Finally, instead of lefty globalist collective marxists: just call them “Upperclass”

We’re in a Culture War, and there has been no name to label the group who are driving this war. The old Left-Right canard isn’t working. The DINO-RINO’s are one and same Swamp-creatures. The  left-leaning Bernie fans got screwed by the Upper Class as much as the Trump fans did.

It’s not about the rich versus the poor either: Donald Trump is a billionaire but he isn’t upper class. Green hippies in XR Superhero-Monk costumes needn’t be wealthy, but they aspire to be in the popular upper class. It’s about status and the pecking order. The same is true of the high school students who lecture grown ups on climate change. They might be poor but they’re aiming to climb class rungs.

Words matter. People can unite behind an idea that has no name, but the movement is fragile, prone to fragmenting. But here, in a rather scathing blast from someone who isn’t Republican and doesn’t even like them is a suggestion that’s got a lot going for it. Bring back a new version of the class war, against the Upper Class, and a war on classism. It is something that can unite the Deplorables, the workers, the minorities, and even the Occupy and Bernie Sanders fans.

A Modest Proposal For Republicans: Use The Word “Class”

by Scott Alexander on Astral Codex Ten

Dear Republican Party:

I hear you’re having a post-Trump identity crisis. Your old platform of capitalism and liberty and whatever no longer excites people. …   You seem to have picked up a few minority voters here and there, but you’re not sure why, and you don’t know how to build on this success.

So here’s my recommendation: use the word “class”. Pivot from mindless populist rage to a thoughtful campaign to fight classism.

It’s not about economic class warfare, it’s about cultural class warfare.

Trump won by being anti-establishment “but which establishment”?

Trump stood against the upper class. He might define them as: people who live in nice apartments in Manhattan or SF or DC and laugh under their breath if anybody comes from Akron or Tampa. Who eat Thai food and Ethiopian food and anything fusion, think they would gain 200 lbs if they ever stepped in a McDonalds, and won’t even speak the name Chick-Fil-A. Who usually go to Ivy League colleges, though Amherst or Berkeley is acceptable if absolutely necessary. Who conspicuously love Broadway (especially Hamilton), LGBT, education, “expertise”, mass transit, and foreign anything. They conspicuously hate NASCAR, wrestling, football, “fast food”, SUVs, FOX, guns, the South, evangelicals, and reality TV. Who would never get married before age 25 and have cutesy pins about how cats are better than children. Who get jobs in journalism, academia, government, consulting, or anything else with no time-card where you never have to use your hands. Who all have exactly the same political and aesthetic opinions on everything, and think the noblest and most important task imaginable is to gatekeep information in ways that force everyone else to share those opinions too.

(full disclosure: I fit like 2/3 of these descriptors)

Aren’t I just describing well-off people? No. Teachers, social workers, grad students, and starving artists may be poor, but can still be upper-class. Pilots, plumbers, and lumber barons are well-off, but not upper-class. Donald Trump is a billionaire, but still recognizably not upper class. The upper class is a cultural phenomenon.

Trump attacked the Swamp, and one of his most popular phrases in the 2016 debates was when he responded to the baiting questions by ignoring the bait, and saying “we have too much political correctness”. But  “Politically Correct” doesn’t roll off the tongue, nor bring out a historic class war.

The coalition of Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, concerned citizens are being played and divided by semantic word games. They need to identify the target and unify against it.

There is some broad appeal to fighting against the Upper Class: (it’s not exactly a new idea, is it?)

It could appeal to poor people who just want to get jobs. Point out how DC Democrats passed a law saying all child care workers must have college degrees, and how this is just a blatant attempt to take jobs away from working-class people in order to give them to upper-class people instead. Tell them that this is class warfare, that their side is losing, but that if you are in power they will win.

It could appeal to small-government libertarians. Argue that the Democrats and the government are a jobs program for the upper class. All those Institutes For X and Public Service Campaigns For Y, all those regulations that require two hundred lawyers just to move a potted plant, all those laws that mean every company needs fifty compliance offers working full time just in order to not get sued, they’re all a giant jobs program for college-educated people who refuse to work with their hands.

Alexander has some great material, though as great as this idea is (the War on College) it needs a lot of fleshing out. Colleges need to be razed and rebuilt, but — again — without a free media, the parasitic grant-getting machines known as “universities” will ultimately always serve their gatekeeping funders — Big Government. We have to change those incentives or the parasitic phoenix will just rise again:

1. War On College: As it currently exists, college is a scheme for laundering and perpetuating class advantage. You need to make the case that bogus degree requirements (eg someone without a college degree can’t be a sales manager at X big company, but somebody with any degree, even Art History or Literature, can) are blatantly classist. Your stretch goal should be to ban discrimination based on college degree status. Professions may continue to accept professional school degrees (eg hospitals can continue to require doctors have a medical school degree), and any company may test their employees’ knowledge (eg mining companies can make their geologists pass a geology test) but the thing where you have to get into a good college, give them $100,000, flatter your professors a bit, and end up with a History degree before you can be a firefighter or whatever is illegal. If you can’t actually make degree discrimination illegal, just make all government offices and companies that do business with the government ban degree discrimination.

Likewise, the War on Experts — good idea. He’s hunting for a way to get accountability of Expert Predictions. I’m not sold on this, but it’s a tough task. Should we, could we, sack Professors who can’t out-predict the mass prediction markets?

I’d rather pick winner based on public debate. Call it free speech…

2. War On Experts: Argue that you love and support legitimate experts, but that the Democrats have invented and propped up a fake concept of expertise as a way of making sure upper-class people who can game admissions to top colleges control the discourse. Your solution will be prediction markets. Yes, really. Repeal all bans on prediction markets and give tax breaks for participating in them, until they have the same kind of liquidity as the S&P500. You’ll get a decentralized, populist, credentialism-free, market-based alternative to expertise. When the prediction markets outperform 75% of experts, fire them …

But once upon a time Experts had a reputation and if they kept getting it wrong, the throngs would laugh at them and their reputation would crumble. Can’t we get back to that?  What we really need is free speech and a competitive media.

Instead we get Tim Flannery and years after his predictions failed dismally, he’s awarded Australian of the Year. The problem is The Media. The problem is also that the government can create Instant Experts with every new QANGO.

Alexander has a plan for The Media too:

3. War On The Upper-Class Media: This is your new term for “mainstream media”. Being against the “mainstream media” sounds kind of conspiratorial. Instead, you’re against the upper-class media, which gains its status by systematically excluding lower-class voices, and which exists mostly as a tool of the upper classes to mock and humiliate the lower class. You are not against journalism, you’re not against being well-informed, you’re against a system that exists to marginalize people like you. Tell the upper-class media that if they want your respect, they need to stop class discrimination.

67% of US families watch the Super Bowl – what percent of New York Times editors and reporters do? 20% of Americans go to religious services weekly – how many of those work for the New York Times? How come 96% of political donations from journalists go to Democrats? Your job is to take a page from the Democratic playbook and insist there is no reason any of this could be true except systemic classism, that any other explanation is offensive, and it’s the upper-class media’s moral duty to do something about this immediately.

And the free speech battle:

Insist that working-class people have the right to communicate with each other without interference from upper-class gatekeepers. Make sure people know every single fact about @Jack and what a completely ridiculous person he is, and point out that somehow this is the guy who decides what you’re allowed to communicate with your Twitter friends.

There’s an emptiness in the quest to get to the top of the pile no matter how many bodies are on the staircase. Some beautiful phrases here:

4. War On Wokeness.    …wokeness is a made-up mystery religion that college-educated people invented so they could feel superior to you. Why are they so sure that “some of my best friends are black” doesn’t make you any less racist? Because the whole point is that the only way not to be racist is to master an inscrutable and constantly-changing collection of fashionable shibboleths and opinions which are secretly class norms. The whole point is to make sure the working-class white guy whose best friends are black and who marries a black woman and has beautiful black children feels immeasurably inferior to the college-educated white guy who knows that saying “colored people” is horrendously offensive but saying “people of color” is the only way to dismantle white supremacy. You should make it clear that this is total balderdash, you could not be less interested in it, and you will continue befriending colored people of color regardless.

Great finale:

There’s a theory that the US party system realigns every 50-or-so years. Last time, in 1965, it switched from the Democrats being the party of the South and the Republicans being the party for blacks, to vice versa. If the theory’s right, we’re in the middle of an equally big switch. Wouldn’t it be great if the Republicans became the racially diverse party of the working class? You can make it happen!

Read it all. Be a part of hammering out the solution.

We only have a small window to get a new narrative and give it flight…

h/t David E

9.2 out of 10 based on 59 ratings

218 comments to Finally, instead of lefty globalist collective marxists: just call them “Upperclass”

  • #
    wokebuster

    I’m up for it as long as I don’t have to call anyone “Comrade”

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  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Fantastic – As socialist and communist countries privatise education and expertise, and are reaping the benefits, this article wants to do the exact opposite. Didn’t a certain Cambodian of recent memory have the same idea?

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      Should be prioritise

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Not just Pol Pot … fascists and dictators of every stripe. They fear and detest the educated, the intellectual, the literary, the humanist | secular | spiritual, the independent thinker, the empathetic, plus the cool, hip, and trend-setting, cultural movers and shakers.

      They want everyone safely gormless and domesticated … everyone hooked on NASCAR, McDonald’s, NFL and the latest televangelist snake-oil – more familiar with their tattooist than their dentist. What a vision for Amerika!

      1020

      • #
        John R Smith

        Where I live, the double mask wearing woke hipsters have perfect teeth and LOTS of tattoos.
        How did Pol Pot privatize education?
        NASCAR started with illegal whiskey.
        Suggest ‘Thunder Road’ starring Robert Mithchum.
        My people ain’t paid no whiskey tax since 1792.

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          How did Pol Pot privatize (prioritize) education?

          He took all the educated to the killing fields on a personal enrichment excursion to learn how to die like a dog in a ditch.

          That’s the Communist’s way.

          Stalin, Mao, and Castro showed Pol Pot how to organize the itinerary.

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      • #
        Terry

        They fear and detest the educated

        Not much to fear from a modern “university” graduate then is there, nor the activist “perfessors” that educate indoctrinate them.

        Let’s not confuse knowledge, experience, and wisdom with the effluent that seeps from our “education” system (the pool/puddle of “experts”); a widget production-line incentivised to spew out uneducated, unskillful, compliant, NPCs.

        There’s nothing wrong with NASCAR, McDonald’s, or NFL (although I partake in none) but if you’re after snake-oil, you need go no further than “Climate Change™”: a favourite trope of the “Parasite Class” (I really do not know what is “upper class” about them – they’re not refined, elite, or better in any way. A scourge on humanity).

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        • #
          Ian

          Universities encourage people to think. Not just “perfessers” but fellow students from very different backgrounds who have different ideas and who are articulate and intelligent. Who are able to cope with more than one idea at a time. Who can see the flaws in society and have ideas on how they might be removed.

          It is the atmosphere of a University that encourages people to have different ideas. To challenge the so called “norms” but in so doing have the intelligence to explain why they are challenging them.

          Education is the crucial factor in becoming one of the so called ” elites”. It isn’t sneering at those who go to KFC or MacDonalds or jeering at those who like the “footy”. It is having the ability to see other points of view. Of having a flexible mind. Of being able to see both sides of an argument. Of being an effective communicator.

