Quote:Since Marx wrote his theories around the time of the Mexican War, Democracies have learned to change their culture through non violence, protest and legislation.  If violence is the last resort, non violence would be preferred to revolution.

Quote:The problem is that non-violence is of limited use against autocratic regimes.  They just ignore their people generally.  If violent revolution is to be cost effective or necessary, it will occur there.

Quote:The problems are also not becoming greater.  Things were much worse in the Gilded Age.

Quote:Now if

Quote:(1) middle-income white people started voting like middle-class black people, or
(2) middle-class white people started giving a damn about the welfare of poor white largely in the M&D South...

America would get the renewal that it needs.

(02-01-2021, 02:39 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 02:06 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 12:58 PM)Einzige Wrote: Can any of you describe the political economy of Team Fed or Team Blue in any systemic way?

For this, you must paint with a sprayer, because it's all over the map.

I can pretty well do so.

Team Red theoretically supports free markets and low taxes.

Quote:In actuality it subsidizes domestic manufacturers and extractive industries, with roots in the Army and Marines (of course the military skews conservative in general, but these are the political mainstays of the GOP there), as well as agriculture. This creates contradictions between its social base and theoretical superstructure.

Quote:Team Blue ostensibly supports leveling social programs and unions.

Quote:In actuality it subsidizes foreign trade oriented industries and the emerging green and IT sectors; in the military its strength mostly lies in the Navy and Air Force. This produces contradictions between its social base and theoretical superstructure.

Quote:The interplay of these contradictions drives the dialectic of American politics.

Quote:Marxism works.

(02-02-2021, 02:13 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You tell me -- which Marxist school? I am sure that someone can tell me that there is some perfect form of fascism that would solve all problems. Yes, cull Humanity until the only people still are the ones who adore the Greatest Political Leader of All Time. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Chilean and Argentine military regimes, Apartheid figures in South Africa, and Satan Hussein are much more similar than they might have said they were.

(02-02-2021, 10:37 AM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: Team Red theoretically supports limited government and supports the Constitution, individual rights, the entire military (the sailors, the airmen, the infantry, special forces, marines and whoever directly commands them) and fiscal prudence as well.

Except none of this, of course, is actually true. Team Red were the ones who initiated Prohibition (in the name of moral purity), the War on Drugs (in the name of moral purity), the War on Crime (in the name of moral purity), authorized the Patriot Act (with help from Joe Biden), stoked the flames of the Moral Majority in the 80s, defended laws discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, etc. They don't actually care about muh freedoms. They care about market freedoms, and only then when they serve their own party.

Quote:. The Rhino's (JFK minded Democrats/Reagan Democrats) value big government and the use of government to serve its interests and spending massive amounts of money about as much as the Blue Team. The Rhino's are pretty much on their way out at the moment (5 Senators/10 Congress people). The rest have fallen in line with the American Right's populist movement.

Donald Trump spent more in office than Obama....

Quote:I know that you don't like either team and you'd prefer a team that represents pure Marxism and prefer to live in a world that's costs nothing where no one owns anything

People own personal property under Communism.

Quote:where no one cares about anything valuable and everyone is completely selfless and motivate by the goodness of producing then sharing

Negative. That is not Marxism. From The German Ideology.

Quote:Communism is quite incomprehensible to our saint because the communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in its sentimental or ‘it its high-flown ideological form; they rather demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selflessness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals. Hence, the communists by no means want, as Saint Max believes, and as his loyal Dottore Graziano (Arnold Ruge) repeats after him (for which Saint Max calls him “an unusually cunning and politic mind”, Wigand, p. 192), to do away with the “private individual” for the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a figment of the imagination concerning which both of them could already have found the necessary explanation in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Communist theoreticians, the only communists who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely by the fact that they alone have discovered that throughout history the “general interest” is created by individuals who are defined as “private persons”. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, what is called the “general interest”, is constantly being produced by the other side, private interest, and in relation to the latter it is by no means an independent force with an independent history — so that this contradiction is in practice constantly destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian “negative unity” of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially determined destruction of the preceding materially determined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.

Under Communism, one produces because there is social utility in it - there are more personal benefits to production under Communism than under capitalism.
 

Quote:but that world doesn't exist so you'll have to choose between the two or learn to accept whichever you view as the worst of the two and the greater threat to you personally.

Why?

