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spartex, Don't think anyone here does gotcha as you are thinking it.
Sober, just checking, posters all those who would question you.
Thanks for the link, next time with the claim would be better.
Suggest you take it slowly. Too much time on you my today.
Agree best ever. The two of them, more humbling than any before. Finished.
Castor oil plants are the ugly green giants i have to keep pressing the railroad to cut down .. https://weeds.org.au/profiles/castor-oil-plant/ . A few much too big ones are a problem just back of my place right now. Wish they grew in the middle of the tracks.
That's right. "Not for a very long time." Perhaps a touch of soya sauce.
A touch of Asian could do some good. Maybe soya doesn't like Chianti...
Note to the left, leave the extremes to the other side..
"After 50 Years, This Right-Wing Law Factory Is Crazier Than Ever
"The Far-Right Christian Quest for Power: ‘We Are Seeing Them Emboldened’" "
By John B. Judis
January 21, 2020
In January 1969, Tom Hayden, a founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society and a leader of the antiwar movement, came to speak at the University of California at Santa Cruz, on behalf of the SDS chapter where I was a member. At the time, many on the new left thought a revolution was imminent. Major cities had been set ablaze by rioters; gun-toting members of the Black Panther Party had confronted legislators in Sacramento; hundreds of thousands were marching against the Vietnam War; and with Richard Nixon in office — and the war showing no signs of abating — the protests were turning violent.
Hayden, too, was confident about what lay ahead. Perched on the edge of the stage in a denim work shirt and blue jeans, he spelled out his vision for a new American revolution. I still recall him saying — in the language of the period — “We already have the blacks, the browns, the women and the students,” and then adding that if we could also get blue-collar workers, we’d have the basis for a revolution. Personally, I was a bit more pessimistic. At Socialist Revolution, the Marxist journal I began working for in June 1969, the economist James O’Connor branded me “the little black cloud” because of my doubts that revolution was just around the corner.
[Insert: Me too. Though i never joined a Marxist or any other political group, by late teens i was thoroughly fed up with capitalist excess. And much more firmly into more Democrat Socialist way of looking at things. Extremes even then on either side of the political spectrum pissed me off. Extremes on the right, as outrageous incomes for athletes, for one, and price gouging in business, for two, just felt wrong. One of the things most disappointing about extremes on the left was that it gave conservatives fodder for the right's attack-dogs to feed on. It felt then, as it does 65 years later, simply stupid of the left.]
And yet there were, if you wanted to see them, signs that the new left — which had been concentrated on campuses — might be able to attract support from the white working class. Over the next two years, students joined the picket lines of strikers from General Electric, General Motors and the U.S. Post Office Department. In a special issue on “The Seventies,” Business Week warned that corporations faced a challenge from “the blacks, the labor unions, and the young” that could make “the Seventies one of the tumultuous decades in U.S. history.”
Such heady times may sound like the distant past, but there are more than a few parallels with the present. For nearly a decade now, arguably dating to the Occupy movement of 2011, a new generation of left-wing activism has been stirring. A host of organizations (Indivisible, the Sunrise Movement, 350.org .. http://350.org/ , People’s Action, the Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter, the Justice Democrats, a revived Democratic Socialists of America) and new publications (Jacobin, the Intercept, Current Affairs) are doing what groups like SDS did in the ’60s: elevating left-wing causes and promising dramatic societal change.
These activists and their worldviews have made significant inroads in mainstream politics in a relatively short time. In 2016, Bernie Sanders — a socialist whose platform was well to the left of George McGovern’s then-regarded-as-radical platform in 1972 — almost won the Democratic nomination. This year, Sanders, advocating a “political revolution,” is once again in the top tier of candidates. So is Elizabeth Warren, who’s running on a platform of “big, structural change.”
But at this moment of left-wing optimism, it bears remembering that the ’60s left never fulfilled the vision of Hayden and others. Indeed, even as our cause appeared ascendant, a powerful right-wing movement was also percolating: Young Americans for Freedom, presidential candidates George Wallace and Barry Goldwater, California Gov. Ronald Reagan. By the time I saw Hayden speak in 1969, Nixon had been elected, in part because of a backlash to the new left. In 1972, he would rout McGovern at the polls. Less than a decade later, Reagan was in the White House. If revolutionary change was on the agenda, it was of an entirely different nature from what we had envisaged in 1969.
Will today’s new left stumble down the path of my generation’s left, growing largely irrelevant and then, eventually, disappearing from sight? Or could it come to dominate American politics over the next few decades? Because of key structural differences between then and now, I actually think their odds of success are better than ours were. But to capitalize on those odds, they will have to learn from the failures of my generation — we activists who succeeded in captivating a noisy subgroup of Americans but never came close to commanding a political majority. And there are already, in my view, worrisome signals that they are repeating some of our biggest mistakes.
Among the top tier of Democratic candidates in 2020 are two committed progressives: Elizabeth Warren, who’s running on a platform of “big, structural change,” and Bernie Sanders, who’s advocating a “political revolution.” (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via Associated Press)
(Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
There are three defining features of today’s insurgent left. The first is that its adherents are concentrated among the young — high-schoolers through those in their late 30s. In the 2016 primaries, Sanders won more votes among 18-to-29-year-olds than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined. In current presidential polling, Sanders’s and Warren’s followings tilt strongly toward the young. In polling on capitalism vs. socialism, the young tend to be much more critical than older Americans of capitalism and more supportive of socialism. In a Pew poll from June, 50 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds had a very or somewhat positive view of socialism. (Socialism in this case appears to be a critique from the left of existing American capitalism — a preference for Scandinavia or even Canada, not for Venezuela or China.)
In 2013, the average age of a DSA member was 68 — the group, in other words, had never moved past its roots in my generation of leftists. By 2017, the average age was 33, and membership was skyrocketing (from about 6,000 in 2015 to 55,000 today). The Sunrise Movement, one of the main organizations battling for action on climate change, declares that it is “building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority.” The founders of Black Lives Matter were in their late 20s and early 30s. The founders of Indivisible were young former congressional staffers. The Justice Democrats were young veterans of the Sanders campaign.
The second feature of today’s left is geographical: It is concentrated in postindustrial metro areas and also college towns. These include the larger cities on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards as well as cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin and Denver. These areas specialize in what economist Peter Temin has called FTE — finance, technology and electronics — but also in government, higher education and specialized health care. Political scientist Ruy Teixeira and I estimated that, in 2000, 43.7 percent of Americans lived in these metro areas. It is probably now closer to half, and it’s growing.
