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2020 Democratic Presidential Primary | OT | Hickenlooper makes it to the debate
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It really isn't for any feasible political outcome. The problem with Israel isn't the one government, all of its governments are just a product of the state and its history of legitimization.
There were times where that was true, but it simply isn't the case in 2019.
This country was built on the backs of slaves and its founders claimed this land by nearly eradicating its aboriginal inhabitants; the descendants of said founders have yet to make amends with the descendants of the people this country's founders oppressed for their own benefit.
Currently, there are more than 3000 cities with lead poisoning toxicity worse than Flint, MI. It is an environmental catastrophe that has thrust our most vulnerable citizens into 3rd world conditions, where they do not have fair access to one of the most basic biological necessities: clean water.
We Americans do not get to sit on our high horses and talk about how much better we are than the USSR. Not when we ignore the moral imperative taking care of our own children's most basic needs. There are things we can be praised for, but overall, I'd say this country is absolute basura.
Yeah. There was this interesting tabloid war in 2015-2016 with Politico being "anti Bernie" and The Hill being very "pro Bernie".
Saying "but the USSR was more trash" doesn't support what you literally just said which was that the USA in 2019 is not trash. Because the USA (and for that matter my own country, the UK) in the year 2019 is fucking trash.
Under communism, everyone will be provided with good arguments so they won't fall below the intellectual poverty line.
Nothing I want to respond to here, I just wanted to quote it in case someone didn't read it the first time.
Assigning moral values to historical states for its own sake is pointless masturbatory antiquarianism. When judging the past the goal should be to inform us of how to act in the future.
Amen. The idea that the availability of goods and services is some kind of ultimate validation for a nation like ours that is so badly broken is just, whew, man.
"Are you able to produce/procure enough food for your people?" is a very basic "can you meet this bar for being a decent state" metric they were failing. Availability of food is one of the most necessary things your country needs to be doing, and they weren't doing it. This is not to say that the US is or was perfect, but that metric is one of the most basic ones of all.
The assertion of the worth of any metric is obviously a normative value judgement, you aren't going to get past that sticking point not matter how basic you claim it is.
The British state was better at feeding the Highlanders than the weird quasi state/stateless societies that existed before it began to control the region in 1746, but I'd hesitate to say that it was better for the Highlanders.
The issue isn't the statement "is food actually good." That's an absurd strawman of the point that I was quite direct in making. It's honestly not even pithy.
Again the question is if availability of food is sufficient to override other metrics. If you can address this feel free to speak on my specific example, or the example of many other colonial states. Ireland was very good at producing food during the potato famine for an additional example.
Capitalism is very good at making lots of food. I doubt anyone would deny that.
That's a meaningless metric, maybe worse than meaningless. I mean, the US produces more than enough food domestically to feed its entire population. Why the fuck are there tens of millions of Americans who are food-insecure, then?
What does it say about us that we are a country who can easily produce enough food to feed everyone, and yet we do not? brainchild is right, the US is trash. We need major change, no more slow incrementalism or even backsliding.
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"Is 'is food actually good' actually good" feels like it should also be a separate thread
And this one, also a basic necessity that the government should make sure is being met, is one that the US currently fails to meet, which isn't any worse than not being able to provide food for your country. How is this not trash but the USSR was?
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They can both be trash but your argument was literally "the USSR can't be trash because the US is trash"
If you have moved to "they're both trash" great we won
We have programs designed to address this. (School Lunch, food subsidies, etc.) Yes, they aren't effective enough and people still fall through the cracks. This does not require revolution. You can iterate on this stuff, we've been doing it for a long time and will continue to do so.
And doing so is possible because we have enough food/wealth/etc. to redistribute. You can't redistribute food so that there's a baseline amount for everyone if not enough food exists to cover everyone in the first place.
No it doesn't and it's frankly irrelevant. A nation-wide policy change affects the environment far more than somebody choosing to use something or not. You know this.
It's just a bad criticism and everybody knows this.
Again obviously not the issue. "Is food a sufficient good to be taken as more important in itself than all other possible goods" is the question. No one in this thread is doubting if food is good.
I know you're smart enough to get what I'm saying.
I have no idea, it just sounded like you were criticizing whoever was advocating for climate change things, but doing so from a private jet.
I apologize if I misunderstood.
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I know you're smart enough to get what I'm saying but you seem to keep deliberately ignoring it!
chris hooks
cd_hooks
petkanas was wendy davis' communications person in 2014. at a bar in dallas during the convention he told me took the job for the money and couldnt wait to get back to DC.
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I was specifically targeting the source providing the silly line of attack/journalist treating this as a newsworthy attack. It's a fundamental misread of the issue from someone who probably thinks the people who care are the people who buy "carbon offsets" on their plane tickets.
I guess I am too dumb.
What are you saying besides strawmaning the argument? Unless its complaining about people talking about it. If it's that, then yeah I'm ignoring it. I tend to not find much value in people just saying don't talk about something without giving a reason not to talk about it.
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I'm not saying don't talk about it I'm saying Food is not a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary so stop shitting up the thread
I'm not understanding why you think continuing with a line of argumentation is shitting up the thread, but arguing with someone about it in the first place isn't. Like it or not you engaged with the original premise.
It's not like I came into this thread because I wanted a nice discussion on the famine.
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Comparisons are bad will never not be a stupid argument. Comparisons are at the basis of all inductive reasoning. One's ability to go from emperical matter-of-fact to some other statement is based totally upon comparison.
Comparisons are bad when they are done to totally drown out anyone saying anything else, not when they simply exist.
Comparisons are bad when they are done to totally drown out anyone saying anything else, not when they simply exist.
Thats not whats happening here?
Kirblar called the Soviet Union trash, someone else called the US trash, Kirblar said no because " literally unable to keep food on store shelves" isnt a problem on the US. People disagreed.
Its not like someone went "WHAT ABOUT THE US" when Kirblar criticized the Soviet Union. I think that no one here is denying that the Soviet Union was a failed state riddled with fundamental problems. The argument at hand was "ok and how many of those problems does the United States also share" Its not an attempt to deny.
Are these people in the thread? Or is your assertion that the fact that one person was overtly being a tankie several months ago in a different thread means that people here are secretly of the inner persuasion that the USSR did no wrong?
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All that link shows is that the mods don't know what the fuck historical revisionism is. What a weird thing to list as the ban reason.
Totally not like we have evidence of Russian interference and the Russians are actively dismantling democracies around the world through divide and conquer.
Nope it's just us neoliberals afraid of a Bernie presidency!
Screaming "whataboutism!!!" is a really convenient way to dodge having to have any amount of self reflexivity.
I'm glad we're on the same page.
Also it's too bad that comparing two things is banned for being a secret Russian psy-op technique, because if a global juggernaut imposing its will on other countries through force rankles you, boy do I have bad news about America.
I'm glad we're on the same page.
Also it's too bad that comparing two things is banned for being a secret Russian psy-op technique, because if a global juggernaut imposing its will on other countries through force rankles you, boy do I have bad news about America.
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The issue is that given the presence of people on the forum who literally hold those types of views (most recent flashpoint on this: Venezuela where "things are fine, western media lies, Maduro's last elections are legitimate" line of argument came up), when these subjects come up, being explicit and not deflecting is helpful because some people very much are in the "I'm going to argue what would need to be true in order to do X" mindset. (Fork's response clarifying was much appreciated.)
Going from Russia did something, tojustifying acting like the people you're talking to at the moment are Russian Bots is quite a massive leap.
It's also ad hominem that shuts down all discussion.
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