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Who will you vote for in 2020?
This poll is closed.
Biden 425 18.06%
Trump 105 4.46%
whoever the Green Party runs 307 13.05%
GOOGLE RON PAUL 151 6.42%
Bernie Sanders 346 14.70%
Stalin 246 10.45%
Satan 300 12.75%
Nobody 202 8.58%
Jess Scarane 110 4.67%
mystery man Brian Carroll of the American Solidarity Party 61 2.59%
Dick Nixon 100 4.25%
Total: 2089 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
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TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

The Greek system is a blight. I was reading about a fraternity chapter that got suspended by their national charter for scrubbing Robert E. Lee iconography and references.

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Wicked Them Beats
Apr 1, 2007

Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Harvard Law's first woman of color professor, everybody. Let's give her a round of applause.

In retrospect I'm glad she ran because I used to think she was actually on the left and she did a service disabusing us of the notion.

Famethrowa
Oct 5, 2012

Wicked Them Beats posted:

They're suggesting they'll "reschedule" instead of descheduling it. Be a real game changer when the Biden admin shifts pot from Schedule 1, where it hangs out with heroin, all the way down to Schedule 2, where it can be classified with the very similar drugs of meth and cocaine.

even their "decriminalization" piece, while progressive at first blush, merely implies that while they will stop imprisoning people, they will still, in all likelihood, be imposing strict fines and court mandated rehab! meaning, it will still overwhelmingly harm POC!!!

it's such a relatively minor thing in the face of climate change and healthcare catastrophe, but it is somehow even more infuriating how they are failing at the most "gimme" policy platform possible in the US.

Rainbow Knight
Apr 19, 2006

We die.
We pray.
To live.
We serve

MonsieurChoc posted:

I too remember that really dumb quote from Hillary.

i mean, it's at least a common belief. especially since class consciousness is so far removed from the conversation.

i had a conversation with a customer the other day (i work in a very conservative area btw.) she was (very carefully because she's aware of my ethnicity) talking about mexicans and how they fit into society and how she's not racist but she knows what she's saying sounds racist or whatever :rolleyes: poo poo. so i tried something: i argued that she wasn't racist. i pointed out that a lot of rich white people are prejudiced against the homeless in the area. i talked to her about the idea of "white trash." i pointed out that i'm her favorite person in the store in spite of my ancestry. she understood, and i think came out of the conversation with racism being a class problem as something to ponder.

and i know it's just an anecdote so whatever, but "racist" is a very harsh accusation for white people to handle. imo when they're like, "but some of my friends are black" it's kind of a glimpse into that underlying concept of classism being the real core part of the problem. "classist" just sounds stupid in a society where the concept is "you get out of life what you put in" and "everything you have you've earned." no one wants to speak in those terms because it sounds like making excuses.

rko
Jul 12, 2017

Famethrowa posted:

it's such a relatively minor thing in the face of climate change and healthcare catastrophe, but it is somehow even more infuriating how they are failing at the most "gimme" policy platform possible in the US.

They’re not failing, we don’t share the same goals. The only people in America this serves are the owners of the prison-industrial complex, unless someone would like to make an impassioned argument from the perspective of the poor benighted prison guards of our fine country.

It’s stupidity or malice and either in this case is a pretty damning indictment.

Famethrowa
Oct 5, 2012

rko posted:

They’re not failing, we don’t share the same goals. The only people in America this serves are the owners of the prison-industrial complex, unless someone would like to make an impassioned argument from the perspective of the poor benighted prison guards of our fine country.

It’s stupidity or malice and either in this case is a pretty damning indictment.

in a lot of ways, I take this for granted. I know the limits of electoralism in the US and it is precisely this.

just, in terms of pure raw cynicism, how are they failing at pandering so hard that they fail to realize this is the most slamdunk way to get non-engaged voters to vote. the sheer arrogance of assuming people will be motivated to vote against the idiot in charge without being offered anything.

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

MonsieurChoc posted:

I too remember that really dumb quote from Hillary.

in Africa, they call me Sister Pentecoastal Elites

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Famethrowa posted:

just, in terms of pure raw cynicism, how are they failing at pandering so hard that they fail to realize this is the most slamdunk way to get non-engaged voters to vote. the sheer arrogance of assuming people will be motivated to vote against the idiot in charge without being offered anything.