Quote:Trump had a virus show up unexpectedly and impact the entire economy that required massive spending to keep industries, companies and working people afloat while the country was dealing/adjusting to all the work related restrictions and government imposed shutdowns.

Quote:Oh, he also lowered the corporate tax rate to reverse the outward trend in manufacturing and initiate new growth in manufacturing.

Quote:He also lowered the individual tax rate and increased deductions and added tax credits to help the working class who had been struggling to stay above water for several years keep more of the money they earned in the own pockets/bank accounts as well.

Quote:Obama inherited a stabilized economy from the previous administration that he didn't do much of anything to improve or initiate growth to replenish job losses.

Quote:He also a costly war in Iraq that he wanted to get out of as soon as possible

Quote:he pretty much milked out a couple of terms without anything else major occurring here while in office. I'd say the difference in the amount of spending between them is pretty obvious.

Quote:The people own whatever personal goods that are made available to the public under Communism. But, the people don't own anything of major value like homes or land or business's or previous metals or boats or cars or precious heirlooms or precious art and so forth.

(02-02-2021, 02:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 10:37 AM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: Team Red theoretically supports limited government and supports the Constitution, individual rights, the entire military (the sailors, the airmen, the infantry, special forces, marines and whoever directly commands them) and fiscal prudence as well.

Except none of this, of course, is actually true. Team Red were the ones who initiated Prohibition (in the name of moral purity), the War on Drugs (in the name of moral purity), the War on Crime (in the name of moral purity), authorized the Patriot Act (with help from Joe Biden), stoked the flames of the Moral Majority in the 80s, defended laws discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, etc. They don't actually care about muh freedoms. They care about market freedoms, and only then when they serve their own party.

Quote:. The Rhino's (JFK minded Democrats/Reagan Democrats) value big government and the use of government to serve its interests and spending massive amounts of money about as much as the Blue Team. The Rhino's are pretty much on their way out at the moment (5 Senators/10 Congress people). The rest have fallen in line with the American Right's populist movement.

Donald Trump spent more in office than Obama....

Quote:I know that you don't like either team and you'd prefer a team that represents pure Marxism and prefer to live in a world that's costs nothing where no one owns anything

People own personal property under Communism.

Quote:where no one cares about anything valuable and everyone is completely selfless and motivate by the goodness of producing then sharing

Negative. That is not Marxism. From The German Ideology.

Quote:Communism is quite incomprehensible to our saint because the communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in its sentimental or ‘it its high-flown ideological form; they rather demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selflessness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals. Hence, the communists by no means want, as Saint Max believes, and as his loyal Dottore Graziano (Arnold Ruge) repeats after him (for which Saint Max calls him “an unusually cunning and politic mind”, Wigand, p. 192), to do away with the “private individual” for the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a figment of the imagination concerning which both of them could already have found the necessary explanation in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Communist theoreticians, the only communists who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely by the fact that they alone have discovered that throughout history the “general interest” is created by individuals who are defined as “private persons”. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, what is called the “general interest”, is constantly being produced by the other side, private interest, and in relation to the latter it is by no means an independent force with an independent history — so that this contradiction is in practice constantly destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian “negative unity” of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially determined destruction of the preceding materially determined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.

Under Communism, one produces because there is social utility in it - there are more personal benefits to production under Communism than under capitalism.
 

Quote:but that world doesn't exist so you'll have to choose between the two or learn to accept whichever you view as the worst of the two and the greater threat to you personally.

Why?

Trump had a virus show up unexpectedly and impact the entire economy that required massive spending to keep industries, companies and working people afloat while the country was dealing/adjusting to all the work related restrictions and government imposed shutdowns. Oh, he also lowered the corporate tax rate to reverse the outward trend in manufacturing and initiate new growth in manufacturing. He also lowered the individual tax rate and increased deductions and added tax credits to help the working class who had been struggling to stay above water for several years keep more of the money they earned in the own pockets/bank accounts as well. Obama inherited a stabilized economy from the previous administration that he didn't do much of anything to improve or initiate growth to replenish job losses. He also a costly war in Iraq that he wanted to get out of as soon as possible and he pretty much milked out a couple of terms without anything else major occurring here while in office. I'd say the difference in the amount of spending between them is pretty obvious.

