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SlothfulCobra posted:In theory, Biden could be bullied into accepting reforms because aside from being an old and stagnant piece of garbage, he is a pathetic worm who stands for nothing. There have been a number of more progressive candidates for congress that made headway during the primaries, and if the democrats don't entirely sabotage their entire party across the board just to spite them, that could lead to something better. Even outside congressional dealings, it's more likely that once in power, he would be more prone to listening to mass protests. This is nonsense. Had Biden been a pathetic worm who stands for nothing, on random chance alone he'd occasionally take up a leftwing position or two. SlothfulCobra posted:It's not good, I'll give you that. I would cut him some slack since almost the entire political establishment lost their minds around that time and it's another incident of Biden being a spineless worm and going along with the flow, which would imply that he wouldn't have the ambition to start a war himself. This is the sort of calculus that is only possible if you value the lives of non-Americans at exactly 0. Why focus on how many Americans died, as opposed to all deaths? Why do only American deaths count in Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan? As for the CDC, the crippling of the CDC started with sequestration. https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2013/fy-2013-sequester-impacts.pdf
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Aug 1, 2020 22:10
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SlothfulCobra posted:On top of that, there's the literal attack forces being sent out across the country, which you have to do a lot of false equivalency to equate to much of anything Biden's done. This one's not about what he's done but about what he will do, which you can project forward from how he treats people who disagree with him. And from how protests were handled under Obama.
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Aug 1, 2020 23:14
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SlothfulCobra posted:It's not good, I'll give you that. I would cut him some slack since almost the entire political establishment lost their minds around that time and it's another incident of Biden being a spineless worm and going along with the flow, which would imply that he wouldn't have the ambition to start a war himself. Weird that you're focusing on American deaths, is it because when we add civilians in it completely dwarfs literally even the worst moments in American history? Also hey remember how Chicago had black sites where they tortured people? Remember how the justice department refused to investigate the massive mysterious deaths of BLM and local black leaders? Remember literally loving anything about how federal troops treated Standing Rock and other native protesters until Obama reluctantly decided it was alright?
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Aug 1, 2020 23:27
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Somfin posted:This one's not about what he's done but about what he will do, which you can project forward from how he treats people who disagree with him. And from how protests were handled under Obama. And of course the 1994 crime bill that Biden helped write explicitly funded 100,000 extra street police officers*, which in subsequent years terrorized poor and minority heavy neighborhoods. Perhaps the federal government funding 100,000 LEOs to crack down on street crime is not the exact same as the federal government sending hundreds of federal LEO to crack down on street protests. But I am not really sure it compares favorably. *https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...wn/?arc404=true
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Aug 1, 2020 23:36
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Somfin posted:This one's not about what he's done but about what he will do, which you can project forward from how he treats people who disagree with him. And from how protests were handled under Obama. In the worst case, I'd rather have a little time before full open fascism takes hold to figure out a possible course of action, than have no time.
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Aug 1, 2020 23:51
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Don't worry Biden can read the current political climate. He may not be fully pro defunding but it's not like he wants to literally add millions of federal dollars to assorted police departments' budgets under vague 'pinkie swear no lynchings, guys' terms! What's that? Oh dear.
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Aug 1, 2020 23:53
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Flying-PCP posted:In the worst case, I'd rather have a little time before full open fascism takes hold to figure out a possible course of action, than have no time. I'd like to know what you think Biden will actively do to stop the rise of full open fascism. This isn't a Fisher King situation where you put the right person in power and the world becomes whole again, change means work and work means changes and Biden has already been openly against changes. Is Biden pledging to stop building the big stupid metal border wall that everyone hates, for example? Fascism, like slavery, is something that you are either actively against, or you are for, even if that support is passive neutrality.
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Aug 2, 2020 03:17
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Somfin posted:I'd like to know what you think Biden will actively do to stop the rise of full open fascism. This isn't a Fisher King situation where you put the right person in power and the world becomes whole again, change means work and work means changes and Biden has already been openly against changes. Is Biden pledging to stop building the big stupid metal border wall that everyone hates, for example? I'm not arguing that Joe is not fascist (here), Joe is more cautious and playing the long game with his fascist plans, and more time to do something about it is better than less time even if both choices for president are fascists. Joe will slow fascism automatically without doing anything simply by being less 'bold' than Trump.
