The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Classic-Xer]

Einzige

(03-11-2021, 04:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The partisan divide on issues" today is not liberal vs. Marxist. Ignore Einzige.

Marxism is growing quite rapidly - and I mean real Marxism, not your middle class pseudoradical liberal idpol. Ignor it at your peril.


Eric is pretty clueless and Liberals like Eric and Pelosi should be easy pickins for Marxist groups during the upcoming 4T. If you guys play your cards right and remain neutral as we force the Republicans to part ways with the Democrats, you could come out of this crisis in a much better position than you're in today. Keep in mind, America didn't get to the position that it's in by being nice and it won't remain in it's position by being nice either.

[pbrower2a]

(03-11-2021, 04:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The partisan divide on issues" today is not liberal vs. Marxist. Ignore Einzige.

As usual with extremists, so much hostility hinges upon tiny details of difference. See the murderous rage of Stalinists against Trotskyites. Maybe fascists are more tolerant of each other because they are partners in crime, although once they successfully divided the world into realms of subjection they would go to war on conflicting claims of racial superiority (things never quite got to the stage of The Man in the High Castle... thank God! (well, Britain, America, the Soviet Union, and China, among others). It is easy to see Nazis and Klansmen as allies against common "racial" enemies, but I doubt that Klansmen would like having to listen to this:





Bruckner's seventh symphony, a long, richly-scored, contrapuntally-brilliant masterpiece. Obviously it isn't for people with short attention spans. (Paradoxically Bruckner seems popular enough in Israel. Then again I, being about half German or Swiss in heritage consider the Ashkenazim at least cousins in culture and moral values....) Then again I am not certain that American neo-Nazis relate to this music well, either.    

Technology makes things possible that were not possible before -- making things available that ideally are better in quality, more usable, less costly, and with lesser costs of resources from material to energy. To be sure there are some basic needs such as food, water, and protection from the elements for which there can be no technological alternative. Thus technological miracles will be unable to stem any famine that results from global warming causing the inundation or desertification of prime farmland on which millions of peasant farmers live -- and feed people other than themselves.

[Classic-Xer]

(03-12-2021, 12:15 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-12-2021, 12:12 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-11-2021, 04:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The partisan divide on issues" today is not liberal vs. Marxist. Ignore Einzige.

Are you sure about that? How sure are you about that today? You better pay more attention to Enzige being half the country is now on the verge of beginning to split  the country. As I've mentioned before, I don't care who/what gets  you at this point.

What you have to work on is understanding that Marxisn =/= left-liberalism even at its most "radical".

What you have to work on is understanding that Marxism has no place in America at this point. Marxism will have to establish itself, it's place for it to become relevant.

[pbrower2a]

(03-11-2021, 11:06 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-11-2021, 10:51 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-11-2021, 10:45 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-10-2021, 05:42 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-10-2021, 04:56 PM)David Horn Wrote: The simplest solution: raise corporate taxes, then require they be paid in stock. Place the stock in a Sovereign Wealth Fund managed by an independent entity (the Fed is a good example of such an entity), which would funnel profits and dividends into the a public distribution channel.  Over time, the Fund will own it all, and you have a synthetic version of your Marxist dream.

Marxism is not mere "worker ownership of the means of production", though it has been vulgarized as such. It calls for nothing less than the abolition of commodity production for exchange and the elimination of exchange value. This does not solve that issue.

Making the perfect the enemy of the good merely guarantees neither will happen.

What you prescribe isn't even good. It's just State capitalism. You're literally just describing something Engels talked about.

If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.

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

You made my point.  Better is still better.  Your option has no chance in hell, though it may be a transition from my plan (though I personally doubt it).

Humanity took a long time breaking habits from the Agrarian Age of aristocrats and peasants, and it will take a long time breaking habits from the Industrial era in some transition to Marx's objective (and end state) of Communism in which scarcity no longer exists, social inequality has lost its relevance and its potential sting, and people get to be themselves instead of stereotypes that capitalism impose.  

As Lincoln excoriated slavery for exacting toil out of people through the lash, some later statesman may convince us that exacting toil out of people under abject fear that never quite goes away is as objection in that time as slavery was to Lincoln. 

I see Humanity still under a compulsion to toil because all of human history from the time of the first desperate efforts of agriculture makes such a part of human character, and elites exploit this aspect of human character by reminding people of the precariousness of food, water, shelter, self-esteem, and protection from unpleasant-to-dangerous weather. 