The third feature is that today’s left is drawn primarily from members or future members of what French sociologist Serge Mallet once called “the new working class.” In American labor surveys, they mostly fall within the category of professionals or higher-level service occupations that sometimes require certification and that usually, but not always, require a college degree. (One clue to the politics of at least part of this cohort shows up in polling that finds that people with advanced degrees are the most consistently liberal of all the educational groups.) They do not own their businesses but are paid by wage or salary. They work primarily in the postindustrial economy producing knowledge and information and high-level services; some, but by no means all, work in the public or the nonprofit sector. They are teachers, nurses, pilots, editors, writers, doctors, software programmers, graphic designers, social workers, architects and engineers. Unlike other white-collar office workers — such as salespeople or office managers — they don’t judge their work primarily by the money they can pull in or the costs they can hold down, but by the excellence of the product they produce or services they render. Is the software cool? Did the patient get better? Did the kids learn?
There is nothing paradoxical about people on the upper tier of the working class playing a leading role in the left. The labor movements in the United States, Great Britain and Germany were initiated by the better-paid and more-skilled craft workers, not by common laborers. Today, this group has the distinction — first promised in Thorstein Veblen’s early-20th-century book “The Engineers and the Price System” — of possessing the knowledge and skill to run society without a need for expert managerial guidance.
To understand why the young and college-educated have become amenable to radical ideas, it helps to consider certain long-term trends in American life and, especially, American capitalism. Marxists describe a process called “proletarianization,” which occurs when occupations whose workers previously enjoyed some independence, responsibility, status and good income lose their authority and become dependent on layers of officialdom and bureaucracy. They might have their jobs divided into separate tasks or eliminated altogether, and they may suddenly face declining prospects for their livelihood. That happened to many craft workers — for instance, shoemakers, weavers, granite cutters and blacksmiths — at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In reaction to this proletarianization, workers formed unions.
The ’60s left’s rebellion increasingly took a religious rather than
a political form. It consisted of establishing one’s moral
credibility and superiority in the face of evil.
Something similar has been occurring in the United States over recent decades. Many professionals are becoming subject to layers of bureaucracy — think of registered nurses having above them doctors, hospital administrators and insurance companies. These workers are also becoming subject to severe bottom-line concerns. Software developers may no longer work on their own or for small companies but for huge corporations like Facebook or Microsoft, where their responsibility is a minute task within a larger system. They may be asked to produce services for a country or company they don’t respect. Engineers may be pressured to produce shortcuts; teachers may be forced to teach in crowded classrooms; social workers may not be allowed time to deal with difficult clients.
Those who work within the knowledge industry today can also rarely look forward to the kind of lifetime employment for themselves or their children that many Americans used to enjoy. Millennials are often described as “job hoppers” because of the number of different jobs they hold in their 20s. (I’ve given up counting how many jobs my daughters — now in their mid-30s — have held since they graduated from college.) These jobs require college degrees and in some cases advanced degrees, the cost of which have risen stratospherically, as have the debts that students have had to incur. CNBC has described .. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/millennials-spend-less-because-theyre-poorer-federal-reserve-says.html .. the situation this way: “Adjusting for inflation, compared to college tuition in 1988, private school tuition in 2018 has increased 213 percent and four-year public school tuition has increased 129 percent. As a result, much of the generation is drowning in student loan debt.” And often, college graduates, who expected to be professionals, end up working in their 20s as bartenders or as part of the gig economy.
The cost of housing in the places where these college graduates want to work has also skyrocketed. In an Atlantic article .. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/why-millennials-cant-afford-buy-house/591532/ .. titled “Why Housing Policy Feels Like Generational Warfare,” Alexis Madrigal cites a study by the real estate firm Unison: “Imagine you’re a 30-year-old in Los Angeles with the median income. By Unison’s math, you can imagine buying a home at 73. For young people in high-opportunity metro areas, the route to home ownership is basically blocked without the help of a wealthy family member or some stock options.”
Facing an uncertain future, college students and graduates are suffering from a rise in anxiety and mental illness. One survey in 2017 by the American Psychiatric Association found millennials to be the most anxious of the current generations. (Baby boomers were the least.) Business Insider, examining surveys of millennials’ mental health, reported .. https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-mental-health-burnout-lonely-depressed-money-stress .. that “depression and ‘deaths of despair’ are both on the rise among the generation, linked to issues such as loneliness and money stress. Millennials also feel that their jobs have an outsize role in their overall mental health. Because of longer work hours and stagnant wages, millennials suffer from higher rates of burnout than other generations. Many of them have even quit their jobs for mental-health reasons.”
Job dissatisfaction has contributed to an increase in union organizing, strikes and political activity among this generation of workers. This includes teachers and nurses, but also stirrings within media organizations, universities and high-tech behemoths such as Google and Amazon. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) In recent years, the United Auto Workers has succeeded in more unionization drives among grad students, university staff and media workers than among auto assembly workers.
These economic and psychological factors provided the kindling; a succession of major disasters — a calamitous war in Iraq, the Great Recession, widening inequality of wealth and power, the threat of climate change, the hard-right policies and crude rhetoric of President Trump — provided the sparks that have caused so many young people to turn for answers to the left. The questions, though, are whether the politics of this generation will stay the same as it ages, and whether young leftists can begin to draw significant numbers of other voters to their side.
Tom Hayden, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, talks with actress and activist Jane Fonda in 1972. Hayden thought that if the ’60s left could win over blue-collar workers, it would have the basis for a revolution. (Associated Press)
The ’60s left collapsed for many reasons, but two major ones are especially relevant to the prospects for today’s left — and they pull in opposite directions. One important advantage the contemporary left has over the ’60s left is that it was created by conditions that are not going away. The Vietnam War was the main issue uniting the diverse parts of the ’60s left, and it brought hundreds of thousands of new sympathizers into the movement. And so, when the Nixon administration ended the draft and then signed a peace agreement with North Vietnam, what we called “the movement” rapidly dissipated. The women’s, civil rights and environmental movements — to name three of the biggest groups — continued, but they were no longer part of a larger whole. Meanwhile, those groups that had espoused revolution were displaced by reformist, staff-driven organizations that worked out of Washington or New York offices.
Today’s left is different. Of the factors driving it, only the Trump presidency will expire, and that might not happen for five years. Climate change will continue to menace shorelines, create extreme weather, and imperil agriculture and fishing — and this is, unfortunately, going to happen even if a Democrat wins the presidency this year and rejoins the Paris agreement. As the politics around climate change inevitably become more pressing, the case for a large-scale subordination of private capital to public priorities — a demand that is at the heart of the political left — will only strengthen.
