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Communist Failures

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This is exactly why I told you that change of definitions is the key. Therefore it is best that things are called for what they are, what would be the "upgrading of Capitalism". So that it is more like the one in other developed nations. That would fix various issues and the country would remain loyal to it's history and law of the land. Since at the end of day this is fixing of various details, not the overhaul of the entire system and starting from scratch.
There's going to be a lot of bullshit about how it's socialism, and that may very well stick. It's a problem no matter what you call it. I've seen this kind of thing play out too many times. Those kinds of tricks tend not to work.
 

Virtual ghost

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There's going to be a lot of bullshit about how it's socialism, and that may very well stick. It's a problem no matter what you call it. I've seen this kind of thing play out too many times. Those kinds of tricks tend not to work.

Which is why I said that there will probably need to be generational changes in the mix. In some 12 years from now everyone bellow 55 will be either a millennial or younger generations. What brings some fundamental changes just on it's own. However it is also opening some doors that were closed.
 

Virtual ghost

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Which is why I said that there will probably need to be generational changes in the mix. In some 12 years from now everyone bellow 55 will be either a millennial or younger generations. What brings some fundamental changes just on it's own. However it is also opening some doors that were closed.

For reference 12 years ago was when Obama and Romney had their presidential debates in 2012. What wasn't really that long time ago. In a sense this is exactly why Harris is talking about new generation of leadership. Since the old one is over 80 at this point.

Generational changes are huge factor in all countries. This may redefine the country even if on paper things will look as nothing changed. Since iconography will remain the same (but substance and protocols can indeed change through generational change).
 
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For reference 12 years ago was when Obama and Romney had their presidential debates in 2012. What wasn't really that long time ago. In a sense this is exactly why Harris is talking about new generation of leadership. Since the old one is over 80 at this point.

Generational changes are huge factor in all countries. This may redefine the country even if on paper things will look as nothing changed. Since iconography will remain the same (but substance and protocols can indeed change through generational change).
I can tell you I will never run for office. Fame does not appeal to me; I'm too anxious for that, and there are other factors at play that convince me it's a bad decision. If I'm any good at it, I wouldn't mind being in a quiet behind-the-scenes role. I'd be happy to let other people take credit for my work, if it has the impact I want it to have.

We don't just need new leadership, but new kinds of citizens. We may need those sooner if Trump wins. What I mean by this is basically that people will need to look out for each other.
 
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ygolo

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I would argue that American capitalism, with the fondness of it's politicians for "laissez-faire" capitalism is a purer form of capitalism.

What exists in other places is a more restrained form of capitalism, unless they are even more laissez-faire. I'm not saying that European are communists. It's just that Americans tend to think of capitalism the way a Soviet subject might think of communism.

You're not really supposed to think of alternatives to it or even constraints to it.
I think people call it Capitalist Realism, or something like that. The notion that there's no alternative.

I'm not a fan of "laissez-faire" capitalism either. I believe if most people think about it enough, they wouldn't want it either-with all the externalities involved.

But we live in a heterogeneous environment and create purposefully complicated regulations. They're not complicated for effectiveness, but complicated specifically to need lawyers.
 

ygolo

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Lark

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Well, that is certainly not what I was implying. I was trying to say some government is good, some business is good, OTOH, too much government is bad and too much unregulated business is bad.

There's a point on the curve there that is probably the most efficient, and I would argue the left/right (as we generally think of it) is usually just a difference of opinion on where that point falls. This doesn't include extreme approaches like Marxism or Libertarianism, but I don't really know any real people who actually believe in those approaches.
There's a lot of Marxism that I think isnt extreme and makes perfect sense, although honestly Marx is more about what will replace reigion and where will it spring from than anything else, he's one of a dozen or so writers who thought much more of philosophy than was probably a good idea / deserved, it was to be "the answer" if it was phony and amounted to something more / other than a derivative of ruling class excuses, tastes, explanations.

