Kyrsten Synema (D - Az) brings a cake into the Senate to downvote min. wage hike

[Classic-Xer]

(04-15-2021, 08:05 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-14-2021, 07:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-14-2021, 10:24 AM)David Horn Wrote: If the Progressive program succeeds, and that's still open to question, then we'll all be less exposed to the vagaries of life. The rich will not continue accumulating at the rate they have and the rest of us will have more -- especially those not in the top 5%. If you're under that threshold, and I certainly am, then you should gain too.

The point was theories don't always work out or turn out as planned. The Democrats are free to spend as much as they want and free to tax as much as they want too. The government is already bankrupt and unable to fulfill it's current obligations, so what the hell, they might as well bankrupt it some more at this point. It's hard to listen as your busy talking. The Democrats aren't paid to listen. The Democrats are paid to talk and sell their foolish and short sighted ideas to the general public/public sector which we know is largely Democratic these days. So, how are the blueish cream puffs doing these days? Are the cream puffs still clinging to Biden?

I agree that theory doesn't necessarily align with reality, but that's always true.  Case in point: we've had 50 years of lowering taxes and regulation on business and the rich.  Has any of that proved more beneficial than the era that proceeded it? The data say no. In fact, the opposite is true. So much for that theory.

Realistically speaking, we've had 60 years of supply economics (1961 to present). JFK proceeded Reagan with the use of supply side economics. He got the ball rolling so to speak. Prior to that, we had forty eight years of progressive economics (1933-1981) and an additional 40 years of progressive economics coinciding with supply side economics (1981 to present). Did you get vaccinated yet? If you did, do you view it as more beneficial or less beneficial to you than anything developed by the government during the era that proceeded it. How bout an MRI or a CT scan and computers and today's internet? So, where does a multi millionaire like Pelosi or Biden or Obama or Bernie get the silly notion that our money is somehow or another their money? Don't they know that we aren't their husbands and wives or one of their over protected/spoiled kids? Don't they know that they're all rich people who could own schools instead of multi million dollar homes and private jets? F them.

What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine mentality is pretty Beaver Clever era and out of touch with the times aka old fashioned don't you think considering we live in an era where divorce and independent men and women who are able to provide and support themselves or each other are common as in we see it and know of it a lot. Take me for example, I don't need a motherly type woman to cook and clean and wash clothes or stroke my ego and help me feel like a man. I can pretty much take care of myself and I'm pretty confident and comfortable in my own skin as you should already know. The benefit of being a latch key kid with hands off working parents, you learn how to do things for yourself and fend for yourself young vs learning it after you leave the roost. I don't know many latch key kids who were boomerang kids.

As far as the money they represent, the Republican base alone (60 some million) could match them and bankrupt them. What's 60 million x $1000 minimum? According to Alexa, the answer is 60 billion dollars. I don't know a Republican voter who couldn't afford $1000. So, what are the Woke corporates and billionaires going to do when their looking at that amount of money? Since lying, manipulation and intimidation are OK with the Left and the corporate Woke's and directly associated with they're way of life and fancy lifestyles, a whole hog terror campaign directed at them and their business's is acceptable. Now, the Republicans themselves are going to have to prove that they're reliable and able to be down right mean and ruthless. Tough to do with a handful of cream puffs in the senate and a group of cream puff/go along to get along dupes in the House. I heard Trump will have his own platform up and running soon.

[Einzige]

It's time for working-class revolution.

[Einzige]

(04-16-2021, 02:42 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-13-2021, 07:39 PM)Einzige Wrote: Money cannot represent value, at least not directly. It can at bet represent the exchange-value of a commodity. But it certainly cannot represent all aspects of value, use and exchange, directly.

Money represents value and will always represent value. I don't see that changing as long as mankind and civilization exists. However, money  itself is not personal and doesn't have a mind of its own or the ability to decide who it prefers to be with either. Money is money. We all know whaIt it is and its purpose. So, if a hundred bill was laying on the street, would you pick it up or leave it for the next person to pick it up? Me, I'd pick it up if no one else was around at the time. I wouldn't fight for it or argue over it because I don't need another one that bad.

