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foolsguineaThere's a country where for a man to shave his beard is thought to imply he is a sexual pervert. Where women are forbidden to work outside the home & may be killed if they do, even though not so long ago, women from that country still alive today did just that. Where the ideas of social justice that were mainstream in that country within living memory are now condemned as alien. Where Western liberalism is seen as the enemy, & local socially reactionary warlords fight for local control, meaning their own privileges & prerogatives. The USA may sell its campaign in Afghanistan as fighting the extremist Taliban, but so long as the real mission is to make sure that Afghanistan is stable & no threat to us, there is a temptation to put the religious extremists whose violence is locally rather than globally directed in charge, & treat with them. After all, the oppression we find vile appears to be what the Afghans want. Will this work? Maybe, for a little while. But it's not really what all Afghans want. And they need better.
There's a country where for a man to grow his hair long is thought to imply he is a sexual pervert. Where the very authority of the central government is openly despised by those who call themselves conservative & claim continuity with those who once built that central government into the greatest secular power on Earth. Where the education of the next generation is tossed aside for the cruel logic of eternally deeper tax cuts & eternal protection of pensioners. Where the ideas of social justice that were mainstream in that country within living memory are now condemned as alien. Where excessive liberalism, & indeed Western social democracy, are seen as the enemy, & local socially conservative demagogues agitate for local control, meaning their own privileges & prerogatives. The GOP may sell themselves to the swing voters as opposing leftist extremism, but they sell themselves to the hard right as seriously considering right-wing extremism. There may be a temptation to let the American people have the dysfunctional government so many claim to want. But we are the American people too. The new silent majority is more Baby Buster than Baby Boomer, more socially liberal, more left behind by a cut back welfare state. The middle incomes--even the lower middle incomes--are taxed not to provide even neoliberal services for them but to fund token support of pensioners & the "sufficiently deserving" poor; but the superrich are allowed to keep their excess wealth & leverage it into even more wealth. We need better.
There's a country where for a man to grow his hair long is thought to imply he is a sexual pervert. Where the very authority of the central government is openly despised by those who call themselves conservative & claim continuity with those who once built that central government into the greatest secular power on Earth. Where the education of the next generation is tossed aside for the cruel logic of eternally deeper tax cuts & eternal protection of pensioners. Where the ideas of social justice that were mainstream in that country within living memory are now condemned as alien. Where excessive liberalism, & indeed Western social democracy, are seen as the enemy, & local socially conservative demagogues agitate for local control, meaning their own privileges & prerogatives. The GOP may sell themselves to the swing voters as opposing leftist extremism, but they sell themselves to the hard right as seriously considering right-wing extremism. There may be a temptation to let the American people have the dysfunctional government so many claim to want. But we are the American people too. The new silent majority is more Baby Buster than Baby Boomer, more socially liberal, more left behind by a cut back welfare state. The middle incomes--even the lower middle incomes--are taxed not to provide even neoliberal services for them but to fund token support of pensioners & the "sufficiently deserving" poor; but the superrich are allowed to keep their excess wealth & leverage it into even more wealth. We need better.
