Thursday, October 29, 2009

"Wrongs of the Right"

Duncan Cameron has a good editorial, which, while I disagree with certain points (I think Obama is far more right-wing than anyCanadian government), effectively identifies the neo-liberal project for the failure that it is:

Today, 25 years after the election of Mulroney, corporate Canada celebrates 25 years of uninterrupted control of public affairs. As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has shown conclusively in a series of studies, Canadians are worse off economically than they were before free trade in 1988.
...
The key right-wing idea about government spending is wrong. Program spending is not too big, it is too small. True enormous amounts are wasted on the military and corporate subsidies, but in the main government spending is far from generous, especially for those in need.

Much of what the right has championed has been good for the super wealthy, and corporations. But, rejecting government by discussion, aka democracy, and relying on fictional reason, only
works so long. What the right fears the most is open debate. Bring it on.


This is what the capitalist media can't bring itself to admit. That they've failed. That they'll continue to fail. This is what a culture in denial can't admit to itself and must therefore be forced to confront.

4 comments:

Sir Francis said...

I think Obama is far more right-wing than anyCanadian government.

No shit. During the 2008 primaries, he advocated invading Pakistan (as he desperately competed, testicle-for-testicle, with Clinton's threat to bomb Iran to oblivion). Even Harper's not that much of a neocon fucktard--though he's close.

thwap said...

Oh, but he's mobilized so many passionately progressive USian to realize the "hope" and "change" of 'we are the people we've been waiting for' [or whatever that p.r. slogan was]!

He used the internet to hoover money out of the pockets of people who didn't think they were voting for bipartisan swill and continued war and servitude to the financial industry!

Sir Francis said...

Heh. As Chomsky says, American elections are just contests between the two factions of the Business Party.

Even the choice between Fatah and Hamas is more meaningful and consequential than that. Give the Palestinians credit for knowing how a democracy actually works…

opit said...

I liked the description that came out a few months back for a book title : Dual-Party Tyranny.
Mind, I've finally come to agree the Left-Right comparisons are nonsense...Authoritarianism vs. Libertarianism/Anarchy make much more sense.
But I don't understand how the deception really worked. I recall him saying that an invasion of Afghanistan was on...and he all but salaamed to AIPAC before the election !
People were seeing and hearing what they wanted to hear ; in most cases, they still are.