All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[RisingForce]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...a-reset-putin/
It seems like Germany's attempt to create stronger ties with Russia has fallen through, likewise perhaps you could say that possibly the same thing had happened with America when Donald Trump was in his presidential role.

I was thinking about it, and I thought "wow, is capitalism really not that different then fascism?" and I realized that capitalism could almost be seen as existing in a manner which relies on the enforcement of certain behaviours out of fear or risk then of losing financial or material security. I realized then that there was just a term as "fascism capitalism" and this article on the concept. When you think about it there is this allotted range of behaviours that are basically forced on you for fear of survival, but during acting out or performing your expected behaviours and actions it takes to survive within this capitalist system, it is hard not to think that somehow, maybe it's all this great and over elaborated system design to enforce fascism upon it's populations, to ingrain this type of behaviour within your psyche that is inherently or intrinsically fascism in origin and then simply pass it off as "capitalism" like whoa, my mind is blown. But I have found the concept of fascism to be somewhat of a trepidatious and interesting one.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02...ally-means-it/
Supercapitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapitalism

[Kirby101]

That is quite funny, I guess.

The spectre of communism still persists to haunt Europe.

At least they embraced Democratic Socialism and didn't refuse to help working people because of "Communism".

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That is quite funny, I guess.

The spectre of communism still persists to haunt Europe.

Marx is a great thinker and figure, and it's a pity that the Chinese government is appropriating him for such shady things.

I think the German government need to step in and embrace and reiterate Marx who was so important for their Social Democrat parties and his monumental contributions to social sciences and history (also it kinda looks iffy if Germany shows sniffiness about their most important Jewish thinker).

[CaptainEurope]

At least they embraced Democratic Socialism and didn't refuse to help working people because of "Communism".

My city actually just went through a year of (mostly canceled due to covid) celebrations for Friedrich Engels on what would have been his 200th birthday.

We still have a major street named after him.

But a statue gifted by China was still a bridge too far for some people.

[RisingForce]

Marx is a great thinker and figure, and it's a pity that the Chinese government is appropriating him for such shady things.

I think the German government need to step in and embrace and reiterate Marx who was so important for their Social Democrat parties and his monumental contributions to social sciences and history (also it kinda looks iffy if Germany shows sniffiness about their most important Jewish thinker).

Karl Marx was German though as well and has publicly stated a few times that he was actually an atheist and you read a lot of his work, and I don't know if I would altogether place him in that strata or spectrum as being some great literary Jewish mind, though I guess it is acceptable perhaps if that is somehow desirable or necessary.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

My city actually just went through a year of (mostly canceled due to covid) celebrations for Friedrich Engels on what would have been his 200th birthday.

We still have a major street named after him.

But a statue gifted by China was still a bridge too far for some people.

Considering the stuff that the Chinese government is doing to the Uighur people, to Hong Kong, and planning to do to Taiwan eventually, I think most should be skeptical about the Chinese government's attempt to use Marx and Engels as "soft power" and so on.

But given that this is Germany, and the fact that Marx is Jewish (which would still be an issue for some of them) and this is the Chinese government's outreach, there might also be racism behind this, who knows?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Once Rising Stars, Cuomo And Newsom Sink By Their Own Failings

Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California are embroiled in distinct political woes for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

**********

Michael Flynn’s Wild Ride Into The Heart Of QAnon

In the weeks before the Capitol siege, Trump’s former national security adviser went on a far-right media blitz to promote wild conspiracy theories. Then those theories he peddled helped set the stage for the madness that erupted on 1/6.

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All The Ways The Power Grid Failed In Texas

How a Texas-first energy policy turned into a Texas-only energy failure. Meanwhile....

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Suspected Hypothermia Deaths In Homes Mount In Texas

More than a dozen people in the U.S. died in homes that had lost their heat, and most of those were in Texas.

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Gov. DeSantis’ Order To Lower Flags To Half Staff For Rush Limbaugh Infuriates Critics

The governor’s “decision to honor him is an embarrassment to Florida,” tweets Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Hell, it's an embarrassment to the whole goddamn country. This is nothing more than DeSantis sucking up to Trump, now living in Florida.

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Chris Christie Has No Sympathy For Ted Cruz: ‘Ted Has Just Not Been A Very Likable Guy’

The former New Jersey governor hasn’t forgotten how Cruz made fun of him for that infamous beach incident in 2017.

[Kirby101]

Marx was a great observer and analyzer of Society. But like most Utopians, he created an unworkable solution to the problems he saw. Mainly that those in power would never relinquish it for the egalitarian state he strove for. While he might have thought the dictator ship of the proletariat was necessary because of the general lack of education of the masses in his day, given human nature, it would never end. And as Communist countries have shown us , that seems to be the case. In truth we have never seen a true Communist nation. They have never gotten past the initial restructuring into a dictatorship. This is why Democratic Socialism works better. The Democratic part means the people retain the power.

[Marvell2100]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

The Counsel for Jessica Watkins, a member of the Oathkeepers says that she was just following the orders of her commander, then-President donald trump. She felt that the President made a call-to-arms and she wanted to be ready and awaited his orders.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Marx was a great observer and analyzer of Society. But like most Utopians, he created an unworkable solution to the problems he saw.

That's actually the weird thing about Marx...he never did create an unworkable solution, utopian or otherwise nowhere in his works did he actually describe in detail what a communist society should be like and how it could be brought about.

