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  1. #46
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    It doesn't really help that the supposed liberals in this country keep trying to tell us that there is a conflict between economic and social progress, so that we're forced to choose between half-baked fiscal policies that eschew addressing structural problems in favor of just throwing more money into the fire, and meaningless token gestures toward racial equality that have no meaningful benefits for anyone, and ultimately compromise by settling for neither because the alternative is a resetting the clock back to 1850.
    So the Civil Right Act and the Voting Rights Act were token gestures? It's not the liberals by the way. minorities often say that social justice is just as, if not more important than economic inequality.
    Bernie Sanders was rebuke4d by a lot of Black Leaders for insisting that addressing wealth inequity was a priority over addressing systematic racism.
    We need to do both.
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

  2. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kirby101 View Post
    So the Civil Right Act and the Voting Rights Act were token gestures? It's not the liberals by the way. minorities often say that social justice is just as, if not more important than economic inequality.
    Bernie Sanders was rebuke4d by a lot of Black Leaders for insisting that addressing wealth inequity was a priority over addressing systematic racism.
    We need to do both.
    That legislation is over 50 years old at this point, if that really is the pinnacle of race relations in this country then we are doomed as a society. And thanks for providing a perfect demonstration of exactly what I meant - a moderate who ONLY cares about racial justice insofar as it can be used to browbeat economic progressives, while offering no alternative solutions. And now that we've elected the centrist candidate that leaned so heavily on the black vote to get in office, what exactly do we have to show for it? Police departments around the country are just as brutal and flush with cash as ever, voting rights are being rolled back across the country, and children are still being kept in cages at the border and the administration's only response was to send Harris to Central America to beg them to stop coming here. I suppose they can try to claim that those $1400 stimulus checks represent some kind of reparations payments.

    The so-called left in this country is so obsessed with bipartisanship and so terrified of being labeled as authoritarian and socialist that they forgot that when you're power you're actually supposed to try and govern. No matter what time and place in history you go, entrenched interests will always fight tooth and nail to preserve their power and privilege and true progress can only come about when we have leaders who are willing to use any means necessary to dislodge them. It's easy for us in our comfortable lives to clutch our pearls in horror at these violent freedom-hating despots forcibly expropriating property from these fine, well-mannered, Western educated landowners and passing it off to these crude, unwashed peasants who clearly are just being brainwashed in their cult of personality, but how exactly are we supposed to convince them to do things our way, when our way hasn't been working at all? How many more votes do we need to cast before we can divide up Bezos' wealth for the good of the country? How much more free speech do we need before people actually start DOING something about the concerns of minorities instead of just pretending to listen to them?

    Before we can make ANY progress toward economic or racial equality, our mindset as a nation has to change first. We are not just a few small tweaks away from achieving a utopian society, and trusting in incremental progress has only left us severely backsliding in most metrics for the past 40 years. We have to be willing to accept that severe and deeply uncomfortable disruptions to the way of life most of us enjoy and take for granted are going to be necessary if we even want to start on the path to building a more perfect union, and that a lot of people will likely need to suffer greatly in order to build a more perfect union. This isn't something that anyone should revel in, but when the alternative is an inevitable slide into plutocracy and fascism, it's a bitter pill that we're better off swallowing sooner rather than later.

  3. #48
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    I actually don't disagree that we need big progressive steps. Perhaps I misunderstood that you were saying only economic justice and not social justice is needed. We need both.
    Biden has proposed some very progressive plans. Raising minimum wage, a wealth tax on the Rich. We just dont have the political will to put them into action. There is a minority of Democratic Senators that will not go along.
    Last edited by Kirby101; 07-15-2021 at 11:18 AM.
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

  4. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by foxley View Post
    If you mean the American definition of "socialist" being anyone to the left of Adolf Hitler, then probably them most western democracies.

    But if you mean having things like nationalized healthcare, social welfare systems that work, workers' rights, etc. (which, according to American views, are the last stop before gulags) then still plenty. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Canada, Australia (although not as much as I would like)...
    hahahah

    let me try:
    "the American definition of fascist being anyone to the right of Fourier, Marcuse, and Trotsky, then probably most western democracies."

  5. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Totoro Man View Post
    hahahah

    let me try:
    "the American definition of fascist being anyone to the right of Fourier, Marcuse, and Trotsky, then probably most western democracies."
    You might be onto something there...


  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    You might be onto something there...

    In my former workplace, I had to wear a ugly black T-shirt. There was no real justification to it. But it was the desire of the boss. “To facilitate an esprit-de-corps…”
    “Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe

  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by inisideguy View Post
    Sorry I honestly don't know what you are talking about.
    I may be misunderstanding PwrdOn a bit... but I'll give it a shot. when he says that European healthcare systems are not based upon humanitarian interests, but economic nationalism...

