You are making a strawman. So I will ask straight up, what does Lenin have to do with the death of George Floyd?
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US PoliEra 2020 |OT6| I will not be closing this thread when the second wave hits.
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As a black person, deal with the huge fucking fire of not killing us indiscriminately then let's talk about the economics of how we got there and can prevent it or improve the current situation. The hierarchy of needs is a thing as is my humanity, as opposed to the statistics and raw numbers behind it for people of colour and otherwise.
For most things I'm of the opinion that we can walk and chew gum but this is not one that I think we've ever been able to crack, for obvious reasons.
For most things I'm of the opinion that we can walk and chew gum but this is not one that I think we've ever been able to crack, for obvious reasons.
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My read on this race was that Marshall was doing the things he needed to beat Kobach. Trump would have to tilt the scales to Kobach but he's kinda busy atm and doesn't want to back a loser. Marshall should have the basic GOP kit needed to win the GE in KS by 4-6 points.
Well that's nice and all, but that's not how the interaction began.
Because no one here believes that race gets solved by eating the rich—it means that it's not entirely separate. We're not "leftists", and we're not "RoseEra" or whatever other name of the week someone has decided to think up to unload on us.
And we're not here for anyone's ax to grind. We've been out there protesting and donating as much as anyone else.
If they or anyone else is trying to deny that the current siuation is deeply intertwined with issues of precarity (he was killed over $20) and economic incentives (school to prison pipeline) or austerity (people have no jobs or now future) and they're instead saying that their main concern is that ant-capitalist sentiment will co-opt instead of reinforce their cause then they can hash it out not just with my BIPOC comerades but also ssort out their disagreements with Franz Fanon and Angela Davis.
For what its worth, Im pretty sure that Sphag and Towel dont think that and I definitely dont think it.
For example, Its not very difficult to find stories of ethnic discrimination inside of the Soviet Union. Its like how the eastern bloc promoted the idea of women being a part of the work force before western countries did, but that did not mean that they didnt go through workplace and sexual harassment.
I think we are pretty familiar with how a myopic view of politics can result in many of the same problems that a capitalist system would produce.
This is why, in my case, I mentioned the importance of reading indigenous voices and why I need to read more from black leftists to build a better sustented political ideology. I need to find good literature about the Black Panthers!
If our movement doesnt include poor people, people with disabilities and other oppressed minorities, then any kind of new system will inevitably fall into some kind of opression. And its more than just inclusion, of course, its about addressing their concerns, which have very often been invisibilized, through cooperation.
Nobody is saying profit and class disparity has nothing to do with the situation
The issue is even if we convert to a socialist utopia (not using that mockingly btw I do consider myself a socialist) black people will still get oppressed and murdered over their skin color
The issue is even if we convert to a socialist utopia (not using that mockingly btw I do consider myself a socialist) black people will still get oppressed and murdered over their skin color
I'm sure you're aware that the USSR wasn't technically communist or socialist but it also had a lot more central planning than other countries
How did ethnic minorities fare there?
NY State senator, but wtf.
Edit: Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn)
Many people only read headlines and/or tweets carrying headlines. Even in hyper aware communities like this one.
10000%. This is why it is frustrating to be reading about class right now, its missing the forest for the trees.
Or there exists a hybrid, it's not hard. Thus hardcore, keep up.
Do you really believe the amount of money his not fraudulent check was for made any difference in what happened to him? A law abiding guy had the cops called on him and those cops murdered him. Because they wanted to and knew they could.
Economic systems don't seem to have any baring on whether something becomes a police state or not.
Perfectly idealized capitalism wouldn't have these issues. Badly implemented socialism is rife with similar problems as everyone well knows.
Me, I'm going to focus on helping the electable politicians specifically talking about addressing these problems get elected and ensuring the guy who had a peaceful protest teargassed gets put out of office.
The fuck are you talking about dude
I'm not a capitalist. What hybrid are you referring to?
Capitalism inflames racism and profits from it but it is not required for racism to exist.
And even if you think that the origins of racism happened because of capitalist shit well guess what, it's too late to reverse that now and racism is here to stay
You can't solve racism by solving capitalism. Racism exists outside of capitalistic systems.
The racist institutions in the United States are fueled and funded by the capitalist infrastructure. And toppling that order can mitigate oppression, but it will not solve it completely. Stuff like the for-profit prison system, austerity built upon red-lining and discrimination, the limiting of land ownership/education and what it means for generational wealth along with what wealth represents for exerting power over the political process.
This won't solve racism and it is only part of what is happening in the country, but it's weird to take the stance it has nothing to do with what is happening in this country at a systemic level or that is has no place in a discussion of how the state's exclusive right to violence interacts with black people.
I can understand if you wanted to make an argument that priorities for examination should be elsewhere or another solution should be enacted, but to dismiss it out of hand as reductionist to bring up the current make-up of American capitalism as tool of oppression to enact white supremacy seems to be what is being contended at the moment.
