Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Classic-Xer]

(02-26-2021, 01:08 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well?  You have not explained how you can be against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion and still call yourself 'American'.

Bob, I've been defending the Constitution and the Constitutional rights of others and fighting with Democrats and Progressives over it or about it since the day I arrived many years ago and I'm still doing it today. If you want a war with America then by all means continue supporting the Democrats that you've been supporting and by all means continue ignoring the Democrats as they undermine the authority of the Constitution, the rule of law, and control/remove free speech and attack/threaten the freedom of religion as you continue questioning me and calling yourself an American. You are one f-d up Democratic believer who happens to be an American by birth these days.

[pbrower2a]

(02-26-2021, 03:17 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-25-2021, 12:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good luck with that. And yet you and other trumpers fear them coming into the USA "to take our jobs." If they can do that, maybe they aren't so inferior. Somebody knows what they got. They are just being blocked by a cumbersome, racist and restrictive immigration policy, which itself just leads to more violations of immigration laws by the refugees.

With climate change, tyranny and drug cartels ruining peoples lives below the border, these refugees have no time to wait for our immigration laws. But I know, there's no statue of liberty and Emma Lazarus poem on the Texas, Arizona or California borders. Details!

Maybe you trumpers and goppers just don't want more Democrats in the USA. But with your policy of hate and unfair treatment, you are turning hispanics against your Party-- with the resulting loss or impending loss of all the southwestern states for your Party. 

If you were more fair, as they get more economically stable they would probably be just as tempted as others are now by your small-government, trickle-down, low taxes slogans, and they tend to be cultural conservatives too. But you guys have blown it for decades to come now. We Democrats can hope that by that time your trickle-down, anti-welfare slogans will be old hat and not so tempting. Cultural assimilation may even reduce their ties to old fashioned cultural views too.

What makes you think/assume that minorities are only capable of becoming/remaining Democratic voters these days? I've been hearing that from you guys and others for years.

What incentives do they have for joining the GOP as it is now constituted? Sure, America's model minorities (were I an economic success I would qualify as a handicapped person) are quite conservative in style and substance. They prefer law and order to chaos because the rule of law makes life far safer for anyone at all different from the majority. They are generally for traditional content in education. They are conventional, in general, in family life. They are typically rooted in some tradition even if it is not strictly that of the Majority. 

The Democratic Party is assuming some conservative values as Trump and his ideological kin abandon those values.  Your side abandons those values at extreme risk to the sustainability of such power as your Party now has.   

Quote:  I'm still get the gist of that from the Progressive/Democratic side a lot these days too. Are you all racist or something?

We are much less racist than Donald Trump -- that's for d@mn sure! We liberals must be 'or something, but I am not quite sure what you mean.

Quote:Are you sure that you're not Liberal white supremacists? Are you sure that you aren't guilty of sugar yourselves and using us as a means to hide your inner racist  beliefs/feelings and continue gain/keep minority support?

What is liberal about the KKK or neo-Nazi scum? 


I can see it, can you see it in what you say/write these days.  Do you hob knob and mingle with the Liberal (vile antifeminist smear excised) and Liberal (vile word excised) aka uber elites and their politicians/representatives?[/quote]

I generally get that chance rarely.

Quote:Do you bow down, suck up and kiss their lily white asses in exchange for charitable donations or money for their political movements or protection of their interests? Do you expect the same treatment as them being you're associated with them? I can see it, can you see it in how you write or respond?

Boring!

Quote:I figure we'll eventually get the better ones and you'll end up being  stuck with the rest and whatever issues and problems and the overall costs that are directly related to them. I assume that modern plumbing, electricity, running water, free health care and some what safer living conditions and lax laws pertaining to petty crime and other crime associated with them would be viewed as an improvement over the countries that they left.

The Mountain and Deep South are poor parts of America.

Quote:Dude, we are just getting started now. I hope you are ready for the emotional roller coaster ride that's in store for Progressives like you. Keep in mind, America will because America can and there won't be a (expletive deleted)  thing that you or the Obama's can do or say to stop Americans from doing or supporting when the American Revolution starts. People like Enzige may see their wish come true.

Dude, the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments defines some people as US citizens.. .and they and their progeny have inherited their status as US citizens by birth. Former slaves earned their citizenship in ways that others did not.

