The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(11-29-2020, 04:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 02:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let's not forget that the Skowronek cycle is in operation. Donald Trump may not have lost in a landslide, but he did lose. He is the definition of a "disjunctive" President, the Last Hurrah for a political phase at or near the end of its run. Of course one can ascribe his failure as President to his eccentric (to put it as sympathetically as possible) style as a leader, but his neoliberal ideology has begun to lose its appeal to younger adults.

To be sure, except for the Presidential election, 2020 was a status-quo election... but when things are not so bad for electoral canvassing, things could get very bleak for the GOP -- especially when the Democrats come out with new, younger candidates for seats now held by rusty old pols.

The Skowronek cycle was fulfilled. And it went along with the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction as well (a 20-year cycle and about half of the Skowronek Cycle), which usually indicates the fall of the party in power, and indicated for 120 years the death in office of the president elected close to its occurrence. We'll see how long the Republican red-staters and Reaganomics believers can keep up the great walls they have built to hold back the pressures to their power and status from within and from without. Certainly the war against immigrants is over, and the new Sec. of Homeland Security will see to that.

The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction will be about half-way between the outlines of Sagittarius and Capricornus, visible low in the southwest in the early evening for about an hour in the northern middle latitudes. 

We have a huge disconnect between the values of the rich-and-powerful approaching the end of their political and economic relevance and the mass of younger, poorer, and often heavily-indebted young adults who get low pay and have the highest real costs of rent and education in American history.

There was no death of a President around 1980, but there was a near miss with an attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. When that happened I was able to relate a more successful attempt almost 100 years earlier to the day, involving Garfield... and a certifiable nutter as an assassin.  The difference in 100 years was that the medical treatment was better and Reagan, who wasn't as obese, was easier to treat. But 100 years ago? William McKinley. Trump has plenty of ways other than assassination in which to meet the Grim Reaper.

Reaganomics succeeded only to the extent that it compelled young people to lower their expectations and apply their college degrees to work in restaurants and stores. That was the heyday of the shopping mall, a heyday that hardly looks possible now. There hasn't been a new shopping mall built since 2006...

The political culture is changing while geriatric leadership lacks a clue. (Maybe Joe Biden is more flexible than most... and it is possible that he is a transition to a new political ethos).

COVID-19 has ravaged much of what many of us thought certain in American economic and political life. I see an analogy in 2020 with 1980 in the winning nominee getting about 51% of the popular vote by offering almost the diametric opposite of what the current President offers or offered, with the loser having a troubled Presidency.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

I would hardly call a vote for the new values candidate at the early day of the crisis as "the return to the status quo".  Your perception of the situation is a confused to say the least.  We shall see what happens when Biden actually gets in power.  Trump took sides with the bug, with the police violence, with the systematic racism and exasperating global warming.  We will see what happens after a new values guy gets power.  The last time that happened was FDR's Hundred Days.  I see Biden with at least that much urgency, reversing a bunch of Trump executive orders.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him halt the Inauguration ceremonies after the oath to sign a bunch of executive orders prepared in advance.  Then the parade.

The Republicans seems to be equating socialism with domestic spending.  If Americans help each other and work together, this is considered not American.  This has been taken well beyond the point of best return.  The division of wealth has got extreme as a result.  The conservative attacks on labor unions, benefits, jobs, the working man and minorities will make it easy for Biden to seem a good change.

People cling to the world views, though.  They disregard whatever facts discredit whatever they chose to believe in.  Normally it take a failure on the scale of Atlanta in the US Civil War or Hiroshima in World War II before the worth of the old values makes a conservative clinging to the old values fade.  Well, COVID is getting there.  Centuries of opposing minorities have gotten there.  The electoral loss seems to be starting the transition.  We will have to see how it goes.

Will a remnant of the old values dominate the Republicans?  Will Trumps rabid base be a more potent than the old Republican establishment or the attempts by groups like the Lincoln Project?

I almost hope so.  I'd just as soon wish your Americans to go crazy.  It would nice to be going up against a group of losers, to have the field effectively free for the new values.  Trump's lies, treason and economic headaches look to be coming home to roost with the loss of his immunity to prosecution.  It won't take a vindictive Biden administration to keep Trump tied up in court.  All it will take is prosecutors going after the low hanging fruit, the cities where he had rallies suing for their debts, those with claims on his debts not wanting to be last at the table to collect.

The Republican base fell in love with first Palin then Trump.  A new guy could fight for the base in the face of Trump trying to maintain his dominant position.  This could become a fourth force striving to become the dominant force of the new Republicans.

