Who are you voting for in 2016 pt. II

[pbrower2a]

(08-04-2016, 12:09 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 12:02 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: CH has undergone a transformation. His earlier notions about meritocratic determination of "transient" elites was advanced in some ways, and not really an outgrowth of Old World Agrarianism. However, he went around the bend into National Bolshevism (or at least, into a polity aligned with it). National Bolshevism with its fusion of Stalinism, Nazism and ancient Eurasian Shamanism, is clearly of the Old World Agrarian variety. It is an existential threat to Western Civilization and The World.

I'll admit I might have lost some of the subtle variations of CH's spiels.

Existential threat?  I'm a bit more concerned with modern Robber Barons now than National Bolsheviks.

Robber barons would find National Bolshevism a wonderful conduit for command and control and a means of enforcing exploitation of the masses.

[Eric the Green]

(08-04-2016, 01:00 AM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 12:31 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 12:14 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: The forces that dominated in the 3T always constitute the establishment when the 4T hits. In the recently completed 3T the government championed immigration, permanent free trade, and internationalism. Thus the side that supports those ideas and values constitute the establishment in the current 4T with the factions that are against those ideas constituting the anti-establishment. Thus hillary personifies the establishment because she is a main supporter of these policies.

Hillary is not on board with free trade. The 3T was not about internationalism. In America, it was about militarism under Reagan-Bush.

The government didn't champion immigration in the 3T. It happened. That's different. Nothing has been done to reform our immigration system. The status quo is the Republicans who refuse to act.

The Establishment or status quo that dominated the 3T is trickle-down economics, or Reaganomics. Trump supports it; Hillary opposes it.

Trump is better on the trade issue. That's the only issue he's better on. That's not enough. And no-one should trust a man who never makes anything in America with his own business, to force businesses to make things in America.

The 3T did emphasize military/defense in the earlier stages, but once the USSR fell, it became much more about internationalism and globalism. The corporations were the biggest backers of immigration and outsourcing, they were the main champions of the free-trade and end of history idea. The reaganite wing of the GOP has been thoroughly subjugated by trump. So the GOP will now focus on protectionism, and supporting US manufacturing. The only way it can return to Reaganomics would be if Trump loses and the establishment GOP regains and consolidates its former power.

You make some good points here. But again, trade is not the whole of Reaganomics. It's a small part of it, and the most bi-partisan part. Reaganomics is lower taxes on the wealthy, fewer regulations on business, and cuts in social programs. That's what Trump has promised. So although the GOP now has two wings, they are both essentially Establishment wings.

Trump will lose, and I think the Republican Party may fall to pieces before this 4T is over after 2028. Trump is the first step in that dissolution.

[Eric the Green]

(08-04-2016, 12:26 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Thanks Eric for solidifying my position. Since I know your right about as often as a broken clock (and I'm being really generous here in saying that) your statements show clearly that my analysis is correct.

I have the best cosmic clock in the business. I know what time it is.

Quote:No matter what happens in the 1T, no matter how the 1T feels, or is like it is fundamentally different from what was before the 4T. That happens, and can only happen with whatever the establishment was being completely destroyed.

Yes, and you are supporting the Establishment.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-04-2016, 03:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump will lose, and I think the Republican Party may fall to pieces before this 4T is over after 2028. Trump is the first step in that dissolution.

A quibble.  I won't go into all out flame war saying you are wrong.

But Bush 43 came to the White House with a working alliance between Wall Street, the Military Industrial complex, Big Oil and the fundamentalist religious.  Heavy mojo.  He had a military disaster in Iraq, and a financial disaster on Wall Street.  This went a long way to discredit the Republican unravelling style of government.  I doubt that Trump could have beaten the Republican Establishment candidates if Bush 43 hadn't so badly discredited the Republican unravelling ways of doing things.  The Republican base is truly fed up with their Establishment status quo, can not tolerate more of the same, and a good deal of that can be traced back to 43.  43 opened the door for Trump.

I have no trouble agreeing that Trump might well become a big step part of dissolution, but will quibble with 'first step'.

[Eric the Green]

(08-04-2016, 03:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 03:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump will lose, and I think the Republican Party may fall to pieces before this 4T is over after 2028. Trump is the first step in that dissolution.

A quibble.  I won't go into all out flame war saying you are wrong.

But Bush 43 came to the White House with a working alliance between Wall Street, the Military Industrial complex, Big Oil and the fundamentalist religious.  Heavy mojo.  He had a military disaster in Iraq, and a financial disaster on Wall Street.  This went a long way to discredit the Republican unravelling style of government.  I doubt that Trump could have beaten the Republican Establishment candidates if Bush 43 hadn't so badly discredited the Republican unravelling ways of doing things.  The Republican base is truly fed up with their Establishment status quo, can not tolerate more of the same, and a good deal of that can be traced back to 43.  43 opened the door for Trump.

I have no trouble agreeing that Trump might well become a big step part of dissolution, but will quibble with 'first step'.

I have no problem with that quibble!

[Kinser79]

(08-04-2016, 11:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: First, I always read S&H as very conservative for a pair of folk who came up with a theory of how transforming change occurs.  They always insisted that their theory is non-partisan, that it didn’t favor or justify the theories or principles of either party.  I disagree with that.

I would say that you should be right in disagreeing with their insistence that their theory is non-partisan, unless of course they mean that their theory could be applied by any partisan. The fact is that all humans have a bias of one sort or an other. And I would agree with you that S&H are socially conservative, which in the US means that they would as a consequence be Classical Liberals.

The notion that conservatism means Guilded Age Capitalism and liberal means socialist is an out growth of the New Deal and is transitory (though for the people living in this saeculum it seems pretty much permanent). I would argue that in the grand arc of history the US does not really have a conservative party but rather two liberal parties, one Jeffersonian the other Federalist. It is unfortunate that the current Federalist party has moved so far to the left as to openly embrace the destruction of the American culture. It will not end well for them, cultural authoritarianism is in direct opposition to our national character, and always has been.

Quote:  I always thought a 4T would address the gravest problems of any given era, and in most crises in the Anglo-American series, this meant that the establishment elites lost power, wealth and influence to progressives who wished to force change.

When old elites fall a new elite takes their place. At present I cannot detect a new elite as those who would be most likely to be considered the new elite have taken places along side the current elite and are unlikely to break with that as they love their indentured servants. H1B visa anyone?

As such the only solution to the most agregious tumors on the bodypolitic can only be addressed through protectionism, nativism and isolationism.

Quote:To that extent, yes, a crisis generally gives the Establishment a black eye.

Bob, you obviously have never lived in the South. The antebellum establishment was crushed there. The same was true for Japan and Germany. After 1789 anyone suggesting rejoining the British Crown was run out of the country into Canada...if they were lucky and I guarantee you that anyone suggesting a return to the policies of Coolidge in the 1950s would have been laughed at--at least.

The 4T destroys the old establishment and creates a new one. It may be possible that in a Mega-Unraveling that this need not happen, but that only sets up a saculum of one crisis after another resulting in Revolution. The French and Russian revolutions being prime examples.

Quote:The problem is in correctly identifying the gravest problems, seeing who is trying to solve them, and who represents the Establishment that wants to continue to hold power and profit by leaving the problem unsolved.

