US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3746

On May 05 2016 23:26 Plansix wrote:
I think anyone who takes the time to post articles in a thread for discussion with such consistency and quality is worth celebrating. Stealth seems to post articles every day for discussion and has been doing so for years.

On May 06 2016 00:39 Mohdoo wrote:
The amount of people I see on Facebook liking and sharing things where trump says the Democratic primary is rigged against Bernie... Truly depressing. How can people be so stupid to not see they are being played? It puts things into perspective.

On May 06 2016 01:19 Reaper9 wrote:
Trump himself is not even the major problem, it is just he has attracted so much people filled with hate, and looking for someone to blame. Suddenly, racists and misogynists feel that they are safe to express their views in the public, because oh look, a presidential candidate is doing the same thing! Time to take back the nation against the PC crowd, let's show those foreigners why America is number one! (expelling the foreigners, ban a certain religion)

There is also some problem we need to deal with on a fundamental level though. While my parents also dis-agree about Trump, there is something they and I agree is a problem. There are some elderly people that are moving over from other nations, that get to receive welfare checks, and live in designated condominiums, without having worked a single day in their life (their children do live here). They literally get paid by the government each month too. Also, they have a lot of money in their home country, but its all outside money, so the government can't track it, so they are rewarded with welfare.

In what way is that fair, where my parents moved here when they were young and worked over 30 years, yet don't get the same privileges that those other people do? There is soul searching in our nation right now, but I hope it does not bring out the worst of us instead.

On May 06 2016 01:33 WhiteDog wrote:

Imo the PC "crowd" created that situation. When you look at the recent development of feminism or internationalism, it was obvious that, at some point, some kind of opposite movement would surface. See for exemple the use of the word facism in occident ; it's obvious that by using facism to describe everything that's not liberal, you're going to demonetize the word, empty it of its true meaning, and thus permit real "facism", or one of its cousin, to appear.

On May 06 2016 01:42 oneofthem wrote:
the liberal academic elkte jas very low penetration upon the trump crowd. they see the presentation of that 'pc crowd' through politicizing propaganda on fox etc. it is giving the cultural elite rather too much credit for rightwing reaction

On May 06 2016 01:50 Nyxisto wrote:
what's the problem with internationalism on the left, would probably help if the left wouldn't massacre itself by trying to copy the right on every second issue, appeasement has never worked

On May 06 2016 01:50 oneofthem wrote:
that's a non sequitur tho i don't want to feel reassured whatever that means. just saying the right has its own radicalizing mechanism. quite like islamism isn't entirely a reaction vs west

On May 06 2016 01:50 Nyxisto wrote:
what's the problem with internationalism on the left, would probably help if the left wouldn't massacre itself by trying to copy the right on every second issue, appeasement has never worked

On May 06 2016 02:05 Nyxisto wrote:
I'm pretty sure Marxists originally didn't like the nation state

5. "The working class strives for its emancipation first of all within the framework of the present-day national states, conscious that the necessary result of its efforts, which are common to the workers of all civilized countries, will be the international brotherhood of peoples."

Lassalle, in opposition to the Communist Manifesto and to all earlier socialism, conceived the workers' movement from the narrowest national standpoint. He is being followed in this -- and that after the work of the International!

It is altogether self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own country is the immediate arena of its struggle -- insofar as its class struggle is national, not in substance, but, as the Communist Manifesto says, "in form". But the "framework of the present-day national state", for instance, the German Empire, is itself, in its turn, economically "within the framework" of the world market, politically "within the framework" of the system of states. Every businessman knows that German trade is at the same time foreign trade, and the greatness of Herr Bismarck consists, to be sure, precisely in his pursuing a kind of international policy.

And to what does the German Workers' party reduce its internationalism? To the consciousness that the result of its efforts will be "the international brotherhood of peoples" -- a phrase borrowed from the bourgeois League of Peace and Freedom, which is intended to pass as equivalent to the international brotherhood of working classes in the joint struggle against the ruling classes and their governments. Not a word, therefore, about the international functions of the German working class! And it is thus that it is to challenge its own bourgeoisie -- which is already linked up in brotherhood against it with the bourgeois of all other countries -- and Herr Bismarck's international policy of conspiracy.

In fact, the internationalism of the program stands even infinitely below that of the Free Trade party. The latter also asserts that the result of its efforts will be "the international brotherhood of peoples". But it also does something to make trade international and by no means contents itself with the consciousness that all people are carrying on trade at home.

The international activity of the working classes does not in any way depend on the existence of the International Working Men's Association. This was only the first attempt to create a central organ for the activity; an attempt which was a lasting success on account of the impulse which it gave but which was no longer realizable in its historical form after the fall of the Paris Commune.

Bismarck's Norddeutsche was absolutely right when it announced, to the satisfaction of its master, that the German Workers' party had sworn off internationalism in the new program.