One of the points of Marxism is that Capital does actually have a  mind of its own- that it flows according to natural laws and has requirements that can cut against the interests even of its owners. It is a social abstraction which is almost alive.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-16-2021, 05:10 PM)Einzige Wrote: One of the points of Marxism is that Capital does actually have a  mind of its own- that it flows according to natural laws and has requirements that can cut against the interests even of its owners. It is a social abstraction which is almost alive.

I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

[Eric the Green]

(04-17-2021, 12:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-16-2021, 05:10 PM)Einzige Wrote: One of the points of Marxism is that Capital does actually have a  mind of its own- that it flows according to natural laws and has requirements that can cut against the interests even of its owners. It is a social abstraction which is almost alive.

I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

Us Democrats have a way of seeing that some money flows away from whom you think are the "fittest." So, when we win, we interrupt that flow and steer some of the money away from the "fit" fat cats. So much for "natural flow" eh? Unless the state is pretty "natural" after all. Humans have never been without one. But as for Harris, yes I think she played her feminine assets very well, but I don't know if she is rich. Powerful, maybe a bit.

[Eric the Green]

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

Ha ha. It was time in 1793, and 1848 too. And 1905 and 1917. And 1949 and 1959. Well, what did we end up with?

[Classic-Xer]

(04-17-2021, 01:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 12:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

Us Democrats have a way of seeing that some money flows away from whom you think are the "fittest." So, when we win, we interrupt that flow and steer some of the money away from the "fit" fat cats. So much for "natural flow" eh? Unless the state is pretty "natural" after all. Humans have never been without one. But as for Harris, yes I think she played her feminine assets very well, but I don't know if she is rich. Powerful, maybe a bit.

You must have missed this sentence. "The fittest either have or end up with most of it." Read my post again, you'll see it. I acknowledged that the laws of nature aren't always perfect. I mean, a corporal being granted ultimate authority over generals defies the laws of nature but nature prevailed.

[David Horn]

(04-17-2021, 03:04 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 01:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 12:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

Us Democrats have a way of seeing that some money flows away from whom you think are the "fittest." So, when we win, we interrupt that flow and steer some of the money away from the "fit" fat cats. So much for "natural flow" eh? Unless the state is pretty "natural" after all. Humans have never been without one. But as for Harris, yes I think she played her feminine assets very well, but I don't know if she is rich. Powerful, maybe a bit.

You must have missed this sentence. "The fittest either have or end up with most of it." Read my post again, you'll see it. I acknowledged that the laws of nature aren't always perfect. I mean, a corporal being granted ultimate authority over generals defies the laws of nature but nature prevailed.

Replace 'fittest' with either 'most aggressive' or 'greedy' if you prefer, but fittest is simply wrong.  Mahatma Gandhi was penniless but more than fit.  He is only one of thousands ... maybe millions.

[Einzige]

(04-17-2021, 01:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

Ha ha. It was time in 1793, and 1848 too. And 1905 and 1917. And 1949 and 1959. Well, what did we end up with?

Six anti-feudal bourgeois revolutions, three with elements claiming Communism for themselves because the working class was more organized than previously.

[pbrower2a]

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

First of all, once one successfully leads a working-class revolution one is no longer working-class. No matter how sympathetic one is to the worker one is no longer a worker once one leads a government, an army, or a business enterprise. Lenin and Mao were intellectuals -- not proles. Castro might have been a politician in the mainstream had he gotten to exercise the role of a legislator in the Cuban political system had Batista not negated an election... Castro ranm on something called the Orhodox Party of Cuba, which was hard to identify as a Communist Party. (Cuban Commies were typically known as the Popular Socialist Party, as the Communist Party was outlawed).

What good Castro did was typical of a Social Democrat. The bad -- the censorship, the repression, the confiscation of property -- was Communist. 

The real revolution is social change having nothing to do with a change in political affiliation. Yes, Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster, someone that the Far Left might find useful for gutting democracy and debasing capitalism as Batista did. More significant is that as scarcity becomes surfeit, the necessity of deprivation as a means of control vanishes. Maintenance of deprivation as a control on workers may be possible on behalf of an arrogant and rapacious elite that demands and gets everything. An elite can operate that way in a time of super-prosperity only if it has absolute power that it has the will to abuse people. Such is of course reactionary in the extreme. 