When people think of Marxism they just mean central planning for the most part or command economies, every state engages in that, those that dont get bought off or otherwise neutralized by those that do, when attempts have been made to marketize something like defence for instance it inevitably fucks up, movies like War Dogs, Lord of War, Best Defence, they're just the tip of the iceberg.

Libertarianism, of the Von Mise type, I would say IS extreme, precisely because it, even more so than "actual existing marxism", really, really ignores how far from theory the reality has strayed in any and all economies that have bothered to try out their thinking in the most literal senses they can think of. Very, very quickly you've got the very, very worst example of private tyrannies emerging, I'm not talking about "Hood" or "Meth" - onomics either, most capitalism has more to do with Capone than Smith these days, but something much worse, pretty much unknown outside of stateless societies in the third world. The best the apologists can muster as a defence is that its got to do with race, ethnicity or ethno-culture.

The rapid concentrations of wealth and power in either central planning or its private equivalent is bad news, it tends towards a kind of absolutism which can not and will not self-correct, anyone who has had a bad boss or worked in a firm were its been inherited by the boss' son or daughter and they've no other qualification for their role than the fortune of being born into that family at that time, knows you hope and pray for a demographic shift, sickness or chance or something to switch it up. There's some eastern european saying about "it is good that people die" or something like that meaning that nothing persists indefinitely, not even tyrannies, minor or major.

Though, I do think the idea of a "balance" between public-private even misses the point, discussions about mixed economies, socialism vs capitalism (or socialism and capitalism) etc. all miss the point. What even is it about the this supposed "balance", what is the substance or nature of it, that makes for a better outcome? I think its the same tendencies that screw things up, whether its labelled one way or another, which no one really talks about, or when they do its bogus, engaging in some sort of stupid reductive, identity politics and tossing labels about.
 

Lark

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If this election goes the way I'm afraid that it will, I'd call that a capitalist failure. The media has played a very strong role in making Trump a palatable figure for America. They do this because they make money by doing so. They're not in the business of delivering truth or anything like that, although they liked to position themselves as courageous defenders of freedom when he was in office. This is despite the fact that they were the ones who helped put them there. Consider SNL having Trump host twice and then NBC lauding themselves for speaking "truth to power" after the fact by bringing in Alec Baldwin to lampoon. It's a similar story with J.D. Vance and that stupid Hillbilly Elegy book that they all fawned over on the media circuit.

Maybe I've watched too many Noam Chomsky documentaries but I think the media is partly the problem, because the media is owned by corporations that want to make a profit, and it turns out that investigating and revealing the truth isn't that powerful.

Because of greed then, we may lose whatever remaining semblance of Democratic control remains. It could get so much worse than that, too. Are people aware that in other countries there are also cases of capitalism overthrowing democracy?

I dont think you're wrong, I used to like Chomsky when I was younger, as I grew older I grew disappointed with him and decided a hell of a lot of what he was saying wasnt much of a revelation, it was just packaged well for consumption.

Did you read that Hillbilly Elegy book? I did, I didnt know about it being some kind of big impact read or anything at the time, I just thought it was some guy musing about his life and humble beginnings but then saw an awful screen adaptation of the story (somehow managing to be worse than the book itself) and realised something was up.

It just made me think, Jesus, how many times are people going to rerun the whole "southern man vs sweet home alabama" thing and people are going to go on consuming it as though its still fresh as the day it was originally dreamt up. Even the excuse that down the years it somehow mutates or morphs away, so with each reappraisal its ever so "slightly" different / improved, doesnt hold any water with me what so ever. The dumb as fuck idea of pushing "people should live this way" and "its not all bad really, in fact its quite good" which rests behind it all is just as bad as some of the cosmopolitan LGBT stuff that it seems to be locked in perpetual battle / death struggle with.
 

Lark

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I think people call it Capitalist Realism, or something like that. The notion that there's no alternative.