    I think what he's getting at is.... people are both a limited, but renewable resource, for nations. you only have a limited number of people. but these people do reproduce. so, the critical thing is to keep them healthy. get at least half of them to reproduce. you keep your numbers up with a little bit of immigration, and thus preserve the nation state.

    in that vein: I like to remind people that the defeat of France by Nazi Germany in 1940 was not ultimately the result of the French being incompetent cowards when confronted by Germany. It wasn't just a matter of the Nazis being superior in organization, tactics, technology, and training... the Nazi victory was also based on all of that AND the fact that they already had more people than France. they also had a higher sustained birth rate, and could simply afford to lose more people.

    A lot of Americans like to say "well, we would have fought to the last man!" right, LOL. the same country that threw a fit about all of those needless casualties from Gulf War II and the occupation of Afghanistan. China lost more than 10 times that many people in less than three months fighting the Japanese in Shanghai in 1937. "these colors don't run" because they're separated by two massive oceans, and it would be logistically impossible for even a coalition of nations to invade and conquer the United States by purely military means. that's why most people who have been trying to defeat the US tend to buy up US real estate, take away US jobs, buy out or get a controlling interest in US companies. and, of course, the joys of internet hacking.

    back to France: when a country is faced with the very real possibility of fighting to the last man... they have to decide whether they want the nation to disappear completely, or to surrender and lay dormant until they can summon enough people to rebuild the population again. Americans tend to judge France as being "cheese eating surrender monkeys". but, I gotta tell you, that if somebody instantly cut off our internet access and gasoline supply... America would probably surrender in far less time than 46 days.

    it certainly didn't help that France didn't have a single-nation strategy for fighting against Germany. to make matters worse Belgium and Great Britain were only partially cooperative. neither of those countries was prepared to make the sort of sacrifice that they made in WWI. so, France had no choice but to surrender and wait to get liberated.

    and that's not a bad strategy. sometimes taking a long term strategy can pay off for a group of people. look at Poland. they just waited, and waited, and waited... and eventually found a chance to become a nation again (a couple of times)

    another example: most people understand that global warming is bad. we're running out of oil. but our entire society is built around the combustion engine, and more specifically the automobile. in order to counteract that global warming trend, we would essentially have to try and create a neo-feudal economy where all of the basic types of jobs and services would be available within walking distance. failing that, we might have to outlaw motor vehicles that aren't essential to the economic infrastructure (aka cargo vehicles). but people don't want to 'repeal the 20th century' because of all the 'progress' that has been made. even if that progress is effectively destroying the entire world in slow motion.

    politicians can't tell people that they ARE the problem and get away with it. but, wait, don't lose hope! religion can do this every single day and endure for thousands of years! ;-)
    Last edited by Totoro Man; 07-20-2021 at 02:01 PM.

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Totoro Man View Post
    I may be misunderstanding PwrdOn a bit... but I'll give it a shot.

    I think what he's getting at is.... people are both a limited, but renewable resource, for nations. you only have a limited number of people. but these people do reproduce. so, the critical thing is to keep them healthy. get at least half of them to reproduce. you keep your numbers up with a little bit of immigration, and thus preserve the nation state.

    in that vein: I like to remind people that the defeat of France by Nazi Germany in 1940 was not ultimately the result of the French being incompetent cowards when confronted by Germany. It wasn't just a matter of the Nazis being superior in organization, tactics, technology, and training... the Nazi victory was also based on all of that AND the fact that they already had more people than France. they also had a higher sustained birth rate, and could simply afford to lose more people.

    A lot of Americans like to say "well, we would have fought to the last man!" right, LOL. the same country that threw a fit about all of those needless casualties from Gulf War II and the occupation of Afghanistan. China lost more than 10 times that many people in less than three months fighting the Japanese in Shanghai in 1937. "these colors don't run" because they're separated by two massive oceans, and it would be logistically impossible for even a coalition of nations to invade and conquer the United States by purely military means. that's why most people who have been trying to defeat the US tend to buy up US real estate, take away US jobs, buy out or get a controlling interest in US companies. and, of course, the joys of internet hacking.

    back to France: when a country is faced with the very real possibility of fighting to the last man... they have to decide whether they want the nation to disappear completely, or to surrender and lay dormant until they can summon enough people to rebuild the population again. Americans tend to judge France as being "cheese eating surrender monkeys". but, I gotta tell you, that if somebody instantly cut off our internet access and gasoline supply... America would probably surrender in far less time than 46 days.

    it certainly didn't help that France didn't have a single-nation strategy for fighting against Germany. to make matters worse Belgium and Great Britain were only partially cooperative. neither of those countries was prepared to make the sort of sacrifice that they made in WWI. so, France had no choice but to surrender and wait to get liberated.

