2020 Election Thoughts

[StrangeSox]

 

 

 

[Texsox]

5 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

The bolded is the fundamental disagreement here. 

No, we're not better than that.

I think we'd all like to think that we are, but if you have an accurate portrayal of the history of the country, I cannot say that I can agree.  

I've seen it since I was a kid. 

70 Million Americans voted for Trump. That's somewhere between 45-48% of the electorate. I do not believe that anyone could vote for Trump in 2020 (i'd be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt in 2016) without being at least mildly sympathetic to fascism. It's a huge problem. 

 

70,000,000 Americans voted for the Republican candidate. I have three family members who voted for him. They are all good, decent Americans who support our government and love this country. They are horrified by the fringes of the party and those actions from last week. If those 70,000,000 were truly like the rioters, there would have been blood in the streets everywhere and on a scale unseen since the civil war. We would have had hundreds of thousands dead.

We are better than that. 

[StrangeSox]

 

Gini Thomas, Justice Thomas's wife, also had to purge her Facebook because she was deeply involved in pushing last week's events

 

[Texsox]

3 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

Hello, one side plays dirty, and the other side plays by the rules. If you can't discern the difference, I cannot help you. 

Before this spins out of control, are you suggesting that democrats never break any rules? That for example the Chicago Political Machine is totally clean and by the rules? 

 

[Jack Parkman]

13 minutes ago, Texsox said:

Before this spins out of control, are you suggesting that democrats never break any rules? That for example the Chicago Political Machine is totally clean and by the rules? 

 

No, there are no absolutes. 

What I mean is that one side respects political norms the majority of the time, and the other rarely does. In both rhetoric and actions. 

Public corruption is public corruption though, and neither side is immune. 

The GOP pushes the envelope further and further, and they test how far they can push it until you get an event like 1/6/21. 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Texsox]

1 minute ago, StrangeSox said:

 

Gini Thomas, Justice Thomas's wife, also had to purge her Facebook because she was deeply involved in pushing last week's events

 

And as always in America the rich will skate on by and the poor idiots on the floor of the capital will pay. It pisses me off. 

[Jack Parkman]

6 minutes ago, Texsox said:

And as always in America the rich will skate on by and the poor idiots on the floor of the capital will pay. It pisses me off. 

Hey, we agree on something. 

Those people who stormed the capitol are just pawns being used by certain billionaires. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[CentralChamps21]

3 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

 

Gini Thomas, Justice Thomas's wife, also had to purge her Facebook because she was deeply involved in pushing last week's events

 

Are Kennedy and Thomas actually buying into those conspiracy theories, or are they just spreading them because getting others to believe them is profitable?

[Jack Parkman]

2 minutes ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Are Kennedy and Thomas actually buying into those conspiracy theories, or are they just spreading them because getting others to believe them is profitable?

 Yes? 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Quin]

11 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

Hey, we agree on something. 

Those people who stormed the capitol are just pawns being used by certain billionaires. 

Didn't StrangeSox drop a link about a woman who attended the riot in her private jet?

[Jack Parkman]

1 minute ago, Quin said:

Didn't StrangeSox drop a link about a woman who attended the riot in her private jet?

I must have missed that, but it wouldn't surprise me if these people were flown to DC in private jets. There needs to be a full investigation and we need to arrest anyone who was involved in any way. If there was a super PAC that helped, they need to dig to find who the donors are. 

[Jack Parkman]

52 minutes ago, Texsox said:

70,000,000 Americans voted for the Republican candidate. I have three family members who voted for him. They are all good, decent Americans who support our government and love this country. They are horrified by the fringes of the party and those actions from last week. If those 70,000,000 were truly like the rioters, there would have been blood in the streets everywhere and on a scale unseen since the civil war. We would have had hundreds of thousands dead.

We are better than that. 

I could have bought that decent people voted for Trump in 2016. It is very difficult to defend anyone who voted for him in 2020. 

