"Nick Hanauer" I remember that name from his TED talk.
I'm glad to see that he's still making the argument. The tone of that article feels like he's given up on the belief that he can convince people, and is just trying to state his position as strongly as possible.
This seems very familiar. Good stuff.
Many of my peers prefer to hide behind the enduring myth that today's crisis of economic inequality and insecurity is the result of forces unleashed by unstoppable trends in technology and globalization.
This is a particularly important point. The same argument could have been made about the previous Gilded Age, and it was bullshit then, too. Yet you'll see liberals (I'm looking at you, Saiselgy) arguing that the winner-take-all economy is a natural phenomenon rather than a political choice.
Hanauer starts with a dubious premise: that rich folks want democracy to work in this country. Sure, Trump is a bit crude for some of Hanauer's elites, but he is pretty much what they have been working toward for decades.
The one-percenters don't want to empower regular folks; they want to disenfranchise them. Trump advances their agenda, and they know it.
4: No, his only premise is that rich people want to preserve their pleasant, secure lifestyles.
1%'ers are a pretty big group and they aren't wealthy enough to insulate themselves from the world. Trump, Koch, Thiel, maybe Hanauer, Gates, Bezos, Newell, . . . might be. And even those guys vary in how much they want to insulate themselves and liv ein their own world (Gates, Bezos, and Newell who are all in Seattle, have a surprising desire to live pseudo-1% style lives while still being among the richest people in the world). For the 1%, though, Hanauer's argument matters. They don't fly in private jets, many send their kids to public schools, they live in neighborhoods and use the city parks, and go to libraries and watch fireworks shows, . . . .
I think Hanauer has a case to make for 1%'ers and isn't altogether unsuccessful in making it to the class of 1%'ers who have children.
Indeed, the left's maniacal focus on Trump confuses cause with effect. Yes, Trump is a manifestation of a serious civic sickness. But treating the symptom by removing Trump won't cure the disease, even if it temporarily makes us feel better. No, to heal the body politic we must confront the disease itself.
Contra this bizarre claim, "the left" seems like the only faction in America that understands this.
Yet, when I make this case to my wealthy friends, even the progressive ones, the reaction is almost universal: You look down at your shoes, or start talking about "messaging" or "narrative"--or charter schools. When I urge you to focus your energy and resources on the kinds of direct action that can actually make a real difference to working people--like, for instance, a state or city minimum wage campaign--you roll your eyes, or prevaricate. You insist that the only way to fight Trumpism is to fight Trump. But you couldn't be more wrong. The only effective way to fight Trumpism is to address its cause by ensuring that the middle and working class do better.
How is he defining "progressive"? Because his "progressive" friends don't sound like any progressives I know.
Exactly. You see the "Never Trump" Republicans wandering around acting like somehow Trump exists outside of the Republican Party, like a wart that some how drifted in from the air.
9: Very wealthy progressives, obviously.
5,6: Sure, yeah, he's trying to sell it in terms of self-interest, but in some ways, his argument reminds me of "What's the Matter With Kansas." People aren't as dumb as high-minded folks like Hanauer and Thomas Frank think. The Kansans and the one-percenters know what they want, and they make their political choices accordingly, even if we don't think it's good for them.
Hanauer likes democracy. Members of Sam Walton's family don't, and empirically, I think we have to acknowledge that they've got a solid record of successfully pursuing their own best interests.
8: Yeah, I didn't want to nitpick an editorial I basically agreed with and he wasn't mainly pointing the finger at them, but blaming "the left" for Trump and the current situation is fucknuts. In no particular order, Fox News, the know-nothing base of the Republican party, the party establishment that was totally happy to pander to them until the minute Trump won the nomination, the Koch brothers, George Will, David Broder, David Brooks, Jill Stein, and Joe Lieberman are more to blame for the current situation than people who are maybe jumping the gun on impeachment a tiny bit.
I read what he's writing as "Don't forget the torches and pitchforks. They're still out there." The Waltons may be doing well for themselves at the moment but he'd like to remind them about that.
Right now, Republicans have been remarkable successful at making white people try to pitchfork anybody not white as opposed to any Walton.
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Hanauer likes democracy. Members of Sam Walton's family don't, and empirically, I think we have to acknowledge that they've got a solid record of successfully pursuing their own best interests.
What do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and for a non-tech example Steve Spielberg, think of democracy? I'm genuinely asking. I guess I could go do some research myself, but the point is, that's who the editorial seems to be aimed at. Filthy rich left-coasters who are socially liberal, want America to be the leader of the free world, and probably don't like Trump personally, but are generally apolitical or right-leaning or were until recently.
It is weird to publish an editorial ostensibly aimed at such a tiny audience in a more general-interest media outlet, agreed.
I hope the intended audience is really the people expected to wield the pitchforks, reminding them of the option.
Do people have enough gardening and farming experience anymore? Some pitchforks appear to be maximized for pitching hay, of all things. You need the kind with a few (three or four) tines that are relatively thick and not so far from straight. There are some that have a eight or more very thin tines, shaped like a scoop. If that's what you got, go with it. But it's suboptimal.
Politico aims for an elite, DC/NY audience don't they? I seem to remember their print edition is DC only, though it's been almost 10 years since I've seen one.
19: heh. That's a reminder that I'm an elitist. Politico is one of the free papers I grabbed the last time I was low on kindling for my grill. Fair enough, not exactly general-interest.