          It is not essential to have a University qualification but in most instances, the so called “elites” are university educated.

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          • #
            Graeme P.

            My experience of university is that diversity of ideas were fine as long as the diversity adhered to accepted left wing ideology. There is a reason why teachers are overwhelmingly left wing, it’s the way they’re taught to be.

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            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              There is a reason why teachers are overwhelmingly left wing, it’s the way they’re taught to be.

              It’s even more insidious than that, GraemeP.

              As a direct result of the “free education” provided by the Australian government’s Higher Education Contribution (HECs), paid for on the never-never, and picked up by the taxpayer, boys and chest-feeders from the working classes enter teaching courses (which require a minimal Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR)) and bring their Welfare State preconceptions with them.

              At university they are nothing more than vulnerable victims for the woke socialist activists that infest the tertiary institutions in Australia – and especially in the education faculties.

              The poor buggers don’t know what’s being done to their brains.

              They eventually wake up. When they do, they are go full cynic.

              As such, it’s a self-perpetuating circle.

              50

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            quote “Who can see the flaws in society and have ideas on how they might be removed.”

            This right here is the scary part. This is exactly what you should NOT be promoting. Free speech and free thought is the cure for what you just wrote, not forced “removal” of those flaws.

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            • #
              Ian

              Perhaps you didn’t understand that “having ideas on how they might be removed” is a very far cry from ‘forced removal’

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            • #
              Ian

              Can you not see there is a world of difference in “have ideas on how they might be removed ‘ and “forced removal of those flaws”?

              010

              • #
                Greg Cavanagh

                Semantics Ian.

                Your first sentence is more about a thoughtful person with both experience and common sense. It has nothing to do with university or higher education.

                Designing a process, documenting a process, evaluating a process.

                Or a law, or a procedure, or a new widget, or a security protocol, or fire evacuation procedure ect. You don’t need a higher education for any of these things. Just some common sense.

                And I still do not agree with your approach to the solution “how they might be removed”. Perhaps poor wording, but as stated, I can’t agree with it.

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          • #
            bobn

            Ian, what you describe is what a University should be, however this is not what they have become.

            230

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            “have the intelligence to explain why”.

            Are you Sirius?

            100

            • #
              Ian

              Sorry KK I’m not sirius just someone who can, usually, explain stuff

              18

            • #
              Harves

              Oh dear, poor Tilba and Peter. Still haven’t worked out the difference between ‘education’ and ‘indoctrination’.
              At least Peter’s support for communism and socialism has been made clear. I’m just waiting for him to tell us about all the rewards countries like Cuba and Venezuela have reaped from socialism ….. oh, still waiting.

              152

              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                Here is a pro tip Harves … NOTHING signals a ridiculous and egregiously ad hominem post more than starting it with “Oh”.

                17

              • #
                Harves

                What is ‘pro’ an abbreviation for when used by you? Asking for a friend.

                60

              • #
                williamx

                Oh, Tilba you state

                “Here is a pro tip”

                I ask. What is a real pro tip Tilba?

                Personally, I find that it is when a true professional is trying to coach me in my golf swing.

                I do recommend the Staff at Hurstville Golf Course.

                50

          • #
            Matthew

            That might have been so 50 years ago, not recently.

            40

          • #
            Chris

            Oh Ian, I wish it was true. Unfortunately I have seen young intelligent and thinking minds ridiculed in tutorials for not accepting the ‘dominant paradigm’. If you want to have friends and good marks, you very quickly learn to conform.

            141

            • #
              Ian

              |”Unfortunately I have seen young intelligent and thinking minds ridiculed in tutorials for not accepting the ‘dominant paradigm’”

              Either the University was crap or more likely the person running th tutorial was crap. Students don’t get ridiculed by good academics

              24

          • #
            Rob

            Decades ago, universities approximated your ideal. These days, I’m astounded when I get recent graduates telling me I should just listen to experts. The total attitude is that one shouldnt think for oneself. Dont try to educate yourself on climate change, covid, etc, just shut up and do as the “experts” tell you to do. These people are unbelievably clueless, no concept of how the “experts” have shafted people throughout history. This, just a decade after the financial “experts” led us into the 2008 financial crisis, just after the “intelligence” experts led us into the invasion of Iraq to remove non existent weapons of mass destruction, to not even mention the atrocities of the 20th century that were committed by “experts” like Mao and Stalin.

            And them some university professor with 2 PhD’s, tells me in a compulsory “diversity training” course, that there arent two sexes, there is a rainbow spectrum from male to female. I walk away thinking, only somebody who’d been indoctrinated in the university system long enough to get two PhD’s would seriously believe that.

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          • #
            eilert

            Universitys are SUPPOSED to encourage people to think and this may have been true some decades ago.
            But this Post Modern University/College education is actually only forcing conformity, under the disguise of “Equality” and other type of wokeness.

            These days one can find far more uneducated, i.e. non-college educated, people with Common Sense, able to think for themselves, than many of the college indoctrinated, i am sorry educated, ones.

            90

        • #
          Leonard

          Terry, I like Parasite Class. It seems to sum up the situations we face.

          130

      • #
        eilert

        This is exactly the kind of arrogant responds this article is addressing.

        11

    • #
      el gordo

      Its natural for the major parties to morph into something else as the situation changes. The Republican base is in essence the lower working class and the elites in both parties saw Donald as a populist threat and had to get rid of him.

      This realignment leaves the door open for the utopian socialists to write on a future without Marxism or capitalist elites.

      49

    • #
      wokebuster

      Hey Fitzy, please name some of those countries that are reaping the benefits of Lysenkoism.

      120

    • #
      Frank from NoVA

      “Fantastic – As socialist and communist countries privatise education and expertise, and are reaping the benefits, this article wants to do the exact opposite. Didn’t a certain Cambodian of recent memory have the same idea?”

      Pol Pot et. al. were university educated Marxists (France) that figured they could improve on Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. Interesting that you would criticize an article pointing out that the same type of poison is brewing in the faculty longes of our so-called elite institutions. Speaking of Mr. Pot, here’s a piece that coincidentally came out a couple of days ago – enjoy!:

      https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-2-28-jp2vfv45qzmh5rx6ajy32lw6tjatx4

      10

  • #
    sophocles

    Why can’t we call them “The Useless Idiots?”

    – it’s accurate

    – everyone else would know just who was meant

    270

  • #
    David Maddison

    Marxism never was about liberation of the “downtrodden masses”, that’s what free enterprise is about.

    Marxism/socialism has always been a movement of the controlling Elites supported by a slave army of useful idiots.

    Sadly, because of the Marxist war against the education system, there are more useful idiots now than at any other time in world history.

    480

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      The destruction of the education system and the corruption of common language has destroyed the ability to stand against this incursion.

      Language has become the weapon, it can build up, it can destroy, it’ll create riots and feeds the cancel culture.

      At this point in time, the Marxists have won the narrative. I don’t know how we get out of this predicament.

      330

      • #
        Ian

        The education system has not been destroyed, it has just kept pace with changes in society, changes that so far have eluded Conservatives and which they do not understand. Think where women are today compared with 50 years ago. Look at the holes there now are in the “Glass Ceiling”. Look how many children can now read and write and have levels of numeracy and literacy far greater than those attained by children 50 years ago.

        As for language, that is now largely disseminated and dominated by social media with those such as Trump using it as a weapon to incite the riots at the Capitol.

        What narrative have the Marxists won?

        Ideas that have come out of Marxian economics have contributed to mainstream understanding of the global economy. Other Marxian concepts, especially those related to capital accumulation and the business cycle such as creative destruction have been fitted for use in capitalist systems.

        137

        • #

          Yes Ian – so we pour more and more money, far more per student than when my wife and I went through school, and get no better result, in fact when one takes out the far higher performing private schools our public schools are at disaster level. We are behind Kazakstan in education levels…

          And I spoke extensively with my childrens teachers – very few were in the real world that I and my wife inhabit.

          Having had to run a large business and also my own business we have had an alarming drop in literacy of applicants and also we see very “wet behind the ears” kids coming in, with completely no understanding of how life actually works. I have interviewed over 1000 people for various positions and it is truely alarming that the reality is not what you claim it is – I believe it is accurate to say that the education system and parents are completely failing in many cases, particularly with boys.

          All the product of an inrush of Leftist ideas and teachers – and so often the “solutions” are just more of the same…

          281

          • #
            Richard Jenkins

            Aussie,
            I employ people and have job interviews.
            First question, ” Who prepared your CV?”
            Courses on job applications are treating employers as fools.
            Serving on an educational regional board I heard mainly humanites teachers claiming how much more they would earn in private business. I would not offer any of those humanities teachers a job.
            Trade teachers were far wiser. They did not have university education but trade certificates and at least 3 years work experience.
            Many BA degrees are a joke. I find people over 50 with a year 10 pass more compotent and with better manners and work ethics.
            Having said that I find Medicine and Pharmacy courses set high standards.

            130

            • #
              Gail Combs

              “… I heard mainly humanities teachers claiming how much more they would earn in private business….” — Rolling on the floor….

              They are in academia because that is the only place they can earn a decent living. Otherwise they would be asking “Fries with that burger” or if they were lucky “I am sorry but our insurance is not available to people in your situation…”

              60

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Oh My God. I’m having lunch, so I’ll just say Wowzers! Oh and your wrong on all accounts.

          71

          • #

            You’re.

            Which education system stunted your growth?

            214

          • #
            Ian

            Your use of your instead of you’re speaks volumes as does your use of ‘accounts’ The correct terminology is “on all counts’ not “on all accounts” Best not to make such elementary errors when you’re talking about education

            510

          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            Oh and your wrong on all accounts.

            I don’t normally like to pick on the uneducated and essentially illiterate in any forum, but this really is just too ironic in the circumstances. From someone attacking ed-joo-kashun.

            Firstly, as I stated up-thread, to use “Oh” in a thread is precious and always reflects badly on the writer – sometimes embarrassingly so. Secondly … well who cares … bad spelling and bad use of axiom. I wonder what ed-joo-kashun level they achieved? Try “you’re” and “by all accounts”.

            48

            • #
              Richard Owen

              Tilba T;

              I live in a bush fire zone, even had a bit burnt in the front of my block last summer.
              The local CFS has a crude sign outside recently “CFS your the greatest”.
              Doesn’t meet your standards but all locals know what it means.

              Which leads me to ask about spelling in English. It has changed so much over the last 500 years, so I can ask if you can tell a Hawk from a Handsaw?

              61

              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                I live in a bush fire zone, even had a bit burnt in the front of my block last summer.

                Perhaps someone some day will explain to me why someone would live in a bushfire zone. I can think of few things more stupid.

                And when their communities inevitably get trashed, we urban taxpayers have to fund their precious and totally pointless re-building. Happens every time

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        • #
          Gary Simpson

          Ian, I too have worked in the higher education system, as well as vocational (trade-based)
          education. I can tell you for certain that in my experience, the standard of literacy and numeracy demonstrated by many students is woeful and many steps lower than when I was at school. As for the ‘system’ keeping pace with changes in society, it is actually driving societal change via left leaning agendas. Being educated, or more accurately, sitting through hours of lectures which don’t necessarily encourage independent thought or even to question the tightly controlled narrative, does not always make you the smartest person in the room.
          Lived experience is the greatest education of all.

