Tag: Wealth Inequality

It’s wrong to say China is heading for socialism, because it never really abandoned it

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

It’s wrong to say China is heading for socialism, because it never really abandoned it

Ultimately, what is behind the coverage you see in the West is a sense of dismay that China did not take the path they wanted. China was a socialist state, and still is, but refines its policies in pursuit of its national goals where necessary. It understands the difference between dogmatism and pragmatism, and that is why it so frequently succeeds.

The New National American Elite

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The New National American Elite

More and more Americans are figuring out that “wokeness” functions in the new, centralized American elite as a device to exclude working-class Americans of all races, along with backward remnants of the old regional elites. In effect, the new national oligarchy changes the codes and the passwords every six months or so, and notifies its members through the universities and the prestige media and Twitter. America’s working-class majority of all races pays far less attention than the elite to the media, and is highly unlikely to have a kid at Harvard or Yale to clue them in. And non-college-educated Americans spend very little time on Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which they are unlikely to be able to identify—which, among other things, proves the idiocy of the “Russiagate” theory that Vladimir Putin brainwashed white working-class Americans into voting for Trump by memes in social media which they are the least likely American voters to see.

Constantly replacing old terms with new terms known only to the oligarchs is a brilliant strategy of social exclusion. The rationale is supposed to be that this shows greater respect for particular groups. But there was no grassroots working-class movement among Black Americans demanding the use of “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves” and the overwhelming majority of Americans of Latin American descent—a wildly homogenizing category created by the U.S. Census Bureau—reject the weird term “Latinx.” Woke speech is simply a ruling-class dialect, which must be updated frequently to keep the lower orders from breaking the code and successfully imitating their betters.

Related:

YouTube – Twin Problems: Social Media and Power Concentration by Economist Ashley Hodgson

Is China Transforming the World?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Is China Transforming the World?

From speeches by president Xi Jinping, including the one he gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2017, journalists only wanted to retain his support of globalization—that is, his praise of free trade without obstacles—and a denunciation of protectionism. It is clear that the Chinese president was saying that “economic globalization has provided a powerful driving force for world growth, by facilitating the movement of capital and goods, the advancement of science, technology and human civilization, as well as exchanges between peoples.”1. What a sweet song in the ears of the neoliberals! Nevertheless, we should not hide the setbacks and problems, also underlined in this same speech: “Globalization is a double-edged sword.… The contradiction between capital and labor is accentuated.… The gaps between the rich and the poor, between the North and the South, are constantly widening.… The richest [elements] represent 1 percent of the world’s population, but have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent.”2

Related:

MONTHLY REVIEW JULY-AUGUST 2021

Randi Weingarten: You can’t keep us from teaching students honest history

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Despite this furor, most Americans have not been exposed to actual critical race theory nor do they understand what it is. Critical race theory is the examination, principally in law school but also elsewhere at the undergraduate and graduate level in college, of whether systemic racism exists and whether it affects law and public policy — it asks, for example, whether policies that prohibited Black Americans from owning homes have contributed to the stark disparities in wealth between Black and white Americans.Culture warriors are suddenly labeling any discussion of race, racism, discrimination or struggle as critical race theory in an attempt to drive a wedge between Americans and prevent the full and accurate teaching of the American Experiment. They are seeking to ban critical race theory where it is not taught — in K-12 schools — and to discredit it where it is — in law schools and some colleges.

Randi Weingarten: You can’t keep us from teaching students honest history