These people are incredibly selfish at best, and downright traitors at worst.

I hope the FCC looks into Fox News, Newsmax and OAN as extremist organizations and revokes their license. Fox News is the gateway to the radicalization of the right.  

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Texsox]

33 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

No, there are no absolutes. 

What I mean is that one side respects political norms the majority of the time, and the other rarely does. In both rhetoric and actions. 

Public corruption is public corruption though, and neither side is immune. 

The GOP pushes the envelope further and further, and they test how far they can push it until you get an event like 1/6/21. 

 

I can't speak from personal experience with GOP candidates but I can from multiple democratic campaign dating back to 1977. If we are speaking about political campaigns to get elected,  the nature of the industry takes hold and I don't believe either party has a moral high ground to stand on.  

I've been involved in exactly one candidate's campaign I believed was 100% honest and would rather lose than violate any ethics. The rest justify their actions by the other guy does it. 

It's a nasty,  dirty,  process to get elected and I don't envy anyone that enters the arena. And the more local the race,  the more entrenched a party is,  the uglier it gets. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I never worked in Chicago but the Rio Grande Valley in Texas is 90% or more Democrat.  Primaries involved some of the dirtiest,  rule breaking,  shit you would ever believe. 

I believe there are good,  decent,  humans with D and R next to their names. I think socialism is a bad path for America but I don't think you're a bad person or unethical for believing those principals. 

Likewise a prolific poster here identified as a Republican a few years back. If I lived in his town when he was running for school board I would have knocked on a lot of doors to see him elected. I would have donated to his campaign but he didn't accept outside money.  We shared a vision of America,  we just disagreed on the path to get there.  Much like your vision of Socialism gets us to an America where I'm certain we both would be happy. 

I believe in freedom of some speech, but not actions. I believe in freedom of thought,  but not actions. 

[StrangeSox]

 

 

 

[Texsox]

Should Twitter be allowed to facilitate these illegal acts? 

[StrangeSox]

41 minutes ago, Quin said:

Didn't StrangeSox drop a link about a woman who attended the riot in her private jet?

Yes. And lots of stories of suburban Chicago business owners filmed or arrested at the rally. Lawyers who lost their jobs. Plenty of white collar professionals.

 

This was a petit bourgeois insurrection, not a working poor uprising.

 

Plenty of $500k+homes in my area still festooned with Trump garbage.

[Soxbadger]

26 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I could have bought that decent people voted for Trump in 2016. It is very difficult to defend anyone who voted for him in 2020. 

These people are incredibly selfish at best, and downright traitors at worst.

I hope the FCC looks into Fox News, Newsmax and OAN as extremist organizations and revokes their license. Fox News is the gateway to the radicalization of the right.  

The officer who lost his life was a Trump supporter.

Does that make him less of a Hero? Or does that make him a hero because he stood up for America, even if he may not agreed with every part of it. 

In my opinion, he isnt that hard to defend. Even if he disagrees with me. 

[Jack Parkman]

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

I can't speak from personal experience with GOP candidates but I can from multiple democratic campaign dating back to 1977. If we are speaking about political campaigns to get elected,  the nature of the industry takes hold and I don't believe either party has a moral high ground to stand on.  

I've been involved in exactly one candidate's campaign I believed was 100% honest and would rather lose than violate any ethics. The rest justify their actions by the other guy does it. 

It's a nasty,  dirty,  process to get elected and I don't envy anyone that enters the arena. And the more local the race,  the more entrenched a party is,  the uglier it gets. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I never worked in Chicago but the Rio Grande Valley in Texas is 90% or more Democrat.  Primaries involved some of the dirtiest,  rule breaking,  shit you would ever believe. 

I believe there are good,  decent,  humans with D and R next to their names. I think socialism is a bad path for America but I don't think you're a bad person or unethical for believing those principals. 