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          • #
            another ian

            Re literacy

            About the mid 1970’s I showed the 1959 Qld Senior English exam papers to a US university English major. Her comment as she gave them back was

            “That’s interesting. I’ll see some of that in third year”.

            51

        • #

          The education system has not been destroyed, it has just kept pace with changes in society, changes that so far have eluded Conservatives and which they do not understand.

          Don’t you just ‘love’ the way that the left have claimed ALL these things which have changed over the years, like none of them would have EVER have happened without them to do it.

          Tony.

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          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            Don’t you just ‘love’ the way that the left have claimed ALL these things which have changed over the years, like none of them would have EVER have happened without them to do it.

            Absolutely right … nothing – at all – would have changed from the dark satanic mills and children of ten working 14-hours days – if it weren’t for great reformers, the trade unions, and the social democratic parties of Europe, Australasia, and to a lesser extent, North America. Capitalism resisted every single reform – every one – and they still do to this day.

            Amazon today is going apoplectically crazy over its workers organising … it could be 1821, rather than 2021. And the irony is, without all the advances won by the social democratic left, all the right-wing nutters on here would not have the education or wherewithal to even write on here.

            Read some history so as to not embarrass yourself!

            08

        • #
          Lance

          Ian, you cannot be serious. Barking dog mad, but not serious.

          The present “Education System” has destroyed logic, history, science, ethics, fact, truth, and liberty.

          Tell me. How many conservatives exist in any university liberal arts departments? Diversity? pfft.

          How is mathematics racist? Do you believe that affirmative action Engineers that can’t “get the right answer” are somehow capable of designing bridges, aircraft, pressure vessels, etc?

          The entire mindset of Left Marxist Luddites is opposed to reality.

          You have convinced me that there is no limit to human stupidity, and further on, no one like you should be allowed within 1000 km of any school or student.

          It is amazing, your total lack of perspective, ignorance of history, rejection of objective reality, and commitment to illusion. You have achieved the rare position of the perfect example of the ludicrous.

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          • #

            Lance
            Our resident Leftists proving once again their complete lack of understanding and real world experience.

            On new grads I don’t have much to do with them these days but an old friend from uni has been working with grads at his engineering based company for decades. He is truely alarmed at the inability to think through issues and solve problems. In the past he would just explain there was an issue at X area of the plant and give a very basic lot of info and send the grad off to review it and come up with solutions. Back 20 years ago, no issue, they would in nearly all cases come back with a good summary and some generally good suggestions.

            Nowadays he has to take them there himself and literally go through the whole process and then extensively coach them to the solution. The standards have dramatically dropped.

            And he warns me that on climate change it is literally impossible to have a discussion with them. the minority are ok, but most simply cannot see any other point of view and are incapable of understanding that there is another point of view. This also feeds into the incapability on the job…

            Probably somebody would say its always been thus, but my friend has been doing this with many for years, and so he has seen the degradation first hand. This is a direct result of an indoctrination based education.

            The benefit though that he sees is that he will never be out of a job. They need him and others like him as they can actually do the job, unlike so many of the new grads.

            30

            • #
              Gail Combs

              I got to the point I would not hire anyone UNDER 35. One of my best hires (for a chemical pilot plant) was a carpenter’s apprentice. He took the place of a complete disaster I fired who has an Masters in Chemistry and ZERO common sense.

              50

          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            Hey Lance … have you had a university education, and if so – what was it like?

            010

          • #
            Ian

            Perhaps you’ll tell me Lance how many conservatives exist in any university liberal arts departments as I haver no idea. Certainly many of our politicians have BAs. Of the 23 Coalition ministers, nine completed a Bachelor of Arts — compared to 14 Labor shadow ministers.

            “You have convinced me that there is no limit to human stupidity, and further on, no one like you should be allowed within 1000 km of any school or student.”

            Why “further on”? Doesn’t make sense

            As for not being allowed within 1000km of any school or student. Too late.

            I was a university Professor researching and teaching in the fields of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Immunology. I have a laboratory based PhD from the University of Western Australia in the actions of steroids in breast and prostatic cancer; have devised and supervised the projects for 4 PhD students and 17 Honours students; have conductor research research into projects in molecular biology , molecular genetics and steroid endocrinology and 30+peer reviewed publications in scientific journals.

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              Rob

              ” Of the 23 Coalition ministers, nine completed a Bachelor of Arts ”

              Explains why the Coalition is so leftie these days.

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          Matthew

          You are joking, children of 50 years ago COULD read and write, and spell and use grammar correctly, the sad little puppets of today can’t spell or do arithmetic to save themselves, for god sake don’t you have any grandkids.

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            Gail Combs

            My Grandmother born around 1875 was a Latin teacher. Mom was an Architect and Hubby’s mom was a Chemist. His grandfather, with a 4th grad education in Scandinavia read his way through the local library.

            My other grandma lost her husband to the Spanish flu and still put 6 children through college. Half were girls.

            I also had more than one friend educated in a one room school house. Both got advanced degrees.
            ….

            Don’t you love the IGNORANCE, mostly from not knowing history?

            FOR THE USA:
            Farmers made up about 90% of labor force (including children)  in 1790 and 69% of labor force in 1800. (2.6% in 1990)

            About 250-300 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels (5 acres) of wheat with walking plow, brush harrow, hand broadcast of seed, sickle, and flail in 1830. (1987 – 2-3/4 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels but that takes lots of oil.)

            1810-30 saw the transfer of “manufacturing” from the farm and home to the shop and factory. It wasn’t until the 1840′s that we saw factory made farm machinery, labor saving devices and chemical fertilizers became at all common. It was in the 1860′s that kerosene lamps became popular.

            Also up until the 1850′s dung and wood were the major source of energy.

            So it really wasn’t until the mid 1800s (industrial revolution) that a formal education became important. By 1870, public schools were present in every state of the USA with secondary public schools outnumbering private schools.

            Prior to that Children were part of the labor force and trained via working on the farm or via apprenticeship. As I said elsewhere, it wasn’t until the industrial revolution & the Watts Steam Engine became available that we could actually substitute mechanical energy for human labor.

            …At the age of 13, orphan boys were sent to apprentice in a trade while orphan girls were sent into domestic work. Generally, children, except those of Northern merchants and Southern plantation owners, were expected to be prepared for gainful employment….

            As child labor expanded through the end of the 19th century, these practices diminished. The 1870 census found that 1 out of every 8 children was employed. This rate increased to more than 1 in 5 children by 1900. Between 1890 and 1910, no less than 18 percent of all children ages 10‒15 worked. Age was only one consideration in deciding whether a child was ready for work. Being “big enough to work” was usually not a metaphor about reaching a certain birthday; rather it was often about the physical size of the child as well as the acumen the child appeared to have in performing the labor required… link

            Also — Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America

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        • #
          PeterPetrum

          Ian said:

          Look how many children can now read and write and have levels of numeracy and literacy far greater than those attained by children 50 years ago.

          My two children were educated 50 years ago at the local government school and I can assure you that their command of language and mathematics is light years ahead of the children of today (including my grandchildren, unfortunately.)

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            another ian

            About 66 years ago I was a pupil at a very small country school.

            One teacher, all classes and around 60 pupils.

            I won sixpence from the school inspector for being the first pupil who had ever correctly answered one of his questions, which was

            “What was Mark Twain’s real name?”

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            • #
              Tilba Tilba

              Two of my uncles were school inspectors in the 1950-1980 period. They were full of their own self-importance, and basically nincompoops.

              They were the sort of men who thought that knowing Mark Twain was actually Samuel Clements was an important piece of information for a 12 yo Aussie kid to know.

              The past is a different country.

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              • #
                Sean

                Samuel Langhorne Clemens; no ‘t’ in his surname. But it’s the kids that see the note that ‘mark twain’ refers to the markings on the leadline that was used to measure water depth for ships, and go off to look up information about leadlines, and pick up little bits of trivia like the ribbing that a new leadsman would get for calling out ‘by the red rag’ instead of ‘by the mark seven’ that you want to encourage, because it’s really hard to teach curiosity; all you can do is nurture it.

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        • #
          PeterW

          “50 years ago”?.

          Double that – over a century ago – my great-aunts were founding and building up on of the better known girls’ schools in Melbourne.

          But that was a time in which women who were prepared to put in the hard work, built their own institutions and businesses instead of demanding armchair rides into those created by men.

          00

    • #
      ColA

      David,

      It’s not a Marxist war against the education system, it’s Marxist infiltartion and indoctrination of education producing very useful class idiots without a drop of blood!!

      Marxism/communism works really great until someone elses money runs out!! 🙁

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    Greg Cavanagh

    It is a war and it is an idea logical war. But I think “class” misses the focus of the war entirely.

    There is clearly two types of people, broadly and generally speaking:
    1. The conservative who believes in work, payment for that work, and responsibility for oneself and one’s family.
    2. The socialist who believes in governance by all knowing wise people, and who wants to be told what to do and how to do it.

    These are my words. I hope someone has a more succinct way of putting it.

    This is the meme that needs to get out so that people understand what the problem really is.

    There are other variations and control freaks such as dictators and such. But I’ll categorize these as outliers, they are not the main cause of most of the friction currently happening.

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    • #

      Very true and I think you will find that activists of all stripes, come primarily from group 2 and that group 2 regard themselves as the social elite. Historically, group 2 has always been known as the upper class.
      They tend to get that way because inherited wealth or power absolves them of the need or desire to emulate group 1.

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      Lawrie

      There are lifters and leaners. At the moment the leaners have the upper hand but for only as long as the lifters keep doing their bit. When they decide that it is not worth the effort the leaners will be the first to starve. The most succinct explanation is the story of the ant and the grasshopper. We all know that grasshoppers occasionally come in plagues and shortly thereafter run out of food and die out. Ants on the other hand are forever with us. If you want to survive it is wise to be an ant rather than a grasshopper. You also see grasshoppers in the hedge funds who profit by stealing from the ants who provide the funds.

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    • #

      The closest thing to class differences we have today is positioned by the left as racism even as it’s clearly racist to consider class and race to be the same.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        That racist tag is simply a club to be wielded. A tool nothing more. Real racism is a lot more obvious.

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      Matthew

      How true, anybody who thinks that Govt knows best needs to watch an hour of ‘Yes Minister’.

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      Ian

      Looking at Conservatism the dominant theme seems to be “I’m all right so tough luck Jack”

      You know like Trump wanted to put the wealthy US first and withdrew financial aid from Central America and the WHO. Like Morrison increasing unemployment benefit by a risible $3.57 per day. Like Howard’s opposition to Medicare.

      Socialists on the other hand understand the necessity for government support with items such as free health care, unemployment benefit, NDIS, Aged Care.

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      • #
        ian hiliar

        No such thing as Free Health Care. Any idea just how much it costs us? Just look at dialysis for elderly people with worn out kidneys…And what , exactly is the benefit of unemployment? NDIS is a huge rort, and I would rather go off a cliff than into Aged care.

        30

        • #
          Gail Combs

          “…I would rather go off a cliff than into Aged care.”

