposedly thrown out with the bath water was the unquestioned superiority of white males of European ancestry than (even though I'm as WASPy as a WASP can be) I'm satisfied. And, please, this isn't "self-hatred" or being a "race traitor".

Posted by: Chris White on July 23, 2006 10:58 AM

Chris: why "white males" and not "white men"?

Posted by: hugh on July 23, 2006 2:44 PM

Heroic Dreamer,

I was also in Berkeley in 1971 (architecture, living at the corner of Dwight and Piedmont). My experience was very different than yours. It seemed to me the freshman class of 5,000 was about 80% middle-class California kids who would have been just the same in 1955. California is a strange place.

The sixties (culturally speaking) were created by people who were very unhappy with the family (Dad working, Mom at home, a couple of decently socialized kids, white picket fence). This was all called repressive by such people. These people were simply unhappy. And they succeeded. They killed millions of such families.

If, on the other hand, you grew up happily in such a stable family, as I did, you consider it to be the supreme human (and humanizing) achievement. And you hate the sixties. Passionately.

Huh? I grew up in one of America's dream suburbs, had parents who loved each other until they died, and pretty much lived at least one of the American Dreams. I was never one of the more radical, but had plenty of friends who were, and saw absolutely no evidence for your generalization. It seems to me those who were most typical of the 60s were the best and the brightest.

In fact some of my friends from that period now work with Michael Blowhard in his incredibly successful secret life.

Posted by: john on July 23, 2006 2:57 PM

Donald,

You were talking about changing society. We did change society. And I'm one of those people who think the 60s are coming back, for the better.

Go to a demonstration against corporate globalization and you'll think you're in 1969. And in fact, when CEOs are getting $50 million golden parachutes and Enrons stalk the world, corporate globalization is out of control. We can use some Wendell Berry and EF Schumacher.

John

PS: At least some of the 60s was a backlash against faceless, placeless sprawl -- like New Urbanism. We need community again.

Posted by: john on July 23, 2006 3:04 PM

Chris White,

If you believe that whites have not been racially discriminated against in employment, education, court decisions, etc. for the last 40 years, you are simply clueless or denying the obvious. I think its the latter, and its very pathetic that you would do so to try to win an argument on some board. Its all around us. We all see it. Many major corporations, universities, and federal, state, and local governments do it. Its nice that you call your fellow white citizens whose rights are violated trailer trash. I guess by trying to demean them somehow, you can rationalize the injustice. Anyone who would advocate a system that discriminates against their own race is an idiot, and that's all I have to say. No other race in the history of the world, to my knowledge, has ever been that stupid. Only white liberals.

How can you create any kind of an intellectual argument using Paris Hilton? Is this some kind of joke?

Al Queda is stronger now? Any evidence for that? No. I didn't think so. You probably read it in the Nation or In These Times, or some other liberal rag.

When I point out that Iran is a dangerous Islamic theocracy, you switch the debate to Iraq. Is is so hard to stay on topic?

Hitler was a Christian facist? What the hell are you talking about? Nazi's were socialists! They persecuted jews, catholics, and I'm sure other protestant denominations. Religious people who happen to take up arms to defend themselves are not fascists. Please look the term up, because I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about.

I'm sure you think the sixties were great, and that they changed things for the better. But we can see society crumbling about us, with increased racial tension, segregation, racial discrimination, violence, unenforced borders, rampant crime, rampant corruption, cultlural sewer, millions of aborted babies, the breakup of the family, increasing welfare state, huge government, business, and private debts, outsourcing of jobs, high inflation, the stupefying of public education, including our universities, and many other things. And it goes directly back to the sixties and the people like you who place theory on a higher plane than experience and reality, then rationalize and deny things when your Utopia blows up in everybody's face. Ugh! It's all so obvious!

Posted by: s on July 23, 2006 9:51 PM

s,

"A lot of New Yorkers were scared of Afghanistan after OBL and Al Queda dropped those buildings a few years back, remember?"

