neoliberalism unhinged ' as neoliberalism submits all spheres of life to economization, the effect is not simply to narrow the functions of the state and citizen or to enlarge the sphere of economically defined freedom at the expense of common investment in public life and public goods. rather, it is to attenuate radically the exercise of freedom in the social and political spheres. this is the central paradox, perhaps even the central ruse, of neoliberal governance: the neoliberal revolution takes place in the name of freedom - free markets, free countries, free men - but tears up freedom's grounding in sovereignty for states and subjects alike. states are subordinated to the market, govern for the market, and gain or lose legitimacy according to the market's vicissitudes; states are also caught in the parting ways of capital's drive for accumulation and the imperative of national economic growth. subjects, liberated for the pursuit of their own enhancement of human capital, emancipated from all concerned with regulation by the social, the political, the common, or the collective, are inserted into the norms and imperatives of market conduct and integrated into the purposes of the firm, industry, region, nation, or post national constellation to which their survival is tethered. in a ghostly repetition of the ironic 'double freedom' that marx designated as the prerequisite of feudal subjects becoming proletarianized at the dawn of capitalism (freedom from ownership of the means of production and freedom to sell their labor power), a new double freedom - from he state and from all other values - permits market-instrumental rationality to become the dominant rationality organizing and constraining the life of the neoliberal subject. this is also, of course, the significance of economic models and methods spreading across the social sciences, becoming notably dominant in political science, but gaining ground in anthropology and sociology, as well. across politics, culture, and society and hence across the disciplines that study them, there is only homo oeconomicus.' - wendy brown 170614 ... Abyssia IdGoC is this from her book: Undoing the Demos. Is it worth a read? 170615 ... unhinged it is from that book. and it is worth a read. her writing style is a little verbose but this book...i have been intuitively sensing the bullshit of neoliberalism for years but i never thought of neoliberalism as the force that is destroying our democracy. her linking of the two is pretty thoughtfully argued. 170616 ... unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrc1EmUhWOE 170621 ... Abyssia IdGoC Sounds really awesome. Will have to check it out. And great link to Jimmy! 170624 ... Abyssia IdGoC That's horrifying. The video I mean. The book sounds really important. Going to check it out. 170624 ... amy and the purplely apostrophe Thanks for the link. what a calm guy. I was like "Chicago" -yes. That weird macabre Chicago thing. We have good radio, after all. I don't know who my bigger enemy is neoliberal theory of goodness of business, or the dishonesty, stupidity, and corruption of the right wing. I mean there do get to be bureaucratic nightmares so I understand deregulation but you'd think that good business wouldn't throw away common sense of health and safety protections. "We can't be stupid." GWB "No child left behind." *society collapses* Bottom line, for me, is I believe in public goods like basic income which can begin to be financed with estate taxes but I can't fight the people with families who need infinite amounts of money to fund their good times and no child left behind. Gas guzzlers. And property taxes!! I live in the heart of silly greed and I don't think protesting works when politics are so much more unpleasant than the radio. Keep it copacetic man. If a lifetime voter sees no good candidates they will still exercise the right to vote because rights are cool. And other people's lives are, you know, "whatever". 170624 ... amy and the purplely apostrophe I don't know if Russia hacked Wisconsin, but I do blame Wisconsin for being Wisconsin. Out of touch. Ice cold HIllary working with power mad Paul Ryan would have been terrifying, true. 170624 ... unhinged there is plenty of dishonesty stupidity and corruption in the democratic party too, being as they are also the right now. and you can blame wisconsin all you want, but you should also blame hillary for not going there even one fucking time. the arrogance of that campaign gaff should cost all her staffers any future careers in political consulting. but those assholes will continue to make millions. there are actually a strong population of people trying to fight against the koch corporate takeover of wisconsin, but there are also plenty of people like me that have said fuck it and got up and left since 2011. the conservative racism rampant in that state, the bad bad winters, just...fuck it. the voter id laws in wisconsin knocked 300.000 people off the roles and trump won by about 30,000. coincidence...??? but f(ake)ox news has convinced people like my dad that trump isn't lying when he says there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 so we need voter id laws. i have argued with my dad til i'm blue in the face, but once again taking away poor peoples' rights is ok especially if they are black. and while you're at it why don't you blame obama for stumping for the goddamn tpp during the election the 'nafta on steroids' that hillary helped write as secretary of state and said was the gold standard of trade deals that she only came out against reluctantly because bernie forced her to? i am so fucking tired of listening to liberals blame the rust_belt for trump. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ABANDONED US ASSHOLES. we are people that stand by our word, so not surprising to me that the people in this country with the least hope left believed a conman that said he was gonna give them everything they were asking for. as a former fire inspector's daughter, i am flabbergasted that that huge tower of an apartment building didn't have sprinklers. but that fire is a direct warning to all of us in this country about what conservatives really mean when they say they want to cut 'business killing regulations'. they want to let businesses kill us without any accountability. still think free market oligarchy is the best way to run an economy jerk offs? the party of privatization is in charge; if they have their way (and the democrats are more than likely to give it to them) there won't be any public goods left in this country. 170625 ... unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yzGCe2vgg 170628 ... unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0TFcJX4Mp0 170628 ... unhinged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi4yJc8EhC0 170629 ... unhinged 'the lesson of neoliberalism some argue that these days it hardly matters any more who you vote for. though we still have a right and a left, neither side seems to have a very clear plan for the future. in an ironic twist of fate, the neoliberalist brainchild of two men (hayek and friedman) who devoutly believed in the power of ideas has now put a lockdown on the development of new ones. it would seem that we have arrived at 'the end of history,' with liberal democracy as the last stop and the 'free consumer' as the terminus of our species. ... we inhabit a world of managers and technocrats. 'let's just concentrate on solving the problems,' they say. 'let's just focus on making ends meet.' political decisions are continually presented as a matter of exigency - as neutral and objective events, as though there were no other choice. keynes observed this tendency emerging even in his own day. 'practical me, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences,' he wrote, 'are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.' ...the question is, what is the value of free speech when we no longer have anything worthwhile to say? what's the point of freedom of association when we no longer feel any sense of affiliation? what purpose does freedom of religion serve when we no longer believe in anything? ... ideas, however outrageous, have changed the world, and they will again. 'indeed,' wrote keynes, 'the world is ruled by little else.' - from 'utopia for realists' by rutger bregman 171114 ... f I even thought if you have 8 year in government everything you worked for can be destroyed and the agenda changed therefore it's a waisted of time and money to have people wanting different things or wanting similar things but going about it in a way that's destructive. 171114 ... f To remove your work force from your own country is unwise because those jobs are wanted by many people that don't yet have any savings for further education that most of the time is pointless when it com s to the jobs available to humans. 171114 ... f I think China has a very good employment rate, without destroying that I mean, if it is in any way possible to use people less for cheap labour. 171114 ... unhinged 'politicians, a moribund labor movement, and the mass media - other cowed or in the service of corporate power - assure the population that the old prosperity is still attainable, but via a different route. prosperity will no longer come from expanding the manufacturing base, which characterized the very real prosperity of working men and women immediately after world war ii. the neoliberal version of the promise of rising living standards is based on the fallacy of economic deregulation and financialization. let us be rich, the elites say, and you will share in the spoils. all you have to do is work hard, obey the rules, and believe in yourself. this myth is disseminated across the political spectrum. it is the essential message peddled by everyone from oprah and the entertainment industry to the christian right and positive psychologist. but this promise, as the masses of underemployed and unemployed are discovering, is a fiction.' - chris hedges 171205 ... unhinged what happens when you run the government like a business: 'but our corporate totalitarian rulers deceive themselves as often as they deceive the public. politics, for them, is public relations. lies are told not to achieve any discernible goal of public policy, but to protect the image of the state and its rulers. these lies have become a grotesque form of patriotism. james clapper, the director of national intelligence, lied under oath to congress about the pervasive state surveillance of the citizenry. this spectacle was a rare glimpse into the absurdist theater than now characterizes american political life. a congressional oversight committee holds public hearings. it is lied to it knows it is being lied to. the person who lies knows the committee members know he is lying. and the committee members, to protect their security clearances, say and do nothing.' - chris hedges 171207 what's it to you? who go blather from