01-20-2021, 01:11 PM
(01-12-2021, 01:35 AM)mamabug Wrote: [quote pid='73308' dateline='1610424582']
Eric the Green Wrote:I don't know what "establishing Chaz" means. Is this some internet gaming term only millennials understand? Why assume boomers would know what it is? Don't worry, I'm not angry just sarcastic.
Hah! I'm definitely not a Millenial, I am slap dab in the middle of Gen X which is probably why I have a 'pox on both your houses' approach to the current political situation.
CHAZ = Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (or CHOP with the last two for Occupied Precinct or something? I only use the first because it captures the Monty Pythonesque, neo-60's vibe of the whole thing). It was a 6 block occupied area of Seattle back around June or so that managed to push out the police and declare themselves independent of the USA. Right wing media was full of condemnation and acted as if it was the rising of the South all over again. Mostly, it was what happens anytime there's an open air festival in a nice Seattle summer - a bunch of earth children crawling out from their caves to dance in the sun, smoke weed, and talk about the coming utopia. God, I miss Folklife Festival.
There were some aspects to it that were disturbing, but I attribute that to the fact that the city essentially allowed the area to operate as an anarchy and the protesters, who had not really planned to occupy anything, were unable to self-govern effectively. Four people were killed over the course of it, including one African American teenager who had chosen to go joyriding that the self-appointed militia thought was a Proud Boy. Not exactly the city's finest hour, but the hands off approach was probably the best (although it didn't work as well for Mayor Wheeler down south).
Anyway, the whole thing ended after the self-professed communist council woman led the protesters to first occupy city hall and then march on the mayor's house. Also, a bunch of businesses started suing the city for essentially providing services to support the protestors (who were also blocking traffic and pedestrians from freely entering the neighborhood) which was hard for the businesses already suffering under some of the stricter lockdowns in the nation. Even though they supported the protesters ('cause Seattle), they wanted the city to take back control. About a day after that, the city dismantled the barricades and moved the protesters out to little fanfare.
Anyway, that all occurred a short drive North from me so it was a major story from my perspective.
Quote:I think Democrats on the Left are so used to buckling under and going along with the center-left that they will never change. They are used to it. These days, the issues are so pressing that the two wings are not that far apart. The times demand radical change after 40 years of regression and stalemate. The Democrats know they need to act as a bloc now, because the right-wing is so fanatical and so monolithic it's the only way they can win.
I hope so. Maybe it is my Pac NW location, but we tend towards the more radical wing so they may seem to have more influence to me than they actually do. I mean, the city trash collectors were authorized by the council to peek in people's recycle bins and leave polite little notes if they aren't doing it properly and, as I mentioned, there's an open communist on our city council. Being close to Portland, I have seen antifa (and their anarchist predecessors from the 90's) up front at local protests and these guys are NOT an idea and they are NOT peaceful. I don't like how, during an election year, the establishment appears to let them out of their box to play because I fear that one day they won't go back in.
Yes, I'm cynical about party leadership on both sides. Did I mention I'm Gen X?
Quote:I don't know yet if this is a revolutionary era. If so, then it can only mean that the Left is able to foment and organize one. That would mean it takes over the Democratic Party, not get firm control exerted over it. How revolutionary it is will depend on the Right-wing, the Republican Party. How much they are able to block, will determine how far the Democrats need to push to get them out of the f**king way.
Agree that if this turns revolutionary, it will be the left. How violent it gets is up in the air, I'm pretty sure the Bolshevik's didn't anticipate Stalin or the French Robespierre. The likely path would be a takeover of the Democrat party, but that doesn't mean only the Republicans will be on the chopping block. They will come for Biden and Pelosi, they will come for Tulsi Gabbard, they will come for the libertarians, they will come for the classical liberals, hell - they will probably put Bezos' head on a pike in the middle of the former CHAZ for all we can guess. That still remains my 'worst case' scenario but I can't yet take it off the table.
Quote:Banning seditionists and nazis from social media is hardly closing up society that artists will open up. Gen Z fully supports and will fully support liberation from the Trumpists and neo-liberals.