At present the gravest problems are a result of welfare stateism, over regulation, labor importation and cultural dilution. HRC represents, nay personifies the establishment propping up those problems. And there are no indications that she is likely to be a renegade like Gorbachev who will try to engineer a softer collapse. After all she's running as Obama's third term, a term of band aid here, patch there never addressing the crumbling foundation. Assuming she gets in, and survives more than a few months we can expect things to get extremely bad.

Quote:As an heir of sort to the Whigs, I have a shortcut arrow of progress that helps me distinguish between Establishment and Progressive.  The arrow points towards human rights, equality and democracy.  In this particular crisis, we’ve got income inequality and an biased legal system that leans hard on certain minorities.  In just about any crisis, the wealthy have too much influence over the politicians, and this one is no different.

I largely agree with you here. However, the solutions are not censorship (IE PC Culture), Lawlessness and Terrorism (BLM and etc), and more regulations and regulatory agencies prone toward regulatory capture.

Quote:<snip..babbling> </snip>
Thus, from my perspective, income inequality is the gravest problem, and Robber Barons are the elite whose power
and wealth must be diminished.

Income inequality is largely the result of New Deal regulations gone bad (everything has an expiration date after all), largely due to inept tinkering largely done by Silents. The problem with your theory is that the Robber Barons that currently exist, all exist in China. You are attempting to impose industrial solutions on a deindustrialized economy. It simply won't work.

Rather we should see why there is that income inequality, accept that some people will earn more than others (either they are more productive, smarter, or whatever--and yes that includes that they just may have more capital than others) and to address this in a way that is most equitable to everyone. I have a feeling that cutting out a large portion of the regulatory cruft will go a long way. Also simplifying and streamlining those regulations and making changing them far more difficult will allow for a degree of certainty necessary for people to invest competently. Unless of course you like bubble economies.

On the cultural front we should reformulate family court to be more equitable toward men, end the welfare cliff (a huge reason why people on welfare have difficulty getting off--the costs in child care and so on are greater than the wages they could earn). Part of this would be helped tremendously by limiting immigration to allow for the assimilation of the foreign born that are here and the natural rise of wages due to labor shortages.

I certainly don't have all the answers here, neither does Trump, but I know for a fact who doesn't have any answers to these problems.


 

Quote:Your father is the living embodiment, the walking talking platonic ideal manifestation, of the idea of Robber Baron.  He has spent his life amassing great personal wealth with no regard to the common man.  I see no reason to expect him to change.  His economic plan features tax breaks for the Robber Barons.  His solution is to increase the economic inequality.

Actually his tax plan also provides the greatest tax break toward working people as well. A great deal of that lost revenue on production will be made up for in tariffs which are a tax on consumption. In order to be wealthy a country needs to import raw materials and export finished goods. Countries that do the opposite look like Zimbabwe.

Quote:Hillary, meanwhile, had not been a politician until after her husband left the White House.  She had been a lobbyist and activist on the behalf of women, children, minorities and the ill.  She has spent her life pushing for equality, trying to benefit the People who have been trodden on worst.

Where were you in the 1990s? I clearly remember them repeating over and over that they were a two-for-one deal.

Quote:The two people have spent their lives pushing very different causes.  For one whose arrow of progress points at equality, human rights and democracy, my choice is absurdly clear.

They have I will admit. While HRC has talked about helping people become more wealthy, Trump actually did it by actually hiring people.

Quote:Then there is Trump’s endorsement of leaders like Putin and Saddam Hussain who tried and are trying to make the Agricultural Age style of intimidating tyrant continue to work in the modern age.

Both are leaders in completely different civilizations with different civilizational values. Say what you like about Putin, but Russia is looking fairly good these days, even when one leaves Leningrad and Moscow. This last spring I went to see a friend of mine over there (an American who teaches English and lives in Western Siberia of all places). Crime was way down, drug addiction and alcoholism was way down (though it is still a problem, Siberia is pretty depressing anyway) and over all the people there are doing much better than they were under the USSR not to mention Yeltsin when even Moscovites were starving. And Russia always feeds Moscow if everyone else starves...always. It is in their history over and over.

As for Saddam Hussein, let me say this. Under him there was no ISIS, there was no Al Qeda (or however they are spelling it these days) and so on and so forth in Iraq. Was the regime brutal? Yes. But their civilization is not our civilization and we cannot transplant ours into their soil. Civilizations are the result of generations of work and can't be transposed with just education, or at the point of a gun. Trump understands that, Hillary does not.

Quote:While I’ve often suggested that Cynic Hero’s desire to restore autocratic strong man Agricultural Age values is pretty much unique to him, very un-American, Trump in some ways does match Cynic’s ideal of going back to the old way of doing things.  Trump isn’t often explicit in saying such, for good reason, but he gives hints of it from time to time.

CH's "restorationism" is unique to him and not relevant to Trump. Or to anyone else for that matter. Where you see hints of Trump "going back" to something like this so-called restorationism, I see rather Trump inculcating and elucidating a vision that traditionally American. So traditional as to have been prescribed by George Washington himself in his farewell address (seriously you should read it sometime--the BF covers it in his HS history course even though that is discouraged these days, not that he cares). That vision includes the following things: Protection for native industry, control of the borders, and rejection of entangling alliances (IE forming alliances for our national benefit and on our terms).

Quote:Issues aside, your father does not play well with others.  If he is frustrated in any way, he will throw a tantrum, demonize the other person, and throw about insults.  It doesn’t matter who he is dealing with…  women, minorities, the disabled, reporters, fire marshals, gold star mothers, Republican authorities, even Democrats on occasion, get given the same sort of treatment.  I have no reason to expect this will change should he get elected and have to work with foreign leaders, who are already quite alarmed at having to deal with him.  Issues and philosophy aside, he just doesn’t have the temperament to work with human beings he can’t just fire should they disagree with him.  His personality alone would disqualify him as a candidate in my eyes, even if he did have a history of working for the benefit of others.

First that is an unsubstantiated Democrat talking point. But if you want to incorporate that into your subjective view of reality so be it.

Second, if you don't like Trump you are under no obligation to vote for him. We are a republic with democratic institutions after all.

Third, I really don't care what foreign leaders think. They have a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of their states/nation-states. Likewise our President has a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of America and Americans. If the French or the Chinese, or the Mexicans or whomever else doesn't like that..then tough titty said the kitty.

A huge part of the problems this country faces now is that for too long the US President has cared more about upholding alliances which long ago outlived their usefulness (NATO) or sought to rack up brownie points with foreign states at the expense of American workers (NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and etc). Since I have no indication at all that HRC has substantially changed her positions that made her unacceptable to me in 08 she remains unacceptable to me in 16 and thus you have me supporting Trump at the moment.

Regardless of whether he wins or loses I'm convinced he will fundamentally alter the GOP. I could be wrong on this of course, but experience informs me that when my gut and my brain are in agreement on something it most likely is the way those two organs agree upon.

Quote:Anyway, my primary thrust is that too much power and wealth is often placed in the hands of an elite class.  In any given crisis, the abusive behavior of the elite class must be reduced.  In recent history, this elite class is the Robber Barons.  No single crisis will totally end the power of elitism, or even destroy a specific elite class.  Some issues will be resolved, but the answers are never complete.  The battles of one crisis are never fully over.

In a way I actually agree with you. However, I think that you're misdirected. You are looking to fight WWI in France in 1940. This 4T is fundamentally different from the last one, just like that one was fundamentally different from the one before, and so on.

