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(08-03-2017, 02:58 PM)linus Wrote: I read Neil Howe's WaPo op-ed from recent months, which didn't necessarily suggest he thought some kind of war was inevitable, but did say: well, hey, it happened repeatedly before.
I'm kind of still of the opinion that this Crisis is more like the Glorious Revolution (in a certain way) than any other, coming as it did after the Cycle that made England into Britain (much as I think the Depression/WWII made America a superpower). There was certainly violence abroad and in particular the colonies (King Phillips War and all that) but nothing like a total war in the UK.
I also think (having started but not yet completed Stephen Skowronek's "the Politics Presidents Make" - which should be of interest to any 4ters) that Donald Trump may be most like Andrew Johnson, a "wild card" president who succeeded a major, reconstructive liberal one and was unable to undo Lincoln's warrants for disruption and reordering. Trump is like the zombie Reaganite to Johnson's zombie Jacksonian (no wonder Bannon likes him). (The Trefousse bio of Johnson just dropped on my doorstep - am reading because precisely this; day off because f***ing hot out there.)
Re: violence: sadly, maybe more, I think, but of the kind we've seen and continue to: lone wolves, mass shootings, conspiracies involving small numbers of people acting out their crazy.
Welcome back to the fray.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(08-06-2017, 07:52 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-03-2017, 02:58 PM)linus Wrote: I read Neil Howe's WaPo op-ed from recent months, which didn't necessarily suggest he thought some kind of war was inevitable, but did say: well, hey, it happened repeatedly before.
I'm kind of still of the opinion that this Crisis is more like the Glorious Revolution (in a certain way) than any other, coming as it did after the Cycle that made England into Britain (much as I think the Depression/WWII made America a superpower). There was certainly violence abroad and in particular the colonies (King Phillips War and all that) but nothing like a total war in the UK.
I also think (having started but not yet completed Stephen Skowronek's "the Politics Presidents Make" - which should be of interest to any 4ters) that Donald Trump may be most like Andrew Johnson, a "wild card" president who succeeded a major, reconstructive liberal one and was unable to undo Lincoln's warrants for disruption and reordering. Trump is like the zombie Reaganite to Johnson's zombie Jacksonian (no wonder Bannon likes him). (The Trefousse bio of Johnson just dropped on my doorstep - am reading because precisely this; day off because f***ing hot out there.)
Re: violence: sadly, maybe more, I think, but of the kind we've seen and continue to: lone wolves, mass shootings, conspiracies involving small numbers of people acting out their crazy.
Welcome back to the fray.
Oh yes, thanks. Just saw this now. Cheers to you!
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(08-03-2017, 02:58 PM)linus Wrote: I read Neil Howe's WaPo op-ed from recent months, which didn't necessarily suggest he thought some kind of war was inevitable, but did say: well, hey, it happened repeatedly before.
I'm kind of still of the opinion that this Crisis is more like the Glorious Revolution (in a certain way) than any other, coming as it did after the Cycle that made England into Britain (much as I think the Depression/WWII made America a superpower). There was certainly violence abroad and in particular the colonies (King Phillips War and all that) but nothing like a total war in the UK.
I also think (having started but not yet completed Stephen Skowronek's "the Politics Presidents Make" - which should be of interest to any 4ters) that Donald Trump may be most like Andrew Johnson, a "wild card" president who succeeded a major, reconstructive liberal one and was unable to undo Lincoln's warrants for disruption and reordering. Trump is like the zombie Reaganite to Johnson's zombie Jacksonian (no wonder Bannon likes him). (The Trefousse bio of Johnson just dropped on my doorstep - am reading because precisely this; day off because f***ing hot out there.)
Re: violence: sadly, maybe more, I think, but of the kind we've seen and continue to: lone wolves, mass shootings, conspiracies involving small numbers of people acting out their crazy.
That's about right. It would be nice if this 4T ended up with the USA adopting a parliamentary system.
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Parliamentary system? Trump would not have survived a vote of no-confidence. Obama might not have with the same behavior, but at least he might have governed differently and even more cautiously.
Presidents and Prime Ministers are typically about equal. The power was about the same for FDR and Churchill. But we get stuck for four years with a bad President.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Daily Kos tells it like it is.
Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government
It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government.
This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in.
Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong.
Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way.
Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.”
Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.”
Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity.
Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically::
“Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.”
Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message.
It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’”
The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional.
It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand.
No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is.
Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12...=emaildkre
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Senator Lee wants a government that represents wealth and nothing else. It has been tried before; it was called feudalism. The cdommon man was completely at the mercy of a lord.
We are not going that way.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-08-2018, 06:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Daily Kos tells it like it is.
Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government
It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government.
This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in.
Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong.
Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way.
Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.”
Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.”
Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity.
Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically::
“Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.”
Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message.
It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’”
The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional.
It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand.
No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is.
Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12...l=emaildkr
The Daily Kos can say whatever it wants and count on a bunch of clueless blues to read it and believe it and spread the news to other clueless blues. Anyway, I could see the possibility of a civil war being fought between Americans and Progressives if we continue on the path that we still seem to be on today.
Posts: 10,465
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Joined: May 2016
(01-09-2019, 12:29 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-08-2018, 06:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Daily Kos tells it like it is.
Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government
It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government.
This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in.
Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong.
Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way.
Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.”
Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.”
Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity.
Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically::
“Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.”
Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message.
It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’”
The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional.
It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand.
No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is.
Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12...l=emaildkr
The Daily Kos can say whatever it wants and count on a bunch of clueless blues to read it and believe it and spread the news to other clueless blues. Anyway, I could see the possibility of a civil war being fought between Americans and Progressives if we continue on the path that we still seem to be on today.
The divide is not between "Americans" and "Progressives". Being an American does not mean being on one side of a political divide. One can be an American and a fascist, someone who believes that the preparation for great wealth (if only for a few) and 'national greatness' (which means that a vile fascist system is imposed where such is unwelcome) depends upon training people for suffering and death. The KKK is undeniably American. So are our tornadoes. I do not praise tornadoes or the KKK just for being American.
