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On March 05 2020 23:14 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 22:50 GreenHorizons wrote:Alabama is scheduled to kill a man tonight for killing cops literally no one disputes were killed by someone else who has confessed and been convicted. Hours after a federal judge denied a stay request in the upcoming execution of Alabama prisoner Nathaniel Woods, the son of Martin Luther King Jr. released an open letter to Gov. Kay Ivey asking her to intervene in the case.
Woods is slated to be killed via lethal injection on Thursday for his capital murder convictions in the shooting deaths of three Birmingham police officers in June 2004.
By all accounts, Woods was not the shooter and did not have a gun at the time of the shooting. Woods was instead convicted of capital murder, despite personally killing no one www.montgomeryadvertiser.com I don't understand what is going on. This guy was found guilty by a jury, right? Was all of this known at the time? If so, why did the prosecutor continue, and why did the jury find him guilty? If not, why was his case not reopened? And if it was, why was he found guilty regardless? I mean... at some point all of this was known, people looked at his case and said "yup, but he's still guilty of capital murder". Who were these people and what was their reasoning?
On March 05 2020 23:18 farvacola wrote:
Awful outcomes like that are a combo of medieval state court criminal processes and the decades long chipping away at the efficacy of federal habeas corpus petitions.
Can't forget the racism, looooots of racism
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On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 13:32 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 12:31 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 11:43 mierin wrote:On March 05 2020 11:21 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
Sure, but I also don’t think Biden would commit many of the atrocities that Trump has, and would probably end them as president. That, to me, is the clearest rebuttal to “Trump and Biden are virtually identical.” More broadly, “how big is the difference between Biden and Trump” is surely a conversation that should be rooted in the human cost of the Trump administration compared to a hypothetical Biden one. What tends to happen instead is some abstract back-and-forth about the nature of compromise and “the lesser of two evils.”
Separately I’m not sure why everyone is talking about the primary as already over. I’m still hoping Sanders can take the nomination! But if he doesn’t, and people are deciding whether to support Biden, perhaps we ought to discuss a little more specifically what it is about a second Trump term we’re trying to prevent. Unfortunately Biden is almost identical to Trump. Sure the Dems will pick up some supreme court justices if he wins but at the end of the day nothing else will change. That's unacceptable to an increasing percentage of voters. Okay, so let’s start here. There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers in some of the world’s worst refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of MPP. Refugees are getting diseases from sewage, because there aren’t bathroom facilities in the camps. They’re being kidnapped. They’re sending their young children over the border alone because they may have a better legal case as unaccompanied minors. This policy is a) definitely immoral, b) probably illegal, and c) unambiguously a direct result of Trump being president. Are you just figuring that’s not very important? That Biden would continue MPP? What’s your thinking here? That both can be so bad they are unacceptable. Some people wouldn't support Trump if he put a D next to his name and Republicans nominated someone worse, but I'd argue the people that think the argument you're making is convincing probably would (what else would they do right?). Many of the camps are from the Obama administration, the argument over sanitation is from the Obama administration, and Hillary's plan was to use their fruitless suffering/deaths to send a message to their parents. The foreign policy motivating the immigration was both perpetuated, and in cases like Honduras, directly related to his state department (Under Hillary). Biden was VP through all of that and is more of a conservative than Obama, so it is reasonable to judge that he would likely be worse than Obama (despite rhetoric suggesting otherwise, which will evaporate in a general election when he tacks right anyway). “Both are so bad they’re unacceptable” is a very different argument than “they’re basically identical,” though. I figured you would (rightly) point out that for all the atrocities of the Trump administration, there have certainly been many atrocities committed by the US prior to Trump, including many that were not stopped by the Obama administration. The morality here is complex, and I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to when it is reasonable to tolerate some atrocities in the interest of stopping others. But from where I’m sitting, it seems like anyone who doesn’t see a moral difference between the actions of Obama and Trump must be either powerfully uninformed or deeply apathetic to the suffering of other human beings. I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered. If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period. The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. Show nested quote +After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. Show nested quote +"We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils.
