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On July 19 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I swear KwarK. Steal my thunder again. One more time and we will have words sir. WORDS!!!!!!!
To iamthedave: Of course. That is why we're here, isn't it? If he produced something we could discuss, we would not be having this back and forth. But here we find ourselves. having this back and forth. He isn't obligated, but he kind of is. You cannot say what he says, without some kind of first step. He has failed to produce this. Again, in the past, I have answered his challenge and given him my thoughts on how things should proceed. He has, expectedly, not returned the favor. It has come to the point where his talk has become a mocking point. I do not wish it to be so, but it is.
GH: Ah. To be answered with another question, instead of ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS POSED. Never change. Of course we fight. We fight at the polls. At the rallys being held. At the ignorance being taught our children. We fight ignorance with truth. You can split it between R and D all you like. I won't make you right. What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America.
Edit: To Nettles and CS...did you uh...did you not see the follow up? I mean...uh...yeah? I gave you the first step, to which you just responded that we maintain the status quo. With a bit of inadvertent communist flair there at the end with the What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America
On July 19 2019 12:18 KwarK wrote:
In fairness if you could convince me that your revolution had any hope of making things better I'd be more likely to be on board. I have the exact same problem with your revolution as the others, while I understand why you want it I don't think it'll end well. Or at least not yet. Try again when unemployment hits 50%. Reducing the number of reliable club wielders for the oligarchs is an important part of the struggle, one hopes confronting these realities sooner rather than later gives us time to prepare for when there's a lot more clubbing and a lot less talking. Waiting on them answers like..... I told you step one, and you already said no, you prefer the status quo. Gotta get you to see the necessity (like kwark does [for people that aren't him, he'll be alright in this system]) before we start discussing your ideas on how the revolutions is to deal with the popular concerns you've highlighted.
Still not an answer to the questions posed earlier. Try again?
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On July 19 2019 13:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 13:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I swear KwarK. Steal my thunder again. One more time and we will have words sir. WORDS!!!!!!!
To iamthedave: Of course. That is why we're here, isn't it? If he produced something we could discuss, we would not be having this back and forth. But here we find ourselves. having this back and forth. He isn't obligated, but he kind of is. You cannot say what he says, without some kind of first step. He has failed to produce this. Again, in the past, I have answered his challenge and given him my thoughts on how things should proceed. He has, expectedly, not returned the favor. It has come to the point where his talk has become a mocking point. I do not wish it to be so, but it is.
GH: Ah. To be answered with another question, instead of ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS POSED. Never change. Of course we fight. We fight at the polls. At the rallys being held. At the ignorance being taught our children. We fight ignorance with truth. You can split it between R and D all you like. I won't make you right. What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America.
Edit: To Nettles and CS...did you uh...did you not see the follow up? I mean...uh...yeah? I gave you the first step, to which you just responded that we maintain the status quo. With a bit of inadvertent communist flair there at the end with the What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America
On July 19 2019 12:18 KwarK wrote:
In fairness if you could convince me that your revolution had any hope of making things better I'd be more likely to be on board. I have the exact same problem with your revolution as the others, while I understand why you want it I don't think it'll end well. Or at least not yet. Try again when unemployment hits 50%. Reducing the number of reliable club wielders for the oligarchs is an important part of the struggle, one hopes confronting these realities sooner rather than later gives us time to prepare for when there's a lot more clubbing and a lot less talking. Waiting on them answers like..... I told you step one, and you already said no, you prefer the status quo. Gotta get you to see the necessity (like kwark does [for people that aren't him, he'll be alright in this system]) before we start discussing your ideas on how the revolutions is to deal with the popular concerns you've highlighted. Still not an answer to the questions posed earlier. Try again?
When I answered your questions we went nowhere either my dude. Maybe your problem is the anticapitalism and not the attitude?
