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Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause.
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On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past.
Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics.
Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally?
Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden.
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On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden.
Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside.
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On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist? + Show Spoiler +
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first.
So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause.
Trump is taking capitalism toward its intended outcomes, so no.
If LibHorizons' plan is hopeless, as is ThirdHorizons, and so is a general strike, what's your prescription?
I see a lot of people planning to flee to Europe or Canada. I don't think people understand that either a successfully naked fascist US or one that implodes doesn't spare pretty much anywhere or anyone. You're looking at global war and or economic collapse pretty much no matter what if socialism doesn't successfully stop the rise of fascism in the US.
There isn't a scenario (save maybe a 180 away from the US and toward China, and even that would be disruptive af, though maybe not catastrophic) where a fascist US peacefully fades into obscurity while preserving the global economy as far as I can tell.
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On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028.
This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought.
No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either.
There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging.
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Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments.
I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy.
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Northern Ireland25995 Posts
On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause.
Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy.
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
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On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF.
IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy.
Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC.
Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump.
This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US.
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On March 29 2025 02:49 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC. Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump. This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US.
But that's always going to happen. You will always get a majority of people who don't really invest themselves. Whether DPB is on one side or the other is very very irrelevant.
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On March 29 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause. Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy. + Show Spoiler +
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
Have to strongly disagree with this. Non-reformist reforms are not simply something that "deviates from prior orthodoxy". If I supported policies to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy I wouldn't be supporting non-reformist reforms. You have to intentionally bastardize the term beyond recognition to interpret it to describe what Trump is doing.
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Northern Ireland25995 Posts
On March 29 2025 02:54 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause. Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy. + Show Spoiler +
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
Have to strongly disagree with this. Non-reformist reforms are not simply something that "deviates from prior orthodoxy". If I supported policies to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy I wouldn't be supporting non-reformist reforms. You have to intentionally bastardize the term beyond recognition to interpret it to describe what Trump is doing.
What does the term even mean? How does a Trump or a theocratic movement not fit the bill? I’m genuinely unsure here
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On March 29 2025 02:53 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower?
I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty. And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC. Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump. This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US. But that's always going to happen. You will always get a majority of people who don't really invest themselves. Whether DPB is on one side or the other is very very irrelevant.
Presumably he and others are pretty invested when you read some of the lengths they go to arguing with right wingers.
What I'm slowly coming to grips with is just how disconnected people's willingness to spend years and tens of thousands of posts going back and forth with people over various ostensibly political things is from their actual investment in/commitment to political progress.
I'm increasingly realizing that they mostly use this space to gawk and mock at the shallowest levels. I'm not sure how much it's always been that way and how much is just me/my politics maturing. Either way I miss what felt like useful, informative, and interesting political postings and I'd like us to try to reinvigorate that a bit.
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On March 29 2025 03:01 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause. Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy. + Show Spoiler +
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
Have to strongly disagree with this. Non-reformist reforms are not simply something that "deviates from prior orthodoxy". If I supported policies to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy I wouldn't be supporting non-reformist reforms. You have to intentionally bastardize the term beyond recognition to interpret it to describe what Trump is doing. What does the term even mean? How does a Trump or a theocratic movement not fit the bill? I’m genuinely unsure here @Acro: You want to interpret this for me?
"deviates from prior orthodoxy" wasn't in the information I already provided to you
On March 28 2025 23:32 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2025 21:09 WombaT wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? What do you mean by ‘non-reformist reforms’? Maybe this is obvious and I’m yet to fully awaken properly! No offense, but this is one reason why I repeat things so many times. Non-reformist reforms are basically reforms that move us toward socialism, rather than perpetuating capitalism. So you asked for information on non-reformist reforms, apparently ignored it, proceeded to pull your own definition from your ass to assert that Trump was doing non-reformist reforms, and are now backtracking asking me to explain to you why you are wrong to believe Trump's or a Muslim theocracy's policies would fit the provided description of non-reformist reforms.
Is that what we all saw?
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Northern Ireland25995 Posts
On March 29 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:53 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty.