Likewise a prolific poster here identified as a Republican a few years back. If I lived in his town when he was running for school board I would have knocked on a lot of doors to see him elected. I would have donated to his campaign but he didn't accept outside money.  We shared a vision of America,  we just disagreed on the path to get there.  Much like your vision of Socialism gets us to an America where I'm certain we both would be happy. 

I believe in freedom of some speech, but not actions. I believe in freedom of thought,  but not actions. 

I believe capitalism and true democracy cannot coexist, because extreme income inequality is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. 

I am not a Leninist at all. 

I think Marx failed to take into account human nature and power vacuums. 

I agree with Marx's criticism of capitalism, but I disagree with his solutions. 

I believe in the Nordic model and to make labor and capital into a partnership instead of enemies. 

I do not believe that people should be forced into working in co-ops, but I also do not think that hierarchical organizations should be abolished either. It should be a choice made by each individual worker. Both options should be abundant and available. 

I believe every industry should have a union and collectively bargain. 

I believe in laws that, as a whole slightly favor consumers and labor over business. 

I believe in a strong social safety net and am a proponent of job guarantees rather than UBI. Anyone who wants to work, should be able to. Universal healthcare and generous retirement plans are a must. 

By that same token, any couple who wants one of them to be a full-time parent, should be able to have the breadwinner provide a decent lifestyle. 

I think that 50% of corporate shares should be held by the employees and rank and file employees should be elected to the board as they do for congress. Workers comprise 50% of corporate boards and investors the other 50%. 

I always am and have been a strong proponent of democracy. 

I believe that these things should be achieved through legislation, and free/fair elections within the system as it currently exists rather than via revolution. Revolution creates an unstable power vacuum ripe for exploitation. 

It is up to democratic socialist organizations to win the war of ideas. 

To summarize, I'm on more of the Robert Reich/FDR train of thought rather than more radical ideas. 

Modern democratic socialists are mostly social democrats, like myself. We call ourselves democratic socialists to present ourselves as an alternative to laissez-faire capitalism. 

In short, I want the government the hell out of my house, but up the ass of my workplace. 

Democratic Socialism, to me, is a system where the economy works for everyone instead of a small subset of the population. 

People can still be incredibly successful, but nobody hoards wealth. 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Texsox]

11 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I believe capitalism and true democracy cannot coexist, because extreme income inequality is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. 

In capitalism, there are 

I am not a Leninist at all. 

I think Marx failed to take into account human nature and power vacuums. 

I agree with Marx's criticism of capitalism, but I disagree with his solutions. 

I believe in the Nordic model and to make labor and capital into a partnership instead of enemies. 

I do not believe that people should be forced into working in co-ops, but I also do not think that hierarchical organizations should be abolished either. It should be a choice made by each individual worker. 

I believe in a strong social safety net and am a proponent of job guarantees rather than UBI. Anyone who wants to work, should be able to. 

I think that 50% of corporate shares should be held by the employees and rank and file employees should be elected to the board as they do for congress. 

I always am and have been a strong proponent of democracy. 

I believe that these things should be achieved through legislation, and free/fair elections rather than revolution. 

It is up to democratic socialist organizations to win the war of ideas. 

To summarize, I'm on more of the Robert Reich/FDR train of thought rather than more radical ideas. 

Modern democratic socialists are mostly social democrats, like myself. We call ourselves democratic socialists to present ourselves as an alternative to laissez-faire capitalism. 

In short, I want the government the hell out of my house, but up the ass of my workplace. 

 

So basically you are a threat to America as it currently exists. 

[Jack Parkman]

2 hours ago, Texsox said:

So basically you are a threat to America as it currently exists. 

No way man, 

I want the American Dream as it existed prior to 1980 to be extended to every subset of society. 

Before then, it was only available for white Americans.

There are a lot of problems in current America and I want to fix them. There are a lot of aspects to current America that are really, really shitty. 

How is saying that you want an economy that works for everyone a threat to America? 

