US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4105

On December 16 2023 18:44 Gorsameth wrote:
Are we already back to "communism is great, just no one has ever done it properly"? What does the Cold War have to do with socialism? The USSR was not socialist.

The closest we have to socialism is probably the Nordic social democracy and I'm reasonably sure they didn't get there via a revolution.

Where in the world did we get actual socialism, and not a dictatorship or oligarchy by a different name, following a revolution by the people?

On December 16 2023 23:46 WombaT wrote:

Drone pretty much said what I was going to say. But better, as per usual!

I was really focusing on the pushback element, regardless of one’s feelings on socialism I find that element rather difficult to dispute.

I mean in retrospect what went on behind the Iron Curtain wasn’t exactly the socialist ideal sure, but it very much was the rationale underpinning the Cold War, especially at the onset. Socialism was very much in vogue at the time compared to now, and capitalism was way less entrenched, nowadays for better or worse that question of system is largely settled versus then.

As Drone alludes to as well, a lot of what we take for granted now, and attribute to the wheels of democracy turning and working, can actually be attributed to agitation, and sometimes violent agitation too.

An institution like the EU has capitalism baked into its core, with certain moves such as nationalising certain institutions being verboten.

So it makes it very difficult to envisage an incremental building towards socialism. If you can pass through the already almost insurmountable barrier of convincing a domestic audience of its merits, there’s a very high likelihood on past history that there will be a ton of external pressure placed on you to revert socialist policies.

So, good luck with that. I think most countries in my orbit have room to incrementally move to something better and more in line with my politics, but not to full socialism, or even particularly close.

Short of a real catastrophic collapse of capitalism that makes 2008 look like a minor blip, where things are in such flux that many nations, including the powerful change tack to socialism, I just don’t see a pathway to it short of some small, relatively unimportant nation saying fuck it and having their revolution, and being too small for it to be worth crushing by external forces.

Incremental fascism, a different kettle of fish, there are numerous, numerous examples of it, and even today it’s perfectly acceptable to enable such regimes provided they leave your business interests well alone. Or theocracies, or other totalitarian regimes are courted if they’ve got the moolah.

Incremental socialism, to my knowledge has never actually happened. It either gets squashed when moving in that direction, or it’s instituted by a revolution that in turn becomes non-egalitarian to survive being squashed.

This is GH’s wheelhouse and he may have an example I’m unaware of, but I’d wager he doesn’t if we consider it’s both an issue he clearly cares a lot about, and how pessimistic he is about a transition to socialism through our current political structures.

On December 17 2023 00:09 Gorsameth wrote:
Ok so your point was more that people will fight against Socialism, which is indeed supported by history rather then then history proving that revolutions actually leading to genuine socialism.

I can agree with that.

On December 17 2023 04:24 BlackJack wrote:
The mayor of Boston Michelle Wu got into a controversy after it was revealed they were hosting a no whites holiday party. In other words everyone is invited except for the whites. She ended up apologizing, not for having the party but because the invite accidentally got sent to the white members of the city council that weren’t invited.

The former mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot on the anniversary of her inauguration decided she would be granting one-on-one interviews only to reporters that were not white. She felt there were already too many white people in the Chicago press corp.

In California the Democrats put forth a proposition to repeal a law making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race. You see, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race in California on things like school admission and the Democrats want to make it legal so they can discriminate on the basis of race.

Joe Biden fulfilled his promise of nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court with his first appointment, as did Gavin Newsom of California who promised to nominate a black woman to Sen Diane Feinstein’s seat. Other races need not apply.

These are not leftist college students. These are major players in the Democratic Party and they are unashamed by their racist acts. I’m wondering if this is a uniquely American thing where a major party is proudly announcing that the amount of melanin in your skin is the key decider of who they want to nominate, promote, or even have at a holiday party.

Edit, sources:

+ Show Spoiler +

On December 17 2023 06:25 KwarK wrote:

You really don’t get it. And that’s okay. Not everyone has to understand everything. Don’t worry about it.

On December 17 2023 06:48 WombaT wrote:

What’s to understand? Please do enlighten us if there’s something we’re missing. It does seem on a surface level to somewhat indicate what BJ said, but I’ll concede I haven’t delved too deep.

On December 17 2023 07:03 micronesia wrote:
Another issue is equating hosting an extra party for "person of color" colleagues with hosting a "no whites" party. Mathematically, they are the same thing from set theory perspective, but in practice they are not. If Boston only hosted one elected official party this holiday season, and they invited everyone except for the white colleagues, then that would definitely be newsworthy. If Boston hosts a party for all elected officials, and an extra smaller one for a subset of colleagues, that's not really newsworthy. It makes for a great soundbite though when you take it out of context.

The only reason to go to that extra party is if you are a person of color. That's the whole point.

edit: That extra party shouldn't offer lots of advantages over the main party (other than the camaraderie among fellow persons of color) though or else it's potentially unfair. Holding the "all colleagues" party in a Motel 6 parking lot but the more selective party at the Four Seasons ballroom deserves scrutiny.

On December 17 2023 07:32 BlackJack wrote:


It’s odd that you acknowledge that mathematically this party is the same as a “no whites” party but in practice it’s not, and then your reasoning is that there are other parties where everyone is invited including the whites. That makes no sense. The other parties have no bearing on whether or not this particular one is a no whites party. So it is indeed a “no whites” party both mathematically and in practice but you just think it’s not so bad since there are other parties where everyone can attend. Seems like rationalization that you for sure would not offer in a million years if the excluded race were not the whites, although you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

On December 17 2023 07:32 BlackJack wrote:


It’s odd that you acknowledge that mathematically this party is the same as a “no whites” party but in practice it’s not, and then your reasoning is that there are other parties where everyone is invited including the whites. That makes no sense. The other parties have no bearing on whether or not this particular one is a no whites party. So it is indeed a “no whites” party both mathematically and in practice but you just think it’s not so bad since there are other parties where everyone can attend. Seems like rationalization that you for sure would not offer in a million years if the excluded race were not the whites, although you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

On December 17 2023 07:38 Gorsameth wrote:
So, Whites having "all whites" parties is ok, but having a "no whites" party isn't?

And since I don't think your getting the analogy, there are a whole lot of "all white" parties happening all the time because the white people in charge simply don't hire any non-white people who could then come to their parties.

To stop the "all whites" parties you first have to actively discriminate by forcing some non-white people into the eligible circles in the first place. Because we can see the (un)natural order of things by looking out the window for the past 2+ millenia, when giving the chance the default for the western world is pretty clearly "all white"

On December 17 2023 07:58 Elroi wrote:

That's not an analogy at all. No one would be upset if the party just happened to be all black. It was the discrimination based on race that made people who don't like racism annoyed.

On a related note, I hope the Claudine Gay debacle at Harvard will make important institutions think twice before hiring based on race in the future. Just get the person best suited for the job.

On December 17 2023 08:25 JimmiC wrote:

It's pretty common at conferences and has been for ever, there is usually break offs for young (rookie), old (veteran), women, people of colour and all sorts of other things.

On December 17 2023 08:25 JimmiC wrote:

It's pretty common at conferences and has been for ever, there is usually break offs for young (rookie), old (veteran), women, people of colour and all sorts of other things.

On December 17 2023 07:55 KwarK wrote:

This gets us back to my point. You don’t get it and that’s okay. Not everyone needs to understand everything.