If it is any consolation, my mother agrees with most of your points. It leads me to believe that a great many Boomers and Older Xers haven't realized that the world has moved on from 1992.

As Milo has said before, in order to be dissident, mischievous, to be punk rock these days; one must be a conservative. I of course would quibble on the conservative part as I consider myself to be a classical liberal anymore which is conservative only in the sense that we want to conserve the very best things of our civilization, why, because those things are what is important.

[Bob Butler 54]

Hmm.  I seem to have gotten caught up in a stripped post style.  Ah, well.  Here we go.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-04-2016, 11:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: First, I always read S&H as very conservative for a pair of folk who came up with a theory of how transforming change occurs.  They always insisted that their theory is non-partisan, that it didn’t favor or justify the theories or principles of either party.  I disagree with that.

I would say that you should be right in disagreeing with their insistence that their theory is non-partisan, unless of course they mean that their theory could be applied by any partisan.  The fact is that all humans have a bias of one sort or an other.  And I would agree with you that S&H are socially conservative, which in the US means that they would as a consequence be Classical Liberals.

The notion that conservatism means Guilded Age Capitalism and liberal means socialist is an out growth of the New Deal and is transitory (though for the people living in this saeculum it seems pretty much permanent).  I would argue that in the grand arc of history the US does not really have a conservative party but rather two liberal parties, one Jeffersonian the other Federalist.  It is unfortunate that the current Federalist party has moved so far to the left as to openly embrace the destruction of the American culture.  It will not end well for them, cultural authoritarianism is in direct opposition to our national character, and always has been.

Racists have traditionally bemoaned how the latest wave of immigrants could destroy American culture.  I'm not worried about it.  The new wave is generally assimilated.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: When old elites fall a new elite takes their place.  At present I cannot detect a new elite as those who would be most likely to be considered the new elite have taken places along side the current elite and are unlikely to break with that as they love their indentured servants.  H1B visa anyone?

As such the only solution to the most agregious tumors on the bodypolitic can only be addressed through protectionism, nativism and isolationism.

While FDR did a lot for the working classes, he didn't make the slightest dent in the capitalist class.  Everyone who owned stocks still owned stocks.  The structure of owning stocks, factories, large tracts of land, etc... didn't change at all.  The old hereditary nobility and the southern slave holding agricultural elites has special laws that gave them a privileged unequal position.  These laws had to be changed big time to deprive them of their privilege.  While tax rates get trimmed and attempts are made to make stock markets less volatile,  there has not yet been a perceived need to get rid of the system by which the Robber Barons maintain power.

New industries have arisen and will continue to arise.  I'll mention computers as an example, and suspect genetic engineering is upcoming.  Lots more.  However, the newly rich elites use the same financial structures and methods as earlier established Robber Barons.  They just merge with the capitalist class with no need or desire to alter the forces that give the old elites power.  They are not replacing the old elite class.  They are joining the existing elite class.

Thus your insistence that crises are about getting rid of an old elite and replacing it with a new elite are erroneous.  The concept is inapplicable to the Great Depression aspect of FDR's time and the economic aspect of this time.  Capitalistic elites exist, they still have undue influence over the government, and neither protectionism, nativism nor isolationism are long to make the slightest change in this.

Repealing Citizens United to reduce the ability of the elites to influence politicians might help.  Being very reluctant to vote for anyone who accepts money from Robber Barons might help.  I hope Bernie's approach to campaign finance catches on to the point that you can't win if you don't stick with a small donor campaign finance method.  Reversing the unravelling era Republican tax codes intended to move wealth from the poor to the wealthy might help.  The focus should be on trimming the influence of the Robber Barons rather than building up a racist hatred of minorities.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Bob, you obviously have never lived in the South.  The antebellum establishment was crushed there.  The same was true for Japan and Germany.  After 1789 anyone suggesting rejoining the British Crown was run out of the country into Canada...if they were lucky and I guarantee you that anyone suggesting a return to the policies of Coolidge in the 1950s would have been laughed at--at least.

The 4T destroys the old establishment and creates a new one.  It may be possible that in a Mega-Unraveling that this need not happen, but that only sets up a saculum of one crisis after another resulting in Revolution.  The French and Russian revolutions being prime examples.

Actually, I did live in the south for a time, though some might argue that the Atlanta area doesn't count.  Working for a high tech company, I suspect I didn't experience the most distinct rural aspects of southern culture.  I do remember an obviously local BBQ Chicken joint located a block from a Boston Chicken franchise.  The sign read "Don't eat Yankee chicken!!!"  I found there was something to be said for both restaurants.

But I wasn't alive at the time the slave owning culture transformed into Jim Crow culture.  All any of us can do is read the history books.  Share croppers continued to own land and exploit negroes.  I've heard some say that share cropping was the worse system.  Slave owners felt some responsibility towards the lives of their property while a share cropper would abuse them financially as much as he could with no concern at all for life style.

Yes, sometimes crises create major law changes that remove superior legal status entirely.  When the king goes away, entire ruling classes go away, and someone else will take their place... such as the Robber Barons or Communist party elite.  Kings don't go away in every single crisis.  After the civil war, slave owners became share cropper land owners.  The class continued to exist and continued to oppress, though the mechanisms changed big time.  FDR did not get rid of the capitalist class.  Sure, there are stories of tycoons jumping out windows the day the stock market collapsed, but for every busted Robber Baron that left the elite class there were others ready to come aboard.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Quote:The problem is in correctly identifying the gravest problems, seeing who is trying to solve them, and who represents the Establishment that wants to continue to hold power and profit by leaving the problem unsolved.

At present the gravest problems are a result of welfare stateism, over regulation, labor importation and cultural dilution.  HRC represents, nay personifies the establishment propping up those problems.  And there are no indications that she is likely to be a renegade like Gorbachev who will try to engineer a softer collapse.  After all she's running as Obama's third term, a term of band aid here, patch there never addressing the crumbling foundation.  Assuming she gets in, and survives more than a few months we can expect things to get extremely bad.

I disagree.  The primary problem is in division of wealth.  I'm not saying entitlements, regulations and immigration problems are perfect.  They need to be reviewed and revised.  They will always need to be reviewed and revised.  There is a cultural problem.  We are still racists.  In difficult economic times we will scapegoat minorities, blaming them for our problems.  I don't know how to make that go away except time and persistence.

I was pleased that you admitted you were full of (expletive deleted) during your Marxist era, but I'm amazed the degree to which you've become an apologist for the capitalist class.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Income inequality is largely the result of New Deal regulations gone bad (everything has an expiration date after all), largely due to inept tinkering largely done by Silents.  The problem with your theory is that the Robber Barons that currently exist, all exist in China.  You are attempting to impose industrial solutions on a deindustrialized economy.  It simply won't work.

Rather we should see why there is that income inequality, accept that some people will earn more than others (either they are more productive, smarter, or whatever--and yes that includes that they just may have more capital than others) and to address this in a way that is most equitable to everyone.  I have a feeling that cutting out a large portion of the regulatory cruft will go a long way.  Also simplifying and streamlining those regulations and making changing them far more difficult will allow for a degree of certainty necessary for people to invest competently.  Unless of course you like bubble economies.

