US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4144

On February 14 2024 12:42 GreenHorizons wrote:

Not committing before election day to voting for Biden (or Trump ever obviously) is just about the absolute lowest effort thing one could do to demonstrate their opposition to supporting an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign. It's not particularly effective, but it's basically the bare minimum (at least outside of battleground states) for me to take the assertion they don't support an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign much more seriously than I would a Trump voter saying they oppose Trump's bigotry.

One point of this line of discussion was to demonstrate that Democrats and their voters are knowingly following electoralism to their own demise so long as they can hopefully slow it down by sacrificing people outside of their immediate circles of compassion, and they have no backstop for when it gets to them and their loved ones.

They will follow "lesser evilism" until even the illusion of choice is taken from them and they are effectively just obedient implements of a suicidally greedy capitalist hegemony.

Like I've said before, when people recognize the deplorable futility of that, I'd recommend pursuing revolutionary socialism instead.

On February 14 2024 14:48 ChristianS wrote:

So does refusing to bubble in the ballot actually help anyone?Like, materially make their situation better in any way? At least the “call your representative” folks have a conceivable, if improbable, causal story for how calling my congressman might help somebody in Gaza. Just not bubbling in the ballot come November, though? Nobody’s offered me a causal story and you don’t seem to think that one exists.

I don’t need to “demonstrate my opposition” or convince you I’m better than a Trump voter. That would make this about me and my ego. Anyway, as you’ve repeatedly pointed out, this kind of “vote shaming” isn’t actually responsive to the real issues and it’s not rhetorically effective, so why do you persist? If we’re in agreement that my vote isn’t going to solve the deeper problems here whether I cast it or not, why are we still talking about what I should do with it? Surely it’s inconsequential either way, no?

If I had an idea for what people could be doing instead of voting that would actually be responsive to the most pressing issues of the day, I’d spend my time telling people about all the details of that idea and how to get involved, rather than what to do with their meaningless ballot. Of course I don’t have an idea like that, but you claim to (although I still wonder if good opsec dictates you can’t get too specific with us about it).

On February 14 2024 15:49 Fleetfeet wrote:
I do love the theory that GH is some masked V-for-vendetta character frustratedly posting on the internet waiting for people to DM him saying "You know what, you're right, we SHOULD blow up the parliament building. How do we do that?". That's a funny image to me, and kinda sorta connected to reality? Not that I think GH wants to blow something up, but that V lives in a dystopian world where the a fascist authoritarian government has taken over and the idea of watching V have conversations on MSN messenger with people being like "The government is fascist and authoritarian, we need to do something" and people responding with "Nah it's not thaaat bad we can still vote" seems like a good skit.

I think that GH believes the US is broken beyond repair, and most people here don't. Most people believe it is broken, yes, but not beyond repair. Most of the disconnect comes from GH trying different angles to demonstrate that the US is broken beyond repair but people not being willing to accept that. He's listed getting people to accept that it's broken beyond repair as step one towards revolution, and this vote/not vote does feel like it's still just pushing people towards that idea.

(For clarity, I do not think the US is currently fascist and authoritarian.)

On February 14 2024 15:49 Fleetfeet wrote:
I do love the theory that GH is some masked V-for-vendetta character frustratedly posting on the internet waiting for people to DM him saying "You know what, you're right, we SHOULD blow up the parliament building. How do we do that?". That's a funny image to me, and kinda sorta connected to reality? Not that I think GH wants to blow something up, but that V lives in a dystopian world where the a fascist authoritarian government has taken over and the idea of watching V have conversations on MSN messenger with people being like "The government is fascist and authoritarian, we need to do something" and people responding with "Nah it's not thaaat bad we can still vote" seems like a good skit.

I think that GH believes the US is broken beyond repair, and most people here don't. Most people believe it is broken, yes, but not beyond repair. Most of the disconnect comes from GH trying different angles to demonstrate that the US is broken beyond repair but people not being willing to accept that. He's listed getting people to accept that it's broken beyond repair as step one towards revolution, and this vote/not vote does feel like it's still just pushing people towards that idea.

(For clarity, I do not think the US is currently fascist and authoritarian.)