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On July 19 2019 04:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 02:35 IgnE wrote:On July 19 2019 01:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 19 2019 00:05 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 15:29 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 13:46 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 13:20 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 11:35 IgnE wrote:On July 18 2019 09:42 ShambhalaWar wrote:On July 18 2019 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:I'm reminded of this article on why white (and/or white adjacent) people think there is "anti-whiteness" everywhere they look. [quote] www.gcorr.orgThey even see anti-white racism, divisive, fight-starting in capitalization while seeing white supremacist propaganda as conciliatory lol. You nailed it dude... I 1,000,000% agree with this.I as that as a milk-toast, Scotts-Irish, white ass American man. About 8 years ago I was confronted with the reality of my privilege and I did not want to accept it, but eventually did, and it opened my fucking eyes. “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Equality requires the privileged to relinquish some of their power, most are unwilling to do that. When I was a little kid growing up on the east coast in the semi-south I used to think my black friends would lie about all the horrible shit that happened to them, I thought, "why do they make this stuff up?" Turns out I just never had to deal with it, so it was invisible to me... that is privilege. What power have you relinquished in order to work towards equality? I would say the first step, and probably the most important is simply acknowledging that I have privilege, and giving up my ignorance about my privilege. The nature of privilege is ignorance, the privileged people don't have to consider the problems other people do. So in regard to racial privilege, in acknowledging it I would think there comes some degree of commitment in calling it out when I see rather than just letting it slide because, "I'm white and it doesn't affect me." If I'm playing a game a CSGO and I hear the N word (happens all the time), rather than just be ok with that, I can at the very least confront them on it, and report the account. There are many different versions of that... for example is I see a nazi symbol written on a wall, I can get a pen and mark over it. Donate to a charity organization that combats racial inequality, march for black lives matter. I haven't done these latter two things, but for a lot of my black friends growing up I apologized for not believe them when we were kids, and tell them I believe them now. Small steps, but if all privileged people did that, the world would change. I thought there was more to privilege than that. You don't sound like someone who's given much of any thought to the subject. What's the point of your post? Are you actually curious about my experience or just want something to rail against? The post GH made that I quoted, you sound exactly like the type of person that post describes. Equality feels like oppression for you, that true for you or you just never even gave it a thought? No, I'm actually just surprised at how little privilege you actually had to relinquish. It's almost like you didn't have much power in the first place. You really stretched there, too, with the suggestion to donate to BLM. Giving away money counts as giving away power I guess. But maybe the metaphorical language doesn't really work? Why do you think this idea that giving up privilege feels like oppression resonates with you so much when your examples of giving up privilege are so lame? I can think of something else that might better describe the experience of 1) conversion to a cause, 2) spreading the good news to blasphemers, and 3) tithing — but "relinquishing power" isn't it. I'll ask again... What is the point of your post? Does Equality feel like oppression for you? And if you don't think money is power, you are incredibly naive. I am trying to decide why this “relinquish (white) power” articulation seems so off to me. Who are the kind of people you imagine when you imagine indignant whites for whom giving up privilege feels like oppression? Are they people who can actually give up “power”? What kind of power do they have and don’t have, now, in 2019? And what kind of power do you gain as a “woke” white who can preach to others? I feel obliged to point out that 1) I acknowledged that giving money might be some kind of “relinquishing power” although such language feels overwrought — I’m not sure why that would be different in kind from other charitable giving or why it would feel oppressive and 2) you said you haven’t actually given money to BLM so it seems fairly moot. As for my personal opinion, no, equality doesn’t feel like oppression to me, hence my line of questioning. Personally, I am inclined more towards the idea of “recognition.” edit: given that someone posted a Nazi talking about “race-recognition” while I was typing this post, I have to now clarify that I meant “recognition” in the sense of Hegel or Levinas: recognition of the subject. Not some scientistic recognition of race, which we want to deconstruct anyway right? You speak like someone who really doesn't understand the concept of privilege, which is really the nature of it privilege... you don't have to worry about it because it doesn't directly affect you. If you are are white, there are a host of difficulties in life you don't have to worry about... In other words, day to day, you don't have to give these difficulties a second of thought, but minorities do, because they are affected by the difficulties. For example, as a white person, when you are pulled over by the police in America, you don't have to worry about being killed in the same way an African-American does. When you get pulled over you expect to pay a speeding ticket. When an African-American gets pulled over they have to worry they might die. The privileged person doesn't have to give a seconds thought to the latter problem, that is their privilege... To walk through life worrying about other things and thinking about things other than being killed by a cop. Let's use your word... recognition. If you "recognize" your privilege, that is the first step, Yay! After you recognize it, you can do other things to be allies for minority groups, and there are varying degrees of time and effort you can put toward that. But... by virtue of "recognizing" your privilege, you are in a sense giving up some degree of your power, because you can no longer just pretend minority groups aren't being persecuted. And it's also not enough to simply now "recognize" your privilege, you have to speak out against it... or be the person who knows and does nothing.
