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PoliGAF 2016 |OT6| Delete your accounts

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A

ampere

Member
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
This basically explains 40% of American politics at the very least:

black-friends-white-friends.jpg


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Click to expand...

What if I has no friends. Hmm multiply by 0 and wow I am not racist! lol
 
S

Skiptastic

Member
I'm way late but I'm impressed that Macho got #1 last thread because he posts so much useful stuff. Good job buddy!

Trump's tweet about "If Hilary loses Kentucky she should drop out" filled my mind with so much confusion and what the fuck that I felt like that Jackie Chan meme and just had to stop thinking about it.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
Crocodile said:
A) Income inequality has been an issue important to the Democratic Party for as long as I have been politically active/aware. Bernie isn't the first to bring this issue to light at all. The issue is that his message has been problematically simplistic ("break up the banks" - whatever that means), vague in how it would accomplish its goal and doesn't seem to factor into account how difficult such policies would be able to implement in this political environment.

B) People on GAF only really turned sour on Sanders when his tone and rhetoric turned for the worst near/after New York. He stopped being a message candidate and many of his policy deficiencies were really exposed.

C) Any fundamental understanding of American history and politics that puts class above race is just straight up wrong. They are interconnected of course but this country was straight up built on the back of slaves (and the corpses of Native Americans), we had a Civil War over race, our politics (Dems vs Repubs, etc.) are defined by race.
Click to expand...

None of the Democrats are offering very serious solutions to help income inequality. Even Sanders is only just a start. Are the Democrats way better than the GOP? Absolutely, but it's still largely a party run by rich people who benefit from our established economic system.

I don't think race is below class, but the two issues are interconnected in ways that race-reduction can't account for. Class is the reason why slavery and institutionalized racism were possible, because poor whites would not have seen poor blacks as their enemy if this was not what the ruling class wanted. Sanders absolutely has problems downplaying the importance of race, but nearly every Democrat has problems with downplaying the importance of class in America.

If the Democrats don't become more fiscally progressive, theirs will remain a party that is only left-wing in that it hates all poor people equally.
 
T

TheFatOne

Member
Crayons said:
They don't want to become a minority in the US, which really says something about how minorities are treated in this country tbh
Click to expand...

Simple, but true. I don't like over simplifying larger problems like this, but this is the heart of the problem. They don't want to become minorities, and they have been conditioned to fear the other for a long time now. Lack of education and diversity would also be a major issues as well.
 
E

Emarv

Member
I don't understand CNN pundits trying to hype up DWS' comments on Bernie's lack of violence condemnation when they were basically all calling for Reince Priebus to grow a backbone and actively condemn Trump's lack of statement, even though he never did.

And I say this as someone who doesn't really care for DWS at all.
 
D

Drek

Member
Valhelm said:
Bernie Sanders is the first politician in recent memory to seriously challenge the growing issue of wealth disparity, and critique the entrenchment of poverty and corporate power within our nation.
Click to expand...

And this is another set of misunderstandings on your part.

1. Bernie Sanders isn't a serious politician. He's a professional protester and ideological purist who wants a soap box to shout from, not a political platform to legislate off of. In 1991 Barney Frank said this about Bernie Sanders:

“Bernie alienates his natural allies,” Frank said. “His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”

“But maybe that’s not his goal,” says Frank. “There are some people who seek to have a major effect inside, and others who opt to use the place as a platform.”

Frank has never changed tones when speaking of Sanders. One of the most productive progressive politicians in the last several decades has had nothing but open disdain for Sanders for over 25 years now.

This criticism by Frank is backed up by the complete lack of merit to any of Sanders' platforms. His numbers are made up, his solutions for now to pay for things is dubious at best. His foreign policy understanding is substantially worse than mine. He lacks any track record of being an effective legislator, let alone worthy of being the political leader of the nation.

2. If you don't think the current Democratic party is pushing back against the wealth divide in this nation you simply aren't paying attention. Bernie Sanders didn't come up with universal healthcare. He didn't come up with the idea for a higher minimum wage. The reality, however, is that the last time someone like Sanders bred open division within the Democratic party it paved the way for the GOP to run this country for 20 of the next 24 years and 28 of the next 40. Nothing new as similar party has derailed almost all progressive movements in this country. Every time the progressive side of the isle starts making progress the ideologues begin screaming it's not fast enough, have their little "revolution, and put conservatives back in power to roll back as much previous progress as they can before people stop falling for the dog whistles and "have a beer with" voting criteria.

