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I think it's important to note who COVID-19 has changed material conditions for. The disease is class-agnostic, and in fact struck people of means who could travel first! So it's the perfect storm for material conditions to influence policy.
so should we add cum town to the op now?
i had no idea it was a socialist podcast but they're friends with chapo so they must be
i had no idea it was a socialist podcast but they're friends with chapo so they must be
You, a naive American leftist- maybe we shouldn't support a centrist with a ghastly record (and a bodycount!) in both domestic and foreign policy.
Me, an intelligent liberal Democrat- supporting socialized healthcare, ending American military adventurism, and student loan debt forgiveness is exactly the same as children in cages and opposing a woman's right to make decisions around her own body. You are a Republican!
It appears so. I just do not understand the fascination with means-testing. Unless it's a poison pill meant to guarantee that Americans don't come to demand these benefits permanently?
If the concern is that rich people will get it too, it's a stupid concern. First, rich people are a relative handful of the population. It's not going to bankrupt our treasury to the tune of trillions because a few richies got a thousand bucks extra. Secondly, just tax them back for it latter if that's such a concern, but right now it is imperative that we get money to people who need it and not make it a daunting task with means testing in any way.
But you could be right. Maybe people really do have some kind of irrational phobia of things that poke holes in the current hegemony. Maybe people are willing to possibly cause harm to others for peace of mind in their own ideals.
I hope you guys are well. I am stuck in the woods of Ohio and can't get to France to be with my wife for god knows how long now that the borders are closed. I tried really hard to get out of NY and I managed, but I didn't get out quickly enough to get to France. Really miserable and have been having bad thoughts. Right now I am with my brother in law who lives in a McMansion and extreme parasite vibes are being felt. This place is so weird - truck with a plow, guns, pitbull, a boat of all fucking things. I feel like I'm in a terrible movie. I'm grateful to be here, though.
Someone please recommend me some things to read for these horrible times.
Someone please recommend me some things to read for these horrible times.
I think the primary legitimate concern is that resources are finite (true) and can be more efficiently allocated (also true). The problem is the means testing crowd thinks means testing itself is perfect and frictionless (untrue) or that they can do a good enough job redistributing the benefits to offset the associated overhead with means-testing bureaucracy (historically an issue). If you sometimes despair at how bloated and wasteful America's social welfare system is, its because its built up out of a lot of genuine attempts to "make things more better" but it turned out doing so made everything worse, and fixing it also costs too much so the "reasonable" solution is just to let it sit and fester until a crisis like this one collapses the house of cards.
Stay strong and sane!
Want to read something laugh out loud funny, try some Tom Sharpe, e.g. Wilt. love it.
The response to the crisis has been fascinating in how it has demonstrated our ability to do things people consistently say is too difficult to do is in reality basically just a finger snap away from happening, and all it takes to do it is have the courage to actually do it.
Haymarket Books on Twitter
“For the next two weeks, we're offering ten FREE Ebooks so that you can join us. Please help us spread the word. https://t.co/rYF3PGLsGu”twitter.com
Haymarket hooking people up.
Here's the direct link: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/112-ten-free-ebooks-from-haymarket-books
Thanks for the link. Some interesting titles there.
having gay sex with your dad is socialist, and nick mullen is head of the DSA
People might see Coronavirus as a death knell for Trump due to his incompetence but this opportunity for him is his most dangerous yet when we find ourselves in this situation where socialist methods must be used and his dumbass is in the seat responsible for getting us there.
Ty for this
Haymarket Books on Twitter
“For the next two weeks, we're offering ten FREE Ebooks so that you can join us. Please help us spread the word. https://t.co/rYF3PGLsGu”
Haymarket hooking people up.
Here's the direct link: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/112-ten-free-ebooks-from-haymarket-books
Ty for this
It'll all be very quickly forgotten. I have no illusions about it. ☹️😟😖
I foresee the argument to be "it was an emergency so socialism was okay but now that the emergency has passed we should go back to oppressing people using the burdens debt and rent because financial oppression is good and proper".
The irony that "emergency socialism" did not cause society to collapse and may have saved society will be completely lost on them.
The irony that "emergency socialism" did not cause society to collapse and may have saved society will be completely lost on them.
Not to be morbid, but I simply think there will be too much damage done to society for us to go back to neoliberal late stage capitalism. Too many families burying their loved ones, too many businesses and careers ruined, too many homes lost, too much cultural and psychological trauma. Nobody will forget this. This very well may be the most defining moment of the 21st century.
That isn't a guarantee that what will come after will be better, but I think it will be different.