Most important, though, the underlying economic conditions that led to the creation of today’s left are going to continue to shape the labor force of American capitalism. Under the impact of artificial intelligence, many jobs will alter overnight or disappear, creating continuing insecurity among the young, fueling dissatisfaction with capitalism and providing an incentive to organize. The economy itself may not soon endure a recurrence of the Great Recession, but an increasingly fractious world trading order and overcapacity in manufacturing will continue to threaten growth. The predominance of finance and the winner-take-all structure of the high-tech industry mean that disparities of wealth and power will only grow.
During the ’60s, proletarianization was in its early stage. In 1960, only 8 percent of Americans had a college degree or above. Today, the ranks of college-educated people — those most susceptible to the appeal of the contemporary left — appear to be growing. Thirty-nine percent of Americans 25 and older have a bachelor’s or an advanced degree, a figure that is expected to increase over the next 10 years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, professional occupations, which require at least a college degree, made up 20.9 percent of the labor force in 2018 and will make up 21.5 percent by 2028. Allied occupations such health-care support are also expected to grow, from 2.7 to 3 percent. During the same period, the ranks of sales personnel, office and administrative support occupations, and production workers — who do not fit the profile of today’s left — are expected to shrink. By the end of the 2020s, college-educated workers facing persistent insecurity about their future, and concern about the value of their work, should account for somewhere between 22 and 25 percent of the labor force.
Perhaps because these underlying economic trends are continuing, the youngest American voters are no less susceptible than millennials to radical appeals. In fact, they may be more susceptible. A January 2019 Harris Poll found that 61 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds — Generation Z — have a positive reaction to the word “socialism.” By comparison, 51 percent of millennials do. Taken together, these two generations could well pose a formidable challenge not only to conservatives but to establishment liberals.
Among the issues galvanizing today’s progressives are climate change and civil rights. Pictured here: A climate change and social justice protest, and a Black Lives Matter rally. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
(Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
And yet, there was another key reason for the collapse of the ’60s left, one which may bedevil today’s progressive activists. To win a political majority, contemporary young leftists — who are primarily college educated and work, live and study in high-tech metro areas and college towns — will need to win significant support for their politics from the rest of the working class, many of whom have not graduated from college, live in small or midsize towns, and work in or around manufacturing and mining. The left of the ’60s faced a similar challenge and fell woefully short. It’s worth looking at why.
There were always new-left radicals who tried to build bridges. But by the late ’60s, when Hayden was urging outreach to what was then an overwhelmingly white working class, many revolutionaries had abandoned any attempt to create a popular American majority and instead cast their lot with an imagined world revolution, led by China, Cuba or even, in the case of one Berkeley group, North Korea. They saw America (which they spelled “Amerikkka”) as the enemy and blacks and Latinos as being, along with Vietnamese, victims of U.S. colonialism. They saw white workers as beneficiaries of “white skin privilege” with a “stake in imperialism.” If they were white, they saw themselves as a fifth column within the mother country, fighting on the side of minorities at home and America’s enemies abroad.
These leftists believed they were putting into place a sophisticated neo-Marxist politics — they talked about the proletariat and the cultural revolution and quoted from Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” — but their activity most clearly resembled that of 17th-century American Protestant sects who imagined themselves as congregations of visible saints in a sinful world. In fact, the new left’s rebellion increasingly took a religious rather than a political form. It consisted of establishing one’s moral credibility and superiority in the face of evil. That religious fervor provided, perhaps, a meaning for the lives of activists, but it was, as social critic Paul Goodman wrote in “The New Reformation,” “a poor basis for politics, including revolutionary politics.”
What also doomed the new left was that, beginning with the decision in 1967 by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to expel its white members, the movement began to splinter into identity groups; indeed, this was the beginning of what has come to be known as “identity politics.” Black nationalist and later Latino, Native American and feminist groups pursued their own demands with some success, but the larger movement lost a sense of cooperation and coherence.
Much of what these separate groups fought for was entirely justifiable and contributed to racial and sexual equality. Yet some of their stances pressed their causes to the extreme: radical feminists casting doubt on the moral legitimacy of the family; black nationalists advocating armed struggle and calling for African American communities to be subject to the United Nations rather than the U.S. government. These positions put them at odds with much of America. And, alongside the activities of revolutionary groups like the Weather Underground, they fed the backlash that led to Nixon’s landslide in 1972 and Reagan’s victory in 1980.
Today’s left has not embraced the separatism or the revolutionary fantasies of the last days of the ’60s left, but, as someone who was there, I find disturbing echoes in the present. I’ll list three. First, many on the left — and many more-moderate liberals as well — attribute Trump’s victory in 2016 and white working-class reluctance to support Democrats entirely or primarily to “white supremacy” or “white privilege.” They dismiss flyover Americans who voted for Trump as irredeemable — even though there is evidence that many supporters of Barack Obama backed Trump in 2016, and that many Trump voters cast ballots for Democrats in 2018. It is an echo of the ’60s left’s Manichaean view of Americans.
As a result, today’s left has become fond of a political strategy that discounts the importance altogether of winning over the white working class. Such a strategy assumes Democrats can gain majorities simply by winning over people of color (a term that groups people of wildly varying backgrounds, incomes and worldviews), single women and the young. One recent article in the left-wing Nation declared ..https://www.thenation.com/article/democrats-trump-white-working-class/ : “Since the 1980s, Democratic candidates have proven that they can win elections while losing whites without a college degree by a significant margin.” It’s a questionable strategy for Democrats — in a presidential election, it could cede many of the Midwestern swing states to a Republican — but it is even more questionable as a strategy for the left, which has historically been committed to achieving equality by building a movement of the bottom and middle of society against the very wealthy and powerful at the top.
Second, the left is again dividing into identity groups, each of which feels justified in elevating its concerns above others. In Philadelphia this summer at Netroots Nation — a gathering of left and liberal groups — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) told aspiring officeholders, “We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please don’t even show up because we need you to represent that voice.”
While activists focused on identity politics have, like their predecessors from the ’60s, made perfectly reasonable demands — for instance, an end to police brutality, or equal wages for men and women — they have also made extreme demands that display an indifference to building a political majority. Some have backed reparations for slavery — an idea rejected by broad majorities of the electorate, most of whom are descended from immigrants who came to America after the Civil War. Other groups have demanded “open borders,” defying a majority of Americans who think the country should be able to decide who to admit as citizens and who will be able to enjoy the rights and benefits of being an American.
