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The whole political advertizing/candidate industry mainly exists to enrich the people who carry it out, and its efficacy is dubious.
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May 16, 2016 16:33
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Maybe, but there's definitely a step between 'who the gently caress is this guy on the ballot roll', and those overpriced overly-cinematic attack ads. The hidden primary is just getting past that first stage.
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May 16, 2016 16:42
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rudatron posted:Maybe, but there's definitely a step between 'who the gently caress is this guy on the ballot roll', and those overpriced overly-cinematic attack ads. The hidden primary is just getting past that first stage. I'd speculate that just getting basic name recognition requires only a small fraction of the cost of the average political campaign.
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May 16, 2016 17:04
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Thug Lessons posted:I'd speculate that just getting basic name recognition requires only a small fraction of the cost of the average political campaign. Well yes, but Ol' Jimmy Democrat who's a solid local politician has no hope in hell of beating out the power of the Clinton machine. Name recognition and national prestige are millions apart.
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May 16, 2016 17:09
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Tesseraction posted:Well yes, but Ol' Jimmy Democrat who's a solid local politician has no hope in hell of beating out the power of the Clinton machine. Name recognition and national prestige are millions apart. Yeah that's absolutely true but this is a very limited view of the power of political advertizing and, by extension, the power of money in politics. Yes, you definitely need a lot of money to become the leader of a political party in America for a whole slew of reasons, but that doesn't mean the political ads industry has much effect of people's voting preferences or worldviews.
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May 16, 2016 17:21
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Generally speaking, a militant uprising is a golem that will pervert the desires of the ideologues who created it. In the case of the American Revolution, there was no upheaval of the existing land-based power structure, just a turning of that power structure to the effort of kicking out the Crown. Even if the leaders of the revolution are pure-hearted, we can be assured that the military hierarchy they created will wrest control from them. Tesseraction posted:(I'd have killed Trotsky and Stalin and taken Russia for myself, mwahahahahaha) Because there are always people like Tesseraction, joking or no. Also, name recognition is really hard (and basically how Clinton won most of the South, because she's had 25 years of name recognition, and Sanders had about 6 months) because the vast majority of people don't go looking up political news and getting in discussions on the reg
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May 16, 2016 17:22
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Stinky_Pete posted:Generally speaking, a militant uprising is a golem that will pervert the desires of the ideologues who created it. In the case of the American Revolution, there was no upheaval of the existing land-based power structure, just a turning of that power structure to the effort of kicking out the Crown. That wasn't a revolution and it didn't have any goals beyond the local bourgeoisie cutting ties with the empire for tax reasons.
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May 16, 2016 17:30
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HorseLord posted:Actually the USSR came from a revolution that had majority support. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? HorseLord posted:While most of Russia was a medival shithole, they did have a few industrial cities, and that's where the revolution spread from. It went to the shithole medieval countryside only afterwards. Doesn't sound like what I had in mind.
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May 16, 2016 17:35
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computer parts posted:Yeah, which is why I'm asking the specific people here. i haven't read most of the thread after this post but if it's a party made up of the working class and specifically dedicated to maintaining worker control of the means of production, yes, absolutely
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May 16, 2016 18:08
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OwlFancier posted:Doesn't sound like what I had in mind. Can you actually state your point? I mean, I understand you're sticking hard to your belief that soviet socialism existed because Lenin and 3 other people got together and used magic to force it on 160 Million unwilling people across 11 time zones, I just want you to explain how you've come up with that idea given literally all accepted history disagrees. I figure you think you just did a "Gotcha" by quoting me twice, but pro tip: that only works if you quote two contradictory statements, not two which reinforce each other. HorseLord fucked around with this message at 19:46 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 19:43
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HorseLord posted:That wasn't a revolution and it didn't have any goals beyond the local bourgeoisie cutting ties with the empire for tax reasons. Also it worked, so there is that.
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May 16, 2016 19:46
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HorseLord posted:Can you actually state your point? I mean, I understand you're sticking hard to your belief that soviet socialism existed because Lenin and 3 other people got together and used magic to force it on 160 Million unwilling people across 11 time zones, I just want you to explain how you've come up with that idea given literally all accepted history disagrees. While we're at it mind explaining how the POUM was both a useless disorganized bunch of a morons and somehow simultaneously responsible for the downfall of the Spanish Republic.