Who says that there will be any revolution?

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-26-2021, 04:20 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-26-2021, 01:08 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well?  You have not explained how you can be against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion and still call yourself 'American'.

Bob, I've been defending the Constitution and the Constitutional rights of others and fighting with Democrats and Progressives over it or about it since the day I arrived many years ago  and I'm still doing it today. If you want a war with America then by all means continue supporting the Democrats that  you've been supporting and by all means continue ignoring the Democrats as they undermine the authority of the Constitution, the rule of law, and control/remove free speech and attack/threaten the freedom of religion as you continue questioning me and  calling yourself an American. You are one f-d up Democratic believer who happens to be an American by birth these days.

The Constitution, rule of law, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are ideas, principles.  Looking at them through the WEIRD lens, you find tribal thinkers loyal to tribes, groups of people, as opposed to WEIRD people, loyal to ideas, concepts.  In your recent posts, you are illustrating the difference.  If you are willing to trash the principles in order to stay loyal to the folks you perceive as smilier to you, you are tribal thinking.

As you are redefining words, I guess I will call you a native of Acirema, which would be America spelled backwards, indicating opposition to the principles which America stands for.  It just gives me the word America back, allows common usage.  I don’t have to bother with phrases like ‘US native’ to differentiate what I am saying from your cockeyed fantasies.

If you are capable of wrapping your mind around principles, define how Democrats are against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion?  The red version of these concepts seem to be invading the capitol, lying habitually, and using the government to enforce religious beliefs.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-26-2021, 08:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: If you are capable of wrapping your mind around principles, define how Democrats are against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion?  The red version of these concepts seem to be invading the capitol, lying habitually, and using the government to enforce religious beliefs. 

What happened to the folks who refused to make a cake for a gay couples wedding, are they still in business? One can easily assume that their religious freedoms were not respected by the gay couple they =refused or recognized by the state that they lived in either. Strike 1
Why does a local court have the authority to undermine Constitutional and alter/ significantly change state elections laws and impact national elections these days? One can assume they viewed themselves as being above the law and having the right to undermine state law and Constitutional authority of the USA.  Strike 2
Why do publicly owned corporations and institutions have the ultimate authority to restrict ban free speech, discriminate on the basis of creed and even prosecute and convict people without due process and determine outcomes? One can assume that the Democratic party does not recognize the Constitution as being the ultimate authority aka law of the land. Strike 3
Why did the Democrats either completely ignore, down play and in some cases support the violence that occurred all over the country for several months that directly impacted lots of peoples live and caused billions of dollars in losses? One can assume that the rule of law is not recognized by them and does not apply to them. Strike 4
So, what do you think is going to happen when Liberal cancel culture meets American cancel culture? Keep in mind, there are no rules or protections that exist during a Civil War.

[Captain Genet]

(02-23-2021, 11:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-22-2021, 09:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Discussing communism with Einzige on the let's make fun of trump page. Does that mean Trump is a communist?

Of course it does, or maybe it's the opposite and Trump imperils the emergence of Marxism.  Then again, it might be that Trump is part of the great anti-Marxist cabal pretending to fight one another to keep Marxism at bay.  Your choice.

Trump is strongly inspired by Bannon, a neoreactionary, and neoreaction is reverse Marxism. Marxists believe democracy is a cloak for dictatorship of a right-wing economic elite, called Capital. Neoreactionaries believe democracy is a cloak for dictatorship of left-wing intellectual elite, called Cathedral.

[Einzige]

Not really. Marxists believe that the bourgeoisie are as determined by Capital as the workers.

[pbrower2a]

(02-27-2021, 02:52 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-26-2021, 08:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: If you are capable of wrapping your mind around principles, define how Democrats are against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion?  The red version of these concepts seem to be invading the capitol, lying habitually, and using the government to enforce religious beliefs. 

What happened to the folks who refused to make a cake for a gay couples wedding, are they still in business? One can easily assume that their religious freedoms were not respected by the gay couple they =refused or recognized by the state that they lived in either. Strike 1

Imagine that I am a business owner -- a baker. Among my activities is making anniversary, birthday, retirement, and wedding cakes for customers. Most people don't ask for something inappropriate. If someone came to me and asked me to make a cake to be offered to a debtor that looks like a cemetery stone that reads "Pay up or end up in Lake Michigan with the fishies'"  I would have a reasonable right to refuse such an order. Or if it is a birthday cake that thanks someone for being a compliant victim of a sexual pervert, I would also say no. I would be on solid ethical ground on both. As a business order I have the right to refuse a proposition not worth the consequences.

