The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Einzige]

(02-11-2021, 03:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:23 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 04:23 AM)Einzige Wrote: All this is really code for "it's time to make an example of rural whites and sacrifice their wealth to the needs of Capital the way minorities have". It6just another attempt to destroy class consciousness.

The focus is on COVID, racism and the environment rather than the division of wealth.  The diversity of modern problems is much wider than the capitol centric Marxist perspective.  I suspect something will be done with the division of wealth, if only because change tax policy will be necessary in this economically stretched time, but the division of wealth doesn't seem to be the central issue of this crisis.

90% of modern social ills are driven by Capital.

Communism is not a method of redistributing wealth but a radical and fundamental alteration in the mode of production altogether. It does away with wealth as such.

What's the natural drive associated with Communism that Communism relies on for the system to work and succeed long term?

The need for social production. There is coming a time when capitalism literally breaks down - when a profit can no longer be turned. And yet things will still need to be produced.

Quote: Marxist view on how exactly this might be achieved could be beneficial.

Communism is not intrinsically about more productivity. It is about applied productivity - production to meet need. Indeed, a Communist world system might produce less overall than capitalism, but will meet it's own needs far more efficiently. Markets are unnecessary where need can be communicated directly to producers.

Initially, labor output is to be measured in units of labor vouchers - nonfungible, nonaccumulative, non-interest bearing certificates of work that are invalidated after use. Eventually, so goes the theory, even these could be dispensed with.

[color=#333333]Will there be freeloaders on this system? Of course - and their needs will still be met, and these will vary person to person. But most will choose to produce at the very least for want of anything better to do, and because their survival will not be tied to a job (and because credentialism will largely be a thing of the past) they will be at liberty to experiment with their capacities and try a wide variety of things. And there are freeloaders today- I refuse to work under capitalism and consider this my obligatory social production. I would have worked happily under Communism, where I was confident my basic needs were being met and that labor  incurred no obligations to an employer.

[Einzige]

Communism abolishes weaponized identity politics. It ceases to matter whether you are a white rural Chrstian conservative, or a black lesbian CEO, or an Eastern European gangster. These identities are socially produced and cease to be relevant upon the dissolution of bourgeois nations and bourgeois ideology. Differences will of course remain for a very long time but cease to effectively be a matter of policy choice.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-11-2021, 06:18 PM)Einzige Wrote: Communism abolishes weaponized identity politics. It ceases to matter whether you are a white rural Chrstian conservative, or a black lesbian CEO, or an Eastern European gangster. These identities are socially produced and cease to be relevant upon the dissolution of bourgeois nations and bourgeois ideology. Differences will of course remain for a very long time but cease to effectively be a matter of policy choice.

When you create a theory of how a society is supposed to work, you don’t have to worry about how to take the next baby step. I am reminded of a picture of a proof being shown by one professor to another. One step in the middle of the proof is “and here a miracle occurs”. Such a miracle involves class struggles poof magic going away, prejudices disappearing, greed and violence vanishing, the head of the revolution not getting greedy and the practical politics of making things work never get in the way of what you want to do.

The problem is that in the real world there are Christian conservatives, black lesbian CEOs, Eastern European gangsters, and they all have threads of power that are quite usable thank you and the guy running the revolution is often quite ready to use them as he tries to consolidate power. You end up with death by give and take.

Weaponizing identity politics is a way the powers that be try to demonize the government helping the people. In the crisis, putting polysyllabic buzz words ahead of solving the problem isn’t tolerated. It is easy to create a theoretical system if you imagine your follower to be saints that will follow all your whims. The real world isn’t that way.

[pbrower2a]

(02-11-2021, 05:15 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 03:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:23 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 04:23 AM)Einzige Wrote: All this is really code for "it's time to make an example of rural whites and sacrifice their wealth to the needs of Capital the way minorities have". It6just another attempt to destroy class consciousness.

The focus is on COVID, racism and the environment rather than the division of wealth.  The diversity of modern problems is much wider than the capitol centric Marxist perspective.  I suspect something will be done with the division of wealth, if only because change tax policy will be necessary in this economically stretched time, but the division of wealth doesn't seem to be the central issue of this crisis.

90% of modern social ills are driven by Capital.

Communism is not a method of redistributing wealth but a radical and fundamental alteration in the mode of production altogether. It does away with wealth as such.

What's the natural drive associated with Communism that Communism relies on for the system to work and succeed long term?

The need for social production. There is coming a time when capitalism literally breaks down - when a profit can no longer be turned. And yet things will still need to be produced.

Quote: Marxist view on how exactly this might be achieved could be beneficial.

Communism is not intrinsically about more productivity. It is about applied productivity - production to meet need. Indeed, a Communist world system might produce less overall than capitalism, but will meet it's own needs far more efficiently. Markets are unnecessary where need can be communicated directly to producers.

Initially, labor output is to be measured in units of labor vouchers - nonfungible, nonaccumulative, non-interest bearing certificates of work that are invalidated after use. Eventually, so goes the theory, even these could be dispensed with.

Will there be freeloaders on this system? Of course - and their needs will still be met, and these will vary person to person. But most will choose to produce at the very least for want of anything better to do, and because their survival will not be tied to a job (and because credentialism will largely be a thing of the past) they will be at liberty to experiment with their capacities and try a wide variety of things. And there are freeloaders today- I refuse to work under capitalism and consider this my obligatory social production. I would have worked happily under Communism, where I was confident my basic needs were being met and that labor  incurred no obligations to an employer.