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Aug 2, 2020 03:36
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Flying-PCP posted:I'm not arguing that Joe is not fascist (here), Joe is more cautious and playing the long game with his fascist plans, and more time to do something about it is better than less time even if both choices for president are fascists. Joe will slow fascism automatically without doing anything simply by being less 'bold' than Trump. Counterpoint, by being less "bold" about it, people will resist it far less than they currently resist Trump's more open version of it. Voting for Biden is the accelerationist option.
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Aug 2, 2020 03:37
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WampaLord posted:Counterpoint, by being less "bold" about it, people will resist it far less than they currently resist Trump's more open version of it. Accelerationism generally refers to lots of conflict and everything being on fire, not most people accepting fascism passively.
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Aug 2, 2020 03:46
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Flying-PCP posted:Accelerationism generally refers to lots of conflict and everything being on fire, not most people accepting fascism passively. Most people accepting fascism passively leads to lots of conflict and everything being on fire. My greater point here is that liberals right now hate Trump. But they won't hate Biden when he does the exact same poo poo. We've seen it already with Tara Reade. Liberals will defend everything Biden does, including taking steps towards fascism. WampaLord fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 03:51
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Flying-PCP posted:Accelerationism generally refers to lots of conflict and everything being on fire, not most people accepting fascism passively. Joe is the accelerationist option because it burns away what remnants of leftism exist in the Democrats to create The Republicans 2.0, which leaves the lane wide open for the GOP to pursue Trumpism to its obvious conclusion.
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Aug 2, 2020 04:41
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:Joe is the accelerationist option because it burns away what remnants of leftism exist in the Democrats to create The Republicans 2.0, which leaves the lane wide open for the GOP to pursue Trumpism to its obvious conclusion. If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins.
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Aug 2, 2020 04:44
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Flying-PCP posted:If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins. Correct! For the left, electoral solutions are no longer available to us. Engage in protests and build mutual aid networks locally, these are our best bets for the near future. E: VVV Vote for President if you want, but please understand it is literally the smallest political act you can make and don't pat yourself on the back too hard for voting for Biden thinking you're helping keep fascism at bay. WampaLord fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 04:46
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WampaLord posted:Correct! For the left, electoral solutions are no longer available to us. Engage in protests and build mutual aid networks locally, these are our best bets for the near future. Fortunately there's no way for these organizations to know which boxes I checked on my ballot. And voting by mail is pretty quick so it's not really taking much time away from those other things.
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Aug 2, 2020 04:51
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I know I've mentioned this before (in this thread, even), but if you believe the Dems are still worth working with/through, there's also the consideration of which faction(s) your vote is empowering. The Dems aren't a single, unified front, like any major party anywhere in the world they're a bunch of bickering wings and networks of alliances and adversaries, and the wings represented by Biden gain prominence and power within the party with his success - and have their influence and power harmed if he somehow snatches defeat from the jaws of victory this November. Repeated losses is one of the big reasons why the Clinton wing's power has been steadily waning after 2000.
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Aug 2, 2020 05:28
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Flying-PCP posted:If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins. Yep. Sorry you had to find out this way.
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Aug 2, 2020 05:30
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Falstaff posted:I know I've mentioned this before (in this thread, even), but if you believe the Dems are still worth working with/through, there's also the consideration of which faction(s) your vote is empowering. The Dems aren't a single, unified front, like any major party anywhere in the world they're a bunch of bickering wings and networks of alliances and adversaries, and the wings represented by Biden gain prominence and power within the party with his success - and have their influence and power harmed if he somehow snatches defeat from the jaws of victory this November. Sounds like another 'harm reduction' consideration. Whichever wing of the party gains prominence, it's sure as hell not going to be The Squad, yeah?
