EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 4103
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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. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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RenSC2
United States1009 Posts
On December 12 2023 08:53 GreenHorizons wrote: It would mean that you recognize US democracy as broken beyond repair within it's own parameters. Unless you accept the whole "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." thing, not that I'm particularly endorsing that framing) as part of those parameters. Biden and his support for the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel clearly doesn't cross that line for many people here and otherwise (obviously does for me and lots of others elsewhere). What I was asking was whether the worst manifestation of a tyrannical Trump would cross that line for you. There has to be some line for each individual person where they would say to their government regardless of it's particular inner workings "Too far! Retreat or I'll be ungovernable" when it comes to the rights of their fellow humans or else no one's rights are safe. The line is really simple: if the current leader throws out the vote after losing or doesn't allow the vote at all. If Trump had managed to throw out the 2020 results, then we'd have an actual uprising. His own incompetence may have managed to save his head from being hoisted on a spike. But the point of the uprising would be to simply return the US to democracy. Biden is now in power due to democracy. Trump was in power in 2016 due to democracy and maybe will again in 2024 due to democracy. I accept that, although I'll certainly vote against it both in the primary and general election. I accept the will of the people and will be my 1/300,000,000th voice. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22201 Posts
On December 12 2023 12:03 Fleetfeet wrote: My understanding of this disagreement feels like it could be compared to playing a MOBA with the two of you as teammates. You both agree the game is lost (loosely, 'america is shit'). Kwark, on one corner, is likely to direct hostility toward me if I present myself as a target, but is actively trying to un-fuck the game in his best attempt to win. GH, in the other, has declared the game lost, is AFK in the fountain, and is alt-tabbed watching a guide on how to win a different video game for when this one ends. The truth is, you're stuck playing this video game. You're not playing a different game, and people point to your tacit refusal to play the video game as part of the reason 'your team' is losing. While I'd find this hypothetical Kwark wholly unpleasant to play with, I do recognize that he's ultimately 'on my team' and doing what he can to achieve some of our shared goals. I recognize how shallow this analogy is, and how GH's motivations are certainly more complex than 'we lost the game go next', but hopefully it serves to demonstrate how frustrating GH's position is from someone 'on the same team' I appreciate the effort, but I think the analogy is misplaced. Not sure what you imagine the teams are (Democrats vs Republicans?) or what you imagine the game is (Biden vs Trump, socialism vs capitalism, some sort perpetual series against Republicans, or something else), so it's hard for me to be specific about how. Suffice to say that I'm not refusing to play. I contribute to/engage in local actions and engage in/contribute to national actions in various ways and continue to espouse my perspective in hopes it resonates in some way with someone that encounters it. Refusing to play would be me just being a nihilist, not advocating revolutionary socialism. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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KwarK
United States41383 Posts
On December 12 2023 10:04 GreenHorizons wrote: I personally advocate and do my best (and fall short constantly imo) to adhere to revolutionary socialist prescriptions of what that looks like. Frankly, my bar for Democrats is pretty low, so just not belittling and telling the people whose lines have been crossed to stfu would be a healthy step in the right direction from my perspective. Instead of embracing the fact that people are rejecting some the most heinous and cruel bipartisan policies of the US in unprecedented numbers (namely US policy regarding Israel and Palestine), you can stick with the dismissive, abrasive, and threatening combo, if you really think that's effective. Okay, so you're not going to rise to the level of taking 12 items through the 10 items or less line? Where exactly is the line for you? Exactly how many dead Palestinian children would get you there? I need a specific number because that's apparently how this works. We all must declare a line. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22201 Posts
