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Búho se PierdeHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:38am

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  tito_swinefluBúho se Pierde
  1/07/14 11:43am
  I love this mural! I was just at a fancy party for rich people in that room two weeks ago! It's in a room in the Art Institute in SF, a city in which no-one making under $100k can afford to live.
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  Búho se Pierdetito_swineflu
  1/07/14 11:49am
  Well, here's one at CCSF for the plebs.
  
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scott-larockHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:45am
My take on this: The New Deal programs were a compromise that the upper classes had to accept, because there were growing socialist and communist movements and they were scared of what happened in Russia, Hungary and a few other places. Even then, they took it grudgingly and a few rich motherfuckers actually planned an overthrow of the government when the New Deal began.

Without a growing far-left movement to scare the wealthy & powerful into a compromise, we won't see much change. Even *that* may not work, since governments and elites have gotten way better at managing and handling large protest movements. Leftist movements in particular, yes, but any popular uprising at all is something they've had decades of training and practice to deal with, while lefties and their sympathizers chant the same old slogans and carry the same ol' signs.

Sometimes I think we're down to no other choice but violent uprising at this point. Of course, the wealthy & powerful (and the people who work for them) have centuries of experience dealing with that, not just decades. So if that happens, We The people stand a good chance of losing — unless there's some wealthy people and experienced military commanders on our side, George Washington/Thomas Jefferson style.

I think the one thing that may scare the upper classes into compromise that they can't actually handle would be a worldwide general strike. Good luck organizing that, though.

Maybe all we can hope for at this point is for is to outlast these people. Maybe they'll simply run out of resources and productivity to exploit, die off and we can build the best life possible in whatever ruins they've left us.
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  Blatheringscott-larock
  1/07/14 11:55am
  I've always wanted—and I posed this to HamNo before—a series of insightful (and probably some satirical) looks at what this uprising/armed conflict might look like. Who are the players? What alliances might or might not hold? I'd love to see this explored in a semi-realistic way, because I think it would be a good learning exercise.
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  Judgmentfishscott-larock
  1/07/14 12:39pm
  There will be another crash. When it comes, capitalism as we know if will be over. Maybe we will reset to the 1940s and the Glass-Steagal, maybe the bulk of the country will move toward a European socialism mentality, but there is no way that hyper-capitalism is sustainable much longer.
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ARP2Hamilton Nolan
1/07/14 12:03pm
A few thoughts:

1) As others have said, Republicans will oppose it because FDR, government, Obamacare, etc.. But, what if we tied the WPA to receipt of welfare, unemployment, and other jobless benefits. Meaning, people need to work 20 hours per week while on unemployment (the other 20 hours. should be job hunting) and we'll pay a higher unemployment rate.

2) Not everyone can do heavy manual labor. We'll need lighter work (filing, record entry) for others to do.

3) I shudder to think about the politics of what projects get funded. Ideally, it should be public transportation, bridges, schools, etc. Of course, in the end it will be state roads, and a golf course for a wealthy district.
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  rcb2ARP2
  1/07/14 1:19pm
  I think a 20 hr/week tie to jobless benefits is a great idea, but also give the option for 40 hours if possible. If required for unemployment, ensure that the 20 hr recipient would make out slightly better than unemployment alone to compensate for expenses such as lunch and transportation to the job site.
  
  This solution would have a remarkable psychological effect on job hunters as well. What some people deem "laziness" in unemployed individuals is simply lack of motivation due to depression. If the benefits recipient adheres to a regular work schedule for at least part of the week in a job that's not necessarily fast food-related, this person will be in a much better frame of mind to seek traditional employment or network. At worst, it's still only temporary, and at best some might be inspired to make a career change.
  
  Allow the general population to contribute to this country's infrastructure, and they will also take more pride as citizens. It will also break down the animosity between government and private sector workers.
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ExtraExtraHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:38am
Good fucking luck, we have an entire political ideology dedicated to fighting anything that may help the poor. Welfare, Social Security and even unemployment are under attack, bringing back a major FDR plan would cause a motherfucking civil war.