          I would certainly agree with you there!

          (I am hoping for drop dead of a stroke while trying to rope a goat. And yeah I do rope them so they can be wormed and inoculated.)

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      • #
        Klem

        Hahaha! Your Trump Derangement is showing again, Ian. You might might try to conceal it when you comment if you can, it’s really quite cringworthy. Just saying.

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      • #
        Richard Owen

        Free?????

        40

        • #
          Gail Combs

          Free = OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.

          Marxism/socialism = legalized theft with a helping of Moral Superiority because they are stealing from YOU, the nasty Capitalist Producer, for the poor Parasite class with a hefty 90% cut for them and their cronies.

          Nobody seems to remember the lesson taught to children: When a stranger offers you candy — RUN LIKE CRAZY THE OTHER WAY!

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      • #
        Gail Combs

        “…You know like Trump wanted to put the wealthy US first and withdrew financial aid from Central America and the WHO. Like Morrison increasing unemployment benefit by a risible $3.57 per day. Like Howard’s opposition to Medicare….”

        For the last 75 years or more the US citizen has been PAYING FOR USAid to Africa and Latin America. The result has been wealthy dictators, wealthy international corporations and wealthy US politicians via money laundering, AND a BANKRUPT USA.

        Heck a decade ago the IMF said a 10% WEALTH CONFISCATION was needed to “restore debt sustainability,” and bring down public debt to pre-crisis levels of 2007. (NOT pay off debt but just bring it down.)
        http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2013/10/15/the-international-monetary-fund-lays-the-groundwork-for-global-wealth-confiscation/

        Since 1965 our US infrastructure has been allowed to fall apart. The newest ‘Covid Relief’ bill ‘gives’ American tax payers ANOTHER 2 trillion in debt.

        HOWEVER Rockerfeller’s plan to use American wealth to improve China and other ‘favored nations’ while destroying the US middle class has been VERY VERY successful.

        The International Monetary Fund (IMF) article from September 2012 World Economy: Convergence, Interdependence, and Divergence Finance & Development

        Shows how far along this plan has gotten.

        New convergence and strengthened interdependence coincide with a third trend, relating to income distribution. In many countries the distribution of income has become more unequal, and the top earners’ share of income in particular has risen dramatically. In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income (Alvaredo and others, 2012). At the same time, while the new convergence mentioned above has reduced the distance between advanced and developing economies when they are taken as two aggregates, there are still millions of people in some of the poorest countries whose incomes have remained almost stagnant for more than a century (see “More or Less,” F&D, September 2011). These two facts have resulted in increased divergence between the richest people in the world and the very poorest, despite the broad convergence of average incomes.

        So the IMF shows we are becoming a two class society, the elite and their suck-ups and the serfs.

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          Gary Simpson

          “In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income”
          Sort of coincides with the rise of the billionaire leftie tech nerds doesn’t it?

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      • #
        eilert

        Socialist want you to think, that this what they want government to use for.
        In reality they want to use these government programs to bate people to go onto their welfare plantations, were they are controllable. (Bismarck, the father of the modern Welfare State, actually admitted it).

        The classical liberals’ (prior to the 1930) understood that government is the source of most tyranny and needs to be strictly constrained, otherwise the government controls people, instead of ‘We the People’ controlling government.

        Many of the welfare programs don’t need governments help to exist. A society with free individuals, controlling their own lives, is in fact a far more compassionate society.
        The down trodden are not ignored in such a society, since most lower/middle class people live among them and have to interact with them on a constant bassis. They see among themselves, what diverse solutions individuals can come up with to solve problems, which may crop up.
        Many individuals may even have experienced hardships themselves and were helped back onto their feet by this kind of compassion.

        The upper class ‘elite’ often do not have this experience, since they live in a bubble. That is why they come up with programs, to solve the problems of the lower class society, which is often not appropriate. They may even identify problems, that may not actually exist.

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        Gail Combs

        “…You know like Trump wanted to put the wealthy US first and withdrew financial aid from Central America and the WHO….”

        Your ENVY is showing! It is NOT YOUR BUSINESS or the business of my government to EXTRACT WEALTH AT GUNPOINT to give to others especially those in other countries!

        If I want to help others that is MY BUSINESS NOT YOURS or the grifters in DC who are MULTIMILLIONAIRES unlike me.

        Nothing angers me more than having some thief take MY possessions and give it to someone else leaving THEM with the attaboys and me having to either given in to the theft done in front of me or retrieve my stuff and get called mean… often by a child.

        I have had various someones give away my microwave, a cow, goats, sheep, a pony, saddles…

        It is really, really easy to be ‘generous’ with someone else’s wealth and property but few ‘socialists’ are actually generous with their OWN wealth.

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      • #
        Gary Simpson

        I think you’ll find, Ian, that the first and foremost duty of a U.S. president is to the U.S.
        But I think that may now, sadly, have come to an end.

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    • #
      Kevin kilty

      People inclined toward authority. People inclined toward liberty.

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    David Maddison

    The Marxist war against education, including knowledge of the free enterprise (“capitalist”) system, is a major part of the problem.

    I thought this was solved 41 years ago when Prof. Milton Friedman published his book and TV series “Free to Choose”.

    I encourage everyone to encourage anyone you know who is Left-leaning to read or watch it. They will learn something.

    Here is the YouTube playlist.

    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4742023192B69941

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  • #

    Just another scumbag trying to change the narrative.
    The virtue signalling nitwits are the very same people described in The Emperors New Clothes..they can really, for true, see and feel the fabric.
    Class?
    They have none,we are talking about the Parasitic Overload,a group of people who have been stealing through force of government,for so long that they take it for granted,that this is normal.
    5th Generation “civil servants” with no one in their family or circle of friends who has any real world economic experience.

    They are easily recognized,for they know everything,yet understand nothing.

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      OldOzzie

      5th Generation “civil servants” with no one in their family or circle of friends who has any real world economic experience.

      Perfect description of the ACT, and its Inhabitants.

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      Terry

      Parasitic

      Exactly this.

      The country needs a large dose of Ivermectin.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      For the record, I work in local government. You’re description as: “They are easily recognized,for they know everything,yet understand nothing.” is accurate for all managers at every level. It’s a travesty. And the scary part me at least is that the local government is sensible compared to State. I’d hate to see the inner working at the Federal level.

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      • #
        Ian

        Looking at Conservatism the dominant theme seems to be “I’m all right so tough luck Jack”

        You know like Trump wanted to put the wealthy US first and withdrew financial aid from Central America and the WHO. Like Morrison increasing unemployment benefit by a risible $3.57 per day. Like Howard’s opposition to Medicare.

        Socialists on the other hand understand the necessity for government support with items such as free health care, unemployment benefit, NDIS, Aged Care.

        014

        • #
          Gary Simpson

          I think you’ll find, Ian, that the first and foremost duty of a U.S. president is to the U.S.
          But I think that may now, sadly, have come to an end.

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      • #
        Ian

        .My apologies for reply 7.3.1. It was in error

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    • #
      Gail Combs

      “…we are talking about the Parasitic Overload,a group of people who have been stealing through force of government,for so long that they take it for granted,that this is normal.
      5th Generation “civil servants” with no one in their family or circle of friends who has any real world economic experience….”

      ANGELO CODEVILLA has a really good 2010 article on that class in the USA America’s Ruling Class.

      …Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America’s upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways….

      Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the “in” language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government….

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    OldOzzie

    After Pushing COVID Fear and Public School Closures, Berkely CA Teachers Union President Takes Daughter to Private School For In-Class Teaching

    Posted on March 1, 2021 by Sundance

    Watch what they do, not what they say. Remember, in order to continue advancing their ideological positions leftists have to pretend not to know things. Those who are pushing COVID panic and fear are not worried about the Coronavirus. COVID fear is a purposeful fraud presented by elites to control the lower class.

    “Elitism” in its most raw and brutal display is a system of people who are beyond reproach according to their own outlook. They must not be questioned; they are in ultimate control of society, outcomes or (fill_in_the_blank) as an extension of their self-proclaimed magnanimity.

    Essentially they are projecting their position inside a club and all those not in the club are outsiders who do not get to provide input or judgement on the club rules.

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      Great Aunt Janet

      Conservative Treehouse is always a good read (although some of the comments seem to come from trolls – indicating the site is effective, as it is a real target for the left), unlike much of the mainstream press.

      I’m so glad I don’t pay the Australian any more. Just looking at their headlines makes me shake my head (OK, except for Henry, who I miss). They aren’t even reporting the Gavin Newsome recall – over 1 1/2 million signatures now, and still a couple of weeks to go – that should be noteworthy, but the media seem to think their readers don’t need to know about the largest state in the US potentially booting its governor.

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        Richard Owen

        Great Aurnt Janet:

        Perhaps some at The Australian remember previous recalls and what happened (mostly no change)?

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        • #
          another ian

          For California don’t forget “Governor “Grey Out” Davis”

          Though I guess the dems would like you to. And over electricity too IIRC

          30

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Watch what they do, not what they say.

      Jesus said, Ye shall know them by their fruits. Mat 7:16-20

      All of them; Pelosi going to the hair dresser, Cuomo going to The Laundry restaurant with two doctors, Beetlejuice getting her hair done then telling everybody she had to because she’s important, Biden signing an EO mandating masks be worn them immediately ignoring his own mandate, Schwarzenegger berating oil but owning and driving an SUV. And many Hollywood types owning and flying around the world while telling everybody NOT TO do those very same things.

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    John R Smith

    I recently became aware of Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins.
    “On Power: It’s Nature and History of it’s Growth”.
    I think the basic idea is as a political class saves and increases it’s power by abandoning it’s former alliance with the middle and offering entry to the lower tiers of the culture.
    The Established Political Class is doing this with race and gender, not economic class.
    The West has done well opening paths to economic success.
    The Established Political Class had to create faux identity based tiering.
    Perhaps an indicator of the fragility of their circumstance.
    A weakness exposed by one Donald J. Trump.

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  • #
    Alistair Crooks

    For years I have been thinking and talking about the “march through the institutions” as if this was all a left vs right issue – but it never really seemed to stack up in the detail. More recently I have been listening to the Delingpole podcasts – interviewing Patrick Wood. This is a fascinating series that adds real meat onto the bones – via “Technocracy” and the “Trilateral Commission”

    https://podcast.app/patrick-m-wood-e122631205/?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=share

    https://podcast.app/patrick-m-wood-e127855508/?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=share

    Try it. Its astonishing. And offers a much more realistic explanation of current events.

    Also :
    I would argue that there have been two “culture wars” The first we lost in around 1760 as the “liberals” of the Enlightenment defeated the “conservatives”. The current “culture war” is between the “liberals” and the post-enlightenment post modernists. In my opinion the enlightenment has pretty much lost – maybe in the 1960s The battle now is between the rump of the liberals (now incorrectly called conservatives because they are trying to defend the “status Quo”, which is now the Enlightenment- think Trump) the elitist technocrats (think the Swamp) and the left (the Antifa BLM – foot soldiers of the technocrats, but who still think they can ride in over the top.)