Third, many of these demands and strategies are accompanied by a quasi-religious adherence to special language and gestures that echo the experience of the ’60s. Again, at the level of morality, these aspects of the left may be persuasive, but at the level of political-majority-building, they are problematic. For instance, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lists “LGBTQIA+ Rights” among her priorities, but how many Americans outside the bluest Zip codes know what “LBGTQIA+” stands for? According to a recent poll, 98 percent of Latinos are uncomfortable with the left-wing term “Latinx.” At the Democratic Socialists of America convention I attended over the summer in Atlanta, delegates identified themselves on their name tags, and when they spoke, by their preferred pronoun (“he,” “she” or “they”) and signaled their approval by twirling their hands. Someone who used the colloquial “guys” to refer to the audience was sternly rebuked. There were charges of “ableism” and of “triggering” due to loud talking. These kinds of moral stances are fine for a church congregation, but not for a political organization that wants to win a majority of voters. The reality is that 80 percent or more of Americans who wandered into such a gathering would think they were on another planet.
And the trouble spots I’ve identified here are only being exacerbated by the importance of social media to contemporary politics. During the ’60s, the left’s cultural insularity was reinforced by its geography. Today, the insularity of the left is magnified by the Internet, which tends to draw us toward people who think alike while screening out unfriendly opinions.
As some of the stances of today’s left have seeped into Democratic presidential politics, it’s become clear that there could be real electoral consequences to these missteps. Warren and Sanders have both promised to offer free Medicare for undocumented immigrants — something that even Canada does not provide — and to decriminalize border crossings. Warren promised a 9-year-old transgender boy that he could have veto rights over her appointment of a secretary of education. Sanders has promised voting rights for imprisoned felons. As sophisticated politicians, Warren and Sanders must know that if they win the nomination, these kind of stands will make it difficult for them to gain votes outside of heavily blue metro areas — and therefore difficult to put together an electoral college majority.
Some of the stands Warren and Sanders have taken during the Democratic nomination contest could make it difficult for them to gain votes outside of heavily blue metro areas in the general election. (Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)
(Jim Young/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
Clearly, there’s a lot to worry about if you want to see the left triumph — at least in the short and medium terms. But there are also reasons to think the left can, in the ensuing decades, eventually overcome its cultural insularity. The first reason is demographic. However separate it is from small-town America, today’s left is geographically much broader than its predecessor, which was based on elite campuses like Berkeley and Columbia. The left is now part of a large class of Americans attempting to come to terms with their place in the economy and society — and while that class isn’t, of course, represented in every city or town, it’s well represented in some locations in just about every state.
As Ruy Teixeira and I argued two decades ago in “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” the trend in America has been toward more towns becoming “ideopolises” — metro areas devoted to the production of ideas, in which the members of this new proletarianizing class play key roles. The past 40 years have seen a transformation of cities like Omaha; Louisville; Columbus, Ohio; and Kansas City, Kan. It stands to reason that the people in them — including those on the lower rungs of the working class — have become more receptive to the politics and the culture of the left.
Moreover, what seem like radical cultural causes often become accepted after several decades of agitation and exposure. In 2004, George W. Bush was able to use opposition to same-sex marriage to curry votes. Today, it is no longer an issue. In a decade or two, few Americans may be confused by pronouns or unisex bathrooms.
There is also a process of political maturation that movements can undergo as they elect people to office who are then forced to respond to citizens with different social views. I saw this with the Democratic Socialists of America, which now has over a hundred elected officials among its members. As it turns out, my own Maryland state representative, Vaughn Stewart, is a member of DSA and was elected with the help of DSA activists who knocked on doors. But Stewart didn’t run on a promise — in the words of a DSA placard at a demonstration in New York — to “abolish profit, abolish prisons, abolish cash bail, abolish borders”; he ran on a platform of “Putting Neighbors First” and has recently introduced “housing for all” legislation to expand renters’ rights and options for home buyers.
Many of the left’s most extreme stands have been driven by the excesses of Trump’s presidency. For instance, in response to Trump’s brazen bigotry toward Hispanics and his plan to build a border wall, his foes on the left have gone well beyond advocating comprehensive immigration reform and instead denounced the very idea of borders. If Trump does win a second term, I fear that the left and right could both go to extremes, as happened during Nixon’s first term. The times could be tumultuous and also dangerous. But when Trump is gone from the scene, the left may be able to better distinguish those issues that could potentially unite a majority from those that will only divide and inflame.
Finally, there is a larger tectonic shift taking place in North American and European politics away from the assumptions of market fundamentalism, which helped precipitate the Great Recession of 2008. There is a growing argument on the left and the right — witness Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley in the United States — for an enlarged role for government and the public sector in economic life. Criticism of the practices of high finance and corporate CEOs are coming not just from the AFL-CIO, but from the Business Roundtable and Financial Times as well. The left will undoubtedly find it easier to navigate in these waters than in those of Cold War anti-communism or Reaganite market fundamentalism. Progressives will be able to advance their economic arguments without being accused of encouraging “big government”; candidates outside of New York City and Vermont may be able to campaign as “democratic socialists” without being associated with communism.
For the foreseeable future, though, if the left wants to create the political majority that Tom Hayden dreamed of in 1969, it will have to frame its positions in a vernacular that most Americans can understand. It will also have to draw a sharp distinction between the positions it deems essential for “big, structural change” and those that can be delegated to communities to calibrate and debate. The new left of the ’60s failed in this mission. We didn’t just dream big; we ascended into the realm of fantasy and visible sainthood. Today’s left will need to learn from our mistakes.
Correction: This article originally mentioned a strike by workers from the U.S. Postal Service. However, at the time of the strike, post offices were run by the U.S. Post Office Department, which was later replaced by the U.S. Postal Service.
John B. Judis is the author of “The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization .. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0999745409/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=washingtonpost-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0999745409&linkId=4b16b0be67fcc14e888b441d0316b56a .”
Illustrations by Adam Hayes .. https://mrahayes.com/ . Photo editing by Dudley M. Brooks. Design by Christian Font ..https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-font/ .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/01/21/i-was-60s-socialist-todays-progressives-are-danger-repeating-my-generations-mistakes/
Am thinking after coming on tomorrow and seeing their new posts after about this point, lol, i'll be out of any type of offering,
lol seeds, meant for them to at least take some responsibility to help enable either of them to become less of a nuisance.
Less of a waste of time.
How many times have i said one basic worth of having trolls here for a time is that often they have me going after articles i might have otherwise missed. Always knew i wasn't the only one as that's what we do. You and others have confirmed that more than a few times. That last there a beauty. Thanks.
spartex, Well, post the goddamn article, why don't you.
"Yes, many more people are unvaccinated from one article I read. Only 32% in the 65 and older population."
