American Politics the 2016 edition

In fact one thing that has made me feel simultaneously more comfortable AND disturbed is how Trump's have been popping up all over Europe. (Well some have long been around) All the same sentiments I heard in the US have been said all over Europe. 

JJLehto wrote: In fact one thing that has made me feel simultaneously more comfortable AND disturbed is how Trump's have been popping up all over Europe. (Well some have long been around) All the same sentiments I heard in the US have been said all over Europe.  Sure, their right wing is a lot more accepting of liberal economics and maybe even social issues. But when it comes to being reactionary, xenophobic/racist, anti muslim especially we truly are not that unique as a species, regardless of location

Our own version of Trump, the Northern League (Lega Nord) has been around for over 25 years, and some neo-fascist groups for even longer than that. The Front National in France has also been around for quite a while. Of course, the economic crisis and the not very bright (understatement of the year) of some of the EU leaders has exacerbated the situation. On the other hand, remember that Europe is much closer to the Middle East, and it doesn't take long for events in that part of the world to have repercussions in the Old Country.


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Raff wrote: JJLehto wrote: In fact one thing that has made me feel simultaneously more comfortable AND disturbed is how Trump's have been popping up all over Europe. (Well some have long been around) All the same sentiments I heard in the US have been said all over Europe.  Sure, their right wing is a lot more accepting of liberal economics and maybe even social issues. But when it comes to being reactionary, xenophobic/racist, anti muslim especially we truly are not that unique as a species, regardless of location Our own version of Trump, the Northern League (Lega Nord) has been around for over 25 years, and some neo-fascist groups for even longer than that. The Front National in France has also been around for quite a while. Of course, the economic crisis and the not very bright (understatement of the year) of some of the EU leaders has exacerbated the situation. On the other hand, remember that Europe is much closer to the Middle East, and it doesn't take long for events in that part of the world to have repercussions in the Old Country. Save

Edited by JJLehto - June 12 2016 at 17:16

A Person wrote: If I hear one more complaint about how dangerous it is to pee next to a trans person after this...

A Person wrote: If I hear one more complaint about how dangerous it is to pee next to a trans person after this...

Urine in its self is a sterile fluid and does not contain the HIV virus so drinking urine or watersports are generally safe, but if the person had a bleed and therefor blood in the urine then you do have a possible risk of infection but only if it comes into contact with an open wound, and even then the risk would be small unless there was a large amount of bllod in the urine.

I myself believe trans people are more likely than average to bleed from their dicks for obvious reasons.


Edited by Vompatti - June 12 2016 at 18:35

JJLehto wrote: Raff wrote: emigre80 wrote: A Person wrote: If I hear one more complaint about how dangerous it is to pee next to a trans person after this...   you can be sure that someone will say it, in fact will say this is a sign of God's displeasure with our permissive society that does not condemn people who are transgender, and of course there will be those who say it's God's punishment for them being gay.  As I'm sure the people who invited Dylan Roof in to pray with them were somehow being punished for something.... It seems lots of people are rejoicing on "social" media for the justice meted out on those perverted gays... But then again, Muslims are the dangerous fanatics . Beat me to it!  Was just gunna say, I wonder how the right wing will react to this...torn between their hatred of gays and muslims maybe they'll have a collective brain melt.

it will be like with refugees, they will simultaneously not give a damn about women's rights, while also using them as an excuse to denounce muslims for rape.

This guy was a deeply stupid man who was probably having sexual-identity issues he didn't understand and figured he'd take it out on those who have the courage to be who they are.  

JJLehto wrote: Raff wrote: emigre80 wrote: A Person wrote: If I hear one more complaint about how dangerous it is to pee next to a trans person after this...   you can be sure that someone will say it, in fact will say this is a sign of God's displeasure with our permissive society that does not condemn people who are transgender, and of course there will be those who say it's God's punishment for them being gay.  As I'm sure the people who invited Dylan Roof in to pray with them were somehow being punished for something.... It seems lots of people are rejoicing on "social" media for the justice meted out on those perverted gays... But then again, Muslims are the dangerous fanatics . Beat me to it!  Was just gunna say, I wonder how the right wing will react to this...torn between their hatred of gays and muslims maybe they'll have a collective brain melt.

