This mentality is what the Dems keep applying and it doesn't work. Trying to shame people into voting isn't an effective message. You can argue that it should be, but what matters is how things actually are and how a party can act most effectively based on that. It's either adapt or keep railing against reality and lose.
Personally, I don't draw a distinction between economic and social issues, because solidarity between oppressed groups is vital for building collective power necessary to confront capitalism economically and laws that make people more vulnerable also affect us economically. But admittedly there are people who do view them as separate issues.
This sort of thinking is why Democrats keep repeating the same mistakes. Any sort of criticism, even if it's constructive, is treasonous. It's always someone else's fault.
Organizations either adapt or die. Rejection of criticism is a suicidal, accelerationist position. When people are so concerned with deflecting blame that they're incapable of performing an honest, frank assessment of which strategies work and which don't, then you are destined to fail no matter whether its a political party or anything else. If you'd prefer the Democrats keep doing things that don't work because you're afraid of them losing face, then your perspective is worthless.
That depends on what your goals, methodology, and material conditions are.
If you have static and predictable demand for something, like, everybody needs enough food to eat and a roof over their heads, then the state can effectively plan for and deliver on that. When you have something that just needs to be done for its own sake, then introducing a profit motive isn't necessary or beneficial, and can lead to enshittification and cutting corners. There are also "natural monopolies," like for example cable where it doesn't really make sense to build another set of cable lines so the consumer is going to be left with one choice anyway, and it would be better for that to be run by the state where there's at least some democratic input on how things are done. There's also what's called "externalities" where for example building a train line makes an area more accessible and brings value to the surrounding area, beyond what can be captured by the line itself - and conversely, there are negative externalities, such as a factory putting out smog or dumping chemicals, that will lower the value of the surrounding area but the factory won't bear the brunt of the costs. There are also natural resources where the supply is inelastic so taxing them doesn't make the economy less efficient, as the Nordic countries do with their oil.
There are situations where private industry can make sense. Like, say people want plushies made of different anime characters. There's no real reason for the state to run that. There's a low barrier to entry, and different companies can use different methods to predict which character will be in higher demand and whether people will want higher quality or lower price. Or with cars, they can design different models balancing all sorts of factors from safety to performance to aesthetics.
There's also many cases where a state doesn't have the freedom to implement whatever system they want. Some states are rich in natural resources, but they are owned by foreign corporations that have owned them since colonial times. If they try to nationalize them, or even tax them, it would be beneficial to the economy but it could lead to sanctions, coups, or invasions. But generally the people in the country don't benefit from those situations and the relationship is parasitic.
Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism.
In the US, socialism has historically been shunned and not represented in the political sphere, to the point that the right started using "liberal" derisively and associated the term with socialism. Internationally, the term retains more of its original meaning, for example, in the UK the "Liberal Democrats," are more like libertarians.
Liberals are generally conservative, meaning they support the status quo or gradual change. US "conservatives" are sometimes more accurately called reactionaries or regressives, because they don't just want to preserve the status quo but to actively roll back progress that has already been made.
Because leftism is a very broad term, it's difficult to define exactly what leftists believe in an uncontroversial way, but generally speaking leftists support radical change away from capitalism.
The democrats' message this cycle was literally, "Trump doesn't actually want to do anything about immigration, he just wants to campaign on it. We're the ones who are actually going to build the wall, he's all talk," and now they're all suprisied that they lost a bunch of Latino votes. Who could've predicted this?
When did any tankie claim that Trump was "the sane one?"
Also calling for a ceasefire while unconditionally arming Israel is like telling a mass shooter you disapprove of what they're doing while you hand them another clip.
Obviously, the main reason for record turnout in 2020 was COVID.
Biden actually has decent political instincts and has actually won elections before. Kamala didn't even have to pass a primary and bombed out of the one she did participate in in 2020. She was "untested" to put it mildly.
The economic situation was different.
Regardless of to what degree he was responsible, under Biden the US got entangled in foreign conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine.
It's not that there are 10 million commies that liked Biden but not Harris, it's that us commies believe that you can win over the working class by appealing to material interests.
Biden didn't campaign with fucking Dick Cheney
Oh, Iranian history is a special interest of mine, if you express the slightest interest in it...
The roots of it go back to the 1800's, when the Qajar dynasty were trying to maintain exorbitant lifestyles on the backs of an extremely poor and undeveloped country, so their solution, rather than developing the economy to increase long-term tax revenue, was instead to basically hold clearance sales of the entire country. The Reuter concession is an almost unbelievable example of it. They tried to sell essentially the entire country's economy to the guy who founded Reuters news: trains, trams, roads, forests, mines, canals, irrigation systems, telegraph systems, mills, factories, workshops, and even the national bank - in exchange for cash in the shah's private bank account. It was so bad that even the colonial powers of Britain and Russia said it was too much and wouldn't allow it.