It looks to be all downhill for the old values.  We will have to keep watch as the lawsuits continue to fail, the revenge phase and pardon phase play out, and the Georgia races for the senate are run, what happens to Republican obstructionism, and Biden takes charge.  In his urge to cripple Biden, he is hurting America.  This could prove counterproductive in the longer term.

[Einzige]

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-28-2020, 11:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-26-2020, 01:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's over. Trump cannot win.

Not that I think you are wrong, but some internet flame warriors are still projecting that with the next inevitable court victory all will be well on Earth 2.  An example from YouTube..

It is not that I am worried that they will win anything significant, but that by keeping the law suits alive they are building an idea that the court cases have some merit

There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

Trump was no less status quo than Biden. Indeed, his much vaunted "populism" was a facade- consider how quickly, for example, he dropped the support for Universal Health Care which he expressed back in the 1990s.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfee...-careits-a

Trump was another generic neoliberal who slapped a few tariffs on a rival imperialist power. Absolutely none of you are doing anything that threatens the power of the bourgeoisie - which would be a real alternative to the status quo.

But the entire American political imaginary is farcical in the extreme. The best either "outsiders" of the populist Left or Right can imagine is a return to assembly line Fordism of the 1950s? A smokestack or solar panel plant in every town? Pathetic

"Can we perhaps challenge the tyranny of wage labor over our lives, together with social stratification and Capital?"

"No, we must entrench these social relations further!"

[pbrower2a]

(11-30-2020, 03:32 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-28-2020, 11:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not that I think you are wrong, but some internet flame warriors are still projecting that with the next inevitable court victory all will be well on Earth 2.  An example from YouTube..

It is not that I am worried that they will win anything significant, but that by keeping the law suits alive they are building an idea that the court cases have some merit

There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

Trump was no less status quo than Biden. Indeed, his much vaunted "populism" was a facade- consider how quickly, for example, he dropped the support for Universal Health Care which he expressed back in the 1990s.

Above all else Donald Trump is an @$$hole who cares only about his own profit, indulgence, and gain. For people like him politics is either a game or a tool of control. He has no humanist leaning. 

Quote:Trump was another generic neoliberal who slapped a few tariffs on a rival imperialist power. Absolutely none of you are doing anything that threatens the power of the bourgeoisie - which would be a real alternative to the status quo.

Is the bourgeoisie an unqualified evil? Even Marx saw it as the force of progress from a feudal to a capitalist society. I associate feudal society with economic rigidity incapable of introducing technological change except perhaps for weaponry and the building of castles and palaces. Is "bourgeois" a mere synonym for "successful"?

Marx may have lionized the proletariat... but even 'socialist' regimes have their needs for elite achievement. I associate the proletariat with the drudges of society who do the necessary work to make the things and do the toil. Working smart is not proletarian. Creating meritorious art, literature, or music is in no way proletarian. Dmitri Shostakovich may have lived in the self-proclaimed "classless society", yet there is nothing proletarian about his string quartets, his 24 preludes and fugues for piano Opus 87 (a modern response to J S Bach), or his Fifth and Tenth symphonies. Commanding an army is not proletarian. Medicine and law are not proletarian. 

The only thing proletarian about Donald Trump is his vulgarity. I'm not saying that people of cultural refinement can't treat people badly, but bad taste among the powerful generally indicates a disregard of the norms of decency. Surely you have seen my thread on dictators and their taste. It's not simply power. Bad taste demonstrates a lack of restraint, and if some farm laborer shows poor taste in putting his surname in Old English lettering on his rear window such is harmless. The inadequacy of President Trump's learning is obvious in view of all the resources that he had. Cocaine (often rumored) and adultery are poor substitutes for the philosophical and cultural quest.    

Quote:But the entire American political imaginary (imagery? --PB) is farcical in the extreme. The best either "outsiders" of the populist Left or Right can imagine is a return to assembly line Fordism of the 1950s? A smokestack or solar panel plant in every town? Pathetic.

Have you been to eastern Kentucky or southern West Virginia? Such would be an improvement. The most reactionary parts of America are those in which the once-predictable ways of making a middle income out of mining or manufacturing are gone without replacement. For many people, "Make America Great Again" means to reopen the factory or the mine even if such is impossible or absurd. Trump made the promise, but he cannot deliver that. 

Don't get me wrong; America has problems and many of those have their source in the moral pathology of some of our economic elites. Remember of course that all elites from shamans to Soviet-era central planners, through pharaohs, high-level clergy, feudal lords, tycoons, top-level military officers, and business executives, have become increasingly demanding over time until their power is gutted or they are overthrown. Ideology notwithstanding, Agosto Pinochet and Mao Zedong had far more in common than is comfortable for my sensibilities.   