And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC. Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump. This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US. But that's always going to happen. You will always get a majority of people who don't really invest themselves. Whether DPB is on one side or the other is very very irrelevant. Presumably he and others are pretty invested when you read some of the lengths they go to arguing with right wingers. What I'm slowly coming to grips with is just how disconnected people's willingness to spend years and tens of thousands of posts going back and forth with people over various ostensibly political things is from their actual investment in/commitment to political progress. I'm increasingly realizing that they mostly use this space to gawk and mock at the shallowest levels. I'm not sure how much it's always been that way and how much is just me/my politics maturing. Either way I miss what felt like useful, informative, and interesting political postings and I'd like us to try to reinvigorate that a bit.
This is just breathtakingly arrogant, and I’d indeed say ignorant.
Whatever you do, that’s productive and useful, whatever anyone else does is a pointless waste of time. So arguing with right wingers = pointless, spending months saying the Dems support genocide = good praxis
The sheer fucking hubris is unbelievable, and if the actual left needs anything it’s less of that.
It’s not helping, at all.
It’s fucking ridiculous, I almost entirely agree with your analysis and ideas but Jesus Christ you do a great job at alienating people
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On March 29 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 02:53 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
Nah I won't give odds cause it wouldn't be based on much, and I could easily be wrong. Fighting against systemic forces is hard and has a very low chance of success, that's all I can say with certainty.
And yeah of course I make that distinction, obviously there's no difference for the future of the US when Biden is in power or when Trump is in power, as Biden won't change anything and will just hold space until the next republican is president. I'm only speaking about people on our side. If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics. Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC. Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump. This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US. But that's always going to happen. You will always get a majority of people who don't really invest themselves. Whether DPB is on one side or the other is very very irrelevant. Presumably he and others are pretty invested when you read some of the lengths they go to arguing with right wingers. What I'm slowly coming to grips with is just how disconnected people's willingness to spend years and tens of thousands of posts going back and forth with people over various ostensibly political things is from their actual investment in/commitment to political progress. I'm increasingly realizing that they mostly use this space to gawk and mock at the shallowest levels. I'm not sure how much it's always been that way and how much is just me/my politics maturing. Either way I miss what felt like useful, informative, and interesting political postings and I'd like us to try to reinvigorate that a bit.
At the end of the day it's still the political thread of a gaming forum, the revolution is probably not going to start here. What we can do here is frame issues correctly, be reasonable, display that the left is factually correct in terms of how it analyzes society. It often won't matter, but some people will respond to it. I like to think that some people on this forum are to the left of where they would be if we hadn't posted, I think that's true. Some others aren't, and that's okay too.
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On March 29 2025 03:14 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:53 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:27 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 02:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:On March 29 2025 01:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 01:29 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 23:16 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
If I read that from most other posters that would be them saying they don't understand how supporting Clinton, Biden, etc could be detrimental to progress. Also I consider non-reformist reforms to be revolutionary politics.
Oh you do? I'm unclear on how this works then, because I don't think we've ever had a disagreement on Biden or Clinton, it's more like the AOC or Bernie types that we have disagreed about in the past. Yup. I came to non-reformist reforms through exploring abolitionist politics. Perhaps. I suppose the current iteration and relevant for discussing where we go from here is: what is the capacity for AOC and Bernie types to bring about these sorts of non-reformist reforms within the Democrat party structure and larger US political structure generally? Feels to be practically none to me and that they'll continue to function much more as sheepdogs into supporting status quo lib politics with some moderate/regular reforms (which in turn enable fascism), especially when it gets a marginally better wrapper with someone like Harris over Biden. Yeah it seems quite unlikely. I suppose we just look at whether there's a full on Schumer vs AOC fight at this point. There might be a thin line to walk there where she can obtain some more power without turning the media against her. But it's hard to talk about this confidently from the outside. Bernie has nothing to lose by making taking Schumer out of leadership his #1 cause right now, leaving AOC space to not be the asshole but be like "hey a lot of his fellow senators are upset, blah blah blah, so they are probably right that it is time for him to step aside" and/or just say positive stuff about whoever is poised to replace him as leader in a progressive direction (I don't know that such a person exists). Then