Technology makes the economic conditions of the early capitalism that Marx knew utterly irrelevant. Scarcity and low productivity were the problems of Marx' time; they are not now. More people have a problem with surfeit than with material scarcity. Of course it remains possible to exploit people harshly...  but even at that, the problem may not be so much working people to exhaustion on starvation pay as it is wasting people in jobs far too small for their talents. I have frequently gone to dollar stores for a quick purchase (frozen entree and perhaps a soft drink) only to find that one of the clerks is taking a smoking break. Someone who needs a drag on a coffin nail to maintain some semblance of consent with one's way of life pro0bably has a very unsatisfying life.  Such probably shows a lack of imagination and foresight.

Reasonable assumptions are that the system will prepare people for lives that justify the investment in human capital through education. Formal education may have a diminishing return... but not that much. Maybe the people who gravitate to jobs as clerks in dollar stores are toward the bottom in learning and diligence, or they are very young and marking time until they get something better... which could be getting married to some "good provider".  OK, that too is a myth. 

As productive capacity increases, profit margins shrink. $5 per $150 for a TV set of which ten million are made is better than $50 per $500 for a TV set of which 200,000 are made. Henry Ford got rich selling the cheapest car on the mass market in his time, the Model T. Sure, the car was a piece of crap, but he could sell his cars more cheaply than those who had lower productivity. Business still needs a profit, but it can make up lower margins on higher volumes.  

Here is the problem in the terms of the Generational Theory: every Crisis has some Great Devaluation, and in this one in the United States it seems to be in the pay for material productivity. The capitalists have no problem with this: they can go from being manufacturers to being importers. People who used to make middle-income pay in factories had better find some other means of making their income. Manufacturing wages and employment of semi-skilled workers have taken the hit.

[Einzige]

(02-11-2021, 06:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:15 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 03:02 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:23 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The focus is on COVID, racism and the environment rather than the division of wealth.  The diversity of modern problems is much wider than the capitol centric Marxist perspective.  I suspect something will be done with the division of wealth, if only because change tax policy will be necessary in this economically stretched time, but the division of wealth doesn't seem to be the central issue of this crisis.

90% of modern social ills are driven by Capital.

Communism is not a method of redistributing wealth but a radical and fundamental alteration in the mode of production altogether. It does away with wealth as such.

What's the natural drive associated with Communism that Communism relies on for the system to work and succeed long term?

The need for social production. There is coming a time when capitalism literally breaks down - when a profit can no longer be turned. And yet things will still need to be produced.

Quote: Marxist view on how exactly this might be achieved could be beneficial.

Communism is not intrinsically about more productivity. It is about applied productivity - production to meet need. Indeed, a Communist world system might produce less overall than capitalism, but will meet it's own needs far more efficiently. Markets are unnecessary where need can be communicated directly to producers.

Initially, labor output is to be measured in units of labor vouchers - nonfungible, nonaccumulative, non-interest bearing certificates of work that are invalidated after use. Eventually, so goes the theory, even these could be dispensed with.

Will there be freeloaders on this system? Of course - and their needs will still be met, and these will vary person to person. But most will choose to produce at the very least for want of anything better to do, and because their survival will not be tied to a job (and because credentialism will largely be a thing of the past) they will be at liberty to experiment with their capacities and try a wide variety of things. And there are freeloaders today- I refuse to work under capitalism and consider this my obligatory social production. I would have worked happily under Communism, where I was confident my basic needs were being met and that labor  incurred no obligations to an employer.

Technology makes the economic conditions of the early capitalism that Marx knew utterly irrelevant.

Marx was aware that this transformation would occur. As I mentioned, Marx anticipated the development of an information economy in e.g. "Fragment On Machines" from Grundrisse. Marx by no means believed capitalism would remain at the level of industrial production in the 1850s.

Quote:Scarcity and low productivity were the problems of Marx' time; they are not now.

Again, Marx anticipated this transition to a capitalism of high productivity and overabundance. Marx is not a theorist of underconsumption. That is Keynes.
 

Quote:More people have a problem with surfeit than with material scarcity. Of course it remains possible to exploit people harshly...  but even at that, the problem may not be so much working people to exhaustion on starvation pay as it is wasting people in jobs far too small for their talents. I have frequently gone to dollar stores for a quick purchase (frozen entree and perhaps a soft drink) only to find that one of the clerks is taking a smoking break. Someone who needs a drag on a coffin nail to maintain some semblance of consent with one's way of life pro0bably has a very unsatisfying life.  Such probably shows a lack of imagination and foresight.

Yes, Marx would agree with this.

...

Quote:As productive capacity increases, profit margins shrink. $5 per $150 for a TV set of which ten million are made is better than $50 per $500 for a TV set of which 200,000 are made. Henry Ford got rich selling the cheapest car on the mass market in his time, the Model T. Sure, the car was a piece of crap, but he could sell his cars more cheaply than those who had lower productivity. Business still needs a profit, but it can make up lower margins on higher volumes.

Yes, this is one component of the declining rate of profit

Marx did not envision an economy of low capacity and underconsumptipn, i.e. the Victorian environment, as the final phase of capitalism. Quite the opposite. Read Grundrisse.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-11-2021, 03:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-10-2021, 03:56 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The primary crisis issues that America cares about at this point are COVID and the economic related issues caused by COVID and getting Americas kids back to school on a regular basis. The others are mainly Democratic issues that really don't matter to most Americans these days. As far as violence, there's an issue with red and blue violence that if not properly addressed will continue to grow and get worse as partisan hacks like you and others continue prancing around patting each other on the back blowing smoke up each others asses on a regular basis.

