I'm not even American. But from where I'm sitting, candidates who are proposing what amounts to a Scandinavian-style welfare state, or New Deal-esque economic reforms are not part of an 'irrational cult'. Liberalism's insistence that they're 'the adults in the room', while wanting to maintain the economic status-quo (which not only brought about the current state of affairs, but also leaves us utterly unprepared for potential economic and global catastrophes), comes across as far more cult-like than anything Warren or Sanders are proposing. It just sounds like you want your neoliberalism with a nicer flavour.

Coming from an outside the US perspective, it comes across as essentially mental gymnastics performed so that, whatever happens, you don't have to think about class politics.

...

i'm in favor of a social safety net actually. personally i prefer to have my needs serviced my markets instead of government, and i don't want to be in the hands of a nanny state, but i understand there are market failures where government needs to intervene, and it's great to have mechanisms to prevent misery.

however, the welfare state is heavily dependent on the high productivity of capitalist economies. so, arguing for the welfare state in opposition to capitalism is sort of suicidal. no? when you have no wealth, all you spread is poverty.

the chinese understood that, and while their system has serious problems, at least they no longer have famines.


yes, i want a nicer flavor. a repair, not an overthrow. the status quo is pretty fucking good. it's certainly not perfect, but why throw out the baby with the bathwater? it makes no sense to me. we live in times of great abundance.

potential economic catastrophes? again look at the famines caused by communism. look at all the past civilizations that collapsed.

capitalism is not immune to catastrophe but it has the most sophisticated mechanisms to date. i think we've learned a ton since the great depression.


well, i am starting to think that dealing with contemporary politics in terms of marxist categories is erroneous, and that for "workers" to oppose "capital" is again suicidal. the entrepreneurial function is essential in a successful economy.

and labor can be capital. in this country we have worker-owned businesses and cooperatives, especially for some reason in the agricultural front (i have not investigated why). my pantry is full of their stuff.

also-- the worker is not just a worker. the worker is also the consumer. to think only of how you make your money and not how you choose to spend it is very warped and just plain blind.

there are also consumer co-ops btw: i'm a member of a food co-op, an electric utility co-op, and my state has a health co-op that provides insurance under obamacare.

and last-- i do not think of profit as exploitation. thanks to comparative advantage and the division of labor both parties can profit when they trade. happens in nature and we call it symbiosis.

so yes, we just need a fix, from where i'm sitting. tweak some tax rates, expand some services, find the right balance between the public and private sector, keep markets competitive, and we can keep prospering for a very long time. in my opinion, of course. this is only as far as i can see.

Sorry for not giving you the same effort in response... at work.

But a great many people around the world don't believe that a status quo consisting of record levels of income inequality and utterly stagnant social mobility is 'pretty fucking good'. Regardless of Steven Pinker and co and their 'modern life in the West is the best that life has even been' shtick.

It's pretty sad when liberals oppose the historically-mainstream ideas of Sanders and Warren by deflecting to the horrors of communism, as though that even follows in the slightest. It seems that you'd rather repeat talkback radio/Fox News talking points than even discuss class politics. Good luck convincing anyone in-debt, working for 3 different apps, with insecure housing and no health care, that they should be happy they aren't in a gulag.

it's not a deflection. i've lived with nationalized industries, expropriated lands, dysfunctional worker cooperatives, corrupt government enterprises. i've been stiffed by a government entity. collectivism and statism are not optimal.

since birth to this day my wife receives taxpayer funded government health care which is adequate for some things and insufficient for others. so she uses a mix of government and private insurance.

i have received taxpayer funded health care and it was sufficient and cheap, and i think that option should always be available, but i wouldn't want it to be the ONLY option. as a consumer, i like to have choices!

i am convinced everyone has a right to health care in this day and age. no argument there from me. my argument is about how to get there.

i get that "a great many people around the world don't believe", and they have a right to their beliefs, but that is not an argument, it's just an appeal to popularity.

i don't listen to fox news or "talkback radio". again you're not responding to my arguments, just slapping a random label to something you can't respond to rationally.

i already explained that i think class politics is outmoded and inaccurate and i said why.

as for the person in a difficult situation that you describe-- i've been and am and can still be that person. and marxist theory didn't do shit for me. whereas understanding actual reality has done me better. but yes, this precariousness is precisely why things need fixing. i didn't say that everything was right. i said things need repair, not revolution.

by the way, before you continue with your mischaracterizations (why do you feel the need?), i should let you know that i think warren's child care proposal, which i just heard about recently because nobody is discussing (they are talking about bullshit instead), would be an excellent repair that people could use right now in very practical ways.

i don't agree with every one of her proposals and i don't think she's a good candidate, but i think she can be great at domestic policy when she doesn't pander. unfortunately it turns out she panders A LOT.