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May 16, 2016 19:50
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Raskolnikov38 posted:While we're at it mind explaining how the POUM was both a useless disorganized bunch of a morons and somehow simultaneously responsible for the downfall of the Spanish Republic. I wouldn't put the blame entirely on them but you did just answer your own question. Being poo poo at things is how you be poo poo at things.
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May 16, 2016 19:52
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HorseLord posted:Can you actually state your point? I mean, I understand you're sticking hard to your belief that soviet socialism existed because Lenin and 3 other people got together and used magic to force it on 160 Million unwilling people across 11 time zones, I just want you to explain how you've come up with that idea given literally all accepted history disagrees. I don't agree with the concept of vanguardism. The idea that there is some more enlightened core of the working class that should lead the rest and show them why they're wrong. Or at least, I don't agree with them having more power than the rest. I understand why it was developed because organizing bottom-up in the face of hostility from the bourgeoisie is extremely difficult, and that collecting and empowering a core group to spread your idea is a sensible response to that, but I think in practice it simply creates a new dictatorship. It may be a benign one but, as the USSR shows (and most of history, for that matter) the presence of such a potent and coherent dictatorship lends itself to being easily corrupted. I would, instead, favor entirely bottom-up organization, which seeks to create distributed power rather than centralized. Because distributed power even in capitalism shows its strength, it's stable, and difficult to actually control by anyone. The distributed nature of power in modern capitalist states prevents anyone from having individual control of a nation and I feel that is very important. The problem I have, ultimately, is not with the stability or the ethical coherence of a capitalist state, but simply that it has the wrong ethics. I want a powerful state, but one without a central, self-perpetuating authority. I want a state which opposes wealth accumulation but which does so only by the continuous cultural zeitgeist which enshrines that idea as strongly as our current one enshrines the virtue of wealth. Because I want the powerful inertia of our current society to work for the people rather than against it. I think that would be more stable and more lasting than any centrally enforced ideology. It would certainly be nice if we could have a guaranteed central authority that would always act in the best interests of the people but, well, that's monarchy, and it doesn't work. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 20:18
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OwlFancier posted:I don't agree with the concept of vanguardism. The idea that there is some more enlightened core of the working class that should lead the rest and show them why they're wrong. Or at least, I don't agree with them having more power than the rest. This is all just loving weasel words. You talk about wanting a bottom-up revolution but when presented with one -literally the soviets- you start pretending it isn't. You want a cultural zeitgeist of socialism but you condemn any efforts who get together and spread socialist ideas, with a heavy dose of what I'm starting to think is deliberate misrepresentation of their methods. It's like you believe socialist ideas are illegitimate if they are taught, although you're sure to justify yourself by claiming the teaching was done at gunpoint. What you actually want is a polite British revolution where the bourgeoisie create socialism for you over tea and biscuits. HorseLord fucked around with this message at 21:01 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 20:56
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I am fine with you going out and telling all your mates what a good idea socialism is. I am deeply suspicious when you and your mates conspire to agitate widely and then just coincidentally go on to lead the entire country while suppressing all alternative organizations and enshrining your organization as the sole authority on the proper running of the country for now and evermore. I don't see that ending very well, even if your own intentions are good.
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May 16, 2016 20:59
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Stinky_Pete posted:Because there are always people like Tesseraction, joking or no. Yeah, I mean my whole joke here is that both of them were agitating for power and that's why I wouldn't have trusted either of them. The joke then being as if I was agitating for the power myself.
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May 16, 2016 21:04
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OwlFancier posted:I am fine with you going out and telling all your mates what a good idea socialism is. I am deeply suspicious when you and your mates conspire to agitate widely and then just coincidentally go on to lead the entire country while suppressing all alternative organizations and enshrining your organization as the sole authority on the proper running of the country for now and evermore. Jesus Christ. You are "Deeply suspicious" that people who form a Communist party, and go far and wide spreading ideas of Communism... go ahead and try and establish Socialism. So Lenin and the Bolshiveks were supposed to do what, spread their teachings far and wide, gain the support and trust of the great masses of people, and then just sit on their hands? "We shouldn't do anything, Owfancier would think it was a bit suspicious if we take steps to create what we advocate and demand, I'm sure if we leave it alone it'll all work out." No. Political movements have to organize. There is going to be people at the head of it. It's just how history works, mate.
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May 16, 2016 21:12
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I did say I understand why they did it, I just said that I would not do the same, and that doing it is a thing to be suspicious of. If you put me in the same position the first thing I would do is write a constitution for the state which prevents any one party from holding dictatorial central power, and enshrines some core socialist ideals as immutable and the foundation of the nation, then hold an election designed to represent as many different parties as possible. Central authority is dangerous, and it is far easier to use it to damage a state than to build one. I have no desire to produce the next Stalin.