The problem here is that you assume they even care about "pandering" and getting non-engaged voters to vote to begin with.

Most elected Democrats (particularly the ones with the most influence) don't have anything to gain from increased voter participation. They generally have secure seats themselves, and increased participation just (from their perspective) pointlessly increased the risk of them being primaried. And this is doubly true for the people run run Democratic think-tanks/PACs/etc; their employment is generally secure regardless of how Democrats do in elections, but is threatened by a significant shift in Democratic ideology.

Mind_Taker
May 7, 2007



rko posted:

They’re not failing, we don’t share the same goals. The only people in America this serves are the owners of the prison-industrial complex, unless someone would like to make an impassioned argument from the perspective of the poor benighted prison guards of our fine country.

It’s stupidity or malice and either in this case is a pretty damning indictment.

I’d like to make the argument that it doesn’t just benefit the prison industrial complex: it also benefits pharmaceutical companies.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Rainbow Knight posted:

i mean, it's at least a common belief. especially since class consciousness is so far removed from the conversation.

i had a conversation with a customer the other day (i work in a very conservative area btw.) she was (very carefully because she's aware of my ethnicity) talking about mexicans and how they fit into society and how she's not racist but she knows what she's saying sounds racist or whatever :rolleyes: poo poo. so i tried something: i argued that she wasn't racist. i pointed out that a lot of rich white people are prejudiced against the homeless in the area. i talked to her about the idea of "white trash." i pointed out that i'm her favorite person in the store in spite of my ancestry. she understood, and i think came out of the conversation with racism being a class problem as something to ponder.

and i know it's just an anecdote so whatever, but "racist" is a very harsh accusation for white people to handle. imo when they're like, "but some of my friends are black" it's kind of a glimpse into that underlying concept of classism being the real core part of the problem. "classist" just sounds stupid in a society where the concept is "you get out of life what you put in" and "everything you have you've earned." no one wants to speak in those terms because it sounds like making excuses.

We've been trained our entire life to see reality a certain way and it's not easy to get out of that bullshit. Grats on being good with words to explain that to people. :unsmith:

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008

Zerilan posted:

Nah. People will first and foremost vote based on their material self-interest, and everything beyond that is primarily for the sake of self-justification.


Again, this just straight up not true in many (not all) cases. People vote against their material self-interest all the time, there's plenty of evidence for this. Like if you had a random person and you could only know one thing about them before guessing how they voted, there are plenty of things like religion, race or whatever that would allow you to make a more accurate, or just as accurate guess about how they voted than how much they made last year.

Self-interest certainly matters, but it's just one thing among many that influences how people vote, and it's often not the most powerful thing. I'm not saying this is a good thing! I certainly don't think it is! Just that it is. Hell, unless you believe that Medicare for All was against the self-interst of most super tuesday voters, we have very recent evidence that this is the case. It's why raising class-consciousness is so important.

Somfin
Oct 25, 2010

In my🦚 experience🛠️ the big things🌑 don't teach you anything🤷‍♀️.

Nap Ghost

MonsieurChoc posted:

We've been trained our entire life to see reality a certain way and it's not easy to get out of that bullshit. Grats on being good with words to explain that to people. :unsmith:

Calling people "stupid" has a similar reaction, which is why one of the ways in with some folks is to praise their intelligence and encourage them to use it to see your point of view

"I know you're smart enough to understand this" etc

Still Dismal posted:

Again, this just straight up not true in many (not all) cases. People vote against their material self-interest all the time, there's plenty of evidence for this. Like if you had a random person and you could only know one thing about them before guessing how they voted, there are plenty of things like religion, race or whatever that would allow you to make a more accurate, or just as accurate guess about how they voted than how much they made last year.

Self-interest certainly matters, but it's just one thing among many that influences how people vote, and it's often not the most powerful thing. I'm not saying this is a good thing! I certainly don't think it is! Just that it is. Hell, unless you believe that Medicare for All was against the self-interst of most super tuesday voters, we have very recent evidence that this is the case. It's why raising class-consciousness is so important.