I’m glad you consider COVID to be a problem, but the red culture does not consider it so.  Thus, we have 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the deaths.  We have a culture of disregarding the precautions that lingers.

The economic failure is to a great degree following from the medical failure.  You can’t recover the economy without first addressing the virus.

Racial oppression does not go away just because it doesn’t effect you personally.  Thankfully, you are in the minority.

Saving the environment effects everybody, but some do not care.  Thankfully, you are in the minority.

There is a problem with violence.  At first it was very much tied to racism.  Later, it swung more to keeping the racist president and structure in power.  The struggle is about whether the people responsible can be enough a focus of law and order to be held responsible.  It is less a political problem than a law and order problem.  Some consider the white supremacy more important than their commitment to law and democracy.  Many Republican senators would rather win the primary than lose in the general election.  Their choice.  It is a choice that could doom their party.

The key is that the red are on the wrong side of all these problems, and most of the population realizes it.  The triggers have past, the regeneracy is happening, the crisis is here.  The majority want these problem solved and is seeing them attacked vigorously.  Those committed to the old patterns, the old values, will be swept aside by the generally accepted consensus that the problems ought to be solved.  This includes diminishing you and your imaginary ‘Americans’.

How many countries have 325 million people plus several million undocumented and several thousand more undocumented entering each day? So, how is Biden going to get a handle on COVID when his policies are so much more favorable to illegal immigration and illegal immigrants here? I mean the old dude with dementia stopped the construction of a border wall in high traffic area during a pandemic for Christ sake. Does that make any sense to you at all during a national/global pandemic with new strains? Biden was elected to end COVID not to something stupid that adds more problems to the mix and make the situation worse.

Biden was also elected to bring the country together not to do something stupid that further alienate and further divide the country. I doubt that he was elected to add more unemployed to the already unemployed either. Can/Do you see why the Democrats are going to find themselves in serious hot water and may find themselves without a country left to govern or find themselves in the shoes of the British Aristocracy facing a large scale American revolt or in the shoes of the Southern Confederacy/slave owners facing a war with America that it cannot win by itself.

As I've mentioned before, the reds aren't afraid of dying from COVID 19 and do not view it as being as deadly or as scary as the blue voters these days. But, it's very obvious that it's a major problem and it's obvious that it's causing lots of problems other than the obvious problems related to treating the sick, the hospitalized and the deaths associated with it. Obviously, we cannot redo the election at this point. We are stuck with Bumbling Biden and Harris and a bunch of arrogant Democratic ditz's and dicks who think they're all that and then some making decisions based on their own interests instead of national interests.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-11-2021, 05:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:23 AM)Einzige Wrote: 90% of modern social ills are driven by Capital.

This just indicates that you have not been killed by the bug, burned in a wildfire, or shot by a racist cop.

You're financially set and more worried about COVID. He's not financially set or worried about COVID and he see's no economic future here and that seems pretty obvious to me.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-11-2021, 09:36 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 05:23 AM)Einzige Wrote: 90% of modern social ills are driven by Capital.

This just indicates that you have not been killed by the bug, burned in a wildfire, or shot by a racist cop.

You're financially set and more worried about COVID. He's not financially set or worried about COVID and he see's no economic future here and that seems pretty obvious to me.

Hmm. I went through five years of schooling to do something few could do and then earned my way by doing it. If I am comfortable it is by earning it. He is talking about using violence to rearrange the wealth. Pardon me if I'm not impressed. If you want to get a bit ahead, pay your dues in your youth. Daydreaming about using violence to rearrange the social order is beneficial as any daydream.

[Einzige]

It isn't merely a matter of rearranging money wealth. Marxists have no interest in seizing your bank account and redistributing its contents. This is basically the social democratic solution. It ends up parasitizing other workers. Nothing I propose involves money in any way except its abolition.

 Neither is it a matter of just taking over physical factories and running them co-operatively, though plenty of anarchists do believe this.  Physical wealth, tools and shelter, will need to be redistributed, but this is not the end - only a beginning.

Rather, it is of abolishing social class in all its forms. This is an almost intangible goal, but is quite explicable if you think. It does not mean that everyone will be equal at all times in every capacity. This is a fiction which, among other other things, Engels rejected in a letter to August Bebel. It does mean that the scarring processes associated with class uplift and social climbing, and disadvantages based solely on place of birth or the socioeconomic status of parents, will be eliminated, and that everything is accessible to all men from the first. It also.means the elimination of insane, backwards social markers by which men are judged from their births. To do this requires the elimination of production for exchange as the generalized mode of production on Earth.

There will be no ahead. No behind. Only human development for it's own sake. This will, eventually, prove an absolute necessity.

Ponder this excerptnfrom Reddit:

Quote:I got the education I got because I was given scholarships for it. The work I have done I got straight out of school.


I have applied for better positions and tried to move into different more high paying industries but have not been able to even get a call back. It is not for lack of trying or bad choices. I am trying every possible avenue open to me but there is not a lot I can do when the best I get is an interview and 99% of my applications don't even email me back.

I got the education I got because I could. It really has nothing to do with where I am now. I can't land anything and it is not because I am lazy or entitled or blacklisted. I honestly don't know why I can't seem to land anything but at least I might be able to save myself from total failure with a warehouse job I am interviewing for tomorrow.