If you are thinking that 'socialism' in which the government owns and operates the productive industry, then think again: the Soviet Union copy-catted Fordism even to the extent of buying a Ford plant to make vehicles imitating Ford vehicles. (I saw a GAZ version of a Model-A Ford in an antique car museum.... and it is identical except for the GAZ badge and Cyrillic lettering around the gauges).  That sort of socialism is not good at innovation, and it is infamous for turning out obsolete and substandard wares. 

Solar panels are far less troublesome than fossil fuels. When Saudi Arabia's oil reserves go dry, then I can hardly imagine a better place for solar panels even for desalination of water.  

Quote:"Can we perhaps challenge the tyranny of wage labor over our lives, together with social stratification and Capital?"

"No, we must entrench these social relations further!"

[/quote]
Sure. It's called "small business", and it will make its comeback when the bloated bureaucratic behemoths that are giant manufacturers and stores go under. That is how America will find its way out of the next Great Depression when a 1929- or 2008-style crash finishes off giant enterprises whose lifespan is nearly over. Small business relies upon the labor of people whose profits are their form of income because no outsider subsidizes their efforts. It rarely has access to lavish supplies of capital as loans. Small business rarely has clout in the political system as do the tycoons and executives who fund right-wing pols in the American political system. 

The community in which I live could use a good clothing store, maybe a one-location equivalent of the J C Penney store (it offered largely clothing) downtown. I bought a lot of clothing there before bureaucrats at JC Penney chose to centralize more of their sales at shopping malls. JC Penney is now in bankruptcy. Too bad. 
...America's political institutions practically assumed the norm of small business in agriculture, retail, banking, and manufacturing. Nobody could buy the system. When people buy the system, it is no longer a democracy.

[David Horn]

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate...

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You're right on process but a bit off on the generational issue that's plaguing the Dems.  They need to click with youth, and they just don't. Sure, a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren can pull it off, but even then, the Dems just look old.  The GOP may be just as bad, but youth are looking in that direction, and the few who are looking there are abnormal for their gens anyway.

I'm sorry,, buy Nancy Pelosi may be liberal but she's old acting, and then there's Steny Hoyer ...

[Eric the Green]

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-28-2020, 11:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-26-2020, 01:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's over. Trump cannot win.

Not that I think you are wrong, but some internet flame warriors are still projecting that with the next inevitable court victory all will be well on Earth 2.  An example from YouTube..

It is not that I am worried that they will win anything significant, but that by keeping the law suits alive they are building an idea that the court cases have some merit

There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

[Eric the Green]

(11-30-2020, 01:19 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate...

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You're right on process but a bit off on the generational issue that's plaguing the Dems.  They need to click with youth, and they just don't. Sure, a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren can pull it off, but even then, the Dems just look old.  The GOP may be just as bad, but youth are looking in that direction, and the few who are looking there are abnormal for their gens anyway.

I'm sorry,, buy Nancy Pelosi may be liberal but she's old acting, and then there's Steny Hoyer ...

A younger leader would be nice, but again, WHO?

Last time Pelosi was challenged, the only guy they could come up with is pathetic moderate Tim Ryan. You can't beat somebody with nobody.

[David Horn]

(11-30-2020, 02:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 01:19 PM)David Horn Wrote: I'm sorry,, buy Nancy Pelosi may be liberal but she's old acting, and then there's Steny Hoyer ...

A younger leader would be nice, but again, WHO?

Last time Pelosi was challenged, the only guy they could come up with is pathetic moderate Tim Ryan. You can't beat somebody with nobody.

And therein lies the problem the Dems made for themselves when they embraced neoliberalism.  Most of the young lions are too simply young and far too inexperienced (we don't need to go through Obama Learning Cycle 2.0).  2024 may be too soon, and Biden is definitely not running again.

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 10:45 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 03:32 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote: There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

Trump was no less status quo than Biden. Indeed, his much vaunted "populism" was a facade- consider how quickly, for example, he dropped the support for Universal Health Care which he expressed back in the 1990s.

Above all else Donald Trump is an @$$hole who cares only about his own profit, indulgence, and gain. For people like him politics is either a game or a tool of control. He has no humanist leaning.

"Humanist leanings" are irrelevant. Capitalist philanthropy is a tool of social control, or at best a game played between capitalists as a status symbol.

Quote:Is the bourgeoisie an unqualified evil? Even Marx saw it as the force of progress from a feudal to a capitalist society. I associate feudal society with economic rigidity incapable of introducing technological change except perhaps for weaponry and the building of castles and palaces. Is "bourgeois" a mere synonym for "successful"?

