political tweets

Interesting dialogue between youze guys, regarding Biden vs. Trump.

IMO, Trump is significantly worse than any president since Andrew Jackson, and the most vile human being ever to sit in the White House. Biden is “meh.” He’s the centrist we basically expected, so he obviously falls way short of leftist dreams and hopes. But Trump was a fascist’s dream come true, and the worst president on the environment, perhaps ever. He seems to take pleasure in all of his destruction, and isn’t finished with his coup attempt(s) yet.

Let them drink bleach! he basically said. So he has the deaths of hundreds of thousands on his hands — above and beyond his escalation of wars/bombings in Yemen and elsewhere. To me, there’s never been such stark differences between past and present administrations, as far as damage to the earth, to society, to the future.

WV, could you elaborate on your comments regarding Biden’s “rebuilding” of the CIA and the police? I wasn’t aware that it was happening, and I didn’t see any indications that Trump reduced their powers one iota, or their budgets. In fact, compared with Obama’s budgeting, Trump increased them a great deal more. If I read the graph below correctly, the intel budget increased more than 12 billion under Trump, and fell a coupla billion under Obama.

https://fas.org/irp/budget/

Overall military spending also fell under Obama, and rose significantly under Trump.

(I’d add another link for that, but it likely won’t make it past the spam check.)

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

(I’d add another link for that, but it likely won’t make it past the spam check.)

Don’t let that hinder things. Just post. It’s all easily fixed. If you don’t like any delays then just deposit a link in the “chat” message app down to the right, and I will post it.

Thanks, ZN,

I hope you and WV continue your dialogue, and if you have the time, get more specific?

Hope all is well . . .

Billy_T wrote:

Interesting dialogue between youze guys, regarding Biden vs. Trump.

IMO, Trump is significantly worse than any president since Andrew Jackson, and the most vile human being ever to sit in the White House. Biden is “meh.” He’s the centrist we basically expected, so he obviously falls way short of leftist dreams and hopes. But Trump was a fascist’s dream come true, and the worst president on the environment, perhaps ever. He seems to take pleasure in all of his destruction, and isn’t finished with his coup attempt(s) yet.

Let them drink bleach! he basically said. So he has the deaths of hundreds of thousands on his hands — above and beyond his escalation of wars/bombings in Yemen and elsewhere. To me, there’s never been such stark differences between past and present administrations, as far as damage to the earth, to society, to the future.

WV, could you elaborate on your comments regarding Biden’s “rebuilding” of the CIA and the police? I wasn’t aware that it was happening, and I didn’t see any indications that Trump reduced their powers one iota, or their budgets. In fact, compared with Obama’s budgeting, Trump increased them a great deal more. If I read the graph below correctly, the intel budget increased more than 12 billion under Trump, and fell a coupla billion under Obama.

https://fas.org/irp/budget/

Overall military spending also fell under Obama, and rose significantly under Trump.

(I’d add another link for that, but it likely won’t make it past the spam check.)

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If both men, are promoting policies that are World-killers.
Biosphere-enders. How can we say, one is really worse than
the other? I dont get that argument, anymore.

The words ‘centrist’ and ‘fascist’ and racist etc,
just dont mean a lot IF — IF — you think they are both
world-killers.

Maybe the difference is, you and zn, just dont see
Biden/trump as biosphere-killers.

w
v

Also: I think it’s a continuum, roughly speaking, from left to right, with “casualties” decreasing radically as we go from far left to the center; radically increasing as we go from the center to the far right.

(Basically a V shape result of most lives saved to most lives lost)

Not perfect as a continuum, of course. But, basically that. If we implement so-called far-left policies, backed with far-left philosophy and adequate rhetorical support, we save the most possible lives, and prevent the Sixth Extinction from including us. IMO, if we don’t replace capitalism, with its Grow or Die market imperatives, we Homo Sapiens end up victims, too, sooner or later. Moving rightward from a complete transition away from capitalism, keeping capitalism in place but tweaking it “progressively,” we lose fewer lives than if we implement centrist policies, but we eventually succumb to pollution and Climate Change regardless. If governments implement even further-right policies, we succumb much faster, suffer far more, and the misery index increases radically the further right of center we go.

