***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[elpablo21]

 

[elpablo21]

 

[Methodical Management]

A preemptive decapitation which, by consistent application of siege mentality 2A logic, would’ve been fully justified because Rittenhouse was carrying an assault rife.

First off, if you see white supremacy as something, that didn’t originate out of 17th century trans Atlantic capital’s need for portable and highly exploitable labor, where did white supremacy come from? It seems somewhat like a strong school board meeting vibe to be opposed to the 1619 Project’s thesis. (And no I don’t actually think you have anything in common with opponents of the anti CRT opponents of the 1619 project. As it’s unfair to liken people with a very similar left wing views to the rightwing’s foot soldiers.

This is a stunningly bad faith argument in service to an insulting false equivalence - and is especially absurd in that you fancy it in service to unity.

First of all, you know full well that racism, as a general concept, didn't originate in the 17th century and long predates the modern American conceptualization of "White Supremacism." When the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, Germans weren't even considered "White."
It is not a flaw in the 1619 project that its scope is limited to American slavery - as that is its explicit purpose. You're being obscenely disingenuous in attempting to twist this focus to imply that anyone who doesn't fully accept that Class Rules Everything Around Me is, in defiance of all common sense, a Karen.

That you would even stoop this low is galling, especially given that you, as someone who has repeatedly expressed pride in the study of world history, have no excuse to suggest that White Supremacism was created in whole cloth to serve "17th century trans-Atlantic capital," as though this occurred without precedent or ideological underpinning.

Even if we limit our focus to the Americas, you'll recall that the Valladolid debate occurred in 1550, and invoked Aristotle's concept of "natural slavery," written in the 5th century.

Let's not ignore that the 17th century American "labor shortage" was in no small part prompted by genocide so incomprehensibly massive that it produced global cooling - an inverse decimation that did not reduce the continental population by a tenth, but to a tenth.

I sincerely hope you don't plan to sit here and tell me that hatred is merely incidental to genocide.


If you truly believe that all such inhuman cruelty is strategically deployed in service to sheer greed, I suppose I ought to feel thankful that your relative proximity to genocide permits such a perspective.


Similarly, if it is your inclination to argue that patriarchy, which preceded the invention of currency and existed in early agrarian societies (at least some of which were organized as collectives with no evidence of private property rights), was ultimately driven by proto-capitalist forces then your reflex action to advance class-primacy only proves my point.


I merely pointed out that class reductionists are not the only ones who can craft an historical argument for the precedence of one particular form of oppression - note that I did not endorse any of these arguments, because 1) it is folly to delve back to the earliest instances of human intergroup aggression in effort to divine a single motivation 2) even if we could, this information would be utterly useless, as it does not create a valid "order of operations" for unpacking and rectifying societal injustice.


As you've acknowledged, ending classism will not, in and of itself, wholly eliminate any form of oppression aside from classism.

Thus, the class primacy argument is essentially a vanity project to justify what is, ultimately, a self-centered approach to social justice.


You may think it's useful to make such an assertion to forge common cause, but you then risk lecturing people whose experiences with oppression are, in some ways, fundamentally different from yours that you nonetheless understand the true nature of their oppression better than they, and it just so happens that your total liberation takes precedence and is a necessary first step in securing theirs.


We've had this discussion before. I've really no interest in doing so again. Everything I stated at the time still applies.

It is exhausting to be part of a coalition whose adhesion is secured through unswerving deference to White Fragility, where mollifying "economic anxiety" is paramount and the central pitch too often amounts to: if we achieve the mythical class consciousness whose absence deprives some straight, White, cisgender Christian men of the lone injustice they do face, surely social justice will trickle down like a mighty stream for everyone else. It is exhausting to deal with line-jumping dilettantes who demand that their own liberation be given precedence and their feelings be spared, lest they exercise their privilege to disengage.

I submit to you the possibility that the position of "class primacy" functions as identity politics for cishet White men, conveniently rendering their lone problem as "universal" and everyone else's as mere "special interests."

It may strike you as a natural conclusion to view capitalism as the root of all evil, but you may want to consider the possibility that this is less the result of objectivity than subjectivity. It is natural for you to arrive at this conclusion because it best aligns with your perspective and direct lived experience.



If you don't think that the histrionics over portraying people as "irredeemably racist" is evocative of the CRT backlash, that is your personal opinion. However, I don't believe that just because someone calls themselves an "ally" and votes the same way in an election ought to render them immune from criticism.

Who's expected to make the most sacrifices in service to unity? The desire to open the tent to White moderates should never come at the dignity of those who are foundational to the movement itself. You don't tell people who pulled the very possibility of American democracy from the fire, who overcame voter intimidation and suppression, many of whom stood in line for hours at overcrowded polling places, "could you do it again, but this time maybe smile more? You're kind of scaring the guy in the Let's Go Brandon t-shirt, who I suspect has very legitimate grievances with Nancy Pelosi."

