Political Discussion

[RenegadeMonster]

I feel like if you gotta sue some poor schmoe to fix your car then you should just have to deal with it yourself. Take the insurance payout and pay for the rest yourself. (Doesn't Tracy Morgan have car insurance himself that would be used in cases like this where the other party doesn't have adequate insurance? I think I would want that for such an expensive vehicle.) Yes, the other driver was at fault, but should he be financially devastated because it was his bad luck to hit a $2m car versus a Honda Civic? I don't think so. There should be limits. I'm tired of the rich and powerful using every bit of their reach to stomp all over the rest of us.

Tracy Morgan isn't the issue here. He has no intentions of going after the guy to pay for damages. The issue is his insurance company.

His insurance company will cover the damages. Then try to collect from the other guys insurance (which wont cover nearly enough). Therefor, odds are likely that Tracy Morgan's insurance company will likely try to recover the difference by going after the guy.

 

[noelledemort]

Tracy Morgan isn't the issue here. He has no intentions of going after the guy to pay for damages. The issue is his insurance company.

His insurance company will cover the damages. Then try to collect from the other guys insurance (which wont cover nearly enough). Therefor, odds are likely that Tracy Morgan's insurance company will likely try to recover the difference by going after the guy.

I missed that detail. I switch my blame to the insurance company away from Tracy Morgan, then.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Bernie gave a speech on why Democratic Socialism is the best solution to fighting off the oligarchy this country is becoming.



People ask me why I support Bernie over Warren and my response is similar to those who accuse me of being a Bernie Bro.

As a Social Democrat, I firmly believe nothing can be truly fixed in this country until we get a modern New Deal and move to undo 40+ years of attacks on social safety nets and publicly funded institutions. 40+ years of privatization/deregulation and trillions wasted on for for-profit war.

Cult of personality is not why I support Bermie (though I do find him to be as genuine politicians get) and, no, he is not perfect. But he is the only candidate in this race who disavows neoliberalism, is fighting for SYSTEMIC change and who never fails to stand up for disadvantaged communities.

The same cannot be said of Warren. She is top notch when it comes to fighting deregulation but she views regulation as the primary solution to our woes instead of a part of the solution. She is lacking in ways the Bernie isn't (privatization, the military industrial complex, the fact that she stayed silent on Standing Rock, exc). She has also said she will be taking corporate cash in a general election. Again, I'd still vote for her in a heartbeat, but there are substantial differences between her and Bernie.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Every candidate regardless of party, club, ideology, or whatever they are selling sucks. None of these people are going to do anything to undue what is the basic fundamental problem - the entrenched power structure. Short of a military coup. A natural disaster or set of disasters so costly they completely bankrupt and weaken the country beyond its ability to defend its borders, or some other set of crazy fires. A depression + dust bowl + nuclear accident situation nothing is changing.

Everyone's team is finding a way to cheat.

I haven't heard a single candidate say that they will work to classify white nationalism and violent racists as domestic terrorists.
I haven't seen a single candidate discuss equity in a meaningful way - no one has a plan.
I haven't heard anyone say they are going to defund the military
I haven't heard anyone say they are going to tax religious organizations
I haven't heard a single candidate say how they are going to reform the EPA, USGS, Dept of Justice, Dept of Education
I haven't seen a single tax reform plan that is based in social equity.
I haven't seen a single plan that destroys the prison and sentencing system.
I haven't seen a single plan that gets every American into a home.
I haven't seen a single candidate explain how they are going to develop rail and repair roads and bridges before more people die.
I haven't seen anyone actually say how they are going to do anything.

This isn't a solvable problem. At least not through the means that have been sold to us as our only option.

I'll go back to my whiskey. Hope is for suckers

Than you aren't paying attention. Sanders has policy to tackle at least 2/3s of these (or did in 2016 and hasn't completely laid out details yet this cycle).

Warren has solutions to at least 1/3 of them.

I can post links if you want.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Thanks but I’m not interested in your team sports

Talk to me in 2024 or 2028 when either of them have done anything they claim they will do. Saying that you believe in something or that you will tax or not tax something or have this or that policy does not equal a plan nor does it equal the political capital to get anything done.

If you want to actually change something. Instead of talking about social democratism how about you and Bernie go out and actually implement it on the ground. How about we actually level the playing field instead of talk about it. People love to support a candidate who talks about the things that make them feel good about themselves or their realty but rarely does anyone practice what they preach.

You're talking to the wrong person. I'm not into team sports. I see exactly two candidates I trust and will fight for. And I spent 100s of hours in multiple states for Bernie in 16'. A lot of the people I met along the way wound up getting involved in winning (or in my case losing) politics afterwards. City council positions, governor races (Polis), organizations that aided the election of grassroots activist like AOC or Talib. I watched Bernie nurture lots of those people along the way, picket with working people, sit on conversational panels with BLM and then implement their input into his platform, exc, exc, exc.

