Random Politics Thread

[Doctor Cringelord]

Well, if that's not hilarious I dont know what is.

Maybe modern liberalism is waking up to itself. Can but hope as its been a frigging nightmare.

Lark, I'd say you sound like a moderate, but you'd probably take it the wrong way and assume it to be an insult (it isn't).


Obama never really participated in the whole woke police to begin with though. Benefited from? Perhaps, but that's not quite the same thing.


He has always been pretty straightforward in admitting his centrism. The idea that Obama was anything otherwise is a fiction created by the right. Which always amused me. From one side he had to deal with his own supporters complaining he wasn't progressive enough, whereas his critics on the right somehow saw him as the reincarnation of Lenin.

An objective assessment of his presidency will reveal a middle-of-the-road democrat who may have talked the progressive talk, but walked the centrist walk. Not the hard leftist his critics see him as.

Probably the most centrist President since Nixon (some would argue since Clinton, but Clinton was practically a conservative by Euro standards, who just also happened to talk the progressive talk quite convincingly). Shit, Obama was even right of Nixon on certain policy like healthcare

 

[Nicodemus]

Well, if that's not hilarious I dont know what is.

Maybe modern liberalism is waking up to itself. Can but hope as its been a frigging nightmare.

Woke culture != modern liberalism.

 

[Lark]

Lark, I'd say you sound like a moderate, but you'd probably take it the wrong way and assume it to be an insult (it isn't).


Obama never really participated in the whole woke police to begin with though. Benefited from? Perhaps, but that's not quite the same thing.


He has always been pretty straightforward in admitting his centrism. The idea that Obama was anything otherwise is a fiction created by the right. Which always amused me. From one side he had to deal with his own supporters complaining he wasn't progressive enough, whereas his critics on the right somehow saw him as the reincarnation of Lenin.

An objective assessment of his presidency will reveal a middle-of-the-road democrat who may have talked the progressive talk, but walked the centrist walk. Not the hard leftist his critics see him as.

Probably the most centrist President since Nixon (some would argue since Clinton, but Clinton was practically a conservative by Euro standards, who just also happened to talk the progressive talk quite convincingly). Shit, Obama was even right of Nixon on certain policy like healthcare

Thinks like a Tory and Talks Like A Radical, And That's So Important These Days - Oscar Wilde

I'm not a moderate, I'd consider Bernie or Corbyn to be moderates, largely they just want to undo the damage done by free market populism.

A firm believe in participatory economics, geo-libertarian ideas and universal basic incomes isnt going to emerge on the centre line of politics any time soon at all.

The whole "woke" business is just the very latest proselytizing dogmatism on the left, the right wins a lot of votes because people recognize it and dont like it, either because they have their churches for that or because they dont like when its the work of a church or anyone else for that matter. I think its stupid and most of the time just conjures the opposition that was largely disappearing all by itself. Then they feed of one another like some sort of twisted tennis match.

- - - Updated - - -

Woke culture != modern liberalism.

You got it.

Its liberalism all over.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Barack Obama challenges 'woke' culture - BBC News

I really hate the very idea of "cancel culture". The use of the word itself is extremely eye-rolling.

 

[The Cat]

We should make the candidates box each other to run. Call it pre-qualifiers.

 

[Yuurei]

I really hate the very idea of "cancel culture". The use of the word itself is extremely eye-rolling.

I dislike it because I think that the only way to be truly ‘woke’ is to understand just how important perspective is. Every individual has a different perspective based on life experience and judging everyone by putting them on a general ...oh what do they call it...something about a minority totem pole, based on what they think they know from an outside perspective. It’s absolutely not progressive at all. It’s still segregation based on ignorance. There are just more boxes.

Of course, some perspectives are skewed-extremely so- but yelling and screaming that one’s life experience is wrong is not helpful. It only makes one angry and causes them to dbl down. Instead, you need to show them a world outside of their own so that they will learn on their own-hoepfully.

Oh, and it should go without saying, that the totem pole is often used by those who claim to be ‘woke’

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I dislike it because I think that the only way to be truly ‘woke’ is to understand just how important perspective is. Every individual has a different perspective based on life experience and judging everyone by putting them on a general ...oh what do they call it...something about a minority totem pole, based on what they think they know from an outside perspective. It’s absolutely not progressive at all. It’s still segregation based on ignorance. There are just more boxes.

Of course, some perspectives are skewed-extremely so- but yelling and screaming that one’s life experience is wrong is not helpful. It only makes one angry and causes them to dbl down. Instead, you need to show them a world outside of their own so that they will learn on their own-hoepfully.

Oh, and it should go without saying, that the totem pole is often used by those who claim to be ‘woke’

Well, I think things are just more complicated than a minority totem pole, and reducing into something so easily interpretable like that is really reductive, as well as ineffectual, for reasons you've noted.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I think that a true conservatism (not the pseudo-fascist, socially regressive type currently popular in the USA) would go hand-in-hand with certain eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Theravada Buddhism

 

[Jaguar]

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of angry supporters of an Iranian-backed militia shouting "Death to America" broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, trapping diplomats inside in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of militia fighters.


Death to America, eh? Bite me.

 

[ceecee]

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of angry supporters of an Iranian-backed militia shouting "Death to America" broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, trapping diplomats inside in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of militia fighters.


Death to America, eh? Bite me.

I'm assuming there will be 50+ congressional inquires made on this and Mike Pompeo brought before the various committees multiple times costing taxpayers millions. Only fair, right?

 

[Lark]

I'm assuming there will be 50+ congressional inquires made on this and Mike Pompeo brought before the various committees multiple times costing taxpayers millions. Only fair, right?