You presume to know a lot about me, but you really don't. I did everything right and still got no where. I am willing and able to work but still see nothing.
The last job in my field I applied to had 500 other applicants. Someone with C level experience beat me out for the role. That is what I am up against.
So get stuffed and don't assume what you can't even begin to understand.

Fuck capitalist individualism. Understanding the nature of the beast early on is why I gave up and never even tried.

Both conservatism and left-liberalism are the enemies. They retard this for the sake of developing a false consciousness.

Left-liberals propose to use governmental mechanisms to redistribute morsels of wealth while strengthening and intensifying existing social relations. Right-liberals, conservatives, do the same.

[pbrower2a]

(02-11-2021, 09:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-11-2021, 03:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-10-2021, 03:56 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The primary crisis issues that America cares about at this point are COVID and the economic related issues caused by COVID and getting Americas kids back to school on a regular basis. The others are mainly Democratic issues that really don't matter to most Americans these days. As far as violence, there's an issue with red and blue violence that if not properly addressed will continue to grow and get worse as partisan hacks like you and others continue prancing around patting each other on the back blowing smoke up each others asses on a regular basis.

I’m glad you consider COVID to be a problem, but the red culture does not consider it so.  Thus, we have 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the deaths.  We have a culture of disregarding the precautions that lingers.

The economic failure is to a great degree following from the medical failure.  You can’t recover the economy without first addressing the virus.

Racial oppression does not go away just because it doesn’t effect you personally.  Thankfully, you are in the minority.

Saving the environment effects everybody, but some do not care.  Thankfully, you are in the minority.

There is a problem with violence.  At first it was very much tied to racism.  Later, it swung more to keeping the racist president and structure in power.  The struggle is about whether the people responsible can be enough a focus of law and order to be held responsible.  It is less a political problem than a law and order problem.  Some consider the white supremacy more important than their commitment to law and democracy.  Many Republican senators would rather win the primary than lose in the general election.  Their choice.  It is a choice that could doom their party.

The key is that the red are on the wrong side of all these problems, and most of the population realizes it.  The triggers have past, the regeneracy is happening, the crisis is here.  The majority want these problem solved and is seeing them attacked vigorously.  Those committed to the old patterns, the old values, will be swept aside by the generally accepted consensus that the problems ought to be solved.  This includes diminishing you and your imaginary ‘Americans’.

How many countries have 325 million people plus several million undocumented and several thousand more undocumented entering each day? So, how is Biden going to get a handle on COVID when his policies are so much more favorable to illegal immigration and illegal immigrants here? I mean the old dude with dementia stopped the construction of a border wall in high traffic area during a pandemic for Christ sake. Does that make any sense to you at all during a national/global pandemic with new strains? Biden was elected to end COVID not to something stupid that adds more problems to the mix and make the situation worse.

What Trump did to stanch illegal immigration was both excessive in cruelty and inadequate as a numerical solution. I could make the case that many of the illegal immigrants don't come through the US-Mexican border but instead through our airports and overstay a visa. No border wall will stop that. As corrupt as Trump is, I would not be surprised that contractors were paying him a piece of the action through campaign contributions from which President Trump took a take.   

Quote:Biden was also elected to bring the country together  not to do something stupid that further alienate and further divide the country. I doubt that he was elected to add more unemployed to the already unemployed either. Can/Do you see why the Democrats are going to find themselves in serious hot water and may find themselves without a country left to govern or find themselves in the shoes of the British Aristocracy facing a large scale American revolt or in the shoes of the Southern Confederacy/slave owners facing a war with America that it cannot win by itself.

If Trump was unifying America, then it was by turning a big chunk of America against him. After January 6, that is even more. We Democrats took the high moral road, inconvenient as it might be at times, and Trump invariably choose the path of intellectual and moral sloth. The high level of unemployment relates heavily to COVID-19, which makes many economic activities dangerous. 

Watch the polling. Joe Biden is way ahead of Donald Trump at an analogous time. That is not to say that that will stick. The comparisons have started, and Biden starts at 57% approval according to Gallup, which is higher than the approval was for Trump at any time. Gallup is no longer my favored pollster, but it is the only one that has polling for Presidents back to Truman, so it has comparisons over 75 years. That is a long stretch of American history.

Here's the data from Gallup as graphs:

    https://news.gallup.com/interactives/185...enter.aspx

OK, several Presidents started with high approvals and saw their approval ratings end up lower at the ends of their allotted time in office than they started. The exceptions to these rules are Reagan, Clinton, and Biden -- the latter because we have only one data point after four days. At least Biden starts at 57%. Yes, I expect Biden to slip from 57% approval. 

So how did it go for Presidents after World War II?

Truman 87-32
Eisenhower 67-59
Kennedy 72-58
LBJ 72-49
Nixon 60-24
Ford 71-53
Carter 70-31
Reagan 51-57
G H W Bush 51-49 
Clinton 58-66
G W Bush 53-29
Obama 63-56
Trump  41-34

Biden starts at 57

It is better to start at a modest level of approval with lowered expectations and build trust over time so that at the end one gets recognition as an above-average President than to start with high approval ratings that go into the sewage tank. The problem is that no President since FDR has ever been able to have a steady stream of popular legislation that strengthens his perception over time. About everyone seems to disappoint at some time, as something typically goes wrong at some point. The highest "low" for a President was 48% for Eisenhower, probably after the Soviet launch of Sputnik. 