We no longer live in a feudal society. Capitalism is no longer progressive.

Quote:Marx may have lionized the proletariat...

He didn't.

Quote: When socialist writers ascribe this world-historic role to the proletariat, it is not at all, as Critical Criticism pretends to believe, because they regard the proletarians as gods. Rather the contrary.

[size=xx-large][font=Georgia, serif] Since in the fully-formed proletariat the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through urgent, no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need — the practical expression of necessity — is driven directly to revolt against this inhumanity, it follows that the proletariat can and must emancipate itself. But it cannot emancipate itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation. Not in vain does it go through the stern but steeling school of labour. It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today.

- Marx, The Holy Family

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo...y/ch04.htm

Quote:but even 'socialist' regimes have their needs for elite achievement. I associate the proletariat with the drudges of society who do the necessary work to make the things and do the toil. Working smart is not proletarian. Creating meritorious art, literature, or music is in no way proletarian.

Because all of your tastes are petit-bourgeois. It's only natural for an accountant to despise the wider working-class, even if at bottom accountants (and the vast majority of the American "middle-class", a term originally devised to describe the owners of Capital in Europe against the laborers and nobility and applied dubiously in America) are also proletarians.

Quote:Commanding an army is not proletarian.

You're right. The relationship of a general to the means of destruction is analogous to that of a capitalist commanding the means of production.

Quote:Medicine and law are not proletarian.

You're wrong. Doctors and lawyers are still proletarians - just well-recompensed ones.

>quote]The only thing proletarian about Donald Trump is his vulgarity. I'm not saying that people of cultural refinement can't treat people badly, but bad taste among the powerful generally indicates a disregard of the norms of decency. Surely you have seen my thread on dictators and their taste. It's not simply power. Bad taste demonstrates a lack of restraint, and if some farm laborer shows poor taste in putting his surname in Old English lettering on his rear window such is harmless. The inadequacy of President Trump's learning is obvious in view of all the resources that he had. Cocaine (often rumored) and adultery are poor substitutes for the philosophical and cultural quest.[/quote]

Philosophical hogwash. Nebulous "culture" is an abstraction away from real, physical relationships to the instruments of production.

Quote:Have you been to eastern Kentucky or southern West Virginia? Such would be an improvement. The most reactionary parts of America are those in which the once-predictable ways of making a middle income out of mining or manufacturing are gone without replacement. For many people, "Make America Great Again" means to reopen the factory or the mine even if such is impossible or absurd. Trump made the promise, but he cannot deliver that.

The promise was stupid. These people would be better served by using their position to find a way outside of capitalist relations permanently.

Quote:Don't get me wrong; America has problems and many of those have their source in the moral pathology of some of our economic elites. Remember of course that all elites from shamans to Soviet-era central planners, through pharaohs, high-level clergy, feudal lords, tycoons, top-level military officers, and business executives, have become increasingly demanding over time until their power is gutted or they are overthrown. Ideology notwithstanding, Agosto Pinochet and Mao Zedong had far more in common than is comfortable for my sensibilities.

What's your point? Mao was a State capitalist.

Quote:If you are thinking that 'socialism' in which the government owns and operates the productive industry, then think again:

Yeah, again, that isn't socialism.

Quote: But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict,but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.

- Engels, Socialism: Utopian & Scientific

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo...y/ch04.htm

State ownership of the means of production occurs, and can only occur, in a capitalist society. For, after all,

Quote:The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

Quote:the Soviet Union copy-catted Fordism even to the extent of buying a Ford plant to make vehicles imitating Ford vehicles. (I saw a GAZ version of a Model-A Ford in an antique car museum.... and it is identical except for the GAZ badge and Cyrillic lettering around the gauges).  That sort of socialism is not good at innovation, and it is infamous for turning out obsolete and substandard wares.

Indeed. And

Quote: While the revolution in Germany is still slow in “coming forth”, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of Western culture by barbarian Russia, without hesitating to use barbarous methods in fighting barbarism.

- Lenin, "The Tax In Kind"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w...apr/21.htm

Quote:Solar panels are far less troublesome than fossil fuels. When Saudi Arabia's oil reserves go dry, then I can hardly imagine a better place for solar panels even for desalination of water.

I wasn't declaiming against solar panels. I was declaiming against the idea that we should replace Fordist, capitalistically-run coal mines with Fordist, capitalistically-run solar panel plants.

Quote:ure. It's called "small business", and it will make its comeback when the bloated bureaucratic behemoths that are giant manufacturers and stores go under.