primary him if she isn't going to be on the Presidential ticket in 2028. This is the sort of strategizing I'd expect LibHorizons to be doing with DPB and other "progressives" but it's starting to seem more like they might not be as much of progressives/social dems as I thought. No one called ThirdHorizons out on it, but of course none of the policies Harris gave lip service to would be anything more than rhetoric right now if she had won. So it's important to also remember that it's not as if Bernie/AOC type figures winning is in itself enough to accomplish much either. There is going to be another budget fight within months. Schumer's gotta be gone by then or I think we can safely write off this latest round of controlled opposition from Bernie/AOC as another bit of sheepdogging. Okay. This could be true and just as easily it could be not true, I have no way of judging any of this. I don't like to state things that I don't know to be correct so I usually stay away from these types of developments. I don't really understand why you feel the need to insert DPB into this every few posts. He's just some guy. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but we could try to develop our understanding together toward one conclusion or the other, and it's sorta imperative that we do in the US. Which is why I mention DPB (and others) as a local example(s) of the sort of progressive Democrat voter(s) that would be critical in implementing any strategy like you're suggesting of non-reformist reforms implemented by politicians like Bernie and AOC. Quite specifically, DPB has a senator coming up for re-election. We need to decide ASAP if he should be primaried as part of DPB's plan to primary Democrats that insufficiently oppose Trump. Meanwhile we can't even get voters like DPB to develop/adopt some sort of clear rubric under his own plan for assessing which Democrats clear the threshold for sufficiently opposing Trump. This also serves to show that part of why you "don't know why" we would demand revolutionary politics is because you admittedly and totally understandably don't know these nuances of the realities of implementing non-reformist reforms through politicians like AOC and Bernie in the US. But that's always going to happen. You will always get a majority of people who don't really invest themselves. Whether DPB is on one side or the other is very very irrelevant. Presumably he and others are pretty invested when you read some of the lengths they go to arguing with right wingers. What I'm slowly coming to grips with is just how disconnected people's willingness to spend years and tens of thousands of posts going back and forth with people over various ostensibly political things is from their actual investment in/commitment to political progress. I'm increasingly realizing that they mostly use this space to gawk and mock at the shallowest levels. I'm not sure how much it's always been that way and how much is just me/my politics maturing. Either way I miss what felt like useful, informative, and interesting political postings and I'd like us to try to reinvigorate that a bit. This is just breathtakingly arrogant, and I’d indeed say ignorant. Whatever you do, that’s productive and useful, whatever anyone else does is a pointless waste of time. So arguing with right wingers = pointless, spending months saying the Dems support genocide = good praxis The sheer fucking hubris is unbelievable, and if the actual left needs anything it’s less of that. It’s not helping, at all. It’s fucking ridiculous, I almost entirely agree with your analysis and ideas but Jesus Christ you do a great job at alienating people No, I do plenty of "time wasting" too. It's part of mentally recharging for most people.
"arguing with right wingers" is a bit too vague. But yeah, generally it's a waste of time and that's exactly the intention of the right winger (sometimes consciously, sometimes not).
Yes, opposing genocide and pointing out others that aren't is not even radical, unless Israel is doing the genociding.
As far as I can tell, nothing is helping, everyone here is pretty much just waiting for shit to hit the fan for us specifically/personally with no hope/plan beyond the General Strike I support, LibHorizon's plan, or the Third Way plan. None of which anyone here thinks are likely to happen or be successful if they do.
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On March 29 2025 03:13 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 03:01 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 02:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause. Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy. + Show Spoiler +
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
Have to strongly disagree with this. Non-reformist reforms are not simply something that "deviates from prior orthodoxy". If I supported policies to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy I wouldn't be supporting non-reformist reforms. You have to intentionally bastardize the term beyond recognition to interpret it to describe what Trump is doing. What does the term even mean? How does a Trump or a theocratic movement not fit the bill? I’m genuinely unsure here @Acro: You want to interpret this for me? "deviates from prior orthodoxy" wasn't in the information I already provided to you Show nested quote +On March 28 2025 23:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:09 WombaT wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? What do you mean by ‘non-reformist reforms’? Maybe this is obvious and I’m yet to fully awaken properly! No offense, but this is one reason why I repeat things so many times. Non-reformist reforms are basically reforms that move us toward socialism, rather than perpetuating capitalism. So you asked for information on non-reformist reforms, apparently ignored it, proceeded to pull your own definition from your ass to assert that Trump was doing non-reformist reforms, and are now backtracking asking me to explain to you why you are wrong to believe Trump's or a Muslim theocracy's policies would fit the provided description of non-reformist reforms. Is that what we all saw?