On February 14 2024 15:49 Fleetfeet wrote:
I do love the theory that GH is some masked V-for-vendetta character frustratedly posting on the internet waiting for people to DM him saying "You know what, you're right, we SHOULD blow up the parliament building. How do we do that?". That's a funny image to me, and kinda sorta connected to reality? Not that I think GH wants to blow something up, but that V lives in a dystopian world where the a fascist authoritarian government has taken over and the idea of watching V have conversations on MSN messenger with people being like "The government is fascist and authoritarian, we need to do something" and people responding with "Nah it's not thaaat bad we can still vote" seems like a good skit.

I think that GH believes the US is broken beyond repair, and most people here don't. Most people believe it is broken, yes, but not beyond repair. Most of the disconnect comes from GH trying different angles to demonstrate that the US is broken beyond repair but people not being willing to accept that. He's listed getting people to accept that it's broken beyond repair as step one towards revolution, and this vote/not vote does feel like it's still just pushing people towards that idea.

(For clarity, I do not think the US is currently fascist and authoritarian.)

On February 14 2024 17:17 WombaT wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +

On February 14 2024 18:13 Gorsameth wrote:
I think plenty here would classify it as broken beyond repair. It certainly shows no signs of fixing itself and is visibly deteriorating, but that doesn't mean that violently tearing it down is going to lead to something better, in fact history is rather full of examples of it getting worse, despite people's best intensions at the onset.

On February 14 2024 16:49 GreenHorizons wrote:

lol.

Yeah, bolded part is probably the most concise description of what's happening. I've attempted to use Democrats insistence on voting for someone engaged in what ~50% of their own party identifies as genocide to bridge that disconnect, unfortunately unsuccessfully.

I should take it at face value that there is nothing too heinous for Democrats and their supporters to vote for.

I suppose the next rational tack would be to investigate how divorced they can get from meaningfully voting before they cross the threshold into "beyond repair", if ever.

On February 14 2024 16:10 GreenHorizons wrote:

I mean it's one less person that voted for a guy sending weapons to massacre them. No one thinks it's a magic bullet, but like I said, it's probably one of the lowest effort bars for someone genuinely opposed to ethnic cleansing campaigns to clear (outside of battleground states). That the Democrat party and their voters can't clear that bar is tragic, but also by design. It's not about you, you just happen to be included in the "and their voters" currently and made the accompanying arguments.

You have an idea, I've told you about it and how to get involved. I've discussed details and the offer still stands for just about anyone in the context of a Freirean inspired dialogue. What you (and most reformists) want is a tik tok explaining a-z in 60 seconds how revolutionary socialism leads to utopia by the next election with 100% certainty. It's absolutely a bad faith attempt to rationalize complicity in the status quo from my perspective.

I suppose I should also remind people that it's also not about "instead of voting" it's about recognizing the limitations and capacities of voting to bring about necessary changes. Hence the bit about non-reformist reforms.

The three-page letter, which threatens to cause further divisions in the bloc over Israel, has demanded a review of the EU-Israel association agreement that came into force in 2000 and is the main basis for trade ties.

“We ask that the commission undertake an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the EU-Israel association agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship; and if it considers that it is in breach, that it proposes appropriate measures to the council to consider,” the letter said.

On February 15 2024 01:15 EnDeR_ wrote:
Well I'll be damned, it looks like the EU might start to do something about Israel after all, link from the guardian



I guess planning an attack where the majority of Palestinians fled finally crossed a threshold somewhere. Will the US follow suit so close to the election? It sounds unlikely, but maybe we can hope.

On February 14 2024 17:17 WombaT wrote:

Haha, the climax of V for Vendetta 2 Electric Boogoloo is just some really intensely shot, 20 minute long fight scene consisting of cutting back and forth between our hero GH and whoever the villain is as they exchange heated posts on TL. Done in the style of every single 90s ‘I’m in.’ hacking scenes.

In a more serious but much, much less fun note I must say I share a lot of that fatalism, capitalism is as entrenched as it’s ever been and rather the root of many an issue, even as its flaws are biting pretty hard. Without going into TLDR territory, those flaws are nothing new, but for a pretty sizeable chunk of time ‘a rising tide raises all boats’ was somewhat true. It’s certainly not the case currently, and few parties anywhere, to my knowledge actually have policies, even on paper to deal with these issues, even within a redistributive capitalist framework, never mind the dreaded s word.

