And well-deserved it will be. (Mylan makes the Epi-pen, which went from $90 to $600, and which schools are required to buy by law to stop fatal allergic reactions.)
Chair of Mylan literally held out middle fingers to regulators, Congressional critics, his own executives over profiteering concerns. pic.twitter.com/vezvKcDW3f
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) June 5, 2017
While I actually find this pretty funny, it’s also the sort of thing that makes me think, “up against the wall,” because a lot of people are dying so that Coury can get rich.
Now, I, of course, would never condone political violence. I believe that poor people and, lately, middle class people should just die, or just do non-violent things and never, ever, ever do violent things when their lords and masters are getting rich off of their own backs and the backs and lives of their children.
But it might be, it just might be, that others might not be as committed to pacifism as I, and that when things go sideways, they might remember the people who engaged in this sort of profit gouging.
Might?
Might not.
But perhaps our lords and masters have become overly insulated from the results of their actions.
I am reminded of what Mark Twain wrote about the Terror.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
‘Nough said.
Oh, and Coury? He deserves a round of anatomically challenging self-fulfillment.
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Hugh
I like the Twain quote. It is Terror when we do it to them, and history when they do it to us.
There is a lot of seething anger out there. The media, elites, and powers that be try to trivialize it with the Trump Follies. They try to portray it as the sad result of Democrats hating Republicans and vice versa. But these are exercises in distraction and misdirection. That anger is against them. It just hasn’t found the right vessel yet to distill and direct it.
Stirling Newberry
There will be worse coming, people have to get angry first – and the rich need to do some obscene.
But it is getting there.
The Stephen Miller Band
But that’s part of the problem with violent reactions, Ian. The violence is always, ALWAYS, misdirected. If that’s your point or part of your point, I agree. For a violent reaction to be quasi effective in the Mylan example, all those who said “fuck you” to the people they were, and are, killing would/will need to be taken out, put against the wall and executed, but that’s NEVER the way it happens. Ironically, in China it does happen this way sometimes. But not in America. No sir. In America, the less ethical & moral you are, the more heinously sadistic you are, the more highly you are rewarded and any violent reaction to that inhumanity & injustice only adds further insult to injury by bringing harm to those who had no part or say in the matter. Shooting up movie theaters and McDonald’s is misdirected violence. At least Hodgkinson was directionally correct with his targeting and didn’t go after random strangers in a public place.
The Stephen Miller Band
That is an excellent Twain quote. He’s discussing Hot Evil versus Cold Evil applied to the French Revolution.
A Republican Congress Critter said on television the other day that the shooting at the baseball practice was “an attack on Democracy.” I laughed out loud. Congress, and the American Government in general, commit inexplicable Cold Evil in perpetuity, yet they jump up and down and exploit Hodgkinson’s Hot Evil that pales in comparison to the Cold Evil in scope & effect. The Cold Evil that prompted Hodgkinson’s Hot Evil.
But hey, they run the Education System & The Media and as such they can keep The Masses malformed & misinformed. So long as those two pillars remain firmly in place and functioning as is, nothing can or will change because there is no capacity even if a strong catalyst for change presents.
Montanamaven
Add to the list the Grenfell Tower fire. From a link on Naked Capitalism we get another big picture take on Cold Evil and History. Disposable people in the service of raising property values. Just numbers. I can see why early left libertarians (can’t use the word anarchism anymore, it seems) differed from modern day right libertarians in their view of accumulation of private property being the road to ruin for the 99%.
https://renegadeinc.com/tale-two-cities/
realitychecker
@ Ian
“Now, I, of course, would never condone political violence. I believe that poor people and lately, middle class people should just die, or just do non-violent things and never, ever, ever do violent things when their lords and masters are getting rich off of them and their children dying.”
Well, I’m pretty sure your tongue was not entirely surrounded by your teeth when you typed that, but, right or wrong, I think it points up the very serious problem that the people you and I have sympathy with agree entirely with that paragraph as written. And insist on staying that way.
At some point, it becomes rational to just give up. How close are we to that point?
atcooper
Learning to do violence at the minimum level necessary, and without pleasure, is key. It’s really easy to get caught up in the thrill of it.
The Stephen Miller Band
The impediment is The Rich. We live in a System where money buys EVERYTHING including, and especially, Power. The Rich have all the money therefore The Rich have all the Power. The Rich have control of the Government. The Government in combination with private Wealthy Interests controls The Media to a large extent. The Rich, via the Government, control Education, which is effectively Potential-Destroying Indoctrination into Wage Slavery.
The obvious key, the first step, is to remove the impediment that is The Rich. When I say Deport The Rich, it’s only just barely tongue in cheek and maybe not tongue in cheek at all. By deporting The Rich we avoid slaughtering them. We allow their ultimate fate to be determined by them, not us. I say we drop them off in Russia where they can bask in the radiance of an unabashed, unashamed Kleptocratic Plutocracy where they should be right at home. But they can’t take OUR wealth that they have stolen with them. We freeze all of their assets and since they have told us for so long that they are the Champions in this Survival of the Fittest Game they’ve devised in their favor, they can be the Champions they believe they are and start from scratch in Russia with their fellow Global Kleptocratic Plutocrats. I’m sure their Russian Colleagues will give them a leg up.
There is a way to do this with minimal bloodshed. Vengeance cannot be your guiding force & light. A better World cannot be accomplished if The Rich are still The Rich. In order for that better World to manifest, The Rich can be no more and the best way to accomplish that without engaging in Genocide, is to deport The Rich to a clime more suitable to their temperament & aspirations. Russia, considering, is the perfect place just as Israel is the perfect home for The Jews, or so they say.
So, when do we begin? They won’t go easy, but we have the numbers and they will have no choice ultimately but to relent and accept their permanent vacation. Putin should welcome them with Open Arms — especially the Republican Variety that’s been carrying his water for the past 15 or more years.
Ten Bears
It has been said violence is the last resort of the inept. I disagree, it is merely the last resort. Unfortunately, violence is itself inept.
It has also been said there are no pacifists, only opportunists waiting to hoist the Jolly Roger. Prudence dictates keeping options open.
realitychecker
@ Ten Bears.
Good words. As usual. Thanks for pointing out that there are various countervailing factors to consider.
Let us also remember that slavery and serfdom are also “inept.”
Pro/con and cost/benefit analyses seek to help us weigh these competing values, but we must be able/willing to do some addition and subtraction.
Too many in America today find this addition and subtraction to be too difficult to attempt. Binary good/bad-flavored labels are considered to be”good enough,” it seems to me.
We are probably going to have to settle for something that is less than perfect lol.