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May 16, 2016 21:19
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How the gently caress do you propose to a) extract yourself from an unwinnable World War, b) win the inevitable civil war and c) rebuild your shattered pariah country afterwards without strong central authority? It seriously seems like you're open for a socialist revolution by any means except those that have a chance of working.
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May 16, 2016 21:27
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Cerebral Bore posted:How the gently caress do you propose to a) extract yourself from an unwinnable World War, b) win the inevitable civil war and c) rebuild your shattered pariah country afterwards without strong central authority? It seriously seems like you're open for a socialist revolution by any means except those that have a chance of working. With difficulty. The problem with the easier methods of effecting a revolution is that they don't seem to work. Autocracy is too unstable to create an enduring and prosperous nation when all it takes is one fuckhead to have a brilliant idea and suddenly everything is poo poo. I suppose we could keep trying authoritarian revolutions until one magically strikes the right balance between consolidating power and stabilizing the nation and then hands off power to the wider population and demolishes the central authority so that it can't be used to damage the nation but that seems equally improbable. Believe me if I thought that you could solve problems by force I would be first in line to hold the axe, I just don't see how it has a hope of working in the long run. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:33 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 21:31
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OwlFancier posted:With difficulty. The fundamental problem is that you're totally misunderstanding what a revolution is and how revolutions work. Revolutions are not something that "we try", revolutions are something that happen when a political system has lost its legitimacy and becomes incapable of supporting itself due to a severe enough crisis. Revolutions don't happen because some bearded conspirators sit in a dark cellar somewhere and decide that we're having a revolution tomorrow, revolutions happen when everything has already gone to poo poo, because somebody will certainly exploit the power vacuum. And when you're in the loving poo poo it isn't difficult to get out of there with your preferred methods, it's impossible. Say that you get your way after the old regime is toppled and refuse to consolidate power centrally and instead implement your ideas, write a constitution and all that. Well, the country is still in the poo poo and unless you get it out of there pronto your own legitimacy is going to be undermined, which will obviously be exploited by any political organization that doesn't share your ideals. So in the very best case you have to somehow organize and win that election and then somehow get most everyone to agree with you and respect your preferred constitution to the point that anybody better organized and more ruthless than you will have to stay quiet. In the worst case you get couped by the loving fash, who then proceed to have you and yours shot. You're literally gambling with the lives and freedom of your own supporters here. This brings me to the second main point, successful revolutionary regimes centralize power out of goddamn necessity, much like any other nation does in a state of emergency. Furthermore, to pretend that something like a constitution and decentralization would somehow settle the situation of the country being in the poo poo is naive at best and delusional at worst. If you want an example of this in action, one Kerensky and his government comes to mind.
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May 16, 2016 21:55
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Whereas the alternative is centralizing power, getting assassinated, being succeeded by some despotic lunatic who then proceeds to gently caress the country over. Retaining central power is also gambling with the lives of everyone. There is no option which does not gamble with the lives of everyone.
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May 16, 2016 22:10
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Cerebral Bore posted:This brings me to the second main point, successful revolutionary regimes centralize power out of goddamn necessity, much like any other nation does in a state of emergency. Furthermore, to pretend that something like a constitution and decentralization would somehow settle the situation of the country being in the poo poo is naive at best and delusional at worst. If you want an example of this in action, one Kerensky and his government comes to mind.
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May 16, 2016 22:32
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OwlFancier posted:Whereas the alternative is centralizing power, getting assassinated, being succeeded by some despotic lunatic who then proceeds to gently caress the country over. There's no logical reason that would necessitate history to play out exactly like it did in the early USSR in the event of a socialist revolution, whereas, as I explained, your ideas are unworkable on their own merits. Don't you see that it's kinda absurd to use a mere hypothetical possibility of failure to argue for near-certain failure? And since you're admitting that you're gambling with everyone's lives here, would you not be obligated to pick the option that isn't extremely likely to have you couped out of power in short order? Also I'd appreciate it if you addressed my points instead of ignoring my actual criticism of your ideas.