The article posted:

"To be honest with you, a lot of folks in Owsley County went to the polls and voted against gay marriage and abortion, and as a result, I'm afraid they voted away their health insurance"

You have to understand, Still Dismal, a bunch of hardcore Christians see "the country accepts gay marriage and abortion" as aspects of their own material conditions.

Somfin fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Aug 3, 2020

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008

Somfin posted:


You have to understand, Still Dismal, a bunch of hardcore Christians see "the country accepts gay marriage and abortion" as aspects of their own material conditions.


If your definition of "matierial self-interst" encompasses things like "being able to discriminate against the gays", then it's so broad as to be essentially meaningless, and the term loses all distinction. People may derive other benefits from their votes, like seeing an outgroup they dislike punished, either symbolically or substantively through policy. That doesn't mean they're acting in their material self-interst. And American christians are very far from the only group to do things like this.

Somfin
Oct 25, 2010

In my🦚 experience🛠️ the big things🌑 don't teach you anything🤷‍♀️.

Nap Ghost

Still Dismal posted:

If your definition of "matierial self-interst" encompasses things like "being able to discriminate against the gays", then it's so broad as to be essentially meaningless, and the term loses all distinction. People may derive other benefits from their votes, like seeing an outgroup they dislike punished, either symbolically or substantively through policy. That doesn't mean they're acting in their material self-interst. And American christians are very far from the only group to do things like this.

No, you're not seeing what I'm saying. They don't see themselves as voting for more discrimination, they see themselves as voting for changes that will materially improve the country, because they see things as being bad because God isn't making them better and God isn't making them better because of gay marriage and abortion, and if those things go away their material conditions will improve. They are voting in material self interest because they literally do not see the world as being separate and isolated from their faith.

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

^^^
e: having grown up in an extremely religious and right-wing environment I can pretty much promise you that no one except a tiny sliver of the most psychopathic of psychos actually believes that. They vote against gay marriage for the same reasons any other conservative does: it's gross and weird and gently caress the libs.


selec got the formulation wrong. It's "culture is downstream from material conditions", and -- at least to the extent we're talking about it here -- politics might as well be synonymous with culture because Americans don't view the political landscape they're in through a Marxist lens.

The material conditions you find eg. poor conservatives in very neatly explain why they often vote against their own interests, because (to them) politics are an expression of culture. This is the same reason that you'll see liberals here and elsewhere going to great lengths to defend things that don't work or actively cause harm to themselves and others. The necessary work before leftists includes getting people to understand that politics is, really, a material struggle for power. Once you can convince people of that, they'll vote in their material self-interests (their class interests, more specifically).

Famethrowa
Oct 5, 2012

Still Dismal posted:

If your definition of "matierial self-interst" encompasses things like "being able to discriminate against the gays", then it's so broad as to be essentially meaningless, and the term loses all distinction. People may derive other benefits from their votes, like seeing an outgroup they dislike punished, either symbolically or substantively through policy. That doesn't mean they're acting in their material self-interst. And American christians are very far from the only group to do things like this.

because conservatives believe that allowing gays to be married (God will punish us)/black people to have rights (they will acquire money and power)/trans people to use bathrooms (they will assault my daughter) will materially harm them.

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

If people actually voted in their material self-interest we'd be having this discussion in our local soviet

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

Famethrowa posted:

because conservatives believe that allowing gays to be married (God will punish us)/black people to have rights (they will acquire money and power)/trans people to use bathrooms (they will assault my daughter) will materially harm them.

Politically speaking, those are minor issues compared to ~ABORTION~. Restricting abortion materially harms conservatives in measurable ways - many pro-life families have long been noted engaging in the apparent hypocrisy of getting abortions for themselves, usually via spending a lot of $$$ on 'vacations' to states or countries with more liberal abortion laws. Abortion is and always was about punishing sluts - and the Other in general. Yet entire political empires have been constructed on its foundation.

TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Aug 3, 2020

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008

Somfin posted:

No, you're not seeing what I'm saying. They don't see themselves as voting for more discrimination, they see themselves as voting for changes that will materially improve the country, because they see things as being bad because God isn't making them better and God isn't making them better because of gay marriage and abortion, and if those things go away their material conditions will improve. They are voting in material self interest because they literally do not see the world as being separate and isolated from their faith.