I've also won and lost a lot of prop related campaigns in my lifetime. So it's not just confined to a canidate.

I understand cynicism. I don't understand cynicism as a blanket statement.

 

[Enoch]

Bernie gave a speech on why Democratic Socialism is the best solution to fighting off the oligarchy this country is becoming.



People ask me why I support Bernie over Warren and my response is similar to those who accuse me of being a Bernie Bro.

As a Social Democrat, I firmly believe nothing can be truly fixed in this country until we get a modern New Deal and move to undo 40+ years of attacks on social safety nets and publicly funded institutions. 40+ years of privatization/deregulation and trillions wasted on for for-profit war.

Cult of personality is not why I support Bermie (though I do find him to be as genuine politicians get) and, no, he is not perfect. But he is the only candidate in this race who disavows neoliberalism, is fighting for SYSTEMIC change and who never fails to stand up for disadvantaged communities.

The same cannot be said of Warren. She is top notch when it comes to fighting deregulation but she views regulation as the primary solution to our woes instead of a part of the solution. She is lacking in ways the Bernie isn't (privatization, the military industrial complex, the fact that she stayed silent on Standing Rock, exc). She has also said she will be taking corporate cash in a general election. Again, I'd still vote for her in a heartbeat, but there are substantial differences between her and Bernie.

I really like Bernie, I voted for him in 2016 the primary. My issue now is, I would like someone of his mold that is younger. If that ends up not existing I will probably vote for him again (need to hear more from the other million candidates). I don't want to come off as ageist but admittedly, in this case, I basically am. I just don't want his movement to disappear with him in terms of people actually being in politics so having someone younger in his mold being in the race and endorsed by Bernie would be my preference.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

I really like Bernie, I voted for him in 2016 the primary. My issue now is, I would like someone of his mold that is younger. If that ends up not existing I will probably vote for him again (need to hear more from the other million candidates). I don't want to come off as ageist but admittedly, in this case, I basically am. I just don't want his movement to disappear with him in terms of people actually being in politics so having someone younger in his mold being in the race and endorsed by Bernie would be my preference.

I agree. I also don't think that person exists due to 2 factors. A) the 2010 elections wiped out a lot of young leaders B) a lot of politicians were terrified of his policies or bought out in 2016.

Pete has a huge # of red flags buried in his rhetoric. Beto takes more money from fossil fuels than any other politician in the DNC. I live in CA and Harris fought reform at every step as a prosecutor and no activist I knows trusts her. Especially because her career was easy at every step and no clean politician makes it up the food chain in CA.

The best options imo are Warren and Bernie by a substantial margin. That doesn't mean I don't wish they were younger.

 

[Dtknuckles]

Let me try to be more clear about my "cynicism" here:

Until the tenets of capitalism are completely undone and a new system is implemented that

1. most likely no one has yet conceived
2. maintains creative destruction
3. values people over profits
4. disregards political boundaries
5. eliminates class and values every human equally
6. values every job equally
7. aims to continually improve the lives of everyone, but especially the weakest
8. views humans as part of all of the natural cycles of the earth
9. removes religion from societal math
10. spends zero time protecting its own institution

the same inequality, power structure, and constant harm to most will persist.

My vote is to ignore all of it, pay attention to the things going on in your community, love thy neighbor / fellow human, and hope that these people consume themselves and take out as few innocent victims as possible in the process.

That's a nice utopia your building there. It be a shame if something happened to it.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Stuff

I took your team sports comment to mean "vote blue" or "vote red". Which is not how I roll.

I also vehemently disagree about Bernie's chances in the midwest. Polling has him doing well against Trump in places like WI and MI, Iowa, ext (and PE though that's not midwest obviously). Places like Indiana or the south? Not so much but those are states that are going red anyways. But either way, your moving the goal posts away from your initial comment.

And my "not paying attention" comment stems from a blanket statement that you made about all candidates when there are policy positions held by both Warren and Sanders that contradict your assertion. It had nothing to do with where in the country you happen to live.

That said, if your assertion is that they aren't going to change anything because they arent going to dismantle capitalism than, sure, that is the case. But good luck finding anyone doing that- especially one who is electable in the same areas of the country that you claim Bernie isn't.

In the meantime, you're passing over politicians who would attempt to move us towards a more inclusive version FDRs America while tackling a lot of the issues you originally mentioned. Not to mention who would treat climate change as the crisis that it is.