Small business is absolutely no less exploitative than large business - nay more, it has to exploit more to compete with large businesses. 

Quote:That is how America will find its way out of the next Great Depression when a 1929- or 2008-style crash finishes off giant enterprises whose lifespan is nearly over. Small business relies upon the labor of people whose profits are their form of income because no outsider subsidizes their efforts. It rarely has access to lavish supplies of capital as loans.

And this is why small businesses are even more insanely exploitative than large - because they have to be.

Quote:Small business rarely has clout in the political system as do the tycoons and executives who fund right-wing pols in the American political system.

When they aren't supporting those right-wing pols themselves- e.g. Knott's Berry Farm in California, which  directly funded the original Goldwater for President movement. Small businesses are as reactionary as large ones.

Quote:The community in which I live could use a good clothing store, maybe a one-location equivalent of the J C Penney store (it offered largely clothing) downtown. I bought a lot of clothing there before bureaucrats at JC Penney chose to centralize more of their sales at shopping malls. JC Penney is now in bankruptcy. Too bad. 
...America's political institutions practically assumed the norm of small business in agriculture, retail, banking, and manufacturing. Nobody could buy the system. When people buy the system, it is no longer a democracy.

Petit-bourgeois dreams. Every little accountant fancies himself a little shopkeep.

[Classic-Xer]

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-28-2020, 11:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not that I think you are wrong, but some internet flame warriors are still projecting that with the next inevitable court victory all will be well on Earth 2.  An example from YouTube..

It is not that I am worried that they will win anything significant, but that by keeping the law suits alive they are building an idea that the court cases have some merit

There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote: There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

Yes, because voting for an eighty year old Irish Catholic and his police informant Vice Presidential nominee will magically cause America to change from being an exploitative capitalist hyperpower.

The Republicans and the Democrats are functionally interchangeable. It was, for example, Bill Clinton who signed the Statist, totalitarian apparatus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into being, and Obama who paved the way for Trump's camps by being the Deporter-in-Chief.

[Classic-Xer]

(11-30-2020, 03:19 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 01:19 PM)David Horn Wrote: I'm sorry,, buy Nancy Pelosi may be liberal but she's old acting, and then there's Steny Hoyer ...

A younger leader would be nice, but again, WHO?

Last time Pelosi was challenged, the only guy they could come up with is pathetic moderate Tim Ryan. You can't beat somebody with nobody.

And therein lies the problem the Dems made for themselves when they embraced neoliberalism.  Most of the young lions are too simply young and far too inexperienced (we don't need to go through Obama Learning Cycle 2.0).  2024 may be too soon, and Biden is definitely not running again.

There's fortunes to be made from associations with neoliberalism and neoliberal policies. Biden will be lucky if he's able to make it through one term.

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 08:15 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 03:19 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 01:19 PM)David Horn Wrote: I'm sorry,, buy Nancy Pelosi may be liberal but she's old acting, and then there's Steny Hoyer ...

A younger leader would be nice, but again, WHO?

Last time Pelosi was challenged, the only guy they could come up with is pathetic moderate Tim Ryan. You can't beat somebody with nobody.

And therein lies the problem the Dems made for themselves when they embraced neoliberalism.  Most of the young lions are too simply young and far too inexperienced (we don't need to go through Obama Learning Cycle 2.0).  2024 may be too soon, and Biden is definitely not running again.

There's fortunes to be made from associations with neoliberalism and neoliberal policies. Biden will be lucky if he's able to make it through one term.

You are aware that conservative icons Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the inaugural figures in the history of Anglophone neoliberalism, right? (Even if, in the case of the United States, it was anticipated by the Kennedy-Johnson-Ford tax cuts and by Carter's deregulation.)

Indeed, Trump still governed as a neoliberal. Slapping some tariffs on China is largely irrelevant- Reagan imposed tariffs on Japan. Neoliberalism is just one stage in the historical development of capitalist social relations; Trump was little different from his neoliberal predecessors. Biden will be no different- neoliberalism is the ruling logic of the age.

[Classic-Xer]

(11-30-2020, 08:06 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

Yes, because voting for an eighty year old Irish Catholic and his police informant Vice Presidential nominee will magically cause America to change from being an exploitative capitalist hyperpower.

The Republicans and the Democrats are functionally interchangeable. It was, for example, Bill Clinton who signed the Statist, totalitarian apparatus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into being, and Obama who paved the way for Trump's camps by being the Deporter-in-Chief.

Show me a country that functions as a country without immigration laws and their enforcement. Obama had a choice and he chose to be as close to an American President as you could be or get away with politically because he understood where we were at as a nation at the time and he understood that he needed the wealth of an entire nation to bank on and borrow against at the time. The moderates are more or less interchangeable which is why the moderates are more or less on their way out and becoming extinct.