The racist institutions in the United States are fueled and funded by the capitalist infrastructure. And toppling that order can mitigate oppression, but it will not solve it completely. Stuff like the for-profit prison system, austerity built upon red-lining and discrimination, the limiting of land ownership/education and what it means for generational wealth along with what wealth represents for exerting power over the political process.
This won't solve racism and it is only part of what is happening in the country, but it's weird to take the stance it has nothing to do with what is happening in this country at a systemic level or that is has no place in a discussion of how the state's exclusive right to violence interacts with black people.
I can understand if you wanted to make an argument that priorities for examination should be elsewhere or another solution should be enacted, but to dismiss it out of hand as reductionist to bring up the current make-up of American capitalism as tool of oppression to enact white supremacy seems to be what is being contended at the moment.
Yes I am angry that you referred to me as a hardcore capitalist while quoting the post that said I was a socialist, ignoring that I've been posting in the socialist OT for months and are spouting nonsense about race.
What's happening about now is about police brutality and racial inequality. It's cool to theorize too but speaking over black people to do it isn't going to do you any favors.
economic precarity pushes people into criminality so their rights can be stripped and they can be economically productive without compensation
lack of oversight and police militarization a fueled by a culture of propriety and inequality which requires the violence imposed by capitalism to be actively suppressed through brutality by agents of the state
there is no ending institutional racism without smashing the entrenched power of the classes which benefit from it
you will find that contiuing to the just vote the guy out who didn't stop police overreach or austerity or racism through social spending will fail to create a better world, not just because people are shitty and racist (which is one problem) but also because the status quo enhances the accumulation of wealth and power by the already powerful.
User Banned (2 weeks): trolling and antagonizing other users
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It is much easier to push for police reforms and even a complete ground up revision than it is to restructure the entire US economic system when like 99% of congress is made out of capitalists
People aren't naive enough to think that they're going to solve racism by these protests.
people can push for whatever they want, police reform is good. People should push for that at every level
but the system won't go away and it's demands won't abate without a more thorough redritubtion of social, economic and political power.
What stops the people using capitalism to oppress using socialism to oppress just as we have seen before? It has been used to enact racial or religious supremacy as effectively as capitalism hasn't it?
What crime did George Floyd commit again?
i don't think he did anything wrong. he lived in a system that has normalized calling in police over even an alleged petty crime
people who are economically precarious cut corners, they issue bad checks or maybe sell a bit of weed on the side.
This is then exacerbated by over policed communities who's law enforcement see themselves as an occupying force. It is not just an issue of capitalism, for example indigenous and black communities in my province of Ontario continues and we don't have private prisons or mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes.
But in the American context those things exist and have been integrated into the economic system. It is not simply just an issue of reform or uplift but the dismantling of the institutions which perpetuate these atrocities.
Yup yup. Exclusionary action exists throughout the animal kingdom. The systems we humans build to do it have scaled up with our brains.
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😎( not without regulation to gently guide outcomes and prevent capture, I'm firmly a neolib )
I wish the socialism talk in this thread could be rooted to actual US policy talk and not have it always turn into Socialist OT 2 Hyper Evangelism Brigading Edition. Non concrete philosophy talk undermines actual demsoc vs. neolib policy differences in the party, and if there is one thing I am 100% sure if is that you need the fresh ideas of the somewhat left to keep American capitalism strong because otherwise you can't reform your way out of market failures, no one calls them out.
This isn't about people being forced into crime, which is absolutely an issue of class. This is about law abiding people being treated like criminals based on their skin color. This is about black people getting killed by police at a much higher rate than white people. This is about black people being treated more harshly at every level of the legal system no matter their income.
It's looking more likely that the RNC convention might not happen in Charlotte. After the RNC and Trump said that the convention should go forward with no masks or social distancing NC health officials said they would reject the request.
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Really hope it doesn't happen, having people flying in from all over and crowding into a building and then having the virus continue to spread locally after they all leave.
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Really hope it doesn't happen, having people flying in from all over and crowding into a building and then having the virus continue to spread locally after they all leave.
That's an issue. Racism in american is an issue that has been related to material issues from the beginning (it didn't just emerge from the ether, per recent scholarship it was very clearly a negotiated process driven by concerns of wealth and class power). It is exacerbated into our current moment because of the embedding of capitalism into white supremacy.
But going back to my original reply to hunter my point has never been that racism is not a problem in and of itself. My point was that it doesn't seem serious to evaluate the entire scope of the current protest and civil unrest (which for the record i stand 100% in solidarity with) that has sprung up in the wake of George Floyd's death without out considering the extent to which critical levels of unemployment and personal debt combined with declining social mobility which is sure to only be further hastened by COVID have driven unrest much further then it has been in over a generation.
This is not just my projection. I've listened to people on streams like unicorn riot and people of all races and creeds understand the role that the untenability of our current economic moment is playing. It's not some abstract theoretical thing, it's very real.
They are going to have to do the convention in a secluded resort up in the mountains or something with all the protestors that are going to try and show up
That's a pretty good anti-capitalist zinger, but I think it's too important an issue to not stress that these things really are separate (though they feed each other).
The way I see it, they're intertwined more than most liberals want to admit, but less than many leftists want to believe.
