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Neoliberal Progressivism

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A few hours after Sen. Kamala Harris of California challenged former Vice President Joe Biden on his civil rights record, her presidential campaign seized the moment to sell “That Girl Was Me” T-shirts.

God, how pathetic. Not only is her “I’m a victim of racism” spiel a total lie but she’d trying to profit off it. This was all planned in advance to make money.

I dread the moment when some extremely white person (because who else?) at work will show up in this shirt and I’ll have to keep a straight face.

27 responses to “Neoliberal Progressivism”

  1. Z Avatar
    Z

    This focus on infighting can lose the general election.

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  2. Dreidel Avatar
    Dreidel

    “That Girl Was Me”

    For every black little girl like Harris who was bused out of a bad school district that couldn’t educate its children properly, there was a tit-for-tat little white girl whose parents had spent a fortune seeking a house in an upscale expensive neighborhood with excellent, safe schools, only to be ordered to get their child up at five o’clock in the morning so she could eat a quick breakfast before being put on a bus at 5:45, and then take a two-hour ride into gangland, where she would be bullied and threatened and denied the educational needs that her parents had worked so hard to earn for her.

    That was the dark side of busing — deliberately sacrificing one group of “privileged” children in order to provide equal opportunity to another “underprivileged” group. It was a wrong-headed social experiment in the 1970s, and the idea hasn’t improved with time.

    Biden was right to oppose busing — and still too stupid to adequately defend his position on it.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      In fact, Biden was not totally against busing, he was against court-ordered busing in some cases where there was no intentional segregation.

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      1. Dreidel Avatar
        Dreidel

        “In fact, Biden was not totally against busing”

        This statement simply isn’t correct. Biden made this blatantly false claim in the debate last night, but you shouldn’t take him at his words on the subject today.

        Google “Biden” and “busing,” and you’ll find detailed accounts of his actual views, statements, and legislative actions in the 1970s concerning busing and segregation in general.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          The whole idea that it’s urgently important to rehash busing at the presidential debates of 2019 shows that these clowns aren’t even trying to address real problems of today.

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          1. cliff arroyo Avatar
            cliff arroyo

            “The whole idea that it’s urgently important to rehash”

            But isn’t that one of the cornerstones of neoliberalism? The past is exploited to avoid thinking about the future…

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            1. Z Avatar
              Z

              Hm, that is interesting, I will contemplate it

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            2. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Did you see that immediately after the debate Harris went to meet with illegal immigrants, promising she would do anything she can for them? It was totally a scene of a rich lady talking kindly to prospective maids.

              We are all still waiting for her to notice the army of homeless citizens in her own state, of course. Nobody is even noticing how weird it is that she’s talking to citizens of other countries and not to her constituents.

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          2. David Gendron Avatar
            David Gendron

            Biden is against busing (a failed idea, he’s right on this) but he has never tried to forbid voluntary busing at the State level, but he opposed federal and court-mandated busing.

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            1. Shakti Avatar
              Shakti

              Non competes for interns
              …Noncompete agreements are unenforceable in a number of states, and regulators have clamped down on their use among low-skilled workers like food preparers. While no data exists on how many interns are affected by noncompete agreements, around one in five workers in the labor force overall are bound by such pacts…The idea of noncompetes for interns is ludicrous,” said Terri Gerstein, a Harvard University academic who previously served in the New York attorney general’s office. “Internships are supposed to be for educational and professional development, and are about expanding—not limiting—job opportunities.” She said it is unlikely intern noncompete agreements would be upheld in court in most states.

              Jessica Jeffers, an economist at the University of Chicago, said noncompete agreements “operate mainly through a deterrent effect”—such as cease-and-desist letters sent to former employees. The noncompete agreements seem to prevent people from leaving or keeping a job, even if they rarely result in a court case, she said.

              In many industries, nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreements for interns have proliferated too.

              Jeremy Mayer, a political scientist at George Mason University, said that last year a student of his demurred from telling the class about his recent White House internship because he was bound by an NDA.

              Katharine Marianacci, a career coach at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., said that NDAs—common in engineering internships—limit the details of work experience students can put on their résumés, or even discuss in job interviews.

              When branding themselves for future roles, students “need to be kind of creative in a way that doesn’t share” confidential information, she said…

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      The idea that Harris, whose dad was a professor of economics at Stanford lived in a bad school district makes no sense. She’s been very wealthy her whole life. The broad is lying.

      Busing is a ridiculous idea. I’m completely opposed to experimenting on kids. People want to integrate, let them be bussed all over to faraway workplaces.

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  3. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Al this because of an old outdated story about busing! MEANWHILE, WE HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO MADE A NAME FOR HIMSELF IN GREAT BECAUSE HE PRETENDED THAT OBAMA WAS BORN IN KENYA, DAMMIT!

    Stupid fucktards!

