Sanders tapped into a deep vein of good-government progressivism. Contrasting himself with Hillary Clinton, who was mired in scandals about donor access, Sanders presented himself as authentic and idealistic.
This strikes me as otm. People who responded well to Bernie are overwhelmingly in favor of creating a just, peaceful society where everyone is cared for, as opposed to responding to an ideology. Few of them are even capable of imagining a non-capitalist economy.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 16 September 2018 18:36 (five years ago) link
one possible reason for the lack of movement on capitalism and socialism: americans have no fucking idea what these terms even mean. my personal experience could be an outlier, but i can't remember either capitalism or socialism ever being brought up in my primary/secondary education, which is just astounding to me. i'm sure if there was a way to poll the understanding of the terms you'd end up with results even more embarrassing than "name any branch of the government🕸" or "do you believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago🕸"
― gbx, Sunday, 16 September 2018 18:41 (five years ago) link
i'm sure if there was a way to poll the understanding of the terms you'd end up with results even more embarrassing than "name any branch of the government" or "do you believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago"
I've said this before too, but there is easily a third of the population that can't score high enough on the ASVAB to drive a truck for the Army. It is important to never forget how many very stupid people there are.
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Sunday, 16 September 2018 20:34 (five years ago) link
this isn't really an issue of "stupid" though - it's an issue of the contents of education and media. many of the people who don't know what socialism is probably *do* vaguely remember a few things that, unlike socialism, *were* covered in high school, depending how relevant they were to their lives and how much they fit together with things that interested them. just like everybody else. thanks to the cold war, "capitalism," "democracy" and "freedom" and "america" are all pretty thoroughly mushed together in the popular imagination and a thorough disaggregation is a lot to ask of the average person.
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Monday, 17 September 2018 00:00 (five years ago) link
the "average person" can spell maybe 3 our of the 4 words you just put in quotes
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Monday, 17 September 2018 00:38 (five years ago) link
this is an encouraging read
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/15/jess-king-pennsylvania-lancaster-stands-up/
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 17 September 2018 03:13 (five years ago) link
tombot do you ever have nightmares where you yrself are stupid
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 17 September 2018 09:10 (five years ago) link
lancaster stands up rules!!!
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 17 September 2018 18:12 (five years ago) link
this is more like it
âś… Medicaid Expansionâś… Protecting People with Pre-existing Conditionsâś… Medicare-for-Allâś… Women’s HealthcareIf we vote, we win.#BringItHome— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) September 19, 2018
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 17:30 (five years ago) link
flowers for algertom
― j., Wednesday, 19 September 2018 17:42 (five years ago) link
medicaid expansion and medicare for all on the same platform is a bit confusing, but I guess you can have an immediate goal and a reach goal?
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 19:43 (five years ago) link
I mean really all of those would be covered by "medicare for all," but good to spell out the policy goals
― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 19:44 (five years ago) link
yeah that confused me too
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 19 September 2018 21:40 (five years ago) link
"medicaid expansion" is something that the government of florida has refused to act on since the ACA opened it up. it's something a new government in florida could immediately and decisively accomplish. medicare for all is the bigger long-term national goal.
― |Restore| |Restart| |Quit| (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 22:10 (five years ago) link
I was unaware that nightmares came in other flavors, and I am only being slightly sarcastic in this post
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Thursday, 20 September 2018 00:46 (five years ago) link
not understanding anything / not knowing what is going on / forgetting trousers when I'm supposed to boarding an airplane for a work trip = pretty much the nightmare menu at chez la tete de tombot
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Thursday, 20 September 2018 00:50 (five years ago) link
didn't actually graduate high school, have to go back for one class per day/last week of a college class that I haven't been to for the entire semester/thrown back into waiting tables after 15 years with no training + endless weeds/same but no pants
― louise ck (milo z), Thursday, 20 September 2018 04:26 (five years ago) link
in summation, nightmares are a land of contrasts
― louise ck (milo z), Thursday, 20 September 2018 04:27 (five years ago) link
The Dems were so close to a great idea—make this about the Supreme Court again, and if the fates somehow give you the opening, make this about women—and then they veer back to their worst impulses, pumping the rich donor class for money and bringing out “the Clintons.” This has to also mean Bill, who’s been conspicuously absent from the campaign trail during this age of #MeToo. (Also, Joe Biden’s terrible history with Anita Hill does not exactly make him the best person to turn to either.)
https://splinternews.com/democrats-stumble-on-good-idea-that-theyre-absolutely-r-1829192550
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 20 September 2018 17:58 (five years ago) link
Two consultants who work on Democratic campaigns called Axios to brag about all the money they’re about to make and ta-da, the one true master plan of all Democrats is revealed.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 20 September 2018 21:06 (five years ago) link
Your epistemic closure is especially embarrassing when you rely on 3rd-party cherry-picking of already-curated anonymously sourced quotes that came from a speaker phone in Jim fucking VandeHei’s office
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 20 September 2018 21:09 (five years ago) link
speaking of the need for a renewed anti-military movement, copied from a friend but I cosign 100%
"Every single person that voted "yea" to approve this $607B military budget, the largest since the peak of the Iraq war, should be primaried then made to volunteer in an Afghani hospital.
That's all but seven of your senators, by the way. And only one of those seven wasn't a Republican.
Totally normal country."