I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work.
You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family.
None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something.
Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before.
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On March 05 2020 23:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 23:14 Acrofales wrote:On March 05 2020 22:50 GreenHorizons wrote:Alabama is scheduled to kill a man tonight for killing cops literally no one disputes were killed by someone else who has confessed and been convicted. Hours after a federal judge denied a stay request in the upcoming execution of Alabama prisoner Nathaniel Woods, the son of Martin Luther King Jr. released an open letter to Gov. Kay Ivey asking her to intervene in the case.
Woods is slated to be killed via lethal injection on Thursday for his capital murder convictions in the shooting deaths of three Birmingham police officers in June 2004.
By all accounts, Woods was not the shooter and did not have a gun at the time of the shooting. Woods was instead convicted of capital murder, despite personally killing no one www.montgomeryadvertiser.com I don't understand what is going on. This guy was found guilty by a jury, right? Was all of this known at the time? If so, why did the prosecutor continue, and why did the jury find him guilty? If not, why was his case not reopened? And if it was, why was he found guilty regardless? I mean... at some point all of this was known, people looked at his case and said "yup, but he's still guilty of capital murder". Who were these people and what was their reasoning? Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 23:18 farvacola wrote:
Awful outcomes like that are a combo of medieval state court criminal processes and the decades long chipping away at the efficacy of federal habeas corpus petitions. Can't forget the racism, looooots of racism
Yeah. It's really hard not to come to the conclusion that those people are just happy to kill a black man at that point.
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On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 13:32 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 12:31 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 11:43 mierin wrote:
[quote]
Unfortunately Biden is almost identical to Trump. Sure the Dems will pick up some supreme court justices if he wins but at the end of the day nothing else will change. That's unacceptable to an increasing percentage of voters.
Okay, so let’s start here. There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers in some of the world’s worst refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of MPP. Refugees are getting diseases from sewage, because there aren’t bathroom facilities in the camps. They’re being kidnapped. They’re sending their young children over the border alone because they may have a better legal case as unaccompanied minors. This policy is a) definitely immoral, b) probably illegal, and c) unambiguously a direct result of Trump being president. Are you just figuring that’s not very important? That Biden would continue MPP? What’s your thinking here? That both can be so bad they are unacceptable. Some people wouldn't support Trump if he put a D next to his name and Republicans nominated someone worse, but I'd argue the people that think the argument you're making is convincing probably would (what else would they do right?). Many of the camps are from the Obama administration, the argument over sanitation is from the Obama administration, and Hillary's plan was to use their fruitless suffering/deaths to send a message to their parents. The foreign policy motivating the immigration was both perpetuated, and in cases like Honduras, directly related to his state department (Under Hillary). Biden was VP through all of that and is more of a conservative than Obama, so it is reasonable to judge that he would likely be worse than Obama (despite rhetoric suggesting otherwise, which will evaporate in a general election when he tacks right anyway). “Both are so bad they’re unacceptable” is a very different argument than “they’re basically identical,” though. I figured you would (rightly) point out that for all the atrocities of the Trump administration, there have certainly been many atrocities committed by the US prior to Trump, including many that were not stopped by the Obama administration. The morality here is complex, and I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to when it is reasonable to tolerate some atrocities in the interest of stopping others. But from where I’m sitting, it seems like anyone who doesn’t see a moral difference between the actions of Obama and Trump must be either powerfully uninformed or deeply apathetic to the suffering of other human beings. I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered. If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period. The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before.
"The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo.
The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it.