If the Virginia Republican Party predicted that there would be insurrection if Obama got re-elected, then perhaps that explains why the Virginia Republican Party has been losing political ground in the Old Dominion. Virginia voted for Obama, a warning sign to those who see Barack Obama as a dangerous radical. Obama has a temperament more like that of Eisenhower than does Trump. Check an overlay between Obama wins by state and Eisenhower wins by state. Obama in 2012 did not win any state that Ike did not win twice. In 2008 Obama won only one state (barely) that Eisenhower did not win even once -- North Carolina. Eisenhower is about as far from a radical as one could be.
if you really want a proletarian revolution, then establish an economic order in which the workingman has no security against such a calamity as a crippling industrial accident, in which any economic reverse can result in starvation, in which disparities of opportunity relate closely to entrenched class identity, and in which the economic elites indulge themselves inordinately despite the gross suffering of the masses. It is up to the entrepreneurs, heirs, and executives to determine whether Karl Marx is relevant. It is not up to workers who want a little dignity in life or to wayward intellectuals who find Marx pleasing in the way that Aquinas or the Buddha isn't.
If you do not want a proletarian revolution, then have a society in which the proles have a stake in the social order -- like consumerism, which is far safer than revolution. This said, consumerism means a more widespread sharing of the fruits of production so that the common man has little need to take over the means of production from people devoid of conscience and empathy. Remember well the promise that Marxism-Leninism offers: that the social order can better serve the masses if parasitical elites whose necessity is pure myth are no longer around to take a cut that they do not deserve.
We Progressives are getting our point across, and we need not stockpile AR-15s or AK-47s, let alone hand grenades and Katyusha rockets to win the struggle with your side. America is stuck with Mike Lee until 2022 -- until Utah votes him out. Maybe he will be completely irrelevant in 2021.
Donald Trump is not winning America over to the idea that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the name of the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites. Just watch the polling numbers.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-09-2019, 06:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-09-2019, 12:29 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-08-2018, 06:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Daily Kos tells it like it is.
Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government
It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government.
This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in.
Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong.
Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way.
Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.”
Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.”
Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity.
Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically::
“Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.”
Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message.
It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’”
The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional.
It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand.
No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is.
Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12...l=emaildkr
The Daily Kos can say whatever it wants and count on a bunch of clueless blues to read it and believe it and spread the news to other clueless blues. Anyway, I could see the possibility of a civil war being fought between Americans and Progressives if we continue on the path that we still seem to be on today.
The divide is not between "Americans" and "Progressives". Being an American does not mean being on one side of a political divide. One can be an American and a fascist, someone who believes that the preparation for great wealth (if only for a few) and 'national greatness' (which means that a vile fascist system is imposed where such is unwelcome) depends upon training people for suffering and death. The KKK is undeniably American. So are our tornadoes. I do not praise tornadoes or the KKK just for being American.
If the Virginia Republican Party predicted that there would be insurrection if Obama got re-elected, then perhaps that explains why the Virginia Republican Party has been losing political ground in the Old Dominion. Virginia voted for Obama, a warning sign to those who see Barack Obama as a dangerous radical. Obama has a temperament more like that of Eisenhower than does Trump. Check an overlay between Obama wins by state and Eisenhower wins by state. Obama in 2012 did not win any state that Ike did not win twice. In 2008 Obama won only one state (barely) that Eisenhower did not win even once -- North Carolina. Eisenhower is about as far from a radical as one could be.
if you really want a proletarian revolution, then establish an economic order in which the workingman has no security against such a calamity as a crippling industrial accident, in which any economic reverse can result in starvation, in which disparities of opportunity relate closely to entrenched class identity, and in which the economic elites indulge themselves inordinately despite the gross suffering of the masses. It is up to the entrepreneurs, heirs, and executives to determine whether Karl Marx is relevant. It is not up to workers who want a little dignity in life or to wayward intellectuals who find Marx pleasing in the way that Aquinas or the Buddha isn't.
If you do not want a proletarian revolution, then have a society in which the proles have a stake in the social order -- like consumerism, which is far safer than revolution. This said, consumerism means a more widespread sharing of the fruits of production so that the common man has little need to take over the means of production from people devoid of conscience and empathy. Remember well the promise that Marxism-Leninism offers: that the social order can better serve the masses if parasitical elites whose necessity is pure myth are no longer around to take a cut that they do not deserve.
We Progressives are getting our point across, and we need not stockpile AR-15s or AK-47s, let alone hand grenades and Katyusha rockets to win the struggle with your side. America is stuck with Mike Lee until 2022 -- until Utah votes him out. Maybe he will be completely irrelevant in 2021.
Donald Trump is not winning America over to the idea that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the name of the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites. Just watch the polling numbers.
How long would a proletarian revolution make it before it ran into the American Right? I'm not going to have a hard time adapting to the use of an AR-15 or a real weapon of war? Right now, I'd expect the polling numbers to be in the workers not receiving there paychecks favor. How long is going to be before opinions of blues change when their lavish lifestyles begin to be revealed and their personal intent begins to be questioned by those who are suffering because of Chuck and Nancy's complete lack of suffering and concerns relating to working class people. I mean, is 5 billion for a needed border wall really worth the anguish that their causing by holding out and saying no to the wall? Does the new Senator from Arizona have plans to be a two term senator or is she one of them blues who is more interested pleasing Chuck and Nancy than interested in representing the voters of Arizona. Well, you can kiss her good bye in six years because the illegal immigrant crisis will be undeniable in six years and the idea of eliminating certain blues by force will be stronger than it is today as well.
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01-10-2019, 02:15 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2019, 02:24 AM by Eric the Green.)
(01-09-2019, 11:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (01-09-2019, 06:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-09-2019, 12:29 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-08-2018, 06:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Daily Kos tells it like it is.
Senate Republican warns of civil war if Democrats continue supporting the Federal government
It never fails that the party responsible for divisive rhetoric and violence as a matter of course always threatens violence against other Americans because Democrats were successful in an election. The midterm elections were barely a week old, and as if on a predetermined schedule, a Republican senator was warning of civil war because Democrats are unwilling to toe the Koch brothers line and work towards castrating the Federal government.
This is not the first time Republicans have beat their prone-to-violence base to the punch and threatened bloodshed if they fail to get what they want. In 2012 the Virginia Republican Party threatened that conservatives would launch a violent, bloody rebellion if President Barack Obama won re-election, and no small number of Trump advocates have warned of a violent civil war if the cretin was ever held accountable for the many high crimes and misdemeanors he and his family are involved in.
Mike Lee, besides being a typical Republican, is a Utah Libertarian malcontent in the mold of those filthy rich Libertarian malcontents Charles and David Koch. Anyone familiar with the Utah Mormon attempts to seize public land owned by the Federal government (see Bundy Ranch Standoff: Oregon wildlife refuge takeover) may believe that federal land ownership issue is the extent of Lee’s close affiliation with the Koch brothers, but that belief would be dead wrong.