We are going to need more people like you.
wendy davis
ian, it’s not hard to imagine that your paragraph beginning with ‘Now, I, of course, would never condone political violence.’ is by way of giving your quasi-blessing to a discussion on armed revolution of sorts, even if you’d want to call for an ‘academic’, or ‘theoretical’ discussion.
certain members of your commentariat seem quite desirous of that, and comments around the issue seem to being more heat than light, imo. but if this is what you’re actually desiring, as realitychecker may have indicated w/ his ‘…that the people you and I have sympathy with agree entirely with that paragraph as written’, it would be a service if you’d just say so, even in an edit to your OP.
realitychecker
” . . . that the people you and I have sympathy with . . .” refers to regular decent folks of a leftish persuasion, i.e., classic liberal value espousers.
Some people who are lousy at paraphrasing and lousy at mind-reading seem to be addicted to continual efforts to practice those arts.
realitychecker
Gotta say, if the folks who put all their creative energies into trying to attack me online could just direct that energy in some efficient way against the Establishment, the revolution discussion might be mooted.
But circular firing squads R’Us on the left, always been true, apparently still is, unfortunately will most likely always be. It’s a serious character flaw we must own up to.
Let’s attack each other so folks like Wendy can continue to nurse their own private fantasies about the indigenous women of the world magically fixing everything all by themselves, and we don’t need no stinking men in power with their damn testosterone, anyway. (That is Wendy’s position, btw.)
Do the folks you’ve shamelessly poached from here to your no-readership blog know that about you yet, Wendy?
tony
Brazil is stable-ish, despite the poor of that country having a far worse time. That is true for a lot of countries around the world, and I doubt Americans are actually going to do anything about it. Not yet. They will quietly die, vote one party or the other and get replaced by Latinos and some religious groups.
Americans depend on the functioning the supply chains to survive, and a centralized system can easily cut them. No food stamp, no electricity and no water, and the rebellion is done. Not to mention medicine and the militarized police, pension savings and the violent gangs which could be allowed to take over the rebellious areas.
wendy davis
whoa, nellie, realitychecker; my comment was by way of helping you and the others who seem to want to have the conversation out. you really do have a hair trigger in your defensive posture, though.
please don’t tell me what my beliefs are, though, especially in such an ignorant and false way. but here, another favor for you.
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
Stirling Newberry
> The impediment is The Rich.
No – it is the people that do the dirty work. The rich can all be gotten rid of, and a new rich will take the place – a critical mass of psychopaths are much harder. In fact – it is a lesson learn from Robespierre.
Cafe7
I’m going to agree with Wendy, this Weatherman cosplay isn’t going to help anyone.
realitychecker
Didn’t mean and never said “the people that you and I have sympathy with” were the people who wanted to have a discussion about revolution here.
See above.
Context , please.
You were operating on a mistaken assumption, and your intent was not assumed to be benevolent because you’ve been so relentlessly (mistakenly) negative toward me for the last few months, here and at your own blog. 🙂
In any event, I question the propriety of pressuring our esteemed host to take on overt stance when he has already done what he chooses to do about it.
realitychecker
Edit: “an overt stance”
Ten Bears
The people that do the dirty work… The Little Eichmanns.
Willy
Theoretically, all the social dynamics involved in revolutions could be put into a unified equation. The Yanks got the Brits out, but so did Gandhi. Maybe if Corbyn has found a really good thing we’ll want the Brits back in, I dunno. The point is that there are reasons why completely different methods work. And I’d think that success would be dependent on understanding all the variables. Unless you’re lucky. But do you feel lucky, punks?
Is there a qualified historian in the house?
realitychecker
It’s not always about history, and there is no history of a computer age, in any event. We are in virgin territory in that regard.
Whee! 🙂
Willy
I’d think the internet variable would speed everything up, as would using computers to help calculate the odds of success or failure.
One thing I do know, is that successfully socialized sociopaths have the most naturally occurring ‘scientific brain’. Normals are always trying to project their own empathic viewpoints onto things. It’s hard to step away from that to see just the facts. But with a fair amount of discipline, even an empath can do it.
MojaveWolf
I had a feeling this might have some interesting comments; not quite as interesting (and I mean that in an intellectual as well as popcorn way) as I’d hoped, but it’s getting there.
Let me agree w/what seems to be the prevailing sentiment, or even sentiments, but state it a little more bluntly–violence should be the last resort, not least because once things go there, outcomes are unpredictable and when violence is done on a large scale, innocents invariably get stomped w/the guilty. OTOH, what the powers that be blithely do to multiple populaces on a regular basis is violence, of a sort, and does far more damage to far more people than everyone reading this blog could possibly do if we all went psycho killer at once. Meanwhile, those same ruling classes declare “it’s the best of all possible worlds, you just don’t appreciate how much worse it could be and how good it really is.” And on top of that they rig elections and are absolutely adamant against hand marked, hand counted paper ballots w/multiple observers every stop of the way, thus ensuring that there is no way really know for certain which elections are on the up and up and which are not.
This is not a recipe for peace.
Nor is it even a recipe for the preferred world from the point of view of even the most well insulated and uncaring-about-others rich person, if they had but the imagination and sense to see it.
Should it continue as is, the US will soon be like those countries where the ruling class can’t leave their enclaves without heavy bodyguard, and kidnappings of the rich become routine. Yo, any policy makers or super rich people w/influence reading this? Read up on this. It is a thing in some places. It could happen here in your lifetime. And that is your best case scenario if things continue as are.
Your worst case scenario if things continue as they are now is more like the aforementioned French Revolution or the events depicted in Spartacus: Blood and Sand Episode 13 (for those going “huh?” the episode title is “Kill Them All” and it is based on the following real event: “About 70[18] slaves were part of the plot. Though few in number, they seized kitchen utensils, fought their way free from the school, and seized several wagons of gladiatorial weapons and armor.[17] The escaped slaves defeated legions sent after them, plundered the region surrounding Capua, recruited many other slaves into their ranks, and eventually retired to a more defensible position on Mount Vesuvius.”)(sorry for the spoiler, but honestly, if you watch the show that far and get to that episode and see that title at the beginning, given that there are subsequent seasons, this can’t be that much a spoiler, and again, based on real events, though it went slightly differently in the episode).
Smarter thing for ruling classes to do? Go all FDR and actually try to make the world a happier and more equitable place. You still get to be rich, you can walk outside without fear, and people are more likely to smile and say hi and pat you on the back than give you dirty looks whilst you wonder if they’re just having a bad day or if they’re contemplating what your head would look like if someone twisted it around a few times.
Also, please SINCERELY work on fixing various environmental problems because if the whole biosphere withers away it’s not going to be fun for anybody. That includes you. Even if you get to live in a self-contained bunker w/plenty of vat-grown fungus to eat after the other foodstocks run out and all the rabble have starved to death after Soylent Green proved to be only a temporary solution. Really. Think about it. (this goes for our corporate media idiots who insist on downplaying the MANY problems here too; you guys have a job that constitutes a sacred trust, if you think about it, as an adequately informed populace with a reasonably accurate view of reality is necessary for either a democracy or a democratic republic to function, and you violate that trust about as thoroughly and completely as possible on a daily basis, your actions are as awful as Dick Cheney ever thought about being)
The people running things getting some basic sense and having some concern beyond immediate short term personal gratification? That would be the easiest and best fix.