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On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 13:32 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 12:31 ChristianS wrote:[quote] Okay, so let’s start here. There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers in some of the world’s worst refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of MPP. Refugees are getting diseases from sewage, because there aren’t bathroom facilities in the camps. They’re being kidnapped. They’re sending their young children over the border alone because they may have a better legal case as unaccompanied minors. This policy is a) definitely immoral, b) probably illegal, and c) unambiguously a direct result of Trump being president. Are you just figuring that’s not very important? That Biden would continue MPP? What’s your thinking here? That both can be so bad they are unacceptable. Some people wouldn't support Trump if he put a D next to his name and Republicans nominated someone worse, but I'd argue the people that think the argument you're making is convincing probably would (what else would they do right?). Many of the camps are from the Obama administration, the argument over sanitation is from the Obama administration, and Hillary's plan was to use their fruitless suffering/deaths to send a message to their parents. The foreign policy motivating the immigration was both perpetuated, and in cases like Honduras, directly related to his state department (Under Hillary). Biden was VP through all of that and is more of a conservative than Obama, so it is reasonable to judge that he would likely be worse than Obama (despite rhetoric suggesting otherwise, which will evaporate in a general election when he tacks right anyway). “Both are so bad they’re unacceptable” is a very different argument than “they’re basically identical,” though. I figured you would (rightly) point out that for all the atrocities of the Trump administration, there have certainly been many atrocities committed by the US prior to Trump, including many that were not stopped by the Obama administration. The morality here is complex, and I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to when it is reasonable to tolerate some atrocities in the interest of stopping others. But from where I’m sitting, it seems like anyone who doesn’t see a moral difference between the actions of Obama and Trump must be either powerfully uninformed or deeply apathetic to the suffering of other human beings. I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered. If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period. The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo.
Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread.
The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it.
Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise?
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On March 06 2020 00:28 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 13:32 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:04 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
That both can be so bad they are unacceptable. Some people wouldn't support Trump if he put a D next to his name and Republicans nominated someone worse, but I'd argue the people that think the argument you're making is convincing probably would (what else would they do right?).
Many of the camps are from the Obama administration, the argument over sanitation is from the Obama administration, and Hillary's plan was to use their fruitless suffering/deaths to send a message to their parents. The foreign policy motivating the immigration was both perpetuated, and in cases like Honduras, directly related to his state department (Under Hillary).
Biden was VP through all of that and is more of a conservative than Obama, so it is reasonable to judge that he would likely be worse than Obama (despite rhetoric suggesting otherwise, which will evaporate in a general election when he tacks right anyway). “Both are so bad they’re unacceptable” is a very different argument than “they’re basically identical,” though. I figured you would (rightly) point out that for all the atrocities of the Trump administration, there have certainly been many atrocities committed by the US prior to Trump, including many that were not stopped by the Obama administration. The morality here is complex, and I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to when it is reasonable to tolerate some atrocities in the interest of stopping others. But from where I’m sitting, it seems like anyone who doesn’t see a moral difference between the actions of Obama and Trump must be either powerfully uninformed or deeply apathetic to the suffering of other human beings. I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered. If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period. The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo. Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread. Show nested quote +The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it. Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise?
I'd put voting for Sanders at the 'right' flank of people that are potential comrades at the moment. I don't personally subscribe to electoralism in the US for a lot reasons but I can accept pretty much all the non-reformist reforms and harm reduction arguments. The part that I can't sign up for is his lingering neoimperialst positions/perspectives. I don't have to choose in the general (because of our broken electoral system) but I do have to decide if I'll vote for Sanders in the primary. In that, I'm basically at the point where I don't think electoralism works, but I don't see the harm in me voting for Sanders in the primary.
The general is a different animal in that there is potential damage in basically a slightly better repeat of Obama where he kills countless innocent people around the world and neoliberals and progressives go back to brunch.
Part of that comes from the constant FDR references by Bernie people with little to no regard of the valid negative associations that brings up for oppressed communities in the US.
As to what to do, I wouldn't tell you you should or shouldn't vote for Bernie, but you should know what voting for him can and can't accomplish and what role you play in that. I also think studying socialism/ists will help you immensely as it has some of the most heroic people of the civil rights movement and beyond.
