Joe Biden Love Thread

[elphenor]

didnt you just get abortion rights

I'd be wary of Irish conservatives

[TheBig3]

Originally Posted by jwb

Better how though?

If Manchin remains a Democrat, he adds a number to the majority, and therefore the Democrats get to control committees.

Originally Posted by The Batlord

You know you started this whole series of rants attacking Biden and the Democratic Party but then immediately pivoted to screeds against the voters. If the voters have been made apathetic and nihilistic about the idea that the government, that exists now purely to facilitate capitalism, will ever do anything to help them then perhaps that's not the fault of the voters, slack-jawed though they may be. Perhaps it's the fault of the institution you claim is "vs." them and has worked long and hard to make sure they are apathetic and nihilistic and have no hope.

The Institution has won, and you can't fight back at them with the atrophied methods of civic engagement they've left you with. That would be like using the cap gun your parents gave you for Christmas to rob them at gunpoint.

Yeah, NAFTA caused people to not trust vaccines.

I know asking you people to explain yourselves is a useless endeavor but if you don't mind explaining "secret fascist" or whatever you're calling me, it would help.

The comfort the Liberal Democracy provides gives way to Fascism. Because most basic needs are taken care of, and the tribalism needs to go somewhere. If Europe isn't going to let us World War our way out of this, the general "I don't read books" crowd is going to think we need a civil war because:

• Transwomen are playing sports
• Fauci is trying to microchip us
• The Deep State stopped JFK Jr. from come back from the dead
• 5G
• Trump telling Candice Owens people going to the hospital aren't vaccinated

If I'm wrong about comfort leading to what we have here, I'm willing to listen. But I need to know how a bunch of people in the Rust Belt choose the party of Corporate Tax Breaks over...I don't know, any other candidate.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by TheBig3

IYeah, NAFTA caused people to not trust vaccines.

I'm not sure where you got that, I mean in looking back at historical instances of pandemics people tend to be pretty irresponsible and have little patience for being told to do things. In this instance there's right wing conspiracy theories about masks and vaccines but historically speaking people are being as dumb as they tend to be.

I know asking you people to explain yourselves is a useless endeavor but if you don't mind explaining "secret fascist" or whatever you're calling me, it would help.

If you're just using this post to respond to all of the posts criticizing you then that's kind of schizophrenic cause I never called you cryptofascist. I just said your phrasing of new generations being weak cause they're comfortable while older generations being strong cause they had hardship was a simplistic right wing idea.

I then explained that it was the WW2 generation who gave up their union militancy for a welfare state (private and public) that gave them pensions, minimum wage, legally recognized unions, social security, etc. Meaning that it wasn't the weakness of later generations of workers that gave into comfort but an original sin of a militant working class who capitulated to the false promises of capitalism.

The comfort the Liberal Democracy provides gives way to Fascism. Because most basic needs are taken care of, and the tribalism needs to go somewhere. If Europe isn't going to let us World War our way out of this, the general "I don't read books" crowd is going to think we need a civil war because:

• Transwomen are playing sports
• Fauci is trying to microchip us
• The Deep State stopped JFK Jr. from come back from the dead
• 5G
• Trump telling Candice Owens people going to the hospital aren't vaccinated

This is wrongheaded because the comfort given by liberal democracy was given when WW2 gave America half of the world's wealth and once Europe had been rebuilt after the Marshall Plan and China and Japan became industrial power houses that all undercut America's hegemony and neoliberalism and a falling rate of profit in the 70s brought the agreement between a weakened US labor movement into conflict with the profits of American capital the comforts of liberal capitalist democracy became unsustainable and so the financialization of the 80s and onward tightened the belts of the working class more and more and more as decades went on, stagnation of wages and such, so that basic needs were met ever less and less.

That is what leads to fascism. The upper classes consolidate more and more and the middle class becomes ever more economically tenuous.

