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US Politics - And Now it Begins


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1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Just to be clear: not only is the left not allowed to express an opinion on the Cabinet picks of the President-elect we helped elect, but we shouldn't even have an opinion and should be grateful for the opportunity to maybe push some moderate neo-liberal slightly more to the left than fascism?

Fuck your appeasement strategy. 

The space between "not allowed to express an opinion" and "choosing who you want" is vast and it is all all open space that Kal invites you to consider.

The immediate railing and gnashing against anyone to the Right of far-Left is exhausting. You aren't advocating for an agenda or even any individuals -- just pointing out the supposed failure of not doing what you want.

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

There's certainly a risk that Biden is a Paul von Hindenburg figure; an old man who is the only one that can keep a semblance of the old order alive, and once he dies/is term-limited out it falls to pieces. But 4/8 years is a very long time in politics, and there's no telling where things might be then.

It's true that so long as the GOP has its current anti-democracy view point and is capable of winning a national election that means that every election will in truth be "the most important election of our lifetime" because if they win even once it'll all be over. But we don't know how long both those conditions will be true; and they very much might have to give up one to keep the other.

In 8 years, climate change might be starting to hit us for reals, and that may be what is dominating the political landscape. You can go 2 ways when these sorts of global crises with no identifiable mitigations hit (COVID has identifiable short and long term mitigations, so it isn't really a dry run): you can go nationalistic, isolationist and try to preserve your own population and economy (possibly even including continuing to burn fossil fuels like never before) while keeping the rest of the world out; or you can go internationalist and look to cooperate on a global scale. Nationalistic is the small-brained self-preservation, but ultimately self-destructive road. Internationalist is the correct approach and the way to get through with the least amount of harm.

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8 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Just to be clear: not only is the left not allowed to express an opinion on the Cabinet picks of the President-elect we helped elect, but we shouldn't even have an opinion and should be grateful for the opportunity to maybe push some moderate neo-liberal slightly more to the left than fascism?

Fuck your appeasement strategy. 

Seriously, how many lefties are going to come out and vote with this strategy? Good way to kill the party.

You can express whatever you want! Feel free to be disappointed in it. I certainly am. But yes, in general right now it's a much bigger deal to not let the US slide into a far-right authoritarian isolationist policy than it is to be pissed off about Israeli policy that hasn't been enacted yet. 

But yes, if you are riding on the hopes of electing a very progressive person to POTUS, you're going to have some bad times. If you're spending your energy on that instead of on local and state elections, you're wasting your energy. This is ultimately the problem with a lot of progressives - they think that if they just vote in a POTUS who promises the moon that everything will be magically fixed, and when that invariably doesn't happen for whatever reason they get disillusioned.

And it's that motherfucking disillusionment I'm chiding people like you and @GrimTuesday for. Be disappointed, be realistic that this is going to largely be the case, figure out how to give Biden opportunities to move in the direction you want and understand that you get a LOT more done in politics by simple acts of being not a douchebag. 

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4 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I still think that DHS needs to just go away, but I guess it not being used as a pseudo-military organization against political opponents is a step up.

I mean, he also basically was the guy that implemented DACA as Obama's director of the USCIS, so I'd say his nomination is more than just a lesser of two evils or even "neutral" step - even for leftists.

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7 minutes ago, Week said:

The space between "not allowed to express an opinion" and "choosing who you want" is vast and it is all all open space that Kal invites you to consider.

The immediate railing and gnashing against anyone to the Right of far-Left is exhausting. You aren't advocating for an agenda or even any individuals -- just pointing out the supposed failure of not doing what you want.

Hell, they're not even gnashing about actual policy - they're gnashing about the possibility that things aren't going to go exactly how they want, and how they want isn't even defined!

Holy fuck.

I'd love to hear even the slightest of actual proposals for foreign policy folks that they would be interested in. I'm personally excited to have the US be run by people who a) give an actual shit, b ) have relationships with other nations that aren't based on real estate, and c) are rational actors. 

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Just now, Week said:

The space between "not allowed to express an opinion" and "choosing who you want" is vast and it is all all open space that Kal invites you to consider.

The immediate railing and gnashing against anyone to the Right of far-Left is exhausting. You aren't advocating for an agenda or even any individuals -- just pointing out the supposed failure of not doing what you want.

This is laughably untrue. Centrist, establishment Dems came out punching at the left the second they got their asses handed to them because they needed a scapegoat.

A lefty complains about more neo-liberal bullshit after THE MOST PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORM EVAR ZOMG!!, and someone trots out the same bullshit about the left never being happy without ever acknowledging that establishment Democrats don't seem particularly inclined to even think about changing strategy or messaging, but are more than goddamn happy to blame all their woes on the left, while whinging constantly about how they keep getting their asses handed to them because "oh the Constitution is so unfair!"