Lee’s distorted view of the U.S. Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Federal government, is shared by the Koch brothers. And like the Koch brothers, Lee demands, and expects, a quick end to most of the Federal government’s agencies, departments and programs; he claims it is the only prescription to prevent civil war. In that sense, Lee is a Koch acolyte of the first order. It is true the Koch brothers do not threaten violence or warn of civil rebellion against the government, but they did co-create and contribute handsomely to the teabagger movement and Republicans who warned of civil war if they did not get their way.
Two weeks ago, barely eight days after the midterm elections, Lee addressed the uber-conservative Federalist Society. It was during that address that he warned that if the federal government is not neutered, including the wholesale elimination of most Federal government programs, agencies and departments, then there “will be civil war.” Lee’s claim is that unless Democrats join Republicans and “move to a system granting de facto sovereignty to the states and eliminate massive federal programs like public education and interstate highways there will be a civil war.” Such a system Lee calls for would be patently unconstitutional in the United States, but legal in a by-gone and very short-lived “sovereign nation.”
Lee warned that the only way Democrats can avert violence is if they end their support for a long list of federal programs, agencies, and departments that also happen to be on the Koch brothers hit list going back three decades. Just a sampling of what Democrats have to willingly help eliminate to stave off a violent civil war according to Lee includes, but is not limited to: The interstate highway system, funding for K-12 public education, federal higher education accreditation, early childhood education, the Department of Commerce, housing policy, workforce regulations, and what the typically-Mormon Lee labeled the illegal “huge glut of federally owned land.”
Lee also believes that federal child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are patently unconstitutional. According to his mind, the only means of avoiding civil war is ignoring that part of the Constitution granting authority to Congress to appropriate funds for the general welfare and establishes the federal government as a legitimate governing entity.
Lee claimed that opposition to conservative policies, such as eliminating the federal government, is what he called “angry political rhetoric driving our politics toward violence,” stating emphatically::
“Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice: federalism or violence.”
Any American with a pulse understands the choice Lee proffers is “my way or civil war.” And to be abundantly clear, what Mormon Lee is claiming is that unless the federal government and everything connected to it is eliminated, including forfeiture of its public land to states like Utah to sell to the Kochs, there will be violence – not unlike the Bundy message.
It is noteworthy that Lee places the blame for his impending civil war on the people unlikely to ever support eradicating the Federal government or eliminating domestic programs or end Congress’ spending on the general welfare – Democrats. Lee claims that “every federal law that liberals support violates the Constitution.” He even believes the “federal ban on child labor is unconstitutional because the Constitution was ‘designed to be harsh.’”
The only thing Lee claims the federal government can legally be allowed to do under his reading of the “constitution” is enforce immigration laws - everything else is unconstitutional. However, since the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws and levy taxes for the nation’s general welfare, such as highways, public schools et cetera, there is nothing on Lee’s, or the Koch brothers’, hit list that is remotely unconstitutional; it is why liberals support all those things Lee and the Kochs despise – they are constitutional.
It is worth noting that in another era of American history Lee’s claim that those so-called “unconstitutional” things liberals support were indeed “unconstitutional.” However, they were “unconstitutional” according to the Constitution of the Confederate States, not the United States Constitution Lee swore a “so help me god” oath to support, preserve and defend – an oath he seems more than willing to violate or he would not threaten a civil war if he fails to get what he and his nasty ilk demand.
No-one enjoys losing elections, and for sure those that do are ultimately disappointed. However, it is only the Republicans and their ugly base that go directly to threatening violence towards the opposition; in Lee’s case it is violence against the Federal government. That is what civil war is.
Democrats were certainly disappointed after the 2016 election loss where their candidate earned about 3-million more votes than the criminal Republicans supported, but they never threatened violence or civil war. Instead, they embraced their constitutional rights to protest and verbally “resist” that became a “Blue Wave” that incited a sitting Republican senator to warn of civil war against the government; something that really is unconstitutional.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12...l=emaildkr
The Daily Kos can say whatever it wants and count on a bunch of clueless blues to read it and believe it and spread the news to other clueless blues. Anyway, I could see the possibility of a civil war being fought between Americans and Progressives if we continue on the path that we still seem to be on today.
The divide is not between "Americans" and "Progressives". Being an American does not mean being on one side of a political divide. One can be an American and a fascist, someone who believes that the preparation for great wealth (if only for a few) and 'national greatness' (which means that a vile fascist system is imposed where such is unwelcome) depends upon training people for suffering and death. The KKK is undeniably American. So are our tornadoes. I do not praise tornadoes or the KKK just for being American.
If the Virginia Republican Party predicted that there would be insurrection if Obama got re-elected, then perhaps that explains why the Virginia Republican Party has been losing political ground in the Old Dominion. Virginia voted for Obama, a warning sign to those who see Barack Obama as a dangerous radical. Obama has a temperament more like that of Eisenhower than does Trump. Check an overlay between Obama wins by state and Eisenhower wins by state. Obama in 2012 did not win any state that Ike did not win twice. In 2008 Obama won only one state (barely) that Eisenhower did not win even once -- North Carolina. Eisenhower is about as far from a radical as one could be.
if you really want a proletarian revolution, then establish an economic order in which the workingman has no security against such a calamity as a crippling industrial accident, in which any economic reverse can result in starvation, in which disparities of opportunity relate closely to entrenched class identity, and in which the economic elites indulge themselves inordinately despite the gross suffering of the masses. It is up to the entrepreneurs, heirs, and executives to determine whether Karl Marx is relevant. It is not up to workers who want a little dignity in life or to wayward intellectuals who find Marx pleasing in the way that Aquinas or the Buddha isn't.
If you do not want a proletarian revolution, then have a society in which the proles have a stake in the social order -- like consumerism, which is far safer than revolution. This said, consumerism means a more widespread sharing of the fruits of production so that the common man has little need to take over the means of production from people devoid of conscience and empathy. Remember well the promise that Marxism-Leninism offers: that the social order can better serve the masses if parasitical elites whose necessity is pure myth are no longer around to take a cut that they do not deserve.
We Progressives are getting our point across, and we need not stockpile AR-15s or AK-47s, let alone hand grenades and Katyusha rockets to win the struggle with your side. America is stuck with Mike Lee until 2022 -- until Utah votes him out. Maybe he will be completely irrelevant in 2021.
Donald Trump is not winning America over to the idea that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the name of the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites. Just watch the polling numbers.
