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Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/philly-d-a-threatens-to-arrest-federal-agents

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SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

The key issue with pinning all your hopes to the dream of a singular massive revolution is that revolutions are unreliable. They can't reliably be provoked into happening by the people who dream of them. They tend to spark off independently instead of by planning.

This means that people who dream of revolution as the only solution to all their problems can't really endorse any "short-term" changes for the better, because that could reduce the pressure on the system that they want to boil over, so they just kind of hang around being obstinate and promising a pie in the sky that could easily never come at all.

The other way in which they're unreliable is the fact that when you rely on overthrowing the system by force, that is in itself a different kind of diceroll where you have to bet on both the tactical prowess of the revolution's leaders and their relative benevolence to not just seize power and wind up setting up their own little dictatorship of convenience that gets a huge amount of people killed. And that's before you get into evaluating the relative feasibility of the vague end goal.

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

SlothfulCobra posted:

The key issue with pinning all your hopes to the dream of a singular massive revolution is that revolutions are unreliable. They can't reliably be provoked into happening by the people who dream of them. They tend to spark off independently instead of by planning.

This means that people who dream of revolution as the only solution to all their problems can't really endorse any "short-term" changes for the better, because that could reduce the pressure on the system that they want to boil over, so they just kind of hang around being obstinate and promising a pie in the sky that could easily never come at all.

The other way in which they're unreliable is the fact that when you rely on overthrowing the system by force, that is in itself a different kind of diceroll where you have to bet on both the tactical prowess of the revolution's leaders and their relative benevolence to not just seize power and wind up setting up their own little dictatorship of convenience that gets a huge amount of people killed. And that's before you get into evaluating the relative feasibility of the vague end goal.

The alternative seems to be "wait around and watch as everything gets worse" so despite all these shortcomings I'm gonna have to throw in with Orange Devil on this one.

Also we tried fighting for short-term changes for the better, it was the Bernie campaign and it got stomped out by the Democratic Party in cruel and obvious fashion. It's not "pie in the sky" to say that public housing exists and could be much better funded. It's not "pie in the sky" to ask for Medicare For All when many other countries (who are all poorer than us) have some form of public healthcare. It's not "pie in the sky" to demand a Green New Deal because capitalism is literally killing the planet and the people on it.

piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender

WampaLord posted:

The alternative seems to be "wait around and watch as everything gets worse" so despite all these shortcomings I'm gonna have to throw in with Orange Devil on this one.

Also we tried fighting for short-term changes for the better, it was the Bernie campaign and it got stomped out by the Democratic Party in cruel and obvious fashion. It's not "pie in the sky" to say that public housing exists and could be much better funded. It's not "pie in the sky" to ask for Medicare For All when many other countries (who are all poorer than us) have some form of public healthcare. It's not "pie in the sky" to demand a Green New Deal because capitalism is literally killing the planet and the people on it.

It is if you don't convince the other members of your democracy that it would be better. What you describe is a king who wants all the things you want, and thats not where you live. The likely scenario post any violent revolution is also not that. The short view of parties has overpowered the long view of developing social agreement. People won't listen to each other and we can't seem to build a consensus until our collective hand is forced. We dont talk with, we talk at, and that paralyzes a democracy.

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

piL posted:

It is if you don't convince the other members of your democracy that it would be better. What you describe is a king who wants all the things you want, and thats not where you live. The likely scenario post any violent revolution is also not that. The short view of parties has overpowered the long view of developing social agreement. People won't listen to each other and we can't seem to build a consensus until our collective hand is forced. We dont talk with, we talk at, and that paralyzes a democracy.

So unless the democratic majority approves of saving life on this planet, we shouldn't bother? Sure, let's just let billions die because we couldn't come to "consensus."

The democratic majority didn't approve of getting rid of slavery, or getting rid of Jim Crow laws, or gay marriage being legal and yet somehow those things happened.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011


Dang, that guy also stopped civil asset forfeiture in Philidelphia, against the wishes of Jeff Sessions. Sounds like a pretty neat dude.

WampaLord posted:

It's not "pie in the sky" to say that public housing exists and could be much better funded. It's not "pie in the sky" to ask for Medicare For All when many other countries (who are all poorer than us) have some form of public healthcare. It's not "pie in the sky" to demand a Green New Deal because capitalism is literally killing the planet and the people on it.