Unless you have medical issues that your particular healthcare system is fucking you on, you’re an actively persecuted minority or you’re fuck off rich I’d wager that housing prices continuing on a decades-long trajectory of far outstripping both inflation and real wage increases is likely the absolute single most impactful issue of the day for almost everyone. Well, it suits landlords from the individual to the culture capital level I guess, but everyone else. And yet, remarkably few policy pushes here, you might get the odd house building pledge but that’s kind of a band aid as solutions go. There’ll be a few more houses going, it’s not going to meaningfully push prices back down.

People may disagree with my assertion, but I’m pretty confident in it. A system is pretty fundamentally broken if it doesn’t even attempt to tackle what (I believe) is probably the single biggest socioeconomic issue of our time, at least in terms of a lived experience and quality of life. The other biggest issue, which is less immediately apparent, nor important for many is of course climate change, which were also doing a pretty shit job at dealing with.

If not quite beyond repair, it does somewhat intrigue me as to why America in particular is fucked in an almost unique manner, and has problems unique to it.

With the giant caveat that of course there were many, many issues regarding minorities, the US used to be ahead, or at least on par with European countries, Canada etc in quite a few respects. Much of it idealised of course, but it used to be a country many looked at as aspirational, to be envied even. But over the decades it’s sort of drifted on its own, particular trajectory of dysfunction.

I’m curious as to why this is, and really can’t put a finger on it. Other countries have huge cultural differences between regions, or even households. Others have flawed political structures, ethnic tensions or any number of other commonalities, but yet the US somehow ends up with a lot of quirks that make it a special idiosyncratic snowflake amongst vaguely comparable countries.

Bit of a ramble the last part, but it’s a question that continually exercises me and I’ve spent quite a bit pondering, I’m interested to hear what y’all think on that particular topic.

On February 14 2024 23:55 ChristianS wrote:

Jesus, if you think what I want is a TikTok you’re definitely not understanding me. Nor do I need “a-z in 60 seconds” or “by the next election with 100% certainty.” There are people out there trying to make that kind of content, but generally speaking I think something so grandiose in objective and microscopic in complexity is going to be of limited value. I do, however, think mass political education is a necessary component of any bigger necessary changes or “non-reformist reforms.” To my limited understanding, I think Freire and maybe even Lenin would agree with that.

Probably not 60 second TikToks you watch at Starbucks while waiting for your coffee on the way to work. Something more careful and long-form, while remaining approachable, might be promising; “LeftTube” video essays are trying for something like that. Even then, though, I think it’s apparent as you watch a Shaun or HBomberguy video that this isn’t a path to revolution. They’re mostly entertainment; they talk about capitalism causing society’s ills and play the Soviet national anthem sometimes as a joke, but ultimately their prescriptions don’t amount to much more than “somebody oughta do something about that capitalism thingy.”

I can’t help but wonder: would you consider it a prerequisite of a Freirean dialogue that the participants have actually read Freire? It’s understandable that the answer would be yes – how can they do it if they don’t even know what it is? – but it’s also hard to imagine a political movement gaining traction which requires every member to have read and understood what I think is a pretty abstract and difficult-to-comprehend book.

I have to hope the answer is no, not every participant need read the book first. If I’m not mistaken, Freire himself was holding discussions with Brazilian workers to promote their conscientização and to my knowledge, he was not demanding they read the book first. That’s not to say I know how to hold such a discussion myself (I think DPB might be a better candidate to read and understand Pedagogy of the Oppressed than me); but it would be encouraging if the program we’re recommending doesn’t require quite a bit of college-level reading from every participant as a prerequisite.

One question that I have for all those "highly literate" academics who find Giroux's and Freire's discourse so difficult to understand is, Why is it that a sixteen-year-old boy and a poor, "semiliterate" woman could so easily understand and connect with the complexity of both Freire and Girouxs language and ideas, and the academics, who should be the most literate, find the language incomprehensible?

As a matter of fact, this is so important to us, it’s so important to us, that a person has to go through a six-week of our political education, before they can consider themself a member of the Party, able to even run out ideology for the Party.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.