What would such an elite be like? First, it would have the markers of sociopathy or extreme narcissism.  Sociopaths can thrive in business organizations so long as they see rules worth heeding for the sake of preserving the system from which they extract privilege and indulgence. The sociopaths who don't get away with it are the criminals who have little stake in the system but instead perverse desires and the desire to get more than one can get through one's talents with predatory behavior. Second, it would pass power down through inheritance in all but name because it could not tolerate competition by startup businesses that might outcompete them in price and service. Profit margins would margins can be kept high through monopoly that has a government in its thrall, willing to suppress new technologies and stifle competition. Third, it would keep wages artificially low and all costs of living freakishly high.

That isn't capitalism; it is socialism for the rich, or economic fascism.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-17-2021, 07:16 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 03:04 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 01:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 12:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

Us Democrats have a way of seeing that some money flows away from whom you think are the "fittest." So, when we win, we interrupt that flow and steer some of the money away from the "fit" fat cats. So much for "natural flow" eh? Unless the state is pretty "natural" after all. Humans have never been without one. But as for Harris, yes I think she played her feminine assets very well, but I don't know if she is rich. Powerful, maybe a bit.

You must have missed this sentence. "The fittest either have or end up with most of it." Read my post again, you'll see it. I acknowledged that the laws of nature aren't always perfect. I mean, a corporal being granted ultimate authority over generals defies the laws of nature but nature prevailed.

Replace 'fittest' with either 'most aggressive' or 'greedy' if you prefer, but fittest is simply wrong.  Mahatma Gandhi was penniless but more than fit.  He is only one of thousands ... maybe millions.

I wouldn't place the most aggressive or greedy in the "fittest" column myself. You can do it  if you prefer and it makes you feel better or think it somehow or another hurts me or my public image. You ain't one of the fittest and that has been VERY clear to me for a long time. I mean, look at what happened to Hitler and George Custer. Two prime examples of what happens to the most aggressive and greedy. No, the two of them are more likely to slit their own throats, bite off more than they can chew, find themselves in hot water or watching in disbelief as they're surrounded and being massacred or forced to live below ground as they're dreams are being shattered and the world above them that they created is being pulverized. The fittest know better. The fittest aren't prone to falling prey to illusions of grandeur and so forth.

I've been telling you that you are up against an animal that poised and ready to take action and tear you apart. You keep ignoring and continue blabbing and acting arrogant. So, are you as big and powerful as Coca Cola and were you smart enough to read and take in account the dollar amount that a few billionaires and multi millionaires (Democratic politicians and they're blue/pink cool aid drinking and cake eaters huddled up on the Democratic side) could easily be facing and find themselves trying to match. 60 some billion is a lot of money. Oh, that doesn't include the Trump constituency. The Trump constituency could afford to kick in another 6-10 billion. Getting back to Coca Cola, the American brand of soda pop that I've been buys and drinking since I was a little kid. Well, mighty old Coke bent its knee to us the other day like they should being they're an American based company and an American icon. It's a subtle sign, but it's a sign of a large corporation giving way to the fittest and the economic power we represent as a group of individuals. Guess what, I told you about our size and the economic power that we represent and that's just based on a thousand dollar contribution to the American cause.

[Bob Butler 54]

To me, those that believe in tribal thinking, in the superiority of the master race or the white race, are not the ones that write the history books.  Those that believe in their own superiority, that find reason to hate another group, those that attempt oppression of that group with use of force including military force that find themselves in trouble.  Hitler and Custer made lots of more specific mistakes, but their basic one was the way of thought, finding a reason to believe in their group, to have contempt for another, and initiate hostilities.

The conservatives in believing in white privilege and being hostile to minorities are doing something similar to that if not an exact match.   They are trying to proclaim they are America and invoke privilege and oppression to keep it that way.

I doubt it will work.  These days people are getting sick of the old values.  If you kill a minority person, you find yourself on trial.  If you try to hold an insurrection,  you find yourself on trial.  If you try voter fraud, you find yourself on trial.  If you harass a minority active duty military person, you find yourself sued.