And no, I’m not agreeing w/those calling for actual revolution. I’m not even going to say “you want a revolution, you go do it” because I don’t think we’re quite at the point where this is the best option and if you botch it tptb could (and would!) try to use it to discredit the whole idea of reform.
That said . . . seriously, not a pacifist here. Statements like Mr. Coury’s piss me off too. I would probably laugh and possibly cheer if something awful happened to that guy and my ONLY concern would be whether someone would try to use it to make us even more of a surveillance state than we already are (as difficult as that might be).
But… not restating my more detailed objections to “violent revolt now,” just saying I do not think it is the best way to go at this point in time. And for those of us with families we care about, I’m pretty sure I speak for us all in hoping they never have to go through anything like that.
Which doesn’t mean do nothing. The best way to win a fight? Convince the other party it’s in their best interest to do what you want without a fight ever breaking out. “Don’t tread on me” with a rattle. Sane people don’t step on the rattlesnake when it can be avoided. Sane members of the ruling class don’t see ever increasing mentions of the French Revolution in blog posts around the internet and shrug it off while wondering how they can increase the wealth gap further or ignore things like the looming water crisis in the southwest or theglobal depletion of fishing stocks or the massive ongoing extinction event which has MANY ongoing causes that all need to be resolved even beyond global warming but certainly that is the giant slavering monster looming over the room. (likewise, among the working class, you’re generally better off not storming the palace without an army behind you so please don’t; even if you have a death wish said ruling class will just make you look like a loon and try to use you to make everyone who doesn’t like them look bad so really, please don’t)(tho on yet another parenthetical hand, I must grant that carrots can look better if there’s the threat of a stick in the background, so given what appears to be the massive ruling class determination to ignore the popular will no matter how evident, and their incomprehensible determination to make the world a worse place by the day, I am rethinking my view as to whether it’s a good idea to wave sticks; generally, I’d rather no.
Failing any .1% er epiphany, keep pushing for hand marked, hand counted paper ballots, as angrily as need be (coz without trustworthy, verifiable election results, we would be reduced to mass civil disobedience at the least and quite possibly actual violence to hold government accountable when they are screwing things up or just plain looting, which seems to be the case of late), and keep pushing alternative media sources that actually try to accurately report reality. The ideal would be if the mass corporate or public broadcasting media would do this, but if you know how to persuade them on this front, you’re ahead of me. Find ways to work with people on issues where you agree with them without insisting they agree with you on everything or even that you like each other. Don’t let yourself be manipulated through groupthink memes into turning on each other. Etc. Not exactly a blueprint but it’s a start . . .
MojaveWolf
Going to lean more towards RC than Willy on the ability to predict all the variables. Nothing wrong w/using both history and computer models for that sort of thing, in fact if you really want to figure out the best way to shape the future it’s probably a very good idea if you have the skill, time and resources, but keep in mind that the people who want to preserve the status quo are probably already doing the same, and also that neither side can fully take into account all the possible variables; it’s not just that the programs probably don’t exist, there is no way to compile all the necessary data and get it into the programs if they did (which again isn’t to say you couldn’t do something like this and that it isn’t a very good idea and it’s probably already being done in multiple somewheres, just saying the models will never be perfect and you have to try to guess at the why’s and how’s of the imperfections and proceed accordingly)
MojaveWolf
One thing I do know, is that successfully socialized sociopaths have the most naturally occurring ‘scientific brain’.
Okay, I’m going to give up figuring this out from context and just ask. Could you rephrase that for those of us who are not sure what you mean?
(my best guess is that you are saying non-crazy sociopaths are basically the most purely logical people, but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure I agree even tho I see what you would be getting at, but want to make sure I understand what you are getting at first?)
Stirling Newberry
> The people that do the dirty work… The Little Eichmanns.
The people who take memos, and produce dead bodies. The people who run the death camps and command platoons.
Willy
Okay, I’m going to give up figuring this out from context and just ask. Could you rephrase that for those of us who are not sure what you mean?
“Scientific brain” wasn’t the best choice of words. They’d make poor scientists since truth means little in an of itself, and all they ever care about is what they can personally gain from any truth.
What I was trying to describe (probably poorly in the little time I had) was a purely self-serving ability to find the truth that profits themselves, while others are hardwired to get stuck or sidetracked with other emotional concerns, including societal needs.
Successful psychopaths are like good hunters. They can observe patterns and behaviors of their prey without having to know what it’s like to feel as that prey feels. Unsuccessful psychopaths, of course, usually wind up maimed, dead or incarcerated. They cannot learn from punishments and their fearlessness gets the best of them.
Rich
The point is Government reserves the exclusive right to violence. Corporations have been granted this same status in ever-increasing co-mingling of government and business. Are any readers surprised?
This phenomenon is further complicated by the fact Government also and mostly implicitly reserves an exclusive right to self-defense. Is anyone still surprised to read such obvious nonsense?
Less surprising the men who gravitate to such uniformed jobs in the military and police forces do so from a variety of unacknowledged motivations which include but are not limited to the tendency for authoritarian followership, misogynistic propensity, antisocial personality disorder, overwhelming desire to exercise domination over others, legal excuse to hunt and murder human beings, bedwetting fear and not the least amount of pant-shitting cowardice.
Willy
RC has claimed that persuading those intellectually lesser than himself is irrelevant. I’m open to that possibility. But I currently don’t understand how operating as a tiny minority can change things in our current representative democracy.
But then, I also don’t understand why George Washington didn’t just put on a poor mans clothes and encourage nonviolent civil disobedience.
Synoia
“All pigs are equal,
except some pigs are more equal than others.”
And the French Revolution delivered what?
I never believed as a child or young adult, look back, and be able to say, with measures, “things were better then.”
My parents were not able to look back at the 1930 and 1940s and say “things were better then”.
I’m very tired of those who say “violence is the last resort” because I do not perceive that is trun of modern policing.
Synoia
I’m very tired of those who say “violence is the last resort” because I do not perceive that is true of modern policing.
The oppression of the Occupy movement seems a significant step, with a clear message of “there is no alternative.”
realitychecker
@ Willy
What is relevant to me is to reach those who can be and want to be effective at something positive.
I have great fury for those who want to make it more difficult than it already is to reach people in a focused way. And there are lots of those online.
realitychecker
Just to try and have something positive happen today, I’d like to share that I just re-watched the movie Network (1976), the big winner at the Academy Awards that year; my lady never saw it, and I thought she should. She was amazed to see how clearly we were warned, and that we did nothing.
I realized that for most, this warning came before they could have seen it. I think it would be very edifying for anyone who hasn’t seen it to try and see it. Or re-watch it, like I did. Quite an experience.
Montanamaven
Don’t think Russia wants our Rich. We are pups compared to the Bear.