I'm not a fan of "laissez-faire" capitalism either. I believe if most people think about it enough, they wouldn't want it either-with all the externalities involved.

But we live in a heterogeneous environment and create purposefully complicated regulations. They're not complicated for effectiveness, but complicated specifically to need lawyers.

I've heard academics talk about capitalist realism, I think its more than TINA which has been around at least since the eighties when Thatcher responded to Trotskyism by saying that the alternatives were either private capitalism or state capitalism, there wasnt any other option and aiming for one would produce either one or the other thinly disguised.

Capitalist realism, or critical realism its called too, I think, has got something to do with post-modernism too, another idea that's spent so far as academia goes.

I'm skeptical that its always ligitation or lawyers that's problematic, recourse to law has helped poor people or victims of corporate negligence more often than not and benefited consumers more widely. I think there's a building narrative attacking it because states and private interests despise the "lawfare" that's calling them to account, finally, and in a much, much more fundamental and basic sense that the rules, which sometimes they invented, actually apply to them and no just other people.
 

Lark

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This is exactly why I told you that change of definitions is the key. Therefore it is best that things are called for what they are, what would be the "upgrading of Capitalism". So that it is more like the one in other developed nations. That would fix various issues and the country would remain loyal to it's history and law of the land. Since at the end of day this is fixing of various details, not the overhaul of the entire system and starting from scratch.

You dont have to look that far back to find that either, there's nothing, objectively, socialist about any of the Roosevelt administrations, Theodore Roosevelt felt socialism was lunacy and wrote at length about it (even if he did write there was some common ground as he understood it) but he was a Trust buster and thought plutocracy and old money were issues too.

The whole "socialism as foreign idea", is donkey's years old in the US, probably stretching back as far as the first migration panics about the Irish and Italians or the Nativist insistence on migrants being conscripted to fight for the union against the confederacy. When you have social imprints or archetypes like that its then easy to just label anything at all as "socialism" or "socialist" and some people will switch off and stop thinking about it, it'll work like a taboo, Trump co. are exploiting that, easily.

I dont know why more of his supporters dont dislike that obvious machavellianism or imagine he's only duping others and not them too. Or maybe they think there's no other way to secure office, which is concerning too as they basically think their actual ideas or policies wont cut it by themselves and they need a lot of dog whistles instead.
 

Virtual ghost

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You dont have to look that far back to find that either, there's nothing, objectively, socialist about any of the Roosevelt administrations, Theodore Roosevelt felt socialism was lunacy and wrote at length about it (even if he did write there was some common ground as he understood it) but he was a Trust buster and thought plutocracy and old money were issues too.

The whole "socialism as foreign idea", is donkey's years old in the US, probably stretching back as far as the first migration panics about the Irish and Italians or the Nativist insistence on migrants being conscripted to fight for the union against the confederacy. When you have social imprints or archetypes like that its then easy to just label anything at all as "socialism" or "socialist" and some people will switch off and stop thinking about it, it'll work like a taboo, Trump co. are exploiting that, easily.

I dont know why more of his supporters dont dislike that obvious machavellianism or imagine he's only duping others and not them too. Or maybe they think there's no other way to secure office, which is concerning too as they basically think their actual ideas or policies wont cut it by themselves and they need a lot of dog whistles instead.


I am well aware of the fact that in USA everything you don't like you can call "socialism".

However that is almost besides the point in practical sense. Since they as a country need to have honest conversation about where things should go. In other words both parties are losing the country to stupidity, misinformation, gangs, various "substances", incompetence, debt, disrepair .... etc. Therefore just screaming "socialism" or "far right" at pretty much any suggestion is simply naive and kinda childlike approach to the problem. Which is evidently getting out of hand.
 

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All of this is exactly why I separate political figures mostly on "competent vs incompetent" scale. Because if you are genuinely competent you will make working system out of pretty much any idea that is at least somewhat realistic. While if you are incompetent no ideological framework will help you. Therefore in that case you simply need basic education before you should try something. The same goes for all people who don't know how working system looks.