A few days ago, I watched some coverage of Brooklyn Center.  The camera could pan from the police station to a store being looted.  Now I have listed the groups in the recent BLM protests, and I am tempted to split one group in two.  The violent protestors were up against the police station fence exchanging projectiles with the police, both good cops and perhaps bad.  The non violent protesters were a block or two away, leaving no doubt as to their thoughts but not touching the violence.  The looters were a block or two further.  Thing is, it was the violent protesters that were preventing the cops from doing their jobs.  That needs to be added to one’s understanding of the situation.

But the basic problem is the tribal thinking, the idea that certain people should be able to push others around.  The people doing so were accurately if unwisely called deplorables.  They are running into the new values hard.  

I think of the old advertising point.  Sometimes you have to be different to be better.  In a crisis, the conservative faction wants to stay the same, the progressive faction to change.  Thus, in every crisis, the progressive faction came out ahead.  You can indeed get rid of kings, slaveholders, depressions, and dictators.  Why not COVID and systematic racism?  You can pretend not to notice that the conservative do not change faction has not ended up on top once the crisis heart arrives.  Just don’t count on a change this time.  Tribal thinking, hatred, oppression, violence, all is due to be hit.

Sorry, Einzige, but the division of wealth problem doesn’t seem to be bubbling up, and violence is not the preferred tool in the Information Age.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-17-2021, 04:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

First of all, once one successfully leads a working-class revolution one is no longer working-class. No matter how sympathetic one is to the worker one is no longer a worker once one leads a government, an army, or a business enterprise. Lenin and Mao were intellectuals -- not proles. Castro might have been a politician in the mainstream had he gotten to exercise the role of a legislator in the Cuban political system had Batista not negated an election... Castro ranm on something called the Orhodox Party of Cuba, which was hard to identify as a Communist Party. (Cuban Commies were typically known as the Popular Socialist Party, as the Communist Party was outlawed).

What good Castro did was typical of a Social Democrat. The bad -- the censorship, the repression, the confiscation of property -- was Communist. 

The real revolution is social change having nothing to do with a change in political affiliation. Yes, Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster, someone that the Far Left might find useful for gutting democracy and debasing capitalism as Batista did. More significant is that as scarcity becomes surfeit, the necessity of deprivation as a means of control vanishes. Maintenance of deprivation as a control on workers may be possible on behalf of an arrogant and rapacious elite that demands and gets everything. An elite can operate that way in a time of super-prosperity only if it has absolute power that it has the will to abuse people. Such is of course reactionary in the extreme. 

What would such an elite be like? First, it would have the markers of sociopathy or extreme narcissism.  Sociopaths can thrive in business organizations so long as they see rules worth heeding for the sake of preserving the system from which they extract privilege and indulgence. The sociopaths who don't get away with it are the criminals who have little stake in the system but instead perverse desires and the desire to get more than one can get through one's talents with predatory behavior. Second, it would pass power down through inheritance in all but name because it could not tolerate competition by startup businesses that might outcompete them in price and service. Profit margins would margins can be kept high through monopoly that has a government in its thrall, willing to suppress new technologies and stifle competition. Third, it would keep wages artificially low and all costs of living freakishly high.

That isn't capitalism; it is socialism for the rich, or economic fascism.

A Communist system has Communists on top (1st tier Communists and a lead Communist) who make all the decisions pertaining to the country and everyone living in the country. The Democratic Socialists (2nd tier Communists) making decisions pertaining to the basic needs of the people living in the country and its infrastructure which it passes up for approval. The socialists (3rd tier Communists aka Communist believers) or common citizens basically accept and follow orders and go along with what they're being told. Personally, I don't care whether one is a Communist, socialist or Fascist because the systems are similar and the beliefs associated and commonly held and shared are similar to each other as well. Now, if the group of you want to continue splitting hairs over bad terms with bad reputations associated with dictatorships that Real Americans have no interest in belonging to or living under whatsoever.

