There is definitely one hell of a double standard in the US when it comes to far right domestic terrorism, which is the origin of the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts perpetrated in the...
There is definitely one hell of a double standard in the US when it comes to far right domestic terrorism, which is the origin of the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts perpetrated in the country.
That's one reason I continue to share these stories, some people want to push a false equivalence with antifa which is not even an organized group. Some want to suggest that right wing groups are...
That's one reason I continue to share these stories, some people want to push a false equivalence with antifa which is not even an organized group. Some want to suggest that right wing groups are unduly targeted for harassment or have their views suppressed. I think it's pretty obvious that had these people been associated with left wing groups or BLM etc that this would have had a much different outcome. Police forces continue to favor right wing extremists.
I appreciate that. Right wing terrorism in this country has roots at least a century and a half deep and efforts to defeat it have been piecemeal and lackluster at best. From lynchings, to...
That's one reason I continue to share these stories, some people want to push a false equivalence with antifa which is not even an organized group.
I appreciate that. Right wing terrorism in this country has roots at least a century and a half deep and efforts to defeat it have been piecemeal and lackluster at best. From lynchings, to abortion clinic bombings, to shootings and beatings of protestors, reactionary terror has rarely recieved more than a stern glance from those in power and lately the trend seems to be more of a tacit nod. This is a conversation we need to happen badly.
The idea that far right ideas are supressed is patently absurd and practically insulting when they're solidly in control of all three branches of government against the will of the electorate. Indeed, I personally think we give them far too much license in the name of civil discourse and intellectual diversity, and the shift in the overton window this has caused has been a total disaster for hundreds of millions if not billions of people.
America was founded by and for property owners. Its founding myth is a lie. The rhetoric of the revolutionaries certainly seems like it would be written by leftist to use the modern term. But the...
the shift in the overton window
America was founded by and for property owners. Its founding myth is a lie. The rhetoric of the revolutionaries certainly seems like it would be written by leftist to use the modern term. But the majority of the members of its leadership were members of the wealthy elite and even served in the colonial government.
They co-opted the pamphleteering of Thomas Payne and its rhetoric to create a revolutionary struggle. Which, once complete, they used to create the most awesome force for social control ever.
The idea that we were somehow in a true sense a bastion of human liberation is not based in historical truth. If anything, the shift in the overton window happened in the 60s and now what we are experiencing is the rightward counteraction.
That's all true, I would hesitate to say that the United States was a proper democracy (for all its people at least) for more than, at most, thirty or forty of its two hundred and thirty years;...
That's all true, I would hesitate to say that the United States was a proper democracy (for all its people at least) for more than, at most, thirty or forty of its two hundred and thirty years; mostly the decades following the civil rights era but before the implementation of inverted totalitarianism and managed democracy in the 90's and 2000's.
The particular shift I was talking about though was the rehabilitation of gilded age economic ideas, the renewed ascendancy of politicized religion, and the normalization of xenophobia and science denial that started in the 80's and continues today. Though these ideas were far from new to Americans, they weren't really part of the mainstream public discourse a generation or two ago. Particularly when it comes to economics, a lot of ideas that are mainstream today would've been laughed out of the room as retrograde lunacy in the sixties and seventies.
In the same way that we don't take absolute monarchists droning on about the divine rights of kings seriously anymore, I think it's high time we stop giving weight to equally archaic ideas about economics that transparently only still exist because the ultra-rich fund them to give political and academic voice to their greed.
While I agree, how do we accomplish this? Historically speaking, do we have any record of how we successfully educated a public that "the divine rights of kings" was a load of hogwash?
I think it's high time we stop giving weight to equally archaic ideas about economics
While I agree, how do we accomplish this? Historically speaking, do we have any record of how we successfully educated a public that "the divine rights of kings" was a load of hogwash?
How can we assess if our education is working? I'd like to say the youth of today understand our system is broken, but I thought that about my peer group when I was younger, too. I also thought...
How can we assess if our education is working? I'd like to say the youth of today understand our system is broken, but I thought that about my peer group when I was younger, too.
I also thought that more people would value voting, but my age group still has really shitty turn out.
I think they need to learn that the system can fixed not just that it's broken. Also very important to mobilize the upper and middle classes. I know a lot of people with gripes but who are...
I think they need to learn that the system can fixed not just that it's broken. Also very important to mobilize the upper and middle classes. I know a lot of people with gripes but who are comfortable not feel the need to struggle for change.
The idea of a monarchy with a divine mandate took a heavy blow from the enlightenment, and was finished off with the ascendance of nationalism in the 19th century. Prior to the French revolution...