Many Trump supporters can't understand how Trump approval ratings didn't go into the 80's after Donald Trump supposedly proved himself such a great leader that only a traitor could vote against him in a re-election bid. By that standard I am Vidkun Quisling. By my standard, Donald Trump is a horrible person and an even worse leader. I am in the mainstream of American politics. Gallup polls of Donald Trump are about the opposite of what Trump's bloated ego suggests. I need not go into my abhorrence of Trump's lack of a moral compass and my interpretation of the Putsch of January 6, the sort of behavior contrary to what political leaders from our Founding Fathers to Obama have considered abominable. Ask yourself what any Republican President no longer living from Lincoln to the elder Bush would think of that Putsch.  

If you still believe in Trump, then you are part of his cult of personality. There are still people who believe in Mussolini, Mao, Franco, Pinochet, and Satan Hussein. What is in it for you? I could see what would follow: the continuation of a leadership defeated in a lawful and fair election (well, as fair as it could be in view of COVID-19 stalking everything from churches of stupidity to beach parties to drunken debauches complete with karaoke performances to what seemed likely on November 3: election sites), a purge of all opposition (including backsliders in your Party as well as people normally Democrats), and the usual other attributes of a despotic regime. America would have an "Idi A-murderin' " as its leader. Knowing what would await me I would likely commit suicide because I am too old to start over elsewhere in which I have no connections.   

 

Quote:As I've mentioned before, the reds aren't afraid of dying from COVID 19 and do not view it as being as deadly or as scary as the blue voters these days.

COVID-19 is statistically about as deadly as a rattlesnake bite. There are reliable treatments for rattlesnake bite, and how quickly one gets treatment and has no underlying problems with health one has an excellent chance of survival. Most rattlesnake bites come from people confronting them. They typically back off when they hear your heavy tread or detect your pooch. I lived for seventeen years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, supposedly Rattler Central, and never saw a live rattler even though I took frequent hikes. People who tease rattlers get bitten. I have a deal with rattlers: I back off, and expect them to do likewise.

I don't juggle open switch-knives, glasses of sulfuric acid, nitroglycerine, hypodermic needles with infectious agents, or lighted candles, either. 

Courage has its place. Recklessness does not. Underestimating real dangers is one way to get hurt.

Quote:But, it's very obvious that it's a major problem and it's obvious that it's causing lots of problems other than the obvious problems related to treating the sick, the hospitalized and the deaths associated with it.

No, people getting deathly ill because of COVID-19 and ending up on a ventilator and possibly dying is the problem. Hospital stays on ventilators are budget-busters for hospitals, and when people on government aid (which people end up on quickly if they get a bad case of COVID-19) they drain government revenues. COVID-19 costs much like a war.   

Quote:Obviously, we cannot redo the election at this point. We are stuck with Bumbling Biden and Harris and a bunch of arrogant Democratic (sexist language excised, but congratulating both genders!) who think they're all that and then some making decisions based on their own interests instead of national interests.

Well, I am delighted that you recognize that the election is a done deal. Now make your adjustments. It's nice to not see lots of Biden banners around. Give him a chance. At the least he is a devout Christian, something that Donald Trump was not.

[pbrower2a]

(02-11-2021, 10:28 PM)Einzige Wrote: It isn't merely a matter of rearranging money wealth. Marxists have no interest in seizing your bank account and redistributing its contents. This is basically the social democratic solution. It ends up parasitizing other workers. Nothing I propose involves money in any way except its abolition.

Money is more efficient than barter. If there is no fiat currency, then something else will have to suffice. Gold? Silver? Bismuth? Big businesses, public or private, would issue vouchers. Wal*Mart (yuck!) gift cards would circulate reasonably well, and if that were all that were available, maybe entities as diverse as competitors such as Target, Kroger, Amazon, Shell, McDonald's, Cartier, Direct TV, and the local utility would accept them as payment. In the absence of paychecks you might accept those gift cards by default.      

Quote: Neither is it a matter of just taking over physical factories and running them co-operatively, though plenty of anarchists do believe this.  Physical wealth, tools and shelter, will need to be redistributed, but this is not the end - only a beginning.

The first step to making a better America, now that we have ousted Donald Judas Trump, is to make America more equitable. 

Quote:Rather, it is of abolishing social class in all its forms. This is an almost intangible goal, but is quite explicable if you think. It does not mean that everyone will be equal at all times in every capacity. This is a fiction which, among other other things, Engels rejected in a letter to August Bebel. It does mean that the scarring processes associated with class uplift and social climbing, and disadvantages based solely on place of birth or the socioeconomic status of parents, will be eliminated, and that everything is accessible to all men from the first. It also means the elimination of insane, backwards social markers by which men are judged from their births. To do this requires the elimination of production for exchange as the generalized mode of production on Earth.

Nope. Social class in bad times and very bad places is the distinction between excess and gross need. Under more benign circumstances, social class distinguishes more benign attributes of people, like their ways of living. I look at Class by the late Paul Fussell, which was written in the halcyon days before Reagan became President, when people could live well on a job in an auto plant. Social class related heavily to taste and formal education. Thus a plumbing contractor and an attorney in the same community with similar income might live in two very different worlds. Both were above average in income, but how differently might they live! The plumbing contractor might have a big, gaudy RV that he takes to "Vegas". The lawyer might instead spend money on a trip that might have the old Austro-Hungarian Empire as a theme... Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Venice (it was under Austrian rule for about fifty years), Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Krakow, Budapest, and maybe Dracula's castle. Just imagine the cultural richness! 