3. "Corporate power" is the single stupidest argument Sanders makes. The problem isn't corporations en masse. Most of us work for corporations of some kind or another or for a business directly reliant on a major corporation in some capacity. Corporations aren't the problem and as we saw with Georgia's anti-trans bill sometimes they're even the solution.

The real problem at play here that corporations are getting blamed for is hereditary wealth as a protected institution, where well off families maintain power through inheritance and use that power to corrupt the political process. Corporations are just their front du jour as it gives additional layers of anonymity. The reality is that if roughly 50% of American wealth was liquidated back into the economy, what the top 1% (almost all inheritors of said wealth) is sitting on, the economic divide in this country would shrink rapidly. Do it right, with a 100% death tax beyond a modest estate for family farms and homes, and you'd bring enough of it into government coffers to pay for a social safety net that would allow all people to freely engage in the capitalist game without nearly the same levels of risk for failure that dissuade so many from entrepreneurship today.

Sanders has the wrong message, the wrong policies, and the wrong world view to be the change anyone should want to see in this country.
 
B

Bowdz

Member
Emarv said:
I don't understand CNN pundits trying to hype up DWS' comments on Bernie's lack of violence condemnation when they were basically all calling for Reince Priebus to grow a backbone and actively condemn Trump's lack of statement, even though he never did.

And I say this as someone who doesn't really care for DWS at all.
Click to expand...

It's the 24 hour mass media. It's their job to create controversy and hype up any preexisting conflict.
 
M

Macho Madness

Member
One has to wonder if the new "no ads" strategy is the reason for the lack of Devine lately.



Quote for the discord invite. Only works for 24 hours.
 
A

ampere

Member
Drek said:
And this is another set of misunderstandings on your part.

-snip-
Click to expand...

This is a really good description of what I find wrong with Bernie as well. Well said.

Compromise really is the essence of progress. I was so against this for years, but it's so goddamn true. You can't be perfect and pure all the time, you get nothing done. Not to mention perfect and pure being incredibly arbitrary.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
Drek said:
And this is another set of misunderstandings on your part.

1. Bernie Sanders isn't a serious politician. He's a professional protester and ideological purist who wants a soap box to shout from, not a political platform to legislate off of. In 1991 Barney Frank said this about Bernie Sanders:

“Bernie alienates his natural allies,” Frank said. “His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”

“But maybe that’s not his goal,” says Frank. “There are some people who seek to have a major effect inside, and others who opt to use the place as a platform.”

Frank has never changed tones when speaking of Sanders. One of the most productive progressive politicians in the last several decades has had nothing but open disdain for Sanders for over 25 years now.

This criticism by Frank is backed up by the complete lack of merit to any of Sanders' platforms. His numbers are made up, his solutions for now to pay for things is dubious at best. His foreign policy understanding is substantially worse than mine. He lacks any track record of being an effective legislator, let alone worthy of being the political leader of the nation.

2. If you don't think the current Democratic party is pushing back against the wealth divide in this nation you simply aren't paying attention. Bernie Sanders didn't come up with universal healthcare. He didn't come up with the idea for a higher minimum wage. The reality, however, is that the last time someone like Sanders bred open division within the Democratic party it paved the way for the GOP to run this country for 20 of the next 24 years and 28 of the next 40. Nothing new as similar party has derailed almost all progressive movements in this country. Every time the progressive side of the isle starts making progress the ideologues begin screaming it's not fast enough, have their little "revolution, and put conservatives back in power to roll back as much previous progress as they can before people stop falling for the dog whistles and "have a beer with" voting criteria.

3. "Corporate power" is the single stupidest argument Sanders makes. The problem isn't corporations en masse. Most of us work for corporations of some kind or another or for a business directly reliant on a major corporation in some capacity. Corporations aren't the problem and as we saw with Georgia's anti-trans bill sometimes they're even the solution.