The people own whatever personal goods that are made available to the public under Communism. But, the people don't own anything of major value like homes or land or business's or previous metals or boats or cars or precious heirlooms or precious art and so forth. As far as your question why? I don't know why, you'll have to go back to go back to the beginning of civilization  and ask them why.

(02-01-2021, 12:58 PM)Einzige Wrote: Can any of you describe the political economy of Team Fed or Team Blue in any systemic way?

(02-02-2021, 02:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 12:58 PM)Einzige Wrote: Can any of you describe the political economy of Team Fed or Team Blue in any systemic way?

I'd call it Fascism myself.

(02-02-2021, 12:48 PM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 12:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 11:48 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 01:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump left plenty of warning signs. He has huge funds and he gets attached to a porn star. He is taped talking about grabbing women by their "kitty cats". He mocks  the handicapped. He denounces people for their religion and ethnicity.  A bit fewer than 46% or the American electorate vote for him in 2016, and an even larger share vote for him in 2020. Character is destiny, and people of bad character eventually get bad results even if they have competence and talent. Just look at Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Phil Spector. 

Again, nothing you say about him changes the fact that there were a number of people who voted for him despite all of that simply because, in a binary system, the things his administration might or might not accomplish was preferable than the policy agenda of his opponent.

The moral objectionability of Trump allowed the left to spend four years pretending that vote didn't happen and try to figure out how to jury rig the system so that it would never happen again instead of regrouping and determining why the loss actually happened and coming back with a stronger, better party that appealed to more than a bare majority of America.   Continuing to act as if nobody except a racist would have voted for him is furthering this ostrich-like mindset and is only going to further the partisan divide.

But, I'm getting tired of being Cassandra so I may just have to stop engaging in discussions on this topic.  I've made my points, consider them or not.

"a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others." Who is Cassandra depends on your views. People like me have been warning against free-market economics and the moral minority for well over 40 years.

To people like me, warning of further partisan division now is like warning about a storm that has already come and flooded the city. Why should I care? The only point is who is going to win.

I agree, lots of Republican and Republican-leaning voters supported Trump as a matter of course because he pledged to support their favorite policies, like pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-business etc. Racism is a hidden factor in much of this, as well as religious conservatism, but it's not the only reason people voted for Trump. It just stirred up a lot of hate that was hidden before. People like me on the Left called him a fake president, because he was unqualified for the job, and we wondered why that was not a factor in peoples' votes. "Jury-rigging the system" on the Democrats' part consisted of efforts, only somewhat successful, to end the jury-rigging the Republicans and our founding fathers had done, especially voter suppression laws, voter-roll purges, poll closings in Democratic-voting areas and so on.

The Democrats did come back with a stronger party and a better candidate in 2020. Biden won over 7 million more votes than Trump, and still barely won the White House because of the outdated electoral college that favors small and former slave states. If the Democrats don't choose Harris to run in 2024, they should continue to get stronger, since they are interested in real problems, and since the country is becoming more diverse and less wedded to ancient ideologies. If Republicans cling to Trump they will lose ground and perhaps disappear. If the Democrats continue to give-in to or adopt Republican policies, they will continue to appear weak and ineffective and will also lose ground, and so will the nation. What needs to happen is that more people need to learn that Democratic Party policies work and are better than the Republican Party policies.

Trump blatantly appealed to racism throughout his 5-year political career, and did not care about police shootings more than he did about using supposed riots to stoke his vote. That helped his chances to win, and it also further divided the nation much more than correctly attributing his support in part to racism would.

Eric, I kinda like you, but sometimes you illustrate to me just how bat sh*t insane and immersed in a narrative disconnected from reality the modern left has become, at least when compared to those I admired in my youth.  Some of the statements you casually throw out as Truth™ are exactly why I worry about the fate of dissenters in the remaining parts of the 4T and just how totalitarian the 1T will be.

(02-02-2021, 01:40 PM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote:Now if

Quote:(1) middle-income white people started voting like middle-class black people, or
(2) middle-class white people started giving a damn about the welfare of poor white largely in the M&D South...

America would get the renewal that it needs.

Eugenics was a middle-class progressive phenomenon, as were zoning laws (to keep the poor from congregating), Prohibition, etc. Nobody wants or desires a petit-bourgeois progressivism which yokes the interests and lives of the proletariat to the "worthy" middle classes. Middle class progressivism is a class response to their declining fortunes and an attempt to throw the mass of the poor into the breach against Big Capital.