How long would a proletarian revolution make it before it ran into the American Right? I'm not going to have a hard time adapting to the use of an AR-15 or a real weapon of war? Right now, I'd expect the polling numbers to be in the workers not receiving there paychecks favor. How long is going to be before opinions of blues change when their lavish lifestyles begin to be revealed and their personal intent begins to be questioned by those who are suffering because of Chuck and Nancy's complete lack of suffering and concerns relating to working class people. I mean, is 5 billion for a needed border wall really worth the anguish that their causing by holding out and saying no to the wall? Does the new Senator from Arizona have plans to be a two term senator or is she one of them blues who is more interested pleasing Chuck and Nancy than interested in representing the voters of Arizona. Well, you can kiss her good bye in six years because the illegal immigrant crisis will be undeniable in six years and the idea of eliminating certain blues by force will be stronger than it is today as well.
It's hard to say about Ms. Sinema, but I hope she lines up with Chuck and Nancy. They are the ones who represent the working people, not Drumpface Do-little Orange-head. Trump's Wall will not stop illegal immigrants, and that's why Chuck and Nancy don't support it. It is nothing but Trump's campaign gimmick and rally cry. It helped get him elected, so he can just let it go now and compromise, and support what the actual border patrol agents say is needed. In his speech he said that's who he listened to, although he didn't. The border patrol agents do not say we need a big wall along the entire border, just a wall in some parts of it, as there already is. If he can listen, and Chuck and Nancy listen too, then I think compromise can be had. I don't think what is actually needed will cost $5 billion (and as John Oliver pointed out in the video I posted, his Wall will actually cost $15 billion or more). The USA does not need campaign gimmick boondoggles, nor lots of lies told to promote and justify it. But the Democrats say they support border security.
Progress needs to resume. I don't think a Left proletarian revolution can beat the Right AND the government. But if we win elections in the 2020s, the Left will control the government, and the Right-wing will be the revolutionaries armed with AR-15s, if they decide to resist what the Left wants (including taking away the right to buy AR-15s). But the government can defeat them without too much trouble, and they will lose their guns and maybe their lives or freedom in the bargain.
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(01-09-2019, 11:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (background comments redacted solely for brevity)
How long would a proletarian revolution make it before it ran into the American Right? I'm not going to have a hard time adapting to the use of an AR-15 or a real weapon of war? Right now, I'd expect the polling numbers to be in the workers not receiving there paychecks favor. How long is going to be before opinions of blues change when their lavish lifestyles begin to be revealed and their personal intent begins to be questioned by those who are suffering because of Chuck and Nancy's complete lack of suffering and concerns relating to working class people. I mean, is 5 billion for a needed border wall really worth the anguish that their causing by holding out and saying no to the wall? Does the new Senator from Arizona have plans to be a two term senator or is she one of them blues who is more interested pleasing Chuck and Nancy than interested in representing the voters of Arizona. Well, you can kiss her good bye in six years because the illegal immigrant crisis will be undeniable in six years and the idea of eliminating certain blues by force will be stronger than it is today as well.
As I recall, proletarian revolutions happen when
1. Government is grossly undemocratic, which can include traditional monarchies like Imperial Russia or the latter years of the Empire of Ethiopia, colonial rule as in French Indochina and Portuguese colonies in Africa, particularly-vile and corrupt regimes as in China under Chiang Kai-Shek or Cuba under Batista, or political orders completely discredited after military occupation as in Albania and Yugoslavia (where Commie regimes came to power with little need for Soviet occupation in establishing Marxist regimes)
2. Government is incompetent and corrupt; it shows contempt for the welfare of the common man but facilitates the indulgence of economic elites
3. Economic development is in the early stages of industrial development (true peasant societies do not go Communist because the solution for rural distress is to redistribute land to farmers as an expression of capitalist restructuring)
4. Industrial development is highly concentrated in a few places, especially the capital of the country, so workers are easy to concentrate in strikes and rebellions by simply riling people who live in gigantic disease-ridden fire-trap slums
5. Industrial policy focuses on heavy industry, resource extraction, and plantation agriculture as keys to rapid development instead of upon cottage industries that produce stuff like clothing and housewares that the worker can use
6. Economic distress in rural areas is severe, peasants being bled on behalf of distant and uncaring elites in the cities or overseas
This does not apply to military conquest by a Marxist state such as the Soviet Union. Soviet military occupation would have as readily facilitated a Communist takeover in the Netherlands as it did in fact facilitate the Czechoslovak coup of 1948. This is parallel to explaining why France got a fascistic regime and Britain did not in World War II; the British were successful in keeping the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS out of their country and the French weren't.
This explains why Russia had a Marxist revolution and Japan didn't, why China had a Marxist revolution and India didn't, why Cuba had a Marxist revolution and Mexico didn't, why Vietnam had a Marxist revolution and a Marxist insurgency failed in the Philippines, why Angola had a Marxist revolution and Botswana didn't, and why Yugoslavia had a Marxist revolution and Italy didn't. Marx suggested that the most economically-advanced societies of his time would first undergo Socialist revolutions before other countries -- and it was backward Russia which still had feudal characteristics and inchoate industry in 1917 that got the first revolution that saw Marx as a mentor.
Governments that promote market-driven development fare better in thwarting Red revolution than those that insist upon top-down efforts to rush economic growth. A healthy agricultural system of yeoman farmers creates a potential constituency for conservatism. Democracy allows the rise of parties such as the British Labour Party and social-democratic Parties more intent on promoting social welfare than any proletarian insurrection; dictatorships with secret police that repress all dissent against institutional exploitation ensure that dissent finds itself in small, conspiratorial, violent, tightly-knit, fanatical, and ruthless cliques prone to terrorism as in Russia in the early part of the twentieth century. As countries leave the early-industrial age, the capitalists typically find that it is wiser to let the workers have a stake in the system (as consumerism) instead of taking everything -- thus ensuring that workers have something to lose other than the chains that Marx said was all that they had.
But yes, let the economic elites of America (big landowners, plutocrats better described as heirs instead of as entrepreneurs, business executives, bureaucratic elites and political operatives, and arguably organized crime) decide to take everything for themselves, and we might have a situation in which workers have nothing to lose but their chains.
OK, so much for the lecture in political science.
....Most of us Blues do not enjoy lavish lifestyles. If anything we despise someone like Paul Manafort for living large on the rewards for helping a dictator bleed Ukraine. We do not need suffering among our political leaders. If anything, it is Donald Trump who has shown little concern for the welfare of people not already filthy rich even after he made wild promises in 2016. Trump has betrayed many of the people who voted for him. As a partisan Blue I saw him for what he is. Estimates on the border wall have escalated from $5 billion to much more, as building that wall will necessitate the building of roads necessary for building and 'servicing' the wall. Personally corrupt as Trump is, I can expect $5 billion to be a good minimum figure for graft alone.
