|
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/913781236765671424 Normal and fine justice system here. https://twitter.com/chiquiesteban/status/913751605731831808 Recently Puerto Rico voted to seek statehood. The referendum lost. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:06 |
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:Plenty of people die in America due to lack of access to medical care, but for some reason people are more emotionally willing to accept running out of money than they are willing to accept a bureaucrat coming in and saying, "what you want is unreasonable and the money could be better spent elsewhere." People get really upset when the government has the money to provide the service they want but it is suggested/decided that the money would be better spent elsewhere. Again you have terrible opinions on everything. The issue is that people are used to the problem in America but looking to find a problem with the clearly better system that is the NHS so they can sour grape an obviously better situation that only doesn't exist here because the country is poo poo. Finding problems elsewhere distracts you from the fact your situation is worse for no good reason. We already have bureaucrats telling people they don't want to pay for poo poo. They're called insurance companies.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:10
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:They have at times. There hasn't been a whole lot of recent union activism to point to, but for example, the police unions opposed the 2011 Wisconsin union-busting bill despite being specifically exempted from it. Consider the SFPD racist texting case: the officers' conduct was not in dispute, was completely reprehensible, and they should have been fired, but they weren't (last I checked) because their superiors waited too long to initiate disciplinary proceedings. While it is clearly in the broader public interest to terminate those officers, it is not in public sector workers' interests for their bosses to be able to sit on allegations of misconduct indefinitely until they need a reason to fire a particular officer (like being a little too outspoken, or a little to close to retirement). The Muppets On PCP posted:which is ridiculous because that's exactly what insurance companies do
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:11
|
|
|
Hellblazer187 posted:I started "Listen, Liberal" and I'm only a few pages in but it's starting to speak to me. I don't know if this is how it will turn out, but it looks like the thesis is that the Dems became the party of the professional class, while the GOP remained the party of the extremely wealthy, leaving nobody to really be the party for the working class. While representing the professional class and giving lip service to the working class is certainly better than the outright war on the poor being waged by the GOP, it is insufficient. It was an eye-opening book for me, too, in the most  sense possible. It's one thing to be told by our fellow lefty friends that the Democrats have been so deliberate in moving away from left-populism and economic justice; it's quite another to see it spelled out so clearly, through memos, policies, and voter data. I'm glad you're finding it edifying too!BarbarianElephant posted:What do the working class actually want, though? It seems logical that they would want universal healthcare, increased minimum wage, and support for unions, but their actual opinions seem to be the opposite of this. They seem to mainly want restrictions on immigration to force a blue-collar skills shortage and exert an upwards pressure on working-class wages and I'm not sure whether that would actually work. That's what Republicans are offering them anyway, and I guess time will tell if it worked or not. Well, but look at what Trump promised them during the campaign: better, more affordable health care. Jobs in deindustrialized and economically blighted regions. Lower taxes on the poor, and no tax cuts on the rich. Higher wages for good old-fashioned working class jobs. For a lot of the working class voters that swung for Trump after being Democrats for so long, the Obama years didn't lead to as much of a rise in their standard of living as they had hoped. The Democrats running on essentially maintaining the status quo didn't really appeal to them. So they went with the next guy who was promising hope and change, and that guy was, unfortunately, an unbelievably mendacious huckster. Majorian fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Sep 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
Majorian posted:It was an eye-opening book for me, too, in the most And then in part the question becomes, do white people stop being so racist when they don't need an other to blame for all these things.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:IIRC, at the end, "all" they were asking for was 24/7 MD care so that the baby could die at home. That was their legal request after the american doctor who claimed he had a miracle operation came to the stand and...revealed that he only had a theoretical one, that he had never seen Charlie, and that he had ignored numerous attempts by the NHS-backed hospital to contact him and bring him over for surgery.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:23
|
|
|
