Raskolnikov38 posted:

this thread hasn’t really touched on the shithole controversy but I like this thread on it so I thought I’d share

https://twitter.com/thenewthinkerr/status/951828208399331328

quote:

there is a fundamental fault in the structure of American democracy, and it is a Republican Party that refuses to govern. our question to you is what makes you think that continuing to compromise with them will cause them to change their minds.

or, to put it a little more plainly, how many rights, laws, and human lives are you willing to sacrifice to get to be the Adult In The Room for letting Republicans run the country.

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

It absolutely is. You can draw a straight line from Mondale to Bill Clinton. The left lost its influence because they couldn't win elections. They couldn't win elections because the left was stagnant and lazy. Now the left is just lazy. It's an improvement i guess. The current strategy is to complain alot and hope demographic changes results in wins.

Ze Pollack posted:

there is something fundamentally amusing in a military trust-the-system guy whining about how both sniping and outnumbering him should be forbidden

incidentally, Boon, a while back I had this question for you, and you refused to answer it. i remain genuinely curious what your answer is.

Kilroy posted:

You'll note that Boon made no mention of universally-hated and prolific USPOL (and forums!) shitposter Jefferson "Beauregard" Clay. I wonder why that would be

Boon posted:

Because I forgot him and he's also on ignore? Keep snidely sniping though, it's what you do best.

Boon posted:

Well, a few things:
1. I probably missed it because I have you on ignore
2. You have placed me in an impossible situation with that question because you implicitly assign a position to me that I do not take
3. I don't? I believe that Dems should take wins where they can

quote:

It's cool not to have answers to them, none of us do, if we did Congress would have a 100% approval rating. But as it turns out, they don't, we don't, and here we are - but the problem I have with 75% of you, Ze Pollack, Condiv, and others is that when you post about one news update or another it is in the vein of 'Democrats bad' without ever trying to understand the wider context or implications and the questions I listed. How can you effectively advocate for any kind of policy change without understanding just why it is Democratic leaders might negotiate with Trump on DACA, or why they might be willing to make a concession on one policy for a win in another? Often time when I post it's not that I'm necessarily even in disagreement about the larger point, but I might be in disagreement with how the conclusion was reached.

You might say that Democrats should make no concessions ever, and that'd be fine to justify your position, but what is the wider implication of that? If no one is willing to continue to be an adult in the room and try to hold the process together, what does that mean for US society at large? At what point does the US itself begin to unravel to an unrecoverable point? Why do we think that the country as it exists today is and will continue to be whole?

Kilroy posted:

Yeah, you "forgot" him and you've got him on ignore, but you've also got Ze Pollack on ignore (in fact, just post your whole ignore list - we're all dying to know) yet they're on the tip of your tongue. Fascinating.

Kilroy posted:

"I'm really just concerned about the discourse guys" *ignores pedantic shithead who routinely spins up multi-page derails over meaningless bullshit*

Boon posted:

This is really weird dude. Talk about having an ax to grind.

Kilroy posted:

Yeah, you "forgot" him and you've got him on ignore, but you've also got Ze Pollack on ignore (in fact, just post your whole ignore list - we're all dying to know) yet they're on the tip of your tongue. Fascinating.

Ze Pollack posted:

the issue, Boon, is that that is, explicitly, a position you were taking, and continue to take. that it both was and remains necessary for the Democratic Party to compromise with the Republican Party, in the name of retaining governance.


at what point are you willing to draw the line, and say that -these- lives, -this- diplomatic achievement, -those- human rights are the point we should stop compromising with the right.

because from all indications thus far, that point does not exist for you.

Boon posted:

The question you posed wasn't fair because it wasn't actually an honest question, but instead pre-supposed the answer.

To try and she'd light on my thoughts, it is important to understand why someone (GOP) might do something. That doesn't mean agreement. Moreover, prioritizing anything, especially as a minority, is important.

For instance, "border security" might mean money for a wall, increased agents and equipment, etc... and it might stem from racism. But if additional money for border technology is the price for DACA then I would expect the Dems to make that deal. As the GOP adds more poison, that calculus changes.

white sauce posted:

It "might" stem from racism?

Might?!

Wtf is wrong with you lol

Boon posted:

The question you posed wasn't fair because it wasn't actually an honest question, but instead pre-supposed the answer.

To try and she'd light on my thoughts, it is important to understand why someone (GOP) might do something. That doesn't mean agreement. Moreover, prioritizing anything, especially as a minority, is important.

For instance, "border security" might mean money for a wall, increased agents and equipment, etc... and it might stem from racism. But if additional money for border technology is the price for DACA then I would expect the Dems to make that deal. As the GOP adds more poison, that calculus changes.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Ze Pollack posted:

this does not answer the question, Boon. this only says you have your price in mind to help build Trump's wall.

what, if anything, are you unwilling to trade away to preserve your fantasy of being the adult in the room.

Boon posted:

I think my earlier point is well made with this post.

white sauce posted:

You're literally more critical of leftists than you are of the facsists in the GOP

quote:

There is no way to make peace with people who applaud Donald Trump when he insults people of color, domestic or international. They can't be converted to a progressive politic. They shouldn't be invited to our movement, dinner tables or future. They should be defeated. Painfully. No mercy. No exceptions. Not for your uncle Cooter who lost his job in the mines because mining isn't profitable any more but Trump told him it was hippies and regulations that hurt him. Not your cousin Jimbo who likes to do doughnuts in his truck while spewing diesel fumes just to piss off environmentalists. Not your brother Goober who likes to eat extra rare steaks just to offend vegans. Not your best friend Bubba who worked construction before the "damned Mex-cuns" took his job...none of them. They can either grow up and wake up...or they can be steamrolled.

