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Larry Parrish
Jul 9, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Don't forget that the inventor of the cotton Jim specifically hoped that it would make producing processed cotton cheap enough that the moral problems of slavery would outweigh the economic ones, but instead it just made slavery way more efficient

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Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
And even if capitalism and industrial advancement somehow would make slavery inefficient and outmoded, that just means people stop doing it (as much) because it's inconvenient, not because they think it's wrong, and would easily return to doing it if they felt they had a reason to.

The Kingfish
Oct 21, 2015


Cotton Jim

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The thing about centrist incrementalism is that as a supposedly post ideological understanding of politics is that not only does it lack a political vision, like say, socialist utopianism, or the "social darwinism" of goobers like Paul Ryan, it by design cannot maintain an understanding of the events of our past and how they have led to the political environment of today. As bad faith actors have spent the past several decades dragging the political spectrum of mainstream discourse in America further and further hard right into a cesspool of senseless state sanctioned murder both at home and abroad, a literal recreation of the Soviet gulag nightmare, and the concentration of the nation's wealth into an elite, monstrous few while the vast majority of the nation suffers, fighting over scraps, the liberal centrist in their life of relative comfort in comparison insists that nothing is actually wrong. "Already Great," even.

What the liberal centrist refuses to admit is that not only have these bad faith actors turned America into a nightmarish hell of trying to survive to the next week, and maybe the next month, with no plans for home ownership or retirement in sight - they've enabled and even cosigned the efforts of this hard right shift - it was the last two Democrats in the White House that wanted to privatize Social Security, and the first of those two that destroyed welfare. These well-off liberal centrists insist "education" and "job creators" will solve all our problems, eventually, and for those falling behind, look at this website we created that lets you shop for health insurance! Here's a tax credit! Oh, this bank illegally foreclosed on your home? I'm sorry, but we simply can't get in the way of that pesky free market!

Our nation's problems have gotten increasingly worse and worse as the years of hard right economics and their end-game of "social darwinism" where personal wealth is an indicator of of a human being's value in our society has become our reality. If you believe in a nation, and a collective American identity where we are all in this together, then you would realize that far too many of us are needlessly suffering while a very few reap greater and greater returns on this crisis economy. As the liberal centrists that infest the Democrats have enabled the Republicans to grow more and more nightmarish while blaming everyone from Russia to BernieBros for our problems, the solutions to these nightmares are becoming further and further radically left of center. Abolishing the billionaire class via civil forfeiture in order to build a national health service, creating a housing and food guarantee out of our nation's excess (40% of food is wasted, 6 houses to every homeless person), properly funding public education and creating a free public college guarantee, reviving the civilian conservation corps in order to protect our environment and rebuild our national infrastructure, converting our nation's power grid to a 100% renewable energy system, mass debt forgiveness - are all becoming more and more of a necessity instead of simply a utopian vision, and even after all this we'll still have plenty of wealth left over to raise the standard of living in America. Before we can ever talk about the individual amassing enough personal wealth to become a billionaire ever again, we need to bail our nation's people out of crippling poverty and debt.

The liberal centrist will never accept this because the liberal centrist has let their personal politics be dragged so far right of center with such a devout faith in the wielding of private power, that the very ideal of wielding public power to directly intervene in meeting the material needs of the victimized, exploited poor is violently offensive to them.

and i must meme
Jan 15, 2017
gaddaffi was the most radical centrist of all imo

Business Gorillas
Mar 11, 2009

:harambe:



Taintrunner posted:

The thing about centrist incrementalism is that as a supposedly post ideological understanding of politics is that not only does it lack a political vision, like say, socialist utopianism, or the "social darwinism" of goobers like Paul Ryan, it by design cannot maintain an understanding of the events of our past and how they have led to the political environment of today. As bad faith actors have spent the past several decades dragging the political spectrum of mainstream discourse in America further and further hard right into a cesspool of senseless state sanctioned murder both at home and abroad, a literal recreation of the Soviet gulag nightmare, and the concentration of the nation's wealth into an elite, monstrous few while the vast majority of the nation suffers, fighting over scraps, the liberal centrist in their life of relative comfort in comparison insists that nothing is actually wrong. "Already Great," even.

