we seem to be in some trouble in today’s world…
we see many such writers here on ILP giving us some sort of
description of what they see as the “evils” of today…
I hold that they have failed in their attempt to describe the world
as they see it because they are only working out the symptoms of
the world, not the actual illness of our modern world…
they are not engaged in the actual illness of what is wrong with
our modern society…
they say, America has a cold or a fever, but they fail to see or understand
the cause of that illness/fever…they fail to note the virus that is causing the illness
or the symptoms… they see the symptoms and hold that is the illness in question… it isn’t…
so if what we see are the symptoms of an illness, what is the actual cause of this illness?
as there is rarely ever one cause of an illness, we can point out a couple of causes…
a couple of days ago, I became sick at work, I was feverish, weak could barely stand,
my stomach was a mess… I went to management and said, as soon as the next person,
next checker came, I was ought of there… I didn’t offer them a choice… and about
10 minutes later, another checker came and I left… so, I have offered up
the symptoms, but not the cause of my illness… I was in a state of exhaustion…
and thus susceptible to any sort of bug that was around…I was already weakened
because of my exhaustion, I just needed a push and I became quite ill… as I have
spent the last three days resting and literally just sitting around the house, I feel much
better… I am rested up and my body feels quite a bit stronger…this state of things,
of being exhausted and thus allowing illness to catch us is quite common…
and thus my first diagnosis of the modern world… we are exhausted…we run
around like crazy people and thus we have worn ourselves out…
and any sort of virus will cause us some illness…
and we have been infected by an virus… that of anti-intellectualism…
we have rejected the promise and the goal of the enlightenment…
we no longer dare to know…we simple accept the argument of others
as gospel… for example look at the right wing march in lockstep with
faux news and other right wing media… there is no questioning of
the events as offered up by idiots like Tucker or the recently deceased
Rush…the believers hold that these morons actually held the truth as
it was written and as it were, disciples dispensing the true word of god…
there was no questioning of what was offered up by these false gods…
you see this on faux news or on the many youtube clips that we are told hold
the truth…the right wing never, ever questions its belief in a certain reality…
at this point, I must remind you, the reader, that I have changed both my
political and philosophical stance multiple times…IAM has said the exact same thing…
we on the left have quite often changed our understanding of the universe…in
fact this was an indictment of the left for decades… that we stood for nothing because
we did change our understanding of the universe… that our values were situated in
the moment, the temporary, that our values did change as the situation called for…
whereas the right held onto permanent values brought down by god and his representatives…
and that the right held onto values that were right yesterday, today and ultimately
tomorrow…the right attacked the left from this perspective for decades…
but let us look at right wing values today versus yesterday…
today, the right holds to a wide number of vast conspiracy theories… we see this
every single day on ILP…but has the local right wing conspiracy theorist of today,
ever talked about what drove the right wing, the conservative for decades?
No, not at all… in fact, I would guess that the modern day conservative has no
idea what the values and beliefs were of the GOP and the conservatives for decades…
the idea’s of the right wing, the conservative for decades (and mind you,
have you ever seen any modern day conservative, say in ILP defend these
decades long beliefs of the conservative) for example, the mantra of the
GOP and the conservative was about small government…Grover Norquist famously
said this about government:
" I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to he size where
I can drag it into the bathtub and drown it in the bathtub"
and this was the GOP/conservative mantra for decades…every single platform
or mission statement from the GOP/conservatives has some variation of
this statement… for over 40 years, this was what the GOP/conservative
saw as their mission in existence…
and yet, we know as a fact, that the two or three, if we include Raygun,
largest expansions of government, in American history, came under GOP presidents,
Raygun, Bush Jr. and IQ45…each one not only expanded the federal government
in both money and size, but each one helped fueled a massive increase in
the federal deficit/debt, to record amounts…it was the democratic presidents
that reduced the massive debt caused by GOP policies… for example, Clinton
gave Bush Jr. a surplus, not a debt but a surplus which Bush Jr. turned into
the single largest debt increase in American history…and IQ45 increased the
deficit into the single largest debt/deficit in world’s history…IQ45 debt
increase was the third largest relative to the size of the economy of any
presidential adminstration… after Abe Lincoln and … Bush Jr…however
unlike both Lincoln or Bush Jr. IQ45 didn’t launch a foreign war or pay for
a civil war… and yet he still managed to massively increase the American