Many of the people caught up in the social media purges are neither seditionists (which, honestly, I think is a pretty high bar to clear in a country that believes in freedom to protest and free speech. It is a law that has mostly been misused for political purposes or to boost a prosecutor's rep) nor white supremacists and all most of them are guilty of is unfavored speech. Since these actions are being taken by private companies outside the protections of the first amendment, it makes everyone subject to their (and the twitter mob's) judgement of what groups should or should not be banned. As economic actors, they are being pretty careful not to remove the biggest voices so they are only trimming the fringes (including some on the left). We can't say when we will hit the low point in this pendulum swing so there is no guarantee that this, and no farther, is where things stop.
I seem to recall my Silent and Boomer teachers making us study this old poem that goes 'First they came for the Communists...' or something. I'm sure whatever events it described ended well so I guess there's nothing to worry about.
Artist generations are willing to extend whatever they see as essential human rights necessary for a just society first to people that are marginalized and then even to people they disagree with. If access to social media is considered one of those rights, they will eventually let the actual white supremacists (if any still exist) back. From the way my kid's cell phone appears to be surgically attached to his hand, they might actually end up believing that.
My Gen Z. kid considers Trump a horrible president but not actively evil and thinks most of the social justice things his friends instagram is ineffectual and kind of stupid, so the leading edge of the new Beatnik's are already out there. Except for the alcohol and smoking, he is weirdly teetotalerish, but I swear that hi-fi/lo-fi/whatever-fi music he listens to is as incomprehensible to me as jazz was to my grandparents. (*round of snaps*).
Quote:I don't think there is any other vision than what has been described since the 1960s. It probably won't take a visionary. Just a likable Democratic candidate who gives the impression of being a leader. Several candidates are available. The biggest danger to our future today is that the Democrats might choose the wrong candidate (Kamala Harris).
At least we agree on something, Kamala Harris is the worst. Actually, the one who kind of scares me the most is AOC - not for her ideas but because I honestly don't think she is all that smart and I get the vibe of a classic Queen Bee mean girl from her. I'd take a grifting opportunist like Kamala over her any day.
And, yea, by Visionary I meant a likeable Democratic candidate that most people are willing to follow even if they may not 100% agree with them on everything. Sadly, one of the only national level dems who I actually find likeable was completely stomped on by her party and I don't know of any others. I have a similar hard time picking out likeable politicians on the right, aside from those who are also marginalized by their party.
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i'm a newbie here.. just wanted to quickly weigh in give you a big gold star for your analysis/ diagnosis of the current political climate.. I think too many people are preoccupied by this "left / right" culture war manufactured by the mainstream media as a red herring to distract the bulk of the population and exploit the moral differences and grievances between an ingroup and an out group ('city elite' and the 'rural deplorables') and of course turn them against each other as the ruling plutocrats gain an unfathomable level of power and increase the consolidation and monopolisation of all industries , big money and public opinion. Until we all wake up and come to realise this fallacy, we will only create more division and social unrest at the behest of the establishment. Things aren't what they seem.. Dems and Reps are both completely corrupt but i must say it's the dems i fear most in 2021, as i write this response as Biden gets inaugurated. The establishment have gone all in and have chosen the dems as their party to to their bidding.. This is antithetical to the core principles of which the left have always stood for. So we need to be very aware of this shift to authoritarianism and moral group think and history tells us,it's the left who is it will be used against ultimately
Tulsi has resigned from her seat as congresswoman.. the dems treatment of her has been quite abusive using mccarthy like smears to demonise her she'd be a fool to ever go back.. I believe she will run in the midterms as a republican as the reps grow their working class base and anti establishment / populist sentiments in the post trump era. I think you will find growing movement of populist/ anti war/ anti estab lefties following suit as they become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned be the neoliberal, corporatist agenda the democrats will continue to grow as the plutocrats become the ultimate facscim.. trump was never a fascist.. he's many things but it's laughable when i hear ppl claim this.. gen theory reminds us that history doesn't repeat itself but rhymes and follows a certain rhythm etc.. as a society , we tend to become so fixated with the past crisis' as a mechanism to never repeat the biggest atrocities of the past and rightfully so, however this major blind spot will always fool and mislead the best of, anticipating a into a more familiar event or crisis.make no mistake, this is a new form of fascism, a revised one and even more frightening and powerful than what we've ever known. This one has no front man and substitutes force with subtlety. Its not nationalism, it's globalism.. and it seeks to reign over the entire human global population, serving the greed, hedonism and special interests of a small group of unchecked oligarchs who have become our most orwellian nightmare come true.