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 08:39 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:06 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

Yes, because voting for an eighty year old Irish Catholic and his police informant Vice Presidential nominee will magically cause America to change from being an exploitative capitalist hyperpower.

The Republicans and the Democrats are functionally interchangeable. It was, for example, Bill Clinton who signed the Statist, totalitarian apparatus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into being, and Obama who paved the way for Trump's camps by being the Deporter-in-Chief.

Show me a country that functions as a country without immigration laws and their enforcement. Obama had a choice and he chose to be as close to an American President as you could be or get away with politically because he understood where we were at as a nation at the time and he understood that he needed the wealth of an entire nation to bank on and borrow against at the time.  The moderates are more or less interchangeable which is why the moderates are more or less on their way out and becoming extinct.

I do not care how other countries function, for I aim at the abolition of all countries and all borders. Thank you though for your acknowledging that Obama was just another conservative bourgeois hack.

[pbrower2a]

Einzige:

The point. Abuse of power arises inevitably from its concentration in self-proclaimed priests, generalissimos, experts, owners, and administrators. Concentration in ownership or command results in the potential of abuse at any time, and in view of the tendency of people holding power of life and death, or even enrichment or impoverishment to become abusers of power (this is quite possibly even more true of those who inherit power than of those who take it in some Crisis or foundation) it is the concentration of wealth and power that creates the monstrosity.

Big Business needs Big Government as an enforcer of corporate power over employees and customers. This may not be the sort of government that many want in enforcement of monopoly control of the economy and of such horrors as peonage contracts, but for whoever experiences the enforcement of such it is at the least the wrong sort of (repressive) government. Just think of Apartheid. Abusive, corrupt government always has its pampered constituency, so we can all assume that when something is thoroughly rotten and in need of pervasive reform to make it human... there are powerful people who like things that way. Slavery in the United States did not fall because slave-owning planters started to feel guilt about mistreating property described as '3/5 of a person'. Slave-owning planters typically saw themselves as unqualified benefactors to each '3/5 of a person'.

You see small business as no better than giant enterprises such as Exxon-Mobil, Wal*Mart, General Motors, Krupp-Thyssen, Sony, Disney/ABC, Comcast, Bank of America, MacDonnell-Douglas, MacDonald's, IBM, Kraft-Heinz, Tyson, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Warner Brothers, Koch Industries, Nestle, Daewoo, AT&T, PG&E, Unilever, or Royal Dutch Shell. Giant businesses that have monopolistic or oligopolistic power over an industry have the funds with which to corrupt the electoral process and use them. Small business can't. Small-scale operators are often family businesses that may earn what looks like an impressive family income, but the Vietnamese-immigrant family who owns and operates a "Chinese" buffet often earns altogether a little more than what Daddy could earn as an auto mechanic, what Mommy might get if she were a registered nurse, and the kids what they would get working in a chain restaurant or a store. Because small business owner-operators do much of the work that proles would do, they are obviously not capitalists in the sense that someone who owns 100,000 shares of Wal*Mart stock is a capitalist.

If you want to see an economic order that works, then just look at the Old Order Amish. They are unabashedly capitalist; they own the farm, and they often sell produce on the side.. or they make furniture far better than what is available at Wal*Mart. You might find it unsettling that their world has little use for white-collar bureaucrats.

In America it is often the corporate bureaucrats, an executive class similar in practice to a Soviet-style nomenklatura, that is paid very well for treating workers badly. Does a sane social order really need that?

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 09:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Einzige:

The point. Abuse of power arises inevitably from its concentration in self-proclaimed priests, generalissimos, experts, owners, and administrators.

You are using nebulous terms - "abuse of power", "the elite", etc. Liberals prefer nebulous terms.

The specific harm of capitalism is that it perpetuates labor. Labor itself can and must be abolished in the lifetime of the human species. The essence of Marxism is antiwork. From The German Ideology:
 

Quote:In all the previous revolutions the mode of activity always remained unchanged and it was only a question of a different distribution of this activity, a new distribution of labour to other persons, whilst the communist revolution is directed against the hitherto existing mode of activity, does away with labour (die Arbeit beseitigt)....[8] (last emphasis added)

In a following passage Marx expresses the same idea in a somewhat different form:

Quote:

Quote:While the fleeing serfs only wished to freely develop and fully realise the conditions of existence, which were already at sight, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to fulfill themselves as individuals, must abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto, which has also been the condition of existence of all society up to the present, that is, they must abolish labour (die Arbeit aufheben).[9] (emphases added)

In another passage in the same work we read:

Quote:

Quote:Labour is free in all civilized countries [that is, it has become wage labour — labour that can be freely sold by its owner]; [in the communist society] it is not a matter of freeing labour but rather of abolishing it.[10] (last emphasis added)

From this perspective, whether labor is done for a major firm or a small local concern is virtually irrelevant from the perspective of the individual laborer except with respect to the rate of exploitation.

