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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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Ecotic

Member
I've been wondering lately what the political effect of Amazon choosing a marginal red state for HQ2 might have on the state's political leaning, if say they choose Atlanta, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Miami, or somewhere in North Carolina's research triangle. Maybe not much will change immediately, but could it spur enough growth for those cities to overpower the rural areas over time?
 

PBY

Banned
Liberals believe in capitalism, leftists believe in socialism. Both sides consider themselves progressive. On the leftist side there is argument over whether social democrats are leftists or just the furthest left branch of liberal before you get to democratic socialism.

I'm glad that, at least on the left, we are getting closer to using the correct terminology for things.

Pretty much.
 

Tamanon

Banned
I've been wondering lately what the political effect of Amazon choosing a marginal red state for HQ2 might have on the state's political leaning, if say they choose Atlanta, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Miami, or somewhere in North Carolina's research triangle. Maybe not much will change immediately, but could it spur enough growth for those cities to overpower the rural areas over time?

The areas they would pick in NC at least would already be pretty solidly blue. Might move the population a little bit, but not that much.
 

PBY

Banned
I've been wondering lately what the political effect of Amazon choosing a marginal red state for HQ2 might have on the state's political leaning, if say they choose Atlanta, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Miami, or somewhere in North Carolina's research triangle. Maybe not much will change immediately, but could it spur enough growth for those cities to overpower the rural areas over time?

The fact that this discussion is happening in a vacuum, as some sort of net positive, without acknowledging what Amazon, in fact is, is shocking.

Amazon not a net good. I understand the discussions around an HQ will happen regardless, but when I see these cities stumbling over themselves to subsidize this office space, I'm fairly convince our economic system is pretty much fucked. There's no fixing the corporate consolidation train we're on.
 

pigeon

Banned
Liberals believe in capitalism, leftists believe in socialism. Both sides consider themselves progressive. On the leftist side there is argument over whether social democrats are leftists or just the furthest left branch of liberal before you get to democratic socialism.

I'm glad that, at least on the left, we are getting closer to using the correct terminology for things.

You know as well as I do that this doesn’t actually make any sense without a bright line definition of socialism that doesn’t exist except in kirblar’s nightmares
 
lol absent from the DNC purge discussion is that they were predominantly Ellison supporters. I also doubt it was for competence issues as Donna Brazile just got a new job there.

Seeing as how people like to stir shit, I'd want this to be substantiated and context given. Not saying you are stirring shit, but whoever framed it that way may well have been.
 

pigeon

Banned
Seeing as how people like to stir shit, I'd want this to be substantiated and context given. Not saying you are stirring shit, but whoever framed it that way may well have been.

I mean I do think the odds are pretty high it was a power grab of sorts. But that shouldn’t be relevant if you think everybody at the DNC is corrupt and terrible anyway.

Also, uh, if it’s a power grab wouldn’t you expect Ellison to respond?
 

PBY

Banned
Seeing as how people like to stir shit, I'd want this to be substantiated and context given. Not saying you are stirring shit, but whoever framed it that way may well have been.

The Vanity Fair piece on it makes it seem that way.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/tom-perez-dnc-shake-up

From that piece: The pack of new delegates includes Joanne Dowdell, a registered lobbyist for Fox News parent company News Corp; Harold Ickes, a veteran of the Clinton White House; and Manuel Ortiz, a lobbyist for CITGO Petroleum Corp and Puerto Rican interests.
 
You know as well as I do that this doesn’t actually make any sense without a bright line definition of socialism that doesn’t exist except in kirblar’s nightmares
The goal of democratic socialism is to use democratic means (popular movements and electoralism) to democratize and bring into ownership the mean of production to the public.

The old social democratic left were pretty clear about how they were going to do this: taxing the wealthy to fund public services while nationalizing industries. Eventually they gave up on that but anti-capitalism and socialism don't only take the form of Marxist-Leninism
 

kirblar

Member
The fact that this discussion is happening in a vacuum, as some sort of net positive, without acknowledging what Amazon, in fact is, is shocking.

Amazon not a net good. I understand the discussions around an HQ will happen regardless, but when I see these cities stumbling over themselves to subsidize this office space, I'm fairly convince our economic system is pretty much fucked. There's no fixing the corporate consolidation train we're on.
That's because w/ retail services, the gains from consolidation are immense. Having access to large distribution networks, metrics, etc. leads to massive gains in efficiency that are incredibly difficult for independent retailers to compete with.

