I'm tired of agitprop because it's permeating our culture beyond what it's supposed to. People are getting into smaller and more narrow factions and using agitprop as a magic wand that solves all problems. The problem with propaganda is there is no debate so all it does is shout a point of view without much back and forth to get at the problem. And many don't want to get at the problem they just want tax transfers to their pockets.
We are talking about a narrow faction of violent anarchists versus noisy people shouting on both sides and not being violent, yet not doing much productive.
Agitprop has always been with us, and it is mostly due to the rise of the radical right that it is noisier in the US these days.
Rush and Fox News are some of the biggest distractions from reasonable debate out there.
Hell, one party, the Republicans, can not even discuss the issues in good faith. They have to use b.s. like "socialism" and "government takeover."
Nothing inherent in the Republican elected official mind set caused this, it is their increasingly close alliance with propagandists.
What is happening in Greece is just a more extreme example of the same phenomenon. I can understand protesting colonialism, racism, dictatorship etc but these leftists lost the argument a long time ago. Protesting budget cuts that are inevitable is an example of groups using agitprop as a magic wand to avoid debate. The only way to keep the public sector benefits in Greece would be to have captive investors that WANT to lose money by receiving no return for their investments. In the real world you can't do that without a world dictatorship and since there isn't one all the left has is agitprop as a fall back strategy to influence people via media.
Similarly the New Jersey teacher protests were also pointless because they already lost the argument. New Jersey is losing it's tax base but the unions want to continue the gravy train irregardless of mathematics.
1.)Thank you for the economics lesson but I don't need it.
2.)I never disputed that public benefits undeniably need to be reduced in Greece. Or in some cases in the US. Teachers' Unions go way too far and have way too much power too much of the time. However, a correction, teachers are not protesting for government transfer benefits. Transfers are payments given for which no service of value is rendered in return, like TANF(AFDC). These teachers are haggling over the level of pay/benefits for actual work they do, service they perform. Not saying I agree with them, but apples and oranges.
3.)What I can't go along with is your contention that everyone protesting against these cuts, whatever the merits, is fueling the same mentality that led to the bank burnings. That is, in a word, and not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit.
By that same logic, anyone protesting anything and doing so in a way that substitutes rhetoric for logic and homemade signs for debate represents the starting point of the mentality that will lead to flame throwing and window smashing.
How do the teachers in NJ represent the same mentality, while the Tea Partiers, using threats and openly racist taunts as part of their agitprop, get off free?
Even some "supply-sider" conservatives didn't get the message as this article points out clear:
Very happy you pointed this out
Reagan gave us 2 tax increases bigger than Clinton's in 1993, the overall level of taxation did not drop, and the vast majority of Americans saw an increase or no change under Reagan.
Ditto government spending.
No amount of Agitprop from any side will change the reality that balanced budgets are needed but we know this is a larger problem with the left.
And the right.
If the Greeks don't follow austerity measures the investors will flee causing the poverty they are trying to prevent. The problem is not that people were killed but the mentality that lead to the killing. The violence and agitprop achieved nothing and had no chance of achieving anything. It was empty and pointless from the get-go. If we gave into every TV commercial or government spending proposal where would we be?
No argument here.
As for your last sentence, where we find ourselves right now is a good answer as to where we would be.
We spent years listening to Republicans who told us we could have all the tax cut and all the government spending we want, consequences be damned, and look where we are now!
If we are talking about the left versus the right or Democrats versus Republicans in government spending/austerity measures, then the right does not have too much credibility here.
If anything the sane Tea Partiers (including some Republicans and Democrats) are a frustration with the constant messages that ignore restraint so they resort to the same agitprop in response. Yet unless this movement translates into votes for capable candidates it will be hot air.
Not true.
If that were true, they would have come about when we were blowing a record surplus with promises of endless tax cuts and endless government spending. Go back to the Bush-Gore debates, there wasn't an entitlement or government program that Bush was not promising to take care of.
What messages that ignore restraint have been permeated since the Tea Party formed?
None.
Obama has made clear these are going to be difficult times requiring sacrifice.
Proposed spending cuts, addressed entitlements, the biggest driver of the deficit, through health care reform, put together a deficit panel over the objections of the Republicans, put pay as you go back in and proposed to cut farm subsidies. He has also done more on education reform in 1 year than Bush did in 8, just ask those teachers unions who are about ready to get a Dem primary opponent for Obama.
Contrast that to Bush and Cheney, who were either silent or told us "deficits don't matter."
The Tea Party has a problem with bailouts?
Their leader Palin and most of their Republican friends supported the bailouts, and where were they in September 2008 when they were passed?
The Tea Party has a problem with the stimulus?
What else would you have done? If anyone thinks McCain would not have passed a major stimulus, they are dreaming. When the private sector is falling off a cliff, the only option, the only component of GDP that we can influence is Government spending. Before we had counter cyclical measures, we had 10 year long Depressions that made 1932 look tame. Same would have happened in 2008. There is no debate among economists, the ones who advised McCain included, that the stimulus has saved jobs and restored growth and was needed.
Plus, it can't be held up as lack of restraint given the alternative(more downward spiral and debt as a result) and the fact that Obama was far from cavalier about doing it. He said from the beginning that it was what he had to do, not what he wanted to do, and that we would almost get whiplash having to change from fiscal stimulus to a policy of deficit cutting when the economy turned.
Do you remember who started the Tea Party?
Rick Santelli, a darling of Wall Street, on a rant on CNBC!
Is Wall Street of the past 10/15 years a picture of restraint?
Then there is a good amount of crackpots and racists who are just protesting a black Democrat in office. Including the founder in name only stand in for Santelli.
A necessary stimulus and a moderate health care reform bill similar to what Republicans had proposed in the past pushed by a moderate Democrat is not what has all these people in the street.
It is either:
A.)They are protesting a Democratic President: Fox-talk radio-Republican Congressional nexus that has developed since 1993, which states that any Democrat in the White House is to be unanimously opposed and brought down personally. Clinton was illegitimate, a socialist, a dictator, and now Obama is.
B.)Racism
They do not have any disagreements on any issue of substance, listen to interviews with them. They can't do any more than repeat things that have been proven false and conspiracy theories. They are mostly idiots.
They follow Sarah Palin, who, regardless of politics, any reasonable person has to conclude, is a complete idiot.
What does that say about them?
Someone clearly educated like you are, Purpleoscar, should be able to see that.
If the Tea Partiers get violent they would be hypocrites since don't they say they uphold democracy? If the tea partiers resort to violent agitprop only and form stupid ideas like splitting the vote to a third party they would again be ineffectual blowhards that hand victory to those they feel the need to defeat.
Everyone says they uphold democracy.
As for violent agitprop, they already have resorted to that.
As for 3rd party ideas, they already have resorted to that(look at Crist).
They'll either drive too many Republicans away and make independents the 2nd party, and take what is left of the GOP, or they'll kick the Republicans to the curb and form the 3rd Tea party. In either case, they'll be, as you say, handing victory to those they hope to defeat.
At the end of the day, Purpleoscar, I did not come here to discuss the merits of these issues with you. We obviously come from different ends of the spectrum to some extent, and that is America, after all!
All I am trying to get you to do is understand that, regardless of what people are protesting, legitimate non violent means do not equate to the same mindset that leads anarchists to burn banks.
No matter what the "issue" or the circumstances or who held power, anarchists, by the very nature of their bent ideology, will find a reason to flout authority and smash/burn stuff.
Wow, amazing discussion, let's move on.
