Defend Your Class, Meagan Day, Jacobin. Or: Corporate-Climbing Ivy-League Spawn on CNN Have an Obvious Role
That second headline is mine. I went to those institutions; I know. With maybe three exceptions, every person I knew at Cornell or in the Ivy Feeder School I went to in West Hartford (at least the top fifty students thereof; a public high school, William H. Hall High School) is against Sanders. Every single one but maybe three, including me--of those, mind you, who went to a top-50 school, which is what I call "Ivy League or its equivalent."
They'll never change. It's not about reality; it's a pose, a socio-anthropological marker. What drives me nuts is they not only think they're utterly correct on every issue, they're also unbelievably patronizing about it. Without fail. And literally unteachable at any level. A totally and hermetically sealed world view that rivals that of Trumpers' or Christers' in hermetic-seal-age.
Who cares, though? I don't, much, though it infuriates me. And I'm not entirely sure why it would: it's entirely predictable and utterly unsurprising. Anyway, my wife and I gave more than the thirty people I keep in touch with combined. (Check out FEC site to see whether your friends, or enemies, walk their talk, at least in that fashion.) They don't throw down and they don't show up except to vote. Good: that's what "neoliberal post- and/or junk-politics" means, of course. They're neoliberal to the core, and either have no idea what that term means or think it's a made-up Bernie-Bro insult. Because, despite the degrees, they're willfully and inexcusably and unchangeably ignorant. They like it that way, because to admit you were even slightly off is apparently beyond the moral imagination of these people. You know, like antivaxxers or Stalinists or Hindu nationalists or you name it. All too human, but they claim to be immune. Well, if you make the claim, you had better be able to back it up. And they can't.
Every so often, you get an honest and public self-critique, such as Brad De Long's. Or Stiglitz's, or Sachs'. Etc. And even a lefty like Monbiot can admit a problem, too. Most can't--and that goes for any human being in any domain, of course. I used to think the answer was a third party. I was wrong. It wasn't hard to admit--but only because I'm in this to actually make real changes, out there, beyond my ego, so this whole sucker doesn't go down. I don't think most people, at least in the latte-sipping class, are really in it, if they are at all, for those reasons. Try pinning down one of these putative non-AGW-deniers and see if they are doing anything--ANYTHING--in their lives other than lip service to the problem of AGW. Most don't even change their fucking light bulbs to LEDs. It's all a fucking pose.
But how many could there be of these liberal professional types who hate Sanders? Two, three million? It's not the whole class by a long shot--Donna and I, for two, are not like that. Have tons of friends in the same general cohort who are for Sanders.
The primary's stacked against the neoliberals, just on interest, to say nothing of the anti-establishment wave running through the whole world, basically, rightly and wrongly. Progs show up. Liberals don't. And if Sanders gets the nom, we'll go large to the 100,000,000 who didn't vote in 2016 who don't give a fuck about Harvard, the Hamptons, whether Ashley should start coding in the womb or wait for birth, and all the rest of that shit. If the latte-sippers want to sit it out, just show up and vote against Trump, or vote for Trump, great. Whatever. Of course, in 20 years, they'll claim they were in the fight, like liberals do.
Oh, right--the article. I saw that student's question; Sanders was nice about it. It's the stupidest fucking question imaginable: the kid's 'rents left the USSR. So she wants to know why Sanders is a socialist.
I mean, in fucking elementary school I knew the difference between Soviet Communism and social-democratic socialism. Everyone did; I was there in class when everyone was told. She was told. She's a hyper-privileged Harvard kid. Not knowing the difference is like mistaking Africa for Asia. It's that fucking basic politics 101.
She knows. She's lying, purposely, and probably to careerist-climb her way up into the sweaty crevices of corporate-political power. That's what Harvard is for: it's a finishing school for the ruling class.