Well, there's two things that are inextricably linked in your mind, but not in wombat's or mine. The first is that non-reformist reforms are, and I quote Wikipedia:
a reform that "is conceived, not in terms of what is possible within the framework of a given system and administration, but in view of what should be made possible in terms of human needs and demands".
And the second is that those human needs and demands are inherently socialist. That's a fair assumption in this thread, but it isn't a universal truth. And just because non-reformist reforms have their origin in socialist thinking, doesn't mean there aren't other ideas of what should be made possible in terms of human needs and demands.
I'll concede that Trump moving the status quo from democracy to autocracy doesn't fit the bill, because the only needs and and demands that fulfills are his own. But wombat's example of a theocracy seems valid. Implementing reforms that move away from a secular and toward a theocratic society fit all the criteria. It is obviously not *your* needs and demands. But there seem to be plenty of humans applauding every move that further breaks the secular humanist status quo in favor of their (misogynistic, bigoted) interpretation of biblical rules.
Now, I obviously disagree with those reforms, but it seems plenty of people whose needs are ostensibly being met by socialist non-reformist reforms also disagree vehemently that those reforms are going in the right direction. The temporarily embarrassed millionaire is a common trope for a reason. Now we could start framing this in some philosophical debate on ethics, and we'd probably quite comfortably conclude that socialism is better at meeting peoples' needs than a theocracy in every conceivable way, but my religious friend would simply answer that that is only so because we only consider our mortal coils. Sparing even one soul an eternity of damnation is worth more than any toil in this life. And that debate has been going round and round in circles for far longer than either of us have been alive.
And there are no doubt other axes we could think of along which the needs and demands of humans could be better met by reforms that break the framework of a given system than by maintaining it.
As for your earlier question to me: I'm fully on board with partial and general strikes. Show the elite that their Amazon deliveries don't get delivered without people to deliver them (yet), that their Ubers don't drive themselves (yet) and that their Facebook likes and retweets don't mean shit if the grocery store isn't being resupplied. People need to go out and demand meaningful change. They need to demand a halt in the creeping fascism from their republican overlords, and support and effective opposition from their democratic enablers. And if your politicians disagree then replace them...
My fear isn't that general strikes and protests won't work. It's that there is no real support for it among the population. They'd rather Trump sticks it to Denmark than that the price of eggs really goes down.
And I also don't disagree that if the US is fucked, the world as we have known it for the last 70ish years is fucked. But I take a kwarkian approach to that: I'll do what I have to to survive that...
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On March 29 2025 21:45 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2025 03:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 03:01 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 02:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2025 02:42 WombaT wrote:On March 29 2025 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
Would you say Trump and the republicans are currently enacting some non-reformist reforms but instead of moving society/government from capitalism towards socialism, they're moving government from democracy to autocracy? Or would you not qualify those reforms as non-reformist?
I'm asking because I don't think wombat literally didn't know the meaning of something he could Google in 2 seconds, but rather wanted to know what *you* wanted from them? And yes, I know you have talked about this before. I have some idea of what type of non-reformist reforms you want. For the most part they'll start with things that are already commonplace: socialised healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing. A penal system more focused on rehabilitation than on punishment with prisons where the punishment is the removal of your freedom of movement, not a literal dungeon.
And obviously they don't end there. The Spanish government is enacting further non-reformist reforms as we speak to try to make our housing system work better for inhabitants rather than tourists. The tax system needs to be more progressive and social security more expansive. I am all aboard all of that. But in Spain about 50% of the people voted for socialist-leaning parties. In the US the support is nowhere near that. Maybe for some specific policies, but not if you tag it as socialist first. So I fully agree with Neb here: your country is a lost cause. Well yes, I don’t think they’re desirous but I think you could fairly call the Trump era as it were ‘non-reformist reforms’ given they deviate from prior orthodoxy. + Show Spoiler +
And yeah, as a person who is myself a socialist the problem is how few, or many of my fellows who are otherwise floating around. In certain European countries you can maybe see that cohort being impactful but the US is another kettle of fish entirely.
