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On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context.
America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008.
This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness.
"The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)"
This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded.
What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for.
Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened.
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On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins).
I certainly wouldn't oppose them.
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On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them.
I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it.
You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)?
That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves.
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On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do.
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On January 02 2020 21:46 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do.
The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do.
I can appreciate that. I just ask you keep that in mind when it comes to people telling them they're unrealistic and should give up because we're fucked and it's disruptive/boring/annoying/repetitive/etc... I'd argue that's getting in those people's way (doesn't matter if they think it's effective, they're staying out of the way).
I understand when people make the "fuck it, Imma protect mine" decision, or arguments of futile pragmatism (100 bandaids are as useless as 0 for spinal/nerve/brain damage) they should just own that's a position of opposition to others liberation rather than neutrality or support.
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Northern Ireland25270 Posts
On January 02 2020 22:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 21:46 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office.
At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better.
I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution.
And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context.
Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do. I can appreciate that. I just ask you keep that in mind when it comes to people telling them they're unrealistic and should give up because we're fucked and it's disruptive/boring/annoying/repetitive/etc... I'd argue that's getting in those people's way (doesn't matter if they think it's effective, they're staying out of the way). I understand when people make the "fuck it, Imma protect mine" decision, or arguments of futile pragmatism (100 bandaids are as useless as 0 for spinal/nerve/brain damage) they should just own that's a position of opposition to others liberation rather than neutrality or support.
So-called ‘armchair activism’ is rather underrated in this day and age.
There’s certainly a place for it, but in this day and age the internet is where minds are changed and most protests are just a symptom of that having already happened.
I like to tell myself that anyway to justify the amount of time I indulge in the noble pastime of arguing on the internet.
There’s a lot to be taken from Brexit over here. Not something I particularly desired, but that was a pretty huge political accomplishment. Those who desired it didn’t drop it in the name of pragmatism they kept plugging away at it for quite some period of time, and eventually they got what they wanted.
Sure that’s more of a single issue thing that electing a candidate of a certain platform who has to defeat another candidate.
It’s not exactly too long ago that the Republican candidate was nominated despite general consensus being that he didn’t have much of a shot to win the general, but people still nominated him and here we are today.
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On January 02 2020 22:45 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 22:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 21:46 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him?
If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals.
That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do. I can appreciate that. I just ask you keep that in mind when it comes to people telling them they're unrealistic and should give up because we're fucked and it's disruptive/boring/annoying/repetitive/etc... I'd argue that's getting in those people's way (doesn't matter if they think it's effective, they're staying out of the way). I understand when people make the "fuck it, Imma protect mine" decision, or arguments of futile pragmatism (100 bandaids are as useless as 0 for spinal/nerve/brain damage) they should just own that's a position of opposition to others liberation rather than neutrality or support. So-called ‘armchair activism’ is rather underrated in this day and age. There’s certainly a place for it, but in this day and age the internet is where minds are changed and most protests are just a symptom of that having already happened. I like to tell myself that anyway to justify the amount of time I indulge in the noble pastime of arguing on the internet. There’s a lot to be taken from Brexit over here. Not something I particularly desired, but that was a pretty huge political accomplishment. Those who desired it didn’t drop it in the name of pragmatism they kept plugging away at it for quite some period of time, and eventually they got what they wanted. Sure that’s more of a single issue thing that electing a candidate of a certain platform who has to defeat another candidate. It’s not exactly too long ago that the Republican candidate was nominated despite general consensus being that he didn’t have much of a shot to win the general, but people still nominated him and here we are today.
Gotta start somewhere and yup.
A lot of people told me how foolish it was for me to support Sanders back in 2015. That he was another Ron Paul, a spoiler that should have dropped out instead of build a 50 state network of volunteers, and blah blah blah.
He just out raised every other Dem presidential candidate by nearly $10,000,000, millions of donations and hundreds of thousands more donors. Warren's plummeted in fundraising and nearly tied (based on reported estimates) with Yang.
I was always to Bernie's left but used to buy into the pragmatic realism crap and was willing to accept the Clintons, Kerrys and such but then Obama was like "nah I got you, Imma do the shit" and let people fill in what that meant and getting duped like that hurt and I wasn't going to let it happen again. So I went in expecting Bernie to flake one way or the other, though he clearly was unique in having a consistent and accessible history of him saying the same shit and being right about it for decades just to be blown-off by the pragmatists and such.
As I've been trying to relate to people, Bernie is the compromise (and barely that), not "The Revolution" He's the guy who believes electoralism is viable and there's a way to save congress and solve things that way. I'm about as optimistic about that as Gors is about averting climate collapse.
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On January 02 2020 22:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 21:46 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:
[quote]
I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office.
At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better.
I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution.
And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context.
Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do. I can appreciate that. I just ask you keep that in mind when it comes to people telling them they're unrealistic and should give up because we're fucked and it's disruptive/boring/annoying/repetitive/etc... I'd argue that's getting in those people's way (doesn't matter if they think it's effective, they're staying out of the way). I understand when people make the "fuck it, Imma protect mine" decision, or arguments of futile pragmatism (100 bandaids are as useless as 0 for spinal/nerve/brain damage) they should just own that's a position of opposition to others liberation rather than neutrality or support. I certainly don't think your constant "but the Democrats are bad too" fall under that. Yeah both sides could be better, and when the Democrats do something wrong you can bring it. But let discussions run without interjecting with "But the Democrats".
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On January 03 2020 00:19 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 22:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 21:46 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 21:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 20:51 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 19:12 Gorsameth wrote:On January 02 2020 19:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him?
If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals.