No, I understand what you're saying, and I'm saying that A)that's not how the term is commonly used, and B) if your definition of material self-interest is that broad then the term doesn't mean anything at all, because if you stretch it that broadly it could made to cover any possible motivation ever. Self-interest certainly matters, but it is very far from being the only thing that matters, and is in very many cases not the primary factor for how people vote.

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

If people actually voted in their material self-interest we'd be having this discussion in our local soviet

Yep.

Fill Baptismal fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Aug 3, 2020

Ershalim
Sep 22, 2008
Clever Betty

Famethrowa posted:

because conservatives believe that allowing gays to be married (God will punish us)/black people to have rights (they will acquire money and power)/trans people to use bathrooms (they will assault my daughter) will materially harm them.

There are definitely some fundamentalists who believe that god's wrath will turn us into pillars of salt and poo poo, but the vast majority of conservatives aren't that kind of religious. Claiming they believe what they're doing is for the good of the country is very much in line with the affect they project, but it isn't even remotely accurate to the way they carry themselves in their lives. The hard floor of 30% might be 1/5 made up of true godbothering zealots, but the majority of them are spiteful people or diehard teamsters who see the election as a game their team should win.

If you stat assigning the whole of the GoP some kind of moral drive, you're giving them way too much credit. They (like most of the democrats) are either driven by inertia or the desire for their team to win. Or spite, there's a lot of that, too. In as much as all of us are affected by politics, the vast majority of us don't care or know enough about it for that to be a meaningful part of our lives.

e: I'm having trouble not spitting invective, so I feel like I haven't explained this well, but basically: voters don't know poo poo about poo poo, and they/we don't have a demographic-wide compelling reason to vote how we do. Speaking about elections in terms of "black people think X" or "the boomers believe Z" is setting yourself up for failure, because the trends you need to look for aren't really that deep. The people who win in politics are the people who successfully find a niche that can be marketed to a large number of people. In the past this has been because they were tall, or hot, or seemed charismatic or stoic in the face of some terrible danger, right now the it-thing is "not being a loving goblin" and also "being a loving goblin" because that's where our cultural headspace is.

Ershalim fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Aug 3, 2020

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

If people actually voted in their material self-interest we'd be having this discussion in our local soviet

They vote based on what they think serves their self-interest, even though most voters are ignorant or naive and think that either party actually gives a poo poo about their conditions.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

Politically speaking, those are minor issues compared to ~ABORTION~. Restricting abortion materially harms conservatives in measurable ways - many pro-life families have long been noted engaging in the apparent hypocrisy of getting abortions for themselves, usually via spending a lot of $$$ on 'vacations' to states or countries with more liberal abortion laws. Abortion is and always was about punishing sluts - and the Other in general. Yet entire political empires have been constructed on its foundation.

You know the old saying: Punishable by a fine simply means legal for rich people.

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

Zerilan posted:

They vote based on what they think serves their self-interest, even though most voters are ignorant or naive and think that either party actually gives a poo poo about their conditions.

I'm starting to realize most voters are in a parasocial relationship with their preferred political parties

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008

Zerilan posted:

They vote based on what they think serves their self-interest, even though most voters are ignorant or naive and think that either party actually gives a poo poo about their conditions.

I mean, if you’re saying that people would vote in their self interest but there’s almost always something preventing them from doing it, yeah I guess we can’t really prove or disprove that because we can’t read everyone’s mind. But it’s essentially an article of faith on your part (not that I’m making GBS threads on that, I personally think it’s better to have an more optimistic view of people than not too), not really anything grounded in material analysis that can be used to make predictions or explain things.


DarkHorse posted:

I'm starting to realize most voters are in a parasocial relationship with their preferred political parties

Yeah, people form emotional bonds to groups that they’re a part of, I don’t think anyone is immune to it. It’s why control of a big party is such a prize, because tons of people think of themselves as democrats or whatever as part of their identity rather than because of policy XYZ.

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

Zerilan posted:

They vote based on what they think serves their self-interest, even though most voters are ignorant or naive and think that either party actually gives a poo poo about their conditions.