A mob wielding staplers and vape pens isn't as intimidating, true.
I hate walking past crowds of people vaping. I don't mind smokers as much, because that at least smells like smoke.
18. Ordinary gardening forks would do at a pinch. Or lawn rakes.
Who rakes lawns anymore? Once again, the conservative suburbanites are the most heavily armed.
They mostly use leaf blowers now. They'll be able to blow our hipster regiment's vape smoke back at them and make our cheeks all flappy.
How does an ordinary gardening fork differ from a pitch fork? Maybe it's what my dad called a potato fork?
Designed to break soil, not just gather hay.
18, 23: I have a nice pruning saw. Just give me 15 minutes alone with David Koch ...
I thought the article was subtly calling for some young disruptors to develop a guillotine-sharing app. They could name it bHeadr.
They could name it bHeadr.
You really don't need to decapitate many people to get attention.
Though, I suppose, if mobs just decapitated 4 or 5 rich people it's really unlikely that the rest would think, "what we need to do, as a response, is raise wages."
Like Uber but for tumbrels.
Tumbrelr.com.
The French decapitated people for murder for centuries and never stopped murderers.
34: To be fair, I doubt that the specific murderers they decapitated ever killed anyone again.
34: I think only nobles got decapitated, until the Revolutionary leveling. So really less than a couple of centuries.
I thought Moby wa from Nebraska. Hay forks - 3 or 4 tines. Manure fork - more than 4 tines. I spent a lot of my teenage years on the end of a manure fork in Ohio. The handle end.
I was raised in town. The only time I ever worked around animals was building pig barns of the kind where the food came in on a auger and the shit came out via an automated system. Capital is displacing labor everywhere.
Anyway, start looking for a good hay fork. They seem to be kind of hard to find anymore.
Is that what those squarish things are.
Now I am going to have to go have another look.
Bales are round these days, and no longer of a size to be human-tossable. My dad grew up walking behind the baler tossing the old-style bales onto a trailer. He was 5'5" and had 17" biceps 20 years after he last tossed a bale.
Just for the record, since I am involved in the Ag industry, hay packages come in all sizes these days from small rectangular fifty-pound bales to large round and rectangular bales weighing a ton. Some hay is even harvested at high moisture and stored in silos or big plastic bags.
Now back to the regular programming...
And they were still stacking loose hay in big stacks in the Big Hole in Montana twenty years ago but I haven't been back recently to see if anyone is still doing that.
I feel bad for the guy, but it kind of makes you wonder about the rambling performance during the Comey hearing.
They say you only use 10 percent of your brain. You can probably let cancer get a good bit of the remaining ninety.
Cancer just means more brain cells you're not using.
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What is this "no confidence" resolution BS? That's our approach, not yours.
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Just for the record, since I am involved in the Ag industry, hay packages come in all sizes these days from small rectangular fifty-pound bales to large round and rectangular bales weighing a ton. Some hay is even harvested at high moisture and stored in silos or big plastic bags.
I also know this, but from playing Farming Simulator 2015.
54: We learned it from you dad. We learned it from you.
I can't tell if 55 is serious or not.
I'm not going to google it because life needs moments of wonder.
I haven't tried it, but I"m a big fan of Euro Truck Simulator 2.
They still do that giant breadloaf thing in the Big Hole.
As long as the hole is at least six inches deep and nobody else is around.
57: Totes serious. It scratches much the same itch as as ETS 2, with a bit more variety. It's a fantastic game to play while listening to a podcast. It's not as good as the Truck Simulator games, though, and they shamelessly milk the franchise by releasing "new" versions every other year with virtually no changes.
What do Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and for a non-tech example Steve Spielberg, think of democracy? [..] but are generally apolitical or right-leaning or were until recently.
In the sense of being Republicans, none of these three were ever that. They are people who think that liberalism* and the political economy we have, excepting changes around the edges, are compatible. Basically, they are in favor of any liberalism that allows their wealth to be possible.
*In the sense that Elizabeth Bruenig does a decent job of clarifying here: https://medium.com/@ebruenig/understanding-liberals-versus-the-left-5cff7ea41fd8
46: I will defer to your expertise, but I will say that when I drive through rural areas in the upper midwest, field with large round (cylindrical, not spherical) hay bales outnumber fields with small rectangular bales at a ratio of at least 50:1. I do see the smaller ones, but I associate them with small farms using old equipment. But that's just anecdata.
That's at least partially because the small rectangular bales aren't intended to be stored outside for long periods of time. They go in the barn, but the giant round bales can stay in the field until use.
I have an economic theory in which distribution is a matter of political choices, not a result of laws of supply and demand. And, in this theory, most claims about how minimum wages lead to disemployment are a matter of spouting ignorant balderdash.
Maybe I should send some email to Nick H.
Which hay structure is most suitable for sleeping under as a hobo? Asking for my future grandchildren.
Glad to see someone is still doing that. At the time, 20 years ago, I was evaluating a ranch there to purchase for the company where I was employed. At the time, they said they were going to switch to round bales because they were having trouble finding summer labor to do it the old way. You can't get much lower capital investment.
Speaking of agriculture, somebody on my Facebook put up a video of a boar with huge testicles. I guess P.E. teachers have lots of free time in the summer.
Speaking of agriculture, somebody on my Facebook put up a video of a boar with huge testicles. I guess P.E. teachers have lots of free time in the summer.
I guess he didn't post it. His brother tagged him in it.