I don't think those are pies in the sky. That's reform, which I am arguing in favor of. What I am arguing is unrealistic and impossible is the idea of leading with the idea of revoking the total underpinnings of society and not accepting anything less.

Because if you're shooting for a goal like that which is nearly impossible to achieve in the best of conditions and ignoring everything else, it becomes this idealized promise of paradise after the ??? step on your whiteboard.

WampaLord posted:

The democratic majority didn't approve of getting rid of slavery, or getting rid of Jim Crow laws, or gay marriage being legal and yet somehow those things happened.

The majority did approve of limiting slavery. After decades of slaveholding aristocrats kicking up a fuss and trying to remove the question of slavery from politics (and the supreme court revoking free states' rights to prohibit slavery in their borders), there was a whole vote that the minority faction lost, and in retaliation they started a war and lost and only managed to institute Jim Crow after about a decade of running campaigns of terrorism and in some cases outright coups against local governments that helped to prevent blacks from asserting their rights to vote.

And then they only started to get rid of Jim Crow after hard work was done getting into the political system and asserting the right to vote in addition to demonstrating, not from disengaging from the whole thing until something happened to entirely remove capitalism in one fell swoop.

piL
Sep 20, 2007
(__|\\\\)
Taco Defender

WampaLord posted:

So unless the democratic majority approves of saving life on this planet, we shouldn't bother? Sure, let's just let billions die because we couldn't come to "consensus."

The democratic majority didn't approve of getting rid of slavery, or getting rid of Jim Crow laws, or gay marriage being legal and yet somehow those things happened.

No, the point is that you can campaign for ideas independent of whether you're campaigning for a politician and that the fight to win minds isn't over because a certain politic isn't in a position to win through the democratic process. The opposite of the nihilism of waiting for someone else's revolution and hoping it's the right someone else--it very rarely is. It will require more finesse than the simple and effective hammer of otherization.

piL fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jul 23, 2020

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

SlothfulCobra posted:

The key issue with pinning all your hopes to the dream of a singular massive revolution is that revolutions are unreliable. They can't reliably be provoked into happening by the people who dream of them. They tend to spark off independently instead of by planning.

This means that people who dream of revolution as the only solution to all their problems can't really endorse any "short-term" changes for the better, because that could reduce the pressure on the system that they want to boil over, so they just kind of hang around being obstinate and promising a pie in the sky that could easily never come at all.

The other way in which they're unreliable is the fact that when you rely on overthrowing the system by force, that is in itself a different kind of diceroll where you have to bet on both the tactical prowess of the revolution's leaders and their relative benevolence to not just seize power and wind up setting up their own little dictatorship of convenience that gets a huge amount of people killed. And that's before you get into evaluating the relative feasibility of the vague end goal.

Again you keep criticising but you don't actually have an alternative. Is your proposed way forward reliable, my dude?


And you're just going to have to trust me that I don't dream of revolution. I dream of justice. Social, racial and economic justice, as you cannot have any one of those without the others. Any path forward that makes that become true I will support. I would never block improvements out of some misguided accelerationist bullshit. In fact, even asserting that I would block justice is a rather grave insult, so gently caress you.

I'm not saying a revolution would be a great thing, I'm saying a revolution is unfortunately necessary to achieve those goals, as all the other paths keep failing. And I believe I understand why they keep failing, and it's not because we just don't try hard enough, but because the people with power in our society use that power to make them fail. Because it is in their personal interest (of maintaining their relative power first and foremost) to make them fail. So the only way forward is to remove those people from power. And no election is going to do this as the primary source of power in todays society (indeed perhaps all societies throughout all time) is economic power. And democracy has very little grip on economic power in actually existing so-called democracies. And so we're not going to reform our way out of capitalism. And we are *definitely* not going to reform our way out of capitalism before climate change becomes catastrophic. I hope to be wrong, I keep voting for the parties that seem to genuinely want that reform, and encouraging others to do the same, but I see no evidence that this is ever going to actually work.