Hellblazer187 posted:I started "Listen, Liberal" and I'm only a few pages in but it's starting to speak to me. I don't know if this is how it will turn out, but it looks like the thesis is that the Dems became the party of the professional class, while the GOP remained the party of the extremely wealthy, leaving nobody to really be the party for the working class. While representing the professional class and giving lip service to the working class is certainly better than the outright war on the poor being waged by the GOP, it is insufficient. The biggest thing about being a "professional*" as you mention is that it often engenders in a person a sense of "the people running things are competent." This is because you're basically a part of the same class as most other people responsible for running government and businesses (other people with advanced educations and professional experience) and most people want to think highly of themselves and the people they work and associate with. There's also a cultural aspect, where certain types of behavior become signifiers of competence/intelligence. For example, someone from a professional background is likely to assume that someone who talks eloquently (probably in a "neutral" accent), uses certain types of rhetoric, and dresses "professionally" is competent (and likewise, there's a built-in assumption that people who get really emotional or who are dressed like the working class are incompetent/ignorant). All this stuff is kind of complex (which is often the case for social/cultural things like this), but the end result is that "professionals" end up with a bunch of biases that can result in harmful (or at least a lack of helpful) political ideology. People also often become very classist when most of the people they interact with are also of the "managerial-professional" class. They don't necessarily explicitly dislike the poor for being poor, but they end up with a lot of biases against people that send cultural signals associated with being poor or working class. *I think the best way to define this is "someone who works a job that 1. is fairly high paid, 2. requires a high level of education, and 3. involves working alongside others with similar backgrounds."
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:27
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:Eh, it's not really comparable. Insurance is basically a bet between you and the insurer with agreed terms, and while most people don't read their coverages, and most insurers will try to pay the bare minimum (or less), that's expected. ah yes that's right i forgot; people pay their premiums with the expectation their claims will be denied. nobody has ever complained about that happening Ytlaya posted:There's also a cultural aspect, where certain types of behavior become signifiers of competence/intelligence. For example, someone from a professional background is likely to assume that someone who talks eloquently (probably in a "neutral" accent), uses certain types of rhetoric, and dresses "professionally" is competent (and likewise, there's a built-in assumption that people who get really emotional or who are dressed like the working class are incompetent/ignorant). thomas frank gets into this facet of professional class culture a bit as well, and that part always seemed odd to me because as anyone who's done postgrad study or even held an office job knows, most of the people around you are a bunch of nitwits who just happen to be good at following orders and not thinking too deeply The Muppets On PCP fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Sep 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:28
|
|
|
RuanGacho posted:And then in part the question becomes, do white people stop being so racist when they don't need an other to blame for all these things. I've mentioned it a ton of times admittedly, but in the UK Labour managed to siphon the vast majority of the then-burgeoning racist xenophobic party, by offering a solution to their woes. I'd argue that it's less a case of racists being spiteful, and more that in their eyes the parties aren't "supports solutions for them and immigrants vs. supports neither", it's "supports immigrants and mumbles about jobs vs. anti-immigrant using popular rhetoric". It's a hard fix with our current batch of politicians because the unfortunately truth is that the D's goal of an exploitable immigrant underclass does in fact harm the working class, and that undercuts any message you can really put out there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
RuanGacho posted:And then in part the question becomes, do white people stop being so racist when they don't need an other to blame for all these things. That really is the question, yeah. At this point, I've put my chips on the answer being, "Some of them possibly will be less racist, or, more accurately, will vote in a manner less motivated by racism. Some likely won't." I think most/all of us are agreed that economic populism won't make racism disappear by any means. But I also think it's become increasingly clear that widespread disillusionment with, and feelings of abandonment by, the Democratic Party, among large swaths of the working class (and not just the white working class), has catalyzed voting for racist candidates and policies. Whether or not the Democrats can win these voters back remains to be seen, but at the very least, it's within their power to lessen those demographics' motivation in voting for rightist conmen like Trump.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:36