Quote:Concentration in ownership or command results in the potential of abuse at any time, and in view of the tendency of people holding power of life and death, or even enrichment or impoverishment to become abusers of power (this is quite possibly even more true of those who inherit power than of those who take it in some Crisis or foundation) it is the concentration of wealth and power that creates the monstrosity.

Communists prefer concentration precisely because  concentration makes the means of production easier to lay hold of and operate. And this concentration is at any rate endemic to capitalism 

Quote:Big Business needs Big Government as an enforcer of corporate power over employees and customers. This may not be the sort of government that many want in enforcement of monopoly control of the economy and of such horrors as peonage contracts, but for whoever experiences the enforcement of such it is at the least the wrong sort of (repressive) government. Just think of Apartheid. Abusive, corrupt government always has its pampered constituency, so we can all assume that when something is thoroughly rotten and in need of pervasive reform to make it human... there are powerful people who like things that way.

The State had as much a role historically in creating corporations as corporations have had in creating the State. The earliest corporations were chartered organizations in early modern Europe designed to undermine the nobility and to expand the State's domain through imperialism (e.g. the British West India Company).

The petit-bourgeois preference for small is mostly an expression of self-interest.

Quote:Slavery in the United States did not fall because slave-owning planters started to feel guilt about mistreating property described as  '3/5 of a person'. Slave-owning planters typically saw themselves as unqualified benefactors to each '3/5 of a person'

Slavery in the United States fell because cotton from Egypt and India became more profitable and the northern bourgeoisie no longer needed to tolerate the planters. That's it.

Quote:You see small business as no better than giant enterprises such as Exxon-Mobil, Wal*Mart, General Motors, Krupp-Thyssen, Sony, Disney/ABC, Comcast, Bank of America, MacDonnell-Douglas, MacDonald's, IBM, Kraft-Heinz, Tyson, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Warner Brothers,  Koch Industries, Nestle, Daewoo, AT&T, PG&E, Unilever, or Royal Dutch Shell. Giant businesses that have monopolistic or oligopolistic power over an industry have the funds with which to corrupt the electoral process and use them

All those businesses can and should be sized and their holdings should be controlled socially until their functioning  could  be automated. Wanting to break them up "for the purposes of competition" would be inane.

Quote:Small business can't. Small-scale operators are often family businesses that may earn what looks like an impressive family income, but the Vietnamese-immigrant family who owns and operates a "Chinese" buffet often earns altogether a little more than what Daddy could earn as an auto mechanic, what Mommy might get if she were a registered nurse, and the kids what they would get working in a chain restaurant or a store. Because small business owner-operators do much of the work that proles would do, they are obviously not capitalists in the sense that someone who owns 100,000 shares of Wal*Mart stock is a capitalist.

Yes, I know. And this is precisely why working for a small  business is so often worse than working for a mega corporation- the corporation can use its economy of scale to exploit society more intensely, lessening the rate of exploitation which insures to any single employee.

Quote:If you want to see an economic order that works, then just look at the Old Order Amish. They are unabashedly capitalist; they own the farm, and they often sell produce on the side.. or they make furniture far better than what is available at Wal*Mart. You might find it unsettling that their world has little use for white-collar bureaucrats.

Yeah, I am aware of the Amish and the Mennonites.

Quote:In America it is often the corporate bureaucrats, an executive class similar in practice to a Soviet-style nomenklatura, that is paid very well for treating workers badly. Does a sane social order really need that?

Does a sane social order really need small business owners with delusions of grandeur either? No. A sane social order doesn't require capitalists at all.
[/quote]

[Classic-Xer]

(11-30-2020, 08:47 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:39 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:06 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

Yes, because voting for an eighty year old Irish Catholic and his police informant Vice Presidential nominee will magically cause America to change from being an exploitative capitalist hyperpower.

The Republicans and the Democrats are functionally interchangeable. It was, for example, Bill Clinton who signed the Statist, totalitarian apparatus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into being, and Obama who paved the way for Trump's camps by being the Deporter-in-Chief.