I'm not trying to overthrow the government, bro. I'm working to elect people to office that will support policies and laws that achieve these goals. 

If I cannot convince enough people to elect my preferred candidates, or we cannot get enough votes in congress to enact the laws, so be it. That's democracy. 

Everything that I suggested, sans job guarantees has been done to some degree somewhere in Europe. 

I think everyone should be allowed, at the very least, dignity. 

That's really fucking scary man if you think that's a national security threat. 

These are all endgame, long-term goals. 

Basically, I believe that the government's job is to set the rules of the marketplace such that it works for everyone, not just the wealthy. 

Those are some of the rules that I think would help. 

The reasoning to this is that I think that a you cannot be free unless your basic needs are met. 

Basic Needs are defined in FDR's Economic Bill of Rights below. 

I believe the current system is inhumane and does not treat the majority with dignity. 

 

 

FDR's Economic Bill of Rights: 

https://www.ushistory.org/documents/economic_bill_of_rights.htm

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[caulfield12]

35 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I believe capitalism and true democracy cannot coexist, because extreme income inequality is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. 

I am not a Leninist at all. 

I think Marx failed to take into account human nature and power vacuums. 

I agree with Marx's criticism of capitalism, but I disagree with his solutions. 

I believe in the Nordic model and to make labor and capital into a partnership instead of enemies. 

I do not believe that people should be forced into working in co-ops, but I also do not think that hierarchical organizations should be abolished either. It should be a choice made by each individual worker. 

I believe every industry should have a union and collectively bargain. 

I believe in laws that, as a whole slightly favor 

I believe in a strong social safety net and am a proponent of job guarantees rather than UBI. Anyone who wants to work, should be able to. 

By that same token, any couple who wants one of them to be a full-time parent, should be able to have the breadwinner provide a decent lifestyle. 

I think that 50% of corporate shares should be held by the employees and rank and file employees should be elected to the board as they do for congress. Workers comprise 50% of corporate boards and investors the other 50%. 

I always am and have been a strong proponent of democracy. 

I believe that these things should be achieved through legislation, and free/fair elections rather than revolution. 

It is up to democratic socialist organizations to win the war of ideas. 

To summarize, I'm on more of the Robert Reich/FDR train of thought rather than more radical ideas. 

Modern democratic socialists are mostly social democrats, like myself. We call ourselves democratic socialists to present ourselves as an alternative to laissez-faire capitalism. 

In short, I want the government the hell out of my house, but up the ass of my workplace. 

Democratic Socialism, to me, is a system where the economy works for everyone instead of a small subset of the population. 

People can still be incredibly successful, but nobody hoards wealth. 

 

You can look at here in China or Singapore, very strong, authoritative governments.

They both are much closer to capitalism than socialism/communism as we think of the USSR 1917-1989 Leninist/Marxist/Engels version.

The levels of inequality and corruption are just as high in China and Singapore, if not higher than the US.  Wealth gap/inequality, roughly the same...if anything, rising after the pandemic as there were NO programs from the government to assist, let alone bail out, small businesses or assist renters.

Capitalism was always seen, at least historically, as going together with the American, Western European liberal democracy.

Those countries are largely becoming more "socialist" with their health care systems, if you look at Canada, NHS in UK, France, Germany and Finland/Denway/Norway/Sweden, or Australia/NZ.

Very few 1st world countries have a solution for retirement that doesn't heavily tax public treasuries or rely on subsidies from employers.   As China's population grows older and older, it's going to be an increasingly higher percentage of the budget, to the point where China is going to be unsuccessfully dealing with both the Middle Income (Thucydides) Trap and a lack of young people (declining birth rates just like Japan and South Korea) to replace the aging population (and China has never been a big advocate of mass immigration for numerous reasons too long to go into).

 

Capitalism is GREAT for moving a country from developing to 2nd world...and it's great for moving masses of people out of poverty relatively quickly, but the jury's still out on sustainability, especially from an environmental standpoint.