If I were baking a celebratory cake for "State Senator Snake" for winning an election for the Party that I hold in disdain... controversy is one thing (all elections have controversy) and there are two sides to most questions. If it had a more objectionable idea (such as "Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler" with a swastika)... that goes beyond controversy. The "other side" to the pro-Nazi cake is that I'd rather supply cakes to bar mitzvahs.  

So if I am queasy about homosexual or interracial marriage, do I have a right to refuse service?  Probably not. Maybe if the message is excessively explicit, such as a depiction of sex or words not qualifying as family-friendly, it is easy to say no. If it is reasonably conventional (gay or lesbian couple or mixed-race couple) I would reasonably be expected to comply.  

OK. What if the person making the cake is a subordinate who has religious objections to same-sex or mixed marriage? If I have no problem, then I expect that subordinate to go as far as possible without doing something something offensive to that person's sensibilities. I will put the statuette of the mixed-race or same-sex couple on the wedding cake. I will expect that devout employee to frost the cake and do most of the decorations while stopping short of having to name the same-sex couple (basically "Adam and Steve"). And yes, I will deliver it. My employee keeps the job. I make it clear that baking the cake or doing basic frosting and decoration to the extent possible for something else is not a moral compromise.

That devout employee  may be a reliable worker. That may be the sort whom I can trust with diligence on the job and integrity in business transactions.    

Quote:Why does a local court have the authority to undermine Constitutional and alter/ significantly change state elections laws and impact national elections these days? One can assume they viewed themselves as being above the law and having the right to undermine state law and Constitutional authority of the USA.  Strike 2

COVID-19 may not have human agency, but it is easy to presume that it has no right to interfere with a local, state, or federal election. Election laws were adapted to fit the reality of people finding an election site too dangerous for their voting because the dangerous "Rona" was stalking. The laws were changed to allow people to vote who might otherwise have not voted. Both Parties concurred.

I certainly don't want elected officials saying that it is a voter's tough luck that a dangerous disease may be a consequence of voting.  

Quote:Why do publicly owned corporations and institutions have the ultimate authority to restrict ban free speech, discriminate on the basis of creed and even prosecute and convict people without due process and determine outcomes? One can assume that the Democratic party does not recognize the Constitution as being the ultimate authority aka law of the land. Strike 3

Free speech is not an absolute. Criminal speech is not protected. Having been a teacher, I know certain things not to say because as a teacher (even if a sub) I had an obligation to avoid saying certain things. You would be surprised at how alluring late-teenagers can be in high school. (At the least I know that I am too old-fashioned to make someone forty years younger than me happy for a sustained time. An entity such as Facebook or Twitter (or for that matter, your local newspaper) has a right to determine that something libelous or defamatory does not make print or its electronic equivalent.

One can be a Catholic and think that an auto-da-fe is a service to a heretic or non-believer... but have no right to do an auto-da-fe (the Catholic Church has given that up a long time ago). 

By the way -- Obama was far more observant of Constitutional norms than the wannabe despot who followed him as President.  

Quote:Why did the Democrats either completely ignore, down play and in some cases support the violence that occurred all over the country for several months that directly impacted lots of peoples live and caused billions of dollars in losses? One can assume that the rule of law is not recognized by them and does not apply to them. Strike 4

I am far more troubled by someone going into a church or synagogue and mowing down the worshipers. I am more troubled by someone caught with pipe bombs who has anti-Islamic literature and a map that has the location of a mosque circled. 

Rioting is of course a crime... and a Black Lives Matters rally is the wrong place at which to do arson, looting, vandalism, or assaults. The people who oppose police brutality generally oppose rioter brutality, too, and with all the cameras that people take along, someone might turn over video to the police or a DA. This isn't Detroit, Newark, or Watts in the 1960's anymore, in which one could get away without detection by people with cell phones. Even then "CBS 2", "NBC 4", and "ABC 7" camera crews in either Detroit, New York, or "ELL AY" (back then CBS was 2, NBC was 4, and ABC was 7 in all three  metro areas) knew well what was going to happen with some of the footage that would never reach the TV screen. it might get its own screening in the offices of police and prosecutors. Tough luck, habitual offenders!  