I'd expect there to be way more incidents like that one though, when you get a scenario in which a party or leader begins to believe they are unbeatable in a democracy they will inevitably begin to believe they are also unaccountable and maybe they are.

Its happening in the UK too, between that and the fact that elements in the UK seriously believe they are resurrecting the pre-US war of independence British Imperial Order I dont really need much more evidence that nothing goes to the politicians heads quite like the belief they've got power without accountability.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Probably the most centrist President since Nixon (some would argue since Clinton, but Clinton was practically a conservative by Euro standards, who just also happened to talk the progressive talk quite convincingly). Shit, Obama was even right of Nixon on certain policy like healthcare

Well, by Euro standards you never really had a left wing president. What is American left is generally centrism in Europe.

But to be honest you also don't really have nationalists and right-winger that aren't too much into "capitalism". What means that drawing simplistic lines across the Atlantic can be bad idea for understanding the situation.



Locally I am just watching very heavy escalation between nationalism and what is basically "neoliberal conservatism with elements of local culture". Therefore the whole right is cracking because too many goods, customs and standards are being imported .... what isn't really conservative or survival based doctrine. Therefore the more globalist/capitalist right is in complete shock over what is going on currently, since half of their base is starting a new party/block. What means that my far right that is based on Catholic church and local culture or history is less into market than US centrists. What in the end means that we are mixing apples and oranges, because the cultural interpretation of left/right is completely different.

 

[Virtual ghost]

In a way for this it would perhaps be the best to make MBTI-like structure.


First letter: nationalist vs. globalist
Second letter: capitalist vs. socialist
Third letter: conservative vs. progressive
Forth letter: order vs chaos

We need a number of axis to really explain and define certain political groups.

 

[Tater]

Bite me.

You're not money, Jag. You're a human being.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It’s unfortunate Cassie Jaye has been basically black listed and slandered as a right wing propagandist, largely by people who probably haven’t actually watched her films.

I mean, Daddy I Do and The Right to Love were anything but right wing propaganda. And I don’t understand how anyone who saw TRP could call that one a right wing film.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Why is it always old veteran farts I come across who complain about people wanting gov't hand outs? These fuckers are set up with healthcare from the VA. Do they not see the hypocrisy in their attitude? Some of them served a maximum of a few years yet have a lifetime of healthcare paid for from my tax dollars, yet they want to talk about how people should support themselves and whine about other people getting gov't services. I'll never understand these fucks. I have an aging aunt who still gets healthcare because her dead husband served years ago. She's a diehard republican and every time I see her she finds a way to bring up lazy people who benefit from handouts funded by taxpayers.

 

[ceecee]

Why is it always old veteran farts I come across who complain about people wanting gov't hand outs? These fuckers are set up with healthcare from the VA. Do they not see the hypocrisy in their attitude? Some of them served a maximum of a few years yet have a lifetime of healthcare paid for from my tax dollars, yet they want to talk about how people should support themselves and whine about other people getting gov't services. I'll never understand these fucks. I have an aging aunt who still gets healthcare because her dead husband served years ago. She's a diehard republican and every time I see her she finds a way to bring up lazy people who benefit from handouts funded by taxpayers.

There is real hatred of the poor, both Republicans and Democrats have used that weapon but it appears to depend on the seen welfare (food stamps, Medicaid) vs unseen welfare (corporate subsidies, tax breaks), as to how people vote. And then add race. The louder one screams about people that receive seen welfare, the more likely it is that they have that they have issues with non-white welfare recipients. Especially if they themselves receive welfare. Somehow that entitles them to determine who is "deserving" and who is not.

Anyway I read a good book on this topic by Martin Gilens, you should check it out.

 

[Lark]

In a way for this it would perhaps be the best to make MBTI-like structure.


First letter: nationalist vs. globalist
Second letter: capitalist vs. socialist
Third letter: conservative vs. progressive
Forth letter: order vs chaos

We need a number of axis to really explain and define certain political groups.

GSCO

 

[Lark]

There is real hatred of the poor, both Republicans and Democrats have used that weapon but it appears to depend on the seen welfare (food stamps, Medicaid) vs unseen welfare (corporate subsidies, tax breaks), as to how people vote. And then add race. The louder one screams about people that receive seen welfare, the more likely it is that they have that they have issues with non-white welfare recipients. Especially if they themselves receive welfare. Somehow that entitles them to determine who is "deserving" and who is not.

Anyway I read a good book on this topic by Martin Gilens, you should check it out.

The whole idea of deserving and undeserving poor stretches back to the poor laws before the foundation of the welfare state in the UK, the boards of guardians in the old parish system used to determine who was deserving and undeserving and even those deserving of "poor relief" could expect a pretty punitive version of welfare, ie spend time on a treadmill, unpicking massive pieces of rope only to reassemble them, given a box much like a coffin to sleep in which was deliberately too narrow or too short, often both, so as to prevent their taking up the relief of poverty for very long in any case.

A lot of it was in reaction to the Speelhamland system, which was a kind of universal benefit, which early propagandists suggested just made its recipients idlers and rioters who spent time drinking gin all day and ate their children and all sorts of BS.

Its a idea I despise, along with "less eligibility", "the poor are too many", "perishers" and "vagrancy", the immigration of its day (across parish boundaries) all those mindsets allowed the Irish famine to happen and fostered absentee land lordism, in time they translated into the later "useless eaters" idea that the Nazis used to popularize euthanasia, abortion, eventually genocide. I think every few years it gets revived or reborn, the so called "welfare queen" idea or the "breeders" idea are versions of it.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

GSCO

GCPC