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Aug 2, 2020 05:41
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Flying-PCP posted:it's sure as hell not going to be The Squad First off, don't use their celebrity name when you're discussing them as a wing of the party, that's for people who don't actually engage in politics beyond Twitter ownage. Second off, what are the actual politics of "the squad" in your view? Do you think they're an actual faction of the party? How much influence do you think that set of views has?
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Aug 2, 2020 05:59
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Somfin posted:First off, don't use their celebrity name when you're discussing them as a wing of the party, that's for people who don't actually engage in politics beyond Twitter ownage. Sorry if that was reductive, my question wasn't really about them. I just meant, which wing would be the least bad to rise in power? Or should we hope for no one faction to be too powerful so there will be more infighting? I'm just not really following the logical conclusion of what Falstaff is getting at if the party as a whole is almost all terrible.
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Aug 2, 2020 06:10
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e: yeah I'm just gonna drop it
Somfin fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 06:18
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Flying-PCP posted:If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "if that's true.." Could you elaborate, please?
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Aug 2, 2020 15:39
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The Sean posted:I'm not sure what you mean when you say "if that's true.." Could you elaborate, please? It means I don't agree but I'm not going to argue the point at this time. To go any further with what I was talking about though would fall under Posting about Posting so I decided not to do that either. Flying-PCP fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 16:22
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:Joe is the accelerationist option because it burns away what remnants of leftism exist in the Democrats to create The Republicans 2.0, which leaves the lane wide open for the GOP to pursue Trumpism to its obvious conclusion. Flying-PCP posted:If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins. The Sean posted:I'm not sure what you mean when you say "if that's true.." Could you elaborate, please? Flying-PCP posted:It means I don't agree but I'm not going to argue the point at this time. Why even post then? "The point" you're referring to is the point of the thread. The whole subject of the thread. This line of thinking is intellectually harmful and I suspect you're deluding yourself or you knowingly don't want to say what you really think because you don't want to be confronted and just want to maintain your views. For example: "It's not that I am against people from the middle east, there's just something I don't trust about them. No, I won't be specific because then you'll address me on that specific point and I'll have to combat cognitive dissonance. I'll just keep it real vague so I can maintain my views and you can't specifically dissect them." "There's just something I don't trust about Ilhan Omar. No, I refuse to elaborate." "There's just something I suspect about that black family that just moved into the neighborhood. No, I refuse to elaborate." To be very clear, Flying-PCP, I am not calling you racist. These were just the first examples that came to mind as I decided to compose examples of people who want to talk about a topic and also disengage when if they instead tried to engage they might have their views challenged. I could make similar statements I've heard from theists, too. Often these people know that their views are bad and/or wrong but only want to say them to a receptive audience. I hope that I am wrong about the above, I don't know much about you, but I am drawing off of how you have responded. If the above does not apply to you, then I invite you, again, to answer: "what do you mean when you say 'if it's true' in regards to 'Joe is the accelerationist option because it burns away what remnants of leftism exist in the Democrats to create The Republicans 2.0, which leaves the lane wide open for the GOP to pursue Trumpism to its obvious conclusion?'" Again, what you don't want to talk about is the whole topic of this thread. This is the topic of the thread so posting "I don't want to post about this" is really odd. So, I invite you to substantively respond. The Sean fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 16:36
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Flying-PCP posted:If that's true, then it's already over for the left in the Democrat party no matter who wins. The Sanders campaign was probably the best primary campaign ever in terms of knocking on doors, calling people, small donor fundraising and it was undone with a single establishment endorsement followed by the equivalent of nine figures worth of free positive media. Not to mention that primary voters overwhelmingly chose Sanders' agenda yet still voted for Biden - and the DNC voted down all those things that their base overwhelmingly approved of. edit: oh I forgot Obama calling up Pete and having him drop out.
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Aug 2, 2020 17:50
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The Sean posted:
In a sense yeah, I decided I'm not well versed enough in the particulars to bring anything new to the discussion that's been going on for thousands of pages across various threads, and it was probably a bad idea to dive into it. My views on exactly how dangerous I think Joe Biden's term in office will be are very tentative until I get more information (from direct sources, not internet posts). Somfin is right that asking people here to explain stuff to me is dumb. Flying-PCP fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Aug 2, 2020 |
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Aug 2, 2020 17:50
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It still blows my mind that the candidates who were in 2nd and 3rd place dropped out to endorse the guy who was still behind them even after he won SC. Yep, absolutely nothing weird about that.