That isn't a guarantee that what will come after will be better, but I think it will be different.
OP
OP
This country didn't even do anything after Newtown. We always try to revert back to "normalcy". I tend to agree with Woodrow Wilson on this one.
"I have had a great deal more resistance of counsel, of special counsel, when I tried to alter the things that are established than when I tried to do anything else. We call ourselves a liberal nation, whereas, as a matter of fact, we are one of the most conservative nations in the world. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. "
Kind of depends on what changes the rest of the world makes and how the US is forced into that change.
Not a fan of Nick Mullen.
"I have had a great deal more resistance of counsel, of special counsel, when I tried to alter the things that are established than when I tried to do anything else. We call ourselves a liberal nation, whereas, as a matter of fact, we are one of the most conservative nations in the world. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. "
Kind of depends on what changes the rest of the world makes and how the US is forced into that change.
Not a fan of Nick Mullen.
We're talking potentially millions dead though. Conservative estimates say we could be looking at 1-2 million deaths in America and close to 50 million worldwide. That's not counting people who will die of other causes (lack of money/food, unrelated medical issues not getting attention because of overcrowded hospitals, violence and riots, etc.). That's not something you just move on from like a school shooting on the other side of the country.
The Black Death did not bring about the collapse of European feudalism and COVID-19 will not come close to the impact of the Black Death, although I'm a bit out of my element here. Humans are very very good at going back to business-as-usual, one might say its our greatest evolutionary adaptation.
I'm not saying American capitalism will collapse but it's going to be a very different playing field. (Plus the Black Plague gave us the Renaissance and such.)
It wasn't a direct process but some historical sources attribute the drop in agricultural output from feudal systems of land management as one of the forces that allowed for a greater spread of commerce outside Genoa and Venice.
If anything it's going to be the economic ripple effect that will really start getting people agitated. I just don't think enough people are going to die for folks to be universally hurt deep enough to ignore media spin and be out for revenge against this system that kills. (The threshold for that I'm thinking of would be 1 in every 150 people dying; related to that "tribe" number within Dunbar's Number theory.)
In the US, I can realistically see unemployment and severe underemployment getting to the 25% mark—that being about the minimum needed to influence mass change. If those conditions stay that way for a while it should be enough material discomfort to break the seemingly sensible narrative constructs of reality warping mass media messaging and allow alternative media messaging to have its say and affect change for better or worse. As long as people are materially comfortable enough mass media can continue to contain people in the same old cultural bubbles as before.
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I really do hope that Americans can see and wake up from the small-government bullshit the GOP has peddled for 40 years. Not to solely blame Republicans. Clinton had a passed a criminal welfare reform act and Obama basically rewarded Wall Street for the criminality, while tons of Americans lost their homes, only to be gobbled by corporations. The incompetence of the response by Trump was only exacerbated by destroying important federal agencies.
We've hollowed out our institutions so much that Trump's first big meeting on the virus was basically to bring F500 CEOs to the table, corporations with no expertise in pandemics. It's embarrassing. But I don't trust America honestly to wake up sadly. The oligarchs will continue to loot the working class, hollowing out infrastructure and essential services, and so on.
Neoliberalism needs to die.
We've hollowed out our institutions so much that Trump's first big meeting on the virus was basically to bring F500 CEOs to the table, corporations with no expertise in pandemics. It's embarrassing. But I don't trust America honestly to wake up sadly. The oligarchs will continue to loot the working class, hollowing out infrastructure and essential services, and so on.
Neoliberalism needs to die.
We also gotta replace the conservative deficit hawk democrats with some real progressive
I love how every single tweet in his thread got ratioed to hell. Get fucked lol.
And it needs to die fast. We don't have time. The most aggressive Green New Deal variant, whatever it is, is like a decade late already and still counting. M4A will not only save us money, but prevent 65,000+ deaths per year. As boomers age and the climate breaks the hell down in the west, we are going to need some drastic changes and it's going to have to be relatively quick. No wait until the 30s or 40s incrementalist liberal bullshit.
And this was all true before this pandemic. Now it's even more vital to wake the hell up.
I noticed that too. 🤣
Fuck i hate white liberals so damn much.
Yeps.
Sorry, luv. It's reals.
An establishment democrat would use one wish to find out if the wishes actually worked and the results were as described and not some monkey paw abomination.
What an illuminating tweet. Yeah, the problem is democrats just don't want good things. Sure.
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Good point, it's just as likely that they think they want good things but don't know what good things actually are and so end up wanting and doing bad things.