    Here’s how Helen Puckrose describes it. (How French ‘Intellectuals’ Ruined the West: Postmodernism, and its impact, Explained, Aero, 27/3/2017):

    “The desire to ‘smash’ the status quo, challenge widely held values and institutions and champion the marginalized is absolutely liberal ethos. Opposing it is resolutely conservative. This is the historical reality, but we are at a unique point in history where the status quo is fairly consistently liberal, with a liberalism that upholds the values of freedom; equal rights and opportunities for everyone regardless of gender, race, and sexuality. The result is confusion in which life-long liberals wishing to conserve this kind of liberal status quo find themselves considered ‘conservative’ and those wishing to avoid [the label of] ‘conservatism’ at all costs, find themselves defending irrationalism and illiberalism.”

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    TIP

    “upper class” – no, i prefer the “pseudointellectual class”.

    A person who claims proficiency in scholarly or artistic activities while lacking in-depth knowledge or critical understanding. A person who pretends to be of greater intelligence than he or she in fact is.

    To hide their actual lack of intellect – they adorn themselves with degrees and qualifications (the more the better)

    Dr Jill Biden (and the surrounding story of) is a PERFECT example.

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    David Maddison

    On the subject of Elites, the 1973 movie “Soylent Green” was set in 2022, next year!

    In that, the Elites ate steak, and the downtrodden masses ate Soylent Green, recycled people.

    Interestingly the Left Elites like Bill Gates is pushing “synthetic meat”(1), the UN wants us to eat insects(2) and some of the Left have advocated composting/recycling(3) of dead people (one has even advocated eating them).

    The final revelation from Soylent Green is at video (4).

    Don’t be like Bill video by Paul Joseph Watson (5).

    (1) https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gates-climate-change-beef-trees-microsoft/

    (2) http://www.fao.org/3/i3253e/i3253e00.htm

    (3) https://www.fastcompany.com/90434525/the-worlds-first-human-composting-facility-could-help-us-recycle-ourselves

    (4) https://youtu.be/8Sp-VFBbjpE

    (5) https://www.bitchute.com/video/ARDXlyq3EgI/

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    Annie

    I think of all the ‘art’, ‘music’, ‘architecture’ that consist of ugly excrescences! We are supposed to bow down and worship the hideosities or be accused of being philistines; not me, thankyou.

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      Annie

      Those horrible primary coloured giant ‘things’ (whatever were they supposed to be?) on the way into Melbourne from Tullamarine demonstrate this perfectly! At least, once we moved to the country we didn’t have to see those any more, thank goodness.

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      • #
        Lawrie

        You would think that city folk would love to have wind turbines all around them rather than send those “beautiful” machines to the rubes in the country.

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      David Maddison

      “Why is Modern Art so Bad?”

      https://youtu.be/lNI07egoefc

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  • #

    I’ve been saying it is all about class since the 1970s.
    During a period in the USA I was entertained by a married black couple who were obviously middle class in attitude and they integrated perfectly. If challenged by a police officer I’m sure he would have acknowledged their class and not presented them with any problem.
    The current claims from BAME members all boil down to issues of economic status or social power and influence and if one digs down a bit it is just a class issue combined with membership of a minority group and not really a matter of race at all.
    This fits with the history of left wing (and right wing) authoritarian activism which originally tried to gain power by setting classes against each other. Now that the world is so much wealthier the middle class is getting so large that the opportunity to exploit their class based grievances is declining.
    So, instead, they are trying to stir up racial conflict at a time when that too has become less justified in western societies than ever before in history. Sadly, the mainstream media and the education systems and a lot of the government bureaucracies are in their pockets.
    The ordinary folk, of all races and creeds must work together to neutralise the threat to all of us.

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      Tilba Tilba

      I’ve been saying it is all about class since the 1970s.

      Indeed so have I – and you don’t have to study what Karl Marx wrote to have such a view (although I did). One of the best contemporary political writers in the US remains Noam Chomsky – he has not been crushed by the powerful, nor has been seduced and buttered-u by the liberal intellectual class.

      Attacking others for their “lifestyle” or sports-viewing preferences or political positions is nothing new … conservative commentators in Australia have used “Chardonnay Socialist” as a term of dismissal for decades. And also note that the conservative media (especially but not limited to Murdoch) have stoked these fires – anything to divert the working poor from understanding their real class position.

      Even the so-called liberal media New York Times, Washington Post, etc) are really deeply conservative – their audience mostly comprises this “lifestyle upper class”, but their overall style is deeply establishment. They do not talk about class struggle one bit.

      Culture wars (including 90% of what the MAGA faithful get passionate about) are trivial diversions compared to the degree to which the elite, powerful, and wealthy have taken for themselves just about all the resources of a truly bountiful nation. And it’s been going on for a very long time.

      The corporate state is the enemy – not teachers and artists and social workers – all those of us who like a latte.

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      Gail Combs

      Stephen,

      I think you would enjoy this:

      How not to get your ass kicked by the police. Chris Rock in 2007 (Warning put down all drinks before viewing.)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8&feature=emb_imp_woyt

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    Simon

    The reality is that we are all individuals holding subtly differing viewpoints on multiple subjects. It is political commentators who seek to stratify and divide, creating fear/uncertainty/doubt in order to push through agendas that we would normally resist if we had more confidence in the future.

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    mondopinion

    Meh. I’m sick of the whole subject. I’m just waiting it out because I’m certain race issues will be passe in a few short years. Like, it will become cool to treat race as a non-issue. It will be uncool to use race as code for lower class. Issues and identities will be distinguished else-wise, hopefully upon values. And class.
    I do agree that categories are shifting and realigning. In future, I think, what we call are calling “left vs. right” will morph to become individual rights vs. collective rights. Collective as in “corporate.” That could be the struggle of the 21st century.

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    Simon B

    I will continue to call all mainstream media the trashmedia while every single article has an opinion in it. Until facts and research return to journalism and we can read an article with the size of the earthquake, where it was, the seismic history of the area, etc without the words climate change in the article we aren’t getting an informative article, we are being served activism and that is trash. I will read opinion pieces when I choose.

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    David Maddison

    Under capitalism, the bread waits for people (to buy it).

    Under socialism, people wait on the bread line (to buy it).

    ***The above is better illustrated with a wonderful meme which I can’t post here as pictures can’t be posted.***

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    Richard Ilfeld

    It is not class, its caste.

    The elect, or woke, or progressives…..
    The victim classes, their dependendants and consorts…..
    The intellectuals and corporate liberal fellow travelers, and some of the professing, if non-believing, guilty …..
    Blue Collar workers….
    Republican and/or Trump voters…..

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    I read it all.

    I believe this division needs to be as simple as possible.

    Socialism versus free markets.

    Trust in government versus trust in the private sector.

    Fascism (cancel culture) versus liberty (free speech).

    This is not rich versus poor.

    Democrats have already claimed the position they are for the working class and the poor while Republicans are for the rich. It’s not true, but that propaganda has been around as long as I have lived.

    To claim Donald Trump is not upper class is hard to believe, to be kind: He promoted large corporate tax cuts — that favor the rich, who manage all corporations and own 85% of all corporate shares. He frequently bragged about the stock market. He vacationed in his own resort. He didn’t take his salary because he didn’t need to. He has his own airplane. And his wife wears extremely expensive clothing. How much richer can an American be?

    This is NOT a class war.

    It is a war between big government socialists and believers in free markets

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      Tilba Tilba

      Socialism versus free markets.

      Can you explain how the “printing” of billions and billions under QE – for the benefit of the wealthy – constitutes a free market? To pick just one example of a rigged market.

      Trust in government versus trust in the private sector.

      I’m not a huge fan of over-bearing government whatsoever, but when push comes to shove, I will back them over the private sector every day … left to its own devices, capitalism would have destroyed the environment, continued with unsafe and toxic products, retained child labour, and have the serfs working 60 hour weeks in dangerous conditions for almost nothing … maybe a voucher to spend in the company store.

      Every social advance of the last 150 years has been a struggle against capitalism – the social democratic parties and unions led this class struggle, and they have a lot to be commended for.

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        Greg Cavanagh

        I think you’re talking about a lawless society, not a capitalist society.

        Capitalism simply means that you make a product, sell that product and reap the rewards from that product.

        Sure; you could exploit things along the way, but that’s another subject entirely.

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          Tilba Tilba

          Capitalism simply means that you make a product, sell that product and reap the rewards from that product.

          Perhaps read some Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, or even Karl Marx … in respect of describing and analysing capitalism.

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            Richard Owen

            It is very obvious that you have never worked in a factory.

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              Tilba Tilba

              I’ve had quite a few manual jobs comrade … including in factories … it’s actually worth being careful what you assume about me!

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        Richard Jenkins

        Unions worked for union leaders
        Competition improved worker’s conditions.
        Money could buy the machine.The machinist became more valuable.
        Your competitor could buy a machine and employers offered incentives to keep staff.
        In negotiations with unions they said, “You won’t even give us what we have already got!” That was replacing the word cool with refrigerated. “You all provide fridges!” When preparingwe had discussed the potential abuse. The fridge breas down so it’s everybody out.
        I don’t know a single worker’s benefit that did not evolve in a business. Other businesses had to copy to keep staff. Union leaders claimed they designed it. Holidays, sick leave, long service leave are examples. The working hourswere changing as viable. 40 hourweek was evolving as practical. Business argued industries should do it as quicklyas they could. All at once would disrupt the economy and gallop inflation. We got the 8 hour day and made inflation gallop.
        The galloping inflation really hurt the workers. The worker’s small savings buying power fell. The bosses homes and possesions doubled in value. The worker’s home deposit became inadequate.
        Whitam did not learn and added the extra week leave some were getting to everybody. Business had to increase prices.
        Inflationbwas 19% and increasing rapdly with crazy 3 monthly cpi wage increases.
        Departments of labour and Industry precede unions.
        Bourks Store went bankrupt. ACTU Solo went bankrupt. Hawk and Keating were very wealthy.

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        Tilba said:
        ” … left to its own devices, capitalism would have destroyed the environment, continued with unsafe and toxic products, retained child labour, and have the serfs working 60 hour weeks in dangerous conditions for almost nothing ”

        All of those problems ended UNDER capitalism, or did you fail to notice, Mr. Socialist?

        The Federal Reserve bank’s excessive credit expansion in recent decades is not capitalism — it fuels asset price bubbles, that always burst.

        One could claim the Fed helped fund huge government budget deficits that rescued the US economy during the 2020 pandemic recession.

        But with socialists in charge, rapid Fed credit expansion would be permanent, based on their hare-brained Modern Monetary Theory.

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        Gail Combs

        The USA has not had a free market or capitalism for over 100 years.
        E.M. Smith (Chiefio) has a good comment on the subject HERE

        AND the Founding Fathers did NOT LIKE corporations and limited them to 20 years. Link Remember they had had their fill of the British East Indies corporation.

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      Gail Combs

      “…To claim Donald Trump is not upper class is hard to believe, to be kind: He promoted large corporate tax cuts — that favor the rich, who manage all corporations and own 85% of all corporate shares. He frequently bragged about the stock market. He vacationed in his own resort. He didn’t take his salary because he didn’t need to. …”

      ….

      It would be better to call President Trump nouveau riche, the son of a construction worker who did well…

      “He promoted large corporate tax cuts” YES!!! and hooray for that!!!