What the liberal centrist refuses to admit is that not only have these bad faith actors turned America into a nightmarish hell of trying to survive to the next week, and maybe the next month, with no plans for home ownership or retirement in sight - they've enabled and even cosigned the efforts of this hard right shift - it was the last two Democrats in the White House that wanted to privatize Social Security, and the first of those two that destroyed welfare. These well-off liberal centrists insist "education" and "job creators" will solve all our problems, eventually, and for those falling behind, look at this website we created that lets you shop for health insurance! Here's a tax credit! Oh, this bank illegally foreclosed on your home? I'm sorry, but we simply can't get in the way of that pesky free market!

Our nation's problems have gotten increasingly worse and worse as the years of hard right economics and their end-game of "social darwinism" where personal wealth is an indicator of of a human being's value in our society has become our reality. If you believe in a nation, and a collective American identity where we are all in this together, then you would realize that far too many of us are needlessly suffering while a very few reap greater and greater returns on this crisis economy. As the liberal centrists that infest the Democrats have enabled the Republicans to grow more and more nightmarish while blaming everyone from Russia to BernieBros for our problems, the solutions to these nightmares are becoming further and further radically left of center. Abolishing the billionaire class via civil forfeiture in order to build a national health service, creating a housing and food guarantee out of our nation's excess (40% of food is wasted, 6 houses to every homeless person), properly funding public education and creating a free public college guarantee, reviving the civilian conservation corps in order to protect our environment and rebuild our national infrastructure, converting our nation's power grid to a 100% renewable energy system, mass debt forgiveness - are all becoming more and more of a necessity instead of simply a utopian vision, and even after all this we'll still have plenty of wealth left over to raise the standard of living in America. Before we can ever talk about the individual amassing enough personal wealth to become a billionaire ever again, we need to bail our nation's people out of crippling poverty and debt.

The liberal centrist will never accept this because the liberal centrist has let their personal politics be dragged so far right of center with such a devout faith in the wielding of private power, that the very ideal of wielding public power to directly intervene in meeting the material needs of the victimized, exploited poor is violently offensive to them.

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

*Jim stares at the camera bemused as Dwight whips Stanley in the background*

Autism Sneaks
Nov 21, 2016
Comrade Taintrunner for president

The Kingfish
Oct 21, 2015


not just "violently offensive"—centrists view wielding public power as literal violence

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

The Kingfish posted:

not just "violently offensive"—centrists view wielding public power as literal violence

It amazes me how close these people are philosophically speaking, to ancaps.

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Taintrunner posted:

The thing about centrist incrementalism is that as a supposedly post ideological understanding of politics is that not only does it lack a political vision, like say, socialist utopianism, or the "social darwinism" of goobers like Paul Ryan, it by design cannot maintain an understanding of the events of our past and how they have led to the political environment of today. As bad faith actors have spent the past several decades dragging the political spectrum of mainstream discourse in America further and further hard right into a cesspool of senseless state sanctioned murder both at home and abroad, a literal recreation of the Soviet gulag nightmare, and the concentration of the nation's wealth into an elite, monstrous few while the vast majority of the nation suffers, fighting over scraps, the liberal centrist in their life of relative comfort in comparison insists that nothing is actually wrong. "Already Great," even.

What the liberal centrist refuses to admit is that not only have these bad faith actors turned America into a nightmarish hell of trying to survive to the next week, and maybe the next month, with no plans for home ownership or retirement in sight - they've enabled and even cosigned the efforts of this hard right shift - it was the last two Democrats in the White House that wanted to privatize Social Security, and the first of those two that destroyed welfare. These well-off liberal centrists insist "education" and "job creators" will solve all our problems, eventually, and for those falling behind, look at this website we created that lets you shop for health insurance! Here's a tax credit! Oh, this bank illegally foreclosed on your home? I'm sorry, but we simply can't get in the way of that pesky free market!

Our nation's problems have gotten increasingly worse and worse as the years of hard right economics and their end-game of "social darwinism" where personal wealth is an indicator of of a human being's value in our society has become our reality. If you believe in a nation, and a collective American identity where we are all in this together, then you would realize that far too many of us are needlessly suffering while a very few reap greater and greater returns on this crisis economy. As the liberal centrists that infest the Democrats have enabled the Republicans to grow more and more nightmarish while blaming everyone from Russia to BernieBros for our problems, the solutions to these nightmares are becoming further and further radically left of center. Abolishing the billionaire class via civil forfeiture in order to build a national health service, creating a housing and food guarantee out of our nation's excess (40% of food is wasted, 6 houses to every homeless person), properly funding public education and creating a free public college guarantee, reviving the civilian conservation corps in order to protect our environment and rebuild our national infrastructure, converting our nation's power grid to a 100% renewable energy system, mass debt forgiveness - are all becoming more and more of a necessity instead of simply a utopian vision, and even after all this we'll still have plenty of wealth left over to raise the standard of living in America. Before we can ever talk about the individual amassing enough personal wealth to become a billionaire ever again, we need to bail our nation's people out of crippling poverty and debt.