debt to record amounts…
which leads us to the next commandment of the conservative, lower taxes…
have you noticed that your taxes have gone up, we have… and the reason
are rather simple, big corporations like Exxon Mobil and Amazon pay no taxes
as numerous wealthy people pay little or no taxes… for example,
IQ45 has admitted paying in a total of $750 in federal taxes in 2016…and in
2017, his first year in office, he paid another $750 dollars in taxes…
so a so called billionaire paid over a two year period, $1500 in federal taxes…
my wife and I pay substantially more in taxes and we are not billionaires…
the reason your taxes are so high is because the wealthy and big corporations
along with churches, pay little or no taxes… so you have to pay more to make up
the difference…to make up the deficit/debt created by the GOP/conservatives
in which they don’t pay the same amount as you do…
the rank double standard of the conservative… but the ILP conservative don’t write
about this… for their concern is the latest in conspiracy theories… and not in the nuts
and bolts aspect of our daily existence… like in paying taxes and in this question of who
pays for the government…and it ain’t the wealthy… but you and me…
but why won’t the conservative of ILP actually engage in the questions of
the values of conservatives/GOP? It is simple, they don’t care about the
time-honored questions that drove the GOP/conservatives for decades…
they have changed, dramatically changed their viewpoint from concern of
our day to day lives, government and taxes and the welfare state to
wackadoodle conspiracy theories that have no engagement with “how are
we to live”… in other words, the Modern day GOP/conservative has
lost any type of concern with our day to day lives… with what it means
to be human…or how are we to spend our lives?
one of the long term conservative/GOP concerns was the welfare state…
where it was held that by contributing to the welfare state, we would,
somehow it is never mentioned how this works, but somehow we would
“weaken” the people resolve to become who they are…
but the modern day conservative/GOP has no such concern to the
real welfare state going on, where billion dollar companies would
be allowed to escape paying taxes and indeed, would received
billion dollars in tax cuts even though these companies are
making billions in profits every year…for example, the CEO of
EXXON Mobil made over 23 million dollars and still downsized the company
by over 14,000 employees…so he was paid over 12 million in stocks,
his base pay was 1.5 million dollars, a 2.2 million bonus and 7 million
dollars in pension benefits and deferred compensation…his pay went up
about 25% in 2020…and yet, the company itself saw its revenue fall by
8.5% and it profits dropped by 31%… to 14.3 billion dollars… in addition
to its massive tax cut
the old school GOP/conservative defends this as right and even being just…
but the new school, like the one’s here on ILP don’t even mention this…
because all they care about is the latest conspiracy theory…
they have lost touch with what the GOP/conservative actually stood for,
stood for and believed in for decades…we have failure because one side
of the modern American experience, holds to nonsense and conspiracy theories…
instead of some engagement with the basics… “how are we to live?”
“what are we to do?” “what values should we hold?”
the modern day conservative/GOP couldn’t care less about these matters…
and if half the country is engaged in this, as it currently is, then the
country halts to a standstill, as it has…because the GOP/conservative no longer
gives a shit about what matters to the American people… about our daily lives…
the GOP/conservative only cares about power, wealth… see the battles over
redistricting that is going on all over the country and the anti-democratic
attempts to restrict voting rights in an attempt to get and hold power…
not to help people or to make their lives better but to obtain raw power
which means wealth…the GOP/conservative can’t even point out to us some
basic beliefs of theirs that indicate to us some awareness of our daily problems…
ask a conservative/GOP what they truly believe in and you will get nonsense like
“stop the steal” and other such conspiracy theories…and what does that have
to do with your life? does that make your life better in any, way, shape or form?
No, no it doesn’t…at least the liberal/democratic party still holds to
its principles of justice for all…ask a conservative like Observe or UR or
gloom… what are your values and how does those values improve my life?
and they can’t answer you without some resort to a conspiracy theory…
of course all they will do in this thread is attack me, but that is an admission
that they have no values to offer you that will make your life better…
they will attack because they have nothing to offer you…
or they will do as they always seem to do with my threads, which is just ignore me…
which is another admission they have nothing to offer us in the way of
values that will make our life better…
hold them accountable for what values they can give us…
if they post, ask them, what values to you offer that will make my life
better? and they will have nothing to say about that… because they
can’t…because they have no values worth holding… they will just
engage in ad hominem attacks and offer us more worthless conspiracy theories…
and why? they have nothing else…
Kropotkin