To me, it matters on the individual level, which way we go. The differences are existentially important, from far left to left, from left to liberal, from liberal to moderate, to centrist, and so on. Millions of lives hang in the balance from one point on the spectrum to the next. And that’s not hyperbole. I honestly think the difference in “casualties” will be in the millions as we move from left to right. If we go far-right, it’s in the billions.

Just my take.

Tonight the Senate voted 99-0 to decrease federal funds for any municipalities that defund the police. Lol what a two party system.

— Read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (@JoshuaPotash) August 11, 2021

I’ve been listening to the audio version of a great book on capitalism. In my opinion, it’s the single best book-length definition, evah: The Origin of Capitalism, by Ellen Meiksins Wood. First read it a few years ago, and listening to it now reminds me how precise, concise, wise, and compelling it is. This, in combo with William Clare Roberts’ Marx’s Inferno, just seals the deal for me:

Capitalism is all about domination, on several levels, and to a surprising degree, that domination is impersonal, especially via “the market.” The market controls us. We don’t control it. And Marx/Marxist insights demonstrate how even capitalists are at its mercy, and why that’s a catastrophe.

To boil down centuries into a coupla paragraphs, the key to our saving the planet is to make production truly personal again, local again, need-based again, and fully democratic for the first time in the modern world; for ourselves, our families, our communities, linked, egalitarian, cooperative. As long as it’s exchange-based, competitive, impersonal, detached, and the commodification of all life rules, we die as a species, and we take most life-forms with us.

The baked-in imperatives of a market society require endless growth, and an ever increasing loop of more production, more consumption, more waste, and more pollution. Tweaking around the edges won’t save the planet. Even the GND, which goes beyond tweaking, won’t do it, because it still leaves intact the fundamental market imperatives of More, More, More, by leaving capitalism intact, which means impersonal domination remains.

If we don’t replace capitalism soon, Homo Sapiens will not survive much into the 22nd century, and with half of all wildlife already gone just since 1970, 99% of what’s left will certainly follow us over the cliff.

Zooey wrote:

We needed Sanders decades ago. We’re past that now.

We’re now looking at a grim future no matter what. Which grim future is better?

I don’t know. But like flood waters coursing through a German town, there isn’t much hope of directing the current.

So now I’m finished with similes for the day.

I agree with all of that.

Again, one could easily say that because neither the Dems nor the Republicans have solved the problem of human mortality yet, they’re just the same. No diff. We can zoom out so far, there really are no differences, so nihilism seems the best course.

Then, again, we could fight for the most dignified, least painful, least miserable or cruel exit from the stage, and that can be our guide. To me, I actually do see major differences between the two parties (and the people who run them) along those line.

If we really are truly fooked, and it looks like we are, I’d rather not have to listen to serial-lying, far-right bullies, beloved by white supremacists, gas on about how the “deep state” is out to get them, and how “they” won’t replace whitey, and how “the far left” is supposedly destroying America, and it’s all “antifa’s” fault, and critical race theory’s, and blah blah blah.

If we’re on our way out, I want to go with non-fascist tunes playing in the wind.

Billy_T wrote:

I think there’s a danger in “they’re all the same” thinking, and it’s the proverbial two-edged sword to boot. We can make a case, for instance, when it comes to environmental destruction, that super-progressive action, short of replacing capitalism outright, is the same as centrist action, in the long run. Both routes will still render the planet uninhabitable for most life-forms in the not too distant future. It will put us on different time-tables, and the numbers of preventable early deaths will differ, but the end result is the same.

As in, if there’s no discernible difference between a Biden and a Trump, eco-wise, then there’s no discernible difference between a Sanders and a Biden.

Yeah, I know, blasphemy! But when you zoom out far enough, all the world’s a blur.

(More in the next post)

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I actually agree that there is a danger in “theyre all the same” thinking.

But I think there’s an equal danger in saying “Trump is significantly worse than Biden”

Which is why I go back and forth, and neither position feels quite right.

For me.

But of the two, I lean toward “they are ESSENTIALLY the same”. Because of the reason I already stated. On THE critical issue in the entire life of the
biosphere — both Biden and Trump have doomed us. The rest is just
trivial compared to that one issue. Just my opinion. Today.
I might change my mind tomorrow.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

If we’re on our way out, I want to go with non-fascist tunes playing in the wind.

Yeah, I think it’s the only answer. Bash on, regardless.

” Biden is still mass-murdering people of color all over the globe”

Goodbye.