What is the main problem with all open autocracy, it is hard to remove incompetent people before it is too late.
 

Virtual ghost

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I think people call it Capitalist Realism, or something like that. The notion that there's no alternative.

I'm not a fan of "laissez-faire" capitalism either. I believe if most people think about it enough, they wouldn't want it either-with all the externalities involved.

But we live in a heterogeneous environment and create purposefully complicated regulations. They're not complicated for effectiveness, but complicated specifically to need lawyers.


Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with laissez-faire, as long as you understand it's limits. What means that in a few spheres you have to make protections for citizens: healthcare, education, security, basic consumer protection and perhaps basic infrastructure.


Healthcare - because here seller openly has upper hand on the buyer (in ways that Capitalist realism doesn't think it is possible). This is because the system was designed before creation of modern medicine. Plus healthcare has to be available to all people at all times, so that they can get better and continue living. Otherwise you have people who get sick and then their income drops. What often means that they can't afford treatment and perhaps no one will even give the the loan for the treatment. What in the end means that the system is eroding it's base of workers and small business owners (and at best case scenario it is just making them squeezed by debt). What means that pay to play healthcare is fundamentally anti market and thus anti Capitalist in practical sense.


Education - is kinda the same thing. If you have quality education available to all people that will go a long way in fixing the most vile and toxic elements of laissez-faire. What makes this model much more workable on the long run.


Security - also has to be public sector, since that is kinda the only way to make sure law is respected. Once you get into private armies and that sort of stuff it quickly becomes questionable who should enforce the laws and how are they going to do that (without starting civil war).


Basic consumer protection - is basically the continuation of education system that is open for everyone. Thus it serves to remove the most wild parts of Capitalism. If someone is producing food and medicine that harms workers and small business owners that is basically anti Capitalist practice that is has destabilizing factor on the market. Killing other Capitalists for profit is something that should be illegal. In a sense I am astounded that no one in US has manage to phrase the problem like this.


Basic infrastructure - can perhaps also be in the area where market is limited. Since having to pay individually just about every road/street on which you drive is simply a drag on the system.



This is why this has to be presented as reform of Capitalism and nothing more drastic than that. Especially since this is indeed the case. You will still have dozens of industries where you will have very high level of market freedom. Plus you will have elections and elected government. Therefore since US allies through the decades have this structure of country/economy I don't fundamentally see why this can't be build in US. After all "might makes right" through money and power is much closer to Communism than to what we can define as "modern Capitalism".
 
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I dont think you're wrong, I used to like Chomsky when I was younger, as I grew older I grew disappointed with him and decided a hell of a lot of what he was saying wasnt much of a revelation, it was just packaged well for consumption.

Did you read that Hillbilly Elegy book? I did, I didnt know about it being some kind of big impact read or anything at the time, I just thought it was some guy musing about his life and humble beginnings but then saw an awful screen adaptation of the story (somehow managing to be worse than the book itself) and realised something was up.
No. From what I know about it, I don't understand what about it was so revelatory. It represents an inverse of Chomsky's manufacturing consent. This book was heavily promoted in various media outlets as an "explanation" for Trump, but I don't understand how it explains anything from what I know about it. I have the feeling that the Vance explanation sold better because it were more advertiser friendly, as opposed to other explanations that make more sense but wouldn't be as advertiser friendly.

I'm contrasting Vance with Thomas Frank who is left, and economically left in particular, being highly critical of the disinvestment in rural America that occurred as a result of globalization. If the Democrats weren't largely hide-bound idiots, they could have seized this as a core issue of their platform and probably added additional states to their camp. Instead, Trump grabbed it up as an issue.

