2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing

Users who are viewing this thread

I'm pretty sure Biden will follow through on minimum wage soon and you should hold him on this. But getting the Covid package stranded in Senate while brokering a compromise on minimum wage would not help at all those that need the help from the Covid package urgently. And this is exactly what Biden and co. says. Trying to pretend it's something else is just bull****.
Whatever the policies of the US on Israel and the Saudis are, they are long-running and have been thought over by its diplomats over the decades. Don't play naive and uninformed. The reasons are out there in the public and subject of policy papers, books and whatnot.
The US started again to act in its interest in an informed and consistent way with the Biden admin. As opposed to he-who-shall-not-be-named dumb and impulsive personal self-interest.
 
For what it's worth he is actually breaking precedent with his drone attack, in the sense that he went after the non state actors instead of the government behind them. Pretty much every other president before him went after the government. Let's not forget that this was not an unprovoked attack, it was a reaction to an attack that these people had launched in Iraq. I am definitely not a fan, but I have seen worse, and there might be implications for the US foreign policies that we don't know about.

I also think that they will find a way to pass the minimal wage. It would of course be really easy to pass if the Republicans stopped obstructing it, but I guess that's asking for too much. The reconciliation was objectively speaking not the way to go about doing it. I would have been happy had they managed to pull that off, but it was kind of a dirty trick attempt.
 
dc1qdit-6d402684-2147-4138-a568-6711b012c502.png
 
So unless you want to completely undo private means of production, you're not left?

I'm pretty sure you know this isn't what monty meant, but aside from this dogmatic Marx tier phrasing I kind of agree.

As useless as I think the terms "left" and "right" are most of the time, the core definition of left wing is to reject or want to to away with the fundamental assumptions of society, and right now the core of western society is somewhere between neoconservatism and liberal capitalism. By this definition everyone from Ted Kaczynski to Josef Stalin to Malcolm X is a leftist, which is why I think the defintion is pointless because of how many contradictory views it encompasses.

Even so, as vague as this definition is, none of these screaming blonde *****es or smug college stubble boys who prostitute themselves in service of the democratic party by churning out a bazillion videos, or even bernie sanders, can be considered leftist, let alone "hard left" like Brutus said. They want to reform the system by raising minimum wage slightly and making the law less discriminatory, while maintaining as much of it as possible, including liberalism and including capitalism. They're reformists, not jacobins. If someone like this is a "hard" leftist then basically every non-bourgeois person in the world is erect and ready to pop.

A "hard leftist" in my eyes would be someone who wants to do away with all of liberal capitalism and all of neoconservatism, with no concessions. Nobody who genuinely thinks like this has a popular youtube channel, yet alone multiple interviews with media corporations.
 
@Kentucky 『 HEIGUI 』 James you forget that politics in the US is moved to the right when compared to Europe, where something as basic as universal healthcare is considered a radical left idea. And the transformation of the Republican party into an openly neofascist movement exacerbated that even more.

I honestly kind of hate this argument. Universal healthcare is not a radical idea in America. Just because the byzantine political system stonewalls any change whatsoever, and just because there are oil barons funding neoconservative propaganda like crazy, doesn't mean it's not something vast numbers of people support.

European fascists are also way, way worse than anything in America. Even Trump had to be careful saying stuff that the president of France will officially announce, and even people who call themselves liberals or social democrats in most of Europe will openly talk about how gypsies or muslims are practically subhuman. And this is just Western Europe.
 
I don't recall Trump being careful when he was saying that Mexican immigrants are rapists. I remember members of the semi-fascist parties in Italy (Giorgia Meloni, La Russa, Salvini and other such fun people) getting close to making statements of that kind, but they did not quite go that far (and the few times they got close they were universally condemned for it, by members of right parties as well, while Trump here gets a pass for anything from most members of the Republican party).

I do think that Trump is the wrong example, since I believe that he does not know the concept of "being careful about what you say" :smile:. But even without considering him, I don't think it can be denied that the US is to the right of most European countries, it terms of welfare, immigration policies, treatment of minorities etc..

I have also had several conversations with members of my American family, and other people I know here, who were concerned at the thought of universal healthcare, because they thought it would diminish the quality of care they receive, as a consequence of "everything that the government gets involved in is bad".

I don't deny that many people support universal healthcare here now, but it still has a "radical left" connotation. You can't undo years and years of propaganda that easily. And I would be hard pressed to find any Republican voter who supports universal healthcare (I am sure they are out there, but they are a minority and I personally don't know any).
 
A "hard leftist" in my eyes would be someone who wants to do away with all of liberal capitalism and all of neoconservatism, with no concessions. Nobody who genuinely thinks like this has a popular youtube channel, yet alone multiple interviews with media corporations.
You can't have your own private definition of "hard left" if you want to communicate with other people.
Hard leftists are Corbyn and Momentum in the UK, Sanders/AOC and their fans in the US. There's no need to make a watertight universal definition to recognize who they are, or to start from a semantics position, then determine no one belongs to the group. 'Tis silly.
 
there's plenty that belong to the group. that they're not a common feature of the electoral establishment should be a surprise to nobody.
defining what is or is not "hard" left based on what is represented in mainstream politics is another level of absurd.
 
I get it now. It's similar to how there are almost no right wing people in America, because about nobody wants to make America a divinely sanctioned absolute monarchy. Clearly anybody who even tangentially works within the framework of the Enlightenment philosophy is left wing.

Btw anybody who disagrees with this is a corporate communist bourgeois bimbo ***** ass sellout and needs to autodafe, okavemariaamen.
 
I get it now. It's similar to how there are almost no right wing people in America, because about nobody wants to make America a divinely sanctioned absolute monarchy. Clearly anybody who even tangentially works within the framework of the Enlightenment philosophy is left wing.

Btw anybody who disagrees with this is a corporate communist bourgeois bimbo ***** ass sellout and needs to autodafe, okavemariaamen.
Whether you're whining or baiting, you need to do better, Adolf. Your Fascism is showing.
 
You can't have your own private definition of "hard left" if you want to communicate with other people.
Exactly, that's why it's such a useless definition in conversation. Colloquially it's completely relative. This isn't just something I've made up btw, the definition I've seen most consistently in academia is "left = radical" but hardly anyone uses it anymore because of how easy it is to misinterpret.
Even so, calling Corbyn a "hard leftist" as if he's fighting a guerrilla war against the very concept of the state is just ridiculous. All he has demanded is some modest nationalisation of key industries and other keynesian reforms. If neo-keynesianism is "hard left", but "far right" is literal nazis, it's just not useful terminology.

I don't recall Trump being careful when he was saying that Mexican immigrants are rapists.
Trump = Macron was probably a bad example, but the former is an unrestrained firebrand while the latter is supposed to be a secular neoliberal. Really I just don't like it when comparisons are made between how "right wing" America is compared to Europe, because among other things racism and authoritarianism seem far more deeply ingrained in European establishments than American ones.

I get it now. It's similar to how there are almost no right wing people in America, because about nobody wants to make America a divinely sanctioned absolute monarchy. Clearly anybody who even tangentially works within the framework of the Enlightenment philosophy is left wing.

Btw anybody who disagrees with this is a corporate communist bourgeois bimbo ***** ass sellout and needs to autodafe, okavemariaamen.
Browsing /pol/ has made you really suck at trolling.
 
Back
Top Bottom