I'd bet that stat of yours is wildly false. You say you read an article, you know you are required to post
a link to back up assertions as that, yet you don't have the simple common decency to post the link.
You have a night to reconsider your attitude to this place too.
Yes, not many could do it .. http://www.erikhagerman.com/about.html .
"Interesting. But let's remember: he could afford to do that. Evidently he's quite wealthy.
And he's still an artist. No news about his politics blockade."
Gathered politics would be part of his blockade since politics
was the reason for his extreme separation from everyday life.
Bad new re the evolution of the virus. Good news re the vaccination rates.
Reasearch, Republicans waged a decades long dirty war smearing Hillary. Vince Foster conspiracy, child-smuggling conspiracy... yada yada yada.
"Donald Trump had Respect for the country, get it!"
No respect for the laws of the country his whole working life. Not enough caring to fight for it in any capacity.
You fight and i'll discriminate against niggers in our apartments with my Dad, Donald thought back in Nam days.
You sound like a red-scare fearmongering McCarthyite. There is not one communist in Congress.
Seems you don't know the difference between socialism and communism.
You have a night to ponder your future. Your choice.
Right on! No thanks Anne. No to '68-like. Right on! Biden is the same guy who has been ranked
14th/45 by presidential historians. On all the best evidence Biden is still that same man, yet
so many don't understand that. DNC please get the 'Biden is the same 14th guy' message to all those who don't get it yet. Please.
Same ranked 14th guy .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174722363 . Same guy.
When emotions rise it's easy to forget. -- Time to Roll the Dice
Biden’s party doesn’t need to sleepwalk into a catastrophe.
By Anne Applebaum
Guess this is your missing link - Time to Roll the Dice
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/replace-biden-strategic-plan/678884/
Guessing because my subscription ran out in March, '23. tia
You heard right. That takes a minute or more sometimes. I'll leave that
"out" this time so others can see how on top of it all you are. And will add:
I think you know. You came to be no more than a nuisance, eh. If you leave voluntarily you could pop back for one
or two, occasionally. Perhaps you might even learn to do better. If you are banned you lose that option. Your call.
You have wasted a lot of our time and yours today.
Reasearch. That makes you 0-27. How much more leeway do you think we should tolerate. If you were us would you think
you were contributing anything positive to the board. In any way. What would you think about you if you were in out shoes.
I think you know. You came to be no more than a nuisance, eh.
spartex, I said earlier you could possibly contribute something worth considering if you had the inclination ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174728282 .. to make the effort. Your
"Hah, funny. Are you a RedSox fan? Mitt Romney fan too? That thought? Which thought? Does it have a name or proper noun? lol
You guys are total flamers of new people showing up here. Like you are wearing flamethrowing guns. Kind of super amped.
I wonder why?"
confirms that at least to now you never will have that inclination. We don't "flame" but rather engage to help you people understand how misinformed and misguided you have been. For so long. And the answer to your question is because we are interested in knowing and conveying the truth as best we can. The truth based on the best facts available at any time, that is.
Now you know. You are better informed now. You should feel good about that.
spartex, I knew exactly what he meant, you would have too if you know your stuff a well as every regular non-troll poster on this board. Fact is the blue masks or even just cloth masks, are not as effective as the N95's
"Respirators such as nonsurgical N95s give the most protection. KN95s and medical masks provide the next highest level of protection. Cloth masks provide less protection. The CDC says that surgical N95 masks should be reserved for health care professionals."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449
but they are not "ineffective" as you stated. It's simple, and it was clear in his post that's what he was talking about.
There would be more material on all about covid on this board than you have read anywhere. Oh, and since you are still a Trump guy even though he has been ranked 45/45 by presidential historians, and since you didn't reply to ..
spartex, Your recall is extra-selective. How about Trump's...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174722438
you really should spend more time on it instead of posting here. Read more post less works. Call the idea RMPLW.
Reasearch, On any 'posts of worth' scale that makes you 0-26. Would be good if you could give us something
to at least suggest your parents weren't all into dumbing America down when they bred you, but so far zilch.
Your attempt to boost Trump despite the fact expert presidential historians voted him 45/45 just suggests you don't think too well.
14th v 45th, is a fact. Not good for you when more Americans know it.
rooster, Is it because you see only ending of the two would affect you to any real
degree so you only care about them. Is that why you only mentioned the two.
Sure seems he is that. LOL I guess we'll always be visited by them. Just think
of the outlet we provide. Pressure cookered people welcome, for a time.
You would have read about Erik Hagerman. Committed was the first word i thought of, before reading it below.
The Man Who Knew Too Little
The most ignorant man in America knows that Donald Trump is president
— but that’s about it. Living a liberal fantasy is complicated.
Erik Hagerman heads out for his morning ritual, a 30-minute drive into town for coffee and a scone at his favorite coffee shop in Athens, Ohio. Damon Winter/The New York Times
By Sam Dolnick
March 10, 2018
All links
GLOUSTER, Ohio — At first, the experiment didn’t have a name.
Right after the election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d take a break from reading about the hoopla of politics.
Donald Trump’s victory shook him. Badly. And so Mr. Hagerman developed his own eccentric experiment, one that was part silent protest, part coping mechanism, part extreme self-care plan.
He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to America after Nov. 8, 2016.
“It was draconian and complete,” he said. “It’s not like I wanted to just steer away from Trump or shift the conversation. It was like I was a vampire and any photon of Trump would turn me to dust.”
It was just going to be for a few days. But he is now more than a year into knowing almost nothing about American politics. He has managed to become shockingly uninformed during one of the most eventful chapters in modern American history. He is as ignorant as a contemporary citizen could ever hope to be.
James Comey. Russia. Robert Mueller. Las Vegas. The travel ban. “Alternative facts.” Pussy hats. Scaramucci. Parkland. Big nuclear buttons. Roy Moore.
He knows none of it. To Mr. Hagerman, life is a spoiler.
“I just look at the weather,” said Mr. Hagerman, 53, who lives alone on a pig farm in southeastern Ohio. “But it’s only so diverting.”
He says he has gotten used to a feeling that he hasn’t experienced in a long time. “I am bored,” he said. “But it’s not bugging me.”
Damon Winter/The New York Times
It takes meticulous planning to find boredom. Mr. Hagerman commits as hard as a method actor, and his self-imposed regimen — white-noise tapes at the coffee shop, awkward scolding of friends, a ban on social media — has reshaped much of his life.
Extreme as it is, it’s a path that likely holds some appeal for liberals these days — a D.I.Y. version of moving to Canada.