The hijackers, as well as OBL himself, all hail from Saudi Arabia. I said in the comment that you were repsonding to that I was and am, indeed, wary of the Saudis. But yes, the propaganda since 9/11 is that we should be afraid of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Oh well, you take out a killer and this is the type of thanks you get from the holier-than-thou left, which does nothing."

Posted by: the patriarch on July 24, 2006 9:46 AM

I am a bit disappointed that I have become the lone voice in this exchange with "s". I would have thought that Prairie Mary, for example, might have offered a bit of insight into the Native American view of "white discrimination". However, pointy headed liberal that I am, I can't bring myself to disengage when the views being expressed seem perilously close to those I associate with the Aryan Brotherhood.

The status quo immediately following WWII included rampant and undisguised discrimination against African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, homosexuals, Hispanics and so on to the extent that most of the South was segregated, lynchings were not uncommon, etc. Today, due to various Civil Rights laws, each of these groups can be found throughout all levels of society and business. If this what you mean by "whites (being) racially discriminated against" then it turns logic and the definition of "discrimination" on its head. The erosion of white privilege is not discrimination.

I'll admit that until another major Al Qaeda attack any opinions about its strength are speculative at best. My own sense is that the decision to back off in Afghanistan in favor of attacking Iraq before we caught or killed OBL and sufficiently degraded his infrastructure, combined with tactical missteps in the Iraq conflict (e.g. allowing the looting of Baghdad and the Abu Graib scandal) have created a far wider and deeper pool of would be Islamic terrorists, whether or not they associate themselves with Al Qaeda, per se.

Yes, Iran is currently a dangerous Islamic theocracy. If, as you said, "No country in the Middle East has ever been democratic except Israel. Iran wouldn't have either..." I wanted to know whether you believed the Bush administrations stated objective of creating a free and democratic Iraq was either a lie or a futile dream? And, if you accept their position, doesn't it imply the possibility that other Middle East countries could become democratic? Furthermore, early in the Bush administration, they absolutely rejected overtures from Iran toward diplomatic engagement that would have had an chance of strengthening the moderate, secular, middle there. While "what ifs..." are merely speculative, by not taking up the offer the radical clerics gained again.

Hmm, I did look up Nazi + religion. Among the top ten references I pulled these quotes:

"Hitler and the Nazis promoted a Christian nationalism, anti-communism, anti-Semitism, and return to traditional values which most Christians appreciated. The Nazi party platform specifically endorsed 'positive' Christianity."

"Most Christians today don't have any conception of just how tightly intertwined Christianity and Nazism were in Germany. It's often assumed that they two were antagonistic; the truth, however, is that many Christians saw Nazism as fully compatible with their religion."

Like the old question of "Is the glass half full or half empty?" you seem to have decided the glass is not only half empty, it has a chipped rim and what's in it is swill. While we may agree that by certain metrics some things are worse, I doubt we'll agree on WHY things are worse or how to make them better.

Posted by: Chris White on July 24, 2006 11:26 AM

Chris White

Its one thing to say Nazi's used Christianity to manipulate their people. Its quite another to say that the denominations themselves, such as the Catholics, led by the Pope or the Protestant denominations allied themselves with the Nazi's. I'm sure some individual priests did, but not one denomination did. We would have never heard the end of it! How dare you smear these people! There is obviously no depth to which you will not go to slander those whom you disagree with, especially religious people, as you liberals try to claim their mantle of morality not by applying it to yourselves, but only mimicking it without any moral standards, except to try to discredit the religious by pointing out that they, unlike you(!) are not perfect. No wonder you're trying to get others to fight your battles for you--you have no idea what you are talking about! Familiarize yourself with the concept of AGENCY! Ugh! Disgusting!