The Democratic party is engaging in economic fascism and using racism right now. Do you have a problem with it right now or don't you have fucking clue or have care in the world as to what they're doing as usual. Guess what, we are the target right now. You are the Democratic cream puff who voted for Biden to save you from them. You voted against the one that they've told you and convinced you was them. You are the one who was easily manipulated and turned into a Trump hater by a snip it taken out of context that was used by the Left Wing media as means to keep people like you in the fold and turn off suburban women.

[pbrower2a]

(04-17-2021, 08:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 04:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

First of all, once one successfully leads a working-class revolution one is no longer working-class. No matter how sympathetic one is to the worker one is no longer a worker once one leads a government, an army, or a business enterprise. Lenin and Mao were intellectuals -- not proles. Castro might have been a politician in the mainstream had he gotten to exercise the role of a legislator in the Cuban political system had Batista not negated an election... Castro ranm on something called the Orthodox Party of Cuba, which was hard to identify as a Communist Party. (Cuban Commies were typically known as the Popular Socialist Party, as the Communist Party was outlawed).

What good Castro did was typical of a Social Democrat. The bad -- the censorship, the repression, the confiscation of property -- was Communist. 

The real revolution is social change having nothing to do with a change in political affiliation. Yes, Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster, someone that the Far Left might find useful for gutting democracy and debasing capitalism as Batista did. More significant is that as scarcity becomes surfeit, the necessity of deprivation as a means of control vanishes. Maintenance of deprivation as a control on workers may be possible on behalf of an arrogant and rapacious elite that demands and gets everything. An elite can operate that way in a time of super-prosperity only if it has absolute power that it has the will to abuse people. Such is of course reactionary in the extreme. 

What would such an elite be like? First, it would have the markers of sociopathy or extreme narcissism.  Sociopaths can thrive in business organizations so long as they see rules worth heeding for the sake of preserving the system from which they extract privilege and indulgence. The sociopaths who don't get away with it are the criminals who have little stake in the system but instead perverse desires and the desire to get more than one can get through one's talents with predatory behavior. Second, it would pass power down through inheritance in all but name because it could not tolerate competition by startup businesses that might outcompete them in price and service. Profit margins would margins can be kept high through monopoly that has a government in its thrall, willing to suppress new technologies and stifle competition. Third, it would keep wages artificially low and all costs of living freakishly high.

That isn't capitalism; it is socialism for the rich, or economic fascism.

A Communist system has Communists on top (1st tier Communists and a lead Communist) who make  all the decisions pertaining to the country and everyone living in the country. The Democratic Socialists (2nd tier Communists) making decisions pertaining to the basic needs of the people living in the country and its infrastructure which it passes up for approval. The socialists (3rd tier Communists aka Communist believers) or common citizens basically accept and follow orders and go along with what they're being told. Personally, I don't care whether one is a Communist, socialist or Fascist because the systems are similar and the beliefs associated and commonly held and shared are similar to each other as well. Now, if the group of you want to continue splitting hairs over bad terms with bad reputations associated with dictatorships that Real Americans have no interest in belonging to or living under whatsoever.

All dictatorial orders -- even Nazi Germany -- proclaim themselves the definitive democracies. The only undemocratic orders that do not claim to be democracies are old-fashioned monarchical despotisms like Saudi Arabia, of which there are far fewer than there were around 1900 (including China, Turkey, Iran, Thailand, Japan, Ethiopia, and Russia at the time). Consider that  a horrid system like that in North Korea might make the claim that because 100% or the people vote and all vote for the slate of the Korean Workers' Party (a Communist party) claims to be more democratic than the USA. 

(OK, you are probably one of those fools who believes that Donald Trump really won the Presidential election and was cheated due to voter fraud on a huge scale. I am satisfied that Trump lost by a margin consistent with the replacement of older voters about 5% more R than D dying off being replaced by voters about 20% more D than R replacing them. Trump has little youth or young-adult appeal, which demographic studies and polls show. Electoral results were consistent with that demographic shift imposed on 2016 results. People who think that Trump really won except for massive voter fraud live in a news and information bubble like yours. Donald Trump has stated that he loves "low-information voters", and he has done everything possible to keep his supporters as uninformed or even disinformed as possible. Contrary to a myth that you may hold dear, ignorance is not innocence; it is complicity).  

As for your arrogance of claiming to be a "real American"... America has no single dominant tradition.

