[Terez]

Klein is a top-notch journalist. Stiglitz is kind of lackluster and even mainstream when it comes to Keynesian economists. I don't think I have read Polanyi or Davis.

Your prof sounds like a nut, but "President McCain dead; Palin sworn in" is a pretty scary story in which a military coup does not seem entirely unfeasible.

[Mentalist]

Polanyi was a Hungarian economist in exile writing in exile the 1930s, basically offering a fresh-after the fact critique of unrestrained capitalism in light of the Great Depression. Like I said, it was very telling to be reading a guy from the 1930s writing about this exact scenario, as the financial system was in meltdown mode. We also read Klein's "the shock doctrine" which explored just how the neo-liberal economics took hold worldwide (hint: it wasn't pretty). Davis had "planet of the Slums", which was mostly shock-val social commentary and "the Late Victorian Holocausts", which was super-interesting. Stiglitz' book focused on IMF, there were a bunch of others (loong reading list for that course- one of the few courses I actually kept my books from).

Last little bit of off-topic: Kim Stanley Robinson's "science in the Capitol" trilo actually describes a hypothetical ultra-left Democratic senator winning the race and completely reforming the world...against the backdrop of a climate change catastrophe.

Anyhoo, so what would Sanders do on the foreign policy front if he won?

[Terez]

Sanders is a Vietnam-era peacenik, which of course dovetails with his economic views. When people compare Hillary's foreign policy experience favorably to his own, he reminds them that he voted against the Iraq War, while she voted for it.

[Mentalist]

Hrm. Given pretty much all of my family is in UA still, can't say I like the idea of a non-meddling US (God, I loathe VVH for making me say this). Objectively, it'd probably be a good thing for US.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 02 February 2016 - 08:59 PM

[Terez]

I don't think he's a hardliner when it comes to military engagement, so maybe there's some hope for you, assuming a multilateral coalition formed against Russia, but I tend to doubt it. No one wants WWIII, so if you want intervention, you'd probably best hope for a Republican. But it would be messy and not necessarily beneficial to UA in the end.

[Terez]

Gotta love The Onion.

The Onion said:

HENNIKER, NH—Saying his performance in last night's Iowa caucuses provided just the push he needed, advisors for Jeb Bush expressed their hope Tuesday that the Republican candidate has finally garnered enough momentum to end his presidential campaign. "If you look back across several weeks of polling data, you can see that Jeb is definitely starting to build a full head of steam and appears to be in an excellent position to exit the presidential race," said campaign manager Danny Diaz, adding that Bush wasn't just picking up speed in the early primary states but across the country as a whole, and appeared poised to retake the national spotlight by announcing the suspension of his campaign. "New Hampshire can be a significant turning point for this campaign if Jeb finishes similarly there. It feels like we could certainly keep following this trajectory and make a big move to call it quits. Let me tell you, there's a certain energy in the Bush camp right now." At press time, Bush's campaign office was buzzing with dozens of staffers canceling accommodations and tour stops all across South Carolina and Nevada.

[Andorion]

Mentalist, on 02 February 2016 - 08:29 PM, said:

Polanyi was a Hungarian economist in exile writing in exile the 1930s, basically offering a fresh-after the fact critique of unrestrained capitalism in light of the Great Depression. Like I said, it was very telling to be reading a guy from the 1930s writing about this exact scenario, as the financial system was in meltdown mode. We also read Klein's "the shock doctrine" which explored just how the neo-liberal economics took hold worldwide (hint: it wasn't pretty). Davis had "planet of the Slums", which was mostly shock-val social commentary and "the Late Victorian Holocausts", which was super-interesting. Stiglitz' book focused on IMF, there were a bunch of others (loong reading list for that course- one of the few courses I actually kept my books from).

Last little bit of off-topic: Kim Stanley Robinson's "science in the Capitol" trilo actually describes a hypothetical ultra-left Democratic senator winning the race and completely reforming the world...against the backdrop of a climate change catastrophe.

Anyhoo, so what would Sanders do on the foreign policy front if he won?

Read Polanyi and Davis. Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts is what inspired my Mphil dissertation on Indian famine, though I argued against his macro approach.

Polanyi is actually quite interesting. If you want to hear about critiques of neo-liberalism get into Indian academia. That's basically the bread and butter of the development people

[Andorion]

Given what Terez said earlier about three states caucuses, isn't it a bit early to be celebrating/despairing?

What I find the most interesting is the very close Sanders Clinton result.

[worry]

It is never too early to despair.

[Terez]

Andorion, on 03 February 2016 - 02:12 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 02 February 2016 - 08:29 PM, said:

Polanyi was a Hungarian economist in exile writing in exile the 1930s, basically offering a fresh-after the fact critique of unrestrained capitalism in light of the Great Depression. Like I said, it was very telling to be reading a guy from the 1930s writing about this exact scenario, as the financial system was in meltdown mode. We also read Klein's "the shock doctrine" which explored just how the neo-liberal economics took hold worldwide (hint: it wasn't pretty). Davis had "planet of the Slums", which was mostly shock-val social commentary and "the Late Victorian Holocausts", which was super-interesting. Stiglitz' book focused on IMF, there were a bunch of others (loong reading list for that course- one of the few courses I actually kept my books from).