Which is a hell of a lot better than where we are right now or have been in my 32 years on this planet.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

I'd add that it's still incredibly early and that candidates are still hashing out details on policy. At this point in 2016, Bernie had just announced. But he eventually rolled out very detailed plans to the policies he was pushing. I expect the same will happen this go round (and it has already begun).

Liz, meanwhile, has made pushing wonky policy the foundation of her campaign.

 

[mareinfinitus]

I'd add that it's still incredibly early and that candidates are still hashing out details on policy. At this point in 2016, Bernie has just announced. But he eventually rolled out very detailed plans to the policies he was pushing. I expect the same will happen this go round (and it has already begun).

Liz, meanwhile, has made pushing wonky policy the foundation of her campaign.

Any chance of these two being running mates at some point, you think?

What if Bernie picked a much younger running mate with similar political views (eg AOC or someone similar). I wonder if that would help persuade the ageists, etc. too bad they don’t typically announce running mates til much further along in the game.

 

[TheMythOfSisyphus]

I understand cynicism. I don't understand cynicism as a blanket statement.

^This. Well said.

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” - Albert Camus

 

[Dtknuckles]

^This. Well said.

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” - Albert Camus

That's a lot of words to say "The struggle is real."

 

[TheMythOfSisyphus]

There's no glory in repetitive motion jobs. One can be both cynical about the political and socie-economic reality and not cynical about the nature of the universe.

Counter-point: Prince's Joy in Repetition
But, for real, in the larger context the argument is that our whole life/existence IS one cycle of task-completion-task-completion-wash-rinse-repeat.

Regardless, I found @DownIsTheNewUp comment to be poignant - applied not just to their debate with you. And the Camus quotation is - albeit tenuously so and at least in my mind - adjacent. But not trying to hijack this into a (non-political) philosophy thread. Just sharing my respect for their words.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

No one person is going to bring about the kinds of seismic shifts our society needs.

I mean, that's it. That's my wish list: smart, works hard, honest, humane. I don't even consider that settling. If we could get a good run of those people in a consecutive sequence, that'd be pretty good.

I agree with everything you say though I think policies are a vital piece of the puzzle because you can't fix anything without them. But I also want to point out that the *main* reason I support Bernie over Warren is that we need a president who values the grassroots base and will encourage it's growth. There is a reason his campaign slogan is "not me, us" and that he immediately set up Justice Democrats / Our Revolution... he realizes the importance of getting progressives into all levels of office. Obama was disappointing in many ways (while still being the best president of my lifetime), but the most frustrating aspect of his time in office was how he completely abandoned the organized and activist base that got him elected once he was President.

Any chance of these two being running mates at some point, you think?

What if Bernie picked a much younger running mate with similar political views (eg AOC or someone similar). I wonder if that would help persuade the ageists, etc. too bad they don’t typically announce running mates til much further along in the game.

I would love Warren as a VP pick for Bernie but I don't think it does enough to close the "old white person" problem. She'd be great in a cabinet position though. Similarly, I don't think Bernie makes sense as Warren's VP. He would make a good Secretary of Labor but we also need progressives in Senate in order to get things done.

My ideal pick for Bernie's VP would be Tulsi Gabbard. She would appeal to veterans, help even the gender gap and provide youth. Her policy positions are generally excellent, she's tough and honest and she would cement hope for real change in regards to the US's interventionalist tendencies. She has some (in my opinion) unfair baggage due to her parents / childhood, but I look forward to seeing what she adds at the debates. Nina Turner is another option for Bernie. Not sure who makes sense for Warren's VP should she advance though.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

This is Bernie broism at its finest. You're making am implication that Warren doesn't want the same amount of progressives in office as Bernie or the same quality of progressives as Bernie based on nothing other than Bernie's slogan and some clubs he set-up. This is the problem.

If you have a real crtitique of Warren as not progressive enough based on the policy platforms you are intent on elevating to gospel or law by all means make them... but implying what Warren is about based on things Bernie says is a false argument

It's not that Warren won't. It's that I know that Bernie will because he has demonstrated as much since 2016 and makes it an active part of his messaging (where as Warren doesn't). And after cutting my teeth as a canvasser / phone banker / organizer for Obama (in 08') and watching him completely ignore us while in office, I'm a touch more jaded when it comes to the way Democrats treat the progressive base. I've alluded to the policies that trouble me with Warren (ala the fact that she is going to take corporate cash in the general, the fact that she has gone luke-warm in pushing for Medicare for All) and/or past actions (her silence on Standing Rock is a huge deal to me) while repeatedly saying that there is plenty to like and that she is hands down my 2nd option. My worst fear is that we get neither of them because they split the primary vote and hand us Biden.