I am fascinated with “The Putin Interviews” directed by Oliver Stone that has played this week for 4 hours on Showtime. You can now stream them. I am now rewatching them. Here is a man who has lived through a collapse of an empire and indeed, a whole system. It was messy and you can tell he’s not a fan of Gorbachev’s role in this. When Oliver Stone tells him that he is accused of wishing for the restoration of the Soviet Union, he explains, with a rare but muted show of anger, what it was like for 25 million Russians to find themselves suddenly not in Russia anymore in 1989. Those who were in Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia, etc, etc., were all of a sudden in another country. So they had to deal with what that meant. And deal with that reality. The America and European vultures descended on the carcass of the Soviet Union and made a lot of money and millions died. (Read “The Shock Doctrine” and the online essay “How Harvard Lost Russia”.). So Putin is not looking back or longing for anything. He’s dealing with what was at the time. Russians were dying, so he reigned in the oligarchs. He didn’t kill or deport them. But he told them that being part of Mother Russia had a responsibility. Seems to be working. The average yearly income went from about 2500 rubles to 29,000 rubles. That’s why he has had an 83% approval rating.
We would do well to study what happened to the Soviet Union. Another source is reading Dimitry Orlov on the Soviet Union’s collapse which is also informative. Our collapse will happen all of a sudden as well and as much as I hate the concept of a “leader”, the Russians were lucky that Yeltsin, after being screwed and screwing things up realized what a mess he made and resigned and put Putin in charge. It’s kind of strange to watch supposed “thugs and dictators” get almost weepy when it comes to protecting the Mother. We don’t have anything like that here. We have no statesman here. We have no one that says that Russia is the people, not its minerals or nukes or even grain. It’ the people. They are not numbers. They are. Not desposable. We can’t even recognize what that looks like.
V. Arnold
It would seem the Mark Twain quote says it all; that is our collective reality.
The question is; what will you, the individual do about it?
V. Arnold
Montanamaven
June 17, 2017
++1
Excellent comment. Thanks.
subgenius
Violence is inept? So explain how you talk your way out of a world war? Explain the universal existence of militaries?
If you have only seen inept violence, be thankful. The real thing is way more unpleasant, but thankfully it is generally short-lived (not thankfully if you happen to be on the recieving end, but maybe at least you don’t have to feel much on the way out)
Ché Pasa
The prohibition on violence only applies to the Rabble and then only to the extent they would be violent toward their Betters. They are free to be, nay encouraged to be violent toward one another at least some of the time. Keeping the Lower Orders at one another’s throats is one of the deepest seated principles of rule, no?
Political violence, physical violence, economic violence and so on perpetrated by the ruling cliques against the Lower Orders, ah. Now that’s not only tolerated, it’s expected. Legal prohibitions are form, rarely substance, for the High and Mighty are not subject to the rule of law the way the rest of us are.
The ruling nobility in France didn’t see the Revolution coming though the signs and portents were obvious enough in retrospect. Even the King agreed to revolutionary reforms until the radicals made it irrelevant.
The US has a different sort of Revolutionary history, growing out of English history more than any other, and if Revolution comes openly (as opposed to mere rebellion and revolt — or withdrawal) it will likely parallel the various wars and revolutions that wracked the British Isles for generations and could still break out again.
Basically a fight among factions of the elite over the nature of governmental power and rule, and who get to exercise it.
That struggle has already been engaged in the US — think back to the hotheads during the Clinton presidency. No victor has yet emerged. It’s a stalemate.
Stirling Newberry
In the real world …
https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2017/06/tories-tell-may-you-have-10-days.html
May get told she has 10 days left … by the backbencher of the Tories.
A great deal of the problem here is you are not in the real world … you do not understand the forces at work.
DaddyO
Conveniently left out: CEO is daughter of Democrat US Senator Joe Manchin.
Also, chairman Mr Coury never did any of those things that the New York Times said he “essentially did”. More fodder for fake mews from the NYT.
The Stephen Miller Band
Montanamaven, if you are indeed a rugged Montanan American, your Putin Apologia is disturbing on so many levels. Your comment is Pure Propaganda. Putin is a Tyrant, plain & simple, and your lipstick on that Pig doesn’t change that very basic fact. Russia is in a shambles. It has just as many problems as America does, and in fact more problems. It’s just that we never get to hear about these problems because Putin has all but eliminated dissent in Russia. There is only Good News about the Russian Government and Putin, and in fact, that Good News extends beyond Russia all the way to the Heartland of America where former McCarthyite Anti-Communists now gleefully & emphatically sing the praises of a Communist C*cksucker who, along with his cabal of fellow Oligarchs, has exploited the Russian People and is bilking them of all of Russia’s vast wealth.
Is America Kleptocratic just like Russia? Yes, but America, still but just barely now with the ascension of Trump, is expert at using Marketing & Public Relations to paint itself in a light that hides what it truly is. Russia doesn’t go to those lengths in hiding the bare naked fact it’s a Tyrannical Kleptocratic Oligarchy and the Oligarch In Chief In Perpetuity, the Russian Tony Soprano, is Vladimir Putin.
If Putin is your answer to NeoLiberalism, you’re inept and already f*cked beyond all repair. That Path of Resistance against NeoLiberlism is no path at all. It’s a trap to yet more brutal and in your face oppression & slavery. So please Montanamaven, it’s best you understand that Putin sees you as a Kulak and when the time is right, he’ll discard you and all his Western Water Carriers when you’re no longer of any use to him and his cabal of fellow Oligarchs. As the saying goes, once a Communist, always a Communist. Putin is still very much a Communist and his prize is to see America shattered into nearly 300 million pieces.
The Stephen Miller Band
Stirling, of course The Little Eichmans must be deported as well. Yes, they are The Enablers who make it all possible. The Rich are like the Queen of their Superorganism of Wealth. They nurture and feed the Queen and in return The Queen serves as a justification for thier Psychopathic Compulsion to control all things.
Once that cancer has fully been extracted as the tumor its become, the seeds of it floating in the bloodstream and laying dormant in DNA waiting for the next cell division to replicate, must be eradicated for good. The Phoenix of Paternalistic Exploitation, of all exploitation, must never be allowed to rise from the ashes again, and one way to ward against that is to prevent any Movement from being coopted by The Rich and their Army of Enablers referred to as The Little Eichmans.
But who are The Little Eichmans? Does anyone have any examples of Little Eichmans? I would submit that ALL of the major Legal Firms & Accounting Firms are The Little Eichmans. No doubt about that. But, there are many more Little Eichmans than just the Lawyers & Accountants. The Lawyers & Accountants perhaps comprise close to 50% of The Little Eichmans, so we need a working definition of Little Eichmans and a set of criteria we can apply to determine if someone is or isn’t a Little Eichman. We don’t want to unnecessarily deport people to Russia if they’re not The Rich and The Rich’s Little Eichmans.
Stirling Newberry
No, but it is clearly a time lose to talk with you.
V. Arnold
Ditto Sterling…
StewartM
@DaddyO
Irrelevant. What, stuck in Repub-Dem tribalism?
Source?
