RE: Academic Wank and the conservative backlash

Yes DG it is a legitimate subject for academic pursuit, but it is still a bit of a wank because, like mastrurbation, it makes you feel good while doing it, but it is not going to be creative.

I thought it was quite an interesting discussion, and well written. The part about money being the lowest common denominator for moral behavior and religion the highest [common factor ?], made me think – and I appreciated your clever oxymoron.

Money is not the problem itself but it is a useful indicator of wealth which is something rather different, and probably the real operating culprit. Why I think that your line of thought will be unproductive is because money is indespensible because there is no other option. The evils it indicates must be addressed indirectly in some other way.

Although it goes down well in academic discussions, the need to redistributie wealth, however valid it might be theoretically, is not something that ordinary Americans could ever discuss in an objective way. No politician would touch it overtly, but has been happening very strongly in the USA (from hard workers to the wealthy) for the last 20 years. Redistribution of wealth in a positive way is a valid consideration in the theory of how to develop taxation policies that will achieve national goals. It is probably the only way to reverse the direction of the flow of wealth. So perhaps we should try to bring the discussion out into the open.
Omninerd wouldnot be the place to try this because the very idea would enrage the natives who have mostly swallowed the conservative rhetoric and still believe that the people they elect intend to act in their interest. Our nerds seem to be mostly middle income professionals who have not yet felt the pinch, and who mostly still feel that fiscal conservativism tempered with kindness, when it does not cost the government much, is the way to go.

The phenomenon is called “the conservative backlash”. Ordinary hard working Americans with jobs in farming and factories, who in previous generations tended to be liberal democrats, are increasingly becoming staunch conservatives, even as their world collapses around them. The representatives they have elected on campaign rehoric of patriotism, fiscal reform, family values, and anti abortion, have actually acted mostly to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich. The divide between rich and poor is greater now than it has been since the 1930s, and is growing.

The poorest counties are now in the mid west, which has changed from being a bastion of liberal values (which it was up to the 1950s) to a de-industrialized belt of poor white conservative voters who never get what their candidates promise them. Vote to stop abortion, get banking de-regulation. What action has there been on those key conservative issues we hear so much about at election time? Nothing! The action is always on other things that help those who already have lots of money to get more. It is always about money but not wealth.

Dumb voters deserve what they get. They become more poor every year while they are losing the benefits for the poor that were hard won over many years by the Democrats because they vote for cynical campaign rhetoric rather than the party that traditionally fights for a fair deal for the poor. Perhaps the election of a Democrat President has broken the cycle, or it may if he performs well.

So this “academic” line of thought is useful in defining how to interpret this indicator, money. I hope it can lead to some practical results.