One does not have the excuse of "opportunity".     

Quote:So, what do you think is going to happen when Liberal cancel culture meets American cancel culture? Keep in mind, there are no rules or protections that exist during a Civil War.

Wise people will choose to live and let live, and ideally the people to whom we delegate the responsibility to promote civic police (such as the cops) will enforce the practice of "live and let live". Violence except in self-defense (and self-defense is often the most brutal deed that people can do) is typically criminal. 

Oh, by the way: the Architect of the Capitol has already assessed that the costs of damage to the Capitol building due to the right-wing riot of January 6 has already cost at least $30 millions -- and that is before damage to personal or entrusted property involving people in Congress and their staffs, compromises of national security, and any medical costs to treat members of the Capitol Police or either disability or bereavement costs.

Classic X'er, what you consider "Strike 3" and "Strike 4" are foul balls that do not count in the game. Watch the entire at bat. 


 



Dave Bergman went to a 3-2 count, taking three pitches out of the strike zone and fouling off ten others. Watch the whole at-bat, which is one of the most remarkable at-bats ever in old Tiger Stadium or anywhere else. Bergman got "Strike 9" and "Strike 10". No spoiler. This at-bat is from 1984, and I remember it well.

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-27-2021, 02:52 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-26-2021, 08:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: If you are capable of wrapping your mind around principles, define how Democrats are against the Constitution, rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion?  The red version of these concepts seem to be invading the capitol, lying habitually, and using the government to enforce religious beliefs. 

What happened to the folks who refused to make a cake for a gay couples wedding, are they still in business? One can easily assume that their religious freedoms were not respected by the gay couple they =refused or recognized by the state that they lived in either. Strike 1
Why does a local court have the authority to undermine Constitutional and alter/ significantly change state elections laws and impact national elections these days? One can assume they viewed themselves as being above the law and having the right to undermine state law and Constitutional authority of the USA.  Strike 2
Why do publicly owned corporations and institutions have the ultimate authority to restrict ban free speech, discriminate on the basis of creed and even prosecute and convict people without due process and determine outcomes? One can assume that the Democratic party does not recognize the Constitution as being the ultimate authority aka law of the land. Strike 3
Why did the Democrats either completely ignore, down play and in some cases support the violence that occurred all over the country for several months that directly impacted lots of peoples live and caused billions of dollars in losses? One can assume that the rule of law is not recognized by them and does not apply to them. Strike 4
So, what do you think is going to happen when Liberal cancel culture meets American cancel culture? Keep in mind, there are no rules or protections that exist during a Civil War.

Mostly Pbower was ahead of me, but...

If you are supposedly serving the public you are serving the public.  If not, the reason best not be prejudice.  The precedent was set with refusing to serve lunch to blacks at that Woolworth lunch counter to blacks.  Ball 1.

You have to account for a pandemic.  The courts can adjudicate how much better than you or I.  Ball 2.

Didn't happen.  Wild pitch.  Base taken.

The BLM and red violent groups are separate.  Wild Pitch.  Another base taken.

I have made my predictions often enough.  The old values fade.  A few nuts keep ranting.  Come the high, no one will tolerate having to listen.

[Einzige]

BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

[David Horn]

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

[David Horn]

(02-27-2021, 11:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I have made my predictions often enough.  The old values fade.  A few nuts keep ranting.  Come the high, no one will tolerate having to listen.

I almost passed this by, but caught myself at the exit.  Yes, the 1T will be as rigid as the 3T was loosey-goosey.  Given the pattern of victors claiming the spoils, the next 2T is the soonest we can expect a real counter to the 4T-climax/1T-paradigm.  What that will be is still TBD, because the final result of the 4T is still in the wings.  I don't know if Biden has it in him to drive the 4T to a dramatic end.  He may falter and is likely to be a one-termer in any case.  I don't see Kamala Harris lighting a huge fire either, and a challenger for 2024 is invisible for now. W-a-y too many variables here!