The people were so pissed off about this sort of behavior that after they sold off tobacco rights to the British in 1890, there was a widespread boycott of tobacco, possibly the most successful boycott in history encompassing people across all of society, with a major religious leader even issuing a fatwa against violating the boycott, and going all the way up to women in the shah's own harem participating in it, forcing the shah to break the deal. The success of this mass action, combined with dissatisfaction with the shah selling out the country, led people to rise up in protest and start demanding things like a constitution and parliament. They even got the shah to sign off on it, and they brought in an American named Morgan Shuster to reform the tax code and root out loopholes and corruption. But when the shah died, his successor had other ideas, and he called in Britain and Russia, who were making quite a bit of money off loopholes and corruption, to come in and shell parliament.
Fast forward to WWI. Once again backed by Britain and Russia, the Ottomans invade Iran, and conduct the Armenian genocide. At the same time, there's a major famine, and the Spanish Flu is running rampant. When the dust settles, the old dynasty is gone, and a new shah comes to power, backed by Britain: Reza Shah Pahlavi. He attempted to push back against the oil deal but the British stonewalled him, and he lasted until WWII, when the Allies invaded to establish a strategic supply line between Britain and the USSR and to ensure Iranian oil didn't end up in the Nazi's hands instead of theirs. Afterwards, Britain forced him to abdicate and put his son in power, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
The new shah also attempted to renegotiate the oil deal, and again was stonewalled. British advisors hand-picked prime ministers for the shah to appoint, in the mostly powerless parliament, but even then they stonewalled their own prime ministers when they attempted to negotiate. Public sentiment grew increasingly heated, and the advisors sent word back that the situation was reaching a boiling point, but still the British wouldn't move an inch. Finally, the shah became more afraid of a revolution than he was of the British, and he appointed Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister, with a huge wave of popular support calling for nationalization of the industry.
Still, Mossadegh attempted to negotiate, and the US under Truman attempted to intervene as a mediator to prevent a crisis. But the Iranians had been struggling against British colonialism for a very long time, and the British still wouldn't budge. The oil industry was nationalized, and the British responded with a naval blockade that shut down Iran's economy and caused rampant poverty. Churchill approached Truman asking him to use the newly formed CIA to oust Mossadegh, and Truman told him to go to hell, that Mossadegh was a legitimate democratic leader and that the CIA was supposed to be about stopping communism not enforcing colonialism, and that the British brought this on themselves. There was no real animosity between Iran and America on either side at this point, the Iranians saw America as well-intentioned but naive, while Americans saw Iran as sympathetic but stubborn.
But Truman was replaced by Eisenhower, and Eisenhower was not acquainted with the background of the conflict, and Churchill and Alan Dulles were both pushing him to do it. Churchill changed tacts from talking about protecting Britain's property to warning that Mossadegh might end up aligning with the USSR, and also saying that he wouldn't support the formation of NATO or the Korean War unless Eisenhower gave him Iran. So he signed off on it.
They took over nearly every media outlet in the country, they bribed anyone who would take it, from politicians to vote counters to religious leaders, the hired protesters to march against the government and false flag "pro-government" protesters to go around wrecking things. Just before the coup, the American ambassador called up Mossadegh and told him a false story, that he was worried he would have to shut down the embassy because Mossadegh's supporters kept calling to give death threats, even to children at the embassy. Moved by the story, and eager to improve relations with the US, Mossadegh sent out a radio announcement telling all of his supporters to stay home and stop causing trouble. That's when the CIA made its move and deposed him, and no one was there to come to his aid.
They covered up their involvement for decades, until it was far enough back in history that people wouldn't care that they could finally admit it. That was the first democratic government they overthrew, and once the precedent had been set, they repeated around the world, Iran on behalf of BP, Guatemala on behalf of Chiquita, all across South America in Operation Condor, and so many more.
Oh god, apologism for the fascist shah, take it back to Reddit.
The the government Iran had in the 70's was the result of a CIA coup to oust the progressive leader Mohammad Mossadegh who became prime minister with overwhelming popular support and reclaimed control of Iran's oil from the British colonizers who had made an extremely exploitative deal with a different authoritarian dynasty before the country had any form of democracy - a deal, which despite being extremely favorable to them, they still consistently broke, lying about how much oil they were taking. This coup crushed Iran's fledgling democratic movement and reforms, and the shah proceeded to use secret police to hunt down and exterminate his political opponents, primarily leftists. In order to give the country the appearance of modernization, he banned women from wearing traditional religious garb. In other words, even then the government was still controlling how women dressed. This shit is falling for decades old propaganda from an awful government.