Allende is the closest we've ever come to reforming our way out of capitalism and he got murdered for it and then his country got tortured and murdered and raped for decades. Not the pinnacle of reliability, unfortunately.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jul 23, 2020

Mr Owl
Dec 28, 2008

this was the best one, the best one of all the ones

Ancillary Character
Jul 25, 2007
Going about life as if I were a third-tier ancillary character

Orange Devil posted:

Again you keep criticising but you don't actually have an alternative. Is your proposed way forward reliable, my dude?


And you're just going to have to trust me that I don't dream of revolution. I dream of justice. Social, racial and economic justice, as you cannot have any one of those without the others. Any path forward that makes that become true I will support. I would never block improvements out of some misguided accelerationist bullshit. In fact, even asserting that I would block justice is a rather grave insult, so gently caress you.

I'm not saying a revolution would be a great thing, I'm saying a revolution is unfortunately necessary to achieve those goals, as all the other paths keep failing. And I believe I understand why they keep failing, and it's not because we just don't try hard enough, but because the people with power in our society use that power to make them fail. Because it is in their personal interest (of maintaining their relative power first and foremost) to make them fail. So the only way forward is to remove those people from power. And no election is going to do this as the primary source of power in todays society (indeed perhaps all societies throughout all time) is economic power. And democracy has very little grip on economic power in actually existing so-called democracies. And so we're not going to reform our way out of capitalism. And we are *definitely* not going to reform our way out of capitalism before climate change becomes catastrophic. I hope to be wrong, I keep voting for the parties that seem to genuinely want that reform, and encouraging others to do the same, but I see no evidence that this is ever going to actually work.

Allende is the closest we've ever come to reforming our way out of capitalism and he got murdered for it and then his country got tortured and murdered and raped for decades. Not the pinnacle of reliability, unfortunately.

Have you started organizing an armed militia for your revolution yet? If not, why haven't you? Are you just planning to be like those pro-Ming groups who spent all of the Qing Dynasty crowing about how they're totally going to overthrow the Qing to restore the Ming Dynasty and then basically played no rule in the actual revolution that overthrew the Qing?

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Orange Devil posted:

Social, racial and economic justice, as you cannot have any one of those without the others.

Let me guess, you're one of those people who thinks a socialist revolution is the one thing that will fix institutional racism, right?

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

rujasu posted:

Let me guess, you're one of those people who thinks a socialist revolution is the one thing that will fix institutional racism, right?

Not in itself, but it's not getting fixed without it.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Orange Devil posted:

Not in itself, but it's not getting fixed without it.

Institutional racism is not going to be "fixed" in our lifetimes either way, and no political movement, revolution or otherwise, is going to get it out of our culture. All we can do is keep making progress over time (and stop electing regressive leaders who will move things backwards).

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy
Lol the liberal morons itt are literally in denial over the conditions affecting us. The recent uprisings have changed more in 2 months than your feckless methods have in 20 years. There's a full on class revolt going on right now and you're telling to people to stop because it makes you uncomfortable

You see secret police and fascists in the street and you wag your finger at those who want substantial change and know reform is impossible?

How long can you keep that up before you just admit you're a bootlicker who values the status quo more than justice. The past few posts are the literal embodiment of the white moderate in the Letter from Birmingham Jail.

And your only theory of change is to double down on the support for capitalism and bourgeois democracy, the very systems that caused all these problems in the first place

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 25, 2020

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Orange Devil posted:

Not in itself, but it's not getting fixed without it.

You gotta realize that libs are vehemently opposed to economic justice or democracy in the workplace.

Libs want class oppression, and the brutality, poverty, and violence that capitalism entails, but they want the classes to reflect demographics so they can square the just world delusion they buy into. They do not want justice. They do not want equality. They distrust democracy and believe in elite governance. They support an economic system that makes people less free.

Essentially you need to internalize "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds." Especially now that fascism is a growing threat, its not worth arguing with its enablers and collaborators. These people will turn tge other cheek if you or I got disappeared by secret police, don't forget it.

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 25, 2020

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Phi230 posted:

Lol the liberal morons itt are literally in denial over the conditions affecting us. The recent uprisings have changed more in 2 months than your feckless methods have in 20 years. There's a full on class revolt going on right now and you're telling to people to stop because it makes you uncomfortable

You see secret police and fascists in the street and you wag your finger at those who want substantial change and know reform is impossible?