This fellow



(Sitting Bull) had far more claim to be a real American than you do. His ancestors were in this country long before yours. 

Besides, what could be more American than this:



It is former beauty-pageant winner and current actress Vanessa Williams, whose ancestry suggests that she could only be an American. Oh, black people aren't real Americans? Their ancestors certainly earned it through their thralldom. She is also about 45% white according to her DNA.  (I would have expected  a higher "white" percentage based on her appearance, but what am I to know?)

The rules that determine citizenship in the USA are definitive, Classic X'er. That defines who can be President in accordance with the citizenship clause -- on which Barack Obama qualifies despite having a non-American father.  

I'd be leery of splitting Americans into those "more American" than others.  

Quote:The Democratic party is engaging in economic fascism and using racism right now. Do you have a problem with it right now or don't you have fucking clue or have care in the world as to what they're doing as usual. Guess what, we are the target right now.  You are the Democratic cream puff who voted for Biden to save you from them. You voted against  the one that they've told you and convinced you was them. You are the one who was easily manipulated and turned into a Trump hater by a snip it taken out of context that was used by the Left Wing media as means to keep people like you in the fold and turn off suburban women.

You ignore that no single tradition defines America. Many different traditions have validity in America, and if you do not recognize this, then you do not fully understand America. 

There is plenty to despise about Donald Trump: his marital infidelity, his bigotry against many identifiable groups (including the handicapped), his sleazy history as a businessman, his suspect loyalty to America when Russia offered him more, his disdain for old decencies that make democracy work in America... were it not for his wealth, his business practices would have gotten him a prison term if he were not wise enough to allow his dreams to match what is allowed to people. 

The more that I saw of the Trump administration and of the personality behind it the more I despised and dreaded it. You saw the stunt in which he had unidentifiable forces attacking protesters so that he could carry a Bible (that he neither heeds nor reads) in front of a church that he does not attend and show the most pitiable display of fake devotion that I have ever seen. I look at the personality cult and I see a dictator. I look at the vans in Portland and Seattle that had Trump banners and a US flag that took away protesters, which is how a secret police operates. I mocked that inchoate secret police as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" after the brutal secret of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. I do not mock the Haitian people who deserve far better than that. 

In the end we had a President who denied his manifest defeat and sought to set aside electoral results that he disliked -- with people willing to use force and violence. In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Joe Biden had won the election and would become President on January 20, 2021. They needed say no more and needed explain nothing.



Joe Biden may not be one of those people who runs on a law-and-order stance, but that's not to say that he needs to.

[Eric the Green]

(04-17-2021, 02:16 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 01:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-16-2021, 05:08 PM)Einzige Wrote: It's time for working-class revolution.

Ha ha. It was time in 1793, and 1848 too. And 1905 and 1917. And 1949 and 1959. Well, what did we end up with?

Six anti-feudal bourgeois revolutions, three with elements claiming Communism for themselves because the working class was more organized than previously.

But, in all six cases, it was "time for working-class revolution." In 1793 the working class took over the French Revolution, and even though not "communist," took many steps toward socialist redistribution of wealth and power, at the cost of a reign of terror. In 1848, Marx wrote that "a spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism." So HE thought "It's time for working-class revolution." It wasn't much of one, it turned out. In 1905, the communist party had been organized in Russia, and was part of the movement, in which social revolutionaries were the dominant faction. In 1917, 1949 and 1959, there were notable communist revolutions, which turned out to mainly be tyrannies. Eventually, some of the people benefited modestly at least materially from these revolutions.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-17-2021, 08:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: To me, those that believe in tribal thinking, in the superiority of the master race or the white race, are not the ones that write the history books.  Those that believe in their own superiority, that find reason to hate another group, those that attempt oppression of that group with use of force including military force that find themselves in trouble.  Hitler and Custer made lots of more specific mistakes, but their basic one was the way of thought, finding a reason to believe in their group, to have contempt for another, and initiate hostilities.

The conservatives in believing in white privilege and being hostile to minorities are doing something similar to that if not an exact match.   They are trying to proclaim they are America and invoke privilege and oppression to keep it that way.