      It never ceases to amaze me to see the basic ignorance about the cost of doing business. If the cost of doing business is too high you either raise prices (has an upper limit) MOVE (to China, Mexico, India) or go out of business (most small businesses who can not move.)

      Joe Biden has:
      *Increased the cost of oil from $10 –> $70 a barrel. Oil is both energy and a manufacturing raw material. In the 1970s the oil went up from $25.97 per barrel (bbl) in 1973 to $46.35 per barrel in 1974. The price of goods DOUBLED overnight and US wages never really caught up.

      Biden wants to increase the tax rate
      Biden wants to more than double the minimum wage.

      The company with several facilities in my town is now moving to Mexico. Small businesses will have to lay off workers. Many will go out of business if they have not already. For example the average restaurant profit margin is around 3-5%

      …In a study done by the Government of Canada, titled: SME Operating Performance, and corroborated by the US Govt Small Business Administration survey, they looked at profits by sector, and the numbers varied big time. For example,

      Agriculture and Forestry = 8.4%
      Mining = -16.9%
      Construction = 4.6%
      Manufacturing = 2%
      Wholesale and Retail Trade = 2%

      Professional and Technical Services = 6.3%
      LINK

      A breakdown of the type of costs:
      Direct material costs (raw materials or parts)

      Direct labor costs (wages, benefits, and insurance)around 20 to 35% of gross sales for small businesses.

      Manufacturing overhead
      * depreciation, rent and property taxes on the manufacturing facilities
      * depreciation on the manufacturing equipment
      * managers and supervisors in the manufacturing facilities
      * repairs and maintenance employees in the manufacturing facilities
      * electricity and gas used in the manufacturing facilities
      * indirect factory supplies, and much more

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      Gail Combs

      “…This is NOT a class war.

      It is a war between big government socialists and believers in free markets”

      Actually it is a war about the TYPE of government and there are only two basic kinds.

      1,. A government BY the people formed to protect the RIGHTS of the individual no matter how weak or poor.

      2. A government FOR the Elite formed to exploit and enslave the general population for the EXCLUSIVE benefit of the chosen few. (Marx just candy coated this type of government to fool the serfs into giving up their right to OWN wealth.)

      Or as Thomas Jefferson said:

      “The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” -Thomas Jefferson

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    I prefer to call them: closest benefitiaries of money printers.

    Sorry, off-topic, but maybe deserves it’s own post?:

    http://phzoe.com/2021/03/01/land-change-in-australia/

    I did it for you 🙂

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    R.B.

    You describe a friend that I never want to talk to again. Rick from the Young Ones.

    Like all if us, he wants to be middle upper class. He wants better clothes than me. Live in Melbourne, not Adelaide, but in a good suburb (miffed that he had to move a little further than Paterson to get an affordable place). Go to fancy bars that charge $20 a beer. And he wants a job where he doesn’t have to really work to get it.

    I wouldn’t mind any of that but I’m not for a revolution so th a t people who appreciate my genius come to power. I’ll be ploughing the fields with a pointy stick in no time.

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    John Galt

    Galt, I hate “Hamilton.” Heck, I hate the original Hamilton, damned looting banker royalist-wanna-be.

    Broadway hasn’t been worth a nickel since the 80’s (except for the occasional revival of a classic musical.)

    With the possible exception of Rand Paul, there isn’t a single person in DC that we couldn’t do without … forever.
    Fire them all, after the interrogation. Then have the trial for the obvious traitors and execute them publicly.
    Firing squad is cheap, although some certainly have earned a haircut by the guillotine.
    Set an example for anyone who might consider doing such things in the future.
    The gorier the execution, the better it will be remembered.

    I think that universal suffrage is over-rated. In fact, it’s a disaster.
    In what other area of life do we trust people who are completely clueless to decide who is to lead and what should be done?
    Is there any other area of life that is as poorly run as government and never gets punished for incompetence?
    Oh, yes, banking and military suppliers are running a close second, but that’s because they are dependent on government for survival.

    Voting should not be an automatic right once you reach a certain age.
    You should have to earn that right. Prove you understand what government is allowed to do and why it has to have very limited powers.
    That would eliminate about 70% of current voters in the USA, probably that many in Australia, too.
    But it doesn’t have to be a permanent ban. Learn some history – real history, not the fake rubbish taught in government run schools.
    Those who know history have a big advantage in decision making – knowing the errors of the past is a big help and knowing what works is even better.
    Keep your right to vote by helping others earn their rights. Teach them what they need to know and everyone wins (except the looters.)

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    Steve of Cornubia

    There’s a lot of credible thinking in this, but I would re-label the people in question. Instead of calling them the ‘upper class’, we should call them the ‘superior class’. I say this because, as was stated above, it isn’t about wealth, bloodlines or even education – that crowd of hyper-critical, control freak cultural snobs share one trait more than any other – a sense of superiority, of belonging to a tribe that is superior in just about every way compared to the unwashed, unthinking masses.

    This is why these traits cross otherwise immutable boundaries that would normally, using the usual thinking and measures, be like oil and water. This is how the baying mob can comprise an unemployed 20yo with questionable hygiene and a face full of metal, but also a very wealthy, educated actress who got to the rally via a first-class transatlantic flight. The trait they both/all share is that unshakeable feeling of superiority, accompanied by the inevitable need to use that superiority to prevent the rest of us from making the wrong choices – or even using the wrong words.

    This would explain why the ‘superior class’ includes the likes of crazy, dim and semi-literate Hollyweird types who nevertheless have the confidence and self belief to stand at a lectern and tell us all how stupid we are. They’re just inately superior, you see?

    A superiority complex is said to usually accompany supremacist traits, and because I usually find that Lefties/Greenies/Socialists/etc tend to use projection a lot, I wonder whether that’s why the rabble in question tend to accuse others of being supremacists.

    So I’m going to borrow much of the above, but I will swap ‘upper class’ for ‘superior class’.

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    Steve of Cornubia

    Testing, testing. i just typed out a bit of a novel, pressed ‘Post Comment’ and it disappeared. I really don’t want to do it all over again, so hopefully it’s gone into a mod pile?

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      David Maddison

      Try pressing the back button on your browser. You might get it back. If it goes to moderation the original poster still sees it.

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      Tilba Tilba

      In any forums that I comment in, I generally have Office Word open, and copy my pearls of wisdom into a page there, prior to hitting the Submit button. Works for me.

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      Steve of Cornubia

      I’m not sure what happened. There just seemed to be a short delay, whereas in the past, my posts appeared pretty much instantly. Partially blocked pipe somewhere?

      All good now, thanks.

      [Just the auto filter.]AD

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    David Maddison

    Marx was a rather disgusting individual for the following reason and many others. To quote Paul Johnson in “Intellectuals”:

    In all his researches into the iniquities of British capitalism, he came across many instances of low-paid workers but he never succeeded in unearthing one who was paid literally no wages at all. Yet such a worker did exist, in his own household … This was Helen Demuth [the life-long family maid]. She got her keep but was paid nothing … She was a ferociously hard worker, not only cleaning and scrubbing, but managing the family budget … Marx never paid her a penny …

    In 1849-50 … [Helen] became Marx’s mistress and conceived a child … Marx refused to acknowledge his responsibility, then or ever, and flatly denied the rumors that he was the father… [The son] was put out to be fostered by a working-class family called Lewis but allowed to visit the Marx household [to see his mother]. He was, however, forbidden to use the front door and obliged to see his mother only in the kitchen.

    Marx was terrified that [the boy’s] paternity would be discovered and that this would do him fatal damage as a revolutionary leader and seer … [Marx] persuaded Engels to acknowledge [the boy] privately, as a cover story for family consumption. But Engels … was not willing to take the secret to the grave. Engels died, of cancer of the throat, on 5 August 1895; unable to speak but unwilling that Eleanor [one of Marx’s daughters] should continue to think her father unsullied, he wrote on a slate: ‘Freddy [the boy’s name] is Marx’s son …

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    David Maddison

    Quoting Richard Ebeling on Marx, we see exactly the same behaviour in Marx today as we see in modern Leftists:

    In temperament, Marx could be cruel and authoritarian. He treated people with whom he disagreed in a crude and mean way, often ridiculing them in public gatherings. Marx had no hesitation about being a hypocrite; when he wanted something from someone he would flatter them in letters or conversation, but then attack them in nasty language behind their backs to others. He often used racial slurs and insulting words to describe the mannerisms or appearance of his opponents in the socialist movement.

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      Len

      Sama sama, Turtle O’Connell to Donald Trump

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      Peter Fitzroy

      George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry were all slave-owners

      you know the land of the free, where all men are created equal

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        David Maddison

        They are not known to have abused people like your filthy commie hero, Peter. And they did work to liberate slaves which were accepted at the time.

        Your hero Marx caused the enslavement of much of the world and the deaths of tens of millions.

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        Peter Fitzroy

        that has to be the most asinine comment you have ever made. Slavery vs bonking a housekeeper (a feature of the system in those days), the systemic abuse of a race (and lets not forget, many races were enslaved), vs an economic philosopher who did not do the niceties of the day.

        Remember the date of the American Civil war, makes a mockery of “they did work to liberate slaves”

        no wonder you want to stifle learning

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        Gail Combs

        AND the FIRST AMERICAN SLAVE OWNER WAS BLACK!!!

        It was James Watt and his steam engine that actually freed the slaves. As Aristotle said “If looms were to weave by themselves masters would not need slaves.” By replacing human energy with mechanical energy, the industrial revolution literally ‘freed the slaves’ since slavery/serfdom was the normal state for most of human history. (Too bad this is never taught.)

        Prior to 1655 the colonies in America had indentured servants. This differed greatly to slavery in many areas. Indentured servants usually had a contract of 4 to 7 years of service where they would be provided food, accommodation, clothing in return for labour. Upon the completion of their service most were given land, a cow, arms, clothes and a years supply of free corn. They were essentially not owned by land owners, instead entering a contract with the land owner in return for work and freedom….

        In 1621 a black man by the name of Anthony Johnson arrived from Africa to Virginia to be an indentured servant, not a slave. He was captured by Arab traders in his native Angola and sold as a slave. By 1635 he had completed his service contract, and by the late 1640’s he had acquired 250 acres of land. As a land owner he started using indentured servants himself, acquiring five. In 1654 one of his servants, a black man by the name of John Casor was due for release from his service. Johnson decided to extend his service and Casor left to work for Robert Parker who was a free white man. That year Johnson sued Parker in Northampton Court, and in 1655 the court ruled that Johnson could hold Cason indefinitely. The court gave sanction for blacks to hold slaves of their own race. This made Anthony Johnson the first American slave owner and John Cason the first slave in the American colonies. It was another 15 years before the colonial assembly granted free whites and Indians permission to own black slaves…

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        Fitzroy:
        Black tribal leaders sold prisoners of war and criminals into slavery. White men did not enter Africa with guns to seize black slaves. The black men ere sold by other black men, and bought by white men. Some slavery still exists in Africa today.

        Before you criticize white men for owning slaves, criticize even more the black men who sold their bothers into slavery. This is probably news to you. I typed slow, so even you could understand it.

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          How does that absolve white men for owning and profiting from slavery.

          Whataboutism is getting too much. You can’t critique anything without a comment like this.

