this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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I disagree. Neo-liberals, just like conservatives, serve their own interests first, even when that means being deceptive and manipulative in the public eye. Most people are not accurately represented by neo-liberals. Most people would prefer to not have wealth disparity, polluted water and air, or global warming.
If the people in power are what they are, what does it matter what everyone else is? It implies that people in power don't get in power without selling themselves to corporate interests.
Talking openly about it matters. Publicly identifying the enemy matters. Knowing which direction is down-range matters. It helps to focus our fire on the right targets. Conservatives are killing us all and mocking us as they do it. We need to be openly discussing exactly who our enemy is. It's a basic step in stopping that threat.
Does it? How's that been going for you?
The neoliberal democratic experiment has been a failure. It's unclear whether the failure is on behalf of neoliberalism or democracy, but it's failed like every other government in the past:
(1) There's a corrupt government that has enough power to cause system collapse, OR
(2) There's not enough power in the government, so since people with money are naturally corrupt and greedy, the system collapses on its own from exploitation
We're barrelling towards (2) through problems mostly caused by (1). We live in the most surveilled set of countries in the world - the NSA has capabilities shown from the Snowden leaks that China can only dream of, particularly because the NSA has no qualms spying on American allies. We have seen almost complete defunding of key social services in favour of "lower tax rates" that don't actually materialize. Labour has been entirely stripped of its power because the government decided that "national security" trumps people's rights. Meanwhile, government expenses are going up because, turns out, a lack of social services is pretty expensive and leads to directly subsidizing big corporations. We've seen a complete disinterest in active democracy to such a degree that even China gets more active citizen participation in its government (which, tbh, is super depressing because China is wildly considered to be a one-party state). We've seen complete apathy to local and municipal governments, despite those having a much greater impact on peoples' lives.
The Western model of democracy has had about a 250 year run. That's pretty good.
The only way to actually make change is to be active. That's what conservatives get and that's why they're able to make change. You don't change things by sitting at your table and bitching and moaning about how sad everything is. You don't change things by talking to people who agree with you and pointing at people who you disagree with and saying "wow they're bad people!" You aggressively lobby, you play dirty tricks, you invade the Capitol, you protest and protest and protest, and you do everything in your power to make sure that what you want passes because it's a matter of ideology. To some extent I admire religious conservatives for their dedication to their core issues and the commitment they have to seeing it through. It's changing the country into what they want, and that's respectable even if I don't like the country they want.