The last bubble burst in 2008 as a result of deregulation under the Bush 43 administration.  There can be too little and too much regulation.  I won't say our current system is perfect.  I will say there will always be a need to revisit.  Republicans will be trying to remove regulations that reduce the profits of the Robber Barons.  Democrats will attempt to protect the People and the economy.  Both can be guilty of excess zeal.  I've no instant answers.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Quote:The two people have spent their lives pushing very different causes.  For one whose arrow of progress points at equality, human rights and democracy, my choice is absurdly clear.

They have I will admit.  While HRC has talked about helping people become more wealthy, Trump actually did it by actually hiring people.

Well, what Hillary has actually done includes getting people health care, get handicapped children access to education and register minorities to vote.  There is more to equality than financial policy.  Some people are excluded from full participation in the culture in other ways.  Yes Trump has hired people, but he's also been known to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying people for the work they have done for him.

Very different values.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Quote:Issues aside, your father does not play well with others.  If he is frustrated in any way, he will throw a tantrum, demonize the other person, and throw about insults.  It doesn’t matter who he is dealing with…  women, minorities, the disabled, reporters, fire marshals, gold star mothers, Republican authorities, even Democrats on occasion, get given the same sort of treatment.  I have no reason to expect this will change should he get elected and have to work with foreign leaders, who are already quite alarmed at having to deal with him.  Issues and philosophy aside, he just doesn’t have the temperament to work with human beings he can’t just fire should they disagree with him.  His personality alone would disqualify him as a candidate in my eyes, even if he did have a history of working for the benefit of others.

First that is an unsubstantiated Democrat talking point.  But if you want to incorporate that into your subjective view of reality so be it.  

In your Marxist days, you had an amazing ability to disregard large chunks of very informative history.  While you are far more articulate and logical than most Trump supporters, you still have a profound ability to block out stuff that pokes holes in your logic.  Trump's problems getting along with people have been making far more headlines recently than any disagreement on issues.  You have to be very willfully selective in absorbing truth to have missed it.  This selective reading of history more than makes up for your logic and articulation.  It invalidates everything you say.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Third, I really don't care what foreign leaders think.  They have a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of their states/nation-states.  Likewise our President has a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of America and Americans.  If the French or the Chinese, or the Mexicans or whomever else doesn't like that..then tough titty said the kitty.

A huge part of the problems this country faces now is that for too long the US President has cared more about upholding alliances which long ago outlived their usefulness (NATO) or sought to rack up brownie points with foreign states at the expense of American workers (NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and etc).  Since I have no indication at all that HRC has substantially changed her positions that made her unacceptable to me in 08 she remains unacceptable to me in 16 and thus you have me supporting Trump at the moment.

I do care about foreign leaders.  We live in a complex world and are not going to be able to build enough walls to get around this.  A president of the United States ought to be concerned about fitting in well with the world.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Regardless of whether he wins or loses I'm convinced he will fundamentally alter the GOP.  I could be wrong on this of course, but experience informs me that when my gut and my brain are in agreement on something it most likely is the way those two organs agree upon.

I tend to agree with you that he will change the GOP.  He is playing the Reagan/Nixon memes on steroids...  tax cuts for the Robber Barons, deregulation, not so subtle racism.  Doing this has drawn him the loyalty of a good size chunk of the Republican base that is still very fond of the unravelling, who want the country to continue the unravelling policies and mood indefinitely.  He has created a chasm between the gung ho unravelling fans and..,  Hmm.  Can't think of a good description for the Establishment Republicans. 

The split is currently there.  The Republican Party has always been the party of the Robber Barons.  They have shifted on a lot of big things.  They were isolationists before WW II, and militarists after.  They freed the slaves and embraced Nixon's Southern Strategy.  When Keynes proposed deficits for stimulation in bad times and paying back the debt in good times, they wanted more or less balanced budgets always.  Recently they have been the party of borrow and spend, running large deficits in good times and bad.  They were once the party of the industrial north, but have become the party of the rural south and west.

This isn't to say that the Democrats haven't changed too.  For just about every move mentioned above by the Republicans, the Democrats have made the opposite move.  Whenever one party embraces a new block of voters at the expense of alienating another block, it is natural for the other party to go after the alienated block.

But the Republicans have always been the party of the Robber Barons.  That's what they are.  That's what they do.

But there are not enough Robber Barons to win elections.  They can't get their people in power without selling something that lines up the interests of a lot of the common people with the interests of the Robber Barons.  There was a cliche.  What's good for General Motors was once thought good for America.  Pro business is pro America.  (Wave flag and play the Stars and Stripes Forever.)  Though, Ironically, in the most recent crisis it was Obama that saved General Motors.

Mr. Trump may have driven a big wedge between the Establishment Robber Baron aspect of the Republican Party and the populist side.  I'm not sure that I'm describing the split correctly, but there is a big disconnect between the two.

Will this rift heal?  Is Trump a one election and gone phenomena?  Will someone else copycat his success and make it a long term movement?  If the two factions are permanently estranged, will one of them fade into insignificance?  Both of them?

I've no clue.

During FDR's crisis, the Democrats grabbed full control of the reigns of power.  The Republicans were much diminished until the Democrats were in power long enough for flaws in their approach to become visible.  If we do have a progressive regeneracy, if a crisis mind set of working together for the common good resurfaces, the Republicans might again be on the outside looking in for a time.  The way US politics works, there are generally two primary parties.  The Democrats won't be unchallenged forever, or perhaps even for long.  But I can't foresee which Republican party would step up, or whether something entirely new might possibly surface.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Quote:Anyway, my primary thrust is that too much power and wealth is often placed in the hands of an elite class.  In any given crisis, the abusive behavior of the elite class must be reduced.  In recent history, this elite class is the Robber Barons.  No single crisis will totally end the power of elitism, or even destroy a specific elite class.  Some issues will be resolved, but the answers are never complete.  The battles of one crisis are never fully over.

In a way I actually agree with you.  However, I think that you're misdirected.  You are looking to fight WWI in France in 1940.  This 4T is fundamentally different from the last one, just like that one was fundamentally different from the one before, and so on.

FDR had a double crisis.  Our current problem is an extension of the Great Depression economic crisis, rather than an extension of World War II.  You are obsessed with a false notion that all crises overthrow ruling classes.  All crises do not all overthrow ruling classes.  Some do.  Some don't.  Marx's capitalist class was not destroyed in the US during the Great Depression aspect of the last crisis.  They are alive, well and very very problematic.  If you think back to your Marxist days, you might be able to remember why they are problematic.  I am most bemused to see a former Marxist become a capitalist apologist.

[playwrite]

(08-05-2016, 10:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  I seem to have gotten caught up in a stripped post style.  Ah, well.  Here we go.

It does make one wonder if we're not dealing with a reincarnated Glick.

More outwardly Yin  but still the Yang comes through - basically, very confused.

[Kinser79]

(08-05-2016, 10:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  I seem to have gotten caught up in a stripped post style.  Ah, well.  Here we go.

The stripped post style has its advantages. Personally I prefer answering things in long form, but find that point by point refutations of assertions do not lend themselves to that method easily.

Quote:Racists have traditionally bemoaned how the latest wave of immigrants could destroy American culture.  I'm not worried about it.  The new wave is generally assimilated.

There are several historical problems with this assertion.