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On March 06 2020 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2020 00:28 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 13:32 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
“Both are so bad they’re unacceptable” is a very different argument than “they’re basically identical,” though. I figured you would (rightly) point out that for all the atrocities of the Trump administration, there have certainly been many atrocities committed by the US prior to Trump, including many that were not stopped by the Obama administration. The morality here is complex, and I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to when it is reasonable to tolerate some atrocities in the interest of stopping others. But from where I’m sitting, it seems like anyone who doesn’t see a moral difference between the actions of Obama and Trump must be either powerfully uninformed or deeply apathetic to the suffering of other human beings. I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered. If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period. The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo. Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread. The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it. Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise? I'd put voting for Sanders at the 'right' flank of people that are potential comrades at the moment. I don't personally subscribe to electoralism in the US for a lot reasons but I can accept pretty much all the non-reformist reforms and harm reduction arguments. The part that I can't sign up for is his lingering neoimperialst positions/perspectives. I don't have to choose in the general (because of our broken electoral system) but I do have to decide if I'll vote for Sanders in the primary. In that, I'm basically at the point where I don't think electoralism works, but I don't see the harm in me voting for Sanders in the primary. The general is a different animal in that there is potential damage in basically a slightly better repeat of Obama where he kills countless innocent people around the world and neoliberals and progressives go back to brunch. Part of that comes from the constant FDR references by Bernie people with little to no regard of the valid negative associations that brings up for oppressed communities in the US. As to what to do, I wouldn't tell you you should or shouldn't vote for Bernie, but you should know what voting for him can and can't accomplish and what role you play in that. I also think studying socialism/ists will help you immensely as it has some of the most heroic people of the civil rights movement and beyond.
I think we’re maybe burying the lede, then. The bolded seems like the place to start. Do you oppose democratically electing our leaders? Or just the form we practice in the US?
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On March 06 2020 00:50 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2020 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2020 00:28 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 13:54 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
I don't think people literally see no difference, I think when people say that they are trying to express the argument I presented more or less. For many it is like choosing between drinking a shit shake with 50% shit and another with 75% shit or just taking your chances kicking the asses of the guys trying to force you to choose, even if you're outnumbered.
If you have good healthcare and dead palate maybe it's worth choking down another 50-50 shit shake to dodge the 75% one but eventually the people that always get stuck with the shit half of the shake are going to be willing to risk the 75% shake getting force fed to them to fight for no more shit shakes period.
The guys drinking the milkshake half complaining about some shit frothing up around their portion or them losing their cream above the shit layer are the people that I find to be powerfully uninformed or (as Baldwin puts it) 'moral monsters' Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me. You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both. I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo. Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread. The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it. Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise? I'd put voting for Sanders at the 'right' flank of people that are potential comrades at the moment. I don't personally subscribe to electoralism in the US for a lot reasons but I can accept pretty much all the non-reformist reforms and harm reduction arguments. The part that I can't sign up for is his lingering neoimperialst positions/perspectives. I don't have to choose in the general (because of our broken electoral system) but I do have to decide if I'll vote for Sanders in the primary. In that, I'm basically at the point where I don't think electoralism works, but I don't see the harm in me voting for Sanders in the primary. The general is a different animal in that there is potential damage in basically a slightly better repeat of Obama where he kills countless innocent people around the world and neoliberals and progressives go back to brunch. Part of that comes from the constant FDR references by Bernie people with little to no regard of the valid negative associations that brings up for oppressed communities in the US. As to what to do, I wouldn't tell you you should or shouldn't vote for Bernie, but you should know what voting for him can and can't accomplish and what role you play in that. I also think studying socialism/ists will help you immensely as it has some of the most heroic people of the civil rights movement and beyond. I think we’re maybe burying the lede, then. The bolded seems like the place to start. Do you oppose democratically electing our leaders? Or just the form we practice in the US?
The US. Democrats, all by themselves, failed to hold a genuine election in Iowa with 200k people, and the last 4 years have been wall to wall coverage of how Trump, Russia, and Ukraine threaten our democratic system and not a single piece of legislation or policy has been enacted to prevent it from happening again.
As has been mentioned before, people treat the next election like the sun coming up tomorrow, and it simply isn't that secure of a future. Faith in our democracy is just that, faith absent evidence. Even more the case for populations that still struggle to secure voting rights and basic constitutional protections (think Bloombergs massive systemic violation of Black men in NYC's 4th amendment).