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Aug 2, 2020 18:21
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Flying-PCP posted:In a sense yeah, I decided I'm not well versed enough in the particulars to bring anything new to the discussion Okay, close to the best way you can respond, imo. Instead of saying "i'm not going to argue the point" you could have said "I'm not well versed enough" and I would have seen no reason to respond. Flying-PCP posted:asking people here to explain stuff to me is dumb. In an opposite fashion to the quote above, you should absolutely ask people to explain things. If there is anything that I state, for instance, that you don't agree with or understand and want me to explain feel free to ask me. I'll drop it after this, but in the spirit of "asking to explain things," what about P. Elite's post did you disagree with? Fister Roboto posted:It still blows my mind that the candidates who were in 2nd and 3rd place dropped out to endorse the guy who was still behind them even after he won SC. Yep, absolutely nothing weird about that. Right!? And if I'm remembering well enough, they dropped after the primaries began, therefore making any votes cast for them useless. Is that correct?
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Aug 2, 2020 18:44
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Flying-PCP posted:Somfin is right that asking people here to explain stuff to me is dumb. That's not what I said at all. If you are genuinely curious, ask! Just don't speak from a position of ignorance and expect to get away with it.
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Aug 3, 2020 07:19
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Somfin posted:That's not what I said at all. If you are genuinely curious, ask! Just don't speak from a position of ignorance and expect to get away with it. I feel like it seems a common theme in centrist liberal attitudes is that when they're confronted with arguments that they don't have a ready-made rebuttal for or an attitude they don't understand, there's an extremely reluctance to actually try to understand it, to engage in any discussion or just ask about what people actually want and believe. Where this comes from, who knows, it could be the need to save face and be seen as the learned and correct steward of conversation rather than a mere participant, an internalisation of the 'it's not my job to educate you' attitude despite that being a pretty clear ideological suicide note, or a need not to be seen consorting with the enemy... whatever the case, it's a pretty toxic attitude.
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Aug 4, 2020 12:13
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I feel like it seems a common theme in centrist liberal attitudes is that when they're confronted with arguments that they don't have a ready-made rebuttal for or an attitude they don't understand, there's an extremely reluctance to actually try to understand it, to engage in any discussion or just ask about what people actually want and believe. I think it has to do with a deference to authority that (to me) seems inherent to liberalism. If authority has not already engaged with the argument, when you do, you run the risk of saying something that authority disagrees with. I am guessing it is learned behavior, as I remember it very well from school and how that particular behavior was a key part of getting (consistent) good grades. Raise your hand and parrot banality from the book. I see it in corporate culture as well (nod your head and don't question the boss' idiocy), but I don't think it comes from there.
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Aug 4, 2020 14:23
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Once you accept the concept of politics as "the science of the possible," which is just neoliberalism trying to sound inspiring, you can dismiss all other politics as stupid or insane. Sorta reminds me of this Matt Bruenig essay: quote:The one weird trick of liberal pluralism is that it allows everyone to “agree” that we need to “live and let live” without actually restraining them at all from claiming that their entire substantive worldview should be coercively imposed on others. All you have to do is say that your entire worldview is, conveniently enough, a prerequisite for liberal pluralism. Your economic views are a necessary precondition for liberal pluralism. Your social views are a necessary precondition for liberal pluralism. All of it.