(02-02-2021, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 02:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 10:37 AM)Einzige Wrote:

Quote: Team Red theoretically supports limited government and supports the Constitution, individual rights, the entire military (the sailors, the airmen, the infantry, special forces, marines and whoever directly commands them) and fiscal prudence as well.

Except none of this, of course, is actually true. Team Red were the ones who initiated Prohibition (in the name of moral purity), the War on Drugs (in the name of moral purity), the War on Crime (in the name of moral purity), authorized the Patriot Act (with help from Joe Biden), stoked the flames of the Moral Majority in the 80s, defended laws discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, etc. They don't actually care about muh freedoms. They care about market freedoms, and only then when they serve their own party.

Quote:. The Rhino's (JFK minded Democrats/Reagan Democrats) value big government and the use of government to serve its interests and spending massive amounts of money about as much as the Blue Team. The Rhino's are pretty much on their way out at the moment (5 Senators/10 Congress people). The rest have fallen in line with the American Right's populist movement.

Donald Trump spent more in office than Obama....

Quote:I know that you don't like either team and you'd prefer a team that represents pure Marxism and prefer to live in a world that's costs nothing where no one owns anything

People own personal property under Communism.

Quote:where no one cares about anything valuable and everyone is completely selfless and motivate by the goodness of producing then sharing

Negative. That is not Marxism. From The German Ideology.

Quote:Communism is quite incomprehensible to our saint because the communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in its sentimental or ‘it its high-flown ideological form; they rather demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selflessness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals. Hence, the communists by no means want, as Saint Max believes, and as his loyal Dottore Graziano (Arnold Ruge) repeats after him (for which Saint Max calls him “an unusually cunning and politic mind”, Wigand, p. 192), to do away with the “private individual” for the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a figment of the imagination concerning which both of them could already have found the necessary explanation in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Communist theoreticians, the only communists who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely by the fact that they alone have discovered that throughout history the “general interest” is created by individuals who are defined as “private persons”. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, what is called the “general interest”, is constantly being produced by the other side, private interest, and in relation to the latter it is by no means an independent force with an independent history — so that this contradiction is in practice constantly destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian “negative unity” of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially determined destruction of the preceding materially determined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.

Under Communism, one produces because there is social utility in it - there are more personal benefits to production under Communism than under capitalism.
 

Quote:but that world doesn't exist so you'll have to choose between the two or learn to accept whichever you view as the worst of the two and the greater threat to you personally.

Why?

Trump had a virus show up unexpectedly and impact the entire economy that required massive spending to keep industries, companies and working people afloat while the country was dealing/adjusting to all the work related restrictions and government imposed shutdowns. Oh, he also lowered the corporate tax rate to reverse the outward trend in manufacturing and initiate new growth in manufacturing. He also lowered the individual tax rate and increased deductions and added tax credits to help the working class who had been struggling to stay above water for several years keep more of the money they earned in the own pockets/bank accounts as well. Obama inherited a stabilized economy from the previous administration that he didn't do much of anything to improve or initiate growth to replenish job losses. He also a costly war in Iraq that he wanted to get out of as soon as possible and he pretty much milked out a couple of terms without anything else major occurring here while in office. I'd say the difference in the amount of spending between them is pretty obvious.

The people own whatever personal goods that are made available to the public under Communism. But, the people don't own anything of major value like homes or land or business's or previous metals or boats or cars or precious heirlooms or precious art and so forth. As far as your question why? I don't know why, you'll have to go back to go back to the beginning of civilization and ask them why.

We have a fight between a cat and a Jack Russell terrier. It's not clear, but both may have sized each other as prey. One is convinced that as a cat it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. The other is convinced that as a dog it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. What one ignores is how cat-like dogs can be and how dog-like cats can be. 

Both creatures are for all practical purposes miniature versions of tigers. Terriers are the most tiger-like of dogs. This fight is the sort that could have arisen in a Roman circus between a tiger and a bear, except involving far-smaller creatures.  This is a fight to avoid. Try breaking it up with your hands and you will be mauled. 

I'll take the nozzle of a spray hose and shoot both, thank you.

(02-02-2021, 03:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Cats are Democrats and Dogs are Republicans, Classic Xer. You are a dog.

