US Elections 2020

[MrFanti]

I see that you consider yourself a Libertarian. I ran with that for a while when I was younger. Thing is, none of those political concepts - Libertarian, Socialist, Communist - whatever, really work in real life.

There's a lot that I like about Libertarians (one example is how they're against Federal Government control of everything) but oftentimes, they are a bit too close to Anarchy for me LoL.
But if you're a Democrat or Republican, I'd say talk to a Libertarian so they can point out the bullshit within your own respective party.

[fred41]

There's a lot that I like about Libertarians (one example is how they're against Federal Government control of everything) but oftentimes, they are a bit too close to Anarchy for me LoL.
But if you're a Democrat or Republican, I'd say talk to a Libertarian so they can point out the bullshit within your own respective party.

I hear you, but I believe there are Libertarians on both right and left fields. Right now I’m an Independent voter out of honesty. I may have to say “Fuck that” though, because in order to vote locally, I need to be able to vote in the Democratic primaries. So I may have to switch to Democrat out of expediency.

[blackchubby38]

Sorry MrFanti, I never addressed this part of your quote. I don’t honestly think you can blame white establishment Democrats for this one. Neither Kamala Harris nor Cory Booker seemed to poll well in the black community. One of the reasons Joe Biden is still standing, is because of older southern black voters...thank God for that, in my opinion, because it cancelled out the, under 30, northern black votes for Bernie.

Also from what I can tell, Julian Castro didn't poll too well in the Hispanic community either.

[blackchubby38]

Stavros: Regarding "the trained Marxist" thing:

http://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-...ained-marxist/

[MrFanti]

I'll just put this here...

[MrFanti]

stavros: Regarding "the trained marxist" thing:

http://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-...ained-marxist/

Facts!!!
Exactly why I ceased having fact based discussion with Stavros - he doesn't want to hear the truth.

[MrFanti]

Also from what I can tell, Julian Castro didn't poll too well in the Hispanic community either.

He's loved in Texas....maybe not nationwide, but here in Texas both he and his brother are the "golden children"....

[Stavros]

Facts!!!
Exactly why I ceased having fact based discussion with Stavros - he doesn't want to hear the truth.

We don't have fact based discussions because your attachment to the truth is often elusive, and you don't think beyond the narrow perspective your libertarian ideas have boxed you into. For all your critiques of BLM, Obama, etc, you have offered not one policy alternative that I can think of, or any options to deal with the way in which the concept of race has saturated American life since Jamestown, to echo Hughes, that most perceptive of Americans.

[Stavros]

Stavros: Regarding "the trained Marxist" thing:

Blackchubby38, thanks for the link, which gives me a better perspective but does not alter my view that BLM can organize around specific campaigns -statues and name-changing being two that are 'on trend'- but that as an organization it cannot make any major structural changes over the long term, and in any case, just as there are 16 BLM 'Chapters' in the US (there are at least four separate BLM groups in the UK) Marxists have a chronic tendency to fall out among themselves, so other than the demonstrations based around the topics mentioned above, they may be a nuisance to nocturnal diners in Texas and Americans going about their daily work -if they have any- I don't see BLM having the impact they think they will have.

One of the difficuties so-called 'Trained Marxists' of the kind that you find with Patrice Cullors have, is that their fixation with the 'superstructure' means they actually rarely offer a Marxian critique of contemporary capitalism with regard to the means of production and how it shapes the social relations of production -they are interested in the social bit, but have little regard for the economics, other than some platitudes about wages and profits.

It is also the case in the US that they have a problem which their European comrades do not. On the one hand, they must tactically endorse the Revolution of 1776 because it was a Revolution, and what's not to like about that? It is tactical, because it was not a Socialist Revolution, just as Marxists in Europe endorse the French Revolution for what it was, while using the way in which it developed to maintain their fidelity to Marx as the man who offered the justification for Revolution in the changed circumstances of the 19th century.