(Yes, those at Harvard, like those at any institution or in any environment, who become traitors, I'm all for. See, I don't consider "Harvard" or "Cornell" to be retaining walls in the edifice of my poor, little identity. This is why you think I'm attacking Ivy League education in some blanket, even Trumpy fashion--and you honestly believe it, too. It's because you literally don't, and won't, get it.)
They'll never change. It's not about reality; it's a pose, a socio-anthropological marker. What drives me nuts is they not only think they're utterly correct on every issue, they're also unbelievably patronizing about it. Without fail. And literally unteachable at any level. A totally and hermetically sealed world view that rivals that of Trumpers' or Christers' in hermetic-seal-age.
Who cares, though? I don't, much, though it infuriates me. And I'm not entirely sure why it would: it's entirely predictable and utterly unsurprising. Anyway, my wife and I gave more than the thirty people I keep in touch with combined. (Check out FEC site to see whether your friends, or enemies, walk their talk, at least in that fashion.) They don't throw down and they don't show up except to vote. Good: that's what "neoliberal post- and/or junk-politics" means, of course. They're neoliberal to the core, and either have no idea what that term means or think it's a made-up Bernie-Bro insult. Because, despite the degrees, they're willfully and inexcusably and unchangeably ignorant. They like it that way, because to admit you were even slightly off is apparently beyond the moral imagination of these people. You know, like antivaxxers or Stalinists or Hindu nationalists or you name it. All too human, but they claim to be immune. Well, if you make the claim, you had better be able to back it up. And they can't.
Every so often, you get an honest and public self-critique, such as Brad De Long's. Or Stiglitz's, or Sachs'. Etc. And even a lefty like Monbiot can admit a problem, too. Most can't--and that goes for any human being in any domain, of course. I used to think the answer was a third party. I was wrong. It wasn't hard to admit--but only because I'm in this to actually make real changes, out there, beyond my ego, so this whole sucker doesn't go down. I don't think most people, at least in the latte-sipping class, are really in it, if they are at all, for those reasons. Try pinning down one of these putative non-AGW-deniers and see if they are doing anything--ANYTHING--in their lives other than lip service to the problem of AGW. Most don't even change their fucking light bulbs to LEDs. It's all a fucking pose.
But how many could there be of these liberal professional types who hate Sanders? Two, three million? It's not the whole class by a long shot--Donna and I, for two, are not like that. Have tons of friends in the same general cohort who are for Sanders.
The primary's stacked against the neoliberals, just on interest, to say nothing of the anti-establishment wave running through the whole world, basically, rightly and wrongly. Progs show up. Liberals don't. And if Sanders gets the nom, we'll go large to the 100,000,000 who didn't vote in 2016 who don't give a fuck about Harvard, the Hamptons, whether Ashley should start coding in the womb or wait for birth, and all the rest of that shit. If the latte-sippers want to sit it out, just show up and vote against Trump, or vote for Trump, great. Whatever. Of course, in 20 years, they'll claim they were in the fight, like liberals do.
Oh, right--the article. I saw that student's question; Sanders was nice about it. It's the stupidest fucking question imaginable: the kid's 'rents left the USSR. So she wants to know why Sanders is a socialist.
I mean, in fucking elementary school I knew the difference between Soviet Communism and social-democratic socialism. Everyone did; I was there in class when everyone was told. She was told. She's a hyper-privileged Harvard kid. Not knowing the difference is like mistaking Africa for Asia. It's that fucking basic politics 101.
She knows. She's lying, purposely, and probably to careerist-climb her way up into the sweaty crevices of corporate-political power. That's what Harvard is for: it's a finishing school for the ruling class.
(Yes, those at Harvard, like those at any institution or in any environment, who become traitors, I'm all for. See, I don't consider "Harvard" or "Cornell" to be retaining walls in the edifice of my poor, little identity. This is why you think I'm attacking Ivy League education in some blanket, even Trumpy fashion--and you honestly believe it, too. It's because you literally don't, and won't, get it.)