Those scenario's are flatly untrue. While yes, an African-American has a higher likelihood of violent incident with the police based on their percentage of the general populace (13%>25%), that's not to say that whites don't also have to worry about those things (who do you think are the majority of folks killed by police...it's white people). To actually believe that the police mostly only kill or violate the rights of blacks is patently false (and easily disproven with publicly available data). The police fuck everyone, some more than others, but they fuck everyone (unless you're politically connected that is).
You do your argument a disservice by its extreme hyperbole (and also alienating a lot of white people who you could pretty easily convince to join the side of police reform).
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
(WaPo has a decent resource as well)
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On July 19 2019 13:14 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 12:39 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:37 CosmicSpiral wrote:
You shouldn't retreat at the first sign of an unequivocal response. :D Whom is this addressed to? You already know. Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 12:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
My assertion (though practically everyone's made it in describing why third parties are hopeless) is that those beneficiaries of that system will not concede those benefits willingly and will fight to keep them. That leaves two options, 1 fight, 2 continue to concede to them.
Before there's any fruitful ground to be had on the details of revolution we have to establish this point. Okay, so let's assume compromise, reform, "the long march through the institutions", or replacement through establishing rival syndicates are off the table. I surmise you're advocating some type of revolutionary violence a la Sorel. So who is the first target (in a general sense) and what constitutes the goals of the battle? I'll be charitable in supposing you're not modeling the entire arc of this revolt.
Personally I'm desperately clinging to hope of a political solution. Like the massive direct actions manifest and actually cause oligarchs to recognize the futility of their dreams of bubble/bunker cities protected from the surface dwellers or whatever they're planning to deal with climate collapse.
More than likely they just send thugs into the streets to beat and kill the protesters though (like they always have). So the first waves of violence would be revolutionaries defending themselves from agents of the government trying to attack them for taking direct action.
The goal being equitable society maintained and moderated by rigorous scientific socialism and conscientização or "conscientization".
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On July 19 2019 13:24 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 13:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I swear KwarK. Steal my thunder again. One more time and we will have words sir. WORDS!!!!!!!
To iamthedave: Of course. That is why we're here, isn't it? If he produced something we could discuss, we would not be having this back and forth. But here we find ourselves. having this back and forth. He isn't obligated, but he kind of is. You cannot say what he says, without some kind of first step. He has failed to produce this. Again, in the past, I have answered his challenge and given him my thoughts on how things should proceed. He has, expectedly, not returned the favor. It has come to the point where his talk has become a mocking point. I do not wish it to be so, but it is.
GH: Ah. To be answered with another question, instead of ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS POSED. Never change. Of course we fight. We fight at the polls. At the rallys being held. At the ignorance being taught our children. We fight ignorance with truth. You can split it between R and D all you like. I won't make you right. What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America.
Edit: To Nettles and CS...did you uh...did you not see the follow up? I mean...uh...yeah? I gave you the first step, to which you just responded that we maintain the status quo. With a bit of inadvertent communist flair there at the end with the What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America
On July 19 2019 12:18 KwarK wrote:
In fairness if you could convince me that your revolution had any hope of making things better I'd be more likely to be on board. I have the exact same problem with your revolution as the others, while I understand why you want it I don't think it'll end well. Or at least not yet. Try again when unemployment hits 50%. Reducing the number of reliable club wielders for the oligarchs is an important part of the struggle, one hopes confronting these realities sooner rather than later gives us time to prepare for when there's a lot more clubbing and a lot less talking. Waiting on them answers like..... I told you step one, and you already said no, you prefer the status quo. Gotta get you to see the necessity (like kwark does [for people that aren't him, he'll be alright in this system]) before we start discussing your ideas on how the revolutions is to deal with the popular concerns you've highlighted. Still not an answer to the questions posed earlier. Try again? When I answered your questions we went nowhere either my dude. Maybe your problem is the anticapitalism and not the attitude?
What do you mean> I'm pretty sure I answered you. Maybe not in the flavor you wanted, but you got an answer. But just for giggles, pose your questions again and I'll answer?
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On July 19 2019 13:29 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 13:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I swear KwarK. Steal my thunder again. One more time and we will have words sir. WORDS!!!!!!!