But even here they have a problem, because Marx endorsed with enthusiasm the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1878, thereby endorsing what became known as the 'Parliamentary Road to Socialism' -integrating Marxists into a Bourgeois system of government that they were supposed to overthrow by leading the Proletariat in the revolutionary transformation of Germany. Ironically or not, by 1914 the SPD had become so absorbed by Bourgeois politics it voted for the war credits that enabled the Empire to go to war with both France and Russia, sealing its fate, though this was not the intention of Ebert at the time. Not for the first or the last time, Marxists in 1914 were unable to disentangle their need to maintain their links with 'the people' with the State and Nationalism, two emerging sources of social power in the 19th century that Marx did not consider important in themselves, merely as tools of the 'ruling class'. Nationalism in particular has been the nemesis of Marxists and Communists since 1914, as the fate of both the USSR and China has shown.

And in America, some of the most bitter and resentful critics of Saul Alinsky were the Marxists who argued his successful campaigns had 'merely' integrated previously under-representated Black citizens of Chicago into the very City administration that 'oppressed' them -so what do they think they can achieve with BLM that is going to actually be revolutionary? Very little, I suspect, but that's the problem of Race, which runs through American like its blood.

Now consider another American dilemma- the tactical endorsement of the Revolution is made as part of an evolving economy which, passing through various stages, has used slavery and market capitalism to mainain its exploitation and oppression of Americans in an unjust system that cannot be reformed. But, because of the emphasis that people like Cullors put on culture, what now appears to be an opportunity to revisit American's Liberal Revolution, poses major problems for their attempt to recruit a new cohort of 'Comrades' into the longer term attempt to transform America.

This is because -and this is just my take on it- Americans revere Washington, Jeffrson, Lincolm et al, for their justification of, and organized revolution against the Crown and British America and in Lincoln's case, against slavery. That the founders owned slaves was never part of the argument, it was a Liberal Revoution and one that privileged White Americans of European ancestry, true, but that also was not controversial until I think Charles Beard challenged the narratives of American history that had prevailed until his pioneering work in the early 20th century. In addition, surely Marxists must argue that Lincoln only liberated slaves so that they could be re-enslaved by capitalism -we are all, after all, wage-slaves under market condtions-and thus form a comradeship with the Libertarians who must also condemn Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln for betraying the Revolution by imposing on the American people a regime based on the wickedness of Taxation, and the Evil known as Government.

Thus, while I think many Americans are not afraid of reviewing their history and asking hard questions about the Statues and the Names of buldings, easly taken away and changed, I think it is a win-lose campaign for BLM rather than a win-win.

Yes, there is little to justify statues that revere the anti-American Confederates, there are strong arguments for re-naming buildings adornned with Woodrow Wilson; I am not so sure about Washington or Jefferson. Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren were instrumental in the creaton of the Trail of Tears, but if genocidal violence is to be the measure of American men, then the entire history of the Continental Americas must not only be re-examined, it asks too much of the American people, because immigration and violence are two of the most fundamental forces that have shaped the country, but what a 'Marxist' narrative offers is a grim procession of failure to adhere to 21st century demands that offers nothing positive in its place, and robs that history of its context.

Critics will argue that Marxists in power have a bad habit of re-writing history, but right now, they are not the only ones at it, and while I am sure BLM will make a nuisance of themselves, and particulary those Black Americans who can say with honesty 'not in my name' (on which I agree with Mr Fanti), the real threat to the USA internally, as I have pointed out, does not come from a small groups of agitated BLM supporters, whatever their colour or credentials, but from the organized zealots of what is oddly known as Conservative America, institutionalized in the Federalist Society -an unelected body which has more real power than BLM- with its supporters in Congress and the White House, using the same radical campaign tactics of 'the left' to systematically unpick every advance made in the USA since 1965- except of course the Federalists/Conservatives are themselves re-interpreting history to correct its 'mistakes'...

But, in a polarized country like the USA, if you don't want BLM on this side, or the Federalist Society on the other, what does the Middle Way offer, given the extent to which Covid 19 has buggered your economy and exposed the rank incompetence of Mayors, Governors and indeed, the President--? It is always interesting, if for many peope tedious to constantly re-visit history, or read my posts, just as most Americans are worried about their jobs, housing, health care and education.

While getting into a lather over BLM, I think you are missing the bigger picture which to me is a blur, when for once, you might need a Blair?

[MrFanti]

More DANGEROUS than Law Enforcement - Black On Black crimes and homicide...(Yes this is a truth NOT reported by the mainstream Democratic dominated media)
And what some within the Black Community believe SHOULD BE INCLUDED within the "BLM" movement....(I.E, we have to clean the crap out of our own house first...)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...NgX8yZw9B0x1QQ