How is this any different than post-hoc self-justification? By this logic, every diehard voter that has ever had any problems with medical bills should have been 100% in the tank for Sanders, because material necessity would dictate that the guy who will zero out my medical debt would far outweigh the guy who will drain the swamp, or the lady that would give a means-tested tax bonus to graduates who etc. etc. It's because they don't want Socialism, which they don't understand beyond "it's bad" or "it's unfair", and they understand it's bad (and associated Sanders with) because capitalists have been pumping that propaganda into every aspect of our culture since the Russian Revolution.

You're right in that the reasons conservatives think universal healthcare, or jobs guarantees, or climate reforms, or any other even nominally left position is bad is because it goes against their self-interest, but only in a sense, and only in the sense that these are first and foremost cultural considerations, not material considerations. Your average Trump voter is not making a sober appraisal of the means of production and their relationship to it -- even an uninformed and ignorant one -- in capitalist and socialist economies. They're against socialism because they're not a fuckin' commie who hates freedom and America. If pressed they hold these stances because socialism takes all of their money and gives it to the blacks/gays/whatever. But, again, these positions don't shake out of any self-interested analysis! They vote, over and over again, in the interests of fairness and freedom and common sense and the right sort of people being in charge: whatever any of those mean to terms them, definitions gleaned from the culture.

consider abortion: there's no material reason to want to restrict abortion, it's a losing proposition. "I may want an abortion someday, I should have it" is a material consideration, and if I'm acting in my own ignorant self interest, what value do I have in restricting it at all? You can't even really appeal to the idea that a vengeful god might smite you for it -- up until a few years ago, no one gave a poo poo about abortion except for a small handful of hardcore Catholics. Why did this change? Because of the actual material interests of wealthy church owners who didn't want to give up their tax exemptions, and so used it as a focal point to foment a conservative movement centered around it so they could leverage abortion-minded voters to economic gains.

Rainbow Knight
Apr 19, 2006

We die.
We pray.
To live.
We serve

Famethrowa posted:

because conservatives believe that allowing gays to be married (God will punish us)/black people to have rights (they will acquire money and power)/trans people to use bathrooms (they will assault my daughter) will materially harm them.


i think true about LGBTQ though that people are crazy about that poo poo. i think that fear can be used to drive people apart for class benefit though, but i don’t think it’s solely a product of class warfare. and i really don’t hear “they’re taking our jobs”

i just had a thought though: why is it that people are so hung up on LGBTQ issues? for ideological reasons. what helps people understand things? education. what subjects? humanities. why are humanities not focused on in school? monetary reasons! it’s too expensive and doesn’t lead to good jobs. again, a fractured society is easily exploited. so an argument could be made that less capitalism could improve relationships with people

e: however disjointed that sounds i’m basically saying that some things not caused by capitalism are exacerbated by capitalism and could probably be solved by the abolition of capitalism

Rainbow Knight fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Aug 4, 2020

Somfin
Oct 25, 2010

In my🦚 experience🛠️ the big things🌑 don't teach you anything🤷‍♀️.

Nap Ghost

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

consider abortion: there's no material reason to want to restrict abortion, it's a losing proposition. "I may want an abortion someday, I should have it" is a material consideration, and if I'm acting in my own ignorant self interest, what value do I have in restricting it at all? You can't even really appeal to the idea that a vengeful god might smite you for it -- up until a few years ago, no one gave a poo poo about abortion except for a small handful of hardcore Catholics. Why did this change? Because of the actual material interests of wealthy church owners who didn't want to give up their tax exemptions, and so used it as a focal point to foment a conservative movement centered around it so they could leverage abortion-minded voters to economic gains.

How were they able to do that?