(02-02-2021, 03:19 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: We have a fight between a cat and a Jack Russell terrier. It's not clear, but both may have sized each other as prey. One is convinced that as a cat it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. The other is convinced that as a dog it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. What one ignores is how cat-like dogs can be and how dog-like cats can be. 

Both creatures are for all practical purposes miniature versions of tigers. Terriers are the most tiger-like of dogs. This fight is the sort that could have arisen in a Roman circus between a tiger and a bear, except involving far-smaller creatures.  This is a fight to avoid. Try breaking it up with your hands and you will be mauled. 

I'll take the nozzle of a spray hose and shoot both, thank you.

I'm not a cat and he's not a dog and all you would do is end up getting hurt by one of us or both of us.

(02-02-2021, 04:00 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 03:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Cats are Democrats and Dogs are Republicans, Classic Xer. You are a dog.

You people have the reasoning of small children.

(02-02-2021, 04:00 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 03:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Cats are Democrats and Dogs are Republicans, Classic Xer. You are a dog.

You people have the reasoning of small children.

(02-03-2021, 01:41 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Communists have no sense of humor.

(02-02-2021, 12:48 PM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 12:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 11:48 AM)mamabug Wrote:

(02-01-2021, 01:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump left plenty of warning signs. He has huge funds and he gets attached to a porn star. He is taped talking about grabbing women by their "kitty cats". He mocks  the handicapped. He denounces people for their religion and ethnicity.  A bit fewer than 46% or the American electorate vote for him in 2016, and an even larger share vote for him in 2020. Character is destiny, and people of bad character eventually get bad results even if they have competence and talent. Just look at Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Phil Spector. 

Again, nothing you say about him changes the fact that there were a number of people who voted for him despite all of that simply because, in a binary system, the things his administration might or might not accomplish was preferable than the policy agenda of his opponent.

The moral objectionability of Trump allowed the left to spend four years pretending that vote didn't happen and try to figure out how to jury rig the system so that it would never happen again instead of regrouping and determining why the loss actually happened and coming back with a stronger, better party that appealed to more than a bare majority of America.   Continuing to act as if nobody except a racist would have voted for him is furthering this ostrich-like mindset and is only going to further the partisan divide.

But, I'm getting tired of being Cassandra so I may just have to stop engaging in discussions on this topic.  I've made my points, consider them or not.

"a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others." Who is Cassandra depends on your views. People like me have been warning against free-market economics and the moral minority for well over 40 years.

To people like me, warning of further partisan division now is like warning about a storm that has already come and flooded the city. Why should I care? The only point is who is going to win.

I agree, lots of Republican and Republican-leaning voters supported Trump as a matter of course because he pledged to support their favorite policies, like pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-business etc. Racism is a hidden factor in much of this, as well as religious conservatism, but it's not the only reason people voted for Trump. It just stirred up a lot of hate that was hidden before. People like me on the Left called him a fake president, because he was unqualified for the job, and we wondered why that was not a factor in peoples' votes. "Jury-rigging the system" on the Democrats' part consisted of efforts, only somewhat successful, to end the jury-rigging the Republicans and our founding fathers had done, especially voter suppression laws, voter-roll purges, poll closings in Democratic-voting areas and so on.

The Democrats did come back with a stronger party and a better candidate in 2020. Biden won over 7 million more votes than Trump, and still barely won the White House because of the outdated electoral college that favors small and former slave states. If the Democrats don't choose Harris to run in 2024, they should continue to get stronger, since they are interested in real problems, and since the country is becoming more diverse and less wedded to ancient ideologies. If Republicans cling to Trump they will lose ground and perhaps disappear. If the Democrats continue to give-in to or adopt Republican policies, they will continue to appear weak and ineffective and will also lose ground, and so will the nation. What needs to happen is that more people need to learn that Democratic Party policies work and are better than the Republican Party policies.

Trump blatantly appealed to racism throughout his 5-year political career, and did not care about police shootings more than he did about using supposed riots to stoke his vote. That helped his chances to win, and it also further divided the nation much more than correctly attributing his support in part to racism would.

Eric, I kinda like you, but sometimes you illustrate to me just how bat sh*t insane and immersed in a narrative disconnected from reality the modern left has become, at least when compared to those I admired in my youth.  Some of the statements you casually throw out as Truth™ are exactly why I worry about the fate of dissenters in the remaining parts of the 4T and just  how totalitarian the 1T will be.