[-empyre-] a week to go on the trump effect

[Lawrence Upton]

"T. isn't the problem, so much as the neoliberal/corporate/diplomatic
structure that creates this kind of brutal power base in the first place."
A line in one of Douglas Adams novels comes to mind to the effect that the
politician we see is there to distract us from seeing where the power is

L

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On 2 April 2017 at 20:09, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> A couple of points - everyone in the US, I think, should read both the
> Guardian article and the Wikipedia entry; they're excellent, for which
> thanks. Second, William points to a fundamental issue in the US and perhaps
> elsewhere - that so much of what we find catastrophic here is fundamentally
> infrastructural. Yet we act as if the issues are symbolic; if you watch,
> for example, Colbert and company, there are comedic attacks on Trump, which
> are brilliant - but at the same time they mask that T. isn't the problem,
> so much as the neoliberal/corporate/diplomatic structure that creates
> this kind of brutal power base in the first place. We talk on Fb about the
> fact that something like 30-40% of the country is now evangelical - with
> all that implies - and yet we don't act on a local level that deals with
> schoolboards and the defunding of public schools - including drastic
> defunding of arts, music, social studies and civics, blockplay for early
> levels, and even gym or outdoor play - all in favor of charter schools,
> STEM, and the like. Religion replaces civics; subter- anian racism replaces
> equality issues. Right-wing radio and websites are enormously popular; they
> talk, not _to,_ but _with_ the right, "they're one of us." Couple this with
> the gerrymandering mess (which seems irreversible) all over the country,
> along with county power in places like Georgia, and all the comedy falls
> away.
>
> - Alan
>
> On Sun, 2 Apr 2017, William Bain wrote:
>
> */had to cut and paste here/*
>
> Personally I?ve learned a great deal from this discussion, not least from
> the way it started somewhat sakily and then grew out along different paths.
> Right now I just wanted to mention again the well known idea that the
> voting system needs overhauling. I mentioned proportional representation at
> some point and this morning I looke d over a few documents found on the
> internet. One is a short but thoruough runthrough of the situation from
> *The Guardian* dated June 2016. It?s a piece by Trevor Timm:<
> https://www.theguardian.com/comme> m-broken-democracy-clinton-sanders-primary
> [www.theguardian.com]> Into Wikipedia with /electoral reform in the
> united states/. What comes out there after a general discussion is that as
> I?m sure people here are already aware, there are different systems in
> different states. Section 4 of the article mentions these systems,
> especially good (and abbreviagted) under the subtitle /electoral reform in
> specific states/. I think California and Oregon give the best basic
> assessment. Section 5 of the article is /References/ including a link to
> Laurence Lessig?s ?Republic, Lost; How Money Corrupts Congress [?]. That?s <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_the_United_States [
> en.wikipedia.org]>
>
> Best wishes, William
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
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