I imagine a world in which people do things mostly for their own sake because they are good or feel good instead of because someone has a harsh command-and-control system that requires fear and suffering to get people to do odious things. I imagine a world in which the status symbols of recent times become irrelevant because they have lost their meaning. I imagine poverty getting recognition as tragedy instead of as a harsh motivator.

He who demands pointless suffering is evil. To be sure, some high achievements will be difficult to attain and will require much self-development. Think of excellence on the violin. That takes about a year and a half of preparation in hours... hours that one might find more tempting things to do than to master the scales and other pedantic exercises so that when one is the soloist in Mendelssohn's Concerto in E one does not give a Jack Benny*-like result. It's easier to lie down on the beach and "catch rays", to tool around in a car that one has modified into a hot rod, to watch banal TV.... getting away with playing three hours of pedantic exercises is a question of whether one has a family that lets one get away with that. If one's family has a marginal dairy farm deep in a rural area, one might be stuck feeding or milking cows, and there might not be a good violin teacher available. 

Note well: we need far more people to milk cows, do oil changes, or change bedpans than concert violinists.  

* OK, OK, OK... Jack Benny simply played a violin out of tune for laughs. He probably could play the violin well enough if he played it straight, although he was not the Fritz Kreisler, Zino Francescatti,  Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrakh, or Nathan Milstein of his time.

[Bob Butler 54]

Is anyone out near Portland Oregon?  They are still having unrest problems, and I haven't been able to get who is the cause.  Xenakis's red crew us blaming Antifa, but Antifa exist primarily to counter fascists.  The natives are telling the protesters to go home.  The target is the federal courthouse, which was the target while Trump was sending out his secret police.  It switched to the police union building after the secret police left.  While the Proud Boys were active in the region once, they were attacking the Black Lives Matter protests.

[David Horn]

(03-12-2021, 12:15 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-12-2021, 12:12 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-11-2021, 04:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: "The partisan divide on issues" today is not liberal vs. Marxist. Ignore Einzige.

Are you sure about that? How sure are you about that today? You better pay more attention to Enzige being half the country is now on the verge of beginning to split  the country. As I've mentioned before, I don't care who/what gets  you at this point.

What you have to work on is understanding that Marxisn =/= left-liberalism even at its most "radical".

What you need to understand is the lack of efficacy Marxism offers in this modern time.  If it can't work, it's useless, and the pool of allies is declining.  That may not be permanent, but it's true now.  People are wired to be acquisitive and tribal.  Both work directly against anything vaguely communitarian on the grand scale.  Unless that changes, Marxism will remain infertile and eventually die.

[David Horn]

(03-13-2021, 07:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Is anyone out near Portland Oregon?  They are still having unrest problems, and I haven't been able to get who is the cause.  Xenakis's red crew us blaming Antifa, but Antifa exist primarily to counter fascists.  The natives are telling the protesters to go home.  The target is the federal courthouse, which was the target while Trump was sending out his secret police.  It switched to the police union building after the secret police left.  While the Proud Boys were active in the region once, they were attacking the Black Lives Matter protests.

If I had to guess, because actual information seems sketchy at best, I'll bet on a collapse of tolerance.  This has been going on for a long time, and residents have to be fed-up to the gills.  Only the hyper-committed can block-out all opposing voices, and I think that's where they are ... finally.  

The longer this continues, the less support the protestors are likely to have.

[pbrower2a]

(03-11-2021, 01:24 PM)Einzige Wrote: Socialism is the same thing as Communism. Marx doesn't distinguish.

Yes, he does distinguish. He sees Socialism as the necessary and inevitable route to Communism. His sort of Socialism, which takes the capitalist exploiter who takes a cut out of everything, out of economic activity, and a Socialist society can get much-more rapid growth with much more social equity.   Communist Parties in power typically state that they are building Socialism on the way to bringing forth Communism. No Communist Party has ever said that it was on the brink of Communist perfection.

It is analogous to people involved in Christian "End Time" prophecy that see the imminent return of Jesus solving all things... isn't that ironic?

[Einzige]

No, he doesn't distinguish. He uses the phrases "higher phase" and "lower phase Communism" in the Gothakritik. He does not call lower phase Communizm socialism, but uses the two interchangeably. The idea that socialism is analogous to lower-pbase Communism comes from Lenin.

