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yeah see the problem i have with all this is that it seems to me geared around the wrong side of the equation--and i'm not sure if this is the thread for this discussion really---but it seems to me that the obama people need a plan that takes account of how the actual economy is really organized and which, based on that, develops a set of objectives, which can then be benchmarked etc., that would shape how the state is to roll into a more active relation to the machinery that enables folk to function day to day within capitalism in its present dysfunctional form.
it makes little sense to me to continue acting as though the form of capitalism that's developed under since the 1980s is either functional or sustainable--but it also makes little sense to talk about changing directions without having a clear idea of what changes, in what sectors, for what reason---which would enable a coherent use of tax money for specific purposes.
i understand that obama came into power in the midst of a whirlwind of problems left behind by neoliberalism, but still i think there is a *real* danger that the administration will find itself eaten alive by them because it seems more concerned with playing nice with the center-right than in being aggressive--and i think it needs to be aggressive---people are hurting because the organization of the economy is about the holders of capital and not about folk who work--and this because for 30 years or more the mantra has been that capital creates wealth.
i hope that explains my impatience with the emphasis on taxation to the exclusion of other, more important factors in the present situation.
and in this context, i'm not operating from a particularly left political position---i find myself arguing a more or less social-democratic line but in a context where the old social-democratic models do not and will not work. there's nothing particularly left about that. it seems to me a sane view of things, even couched in the very general terms that i think a messageboard forces onto us.
so the short version: the right and its ways of thinking, particularly about taxation, are entirely irrelevant. break with them, be done with it. better now than later.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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