Thomas Picketty's last two books on this topic are both very informative, and must-reading for anyone interested in economics, IMO.  You would also like or love Umair Haque at medium.com, check him out.

[Jack Parkman]

57 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

You can look at here in China or Singapore, very strong, authoritative governments.

They both are much closer to capitalism than socialism/communism as we think of the USSR 1917-1989 Leninist/Marxist/Engels version.

The levels of inequality and corruption are just as high in China and Singapore, if not higher than the US.  Wealth gap/inequality, roughly the same...if anything, rising after the pandemic as there were NO programs from the government to assist, let alone bail out, small businesses or assist renters.

Capitalism was always seen, at least historically, as going together with the American, Western European liberal democracy.

Those countries are largely becoming more "socialist" with their health care systems, if you look at Canada, NHS in UK, France, Germany and Finland/Denway/Norway/Sweden, or Australia/NZ.

Very few 1st world countries have a solution for retirement that doesn't heavily tax public treasuries or rely on subsidies from employers.   As China's population grows older and older, it's going to be an increasingly higher percentage of the budget, to the point where China is going to be unsuccessfully dealing with both the Middle Income (Thucydides) Trap and a lack of young people (declining birth rates just like Japan and South Korea) to replace the aging population (and China has never been a big advocate of mass immigration for numerous reasons too long to go into).

 

Capitalism is GREAT for moving a country from developing to 2nd world...and it's great for moving masses of people out of poverty relatively quickly, but the jury's still out on sustainability, especially from an environmental standpoint.

Thomas Picketty's last two books on this topic are both very informative, and must-reading for anyone interested in economics, IMO.  You would also like or love Umair Haque at medium.com, check him out.

I've read snippets of Picketty's stuff, I'm aware of it. He has some good ideas. 

I do not think the jury is out on capitalism's long-term sustainability. It's completely unsustainable. 

We're seeing how it's breaking down in the US as we speak. You can hold off income inequality temporarily, but you can't hold it off forever. More Machiavellian principles.  

IMO what happened on Wednesday is directly related to income inequality. 

I am very anti-authoritarian, get that out of the way right now. As a socialist, I have to point that out all of the time because most people equate socialism with authoritarianism. 

Yes, I agree that China is closer to an authoritarian capitalist state(like Putin's Russia) than a Marxist/Leninist communist state. 

I do not believe true Marxism is actually achievable, because of human nature and Machiavellian principles. Power corrupts, etc. 

The bottom line is that I think that the economy should work for everyone, and preserve the planet. Cycle of prosperity. 

If they can get that done while maintaining capitalism, I'll be surprised but if they can, more power to them. 

The first step is what I call "capitalism with a conscience" 

That involves every layer of power, be it governmental or business, being accountable to the public. 

If we can get the tax rates, labor laws(minus the racism), and anti-trust laws/enforcement back to where they once were in the US, that would be a good start. 

That can work for a while, then we can go further. 

 

The US has a lot of things right, when it comes to personal freedoms. 

It has a lot of things wrong when it comes to economic freedom, unless you believe in the right-wing libertarian definition. 

My definition of economic freedom is that every citizen has their basic needs met, based on the economic bill of rights in FDR's 1944 speech. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[Jack Parkman]

@caulfield12

have you ever heard of Nick Hanauer/Pitchfork Economics? It's a very good podcast. 

I read that guy on Medium you posted about in the fall with regard to the sociopath issue. I've been saying that for years. We have a society that rewards sociopathic behavior here. 

[ron883]

3 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

I must have missed that, but it wouldn't surprise me if these people were flown to DC in private jets. There needs to be a full investigation and we need to arrest anyone who was involved in any way. If there was a super PAC that helped, they need to dig to find who the donors are. 

This has George Soros written all over it. 

[Jack Parkman]

6 minutes ago, ron883 said:

This has George Soros written all over it. 

lol.....more likely Charles Koch.