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Roe no mo?

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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And on the left it's the following

Centrists/Neoliberals
Democratic Socialists/Social Democrats
Tankies
Greens and hugs-will-cure-all-ills hippies
Left Libertarians/Libertarian Socialists
I'll point out that the Centrists/Liberals have by far the most power politically, so the constanr scaremongering about communism from the right is complete bullshit.

The tankies are probably the least influential and the rigid purity tests they have tend to result in locking themselves out of any political, social, or cultural impact.

They are like the People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian.
 

ceecee

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I'll point out that the Centrists/Liberals have by far the most power politically, so the constanr scaremongering about communism from the right is complete bullshit.

The tankies are probably the least influential and the rigid purity tests they have tend to result in locking themselves out of any political, social, or cultural impact.

They are like the People's Front of Judea in Life of Brian

Seriously, no one outside of Twitter and Reddit even knows what the fuck a tankie is. They do carry water for all the right wing authoritarians and fash but that doesn't make something like the horseshoe theory any more true. Same as the similarities between the Muslim Taliban and the Christian Domininists.
 
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DiscoBiscuit

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What about Planned Parenthood vs Casey?

Can't Biden now appoint 4 new justices?

There's no pretending the court isn't political anymore.

Also, if a political civil war does happen, do the Republicans believe they will win because they have the guns and the military experience? The Democrats has more people and the youth? The outcomes of the civil war seem like either destruction of the whole nation or loss of the Republicans.
Where does the food come from?
 

Kephalos

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"The right to abortion is only one aspect of reproductive freedom. Women must have access to the safest, most reliable birth-control measures our technology can devise (including voluntary sterilization); there must be an end to social pressure on women to justify their sexual activity, or their very existence, by having children. Equally important, women who want children should be free to have them—a freedom that necessarily includes the right to bring up children under decent economic and social conditions. No woman should be driven to an abortionist out of economic desperation or fear of being trapped in the home. Yet, even in the best of all possible societies, there will always be women who need abortions. Abortion is the emergency fallback, the crucial insurance against technological and human fallibility. Only an absolute right to abortion can free women from the chronic subliminal dread that at any moment we may find ourselves helplessly subject to the rule of our biology and robbed of all control over our lives. It is for this reason that the abortion struggle is so passionate on both sides: it carries all the emotional weight of the larger struggle over women’s liberation."

Ellen Willis (1977).
Abortion Backlash: Women Lose: "Supreme Court ruling gives states more ways to restrict abortion." Much like there were perceptive, good people (perceptive, good women like Susan Son
 

Virtual ghost

Complex paradigm
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I was fortunate enough to receive a fairly good education so I believe in using that to further causes I believe in.

I feel like I have witnessed a sort of spastic flailing about among progressives in the past 6 to 8 years (although I would say it is not negative on all fronts, fortunately), and observing the disastrous consequence of these failures convinced me that perhaps there may be some value to sharing my crazy ideas.

I used to be more open to what is often labeled as more "pragmatic" thinking. Considering how badly the proponents of "pragmatic" liberalism botched 2016 (right down to their mental models of the Republican electorate) is one thing that shifted me. Seeing how little the other side cares about being pragmatic and still seems fixated on "culture" as a top issue even after the pandemic and January 6th is another. Yet another is observing how the pandemic response confirms that the priorities of current American society are very much in line with what crazy college radical me suspected.

I have come to the conclusion that what is truly pragmatic in unprecedented times is coming up with new ideas and trying new things.


Yes, following the same path of loss over and over again isn't really pragmatism. That would is more of a masochism when you sum it.

Pragmatism is fundamentally about surviving and getting stuff done. Therefore sometimes the most pragmatic approach is to directly hit the problem. Since that saves you time and energy.
 

ygolo

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Virtual ghost

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have to agree with disco, i don't think the likelihood of another full-blown civil war on US soil is very high--the system was reinforced after the 1st civil war to prevent another one, so it would probably need to involve a very specific and exceptional set of conditions--if the military establishment were to be fractured into 2 or more opposing forces rallying behind a couple of charismatic generals, then maybe, but the military in the USA has been structured in a way that makes rogue generals and decentralized cults of personality unlikely to make it up the chain of command the way happens in places like Chili, Iraq, et al. This is why even in civil war times, it was relatively easy for Lincoln to maintain the chain of command in the Union. Similarly, the closest the south came to having anything close to a great leader personality was Lee, and he wasn't even the President (it should be noted the CSA government struggled with their popularity and at more than one point needed to rely on conscription for military manpower).

Not to say we won't see an increase in various groups labelled as insurgent groups, I just don't see the same ingredients usually present prior to full blown civil wars in other nations. More likely we'd just see an outright coup with a relatively low amount of bloodshed during the transitional phase

All of this stands as long as the economy is at least generally floating. However if that gets stuck under all the pressures the general anxiety and blame games will take over from there. In general civil wars happen when normal isn't really possible anymore. Also civil wars aren't really what someone plans in detail, because if they do that the event will probably look more as a coup.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I forgot about the American Civil War of 1934
But back then there was a government that was at least trying to do something for the average person, more or less.

Can you see our government today doing that? Generally I feel the most that can be expected is a bunch of tax credits.

I personally believe all the social instability we are dealing with now is a beneficiary of the "success" of the neoliberal paradigm at dealing with another Great Depression; I regard the phrase "Great Recession" as a euphemism.

There is a widespread perception that currently the government primarily exists to serve the needs of the ultra-wealthy and not anyone else. I would argue that this is not wrong. Until there is a change and the government once again attempts to benefit regular people, whether urban or rural, this instability will continue, and possibly escalate. I think at a bare minimum people want to feel like someone is trying to do something.

The current political paradigm assumes that one side cannot prosper without the other suffering. It is a zero-sum game, based on a scarcity mindset. I do not hold that it necessarily needs to be this way.
 
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DiscoBiscuit

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Doesn't matter what the mechanism of the loss is, if the majority, especially the young lose a civil war, it's a loss for the nation.

If the older minority loses, it's still a tragedy, but the nation lives on.

Edit:Also, to challenge the food association a bit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_agriculture

heh_robin_hood_men_in_tights.gif
 

Virtual ghost

Complex paradigm
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Yeah, that is absurd claim to make if you want to be taken seriously. But even if true that isn't core of the issue.
 

The Cat

Just a Cat who hangs out at the Crossroads
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The thing is we are in a place where absurd claims don't matter. People will still believe them.


Because in America, you could have anything you wanted, just as long as you could pay for it. If you couldn't pay, or refused to pay, you would remain needful for ever...
 

Z Buck McFate

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Anybody else wondering if the Roe memo was leaked to distract from other SCOTUS rulings (basically removing regulations re dark money)?
 
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