          “Why are you bothering with this murderer who only killed one person. There are murderers out there who killed dozens”

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        Roger Knights

        IIRC, Benjamin Franklin wanted slavery prohibited in the constitution and founded or participated in an abolitionist society.

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      Ebeling recent essay. Worth reading occasionally as a reminder of how the Soviet Union actually operated.

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    David Maddison

    More from Richard Ebeling on Marx.

    Many found Marx’s personal appearance and manner off-putting or even revolting. In 1850, a spy for the Prussian police visited Marx’s home in London under the pretense of a German revolutionary. The report the spy wrote was shared with the British Ambassador in Berlin. The report said, in part:

    [Marx] leads the existence of a Bohemian intellectual. Washing, grooming and changing his linen are things he does rarely, and he is often drunk. Though he is frequently idle for days on end, he will work day and night with tireless endurance when he has much work to do.

    He has no fixed time for going to sleep or waking up. He often stays up all night and then lies down fully clothed on the sofa at midday, and sleeps till evening, untroubled by the whole world coming or going through [his room] …

    There is not one clean and solid piece of furniture. Everything is broken, tattered and torn, with half an inch of dust over everything and the greatest disorder everywhere …

    When you enter Marx’s room smoke and tobacco fumes make your eyes water … Everything is dirty and covered with dust, so that to sit down becomes a hazardous business. Here is a chair with three legs. On another chair the children are playing cooking. This chair happens to have four legs. This is the one that is offered to the visitor, but the children’s cooking has not been wiped away and if you sit down you risk a pair of trousers.

    Another report on meeting Marx was given by Gustav Techow, a Prussian military officer who had joined the Berlin insurrectionists during the failed revolution of 1848. Techow had to escape to Switzerland after being sentenced and imprisoned for treason. The revolutionary group with whom Techow associated in Switzerland sent him to London and he spent time with Marx.

    In a letter to his revolutionary associates, Techow described his impression of Marx, the man and his mind. The picture was of a power-lusting personality who had contempt for both friends and foes:

    He gave me the impression of both outstanding intellectual superiority and a most impressive personality. If he had had as much heart as brain, as much love as hate, I would have gone through fire with him despite the fact that he not only did not hide his contempt for me, but as the end was quite explicit about it …

    I regret, because of our cause, that this man does not have, together with his outstanding intelligence, a noble heart to place at our disposal. I am convinced that everything good in him has been devoured by the most dangerous personal ambitions. He laughs at the fools who repeat after him his proletarian catechism, just as he laughs at [other] communists … and also at the bourgeoisie …

    Despite all of his assurances to the contrary, perhaps precisely because of them, I left with the impression that personal domination is the end-all of his every activity … And [Marx considers that] all of his old associates are, despite their considerable talents, well beneath and behind him and should they ever dare to forget that, he will put them back in their places with the impudence worth of a Napoleon.

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      Chris

      Marx lived in a slum, he never worked a day in his life. His working neighbours had a better standard of living than Marx ‘s family had. Two of his children died from the poor living conditions they suffered in. Rather than work to support his family he begged his jewish family for money as Engels was only paid a pittance when he first went to work in the family mills in Manchester. As Engels moved up the corporate ladder and his wages increased, he was able to give Marx more money and conditions improved for the Marx family .
      Marx was not a noble character to be admired by his devotees.

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      Tilba Tilba

      My goodness gracious … it seems I have pushed the Big Red Button on Mr Maddison’s cockpit dashboard, by mentioning the analytical skills of Karl Marx. Anyway, I can only reiterate my personal view … reading Marx is hugely useful if you want to understand what goes on in a capitalist economy.

      It also helps you not get distracted by big fluffy cute soft toys thrown up to distract the unwary.

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        …”reading Marx is hugely useful if you want to understand what goes on in a capitalist economy.”… and why Soviet Russia and Mao’s China were such economic disasters.

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          Gail Combs

          Marx did not believe in objective reality. Instead he believed in ‘wishful thinking’ You can see this same disdain for facts and objective reality in his followers. It is why it is impossible to argue with them.

          The Philosophy Of Karl Marx

          …As a student, Marx accepted the philoso­phy of Hegel as the only sound and adequate explanation of the uni­verse. According to this philosophy, “the only immutable thing is the abstraction of movement.” The one universal phenomenon is change, and the only universal form of this phenomenon is its complete abstrac­tion. Thus, Hegel accepted as real only that which existed in the mind. Objective phenomena and events were of no consequence; only the con­ceptions of them possessed by human minds were real. Ideas, not ob­jects, were the stuff of which the universe was made

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            another ian

            Hi Gail

            O/T but fortuitous for me that you have posted.

            I’ve just been made aware of Biden’s “30/30 reserve EO”. Now way back when a bit there was a map going around of how the US was to be divided with reserves etc that left not much room for anything else. And I have a faint recollection that you were around that discussion – might have been via Chiefio,

            Anyway I’d be interested in getting a copy of that map if possible.

            And if it wasn’t you thanks for reading.

            Ian

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              Gail Combs

              Rosa Koire, a California bureaucrat, explains exactly what Ted Turner & his buddies are up to. (Remember Turner is also behind the Pleistocene Rewilding of the USA.)

              Ted wants to reduce the human population by 95%.

              The Post Sustainable Future

              Your government is a corporatocracy, a new authoritarian state in the process of consolidating your output into a more controllable, exploitable channel. The reason you are being misled by your government and told that all of this is good for you, is because there is no profit in managing a mass uprising. It is too disruptive….

              Transit villages (formerly known as cities) will be restricted to having only the population that can be supported by food grown within a 100 mile radius (called a ‘food shed’). Food sheds will dictate where you can live and when you can change your residence. Calculations, such as those done recently at Cornell University, will determine how much food can be grown within that area and then the Transit Village population will be limited to the number of people who can be fed by that land… [This is the true meaning of Sustainability]

              Because the food generated is seldom enough to feed everyone with sufficient calories, there is malnutrition and general exhaustion…. [See New Dietary Guidelines]

              Health care will be minimal, and life expectancy will be short. Disease will spread readily through densely populated Transit Villages and mega-cities. Drugs for depression and anxiety will be even more heavily prescribed than they are now, and children can expect to be on anti-depressants for their entire lives. Anti-depressants carry a warning label that they may lead to suicidal or aggressive behavior. More and more violent crime targeting strangers will be prevalent…. [Think Obummercare and The Drugging of our children]

              The elite class of wealthy, well-born managers will have little contact with the few remaining workers in the highly automated factories. As the average worker is phased out the elite owners of the natural resources and wildlands will expand their holdings. Wild animals will roam throughout the world and be viewed from the windows of the high speed trains that pass through on their way from transit hub to city center. Elaborate skyscrapers with huge suites, and enormous lodges will house the quasi-military rulers. Private jets take them to their meetings and retreats.

              What we are describing is the New Feudalism. Neo-Feudalism. Peonage. UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development taken to its logical culmination. Remember, Revolution is bad for business.

              And that is why Trump is so hated. He woke up the masses and made them realize the ‘managed decline’ of the USA was NOT inevitable.

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                another ian

                Gail

                That link to Ted Turner and “Pleistocene Rewilding ” doesn’t work – any alternative(s) that you are aware of?

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        In a capitalist economy, customers pay to cover both laborers, managers, and investors.

        Marx, as a social parasite never understood risk-taking, so he thought investors were superfluous.

        He also never quite understood losses, only profits.

        Marx: All profits should go to labor. Investors are parasites. What’s losses? I’ll just ignore that.

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          Gross profits and profit margins direct capitalists to create the products and services that people want the most.

          And to risk their own money to develop better products and services that they think will satisfy customers even more.

          This allocation of resources, intended to benefit consumers, can not be accomplished by government bureaucrats.

          Bureaucrats with 100% job security, sitting at their desks in Washington DC, staring at their computer, who never had to meet a payroll in their lives.

          Cuba and Venezuela are examples of socialist failures.

          Both Sweden and China showed how moving away from pure socialism would spur economic growth.

          The USSR was a total economic failure.

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      Roger Knights

      In one of his books, Thomas Sowells wrote a calm but equally devastating biographical sketch of Marx, with additional facts. It’s online somewhere.

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    Denny

    What the Left has yet to understand, it’s never been about Trump. It’s been about what Trump has said about the Left. He vocalizes their frustrations with the debasement of our culture. He speaks about what other politicians are afraid to say. He has taken on the leftwing media, leftwing academics, the elitists, the governing class, the hypocritical, elitist celebrities, the cultural cranks, etc.

    Trump says all the things his supporters think but have been intimidated from saying.

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      Tilba Tilba

      Trump says all the things his supporters think but have been intimidated from saying.

      That’s fine … but the reality is that a significantly greater percentage of the voters were not buying what Trump was selling. It’s called democracy, and the Left hasn’t failed to understand at all … they ran an election campaign that was successful.

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        Funny how the same people who wanted “every vote counted” didn’t want any votes recounted.

        First thing you would do if you had nothing to hide and a country to heal.

        Then you build a wall, put 25k of national guard to protect you,and start calling your opponents domestric terrorists and suggest they be treated same as international terrorists.

        No offence, but I’ll pass on your idea of ‘democracy’ thanks.

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          Tilba Tilba

          No offence, but I’ll pass on your idea of ‘democracy’ thanks.

          Yeah well … sore losers are always hard to please.

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        Gail Combs

        “…the reality is that a significantly greater percentage of the voters were not buying what Trump was selling….”

        Let me correct that for you.

        “…the reality is that a significantly greater percentage of the voters ALL of the Liberal Judges were not buying what Trump was selling….”

        If the FACTS about election fraud were not overwhelming the ‘Political Class’ would not be working overtime to bury the whole stinking slimy mess. Liberal judges would be WILLING to hear the cases and PROVE in court that there was no rampant election changing fraud. The media would ALLOW discussion. Instead most of the 60 or so cases got tossed for idiotic reasons. (As a voter in the national election I have STANDING if my vote was voided by fraud and that fraud installed an UNELECTED person!) AND the media has been muzzled by the SAME Perkins Coie law firm that was behind the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ nonsense.

        And yes I watched all the presentations to the various state legislatures.

        This is one of the cases that looks like it might actually develop legs: The Windham Incident – Election Results vs Recount Totals

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        ” they ran an election campaign that was successful.”

        The Democrat campaign was were most “successful” after midnight on Election Day !

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          Gail Combs

          ” they ran an election campaign that was successful.”

          Yeah, a campaign were MORE TRUMP SUPPORTERS SHOWED UP at events than supporters!

          Were the campaign called a ‘lid’ most days.

          A campaign where I saw very very few Biden signs despite driving all over my SWING state. Most were on highways and on media strips NOT IN PRIVATE YARDS.

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    another ian

    Willis E

    “On Historical Responsibility”

    “So … why can people still vote for the Democrat Party, when Democrats were the core of the Confederate south, the founders of the KKK, the creators of “Jim Crow” laws, the people who did their best to prevent black people from voting, the people who kept segregation going for decades, the people who elected KKK Leader and 10% Joe Biden’s good pal Robert Byrd to Congress, and the people who have a stronger historical association with slavery than the “Dixie Chicks” could ever have?”

    https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/16/on-historical-responsibility/

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    OldOzzie

    The Elite

    Golden Globes Drops 60% on Sunday Night — Less Viewers than President Trump’s CPAC Speech Online

    It was a rough night for the leftists in Hollywood.
    The Golden Globes dropped 60% in viewership over the previous year.
    Only 5.4 million from one report tuned in to the leftist fest.

    vs

    The Doers

    Things were better for Trump.