I doubt it will work.  These days people are getting sick of the old values.  If you kill a minority person, you find yourself on trial.  If you try to hold an insurrection,  you find yourself on trial.  If you try voter fraud, you find yourself on trial.  If you harass a minority active duty military person, you find yourself sued.

A few days ago, I watched some coverage of Brooklyn Center.  The camera could pan from the police station to a store being looted.  Now I have listed the groups in the recent BLM protests, and I am tempted to split one group in two.  The violent protestors were up against the police station fence exchanging projectiles with the police, both good cops and perhaps bad.  The non violent protesters were a block or two away, leaving no doubt as to their thoughts but not touching the violence.  The looters were a block or two further.  Thing is, it was the violent protesters that were preventing the cops from doing their jobs.  That needs to be added to one’s understanding of the situation.

But the basic problem is the tribal thinking, the idea that certain people should be able to push others around.  The people doing so were accurately if unwisely called deplorables.  They are running into the new values hard.  

I think of the old advertising point.  Sometimes you have to be different to be better.  In a crisis, the conservative faction wants to stay the same, the progressive faction to change.  Thus, in every crisis, the progressive faction came out ahead.  You can indeed get rid of kings, slaveholders, depressions, and dictators.  Why not COVID and systematic racism?  You can pretend not to notice that the conservative do not change faction has not ended up on top once the crisis heart arrives.  Just don’t count on a change this time.  Tribal thinking, hatred, oppression, violence, all is due to be hit.

Sorry, Einzige, but the division of wealth problem doesn’t seem to be bubbling up, and violence is not the preferred tool in the Information Age.

Bob, why would a tribal minded person like yourself who is obviously associated with a tribe be opposed to other tribes and the thinking associated with them?

[Eric the Green]

(04-17-2021, 08:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: To me, those that believe in tribal thinking, in the superiority of the master race or the white race, are not the ones that write the history books.  Those that believe in their own superiority, that find reason to hate another group, those that attempt oppression of that group with use of force including military force that find themselves in trouble.  Hitler and Custer made lots of more specific mistakes, but their basic one was the way of thought, finding a reason to believe in their group, to have contempt for another, and initiate hostilities.

The conservatives in believing in white privilege and being hostile to minorities are doing something similar to that if not an exact match.   They are trying to proclaim they are America and invoke privilege and oppression to keep it that way.

I doubt it will work.  These days people are getting sick of the old values.  If you kill a minority person, you find yourself on trial.  If you try to hold an insurrection,  you find yourself on trial.  If you try voter fraud, you find yourself on trial.  If you harass a minority active duty military person, you find yourself sued.

A few days ago, I watched some coverage of Brooklyn Center.  The camera could pan from the police station to a store being looted.  Now I have listed the groups in the recent BLM protests, and I am tempted to split one group in two.  The violent protestors were up against the police station fence exchanging projectiles with the police, both good cops and perhaps bad.  The non violent protesters were a block or two away, leaving no doubt as to their thoughts but not touching the violence.  The looters were a block or two further.  Thing is, it was the violent protesters that were preventing the cops from doing their jobs.  That needs to be added to one’s understanding of the situation.

But the basic problem is the tribal thinking, the idea that certain people should be able to push others around.  The people doing so were accurately if unwisely called deplorables.  They are running into the new values hard.  

I think of the old advertising point.  Sometimes you have to be different to be better.  In a crisis, the conservative faction wants to stay the same, the progressive faction to change.  Thus, in every crisis, the progressive faction came out ahead.  You can indeed get rid of kings, slaveholders, depressions, and dictators.  Why not COVID and systematic racism?  You can pretend not to notice that the conservative do not change faction has not ended up on top once the crisis heart arrives.  Just don’t count on a change this time.  Tribal thinking, hatred, oppression, violence, all is due to be hit.

Sorry, Einzige, but the division of wealth problem doesn’t seem to be bubbling up, and violence is not the preferred tool in the Information Age.