The idea of a monarchy with a divine mandate took a heavy blow from the enlightenment, and was finished off with the ascendance of nationalism in the 19th century. Prior to the French revolution in particular, countries were more like personal possessions of their monarchs, i.e. Louis XIV was the King of France, the place, where some people just happened to live. After, the remaining monarchs came to be viewed as more living symbols of their countries: Louis Phillipe was the king of the French, the nation, which just so happened to be situated on land traditionally owned by the Bourbons. This transition to monarchs being subservient to their nations rather than the other way around is I think what killed the traditional absolutist divine right monarchy.
As far as how we accomplish the end of respectable laissez faire economics, I don't think there's a single easy answer, definitely not one that we can look for in the decline of monarchism. You'd think the great depression, the failure of trickle down, and the great recession would've done the trick, but the public memory is tragically short, and there's always money to be made pushing crank theories for the billionaire class.
At a minimum, we need to reform our education system to increase emphasis on critical analysis and history, as well as ensure proper funding for university level academia so that academics don't have to fish around for politically tied money to continue their studies and research. And as with a lot of the other problems in our society, this could be mitigated if we had publicly funded elections with mandatory, non-FPTP voting. A solid majority of Americans have keynsian economic views, but due to the way our government is currently structured, the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans have no statistically significant impact on congress.
I have some questions about some of what you've said: So you mean the LBJ 60s, The Nixon/Jerry Ford 70s and the 80s? They killed all the Panthers and bombed Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand not to...
I have some questions about some of what you've said:
mostly the decades following the civil rights era
So you mean the LBJ 60s, The Nixon/Jerry Ford 70s and the 80s? They killed all the Panthers and bombed Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand not to mention Vietnam to shit illegally and unjustly. Yeah okay they gave a little way on human rights domestically - but their inaction on LGBTQ and essentially representing the needs of bosses over labor surely disqualify these people. Like FDR they weren't trying to make change, they were simply managers making the most minute adjustments to sustain our economic system which has always existed. Not shitting on the Roe v. Wade, Civil Rights Acts, Title IX, etc. or disqualifying the changes they made - which were great. I simply think that in the context of the history and following years that there's no reason to look back on these years as some sort of democratic spring. For instance: Crisis of Democracy and the Powell Memorandum both written at the beginning of the pre 90's anti-democratic backlash you mentioned.
before the implementation of inverted totalitarianism and managed democracy in the 90's and 2000's.
This has literally never not existed in America. ( People's History, Zinn, ch 4 ) There have been revolutionary struggles against the government since its inception. The revolution was lead by wealthy merchants in the north and slave owners in the south.
Particularly when it comes to economics, a lot of ideas that are mainstream today would've been laughed out of the room as retrograde lunacy in the sixties and seventies.
Are the monetarists really ones to laugh though? I'm not an economist or a historic of economic theory so this is just my shitty version of the facts: but, weren't the economists in the 60s and 70s mostly Friedman-ite Chicago Schoolers? Wouldn't they absolutely LOVE the fictionalization of the economy?
transparently only still exist because the ultra-rich fund them to give political and academic voice
Final point. I agree with:
I think it's high time we stop giving weight to equally archaic ideas about economics
But just want to reiterate some context of how I see this. These archaic ideas are literally written into the bedrock of American society - in the Constitution, the Declaration, the Federalist Papers, in Madison's letters. Sticking it to the billionaires is a start but I think the change needs to be bigger.
Abolish the electoral college and the senate, term limits of supreme court, statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, etc. Nothing less than a fundamental shift in the design of government will do.
I mostly agree with you, though I think the changes we really need are quite a lot more drastic than those; we're still using, in its fundaments, a document written by slaver-aristocrats to tie...
I mostly agree with you, though I think the changes we really need are quite a lot more drastic than those; we're still using, in its fundaments, a document written by slaver-aristocrats to tie together four million people without transport or communication faster than a horse, almost a quarter of a millenium ago, as the basis for our modern government. While some of its loftier ideals should certainly inform the constitution that replaces it, our current one has got to go.
At any rate, to elaborate/address some of your questions:
I'm not saying the 1960's and 70's were some sort of progressive golden age, I'm saying that those decades were the among the most democratic in US history. That doesn't even necessarily mean they were particularly democratic; take that as you will.
Regarding economics, what I meant there is that there was broad consensus from both parties through the late 70's that some level of government intervention in and regulation of the economy was needed to keep things running smoothly. Nixon passed the legislation to form the EPA and was a proponent of a guaranteed minimum income. Eisenhower expanded social security and kept the top marginal tax rate at 92%, even when republicans gained control of both houses of congress from '53-55.