How long can you keep that up before you just admit you're a bootlicker who values the status quo more than justice. The past few posts are the literal embodiment of the white moderate in the Letter from Birmingham Jail.

And your only theory of change is to double down on the support for capitalism and bourgeois democracy, the very systems that caused all these problems in the first place

So, you're misrepresenting pretty much everything people are saying in this thread, and you're being super hostile for no good reason, but I would like to respond.

I am in favor of BLM, the recent uprisings, pushes for substantial change, and reform. I am in favor of Medicare For All and Green New Deal. I've voted for Bernie Sanders and other non-establishment progressives in multiple Democratic primaries. I am not a Joe Biden fan, but I will be voting for him in November because we absolutely must get Trump (the current status-quo fascist with the secret police you just mentioned yourself) out of office even if the replacement is mediocre. Getting Biden and a few more Democratic senators into office doesn't mean we will have won - if anything, progressives will need to be even louder once that happens.

Phi230 posted:

Libs want class oppression, and the brutality, poverty, and violence that capitalism entails, but they want the classes to reflect demographics so they can square the just world delusion they buy into. They do not want justice. They do not want equality. They distrust democracy and believe in elite governance. They support an economic system that makes people less free.

Putting aside the pointless strawman & ad hominem stuff in here, honest question. What, to you, is an economic system that makes people more free? Like, what would you say is the modern ideal of an economic system? What country, right now, has that in your opinion? I'm just asking because I see a lot of stuff in your posts here about what is bad, and what we shouldn't be, and I'm interested in what you think we should try to be. What should we aspire to?

Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo
I'm something that more directly relates to the recent show

https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-gives-plandemic-conspiracy-theorists-platform-spread-their-lies

Sinclair decided to give plandemic a platform

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Awful. Sinclair seems a lot more dangerous at this point than Fox News (people at least know what they're about) or OAN (awful but not many people watch them). Lots of people have no idea that their local FOX or ABC is a Sinclair network or what that even means.

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

rujasu posted:

So, you're misrepresenting pretty much everything people are saying in this thread, and you're being super hostile for no good reason, but I would like to respond.

I am in favor of BLM, the recent uprisings, pushes for substantial change, and reform. I am in favor of Medicare For All and Green New Deal. I've voted for Bernie Sanders and other non-establishment progressives in multiple Democratic primaries. I am not a Joe Biden fan, but I will be voting for him in November because we absolutely must get Trump (the current status-quo fascist with the secret police you just mentioned yourself) out of office even if the replacement is mediocre. Getting Biden and a few more Democratic senators into office doesn't mean we will have won - if anything, progressives will need to be even louder once that happens.


Putting aside the pointless strawman & ad hominem stuff in here, honest question. What, to you, is an economic system that makes people more free? Like, what would you say is the modern ideal of an economic system? What country, right now, has that in your opinion? I'm just asking because I see a lot of stuff in your posts here about what is bad, and what we shouldn't be, and I'm interested in what you think we should try to be. What should we aspire to?

Its not an ad hominem its a basic analysis of your ideology lol. Its telling you think that though - you're self aware enough to know capitalism is bad but of course you advocate for it.

You support an economic system that empowers a class of capitalists to dictate and impose working conditions, and make decisions that effect wortkers without the worker having a say. Additionally you support liberal democracy, a system designed to protect and facilitate the accumulation of wealth. One trait of this is the ability to freely convert economic power into political power, the result being that ade verage people don't have a say in governance either.

Rawls and Cohen elaborate on concepts of freedom - the core freedom offered by socialism being the ability to participate in decisions that effect you: the right to say "no." And that's on top of having direct democratic control over the economy, workplace, and home. Profit and wealth being distributed equitably on top of a strong network of social services also gives people something you absolutely abhor: the ability to live their lives as they see fit rather than toiling the majority of their time generating capital for a capitalist.

I look to the zapatistas and rojava as examples of successful attempts to govern away from the horrors of liberal capitalism and a good starting point.