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May 16, 2016 22:37
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OwlFancier posted:My god I hadn't realized that until you said it. It's not like anyone ever suggested that a popular movement inspired by anger at the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy would be necessary in order to instate a lasting change in a society. That would be crazy. You can't suddenly back of the marxist specifics. Revolution by definition can change anything. The point to being a marxist is the belief that a certain basket of changes (specifically surrounding capital ownership) will lead to and sustain your revolution. I'm pointing out that it's naive to think so much hinges on such a legal and technical distinction. Large scale human society requires hierarchy where some individuals have huge amounts of power and/or economic power. rudatron posted:I've heard this quote a lot, but I wonder what exactly the the criteria for 'informant' is. It seems like it'd be logistically impossible, if you're using a serious definition of the word 'informant'. And, to continue from above. A marxist socialist/socialist society is going to have its own elite. The trick is to prove that this new elite will have a more effective check on its power under the new system. I think socialism by definition of it's structure where economic and political power are combined has a harder time doing this. How do you address that? asdf32 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 00:24
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OwlFancier posted:With difficulty. so you organize the masses to stop the imperialist war that is grinding your nation to dust, you warn them to prepare because the reaction will rather burn the whole land than letting it go to the worker's hand and... go to your summer vacations? Brutal unrelentless violence was falling on the heads of the citizens of imperial russia. the revolution attempted to save that violence into something that gave power to the working class. and it worked, irregardless of what stalin did in the mid 30's (aka almost 20 years later) and wether or not those policies were essential in stopping yet another right wing invasion of the country that killed 40 to 50 million people.
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May 17, 2016 00:25
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asdf32 posted:Large scale human society requires hierarchy where some individuals have huge amounts of power and/or economic power. On what basis?
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May 17, 2016 00:28
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Tesseraction posted:On what basis? On the basis that marxists don't advocate for libertarian anarchism and require a functioning government structure which involves a hierarchy of institutions with individuals leading them who have outsized economic and/or political power.
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May 17, 2016 00:33
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Mans posted:so you organize the masses to stop the imperialist war that is grinding your nation to dust, you warn them to prepare because the reaction will rather burn the whole land than letting it go to the worker's hand and... go to your summer vacations? I can agree that the decision may well have been preferable to the alternative in the situation of the USSR, but in a modern setting, it's not what I would choose for my country, and I still don't think it would be successful in building an enduring socialist nation. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:39 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 00:37
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asdf32 posted:On the basis that marxists don't advocate for libertarian anarchism and require a functioning government structure which involves a hierarchy of institutions with individuals leading them who have outsized economic and/or political power. 'Marxists' don't because Marxism is an analytical school of thought. Anarchism is something Marx himself was sceptical of, but it was Engels who waxed lyrical on the purpose of government towards a socialist/communist goal. I do not fault people for not understanding Marxism/Socialist/Communism but you seem very assured of what you don't seem to have a single understanding of. What have you read to get these wildly inaccurate ideas?
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May 17, 2016 00:38
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OwlFancier posted:I can agree that the decision may well have been preferable to the alternative in the situation of the USSR, but in a modern setting, it's not what I would choose for my country. Yeah, it probably doesn't make sense to necessarily apply those methods in a relatively stable society, but in the case of Russia or any other country facing that type of oblivion, it becomes more defensible. As for the Bolsheviks launching a "coup," it is was pretty clear they had broad local support in most industrial cities, but they lacked such support in the countryside to a large extent. That said, the party representing the countryside [the SRs] were more of a concept than a actual political force and basically outside of major cities the implosion of any single authority left a giant political vacuum that was subsequently filled by the Reds/Whites and a gaggle of opportunist foreign powers. The Provisional Government itself was so weak there really wasn't anything to revolt against. I don't think a libertarian socialist movement would have lasted too long in such an environment. If anything the Bolsheviks were so centralized because it allowed them to survive unlike their opponents.
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May 17, 2016 00:48
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Cerebral Bore posted:There's no logical reason that would necessitate history to play out exactly like it did in the early USSR in the event of a socialist revolution, whereas, as I explained, your ideas are unworkable on their own merits. Don't you see that it's kinda absurd to use a mere hypothetical possibility of failure to argue for near-certain failure? And since you're admitting that you're gambling with everyone's lives here, would you not be obligated to pick the option that isn't extremely likely to have you couped out of power in short order? He can't, he's too mad about Stalin.