They got extended unemployment shut down, there's no way in hell they'd let this pass. Their heads would spin in circles spewing racist and classist nonsense, screaming about government assistance causes blacks to be lazy.
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  flamingolingoExtraExtra
  1/07/14 12:15pm
  One reason FDR was able to get southern conservative support for the New Deal was because many of the programs discriminated against black Americans.
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  PseudoHermesflamingolingo
  1/07/14 11:41pm
  That's interesting - never heard that the New Deal programs were discriminatory/segregated, but that sadly isn't surprising. Why isn't that talked about?
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MarcabExpatHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:39am
This is sensible and far-sighted, and thus will be condemned as a satanic communist conspiracy by any Fox News reader who comes across it.
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  ExtraExtraMarcabExpat
  1/07/14 11:47am
  They're trying to rewrite history and say the New Deal caused the depression to be worse and damage the U.S. forever. There's absolutely no evidence for this, but they keep saying it anyway.
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  keeplosingburnersExtraExtra
  1/07/14 12:01pm
  1. Big government is bad.
  2. The New Deal was big government.
  3. The New Deal must have caused/exacerbated the Great Depression, because big government is bad.
  
  They're not real big on the whole "scientific method" thing, wherein the hypothesis is frequently disproved by reality. Easier to just cling to the theory and rewrite reality later; hell, that was essentially NeoConservativism's stated foreign policy aim, after all.
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Max Rivlin-NadlerHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:51am
Fund Americorps to the amount that legislation has already allowed it to expand to —it will at least be a start, and is pretty feasible. A new WPA would be great (this is like the 1000th time you've written this same post), but let's get as many young people to freeze their debt and get some job training in the process as soon as they can.
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HiMyNameIsJayAgainHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 11:42am
Happy Birthday Zora Neale Hurston! (She worked for the WPA at one point — that's the relevance.)
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Hrm Hrm HrmHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 12:06pm
Are young people really chomping at the bit for menial labor repairing aged infrastructure? Is it that bad for them? Are they ready to spend 40 hours a week with a hard-hat on?

I know a lot of people like to point at the artistic and cultural endeavors of the WPA, but you realize that many of those jobs (which were few) were reserved for people that had already had some success in their mediums? The kid with a 200K student loan debt and a dual major in sociology and english and no real world experience isn't going to automatically get the job documenting the oral history of the Bitteroot Salish...

I'm not saying a new WPA-esque thing can't be made to happen but are the people ready to take on this kind of work?
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  ARP2Hrm Hrm Hrm
  1/07/14 12:15pm
  True- but, we could probably use persons for other endevours. Digitizing government records, regular old painting (still manual labor, but less so), clerical work, etc.
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  rcb2Hrm Hrm Hrm
  1/07/14 12:47pm
  ARP2's response is excellent, but yes I do believe that some young people would welcome a break from office cubicles without long-term "harm" to their careers (as a nation-wide movement, a WPA stint would be fairly common occurrence on resumes) in favor of physical labor. I also have many artist friends who already employ skills common to both art and construction. In order for this to work, student loan payments would have to be placed on interest-free forbearance for the period involved with WPA service.
  
  Job applicants from all backgrounds would have less competition, and we'd be completing desperately needed work on national infrastructure.
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MaggiejeanerHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 12:09pm
It is a shame that the US will not reconsider this type of program. When you see the uproar people have around the tiny amount of funding that goes to the NEA and PBS though, there is no way a plan to pay people for full time artistic work will ever get off the ground. The slave narratives and rural personal histories collected through the 30s ONLY happened because of the WPA. History would miss some huge resources without it.
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AuntEggmaBlowtorchHamilton Nolan
1/07/14 12:07pm
Bravo, HamNo. It needed to be said.

But it'll never happen in this shortsighted America, which is penny wise and pound foolish.
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  asscashorgrassAuntEggmaBlowtorch
  1/07/14 6:47pm
  Sigh. It's not some new idea.
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  AuntEggmaBlowtorchasscashorgrass
  1/07/14 6:54pm
  What in my note suggested that I thought it was a new idea?
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