Let me use an example. Im working to help keep 300 people from getting evicted. They have no say in the decision to be evicted, they have no say in the ownership or control of their own living because its privately held by a landlord. This is your system working perfectly as intended. If i had my way, and the building was collectively owned and democratically controlled, the tenants wouldn't be staring down homelessness. Likewise as the result of your ideology, they have no political power. The municipality is democratic and the municipality is the party gunning hardest to evict these people. This is because under your preferred dictatorship of the bourgeois, or oligarchy, the government is captured by capital. "The state is the executive committee of the bourgeois" after all.

The reason why I said all that in the original post anyway was to highlight the general hypocrisy and moral, intellectual bankruptcy displayed by liberals. I couldve just highlighted how you purport to support freedom and democracy but regularly overthrow democracies abroad for capitalist interests.

My last point will be that everything going wrong right now is the natural result of America's rotten systems and institutions. Voting Biden won't save you, the secret police will keep going. Only like many times before, you'll turn the other cheek to it once Biden gets elected. If there's anything libs are good at its enabling, and being complicit in, the rise of fascism.

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jul 25, 2020

Keyser_Soze
May 5, 2009

Pillbug
Yeah, the Sinclair stations are particularly vile and their entire LOCAL broadcasts are saturated with poo poo like this to scare your grandma:

1. The "Sinclair Terrorism Alert Desk" where they scream and fart about potential ISIS cells imposing "Sharia Law" throughout the country!
2. "Special Reports!" regarding "IMMIGRANT CRIMINALS!! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!" also "Extreme Leftists in the USA want us to be Venezuela!"
3. Softball interviews with Devin Nunes and his "Patriotic War on Fake news!"
4. Former Trump campaign chairman Boris Epshteyn ranting about some other RW nonsense in an "IMPORTANT EDITORIAL!" to close out the broadcast.

:suicide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNhUk5v3ohE

Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jul 25, 2020

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Phi230 posted:

Its not an ad hominem its a basic analysis of your ideology lol. Its telling you think that though - you're self aware enough to know capitalism is bad but of course you advocate for it.

You support an economic system that empowers a class of capitalists to dictate and impose working conditions, and make decisions that effect wortkers without the worker having a say. Additionally you support liberal democracy, a system designed to protect and facilitate the accumulation of wealth. One trait of this is the ability to freely convert economic power into political power, the result being that ade verage people don't have a say in governance either.

Rawls and Cohen elaborate on concepts of freedom - the core freedom offered by socialism being the ability to participate in decisions that effect you: the right to say "no." And that's on top of having direct democratic control over the economy, workplace, and home. Profit and wealth being distributed equitably on top of a strong network of social services also gives people something you absolutely abhor: the ability to live their lives as they see fit rather than toiling the majority of their time generating capital for a capitalist.

I look to the zapatistas and rojava as examples of successful attempts to govern away from the horrors of liberal capitalism and a good starting point.

Let me use an example. Im working to help keep 300 people from getting evicted. They have no say in the decision to be evicted, they have no say in the ownership or control of their own living because its privately held by a landlord. This is your system working perfectly as intended. If i had my way, and the building was collectively owned and democratically controlled, the tenants wouldn't be staring down homelessness. Likewise as the result of your ideology, they have no political power. The municipality is democratic and the municipality is the party gunning hardest to evict these people. This is because under your preferred dictatorship of the bourgeois, or oligarchy, the government is captured by capital. "The state is the executive committee of the bourgeois" after all.

The reason why I said all that in the original post anyway was to highlight the general hypocrisy and moral, intellectual bankruptcy displayed by liberals. I couldve just highlighted how you purport to support freedom and democracy but regularly overthrow democracies abroad for capitalist interests.

My last point will be that everything going wrong right now is the natural result of America's rotten systems and institutions. Voting Biden won't save you, the secret police will keep going. Only like many times before, you'll turn the other cheek to it once Biden gets elected. If there's anything libs are good at its enabling, and being complicit in, the rise of fascism.

k, you're not even responding to my actual posts so I won't respond to yours either. You keep showing that strawman who's boss though.

I do hope your work to stop those evictions is successful. Good luck with that.