Amazon is a net positive. Improving accessibility and lowering the cost of goods to consumers is good! Consumer goods prices have been falling for a very long time. They're not where we have fundamental issues in our economy. (Those sectors would be education, healthcare, and housing.)
 
Hamas totally went to Jared! (or how Middle East peace is going swimmingly!)

Dov Lieber‏Verified account
@DovLieber

STATEMENT: Hamas Gaza leader Sinwar: "The time Hamas discussed recognizing Israel is over. Now Hamas will discuss when to wipe out Israel"
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Call me paranoid but the number of bizarre hot takes and weird posts from 2012 accounts with 0.07 posts per day is now crazy.

The FBI/Uranium thread is comical.

I also saw a thread this morning that got IMMEDIATELY nuked from orbit before a single response, that was a deliberate and elaborate hatchet job on Evilore. Not sure if there was an y validity to it but it feels like gaf is a honeypot for troll farms with a seemingly endless supply of alt and abandoned accounts.

Not sure how you police something like that.
 

PBY

Banned
That's because w/ retail services, the gains from consolidation are immense. Having access to large distribution networks, metrics, etc. leads to massive gains in efficiency that are incredibly difficult for independent retailers to compete with.

Amazon is a net positive. Improving accessibility and lowering the cost of goods to consumers is good! Consumer goods prices have been falling for a very long time. They're not where we have fundamental issues in our economy. (Those sectors would be education, healthcare, and housing.)

I work in PE. I completely understand the efficiencies of scale / consolidation at play here.

Why do we give a fuck? You're literally making the argument for WalMart from the right. We're going to have to reckon with this in the next 50 years, and you can't see what's happening right in front of your face.

This completely overlooks the extremely shitty labor practices that they employ.


This is the most Kirblar post of all time by the way.
 
Seeing as how people like to stir shit, I'd want this to be substantiated and context given. Not saying you are stirring shit, but whoever framed it that way may well have been.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/356176-longtime-dnc-officials-ousted-in-shakeup

The Democratic National Committee's (DNC) new slate of at-large delegates threatens to push out longtime members, many of whom have ties to the more progressive wing of the party.

The moves have frustrated the progressive-leaning Democrats who feel the staff shakeup is retribution for their opposition to its new Chairman Tom Perez during February's chairman race.

NBC News first reported the grumblings over Perez's slate of at-large members on Wednesday night.

Ousted and demoted DNC veterans reportedly include Ray Buckley, James Zogby, Alice Germond and Barbra Casbar Siperstein, the network reported, adding that a common thread linking many of them is their support of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who ran against Perez for the chairmanship.

Amazon not a net good. I understand the discussions around an HQ will happen regardless, but when I see these cities stumbling over themselves to subsidize this office space, I'm fairly convince our economic system is pretty much fucked. There's no fixing the corporate consolidation train we're on.
tired: antitrust and forced competition
wired: just nationalize it
 
Call me paranoid but the number of bizarre hot takes and weird posts from 2012 accounts with 0.07 posts per day is now crazy.

The FBI/Uranium thread is comical.

I also saw a thread this morning that got IMMEDIATELY nuked from orbit before a single response, that was a deliberate and elaborate hatchet job on Evilore. Not sure if there was an y validity to it but it feels like gaf is a honeypot for troll farms with a seemingly endless supply of alt and abandoned accounts.

Not sure how you police something like that.

lots of accounts like this becoming active on reddit r/poltics again, mods over there are struggling

--

I feel like Creating a shadow ban system that, once you identify an account as hostile, it gets shadowbanned. Where the user and that IP see those comments, and other shadow banned users see those comments but the white listed accounts dont. =/
 
I'm primarily reacting to the vagueness of it all. The original statement was one that could be construed that way, but I'd want numbers to know for sure. How many people were purged, and how many of them clearly Ellison supporters?

With a big shake-up like that it's very easy to spin it one way or another. And everybody likes stoking a fight between factions of the Democrats, inside and outside the party.

[Also, I also don't see the DNC as particularly ideological in nature, so it doesn't matter that much.]
 

pigeon

Banned
The goal of democratic socialism is to use democratic means (popular movements and electoralism) to democratize and bring into ownership the mean of production to the public.

The old social democratic left were pretty clear about how they were going to do this: taxing the wealthy to fund public services while nationalizing industries. Eventually they gave up on that but anti-capitalism and socialism don't only take the form of Marxist-Leninism

I feel like you are literally making my point for me here.