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:The biggest thing about being a "professional*" as you mention is that it often engenders in a person a sense of "the people running things are competent." This is because you're basically a part of the same class as most other people responsible for running government and businesses (other people with advanced educations and professional experience) and most people want to think highly of themselves and the people they work and associate with. There's also a cultural aspect, where certain types of behavior become signifiers of competence/intelligence. For example, someone from a professional background is likely to assume that someone who talks eloquently (probably in a "neutral" accent), uses certain types of rhetoric, and dresses "professionally" is competent (and likewise, there's a built-in assumption that people who get really emotional or who are dressed like the working class are incompetent/ignorant). This reminds me of a pretty good article on the UK's state of affairs, which had an interesting note about the mentality going on within the party during Blair's years: quote:Tony Blairs New Labour policies, which, despite the Labour Partys working-class funding base, basically represented the sensibilities of the professional classes, did attempt to forge an alternative vision. For the Blairites, the United Kingdoms future lay in what they called the creative industries. Had not the United Kingdom, regularly since the sixties, produced waves of popular music and youth culture that had swept the world, bringing in billions in direct and indirect revenue? It must have seemed a plausible gambit in the nineties, but it failed because the Blairites were operating with a completely false understanding of where cultural creativity comes from. In short, by surrounding themselves with middle-class and upper-class figures entirely they ended up with a warped and biased view that it was they who were to be credited for UK culture, and as such pushed towards expanding managerial positions to increase UK tourism and exports while simultaneously dismantling welfare programs or creating busywork means-testing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:Agreed, but I'd almost take it a step further and say that unions should advocate for their members' rights even if it is against "societal interests" (however we're choosing to define that.) To clarify, a union can do whatever its members want regardless of what anyone else wants. But if it wants to be respected by wider society it needs to keep society's interests in mind. Workers should respect other unions because of a sense of solidarity, but that goes away if that sense of solidarity is not reciprocated. Police unions want to protect corrupt cops? Okay, fine, that's their choice. But then the rest of us are gonna say gently caress police unions. RuanGacho posted:And then in part the question becomes, do white people stop being so racist when they don't need an other to blame for all these things. I think they do along immigration lines. You'll still get some, but you'd get a big reduction in politically significant racism I think. I don't think it will do much for racism against black people, that's going to take a long period of deprogramming. Improving the finances of black people will help with the deprogramming though. But even that will be slow. Nor will it stop racism against muslims until that particular hate machine can be switched off.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:42
|
|
|
Futuresight posted:To clarify, a union can do whatever its members want regardless of what anyone else wants. But if it wants to be respected by wider society it needs to keep society's interests in mind. Workers should respect other unions because of a sense of solidarity, but that goes away if that sense of solidarity is not reciprocated.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:47
|
|
|
Majorian posted:That really is the question, yeah. At this point, I've put my chips on the answer being, "Some of them possibly will be less racist, or, more accurately, will vote in a manner less motivated by racism. Some likely won't." I think most/all of us are agreed that economic populism won't make racism disappear by any means. But I also think it's become increasingly clear that widespread disillusionment with, and feelings of abandonment by, the Democratic Party, among large swaths of the working class (and not just the white working class), has catalyzed voting for racist candidates and policies. Whether or not the Democrats can win these voters back remains to be seen, but at the very least, it's within their power to lessen those demographics' motivation in voting for rightist conmen like Trump. i think y'all are a little off-track painting the white working class trump faction as part of the overall lumpenproletariat. lower income whites like all lower income folks by and large don't vote the non-college educated whites who make up the more active part of the trump coalition are guys who own autobody repair shops and gun stores. people who are at worst middle income but live in areas that are more economically depressed
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
Neurolimal posted:This reminds me of a pretty good article on the UK's state of affairs, which had an interesting note about the mentality going on within the party during Blair's years: That article has some good observations, but drawing conclusions based on the ideas that "all good popular culture is actually working-class culture" and "Cockney slang for welfare is Rock n' Roll, so they were doomed to fail from the start" is pretty specious. It seems like he's just working backwards to find a way to work culture into the reasons for welfare reform. And using John Lennon is a weird example, because Lennon did not grow up supported by the welfare state that he says is needed to create more Lennons. Lennon had a fairly average middle-class lifestyle and famously said that he decided to rebel because his dad left, his mom died, and he saw the real world in his 20's. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Sep 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:49