You make some good points about the not terribly democratic 60s and 70s still being the most democratic part of American history. I will keep that in mind in the future. Ditto your point about the...
You make some good points about the not terribly democratic 60s and 70s still being the most democratic part of American history. I will keep that in mind in the future.
Ditto your point about the W thing. My sense for the level of intensity of this system is not very nuanced. It's valuable to know that W was a ramping up.
Also I did not know that inverted totalitarianism was a technical term. I know it from Hedges and always got the impression that it had more general usage. That was a great response!! I appreciate your insights.
while I don't have time to sit down and watch a video
Also Antifa isn't a self-proclaimed militia!! 3%ers and Oath Keepers are para-military organizations. I swear to god this is the KKK times ten. You think a lot of cops were in the Klan then? Think...
Also Antifa isn't a self-proclaimed militia!!
3%ers and Oath Keepers are para-military organizations. I swear to god this is the KKK times ten. You think a lot of cops were in the Klan then?
Think about how many of em drill with paramilitary irregulars on the weekend. This country is so entirely fucked.
CMV: The police are sympathetic to and complicit with right-wing extremists. They will use their power to advance the goals of domestic terrorists while repressing left-wing demonstrations....
PORTLAND POLICE OFFICERS "DISCOVERED INDIVIDUALS [AFFILIATED WITH THE GROUP PATRIOT PRAYER] WHO POSITIONED THEMSELVES ON A ROOFTOP PARKING STRUCTURE WITH A CACHE OF FIREARMS," INCLUDING LONG GUNS. NO ARRESTS WERE MADE.
CMV: The police are sympathetic to and complicit with right-wing extremists. They will use their power to advance the goals of domestic terrorists while repressing left-wing demonstrations.
Seriously. Looking for someone to give me some sort of reason to not see the police as hostile to my politics.
Wow you've said a lot of things that I feel and said some other stuff that I have been grasping for or grappling with. Doesn't seem like this is the way that this fine line should be walked. But...
Wow you've said a lot of things that I feel and said some other stuff that I have been grasping for or grappling with.
the police are generally good human beings...
but they're bad people
Doesn't seem like this is the way that this fine line should be walked. But it totally works.
remove criminals with the maximum efficiency
Read: Get their stats right ASAP.
you can easily, innocent or otherwise, get caught up in that
don't be afraid to ask an officer on the street how their day has been
Had a tough time with reading these two statements so close together. Usually we hold individuals accountable before the system (like with pollution, gentrification etc.). Not saying that's correct, but it just seems like a huge contradiction that the norm is to hold people to account for their roles in upholding and perpetuating unjust systems.
My stance is the thing has been broken from the start and so any change is good change. So i guess all i can do is hope people start to hold the cops in their life to account for protecting "the bad apples" and not speaking out. I hear lots of fucking talk about how oh cops are good people and all this. And even considering they do good shit from time to time I am sure, it's hard to square with their being the foot soldiers in the for-profit prison industry. If they know the system is unjust they need to be part of the solution.
Quite frankly, the US desperately needs something like a Federal "No Badge" registry. Prohibit people on it from employment in Federal law enforcement roles, and pull Federal funding from any...
Quite frankly, the US desperately needs something like a Federal "No Badge" registry. Prohibit people on it from employment in Federal law enforcement roles, and pull Federal funding from any state or municipal law enforcement group that circumvents it.
On Monday it was revealed that, prior to a major protest in the city on August 4 — which ended in brutal clashes between far-right and anti-fascist demonstrators — Portland officers “discovered individuals [affiliated with the group Patriot Prayer] who positioned themselves on a rooftop parking structure with a cache of firearms,” including long guns. No arrests were made, and no one outside of the police department, not even the mayor, was informed about the incident until now.
There is definitely one hell of a double standard in the US when it comes to far right domestic terrorism, which is the origin of the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts perpetrated in the country.
That's one reason I continue to share these stories, some people want to push a false equivalence with antifa which is not even an organized group. Some want to suggest that right wing groups are unduly targeted for harassment or have their views suppressed. I think it's pretty obvious that had these people been associated with left wing groups or BLM etc that this would have had a much different outcome. Police forces continue to favor right wing extremists.
I appreciate that. Right wing terrorism in this country has roots at least a century and a half deep and efforts to defeat it have been piecemeal and lackluster at best. From lynchings, to abortion clinic bombings, to shootings and beatings of protestors, reactionary terror has rarely recieved more than a stern glance from those in power and lately the trend seems to be more of a tacit nod. This is a conversation we need to happen badly.
