[Martina]

And in the US, it's mainstream Dems who've lead the way on this. It was all meritocracy instead of workers organize.

There's an interesting critique of yoga now as a sort of a personal empowerment while ignoring not just poor people (duh), but a dying planet. Given how many of us are suffering from lifestyle related illnesses, it's hard to fault people for trying to live and be well. Also yoga can be anti-consumerist. But if you think of the resources that were poured into it by the well educated elite while so little energy was directed at climate change at a time when it would have mattered. . . .

I think what appalls people is their belief that yoga or meditation would lead to a better world. It definitely leads to a better life, but does it turn people away from politics and social activism?

Perhaps. Certainly there is something solipsistic in these and other practices. But I don't think the ideology is the explanation. It's that in the US, it is a movement formed around the interests of the professional classes. People do not betray their class interests easily. People of all races put class interest first. People born into poverty who have entered the professional class, their political behavior is almost indistinguishable from those whose parents were from the professional classes.

Neoliberalism is the ideology of the professional class within the construct of Capitalism. It does nothing to stop the inevitable self destructive arc that is the heart of Capitalism and that will eventually take most of them down too, but for the last fifty years it has made their lives more flush and given them power. The Cheney's of the world don't die with 100 million in the bank. But they got to drive the machine that is making the wealthy wealthier. Why that feels so good I can't say.

We endlessly criticize poor white people for voting against their best interests, but the professional classes have too by supporting Clinton and others, including Republicans, who tell them they have won the meritocracy sweepstakes while the biggest transfer of wealth has been from the professional classes to the extremely wealthy.

If the working class is desperate, the professionals are showing their pathetic asses. The college cheating scandal tells you all you need to know about what they will do to keep their edge.