To surmount the situation of oppression, people must first critically recognize its causes, so that through transforming action they can create a new situation, one which makes possible the pursuit of a fuller humanity. But the struggle to be more fully human has already begun in the authentic struggle to transform the situation. Although the situation of oppression is a dehumanized and dehumanizing totality affecting both the oppressors and those whom they oppress, it is the latter who must, from their stifled humanity, wage for both the struggle for a fuller humanity; the oppressor, who is himself dehumanized because he dehumanizes others, is unable to lead this struggle.

However, the oppressed, who have adapted to the structure of domination in which they are immersed, and have become resigned to it, are inhibited from waging the struggle for freedom so long as they feel incapable of running the risks it requires. Moreover, their struggle for freedom threatens not only the oppressor, but also their own oppressed comrades who are fearful of still greater repression. When they discover within themselves the yearning to be free, they perceive that this yearning can be transformed into reality only when the same yearning is aroused in their comrades. But while dominated by the fear of freedom they refuse to appeal to others, or to listen to the appeals of others, or even to the appeals of their own conscience. They prefer gregariousness to authentic comradeship; they prefer the security of conformity with their state of unfreedom to the creative communion produced by freedom and even the very pursuit of freedom.

The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account.

On February 15 2024 05:18 BlackJack wrote:


A couple days ago I went into San Francisco and hailed a driverless taxi. A white electric Jaguar i-Pace pulled up with nobody in the car. I got into the back seat and the car drove itself to the restaurant I wanted to go to, found a safe spot to pull over and then let us out.

We live in the best times and everything is amazing. People that want to insist that everything is shite and broken beyond repair are living in their own delusions. Are there some issues with wage stagnation, squeezing of the middle class, housing affordability? Sure, there's no such thing as utopia. It's also not true that housing isn't being addressed. For example in California there were 56 housing bills signed into law in 2023 designed to reduce burdensome regulations and permitting processes and increase production. We're also seeing an uptick in union activity with multiple high profile strikes. The UAW won a 25% raise over 4 years which is nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway I never understood people that lament about so called "late-stage capitalism" and how everything is terrible and we need a revolution. Globally you can see decades long downward trends in poverty, hunger, infant mortality. A lot of it spurred on by new tech and innovation. The U.S. more than any other country contributes the most to new tech and innovation. Somehow I'm supposed to be sold on the idea that the U.S. is the worst offender in this capitalist nightmare and in dire need of massive reform. No thanks.

On February 15 2024 05:18 BlackJack wrote:


A couple days ago I went into San Francisco and hailed a driverless taxi. A white electric Jaguar i-Pace pulled up with nobody in the car. I got into the back seat and the car drove itself to the restaurant I wanted to go to, found a safe spot to pull over and then let us out.

We live in the best times and everything is amazing. People that want to insist that everything is shite and broken beyond repair are living in their own delusions. Are there some issues with wage stagnation, squeezing of the middle class, housing affordability? Sure, there's no such thing as utopia. It's also not true that housing isn't being addressed. For example in California there were 56 housing bills signed into law in 2023 designed to reduce burdensome regulations and permitting processes and increase production. We're also seeing an uptick in union activity with multiple high profile strikes. The UAW won a 25% raise over 4 years which is nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway I never understood people that lament about so called "late-stage capitalism" and how everything is terrible and we need a revolution. Globally you can see decades long downward trends in poverty, hunger, infant mortality. A lot of it spurred on by new tech and innovation. The U.S. more than any other country contributes the most to new tech and innovation. Somehow I'm supposed to be sold on the idea that the U.S. is the worst offender in this capitalist nightmare and in dire need of massive reform. No thanks.

On February 15 2024 03:46 Kreuger wrote:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/14/politics/house-intel-chairman-serious-national-security-threat/index.html

WashingtonCNN — 

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner has made information concerning a “serious national security threat” available to all members of Congress to review, the committee said on Wednesday.

One of the sources who has seen the intelligence confirmed that “it is, in fact, a highly concerning and destabilizing” Russian capability “that we were recently made aware of.”

Earlier Wednesday, Turner sent his Congressional colleagues a letter saying the urgent matter is “with regard to a destabilizing foreign military capability.”