The liberal centrist will never accept this because the liberal centrist has let their personal politics be dragged so far right of center with such a devout faith in the wielding of private power, that the very ideal of wielding public power to directly intervene in meeting the material needs of the victimized, exploited poor is violently offensive to them.

But will it end racism?

Business Gorillas
Mar 11, 2009

:harambe:



I'm boundlessly optimistic because centrists are obviously super spooked of leftists

How can a centrist attack a leftist when everything successful centrists claim to have done were actually cribbed from socialists?

ded redd
Aug 1, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

Taintrunner posted:

The thing about centrist incrementalism is that as a supposedly post ideological understanding of politics is that not only does it lack a political vision, like say, socialist utopianism, or the "social darwinism" of goobers like Paul Ryan, it by design cannot maintain an understanding of the events of our past and how they have led to the political environment of today. As bad faith actors have spent the past several decades dragging the political spectrum of mainstream discourse in America further and further hard right into a cesspool of senseless state sanctioned murder both at home and abroad, a literal recreation of the Soviet gulag nightmare, and the concentration of the nation's wealth into an elite, monstrous few while the vast majority of the nation suffers, fighting over scraps, the liberal centrist in their life of relative comfort in comparison insists that nothing is actually wrong. "Already Great," even.

What the liberal centrist refuses to admit is that not only have these bad faith actors turned America into a nightmarish hell of trying to survive to the next week, and maybe the next month, with no plans for home ownership or retirement in sight - they've enabled and even cosigned the efforts of this hard right shift - it was the last two Democrats in the White House that wanted to privatize Social Security, and the first of those two that destroyed welfare. These well-off liberal centrists insist "education" and "job creators" will solve all our problems, eventually, and for those falling behind, look at this website we created that lets you shop for health insurance! Here's a tax credit! Oh, this bank illegally foreclosed on your home? I'm sorry, but we simply can't get in the way of that pesky free market!

Our nation's problems have gotten increasingly worse and worse as the years of hard right economics and their end-game of "social darwinism" where personal wealth is an indicator of of a human being's value in our society has become our reality. If you believe in a nation, and a collective American identity where we are all in this together, then you would realize that far too many of us are needlessly suffering while a very few reap greater and greater returns on this crisis economy. As the liberal centrists that infest the Democrats have enabled the Republicans to grow more and more nightmarish while blaming everyone from Russia to BernieBros for our problems, the solutions to these nightmares are becoming further and further radically left of center. Abolishing the billionaire class via civil forfeiture in order to build a national health service, creating a housing and food guarantee out of our nation's excess (40% of food is wasted, 6 houses to every homeless person), properly funding public education and creating a free public college guarantee, reviving the civilian conservation corps in order to protect our environment and rebuild our national infrastructure, converting our nation's power grid to a 100% renewable energy system, mass debt forgiveness - are all becoming more and more of a necessity instead of simply a utopian vision, and even after all this we'll still have plenty of wealth left over to raise the standard of living in America. Before we can ever talk about the individual amassing enough personal wealth to become a billionaire ever again, we need to bail our nation's people out of crippling poverty and debt.

The liberal centrist will never accept this because the liberal centrist has let their personal politics be dragged so far right of center with such a devout faith in the wielding of private power, that the very ideal of wielding public power to directly intervene in meeting the material needs of the victimized, exploited poor is violently offensive to them.

and i'll have a cheeseburger with fries and a coke to go with those ied's

Fallen Hamprince
Nov 12, 2016

Business Gorillas posted:

How can a centrist attack a leftist when everything successful centrists claim to have done were actually cribbed from socialists?

still remember when socialists fixed stagflation and then libs stole all the credit

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

(and can't post for 19 days!)