Because the shah was so successful in suppressing and killing leftists, when he fell out of favor as a Western puppet and lost foreign support, guess which faction remained that had the power to take advantage of the situation? The Islamic fundamentalists. The modern Iranian state didn't just spring up from nowhere, it came about as a result of the actions of the CIA and the shah.
This one included.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19534199
Before I begin, I have a confession: until recently (until today, in fact), I was a tankie. But this morning I just woke up and realized everything I believed and everything I'd been saying was wrong, and my critics were right about everything. And so, I have decided to completely and totally adopt their way of thinking.
The above image is an example to illustrate how my thinking has changed. You may be familiar with "Russell's Teapot," a thought experiment from Bertrand Russell where he imagines that someone says that there is a tiny, invisible teapot, floating out in space. He argues that while such a claim cannot strictly be disproved, it can be dismissed without evidence because there is no evidence to support it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. He goes on to explain that while he could not disprove the existence of God, he still considered himself an atheist, because he did not see sufficient evidence for the claim of God's existence to be credible.
In my previous (tankie) way of thinking, I would have agreed with this idea, that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But I now understand that this made me a Bad Person. Suppose that, as in the beautiful diagram I drew in MS Paint, the claim is not only that the teapot exists, but that inside of the teapot, there are a bunch of tiny invisible people who are geopolitical enemies of the United States and they are committing genocide against innocent people. Again, before, I would have said that that only makes the claim more implausible and would require extraordinary proof. Now, I realize how wrong I was, and I can only say that I deeply regret and apologize for my statements. The existence of the teapot can be proven incontrovertibly, by the following logic:
If you claim that the teapot does not exist, you are denying that the genocide inside it is happening.
If you deny the genocide is happening, you are a genocide denier and therefore a fascist.
Fascism is wrong.
Therefore, it is impossible to correctly deny the teapot's existence.
As a brief aside, I should mention that in addition to my political conversion, I have also experienced a drastic change in my religious beliefs, as it is now trivially easy to prove that God exists. According to the Torah, God flooded the world, wiping out virtually all of humanity, including countless ethnic groups. To deny the existence of God makes you a genocide denier and a fascist. However, it should be added that to worship God is genocide apologia, which is also fascist. The only non-fascist belief, which is necessarily correct, is that God exists and is evil. Moving on.
Before, I believed that it was ridiculous for the US to spend as much on the military as the next 9 countries combined. I wanted to slash the military budget to fund domestic spending, schools, hospitals, making sure bridges don't collapse, helping the poor, etc. I see now how wrong I was. The Genocide Teapot exists, somewhere out there in space, in fact, there could be countless numbers of them out there. Therefore, the real progressive thing to do is to further cut domestic spending and have everyone tighten our belts so that we can produce as many missiles as possible, to be fired out into space indiscriminately, in hopes of hitting a Genocide Teapot.
However, we must also consider the possibility that these teapots could be located here on Earth too. Teapots are a form of china, which is a very suspicious connection. Clearly, the US must be permitted to inspect every square inch of China in search of these invisible teapots, and refusal to comply should be considered an admission of guilt. But we should not, of course, limit ourselves to China. Perhaps there are Genocide Teapots in Russia, or Brazil, or Germany, or Canada, who knows? I do, because to deny that Genocide Teapots exist in all of those places is genocide denial, which is fascist and wrong.
In conclusion, we should bomb every country in the world simultaneously, including ourselves, and anyone who disagrees with me is a war-loving fascist.
Thank you.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19534199
Before I begin, I have a confession: until recently (until today, in fact), I was a tankie. But this morning I just woke up and realized everything I believed and everything I'd been saying was wrong, and my critics were right about everything. And so, I have decided to completely and totally adopt their way of thinking.
The above image is an example to illustrate how my thinking has changed. You may be familiar with "Russell's Teapot," a thought experiment from Bertrand Russell where he imagines that someone says that there is a tiny, invisible teapot, floating out in space. He argues that while such a claim cannot strictly be disproved, it can be dismissed without evidence because there is no evidence to support it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. He goes on to explain that while he could not disprove the existence of God, he still considered himself an atheist, because he did not see sufficient evidence for the claim of God's existence to be credible.