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3 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

Hell, they're not even gnashing about actual policy - they're gnashing about the possibility that things aren't going to go exactly how they want, and how they want isn't even defined!

Holy fuck.

I'd love to hear even the slightest of actual proposals for foreign policy folks that they would be interested in. I'm personally excited to have the US be run by people who a) give an actual shit, b ) have relationships with other nations that aren't based on real estate, and c) are rational actors. 

Democrats keep punching left and see how many elections they'll win then.

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6 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

 

But yes, if you are riding on the hopes of electing a very progressive person to POTUS, you're going to have some bad times. If you're spending your energy on that instead of on local and state elections, you're wasting your energy. This is ultimately the problem with a lot of progressives - they think that if they just vote in a POTUS who promises the moon that everything will be magically fixed, and when that invariably doesn't happen for whatever reason they get disillusioned.

 

It's like carrying on conversations with Green Party people who think Jo Jorgensen was exactly what the country needed and they'll be damned if you try to suggest that they're not going to get the top spot before they put in the work at the local and state level.  Just gimme gimme gimme...it's exhausting. Not because what is desired is so wrong, it really isn'ton most of it, but because it's some sort of instant gratification fantasy.

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Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

This is laughably untrue. Centrist, establishment Dems came out punching at the left the second they got their asses handed to them because they needed a scapegoat.

A lefty complains about more neo-liberal bullshit after THE MOST PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORM EVAR ZOMG!!, and someone trots out the same bullshit about the left never being happy without ever acknowledging that establishment Democrats don't seem particularly inclined to even think about changing strategy or messaging, but are more than goddamn happy to blame all their woes on the left, while whinging constantly about how they keep getting their asses handed to them because "oh the Constitution is so unfair!"

So, folks like Kal as well as myself and others here are establishment Biden-stans that came out punching at the left? Who are you arguing with? I'll happily agree with you that Chuck Todd, CNN, NYT Opinion writers, and whomever else you are shaking your finger at are a bunch of fuckheads.

You are projecting a response that most of us agree is fucking bullshit onto the same people who believe it is fucking bullshit. Then you bite at anyone who extends an olive branch. What's your next move? 

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5 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

And again, I ask - what is your alternative that you propose? Feel free to be as disappointed in it as you like - I certainly am! - but the notion that this is somehow a massive defeat should be obviously wrong.

I realize that if we don't back Israel Israel probably ends up starting a nuclear war with another country. That's probably not as great as you might think it is for keeping them in check. As to 'punishing them for their crimes against humanity' - please. Israel is barely a smidge compared to the likes of China or, hell, the US itself. I don't know why Israel specifically is a big deal to you, but so it goes.

 

That is way too dismissive if the shit that Israel has been pulling for decades. There is no moral equivocation. Human rights abuses are human rights abuses and should be condemned in whatever form and in whatever guise they appear. IMO you should criticise your friends more strongly than your enemies. If you can't convince your friends to change their ways, then what hope have you of getting your enemies to change?

It is definitely hard to convince anyone of anything if you are being a hypocrite, so getting our own houses in order would be a good start, but we can at least try to convince our friends to start walking that path with us.

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1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

It's like carrying on conversations with Green Party people who think Jo Jorgensen was exactly what the country needed and they'll be damned if you try to suggest that they're not going to get the top spot before they put in the work at the local and state level.  Just gimme gimme gimme...it's exhausting. Not because what is desired is so wrong, it really isn'ton most of it, but because it's some sort of instant gratification fantasy.

And fuck your instant gratification; who do you think spends all the effort pushing these fixes into the public consciousness? 

The left since before people were laughing at Occupy Wall Street, and it's fucking instant gratification? 

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Just now, Week said:

So, folks like Kal as well as myself and others here are establishment Biden-stans that came out punching at the left? Who are you arguing with? I'll happily agree with you that Chuck Todd, CNN, NYT Opinion writers, and whomever else you are shaking your finger at are a bunch of fuckheads.

You are projecting a response that most of us agree is fucking bullshit onto the same people who believe it is fucking bullshit. Then you bite at anyone who extends an olive branch. What's your next move? 

Kalbear punches left all the fucking time, and you're not going to fucking gaslight me pretending he doesn't.

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7 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

And again, I ask - what is your alternative that you propose? Feel free to be as disappointed in it as you like - I certainly am! - but the notion that this is somehow a massive defeat should be obviously wrong.

I realize that if we don't back Israel Israel probably ends up starting a nuclear war with another country. That's probably not as great as you might think it is for keeping them in check. As to 'punishing them for their crimes against humanity' - please. Israel is barely a smidge compared to the likes of China or, hell, the US itself. I don't know why Israel specifically is a big deal to you, but so it goes.

