Who are you voting for in 2016 pt. II

[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.