Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, October 2, 2009

Neoliberalism and the rise of the left

Commentary By Ron Beasley


There are a few conservatives who "get it."  One of those is Daniel Larison.  Why did we end up with a Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?  The answer - neoliberalism. 



Some people in Latin America have done very well thanks to neoliberal policies, but the gains have been very unevenly distributed and concentrated among the wealthiest in these countries. Economic inequality and social stratification, which were already considerable before neoliberalism swept the region, have grown worse as neoliberalism has advanced. The left-populist backlash across Latin America did not come from nowhere, but instead originated out of dissatisfaction with the limited or non-existent benefits that the poor majority was receiving from neoliberal policies. Had �the world�s dispossessed� benefited so greatly from these policies, they would hardly be embracing political movements that denounce those policies and preach nationalization of resources and industries and redistribution of wealth instead.


The "conservative" teabaggers are not only anti-government they are anti-big business.  It is  a revolt against the neoliberal US policies in the US since Ronald Reagan which just like Venezuela has seen wealth become even more concentrated at the top.   



Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)