    Over 8,158,000 people watched President Trump on YouTube deliver his speech at CPAC on Sunday.

    Via YouTube numbers:

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Biden finally arrived in Texas now that it has warmed up. His motorcade passed Trump flags only. Did Dr Jill tell him that or did she say they were waving the Stars and Stripes?

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      Over 8,158,000 people watched President Trump on YouTube deliver his speech at CPAC on Sunday.

      Without wishing to rain on your parade, but since 2.47% of the American People watched his CPAC speech … is that a thing to boast about? Seems pretty wimpy to me.

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        Gail Combs

        Over 8 MILLION people watched a political speech by a politician who ‘lost’

        So how about Obama who was quite popular?

        Barack Obama’s final speech as president – video highlights
        5,377,133 views•Jan 11, 2017

        Obama Farewell Speech FULL Event
        1,678,415 views

        (Around 7 million total)
        >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

        And Biden, the ‘MOST popular’ president in history??? This is the highest count I could find.

        Joe Biden’s full speech after becoming president-elect
        3,747,798 views •Nov 7, 2020

        So he comes in at HALF the views of the other two.

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          Tilba Tilba

          It’s still not clear what the point is.

          Trump is still popular with his fan base – no-pone denies that. Perhaps Democrat supporters are too cool or hip to watch much TV, or perhaps they’re out there working for a living.

          But there is discernible connection between TV ratings and electoral success at the polls. Just like McDonald’s is the most popular restaurant, but no-one claims it’s good food.

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      • #
        another ian

        “NOTHING SEEMS TO BE WORKING

        March 1, 2021 Kate Trump 22 Comments

        31 million viewers for Donald Trump’s CPAC speech. And that was just online.

        http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/03/01/nothing-seems-to-be-working-6/

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Hillary gave us the name ‘deplorable’ and identified themselves as elites.

    Your either one or the other.

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      Hanrahan

      I wonder if Hillary realises yet what she did for the Trump movement. 80 million Americans and an unknown number around the world wear that badge with honour.

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      Tilba Tilba

      I’m def with the side that knows their “you’re” from their “your”.

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    Plain Jane

    If you are looking for names, how about the Parasite Class vs the Productive Class. Sumed up by where the money comes from. If people live by money taken by force, they are in the parasite class. If people live from money that is freely exchanged, then they are in the productive class. Im not sure where banks fit in here, or pharmaceutical companies, as its the legislation by the government that allows the legal framework and restrictions that give so much power and money to these organisations.

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      Gail Combs

      Actually I divided them into four classes years ago.

      Predators (oligarchs & politicians)
      Parasites (useful idiots)
      Producers (working and middle class)
      Protectors (MIA)

      Unfortunately there are very very few in the Protector class – President Trump and a few others.

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    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      If you are looking for names, how about the Parasite Class vs the Productive Class. Summed up by where the money comes from. If people live by money taken by force, they are in the parasite class.

      Methinks too many people have read the pathological fraud Ayn Rand – certainly the only books many Republicans can remember reading. I won’t put Donald Trump in this class … not sure he reads anything.

      Anyway the Productive-Parasitic divide doesn’t work, at either a practical or an ethical / moral level … as it didn’t in Ayn Rand’s fraud.

      Where does a teacher, nurse, soldier, or police officer fit? They are funded by compulsory taxation, and perform roles that are not based on money transactions. It’s all a delusion.

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      • #
        Gail Combs

        “…Where does a teacher, nurse, soldier, or police officer fit?…”

        Hopeful at the same category as a trucker, firefighter, Accountant, QC engineer… Useful support staff aka PRODUCTIVE

        SOME ‘government’ and support staff is necessary in any collection of humans whether it is a family/clan type organization or a village or a nation.

        This is where I disagree with libertarians like Mark Stoval and yes I understand the Irish managed a thousand years without ‘a government’… Until the Thugs on Horseback showed up.

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        Plain Jane

        Teachers, nurses, soldiers and police officers fit in the parasite class, by definition. Unless the nurse is at a private hospital or home, the teacher is paid by the parents, or the security guard is paid by the people being protected. One of the few legitimate purposes for having a government is to stop other coercive gangs taking power and maintaining the security of private property. They are allowed taxation and solidiers for this purpose in my view. Still puts solidiers in the parasite class.

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    Ed Zuiderwijk

    Why call it ‘upper class’ when ‘aristocracy’ describes it much better?

    And we know from history what happens with aristocrats misbehaving: they lose their heads by guillotine.

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      Gail Combs

      And that is why the actual ‘Puppet Masters’ stay hidden and USE idiots like Biden as front men.

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      another ian

      Ed

      What ever is chosen it has to have a high class sounding name with sarcastic overtones done some how – rhyming slang, emphasis etc

      Aristocratic might need to be done as “aristocratic” as an example

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        Gail Combs

        The truth maybe that they are actually the old European Aristocracy. I have thought so for a long time. (Shell oil is mostlyowned by the Dutch and English Royal Families and a Rokefeller/Rothschild entity.)

        They were certainly P.O.ed and alarmed by the American Revolution. The French Revolution may or may not have been sabotaged —

        The Jacobin Terror 1789-1794: Just Another Color Revolution?

        …Enflaming the rage of a mob and directing that rage towards the overthrow of established political structures only required money, propaganda and a few quality morality-free rhetoricians.

        I was shocked to discover, upon reading the 2001-2002 studies published by historian Pierre Beaudry (Why France Did Not Have a French Revolution and Jean-Sylvain Bailly: The French Revolution’s Benjamin Franklin (1)), that the common narrative of the French Revolution is little more than British myth making that bears little to no resemblance to reality as it happened….

        Britain’s free trade agreement made France’s harboring of its grain in reserves “economically illegal” whereby Britain bought up all the French grain their population could eat and much more. When a devastating hailstorm hit France in June 1788 destroying the majority of crops an ongoing famine ensured and France’s king begged Britain for the chance to buy back some grain to feed the starving masses, to which Britain held a meeting and simply replied in the negative….

        The USA BTW is in about the same position as France was back then. The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (“Freedom to Farm Act”) called for elimination of government stockpiles of grain and by the 2008 food crisis ‘The Cupboard was bare’ according to the USDA. LINK Now add in the use of corn to make ethanol for fuel and China buying US (and world) grains hand over fist…

        All we need is global cooling and wet springs and wet falls. Right now we are knee deep in mud. I have never seen so much mud and we are on the top of a hill! It is so bad we are going to have to reshape and re-gravel our driveway.

        2 hr video of lecture by the same historian:
        How the British Empire Sabotaged the French Revolution
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3z21vhEGwE

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          Tilba Tilba

          When a devastating hailstorm hit France in June 1788 destroying the majority of crops an ongoing famine ensured and France’s king begged Britain for the chance to buy back some grain to feed the starving masses, to which Britain held a meeting and simply replied in the negative …

          Coincidentally, my First Fleet ancestors (convicts) were married in Sydney on 1 June 1788 – one of the first European weddings in a new nation.

          They were only in that position because of the American Revolution – which meant that the transportation of convicts to the American colonies ceased, and the British ruling class – in their genocidal war against the masses – needed a new dumping ground.

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          • #
            Gail Combs

            The Brits blew it by shipping off all those rogue elements. Survival of the fittest and all that — essentially ‘breeding for’ hardiness and hard headedness.

            Ted Kennedy realized that was a ‘major mistake’ in the USA so he changed the US immigration laws ( Immigration Reform Act of 1965) so there was no more selection for fitness and the USA could be ‘dumbed down.’ He succeeded since the US IQ has dropped by at least two points in the last couple of decades.

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      Because the term aristrocatic sounds too aristocratic ?

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    sophocles

    What a marvellous post from Jo. Here, you can spot most of the “University Edjumacated” members of the Commentariat from their pronking.

    Pronking is also known as stotting. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stotting )

    Note: pronking rhymes wonderfully with plonking and for a few practitioners there is negligible difference between the behaviours. But it’s worth paying attention to — sort the plonkers from the also-rans.

    For the iggorant: it’s a ruminant (predominantly but not solely a gazelle) behaviour when predators are about.

    Compared to some mammals, such as carnivores (meat-eaters) and primates (apes, monkeys, and humans), antelopes are not noted for high intelligence.

    Experience strongly suggests the antelopes/gazelles are not alone …

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    Don Gaddes

    A good ‘first step’ might be, to consign the Gregorian Calendar to the ‘scrap-heap of history'(where it belongs) – and return base 12 maths to its rightful place, as the ‘arbiter’ of the Solar system. The Earth/Solar Orbital Calendar is a much simpler and practically useful alternative.
    The Earth always travels through 360 degrees of Solar Orbit.
    The Earth always spins on its axis 360 times per Earth/Solar Year.
    There are always 360 Earth Day/Night Intervals each Earth/Solar Year.
    The Earth orbits at one degree per Day/Night Interval, (thirty degrees per Month, 12 x 30 = 360 degrees per Year.)
    There are NO ‘weeks’, (4 x 7/half = 30.) What did God do on his half-day off?
    If the Earth gets further from the Sun, The Day/Night Intervals just increase in time-length.
    The ‘X Factor’ Dry Cycle Hierarchy sequences correlate exactly with the Earth/Solar Orbital Calendar.
    There are NO Decadal Oscillations, (ENSO.)

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      Tilba Tilba

      The Earth always spins on its axis 360 times per Earth/Solar Year.

      When I went to school it was 365.25 rotations (“days”) per year, not a neat 360.

      13

      • #
        Kevin kilty

        Not to be a pedant, but 365.2422. If it were 365.25 the rules for leap days wouldn’t be so complex. My grade schoolers and I have been investigating this recently.

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    A Bloke

    I think the ‘Ruling Classes’ is a better name.

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    Mike-SMO

    Tough for Terminology. To those somewhat aware, “Uniparty” seems to be tolerated. “Corruptocrats” and “Progs” generally don’t “ring a bell”. “Deep State” is a poisoned term that gets immediate push-back without thought, and don’t mention “Trump”. The “brag” in the Times about the “deal” to fortify the election helps but there are generally “too many pieces” for a quick discussion/comment. It is very easyto loose an audience.

    The jagon is a pain. Explaining “White Supremacy” or “Critical Race Theory” gets bogged down, because it is no longer English.. I always run into “duck speak” (from “1984”, I think).

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    CHRIS

    Well well well, Don Geddes…I notice that you use the word “always” several times. Are you an omnipotent Demigod? Or do you know the entire history of the Solar System, from when the Sun coalesced? Advice: NEVER USE THE WORD ‘ALWAYS’ to describe the history of the Solar System and the Universe. Start thinking outside the square (if you are capable).

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    Stuart

    The problem is that none of the above actually have any class. Let’s just call them SNOBS…

    00

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    Kim

    The problem is the Wokies are not actually upper class – not in the traditional sense. They are “jump me ups” lower middle class who have clawed their way to the top. And that’s where the problem lies.

    00