Have to strongly disagree with this. Non-reformist reforms are not simply something that "deviates from prior orthodoxy". If I supported policies to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy I wouldn't be supporting non-reformist reforms. You have to intentionally bastardize the term beyond recognition to interpret it to describe what Trump is doing. What does the term even mean? How does a Trump or a theocratic movement not fit the bill? I’m genuinely unsure here @Acro: You want to interpret this for me? "deviates from prior orthodoxy" wasn't in the information I already provided to you On March 28 2025 23:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 21:09 WombaT wrote:On March 28 2025 15:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 11:15 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2025 06:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2025 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
So in this current moment with the journalist being added in the group chat of Hegseth, one very large issue that is worth pointing out is that because of their past choices liberals are going to have a hard time criticizing one of the largest issues in this group chat, which is that there is zero effort made to avoid civilian casualties. The chats go, we see him go into his girlfriend's appartment building, bomb that shit down, the building is down, excellent. If none of this was public there would be some pretense that efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties, but here we see clearly that nothing at all happened. That's a war crime obviously.
We could attack them for that, could we not? But we can't, because in their doomed quest of defending whatever Israel has done, the Democrats and the liberals have made it very clear that doing something like this is entirely okay with them. So now if they attack the Republicans for doing it, it would look massively hypocritical even to their own audience. And so we lose a very human angle of attack on the opposition. You're absolutely right. Nevermind the whole aspect of Congress not being involved because of the 2001 AUMF. IIRC one of our primary disagreements was basically whether the US was salvageable through electing the Democrat party and revolutionary politics were unnecessary. How you feeling about that nowadays? I mean I probably don't think the US is salvageable either through the Democrats or revolutionary politics, so based on not having a ton of hope either way I'm not going to cut my options in half and demand that we do one or the other, that makes no sense to me. I'd be curious what odds you'd give each or at least relative to each other including the US collapsing/becoming a nakedly fascist superpower? I guess I'm also curious if you make a distinction between non-reformist reforms and "vote blue no matter who" type electoralism when you're portioning out your options there? What do you mean by ‘non-reformist reforms’? Maybe this is obvious and I’m yet to fully awaken properly! No offense, but this is one reason why I repeat things so many times. Non-reformist reforms are basically reforms that move us toward socialism, rather than perpetuating capitalism. So you asked for information on non-reformist reforms, apparently ignored it, proceeded to pull your own definition from your ass to assert that Trump was doing non-reformist reforms, and are now backtracking asking me to explain to you why you are wrong to believe Trump's or a Muslim theocracy's policies would fit the provided description of non-reformist reforms. Is that what we all saw? + Show Spoiler +Well, there's two things that are inextricably linked in your mind, but not in wombat's or mine. The first is that non-reformist reforms are, and I quote Wikipedia: a reform that "is conceived, not in terms of what is possible within the framework of a given system and administration, but in view of what should be made possible in terms of human needs and demands". And the second is that those human needs and demands are inherently socialist. That's a fair assumption in this thread, but it isn't a universal truth. And just because non-reformist reforms have their origin in socialist thinking, doesn't mean there aren't other ideas of what should be made possible in terms of human needs and demands.I'll concede that Trump moving the status quo from democracy to autocracy doesn't fit the bill, + Show Spoiler +because the only needs and and demands that fulfills are his own. But wombat's example of a theocracy seems valid. Implementing reforms that move away from a secular and toward a theocratic society fit all the criteria. It is obviously not *your* needs and demands. But there seem to be plenty of humans applauding every move that further breaks the secular humanist status quo in favor of their (misogynistic, bigoted) interpretation of biblical rules.
Now, I obviously disagree with those reforms, but it seems plenty of people whose needs are ostensibly being met by socialist non-reformist reforms also disagree vehemently that those reforms are going in the right direction. The temporarily embarrassed millionaire is a common trope for a reason. Now we could start framing this in some philosophical debate on ethics, and we'd probably quite comfortably conclude that socialism is better at meeting peoples' needs than a theocracy in every conceivable way, but my religious friend would simply answer that that is only so because we only consider our mortal coils. Sparing even one soul an eternity of damnation is worth more than any toil in this life. And that debate has been going round and round in circles for far longer than either of us have been alive.