Read Polanyi and Davis. Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts is what inspired my Mphil dissertation on Indian famine, though I argued against his macro approach. Polanyi is actually quite interesting. If you want to hear about critiques of neo-liberalism get into Indian academia. That's basically the bread and butter of the development people

Naomi Klein focuses primarily on Latin America in "The Shock Doctrine" because of the number of threads connecting to American policy and the Chicago School in particular. Latin Americans are also well-versed in the evils of neoliberalism. Anyway, Klein is not narrow in her approach—she ranges from China to Poland to Iraq to New Orleans—but if I recall, the closest she got to India was Sri Lanka. The example she gave there was about a community of fisherman who were pushed out of their homes after the 2004 tsunami because some developers came in to take advantage of the circumstances.

Andorion, on 03 February 2016 - 02:13 AM, said:

Given what Terez said earlier about three states caucuses, isn't it a bit early to be celebrating/despairing?

In a way, yes. We won't have a full picture about who's viable going forward until after South Carolina, maybe after Nevada. But Iowa is still incredibly important, especially when expectations are exceeded or disappointed. Rubio and Bernie exceeded expectations, and even Cruz to an extent though he was leading the Iowa polls in December. Trump passed him around the turn of the year. Anyway, if Iowa weren't important, Huckabee and O'Malley wouldn't have dropped out as soon as the results came in. We'll probably lose at least 2 after New Hampshire too, and maybe 1 or 2 more after South Carolina.

Edit: speaking of MSNBC, as we were last night, anyone else notice that their new self-promoting commercials feature music that was blatantly stolen from a car commercial that was airing on their web videos about 2 years ago?

Edit 2: I found the car commercial. It's even in the same key. They changed some details obviously but it was mostly stolen.

This post has been edited by Terez: 03 February 2016 - 02:46 AM

[Terez]

Rand Paul is out.

http://www.politico....use-race-218675

[Terez]

Rick Santorum is out.

http://www.cnn.com/2...esidential-bid/

[HoosierDaddy]

Terez, on 02 February 2016 - 05:10 AM, said:

What makes you say he doesn't have a national campaign?

Everyone is saying that we aren't going to know who won the Dem vote tonight, and with the way the Iowa Dems caucus, we'll never know the actual vote count. Oh well; Bernie clearly exceeded expectations, and he'll probably win New Hampshire. If he doesn't get killed in SC, he'll be in good shape going forward. Still plenty of time to improve his numbers in SC.

Because Bernie is a left wing Democrat he has very few states. He'll start strong, but after New Hampshire, unless he can suddenly excite minorities he's done. And, while his message SHOULD ignite them, history says it won't.

He'll get slaughtered in SC.

[Terez]

I'm trying to remember the name of that former Bill Clinton staffer who went to MSNBC as a contributor and had her own show briefly which bombed and then she quit for the Hillary campaign. Karen Finney! Anyway, she was on the day after Iowa spinning the close results as something they expected from the beginning, even thought the polls showed Hillary with a prohibitive lead in the beginning and a comfortable lead days before the caucuses. But she said something smart: that's the nature of politics in this country. We don't like to let any candidate go uncontested, and that only seems to get more true as time goes on.

I think he'll do better in South Carolina than expected because he's got quite a few black activists for surrogates, and 11 days between New Hampshire and South Carolina (as opposed to 8 between Iowa and New Hampshire). He's got Cornel West who is still influential despite his turn against Obama. He's got a few other mid-level ambitious activists. He's shown signs of being serious about criminal justice reform, especially since it dovetails with Elizabeth Warren's ongoing campaign against the two-tiered justice system, which fits right into his dominant narrative.

Hillary's record on this subject is not great, and Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, wrote about this in her book and more recently on social media, just to make it clear that Hillary owns her husbands policies on this issue because she advocated for them. From 28 January:

Michelle Alexander said:

If anyone doubts that the mainstream media fails to tell the truth about our political system (and its true winners and losers), the spectacle of large majorities of black folks supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary races ought to be proof enough. I can't believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done - the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes. There's so much more to say on this topic and it's a shame that more people aren't saying it. I think it's time we have that conversation.

Bernie voted for Clinton's omnibus crime bill, but he's on the record saying that he did so very reluctantly, and primarily to support the Violence Against Women portion of the bill. Hillary is on the record selling the "tough on crime" narrative.

[worry]

It's a little sad that Rand Paul dropped out. I mean I'd sooner vote for a tomato, of course, but he's the only candidate with significantly different policy ideas than the others; everyone else has essentially the same venomous ideals and differ only in the size of their fangs (aside from Trump, who has no ideals, but can be easily swayed by polling and assertive policy wonks). The fact that he (and in hindsight Ron too) are such non-entities in the debates is disturbing in and of itself for the GOP.

[Gorefest]

I suddenly find myself swaying towards Bernie Sanders.

[Primateus]

For the first time ever, US politics scares me!

Ted Cruz on Trump

[Terez]

Are you in Denmark?




This one is my favorite:

[Primateus]

Terez, on 04 February 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

Are you in Denmark?

I'm from Denmark, yes. And when a politician in a foreign country starts talking about nuking us I can't help but think "What the fuck did we do?"

[Terez]