Keyser_Soze posted:

Yeah, the Sinclair stations are particularly vile and their entire LOCAL broadcasts are saturated with poo poo like this to scare your grandma:

Yeah, the point at the beginning of that second video is the scary part - people trust their local news stations and don't think of them as being partisan.

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Sinclair is now backpedaling HARD on Twitter and will delay airing the episode in question.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

rujasu posted:

Institutional racism is not going to be "fixed" in our lifetimes either way, and no political movement, revolution or otherwise, is going to get it out of our culture. All we can do is keep making progress over time (and stop electing regressive leaders who will move things backwards).

Is your position that institutional racism isn't going to be fixed in our lifetime or ever?

Because if it's the first yeah, I agree that it is very likely not going to be, and that sucks. If it's the second, what the gently caress? Dare to dream my dude.

Also, why is fix getting scare quotes now that I've used it but not back in your initial post using that exact term?

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Orange Devil posted:

Is your position that institutional racism isn't going to be fixed in our lifetime or ever?

Because if it's the first yeah, I agree that it is very likely not going to be, and that sucks. If it's the second, what the gently caress? Dare to dream my dude.

The first one. I believe it will get better within our lifetime, but will take generations to be fixed.

quote:

Also, why is fix getting scare quotes now that I've used it but not back in your initial post using that exact term?

Wasn't something I put a ton of thought into. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

rujasu posted:

The first one. I believe it will get better within our lifetime, but will take generations to be fixed.

OK cool, so then how is your post a reply to mine at all?

We both agree institutional racism is a fixable problem. My position is that it is a problem that is not going to be fixed unless we fundamentally change our economic system, as the two feed into and reinforce one another. I'd even go so far as to say that institutional racism as we know it was created specifically to serve our economic system, by dividing the working class. As such it is in the interest of the capitalist class to perpetuate institutional racism in order for them to preserve their economic and political power. Have you got any thoughts on that?

rujasu
Dec 19, 2013

Orange Devil posted:

I'd even go so far as to say that institutional racism as we know it was created specifically to serve our economic system, by dividing the working class. As such it is in the interest of the capitalist class to perpetuate institutional racism in order for them to preserve their economic and political power. Have you got any thoughts on that?

This is where you're dead wrong. Institutional racism is a worldwide problem which is not unique to nor invented by any particular economic system. I'd even go so far as to say that your post reflects a narrow mentality where socialism represents all things that are good, and capitalism represents all things that are evil. The world and its problems are far more complex than that.

Ultramega OK
May 14, 2003

I'm a Catholic, I can feel guilty about anything.

rujasu posted:

Sinclair is now backpedaling HARD on Twitter and will delay airing the episode in question.

Sinclair's about-face is surprising given that the company, in a series of Twitter posts, stood by the episode and its content. Imagine giving airtime to a discredited scientist whose views are even too much for the likes of YouTube and Facebook.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

rujasu posted:

This is where you're dead wrong. Institutional racism is a worldwide problem which is not unique to nor invented by any particular economic system. I'd even go so far as to say that your post reflects a narrow mentality where socialism represents all things that are good, and capitalism represents all things that are evil. The world and its problems are far more complex than that.

Capitalism is a worldwide problem. And the primitive accumulation which started capitalism back in the 1600s was in large part build on slavery. It is only after that that the concept of race as it currently exists even begins to develop, which obviously happens so heavily influenced by capitalism that even describing the process without taking that into account is nonsensical.

So no, it is you who is dead wrong. And your post reflects issues with your mother.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

Orange Devil posted:

Again you keep criticising but you don't actually have an alternative. Is your proposed way forward reliable, my dude?


And you're just going to have to trust me that I don't dream of revolution. I dream of justice. Social, racial and economic justice, as you cannot have any one of those without the others. Any path forward that makes that become true I will support. I would never block improvements out of some misguided accelerationist bullshit. In fact, even asserting that I would block justice is a rather grave insult, so gently caress you.

An alternative to what? Everybody was discussing paths of reform until you came in saying that none of that is possible until the whole system is overthrown while making no reference to how that would even begin to be done aside from vague allusions.

And if you're going to shout down attempts at solving problems through political means in favor of just loudly opining for something better, that's not helpful. That's not going to get anything done. You can dream of a utopia protected from any practical issues by being too vague to meaningfully criticize, but that's not going to create one.