It would make more sense to build an expressway connecting Lubbock, Texas through Abilene to I-10 northwest of San Antonio along or following US 84 and US 83, 277 miles in length (about 40 miles of it is up to Interstate standard). Maybe that is not a perfect idea of a highway project, but I would not be surprised if the Texas legislature would prefer such. If we are to build something, then we might be wiser to build highways that connect cities and reduce traffic fatalities than to build walls that are more likely to kill people.
...Arizona is drifting Blue due to demographics -- the fast-growing Hispanic (largely Mexican-American segment of the electorate) and people leaving California for the lower cost of living. Were I an Arizona politician I would heed that.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-10-2019, 10:21 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-09-2019, 11:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (background comments redacted solely for brevity)
How long would a proletarian revolution make it before it ran into the American Right? I'm not going to have a hard time adapting to the use of an AR-15 or a real weapon of war? Right now, I'd expect the polling numbers to be in the workers not receiving there paychecks favor. How long is going to be before opinions of blues change when their lavish lifestyles begin to be revealed and their personal intent begins to be questioned by those who are suffering because of Chuck and Nancy's complete lack of suffering and concerns relating to working class people. I mean, is 5 billion for a needed border wall really worth the anguish that their causing by holding out and saying no to the wall? Does the new Senator from Arizona have plans to be a two term senator or is she one of them blues who is more interested pleasing Chuck and Nancy than interested in representing the voters of Arizona. Well, you can kiss her good bye in six years because the illegal immigrant crisis will be undeniable in six years and the idea of eliminating certain blues by force will be stronger than it is today as well.
As I recall, proletarian revolutions happen when
1. Government is grossly undemocratic, which can include traditional monarchies like Imperial Russia or the latter years of the Empire of Ethiopia, colonial rule as in French Indochina and Portuguese colonies in Africa, particularly-vile and corrupt regimes as in China under Chiang Kai-Shek or Cuba under Batista, or political orders completely discredited after military occupation as in Albania and Yugoslavia (where Commie regimes came to power with little need for Soviet occupation in establishing Marxist regimes)
2. Government is incompetent and corrupt; it shows contempt for the welfare of the common man but facilitates the indulgence of economic elites
3. Economic development is in the early stages of industrial development (true peasant societies do not go Communist because the solution for rural distress is to redistribute land to farmers as an expression of capitalist restructuring)
4. Industrial development is highly concentrated in a few places, especially the capital of the country, so workers are easy to concentrate in strikes and rebellions by simply riling people who live in gigantic disease-ridden fire-trap slums
5. Industrial policy focuses on heavy industry, resource extraction, and plantation agriculture as keys to rapid development instead of upon cottage industries that produce stuff like clothing and housewares that the worker can use
6. Economic distress in rural areas is severe, peasants being bled on behalf of distant and uncaring elites in the cities or overseas
This does not apply to military conquest by a Marxist state such as the Soviet Union. Soviet military occupation would have as readily facilitated a Communist takeover in the Netherlands as it did in fact facilitate the Czechoslovak coup of 1948. This is parallel to explaining why France got a fascistic regime and Britain did not in World War II; the British were successful in keeping the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS out of their country and the French weren't.
This explains why Russia had a Marxist revolution and Japan didn't, why China had a Marxist revolution and India didn't, why Cuba had a Marxist revolution and Mexico didn't, why Vietnam had a Marxist revolution and a Marxist insurgency failed in the Philippines, why Angola had a Marxist revolution and Botswana didn't, and why Yugoslavia had a Marxist revolution and Italy didn't. Marx suggested that the most economically-advanced societies of his time would first undergo Socialist revolutions before other countries -- and it was backward Russia which still had feudal characteristics and inchoate industry in 1917 that got the first revolution that saw Marx as a mentor.
Governments that promote market-driven development fare better in thwarting Red revolution than those that insist upon top-down efforts to rush economic growth. A healthy agricultural system of yeoman farmers creates a potential constituency for conservatism. Democracy allows the rise of parties such as the British Labour Party and social-democratic Parties more intent on promoting social welfare than any proletarian insurrection; dictatorships with secret police that repress all dissent against institutional exploitation ensure that dissent finds itself in small, conspiratorial, violent, tightly-knit, fanatical, and ruthless cliques prone to terrorism as in Russia in the early part of the twentieth century. As countries leave the early-industrial age, the capitalists typically find that it is wiser to let the workers have a stake in the system (as consumerism) instead of taking everything -- thus ensuring that workers have something to lose other than the chains that Marx said was all that they had.
But yes, let the economic elites of America (big landowners, plutocrats better described as heirs instead of as entrepreneurs, business executives, bureaucratic elites and political operatives, and arguably organized crime) decide to take everything for themselves, and we might have a situation in which workers have nothing to lose but their chains.
OK, so much for the lecture in political science.
....Most of us Blues do not enjoy lavish lifestyles. If anything we despise someone like Paul Manafort for living large on the rewards for helping a dictator bleed Ukraine. We do not need suffering among our political leaders. If anything, it is Donald Trump who has shown little concern for the welfare of people not already filthy rich even after he made wild promises in 2016. Trump has betrayed many of the people who voted for him. As a partisan Blue I saw him for what he is. Estimates on the border wall have escalated from $5 billion to much more, as building that wall will necessitate the building of roads necessary for building and 'servicing' the wall. Personally corrupt as Trump is, I can expect $5 billion to be a good minimum figure for graft alone.
It would make more sense to build an expressway connecting Lubbock, Texas through Abilene to I-10 northwest of San Antonio along or following US 84 and US 83, 277 miles in length (about 40 miles of it is up to Interstate standard). Maybe that is not a perfect idea of a highway project, but I would not be surprised if the Texas legislature would prefer such. If we are to build something, then we might be wiser to build highways that connect cities and reduce traffic fatalities than to build walls that are more likely to kill people.
...Arizona is drifting Blue due to demographics -- the fast-growing Hispanic (largely Mexican-American segment of the electorate) and people leaving California for the lower cost of living. Were I an Arizona politician I would heed that.