Fallen Hamprince posted:

still remember when socialists fixed stagflation and then libs stole all the credit

noted lib, Paul Volcker

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

(and can't post for 19 days!)

https://youtu.be/tOVsbxfxFYA

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Taintrunner posted:

The thing about centrist incrementalism is that as a supposedly post ideological understanding of politics is that not only does it lack a political vision, like say, socialist utopianism, or the "social darwinism" of goobers like Paul Ryan, it by design cannot maintain an understanding of the events of our past and how they have led to the political environment of today. As bad faith actors have spent the past several decades dragging the political spectrum of mainstream discourse in America further and further hard right into a cesspool of senseless state sanctioned murder both at home and abroad, a literal recreation of the Soviet gulag nightmare, and the concentration of the nation's wealth into an elite, monstrous few while the vast majority of the nation suffers, fighting over scraps, the liberal centrist in their life of relative comfort in comparison insists that nothing is actually wrong. "Already Great," even.

What the liberal centrist refuses to admit is that not only have these bad faith actors turned America into a nightmarish hell of trying to survive to the next week, and maybe the next month, with no plans for home ownership or retirement in sight - they've enabled and even cosigned the efforts of this hard right shift - it was the last two Democrats in the White House that wanted to privatize Social Security, and the first of those two that destroyed welfare. These well-off liberal centrists insist "education" and "job creators" will solve all our problems, eventually, and for those falling behind, look at this website we created that lets you shop for health insurance! Here's a tax credit! Oh, this bank illegally foreclosed on your home? I'm sorry, but we simply can't get in the way of that pesky free market!

Our nation's problems have gotten increasingly worse and worse as the years of hard right economics and their end-game of "social darwinism" where personal wealth is an indicator of of a human being's value in our society has become our reality. If you believe in a nation, and a collective American identity where we are all in this together, then you would realize that far too many of us are needlessly suffering while a very few reap greater and greater returns on this crisis economy. As the liberal centrists that infest the Democrats have enabled the Republicans to grow more and more nightmarish while blaming everyone from Russia to BernieBros for our problems, the solutions to these nightmares are becoming further and further radically left of center. Abolishing the billionaire class via civil forfeiture in order to build a national health service, creating a housing and food guarantee out of our nation's excess (40% of food is wasted, 6 houses to every homeless person), properly funding public education and creating a free public college guarantee, reviving the civilian conservation corps in order to protect our environment and rebuild our national infrastructure, converting our nation's power grid to a 100% renewable energy system, mass debt forgiveness - are all becoming more and more of a necessity instead of simply a utopian vision, and even after all this we'll still have plenty of wealth left over to raise the standard of living in America. Before we can ever talk about the individual amassing enough personal wealth to become a billionaire ever again, we need to bail our nation's people out of crippling poverty and debt.

The liberal centrist will never accept this because the liberal centrist has let their personal politics be dragged so far right of center with such a devout faith in the wielding of private power, that the very ideal of wielding public power to directly intervene in meeting the material needs of the victimized, exploited poor is violently offensive to them.

I think that another important element to centrist ideology is that, due to living comfortable lives, fear of the risk associated with any major change is always at the forefront of their minds. Some of them may genuinely want to improve things for the poor on some level, but they'll always look for "efficient, cost effective" solutions that don't require enough wealth redistribution to actually have a noticeable impact on the wealth distribution of our society. This is why they focus so much on Republicans; since their lives are already good, the fear of other people making things worse is their biggest concern. They reject leftism for the same reason; any significant change to the status quo carries with it inherent risks, and people who are already well off don't really have anything to gain from taking those risks.

What I'm saying here doesn't just apply to the super wealthy, but it also applies to anyone making enough that they have no real financial concerns (for example someone making low six figures). Even if they may not be the main beneficiaries of our capitalist system, they share the same distaste towards change because they don't want to risk altering a status quo that is working for them.

Business Gorillas
Mar 11, 2009

:harambe:



Fallen Hamprince posted:

still remember when socialists fixed stagflation and then libs stole all the credit

I remember when socialists thought up the idea of society not letting peoples parents starve to death in the streets then libs stole all the credit since the Russians started hanging their aristocrats from lampposts

Fallen Hamprince
Nov 12, 2016

Business Gorillas posted:

I remember when socialists thought up the idea of society not letting peoples parents starve to death in the streets then libs stole all the credit since the Russians started hanging their aristocrats from lampposts

scared them so hard the fear traveled back in time to 1889 when germany instituted the first national pension program

Business Gorillas
Mar 11, 2009

:harambe:



Pretty strange that labor around the world started getting massive concessions from capital in the early 1920s, peaked in the late 40s/early 50s, and started losing protections in the late 1980s and early 90s

Almost like the centrists were scared of something :thunk:

asdf32
May 15, 2010

I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Business Gorillas posted:

Pretty strange that labor around the world started getting massive concessions from capital in the early 1920s, peaked in the late 40s/early 50s, and started losing protections in the late 1980s and early 90s

Almost like the centrists were scared of something :thunk:

What?