[pbrower2a]

(02-27-2021, 01:19 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 11:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I have made my predictions often enough.  The old values fade.  A few nuts keep ranting.  Come the high, no one will tolerate having to listen.

I almost passed this by, but caught myself at the exit.  Yes, the 1T will be as rigid as the 3T was loosey-goosey.  Given the pattern of victors claiming the spoils, the next 2T is the soonest we can expect a real counter to the 4T-climax/1T-paradigm.  What that will be is still TBD, because the final result of the 4T is still in the wings.  I don't know if Biden has it in him to drive the 4T to a dramatic end.  He may falter and is likely to be a one-termer in any case.  I don't see Kamala Harris lighting a huge fire either, and a challenger for 2024 is invisible for now. W-a-y too many variables here!

I think you are right. We are going to have January 6, and no longer 9/11, as the shocker. For two centuries we have had the assumption that coups do not happen in America. One just did. We are going to have an analysis of why the insurrection was possible, and that will boil down to right-wing extremism and irrationality. This is not to say that we are going to end up treating "Coup-Anon" much like the PRC treats the Falun Gang, but we are going to start treating craziness in politics as trouble. 

I have no idea of the level of support that the coup is. That is very different from supporting the agenda of Donald Trump but not his attempted self-coup.

I live in Michigan... and we have had an ugly plot against the Governor. I'm guessing that we start seeing elections as definitive no matter how they went.

[Einzige]

(02-27-2021, 12:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04...m-a04.html

Quote: Last summer, the Ford Foundation, one of the most powerful private foundations in the world, announced that it was organizing to channel $100 million to the Black Lives Movement over the next six years.
“By partnering with Borealis Philanthropy, Movement Strategy Center and Benedict Consulting to found the Black-Led Movement Fund, Ford has made six-year investments in the organizations and networks that compose the Movement for Black Lives,” according to the Ford Foundation web site. In a statement of support, Ford called for the group to grow and prosper. “We want to nurture bold experiments and help the movement build the solid foundation that will enable it to flourish.”
In the wake of the monetary commitment by the big-business foundation network, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has explicitly embraced black capitalism. It appears the group is now well positioned to cash in on the well-known #BLM Twitter hashtag. Announcing its first “big initiative for 2017,” BLM cofounder Patrisse Cullors stated that it would be partnering with the Fortune 500 New York ad agency J. Walter Thompson (JWT) to create “the biggest and most easily accessible black business database in the country.”
BLM joins the ranks of prestigious JWT clientele including HSBC Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and Shell Oil. JWT also represents the US Marine Corps. CEO Lynn Power suggested that the BLM partnership would provide the advertising firm with an opportunity to “shape culture positively.” “I am really glad that our partnership with Black Lives Matter is giving us the opportunity to play a truly active role,” she enthused.
The joint project, Backing Black Business, is a nationwide interactive map of black-owned enterprises. This virtual Google-based directory has nothing to do with opposing police violence, from which Black Lives Matter ostensibly emerged. Cullors nevertheless portrayed the venture as enabling blacks to have “somewhere for us to go and feel seen and safe,” concluding, “In these uncertain times, we need these places more than ever.”
Such developments may come as a surprise to those who embraced the sentiment that “black lives matter” because they saw it as an oppositional rebuke to the militarization of police and the disproportionate police murder of African Americans. Many did not realize that the political aims and nature of Black Lives Matter were of an entirely different nature.
In fact, the election of Donald Trump has served to put even more distance between the large layers of workers and young people opposed to police violence and the privileged upper middle class layer that Black Lives Matter represents. The latter, developments have shown, are leveraging #BLM as a brand to make a name for themselves, find lucrative sinecures and, more generally, get on the gravy train.
BLM’s most recent scheme is even more crass than Backing Black Business. In February, BLM launched a “black debit card” underwritten by OneUnited Bank. “A historic partnership has been born between OneUnited Bank, the largest Black-owned bank in the country, and #BlackLivesMatter to organize the $1.2 trillion in spending power of Black people and launch the Amir card during Black History Month,” boasts OneUnited’s web site.
The debit card project is a part of a larger campaign by black multimillionaire celebrities, including Beyonce, Solange and Queen Latifah, to promote investment in black-owned banks. Describing the Amir debit card as another form of “black empowerment,” BLM spokeswoman Melina Abdullah called it “important on a lot of levels.” She said it will feature the “face of this beautiful black boy who will evoke for many folks people like Trayvon Martin.”
BLM has invested its money in OneUnited since its inception, according to Abdullah, who is also the chair of the Pan-African Studies Department at California State University, Los Angeles.
Teri Williams, president and chief operating officer of OneUnited, and the wife of its chairman and CEO, Kevin Cohee, echoed Abdullah’s sales pitch, adding that “when I hand [the Amir card] to someone, I’m saying to them that black lives do matter, that black money does matter and that we are an important consumer.” Debit card holders will receive regular notices requesting BLM donations, the bank noted.
The dubious history of the bank has apparently been no barrier to the partnership with BLM. OneUnited, the recipient of a generous Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loan in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, was subject to federal audit when it failed to meet the terms of the agreement.
The audit provoked a minor scandal when it was revealed that the bank had provided CEO Cohee a lavish lifestyle including a leased Porsche, a “handsome living allowance,” an $880,000 condo in Miami Beach, and $26,500 per month to lease a mansion in Santa Monica, California. The government’s generosity, it was widely suspected, was connected to the fact that Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters’s husband, who was also on the bank’s board of directors and owned stock in the company, stood to lose over $350,000 if the bank failed.