Show me a country that functions as a country without immigration laws and their enforcement. Obama had a choice and he chose to be as close to an American President as you could be or get away with politically because he understood where we were at as a nation at the time and he understood that he needed the wealth of an entire nation to bank on and borrow against at the time.  The moderates are more or less interchangeable which is why the moderates are more or less on their way out and becoming extinct.

I do not care how other countries function, for I aim at the abolition of all countries and all borders. Thank you though for your acknowledging that Obama was just another conservative bourgeois hack.

He was probably the best Liberal bourgeois hack that America has seen in office to this point. I think Hollywood should have gave him an Oscar to go along with his Noble Peace Prize.

[Einzige]

(11-30-2020, 10:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:47 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:39 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:06 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

Yes, because voting for an eighty year old Irish Catholic and his police informant Vice Presidential nominee will magically cause America to change from being an exploitative capitalist hyperpower.

The Republicans and the Democrats are functionally interchangeable. It was, for example, Bill Clinton who signed the Statist, totalitarian apparatus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into being, and Obama who paved the way for Trump's camps by being the Deporter-in-Chief.

Show me a country that functions as a country without immigration laws and their enforcement. Obama had a choice and he chose to be as close to an American President as you could be or get away with politically because he understood where we were at as a nation at the time and he understood that he needed the wealth of an entire nation to bank on and borrow against at the time.  The moderates are more or less interchangeable which is why the moderates are more or less on their way out and becoming extinct.

I do not care how other countries function, for I aim at the abolition of all countries and all borders. Thank you though for your acknowledging that Obama was just another conservative bourgeois hack.

He was probably the best Liberal bourgeois hack that America has seen in office to this point. I think Hollywood should have gave him an Oscar to go along with his Noble Peace Prize.

Left-liberalism in the United States- social liberalism or social democracy in Europe - is just a way of defending certain segments of Capital. And Obama wasn't even particularly liberal in American historical and cultural terms. 




You believe that he's far more radical than he let on. I'm telling you that he was as conservative as he was in office. Certainly much more conservative than right-wingers like Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford.

[Eric the Green]

(11-30-2020, 08:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-30-2020, 02:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 11:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 06:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-29-2020, 08:34 AM)David Horn Wrote: There are two potential outcomes: both bad.  Outcome #1 makes the obstructionism a permanent political feature, with RW Billionaires funding all sorts of legal and political mayhem. Outcome#2 leads directly to violence.  

Biden is already a lame duck by virtue of his age. Worse, the entire Democratic leadership team are way past their use-by dates.  If the Dems continue with this, it will be RBG all over again.  BTW, I'm still pissed at her for being so selfish, not that it's important now.  Back on topic: the Dems aren't ready to fight the next round with all Silent leadership.  The GOP may just win by default.

I don't know who the younger House leaders are who are at least as progressive and competent at mobilizing action as Pelosi is. Invoking age alone does not describe what is happening, or the skill of the leaders. I don't know a young leader who can run for Pelosi's slot and win a broad mandate to lead the Party or be speaker. AOC will not be elected now, and I don't know if Ro Khanna can do it or is willing. Who else is there? Who will step up? A Gen Xer Democrat is more likely to be a spineless moderate.

McConnell is also a Silent and remains at the Republican helm. So that's no better for them, age wise.

Our government remains at a stalemate, but that is not due to the leadership, but to the voters. They voted for this. It's all on them. Voters today, when they vote for a senator, do not know who they are voting for. This year, they voted for McConnell or for Schumer, and even if the Democrats win two Georgia runoffs, McConnell will still win (though not as handily). 

Only if progressive Democrats win a Senate majority can they make DC and PR a state and thus end the Republican Senate dominance. Only then can they reduce or take down the filibuster and reform the court/add liberals. Until they can do this, thanks to the voters' decision, we are stuck in 1981. Maybe forever. In which case, the USA will not be the world's leader; China will be. The USA may decline or split apart, and there will be no hoped-for second turning. Only continued decline.

You voted for Biden and the return to the status quo. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. I hope the Democrats are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on its watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.

YOu voted for Trump and McConnell and the status quo. No, REGRESSION. So, it's all on you and everyone else who voted for him. You also voted to establish China as the new world leader as well. Because your vote for national decline makes that inevitable. I hope the Republicans are prepared to deal with continued decline and the reality of a national split occurring on their watch so to speak. I think you guys did a wonderful job setting yourselves up for failure. Just so you know, I understand that we're going to take some lumps too.. 

I voted for America to remain American for the most part  like 70 some million other Americans. We both got what we wanted in this election, we both got a clueless and relatively worthless/powerless Democrat in office. We all know the Democratic machine won the election for Biden and we all know how little effort that it took for him personally to win the election.

America is a nation of immigrants. You voted against America.