From the NYT article:
Mr. Coury declined to be interviewed, but Ms. Bresch sat down with me last month at Mylan’s Manhattan offices. She said that Mylan was “a pretty rare and unconventional company,” and that it was focused on delivering low-cost drugs. A broken health care system, she said, is responsible for the inefficiencies and high prices that plague consumers.
She added that Mylan had responded promptly when the Food and Drug Administration criticized the company’s advertisement in 2012, and that the EpiPen had become more expensive because Mylan had invested in public awareness and improving the device.
“Look at what we’ve built, and what we deliver day-in and day-out,” Ms. Bresch told me, “and at the center of all of that is the patient.”
But it seems hard to reconcile those comments with allegations from employees, regulators and other companies. In December, attorneys general in 20 states accused Mylan and five other firms of conspiring to illegally keep prices high on an antibiotic and a diabetes drug. In October, Mylan returned nearly a half-billion dollars to the federal authorities in an attempt to stem the investigation into overcharging that regulators cited on Wednesday. And in April, one of Mylan’s competitors, Sanofi, filed a lawsuit accusing the firm of committing antitrust violations to keep an EpiPen competitor off the market.
Mind you, all the stuff we *know* Mylan has been guilty is perfectly consistent with Coury’s “go copulate with yourself” comment, and unlike your ‘fake news’ dismissal, can be independently verified.
Stirling Newberry
Of course you don’t want to talk to me – your discourse is about yourself.
The problem in you start at the end, rather than the beginning. You want to defend your thesis – only with having a thesis to defend. Works well for ordinary people – that what National Review does. Not so well with people who have gone through the process.
The Stephen Miller Band
And one other thing about The Putin Interviews with Oliver Stone. He, Oliver Stone, did a similar thing with Hugo Chavez & Venezuela. It’s a curse. An Omen. Never do an interview with Oliver Stone — it’s The Kiss of Death. What does it portend for Putin. I contend it portends Putin will be no more in five years, ten years max and Russia will be reeling.
The Stephen Miller Band
There are several sharp divides amongst Commentators here that are seemingly irreconcilable. One significant divide is whether The System should be reformed or replaced and whether that change should, or can, come from within The System or whether it’s imposed by The Little People through some form of Revolution/Evolution.
Stirling, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe your stance is that The System must be reformed rather than replaced and that reform must emanate from and happen within The System. Am I wrong? If so, please clarify how my impression of your stance is wrong and why. If I’m not wrong, you’re correct, discussing this with one another is a waste of time. I have come to the conclusion after many years of immersing myself in the details of this and many years of observation that The Change we really need must involve an entirely new System and that this new System will not emanate from within the current System and the current System will do everything in its power to prevent the emergence of this new System.
Ché Pasa
On not living in the real world:
This is the basic problem of the narrative creators who spend their time stating and believing falsehoods of their own creation or the creation of paid political flacks. They figure some of the rubes will believe anything they’re told so why not, right?
Bernie will win, Trump is Hitler, The Hag will start WWIII. Julius Caesar in the Park is a call to assassinate the President and commit political violence against the right. It’s all concocted narrative, all false, and it’s everywhere.
It’s useful, though. The spectacle keeps the Rabble — and many of their Betters — chasing after phantoms, and that allows the factions that rule us to contend among themselves over what really matters and continue uninterrupted their neo-Lib-Con program of endless war and pillage.
Uninterrupted. Trump may be a disruptor but he’s not an interruptor, have you noticed? The wars continue and expand, the blood continues to flow, and wealth and power continue to concentrate at the top. Nothing substantive has changed.
As for the crisis in the UK, the power elites will not let this crisis go to waste, will they? Ms. May was already a dead woman walking. What happens to her now hardly matters.
DaddyO
@ StewartM
Conveniently left out: CEO is daughter of Democrat US Senator Joe Manchin.
Irrelevant. What, stuck in Repub-Dem tribalism?
Seemingly irrelevant on the surface, but not if you go to the next step in thought: a CEO with a father in the Senate is able to easily lobby government for special favors, and mandates, such as pricing and non-negotiable pricing of said pharmaceutical. At the same time it further demonstrates collusion for special government favors on the so-called “left” that is no different from that on the “right”.
DaddyO
@StewartM
–Mind you, all the stuff we *know* Mylan has been guilty is perfectly consistent with Coury’s “go copulate with yourself” comment, and unlike your ‘fake news’ dismissal, can be independently verified.
Yes, I could imagine the chair Mr Coury doing so. I don’t support him or his decisions, but the problem is much larger than one pharma company. The prices of all meds have gone up ~400% over the past six years… Since … Let’s see…. Obamacare was instituted… From the left. Bailing out the left’s friends in pharma, such as US Sen Manchin’s daughter.
Will
Hmmmm.
Fact is that violence is, more than anything else, messy. Complicated. Sometimes it is the most righteous thing imaginable. Other times it robs its adherents of even the most basic level of human decency. What it should never be is undertaken lightly.
We’re supposed to learn this as children. In most successful long term cultures the subjects of manhood, violence, and channeling them in constructive ways are given serious consideration. As they should be.
Us? We either romanticize it or deny it is ever the right choice. I’m not sure it is possible to have a constructive talk about violence without first talking about manhood and the concept of being a gentleman. We’ve thrown away our birthright. We’ve no idea how to do even this and it shows.
Will
StewartM
DaddyO:
No, not from “the left”. Obamacare was a Washington insider “solution” to America’s health care crises, based loosely on a Republican design of the 1990s, designed to make sure above-all that private for-profit health insurance and private for-profit medicine survived. The real left wants Medicare-for-all and/or VA-for-all. Obama not only took those options off the table from the start, he made damn sure that there was not even a public option or Medicare buy-in option in the ACA that was the only thing that could have made Obamacare work.
So Mylan’s getting away with this are not a bug, but a feature. Obama was never a liberal, nor was Hillary. Both hold positions more like those of the “Rockefeller Republicans” of my youth, and indeed Obama’s privately calls himself a “Blue Dog” conservative Democrat.
Pay no attention to the vaguely progressive-sounding rhetoric, focus on what he actually *did* and what he made damn sure did *NOT* happen during his tenure. From what I can see, Obama’s #1 goals in office were to 1) make sure healthcare reform did not fundamentally change anything but slap a band-aid on the problem; 2) Give Wall Street TPP; and 3) put SS on the path to eventual destruction by applying chained CPI (tying it to a inflation measure designed *not* to keep up with actual inflation would reduce SSt to irrelevance for future generations).
Manchkin isn’t “left” either, but more a Conservadem. In fact, so far he’s voted 58 % of the time with Trump’s positions.
I am not holding to a unreasonable defintion of “left”, one that has never been known in US politics. In fact, I am just echoing what a whole host of Democratic politicians used to be for domestically–from FDR to Truman to JFK to Humphrey and onwards. All of these were for universal healthcare. Humphrey and others were for guaranteed full employment. The Overton Window has been so far shifted right that the Repubs are a bunch of ideologues and crazies while the Dems are mostly the old Rockefeller/Eisenhower Republicans.