To iamthedave: Of course. That is why we're here, isn't it? If he produced something we could discuss, we would not be having this back and forth. But here we find ourselves. having this back and forth. He isn't obligated, but he kind of is. You cannot say what he says, without some kind of first step. He has failed to produce this. Again, in the past, I have answered his challenge and given him my thoughts on how things should proceed. He has, expectedly, not returned the favor. It has come to the point where his talk has become a mocking point. I do not wish it to be so, but it is.
GH: Ah. To be answered with another question, instead of ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS POSED. Never change. Of course we fight. We fight at the polls. At the rallys being held. At the ignorance being taught our children. We fight ignorance with truth. You can split it between R and D all you like. I won't make you right. What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America.
Edit: To Nettles and CS...did you uh...did you not see the follow up? I mean...uh...yeah? I gave you the first step, to which you just responded that we maintain the status quo. With a bit of inadvertent communist flair there at the end with the What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America
On July 19 2019 12:18 KwarK wrote:
In fairness if you could convince me that your revolution had any hope of making things better I'd be more likely to be on board. I have the exact same problem with your revolution as the others, while I understand why you want it I don't think it'll end well. Or at least not yet. Try again when unemployment hits 50%. Reducing the number of reliable club wielders for the oligarchs is an important part of the struggle, one hopes confronting these realities sooner rather than later gives us time to prepare for when there's a lot more clubbing and a lot less talking. Waiting on them answers like..... I told you step one, and you already said no, you prefer the status quo. Gotta get you to see the necessity (like kwark does [for people that aren't him, he'll be alright in this system]) before we start discussing your ideas on how the revolutions is to deal with the popular concerns you've highlighted. Still not an answer to the questions posed earlier. Try again? Perhaps I can explain a bit of GH for you. It is fair to say in regards to his revolution idea that to be fair to him that he'd prefer culture be enforced through hegemonic belief rather than revolution but fully condone revolution in the interest of his end goal. Enforcement after he'd prefer to be enforced through hegemonic belief but would fully condone authoritarianism in the interest of his end goal. His end goal is communism, which will solve most every problem including but not exclusively climate change. It does this for reasons, all theoretical as we have no evidence that any nation that has partaken in communism is actually better for the environment. Or even actually has done communism yet. But regardless we should embark on a bloody revolution for this end goal.
Grammar is not your strong suit JC. Took me a minute but I understand.
The end result is that he cannot produce anything that is coherently in alignment with his "revolution". It's a children's farce I'd rather not partake in without serious thought.
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United States15275 Posts
On July 19 2019 13:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
Personally I'm desperately clinging to hope of a political solution. Like the massive direct actions manifest and actually cause oligarchs to recognize the futility of their dreams of bubble/bunker cities protected from the surface dwellers or whatever they're planning to deal with climate collapse.
More than likely they just send thugs into the streets to beat and kill the protesters though (like they always have). So the first waves of violence would be revolutionaries defending themselves from agents of the government trying to attack them for taking direct action.
Okay. The former seems unlikely: widespread direct action as an emergent consequence of societal disgruntlement would be unfocused, unrestrained, and likely serve to make the oligarchs even more stalwart about their apocalypse survival plans. Like most examples of direct action it would need leadership, organization, communication across multiple groups and planning to have a chance at success.
Since it is the end of the world, we'll have to assume lethal force is the first and most favored option. As attempts to present themselves as champions of the people would be superfluous and disingenuous, the rich will be primed and ready to use any means necessary to batter back dissenters. That includes private military contractors, drones, microwave emitters, trojan viruses, whatever technology and assets can be purchased/designed. If the first points of contact are a reaction, it seems like the war would already be lost. How would revolutionaries have a hope of survival if the full brunt of the state plus other methods are thrown at them without mercy?
On July 19 2019 13:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
The goal being equitable society maintained and moderated by rigorous scientific socialism and conscientização or "conscientization".
We can safely put the question of how this will be accomplished to the side. After all, climate change and social hegemony must be addressed first.
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On July 19 2019 13:24 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 13:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 13:09 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 19 2019 12:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I swear KwarK. Steal my thunder again. One more time and we will have words sir. WORDS!!!!!!!
