It'll be green Guinness st paddy's month instead of march next. Every month needs a festival of conspicuous consumption while the rising seas boil around us.

UN warns that Saudi Arabia with direct and indirect help from the US has put Yemen on the brink of the worst famine in 100 years, yeah, worse than Holodomor. Understandably, this is HUGE NEWS and mainstream media is blocking off large amounts of time to discuss what might be one of the greatest catastrophes in human history.

These proxy wars always go so well for the US

Quite a ratio on Piers

Sincerely, I'm of course torn here because you're correct that capitalism has perverted the innate human desire to mark seasonal changes and celebrate them and bent it toward empty consumption and hollow consumerism. Because I think humans need celebration, communal fraternity, leisure time -- and festivals have historically been the avenue and outlet for that.

When I see the modern world grasp at things like Halloween and Christmas or yes, even St Pattys day, you see both the worst of modernity -- gluttony, empty consumption, environmental degradation, pointless purchases -- but it's the understandable yearning of people to escape skulldrudgery and labor and enjoy themselves.

You have to be mindful that the left keep its targets tight and not become boring prat school marm types that just **** on joy all day, I mean it's understandable why people enjoy, say, decorating **** and going door to door to collect candy, literally like the only contact people seemingly have with their neighbors. I think the spirit of harvest festivals (Halloween, Thanksgiving in the US/Canada, Dia de los Muertos in Mexico) are entirely healthy and good for people. Obviously capitalism has ****ed it up in important ways. If the left becomes the side that starts literally making people feel guilty about festival culture, we might as well quit now, we don't want to fight against human nature *too much*.

In West Virginia born and raised
On the Supreme Court was where I spent most of my days
Chillin' out, maxin' relaxin' like a baller
And buyin' a sofa that cost eight thousand dollars
Then the GOP, they were up to no good
Started impeaching me in my neighborhood
I got in one little trial but the judge got scared
He said, "This is a constitutional crisis, I declare!"

suzzer,

If you like this stuff, read The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon. You'll love it.

It's fascinating to watch you try to thread the needle between not wanting to come off as a joyless scold, but also having Opinions about the Proper Socialist Observance of Harvest and Solstice Festivals.

I mean, it's obviously a hopeless endeavor, but it's interesting to watch you try.

View: Green beer is counter-revolutionary because it is the color of money and therefore inextricably associated with capitalism. Red beer is more conducive to experiencing joy during the annual Irish-derived spring festival.

Thanks, I'll buy it and put it on the pile

I am genuine when I say that it is proper for the left to criticize consumer orgies like Black Friday and that much of what passes for modern festivities are in fact themselves made increasingly joyless, stressful and driven entirely by marketing. But that the left should not go so far as to be seen as scolds, yes.

I actually think you can thread the needle; there's no reason for people to be racking up tons of consumer debt to celebrate Christmas, that's all stress that's been placed on people by capitalists and we should encourage people to target their blame appropriately onto manipulative marketers and retailers.

However, we should be extremely careful about not being seen as joyless. The canonical example would be something like American Thanksgiving. This presents a standard trap for the left, as it's something everyone loves and is otherwise desirable (leisure time, family time, sharing a meal, not doing much of anything). There's no real reason to destroy the day for normal people, who just want to get out of work for a while and **** around and eat and leave stresses behind for a while, good on them.

Some on the left are correct to point out, for instance, that the proper historical reading of Thanksgiving can only be seen as settler colonists triumphing over the environment and whitewashing hundreds of years of deplorable treatment and theft of natives by colonists with some entirely contrived feel-good story that actually hijacks a sort of socialist aesthetic to shield a far more unpleasant reality.

If we have to use that day as an opportunity to discuss it, the left should gently and quietly remind everyone that the true spirit of Thanksgiving is found in the narrative arc, much of it fantasy, of the indigenous people and recently arrived immigrants sharing in the bounty of the land together, and that the reality was tainted by voracious capitalists and their thirst for land and resources, but then otherwise let normal people just enjoy their day off and a meal with friends and family. Thanksgiving = good, leisure time = good, and standard narrative yarns about colonial Thanksgivings are fictional but aspirational, god bless and amen.

bob,

Armchair psychologist here: your entire posting history is a weak attempt to justify what you know are indefensible political views. Hence the constant nibbling around the edges of other people’s positions and talking in abstractions and hypotheticals.

bobo’s a recovering libertarian, we need to be supportive and give him space for the occasional super-hot take.

I think the jingoistic right has been super scoldy over holidays like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. To say nothing of their attempt to try to jam Christianity into Christmas. Let the left chuff about Thanksgiving and Columbus Day and it’s a wash.

Legit hearty lol. POTY

Take pity on bob, the last of the dying breed of centrists manning the gates of a fortress long abandoned. The focus on joyless scolds is apt; the dawning of the Trump Era has at least allowed the left to have fervent dreams of an accelerationist track towards radical social change after Trump and whatever to follow causes a cataclysm, be it political or environmental or economic.

What does the last small-l liberal have to look forward to over the next generation but social commentary from the sidelines? If you think the world is bleak for the left, try being like the kind of person still pining for Marco Rubio.

I have been considering going through a late life Libertarian phase tbh. Seeing socialism gain some cache in my middle age is genuinely a little disorienting. Has anyone put the Fountainhead on audio-book yet?

This x a million. Of course it will never happen because the drug industry owns congress. But even the fact that it's being mentioned in the media is a possibly hopeful sign imo.

Trump will support it until he meets with some drug company presidents and then he'll be against it...

Seems like a shaming tactic against an industry that has no shame.

Columbus Day is garbage, just call it Ancestors Day or celebrate immigration or just give everyone the day off for no reason.

Thanksgiving in conceit is mostly good, is part of the lineage of fall harvest celebrations which date back a long time over various iterations. There's a lot of populist rancor about retail opening Thanksgiving night, etc., frankly the left should hijack that and note capitalists are ruining things, a huge segment of the population is effectively saying that, just ride that train. The right is expert at taking inchoate populist angst about culture and making it ideological, this is low hanging fruit for the left.

Just remove Columbus Day as a national holiday and appropriate that national holiday to Election Day instead. Same difference for the government/bank calendar.

Obv will never happen.

Columbus Day is a dumb hill to die on. It’s way too baked into American culture. Just leave it be and be thankful we don’t have a Zwarte Piet tradition here. In the grand scheme of things, it’s amazing we don’t have a couple of overtly racist holidays like Redskin Day or General Lee Day or whatever.

Lee Jackson Day, Confederate Memorial Day seem pretty overtly racist but they are state holidays and probably not widely celebrated anymore.

Lee Jackson King Day in VA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee%E2...%80%93King_Day