|
|
|
And the "projects" in the USA led to an incredible flowering of music, sport, art and culture in deprived minority communities. Welfare pays off.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:51
|
|
|
Neurolimal posted:This reminds me of a pretty good article on the UK's state of affairs, which had an interesting note about the mentality going on within the party during Blair's years: blairite idiots thought oasis were the uk's next great cultural force when it was grime and 2-step all along
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:53
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:How exactly is a union supposed to vigorously defend the interests of its workers if it doesn't advocate for them receiving due process when they're accused of misconduct? You want to have it both ways. Abolish police unions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:53
|
|
|
The Muppets On PCP posted:i think y'all are a little off-track painting the white working class trump faction as part of the overall lumpenproletariat. lower income whites like all lower income folks by and large don't vote That's a fair clarification, but my main point was about those working class voters (not just white ones) who either defected from Obama to Trump, or voted for Obama and then didn't turn out in 2016. One of the litanies that got repeated ad nauseum throughout 2016 was, "All Clinton has to do is turn out the Obama coalition and she'll win." And, welp, the Dems couldn't keep that coalition together, for a variety of reasons. It's helpful to dig into what parts of the coalition came apart, IMO.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:58
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:How exactly is a union supposed to vigorously defend the interests of its workers if it doesn't advocate for them receiving due process when they're accused of misconduct? You want to have it both ways. Getting rid of corrupt police should be in the interests of police. Both because it preserves the reputation of their profession and because it improves the quality of the society they live in. That's the taking a wider look part. It's not that they have to sacrifice their members for the good of society, but they have to take a wider look than "member fired = bad" and see what the bigger picture of their actions are.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 18:59
|
|
|
You could make the exact same argument for abolishing teachers' unions (or any other public sector union) because "they defend bad teachers" or what have you. What exactly would "not defending bad <workers>" look like to you? "Well Bob, one of the parents claimed you're a pedophile, so we fully support the school district's right to fire you without any sort of investigation. We wouldn't want to be seen supporting bad teachers after all."
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:01
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning is in favor of police corruption and against accountability.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:01
|
|
|
The Muppets On PCP posted:i think y'all are a little off-track painting the white working class trump faction as part of the overall lumpenproletariat. lower income whites like all lower income folks by and large don't vote You can see the overall beliefs of the nation and sub-demographics from opinion polls, though. Just because they are infrequent voters doesn't mean that they don't hold those beliefs. About 60% of non-college educated whites (and almost 70% of non-college educated whites who make less than $30k) are still very on the Trump train. It's not unfair to broadly say they are part of the "Trump faction."
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:You could make the exact same argument for abolishing teachers' unions (or any other public sector union) because "they defend bad teachers" or what have you. What exactly would "not defending bad <workers>" look like to you? If teachers had a massive, pervasive, and institutionally supported pedophilia problem I'd probably advocate abolishing their union too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
Imagine if teachers were taught how to diddle little kids via a mentoring program. Sounds like the Catholic Church, actually.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:03
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:You could make the exact same argument for abolishing teachers' unions (or any other public sector union) because "they defend bad teachers" or what have you. What exactly would "not defending bad <workers>" look like to you? when's the last time a teacher got caught loving a child on tape and Dead Reckoning But A Teacher argued that they should face no disciplinary action for doing so
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:07
|
|
|
Dead Reckoning posted:You could make the exact same argument for abolishing teachers' unions (or any other public sector union) because "they defend bad teachers" or what have you. What exactly would "not defending bad <workers>" look like to you? Defending bad teachers is bad but not anywhere near as bad as defending bad cops (unless by bad teachers you mean abusive teachers). So the defend bad = union bad threshold is higher. Teachers also face more bullshit threats of firing where police do not currently. And police unions are doing it during a massive narrative of police abuse and corruption. If there was evidence of widespread abuse and loving murder by teachers you better bet everyone would be mad at any teachers union that defended teachers responsible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:08
|
|