But a lot of your arguments have been using the same sort of logic leaping that Fox News talking points do. Class is still the basis of everything, now with a bigger focus on the racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc. that operates within our class based system.

Also the Mueller report was always a bunch of overhyped nonsense, literally QAnon but for liberal boomers. You think a country that shoots unarmed black men and separates latino families at the border is gonna punish a wealthy white man who has bullshitted his way to the highest position in the world?? Hah.

more name calling. nobody here has actually responded to me with logic.

e.g., is it illogical to say that the scandinavian welfare state depends on capitalist production? i don’t think so, but if it is, show me with a logical argument.

instead, just names names names.

also you say “a lot of your arguments”. refute a specific argument!

to say “fox news” again does not disprove anything that i’ve said.

so... basically you’ve got nothing. thanks for playing.

I've been doing all that quite consistently while replying to you, I just can't be bothered currently!

that’s what you think you’ve been doing? lol ok

I'm not sure about Derek, but what I meant by 'Fox News talking points' is the immediate deflection of anything mildly resembling 'big government' to Soviet/Chinese famines. It's a regularly used tactic by disingenuous right wing pundits and the 'don't tread on me' crowd, and now a tactic used by liberals to attempt to attack the social democratic wing of the Democratic party.

If you're into your logic and reason, claiming that this deflection is valid because you've lived or worked in nationalised industries etc is both an anecdotal fallacy and an appeal to authority fallacy. I'm Polish, I've known my fair share of authoritarian government... it wouldn't make a claim that reinstituting New Deal-like reforms will lead to famines any more valid on account of my Polish-ness. But I think this is a pedantic way of conducting a debate... it's just that you seemed to be insisting.

If they haven’t already done so, over the next 7-10 days we all have a front row seat to the Democrats blowing any shot at 2020......transparency???

Two months after the Election, the winners assumed their seats and the Democrats plan moving forward???

Is their bitterness so strong that they are truly considering spending more money and time on Mueller’s findings and launching new investigations?

Personally, I don’t think the Democratic Freshmen want any part of this, but they are stuck dealing with Chuck and Nancy.

And here locally at SYG......who knew Skuj displayed the most common sense by activating his ignore list while sticking his head in the sand. I applaud you Skuj, because those actions were the wiser options to these sad rebuttals and responses displayed here over the weekend.

oh, that, fair enough, if we use the same comparisons then we do. i do not watch fox because i do not like it, but on your recommendation maybe i should start ha ha ha




yes, again, fair enough. in my defense i’ll just say that i was not attempting to deduce any conclusions, because for me the disaster of statism and central planning are more of an empirical and historical matter. my preference for market solutions is the same way. i find them empirically superior in most cases.

there are logical/theoretical proofs of why those systems do not work, but i did not attempt them here.

thanks for pointing that out

well, sure, im pedantic, won’t deny. a personality flaw. at some point i have to own it. i don’t know another way, but i’d rather do this than lie.

also i believe i mostly offered you an explanation of why i think why i think. yes?

but about the new deal: we don’t need a new deal or new deal-like policies.

the new deal was actually the american response to rising communist and socialist parties during the depression era. it adopted some of their programs and rhetoric and in doing so it coopted their membership and took the wind out of their sails. it replaced the ideology of international socialism with a more nationalistic one.

the new deal created a number of jobs programs and a huge government bureaucracy to deal with unemployment. it was full of good intentions, but in retrospect it looks like it prolonged the great depression instead of ending it.

now we have full employment and monetary solutions to fiscal problems that were not understood in the 30s.

we can fix capitalism without destroying its productivity or disrupting markets. we can get big money out of writing laws and it will be hard but it starts by recognizing that corporations are not people. we can have a fairer and simpler tax system. we can we can have social programs that help people with actual problems without creating perverse incentives. we can have universal health care without having to establish a government monopoly. we can improve education without having runaway costs and debts. we can help workers deal with economic dislocation without hurting the consumer. we can have market solutions to climate and environmental problems that unleash more creativity and ingenuity than any government entity. we can get billionaires to pay more taxes without unrealistically treating them like the infinite resource they aren’t.

this is of course all a matter of discussion, but now it’s monday morning for me and i have the same problems you had earlier.

anyway i appreciate the exchange, i do, always glad to test things out in a fair discussion, as long as it is a fair discussion. so if we can keep it that way, great.

ok happy mondays.