Rainbow Knight
Apr 19, 2006

We die.
We pray.
To live.
We serve

MonsieurChoc posted:

We've been trained our entire life to see reality a certain way and it's not easy to get out of that bullshit. Grats on being good with words to explain that to people. :unsmith:

im telling ya: being surrounded by conservatives is good practice for not just exploring with people how manipulative the people in power are, but also understanding that liberal policies actually do affect people’s material conditions in not always a positive way, and how that segues into discussions about all sorts of things.

the key is that when obama and clinton and probably in the future joe biden come up feel free to rant about drone strikes or benghazi or whatever. after that it’s love

Wicked Them Beats
Apr 1, 2007

Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1290452895385583616?s=20

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

Somfin posted:

How were they able to do that?

the capitalists -- a group that absolutely has class consciousness and operates politically to their material interests -- tied those material interests to a cultural issue that they then used their wealth and influence (both culturally and politically) to convince people was important. This was only possible due to the material wealth of the capitalists, and the reason (well, one of the many) enough people listened is because their material circumstances made them likely to do so. Culture is downstream from material conditions.

If you want to tie it back in to the idea that they vote this way out of fear of a vengeful god, I'd argue that's a very simple and reductive look at the social structures surrounding churches and the specific flavor of conservatism present in these religious circles. The idea that God hates abortion is part of it, sure, but is in no way the whole story -- otherwise why was abortion a nonissue until relatively recently? I'd argue that actual, honest, truly-believed eschatological concerns about abortion are few and far between nowadays (see: the only moral abortion is my abortion) -- but at any rate that's still entirely cultural!

if we're trying to talk about this from a leftist perspective we should be clear that "self-interest" means "material self-interest", because sure, no one is going to knowingly act in a way that harms themselves personally (financially, mentally, spiritually, whatever) for no benefit, or pursue a political position that they think will harm themselves and their family. We can actually talk about material self-interest in a somewhat objective way, even if we disagree on what is optimal. I think you might agree when I say that it is in the material interests of everyone who isn't a millionaire or billionaire to be a socialist. I would point to us not living in a socialist state to be proof that, regardless of why, they're not voting in their own material self-interests.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

People vote against their best interests because they're gaslit into believing that their best interests are actually bad for them.

Throw enough outright lies, technical jargon, buzzwords, meaningless charts, graphs, and numbers into the mix, and they'll find a way to turn "Free Ice Cream" into "Murder your grandma with a tire iron made out of socialism."

Timeless Appeal
May 28, 2006

Rainbow Knight posted:

i just had a thought though: why is it that people are so hung up on LGBTQ issues? for ideological reasons. what helps people understand things? education. what subjects? humanities. why are humanities not focused on in school? monetary reasons! it’s too expensive and doesn’t lead to good jobs. again, a fractured society is easily exploited. so an argument could be made that less capitalism could improve relationships with people
I mean I don't really disagree with your overall premise that Capitalism tends to exasperate a bunch of lovely elements of society.

But cultural identity issues do act as a barrier for getting what you're requesting. I'm lucky that I get to teach The 57 Bus this year which is very frank about gender identity and the school to prison pipeline. My principal has my back on it and the NYC DOE recommends the book. But I'm transitioning to working in NC, and already have met teachers fired for teaching a book about a boy penguin that likes another boy penguin. So, I'm going to have to be more careful unless I know I can trust to be protected.

Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Aug 4, 2020

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008
I mean, people voting against their own material self-interest is not a uniformly negative thing. There are people who wouldn't have benefited matierally from Bernie's programs, and who would have probably been taxed more to pay for them, who supported them because they believed that they would have been good for the country and were morally right. poo poo, his office even put out a video at one point of millionaires saying their taxes shouldn't be cut. Ideology can cut both ways.

Earth
Nov 6, 2009
I WOULD RATHER INSERT A $20 LEGO SET'S WORTH OF PLASTIC BRICKS INTO MY URETHRA THAN STOP TALKING ABOUT BEING A SCALPER.
College Slice
I've been doing a hell of a good job avoiding politics, and my mental health has been on the uptick. Too bad tomorrow is voting day here in Missouri and I've got to pay attention for a day. Yes, unfortunately I live in Missouri, but I am willing to get out and vote. I'm going to be super honest and say I have not been paying attention. The reason I have been brought back here is I loaded up the ballot on Ballotpedia and found that my area has multiple democrats splitting the ticket. I wanted to come here to ask if anyone has been following the Missouri race and can tell me which Democrat I should be voting for in hopes of giving them the biggest number. I know that the Republicans will run the ticket, but that's not a reason for me to not go vote.