The idea that far right ideas are supressed is patently absurd and practically insulting when they're solidly in control of all three branches of government against the will of the electorate. Indeed, I personally think we give them far too much license in the name of civil discourse and intellectual diversity, and the shift in the overton window this has caused has been a total disaster for hundreds of millions if not billions of people.
America was founded by and for property owners. Its founding myth is a lie. The rhetoric of the revolutionaries certainly seems like it would be written by leftist to use the modern term. But the majority of the members of its leadership were members of the wealthy elite and even served in the colonial government.
They co-opted the pamphleteering of Thomas Payne and its rhetoric to create a revolutionary struggle. Which, once complete, they used to create the most awesome force for social control ever.
The idea that we were somehow in a true sense a bastion of human liberation is not based in historical truth. If anything, the shift in the overton window happened in the 60s and now what we are experiencing is the rightward counteraction.
That's all true, I would hesitate to say that the United States was a proper democracy (for all its people at least) for more than, at most, thirty or forty of its two hundred and thirty years; mostly the decades following the civil rights era but before the implementation of inverted totalitarianism and managed democracy in the 90's and 2000's.
The particular shift I was talking about though was the rehabilitation of gilded age economic ideas, the renewed ascendancy of politicized religion, and the normalization of xenophobia and science denial that started in the 80's and continues today. Though these ideas were far from new to Americans, they weren't really part of the mainstream public discourse a generation or two ago. Particularly when it comes to economics, a lot of ideas that are mainstream today would've been laughed out of the room as retrograde lunacy in the sixties and seventies.
In the same way that we don't take absolute monarchists droning on about the divine rights of kings seriously anymore, I think it's high time we stop giving weight to equally archaic ideas about economics that transparently only still exist because the ultra-rich fund them to give political and academic voice to their greed.
While I agree, how do we accomplish this? Historically speaking, do we have any record of how we successfully educated a public that "the divine rights of kings" was a load of hogwash?
You re-educate the young. Douglass say that it's easier to build strong children than fix broken men
How can we assess if our education is working? I'd like to say the youth of today understand our system is broken, but I thought that about my peer group when I was younger, too.
I also thought that more people would value voting, but my age group still has really shitty turn out.
I think they need to learn that the system can fixed not just that it's broken. Also very important to mobilize the upper and middle classes. I know a lot of people with gripes but who are comfortable not feel the need to struggle for change.
The idea of a monarchy with a divine mandate took a heavy blow from the enlightenment, and was finished off with the ascendance of nationalism in the 19th century. Prior to the French revolution in particular, countries were more like personal possessions of their monarchs, i.e. Louis XIV was the King of France, the place, where some people just happened to live. After, the remaining monarchs came to be viewed as more living symbols of their countries: Louis Phillipe was the king of the French, the nation, which just so happened to be situated on land traditionally owned by the Bourbons. This transition to monarchs being subservient to their nations rather than the other way around is I think what killed the traditional absolutist divine right monarchy.
As far as how we accomplish the end of respectable laissez faire economics, I don't think there's a single easy answer, definitely not one that we can look for in the decline of monarchism. You'd think the great depression, the failure of trickle down, and the great recession would've done the trick, but the public memory is tragically short, and there's always money to be made pushing crank theories for the billionaire class.
At a minimum, we need to reform our education system to increase emphasis on critical analysis and history, as well as ensure proper funding for university level academia so that academics don't have to fish around for politically tied money to continue their studies and research. And as with a lot of the other problems in our society, this could be mitigated if we had publicly funded elections with mandatory, non-FPTP voting. A solid majority of Americans have keynsian economic views, but due to the way our government is currently structured, the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans have no statistically significant impact on congress.
I have some questions about some of what you've said:
So you mean the LBJ 60s, The Nixon/Jerry Ford 70s and the 80s? They killed all the Panthers and bombed Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand not to mention Vietnam to shit illegally and unjustly. Yeah okay they gave a little way on human rights domestically - but their inaction on LGBTQ and essentially representing the needs of bosses over labor surely disqualify these people. Like FDR they weren't trying to make change, they were simply managers making the most minute adjustments to sustain our economic system which has always existed. Not shitting on the Roe v. Wade, Civil Rights Acts, Title IX, etc. or disqualifying the changes they made - which were great. I simply think that in the context of the history and following years that there's no reason to look back on these years as some sort of democratic spring. For instance: Crisis of Democracy and the Powell Memorandum both written at the beginning of the pre 90's anti-democratic backlash you mentioned.
This has literally never not existed in America. ( People's History, Zinn, ch 4 ) There have been revolutionary struggles against the government since its inception. The revolution was lead by wealthy merchants in the north and slave owners in the south.