That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftist basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. I get your point/argument and typically it would win the day (did the last 40+ years Neb referenced earlier) but how do you reconcile that with what's in the realm of necessary to mitigate global ecological collapse? By accepting that there is absolutely no support for the radical changes needed and that its just not going to happen. And yes I am aware that is a very pessimistic outlook and that it means humanity is basically fucked but I find it hard to hold any other view when looking at events both local and global. This is at least a more or less coherent and straightforward position that reconciles the difference between what is generally accepted as possible and what the best available science says is happening/necessary. Admittedly a bit nihilistic for my taste, but some days... The question then becomes whether you want to oppose people that are attempting to avert that fate, join them, or stay out of their way? Vote for them when you can and isn't counter productive (Vote for someone trying to fix it during the Primary but in the general election I wouldn't vote 3e party if that means someone worse likely wins). I certainly wouldn't oppose them. I don't mean the politicians (you have no influence over them) and voting (you can't vote for or against them anyway). I mean the people raising class consciousness, organizing mass strikes, disrupting regular business, and stuff like that in an attempt to bring about the dramatic changes necessary (but outside the subjectively defined "possible") to bring down the probability of an ecological spiral that gets beyond humans ability to halt it. You joining them, opposing them or at least staying out of their way (state asks if you saw the fleeing suspect and you shrug kinda thing)? That's a generic question anyone that's gotten to the stage of reconciling the gap between what the US political class says is "possible" and what the best available science says is necessary has got to ask themselves. I'm not the activist type, and way to lazy, so no I'm not out protesting. But I certainly wouldn't get in the way of those that do. I can appreciate that. I just ask you keep that in mind when it comes to people telling them they're unrealistic and should give up because we're fucked and it's disruptive/boring/annoying/repetitive/etc... I'd argue that's getting in those people's way (doesn't matter if they think it's effective, they're staying out of the way). I understand when people make the "fuck it, Imma protect mine" decision, or arguments of futile pragmatism (100 bandaids are as useless as 0 for spinal/nerve/brain damage) they should just own that's a position of opposition to others liberation rather than neutrality or support. I certainly don't think your constant "but the Democrats are bad too" fall under that. Yeah both sides could be better, and when the Democrats do something wrong you can bring it. But let discussions run without interjecting with "But the Democrats".
I'm not saying "but the Democrats are bad too" (and certainly not just that) and putting it in quotes doesn't change that.
I'm saying that "both parties are unacceptably bad". This is what I mean by people just acknowledging that they are opposition not "mostly in agreement" or "staying out of the way".
They mean distinctly different things.
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Bernie completely body slamming everyone else in fundraising. I signed up for repeating donations! GO BERNIE!
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One thing that I don't think has gotten enough attention: Biden saying he'd push for publicly funded elections. As I understand the world, this would likely be among the most significant advancements in American democracy. Completely eliminating private political contributions would be amazing.
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Biden can tout that goal all he likes, but the only way towards campaign finance reform a la public finance goes through SCOTUS. Otherwise, any attempt at limiting private spending on elections will violate Citizens United.
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On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened.
Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere.
I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed.
So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt.
That's it.
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On January 03 2020 01:42 farvacola wrote:
Biden can tout that goal all he likes, but the only way towards campaign finance reform a la public finance goes through SCOTUS. Otherwise, any attempt at limiting private spending on elections will violate Citizens United.
You can ignore the SCOTUS if you rewrite/amend the constitution since you then move the goal post on what they should rule on. You can also pass laws that will take years to get up to SCOTUS and stricken down to limit it for next election. Neither seems likely though.
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On January 03 2020 02:49 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 01:42 farvacola wrote:
Biden can tout that goal all he likes, but the only way towards campaign finance reform a la public finance goes through SCOTUS. Otherwise, any attempt at limiting private spending on elections will violate Citizens United. You can ignore the SCOTUS if you rewrite/amend the constitution since you then move the goal post on what they should rule on. You can also pass laws that will take years to get up to SCOTUS and stricken down to limit it for next election. Neither seems likely though.
The fundamental contradictions are, were, and will be that the people with the power to change it within the system are dependent on maintaining it's presence within the system and they can only be removed if it's rendered politically inviable by electing people despite its presence.
The only way to get rid of it is to prove getting rid of it isn't necessary which undermines the reasoning for getting rid of it.
Not a badly designed status quo catch 22. Allowing people like Biden to say he's for it while knowing it'll never happen and his support is worthless, but still enjoying credit for saying it like he meant it.
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Amending the First Amendment to fix Citizens United is far too remote a possibility to even entertain. Further, passing a facially unconstitutional-under-Citizens United law in the hopes that it takes a long time to reach SCOTUS, while seemingly attractive an option were Dems to take legislative control, would very quickly find itself stayed by a district court while legal proceedings are conducted. The status quo tends to win where application of a controlling precedent to a newly passed, disputed law is clear.
Bernie knows all that, which is why he is so upfront about needing to overturn Citizens United.
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On January 03 2020 01:35 Mohdoo wrote:
One thing that I don't think has gotten enough attention: Biden saying he'd push for publicly funded elections. As I understand the world, this would likely be among the most significant advancements in American democracy. Completely eliminating private political contributions would be amazing. His internal numbers must be shockingly bad if he is both trying to appeal to Republicans and promising to take money out of elections.
Is he just running down a list of wild idea's. seeing which ones stick?
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On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it.
I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things.
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On January 03 2020 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it. I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things. His point is right tho, why does the specific leaning of a candidate matter when they policies move the country in the direction you want to go?
If you want universal healthcare it doesn't matter if its a Liberal, Left wing or Conservative that ends up implementing it. What matters is that they have a plan to implement that you agree with.
The closer to the goal you are the more the details start to matter but America is so far from socialism that any move in that direction, be it left wing or liberal is probably a good thing.
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