Which is ultimately the problem with trying to solve things on purely ideological or philosophical grounds and ignoring the immediate, because humans are not creatures of abstract concepts, and real needs can't be cured with just talk. Political action can actually accomplish things while mere dreams can't.

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

SlothfulCobra posted:

An alternative to what? Everybody was discussing paths of reform until you came in saying that none of that is possible until the whole system is overthrown while making no reference to how that would even begin to be done aside from vague allusions.

And if you're going to shout down attempts at solving problems through political means in favor of just loudly opining for something better, that's not helpful. That's not going to get anything done. You can dream of a utopia protected from any practical issues by being too vague to meaningfully criticize, but that's not going to create one.

Which is ultimately the problem with trying to solve things on purely ideological or philosophical grounds and ignoring the immediate, because humans are not creatures of abstract concepts, and real needs can't be cured with just talk. Political action can actually accomplish things while mere dreams can't.

Socialism is an explicitly material ideology, not a utopian one, maybe if you knew what you were talking about you'd have an effective argument. Right now you're spouting ill-informed ideological gibberish. Your entire reformist garbage position lies on the assumption that material conditions don't exist, or direct action doesn't exist.

The worst thing about liberals like you is you don't learn any theory, or history, or do any meaningful work whatsoever, yet act smug like youre the smartest guy in the room.

The fact that socialists are the ones out on the streets and driving conversations about policy and doing real work just makes your post even more laughable. All you wanna do it circlejerk about policy and plans while there's an uprising set against the background of 50m unemployed and 30m facing eviction. We're undergoing a period of mass radicalization, that is being interested by socialism and its ideas, because your liberal capitalism has failed them. And your only message to them is go home and trust the liberal wonks lmao. Pathetic

"Radical change isn't possible" while people are fighting cops and burning precincts is lmao. You might as well say let them eat cake

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jul 26, 2020

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy
Let me ask you: what work are you doing? Or are you just do feel self righteous because you vote D lol

The conditions for unrest and revolution are rapidly being met, no help is coming, and you're out here pretending revolutions are utopian dreams that never happen. Read a loving book. Or better yet talk to a zapatista or kurd from rojava and tell them what they're doing is impossible.

Phi230 fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jul 26, 2020

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

Depressing episode tonight, but I did enjoy the Martha Stewart, Queen of the Wine Moms segment.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

SlothfulCobra posted:

An alternative to what? Everybody was discussing paths of reform until you came in saying that none of that is possible until the whole system is overthrown while making no reference to how that would even begin to be done aside from vague allusions.

And if you're going to shout down attempts at solving problems through political means in favor of just loudly opining for something better, that's not helpful. That's not going to get anything done. You can dream of a utopia protected from any practical issues by being too vague to meaningfully criticize, but that's not going to create one.

Which is ultimately the problem with trying to solve things on purely ideological or philosophical grounds and ignoring the immediate, because humans are not creatures of abstract concepts, and real needs can't be cured with just talk. Political action can actually accomplish things while mere dreams can't.

An alternative to abolishing capitalism through revolutionary means. How it begins to be done is what is already happening in your streets today. It begins by recognizing that the very foundations of your government are illegitimate and it continues by acting on that recognition and abolishing that government. Practically I think that is best done by building parallel structures so that people still have a structure through which to cooperate in their common interests, their actual common interests, once the existing institutions, with all their systemic problems, are finally torn down. This isn't utopian, this has literally already happened before in history, but failed because it was drowned in blood. Multiple times. But it was drowned in blood because the empires of the day willed it. Today there is insurrection on the streets of the empire of our day. Today we can succeed. So like, I don't know, read the Conquest of Bread or something?

Issaries
Sep 15, 2008

"Negotiations were going well. They were very impressed by my hat." -Issaries the Concilliator"

Skippy McPants posted:

Depressing episode tonight, but I did enjoy the Martha Stewart, Queen of the Wine Moms segment.

Finally an episode about something other than Corona or Trump.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


muscles like this! posted:

His mentioning of believing a conspiracy theory about Princess Di reminds me of a book I read back in the mid 00s about debunking conspiracy theories. Except that when the author got to the section about 9/11 truthers he starts talking about how they actually have some reasonable ideas, thus undercutting the entire concept of the book.