I'm sorry but the Democratic party is becoming the party of haves and have nots. The Democratic middle class damn near gone and most of what's left is government related as far as employment which is why there is so much concern/fear relating to the American right and its obvious political power and influence and its willingness to reform or massively cut well programs, interest in repealing blue laws and its obvious unwillingness to fall in line with blue Democrats and anti-up big time as far as taxes or switch their views or let go of their beliefs and values and submit to the blues. Like I said, blues keep comparing us to themselves and continue expecting us to miraculously change or eventually give in and accept whatever terms the blues have to offer, buckle down in fear or give up and quit like they would do if they were us.
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01-12-2019, 10:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-12-2019, 10:40 AM by pbrower2a.)
(01-11-2019, 09:48 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (exchange excised for brevity)
I'm sorry but the Democratic party is becoming the party of haves and have nots. The Democratic middle class damn near gone and most of what's left is government related as far as employment which is why there is so much concern/fear relating to the American right and its obvious political power and influence and its willingness to reform or massively cut well programs, interest in repealing blue laws and its obvious unwillingness to fall in line with blue Democrats and anti-up big time as far as taxes or switch their views or let go of their beliefs and values and submit to the blues. Like I said, blues keep comparing us to themselves and continue expecting us to miraculously change or eventually give in and accept whatever terms the blues have to offer, buckle down in fear or give up and quit like they would do if they were us.
America as a whole is becoming a nation of 'haves' and 'have-nots'. As the small-business owner, long a key constituency of the Republican Party disappears due to the exit of small farmers from farming and the failure of small retail trade against retailers such as Wal*Mart, Amazon.com, Dollar General, and rent-to-own emporiums, the middle class shrinks. That includes the Republican part of the middle class. Big Business is capable of inducing high levels of productivity from working people while gutting wages. Meanwhile, profitability soars, executive compensation (people being paid very well for treating workers very badly), and even organized crime flourishes. On organized crime -- Donald Trump has more connections to criminal syndicates (including both the Sicilian and the Russian Mafia) than any President in American history, and it is as nasty an exploiter as any elite. I mentioned farming, and the consolidation of farms implies the intensification of disparities between ownership and corporate management on the one side and farm laborers. Meanwhile, people that you consider middle class become renters if they are to live in places that offer economic opportunity -- and they are often paying $3K a month in rent to landlords who simply collect rent from people in tiny apartments that resemble Stalinist flats.
So between greater concentration of ownership, bigger income for bureaucratic elites (the tendency is appearing in the public and non-profit sectors, too), and falling real wages despite rising productivity, life is getting worse for people who have nothing to sell but their labor. Karl Marx had a word to describe people who had nothing to sell but their labor: the proletariat.
Capitalism saved itself from Bolshevik-style revolutions because the capitalists of the time decided that it was best that the proletariat have a stake in the economic order as participants in a consumer economy. The economic elites have chosen to dispense with the consumer economy for people other than themselves so that they can maximize their own indulgence and power. We may now see a reversion of economic conditions to those that make possible a proletarian revolution: the perception by many that they would be better off without the heirs owning the assets, executives who seem to have graduated from the Simon Legree School of Management, bureaucratic elites who serve only themselves, politicians servile to economic elites, and out-and-out mobsters. The Marxist appeal is that a society without such elites can foster economic growth or spread the bounty of a prosperous society more equitably.
Should there be a revolution against our economic elites, it will be led by the Millennial Generation which resembles in many ways the leadership of the French masses during the French Revolution. Maybe their solution will be to dispossess the rapacious elites who now bedevil us and to start over with more reliance upon small business. After all, the American political system is predicated upon free enterprise by yeoman farmers and small-business owners, with the competent doing well, but not so much better that they can lord it over the rest of us through economic power. That is the best hope: a revolution in the name of liberal ideals should our elites try to impose a feudal nightmare.
Elites who demand that others suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of those elites have shown a poor record of survival in the historical record. It is a matter of time -- or of those elites coming to their senses or exercising some conscience. Karl Marx is very right very or wrong, depending on what the economic elites of the time choose as the reality for the rest of us. Neither the proletariat nor the intellectuals who study Marx and seek to adapt his teachings to the the reality of the time can make his teachings true.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-12-2019, 10:37 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-11-2019, 09:48 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (exchange excised for brevity)
I'm sorry but the Democratic party is becoming the party of haves and have nots. The Democratic middle class damn near gone and most of what's left is government related as far as employment which is why there is so much concern/fear relating to the American right and its obvious political power and influence and its willingness to reform or massively cut well programs, interest in repealing blue laws and its obvious unwillingness to fall in line with blue Democrats and anti-up big time as far as taxes or switch their views or let go of their beliefs and values and submit to the blues. Like I said, blues keep comparing us to themselves and continue expecting us to miraculously change or eventually give in and accept whatever terms the blues have to offer, buckle down in fear or give up and quit like they would do if they were us.
America as a whole is becoming a nation of 'haves' and 'have-nots'. As the small-business owner, long a key constituency of the Republican Party disappears due to the exit of small farmers from farming and the failure of small retail trade against retailers such as Wal*Mart, Amazon.com, Dollar General, and rent-to-own emporiums, the middle class shrinks. That includes the Republican part of the middle class. Big Business is capable of inducing high levels of productivity from working people while gutting wages. Meanwhile, profitability soars, executive compensation (people being paid very well for treating workers very badly), and even organized crime flourishes. On organized crime -- Donald Trump has more connections to criminal syndicates (including both the Sicilian and the Russian Mafia) than any President in American history, and it is as nasty an exploiter as any elite. I mentioned farming, and the consolidation of farms implies the intensification of disparities between ownership and corporate management on the one side and farm laborers. Meanwhile, people that you consider middle class become renters if they are to live in places that offer economic opportunity -- and they are often paying $3K a month in rent to landlords who simply collect rent from people in tiny apartments that resemble Stalinist flats.
So between greater concentration of ownership, bigger income for bureaucratic elites (the tendency is appearing in the public and non-profit sectors, too), and falling real wages despite rising productivity, life is getting worse for people who have nothing to sell but their labor. Karl Marx had a word to describe people who had nothing to sell but their labor: the proletariat.
Capitalism saved itself from Bolshevik-style revolutions because the capitalists of the time decided that it was best that the proletariat have a stake in the economic order as participants in a consumer economy. The economic elites have chosen to dispense with the consumer economy for people other than themselves so that they can maximize their own indulgence and power. We may now see a reversion of economic conditions to those that make possible a proletarian revolution: the perception by many that they would be better off without the heirs owning the assets, executives who seem to have graduated from the Simon Legree School of Management, bureaucratic elites who serve only themselves, politicians servile to economic elites, and out-and-out mobsters. The Marxist appeal is that a society without such elites can foster economic growth or spread the bounty of a prosperous society more equitably.
