Thursday, November 21, 2013

Yves Smith — The Skunk Party Manifesto


Yves is on a tear.
The best political system that money can buy is doing a great job for its customers and a lousy job for the rest of us.
Most Americans do not realize that they are on the losing end of a 40-year war against them. On August 23, 1971, former Nixon Supreme Court Justice Louis Powell circulated what came to be known as the Powell memo. It set forth a detailed program for reshaping American institutions and values to favor the interests of corporations over those of ordinary citizens. The success of this initiative has been so complete that it has not only rolled back many of the bulwarks created by the New Deal and the Great Society, but it is also in the process of pauperizing ordinary workers in order to increase record business profits even further. The fact that the campaign has also produced rampant political dysfunction, curtailed civil liberties and helped cement an out-of-control surveillance state is of perilous little concern to powerful elites as long as their plutocratic land-grab continues.
Naked Capitalism
The Skunk Party Manifesto
Yves Smith

3 comments:

James said...

I saw this GIF posted on twitter yesterday, probably correlates quite well with the 40yrs of governments favoring corporate and financial interests more and more.

http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/821171617.gif?1384189675

David said...

I kind of like the "skunk Party" thingy. Some of the commenters at NC expressed concern that you need a "respectable name" for politics and so forth. I think that could be relevant later, but not so much now. I like that it's a little self-deprecating in the same way that the colonists embraced the "yankee doodle" stereotype and Franklin wanted to promote the turkey as national bird. In the mainstream view activism on the left is always portrayed as having a bad odor when they choose to notice it at all. Right activism, on the other hand, is always characterized in a positive light. A Gingrich or a Ryan always has the benefit of being portrayed as "new" or "bold." As much as the establishment likes to pretend that a left doesn't exist it does and we're gonna keep reminding them of it. What's that smell?

David said...

I kind of like the "Skunk Party" thingy. Some of the commenters at NC expressed concern that you need a "respectable name" for politics and so forth. I think that could be relevant later, but not so much now. I like that it's a little self-deprecating in the same way that the colonists embraced the "yankee doodle" stereotype and Franklin wanted to promote the turkey as national bird. In the mainstream view activism on the left is always portrayed as having a bad odor when they choose to notice it at all. Right activism, on the other hand, is always characterized in a positive light. A Gingrich or a Ryan always has the benefit of being portrayed as "new" or "bold." As much as the establishment likes to pretend that a left doesn't exist it does and we're gonna keep reminding them of it. What's that smell?