Saying "liberals believe in capitalism, leftists believe in socialism" is utterly meaningless without a clear definition of what it means to "believe in socialism." Nearly everybody you would describe as "liberal" supports the expansion of social programs in America so that the government performs more wealth transfers from the rich and middle-class to the poor. Is that "believing in socialism?"

Where's the cutoff line that demarcates a socialist system from a capitalist one? If we give everybody a basic income but leave markets in place, is that socialist? If we create a government index fund that owns all stock in all private companies and the government invests tax receipts in it, is that socialist? Literally the Great Schism was founded on more explicit points of theological difference than this divide.
 

PBY

Banned
I'm primarily reacting to the vagueness of it all. The original statement was one that could be construed that way, but I'd want numbers to know for sure. How many people were purged, and how many of them clearly Ellison supporters?

With a big shake-up like that it's very easy to spin it one way or another. And everybody likes stoking a fight between factions of the Democrats, inside and outside the party.

[Also, I also don't see the DNC as particularly ideological in nature, so it doesn't matter that much.]

I actually agree with this post. There were definitely a few high-profile Ellison supporters ousted, but the rest of the reporting is unclear.

Some of the new additions are eye-brow raising though.
 

kirblar

Member
lots of accounts like this becoming active on reddit r/poltics again, mods over there are struggling

--

I feel like Creating a shadow ban system that, once you identify an account as hostile, it gets shadowbanned. Where the user and that IP see those comments, and other shadow banned users see those comments but the white listed accounts dont. =/
The r/gaybros subreddit just blanket banned Trump posts after getting 150 of them in a day.
 

Pyrokai

Member
Did I miss something about the DNC? Anyone have a 1-2 sentence summary or a link I can read? I don't seem to see anything other than rumblings in this thread.

Edit: Wait, I found an article....but what does this all mean?! I am afraid of more division in the party!
 

PBY

Banned
Did I miss something about the DNC? Anyone have a 1-2 sentence summary or a link I can read? I don't seem to see anything other than rumblings in this thread.

Edit: Wait, I found an article....but what does this all mean?! I am afraid of more division in the party!

Its not clear what it means (or how much it really matters?), but the Ellison supporters ousted clearly think it was a power play (and gave quotes to that effect). Not sure we know more.
 

sphagnum

Banned
I feel like you are literally making my point for me here.

Saying "liberals believe in capitalism, leftists believe in socialism" is utterly meaningless without a clear definition of what it means to "believe in socialism." Nearly everybody you would describe as "liberal" supports the expansion of social programs in America so that the government performs more wealth transfers from the rich and middle-class to the poor. Is that "believing in socialism?"

Where's the cutoff line that demarcates a socialist system from a capitalist one? If we give everybody a basic income but leave markets in place, is that socialist? If we create a government index fund that owns all stock in all private companies and the government invests tax receipts in it, is that socialist? Literally the Great Schism was founded on more explicit points of theological difference than this divide.

My personal opinion on the matter is that if you believe in collective ownership of the MoP, whatever form that takes, you're a socialist. If you believe in private control of the MoP, you're not. So if you believe in reformism and trying to slowly get to socialism through social democracy you're socialist. If you believe in social democracy as an end goal where the government rigorously enforces regulations and taxes but the MoP are still privately owned, you're not.

There are just a lot of different approaches to socialism and to getting there, just like with "democracy".
 

Slayven

Member
Call me paranoid but the number of bizarre hot takes and weird posts from 2012 accounts with 0.07 posts per day is now crazy.

The FBI/Uranium thread is comical.

I also saw a thread this morning that got IMMEDIATELY nuked from orbit before a single response, that was a deliberate and elaborate hatchet job on Evilore. Not sure if there was an y validity to it but it feels like gaf is a honeypot for troll farms with a seemingly endless supply of alt and abandoned accounts.

Not sure how you police something like that.
If they are a junior I always check the profile.
 

studyguy

Member
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/921091961653792768
Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto)
!!: The "sacred"-ness of Gold Star families "left in the convention over the summer" -Kelly

Oh!

https://twitter.com/mitchellreports/status/921091802018537472
Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports)
Kelly says he was stunned and brokenhearted at what member of Congress did to listen in on call thought at least that was sacred

Oh...

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/921092130168336384
Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT)
Kelly rips Wilson for listening to and disclosing potus call to Gold Star family, an opinion some Dems privately shared when it happened

zzzz

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/921092743702761472
Daniel Dale (@ddale8)
This Kelly line of argument is so bizarre. The family invited Wilson to be with them that day, then confirmed her account of their feelings.
 