Time and time again, Democrats overextend to win over White moderates at the cost of delivering for those who actually put them in office. It has not been a particularly successful strategy. Maybe you think the problem is that we just haven't tried hard enough.

When you talk about accountability for white supremacists, you have to know that under our current system, Donald Trump, the Murdochs, the Kochs, Mark Zuckerberg and other members of the racism hall of fame won’t pay a price.

I worry that this accountability will be collective retribution against poor and working class whites with plenty of collateral damage against non white workers and liberal and apolitical white workers as well.

What do you think "accountability" means in this context?

When Dr. King famously wrote, "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Was this, in your opinion, "bad praxis?"

From my perspective, it is no less relevant today as it was in 1963.


A White moderate need not hold people of color in conscious contempt to be a willing accomplice to and beneficiary of White Supremacy.

Again, many of the benefits of White privilege are social and psychological. If anything, the fear of stigma has proven itself a powerful motivator, and I refuse to consider its honest use "off limits" or impolitic.

If we disagree on this point, so be it, but I will never prioritize White comfort ahead of BIPOC safety.
That is hierarchy, not unity.

 

[elpablo21]

 

[WASHED KING]

What concerns me is I’m possibly going to be teaching in VA soon.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Centrist gonna centrist

The compromise It went from negotiating all drugs, big tax increases for the wealthy, and we will give you the SALT deduction increase

To a few dozen drugs, moderate tax increases, and a partial SALT deduction increase

To no drugs, small tax increases, smaller spending package and partial SALT deduction increase

To a handful of drugs, smaller spending package, and I larger SALT expansion than originally planned

****ing hate these people

 

[RustyShackleford]

'We have to do a fact check on the Christopher Columbus story"

 

[mplsdunk]

Voted for rent control in St. Paul to watch all the people tweak out protecting land lords.

 

[dreamer23]

headed to vote after work. Here in Texas we have just a handful of state props but lot's of school board seats...I'll be damned if every 1 of the people said something about no CRT and mask mandates. Bout to write in some people I guess...

headed to vote after work. Here in Texas we have just a handful of state props but lot's of school board seats...I'll be damned if every 1 of the people said something about no CRT and mask mandates. Bout to write in some people I guess...

Damn these new voting stations you can't write in somebody...i did get to skip over the school board people though..

They gave me a piece of paper that I had to insert into the machine...put my code in then vote...bring the paper to a monitered booth and insert it into the machine..no more dials

 

[Mark Antony]

Loudoun county has been consistently one of the best counties for education in the entire US, they'd be fools themselves to start bending to fools and lowering their ranking.

Matter of fact now I think about it, that's precisely why the GOP is using them a lot for this bull****.

 

[noskey]

Wonder how much ****ery we're gonna see in VA tonight. Ready for some hissyfits

 

[gry60]

'We have to do a fact check on the Christopher Columbus story"

I caught that too.

 

[rexanglorum]

A preemptive decapitation which, by consistent application of siege mentality 2A logic, would’ve been fully justified because Rittenhouse was carrying an assault rife.


This is a stunningly bad faith argument in service to an insulting false equivalence - and is especially absurd in that you fancy it in service to unity.

First of all, you know full well that racism, as a general concept, didn't originate in the 17th century and long predates the modern American conceptualization of "White Supremacism." When the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, Germans weren't even considered "White."
It is not a flaw in the 1619 project that its scope is limited to American slavery - as that is its explicit purpose. You're being obscenely disingenuous in attempting to twist this focus to imply that anyone who doesn't fully accept that Class Rules Everything Around Me is, in defiance of all common sense, a Karen.

That you would even stoop this low is galling, especially given that you, as someone who has repeatedly expressed pride in the study of world history, have no excuse to suggest that White Supremacism was created in whole cloth to serve "17th century trans-Atlantic capital," as though this occurred without precedent or ideological underpinning.

Even if we limit our focus to the Americas, you'll recall that the Valladolid debate occurred in 1550, and invoked Aristotle's concept of "natural slavery," written in the 5th century.

Let's not ignore that the 17th century American "labor shortage" was in no small part prompted by genocide so incomprehensibly massive that it produced global cooling - an inverse decimation that did not reduce the continental population by a tenth, but to a tenth.

I sincerely hope you don't plan to sit here and tell me that hatred is merely incidental to genocide.


If you truly believe that all such inhuman cruelty is strategically deployed in service to sheer greed, I suppose I ought to feel thankful that your relative proximity to genocide permits such a perspective.


Similarly, if it is your inclination to argue that patriarchy, which preceded the invention of currency and existed in early agrarian societies (at least some of which were organized as collectives with no evidence of private property rights), was ultimately driven by proto-capitalist forces then your reflex action to advance class-primacy only proves my point.


I merely pointed out that class reductionists are not the only ones who can craft an historical argument for the precedence of one particular form of oppression - note that I did not endorse any of these arguments, because 1) it is folly to delve back to the earliest instances of human intergroup aggression in effort to divine a single motivation 2) even if we could, this information would be utterly useless, as it does not create a valid "order of operations" for unpacking and rectifying societal injustice.


As you've acknowledged, ending classism will not, in and of itself, wholly eliminate any form of oppression aside from classism.

Thus, the class primacy argument is essentially a vanity project to justify what is, ultimately, a self-centered approach to social justice.


You may think it's useful to make such an assertion to forge common cause, but you then risk lecturing people whose experiences with oppression are, in some ways, fundamentally different from yours that you nonetheless understand the true nature of their oppression better than they, and it just so happens that your total liberation takes precedence and is a necessary first step in securing theirs.


We've had this discussion before. I've really no interest in doing so again. Everything I stated at the time still applies.




I submit to you the possibility that the position of "class primacy" functions as identity politics for cishet White men, conveniently rendering their lone problem as "universal" and everyone else's as mere "special interests."

It may strike you as a natural conclusion to view capitalism as the root of all evil, but you may want to consider the possibility that this is less the result of objectivity than subjectivity. It is natural for you to arrive at this conclusion because it best aligns with your perspective and direct lived experience.



If you don't think that the histrionics over portraying people as "irredeemably racist" is evocative of the CRT backlash, that is your personal opinion. However, I don't believe that just because someone calls themselves an "ally" and votes the same way in an election ought to render them immune from criticism.

Who's expected to make the most sacrifices in service to unity? The desire to open the tent to White moderates should never come at the dignity of those who are foundational to the movement itself. You don't tell people who pulled the very possibility of American democracy from the fire, who overcame voter intimidation and suppression, many of whom stood in line for hours at overcrowded polling places, "could you do it again, but this time maybe smile more? You're kind of scaring the guy in the Let's Go Brandon t-shirt, who I suspect has very legitimate grievances with Nancy Pelosi."

Time and time again, Democrats overextend to win over White moderates at the cost of delivering for those who actually put them in office. It has not been a particularly successful strategy. Maybe you think the problem is that we just haven't tried hard enough.



What do you think "accountability" means in this context?

When Dr. King famously wrote, "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Was this, in your opinion, "bad praxis?"

From my perspective, it is no less relevant today as it was in 1963.


A White moderate need not hold people of color in conscious contempt to be a willing accomplice to and beneficiary of White Supremacy.

Again, many of the benefits of White privilege are social and psychological. If anything, the fear of stigma has proven itself a powerful motivator, and I refuse to consider its honest use "off limits" or impolitic.

If we disagree on this point, so be it, but I will never prioritize White comfort ahead of BIPOC safety.
That is hierarchy, not unity.

Sure, Meth, we absolutely live in a world where the Democratic Party has used seizing the means of production to appeal to well off cishet white men in the suburbs.

White moderates love Biden’s agenda of total state ownership of the means of production and they ignore women and BIPOC who humbly have asked for mild liberalization to allow for agricultural co-ops but me and my fellow whites males are like “no, our comfort requires total state ownership of all sectors, now remove your bodies from the sacred halls of the American Politburo.”

The white moderate-red alliance has gone too far.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Well this sucks

 

[elpablo21]

Peeping Wasserman's page. Yeah not looking good

 

[noskey]

Cool. Cool cool cool. This is fine. Totally not putting VA's future election security and fairness on life support... super cool.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Peeping Wasserman's page. Yeah not looking good

He just called it for Youngkin

 

[Mark Antony]

Whiteness wins again.

 

[aepps20]

Not surprised at all. All Republicans ever need are soundbites to win. CRT and dudes don't even know what that means. Tom's record as a governor did him in

 

[yasuke.]

Coming back from a small hiatus from the thread, but do y’all think this is one of those bell weather type races moving forward? The ridiculous moral panic around CRT is infuriating but predictable at this point

 

[elpablo21]

He just called it for Youngkin

Welp



Welp

 

[Methodical Management]

He just called it for Youngkin

If only McAuliffe had done more to appeal to moderates.

 

[aepps20]

I don't look at this as a bellwether but this is why it is so important for Dems to run better candidates. We need our folks to vote but they won't if the candidate isn't solid.

 

[RustyShackleford]

This is extremely bad for the Democratic Party, but to be honest I don't know what takeaways there are from tonight we already didn't know.

It is a horrible political environment for the Party right now. Pessimistic electorate from economic conditions. Low approval rating for Biden. Cultural politics wedge issue. Leak candidate

Building back Biden's popularity is probably the most important thing for 2022, on top of running solid candidates. But Sinema and Manchin are dead set on not letting that happen.

 

[RustyShackleford]

If only McAuliffe had done more to appeal to moderates.

Don't worry, I'm sure the usual suspects are in the lab cooking up a banger of a hot take.