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      All this…

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      They are piling on Biden because he caucused with segregationists. But that’s every Dem politician of the older generation because Democrats were historically the party of the Klan and segregation. Obama delivered a eulogy at the funeral of the most notorious KKK leader in congress (who at some point repented, whatever). Because that’s the history of the party. They are pretending like it’s news but they should look at who Al Gore’s father was, what kind of unhinged racists the Clintons associated, etc. They should look at who founded Planned Parenthood and for what purpose.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        You’re right. (Although I’m pro abortion)

        Also this: (which is not the reason that I’m against State-mandated minimum wage)

        View at Medium.com

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      2. johnsmith7456 Avatar
        johnsmith7456

        Margaret Sanger was against abortions.

        Liked by 1 person

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  4. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    . Not only is her “I’m a victim of racism” spiel a total lie
    Ok, how was it a “total lie?”

    My cousin, who was born in 1968, came from India to the UK when he was about 5, and I think about 1979-ish came to America. Nobody asks him about his time in England because he files it under things he does not talk about.

    There are experiences that money and education do not get you out of.

    I dread the moment when some extremely white person (because who else?) at work will show up in this shirt and I’ll have to keep a straight face.
    Good grief. :/ I agree that it was absolutely planned. It didn’t go over well with the people I was watching the debate with.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I would really like to hear the names of those ultra liberal professor families at Berkeley who refused to let their kids play with her.

      It’s not surprising that her father is not extremely happy with her public persona.

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      1. Shakti Avatar
        Shakti

        She doesn’t mention if her neighbors were professors. And honestly given the time period, I’m not sure that ultra liberal (if that) translates to non racist or even if her parents lived in the same neighborhood as the other professors. And given the amount of changes in her family situation before she turned twelve, she could’ve lived in any number of neighborhoods, so I can’t comment on that. Maybe Z can weigh in on what that area was like?

        Would you have found it more plausible if she came out of South Carolina? Nikki Haley (in roughly the same period) describes some of the weird things her parents had to do in order to get housing and some pretty blatant racism in her autobiography.

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        1. Z Avatar
          Z

          Here’s an article on redlining in Berkeley. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/09/20/redlining-the-history-of-berkeleys-segregated-neighborhoods Harris’ parents were graduate students, not faculty, when they lived there. This was in the 60s and early 70s. It would not have been easy to rent in a white neighborhood. Even I can remember, later on in white neighborhoods, landlords dragging their feet about renting to nonwhite people. About the liberal professors — in science and economics especially, there is no reason why they should have been liberal; many weren’t. There’ve been lefty student movements, and lefty neighborhoods, and lefty city councils and mayors but this doesn’t make the school itself — which recruits from around the country ad world and as I have pointed out before, has faculty like John Yoo — particularly lefty, it’s more middle of the road, I’d say, and traditionalist at heart (forward-looking too, but at bottom traditionalist and I am not saying that is bad).

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        2. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          People should feel free to feel compassion for one of the most privileged people in the history of humanity. I’d just wish that we all kept in mind that she lives in a place and we don’t. All of the problems in our lives – she doesn’t know that kind of problems exist. This is an extremely rich, extremely privileged person who’s pretending to be some sort of a victim to fleece us out of our money.

          Class consciousness is dead. Identity killed it.

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          1. Z Avatar
            Z

            Try THIS for a new dose of screwed-up identity politics. It’s at the S.F. high school many of my UCB classmates had studied at, and it was fairly working class then although it is not clear to me anyone working class can afford to live in SF now. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/opinion/sunday/san-francisco-life-of-washington-murals.html?fbclid=IwAR3pBAQ_AA4aJs1ErJNGk_V6hrjHHYGZzufI_IxVfA5IEGEzWcFfBbCwFAc

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Unbelievably, pathetically ignorant. What a bloody shame.

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              1. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                “Unbelievably, pathetically ignorant.”

                Not only disgusting, but an incredible legal irony: If the artist were alive, even if he were only a “street artist” who had created the paintings on public or private property without anybody’s permission, he could successfully sue the local authorities for millions of dollars!

                I’m not making this up: Last year, a New York court awarded five graffiti artists $6.7 million after a property owner tore down old buildings covered with their graffiti to make room for new luxury apartments.

                I hope some rightfully concerned group has enough clout to go to court and stop the horrific destruction of the historical government-commissioned art works in San Francisco before they’re lost forever! 😦

                Liked by 1 person

          2. JProf Avatar
            JProf

            “Class consciousness is dead. Identity killed it.”

            Is there any book you would recommend on the connection between identity politics and neoliberal capitalism? (By the way, I do agree with this.)

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            1. Z Avatar
              Z

              The class war was lost some time ago. Now we’re fighting over whatever is left. Identity politics came in after the class war was lost — that was when we started reading Foucault, doing multiculturalism, and so on, as well.

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  5. Z Avatar
    Z

    “historical government-commissioned art works in San Francisco”

    This is what I can’t figure out. Does the school board have the right to make this decision? It’s a public school built in 1936 so isn’t it city, state, county property, not the property of the board?

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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