[pbrower2a]

Trump Boosters - 28%
“they approve of how Mr. Trump did his job, but only a slight majority of them support him being the nominee again, and they are more supportive of the Republican Party than Mr. Trump personally.“
Die-hard Trumpers - 27%
“supporters of the former president who would back him in a hypothetical primary regardless of who else was running but who don’t believe in QAnon conspiracy theories”
Post-Trump GOP - 20%
”they like Mr. Trump but want to see someone else as the party’s nominee.”
Never Trump - 15%
self-explanatory.
Infowars GOP - 10%
69% of them believe in QAnon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/us/po...ions-.html

God damn! Only 15% of Republicans take what looks like the sanest position.

[David Horn]

(03-14-2021, 01:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Trump Boosters - 28%
“they approve of how Mr. Trump did his job, but only a slight majority of them support him being the nominee again, and they are more supportive of the Republican Party than Mr. Trump personally.“
Die-hard Trumpers - 27%
“supporters of the former president who would back him in a hypothetical primary regardless of who else was running but who don’t believe in QAnon conspiracy theories”
Post-Trump GOP - 20%
”they like Mr. Trump but want to see someone else as the party’s nominee.”
Never Trump - 15%
self-explanatory.
Infowars GOP - 10%
69% of them believe in QAnon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/us/po...ions-.html

God damn! Only 15% of Republicans take what looks like the sanest position.

To be fair, the Post-Trump GOP is not irrational, but it is treading water looking for a new savior.  So give the GOP a 35-65 split. It's still pretty sad.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-14-2021, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote: To be fair, the Post-Trump GOP is not irrational, but it is treading water looking for a new savior.  So give the GOP a 35-65 split. It's still pretty sad.

I would put racism and elitism as irrational. Sad indeed.

[David Horn]

(03-14-2021, 10:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote: To be fair, the Post-Trump GOP is not irrational, but it is treading water looking for a new savior.  So give the GOP a 35-65 split. It's still pretty sad.

I would put racism and elitism as irrational.  Sad indeed.

Here's where I trumpet David Shor as an example of the changing landscape of how we view US politics.  I would personally consider both racism and elitism as immoral and unethical, but still rational in a sick sort of way.  Both are examples of the open dog-whistle era. It's still TBD whether this is an end or a pivot, though it's bad either way.

If and when both become ineffective, we'll finally enter a new paradigm.  I thought the 1960s and 70s ushered that in, but obviously not so.

[Eric the Green]

(03-14-2021, 11:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 10:56 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote: To be fair, the Post-Trump GOP is not irrational, but it is treading water looking for a new savior.  So give the GOP a 35-65 split. It's still pretty sad.

I would put racism and elitism as irrational.  Sad indeed.

Here's where I trumpet David Shor as an example of the changing landscape of how we view US politics.  I would personally consider both racism and elitism as immoral and unethical, but still rational in a sick sort of way.  Both are examples of the open dog-whistle era. It's still TBD whether this is an end or a pivot, though it's bad either way.

If and when both become ineffective, we'll finally enter a new paradigm.  I thought the 1960s and 70s ushered that in, but obviously not so.

Well, for half of us, maybe it happened.

[pbrower2a]

(03-14-2021, 10:53 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 01:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Trump Boosters - 28%
“they approve of how Mr. Trump did his job, but only a slight majority of them support him being the nominee again, and they are more supportive of the Republican Party than Mr. Trump personally.“
Die-hard Trumpers - 27%
“supporters of the former president who would back him in a hypothetical primary regardless of who else was running but who don’t believe in QAnon conspiracy theories”
Post-Trump GOP - 20%
”they like Mr. Trump but want to see someone else as the party’s nominee.”
Never Trump - 15%
self-explanatory.
Infowars GOP - 10%
69% of them believe in QAnon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/us/po...ions-.html

God damn! Only 15% of Republicans take what looks like the sanest position.

To be fair, the Post-Trump GOP is not irrational, but it is treading water looking for a new savior.  So give the GOP a 35-65 split. It's still pretty sad.

65% of 50%, figuring that America is split almost evenly between Republicans and Republican-leaners on one side and 50% are Democrats and Democratic-leaners, is 32.5%. in the general election, but it is 65% of the primary election. A Trump acolyte or imitator could easily get the Republican nomination only to get crushed in the general election should President Biden appear as effective and competent. Regional divides could weaken, as much of the political divide is rural-versus-urban with Suburbia splitting almost evenly.   