I have, and we've both slung shit at each other in proportionate amounts too lol :D

For sure, young leftists are rolling their eyes at the older liberal obsession with COLLUSION!! They could have spent the past 2 years pushing policies and ideas but instead its just ended up as a hollow act of political theatre.

Also anyone spouting "secret indictments on the way!!!" like its some hidden truth that they're only privy to should really just consider joining QAnon. It's the same thing but its a bit funnier.

ha ha, maybe... but we shouldn’t need to, even when we disagree, right?

Roseanne Barr made the determination of no obstruction. Partisan.

Sometimes some shit slinging is necessary but politics ain't personal baby :cool:

I chuckled.

One Place Mueller Never Comes Up

NEW: As the Sackler family misled the public about OxyContin & profited handsomely from the growing crisis, Richard Sackler funded a network of anti-Muslim groups through his family foundation. https://readsludge.com/2019/03/25/as...uslim-network/

The evils of a private healthcare system really know no bounds..

lmfao! good comedy, man

applause

What's comedic about a system that allows a rich family to profit from then ruin communities with a heroin level drug that's unneeded in the majority of cases? And to then take that money and put it into stirring up anti-Muslim bigotry? Unbelievable.

what's unbelievable is your hilarious ultrageneralizations

Hmmm there seem to be a heck of a lot of "ultrageneralizations" then

Just saw this tweet being replied to in horror:
"Second. My toddler son died suddenly and within days the hospital put a lien on our house to make sure we didn’t skip out on the PICU bill. (Hope you are OK btw I enjoy your tweets.)"

There are so many cases of this.. its all for the benefit of the few at the expense of the vulnerable.

yes. but see, with the "corporations are people" bullshit.

corporations are people but nobody goes to jail"

see here this is old:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/b...1drug-web.html

^^ i'm sure they could afford the fines so just another cost of doing business

---

take another one: jeff skilling, the brains behind the enron fraud, is now free and trying to get into the business again

no matter how many lives you ruin, or how many people killed themselves as a result of financial ruin, white collar crime is punished lightly.

preferential treatment no doubt.

btw last week at the dentist i got a prescription for 12 oxycodones. took 3, felt like shit.

I remember atsonicpark saying that he chewed a few oxys before every shift at work and I thought it was ridiculous until it was clearly true. He had no business having them, and went onto harder things as a result. For someone so unique, it's such a typical situation that plays out across many ignored communities in America. The fucked up for profit system is the culprit behind it and it's ALL SO PREVENTABLE. Blinds me with rage sometimes.

man, they have the same epidemic in nationalized healthcare canada

--

shit, poor adam...

Yeah, America's problem is spilling over the border. The same happened with fentanyl too, I believe its even started showing up here in the UK for pete's sake.

well it's easier than shipping heroin from afghanistan

you know in the US the government already pays 1/3 of all health bills yes?

That's not enough.

but what use is having "free' health care if you can't use it?

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42572116

important to not confuse the current crop of identity politics as leftist or liberal - they are neither.

I've already spoken about the Tories cutting the NHS budget and selling it off bit by bit to privatised companies, in effect starting to emulate the American model.. but you want to just keep making me repeat myself eh!!

no, but see, that points to the problem of a lack of choice

basically if you don't like your health care provider you're stuck with it for x years till the government changes

you're AT THE MERCY OF TORIES

i only need to wait for the next open enrollment in october and new policy activates when the new year rings

Hot take (on here for some reason at least): Identity politics is a good thing that has revitalised the left and helped to link classism to issues of other marginalised groups, effectively strengthening it and broadening its appeal. The minority "I post on tumblr and I'm a transracial bigender otherkin polyamorous weirdo" faction are obviously all about showboating their forced uniqueness but people don't seem to like separating the two all that much.

e.g. i used to have an HMO and it was shit. it's like government health care but privately managed. some are even nonprofits so there's no "profit motive!" to blame.

i didn't like it and changed to a PPO. i like it a lot.

I don't even know how to reply to that stuff anymore, it all just misses the point. I'm glad you enjoy your health insurance man, if you believe it to be good then who am I to say otherwise