As to the IMF and World Bank - the US isn't nearly as big a deal in those things as we used to be, and again I ask - what is your proposed alternative? 

Yep, that's me, the disconnected elitist who is totally fine with the status quo. What a fucking thing to say. I grew up in housing projects and was homeless for a good chunk of my childhood. We were on welfare. My clothes were free donations from the fucking 70s - do you know how much you get teased for wearing bell bottoms in 1984? Fuck you for that. 

At some point you have to accept what the US is before you change it. You have to accept that 50%+ of the voting population does not care about this shit or barely even knows Israel exists on a map. You have to understand just how illiberal and undemocratic the US currently is and what the limits of power actually are. Now, here's the thing - on a lot of foreign policy these are places where Biden can be pushed, and I recommend that he does get pushed significantly. But the idea that the US is going to stop being a capitalist, consumerist country because I 'excuse' things? Please. Grow the fuck up already. 

This isn't about maintaining the status quo; this is about maintaining some semblance of representative democracy in the most powerful nation on the planet for the next 10-15 years. You are bitching about the IMF policies of someone who hasn't even done anything when we still haven't even put that guy in office yet. 

Dude, I don't expect you to do shit, you're just some rando in the Seattle area, just like I'm just some rando, neither of us hold any of the levers of power. You sit there and ask me for plans as if I'm the Commissar of the Glorious Revolution is exactly the type of bullshit that allows you to deflect the argument. I'm not asking for your plans, because us prognosticating on detailed plans on a forum devoted to a fantasy series is fucking pointless.

Man, I don't know shit about you upbringing, there have been plenty of people who grew up poor and ended up being completely divorced for the material conditions that they experienced in their youth. And honestly, I don't care how you grew up, all I can do is evaluate you based on what you say here, and what you say is centrist garbage that ultimately upholds the system while you spend your time hippy punching those who are actually advocating for the policies that you are claiming you support.

5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Democrats keep punching left and see how many elections they'll win then.

But don't you know they'll totally get Republicans to work with them.

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1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This is laughably untrue. Centrist, establishment Dems came out punching at the left the second they got their asses handed to them because they needed a scapegoat.

Sure! Some did, others didn't. That's always going to happen. So what? You're attempting to push a lot of people in a way they don't want. You think you're not going to get pushback?

And here's the thing - some policy slogans were bad politically. That isn't punching left any more than stating the sky is blue is an insult to green. Some people undoubtedly did get damaged. I don't care that much about it personally - given both the massive amount of Republican voters and the relative popularity of Trump, I don't think messaging mattered that much - but if the left wants to win things, they have to think about successful slogans too. 

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

A lefty complains about more neo-liberal bullshit after THE MOST PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORM EVAR ZOMG!!, and someone trots out the same bullshit about the left never being happy without ever acknowledging that establishment Democrats don't seem particularly inclined to even think about changing strategy or messaging, but are more than goddamn happy to blame all their woes on the left, while whinging constantly about how they keep getting their asses handed to them because "oh the Constitution is so unfair!"

It's not just the constitution. It's also that the US population is pretty fucking reactionary and racist and uneducated. Again, 74 million people voted for Trump. That is a reality that you and I are going to have to deal with for a long time. As much as I might want a more just country, there are 74 million people who AT BEST are willing to excuse the most authoritarian POTUS we have ever had because of personal benefits that they get. 

I also ask - what strategies are you recommending changing? I hear a lot of bitching about this idea - that despite dems winning the popular vote in every single POTUS  election this millenium save 1, they need to change their strategy AND they somehow need to do it in a way that makes the Left happier. What is this change? Do you think that changing foreign policy to Israel is going to make a difference? Do you think that making it harder to get cell phones and cheap plastic shit is going to make more people vote for you? 

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Democrats keep punching left and see how many elections they'll win then.

Again, how the fuck is telling people that this is disappointing but not the end of the world 'punching left'? I'm not blaming you or @GrimTuesday for any results. I'm saying Grim is acting like a baby and you're acting like a toddler. The US doesn't get more progressive by a single election or a single appointment; it gets more progressive by long-term activism at local and state levels which constantly push things left. What you need from a Federal government is two things - support of those states and localities, and the ability to veto anyone who is incredibly bad. And that's it!

And so far, that's what you got! You got a POTUS who has a lot of 'return to normalcy' along with a TON of progressive goals, but is known for making deals with people. Make deals! This is a massive opportunity for getting more of what you want. 

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1 minute ago, GrimTuesday said:

But don't you know they'll totally get Republicans to work with them.

At this point, centrists and the left are just caught in an ouroboros of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football, with all of us just switching places as Charlie Brown.

"I promise I'll let you kick it this time! That platform is SO progressive! We will have TEAMS with lefties!"

It is obvious lefties never have had, and never will have, a seat at the table, and we will be blamed for establishment failures whether we turn out en masse or not.

Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice, I can't get fooled again.

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2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Kalbear punches left all the fucking time, and you're not going to fucking gaslight me pretending he doesn't.

Stay focused on the actual discussion at hand as opposed to the axe you are grinding that -- clearly -- folks have tired of.

You said

Quote

This is laughably untrue. Centrist, establishment Dems came out punching at the left the second they got their asses handed to them because they needed a scapegoat.

I said

Quote

So, folks like Kal as well as myself and others here are establishment Biden-stans that came out punching at the left? Who are you arguing with? I'll happily agree with you that Chuck Todd, CNN, NYT Opinion writers, and whomever else you are shaking your finger at are a bunch of fuckheads.

You are projecting a response that most of us agree is fucking bullshit onto the same people who believe it is fucking bullshit. Then you bite at anyone who extends an olive branch. What's your next move? 

You focus solely on the half of that supports your victimhood. The "Left" getting punched. Not the poor form of smearing anyone that disagrees with you as a "centrist, establishment Dem" or that many people actually agree with your viewpoints if not your methods and behavior.

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4 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

At this point, centrists and the left are just caught in an ouroboros of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football, with all of us just switching places as Charlie Brown.

"I promise I'll let you kick it this time! That platform is SO progressive! We will have TEAMS with lefties!"

It is obvious lefties never have had, and never will have, a seat at the table, and we will be blamed for establishment failures whether we turn out en masse or not.

Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice, I can't get fooled again.

Consider the fragility and defeat in this. Consider for a moment voting as a woman or black american over the last 100 years (in the elections they were allowed to vote at least). 

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1 minute ago, Week said:

Stay focused on the actual discussion at hand as opposed to the axe you are grinding that -- clearly -- folks have tired of.

You said

I said

You focus solely on the half of that supports your victimhood. The "Left" getting punched. Not the poor form of smearing anyone that disagrees with you as a "centrist, establishment Dem" or that many people actually agree with your viewpoints if not your methods and behavior.

Pretty sure I've seen most of those people agreeing with the centrist, establishment Dems punching left, so...pretty sure I *am* focusing in the right direction. 

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3 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Dude, I don't expect you to do shit, you're just some rando in the Seattle area, just like I'm just some rando, neither of us hold any of the levers of power. You sit there and ask me for plans as if I'm the Commissar of the Glorious Revolution is exactly the type of bullshit that allows you to deflect the argument. I'm not asking for your plans, because us prognosticating on detailed plans on a forum devoted to a fantasy series is fucking pointless.

If you don't have plans or can't point to someone who does, you're just another rando. At least you should be able to point to someone on the Left who actually has plans. If you can't even be bothered to even find someone who is productively attempting these things, you're useless.

Hell, AOC has these plans! You could at least say what she's saying. And even she admits that you have to go to where those people are!

3 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Man, I don't know shit about you upbringing, there have been plenty of people who grew up poor and ended up being completely divorced for the material conditions that they experienced in their youth. And honestly, I don't care how you grew up, all I can do is evaluate you based on what you say here, and what you say is centrist garbage that ultimately upholds the system while you spend your time hippy punching those who are actually advocating for the policies that you are claiming you support. 

You're not advocating anything! You're just shitting on choices before they've made a choice. You haven't even waited until the person is sworn in or done a single thing. Hell, @DMC is spending half his time correcting people like you who have made Serious Opinions on people whose background and prior credits you're not even informed about. 

I support things that can work, and most of that requires a lot of actual time and energy to do. It does not require bad slogans. If you want to make Israel less horrible, you're going to have to put in the work at a lower stage first. If you want IMF and the World bank to be less horrible - well, that's a way harder lift to be sure, but you're going to have to start early on with a lot of bureaucrats and appointing people there who agree with you. 

5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Kalbear punches left all the fucking time, and you're not going to fucking gaslight me pretending he doesn't.

I punch a whole lot of people, honestly. If by 'Left' you mean 'people who bitch about the status quo without any ideas on what they want', yes, I do punch them. Here's the thing - pointing out problems in things people want is not 'punching'. "Defund the Police" is a bad slogan regardless of the actual outcome that you and I want for it, and pointing that out is not punching anyone unless you consider any level of criticism punching.

And if you do, well, you're going to get fuckall achieved, because there are a whole lot more people out there who are a lot fucking less likely to be remotely receptive to this if you have shitty slogans. 

If you don't want your shitty ideas criticized, don't have shitty ideas. 

3 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

But don't you know they'll totally get Republicans to work with them.

I don't think they'll get any republicans to work with him. I DO think they'll get a lot of competent Democrats to work with him. I think they'll get a lot of competent bureaucrats to work with him. I think you'll also get a lot of other countries to work with him, and that's kind of a big deal too. 

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