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00212
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 03:51 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rV2CwmzRLw&feature=youtu.be
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:03 (five years ago) link
anti-military movementyeah, that’ll sell itMaybe try “bring the troops home” or “end the war” or any of a dozen other simple options? Christ, what’s with the self-owns on this front.
― El Tomboto, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:05 (five years ago) link
that is a fair point, I am using outdated 80's terminology and I agree with you
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:07 (five years ago) link
and I meant "militarism" but was lazy and tired, your terms are better and blaming "the military" is a terrible idea as you note.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:09 (five years ago) link
Veterans under 50 are generally really sympathetic to increasing domestic spending and taxing the rich to pay for it. They’re middle class or blue collar and they didn’t go over there to fight for tax cuts for the rich.
― El Tomboto, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:20 (five years ago) link
A lot of Senators who voted for that are good. Seems like it would be bad idea to focus on primarying them for this one vote.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:31 (five years ago) link
with all due respect I don't think there's anything a Democrat could do, no matter how craven and awful, that would make you think they needed to be primaried
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:33 (five years ago) link
your viewpoint is basically the viewpoint that I want the party to move beyond
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:34 (five years ago) link
and yeah I'll give Merkley a pass here but I would LOVE to see Wyden replaced with an actual progressive
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:35 (five years ago) link
No I’ve voted against incumbents in primaries before. Chris Murphy is good on foreign policy and this vote on military spending doesn’t negate remotely that.
You’re friend seems like a million other people who don’t follow policy and just really feel the surface level appeal of “they’re all the same”
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:47 (five years ago) link
Wyden has done yeoman's work on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He observed the rules and never leaked classified info, but he all but blinked out distress messages in Morse Code to let the public know when the NSA was spying wholesale on American citizens. Snowden nailed that stuff to the church door, but Wyden was waving his arms about that stuff for years, back when the NSA director was flat-out lying to Congress about it.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 04:49 (five years ago) link
So what are some good nuanced reasons to support this much military spending
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Friday, 21 September 2018 04:52 (five years ago) link
xxp you would be incorrect there
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:55 (five years ago) link
Can anyone give a reasonably succinct rundown on why all the Democrats went along with this increased spending for military? Its supposed to be that compromise will then get them some of the stuff they want? Can't see where the positives are in terms of optics, right before midterms though - unless I'm misreading?
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:05 (five years ago) link
Spending bill isn’t an endorsement of military policy. Who and who doesn’t agree with say John Bolton’s views on intervention is about a million times more important and imperative a thing to be looking at.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:09 (five years ago) link
"Why?" is my question to both of those sentences.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:10 (five years ago) link
The nuanced reasons for massive military spending are mostly about our sitting in the geopolitical driver's seat by creating and maintaining dependencies within our alliances on the military protection and intelligence that we pay for and they either cannot afford or do not wish to pay for. Countries outside our treaty alliances that have regional or global ambitions, like Russia, Iran or China play the same game in much the same ways as we do, but we are the global big dog and maintain a world that is mostly inside our sphere of influence. If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:11 (five years ago) link
Xpost Jobs would probably a big factor depending on which states they represent.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:12 (five years ago) link
xp to Aimless disagree, look at what China's been doing in Africa with (largely) soft aid, although they do sell weapons
"jobs" seems like a stretch here, honestly, but it depends on the district I guess
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:13 (five years ago) link
while we waste all our money on this bullshit we are rapidly being surpassed and out maneuvered on the world stage in nearly every other arena, there's no excuse for this spending orgy other than "America is insane" imho
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:14 (five years ago) link
Circulating money into your district via the military-industrial complex doesn't count as 'nuanced' in my view. That's just raw back-scratching pork barrel politics of the crudest sort.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:15 (five years ago) link
now that I agree with
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:15 (five years ago) link
Did your friend ever post about the Trump Admin pulling out of the Iran Deal?
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:16 (five years ago) link
not sure how that's relevant, honestly. fill me in if you want.
going back to that second sentence of yours, do you really still think Congress has any say in the use of military force? I'm pretty sure Bolton doesn't give a fuck what the Senate thinks when he orders the latest Yemeni drone strikes, or worse.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:19 (five years ago) link
If you’re genuinely concerned about the dangers of militarism the US pulling out of the Iran Deal is far more important and consequential than this military spending bill. One the biggest nuclear/non-proliferator agreements in history torn up by hawks who want a war we’ll never be able to extract ourselves from, broad destabilization, won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and could lead to escalation with other nations.
RE: Bolton. Impending wars have a huge public relations component. It’s very important that congress as well as activists be opposed be vocal and public in their opposition and warn of the dangers. It’s one of the worse things to be “we can’t do anything about that!” about
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:27 (five years ago) link
I'm highly suspicious that no one left of center who's upset about defense spending is nonplussed about pulling out of the Iran deal. It's not really an either/or situation.
― louise ck (milo z), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:30 (five years ago) link
xp we literally can't do anything about it other than vote the fuckers out, they do not give a shit about protest anymore (I think protests are still worthwhile, but for other reasons like networking and therapy)
also milo's right, it's not a zero sum game where you only get one choice
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:40 (five years ago) link
Just slightly upthread there’s “let’s primary every democrat that voted for this one spending bill regardless if they would have never done/will strongly oppose the very dangerous Iran Deal pullout”
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:42 (five years ago) link