To iamthedave: Of course. That is why we're here, isn't it? If he produced something we could discuss, we would not be having this back and forth. But here we find ourselves. having this back and forth. He isn't obligated, but he kind of is. You cannot say what he says, without some kind of first step. He has failed to produce this. Again, in the past, I have answered his challenge and given him my thoughts on how things should proceed. He has, expectedly, not returned the favor. It has come to the point where his talk has become a mocking point. I do not wish it to be so, but it is.
GH: Ah. To be answered with another question, instead of ANSWERING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS POSED. Never change. Of course we fight. We fight at the polls. At the rallys being held. At the ignorance being taught our children. We fight ignorance with truth. You can split it between R and D all you like. I won't make you right. What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America.
Edit: To Nettles and CS...did you uh...did you not see the follow up? I mean...uh...yeah? I gave you the first step, to which you just responded that we maintain the status quo. With a bit of inadvertent communist flair there at the end with the What needs to be done is a full on re-education of America
On July 19 2019 12:18 KwarK wrote:
In fairness if you could convince me that your revolution had any hope of making things better I'd be more likely to be on board. I have the exact same problem with your revolution as the others, while I understand why you want it I don't think it'll end well. Or at least not yet. Try again when unemployment hits 50%. Reducing the number of reliable club wielders for the oligarchs is an important part of the struggle, one hopes confronting these realities sooner rather than later gives us time to prepare for when there's a lot more clubbing and a lot less talking. Waiting on them answers like..... I told you step one, and you already said no, you prefer the status quo. Gotta get you to see the necessity (like kwark does [for people that aren't him, he'll be alright in this system]) before we start discussing your ideas on how the revolutions is to deal with the popular concerns you've highlighted. Still not an answer to the questions posed earlier. Try again? When I answered your questions we went nowhere either my dude. Maybe your problem is the anticapitalism and not the attitude?
Definitely the anticapitalism best I can tell, alternatives seem unimaginable to him from my observations.
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On July 19 2019 13:14 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 12:39 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On July 19 2019 12:37 CosmicSpiral wrote:
You shouldn't retreat at the first sign of an unequivocal response. :D Whom is this addressed to? You already know. Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 12:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
My assertion (though practically everyone's made it in describing why third parties are hopeless) is that those beneficiaries of that system will not concede those benefits willingly and will fight to keep them. That leaves two options, 1 fight, 2 continue to concede to them.
Before there's any fruitful ground to be had on the details of revolution we have to establish this point. Okay, so let's assume compromise, reform, "the long march through the institutions", or replacement through establishing rival syndicates are off the table. I surmise you're advocating some type of revolutionary violence a la Sorel. So who is the first target (in a general sense) and what constitutes the goals of the battle? I'll be charitable in supposing you're not modeling the entire arc of this revolt.
It won't be Sorel for GH. He is no big fan of traditionalism.
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On July 19 2019 13:40 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
Personally I'm desperately clinging to hope of a political solution. Like the massive direct actions manifest and actually cause oligarchs to recognize the futility of their dreams of bubble/bunker cities protected from the surface dwellers or whatever they're planning to deal with climate collapse.
More than likely they just send thugs into the streets to beat and kill the protesters though (like they always have). So the first waves of violence would be revolutionaries defending themselves from agents of the government trying to attack them for taking direct action. Okay. The former seems unlikely: widespread direct action as an emergent consequence of societal disgruntlement would be unfocused, unrestrained, and likely serve to make the oligarchs even more stalwart about their apocalypse survival plans. Like most examples of direct action it would need leadership, organization, communication across multiple groups and planning to have a chance at success. Since it is the end of the world, we'll have to assume lethal force is the first and most favored option. As attempts to present themselves as champions of the people would be superfluous and disingenuous, the rich will be primed and ready to use any means necessary to batter back dissenters. That includes private military contractors, drones, microwave emitters, trojan viruses, whatever technology and assets can be purchased/designed. If the first points of contact are a reaction, it seems like the war would already be lost. How would revolutionaries have a hope of survival if the full brunt of the state plus other methods are thrown at them without mercy?
That's why it's important to undermine their influence now and reduce the oligarchs defenders before they begin to employ all the fancy stuff. So it's only the most despicable of people left defending them instead of ostensibly reasonable and polite people who lament the club but aren't ready to risk their comfortable position without assurances there's one for them on the other side (no matter how horrific the suffering needed to maintain their current comforts).
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United States15275 Posts
On July 19 2019 13:44 Nebuchad wrote:
It won't be Sorel for GH. He is no big fan of traditionalism.