1. A large percentage of historical immigrants were not of a different race. White Europeans be they of Irish extraction, or Russian extraction, or Italian extraction or Swedish extraction are indistingishable from one another once they all speak English with an American accent/dialect. This usually occurs after the first generation by default (children learn languages with ease while adults do so only with difficulty).

2. Immigration patterns ossilate. You have periods of rapid immigration followed by periods of much less immigration. This allows for assimilation to take place.

3. Historically there was not the ideology of 'multiculturalism'. The end goal was for immigrants to assimilate as much as they could to take as much economic advantage as they could while their children would be largely Americanized through our social, cultural and political insitutions resulting in the grandchildren of the immigrants being fully American.

Multiculturalism on the other hand promotes the retention of language, culture and so on of the immigrant retarding this process. This is not a problem so long as times are good, when times are bad however it breeds mistrust and social disunity.

The fact is that all humans have in-group preference to some degree or an other, the largest so far constructed in-group is the nation...as for how I define a nation I suggest you read Stalin's work "Marxism and the National Question". I have not seen any substantial changes as to what constitutes nations since 1913, and it is unlikely that there will be in my lifetime as we are talking about issues related to evolutionary psychology which means changes take generations to occur, of which a long lived human will see at most a total of seven (from his great-grandparents to his great-grandchildren, including his own generation).

Quote:While FDR did a lot for the working classes, he didn't make the slightest dent in the capitalist class.  Everyone who owned stocks still owned stocks.  The structure of owning stocks, factories, large tracts of land, etc... didn't change at all.

Sounds like my argumentation that FDR was progressive only in the sense that 'progress' was necessary to retain capitalism. I'm not seeing where we have ever had disagreement on that point so I don't understand why it is necessary to bring it up unless you are still stuck on the notion that what is 'progressive' is only defined after it's victory and not before.

Quote:The old hereditary nobility and the southern slave holding agricultural elites has special laws that gave them a privileged unequal position.

The old antebellum elite of the South, the Bourbons, were destroyed during reconstruction. Jim Crow was largely instituted by and for the Peckerwoods, those who were poor whites during the antebellum period and owned few slaves if they owned any, who were able to capitalize on the power vacuum making themselves a new elite in the South. What bourbons remained were largely land rich and dirt poor in all other regards.

Jim Crow was implemented in an attempt to control the black population which would otherwise leave unless chained to land, usually through debt, resulting in a severe labor shortage for the producers of cash crops. It was replacement of a slave economy with a serf economy, and like a serf economy did not produce a large surplus of capital.

Quote: These laws had to be changed big time to deprive them of their privilege.

FDR and even Truman did not change the Jim Crow laws. Indeed couldn't lest they lose political power. Desegregation and the repudiation of de jure segregation was a result of the horrors witnessed by a generation who saw the extent of what de jure segregation taken to its logical extreme could do. An idea that I've expressed repeatedly here, and comes not from some book but rather from someone who lived through those times.

Quote:  While tax rates get trimmed and attempts are made to make stock markets less volatile,  there has not yet been a perceived need to get rid of the system by which the Robber Barons maintain power.

In the present time that is likely due to the fact that there aren't any Robber Barons. There is neither an elite of large industrial owners, nor an elite of large land owners. If anything I would say the current elite are the elite of the movers of money. An elite that has been actively courted by the Democratic Party since 1980.

As such in order to rid ourselves of that elite one must as a consequence oppose both the established GOP and the established Democratic Party. Otherwise you're attempting to fight Hitler the same way your fought Hindenburg.

Quote:New industries have arisen and will continue to arise.  I'll mention computers as an example, and suspect genetic engineering is upcoming.  Lots more.  However, the newly rich elites use the same financial structures and methods as earlier established Robber Barons.  They just merge with the capitalist class with no need or desire to alter the forces that give the old elites power.  They are not replacing the old elite class.  They are joining the existing elite class.

Thus your insistence that crises are about getting rid of an old elite and replacing it with a new elite are erroneous.  The concept is inapplicable to the Great Depression aspect of FDR's time and the economic aspect of this time.  Capitalistic elites exist, they still have undue influence over the government, and neither protectionism, nativism nor isolationism are long to make the slightest change in this.

There has always been a financial sector but they have not always constituted an elite themselves. In the Civil War we had a conflict between an elite of large land owners and an elite of large industrialists. Both used the same financial sector but that sector itself did not constitute an elite of its own. In the Great Depression we had a war between the elite of some industrialists verses an elite of other industrialists. Both used the financial sector but the financial sector itself was not an elite.

Today we have neither industrialists nor large land owners forming an elite meaning the only possible elite is the financial sector. As such either the 4T results in a new elite that replaces the financial sector as the preeminent force (probably industrialists through protectionism--aka Trump's plan) or that elite remains in place, unchanged, resulting in a saeculum that is one crisis after an other (HRC's Plan).

Regardless my theory holds--either the elites will be swapped out, or we will have a Mega-Crisis that sweeps away the Modern Megasaeculum (for lack of a better name) and replaces it with the megasaeculum that follows it. Just like the French and Russian Revolutions replaced Late Feudalism with early capitalism (and in the case of Russia state-capitalism).

Ultimately it is my view that regardless of which plan is implemented neither will work and a Mega-Crisis is inevitable. Even if the Trump Plan were implemented it would require the US to dismantle its empire to work and such is unacceptable to the political class at this point.

Quote:Repealing Citizens United to reduce the ability of the elites to influence politicians might help.  Being very reluctant to vote for anyone who accepts money from Robber Barons might help.  I hope Bernie's approach to campaign finance catches on to the point that you can't win if you don't stick with a small donor campaign finance method.  Reversing the unravelling era Republican tax codes intended to move wealth from the poor to the wealthy might help.  The focus should be on trimming the influence of the Robber Barons rather than building up a racist hatred of minorities.

I'm in favor of repealing Citizens United (this requires a constitutional amendment because the SCOTUS only rarely resends its own opinions), of course then again I'm also in favor of calling a Constitutional Convention. The one we have is raggedy as to use PBR's phraseology they (whatever group one wants to blame for something) has found where all the seams are and have used it to unravel to use the "people's government" against the people.

Furthermore, it should be noted which campaign is taking in which kinds of contributions. HRC of course is sucking up the large donors, she wants to maintain the status quo after all--again see my arguments about how the Democratic Party has become the 'conservative' party--while Trump has much fewer large donors and is primarily financed through his own money and small donors giving 5 bucks here and 20 bucks there.

Even so, it is my view that large donors are only really necessary if one attempts getting elected by using the methods that the establishment wants to be used, largely ad buys and a flood of what is often termed "old media". With Trump he quite often gets his own free advertisement from a clique which is diametrically opposed to him--the MSM--and from what I've called "the meme team" largely supporters working at no cost to the campaign and little cost to them by making memes and using social media. In short merely talking about the same things they were always talking about just with Trump serving as a lightning rod.

(08-04-2016, 08:19 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Actually, I did live in the south for a time, though some might argue that the Atlanta area doesn't count.

Attempting to use Atlanta as the back drop for understanding the South is the same as attempting to use New York City or Chicago as the back drop for understanding the North. Once you leave the large cities no matter the region the culture is extremely different.

 

Quote:Working for a high tech company, I suspect I didn't experience the most distinct rural aspects of southern culture.  I do remember an obviously local BBQ Chicken joint located a block from a Boston Chicken franchise.