Yeah, I don't think the Republicans will benefit politically from this historically dreadful incident like they might have in the past, because the brain melt will be Trump's. He's not capable of threading the needle between anti-terrorism and anti-Muslim positions on the one hand, and the conservative disagreeableness with LGBT lifestyle and gun control on the other hand. He will say something stupid to negate any supposed anti-terrorism advantage the Republicans wrongly claim.

rogerthat wrote: I am aware of that theoretical distinction but I am not sympathetic to theory because paper ideology, sorry to be blunt, is only cheap talk.  In practice, even countries which were governed by parties that identified themselves as communist, like Russia and China, did not go the whole hog to fulfill the strict definition of communism and instead stopped with nationalised control of means of production.  Good thing, because workers didn't have to directly bear the losses from the inefficient Russian state.  That aside, even countries with stronger govt intervention (vis a vis USA or UK) like France haven't gone the whole hog with completely abolishing private ownership of means of ownership.

Theory is cheap of course, but to ignore it is to ignore the fact that class interests exist, and will continue to erode all fights for progress unless they are addressed.

I do think Russia and China and many other places who had authoritarian socialist regimes were very far from perfect, and should be critiqued for that. There are others examples that offer a better (but again, nowhere near perfect, nothing has been close to that) example: revolutionary Catalonia, the zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, the Kurds in Rojava. Authoritarian governments are not equivalent to socialism, or capitalism for that matter (although capitalism must have some form of state authority, to enforce the previously discussed private property).

And you absolutely can have both private and public ownership if you are not beholden to ideological dogma.

I disagree, there is nothing dogmatic about realizing that they cannot coexist. Even worker cooperatives under capitalism are forced to participate in systems against their will. They cannot just use land as they wish, the state would protect it because it is private.

To say social democracy is a right wing ideology is as far fetched as the view held by libertarians that America has not been a capitalist nation for a long time (long time meaning not since the advent of Progressivism in the early twentieth century).

Right-wing libertarians are loons, no doubt about that (fun fact: libertarianism is a left-wing ideology, mostly synonymous with anarchism, outside of the US). I do not think it is far fetched at all though. Classical liberalism is right wing, and social democracy is a continuation of it.

When you start redistributing income in some form or the other, you are already leaning left.  The question is only of how leftist.   The mixed economy/welfare state compromise of the post WWII years was an excellent one. Too bad the OPEC spike gave an opportunity for Friedman & Co to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Reforms are nice in that they help regular working class people and protect them from the dangers of pure capitalism, but unfortunately they do not address the real problem, and are very vulnerable to attack. The US offers a great example of this with The New Deal. It was a great set of reforms at first, but from the very beginning capitalists and those in political power who favored them have worked to subvert and destroy those reforms. We are now in desperate need of a restoration of such reform, and Sanders is helping to bring that to light.

Moreover, welfare states and social democracy are not real solutions because they are completely dependent on the fact that we can now ship jobs to impoverished places all over the globe, in effect exporting the most gross exploitative practices needed to sustain such a society. If you only look at a place like the US or Sweden or Norway, it looks great. But you can't pretend other less fortunate places have been ravaged by those practices. A real solution has to include these people as well, it is impossible to isolate a country economically from the rest of the world.

*frinspar* wrote: Epignosis wrote: 50 people die. Let's discuss who benefits politically. Which is exactly what happened in the conference rooms or on the conference calls of both Clinton and Trump within minutes after it broke. Not to mention with every single other elected official across the nation by now. It was the second thought in every newsroom, first being how to profit from reporting it the best.

I wasn't disputing that.

I was talking about people here.