Oddly, the Never-Trump faction of the GOP has more chance of winning a Presidential election if given a chance... but with the 65-35 split within the GOP likely to appear as a resounding endorsement on the way to nomination, the only way in which a Never-Trump nominee makes it to the nomination is by winning winner-take-all states in the primaries against  a splintered field -- paradoxically as Trump did in 2016. In the event that a Never-Trumper did get the nomination of the GOP there would be some large dissident wing of the GOP offering a candidacy such as that of Strom Thurmond in 1948 or George Wallace in 1968 that weakens the main Party while showing that Party who is boss. 

...To support Donald Trump after January 6 is to reject the rule of law as an essential part of democratic government, to accept political demonization of people who did nothing wrong (a basis of injustice), and to trivialize rational thought essential to problem-solving that is the essence of good government in favor of impulse or command.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-14-2021, 02:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 11:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: Here's where I trumpet David Shor as an example of the changing landscape of how we view US politics.  I would personally consider both racism and elitism as immoral and unethical, but still rational in a sick sort of way.  Both are examples of the open dog-whistle era. It's still TBD whether this is an end or a pivot, though it's bad either way.

If and when both become ineffective, we'll finally enter a new paradigm.  I thought the 1960s and 70s ushered that in, but obviously not so.

Well, for half of us, maybe it happened.

They at least forced the racism to be far more polite in the awakening.  Then the first black president in Obama did well, Trump enabled racism to become openly displayed again and Black Lives Matter surfaced to institute a modern reprise of the Civil Rights Movement of the awakening.  The current argument is about whether we will become even more polite.  I am guessing yes.

It definitely happened.  Movement was recently provoked.  Unfortunately, some of it was to the old extremes.

[pbrower2a]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alabama...in-history

Quote:The Alabama Republican Party on Saturday presented former President Donald Trump with a framed copy of a resolution, passed unanimously by the party, that declares him "one of the greatest and most effective" presidents in U.S. history.

"The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit," Perry Hooper Jr., a former state representative and a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News in an interview ahead of the reception.


Hooper presented a framed copy of the resolution to Trump at a reception at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on Saturday evening.

The resolution, which passed unanimously in the party, calls Trump "one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic" and lists his achievements in office.

"It’s just recognizing him for all the great things he has done for America for bringing back American manufacturing, cutting taxes, creating best economy ever, building up our military," Hooper said.


It also cites Trump’s handling of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, calling it "one of the most important feats in medical history," low employment rates and Supreme Court picks.

It also claims Trump "accomplished more in 48 months than Joe Biden did in 48 years as a senator and vice-president."

Hooper, who has served as the 2016 Trump campaign’s Alabama co-chairman  and was in the Trump campaign’s finance committee in 2020, said he would go a step further and say Trump was the best president ever.

"He's just done so many great things," he said. "I was a kid when Reagan was elected and I thought nobody would top the great things Ronald Reagan did but then comes along Donald J Trump and in my opinion, he’s not just one of the great presidents, he is the greatest president we’ve had in America."

Gee! Maybe I could praise the value of dimethylmercury as a nutritional supplement, the competent military leadership of George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn, the competent piloting of Joseph Hazlewood of the Exxon Valdez on March 24, 1989, the redundant controls on the Chernobyl power plant,. and the wisdom of breaking into a house through a dog door.

[David Horn]

(03-15-2021, 06:17 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Gee! Maybe I could praise the value of dimethylmercury as a nutritional supplement, the competent military leadership of George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn, the competent piloting of Joseph Hazlewood of the Exxon Valdez on March 24, 1989, the redundant controls on the Chernobyl power plant,. and the wisdom of breaking into a house through a dog door.

We'll get the Alabama legislature on this right away. 

[pbrower2a]

Just when you think that Alabama has enough wisdom to elect someone like Doug Jones it elects a Q-Anon type as a challenger.

[Bob Butler 54]

For a while Chuck Schumer has been appearing on various MSNBC shows giving his view of the senate proceedings.  In these he has borrowed a phrase from NASA, first made famous during the Apollo 13 mission.  "Failure is not an option."

For the last few decades, the senate only has two important voices: the majority leader's and the minority leader's.  Senators don't vote on whether a bill is popular with who elected them, but according to partisan policy which is linked to who is in the White House.  I suspect the Democrats are trying to break this, or if they cannot to pick up the voters whose desires are not being met.

Killing or otherwise working around the filibuster are options.  I gather failure is not.