Well, Sorel also rejected science as the means by which the Marxist utopia would come about so I guess it's off the table. Guess we'll substitute Bakunin minus the antisemitism.
On July 19 2019 13:47 GreenHorizons wrote:
That's why it's important to undermine their influence now and reduce the oligarchs' defenders before they begin to employ all the fancy stuff. So it's only the most despicable of people left defending them instead of ostensibly reasonable and polite people who lament the club but aren't ready to risk their comfortable position without assurances there's one for them on the other side (no matter how horrific the suffering needed to maintain their comfort).
First, we'll need to clarify the semantics of oligarch so both theory and process can be framed in intelligible, actionable terms.
- Does oligarch have an identifiable set of attributes beyond the pejorative? Is it representative of certain strata in society such as the 'Davos class', Wall Street bankers, the heads of military contractors (i.e. Lockheed Martin) and other corporations, politicians, those who inherited enormous wealth, etc.? Does someone who makes $10 million a year count as a oligarch or a defender of their supremacy? Does the application of the term depend on relative social capital and status in a fractal sense e.g. the richest person of a small community with ties to global networks? How about famous actors, who enjoy fame but make pennies compared to Bezos and Soros? Are defenders those who work within the systems that oligarchs survey or those who seek to defend their power? Both? Common sense dictates that not everyone within said system does it of their own volition or even knowledge. Can we postulate an efficient filter to distinguish the enablers from the benighted?
- Following your previous logic, we must exclude electoral politics, diplomacy, protests, arbitration, and negotiation as these don't qualify as direct action. So we have nonviolent and violent direct action as methods to "undermine their influence and reduce their defenders". Do you envision one or the other being the primary means of resistance (or perhaps both)? How are we ensuring our choices for direct action directly attack the problem without inflicting unacceptable externalities on ordinary people, uninvolved parties, or ourselves? Is the vector for direct action financial, territorial, informational, bureaucratic, etc?
- I take "ostensibly reasonable and polite people who lament the club" as "violence is inevitable, but a triumphant campaign will minimize the fallout". How do we ensure that the void left behind isn't filled by a new aristocracy - particularly by do-gooders within our own organization, the Achilles' heel of communism - while designating their original functions to new institutions? How do we circumvent/solve the problems failed Marxist states ran into? Fortunately there are plenty of examples, so identifying them should be one of our easier tasks.
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On July 19 2019 13:50 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:44 Nebuchad wrote:
It won't be Sorel for GH. He is no big fan of traditionalism. Well, Sorel also rejected science as the means by which the Marxist utopia would come about so I guess it's off the table. Guess we'll substitute Bakunin minus the antisemitism. Show nested quote +On July 19 2019 13:47 GreenHorizons wrote:
That's why it's important to undermine their influence now and reduce the oligarchs' defenders before they begin to employ all the fancy stuff. So it's only the most despicable of people left defending them instead of ostensibly reasonable and polite people who lament the club but aren't ready to risk their comfortable position without assurances there's one for them on the other side (no matter how horrific the suffering needed to maintain their comfort). First, we'll need to clarify the semantics of oligarch so both theory and process can be framed in intelligible, actionable terms. - Does oligarch have an identifiable set of attributes beyond the pejorative? Is it representative of certain strata in society such as the 'Davos class', Wall Street bankers, the heads of military contractors (i.e. Lockheed Martin) and other corporations, politicians, those who inherited enormous wealth, etc.? Does someone who makes $10 million a year count as a oligarch or a defender of their supremacy? Does the application of the term depend on relative social capital and status in a fractal sense e.g. the richest person of a small community with ties to global networks? How about famous actors, who enjoy fame but make pennies compared to Bezos and Soros? Are defenders those who work within the systems that oligarchs survey or those who seek to defend their power? Both? Common sense dictates that not everyone within said system does it of their own volition or even knowledge. Can we postulate an efficient filter to distinguish the enablers from the benighted?
- Following your previous logic, we must exclude electoral politics, diplomacy, protests, arbitration, and negotiation as these don't qualify as direct action. So we have nonviolent and violent direct action as methods to "undermine their influence and reduce their defenders". Do you envision one or the other being the primary means of resistance (or perhaps both)? How are we ensuring our choices for direct action directly attack the problem without inflicting unacceptable externalities on ordinary people, uninvolved parties, or ourselves? Is the vector for direct action financial, territorial, informational, bureaucratic, etc?