It's a shame it wasn't done on purpose because that'd be an amazing troll.

Phenotype posted:

Okay, so one thing I never understood though. Why can't you see any debris from the plane in the pictures of the Pentagon?

You can.



The reason you see very little is the plane was going full speed and smashed through the Pentagon outer wall and disintegrated. It happens a lot of times during controlled flights into terrain.

That's not to say a Flash video popular around that time about it being a missile didn't fool a friend and me for a hot minute.

Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jul 27, 2020

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



Groovelord Neato posted:

You can.



The reason you see very little is the plane was going full speed and smashed through the Pentagon outer wall and disintegrated. It happens a lot of times during controlled flights into terrain.

That's not to say a Flash video popular around that time about it being a missile didn't fool a friend and me for a hot minute.

Are you sure that debris isn't just photoshopped in* to convince people it wasn't a false flag and an opportunity for the deep state to destroy incriminating data held at the Pentagon?

*by hackers funded by George Soros

Zane
Nov 14, 2007

Orange Devil posted:

OK cool, so then how is your post a reply to mine at all?

We both agree institutional racism is a fixable problem. My position is that it is a problem that is not going to be fixed unless we fundamentally change our economic system, as the two feed into and reinforce one another. I'd even go so far as to say that institutional racism as we know it was created specifically to serve our economic system, by dividing the working class. As such it is in the interest of the capitalist class to perpetuate institutional racism in order for them to preserve their economic and political power. Have you got any thoughts on that?

Orange Devil posted:

Capitalism is a worldwide problem. And the primitive accumulation which started capitalism back in the 1600s was in large part build on slavery. It is only after that that the concept of race as it currently exists even begins to develop, which obviously happens so heavily influenced by capitalism that even describing the process without taking that into account is nonsensical.

So no, it is you who is dead wrong. And your post reflects issues with your mother.

Phi230 posted:

Socialism is an explicitly material ideology, not a utopian one, maybe if you knew what you were talking about you'd have an effective argument. Right now you're spouting ill-informed ideological gibberish. Your entire reformist garbage position lies on the assumption that material conditions don't exist, or direct action doesn't exist.

The worst thing about liberals like you is you don't learn any theory, or history, or do any meaningful work whatsoever, yet act smug like youre the smartest guy in the room.

The fact that socialists are the ones out on the streets and driving conversations about policy and doing real work just makes your post even more laughable. All you wanna do it circlejerk about policy and plans while there's an uprising set against the background of 50m unemployed and 30m facing eviction. We're undergoing a period of mass radicalization, that is being interested by socialism and its ideas, because your liberal capitalism has failed them. And your only message to them is go home and trust the liberal wonks lmao. Pathetic

"Radical change isn't possible" while people are fighting cops and burning precincts is lmao. You might as well say let them eat cake
neither the coronavirus nor the blm movement have done anything to either accelerate the contradictions--as classically conceived--within capitalist production or to increase the class identity of wage labourers within capitalist production. these are not crises at the point of production. nobody is demonstrating as a 'worker.' workers have no power as bearers of social labour if they are unemployed and there is no demand for them to supply. there is no value for them to withhold! there is more pressure now on the state to intervene with the imperative of promoting certain public goods. but this is just welfare capitalism.

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


Phenotype posted:

Are you sure that debris isn't just photoshopped in* to convince people it wasn't a false flag and an opportunity for the deep state to destroy incriminating data held at the Pentagon?

*by hackers funded by George Soros

The argument is that it was planted lol. I'm so very glad that I had mostly immunized myself against conspiracy theories before 9/11 by reading up on how a lot of the JFK conspiracy poo poo are lies or mistakes.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
They're not about facts, they're about beliefs. It's extremely religious like thinking. Winning converts is the highest achievement

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Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


Oh no doubt but like other people said there is an element of people wanting to believe the world is ordered instead of chaotic. It's more comforting to think a vast government conspiracy had to pull off JFK or 9/11 than it is that one deranged guy took down a beloved president or a smallish group of fanatics brought the most powerful country on Earth to its knees.

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