Will
And another thing: Violence is also a trade, a craft. There are men who are professional practitioners of this art. In terms of the successful application of violence? It is almost comical for people like us to even speak of it in these terms.
Will
realitychecker
The absolutist position is to say “Never violence.”
But nature never agrees with absolutists. Nor do I. Every situation has its own facts to consider.
In a revolution based on guerrilla tactics, disgruntled returned verterans would be a likely force to rely upon.
The Stephen Miller Band
StewartM, great retort. That’s exactly my take as well. Ché Pasa nails it too. This is an excellent reduction of the matter..
The Senate version of the Healthcare Legislation is being crafted as we type and I assure you it won’t be too different from the House’s version. It’s being done in secret behind closed doors and they’ll have to pass it first before we can see what’s in it.
There’s about to be a Fire Sale of what remains of America’s Natural Resources, meaning the Heartland of America will be sold from beneath its inhabitants collective feet. You would think Montanans would be Up In Arms about this, or at least True Montanans worth their salt as the alleged Rugged Frontier Folk they’ve historically been portrayed to be. But they’re not, or at least most aren’t, which necessarily means there are very few if any True Montanans and most are Braindead Idiots who will serve their Rich Masters well, and the others are Wealthy Transplants who like to play Pretend Cowboy like Greg Gianforte.
The Stephen Miller Band
Republicans Move To Sell Off 3.3m Acres Of National Land, Sparking Rallies
And I can assure you, they have no qualms whatsoever about selling it off to the Highest Bidder, even, and maybe even especially, if the Highest Bidder is a Russian Oligarch.
Where have all the Cowboys gone? To Washington, apparently. And Wall Street & Moscow have gone to Montana.
Peter
@Syevie
Neither republicans nor democrats can ‘sell off’ public lands to any bidder so you’re hyping fake news, with a bad link. They do lease some land to the public which includes most anyone with the means to develop the resources under that land. This creates profits for the horrible companies and bankers involved including those greedy local workers who thrive in their fly-over country when this horror is allowed.
It seems that the snowflakes think this public land was set aside only for their viewing pleasure and everyone else, especially the locals, are lesser citizens not deserving some public use of public land.
different clue
Mineral looters are not the “public”. Mineral looters given preferential exclusive-use looter-leases for a song and a nominal fee destroy that land for every public use for decades-to-centuries to come.
James Wheeler
Whilst I have no doubt that some degree of violent explosion is inevitable in America, those who think that it will bring some good are very naive.
It reminds me of a real story I read on the Russian Revolution, a ageing professor who had been a lifelong Marxist, rejoiced when the masses overthrew the Tsar.
He popped out of his flat in Petrograd to join the proleteriat and was violently assaulted by a group of young working class Communists. Why? He looked middle class, wore glasses and was considered one of the hated “rich”. The poor man was left for dead on the street.
That’s what a glorious violent revolution often looks like.
Ten Bears
No one said, uhm… subgenius, that “‘violence’ is inept.” What was said is ” it has been said that “violence is the last resort of the inept”, to which I disagree. It is merely the last resort.
Peter
@DC
I wonder how or if your looter rant will change if they start looting the cobalt, lithium, rare earths or other minerals needed for the clean green industrial revolution. Elon Musk’s battery mega-factories are already affected by shortages of cobalt. It may be wise to depend on local sources for as much of these minerals as possible.
I don’t think these leases are that cheap anymore and the companies must post bonds to guarantee the land is reclaimed. If they find oil that will keep gas prices low which is the only real large stimulus Amerikans have seen.
Hugh
Peter engaging in false equivalency again. You do not need to open up millions of acres of public land for a few mines that would not need more than a few thousand acres to operate and with most of those acres likely already available for such activities.
I agree with many comments on this thread. Putin is a thug. Yeltsin was a Russian nationalist who decided to break up the USSR to keep ethnic Russians in the majority in what we now call the Russian Federation. Putin’s grief over the “25 million” Russians left stranded is typically imperialist. He simply writes out the non-Russian majorities in those former SSRs where those Russians live. He wants their land and resources. Speaking of which, it’s not like Russia doesn’t have the space to accommodate any of those ethnic Russians who wished to move back to the Russian Federation. And as always isn’t it just precious that Putin is so concerned about the rights of ethnic Russians, not Russian citizens, living in other countries when he has shown no similar concern for minorities, such as the Chechens, living in the Russian Federation.
I like too the distinction of Trump as disruptor, not interruptor. Trump is a spoiled brat who has lived his whole life within a cocoon of privilege provided by the Establishment to the rich. That Establishment may not have a high opinion of him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t and hasn’t been a member for life.
Left and right are distinctions without a difference in the context of kleptocracy. They are just convenient labels to distract us the rubes. The Democrats are just as owned by the rich as the Republicans. As I have said before, it is a class thing. The rich and elites may vie among themeselves in how we are to be looted, but it is always we who are going to be looted.
Look again at the Twain quote. The violence we see every day is not inept. It is institutionalized and normalized. It is standard operating procedure. Revolutionary violence is an inevitable response to the long standing violence of our rulers. We get into this weird conversation that Oh, your revolutionary violence is not as “ept”, as smooth and institutionalized, as our Establishment violence. Well, dah. If you want a successful revolution, build a mass movement with a clear vision, goals, and limits. It will have a much better chance of overturning the old system and curbing the excesses of the new.
Montanamaven
Thanks V. Arnold for the words of encouragement. I have kind of dedicated my off time from work to be the enemy of conventional wisdom. So I like to look at alternatives. And as a theater and film major, I have always been fascinated with the Russian people as portrayed in their literature. And Stewart M, I appreciate your succinct explanation of what happened in 2009. I spent a great deal of time and money, advocating for Medicare for All. I went to D.C. twice. I met some of the Correntwire gang there. I don’t want to go into all the gory details of dealing with my Senator Max Baucus whose “staffer” Liz Fowler wrote the ACA. The party machine is powerful. I underestimated how cunning they could be. So after that I’ve shifted my focus to just trying to talk to my neighbors in as open a way as I possibly can. Since announcing that I had left the Democratic Party and am trying to find a home, I have made all kinds of friends on the so called right. The Democrats, on the other hand, have been mostly hostile. I am most encouraged, though, by the younger people around early to mid thirties in the town in Mid Hudson NY where I am spending half my time. They are not tribal. They are remarkably open to alternative ideas.
Note: Some people know my history. But for newbies, I was raised near Chicago, schooled in Michigan, 15 years in NYC and then to Montana where I married a 5th generation cattle rancher. Had a radio show for 5 years in conservative Montana. So, I admonish people “don’t fence me in”. And I will try to do the same to you.