Should there be a revolution against our economic elites, it will be led by the Millennial Generation which resembles in many ways the leadership of the French masses during the French Revolution. Maybe their solution will be to dispossess the rapacious elites who now bedevil us and to start over with more reliance upon small business. After all, the American political system is predicated upon free enterprise by yeoman farmers and small-business owners, with the competent doing well, but not so much better that they can lord it over the rest of us through economic power. That is the best hope: a revolution in the name of liberal ideals should our elites try to impose a feudal nightmare.
Elites who demand that others suffer for the power, gain, and indulgence of those elites have shown a poor record of survival in the historical record. It is a matter of time -- or of those elites coming to their senses or exercising some conscience. Karl Marx is very right very or wrong, depending on what the economic elites of the time choose as the reality for the rest of us. Neither the proletariat nor the intellectuals who study Marx and seek to adapt his teachings to the the reality of the time can make his teachings true.
Once again, you fail to see our differences and the differences as far as our common beliefs and core values and our characteristics as individuals. If your elites impose a feudal nightmare there isn't much the blues would be able to do about it because whatever rights that you had were either surrendered foolishly or removed by your own fear or concerns related to not going along with the views and the ideals or the decisions and whatever laws that are imposed by your elites.
Now, you can say this, show me that and speculate based on information given to you by your elites shallow/superficial view of things and the fallacy's they use to teach or control your view of us. Well, we are aware of what's going on or becoming more aware of what's going on and we have been aware and getting prepared to face the inevitable/obvious for several years now. Now, I don't have to learn how to handle or shot a firearm. I've been handling and shooting firearms for the bulk of my life. Now, I don't know where you actually live (a poorer predominately blue area located in rural America or a poorer predominately red area located in rural America ). Based on your views, I assume that you live a latter area. I get the impression that you don't have many concerns related to crime like those who live in poorer blue areas where crime is more common and criminal activity is more common as well.
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01-13-2019, 10:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-13-2019, 10:42 AM by pbrower2a.)
(01-12-2019, 10:19 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Quote:(excised for brevity)
Once again, you fail to see our differences and the differences as far as our common beliefs and core values and our characteristics as individuals. If your elites impose a feudal nightmare there isn't much the blues would be able to do about it because whatever rights that you had were either surrendered foolishly or removed by your own fear or concerns related to not going along with the views and the ideals or the decisions and whatever laws that are imposed by your elites.
Did I say that I endorse Marxism-Leninism? Hardly! The body count is too severe to make its promises worth achieving. But we need remember that the social conditions and political realities that make Marxism-Leninism possible in a society are themselves evil for what they make possible. For something closer to home, we have laws against many drugs such as cocaine and heroin that wreck personal lives. The drugs do not themselves create obvious misery at the outset; indeed, they create euphoria. The problem is that people on those drugs either become thoroughly incompetent so that they must commit crimes to meet their habit or mess up the lives of people over which they have power or influence.
Quote:Now, you can say this, show me that and speculate based on information given to you by your elites shallow/superficial view of things and the fallacy's [sic!] they use to teach or control your view of us. Well, we are aware of what's going on or becoming more aware of what's going on and we have been aware and getting prepared to face the inevitable/obvious for several years now. Now, I don't have to learn how to handle or shot a firearm. I've been handling and shooting firearms for the bulk of my life. Now, I don't know where you actually live (a poorer predominately blue area located in rural America or a poorer predominately red area located in rural America ). Based on your views, I assume that you live a latter area. I get the impression that you don't have many concerns related to crime like those who live in poorer blue areas where crime is more common and criminal activity is more common as well.
Formal logic has been in existence as a topic of formal study in the Western heritage since the ancient Greeks. The philosopher Plato, founder of the first equivalent of the modern university in its insistence upon intellectual rigor, said, "Let no young man enter the Academy that has not mastered Euclid". Euclid, the geometer, that is, used logic to establish the truth behind the complexity of numbers and shapes that underpin all science to this day. Science has advanced, but it does not reject Euclid, let alone his methods of discerning truth from falsity. Euclid established in formal logic that certain structures of thinking preclude one from drawing false conclusions from evident truth.
You are right about me living in a hick community and hating that reality. The secret to happiness in such a place is to be as peasant-like in aspirations and attitudes as is possible. Many of the people living near where I live have brought their peasant attitudes here from some other country and have been able to achieve the dream of the peasant in the country of their origin, abandoning only the language of the land of their ancestors. The people of that origin who do not wish to maintain that culture, if they are fortunate, leave it. Some people are very sentimental. I am not.
As for crime -- this area is awash in meth, let alone drunkenness. The local paper often has stories of people who get busted for meth and crimes that they do for it or under its influence. DUI is commonplace -- and it kills. But this said of poorer 'blue' areas -- crime has little to do with a failure to accept the dehumanizing authority of people who believe that the rest of the world exists to suffer for their greed, indulgence, and power. Enforcing human suffering for one's own opulent splendor that depends upon sadistic mistreatment of helpless people is itself criminality in a way different from street crime for personal indulgence on a lower level only with some pretense of 'elevation' based upon class privilege. It is possible to describe much of the current President's treatment of women as sexual assault -- as he expressed with the inimitable grab 'em by the (crotch) -- much as I might expect some street thug to express his borderline rapes. If I had a daughter who had experienced some street thug grabbing her by the crotch, I would counsel her to press criminal charges for at the least attempted rape.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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01-13-2019, 05:15 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-13-2019, 05:20 PM by Classic-Xer.)
(01-13-2019, 10:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: As for crime -- this area is awash in meth, let alone drunkenness. The local paper often has stories of people who get busted for meth and crimes that they do for it or under its influence. DUI is commonplace -- and it kills. But this said of poorer 'blue' areas -- crime has little to do with a failure to accept the dehumanizing authority of people who believe that the rest of the world exists to suffer for their greed, indulgence, and power. Enforcing human suffering for one's own opulent splendor that depends upon sadistic mistreatment of helpless people is itself criminality in a way different from street crime for personal indulgence on a lower level only with some pretense of 'elevation' based upon class privilege. It is possible to describe much of the current President's treatment of women as sexual assault -- as he expressed with the inimitable grab 'em by the (crotch) -- much as I might expect some street thug to express his borderline rapes. If I had a daughter who had experienced some street thug grabbing her by the crotch, I would counsel her to press criminal charges for at the least attempted rape.