- I take "ostensibly reasonable and polite people who lament the club" as "violence is inevitable, but a triumphant campaign will minimize the fallout". How do we ensure that the void left behind isn't filled by a new aristocracy - particularly by do-gooders within our own organization, the Achilles' heel of communism - while designating their original functions to new institutions? How do we circumvent/solve the problems failed Marxist states ran into? Fortunately there are plenty of examples, so identifying them should be one of our easier tasks.
If we can agree that I'm but a voice among many and that it's on anyone that wants to get rid of "the club" (as opposed to preferring their current comforts and the violence it requires) to collaborate on solutions, I don't have a problem engaging deeper with those questions/you on them.
Grant me this curiosity if you will, what's your angle? You're well read on this stuff in general, what's your interest in my perspectives? How you identify yourself politically would be helpful as well, it would help me better understand the nature of the answer you're looking for.
Just so you don't feel dodged let me give you a brief sample of my positions relative to those questions.
1. Generally the top 1% of the 1% but power brokers that aren't especially affluent (at least on paper) probably fall in there too.
2. Any of that you say must be excluded can be a part of direct action but does not in itself constitute direct action imo.
3. The general protest of "what about the negative consequences/risks" can't be viewed in a vacuum right? It's not the potential negative consequences of revolution or eternal bliss for all mankind. It's revolution or certain doom for millions, and horrific catastrophe for billions and maybe a handful of people live luxuriously in the rubble that's left. I'd add there's a lot of suffering, death and violence used to maintain this system as it is.
Even if it's all hopeless and we're just fighting for who gets the rubble bubbles it's pretty hard (harder than not imo) to replace this system with a worse one for anyone but the people exploiting this one.
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On July 19 2019 08:15 KwarK wrote:It's absolutely nothing like antisemitism for the simple reason that the Jews did not control all the money and power in Europe and use it to turn everyone else into a second class citizen. If you're not in the club in America you're a second class citizen. You're more likely to be arrested, you're more likely to be convicted, you're less likely to be hired for jobs, you're more likely to have your civil rights taken away, and so forth. None of that was ever true for the antisemitic ethnic Germans living in Germany.
I'll address the rest of your post when I get back from work.
I just wanted to point out that you missed the point entirely here. I was talking about the mechanism used to justify the institutionalized discrimination. And the mechanism is that: a subset of "white skin" group belongs to the white club, therefore it is okay to introduce racist policies that discriminate against the former group as a whole. (How the left makes a leap to justifying the discrimination of Asians is lost on me.) That is exactly how antisemitic policies were justified in pre-WW2 Poland.
You also failed to show how much the two groups overlap. You started with the white club being a well-defined group of white supremacists in the times of the American founding fathers and expanded the term into something really vague. The demarcation seems to be based on wealth, not race/ethnicity, and the membership correlates with race/ethnicity to the extent that wealth distribution does. You define the white club however it suits your narrative. Not including upper middle class/upper class POC in the club is entirely arbitrary. They enjoy similar benefits.
And what you're saying in the above is factually incorrect, at least as far as Poland is concerned. Jews were overrepresented among the capitalists trying to squeeze every penny out of the working people. The same applies to many professions, such as doctors or lawyers, or the banking sector. And ethnic favoritism was rampant in those days. So the number of Jews enjoying the privileges you're talking about was disproportionately high, which was the justification for the affirmative action policies favoring ethnic Poles (who largely had rural, serf background). But that's besides the point.
edit: I read the rest of your post carefully and I don't really have much else to add. What you described in your anecdotes is strikingly similar to how ethnic favoritism worked in pre-WW2 Poland (and I'm pretty sure this wasn't exclusive to Poland), with Jews having a strong foothold in the "professions", business and banking. Yet we consider thus motivated antisemitism preposterous. I don't see why affirmative action should be judged otherwise.
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It's because whiteness is made up, maybenexttime. That's why it can be defined however it suits your narrative. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
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On July 19 2019 11:14 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Dammit KwarK. That was my response.
To velr being banned...wtf? He's only saying (albeit rudely) what I've said previously. When confronted with a question of how his supposed "revolution" plays out and the outcome, GH doesn't offer anything. He's challenged me and I've answered the call. Yet he still refuses to give people his details of his plan. Or at least a semblance of one.