Are the monetarists really ones to laugh though? I'm not an economist or a historic of economic theory so this is just my shitty version of the facts: but, weren't the economists in the 60s and 70s mostly Friedman-ite Chicago Schoolers? Wouldn't they absolutely LOVE the fictionalization of the economy?
Final point. I agree with:
But just want to reiterate some context of how I see this. These archaic ideas are literally written into the bedrock of American society - in the Constitution, the Declaration, the Federalist Papers, in Madison's letters. Sticking it to the billionaires is a start but I think the change needs to be bigger.
Abolish the electoral college and the senate, term limits of supreme court, statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, etc. Nothing less than a fundamental shift in the design of government will do.
I mostly agree with you, though I think the changes we really need are quite a lot more drastic than those; we're still using, in its fundaments, a document written by slaver-aristocrats to tie together four million people without transport or communication faster than a horse, almost a quarter of a millenium ago, as the basis for our modern government. While some of its loftier ideals should certainly inform the constitution that replaces it, our current one has got to go.
At any rate, to elaborate/address some of your questions:
I'm not saying the 1960's and 70's were some sort of progressive golden age, I'm saying that those decades were the among the most democratic in US history. That doesn't even necessarily mean they were particularly democratic; take that as you will.
Regarding economics, what I meant there is that there was broad consensus from both parties through the late 70's that some level of government intervention in and regulation of the economy was needed to keep things running smoothly. Nixon passed the legislation to form the EPA and was a proponent of a guaranteed minimum income. Eisenhower expanded social security and kept the top marginal tax rate at 92%, even when republicans gained control of both houses of congress from '53-55.
Finally, while I don't have time to sit down and watch a video, Inverted totalitarianism refers to a very specific phenomenon that cropped up in the US after the fall of the Soviet Union, and really kicked into gear after the appointment of W to the presidency. Managed democracy has of course been with us a long time, (the original Gerrymander was in 1812 after all!), but in the current era it's been weaponized to the point that the support of the average american has no statistically significant impact on the likelihood of the passing of legislation.
You make some good points about the not terribly democratic 60s and 70s still being the most democratic part of American history. I will keep that in mind in the future.
Ditto your point about the W thing. My sense for the level of intensity of this system is not very nuanced. It's valuable to know that W was a ramping up.
Also I did not know that inverted totalitarianism was a technical term. I know it from Hedges and always got the impression that it had more general usage. That was a great response!! I appreciate your insights.
also it's an audiobook. so maybe you do!
If inverted totalitarianism could be summed up with any single sentence, it'd be bush's (in)famous line:
Also Antifa isn't a self-proclaimed militia!!
3%ers and Oath Keepers are para-military organizations. I swear to god this is the KKK times ten. You think a lot of cops were in the Klan then?
Think about how many of em drill with paramilitary irregulars on the weekend. This country is so entirely fucked.
Might not be the best solution, but the socialist RA advocates for direct action. Show up to protests, buy a gun, vote. Things will get better.
I do these things! Are protests direct action tho? Have been pondering a firearm for a while.
CMV: The police are sympathetic to and complicit with right-wing extremists. They will use their power to advance the goals of domestic terrorists while repressing left-wing demonstrations.
Seriously. Looking for someone to give me some sort of reason to not see the police as hostile to my politics.
Wow you've said a lot of things that I feel and said some other stuff that I have been grasping for or grappling with.
Doesn't seem like this is the way that this fine line should be walked. But it totally works.
Read: Get their stats right ASAP.
Had a tough time with reading these two statements so close together. Usually we hold individuals accountable before the system (like with pollution, gentrification etc.). Not saying that's correct, but it just seems like a huge contradiction that the norm is to hold people to account for their roles in upholding and perpetuating unjust systems.
My stance is the thing has been broken from the start and so any change is good change. So i guess all i can do is hope people start to hold the cops in their life to account for protecting "the bad apples" and not speaking out. I hear lots of fucking talk about how oh cops are good people and all this. And even considering they do good shit from time to time I am sure, it's hard to square with their being the foot soldiers in the for-profit prison industry. If they know the system is unjust they need to be part of the solution.
This deserves re-iteration: No arrests were made
Here's the primary source, linked to by ThinkProgress:
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/10/armed_protesters_were_on_portl.html
Quite frankly, the US desperately needs something like a Federal "No Badge" registry. Prohibit people on it from employment in Federal law enforcement roles, and pull Federal funding from any state or municipal law enforcement group that circumvents it.
Title slightly edited to provide more information