I've had some women use their sexuality to entice me/attract me or suckle up to me and get close to me in the past. I'm not in the same league as Trump as having achieved national celebrity status or multi millionaire or billionaire status but I can relate to what he was caught saying about the sexual nature of certain liberal minded women to someone off the record that was unknowingly recorded and later given to some person connected with the Democratic campaign and used by the Democrats during the presidential campaign as means to alter public opinion and turn decent minded women against him or turn them away from voting for him on election day. I mean, lets face it, Stormy Daniels did stuff like that for a living. I'm sure there are all kinds of interesting/sexually enticing and stimulating views of Stormy's crotch available to the public for public view that's either available to see for free or see for a small fee.
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(01-13-2019, 05:15 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [quote pid='40947' dateline='1547394058']
(excised for brevity)
I've had some women use their sexuality to entice me/attract me or suckle up to me and get close to me in the past. I'm not in the same league as Trump as having achieved national celebrity status or multi millionaire or billionaire status but I can relate to what he was caught saying about the sexual nature of certain liberal minded women to someone off the record that was unknowingly recorded and later given to some person connected with the Democratic campaign and used by the Democrats during the presidential campaign as means to alter public opinion and turn decent minded women against him or turn them away from voting for him on election day. I mean, lets face it, Stormy Daniels did stuff like that for a living. I'm sure there are all kinds of interesting/sexually enticing and stimulating views of Stormy's crotch available to the public for public view that's either available to see for free or see for a small fee.
[/quote]
You miss the point.
First of all, celebrity status is a mixed blessing. It usually cones with a high income but also with a loss of privacy. If a celebrity does something that Humanity starts to condemn, like sexual harassment recently, one can be ruined and shamed as nobody else can be.
Donald Trump has inherited great wealth from his father, but otherwise he has mostly been famous for being famous. People wanted to deal with him because he is Donald Trump. He has shown himself as the sort of person with whom you count your fingers after dealing with him. Now he is President, and he is shamed for the swine that he is.
He has protection from some consequences of his prior misdeeds because he is President. I expect Democrats to go through a wringer to determine whether they might have walked off with something from the store.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-13-2019, 07:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You miss the point.
First of all, celebrity status is a mixed blessing. It usually cones with a high income but also with a loss of privacy. If a celebrity does something that Humanity starts to condemn, like sexual harassment recently, one can be ruined and shamed as nobody else can be.
Donald Trump has inherited great wealth from his father, but otherwise he has mostly been famous for being famous. People wanted to deal with him because he is Donald Trump. He has shown himself as the sort of person with whom you count your fingers after dealing with him. Now he is President, and he is shamed for the swine that he is.
He has protection from some consequences of his prior misdeeds because he is President. I expect Democrats to go through a wringer to determine whether they might have walked off with something from the store.
Yep. I'm sure they'll be working hard to undermine his efforts and try to find all kinds of stuff that they can use against him and possibly use for an attempt to impeach him with either. I'd expect most other issues relating to American citizens to take a back seat to the issue of Donald Trump. Well, we get to see whether the Democrats are worth saving or whether getting rid of them/letting go of them along with the blues would be better for America in the long term.
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(01-14-2019, 12:23 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (01-13-2019, 07:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You miss the point.
First of all, celebrity status is a mixed blessing. It usually cones with a high income but also with a loss of privacy. If a celebrity does something that Humanity starts to condemn, like sexual harassment recently, one can be ruined and shamed as nobody else can be.
Donald Trump has inherited great wealth from his father, but otherwise he has mostly been famous for being famous. People wanted to deal with him because he is Donald Trump. He has shown himself as the sort of person with whom you count your fingers after dealing with him. Now he is President, and he is shamed for the swine that he is.
He has protection from some consequences of his prior misdeeds because he is President. I expect Democrats to go through a wringer to determine whether they might have walked off with something from the store.
Yep. I'm sure they'll be working hard to undermine his efforts and try to find all kinds of stuff that they can use against him and possibly use for an attempt to impeach him with either. I'd expect most other issues relating to American citizens to take a back seat to the issue of Donald Trump. Well, we get to see whether the Democrats are worth saving or whether getting rid of them/letting go of them along with the blues would be better for America in the long term.
Donald Trump is the first President since at least Andrew Johnson to have developed a non-zero chance of being overthrown in a military coup. The Armed Services and the CIA surely dislike his cozy and corrupt relationships with Vladimir Putin and the Russian mafia. Robert Mueller has been nailing one after another person who has done dirty work on his behalf, including the President's personal attorney. The most basic rule of legal ethics is that an attorney must never become complicit in a client's crimes. So what counsel must an attorney give a client who commits crimes? A hint: the best way to avoid legal problems is to avoid doing things for which one can face a lawsuit or criminal charges.
Prestan prestupovat zakony, idiote!
Donald Trump has already undermined himself.
I have a suspicion that the current objective of Robert Mueller is not to take down Donald Trump. At that he has already done overkill. He may be working on another target. Initials are MP, and that does not stand for 'military police' or 'Member of Parliament'.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-13-2019, 07:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (01-13-2019, 05:15 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [quote pid='40947' dateline='1547394058']
(excised for brevity)
I've had some women use their sexuality to entice me/attract me or suckle up to me and get close to me in the past. I'm not in the same league as Trump as having achieved national celebrity status or multi millionaire or billionaire status but I can relate to what he was caught saying about the sexual nature of certain liberal minded women to someone off the record that was unknowingly recorded and later given to some person connected with the Democratic campaign and used by the Democrats during the presidential campaign as means to alter public opinion and turn decent minded women against him or turn them away from voting for him on election day. I mean, lets face it, Stormy Daniels did stuff like that for a living. I'm sure there are all kinds of interesting/sexually enticing and stimulating views of Stormy's crotch available to the public for public view that's either available to see for free or see for a small fee.
You miss the point.
First of all, celebrity status is a mixed blessing. It usually cones with a high income but also with a loss of privacy. If a celebrity does something that Humanity starts to condemn, like sexual harassment recently, one can be ruined and shamed as nobody else can be.
Donald Trump has inherited great wealth from his father, but otherwise he has mostly been famous for being famous. People wanted to deal with him because he is Donald Trump. He has shown himself as the sort of person with whom you count your fingers after dealing with him. Now he is President, and he is shamed for the swine that he is.
He has protection from some consequences of his prior misdeeds because he is President. I expect Democrats to go through a wringer to determine whether they might have walked off with something from the store.
[/quote]
Looks as though R. Kelly is the latest celeb to join the laundry list of those who have paid dearly for post-seasonal, boys-will be boys type behavior.
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