On December 12 2023 12:52 RenSC2 wrote: The line is really simple: if the current leader throws out the vote after losing or doesn't allow the vote at all. If Trump had managed to throw out the 2020 results, then we'd have an actual uprising. His own incompetence may have managed to save his head from being hoisted on a spike. But the point of the uprising would be to simply return the US to democracy. Biden is now in power due to democracy. Trump was in power in 2016 due to democracy and maybe will again in 2024 due to democracy. I accept that, although I'll certainly vote against it both in the primary and general election. I accept the will of the people and will be my 1/300,000,000th voice. If someone actually believes Democrat's rhetoric (or Trump's for that matter lol) that Trump will destroy democracy and declare himself dictator, what you're saying would be the 21st century US version of Kaas and the Centre party supporting the Enabling Act imo. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on one's perspective my vote won't even get counted before Biden is announced the winner of my state. So rather than needlessly throw my vote behind someone I find reprehensible, I won't vote for Biden. I can't in good conscience tell anyone else (especially those he's harmed through policy) to vote for him either. Should that be too high a hurdle for Biden and Democrats to clear to beat Trump/Republicans, I don't think the Democrat party will fair much better or be any more supportive of radical resistance than the Centre party did or was. Which is to say you may find yourself among a sparse crowd of disillusioned Democrats looking for a new home after the dissolution/co-optation of the party by a fascist regime and/or adjusting your worldview accordingly. While I think your line may be too late to be functional, at least you have an ostensible line. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2402 Posts
On December 12 2023 13:06 GreenHorizons wrote: I appreciate the effort, but I think the analogy is misplaced. Not sure what you imagine the teams are (Democrats vs Republicans?) or what you imagine the game is (Biden vs Trump, socialism vs capitalism, some sort perpetual series against Republicans, or something else), so it's hard for me to be specific about how. Suffice to say that I'm not refusing to play. I contribute to/engage in local actions and engage in/contribute to national actions in various ways and continue to espouse my perspective in hopes it resonates in some way with someone that encounters it. Refusing to play would be me just being a nihilist, not advocating revolutionary socialism. That's fair, and I agree that the analogy is far from perfect. It's part of my attempt to understand and empathize with your position. To clarify terms: The game - The dysfunctional capitalist democracy that is the US governmental structure. The teams - Some arbitrary approximation of "left vs right" which parallels the US two-party structure. With those as terms, suggesting you're 'refusing to play' a 'dysfunctional capitalist democracy' seems accurate, which is why I alluded to you being alt-tabbed and learning about another video game entirely (socdem / socialism / other) while not playing this one. I think my assessment is fair, because it rejects participation in the current actual game, hopes that this game ends (revolution), and that the next one is different, and (from my understanding) doesn't clarify why you expect the next game to be different. It feels something like you're trying to WILL yourself into a different game. In reality, I'd applaud you not doing something you don't enjoy in favour of something you do. In this analogy, there is no other video game to play. You can't dream it into being a different game when this one fails - it will still have the same capitalist, racist, supremist and otherwise dysfunctional roots that you lament right now. Those don't just go away, even with radical change. At least, I don't believe they do. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22201 Posts
On December 12 2023 14:03 Fleetfeet wrote: That's fair, and I agree that the analogy is far from perfect. It's part of my attempt to understand and empathize with your position. To clarify terms: The game - The dysfunctional capitalist democracy that is the US governmental structure. The teams - Some arbitrary approximation of "left vs right" which parallels the US two-party structure. With those as terms, suggesting you're 'refusing to play' a 'dysfunctional capitalist democracy' seems accurate, which is why I alluded to you being alt-tabbed and learning about another video game entirely (socdem / socialism / other) while not playing this one. I think my assessment is fair, because it rejects participation in the current actual game, hopes that this game ends (revolution), and that the next one is different, and (from my understanding) doesn't clarify why you expect the next game to be different. It feels something like you're trying to WILL yourself into a different game. In reality, I'd applaud you not doing something you don't enjoy in favour of something you do. In this analogy, there is no other video game to play. You can't dream it into being a different game when this one fails - it will still have the same capitalist, racist, supremist and otherwise dysfunctional roots that you lament right now. Those don't just go away, even with radical change. At least, I don't believe they do. Maybe it would help to clarify what "GH's team ended the game by winning" means to you in this context? EDIT: You may want to clearly distinguish betweenthe MOBA game itself and individual matches played within it. | ||
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Salazarz
Korea (South)2550 Posts
In your eyes, he's ruining the game by not grouping up and teamfighting with you, in his eyes you're ruining the game by not trying to split push instead after you lost five fights in a row. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22439 Posts