[David Horn]

(02-27-2021, 01:35 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 12:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04...m-a04.html

This is a bit like quoting yourself, but assuming the reportage is not just the photo-opposite of the far-right practice, why take this as more than corporate defense? It's easy to use corporate funds to do things that will benefit the bottom line by making the company look more humane. It's cynical, but effective.

[Einzige]

(02-27-2021, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 01:35 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 12:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04...m-a04.html

This is a bit like quoting yourself, but assuming the reportage is not just the photo-opposite of the far-right practice, why take this as more than corporate defense?  It's easy to use corporate funds to do things that will benefit the bottom line by making the company look more humane.  It's cynical, but effective.

It's more than corporate defense, though it is that also - it's neutering the legitimate class anger of black American workers by uniting their interests with those of the PMCs of color employed by the official BLM organization, thereby eliminating African-Americans as a potential revolutionary locus.

In reality, a black NYC Uber driver has absolutely no shared interest with Oprah or Kenneth Frazier. But BLM exists to obscure this fact. The black proletariat needs to be armed and organized and melded into the wider militant working class.

[pbrower2a]

[David Horn]

(02-27-2021, 03:04 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 01:35 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 12:33 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04...m-a04.html

This is a bit like quoting yourself, but assuming the reportage is not just the photo-opposite of the far-right practice, why take this as more than corporate defense?  It's easy to use corporate funds to do things that will benefit the bottom line by making the company look more humane.  It's cynical, but effective.

It's more than corporate defense, though it is that also - it's neutering the legitimate class anger of black American workers by uniting their interests with those of the PMCs of color employed by the official BLM organization, thereby eliminating African-Americans as a potential revolutionary locus.

In reality, a black NYC Uber driver has absolutely no shared interest with Oprah or Kenneth Frazier. But BLM exists to obscure this fact. The black proletariat needs to be armed and organized and melded into the wider militant working class.

For the corporate elites, making their lives easier is adequate payment for the shareholder money they burn.  Reducing the power of any potential adversaries is icing on their cynical cake.  Why is this surprising?

[Einzige]

(02-28-2021, 08:48 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 03:04 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 02:52 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 01:35 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-27-2021, 12:33 PM)David Horn Wrote: So in response to inadequately sourced outrage, you elect to stand with the .01% of pure Marxist heart.  Good luck with that.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04...m-a04.html

This is a bit like quoting yourself, but assuming the reportage is not just the photo-opposite of the far-right practice, why take this as more than corporate defense?  It's easy to use corporate funds to do things that will benefit the bottom line by making the company look more humane.  It's cynical, but effective.

It's more than corporate defense, though it is that also - it's neutering the legitimate class anger of black American workers by uniting their interests with those of the PMCs of color employed by the official BLM organization, thereby eliminating African-Americans as a potential revolutionary locus.

In reality, a black NYC Uber driver has absolutely no shared interest with Oprah or Kenneth Frazier. But BLM exists to obscure this fact. The black proletariat needs to be armed and organized and melded into the wider militant working class.