Personally I have heavy Fredrick Douglass 4th of July vibes when it comes to elections in the US.
I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This [election*] is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..."
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Warren has dropped out of the race.
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If and when she chooses to endorse, the tide will almost certainly shift.
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On March 06 2020 01:12 farvacola wrote:
If and when she chooses to endorse, the tide will almost certainly shift.
Will it though? My gf is a prime example of a warren support that will now vote for biden even if warren endorses bernie. Anecdotal yes, but I don't think a lot of her support auto jumps to who she supports
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On March 06 2020 01:12 farvacola wrote:
If and when she chooses to endorse, the tide will almost certainly shift.
No endorsement seems like the politically logical move for her at this time unfortunately
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Yes, I know plenty that won’t follow her lead myself, but I think her endorsement of Bernie adds a touch of wonk that he’s been missing, and to Biden it adds a modicum of progressiveness. I think either would be material, which might be why she’ll choose not to endorse at all.
Edit: you may be right, Neb, but I’m gonna cross my fingers regardless 
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On March 06 2020 01:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2020 00:50 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2020 00:28 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:24 ChristianS wrote:
[quote]
Sure, we’re all making judgments between principled and pragmatic all the time. I’ve heard a lot of metaphors on the subject (most weirdly fixated on ingesting feces for whatever reason). One issue I have with many of these metaphors is that the cost is not merely unpleasant or unhygienic, and the suffering is not just mine. Another is that I don’t actually have even a vague idea of how to address the problems other than the choices presented to me.
You linked the Letter from Birmingham Jail earlier, and I think everyone ought to reread it once in a while. I did. And I don’t know what MLK would say about the world of today. Injustice is everywhere you look. I don’t know the answers to many of these injustices - either the right policy to ameliorate them, or the right political strategy to achieve that policy, or both.
I mostly just try to improve things where I can. And there’s a lot of terrible injustices I think would be lessened by ousting Trump. There’s also a lot that wouldn’t; if I had a good idea how to improve those too, I’d pursue it. I still think a Sanders administration would be a better route, and I’m still hoping for it - of course, you’ve decided that’s still too high a fecal content for you. But what else can we do besides make things better as best we know how? MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo. Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread. The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it. Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise? I'd put voting for Sanders at the 'right' flank of people that are potential comrades at the moment. I don't personally subscribe to electoralism in the US for a lot reasons but I can accept pretty much all the non-reformist reforms and harm reduction arguments. The part that I can't sign up for is his lingering neoimperialst positions/perspectives. I don't have to choose in the general (because of our broken electoral system) but I do have to decide if I'll vote for Sanders in the primary. In that, I'm basically at the point where I don't think electoralism works, but I don't see the harm in me voting for Sanders in the primary. The general is a different animal in that there is potential damage in basically a slightly better repeat of Obama where he kills countless innocent people around the world and neoliberals and progressives go back to brunch. Part of that comes from the constant FDR references by Bernie people with little to no regard of the valid negative associations that brings up for oppressed communities in the US. As to what to do, I wouldn't tell you you should or shouldn't vote for Bernie, but you should know what voting for him can and can't accomplish and what role you play in that. I also think studying socialism/ists will help you immensely as it has some of the most heroic people of the civil rights movement and beyond. I think we’re maybe burying the lede, then. The bolded seems like the place to start. Do you oppose democratically electing our leaders? Or just the form we practice in the US? The US. Democrats, all by themselves, failed to hold a genuine election in Iowa with 200k people, and the last 4 years have been wall to wall coverage of how Trump, Russia, and Ukraine threaten our democratic system and not a single piece of legislation or policy has been enacted to prevent it from happening again. As has been mentioned before, people treat the next election like the sun coming up tomorrow, and it simply isn't that secure of a future. Faith in our democracy is just that, faith absent evidence. Even more the case for populations that still struggle to secure voting rights and basic constitutional protections (think Bloombergs massive systemic violation of Black men in NYC's 4th amendment). Personally I have heavy Fredrick Douglass 4th of July vibes when it comes to elections in the US. Show nested quote +I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This [election*] is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..."