Kwark - ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains!’ GH - ‘Hey that’s my line’ Back on topic somewhat, is Israel/Palestine even going to be a relevant political factor this electoral cycle anyway? Are there signs of much widespread dissatisfaction, sufficient to flip potential Biden votes in sufficient numbers? Or is it a matter of degrees and there’s some red line Biden can’t realistically cross in terms of cracking the whip. Ukraine certainly feels the more contentious issue, although I guess those schisms are primarily cross-party. Actually contentious isn’t remotely the right word, but perception exists that it’s Biden’s baby, for better or for worse. Israel/Palestine existed as an issue long before he took office, and likely will do long after he departs. Alternatively folks could just say ‘fuck it’ and go with whatever they feel is the correct course with Israel/Palestine. Worked for Iraq, least in the UK it took a long time for the blowback on that one. There were pretty massive protests over that ill-fated excursion but Labour were still sitting pretty for a rather long while nonetheless. Would it be that ruinous for the Democratic Party’s political fortunes to advocate more strongly against and wield America’s influence against Israel in this particular epoch? I’m not sure it would, to me what is stopping them isn’t them having to bend to the will of the American people but merely that they don’t want to pursue that policy beyond where they’ve already gone to, which admittedly was less staunch than we’ve seen in times gone by. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2402 Posts
On December 12 2023 14:44 GreenHorizons wrote: Maybe it would help to clarify what "GH's team ended the game by winning" means to you in this context? EDIT: You may want to clearly distinguish betweenthe MOBA game itself and individual matches played within it. Nah, I'll drop it there. The analogy certainly falls apart when we start trying to figure out who is playing what role and whether or not winning is -actually- winning. It wasn't a strong analogy to begin with, I was just trying to contextualize how it looks like you're doing nothing and wishing you were playing socialist-utopia instead of dysfunctional-capitalist-democracy. That seems to be the root of Kwark's disagreement, if I'm understanding it correctly, so I thought to try approach it from a different angle. It didn't get me anywhere, and I didn't really expect it to. This is not meant as a jab at you! | ||
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EnDeR_
Spain2444 Posts
You can quibble that they're not doing it humanely enough, but ultimately, that's the direction of travel. America (and the Western world) have decided that they're not letting Israel lose because we almost got all the Jews killed not so long ago and we feel bad about that. There's fuckall else Biden can do but manage expectations and hope that Israel doesn't commit a fullblown genocide this cycle. It will happen eventually though. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15264 Posts
On December 12 2023 12:03 Fleetfeet wrote: My understanding of this disagreement feels like it could be compared to playing a MOBA with the two of you as teammates. You both agree the game is lost (loosely, 'america is shit'). Kwark, on one corner, is likely to direct hostility toward me if I present myself as a target, but is actively trying to un-fuck the game in his best attempt to win. GH, in the other, has declared the game lost, is AFK in the fountain, and is alt-tabbed watching a guide on how to win a different video game for when this one ends. The truth is, you're stuck playing this video game. You're not playing a different game, and people point to your tacit refusal to play the video game as part of the reason 'your team' is losing. While I'd find this hypothetical Kwark wholly unpleasant to play with, I do recognize that he's ultimately 'on my team' and doing what he can to achieve some of our shared goals. I recognize how shallow this analogy is, and how GH's motivations are certainly more complex than 'we lost the game go next', but hopefully it serves to demonstrate how frustrating GH's position is from someone 'on the same team' Like most analogies, it has strengths and weaknesses, but the overall point is good IMO. I think people who identify as activists or hard line reformists have a component to their personality and/or psyche people often don’t focus on. Yoy know how being poor is expensive? Poor people need to live further from their jobs to save money. Living farther away means more commute time and possibly more money on gas. Being poor means your job has worse health insurance, if you get any at all. The list goes on. The suffering causes by suffering builds. These poor parents are depressed, strained, have very little support, are less able to do all the things a parent needs to do, and their children suffer for it. Their children thereby statistically do worse in school, have less support, and have worse life trajectories. In many cases, it’s easy to draw a link between someone’s parents being poor and them ending up in prison. It’s a tragedy, but we often don’t fully appreciate the scope of what a tragedy it really is. When you try to fully absorb and internalize what it means for this dynamic to propagate, for humans to suffer, and many to die from the effects of income inequality, it’s nauseating. But it’s not just nauseating. It’s overwhelmingly tragic and when you contextualize