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May 17, 2016 00:53
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I am not entirely sure it is possible to be too mad about Stalin. I think Stalin is quite high up there on the list of things I would like not to be involved in my preferred socialist society. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 00:54
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OwlFancier posted:I am not entirely sure it is possible to be too mad about Stalin. Well, that's fine, but you shouldn't pretend to be a socialist if your go-to source for information on socialism is people who've a vested interest in seeing it harmed. Hell, I will put it to you that the reason you hate Stalin specifically, rather than the Soviet Government as a whole, is because you grew up in a society who's ruling class would demonise countries it did not like by talking about them as if they were just their leaders. We didn't hear about the need to destroy the country of Iraq, it's state, infrastructure and social structure, we heard about needing to fight Saddam. We didn't hear about the need to destroy the country of Libya, it's state, infrastructure and social structure, we heard about needing to fight Gaddafi. Briefly, before ISIS stole the spotlight, it was the same with Syria and Assad. So it was with the USSR and Stalin. A Government can not be one person, no matter who does a big song and dance about how great he is. Or how evil. HorseLord fucked around with this message at 01:07 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 01:02
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I'm not entirely sure Marx would have been OK with Stalin either.
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May 17, 2016 01:02
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Speaking of, you said you'd give me some decent textbooks to promote a pro-Stalin understanding of history but then you seemed to be busy for a few months immediately afterwards. Gimme the titles you jerk!
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May 17, 2016 01:04
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Tesseraction posted:Speaking of, you said you'd give me some decent textbooks to promote a pro-Stalin understanding of history but then you seemed to be busy for a few months immediately afterwards. Gimme the titles you jerk! I'm lazy as gently caress. OwlFancier posted:I'm not entirely sure Marx would have been OK with Stalin either. He was dead by then you know 
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May 17, 2016 01:07
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rudatron posted:Note that nowhere does he say that this done as part of some project of social control, ti's a consequence of a certain ownership class, projecting it's own ideas (created by their conditions) outwards onto society as a whole. So ideas that challenge that structure, are not seen as 'valid', because they go against 'truths' that are already established. So, turn to racism: the most common racist line is that minorities are lazy, and that they're poor because they are lazy. This does not come from nowhere, it's the inverse of the social 'truth' of the ruling elite, that it is entirely meritocratic, that ownership of the means of production is incidental, not causitive, and that that your social condition is an accurate reflection of personal character. They idea that the relationship isn't that strong, or that its the other way around, or that they both influence each other, is radical, in that context. But in a society where the ruling class sees themselves as deserving of their position (which they must do, out of self-preservation), it is natural that society as a whole would adopt those ideas, because that's how you 'get ahead', it's what the 'serious people' say. Just as water flows downhill, people will listen to leaders who seem like they know what they're talking about, and have the influence to demand respect. Attitudes like "minorities are just lazy" are only a small subset of the viewpoints perpetuated by white supremacy. It's common because it's most often heard as a dog-whistle. The true beliefs of racists are not meritocratic, whites do not constitute the baseline in their paradigm, whiteness is the very source of civilization, order, progress, and morality. Whether it's biological or cultural doesn't matter. These are beliefs of superiority and justified domination. This is why structural racism in the United States doesn't just involve passively letting impoverished populations languish, but active persecution, from Jim Crow to the drug war and murderous cops. Conscious perpetuation of white supremacy doesn't just mean committing hate crimes, but also voting for Republican representatives and tough-on-crime judges or prosecutors. It doesn't take false consciousness to benefit from oppression and nepotism. The Dixiecrats were conscious of their class, but they were also conscious of their race, and very deliberately chose white supremacy over the Great Society. This structure continues into the present no matter how many times socialists drop that Steinbeck quote about temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
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May 17, 2016 01:11
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HorseLord posted:Hell, I will put it to you that the reason you hate Stalin specifically, rather than the Soviet Government as a whole, is because you grew up in a society who's ruling class would demonise countries it did not like by talking about them as if they were just their leaders. We didn't hear about the need to destroy the country of Iraq, it's state, infrastructure and social structure, we heard about needing to fight Saddam. We didn't hear about the need to destroy the country of Libya, it's state, infrastructure and social structure, we heard about needing to fight Gaddafi. Briefly, before ISIS stole the spotlight, it was the same with Syria and Assad. So it was with the USSR and Stalin. Well, actually it's more that I can see Lenin as being well intentioned if either short sighted, or in a position where he had to gamble, and lost. And while the second world war is certainly an exceptional situation, I'm not sure it can justify everything Stalin is renowned for. Also I don't take issue with everything I know about the USSR, parts of it yes, but not all of it. Stalin and many of the things he and his government did, are one of the things I do take a great deal of issue with.
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May 17, 2016 01:13
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