Stop bitchin' and start producing. Sir.
This is not specifically directed at you but those having issue with Gh.
If you question the status quo and through historical examination come to the conclusion that society is beyond reform. What do you do?
If we think of it as a company. Your business model is obsolete, you're going bancrupt. What do you do?
File for administration and figure out a plan.
Most wouldn't agree with the company (society) being basically bancrupt (beyond reform) and thus deny the necessity for a change of leadership.
Gh says that we need this change of perspective.
this perspective, the ground rules of what he considers to be sensible guidelines to start with he layed out.
But what sense does it make if the need of radical change isn't even remotely comprehensible for those who engage with him. No plan will be acceptable if the underlying supposition that we REALLY need a new business model cause the old one sucks ass (no kink shaming intended) isn't consesually accepted.
so laying out his thoughts would be, as we Germans would say, butter for fishes.
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@GH: I haven't forgotten our discussion. I was just occupied. So here goes.
Firstly, I can freely admit that different areas of Brazil can lead to different experiences. It is indeed a big country, and Artisreal pointed out a different experience from mine.
Mine was very much that the idea of "white" being better than "black" was only still alive in the economic sense, but other than that, everything was just mixed up. That isn't to say that people don't self-identify as "black", but just as Kwark was pointing out that "whiteness" is a construct that only historically has something to do with skin color, that same is true for "blackness". Plenty of people who live in favelas in Rio self-identify as "black" (because they identify favela culture as a "black" culture) despite looking less black than the average Brazilian. So when people criticize what is happening to Rio's favelas as "black genocide" you cannot take it literally. As you pointed out, the racial whitening approach Brazil took to their "negro problem" in the early 20th century was almost the opposite to what the US, South Africa or Australia did with their "negro problems": rather than segregating blacks and whites into separate areas, they encouraged mingling. Now I'm not saying the "white elites" didn't pull up their noses at this: there was obviously one class that was mingling "for the betterment of the nation" and one class that was "being improved". And as Artisreal's experience shows, that pulling up of noses is still a reality in parts of Brazil.
I will also admit it is possible that I bought into the propaganda, because Brazil does like to present itself as a country where racism doesn't exist. And it may just be true that superficially this is true, but under the hood it is just as present as elsewhere. But at least in my wife's experience, she felt far less discriminated against in Brazil than she does in Spain. It could just be that there she belonged to the "white club" (any non-South American immigrant almost automatically becomes a card carrying member on arrival), whereas in Spain she doesnt.
I'd still argue that there are better examples to pick for countries where "whiteness" as a social construct is doing harm, but I don't disagree with the overarching point. I was only arguing against Brazil being used as your main example outside of the US.
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Now, on to argue about the current topic. Would I be stating your point of view properly if I said: GH doesn't have a plan for after the revolution, and doesn't know if the situation will be better. What he believes is that it is almost impossible to be worse than the status quo, so why not revolt? Worst case? Everything goes to shit for people in the "white club" and for those outside the "white club" things don't change. A bunch of people die in the process, but given impending doom hanging over the planet, it's worth that shot. Best case, a reconfiguration of how we value "things", and a transition to a socialist utopia.
I'm in team Kwark. I don't think the revolution is going to happen. We're comfortably in the white club, so I'll just keep enjoying the band while the titanic sinks. I do think the lower decks should be open, and let the riff raff come and enjoy the music too. It won't change the ship sinking, but at least everybody has a choice in what to do while it does. My brother, btw, is closer to team GH. He believes that if enough people get on board, we can patch the gaping hole we made by ramming an iceberg. He doesn't think we need to change the government (he's plenty disillusioned with it, but takes a more hands-on approach): he is working in sustainable agricultural and a cyclical economy.
I'm not completely nihilistic, btw. I do believe that there is a future for humanity. Just society as we know it is doomed. The inherent selfishness of humanity and petty squabbling is too big a hurdle for mere humans to reach a solution to environmental collapse, so we need something supra-human to solve it for us. Our society is doomed either way. Either it is radically changed by the biggest natural catastrophe since the ice age. Or it is radically changed by AI reshaping it for us. I'm doing my best to help create that AI, btw. I just hope it ends up as something closer to the Culture series AIs rather than Skynet. To a large extent I believe that is up to us. We just have to not screw that up as well.
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EPT