it within the fact that CEO fat cats like Elon Musk and other villains create the situation intentionally for their own ego indulgence, it’s essentially so awful and so infuriating that it’s hard to focus on it without your brain triggering an interlock and taking your focus towards something else. Or forcing your brain to think less intensely about it. I have had a unique life that has allowed me an opportunity to befriend more than a few folks with views similar to GH, and a common trend among them is that they experience the world extremely intensely. All things in life fully absorb into them easily and they generally have a very low internal resistance to swallowing the tragedies of the world. It’s like the mental process I described above doesn’t trigger as easily for them as other people and they are basically constantly experiencing grief and despair because they aren’t numb to it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the people who seem to experience all things very intensely, whether tragedy or otherwise, tend to also be people who essentially decide to only engage with idealized versions of these issues and that they often adopt extremely rigid moral frameworks that leave very little room for nuance. It’s always a simple matter of oppressed vs oppressor, power vs victim, and similar dynamics. The existing framework, and the process of incremental progress, involves directly engaging with such a large number of unsavory dynamics that it feels overwhelming and hopeless. Rather than accepting incrementalism and all of the psychological strain that comes with conceptualizing all of the hurdles to leap over to accomplish even the smallest amount of progress, they focus their attention on advocating for the entire thing being blown up and building a new society. I think it’s a lot more manageable to focus on the path to utopia rather than how to make immediate progress in the society we have. I am not saying they are some kind of mentally disabled or something. I think it’s just a way all people are a little different. And society needs GH, Sermo, Jimmi, Raynor, and everyone else here to be a part of the conversation. People like GH, with all of their intensity and their inability to tolerate incrementalism, remind us what we ought to strive for and they remind us what a broken system we currently have. It’s important to not let incrementalism turn into complacency. Not everyone needs to be focused on the next 5 years. We need people focused on the next 50 and 500 years as well. I don’t think GH is perfect, but GH is among my favorite people to engage with here because he brings me perspectives very unique that have challenged me a lot over the past 10’ish years. I value him as a friend. I wish he was more willing to dig into details about immediate term stuff, but he is still a valuable contributor to our ecosystem of ideas. I don’t like the idea of labeling his ideas as problematic or unhelpful. He is very helpful. People like him are very helpful. The unique contours of his worldview mixing with all of ours improves ours just like ours improves his. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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KwarK
United States41383 Posts
He does this while showing no sign that he actually meets any of his own criteria. He identifies as a revolutionary socialist but to my knowledge has participated in exactly zero socialist revolutions and likely will never participate in any. He has no answers for any of the problems associated with his ideology and no plan for how his ideology will ever be actualized which is for the best because he's not actually serious about any of it. At least the right wing fascists who abandoned electoralism have an actual plan. They're going to install their people in key offices, intimidate local election officials, disenfranchise the voting public, confuse the public with a disinformation campaign and then have their puppets declare their candidate a winner while undermining the integrity of the election. And if all else fails just seize power violently. I don't like them, they should all be lined up against a wall and shot, but at least they're serious people. GH is not a serious person, he is a roleplayer. His ideology is an imaginary pedestal from which he can talk down to people on the internet. There is no engagement with the constraints of the real world because the real world is boring to him. It's hard, you have to actually do things, you have to make compromises with people with whom you disagree, you have to risk failure. He makes these proclamations about red lines that, if they were to be crossed, would cause him to declare himself ungovernable but nobody in power knows what his lines are, nor what he's threatening to do. He never told them. It's somewhat more pathetic than the actors who pledged to move to Canada if Trump was elected in 2016 and then didn't follow through. They at least had the guts to openly state their demands and make their threats, even if they were ultimately gutless. GH whispers his threats to himself at night while desperately imagining a world in which anyone cares what he does. He should not be lined up against a wall and shot. Not because his ideology somehow makes his advocacy for overthrowing democracy and seizing power better than the fascists on the other side but because it's all a bad fucking joke. He'll never storm the Capitol or intimidate the VP. We're currently witnessing the extent of his revolutionary socialism on TL. This is it. This is all it will ever be. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22201 Posts