There is no such thing as BBQ chicken. All barbecue is by default pork. And in barbaric places like North Carolina is smothered with cole slaw. What that place had was BBQ flavored chicken. /Georgian-Traditionalist-rant

 

Quote:The sign read "Don't eat Yankee chicken!!!"  I found there was something to be said for both restaurants.

I would too. Probably along the lines of the local place was more flavorful and may have actually offered real BBQ (the use of other meats is an result of new comers to the South--IE anyone whose family wasn't there in 1865). I've always found Boston Market to be bland "Yankee" fair with "filling" being the only positive attribute to be said about it.

Quote:But I wasn't alive at the time the slave owning culture transformed into Jim Crow culture.  All any of us can do is read the history books.  Share croppers continued to own land and exploit negroes.

Apparently you haven't read history books then because you'd know that the share croppers were not the land owners who exploited negroes, but rather the negroes themselves who had to share their crop as rent payments. The owners of the land were simply called land owners. It should be of interest that my great grandparents on both sides of the family were share croppers. One set moved North during the Great Migration, the other stayed and was slowly able to accumulate capital and connections resulting in a relocation to Atlanta and well WW2 also changed a lot.

Quote:  I've heard some say that share cropping was the worse system.  Slave owners felt some responsibility towards the lives of their property while a share cropper would abuse them financially as much as he could with no concern at all for life style.

The share crop system was worse. Under slavery negroes were property and just like one maintains their home or car one maintains their slaves. Under the share crop system the share croppers (IE the negroes though the poorest whites were also included) were merely tenants to be removed should they fail to provide their portion of the crop in rent and any other debts incurred during the year from harvest to harvest.

Not really a disagreement here but more likely a serious quibble over the definition of what is and is not a share cropper.

Quote:Yes, sometimes crises create major law changes that remove superior legal status entirely.  When the king goes away, entire ruling classes go away, and someone else will take their place... such as the Robber Barons or Communist party elite.  Kings don't go away in every single crisis.  After the civil war, slave owners became share cropper land owners.  The class continued to exist and continued to oppress, though the mechanisms changed big time.  FDR did not get rid of the capitalist class.  Sure, there are stories of tycoons jumping out windows the day the stock market collapsed, but for every busted Robber Baron that left the elite class there were others ready to come aboard.

Again, not really a dispute on issues I haven't already addressed. However, I would say that slave owners did not become share croppers, rather land owners who used what little capital they could pillage from what remained to set up the share cropping system (again the owners of land were not share croppers, rather share cropper is the title of those who had to "share the crop" as payment for the rent of the farm land--if one wants a special title for what slave owners and other large land holders landlord fits best).

That being said, even if the King is deposed it does not necessarily follow that the elite changes, it usually does but not always, rather that one elite supplants a different elite. In the civil war industrialists over land holders, in the great depression new industrialists by old industrialists. Today a new elite must arise to sublimate the financial elite as I do not think they can be completely destroyed without a total economic collapse first. Naturally of course a total economic collapse would result in the end of the empire.

Quote:I disagree.  The primary problem is in division of wealth.  I'm not saying entitlements, regulations and immigration problems are perfect.  They need to be reviewed and revised.  They will always need to be reviewed and revised.  There is a cultural problem.  We are still racists.  In difficult economic times we will scapegoat minorities, blaming them for our problems.  I don't know how to make that go away except time and persistence.

I actually agree with you that the division of wealth is the problem, where we disagree is the solution to that problem. I do not see welfare as the solution to poverty, indeed were it, then there should be no poverty now, yet that poverty persists.

I would argue that making the statement: "We are still racists." itself means that racism is dead. Being called a racist means nothing to an actual racist. Saying to an NOI member that "honkeys are devils" or to a Klansman (assuming you could find one) that "niggers are savage beasts" results not in shock or horror at the statement (the reaction of the vast majority of people alive today) but rather in "yeah and...?" as if the statement is self-evident truth.

I have argued in the past that racism is dead in our society and the evidence for that is the way people (whites in particular) will bend over backwards to not be called a racist. Racists know that they are racists, and not care if they are called a racist, just like back in my ML days being called a "commie bastard" didn't offend me. Indeed where racism persists, it persists among those who seek to foment racism though the bigotry of low expectations (to use W's turn of phrase--and before anyone starts, blind hogs do find acorns every now and then). In short the most racist people alive today are primarily white boomer liberals--most others are egalitarians who view each adult as responsible for his or her own actions and choices.

Quote:I was pleased that you admitted you were full of (expletive deleted) during your Marxist era, but I'm amazed the degree to which you've become an apologist for the capitalist class.

Not really amazing at all. While I may never be likely to accumulate the capital necessary to reach back into the petty-bourgeoisie, I fully expect my son to be able to. Not so oddly he's taking a path that has proved to be successful before, a road very similar to the one my maternal grandfather took. I'm sure I've explained before how by the time I was born my mother's side of the family was fully part of the black bourgeoisie.

Quote:The last bubble burst in 2008 as a result of deregulation under the Bush 43 administration.

Actually the repeal of Glass-Steagall which resluted in the banking melt down in '08 was implmented in 1999 before W was even selected. Bill Clinton has to own that. NAFTA which started the "new free tradeism" was signed by Bill Clinton.

I think the argumentation that deregulation lead to the Great Recession, or Great Depression 2.0 is largely overblown because were that true we should have had one long before '08 seeing as deregulation began under Carter.

Quote:  There can be too little and too much regulation.  I won't say our current system is perfect.  I will say there will always be a need to revisit.  Republicans will be trying to remove regulations that reduce the profits of the Robber Barons.  Democrats will attempt to protect the People and the economy.  Both can be guilty of excess zeal.  I've no instant answers.

If you reduce the profits available to a business owner, be he large or small, he will invest less in business. I'm far more concerned with regultory capture anyway. I would say from the economic standpoint the role of the government is to clear the way for people to start their own businesses, make their own choices and so on. The regulations we need are obvious ones like prohibiting minors from buying tobacco products for example and making sure that factories, mines and farms don't destroy the enviroment in the process of wealth creation. In short protecting those who can't protect themselves (which excludes adults unless they are retarded or something) and ensuring that while doing that there aren't barriers put up that stiffle innovation. A prime example of regultory capture can be seen with the FDA as they are attempting to destroy the vaping industry at the behest of both big tobacco which sells a product that when used as directed kills the user and Big Phrarma which sells products that don't work in the cessession of the habit of using that product. Never you mind the fact that vaping is orders of magnitude safer than smoking.

Before we get into a long diatribe about the harms of vaping, the fact is that the majority of the components in e-cigarettes have been used in medicine for decades, are well understood and are often found in medications. The only real question is which flavoring agents are safe to use and which are not safe to use and only use will reveal that.

Quote:Well, what Hillary has actually done includes getting people health care,

Really? When? Hillarycare failed in the 1990s and Obamacare was implemented after she had been secretary of state for years. Even saying that Hillary got people health care under Obamacare is a big stretch as she was in an unrelated department to start with and that Obamacare itself provided no one with healthcare but rather was a program to expand the use of healthcare insurance. In short to equate that to actual healthcare is the same as saying should my house catch fire State Farm is the same as the Fire Department.

This point does not conform to reality and thus must be rejected.