Lynchings? How about the tens of thousands (maybe into the hundreds of thousands by now?) murders of whites in the last 40 years by blacks? How about the hundreds of thousands of rapes of white women, of the millions of violent assualts against the young, the old, the weak, the police, the firemen, anybody white? Am I supposed to feel sorry for blacks now? Who really believes most of those who were lynched weren't guilty? Are you really that naive? What, with the crime wave we see now, with the animosity we see now? The southerners knew what blacks were like and what their motivations were. They knew what would happen if they ever lost control of them. They knew it because the blacks started attacking the whites after the Civil War, and had to be put down brutally in order for the whites to live in their own areas safely. That initially was how the Ku Klux Klan was formed, as a band of vigilantes that exacted vengence upon those blacks who attacked whites. Of course it went to far, but as always, the record is a less clear than you liberals would have us believe. I guess the southerners should have let themselves be assualted, raped, and murdered and their land stolen. How bad is it now? The two most important cities in the founding of our country are now largely violent black slums--Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. Think about that. Oh, things are much worse now!

Oh yes, and did you see where the homosexual lobby is trying to get the age of consent down to 14 years old in Canada? What a fine bunch!

As far as implementing a democracy in Iraq, duh, what other form of government would we implement--another dictatorship? You must be joking! We get rid of a dictator because he openly threatens us, our allies, and one of the most strategiacally important places in the world with a commodity that is ESSENTIAL to the WORLD economy, and all we get is criticized because it ain't perfect. I don't know if democracy will work in Iraq. I'm glad the people can now vote and have a chance at a lasting democracy. But we took out those regimes because they were openly supporting terrorist organizations that were targeting us, our allies, and threatened our safety, prosperity, and stability. Any one who thinks that can be let go and negotiated away is simply out of touch with reality. A fool, to put it bluntly.

In the end I don't really care about the people in Iraq or Iran much. I care about the people here. I doubt democracy will work there, but its all we can do to replace the murderous dictator who was there. It's up to those populations to make it work. I doubt they will.

And I doubt they will ever assimilate into the domocracies of Europe either. All over the West, we see our capitols and great cities being flooded by a huge population of those who are silently or openly opposed to the natives and want to take over, and do violent harm to the whites. From London, to Paris, to Brussels, to Washington D.C., to New York, America, Europe, Australia, etc., we are being invaded as surely as by any foreign army, and the idiot liberals are smiling and helping them in all along the way.

Liberalism is a death cult. You say you hate the capitalists, but you work hand in hand with them. You are both brothers, amoral, obsessed with money issues, and you both want something for nothing--the businessman wants a profit, something for which he gives the customer nothing in return, and you want an unaccountable handout. You have no loyalties to your own populations or country. And in the end you will together destroy us. You are two sides of the same coin. That's why it's so ironic that you hate Bush--he is the perfect liberal, and also the champion of big corporations. There is no contradiction at all--he is exactly like you, and you are exactly like him.

And finally, I want to point out that where I live, almost all the people in the Post Office are black. Why is this, when they are a much smaller percent of the population? Well, they become supervisors, in charge of the hiring, and then they openly discriminate and hire only blacks, violating the law. This happens all over, and the liberals don't say a word. The same is true of the Hispanics. In southern CA, many whites find it impossible to find a government job, because the hispanics will only hire their own. You see Chris, all your boot-licking didn't do a thing--they still hate whites, and will discriminate against us whenever possible. Living in a "non-discriminatory" world is dreamland, a fiction. It only exists in the world of white liberals. Everybody prefers those like themselves to those unlike, and you are no different. Only you liberals have set up a system in which you, your kids, and grandkids are free to be discrimnated against, without any kind of fear of punishment. Anyone who advocates a system that puts themselves, their neighbors, their friends, their family, their kids, and their grandkids at a disadvantage, and then crows about it is an absolute moron. And especially discriminating for those who give nothing but hate in return.

Posted by: s on July 24, 2006 6:07 PM


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