Fill Baptismal
Dec 15, 2008
The state and local politics thread, USpol, and the State of the race threads might be better places to ask, higher likelyhood of there being goons who know the area there IMO. Is there a DSA\Our revoloution chapter in your area? Sometimes they put out voter guides.

E: Looks like there are couple of active DSA chapters in MO, and at least a couple have put out endorsements and such, if you check here you might be able to find one near you that can give you more info.

Standard disclaimer about DSA sometimes varying heavily by chapter, don't know those particular chapters, etc.

Fill Baptismal fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Aug 4, 2020

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead
i've got bad news about the best plausible VP candidate

https://twitter.com/AlxThomp/status/1290460159886725120?s=20

:ohdear:

this actually has me legit concerned for her chances in the smoky backroom knife fight, if we're at "BREAKING NEWS: DENIES SHE'S A COMMUNIST", but I guess we'll know for sure in the next week and a half at most

I'm still in the Bass Mass, though, and I assume I'm the first one to coin the term.

Pentecoastal Elites
Feb 27, 2007

Still Dismal posted:

I mean, people voting against their own material self-interest is not a uniformly negative thing. There are people who wouldn't have benefited matierally from Bernie's programs, and who would have probably been taxed more to pay for them, who supported them because they believed that they would have been good for the country and were morally right. poo poo, his office even put out a video at one point of millionaires saying their taxes shouldn't be cut. Ideology can cut both ways.

There are people who wouldn't have directly benefitted from, say, M4A because they had super-premium healthcare because of their jobs, or already paid their college loans, or were already part of a good and powerful union, or whatever. But they absolutely would have benefitted from being in a society where they and their children could rely on those things in a way the truly rich would never (reasonably) need to. If some multi-millionaire voted for Bernie they are, actually, acting against their material interests (and "shouldn't", at least logically). It's still a zero sum game and someone is still going to get screwed.

This seems kind of semantic and academic but I think it's actually really important because material interests are class interests, in a fundamental sense. I might (and should!) personally feel the cops shouldn't murder black kids just out of the most basic human decency, but as a foundation for praxis "basic human decency" gets overlooked real quick as soon as my own livelihood is threatened. Instead, recognizing that my material interests are threatened by the cops murdering black kids for any of a million reasons I hope I don't need to elaborate on here -- which is absolutely the truth -- means I recognize that I too have skin in the game, even if it's not as much of an immediate existential threat. This is, I think, the basis of class consciousness and the only place from which actual solidarity can spring.

Pentecoastal Elites fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Aug 4, 2020

Rainbow Knight
Apr 19, 2006

We die.
We pray.
To live.
We serve

Timeless Appeal posted:

I mean I don't really disagree with your overall premise that Capitalist tends to exasperate a bunch of lovely elements of society.

But cultural identity issues do act as a barrier for getting what you're requesting. I'm lucky that I get to teach The 57 Bus this year which is very frank about gender identity and the school to prison pipeline. My principal has my back on it and the NYC DOE recommends the book. But I'm transitioning to working in NC, and already have met teachers fired for teaching a book about a boy penguin that likes another boy penguin. So, I'm going to have to be more careful unless I know I can trust to be protected.

:hmmyes: i agree then

i hope everything in NC goes well though. sounds daunting.

Rainbow Knight fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Aug 4, 2020

Nucleic Acids
Apr 10, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 4 days!
So, how’re things looking in Kentucky?

Nucleic Acids fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Aug 4, 2020

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JT Jag
Aug 30, 2009

#1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver

GreyjoyBastard posted:

i've got bad news about the best plausible VP candidate

https://twitter.com/AlxThomp/status/1290460159886725120?s=20

:ohdear:

this actually has me legit concerned for her chances in the smoky backroom knife fight, if we're at "BREAKING NEWS: DENIES SHE'S A COMMUNIST", but I guess we'll know for sure in the next week and a half at most

I'm still in the Bass Mass, though, and I assume I'm the first one to coin the term.

I don't know much about Bass yet myself. I kinda like Duckworth, even she's a bit of a centrist. She hates the Rs with a passion, and it's pretty drat hard to swift boat her.

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