Capitalists use propagandist organizations (like Fox News, for example) to stoke the racism of the masses, and then fund their preferred, anti-tax, pro-subsidy candidates to get elected on the backs of that racism, getting them yet more capital with which to repeat the process. And those politicians and their policies further codify and expand that racism's (already gargantuan) role in our society and government. They clearly can and do exist outside one another, but eliminating one would significantly diminish the other (and I think capitalism is far and away the more directly actionable component, since it's hard to impose regulations on the human psyche).
I guess what I'm saying is you're right; it's inarguable that capitalists didn't invent racism—but it's their #1 cash crop.
This is why I'm so excited by the increasing prominence of young socialists of color who can speak directly from experience on both issues, and maybe help rectify this particular shortcoming of the left's.
See, here's the funny (well, "funny") bit. I think there's a strong argument to be made that the modern forms of racism are in fact arguably an invention of capitalism (or at least mercantilism), anti-black racism being so strongly rooted in the shitty-ass ethics people cooked up to justify the European slave trade. But at this point, I feel like it must be regarded as its own, separate thing, an ongoing injustice that propagates itself just fine. Like you said, they reinforce each other - how could they not? - but we absolutely still have to regard them as separate problems to be addressed. Sometimes you can look at fixes for one as fixes for the other, but right now, the specific issue being protested is police brutality - so it's best to look specifically to police brutality. Talking about the broader system of injustices is all well and good when you're talking theory, but people understandably aren't really looking for theory atm.
Ultimately you are correct in regards that yes, they arent literally the same thing
Wow. Just wow. All that bluster and brutality for a dumb photo-op. And that shoot was just Trump holding up a bible before just leaving.
do you not think that there is a descendant of those incentives operating today through things like prison and migrant labour?
This isn't really theory. It's ideas yes but the theory part is much more involved.
Oh, sure. Like I said, they impact each other. But that doesn't mean that racism, as its own thing, doesn't exist separately from capitalism, or that it wouldn't get new hooks into any new system that replaced it if not addressed as its own thing.
From what I can see, the issues these demonstrations are focussed on effect black Americans of all income levels.
The problem is the people in power. If you could wave a wand and change our economic system to socialism, the people in power right now would misuse socialism to keep black people down as effectively as any other country has misused it to keep anyone down. Socialism doesn't stop racist people being racist. Changing our economic system wouldn't redistribute the voting power in this country to prevent so many racists getting elected. It wouldn't empty the courts of all the racist judges. It wouldn't empty police departments of all the racists. It wouldn't change the laws so as to stop black voters being more disenfranchised.
Magic wands aside do you believe that any form of socialism that would get through the current political reality would allow black people an equal and fair share?
You aren't going to see socialism implemented while racism is as widespread and tolerated as it is in the US. Without fixing that, the racists will never allow anything approaching socialism to get implemented. So people hoping to see it implemented need to work to solve those problems first, if you ask me.
I'm just going to say this: ill-timed arguments that either intentionally or unintentionally downplay anti-black racism and how prevalent it is on ALL levels of wealth, from people who have no real connection to the black community in their respective countries, will never go over well.
You also need to understand that "PoC" is not a catch-all and appreciate the specific issues we have.
You also need to understand that "PoC" is not a catch-all and appreciate the specific issues we have.
I want the US to emulate the Nordic model of expansive social safety nets.
Does that make me a 'hardcore capitalist'? Well it makes me a capitalist at the very least!
Discussion in this thread has always been mostly bounded by the framework of what is possible in the current political and economic reality, which has earned a lot of us the name 'neoliberal'.
I don't have anything against idealists, but to expect everyone else in this community thread to adhere to your idealism and then chastise us for not doing so is a little irksome.
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As someone who is lucky to have gotten the education I did to "move up" in class it is infuriating to me when white people use moments like this to interject economic debates into this as if black men of all social classes arent subject to oppression.
Changing to a socialist system overnight wouldnt stop people from crossing the street when they see me in their nice neighborhood. And this isnt even to say that our current broken capitalist system hasnt contributed but it is certainly no longer a primary driver
Changing to a socialist system overnight wouldnt stop people from crossing the street when they see me in their nice neighborhood. And this isnt even to say that our current broken capitalist system hasnt contributed but it is certainly no longer a primary driver
I knew is yesterday that NYT will try to find the best headline possible for Trump in all this.
I wish the looting would stop before the story becomes only about the looting. If obvious this is now organized looting looking at people showing up in cars with bags and even having spotters apparently.
Tear gassed and shot hundreds of protestors with rubber bullets, chased them with horses, smashed foreign reporters and their cameramen with riot shields, gasses the priests of the church, arrived at the church without asking permission from Bishop Budde, appropriated a bible to hold upside down as a prop while looking like a shmuck, waddled back to the White House for some KFC and to post self-congratulatory tweets about his photo op.
Oh and before all of this he pretty much declared war on the voters that elected him into office.
This reminds me /r/socialism's most recent user survey results showed that they're something like 85% White and 90% male. Not even exaggerating.
Just from my own observations, Era's socialist circle seems to be a lot more diverse.
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