Democrats, liberals and leftists have coped with this first year of the Trump presidency in lots of ways. Some subsist on the thin gruel of political cartoon shows and online impeachment petitions. Others dwell online in the thrilling place where conspiracy is indistinguishable from truth. Others have been inspired to action, making their first run for public office, taking local action or marching in their first protest rally.
Mr. Hagerman has done the opposite of all of them.
The fact that it’s working for him — “I’m emotionally healthier than I’ve ever felt,” he said — has made him question the very value of being fed each day by the media. Why do we bother tracking faraway political developments and distant campaign speeches? What good comes of it? Why do we read all these tweets anyway?
“I had been paying attention to the news for decades,” Mr. Hagerman said. “And I never did anything with it.”
At some point last year, he decided his experiment needed a name. He considered The Embargo, but it sounded too temporary. The Boycott? It came off a little whiny.
Mr. Hagerman has created a fortress around himself. “Tiny little boats of information can be dangerous,” he said.
He decided that it would be called The Blockade.
Behind the Blockade
For a guy who has gone to great lengths to essentially plug his ears, Mr. Hagerman sure does talk a lot. He is witty and discursive, punctuating his stories with wild-eyed grins, exaggerated grimaces and more than the occasional lost thread.
[Insert: Just a thought not meant to be derogatory in any sense. He sure looks happy.
He feels more emotionally stable than ever, but is he. i can relate a tiny bit ..
[...] ... it was a great experience as after that i fully understood and appreciated
more how hallucinations can arise from a 'mental' state
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54455553
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=160634239
A tiny bit only though. Hey good for him. His Lake project sounds great. ]
I recently spent two days visiting his farm on the condition that I not bring news from the outside world. As the sun set over his porch, turning the rolling hills pink then purple then blue, he held forth, jumping from English architecture to the local pigs’ eating habits to his mother’s favorite basketball team to the philosophy of Kant. He can go days without seeing another soul.
This life is still fairly new. Just a few years ago, he was a corporate executive at Nike (senior director of global digital commerce was his official, unwieldy title) working with teams of engineers to streamline the online shopping experience. Before that, he had worked digital jobs at Walmart and Disney.
“I worked 12-, 14-hour days,” he said. “The calendar completely booked.”
But three years ago, he decided he had saved enough money to move to a farm, make elliptical sculptures — and, eventually, opt out of the national conversation entirely.
He lives alone and has never been married. As for money, a financial adviser in San Francisco manages his investments. Mr. Hagerman says he throws away the quarterly updates without reviewing them.
Mr. Hagerman grew up in southeastern Ohio, and after years spent in Brooklyn warehouses, San Francisco tech bubbles and Nike-land in Portland, Ore., the idea of a quiet life became more and more appealing. His mother lives nearby; he sees her a lot since he moved back in 2015. She reluctantly adheres to The Blockade, although they do discuss the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Mr. Hagerman drives from his home into Athens for his morning rituals. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Erik Hagerman sits down with his sketch book, in his regular seat, in the same room, with his same triple, whole milk latte and cranberry scone he has each day at Donkey Coffee. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mr. Hagerman begins every day with a 30-minute drive to Athens, the closest city of note, to get a cup of coffee — a triple-shot latte with whole milk. He goes early, before most customers have settled into the oversize chairs to scroll through their phones. To make sure he doesn’t overhear idle chatter, he often listens to white noise through his headphones. (He used to listen to music, “but stray conversation can creep in between songs.”)
At Donkey Coffee .. https://www.facebook.com/donkeycoffee/ , everyone knows his order, and they know about The Blockade. “Our baristas know where he’s at so they don’t engage him on topics that would make him uncomfortable,” said Angie Pyle, the coffee shop’s co-owner.
Mr. Hagerman has also trained his friends. A close friend from his Nike days, Parinaz Vahabzadeh, didn’t think he was quite serious at first and, in the early days of The Blockade, kept dropping little hints about politics.
The new administration compelled her to engage more deeply in politics, not less. She had only recently become a United States citizen, and she was passionate about the immigration debate. She did not let Mr. Hagerman opt out easily. “I was needling him,” she said.
[LOL]
And in response, she received, for the first time, a stern text message. “I’m now officially cross with you,” he wrote. “As you know very well I don’t wish to hear about current events. I know you don’t agree with my wishes but I do expect you to respect them.”
They now speak on the phone several times a week, but never about the news. “I’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “It’s actually nice to not talk about politics.”
Conversations with Mr. Hagerman can have a Rip Van Winkle quality. He spoke several times about his sister, Bonnie, an assistant professor, who lives in, of all places, Charlottesville, Va.
While he and I were talking, I looked over at him at every mention of Charlottesville to see if the name of the city, home to perhaps the ugliest weekend of the Trump era to date, made him flinch.
“So, do you associate Charlottesville” — I would say the name deliberately and with emphasis — “with anything besides your sister?”
He didn’t bite. I think he really didn’t know about the Nazis.
Later, he pointed to a house on a hill and said that before the election, the neighbor had decorated his lawn with an effigy of Hillary Clinton behind bars. I wanted to point out that the recently unveiled Mueller indictment found that a Russian troll had paid for a Hillary impersonator at a Florida rally .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/world/europe/russians-indicted-mueller.html . But I bit my tongue — Mr. Hagerman didn’t know about Mueller, or Russia, or trolls.
Above Mr. Hagerman's bed is an art piece from a series he is currently working on at his home. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mr. Hagerman works on creating a prototype for a new art project in his wood shop in a barn on his property. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Last winter, Mr. Hagerman spent several weeks visiting his twin brother, a tech C.E.O., in San Francisco. Strict arrangements had to be made — the Sunday newspaper kept out of sight, the TV switched off, his teenage niece and nephew under special instructions.
“The bigger challenge was when we would have friends come over and visit,” said his brother, Kris. “We had to have Erik not be there, or we would give them a heads up that Erik has this news blockade going and we gave them the guidelines.
“They were always a little bemused by it. And to some extent a little envious,” he said. “The prospect of just chucking all that for a period of time felt somewhat appealing.”
To be fair, Mr. Hagerman has made a few concessions. He reads The New Yorker’s art reviews, but is careful to flip past the illustrated covers, which often double as political commentary. He watches every Cavaliers game, but only on mute.
He counts a few boats that have sailed past The Blockade. He saw a picture of Kim Jong-un on a newspaper at the coffee shop, signaling that something was up with North Korea. And he overheard someone saying something about Obamacare, which meant health care was back in the news. His brother alerted him to the Equifax breach for his own protection.
“But the blockade has been pretty damn effective,” Mr. Hagerman said.