OK... how old is the family money, does one have a professional occupation, does one appreciate art but disparage Kitsch, how skilled is your occupation, how good is your education... this is comparatively benign.   


There will be no ahead. No behind. Only human development for it's own sake. This will, eventually, prove an absolute necessity.

Quote:Ponder this excerpt from Reddit:

Quote:I got the education I got because I was given scholarships for it. The work I have done I got straight out of school.


I have applied for better positions and tried to move into different more high paying industries but have not been able to even get a call back. It is not for lack of trying or bad choices. I am trying every possible avenue open to me but there is not a lot I can do when the best I get is an interview and 99% of my applications don't even email me back.

I got the education I got because I could. It really has nothing to do with where I am now. I can't land anything and it is not because I am lazy or entitled or blacklisted. I honestly don't know why I can't seem to land anything but at least I might be able to save myself from total failure with a warehouse job I am interviewing for tomorrow.

You presume to know a lot about me, but you really don't. I did everything right and still got no where. I am willing and able to work but still see nothing.
The last job in my field I applied to had 500 other applicants. Someone with C level experience beat me out for the role. That is what I am up against.
So get stuffed and don't assume what you can't even begin to understand.

The capitalist model that we now have is one in which everything desirable is scarce and everything awful is plentiful. Capitalism depends upon making examples out of people even  in economic consequences... let us say the PhD working as a barista or doing oil changes, and many of those examples are pure luck or despair. The people who really rule us are cruel, rapacious, and potentially reckless. 

OK, maybe we need more farm laborers than we need poets; you can eat bread, but you cannot eat poetry. Maybe we need more people to supervise transactions at convenience stores than we need professors of Russian literature. Maybe we need more people to sweep floors than to play a violin in a symphony orchestra. That has nothing to do with any ideology. The plutocracy that we have endured for forty years may still be the norm indefinitely, so how do we adjust?  

Quote:Fuck capitalist individualism. Understanding the nature of the beast early on is why I gave up and never even tried.

I have tried. I have done jobs that I hated. In such work I have come to recognize capitalism as a monstrosity. In time one recognizes that one must survive and try to eke out some joy in life. Some resort to boozing and whoring. Some try to create a fantasy world in which they imagine themselves important because of the competence that the System completely disregards. In time one may find a job that offers something short of the complete, pure nightmare that you have known. Maybe out of some principle you decide to avoid dating and having children. After all it is unspeakably cruel to raise a child to be a victim of people who ultimately see that child in adulthood as cannon fodder for wars of profit, or livestock as workers or as prisoners... if they don't become addicts or whores out of desperation.  I may have ended up with a lonely and frustrating life, but at the least I will never leave that as a burden for anyone to whom I might have some attachment. As an ethical choice, I have decided that my suffering ends with me! 
 

Quote:Both conservatism and left-liberalism are the enemies. They retard this for the sake of developing a false consciousness.

Left-liberals propose to use governmental mechanisms to redistribute morsels of wealth while strengthening and intensifying existing social relations. Right-liberals, conservatives, do the same.

Conservatism is industrial workers having forty-year lifespans working seventy hours a week. Liberalism is industrial workers who have seventy-year lifespans working forty hours a week. The choice should be abundantly clear.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-11-2021, 10:28 PM)Einzige Wrote: It isn't merely a matter of rearranging money wealth. Marxists have no interest in seizing your bank account and redistributing its contents. This is basically the social democratic solution. It ends up parasitizing other workers. Nothing I propose involves money in any way except its abolition.

 Neither is it a matter of just taking over physical factories and running them co-operatively, though plenty of anarchists do believe this.  Physical wealth, tools and shelter, will need to be redistributed, but this is not the end - only a beginning.

Rather, it is of abolishing social class in all its forms. This is an almost intangible goal, but is quite explicable if you think. It does not mean that everyone will be equal at all times in every capacity. This is a fiction which, among other other things, Engels rejected in a letter to August Bebel. It does mean that the scarring processes associated with class uplift and social climbing, and disadvantages based solely on place of birth or the socioeconomic status of parents, will be eliminated, and that everything is accessible to all men from the first. It also.means the elimination of insane, backwards social markers by which men are judged from their births. To do this requires the elimination of production for exchange as the generalized mode of production on Earth.

There will be no ahead. No behind. Only human development for it's own sake. This will, eventually, prove an absolute necessity.

Ponder this excerptnfrom Reddit:

Quote:I got the education I got because I was given scholarships for it. The work I have done I got straight out of school.


I have applied for better positions and tried to move into different more high paying industries but have not been able to even get a call back. It is not for lack of trying or bad choices. I am trying every possible avenue open to me but there is not a lot I can do when the best I get is an interview and 99% of my applications don't even email me back.

I got the education I got because I could. It really has nothing to do with where I am now. I can't land anything and it is not because I am lazy or entitled or blacklisted. I honestly don't know why I can't seem to land anything but at least I might be able to save myself from total failure with a warehouse job I am interviewing for tomorrow.

You presume to know a lot about me, but you really don't. I did everything right and still got no where. I am willing and able to work but still see nothing.
The last job in my field I applied to had 500 other applicants. Someone with C level experience beat me out for the role. That is what I am up against.
So get stuffed and don't assume what you can't even begin to understand.

Fuck capitalist individualism. Understanding the nature of the beast early on is why I gave up and never even tried.

Both conservatism and left-liberalism are the enemies. They retard this for the sake of developing a false consciousness.

