Re: <nettime> what exactly is breaking?

[sebastian@rolux.org]

> On Jun 13, 2020, at 5:19 PM, Max Herman <maxnmherman@hotmail.com> wrote:
 
> Neither political party in the US is really denying climate change or racial inequality much these days.  There is bipartisan support for green infrastructure initiatives to help reboot the economy, a green deal if not a new one, and whoever wins in November will probably advance this in some form.  It is also interesting to notice how the rabid nationalist-populism of five years ago seems less effective.  We may have reached an at least local turning point where the benefit of such rhetoric to anyone, even the most rabid of the rabid, is decreasing.  Certainly the libertarian zero-state solution is in the dustbin for now given the giant scope of the Covid-19 bailout.  Who knows, we may even see the emergence of a new 21st c. "moral mandate" for the former Western Bloc to advance the causes of equality and environmental protection in much the same way that voting and free speech acted as exportable rallying cries and unifying moral motives in the previous century.


last time i checked, at least one of the political parties in the US
was not only denying, but deliberately escalating climate change and
racial inequality. (this should not be misread as praise for the other
party, of course!) my impression was that that for a majority in the
US senate, "green new deal" was synonymous with "antifa" or "united
nations". i also don't think that strategically, the focus should be
on who wins in november, because in case someone wins something that
month, he or she will have participated in the arrestation, not the
advancement, of political debate: by reducing it to how and how often
his or her pretty face appears on television. and while i agree that
zero-state libertarianism should be totally discredited, mid-2020
(dear virus made that crystal clear: neoliberalism is a program for
genocide, plain and simple), i'm still wondering why it is thriving
in quite a few places, like the US or the UK. my most substantial
disagreement, however, is about equality/ecology as "moral mandate"
or "exportable rallying cry". i'm not a historian, but i'm certain
that when columbus set foot in the americas, he came with the best
intentions, and even the spanish probably didn't arrive with the
primary motive to just kill everyone. but they did. so i think with
regards to exportable virtues, the balance sheet of the "former
western bloc" is deep in the red, so to say. maybe the US should
just declare moral and political bankruptcy and start from zero.
if i was a banker, i'd call it a haircut and move on with life.





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