Okay, so if I’m understanding you right, the goal is still enacting governments through free and fair elections, you just don’t think we actually have those in the US? That wasn’t how I interpreted “I don’t subscribe to electoralism in the US,” but it makes more sense.
Okay, so if the government isn’t giving us fair elections, but instead fixates on offering us choices between different percentages of feces, how do we enact positive change? Possibly relevant to the question: I would submit, and I’m not sure if you’ll disagree with this or not, that however fairly an election was administered, the changes your advocating probably would not have majority support in the US. JimmiC would probably like us to pause to enumerate your platform more specifically, but for now suffice to say it is decidedly socialist in ends, and decidedly not incrementalist in means; neither seems likely to enjoy 51% support here.
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Canada8988 Posts
On March 06 2020 01:19 farvacola wrote:Yes, I know plenty that won’t follow her lead myself, but I think her endorsement of Bernie adds a touch of wonk that he’s been missing, and to Biden it adds a modicum of progressiveness. I think either would be material, which might be why she’ll choose not to endorse at all. Edit: you may be right, Neb, but I’m gonna cross my fingers regardless
Endorsing Sanders may not even be a bad move if she want to be Biden VP down the line, maybe it would make her more of a unity pick
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Norway28598 Posts
yeah honestly her endorsing bernie and then being biden's VP appeals a lot to me. But iunno if they'd manage to sell it well enough.
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On March 06 2020 01:24 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2020 01:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2020 00:50 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2020 00:28 ChristianS wrote:On March 06 2020 00:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 23:54 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 20:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 14:55 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 14:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
MLK was pursuing a poor people's campaign and looking toward socialism for those answers just before the US government conspired to assassinate him. I'd start looking for answers to those questions there or grapple with the idea you may not care enough to look. “Government conspired to assassinate MLK” sounds like a rabbit hole we probably shouldn’t go down right now. Regarding “not caring enough,” I think I disagree with the framing. I mean, what are you suggesting exactly? Go read Marx? Fanon? Foucault? I’m not a politician, or a political scientist, or a leader of a social movement. I’m just a voter. I barely have time for books these days, and my background is in chemistry. Do you really think educating myself on the tenets of socialism will help address global injustice? I’d be willing to give it a shot. I haven’t pursued it yet because I thought it was unlikely to yield much of use to me or anyone else, but obviously without knowing much about it I’m not in a strong position to assess how much value it would bring. The US government conspired to assassinate MLK. After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. thekingcenter.orgIf that's not enough we know without a doubt the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide, illegally surveilling him, and so on. As for socialism, it was critical to the civil rights movement for one. As a source of understanding, method of action, and a reason for the US government to destroy your life. "We must mark [MLK] now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote I recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a good start but I promise being "just a voter" isn't good enough for anything more than maintaining the status quo path which promises certain doom. So yes, I do believe you educating yourself on socialism will make you more capable of joining in solidarity with millions of people around the globe in addressing global injustices beyond voting for lesser evils. I’m trying to decide if I think it’s dishonest to imply 12 jurors reached a verdict to that effect beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal case. Farv is the law guy, and if he had made the same implication, I think it would have been dishonest. For you, I think you maybe just don’t think the distinction matters all that much. But the effect is greatly overstating your evidence for rhetorical effect, and (at best) expecting your readers to look up the caveats themselves or (at worst) hoping they’ll just believe you at face value and never check your work. You failed to mention that the 12 jurors were in a civil case against a private individual, not against the government. That meant that a) the burden of proof was a lot lower, and b) that no one was allowed to present evidence to contradict the allegations about the government’s involvement. I believe the conclusion of that case was an award of $100 to the King family. None of that proves the government didn’t kill him, of course, and I’m not well-acquainted with the timeline, forensics, etc. of the case. It’s absolutely true that the US government did a lot of fucked up stuff in response to