Left-liberals propose to use governmental mechanisms to redistribute morsels of wealth while strengthening and intensifying existing social relations. Right-liberals, conservatives, do the same.

So, you quit before you started.

[Bob Butler 54]

The senate has acquitted in the second impeachment.

The next step would be to enforce the 3rd Section of the 14th Amendment.  Congress could pass a bill stating that the actions of January Sixth did constitute an insurrection as referenced by the amendment.  They could include a list of all people they have who have solid evidence that they participated in the amendment, and are thus denied office or military service.  They might wait a time until the list of major participants is more or less complete.  They may define that a judicial due process could remove this status, or the tho third vote of the Congress specified by the amendment could as well.  

Would this be the proper procedure?  Must individual court cases for each individual be brought?  It seems after the US Civil War no congressional action was required?

[Eric the Green]

Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-13-2021, 10:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

Confirmed.  The unraveling Republican Party was one of both elitism and racism.  There seems to be a three way fight pending between Trump and the racists, McConnell and the elitists, and the Lincoln Project and the true conservatives.  McConnell chose to let the racists live on in order to avoid primary challenges to some of his elitist members of congress.  Yet, he wants Trump and his followers to fade.

I would like to see the true conservatives come out on top eventually, but right now they are also rans.  In the meantime the three factions of the Republicans hopefully won't challenge a Democratic push to at last solve problems again.  I also see Trump's big lies as spoiling after enough years are passed.  Obama wasn't born in the US?  Mexico will pay for the wall?  COVID was a hoax?  By the time 2022 and 2024 roll around, the lie that there was voter fraud in 2020 will have expired too and McConnell will find he bought into a loyalty to Trump which has turned sour.

[pbrower2a]

(02-13-2021, 10:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-13-2021, 10:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

Confirmed.  The unraveling Republican Party was one of both elitism and racism.  There seems to be a three way fight pending between Trump and the racists, McConnell and the elitists, and the Lincoln Project and the true conservatives.  McConnell chose to let the racists live on in order to avoid primary challenges to some of his elitist members of congress.  Yet, he wants Trump and his followers to fade.

Out of concern for my own safety I do not go to bars unless I know the people there or trust the people who encourage me to go there. A good bar needs a bouncer who can eject someone who seems to be going the wrong way. Arguments happen over all sorts of things, including topics that rile people up -- like politics and sports. In my case My body language may suggest something contrary to what I feel. I might seem to be ogling someone's wife or girlfriend despite disinterest or discretion. That is potentially good for a quick, hard punch to my face. 

But that is my safety. If I own the bar I want it to be safe. I don't want the cops paying too many visits because of brawls. That might case me to lose my liquor license. Bar-and-grill combinations are far more profitable than diners, and a bar-and grill whose owner loses a liquor license might not survive long strictly relying on the quality of the short-order cook. Although more traffic into a bar might seem a good idea, there are people that you do not want... like the people who get angry quick and with the tiniest provocation.  Such people might cause you to lose a more desirable customer to a stay in the hospital. Then there are people who might be fairly good customers. OK, I am good for only two drinks, but maybe I'll buy some food to go along. Beer goes well with steak, and wine goes well with fish or chicken. But get a reputation for violence as a bar, and I am staying away.

OK. Now how does this apply to politics? Some people are trouble. If they can be linked to you, then you scare away people who might otherwise vote for you. Most people have some values, including an aversion to violence, child abuse, drugs, scams, exploitative sexuality, and religious fanaticism. For good reason you do not hold campaign events at sexually-oriented businesses, and you do not speak well of terrorists, child molesters, or extremists. If you are a white conservative, you do not welcome the endorsement of the KKK, and if you are a black liberal you do not welcome the endorsement of the New Black Panther Party.

But remember the TEA Party. It was fanatical, and it was rigid in its values. It would vote for anyone anti-liberal -- and its vote was certain. It did avoid calling for political violence or overt racism or religious bigotry. It vilified liberals on behalf of the super-rich, so that was welcome to some rapacious tycoons who had visions of tax cuts, regulatory relief, and perhaps the evisceration of unions. America could offer the dream that capitalists have often sought to achieve: first-world productivity with third-world pay. Everything would be expensive except wages. That was ten years ago, and that had such effects as replacing Russ Feingold with Ron Johnson, who now challenges another Wisconsin pol as the greatest disgrace to the political heritage of Wisconsin. He may be awful in the sense that Jesse Helms was awful, but he certainly pleases the tycoons and executives despite his expression of conspiracy theories. Ron Johnson was not one-time-and-gone. Some people are  callow enough to believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such turns a profit, enforces the will of elites, and facilitate sybaritic indulgence in the presence of mass misery. Those people, I must regret, seem to have the funds to invest in the political process. If such people ever feel themselves in danger of a Marxist revolution they might set up some high-tech versions of the auto-da-fe to demonstrate the wisdom of endorsing one's acquiescence with hunger, fear, and insecurity. Maybe as in a fascist order, working to exhaustion on near-starvation rations is better than working to exhaustion on starvation rations with overseers who make Simon Legree look charitable by contrast.

But I digress from that nightmare. Things didn't quite go that way. Thank God! We had portents of Orwellian Newspeak as the inchoate new language of politics and news. A secret police that enforces the will of the Leader seemed to be forming. In much of America people had the banners that one associates with a personality cult. We were not far from a second term of Donald Trump, the most despotic President that we have ever had.

