Forum Replies Created
-
I change my mind about this, all the time. I changed it several times today, in fact. The differences between the two major parties. Are they significant? Are they meaningful, meaningless, relevant, irrelevant?
It depends. For me, it’s all relative and context is everything.
Struggling for useful metaphors, it’s kinda like comparisons seen up close versus those seen from distances . . . and those distances, between valleys, mountains, and further skyward. Up close, on most issues, if we just compare the two parties to each other, just them, to each other, as opposed to a certain set of standards for what should be the case . . . . as opposed to comparing them to higher ideals, the representation of all citizens and our best interests . . . adhering to those higher standards for helping us achieve the best quality of life (and society) possible, protecting the environment, embracing, extending, enhancing democracy and inclusion, etc. etc. . . . if we compare the two major parties not to each other but to “higher things,” they fail utterly, year after year.
But there’s a difference in the failure and the failings, and the differences can matter, on the ground. It can even be a life and death sort of difference, as in the case of Covid-19 responses, Climate Change, Civil/Workers/Women’s/LGBT rights, etc. etc. Following or fighting the science. Fighting or following authoritarianism to its logical ends. If we allow for the fact that they both fall so incredibly short of meeting the Higher Things . . . Yeah, there are differences between them that matter.
Have had a rough day so I’ll leave it there. Will try to elaborate on the above tomorrow, give examples and so on. It got “personal” today and yesterday as well. Not sure how it will all shake out over time, but it got personal for me.
Hope all is well, everyone.
Related:
And this, from America’s most dangerous AG in generations:
June 26, 2020 at 5:15 p.m. EDT Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday directed the formation of a task force that will be dedicated to countering “anti-government extremists,” escalating federal law enforcement’s response to the violence that has sometimes marked nationwide protests against police brutality and racism, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. In the memo, Barr wrote that amid peaceful demonstrations, anti-government extremists had “engaged in indefensible acts of violence designed to undermine public order.”
Obviously, when Barr talks about “extremists,” he’s referring to we leftists, not right-wingers who actually commit nearly 99% of the violence. Egged on by Trump and right-wing media, he’s referring primarily to “antifa,” which Trump and company could decide is pretty much any dissenters they don’t like.
We’re in political hell, folks, along with pandemical hell.
Oh, and forgot to mention a huge, huge issue:
Health care. As we speak, the Trump administration is arguing before the Supreme Court to gut the ACA, which would literally throw tens of millions of Americans off their health care programs — in the middle of a pandemic. I haven’t heard a single Republican say this is wrong, much less sadistic beyond belief.
I’ve been arguing with mainstream Dems for years about how much the ACA fell short, and how the Dems were chickenshits for not going for M4A. But compared with the GOP alternative, it’s heaven sent. Medicaid expansion, for example, literally saves countless American lives and keeps people from being thrown out of their homes and into the streets. That’s not hyperbole. I know this for a fact. And in the middle of a pandemic, when tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, which means they’ve lost their insurance, the GOP is trying to kill all of that, along with protections for pre-existing conditions. Again, this is flat out sadism, and I don’t hear a peep from Republicans saying it’s even wrong.
Throw in the overall response to the pandemic, compare the Dems with the GOP on that crises . . . and it’s even more clear that we don’t have any real common ground with the right.
Hope all is well, WV.
Capitalism requires inequality. Definitely true. And on a scale no previous economic system ever came close to. There can be no effective, sufficient “capital accumulation” by capitalists without it. By definition. If that capital is shared in such a way that it dilutes concentration, it won’t work. It’s just math. And the higher the degree of concentration, the bigger the gap must be. And when just three humans — right now, Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg — hold as much wealth as the bottom half of America combined . . . . that gap is beyond Twilight Zone levels.
So racism kicks in in conscious and unconscious ways. Unconsciously, it helps “white people” ignore the massive gaps, because they don’t always see them, at least not directly, or what they see becomes a “norm” that they’ve become numb to. Black and brown people making far, far less, or working temp jobs, or waiting for buses and trucks to take them to dangerous, back-breaking precariot jobs, or in far away nations, etc. Or, simply unemployed. An army of surplus and radically low paid workers is absolutely necessary, or capitalism can not function. They enable “decent, middle class wages” for white people, as well as massive riches for the financial elites.
Overt racism helps “white people” manage via “they don’t deserve to make a decent living” or some variation. Or, worse. “Screw them! I got mine!” even for the white folks who really don’t. Their sense of “I got mine” is really “I’m superior to them cuz I’m not as bad off,” etc. etc. And then throw in the police, “law and order” issues, and the wild divergence of how people are “managed” by the authorities, and this sense of superiority deepens.
Capitalism needs enemies as well as inequality . . . so furiners and POCs and we leftists take on that role for it. It also needs, ironically, a decent percentage of “successful” POCs (and women) to prevent a mass rebellion. It’s still too early in the morning for me to express how leftists fit into the mix, exactly, as far as the racist safety valve goes . . . . but it’s there, somewhere.
Hope others jump in and discuss this further too.
WV,
Thanks for posting that video here.
Not sure what Robinson article Kulinski read, but his response wasn’t at all connected to any of the relevant articles in this case. His characterization of Robinson’s argument was basically a text-book case of strawmen. It surprised me how wildly wrong he was . . .
First off, Robinson spent next to no time talking about Hitler or Mussolini, but correctly included them in “right-populism,” and by Kulinski’s own definition, they fit that to a T. They — and all fascist leaders — tried to appeal to a sector of their society that felt ignored by “elites,” and exploited fears of “outsiders” and “the Other” inside those societies. This is what all American “right-populists” do as well.
Also, Kulinski is just flat out crazy if he thinks any right-wing rep would ever support Medicare for all, or unions, or a living wage, etc. Kulinski’s examples of where the left and the right can supposedly work together don’t exist in the real world. Hell would freeze over before you’d find a Republican willing to buck his or her party (line) on serious economic issues of any heft. And if hell did freeze over, it wouldn’t help we leftists one iota, because the vast, vast majority of Republicans would be rabidly against that deal and that lone unorthodox vote. And what would that lone voice want in exchange? More than he or she would ever, in effect, give up. How easy is it to claim to be for or against something, when you know it’s not going to go anywhere?
And on trade? No right-populist wants change to benefit workers or the environment. Not a one. They’d be lefties if they did. They want change to trade deals to help corporate ownership even more. They want change to trade deals to liberate them from as many restrictions as possible, and to open things up themselves to join the Big Boys. They want change so they can sit on top of the heap, instead of floundering beneath them.
Again, lefties don’t want there to be a heap, period. Right-wing beliefs are in total opposition to the idea of egalitarianism, and they’ll fight that possibility to the death, by any means necessary.
(more below)