I don't think Chomsky's concept of manufacturing consent is obvious at all, at least not if you live in the States. For those unaware, Chomsky is proposing the idea of "censorship through the market" as opposed to the idea of "censorship through the state." Advertisers will threaten to pull ads if a story is being run that an advertiser might disapprove of. Because of the threat of the loss of revenue generated by advertisers, this means the story gets pulled. I tend to think of this in terms of foreign policy, and this is where I've seen it recently, but I would imagine it would also apply to any news stories that might be too critical of those advertisers.
It just made me think, Jesus, how many times are people going to rerun the whole "southern man vs sweet home alabama" thing and people are going to go on consuming it as though its still fresh as the day it was originally dreamt up. Even the excuse that down the years it somehow mutates or morphs away, so with each reappraisal its ever so "slightly" different / improved, doesnt hold any water with me what so ever. The dumb as fuck idea of pushing "people should live this way" and "its not all bad really, in fact its quite good" which rests behind it all is just as bad as some of the cosmopolitan LGBT stuff that it seems to be locked in perpetual battle / death struggle with.
I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Could you explain a little more for someone who hasn't read Hillbilly Elegy? What do LGBT politics have to do with this?
 
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SensEye

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Though, I do think the idea of a "balance" between public-private even misses the point, discussions about mixed economies, socialism vs capitalism (or socialism and capitalism) etc. all miss the point. What even is it about the this supposed "balance", what is the substance or nature of it, that makes for a better outcome? I think its the same tendencies that screw things up, whether its labelled one way or another, which no one really talks about, or when they do its bogus, engaging in some sort of stupid reductive, identity politics and tossing labels about.
I'm curious as to what you think is the 'point' that is being missed? I'm also curious about what you feel these 'tendencies that tend to screw things up' (which no one is really talking about) are?

As to your question about what is the nature of balanced approaches leading to a better outcome, I think it is just inherent. There are usually pros and cons to any system, especially ones that have to survive real world implementation, and so a balanced system that takes what seems to work best from the various theoretical approaches tends to result in the best outcomes.
 
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I think people call it Capitalist Realism, or something like that. The notion that there's no alternative.

I'm not a fan of "laissez-faire" capitalism either. I believe if most people think about it enough, they wouldn't want it either-with all the externalities involved.

But we live in a heterogeneous environment and create purposefully complicated regulations. They're not complicated for effectiveness, but complicated specifically to need lawyers.
I haven't finished listening to the podcast that you link to, but yes, that's what I can't stand. The idea that American capitalism is the perfect system that cannot be improved. I reject the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds. It doesn't matter to me what the alternative is as long as it does a better job of serving everyone (not just billionaires). The labels are not important to me.

Why do I think it's not the best possible system? Well, it doesn't seem very good at adapting and involving to new challenges or situations. Every few decades or so there is a meltdown that throws everything into chaos. Decisions about what trades to make on stock markets occur on a purely emotional basis, much like gambling. Logic often doesn't enter into it all at the point. If investors get skittish about a company, they'll dump their stock, and perhaps feel ridiculous when the prices go up the next day.

There is a logic of capitalism but it operates more at the level of running firms and companies, like, for instance, what can be done to improve the profit margins. That operates towards a directed goal, but it is not like all of capitalism does this. As pointed out earlier, it's not that different from going to Vegas. The idea that it's a purely rational system is a myth. I'd like to replace it with something more rational, although more humane (and quality-focused) than the capitalist logic of being centered around profit margins that I discussed earlier.

I can say a few things about the video so far: I disagree with the idea that the populist movements on the right and the left are the same. Populist movements on the right usually work by appealing to racism; that's not the case for populist movements on the left. I used to fight with a member called Jaguar about this all the time.

I used to think horseshoe theory was real, and now I don't. I think the people on the right are much more sadistic than the most extreme far left person you can think of. (It's a matter of personal experience, really.)

Stewart's sarcastic comments about gatekeepers saving democracy are pretty great, though.