Montanamaven
@ Hugh
I have always admired you and I have saved many of your comments over the years on Naked Capitalism and now here. So I will keep studying this whole Russia deal in light of your criticism which I value. Have you seen these interviews? And have you seen Oliver Stone’s “The Untold History of the United States?” The Chechen deal is definitely worth studying more. They have done some pretty awful crap to LGBT people. And when I tried to fact check the “Putin kills journalists ” deal, I found that quite a few of those journalists were investigating the creepy sh*t going on in Chechnya. Sounds more like mafia than evil Putin.
Peter
@Maven
Some people apparently including Hugh think that Amerikans occupy some moral or ethical high ground that allows them to brand someone such as Putin with a thug description. If they used ‘fellow thug’ or ‘much like us thug’ I might not complain.
Putin’s admirers, there are good reasons to admire some of his accomplishments, seem too often to load Putin with what they want to see in a leader that challenges the Hegemon. The slick verbose KGB lawyer/president has crafted a very effective public persona that many people find reassuring so its easier for them to reject the reality of this popular but autocratic, imperialist leader.
Putin struck long lasting deals with the oligarchs the Russian mob and other players so he has no need to order petty or major killings, his deep state takes care of these things. After crushing the Chechen people Putin appointed one of their warlords to run the province and he is always ready to please his master.
V. Arnold
Putin’s take on Snowden is interesting; he thinks Snowden was wrong and should have resigned; but what most don’t know is that Putin resigned from the KGB because he didn’t agree with their policies.
Putin also reiterated he’ll not give up Snowden.
bruce wilder
the headline on the OP has had me thinking about who Robespierre was, and what sort of political behavior among those he opposed, put him into power, and what led him, against his own previous political opinion (e.g. he opposed the death penalty), to infamously marry virtue to terror.
the French Revolution began with a great acclaim for the power of reason and public opinion. Robespierre was one of a great many orators declaiming upon principles and he was often among the more sensible and humane.
And, yet . . .
I am not sure it was greedy reactionaries who made Robespierre, so much as despair that the power of reason to compel men was so limited in its scope and commitment.
bruce wilder
Childishly insisting on categorizing politicians as white hats and black hats in a morality play is not exactly sophisticated political analysis.
Some Guy
“What is hateful is not rebellion but the despotism which induces the rebellion; what is hateful are not rebels but the men, who, having the enjoyment of power, do not discharge the duties of power; they are the men who, having the power to redress wrongs, refuse to listen to the petitioners that are sent to them; they are the men who, when they are asked for a loaf, give a stone.”
Wilfrid Laurier (defending Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion)
– Can you imagine Harper or Trudeau Jr. ever giving a speech along these lines? It’s a long way down.
cripes
@Someguy
Often i find a well phrased quote conveys the sense of my own thoughts better than–or at least shorter than–i can.
I struggle to make the same point to others about the institutional, generational violence that we are living with only modest effect. On the other hand. poetic representations like Laurier’s may escape the ADHD, short attention span of so many people today, and fare no better.
I think this also is what MLK menat when he said “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government….”
V. Arnold
I think we already have had our Robespierre; it’s the continuity of our deep state government, literally sending millions of humans to their deaths.
A single person couldn’t fill the roll today; far too complex and far too much to lose…
V. Arnold
^ Which is also to say; the revolution already happened; most of us missed it…
Montanamaven
@ Peter
Thanks for that assessment. That makes sense. I’m under no illusions about Putin or Trump or also ran Clinton or most leaders of our world. But the recovery from the neo-liberal pillaging of the 1990s is real. In part IV of the interviews, Putin states that in 2000 40 million Russians were living below the poverty line and while the numbers are still too high, they have cut that number in half. And whether you believe him or not, he at least says out loud that environmental degradation is the number one threat to the earth and its inhabitants. After listening to such middling minds as our last couple of presidents and Hillary, I do like his sharp mind and his ability to absorb and work with contradictions like the Snowden example. And when asked about Stalin he says that we all have “birthmarks”. Interesting image. You cannot rid yourself of them. But you should learn. He called the post World War II era in the USSR as “primitive”. Anytime a US leader makes a critique of US policies, they are slammed for being unpatriotic. In Jungian terms, a person or country should recognize their dark side; their shadow in order to pursue their strengths. Imagine if we heard someone talk about Truman’s horrendous decision to use nuclear bombs instead of the old and untrue idea that we had to do it to save American lives. My father believed that to his dying day. And I ran into some guy the other night who would not be dissuaded from that narrative. Are we going to discuss openly the recent CIA records on the coup we orchestrated in Iran in 1953?
Anyway, the reason I brought up the interviews is that now that we are living in Sheldon Wolin’s “Inverted Totalitarianism” (and I agree with V. Arnold that the revolution or coup already happened), it probably is a good idea to study Russian history and see if there are any ways to survive a collapse.
V. Arnold
Montanamaven
June 19, 2017
Wolen is my go to guy; kudos for that.
And Russian history is so important; but most will ignore the most important lesson in their pathetic lives…
Robert Callaghan
The Health Terror= The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
Ultra
Stephen Miller Band: “The obvious key, the first step, is to remove the impediment that is The Rich. When I say Deport The Rich, it’s only just barely tongue in cheek and maybe not tongue in cheek at all.”
Just take away their money. That’s their worst nightmare. This can be accomplished through progressive taxation, or if the government remains in their control, then by hacking their banking accounts and trashing their credit histories. Other things that the rich fear, or should: hyperinflation, riots that target their tangible property, counterfeit money (including counterfeit digital currencies), consumers failing to spend money in order to cause an economic recession, etc.
Ultra
tony: “Americans depend on the functioning the supply chains to survive, and a centralized system can easily cut them. No food stamp, no electricity and no water, and the rebellion is done.”
If you look at human history, revolutions didn’t occur until there was serious hunger or large scale famines, especially in major urban areas. Food shortages were major triggering factors in the French revolution of 1792, the Russian revolution or 1917, and the Chinese revolution after World War II. In all three cases, the ruling regimes were weak and incompetent.
From this perspective, the United States would have to suffer unprecedented difficulties before a revolution against the rich would occur. People apparently have to be really desperate before they rebel collectively. Until then, one would expect only isolated attacks and perhaps the emergence of scattered terrorist groups.
On the other hand, we live in an information-rich age that is unprecedented. As a result, it is possible that people will acquire an awareness of who their oppressors are more quickly than in the past. Also, people have higher expectations of what to expect from life as compared to people in the past, especially in the United States, where we have been indoctrinated by the dogma of American exceptionalism and how wonderful life is supposed to be in that great superpower, the United States.
Ultra
V. Arnold: “It would seem the Mark Twain quote says it all; that is our collective reality.
The question is; what will you, the individual do about it?”
Individuals by themselves can accomplish very little; they have to organize themselves into larger entities.
Historically, large cities have always been the engines of social change and technological innovation. Their liberal populations and organizations are the biggest threat to rule by the rich, and the modern rich can’t exist without these treacherous cities. In contrast, nation-states and their geographic subdivisions are more mutable and disposable, especially when most wealth these days is generated independently of land. In the long run, this will be the downfall of the current strategy of the rich because they have plunged too much of their resources into controlling the latter.
realitychecker
@ Ultra
Lest we forget, this country was started by a revolution, unlike the three examples you referenced.