The Kingfish
Oct 21, 2015


Fallen Hamprince posted:

scared them so hard the fear traveled back in time to 1889 when germany instituted the first national pension program

the kaiser was a centrist.

MizPiz
May 29, 2013

by Athanatos

Business Gorillas posted:

Pretty strange that labor around the world started getting massive concessions from capital in the early 1920s, peaked in the late 40s/early 50s, and started losing protections in the late 1980s and early 90s

Almost like the centrists were scared of something :thunk:

Let's be fair, black people potentially getting benefits definitely was a major reason why they were cut over the past 40ish years, but the reason why we got them in the first place was because the upper class were justifiably worried they were going to get mobbed if they didn't.

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

You can't be this dense

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Dreddout posted:

You can't be this dense

I disagree

WINNINGHARD
Oct 4, 2014

gulags are too prosaic the centrists must be boiled

Fallen Hamprince
Nov 12, 2016

WINNINGHARD posted:

gulags are too prosaic the centrists must be boiled

as long as the change in water temperature is gradual and incremental

Communist Thoughts
Jan 7, 2008

Our war against free speech cannot end until we silence this bronze beast!


You don't need to boil the centrists, aside from holding the media apparatus they don't weild any democratic power since they have no ideology.
When corbyn takes over and turns the UK into the UKSR within 5 years the centrists will adjust and be posting articles like "Private Property, can we really afford it's return?"

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
Im all for copying the ruler of Uzbekistan and boiling some centrists and journalists Alive

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

(and can't post for 19 days!)

Jose posted:

Im all for copying the ruler of Uzbekistan and boiling some centrists and journalists Alive

I'm more a fan of the Bukkharan Bug Pit

logikv9
Mar 5, 2009


Ham Wrangler
Sir this is a poison shop

Larry Parrish
Jul 9, 2012

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Ytlaya posted:

I think that another important element to centrist ideology is that, due to living comfortable lives, fear of the risk associated with any major change is always at the forefront of their minds. Some of them may genuinely want to improve things for the poor on some level, but they'll always look for "efficient, cost effective" solutions that don't require enough wealth redistribution to actually have a noticeable impact on the wealth distribution of our society. This is why they focus so much on Republicans; since their lives are already good, the fear of other people making things worse is their biggest concern. They reject leftism for the same reason; any significant change to the status quo carries with it inherent risks, and people who are already well off don't really have anything to gain from taking those risks.

What I'm saying here doesn't just apply to the super wealthy, but it also applies to anyone making enough that they have no real financial concerns (for example someone making low six figures). Even if they may not be the main beneficiaries of our capitalist system, they share the same distaste towards change because they don't want to risk altering a status quo that is working for them.

It's almost like almost all of the political class is drawn from the upper class. :thunk:

unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008

Larry Parrish posted:

It's almost like almost all of the political class is drawn from the upper class. :thunk:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

Condiv
May 7, 2008

Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod


the trump tutelage posted:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

:lol:

The Kingfish
Oct 21, 2015


the trump tutelage posted:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

hahahaha holy poo poo

Venom Snake
Feb 19, 2014

by Nyc_Tattoo

the trump tutelage posted:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

Household income of 75,000 is nothing in a lot of places

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

the trump tutelage posted:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

yeah because they're not planning on ever having a medical emergency, and just haven't created their own start up that's gonna make them millionaires someday too

Fallen Hamprince
Nov 12, 2016

the trump tutelage posted:

Lol if you think any American with good benefits and a household income over $75000 doesn't have more to lose than to gain by any hard shift to the left.

that's 150% the median household income lol

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗
but seriously folks, you all say you want universal benefits and for people to not starve or die on the streets from easily preventable illness but what if it cost you more money?????

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Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Fallen Hamprince posted:

that's 150% the median household income lol

Venom Snake posted:

Household income of 75,000 is nothing in a lot of places

lol both of these are true

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