Regarding the Federalist Papers, the "checks and balances" mentioned are actually what led to Trump being elected. The electoral college; that's a check and balance. Trump lost the popular vote. If we had no electoral college, we would have neither Bush Jr. nor Donald Trump as politicians. I have no idea if the authors of the Federalist Papers would have seen Donald Trump as a greater danger than Kamala Harris (I don't know if they would have been able to process a woman of color leading the country), but the system that they created favors him. It's the outcome of thinking it's dangerous for common people to have too much of a voice.

I'm not in favor of political gatekeeping, because I think they tend to play out the same way as what I outlined above. It doesn't prevent authoritarians, it enables them.

Stewart is right, I think about Roosevelt's actions led to the defeat of the demagogues that emerged in the Great Depression (insert standard rant from me about 2008).

Jon Stewart on the ACA (minute 26) was also great. I was right to like this man.
 
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ceecee

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No. From what I know about it, I don't understand what about it was so revelatory. It represents an inverse of Chomsky's manufacturing consent. This book was heavily promoted in various media outlets as an "explanation" for Trump, but I don't understand how it explains anything from what I know about it. I have the feeling that the Vance explanation sold better because it were more advertiser friendly, as opposed to other explanations that make more sense but wouldn't be as advertiser friendly.
I read it and I realize people bought it because they believed it was a "memoir". It's basically how pissed JD Vance was (and still is) about being born into an Appalachian/poor/hillbilly family (poor above everything else, he vehemently hates the poors and it's very evident in the book).

The rest of the book is full of tropes and tired stereotypes about how these mush mouth, stupid, lowlife scummy people don't want to work, are addicted to drugs and alcohol and are looking for an easy way to make money, including criminal enterprise and endless bitching about them, including his own family, being on welfare. And again, how not like them he is (we don't all have a gay supervillain wannabe billionaire "benefactor" after all). It's less than 300 pages of punching down. Something the GOP promotes and encourages with exuberance. The rest of the story is a Marine career that probably pisses off all combat Marines, a stint in Venture capitalism (where cashed in on those same Marines and other US military sacrificed for the MIC) he met the man that bought him his US Senate seat and likely also bought him his VP nomination. None of this comes from a deep understanding of how government functions (they still all think it's a business) or any type of political acumen. JD now realizes welfare is just fine. The corporate flavor that is.

That is the only connection to LGBTQ politics there is (other than JD Vance's Opus Dei/Catholic Natalist views) - Lark thinks we are all being forced to accept some alien lifestyle placed on us by force and this soaks into his views on everything yet I guarantee not a single queer person out there thinks about him at all.

BTW, there are very good books out there on the subject of Appalachia and the people that live there. White Trash by Nancy Isenberg and What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte.
 
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Virtual ghost

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I used to think horseshoe theory was real, and now I don't. I think the people on the right are much more sadistic than the most extreme far left person you can think of. (It's a matter of personal experience, really.)

I suppose it really is the matter or personal experience. In other words you are born and risen American. What basically means that you never had any real interaction with genuine far left. Just because Republicans like to call people far left that doesn't mean that this is truly far left (aka Communists).

In the case that you have experienced all the shelling,, banning of private property, family in gulag ... I am pretty sure you would have different opinion. Where did most of the Hitler's army went ? The Communists killed them on the eastern front.


This is kinda like that Star trek episode where Q says that there were enough of these "Klingon-Romulan" stories and that it is time that Picard meets some of the real dangers of the galaxy. So he teleports Enterprise right next to a Borg cube.

Therefore I dare to say that you haven't seen the real show either ... your world are still Klingons and Romulans.



 
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I suppose it really is the matter or personal experience. In other words you are born and risen American.
Honestly, and this will sound really silly to you, but I'm thinking of people I've met on internet forums.

What basically means that you never had any real interaction with genuine far left. Just because Republicans like to call people far left that doesn't mean that this is truly far left (aka Communists).

The original context was in the video of the Jon Stewart podcast I posted. I've liked Jon Stewart for a long time, even if I'm not up to date with what he's doing.