You seem intent on picking a fight (i.e. repeatedly calling me a Bernie Bro). which is why I ignored your previous comment. I say-- these states in the Midwest look great for Bernie and then you counter with "the midwest in not monolithic"... I'm pretty sure that by saying places like MI/WI should be very kind to Bernie while acknowledging that he has no chance in a place like India (with it's hotbed of libertarianism) is the exact opposite of treating the middle of the country as monolithic.

Lastly, I view the ideological split as far more of a generational issue than one of geography or ethnicity. See the fact that more people my age view socialism favorably than capitalism. Or that more of us voted for Bernie than Trump or Clinton combined (and even when you combine them, the gap was large). Or the fact that when I graduated high school in 05, Colorado was a proudly libertarian state full of new money, upper middle class whites who were staunchly conservative. Since then, millenials from all over the Midwest have poured into the state much like kids from areas surrounding Illinois have done with Chicago. In that process the state has gone from deeply red to purple to safely blue. And not just blue, but progressive as all fuck blue. They just elected a the most progressive Governor in the nation specifically because a bunch of kids from Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, ext have flooded the state over the past 15 (and especially 10) years. Part of the rural/urban divide we are seeing actually stems from the fact the millenials have abandoned rural areas because the jobs are in cities (even if those cities are insanely expensive to live in).

Meanwhile, Jared Polis (who ran without taking money from corporate sources) has done more to shift paradigms than CA's collection of neoliberal hacks have done in my 14 years in CA. He was supposed to be the candidate that was too progressive, too jew, too gay to be electable. The guy who could win mayorship of Boulder but would fail in a statewide election. Yet he won comfortably. And since then, Pre-K funding, cementing 100% renewable on rapid timeline into law, decriminalized possession of hard drugs in small doses, reworked sex-ed curriculum and capped insulin prices have all become a reality. He just keeps getting shit done. And it's been like 7 months.

Also, should anybody want a breakdown in the differences between Warren and Sanders:

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[Dtknuckles]

But I also want to point out that the *main* reason I support Bernie over Warren is that we need a president who values the grassroots base and will encourage it's growth.

This is Bernie broism at its finest. You're making am implication that Warren doesn't want the same amount of progressives in office as Bernie or the same quality of progressives as Bernie based on nothing other than Bernie's slogan and some clubs he set-up. This is the problem.

If you have a real critique of Warren as not progressive enough based on the policy platforms you are intent on elevating to gospel or law by all means make them... but implying what Warren is about based on things Bernie says is a false argument

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here on this one jaycee. Bernie is the first person in recent history that has really understood that to over to cooperate rule is that you need to develop grassroots communities that get out and vote. I don't think thats Bernie Bro-ism.

 

[Dtknuckles]

I didn't say Bernie was broism - just the argument was.

I don't think his argument is. He is noting that the reason why he supports Bernie is that he has built a movement around his policies that will last past his time in the sun. Warren hasn't built any infrastructure like that. For me that is a good reason to give Bernie my vote over the two.

 

[Dtknuckles]

and that he immediately set up Justice Democrats / Our Revolution... he realizes the importance of getting progressives into all levels of office.

Has Warren set up anything like Justice Democrats? Has she used her support network to get other progressives around the country elected (AOC plus a host of other DAs and other recently elected officials)? She has not set up a movement. She may be progressive, but she has not really created power structures other than her campaign. That's important, especially if you don't want the rock to roll back down the hill.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Also if you read my post again I said the Midwest is not monolithic - thanks.

I know that's what you said. My point is that by saying that- you were implying that I believed (or had indicated) otherwise. And I don't/didn't.

It's not bro-ism to point out that the center of Bernie's campaign is the idea of a movement.. Especially when I pointed to 2 organizations that his campaign helped set up and have talked about the number of people I know who took said message to heart after 2016 and have been involved in politics on various levels since then. And no, Warren has not come close to using the same kind of messaging when it comes to pushing neoliberal democrats out of office. Nor when it comes to building a campaign that avoids the pratfalls of corporate cash so as to not be indebted to them.

I have treated this entire conversation as one that is deeply nuanced and have repeatedly praised Warren (while you started this whole convo with heavy dose of none-of-these-candidates-are-worth-a-damn generalities). I never insinuated she hasn't been fighting economic inequality or that she won't once in office. I have questioned whether her approach is too single minded (on regulation) and criticized certain policy stances.

And where did I say it was a good thing that youth is leaving rural areas? I didn't. In fact, my post includes a sentence on the fact that the urban/rural divide was being worsened by it. My point was that people under 35 are very, very liberal regardless of whether they are from the coast or the Midwest... and that the ideological gap is mostly a generational one.