Quote:get handicapped children access to education

Considering that she was in the Senate for quite a long time she likely voted for such a bill. But to give her credit for it is a big stretch as she produced very little legislation of her own. Her senate seat was largely a method by which she could run for president later.

Quote: and register minorities to vote.

Really? When did she sign Motor-Voter? You are attributing to her something Bill Clinton did. Considering that if you work you practically need to drive (well maybe not in major cities) and need an ID (unless you're being paid under the table) I fail to see how she's helped anyone register to vote. Minority or otherwise.

Quote: There is more to equality than financial policy.  Some people are excluded from full participation in the culture in other ways.  Yes Trump has hired people, but he's also been known to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying people for the work they have done for him.

If you solve financial policy you solve a large part of the problem. As to Trump declaring bankrupcy (which his companies have only done four times, out of hundreds of companies) each time it was under Chapter 11 of the code which requires that he pay people for labor performed. Indeed Chapter 11 does not absolve debt but restructures it. CHECK THE CODE. Also your barb against Trump is a non-argument.

Quote:Very different values.

I agree. One talks about doing things, the other does things. Given the choice between someone who talks about giving me a welfare payment and someone who offers me a job I'll take the job thanks.

Quote:In your Marxist days, you had an amazing ability to disregard large chunks of very informative history.  While you are far more articulate and logical than most Trump supporters, you still have a profound ability to block out stuff that pokes holes in your logic.  Trump's problems getting along with people have been making far more headlines recently than any disagreement on issues.  You have to be very willfully selective in absorbing truth to have missed it.  This selective reading of history more than makes up for your logic and articulation.  It invalidates everything you say.

That particular problem is endemic to all humans. You have it too Bob. Sorry to say that, well not really, but often your line of argumentation only uses sources to back up what you already believe. This is called confirmation bias and everyone has it to some degree or an other.

As to headlines, I don't really care. The MSM lies about everything all the time and I said that as a Marxist and I say that now. I would acutally argue that Trump is being a genius by getting them to talk about him instead of her. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Good press, bad press doesn't matter. If they are talking about him they aren't talking about her. It is a sort of free advertising, he's used it for years if you read the NY papers (and I happen to read them, I also read the London Papers too, which reminds me I need to check out the "Torygraph" today).

Quote:I do care about foreign leaders.  We live in a complex world and are not going to be able to build enough walls to get around this.  A president of the United States ought to be concerned about fitting in well with the world.

Fitting in well with the world has never been an American strong point. Have you been abroad? I have. Foreigners generally hate our government be they French or Japanese or Brazilian, or Russian, or Arab. The reason for this hatred is the US' insistance that it is the world's policeman, that it alone has the right to impose a different order on other states. In short it is an imperialist state. By dispensing with the Empire we can afford to build a large enough army and navy and as many walls necessary to keep the world out if that is required. That being said, I think a more rational approach to foreign affairs was elucidated by George Washington himself in the policy of trading with everyone, interfering with nobody.

Also we have nukes. No one is going to fuck with us even if we did become a rogue state. It is the same reason no one fucks with North Korea. They have nukes too.

Quote:I tend to agree with you that he will change the GOP.  He is playing the Reagan/Nixon memes on steroids...  tax cuts for the Robber Barons, deregulation, not so subtle racism.  Doing this has drawn him the loyalty of a good size chunk of the Republican base that is still very fond of the unravelling, who want the country to continue the unravelling policies and mood indefinitely.  He has created a chasm between the gung ho unravelling fans and..,  Hmm.  Can't think of a good description for the Establishment Republicans. 

The Establishment Republicans are the Nixonite-Reaganites (for lack of a better term), he's pissed them off and is gaining ground with labor something the GOP hasn't been able to do for over a century. I'm going to cut the rest of your long and rambling statement after that point because quite honestly it is you only demonstrating a failure to understand what Lincoln was talking about with his coat metaphor. Maybe if I leave a link to the work I'm drawing from you'll get it, if you don't you won't get it and arguing over it is a waste of time.

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...pierce.htm

Quote:Mr. Trump may have driven a big wedge between the Establishment Robber Baron aspect of the Republican Party and the populist side.  I'm not sure that I'm describing the split correctly, but there is a big disconnect between the two.

You didn't because the populist elements of the GOP are now in control of it while the Robber Baron element of it are fleeing to the Democrats. Perhaps you should compare the statements of the Trumpist-populist faction with the likes of say The National Review.

Quote:Will this rift heal?  Is Trump a one election and gone phenomena?  Will someone else copycat his success and make it a long term movement?  If the two factions are permanently estranged, will one of them fade into insignificance?  Both of them?

Trump is not a single election phenomena just like the Tea Party wasn't. I've argued that the Tea Party and Occupy both are products of the micro-awakening. As such both will persist until one defeats the other at the end of the 4T. As it stands it looks like the GOP will end up purging its Establishment "Robber Baron" elements, which will go to the Democrats while the populist faction will storm the GOP.

Again, read Lincoln's letter, this isn't something new. It has happened twice already, it will happen a third time. As to it happening a fourth time, I'm not so sure but that is at least a full saeculum away and asking either of us to speculate on it would be akin to asking Thomas Jefferson to speculate on the issues of our day.

I've no clue.

Quote:During FDR's crisis, the Democrats grabbed full control of the reigns of power.  The Republicans were much diminished until the Democrats were in power long enough for flaws in their approach to become visible.  If we do have a progressive regeneracy, if a crisis mind set of working together for the common good resurfaces, the Republicans might again be on the outside looking in for a time.  The way US politics works, there are generally two primary parties.  The Democrats won't be unchallenged forever, or perhaps even for long.  But I can't foresee which Republican party would step up, or whether something entirely new might possibly surface.

Generally speaking I would argue that the polarity reverses once per saeculum and that in this case when HRC loses it will be the Democrats outside looking in. The simple fact of the matter is that even the Nixonite-Reaganites are essentially New Dealers and the New Deal is very much today the Old Deal.

Of course I could be wrong, but as I've said before when my mind and my gut are in agreement I'm rarely wrong.

Quote:FDR had a double crisis.  Our current problem is an extension of the Great Depression economic crisis, rather than an extension of World War II.  You are obsessed with a false notion that all crises overthrow ruling classes.  All crises do not all overthrow ruling classes.  Some do.  Some don't.  Marx's capitalist class was not destroyed in the US during the Great Depression aspect of the last crisis.  They are alive, well and very very problematic.  If you think back to your Marxist days, you might be able to remember why they are problematic.  I am most bemused to see a former Marxist become a capitalist apologist.

I would argue that the theory of double-crises is not proven. Yes the Great Depression/WW2 looks that way in hindsight but at the time it likely didn't. WW2 was itself imposed on the US due to the outcome of WW1 and the world order that arose after it. Let us for the sake of argument suppose that WW1 didn't happen and instead of Hitler we we were dealing with Kaiser Bill in Berlin or his heir whomever that may have been, I highly doubt the US would have had the second world war imposed on it as it would have remained an inward looking major power. Rather the result of Versailles resulted in Hitler.

A war with Japan is possible but it would likely have been primarily local in nature and not have gotten itself lumpped with any conflict in Europe. It has been argued by some that WW2 was not in fact a world war, but that the name of a world war was contrived after the fact because those powers which were belligerents in 1940 with Germany also in 1941 ended up being belligerents with Japan. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had very different end goals to the Japanese Empire. The former to reorganize Europe the other to become the premiere empire in the Far East supplanting the UK, France and the US.