He said that with some pride, but he has the misgivings about disengaging from political life that you have, by now, surely been shouting at him as you read. “The first several months of this thing, I didn’t feel all that great about it,” he said. “It makes me a crappy citizen. It’s the ostrich head-in-the-sand approach to political outcomes you disagree with.”
It seems obvious to say, but to avoid current affairs is in some ways a luxury that many people, like, for example, immigrants worried about deportation, cannot afford.
“He has the privilege of constructing a world in which very little of what he doesn’t have to deal with gets through,” said his sister, Bonnie Hagerman. “That’s a privilege. We all would like to construct our dream worlds. Erik is just more able to do it than others.”
What if, he began to think, he could address his privilege, and the idea of broader good, near to home?
He has a master project, one that he thinks about obsessively, that he believes can serve as his contribution to American society.
He calls it The Lake.
At the Lake
On a recent spookily warm day, Mr. Hagerman clambered up a steep bank of woods, pushing past vines and stepping past fallen logs.
Wide-eyed, giddy with excitement, he led the way to a flat stretch of brush where he spread his arms and began talking even faster than usual. “This is where we’ll build a giant barn. It will feel like a cathedral. The cloister will be here,” he said, making reference to Chartres, and Oxford, and the grandeur of medieval cathedrals.
About nine months ago, he bought some 45 acres of land on the site of a former strip mine. The property, untouched for decades, has been reclaimed by nature — deer, beavers, salamanders and canopies of majestic trees are thriving.
We walked further to the edge of a steep drop-off. Below, a bright blue lake shimmered in the February heat like a secret. He’ll debate as long as you want whether the body of water counts as a lake or a pond. It’s easier if you just agree it’s a lake.
“You wouldn’t believe how great it feels to go swimming there,” he said. He added, with almost rapturous glee, that the lake sits in the spot where the mining company dug deepest.
Mr. Hagerman chats with Gary Conley, left, a landscape ecologist working with him to conserve wetland habitats on his property outside Athens. Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mr. Conley holds a juvenile salamander from a vernal pool.Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mr. Hagerman sees this land as his life’s work. He plans to restore it, protect it, live on it and then preserve it for the public. “I will never sell this land,” he said.
He wouldn’t put it exactly this way, but he talks about the land in part as penance for the moral cost of his Blockade. He has come to believe that being a news consumer doesn’t enhance society. He also believes that restoring a former coal mine and giving it to the future does.
“I see it as a contribution that has civic relevance that aligns with my passions and what I do well,” Mr. Hagerman said. “I’m going to donate it. It’s going to take most of my net worth. That’s what I’m going to spend the rest of my money on.”
He has filled an entire room of his house with a 3-D rendering of the property to better envision his plans. He has hired Gary Conley, a local landscape ecologist, to advise on the project. Mr. Conley, a gentle bearded outdoorsman who can speak at length about the preferences of the local amphibians, believes that the land could become something special.
Mr. Conley indulges Mr. Hagerman’s fantasies for the land — a walkway modeled on an ancient Mayan ballgame! Land art inspired by “Spiral Jetty”! Windows and concrete blocks, so many blocks! — but Mr. Conley mainly serves as the straight man to inject ecological reality into the plan.
Mr. Conley respects The Blockade. After all, the project of The Lake might not exist without it.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
In those carefree pre-Trump days, Mr. Hagerman would settle into the coffee shop with his newspaper and dig in. But after The Blockade, he could only read the weather — “For elderly men it’s endlessly interesting” — and the real estate listings.
It was during one of those long boring mornings, with no news to read, that he found the listing for The Lake.
“The first time I saw it, I said, ‘This is it,’” he said.
Sam Dolnick is an assistant managing editor, overseeing The Times’s audio report, its work in film and television, and other digital projects. He was formerly the deputy sports editor a reporter. More about Sam Dolnick
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html
It was poorly put. You know he meant to say once you were vaccinated.
rooster, They did commit to ending Obamacare ..
Trump doubles down, saying ‘Obamacare Sucks’ and must be replaced
Despite the GOP 2024 front-runner's call, congressional Republicans are divided on
whether to pick that battle again after they tried and failed to eliminate the law in 2017.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-doubles-saying-obamacare-sucks-must-replaced-rcna126978
" Might they try and improve them possibly but no one is ending either one"
Democrats stopped them from ending it.
And, zab, It's as easy for Trump to make speeches as it is for water to go over a waterfall,
because, as you say, he doesn't give a stuff about what comes out of his mouth.
"When people have something important to say, it's a speech to make sure all points are addressed. Trump
just talks about whatever comes out of his mouth, no thought or reason, and his thoughts just wander."
It's a real shame how so many so-called Christian evangelists, who are supposed
to be giving living skills advice to people, can and do accept the fact he lies so much.
Sweet. Could add one word, to bring patriarchal order to society.
"To bring order to society, and to control women."
spartex, Eating the seeds is all good, just always wonder about people who take supplements as your Lecithin ..
https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-966/lecithin .
That said, your post was a positive contribution. You clearly are capable of cleaning
up your political comments, if you are capable of creating the inclination to do so.
And that said, would you be ready yet to apologize to the board for saying earlier we
don't tolerate differing opinion. Here and now would be a good time and place to do it.
rooster, Lousy joke. You forgot ...
"Remember when they said a president would refuse to leave office? Hahahahahahahaha It’s Joe! Hahahahahahahah"
...after losing an election.
rooster, Fact is they will do their best to cut stuff as "social security or disability" back as much as they can
get away with it. Just as the did and are still trying to do with Obamacare. Think about what you have said:
"No it’s just not a real thing that theyll end social security or disability. I’m just not worried about that happening"
You are not worried about it happening. Who would prevent it happening? Yep, Democrats. We rest our case.
Thanks .. LIVE: Biden gives speech at NATO summit
spartex, You should have learned before now that this board does not operate as most all conservative iHub boards.
Here you are held accountable for what you say. I'll just refashion what you have already been told here.
Your " It only helped to minimize the impacts once you caught the vaccine."
actually was basically what Fauci and his fellows said from the beginning.
Actually we could be good for you as it really does appear
you should check what you think more, before you say it.
Yep, a pen pusher president, perfect for Republicans. They have Heritage and ALEC and others to prepare the legislation
"Loyalty czars." As God created ordinary people in his own image, will Trump recreate the U.S.A. in his.
[...]
B402, H/t sortagreen -- Project 2025 poses threat to democracy
[...]
If you’ve not heard of Project 2025, it’s very worthy of your independent investigation. Project 2025 is a playbook (a “comprehensive policy guide”) created for Donald Trump and his minions to use in the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The far-right Heritage Foundation proudly takes credit for facilitating the 887-page document on how to turn a democracy into an authoritarian country.