Chomsky got this one fairly right:
"You know, I don’t regard Lenin as part of the Marxist tradition, frankly. What the Marxist tradition is, who knows...Marx had a lot of different views. For example, he thought it might be possible to reach socialism by parliamentary means in the more bourgeois democratic societies. England was his model, of course, he didn’t rule it out. In fact, Marx didn’t have very much to say about socialism or communism. Take a look at Marx’s work. Very deep, analytic critique of a variety of capitalism, capitalist markets, properties, imperialism and so on, but about the future society a couple of scattered sentences, and I think, my guess is for good reasons. His picture was, as I understand it, that when working people liberate themselves, and can make their own decisions, they will determine what kind of society it will be. He is not going to dictate it to them. I think that’s a pretty wise stand frankly."

That's actually why Lenin and others had to deviate so wildly from Marx to put their theories into effect. Marx wrote as a fringe political and economic commentator in the 19th Century who only belatedly in his life found a degree of attention and critical support for his published works, he certainly never could have anticipated that his theories would lead to these mass movements in his name.

And as Communist countries have shown us , that seems to be the case. In truth we have never seen a true Communist nation. They have never gotten past the initial restructuring into a dictatorship. This is why Democratic Socialism works better. The Democratic part means the people retain the power.

Let's not get into Marx theorizing about this (which is hypocritical on my part since I brought Chomsky into this).

The fact is that the Chinese government is simply twisting Marx and Engels for their propaganda, much in the same way they are twisting Confucius (whose ethical system certainly never intended to perpetuate the conservatism and blind obedience to tradition now preached in his banner there), and in the same way Americans of various types have twisted Jesus, Ben Fraklin, Washington, Lincoln, either Roosevelt, or MLK, the way the Indian government is twisting Gandhi, and so on and so forth.

[Kirby101]

I agree it is more nuanced than my simplified post.

And yes, about the less than pure motives of China.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Once Rising Stars, Cuomo And Newsom Sink By Their Own Failings

Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California are embroiled in distinct political woes for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newsom and Cuomo were always problematic centrist Democrats. When the Pandemic happened, and they started getting positive notices, the question was when would these two screwup their unexpected windfall of goodwill, and not if. And now here they both are, "with their teeth and ambition bared".

--Cuomo has ran a kind of political machine in NYS where he basically pits Democrats from his own party and Republicans to create personal power, has many cases of corruption and shifty behavior, refuses to enact his elected mandate until being forced at gunpoint, who in 2020 tried to kneecap the NYWF party.
-- As for Newsom, it's not an accident that he is a former Mr. Kimberly Guilfoyle. He was a centrist Silicon Valley neoliberal Dem who as Mayor of SF oversaw the Bay Area Housing Crisis, and embodied the Californian Democrat party's attitude.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/o...o-schools.html)

Chris Christie Has No Sympathy For Ted Cruz: ‘Ted Has Just Not Been A Very Likable Guy’

The former New Jersey governor hasn’t forgotten how Cruz made fun of him for that infamous beach incident in 2017.

This is the moment where you relate to Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT, breaking a cue stick and forcing two henchmen to fight each other to the death.

[CaptainEurope]

Newsom and Cuomo were always problematic centrist Democrats. When the Pandemic happened, and they started getting positive notices, the question was when would these two screwup their unexpected windfall of goodwill, and not if. And now here they both are, "with their teeth and ambition bared".

--Cuomo has ran a kind of political machine in NYS where he basically pits Democrats from his own party and Republicans to create personal power, has many cases of corruption and shifty behavior, refuses to enact his elected mandate until being forced at gunpoint, who in 2020 tried to kneecap the NYWF party.
-- As for Newsom, it's not an accident that he is a former Mr. Kimberly Guilfoyle. He was a centrist Silicon Valley neoliberal Dem who as Mayor of SF oversaw the Bay Area Housing Crisis, and embodied the Californian Democrat party's attitude.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/o...o-schools.html)



This is the moment where you relate to Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT, breaking a cue stick and forcing two henchmen to fight each other to the death.

I'm not quite sure why Newsom is getting such bad press. Sure, the total numbers of infections look bad, but when you consider population size, there are 24 states in the US doing worse than California.




And if you look at deaths by population size, California is at #33, which means the management of hospitals, protecting seniors etc is among the best in the US.

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

[RisingForce]

I believe that basically with China and previously you had the Soviet Union forcing a kind of dictatorship on it's populous as a way to feverishly compete with Western forces but especially capitalism itself, and wanted to incite some type of world revolution in doing so by mobilizing it's industrial and peasant forces to radically achieve this.

World War 2 was almost more of a war against the left and various social movements it has caused during that time. I haven't really thought that deeply into the logistics of it, I wonder exactly how necessary it is, and I would not altogether want to be ruled over by some large one government bureaucratic Russian or Chinese regime; it could be argued that there has been numerous forces vying for control single handily of the world.

I think that Marx did indeed give or provide enough precepts for exactly the type of world that he had envision had his revolution been achieved, he just did not really elaborate too in depthly as he left that to the reader to fill in the details themselves exactly, I suppose.

If it wasn't for America we could very well be living currently in some type of communist or socialist type society and you would be hard pressed to really find a part of the globe where a capitalism economy still existed. When I realized I was pretty floored and left feeling an array of really mixed feelings and sensations to think that you know, WW2 was basically a war against left wing politics and social movements, armed peasantry forces attempting to liberate themselves and join the greater forces and movement therein that Russia had achieved.

You see it happening this, this almost flat out aggressive tactics being employed in retaliation to the possibly of any leftist movements really making any strides.

[CaptainEurope]

World War 2 was almost more of a war against the left and various social movements it has caused during that time.

Um.... Hitler may have thrown socialists into concentration camps and attacked Russia, but he also murdered gays, Romani and Sinti people, Jews and more, and attacking France, England, the Netherlands and Belgium was at least as important to him as Russia.


Your view of what WW 2 was is... odd.