Quote:I would like to see the true conservatives come out on top eventually, but right now they are also rans.  In the meantime the three factions of the Republicans hopefully won't challenge a Democratic push to at last solve problems again.  I also see Trump's big lies as spoiling after enough years are passed.  Obama wasn't born in the US?  Mexico will pay for the wall?  COVID was a hoax.  By the time 2022 and 2024 roll around, the lie that there was voter fraud in 2020 will have expired too and McConnell will find he bought into a loyalty to Trump which has turned sour.

The old conservative values of hierarchy of talent, rationality, learning, and economic virtue (work, caution, asset-stewardship, diligence, dedication, integrity, thrift) may end up in a welcoming new home -- the Democratic Party. Those virtues seem to well fit America's Model Minorities... and they could well fit straight, white, Christians, too. People can act conservative without being fascist pigs.

No political order and no economic system can thrive forever on absurdity. All falsehood, whether lies or foolishness, is absurdity. The best economic models have been created by chemists specializing in thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics (that you cannot get something from nothing), the second, (that all economic processes result in decay just as chemical processes result in waste heat) , and the third (that all things tend to rot unless one puts effort into them, and that implies more rot) are inescapable. The chemists were doing economics as an avocation... and economics is the social study that most resembles a hard science if one wishes.

Donald Trump seemed to have set America on a fast track to decay. This said, fast tracks to undesirable destinations must themselves be plotted and laid. If we are going back to what used to work, then so be it. OK, we do not need homophobia, Jim Crow, elderly people working until they drop (and likely taking others with them), child labor, or the horrid conditions of the early-industrial era. Technology and the moral values that the vast majority of us accept make such bad stuff unnecessary.

[Eric the Green]

The Lincoln Project folks may have burned their bridges to the Republican Party behind them. Some of them have, at least, including one of the founders I heard interviewed. They may be independents or Democrats pretty soon, if they aren't already.

I agree that specific lies and conspiracy theories may die out, but it may take a while for some of them. The "rigged election of 2020" may be a grievance selling point for a while. And the habit or modus operandi of conspiracy theories, irrational fantasies and deception may also continue for a while, it being a cultural trend that seems ingrained in the minds and hearts of a portion of the people of the USA. It will take some education to convince people to come back to reality.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-13-2021, 10:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

Racism is now and always has been directly tied to the Democratic party and that will become more and more clear as time goes on. You have no other alternative than to go along and feed racism because those who use racism and rely on racism and exploit racism represent a considerable amount of money and power within the Democratic party these days.

[Eric the Green]

(02-14-2021, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-13-2021, 10:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

Racism is now and always has been directly tied to the Democratic party and that will become more and more clear as time goes on. You have no other alternative than to go along and feed racism because those who use racism and rely on racism and exploit racism  represent a considerable amount of money and power within the Democratic party these days.

Fortunately your and Trump's strategy to pin your own failings on your opponents is quite transparent.

[pbrower2a]

(02-14-2021, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-13-2021, 10:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Even if we get past our racial divide, to the extent that racism/xenophobia no longer dominate a major political party, as it now dominates the Republicans under Trump, we still will face the neo-liberal divide. The earlier Republican extremism of Reagan will still need to be overcome before we can get back to progress after 40 years of regression and decline. We have sunk so far now, that more than one ideology or prejudice needs to be overcome before sanity is restored to the USA.

No doubt, however, that getting past the first racist hurdle, however, will help us get past the second neo-liberal one, since there is some overlap between them.

Racism is now and always has been directly tied to the Democratic party and that will become more and more clear as time goes on. You have no other alternative than to go along and feed racism because those who use racism and rely on racism and exploit racism  represent a considerable amount of money and power within the Democratic party these days.

What do you mean by racism? Being "uppity"? Not knowing and accepting one's allotted place in the grand scheme of things as is the natural hierarchy of paleness? Opposing "white power"?

Considering that the Democratic Party has far more diversity among its elected officials, racism would rip the Democratic Party into shreds if it were commonplace. Where else in the world would Jews and Muslims be in the same Party on the whole? The Democratic Party has the majority of America's model minorities, and those model minorities have not united in acquiescence in exploitation of the less-well-off in their groups.

I consider it extremely disgusting that "conservative" white elites, largely within the Republican Party act in seeming delight in exploiting less-well-off whites economically and then fooling them into believing that the exploitation is benefice because white privilege is a reality. White privilege isn't worth much anymore, and it certainly isn't worth poverty, inadequate education, or being in thrall to opiates or meth. Those "conservative" white elites, so far as I can tell, have plenty of derisive names for poor whites. I'm not going to say them here because they are as offensive as ethnic and religious slurs.

Not so long ago, poor whites distrusted the economic elites enough to vote differently from them. As late as 1996 voters in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia gave pluralities to Bill Clinton, who somehow connected to them enough to win those states' electoral votes. Those states have since spiraled away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and seem less likely to go D in the next few election cycles than Texas, which has not voted for a Democratic nominee for President since 1976. Texas is steadily becoming more like a microcosm of America -- and it is demographically a far better state than those states that haven't voted for a Democratic nominee for President since they last voted for Bill Clinton in 1996.

You tell me: what have the lily-white elites of the Republican Party done for poor whites in the Mountain and Deep South? I suspect that those elites even hold country music in contempt. (So do I, but

I love Bach! I love Bach! For his splendid counterpoint, for his splendid counter...., which well fits the leading themes of the first movement of his Trio Sonata in  E-flat, BWV 525






One never outgrows Bach. One hopes that one grows out of racism, religious bigotry, political cults of personality, boozing, and whoring.