For the corporate elites, making their lives easier is adequate payment for the shareholder money they burn.  Reducing the power of any potential adversaries is icing on their cynical cake.  Why is this surprising?

What surprising is how comfortable left-liberalism are with this social arrangement and the function their institutional allies perform within it.

[Eric the Green]

(02-27-2021, 11:36 AM)Einzige Wrote: BLM is funded by a bunch of capitalists, same as the Republican groups.

Who funds you, the central committee somewhere? ha ha

[Bob Butler 54]

(02-28-2021, 11:43 AM)Einzige Wrote: What surprising is how comfortable left-liberalism are with this social arrangement and the function their institutional allies perform within it.

Hmm.  I don’t find it surprising.  Let me go back to the values perspective that I generally rotate around.

Everyone develops a worldview and values.  How do you see the world?  What goals should one strive for?  These are very different for each individual.  They are also very stubborn.  They don’t much change unless the worldview and values have absolutely and clearly failed.  In a turning crisis, when a culture’s worldview and values change, it means a bunch of people had their worldview and values fail at the same time.  It generally takes losing a crisis war to prompt such a transition.  Hiroshima could stand as an example, though it shares many other events that led up to it.  However, the repeated depressions of the Gilded Age that eventually resulted in the Great Depression given an example of how the greatest problem facing the culture is not always a crisis war.

Now your own values center on revolution and capital, on violence and things.  Violence is used to equalize the possession of things.  It is a traditional if obsolete vantage point.  It assumes that the violent people apt to rise in the top in a revolution will suddenly become saints who care about the people after they win their revolt.  This is dubious and remains an unsolved problem.  It also assumes violence is necessary, remains the only way to change a culture.  This may have been true in Marx’s time, but not in Grandi’s and MLK’s.

This has been said many times and ignored many times.

The pertinent crisis problems I have listed many times and have not been much corrected.  These are COVID, the economy, systematic racism, red violence, and global warming.  I think it is safe to say that yours are an obscure and minor set of values, and that those whose values center on the crisis problems are for good reason much more prominent.

Let’s go though them.

It is important to live through the COVID pandemic.  It is important that the economy produce enough, that the bulk of the people get enough to survive and sustain themselves.  It is important, that regardless of one’s race or culture, that you don’t get shot randomly by police or oppressed into a subservient position.  It is important that those who believe in racial violence be suppressed.  It is important that the planet we live on is livable on and produces sustained resources.

Are any of these so hard to understand?  Can you put aside your obsessions with violence and things long enough to try to understand how other people are actually living?

I just don’t care that there are people out there that have gathered many things so long is it is likely that most people get enough and the system provides safety nets for those who slip through the cracks.  With the changes in labor, automation, the production of resources, the collection of resources, the cracks are only going to become larger in time.

Large number of people hold the crisis worldviews and values.  Few hold yours.  This is not apt to change in the short term as a trigger to a conflict that will change your beliefs is unlikely.

Now if the were a revolution, if the violent people who led it really did become saints somehow, if they really wanted to work for the benefit of the people, would they not have to do something about the crisis level problems?  Would that not have to come up with a method, such as representative democracy, to put a check on those who have power over the distribution of wealth?  Would they not have to adopt the checks and balances that were introduced in the Enlightenment?  In short, would they not have to ignore Marx and adopt a modern way of looking at things?

This does not mean the problems Marx saw with the division of wealth don’t have to be addressed.  He was great at seeing the problem.  He was terrible at coming up with a solution.  Still, the turnings address the largest problem facing the culture.  If the crisis problems are really addressed in this time, the division of wealth is more or less next problem up?  It is what the next generation of prophets could be yelling about, the central issue of the next crisis?

But this doesn’t make violence how you change democratic cultures in the Information Age.

At any rate, I doubt this note will produce a Hiroshima moment for you.  You are too locked into one simplistic perspective to learn.  Nor are you apt to say something that turns Eric a color other than green.  But you should be able to learn that other people hold other perspectives as more important than things, and that you are unlikely to change their minds.  If I am right, and that the crisis problems will be in good part addressed in the current crisis, that the division of wealth is due to rise to the top of cultural flaws, a little patience might serve you well.