As for your bemusement. I am of course always happy to serve as your entertainment. That is the main reason I stick around.

[Odin]

The Talking Yam is dangerously unhinged.

Trump asks why US can't use nukes

Clinton needs to reuse that famous flower girl ad Johnson used against Goldwater.

If you want this lunatic as president you are an idiot.

[Ragnarök_62]

Antiwar.com Wrote:Stay Out of Libya
... and build Fortress America
by Justin Raimondo, August 05, 2016
Print This | Share This
We’re back in Libya, with US warplanes bombing targets in the city of Sirte, on a mission that, according to the Pentagon, has “no endpoint at this particular moment.” And that statement sums up perfectly the Sisyphean task that presented itself to US policymakers when the Terrible Triumvirate – Hillary Clinton, national security honchette Susan Rice, and UN ambassadress Samantha Power – prevailed on President Obama to overthrow the regime of Libyan despot Moammar Ghaddafi.
Take a look at what we’re getting ourselves into: with no less than three governments, lawless Libya is a perfect example of Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum that “government is the problem, not the solution.” Yes, that’s right, the former domain of Ghaddafi has three rival “governments.” Go ahead and count ‘em:

1. The General National Congress (GNC), headquartered in Tripoli, is controlled by Islamist militias and backed by Turkey, Qatar, and Sudan.
   
2. The Council of Deputies, located in Tobruk, is basically the instrument of Gen. Khalifa Hiftar, a known CIA asset who used to live a few miles from the Agency’s headquarters.
   
3. The UN-appointed “government of national unity,” which was never elected by anyone and had to be shipped into the country by boat because the Tripoli authorities wouldn’t let their plane land.
   

While the ostensible reason for the US air strikes is the elimination of ISIS from the country, there is no escaping the “nation-building” aspect of Washington’s mission. For the logic of the mission means ISIS must be replaced with something, and that something is bound to be the UN-approved “government.” Yet this is likely to provoke further conflict, as the Islamists in Tripoli and the followers of Gen. Hiftar in the east are not likely to be pushed aside so easily.
The divisions that ensure a future of perpetual conflict are rooted in the history of a country that isn’t really a country at all.
The fiction that is the nation-state of “Libya” was only maintained by the brute force of Ghaddafi’s military: when that was defeated and dissolved, the “Libyans” rallied around what have always been their authentic allegiances: tribe and faith. Indeed, “Libya” has only existed since the end of World War II, when the UN moved in and forcibly joined together three regions that had no common history or culture: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east, and the southern Fezzan area, a desert mostly inhabited by Tuareg and Tebu tribes. The UN was merely replicating the plan carried out by Mussolini, and his Italian predecessors, who colonized the region and sought to abolish tribal boundaries. When King Idris I, installed by the UN, protested that he didn’t want to rule over Tripolitania, and preferred to extend his domain only over Cyrenaica, he was ignored. With the fall of Ghaddafi, the country has reverted to its natural state – and now, once again, the UN is coming in the “fix” the ‘problem.”
The age-old scam of governments creating problems that they then use as an excuse to increase their powers so they can “solve” them is on full display in Libya – and Syria, and Iraq. All these countries had secular governments where not a trace of Islamist radicalism could be found. Their “liberation” by the Western powers, who launched regime change operations in the name of “democracy,” gave rise to ISIS – and created the rationale for yet more destructive intervention.
All three disasters can be properly laid at Hillary Clinton’s doorstep, but GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is no rational alternative. While rightly averring that Western meddling created the Libyan miasma in the first place, he wrongly says “We have no choice” but to intervene once again. This is arrant nonsense: we are sliding down a slippery slope in Libya, and soon will be faced with the problem of how to prevent ISIS from popping up once again. Trump says he’s against “nation-building” but you can’t just drop bombs and then fly away – once you intervene, then you own the country, like it or not.
Do we want to own Libya?
Here Trump is faced with the inevitable contradiction at the heart of his foreign policy views: he wants to appear “tough” without getting his hands dirty. This marriage of rhetorical bellicosity and instinctual anti-interventionism can only end in divorce. Instincts aren’t enough: what’s required are principles – a concept entirely alien to Trump.
Hillary, on the other hand, does have principles – the wrong ones. She’s a liberal internationalist and serial regime-changer who, once in power, will take us into conflicts ranging from North Africa to Eastern Europe and into the steppes of Central Asia. Trump may stumble into trouble – she’ll take us there by the express route.
The only candidates for President who want us to stay out of Libya are the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson. But since neither of them are going to wind up in the White House, it’s certain we’ll be sinking into the Libyan quagmire no matter which major party wins in November.
This is a recipe for disaster. As the Russians continue to pound ISIS in Syria with air strikes, and the government of Bashar al-Assad makes gains on the battlefield, the international jihadist movement will increasingly transfer its attention to Libya, where they have a real chance of establishing a “caliphate” in alliance with the very forces Mrs. Clinton enabled by overthrowing Ghaddafi. When she visited Libya to celebrate her “victory,” she infamously declared: “We came, we saw, he died” – and, with those words, sealed the fate of a nation.
We can follow the Islamists around the globe, playing whack-a-mole unto eternity: our interventions only make them stronger, and us weaker.

Of special note:

 This is what Osama bin Laden gleefully predicted when he said:

Osama Bin Laden Wrote:“All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

special statement Wrote:Terrorism is like scabies – the more you scratch it, the more it spreads.

Quote:We are seeing this truism play out as terrorist attacks are now becoming a weekly occurrence in Europe. How long before the same condition afflicts us in North America? When we invaded Iraq we opened Pandora’s box – as I warned so long ago. Now the same people who brought us that disaster have the nerve to counsel patience when the demons they unleashed are harrying us at every turn.  As the playwright Tennessee Williams put it in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:
“There’s nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity.” No, we can’t undo the errors of the past: but we can ameliorate their deadly consequences. And yes, there is a solution to the problem of terrorism, albeit not a perfect one, and it is this: quarantine. As Donald Trump would put it, we have to build a wall – not on the US-Mexican border, but around those regions of the world where terrorism is rife. Nothing and no one goes in, and nothing and no one goes out. Forget invading, nation-building, etc. What we have to do is build Fortress America – an impregnable defense against radical Islamic terrorism.
Yes, this is “isolationism” – and let the internationalist do-gooders and discredited neocon warmongers make the most of it! The American people want to be isolated from terrorists, overseas wars, and foreign troubles: they’ve had it with the globalists, who have brought us to where we are today. Contra both Trump and Hillary, this is what a foreign policy of “America First” really requires.

Quote:For the Raimondo completist:
Check out my recent op ed for the Los Angeles Times on the media and the presidential election.  <- this looks interesting


NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

#JillStein2016 man.

[Ragnarök_62]

(08-05-2016, 10:21 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: <snip>


#JillStein2016 man.

My thoughts regarding the notions of Justin Raimondo (who I've known of and nauseatingly read - just to be aware of the looney point of view - for the past 17 years):

Why is his journalism looney?  He provided sources in this piece and provided a cogent article.  As for the barf vid, that's how I feel when I see MSM NON-journalsim.

[Eric the Green]

I don't know what will happen in Libya, but I thoroughly approve of whacking the IS severely wherever they are, and wherever it does the most good and causes the least harm to innocents.