While editing Project 2025, Paul Dans and Steven Groves had assistance from 34 authors, 277 contributors, a 54 member advisory board and a coalition of more than 100 conservative organizations (including ALEC, The Heartland Institute, Liberty University, Middle East Forum, Moms for Liberty, NRA, Pro-Life America, and the Tea Party Patriots).
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174576309&txt2find=alec
And the more Trump distances himself from it the more you know he is committed to it. We've known for a long time that's his mo.
spartex, Don't you see your very presence here - still - makes your
"I guess you can only be on "one point of view" here."
misinformation in the least. Actually, if you think about it, yours became a lie.
Sorry, i was referring to Trump specifically (should have said so)
as one, who for good reason, sees himself as above the law.
On your 'to many of the Ed's to catch', yeah, and as time passes there
seems to be more of most all types of criminals to catch them all.
More guns isn't a solution, that's one thing we know.
Totally nonresponsive. My parents didn't have any as stupid as you come across.
The fact the rule of law no longer applies to all is a problem.
Many countries once used an electoral college. Only the USA still does:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_college
ReasearchThis, Thus far you have offered little but misinformation, low level sarcasm and insult, projection
and lies. It looks you are more a waste of space than much else. Oh, and if you make an assertion such as ..
"A conclusion the world is coming to is!
Governments should all be some type of Democratic Republic.
Similar to the United States."
you must include at least something to support it other than your opinion.
One other board rule is you must supply a link for all unoriginal work.
In that post you did neither of those two.
And now i see you have stooped to repeating content all
while ignoring earlier comment that it is not true. See
ReasearchThis, Not true from the very beginning. Your
"A conclusion the world is coming to is!
.Governments should all be some type of Democratic Republic.
.Similar to the United States."
is not true.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174722485
B402, Experts presidential rank 14th vs 45th. Republicans moment of truth came when they capitulated to Trump.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174722001
Joe is the same guy who gained that rank of 14th. What the fuck is wrong with you people.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174722150
ReasearchThis, We do know Putin would rather have Trump as president, than
he would Biden. That's what we know, beyond doubt, about what Putin thinks.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174721570
The stock fraud complaint is interesting. This OT, while not. We know he is a malignant narcissist and we know all of this about him too.
Understanding the psychology of a fraudster
Tim Robinson, Partner, Forensic Services
09/01/2024
Two men looking at codes on screen
The world of fraud is a complex one, with fraudsters coming from diverse backgrounds and holding a range of motivations. Crowe’s recent research, the Annual Fraud Indicator 2023, which has been carried out in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime and Peters and Peters LLP, now suggests the UK loses £219 billion to fraud annually. To many, the sheer size of the problem will feel like we’re fighting an unwinnable battle. However, understanding the psychology of a fraudster can provide us with important insights which are invaluable if we are to fight back and reduce this monumental figure.
In this article we will explore the known motives, characteristics, and psychological mechanisms that drive individuals to engage in fraudulent behaviour. We’ll then discuss some key measures to help to prevent fraud.
The motives behind fraud
Fraudsters come in all shapes and sizes, and their motivations are as diverse as the schemes they concoct. The most common and obvious motive for fraud is the desire for financial gain. Fraudsters may be motivated by the prospect of easy money, whether it's through misappropriation of funds, embezzlement, identity theft, Ponzi schemes, or other means. The allure of life-changing financial gain can be a powerful incentive for individuals to engage in fraudulent activities. Conversely, some fraudsters turn to deception out of desperation. When facing mounting debts or financial difficulties, individuals may resort to fraud as a way to alleviate their financial woes. The fear of losing everything can push individuals to take drastic measures.
For some, the motive behind fraud is not purely financial but stems from a desire to boost their self-esteem and self-image. Fraudsters may engage in deceitful activities to appear successful, sophisticated, or influential to others. This psychological need for recognition and self-worth can be a powerful motivator.
Personal vendettas, grudges, or a desire for revenge can drive some individuals to commit fraud. These fraudsters may target specific individuals or organisations to exact revenge or settle personal scores. This motive can be particularly difficult to detect, as it may not always align with traditional financial motives.
Just as some individuals can be forced to dishonestly gain additional funds to pay off a gambling debt or substance addiction, others become addicted to fraudulent activities. The thrill of deceiving others, coupled with the rush of evading detection, can become an obsession for some fraudsters. This motive is rooted in the psychology of addiction and compulsion.
The characteristics of a fraudster
While fraudsters vary in their motives, they tend to share certain psychological and behavioural characteristics. Understanding these traits can help in identifying potential fraudsters and preventing their activities:
Many fraudsters rationalise their actions, believing that they have a valid reason or excuse for their fraudulent behaviour. This rationalisation helps them alleviate guilt and maintain their self-image as morally upright individuals. When perpetrating a fraud against a large corporation a fraudster often rationalises the fraud under the premise of ‘they can afford it’.
The most obvious trait is the ability to deceive convincingly. Fraudsters are skilled at concealing their true intentions and creating a facade of honesty and trustworthiness. However, fraudsters are also often opportunistic, seizing chances to commit fraud when they arise. They may be constantly on the lookout for weaknesses in systems, loopholes, or unsuspecting victims.
A key trait of a fraudster is their ability to manipulate others to achieve their goals. They can be charming, persuasive, and skilled at exploiting trust and emotions. Coupled with a lack of empathy, they can be known to harm others without remorse or understanding of the emotional and financial consequences their actions have on victims.
Fraudsters are often willing to take substantial risks to achieve their objectives. Their greed can often be the downfall as they may believe they can outsmart authorities or evade detection, even when the odds are against them.
The psychological mechanisms
Understanding the psychological mechanisms that underlie fraudulent behaviour is crucial for detecting and preventing fraud. These mechanisms shed light on the thought processes and decision-making of fraudsters.
The perceived anonymity of committing fraud can reduce inhibitions and lead individuals to engage in behaviour they would avoid in face-to-face situations. Online fraud, for example, provides a sense of detachment that makes it easier for individuals to commit deceptive acts.
Fraudsters frequently employ various cognitive mechanisms to justify their actions. They may convince themselves that they are victims of an unfair system or that their victims somehow deserve their fate. These justifications help maintain the fraudster's image as a moral person.
Detecting and preventing fraud
[...]
https://www.crowe.com/uk/insights/understanding-the-psychology-of-a-fraudster
How to prevent further political fraud by Trump? Beat him at the up-coming election. Don't vote for him.