Ah yes! Those Liberal Values ....

The New York Slime Confesses.

Back in 2017, the Flawless One decided to meddle in French politics by endorsing the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron. Saith Obama,

“And he is committed to a better future for the French people,” Obama added. “He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears,

"He has stood up for liberal values, he put forward a vision for the important role that France plays in Europe and around the world. And he is committed to a better future for the French people. He appeals to people’s hopes and not their fears.”

Ah yes... Liberal Values. That resounding gong and clanging cymbal of global corporatism, ever appealing to hope but never providing help.

So here we are five years later, and what does the New York Slime have to say about Macron's "better future"?

"Once elected, however, he quickly revealed what that meant in practice. Cutting taxes for the wealthy, shrinking the welfare state and hollowing out democracy, Mr. Macron drifted rightward, to the point of shocking some members of La République En Marche!, his party.

"Among Mr. Macron’s first decisions in office was the abolition of the wealth tax and a flat tax on capital income, which benefited the rich. At the same time he pursued a reduction in the housing allowance for the poor and a reduction in pensions for retirees. Halfway through his first year in power, he had become the “president of the rich.” The image stuck, burnished by his reform of labor law, which limited workers’ rights and weakened representative organizations, curtailment of unemployment benefits and diminution of employers’ social security contributions.

"Mr. Macron’s first term tended unmistakably to widen inequalities, as shown in surveys.

"Mr. Macron’s combination of neoliberalism and authoritarianism has deepened inequality, diminished the welfare state, weakened democracy and aggravated the mistrust of politics."

This is the same Forty Second Street Oracle that bitches about the "authoritarianism" of Orban, Erdogan or, for that matter, Putin. They are not capitalists?

As usual the Slime pulls a fast one. It would have you believe that it is the combination of authoritarianism with liberalism that deepens inequality. Absolutely not. You've been had. What deepens economic inequality, what weakens the welfare state is neoliberalism. Why? Because in the end that is what capitalism does. There are plenty of authoritarian regimes that have actually increased welfare and diminished economic inequality, although they might be politically repressive. The Slime just served you a glass of applange juice. Ugh.

The mish-mash is germane today not only with respect to the French election but also in light of the endless and treacly refrains we have heard in the past month on defending "liberal democracy" and about how Liberal Democracies are stepping up to the plate defending humanité etc. etc.

It is the cunning canard of liberalism that it has always wrapped itself in the most appealing verbiage. How can one complain about fraternité or pursuit of happiness or "the bell of freedom... the song of love between our brothers and our sisters a-a-all over this land" ?

It is impossible. At face value those values are wonderful and enticing things. But in the end, all the noble causes (and equally noble multi-cultural values) boil down to one thing: the pursuit of profit by the few.

The European Union has taken the cannard to its heights. It's resounding Four Freedoms -- the free movement of goods, services, capital and "people" (i.e. labor) -- is nothing more that the Rx for "free" (i.e. unrestrained) trade.

Of course prim puppets like von der Leyen dress up free movement of "people" as part of an Open Society without Borders or Prejudice where we all hug one another in the domicile of our choice according to affectional orientations of choice. But what "people" really refers to is simply a fungible labor pool. To make goods and service you need capital and labor. That is the fundamental recipe of capitalism, and capital is the pursuit of more capital; i.e. profit. And to make a profit you have to diminish costs; i.e. the value paid to labor.

And, wonderful to behold, Beethoven's magnificent Ninth Symphony chorale gets prostituted as the anthem of this this sordid agenda of trans-national money making

Ah yes!. Alle menschen werden Bruder...where the joy of profit abides!

Let me be clear. I believe in freedom. But I believe that liberté is tethered to fraternité ..not "in spirit" but in the flesh, and in terms of producing a common good for all. If the two goods are coupled, Liberté simply cannot mean the freedom to act to the detriment of your brother. An operative looking out for his own private good is not acting in a brotherly (i.e. social) fashion.

It is precisely the "absolutizing" of freedom as the highest good to which all other values are subordinated that the Four Freedoms proclaims. Nothing in the "free movement" of goods, services, capital and labor guarantees equality or economic security or any sense of community. The program only guarantees free trade, as such, as the highest good. Why? Because.

And then, to make up for this sterile commodification of human society the mavens of global corporatism, fill the void with the appealing but tangibly empty sounds of brotherhood.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding; and today the Slime just told you what was in the pudding of our "shared liberal values." They are not just reporting on the emptiness of Macron's promises; they are confessing the deceptive emptiness of their own gentrified liberal agenda.