Metal Reviews

Neoliberal thinking wants labor free with the workers in prison camps. That's what's wrong with the CATO's report. Honestly though, having the mainstream support that they have, i.e. Republican, I hope this report makes some rounds.

@Zad: Culture isn't just language. If anything, the West has already eroded their culture through the placements of KFC and McDonald's all across their country. Making them learn English will just cut administrative costs. But then again they shouldn't be forced or required to unless their job actually requires that. They're just workers not citizens; the state has no right to force them to conform to some mold which goes beyond their daily labors, i.e. picking mushrooms in this case.

English is the only assimilatory tool America has left. I am convinced It is vitally important for long-term system stability, and I didn't need a Drudkh album to tell me to think this

I was so thinking of Drudkh when I was reading that. Assimilation though? Haven't we assimilated them enough? Honestly, the only divisive factor is language. Why should they be forced to conform if the labor they provide and are being exploited for doesn't require any use of our language? We're not talking about those seeking citizenship or at least I'm not. Workers shouldn't be forced to be Americans if they have no intention of becoming an American.

Well, you raise some good points. I can only look to history for my explanation: the great waves of immigration saw Poles, Italians, Germans, Greeks and many others assimilated in large part by learning English in the first generation and then forgetting their ethnic language starting with the second.

What else could be characterized as a homogeneous identity within the USA? Ethnicity is out. Race, clearly not. Obviously, not everyone is wealthy. Until the recent wave of Spanish-speaking immigrants and Spanish only areas within the country, English was the one great uniter. Alarmist? Perhaps, but the US has never faced a long-term threat to its collective identity such as this.

So I would be willing to lean on businesses to foot the bill for aggressive English-teaching and legalization paths for illegals they employ. We all know the businesses reap the great benefits from mass immigration anyway.

Before I veer too dangerously into leftist terrain, let me also say that we need to declare an official language this instant, and build a much better border wall.

How would I pay for all this? Cut defense spending, of course. I don't see the US as economically able to project global power for much longer. Make aggressive steps towards improving relations with the Middle East at the expense of Israel in the short term towards cutting costs rapidly--and avoiding any more Mid East conflicts. In the long term, court Russia+India as opposed to China. The US will not easily be able to afford another Cold War; however, I believe China will be contained in the years to come by a US-Russia-India alliance.

I think you'll find it's non-liberal thinking that puts people in prison camps, actually.

I wouldn't say that Poles, the Irish, etc forgot their ethnic languages, just became Irish-American or whatever as opposed to Irish - their culture became mixed up with the melting pot of America.



Private sector-run English classes, why not? I do agree with what Trapt said about how the state has no business forcing mushroom-pickers to learn English, though.



Of course.

This is the problem with subscriber ideologies like "classical liberalism". People say it meaning a certain indefinable thing, which is in itself positive (in this case "freedom"), and then they can just say, when confronted with anything bad- oh well that's obviously not what we ae talking about, stop being stupid! I mean, I could say, communism means the ownership of the means of production by the workers and the distribution of goods and services according to need rather than for accumulation as an ends in itself, and therefore by definition Stalin, Pol Pot etc. were not communists. I try not to make that argument because it is a cowardly one which is no help to anybody. Ideologies are rarely independent of the material world, and they change when the material world changes. It is useless having this ideological purity, which in reality is just a perch from which people can complain about how other people are les enlightened than they are.

On that note, trapt said neoliberal, not liberal. "Liberal" is what neoliberals think they are until they start wanting to make a profit. Then they suddenly find they are more amenable to "non-liberal" practices than they thought. E.g. the great "free trading" nation of Colombia, where there are more trade unionists murdered each year than in China. Of course, then you bring this up, and all the liberals are like "oh, well that just means they stopped being good liberals. Tut tut!" a bit like creationists looking for some kind of free trade "god between the gaps"- Some paradise where "economic freedom" ISN'T inversely proportionate to freedom of association.

Anyway, yes, cut defense spending, I agree. Seems like metalreviews.com has spoken, I'll let Obama and Headmaster Dave know.

Neoliberal is actually just what Commies call liberals when they to be insulting. I agree re ideological purities not being helpful outside of internet forums , though.

No liberals is what neoliberals call themselves when they want to escape from a certain amount of ideological baggage... Of course, the original liberals were as guilty as neoliberals, so we could just use "liberal" as an insult in its place, but that just causes confusion when Americans come along and say "hurrr marxists and liberals are the same thing aren't they?"

Whatever, you neocommunist.

The term neoliberal is an astute categorisation based on observation of a set of academic attitudes converted into policy prescriptions. The term neocommunist is nonsense made up on the hoof by neoliberals...




....a bit like everything else they think AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!

"In the 1970s some Latin American economists began using "neoliberalismo" to designate their program of market-oriented reforms. By the 1990s, however, the term "neoliberalism" had become a pejorative to classical liberal critics, who dismissed it as a catchphrase invented by academic radicals to denigrate the ideas of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek.[3]"

And I should have said Neomarxist, but neocom will do.

Yes I have read Wikipedia thank you, from cover to cover.

The point is not that the term wasn't made up by Marxists. Hell, the modern usage of the term "capitalism" as a descriptor of an over-arching mode of production was also first used by anarchists and marxists as a perjorative but it seems to have stuck. (also according to wikipedia). The point is that it is an accurate description of a certain current of thought, adherents to which squirm about because of ideological baggage. And then they try and escape it by calling themselves something else.

Also I am not insulted by being described as a neomarxist. I don't use it myself and don't really know what it means, but fair, fair fair enough.

Well, that's the complete opposite of what I quoted! All neo- really means is a 'new' form of an older ideology, and it is used as a perjorative more than a self-description - "oh, you're just like that bunch we got rid of years ago" - see 'neocon', which if I'm correct is hardly ever used by actual neocons except ironically. Most liberals/libertarians are happy to call themselves that without the "neo-" stuff. It's really rather meaningless except as a crappy insult.

Yes, it is a NEW form of an OLD ideology. Therefore it is emphatically not the same. It is different to the same extent that the worlds of now and the Victorian era are different. Which is to say massively.

If you try and apply an old ideology to a new situation unmodified you are on the road to conceptual ruin. The use of the prefix "neo" indicates a recognition of this, and present-day liberals would be wise to consider the exact relationship between their ideology and the modern world. I am sure plenty of them do, and I respect that. But otherwise you run the risk of simply saying "oh that Mill chap had some nice ideas before he became a socialist- let's apply them to every situation we see". Which, by the way, is what the SWP tries to do with marxism. Don't go the same way, neoliberals!

And if you don't like it, show those marxists by making up you own term which recognises the differences but does a better descriptive job than the one the marxists use.

This whole thread is a cesspit of needless aggravation. I propose starting a philosophy thread in which we can muse over the relationship between a changing material environment and its effect on ideological framings (or vice versa if you are a Hegelian) in a more civilised and open minded tone.

*tumbleweed*

But politics is "a cesspit of needless aggravation"!

Well, exactly. I stop checking this thread for long periods at a time nowadays because I think, oh, it will only annoy me. Then against my better judgement I check it today and lo and behold it ends up annoying me.

So, how about that local sports team?

New favorite definition ever and yeah Zad look into the great liberal marketeer Augusto Pinochet who Milton Friedman used to give hand jobs to and you'll know what I mean by neoliberalism being in bed with totalitarian violence.

I forsee much name dropping and wiki-quoting.

Yeah, Pinochet is to liberals what Stalin is to Communists. Dictators = shit.

It's like Slipknot meets Propagandhi