And there are no doubt other axes we could think of along which the needs and demands of humans could be better met by reforms that break the framework of a given system than by maintaining it. As for your earlier question to me: I'm fully on board with partial and general strikes. Show the elite that their Amazon deliveries don't get delivered without people to deliver them (yet), that their Ubers don't drive themselves (yet) and that their Facebook likes and retweets don't mean shit if the grocery store isn't being resupplied. People need to go out and demand meaningful change. They need to demand a halt in the creeping fascism from their republican overlords, and support and effective opposition from their democratic enablers. And if your politicians disagree then replace them... My fear isn't that general strikes and protests won't work. It's that there is no real support for it among the population. They'd rather Trump sticks it to Denmark than that the price of eggs really goes down. And I also don't disagree that if the US is fucked, the world as we have known it for the last 70ish years is fucked. But I take a kwarkian approach to that: I'll do what I have to to survive that... Islamic theocracy was my thoughtless example, so yeah, this is what we saw.
Part of what I've been emphasizing is that the lack of support (or even opposition) for doing anything (especially strikes and beyond) to halt the creeping fascism you describe, is from Democrats and their voters/supporters (here and beyond). Part of the reason is because ultimately they mostly imagine that they can keep throwing oppressed people (or trying to rage, shame, blame them into lying themselves) in front of the trolley until it gets close to time for them to be on the tracks.
Then when they've run out of oppressed people to sacrifice, they can take their "Kwarkian" escape route (fleeing/joining the fascists) to save themselves. This is doomed to fail anyway. That is the point of the Niemoller poem you guys seem to have completely missed.
That's all anyone's prerogative, it's just libs/Dems/ilk don't like being confronted by the stupidity/inhumanity of what they are doing/planning because it conflicts irreconcilably with their self-image. It's also a significant reason why they see no other option but to keep throwing oppressed people on the track with their fascist frenemies or running and hiding to save their own skins.
EDIT: Asinine arguments with right wingers is one place/way where/how they mentally repair their self-image from these confrontations.
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On February 05 2025 08:54 Nebuchad wrote:
I think this extends to 2026/2028, btw. Democrats are clearly making the bet that Trump is going to be unpopular and that they can win the next elections without doing anything simply because he's going to make the country worse. If you still have elections at this point (which, for the record, is not that unlikely, obviously there is a clear threat but it's also possible that the system keeps going), I think they're right, they're probably a huge favourite to win those. So I would consider it important to frame that fight as attempting to make the country better, not as having a chance of winning elections, because they have that, for sure.
The first special elections show indications that this analysis is correct. While I enjoy being right, I think it's important to be the bad person in this situation, we can't just let people enjoy things. It is a normal movement of the system that once someone like Trump is elected there is blowback in the other direction, it's not a sign that we're winning back the country it's just the standard thing that always happens happening again. If Dems cruise on that and elections do keep happening, the most likely scenario in my opinion is that they win 2028, and then some fascist wins 2032. I don't think we ought to be comfortable with that.
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On April 02 2025 11:25 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 05 2025 08:54 Nebuchad wrote:
I think this extends to 2026/2028, btw. Democrats are clearly making the bet that Trump is going to be unpopular and that they can win the next elections without doing anything simply because he's going to make the country worse. If you still have elections at this point (which, for the record, is not that unlikely, obviously there is a clear threat but it's also possible that the system keeps going), I think they're right, they're probably a huge favourite to win those. So I would consider it important to frame that fight as attempting to make the country better, not as having a chance of winning elections, because they have that, for sure. The first special elections show indications that this analysis is correct. While I enjoy being right, I think it's important to be the bad person in this situation, we can't just let people enjoy things. It is a normal movement of the system that once someone like Trump is elected there is blowback in the other direction, it's not a sign that we're winning back the country it's just the standard thing that always happens happening again. If Dems cruise on that and elections do keep happening, the most likely scenario in my opinion is that they win 2028, and then some fascist wins 2032. I don't think we ought to be comfortable with that.
The Democrats lost, but you're probably right afaict (for 2026 anyway).
The NYC mayoral race is a sort of microcosm of this. Cuomo is worse than doing nothing, while Mamdani would genuinely make NYC better, and it's exclusively/specifically Democrats relentlessly standing in the way of that progress to support a serial sexual offender with plenty of other problems.
There's not really a sensible way forward without understanding what's happening there and why.
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EPT