GH argues that anyone who falls short of open revolution is complicit No. Non-reformist reforms aren't really anyone's idea of open revolution. | ||
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BlackJack
United States9897 Posts
On December 13 2023 04:24 KwarK wrote: His arguments are frequently incredibly bad such as insisting that people identify exactly where the line is (this is always a bad faith argument) that would cause people to abandon electoralism without adding any of the necessary context for what that would mean (are we talking armed revolts, general strikes, terrorism, what?). . The crux of the issue, imo. GH's posts very often lack the substance of what the revolution looks like, or really any details of any kind. The vast majority of his posts are just "look at this disagreeable thing your party did that you're complicit in, whereas I'm above the fray because I don't support either party or even the political system they exist in." I haven't been following this thread since its inception. It's possible he has shared more details of what he's hoping to accomplish beyond trying to get people on a gaming forum to agree with him. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2402 Posts
On December 13 2023 04:24 KwarK wrote: GH argues that anyone who falls short of open revolution is complicit and then attempts to pin some truly absurd things on people. His arguments are frequently incredibly bad such as insisting that people identify exactly where the line is (this is always a bad faith argument) that would cause people to abandon electoralism without adding any of the necessary context for what that would mean (are we talking armed revolts, general strikes, terrorism, what?). He does this while showing no sign that he actually meets any of his own criteria. He identifies as a revolutionary socialist but to my knowledge has participated in exactly zero socialist revolutions and likely will never participate in any. He has no answers for any of the problems associated with his ideology and no plan for how his ideology will ever be actualized which is for the best because he's not actually serious about any of it. At least the right wing fascists who abandoned electoralism have an actual plan. They're going to install their people in key offices, intimidate local election officials, disenfranchise the voting public, confuse the public with a disinformation campaign and then have their puppets declare their candidate a winner while undermining the integrity of the election. And if all else fails just seize power violently. I don't like them, they should all be lined up against a wall and shot, but at least they're serious people. GH is not a serious person, he is a roleplayer. His ideology is an imaginary pedestal from which he can talk down to people on the internet. There is no engagement with the constraints of the real world because the real world is boring to him. It's hard, you have to actually do things, you have to make compromises with people with whom you disagree, you have to risk failure. He makes these proclamations about red lines that, if they were to be crossed, would cause him to declare himself ungovernable but nobody in power knows what his lines are, nor what he's threatening to do. He never told them. It's somewhat more pathetic than the actors who pledged to move to Canada if Trump was elected in 2016 and then didn't follow through. They at least had the guts to openly state their demands and make their threats, even if they were ultimately gutless. GH whispers his threats to himself at night while desperately imagining a world in which anyone cares what he does. He should not be lined up against a wall and shot. Not because his ideology somehow makes his advocacy for overthrowing democracy and seizing power better than the fascists on the other side but because it's all a bad fucking joke. He'll never storm the Capitol or intimidate the VP. We're currently witnessing the extent of his revolutionary socialism on TL. This is it. This is all it will ever be. Refusing to participate seems consistent with revolutionary socialism, as the party currently more likely to incite a level of revolution necessary to give socialism any hold is the party further from his political ideals. The argument that dems will largely maintain status quo seems fair. However, the path to socialism being "Let Repubs win, enstate a fascist revolution, lose to a socialist counterpush and then hooray socialism" seems like an idea worthy of ridicule. I don't know what Gh's plan is or if he even has one (I lean towards no?), but if it's revolution you're after, then I see that coming through Repubs one way or another sooner than dems. Also I fully reject any notions that GH is stupid and/or lazy. I know how much activism GH has done as well as I know how many hugs Kwark gets in a month. | ||
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KwarK
United States41383 Posts
On December 13 2023 07:51 Fleetfeet wrote: Also I fully reject any notions that GH is stupid and/or lazy. I know how much activism GH has done as well as I know how many hugs Kwark gets in a month. If GH had done any successful socialist revolutions in the US I feel like I’d have noticed. I’m reasonably certain he’s still at zero. | ||
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