    and that's not a bad strategy. sometimes taking a long term strategy can pay off for a group of people. look at Poland. they just waited, and waited, and waited... and eventually found a chance to become a nation again (a couple of times)

    another example: most people understand that global warming is bad. we're running out of oil. but our entire society is built around the combustion engine, and more specifically the automobile. in order to counteract that global warming trend, we would essentially have to try and create a neo-feudal economy where all of the basic types of jobs and services would be available within walking distance. failing that, we might have to outlaw motor vehicles that aren't essential to the economic infrastructure (aka cargo vehicles). but people don't want to 'repeal the 20th century' because of all the 'progress' that has been made. even if that progress is effectively destroying the entire world in slow motion.

    politicians can't tell people that they ARE the problem and get away with it. but, wait, don't lose hope! religion can do this every single day and endure for thousands of years! ;-)
    Well it's not just a matter of quantity but also of quality, you not only need to have enough people but you need to make sure that those people have skill sets that match up with what your economy needs, which is always a difficult balancing act. The reason that the United States has been so successful at building an advanced, high-tech economy despite an educational system that is mediocre at best is that we can always rely on immigrants, who have been educated and trained on someone else's dime, to come here and contribute to our society instead. Other countries don't have that luxury, and must invest massive amounts into educating their population in order to stay competitive, and even then will often see much of that go to waste as some of their best talents emigrate to chase more lucrative opportunities abroad. And of course, we assume none of the risk and push it all onto the immigrants themselves - if they are able to be productive, then they are allowed to stay and feted as exemplars of the America's diversity and inclusiveness, but if they aren't, they get sent back and their home countries are saddled with another unwanted burden.

    Now, there's always been a delicate balancing act here because while immigration has greatly benefited America's economy, it also triggers resentment among the locals who are economically neglected - after all, why bother spending tens of thousands trying to teach toothless rednecks how to code when there are plenty of experienced developers for hire from India willing to work for peanuts - yet still retain disproportionate political influence given our skewed political system. So what this means is that the people who are doing all the work to keep this country prosperous get virtually no say in how it's being run, whereas those who are least qualified to make any decisions of consequence are granted the most clout, and the results of this can be seen across the political landscape today.

  9. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Totoro Man View Post
    I may be misunderstanding PwrdOn a bit... but I'll give it a shot.

    I think what he's getting at is.... people are both a limited, but renewable resource, for nations. you only have a limited number of people. but these people do reproduce. so, the critical thing is to keep them healthy. get at least half of them to reproduce. you keep your numbers up with a little bit of immigration, and thus preserve the nation state.

    in that vein: I like to remind people that the defeat of France by Nazi Germany in 1940 was not ultimately the result of the French being incompetent cowards when confronted by Germany. It wasn't just a matter of the Nazis being superior in organization, tactics, technology, and training... the Nazi victory was also based on all of that AND the fact that they already had more people than France. they also had a higher sustained birth rate, and could simply afford to lose more people.

    A lot of Americans like to say "well, we would have fought to the last man!" right, LOL. the same country that threw a fit about all of those needless casualties from Gulf War II and the occupation of Afghanistan. China lost more than 10 times that many people in less than three months fighting the Japanese in Shanghai in 1937. "these colors don't run" because they're separated by two massive oceans, and it would be logistically impossible for even a coalition of nations to invade and conquer the United States by purely military means. that's why most people who have been trying to defeat the US tend to buy up US real estate, take away US jobs, buy out or get a controlling interest in US companies. and, of course, the joys of internet hacking.

    back to France: when a country is faced with the very real possibility of fighting to the last man... they have to decide whether they want the nation to disappear completely, or to surrender and lay dormant until they can summon enough people to rebuild the population again. Americans tend to judge France as being "cheese eating surrender monkeys". but, I gotta tell you, that if somebody instantly cut off our internet access and gasoline supply... America would probably surrender in far less time than 46 days.

    it certainly didn't help that France didn't have a single-nation strategy for fighting against Germany. to make matters worse Belgium and Great Britain were only partially cooperative. neither of those countries was prepared to make the sort of sacrifice that they made in WWI. so, France had no choice but to surrender and wait to get liberated.

    and that's not a bad strategy. sometimes taking a long term strategy can pay off for a group of people. look at Poland. they just waited, and waited, and waited... and eventually found a chance to become a nation again (a couple of times)

    another example: most people understand that global warming is bad. we're running out of oil. but our entire society is built around the combustion engine, and more specifically the automobile. in order to counteract that global warming trend, we would essentially have to try and create a neo-feudal economy where all of the basic types of jobs and services would be available within walking distance. failing that, we might have to outlaw motor vehicles that aren't essential to the economic infrastructure (aka cargo vehicles). but people don't want to 'repeal the 20th century' because of all the 'progress' that has been made. even if that progress is effectively destroying the entire world in slow motion.

    politicians can't tell people that they ARE the problem and get away with it. but, wait, don't lose hope! religion can do this every single day and endure for thousands of years! ;-)
    Um. What? This is on the topic how?

  10. #55
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    it's not really ON topic. I'm trying to flesh out what PwrdOn might have meant in post 38 to insideguy... who said that they didn't understand his meaning.

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