In my previous (tankie) way of thinking, I would have agreed with this idea, that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But I now understand that this made me a Bad Person. Suppose that, as in the beautiful diagram I drew in MS Paint, the claim is not only that the teapot exists, but that inside of the teapot, there are a bunch of tiny invisible people who are geopolitical enemies of the United States and they are committing genocide against innocent people. Again, before, I would have said that that only makes the claim more implausible and would require extraordinary proof. Now, I realize how wrong I was, and I can only say that I deeply regret and apologize for my statements. The existence of the teapot can be proven incontrovertibly, by the following logic:
If you claim that the teapot does not exist, you are denying that the genocide inside it is happening.
If you deny the genocide is happening, you are a genocide denier and therefore a fascist.
Fascism is wrong.
Therefore, it is impossible to correctly deny the teapot's existence.
As a brief aside, I should mention that in addition to my political conversion, I have also experienced a drastic change in my religious beliefs, as it is now trivially easy to prove that God exists. According to the Torah, God flooded the world, wiping out virtually all of humanity, including countless ethnic groups. To deny the existence of God makes you a genocide denier and a fascist. However, it should be added that to worship God is genocide apologia, which is also fascist. The only non-fascist belief, which is necessarily correct, is that God exists and is evil. Moving on.
Before, I believed that it was ridiculous for the US to spend as much on the military as the next 9 countries combined. I wanted to slash the military budget to fund domestic spending, schools, hospitals, making sure bridges don't collapse, helping the poor, etc. I see now how wrong I was. The Genocide Teapot exists, somewhere out there in space, in fact, there could be countless numbers of them out there. Therefore, the real progressive thing to do is to further cut domestic spending and have everyone tighten our belts so that we can produce as many missiles as possible, to be fired out into space indiscriminately, in hopes of hitting a Genocide Teapot.
However, we must also consider the possibility that these teapots could be located here on Earth too. Teapots are a form of china, which is a very suspicious connection. Clearly, the US must be permitted to inspect every square inch of China in search of these invisible teapots, and refusal to comply should be considered an admission of guilt. But we should not, of course, limit ourselves to China. Perhaps there are Genocide Teapots in Russia, or Brazil, or Germany, or Canada, who knows? I do, because to deny that Genocide Teapots exist in all of those places is genocide denial, which is fascist and wrong.
In conclusion, we should bomb every country in the world simultaneously, including ourselves, and anyone who disagrees with me is a war-loving fascist.
Thank you.
Before I begin, I have a confession: until recently (until today, in fact), I was a tankie. But this morning I just woke up and realized everything I believed and everything I'd been saying was wrong, and my critics were right about everything. And so, I have decided to completely and totally adopt their way of thinking.
The above image is an example to illustrate how my thinking has changed. You may be familiar with "Russell's Teapot," a thought experiment from Bertrand Russell where he imagines that someone says that there is a tiny, invisible teapot, floating out in space. He argues that while such a claim cannot strictly be disproved, it can be dismissed without evidence because there is no evidence to support it. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. He goes on to explain that while he could not disprove the existence of God, he still considered himself an atheist, because he did not see sufficient evidence for the claim of God's existence to be credible.
In my previous (tankie) way of thinking, I would have agreed with this idea, that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But I now understand that this made me a Bad Person. Suppose that, as in the beautiful diagram I drew in MS Paint, the claim is not only that the teapot exists, but that inside of the teapot, there are a bunch of tiny invisible people who are geopolitical enemies of the United States and they are committing genocide against innocent people. Again, before, I would have said that that only makes the claim more implausible and would require extraordinary proof. Now, I realize how wrong I was, and I can only say that I deeply regret and apologize for my statements. The existence of the teapot can be proven incontrovertibly, by the following logic:
If you claim that the teapot does not exist, you are denying that the genocide inside it is happening.
If you deny the genocide is happening, you are a genocide denier and therefore a fascist.
Fascism is wrong.
Therefore, it is impossible to correctly deny the teapot's existence.
As a brief aside, I should mention that in addition to my political conversion, I have also experienced a drastic change in my religious beliefs, as it is now trivially easy to prove that God exists. According to the Torah, God flooded the world, wiping out virtually all of humanity, including countless ethnic groups. To deny the existence of God makes you a genocide denier and a fascist. However, it should be added that to worship God is genocide apologia, which is also fascist. The only non-fascist belief, which is necessarily correct, is that God exists and is evil. Moving on.