|
Imagine if you couldn't sue teachers for anything they did so long as the teacher could claim it was job related.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:09
|
|
|
BarbarianElephant posted:What do the working class actually want, though? It seems logical that they would want universal healthcare, increased minimum wage, and support for unions, but their actual opinions seem to be the opposite of this. They seem to mainly want restrictions on immigration to force a blue-collar skills shortage and exert an upwards pressure on working-class wages and I'm not sure whether that would actually work. That's what Republicans are offering them anyway, and I guess time will tell if it worked or not. No one genuinely "wants" policies in the specific way you describe. People can freely be influenced by media, etc to change their views on things. The only things they truly want are to have their own personal needs met, but their ideas of how to best meet those needs are open to influence. An extreme example of this is poor Republicans being convinced that tax cuts to the rich will help them. Their core desire is the same (want to make more money), but people take advantage of that to sell them a particular "solution." For example, the current anti-free trade vein in the Republican Party is a relatively new phenomenon. Such attitudes were not nearly as prominent in the Republican Party until Trump (plus the lovely economy) popularized them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:12
|
|
|
A lovely Reporter posted:Dead Reckoning is in favor of police corruption and against accountability. Yes he is. He is also big into gun culture, which makes sense. He is not arguing in good faith, he wants to protect the police and therefore white supremacy. Remember this is one of the guys who always runs out to explain and concern troll about how a police killing is actually, probably a good shoot. Koalas March fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Sep 29, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:12
|
|
|
I'm also pretty sure you're more likely to be assaulted or murdered on the job as a teacher than as a cop.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:12
|
|
|
Koalas March posted:Yes he is. He is also big into gun culture, which makes sense. He is not arguing in good faith, he wants to protect the police and therefore white supremacy. Also posts in the Cali thread, a state that has at least 3 major city police forces investigated for corruption, brutality, and racism.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:13
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:I'm also pretty sure you're more likely to be assaulted or murdered on the job as a teacher than as a cop. There are plenty of jobs where this is the case but for some reason those don't get judicial approved murder powers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:14
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:For example, the current anti-free trade vein in the Republican Party is a relatively new phenomenon. Such attitudes were not nearly as prominent in the Republican Party until Trump popularized them. Nah, Ross Perot took almost 30% of the Republican vote by being an anti-trade Republican. NAFTA also had a 30-40% disapproval among Republicans in 1993.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
Would the GOP would be foolish enough to even do something like harm police unions though? Seems like they wouldn't even think to do it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
thechosenone posted:Would the GOP would be foolish enough to even do something like harm police unions though? Seems like they wouldn't even think to do it. Of course not. It's not like police unions are doing anything they don't approve of anyway.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Majorian posted:That's a fair clarification, but my main point was about those working class voters (not just white ones) who either defected from Obama to Trump, or voted for Obama and then didn't turn out in 2016. One of the litanies that got repeated ad nauseum throughout 2016 was, "All Clinton has to do is turn out the Obama coalition and she'll win." And, welp, the Dems couldn't keep that coalition together, for a variety of reasons. It's helpful to dig into what parts of the coalition came apart, IMO. absolutely, but the answer to that isn't placing the actual lower income white working class in their own special political category and developing a separate policy to attract them
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Radish posted:There are plenty of jobs where this is the case but for some reason those don't get judicial approved murder powers. Man, it's almost like the police culture is built on fear and ruthlessness in order to maintain control and protect property not people with the added feature of protecting white supremacy and maintaining the status quo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
A good step would be to make all police officers subject to recall elections in the communities they're supposed to serve, so that minority communities can vote the racist shits off the force. EDIT: If this means that all officers are voted off the force, it'd be a nice bonus.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:06 |
|
|
Koalas March posted:Man, it's almost like the police culture is built on fear and ruthlessness in order to maintain control and protect property not people with the added feature of protecting white supremacy and maintaining the status quo. We have a emoticon for this. Makes it easier and faster to post. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2017 19:19
|
|