ISaying "liberals believe in capitalism, leftists believe in socialism" is utterly meaningless without a clear definition of what it means to "believe in socialism." Nearly everybody you would describe as "liberal" supports the expansion of social programs in America
This seems like a faulty axiom, the only thing saving Social Security is the election of Republicans and Bill Clinton's dick, a Democratic president ran on and signed into law the largest cut in welfare spending, and the primary goal of Obama's education agenda being privatization. Hillary just wrote in her book that her husband's austerity measures made her proud to be a Democrat!
 

Ernest

Banned
235340443a5e10614dec3ba18316855c


Now I wonder why that would be...
 

kirblar

Member
I work in PE. I completely understand the efficiencies of scale / consolidation at play here.

Why do we give a fuck? You're literally making the argument for WalMart from the right. We're going to have to reckon with this in the next 50 years, and you can't see what's happening right in front of your face.

This completely overlooks the extremely shitty labor practices that they employ.


This is the most Kirblar post of all time by the way.
What's the alternative? A bunch of mom and pop stores aren't going to be able to compete. If we're going to have an end-result of a bunch of mega-corps competing with each other? So be it. Just tax them and increase social welfare benefits!
 

Owzers

Member
General Kelly, if trump likes the soldiers who don’t get captured, does he like the ones that get ambushed or are you still giving trump cover for everything like lying about what he said on the phone and lying about how former presidents handled things because you did a great job attacking the congresswoman.
 

PBY

Banned
What's the alternative? A bunch of mom and pop stores aren't going to be able to compete. If we're going to have an end-result of a bunch of mega-corps competing with each other? So be it. Just tax them and increase social welfare benefits!
I was wrong. This is the most Kirblar post.

What do you do when those corporations have outsized influence? There's so much wrong with this post that holy shit.
 

pigeon

Banned
I was wrong. This is the most Kirblar post.

What do you do when those corporations have outsized influence? There's so much wrong with this post that holy shit.

See, this is a much more interesting socialism vs liberalism discussion.

If these large corporations have so much political influence that it’s impossible to tax them and use the money for transfer payments, how exactly do you expect to get the political control necessary to prohibit them or break them up?
 
This is officially the dumbest controversy.

What matters:
- Random meaningless internal DNC politics
- A fabricated story of Obama and Hillary and uranium

What doesn't matter:
- Trump insulting a soldier's family (likely out of racism) and then lying about it
- Russia influencing our democracy

Hmm...
 
Poor Kelly (but not really). Son got thrown out there as a political talking point and he's out on national TV explaining how mad he is that someone else said something even vaguely political about war dead. He's not denying any of the damning content, of course (because it totally happened), he's just mad a third party was on the call to hear it.

Not going to question if he personally was surprised the call was criticized, however.
 

PBY

Banned
What matters:
- Random meaningless internal DNC politics
- A fabricated story of Obama and Hillary and uranium

What doesn't matter:
- Trump insulting a soldier's family (likely out of racism) and then lying about it
- Russia influencing our democracy

Hmm...
Literally haven't said half the things in this post?
 
Wilson is a friend of the family

the Sargent General who put the phone on speaker

it was Trump who disrespected the Gold Star wife

AND YET KELLY IS UP THERE USING HIS SON AS A PROP TO BASH WILSON ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
My personal opinion on the matter is that if you believe in collective ownership of the MoP, whatever form that takes, you're a socialist. If you believe in private control of the MoP, you're not. So if you believe in reformism and trying to slowly get to socialism through social democracy you're socialist. If you believe in social democracy as an end goal where the government rigorously enforces regulations and taxes but the MoP are still privately owned, you're not.

There are just a lot of different approaches to socialism and to getting there, just like with "democracy".

This I agree with (and is the consensus.) Private property.

IMO the line is a pretty bright one actually.
 

studyguy

Member
Wilson is a friend of the family

the Sargent General who put the phone on speaker

it was Trump who disrespected the Gold Star wife

AND YET KELLY IS UP THERE USING HIS SON AS A PROP TO BASH WILSON ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

Wilson said she had known the slain solder for a long time, noting that he had passed through the mentoring program for boys of color she founded in Miami in 1993. It’s called the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project. She said she had “practically raised” him. She added that there is also a scholarship fund bearing his name.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...ated-in-an-interview-the-witness-pushes-back/
 
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