Before, I believed that it was ridiculous for the US to spend as much on the military as the next 9 countries combined. I wanted to slash the military budget to fund domestic spending, schools, hospitals, making sure bridges don't collapse, helping the poor, etc. I see now how wrong I was. The Genocide Teapot exists, somewhere out there in space, in fact, there could be countless numbers of them out there. Therefore, the real progressive thing to do is to further cut domestic spending and have everyone tighten our belts so that we can produce as many missiles as possible, to be fired out into space indiscriminately, in hopes of hitting a Genocide Teapot.
However, we must also consider the possibility that these teapots could be located here on Earth too. Teapots are a form of china, which is a very suspicious connection. Clearly, the US must be permitted to inspect every square inch of China in search of these invisible teapots, and refusal to comply should be considered an admission of guilt. But we should not, of course, limit ourselves to China. Perhaps there are Genocide Teapots in Russia, or Brazil, or Germany, or Canada, who knows? I do, because to deny that Genocide Teapots exist in all of those places is genocide denial, which is fascist and wrong.
In conclusion, we should bomb every country in the world simultaneously, including ourselves, and anyone who disagrees with me is a war-loving fascist.
Thank you.
President Trump kept America out of new wars and brought thousands of brave troops home from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and many other countries. Joe Biden has undermined our military readiness and surrendered our strength to the Taliban.
When Trump pulls troops out of Afghanistan, it's "bringing thousands of brave troops home," but when Biden does the same, it's, "surrendering our strength to the Taliban." He brags about "keeping America out of foreign wars" while at the same time bragging about assassinating "the world's number one terrorist," Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, which was an extreme act of provocation.
This is taken from the issues page of Trump's campaign website, and there are several more statements relating to foreign policy, frequently and boldly contradicting each other. It's a perfect example of the "If By Whiskey" tactic. So what's actually going on here? Well, to understand the reasons for this equivocation, we need to analyze the foreign policy positions of Americans.
Broadly speaking, people fall into one of four camps: Idealist Hawk (liberals), Idealist Dove (libertarians), Realist Hawk (nationalists), and Realist Dove (socialists).
Idealist Hawks believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence and spreading freedom, and the fact that it repeatedly fails to do so (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc) is explainable by a variety of excuses. Generally, they are more interested in current events and easily persuaded to support intervention based on seeing a bad thing happening, without a broader analysis or explanation of the situation or how things have played out historically.
Idealist Doves also believe that US foreign policy is driven by benevolence, but they see that as a bad thing. They are generally right libertarians or hold libertarian values, they see war as another example of wasteful government spending as it tries and fails to improve people's lives, which they generally don't see as a valid goal in the first place. Being idealists, they are still rather easily duped into supporting war and militarism, often, they will support a "night watchman state," with police and the military being the only legitimate functions.
Realist Hawks are nationalists who believe that states pursue their own material interests and are right to do so. They are incapable of distinguishing between the state's interest and their own. Some few are rich enough to actually receive benefits from US foreign policy, but most just root for America in the same way that they might root for a football team.
Realist Doves, which I am a part of, do not believe that US foreign policy is not grounded in benevolence and does not benefit the people it claims to be helping, but also (generally) that it doesn't benefit the majority of people at home. We see it as being driven by and for class interests, and are opposed to the class it benefits.
Trump's foreign policy equivocation, and his "America First" slogan allows him to appeal to both the Idealist Doves (libertarians) and the Realist Hawks (nationalists). He can't consistently take any line on any specific thing. If by Afghanistan, you mean a disastrous nation-building exercise, wasteful government spending, and endangering our troops for the sake of helping foreigners, then of course Trump opposes it. But if by Afghanistan, you mean exerting American strength, intimidating Russia and China, and weakening terrorists to keep America safe, then of course Trump supports it.
In reality, to the extent that Trump has coherent beliefs at all, he is a Realist Hawk, a nationalist, and his record reflects that. But part of the reason he was able to get anywhere was because he was able to triangulate and equivocate well enough to dupe anti-war libertarians.
Unfortunately, in American politics, the conflict is generally between Idealist Hawks and everyone else. This is part of what allows the nationalists and libertarians to put aside their differences (the other part being that libertarians are easily duped). Realist Doves are not represented anywhere, the Idealist Interventionists consider us Russian bots along with everyone else who disagrees with them on foreign policy (regardless of how or why), the Idealist Doves are extremely unreliable, and the Realist Hawks may see the world in a similar way but have diametrically opposed priorities.
tl;dr: Trump's halfhearted antiwar posturing is an obvious ruse that only an idiot would fall for, but painting everyone skeptical of US foreign policy with the same brush helps him to sell it and to paint over ideological rifts that could otherwise be potentially exploited.
And if neither party supports that reform, do we just keep voting Democrat until the end of time?