If I'm wrong about comfort leading to what we have here, I'm willing to listen. But I need to know how a bunch of people in the Rust Belt choose the party of Corporate Tax Breaks over...I don't know, any other candidate.

Do you think that the rust belt has the same level of comfort as the 50s? There's a reason they call it the rust belt.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

didnt you just get abortion rights

I'd be wary of Irish conservatives

I still don't have abortion rights. **** America

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by elphenor

didnt you just get abortion rights

I'd be wary of Irish conservatives

Yeah the point about that is it was, as most big decisions here are, done by referendum. The government - whoever is in power - have to abide by that. Any of the four parties (three really, see last election when Sinn Fein won but nobody would form a govt with them so we are where we are) would have put that referendum forward based on public opinion and clamour and debate; none of them could refute the results. Not like there where they make a law and that's it. I mean, have you even ever HAD a referendum? Does American politics recognise the term?

This country is completely conservative, with a small c - comes from being so dominated by the Catholic Church for centuries. But we're nowhere near a right-wing event. We just don't give a ****, or those who do are too much in the minority to ever make a political difference. If need be, I could see all Irish parties (even Sinn Fein, the "Republican Party" - that means a different thing here than it does there) coming together in solidarity against fascism.

[The Batlord]

Of course we have referendums. You have to have someone to tell if the ball is out of bounds or not.

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Of course we have referendums*. You have to have someone to tell if the ball is out of bounds or not.

*referenda

And I think that particular ball is well out of bounds by now is it not? Bouncing around somewhere in the car park, I believe.

[Psy-Fi]

Biden signs enormous US military budget into law

[TheBig3]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I'm not sure where you got that, I mean in looking back at historical instances of pandemics people tend to be pretty irresponsible and have little patience for being told to do things. In this instance there's right wing conspiracy theories about masks and vaccines but historically speaking people are being as dumb as they tend to be.



If you're just using this post to respond to all of the posts criticizing you then that's kind of schizophrenic cause I never called you cryptofascist. I just said your phrasing of new generations being weak cause they're comfortable while older generations being strong cause they had hardship was a simplistic right wing idea.

I then explained that it was the WW2 generation who gave up their union militancy for a welfare state (private and public) that gave them pensions, minimum wage, legally recognized unions, social security, etc. Meaning that it wasn't the weakness of later generations of workers that gave into comfort but an original sin of a militant working class who capitulated to the false promises of capitalism.



This is wrongheaded because the comfort given by liberal democracy was given when WW2 gave America half of the world's wealth and once Europe had been rebuilt after the Marshall Plan and China and Japan became industrial power houses that all undercut America's hegemony and neoliberalism and a falling rate of profit in the 70s brought the agreement between a weakened US labor movement into conflict with the profits of American capital the comforts of liberal capitalist democracy became unsustainable and so the financialization of the 80s and onward tightened the belts of the working class more and more and more as decades went on, stagnation of wages and such, so that basic needs were met ever less and less.

That is what leads to fascism. The upper classes consolidate more and more and the middle class becomes ever more economically tenuous.



Do you think that the rust belt has the same level of comfort as the 50s? There's a reason they call it the rust belt.

I'll be dead in my grave before people stop split-quoting. I'm not going to go through all items since the end result is 40 pages worth of responses, but a few corrections:

If you're just using this post to respond to all of the posts criticizing you then that's kind of schizophrenic cause I never called you cryptofascist. I just said your phrasing of new generations being weak cause they're comfortable while older generations being strong cause they had hardship was a simplistic right wing idea.

1. That's fair. I read X responses and just gave my response generally.

2. I'm not calling new generations weak. I'm calling older generations weak. I was born in 1982 and this ride has sucked pretty hard in general. If you were born in 1946 to the early 60's, you've got too comfortable. I assume we agree on that so I'll leave it there. But those people are looking for threats and don't recognize real problems.