He was talking about one of his guests and how they're on a podcast (or have a book) or something, that likes to take on the populists of the left and the right. Maybe that was simply a description they provided themselves, maybe not. Stewart doesn't always get everything right.

What I started thinking about was what he meant by far left and right, and I started thinking about people I've known on various message boards.

I'm wondering now what "populist left" might mean nationally. It could be any of the following, or all of them.

  1. Pro-Palestine protestors
  2. Bernie Sanders supporters (which is what I usually assume people mean when speaking of an American far left disparagingly, since he came pretty close)
  3. Incel clown mobs who liked the first Joker film
  4. The Squad
I don't feel all that threatened by any of these people.

In the case that you have experienced all the shelling,, banning of private property, family in gulag ... I am pretty sure you would have different opinion.
Probably. For what it's worth, I do have this third or fourth cousin from Belarus, who doesn't seem like a fan of Lukachenko and who now has Canadian citizenship.
Where did most of the Hitler's army went ? The Communists killed them on the eastern front.


This is kinda like that Star trek episode where Q says that there were enough of these "Klingon-Romulan" stories and that it is time that Picard meets some of the real dangers of the galaxy. So he teleports Enterprise right next to a Borg cube.

Therefore I dare to say that you haven't seen the real show either ... your world are still Klingons and Romulans.
Eh, I think depending on what happens in November, the game changes dramatically.

Wasn't that episode the first time we saw the Borg?
 

Virtual ghost

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Honestly, and this will sound really silly to you, but I'm thinking of people I've met on internet forums.

Perhaps but internet isn't exactly "the real deal". Until you are governed by these people the odds are that you wouldn't see the problem for what it is.
Plus if they hang on the internet doing "chat" the odds are that this isn't far left either. Those people you are talking about are mostly what it is called "red anarchists" or "progressives" .... or something similar to that.

The original context was in the video of the Jon Stewart podcast I posted. I've liked Jon Stewart for a long time, even if I'm not up to date with what he's doing.

He was talking about one of his guests and how they're on a podcast (or have a book) or something, that likes to take on the populists of the left and the right. Maybe that was simply a description they provided themselves, maybe not. Stewart doesn't always get everything right.

What I started thinking about was what he meant by far left and right, and I started thinking about people I've known on various message boards.

I'm wondering now what "populist left" might mean nationally. It could be any of the following, or all of them.

  1. Pro-Palestine protestors
  2. Bernie Sanders supporters (which is what I usually assume people mean when speaking of an American far left disparagingly, since he came pretty close)
  3. Incel clown mobs who liked the first Joker film
  4. The Squad
I don't feel all that threatened by any of these people.

But that is the problem, none of that is far left (not even close). I am sorry but you are listening to Republicans for too long and to them anything other than wild west unregulated market is far left.

Genuine far left take on Palestine would be to occupy Palestine and start the forceful change of the local culture. In other words Palestinians are Muslims and that is something that has to be erased by the standard of genuine far left. This is exactly why China opened the reeducation camps for it's Muslim population (that is in the millions) . In the meantime people of similar ideology as AOC have been arrested all over Hong Hong. Since the city got purged of everything that even looks as genuine opposition.

What in US is consider to be far left is something that has just about nothing to do with the real thing. It seem as you are all throwing the term around the place as an inslut without even fully realizing what it means.


Probably. For what it's worth, I do have this third or fourth cousin from Belarus, who doesn't seem like a fan of Lukachenko and who now has Canadian citizenship.

That is logic in good direction, Lukaschenko is person that is going into far left direction. However he is still a little bit too much of a typical nationalistic strongman on personal level to truly fit the profile.


Eh, I think depending on what happens in November, the game changes dramatically.

Wasn't that episode the first time we saw the Borg?

Yes, that is exactly the first moment that Borg comes into picture. I have deliberately posted those few minutes of the whole serial, since that is when real and systematic threat comes into the picture. Everything else before that are "Romulans and Klingons".



I am just kinda trying to point out how this thread started.
 
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