🚀 go-pugleaf

ab> Alex Bunker
gs> Gary Strand

gs> Sometimes I think your average blue-collar Joe Steelworker has more sense
gs> and wisdom than all the lefty intellectuals infesting academia and the
gs> "elite".

ab> And that explains why your average Joe blue-collar steelworker is a
ab> socialist

  Hardly. The strongest opponents of Soviet socialism (here in the US) have
  been the big labor unions.

ab> and votes NDP in Canada, Labour in the UK, SDP in Germany, socialist in
ab> France, liberal-democrat in the US etc..  

  Also, not quite. Recall hearing about "Reagan Democrats"? The Democratic
  party of the late '70s had gotten too far left for too many people, inclu-
  ding blue-collar workers, and they showed their dissatisfaction by voting
  for Reagan and Republicans in 1980 and 1984. Besides, you were bemoaning
  the fact that (in your view) there wasn't a really Left party in the US.
  Either the Democratic party is (to support this argument) or there isn't,
  (to support your older argument.) Which is it?

ab> and idiotic intellectuals like William F Buckley and Milton Friedman
ab> debate in an esoteric vaccumn totally out of touch with the cruel reali-
ab> ties of poverty, homelessness, desperation, crime, etc...

  Conservatives and pro-free-market economists sure do spend a lot of time
  talking about these things that they don't know about. Where they differ
  with good liberals and socialists is in the means to solve (or at least
  ameliorate) these problems; they don't believe that the problems don't
  exist. In any case, your average lefty intellectual is so far removed from
  basic theories on government power, economics, and monetary policies, that
  it's no wonder that wherever and whenever their ideas have been tried,
  (at best) the society as a whole has remained stuck, or has declined. I
  am including Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, and so on here too.

ab> Your average Joe Bluecollar steelworker is a very sensible fellow and
ab> knows who's side he is on.

  It isn't on the side of the socialist intellectuals, I can tell you that.


--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF