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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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Well I kind of set that up as a preface for the second half of the paragraph, but yes, Locke really is very near the core of the philosophical debate you mentioned earlier. And I suppose within the left-left debate as well, to an extent.
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On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. Show nested quote +You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy.
If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?
I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much.
Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems.
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On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems.
No-one knows until there is serious effort put into it.
Unfortunately this seems like a case of slow moving academic interest to me. Leftist theory that is taught in universities is working at solving the big problems of the 70s and 80s still, and really our needs have moved on from that. Its absolutely possible (necessary?) to develop a language for criticism of the fundamental flaws of *whatever we are calling it* (capitalism, neoliberalism etc.) that works for the population, without creating the deep divisions that stop those criticisms from being effective.
Look at the language around racism and identity politics now, for example. People just weren't really thinking in those terms in the mainstream 30-40 years ago. Society is in a different place now, but the leftist political critique of society hasn't changed, improved or updated itself.
I would say that contrary to the idea of voters not being able to engage with the required complexity of such a critique, the critique is necessary to be able to engage the voters with the real life problems that they face today, in a way that makes sense in relation to society now.
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On August 13 2018 09:28 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 09:18 Mohdoo wrote:On August 13 2018 08:53 JimmiC wrote:
Has any country ever tried running companies as just a major shareholder/board of directors. So it would be run privately but the government would get much of the profits? Isn't this kinda what China does? Could be, I really have no idea how china works. Communism and billionaire's does not compute. But possibly.
China isn't communist. Hasn't been for about 30+ years at this point. China is about as communist as USA at this point in time.
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The ruling party can call themselves whatever they like, they are still not communist or anything close to it. That they are a totalitarian state and USA is a democracy doesn't change that China is not communist and hasn't been for longer than most people here have been adults. If you can write that China is communist, you can write that USA is communist, that's how far both are from communism, how ridiculous calling China as communist is.
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On August 13 2018 08:53 JimmiC wrote:
Has any country ever tried running companies as just a major shareholder/board of directors. So it would be run privately but the government would get much of the profits?
Not sure I understand the question exactly but having governments run companies is relatively common in Europe. Portugal in 1974 had a left-leaning revolution where the communists briefly ruled - long enough to nationalize roughly a third of the economy. You had public banks, beers companies, utility companies and even barber shops. In the private companies that remained, unions now assumed they had a lot more power and were the de facto management in some of them. A large chunk of agricultural fields were also nationalized. The collectivist fervor even affected universities, where students now assumed they should collectively decide what grades they should get and so on. The beginning of the end of the party came in 1976 when the communists only got 14% of the vote and then in 1985 when finally the constitution made it possible to privatize those businesses again.
The economy didn't collapse overnight, but we needed two IMF bailouts shortly after. Wasn't pretty, but for some those were the days.
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North Korea's official Name is "Democratic republic of North Korea".
How a country or party calls itself, really doesn't matter in the least.
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On August 13 2018 17:50 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems. No-one knows until there is serious effort put into it. Unfortunately this seems like a case of slow moving academic interest to me. Leftist theory that is taught in universities is working at solving the big problems of the 70s and 80s still, and really our needs have moved on from that. Its absolutely possible (necessary?) to develop a language for criticism of the fundamental flaws of *whatever we are calling it* (capitalism, neoliberalism etc.) that works for the population, without creating the deep divisions that stop those criticisms from being effective. Look at the language around racism and identity politics now, for example. People just weren't really thinking in those terms in the mainstream 30-40 years ago. Society is in a different place now, but the leftist political critique of society hasn't changed, improved or updated itself. I would say that contrary to the idea of voters not being able to engage with the required complexity of such a critique, the critique is necessary to be able to engage the voters with the real life problems that they face today, in a way that makes sense in relation to society now.
It's not that the voters are too dumb to understand it; I think the voters would believe that you don't care as much about their problems as the other politician who focuses on the current political leftist agenda.
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France I beleive holds a lot of equity in loads of nominally private companies. However they do tend to interfere and politicize it quite a bit recently. So not a good example. Quite a few western countries partially own defence companies, or at least used to. However they would also actively promote these companies as well, so not a good example either. I guess Norway and their massive sovereign wealth fund is the best example. As sovereign wealth funds go, their government doesn't seem to interfere, though recently they seem to be pushing an environmental agenda.
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Talking pure microeconomics, public companies would generate the most public good by having the lowest possible prices, not by having profits to finance the rest of the government. Oil rich countries often use public oil companies to finance the government (and usually insane levels of corruption - see Venezuela, Brazil, Angola, probably middle eastern countries?).
In the EU governments are prohibited from favoring public companies (or any other company for that matter) in any way against private competition btw.
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On August 13 2018 22:33 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 08:53 JimmiC wrote:
Has any country ever tried running companies as just a major shareholder/board of directors. So it would be run privately but the government would get much of the profits? Not sure I understand the question exactly but having governments run companies is relatively common in Europe. Portugal in 1974 had a left-leaning revolution where the communists briefly ruled - long enough to nationalize roughly a third of the economy. You had public banks, beers companies, utility companies and even barber shops. In the private companies that remained, unions now assumed they had a lot more power and were the de facto management in some of them. A large chunk of agricultural fields were also nationalized. The collectivist fervor even affected universities, where students now assumed they should collectively decide what grades they should get and so on. The beginning of the end of the party came in 1976 when the communists only got 14% of the vote and then in 1985 when finally the constitution made it possible to privatize those businesses again. The economy didn't collapse overnight, but we needed two IMF bailouts shortly after. Wasn't pretty, but for some those were the days.
Deutsche Bahn and some other things works like that in Germany. The basis is the other way around, however. It was previously run as a public institution, and then got privatized in the 90s.
As far as i can tell, it is mostly a way for the german state to run things without having to turn the people working into "Beamte", which would mean giving them a lot of additional benefits and pensions, and generally paying them less. There are a few other problems, namely that they ran a major cost-savings campaign which is generally agreed has resulted in a major loss of service quality.
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On August 13 2018 17:50 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems. Look at the language around racism and identity politics now, for example. People just weren't really thinking in those terms in the mainstream 30-40 years ago. Society is in a different place now, but the leftist political critique of society hasn't changed, improved or updated itself.
you have it entirely backwards. 30-40 years ago the leftist antiracist critiques were being made in some of the "mainstream" terms today. the easiest example is "intersectional." you think some non-academics made that up and passed the academics by?
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On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you? I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems.
are you a fellow citizen? are you asking these questions because it's too much trouble for you, yourself, to bother with?
this has very little to do with setting a timetable for freedom
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On August 14 2018 00:09 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2018 17:50 Jockmcplop wrote:On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems. Look at the language around racism and identity politics now, for example. People just weren't really thinking in those terms in the mainstream 30-40 years ago. Society is in a different place now, but the leftist political critique of society hasn't changed, improved or updated itself. you have it entirely backwards. 30-40 years ago the leftist antiracist critiques were being made in some of the "mainstream" terms today. the easiest example is "intersectional." you think some non-academics made that up and passed the academics by?
What I meant was that academics were thinking about that stuff in the 60s and 70s and that noone else was. Now it is mainstream but the academics don't seem to have moved forward at all.
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Strzok got fired. Trump is already using it as a excuse to do another but-her-emails investigation and to drop the one on his own campaign.
I still don't understand why Strzok is not allowed to have an opinion in personal texts.
The FBI has fired agent Peter Strzok, who helped lead the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election until officials discovered he had been sending anti-Trump texts.
Aitan Goelman, Strzok’s lawyer, said FBI Deputy Director David L. Bowdich ordered the firing on Friday — even though the director of the FBI office that normally handles employee discipline had decided Strzok should face only a demotion and 60-day suspension. Goelman said the move undercuts the FBI’s repeated assurances that Strzok would be afforded the normal disciplinary process.
“This isn’t the normal process in any way more than name,” Goelman said, adding in a statement, “This decision should be deeply troubling to all Americans.”
The FBI declined to comment.
The termination marks a remarkable downfall for Strzok, a 22-year veteran of the bureau who investigated Russian spies, defense officials accused of selling secrets to China and myriad other important cases. In the twilight of his career, Strzok was integral to two of the bureau’s most high-profile investigations: the Russia case; and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
But when a Justice Department inspector general investigation uncovered politically charged messages that Strzok had exchanged with another FBI official, he was relegated to a position in human resources. Conservatives soon made Strzok the face of their attacks against the special counsel investigation into the president’s campaign, and the FBI took steps to remove Strzok from its ranks.
President Trump on Monday used Strzok’s firing to suggest the Russia investigation should be dropped, and the Clinton case redone.
“Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI - finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer. Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped? It is a total Hoax. No Collusion, No Obstruction - I just fight back!” he wrote.
Minutes later, he added, “Just fired Agent Strzok, formerly of the FBI, was in charge of the Crooked Hillary Clinton sham investigation. It was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!”
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Trump tweeted that he was the one behind the firing. Meh.
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On August 14 2018 01:10 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2018 00:09 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 17:50 Jockmcplop wrote:On August 13 2018 15:33 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 08:36 IgnE wrote:On August 13 2018 06:15 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On August 13 2018 05:48 IgnE wrote:
Liberal freedoms appear more and more as the unfreedom of submission to capital, and it is, I would argue, precisely the divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics that has led to a profound disenfranchisement — not in the sense of 'the vote', but in the sense of truly sharing in power to make and remake society.
Accepting this as true, how would you specify what the "divorce of the productive realm from the domain of politics?" I would guess that it's related to privatization, or at least that privatization is an example of this in one form; the people losing the control that the government gives them over an industry when it is privatized is what I would see as them losing their share of power in monitoring and reshaping that specific part of society. They (members of the electorate) still have their votes, but are still disenfranchised when looked at from a perspective limited to the privatized industry. Yes, basically, I wouldn't make a simple opposition between 'private' and 'public', meaning State-owned. So it's not so simple as 'the people' losing control that the government gives them. Consider syndicalist or worker-owned enterprises, where employees have a direct ownership stake in the products of their labor. You also have critiques of the American left and right (although the right's was left up to the reader, who you assume understands your position); I don't fully 'get' what you mean when you talk about the left. Are you saying that their idea of giving everyone a fair share at the market and protecting the losers isn't really a different "freedom" than the current order because of the submission to capital and markets that is implied in both? I am saying that a lot of the left, as it currently manifests itself in US politics, is focusing on 'the wrong' things. Or perhaps not "focusing on the wrong things" so much as too simplistic, self-undermining. We need a vital, robust critique of social organization, including capital, not critiques that resuscitate and further sediment the divisions between civil life (aesthetic representation, focus on economic inequality within the liberal order) and political life (e.g. human rights discourse that fails to politicize the very organization of society's production and reproduction, and which is complicit in generating the imperialist dialectic of inside/outside driving capital flows — this is the background against which rights to healthcare, privacy, housing, etc. are conceived) that define liberal democracy. If you switch your views away from fixing the things that can be easily seen as flawed and easily explained to an average voter to more hidden and more difficult problems, can you still count on your fellow citizens to vote for you?I would say that there are some things that cannot be foregone for much time at all, and that this point-term view holds no solution for the current suffering of the people of the United States. One of the things that always stuck with me about GH's insistence on quoting the MLK letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 was a mention of "setting a timetable for freedom;" how those that are undergoing suffering desire change at the most rapid pace theoretically possible, and not what they are told is feasible or appropriate by someone who is not hurt as much. Besides, any good critique of the capitalist system would take time to develop and explain, and the elderly would have no reason to vote for slower solutions to immediate problems. Look at the language around racism and identity politics now, for example. People just weren't really thinking in those terms in the mainstream 30-40 years ago. Society is in a different place now, but the leftist political critique of society hasn't changed, improved or updated itself. you have it entirely backwards. 30-40 years ago the leftist antiracist critiques were being made in some of the "mainstream" terms today. the easiest example is "intersectional." you think some non-academics made that up and passed the academics by? What I meant was that academics were thinking about that stuff in the 60s and 70s and that noone else was. Now it is mainstream but the academics don't seem to have moved forward at all.
I presume you speak from a deep and well-read study of what academics are discussing in the modern day, then?
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