It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

Here is one analyst who makes this point. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/a...?CMP=fb_gu (sorry about the requirement to register) Here is his video:

[Eric the Green]

If you have the patience, and skip past the comments of the interviewer, and turn up the volume, this guy shows the nature of neo-liberalism and its consequences.
https://youtu.be/3Ba2cWovROg?t=202
"neo-liberalism is the background of this economic, social, political and health crises that we are living through at the moment" (this includes according to him the destruction of human life by neo-liberal policy during the covid19 pandemic)

It is well-known that neo-liberal politicians like Reagan and Gingrich demonized African-Americans as responsible for their own poverty and dependent on the programs that neo-liberals seek to abolish.

The fact is that neo-liberal policy has defunded social and health workers and put all the burden of dealing with peoples' problems in black communities onto the police. This is why black lives matter protesters talk about "defunding the police," which really means re-allocating some of their funding back (or adding more) to the social and health workers defunded by neo-liberalism. Putting all the burden onto the police reduces problems in poor communities to keeping order, and empowers racist cops to attack unarmed black people. Also, the neo-liberal opposition to gun control as government over-reach has resulted in more proliferation of guns, so that cops fear that the African-Americans or others that they stop or seek to arrest might be armed, resulting in more police shootings. In addition, neo-liberal opposition to gun control has resulted in an epidemic of gun massacres by people using military weapons and large-capacity magazines, that is according to President Biden a "national embarrassment".

Helidah Didi Ogude - 08 June 2020 writes:
"the perversity thesis implies that those in need of welfare are in that position because of a lack in “self-discipline.” This pathology, however, is not ascribed indiscriminately. It is deeply gendered and racialized. For most, the figure of welfare is the so-called welfare queen: a promiscuous, ill-disciplined African American woman with a cigarette in her mouth, a baby on her hip, and many other malnourished children at her feet. Despite the fact that most welfare benefit recipients are in fact white, racial and ethnic minorities as well as women remain the primary targets of this stigmatization and shame."
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog...ralized-us
globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/08/06/2020/unethical-minimal-and-cruel-welfare-state-covid-19-and-makings-demoralized-us


ANN CAMMETT writes:
"this stereotype also supports conservative theories that point to an inherent
“culture of poverty” as the cause of hardship in black families headed by
women, in lieu of recognizing persistent structural inequalities as the
primary source of such hardship. This theory, and its concomitant
rhetorical narrative, has had enormous resiliency: first as a site of resistance
to the Great Society programs of the 1960s that sought to alleviate overall
poverty, and then as a marker of the purported illegitimacy attributed to
black family structures. By tying these two concepts together, well-funded
conservative think tanks have continued to reinforce the notion of black
family dysfunction while simultaneously pressing for broader economic
policies that serve to disempower all working and middle-class families.
The strategy of shifting the discourse of growing structural inequality
in our neoliberal state to the “character defects” of poor black women was
remarkably successful. It persuaded the electorate to accept the
implementation of a political agenda of retrenchment. This neoliberal
paradigm has ushered in the demise of many of the institutions that formed
a bulwark of protection against exploitation for the middle class: public
benefits, collective bargaining, laws restraining the unlimited influence of
corporations in political life, and last but not least, the unprecedented
transfer of wealth from working Americans to the richest 1 percent and
their corporate allies. It is possible that no one has felt the repercussions
of this historical power shift more than low-wage workers, including many
black women. After all, many women who would have formerly been
welfare recipients constitute a huge subset of the most marginal workers of
today"
https://gould.usc.edu/why/students/orgs/...ammett.pdf
gould.usc.edu/why/students/orgs/ilj/assets/docs/25-2-Cammett.pdf

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-18-2021, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

I see the COVID and systematic racism issues (including red violence and Jan 6) as rising to the crisis level. Division of wealth? Yes, some steps have been taken, but that is not the focus to the degree that it ought to be. Where were the division of wealth protests last summer? I suspect COVID and racism will no longer be distractions come the next awakening. Division of wealth seems to be the next issue up.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-17-2021, 11:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Bob, why would a tribal minded person like yourself who is obviously associated with a tribe be opposed to other tribes and the thinking associated with them?

But I'm not.  I'm focused on ideals like democracy, equality and human rights rather than tribes like anglos, latinos and blacks.  You should read The Weirdest People in the World by Joseph Henrich to familiarize yourself with the distinction.  It seems you have been ignoring the meaning of my posts for years.