I then explained that it was the WW2 generation who gave up their union militancy for a welfare state (private and public) that gave them pensions, minimum wage, legally recognized unions, social security, etc. Meaning that it wasn't the weakness of later generations of workers that gave into comfort but an original sin of a militant working class who capitulated to the false promises of capitalism.

Maybe. But it was less about believing the promise and more about being OK with pulling up the ladder after they'd be given theirs. That and the economies protectionist policies had left the industry pretty bad. The recalls issued on Detroit cars when Japan hit the American market was insane. The whole "lets store Government cheese" in a cave" period was just the death of the New Deal. Something needed to change - not everything, but some stuff wasn't working.

That is what leads to fascism. The upper classes consolidate more and more and the middle class becomes ever more economically tenuous.

Yeah? I don't know where you're getting that from. Germany in WW2 wasn't exactly a bastion of wealth.

Do you think that the rust belt has the same level of comfort as the 50s? There's a reason they call it the rust belt.

No. I don't think they're comfortable at all. But if they'd rather have god and guns than a paycheck, I don't know how we can help them.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by TheBig3

1. That's fair. I read X responses and just gave my response generally.

2. I'm not calling new generations weak. I'm calling older generations weak. I was born in 1982 and this ride has sucked pretty hard in general. If you were born in 1946 to the early 60's, you've got too comfortable. I assume we agree on that so I'll leave it there. But those people are looking for threats and don't recognize real problems.




Maybe. But it was less about believing the promise and more about being OK with pulling up the ladder after they'd be given theirs. That and the economies protectionist policies had left the industry pretty bad. The recalls issued on Detroit cars when Japan hit the American market was insane. The whole "lets store Government cheese" in a cave" period was just the death of the New Deal. Something needed to change - not everything, but some stuff wasn't working.

You're starting the fault with the baby boomers and bitching about how voters won't wake up and that's kinda my issue with your viewpoint. It's not the people within the system who fail to fight, it's the system that frames their worldview.

The Greatest Generation and generations before them who fought the capitalists and their thugs in the streets made possible the concessions of the New Deal and union healthcare and pensions that had been denied them since the start of the industrial revolution. And upon accepting those concessions they gave up their fighting spirit and the capitalists started the clock running on when they would take those concessions back.

You can't even blame them for accepting those concessions cause they allowed for a quality of life their parents could have only dreamt of because the systems they lived under had probably made it unthinkable.

But then their children didn't know the hardships that had driven them to fight and of course they were complacent. It would be absurd to expect a middle class kid in the 60s to have the same mentality as a working class iron worker choking on fumes and living three families to an apartment.

That's why liberal incrementalism makes no sense. Give people just enough to feel comfortable and they won't have any fight in them while the capitalists will still be plotting on just how little they can given to the lower classes while still forestalling labor organizing and violence.

Give me medicare for all and I'll be happy as **** but you're also taking some of the edge off my anger while preserving the capitalist system that waits like a vulture to chip away at the gains I just made. And medicare for all is a "radical" idea in America rather than traditional US incrementalism.

Which is why you need to focus on the larger system of US capitalism itself rather than people stuck in that system for not voting the way you want when most people at this point are just hoping for a little extra to help them live.

Unless you think you can make up for the lack of a powerful labor movement by just protest voting.

Yeah? I don't know where you're getting that from. Germany in WW2 wasn't exactly a bastion of wealth.

I mean I'm not an expert on the Weimar Republic and **** is always complicated, but the idea that Germany was destitute and desperate for any strongman to save it is a myth. By the early 20s the economy was recovering and while the bottom end of farmers and workers were still hard pressed it was probably at least somewhat comparable to the US in the last decade where the middle class are hanging on but still insecure and looking for a simple, emotionally satisfying reason to pin their fears on, be that the Versailles Treaty and the Jews or Mexicans and China.[/quote]

No. I don't think they're comfortable at all. But if they'd rather have god and guns than a paycheck, I don't know how we can help them.

Yeah it's a nearly impossible problem with a solution that may not work but a functioning labor movement is probably the only option.