It is part of our glorious mythology.
realitychecker
@ wendyedavis
“please don’t tell me what my beliefs are, though, especially in such an ignorant and false way.”
In all fairness, my presentation of your hero worship of indigenous women as the plantetary solution was far more accurate than the multitudinous negative paraphrasings and dishonest interpretations you have subjected me to, both here and elsewhere, for years.
BUT, here is your chance to “correct” the record, if you think I was unfair.
Just give us a restatement of your view as to the critical role indigenous women will play in saving the planet and all its political hostages and victims. It shouldn’t take more than a sentence or two, and then we will all know the truth about who you are and why you and I disagree so strongly about so much.
Please don’t forget to include your opinion of the role men will play. That will go over big, I’m certain./s
V. Arnold
realitychecker
Mostly it’s because you are ignorant of who and what role, indiginous women played in their societies.
A little historic research on your part would clear up your ignorant rant for good, maybe, but I’m not optimistic on that front…
Matriarchy was the rule of the time…
But surely that is beyond your ken.
tony
I have tried finding an example of a matriarchy, but I have not found a single one. Anthopologists seem to consider such societies non-existent. Perhaps you could help me with this, Arnold.
V. Arnold
tony
I would suggest you have no idea how to search.
I’m not going to do your work or you.
In about 30 seconds I found myriad examples.
tony
@Ultra
People used to know very well who the oppressors were, and the kings and queens were quite open about their intention to keep the peasants in chains, and they would openly articulate their prevention of economic and technological development being motivated by the desire to keep the peasants poor.
It was only with the enforcement of public schooling that teaches reflexive obedience to and uncritical acceptance of mutually contradictory claims by state/corporate assinged authority figures that the people started to think of ‘job creators’ etc as the good guys.
tony
@Arnold
OK.
“The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development now is generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed.” Encyclopædia Britannica (2007), entry Matriarchy.
A feminist can spend years studying the topic, not finding a single example.
“In other words, I had no trouble appreciating the myth’s appeal. Except for one small problem—and one much larger problem—I might now be writing a book titled Matriarchal Prehistory: Our Glorious Past and Our Hope for the Future. But if I was intrigued with the newness and power of the myth, and with its bold gender reversals, I was at least as impressed by the fact that anyone took it seriously as history. Poking holes in the “evidence” for this myth was, to rely on cliché, like shooting fish in a barrel. After a long day of research in the library, I could go out with friends and entertain them with the latest argument I’d read for matriarchal prehistory, made up entirely—I pointed out—of a highly ideological reading of a couple of prehistoric artifacts accompanied by some dubious anthropology, perhaps a little astrology, and a fatuous premise … or two or three.”
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/eller-myth.html?mcubz=0
But you apparently have. Do share.
subgenius
Ten Bears PERMALINK
June 18, 2017
No one said, uhm… subgenius, that “‘violence’ is inept.” What was said is ” it has been said that “violence is the last resort of the inept”, to which I disagree. It is merely the last resort
Ten Bears PERMALINK
June 17, 2017
It has been said violence is the last resort of the inept. I disagree, it is merely the last resort. Unfortunately, violence is itself inept.
Obviously you have a very short memory.
V. Arnold
tony
June 20, 2017
Utter rubbish; our own native peoples (Southwest tribes) were a matriarchy; land and property were inherited through the females of the tribes.
Riane Eisler’s, The Chalice and the Blade, is a go to source of the Matriarchal societies that existed prior to the War God’s (Yahweh) coming into being. That was about 5,000 years ago.
Lazy ways beget lazy results…
Peter
@Tony
I don’t know if the opposite of patriarchy is or should be matriarchy. It seems that some sort of egalitarian arrangement would have worked best in pre civilization times. The patriarchy that grew from the one male god idea seems to have been about denying women equality not that they ruled over men.
The Navajos are viewed by some people as a matriarchal society but it seems to me to be a division of responsibilities and I doubt the women rule over the men in the way our patriarchy suppressed women for centuries. The women manage the family affairs while the men attend to religious and other affairs.
The plains Indian’s society was a strange combination of western and native culture with extreme patriarchy at its core. The men partied and fought while the women scraped hides from dawn to dusk.
realitychecker
Someone please explain how the indigenous women are going to displace the institutions now in place, without violence.
Good fucking luck.
I notice Wendy herself has not bothered to show up to defend her pet thesis.
V. Arnold
RC
Why ever would they need to?
You, with your own words, have demostrated your total lack of understanding of indiginous cultures.
This isn’t just North American indiginies; but an international consortium across the planet.
Pity you; you’re so narrow and stilted in your understanding as to defy logic.
Ego (yours) goeth before the fall…
The matriarchy goes back more than 5,000 years; far preceeding the war god Yahweh’s, patriarchical claim upon humanity…
realitychecker
@ V. Arno
Your some special kind of fool.
Hey, I know, the underage child prostitutes that surround you where you have CHOSEN to live are the ones who will get mad, rise up, and displace all the world’s military powers with their mud pies.
That’s why you are there, because you are so reverential toward women and their power.
Right-e-o.
realitychecker
BTW, Wendy’s thesis has always been heavily dependent on the indigenous women of South America, as well as others, so that is no surprise to me.
Curious how she does not defend herself, but leaves the job to you, isn’t it?
Maybe you just don’t understand the situation.
realitychecker
EDIT: You are some special kind of fool.
(Wouldn’t wanna be attacked for a grammatical or spelling or typing error by these fucking ankle-biting chihuahuas that are infesting the place lately.) 🙂
tony
1. Matrilinearity is not matriarchy
2. Chalice and the Blade at most has evidence that there were roughly egalitarian cultures
3. C&B is built on gender essentialist arguments, which I’m OK with, but I doubt you are willing to hold onto that position
@Peter
That does not mean it was a patriarchy. In a healthy society, power comes with responsibilities. Hsving different sets of responsibilities does not mean a power imbalance.
The reason for the existence of what feminists call patriarchy was to make men take on the responsibilities of providing for children and fighting for the people. Because men can walk away, but women can’t. So you would expect that women take on the menial jobs in plains indian society, since that gives them bargaining power over men.
In the western society, until recently, women did a lot better in many ways, yet it is considered male dominated. Women were healthier, happier, lived longer, suffered less violent deaths, were not forced to go and kill for the state etc. Most of that still holds, although hopefully men can escape this patriachal oppression.
It is true that there have been egalitarian soceities. The more interesting question is: Can egalitarian societies survive in competition with patriarchal ones. Probably not.
realitychecker
@ tony
Ooopsie. You probably didn’t realize that common sense statements like the ones you just made will probably open you up to a blizzard of accusations of misogyny in this environment. Mostly from people who have no idea what misandry is lol.
Join the club. 🙂