I am tired of people telling us we have to pander to their bullshit, prioritize their needs, or act as if they are deep down really decent people who are just misunderstood. No, actually. They are largely small-minded bigots who revel in their ignorance and want to impose that on the rest of us.

And for those leftists who have a problem with what I've just said because it's elitist or classist, seriously...at what point do you vest working class white people with agency? At what point do you hold them accountable for their bullshit rather than making excuses for them, writing it all off to "false consciousness" (because that's what your reading of Marx told you it was called) or hearkening back to a largely fictive time when the white working class was really antiracist and engaged a politic of solidarity? At what point do you just say, Goddamit, here's the reality and if you can't see it we just have to roll over your rear end at some point for the greater good?

Waiting for the white working class is like Waiting for Godot, and if y'all don't know Samuel Beckett's work, here's a spoiler: Godot never comes.

Time to move on, with or without them. Take power, govern and legislate on behalf of working class people of all colors and then they'll either come over or not...but these folks will never be the agents of change for progressivism. They will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to things like health care coverage and a livable wage. Because for many of them, staying several steps ahead of black and brown people is more important than removing the boot of rich white people from their necks.

Boon posted:

No, I answered your question by calling it exactly what it was. You don't get to ask loaded, unfair questions and then demand they be answered on your terms.

Once again, if we met in real life, we'd probably agree on quite a bit and have amicable conversation. But, here we are.

quote:

Among the changes Trump demands is timely inspections of all sites requested by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and an end to expiration dates sometimes called “sunset provisions” so the United States can snap back sanctions forever if Iran is ever found to be cheating.

Trump also is demanding a breakout time of more than one year. The 2015 deal extended the breakout time — how long it takes to amass enough fissile material to construct one nuclear bomb — from two months to one year.

Some of the new sanctions announced by the Treasury Department are a response to crackdowns on anti-government protests in Iran in which access to social media was blocked.

The designations include Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace and its subsidiary, the National Cyberspace Center, which police the Internet, restricting access to various websites that challenge the regime as well as the proxies and virtual private networks many Iranians rely on to get around the controls.

The sanctions with the most political repercussions are against Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the administrative head of Iran’s judiciary.

Larijani, a hard-line cleric appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a highly influential figure and member of Iran’s most powerful political family. His older brother, Ali Larijani, is the speaker of Iran’s parliament.

Iran’s judicial system is notoriously repressive, and the country remains one of the world’s leading executioners. According to the European Union, which placed its own sanctions on the judiciary chief in 2012, Larijani has “personally signed off on numerous death penalty sentences.”
...
This week, officials from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization threatened to boost uranium enrichment and cease cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency if Trump violated the deal. The IAEA, a United Nations watchdog, monitors Iran’s compliance with the agreement.

Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, reportedly spoke with IAEA head Yukiya Amano by phone Monday, Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

According to IRNA, Salehi told Amano that if the United States fails to honor its commitments under the deal, “Iran will adopt measures that can affect the current trend of Iran’s cooperation with the agency.”

No other country requires its leaders to periodically justify the deal the way the U.S. president must, but Congress enacted a law with the requirement out of deep and abiding mistrust of Iran’s intentions.

“The president has been very clear, okay, that many aspects of the Iran deal need to be changed; that there are many activities outside of the Iran deal, whether it be ballistic missiles, whether it be other issues, that we will continue to sanction that are outside the JCPOA,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday, using an abbreviation for the deal’s formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“Human rights violations — we couldn’t be more focused,” he said. “We have as many sanctions on Iran today as we have on any other country in the process. And we’ll continue to look at things.”

Ze Pollack posted:

loaded, unfair questions, like "is there a point you are not willing to compromise with the right on."

compromise is a means, not an end, Boon. government exists for a reason beyond the continued existence of government. hierarchies are tools to accomplish goals with, not the goals in and of themselves.

your response to someone asking you to name something above compromise was to say "I would help build the wall for the right price."

consider what, if anything, that point is for you. if nothing else, it will help you figure out what it is you support, beyond getting those goddamned leftists to shut the hell up.

Koalas March posted:

Tim Wise wrote a good thing you people should read:

Boon posted:

Your questions, all of them ascribe a position to me I don't take. It's telling that you cherry-picked your own question. If you wanted to ask me what is most important to me, what I believe our government should instill and hold sacred, what Dems should never compromise on, that's fine. But you didn't.

Koalas March posted:

Tim Wise wrote a good thing you people should read:

Boon posted:

Based on what?

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

It absolutely is. You can draw a straight line from Mondale to Bill Clinton. The left lost its influence because they couldn't win elections. They couldn't win elections because the left was stagnant and lazy.

Koalas March posted:

Tim Wise wrote a good thing you people should read:

GlyphGryph posted:

Sure, sure, and the radical conservative psychos have no say in the Republican party because of McGovern lost an election.

Grapplejack posted:

McGovern was a democrat though

readingatwork posted:

Half agree. There’s like 30% of the country that is literally insane and beyond saving and I agree that appealing to these people is pointless. However that said I DO think there is a minority of GOP voters that can be peeled off and I don’t think we “gotta get more racist” to do it.

People care about more than one thing, and you can appeal to one legit thing a person cares about without giving ground on other more odious ones. So for example, while most people in the GOP have lovely ideas about race, you might win a few of them over by adding things like rolling back outsourcing (which affects Many of them personally) to your platform. In fact I’d argue doing so could actually reduce racism in the long run since real solutions give people a constructive way to engage with their frustrations that would otherwise be funneled into scapegoats and tribal grudges. Not everyone would see the light, obviously, but SOME would. And those little victories can add up over time.