the civil rights movement and King specifically. Hoover in particular, as I understand, seemed to have an almost personal vendetta. But when you overstate your evidence like that, it makes me think I’m being sold something. Anyway, like I said, probably not a rabbit hole worth going down, particularly when mods have warned you about conspiracy theories before. "The FBI conspired to try to get him to kill himself, so they definitely tried to make him dead." "The US government was conspiring to end his life and then he was killed" are alternative ways I could put it but it is a silly thing to argue imo. Sure, I’m eager to drop it. Iirc Hoover sent him a letter containing blackmail photos obtained from their illegal surveillance, and threatened to release them if he didn’t kill himself. If you wanna say “at that point it’s of little importance whether they actually paid a guy to pull the trigger,” I have no problem with that. And anyway there’s surely more immediately relevant things to discuss in a politics thread. The point was that the US government designated him the most dangerous negro in the country and cited communism as a reason. If you want to address global injustice in a serious way I strongly suggest you look into socialism, because voting for people like Biden isn't it. Nor Sanders, apparently. Perhaps I’m jumping ahead in my socialist reading, but permit me one spoiler: what, then, would you have us do with our votes? Not vote at all? Write in a socialist we know has zero possibility of winning? Vote Trump to accelerate capitalism’s demise? I'd put voting for Sanders at the 'right' flank of people that are potential comrades at the moment. I don't personally subscribe to electoralism in the US for a lot reasons but I can accept pretty much all the non-reformist reforms and harm reduction arguments. The part that I can't sign up for is his lingering neoimperialst positions/perspectives. I don't have to choose in the general (because of our broken electoral system) but I do have to decide if I'll vote for Sanders in the primary. In that, I'm basically at the point where I don't think electoralism works, but I don't see the harm in me voting for Sanders in the primary. The general is a different animal in that there is potential damage in basically a slightly better repeat of Obama where he kills countless innocent people around the world and neoliberals and progressives go back to brunch. Part of that comes from the constant FDR references by Bernie people with little to no regard of the valid negative associations that brings up for oppressed communities in the US. As to what to do, I wouldn't tell you you should or shouldn't vote for Bernie, but you should know what voting for him can and can't accomplish and what role you play in that. I also think studying socialism/ists will help you immensely as it has some of the most heroic people of the civil rights movement and beyond. I think we’re maybe burying the lede, then. The bolded seems like the place to start. Do you oppose democratically electing our leaders? Or just the form we practice in the US? The US. Democrats, all by themselves, failed to hold a genuine election in Iowa with 200k people, and the last 4 years have been wall to wall coverage of how Trump, Russia, and Ukraine threaten our democratic system and not a single piece of legislation or policy has been enacted to prevent it from happening again. As has been mentioned before, people treat the next election like the sun coming up tomorrow, and it simply isn't that secure of a future. Faith in our democracy is just that, faith absent evidence. Even more the case for populations that still struggle to secure voting rights and basic constitutional protections (think Bloombergs massive systemic violation of Black men in NYC's 4th amendment). Personally I have heavy Fredrick Douglass 4th of July vibes when it comes to elections in the US. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This [election*] is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..." Okay, so if I’m understanding you right, the goal is still enacting governments through free and fair elections, you just don’t think we actually have those in the US? That wasn’t how I interpreted “I don’t subscribe to electoralism in the US,” but it makes more sense. Okay, so if the government isn’t giving us fair elections, but instead fixates on offering us choices between different percentages of feces, how do we enact positive change? Possibly relevant to the question: I would submit, and I’m not sure if you’ll disagree with this or not, that however fairly an election was administered, the changes your advocating probably would not have majority support in the US. JimmiC would probably like us to pause to enumerate your platform more specifically, but for now suffice to say it is decidedly socialist in ends, and decidedly not incrementalist in means; neither seems likely to enjoy 51% support here.
I think you have to take a position on whether you're participating in genuine elections or not. If not, then you have to replace the government and the corrupt elections aren't a viable option.
The people that get that far are ready to begin figuring out what is a viable option. Lots of literature and various opinions on this within socialist thought but my position is in support of mass action, worker ownership, and self-defense.
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