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Aug 4, 2020 14:57
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Halloween Jack posted:Once you accept the concept of politics as "the science of the possible," which is just neoliberalism trying to sound inspiring, you can dismiss all other politics as stupid or insane. Thank you for this. I enjoyed the read. I've recently started to refer to pro-Biden people as writing fanfiction because it's all make believe and they can never provide me with any substance, just fairy tales. "The Science of the Possible" makes a lot of sense in this context. edit: interesting to notice this now, but why is the "Protest Voting and Electoralism" thread labelled as [Religion]? That's insulting. The Sean fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Aug 4, 2020 20:12
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Halloween Jack posted:Once you accept the concept of politics as "the science of the possible," which is just neoliberalism trying to sound inspiring, you can dismiss all other politics as stupid or insane. I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at, but another really huge factor (particularly among people who post on this subforum) is the idea that there's something inherently unreasonable and off-putting about not being optimistic about anything pertaining to the Democratic Party. From their perspective, being optimistic is just what a good person does, and believing a Democratic candidate will be bad is unreasonable until they've already served their political term(s). So you end up with people who will always believe that literally any Democratic politician might do good things, no matter what. I think this is largely because politics is just self-expression for them. The idea that Biden is just going to be bad and there's jack poo poo you can do about it (if he's elected) is not fun and fulfilling, so they reject it. The Politics Show is a fun show that they can not only watch, but even participate in (like American Idol or something - the audience gets to vote!). But it's just not as fun if there's no chance of a good ending, and you don't get to feel good about participating if everyone involved is bad. So they cling to the "we'll take the Biden administration and use it to do good things, somehow!" narrative, because that's a lot more palatable to them. Ghost Leviathan posted:I feel like it seems a common theme in centrist liberal attitudes is that when they're confronted with arguments that they don't have a ready-made rebuttal for or an attitude they don't understand, there's an extremely reluctance to actually try to understand it, to engage in any discussion or just ask about what people actually want and believe. I think it's largely the fact that they have a set of gut feelings that they're confident are true, but don't feel equipped to make the argument themselves. In some cases this can be reasonable - like if you read a persuasive report about something that influenced your opinion but don't feel confident with summarizing its contents to someone else. But in this case it's largely just the fact that the perception of politics they've absorbed from general exposure to US media and political discourse doesn't allow for ideas like "the Democratic Party is a harmful institution that is opposed to the left." The very idea is absurd to them in the same way as someone being an anti-vaxxer or something; they "know" that the idea is ridiculous. vvv This is another way to put it. They're unwilling to take an idea seriously unless it has some sort of presence among figures of authority, though this also includes a variety of mainstream media sources. Even if they don't feel comfortable refuting something the left believes, they will always be skeptical of it in a way that they'd never be skeptical about something that is part of some mainstream liberal narrative. The Venezuela attempted coup is probably the best semi-recent example of this; in the absence of any clear information, they'll just treat mainstream US media. These people would absolutely have supported the Iraq War, because being opposed to it wasn't an acceptable mainstream opinion until long after it started. Pingui posted:I think it has to do with a deference to authority that (to me) seems inherent to liberalism. If authority has not already engaged with the argument, when you do, you run the risk of saying something that authority disagrees with.
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Aug 5, 2020 06:10
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Ytlaya posted:The Politics Show is a fun show that they can not only watch, but even participate in (like American Idol or something - the audience gets to vote!). But it's just not as fun if there's no chance of a good ending, and you don't get to feel good about participating if everyone involved is bad. So they cling to the "we'll take the Biden administration and use it to do good things, somehow!" narrative, because that's a lot more palatable to them. I feel like this is close to it- they like to watch pro wrestling, cheer for the face and boo at the heel, and don't like being informed that both wrestlers are actors acting and that, off-stage, they both actually support basically the same things with their fairly measly paychecks and their matches are dictated, controlled and mediated by people who have far, far more money than either of the wrestlers. Don't talk about that poo poo, obviously Joe Biden likes the things I like and wants the things I want! Look, he's chokeslamming Trump, that means he's a good guy, because Trump is a bad guy! Boo Trump! Yay Biden!
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Aug 6, 2020 01:32
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I am extremely eager to drown in a boiling sea of hot takes about how kamala harris is The Most Progressive VP Nomination In American History
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Aug 12, 2020 17:03
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https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1295569903718555648 michelle obama is shinji confirmed
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Aug 18, 2020 05:19
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Phone posted:michelle obama is shinji confirmed https://twitter.com/truongasm/status/1295576196588007424
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Aug 18, 2020 10:21
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