The real problem at play here that corporations are getting blamed for is hereditary wealth as a protected institution, where well off families maintain power through inheritance and use that power to corrupt the political process. Corporations are just their front du jour as it gives additional layers of anonymity. The reality is that if roughly 50% of American wealth was liquidated back into the economy, what the top 1% (almost all inheritors of said wealth) is sitting on, the economic divide in this country would shrink rapidly. Do it right, with a 100% death tax beyond a modest estate for family farms and homes, and you'd bring enough of it into government coffers to pay for a social safety net that would allow all people to freely engage in the capitalist game without nearly the same levels of risk for failure that dissuade so many from entrepreneurship today.

Sanders has the wrong message, the wrong policies, and the wrong world view to be the change anyone should want to see in this country.
Click to expand...

You're correct that Sanders has always been ideology first, policy second, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. The American political system is by nature homogenizing, and a strict adherence to pragmatism prevents change. Moving the United States to the left, especially in the traditionally ignored realm of economic inequality, is absolutely necessary.

Corporations are absolutely a problem, because why should our livelihood be placed in the hands of unelected profit-seekers? A much better system would be cooperative businesses which are owned and operated by the workers, rather than a handful of lucky individuals. There's no reason why an effective estate tax needs to exist to the exclusion of regulations to limit the exploitative power of capitalists within their lifetimes.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Valhelm said:
You're correct that Sanders has always been ideology first, policy second, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. The American political system is by nature homogenizing, and a strict adherence to pragmatism prevents change. Moving the United States to the left, especially in the traditionally ignored realm of economic inequality, is absolutely necessary.

Corporations are absolutely a problem, because why should our livelihood be placed in the hands of unelected profit-seekers? A much better system would be cooperative businesses which are owned and operated by the workers, rather than a handful of lucky individuals. There's no reason why an effective estate tax needs to exist to the exclusion of regulations to limit the exploitative power of capitalists within their lifetimes.
Click to expand...

That's a preposterous characterization of how business works, grows, and is organized.

What are you suggesting, anyways? That no business shall be allowed to exist without dividing the shares equally between all workers? How would you assign shares, actually? How do you set up a certain business organization, and why do you mandate it to work that way?
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
hawk2025 said:
That's a preposterous characterization of how business works, grows, and is organized.

What are you suggesting, anyways? That no business shall be allowed to exist without dividing the shares equally between all workers? How would you assign shares, actually? How do you set up a certain business organization, and why do you mandate it to work that way?
Click to expand...

I think business should be democratized, and that workers ought to decide pay and resource allocation instead of giving all power to those on top. Workers deserve to earn from their labor without having to deal with profit-driven middlemen.

Best would be a socialistic system in which our lives were not completely consumed by labor. If the working class was paid properly, they'd be able to pursue their own self-expression much more freely.
 
C

Cerium

Member
Valhelm said:
Bernie Sanders is the first politician in recent memory to seriously challenge the growing issue of wealth disparity, and critique the entrenchment of poverty and corporate power within our nation. I think Obama was a more-than-decent president, but Americans deserve somebody who is truly progressive when it comes to class struggle. While the Republicans are obviously incomparably worse, the Democratic party is still a party which broadly supports lasseiz-faire capitalism, and until this changes the working people are going to suffer.

I never expected him to get nearly as far as he did, and I think his contribution to our country has been valuable. To demonize Bernie Sanders like this is disingenuous, and while I recognize that Clinton has been subject to even more false attacks and mischaracterizations, that doesn't make this mistreatment of Bernie Sanders acceptable. It's not uncommon on Gaf to see Bernie be treated as a reactionary, which is hugely dishonest. His economic goals are revolutionary when compared to any other American politician, and this ought to be recognized. Even if you prefer Hillary Clinton as a candidate, Sanders' ability to bypass the vestiges of the Red Scare and change the conversation of labor in ways not since since the 1930s is groundbreaking.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry but after recent events we really need to dispense with this idea that the Sanders "revolution" was anything more than a racist, sexist, reactionary movement against Hillary Clinton and her minority supporters. Do you really think the West Virginia results are a coincidence? Do you think it's an accident that we're seeing so much crossover between Bernie bros and GamerGaters? Bernie was a vehicle for the worst impulses in America and the absolute dregs of the American "left" and that is how he should be remembered.
 
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