Laissez-faire Politics Thread - Praxis? I didn't play Deus Ex, sorry.

[Great Rumbler]

Is there a therapist that helps out with political views?

Jordan Peterson

[Himu]

To be honest, I came here initially because watching the presidential debates is causing massive cognitive dissonance.

Here I am, rooting for Sanders -  my guy from 2016 -  who I personally agree with a large amount. And then there's a voice in my head talking about how he's socialist and this will only bring about chaos and gulags because of socialist collectivism.

It sucks and it's very, very confusing. There's clearly a part of me that still agrees with socialism and I was hoping for someone to help me go through my thoughts here to help me understand why I'm so afraid of something I actually agree with.

[Himu]

you really think a democratic socialist is going to put political prisoners in labor camps

No!

I guess it's not so much him, but the movement behind him. Socialism is very en vogue with our age group. So I'm thinking,"what if someone takes advantage of very legitimate socialist views and makes something awful like Castro did with Cuba?"

[Oblivion]

all i've learned from the last few pages is that the re-education camps clearly need new management 

[Himu]

Who's going to tell her the katorga were a holdover from the tsar and the United States has the largest prison population on earth

I already know that. It's disgusting.

[Himu]

Thanks.  You’re good at this.

[BisMarckie]

I am teaching a class in Roman History  of Law next semester and I looking for some different perspectives. I am reading Zosimus‘ Historia Nea  and other shit of course, but what got my attention is Michael Parenti,‘s The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome .

I ordered it on amazon.

[Mandark]

Here I am, rooting for Sanders -  my guy from 2016 -  who I personally agree with a large amount. And then there's a voice in my head talking about how he's socialist and this will only bring about chaos and gulags because of socialist collectivism.

Bernie doesn't even want to get rid of the filibuster.

[BisMarckie]

It can‘t be worse than Marx‘s Ethnological notebooks.

That is like the third time I have brought them up to slam them on the Bore, at least they left an impression I guess. 

[Himu]

Shosta: how to trust people again then

[BisMarckie]

Shosta: how to trust people again then

Join the social democrats and trust them to fuck up.

[Himu]

Surprisingly found a lot of articles on loss of trust in government institutions and the overall loss of political trust in recent years. But also surprisingly a lot of in-depth ways on how I can hopefully gain it back.

https://apolitical.co/solution_article/trust-government-falling-can-stop/

http://theconversation.com/how-to-restore-trust-in-governments-and-institutions-106547

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/trust-trump-america-world/550964/

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/trust/

[Tripon]

https://socialistra.org/

On Friday, July 19th, the Socialist Rifle Association became an official non-profit member of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF conducts expansive industry research, provides grants to colleges for firearms sports, and is the largest firearms trade association in America. The decision to become a member of the NSSF was made with the intent of living up to the SRA's goal of arming and training the working-class for self and community defense. While we understand the NSSF to be a fairly reactionary institution, our hope was to introduce the concept of left wing gun ownership and advocacy to the larger firearms community, especially through participation in events such as SHOT Show. Our announcement of membership in the NSSF was met with broad support from our members, who, like all proponents of the right to self-defense, want to ensure the protection of Americans' second amendment rights.

On Monday, July 22nd, the SRA received an email informing us that our membership in the NSSF had been rescinded and our $200 nonprofit membership dues were refunded. In a followup email, a representative of the organization claimed that the NSSF stands for "free market capitalism" and that a socialist organization being a member of their trade association would be contrary to their "core values". Further, they claimed both publicly and in the followup email that the SRA had joined through their "automated membership system", with the clear insinuation that they had accepted our membership without knowledge of our organization's values and purpose.

First, a point of fact. The SRA joined via the NSSF's online form, however we followed up with both phone and email correspondence to set up our account and spoke to an individual claiming the title of "Manager, Retail and Range Services". While setting up our online account, an NSSF employee even created the temporary password "Socialist1" for us. While the NSSF board may have been ignorant of our membership, their staff was clearly aware and comfortable with socialists joining their organization. The NSSF board appears to have been notified of our membership Monday due to a social media and phone campaign organized by members of the forum "AR15.com". While we don't wish to generalize the opinions of all members of AR15.com, the thread where this campaign was organized contains antisemitic memes, an individual proffering dox on one of the SRA's board members, and at least two death threats. One of the participants in the thread left a message on the NSSF's voicemail and received a response confirming our expulsion.

The decision by the NSSF to rescind its sponsorship of The Socialist Rifle Association follows a flurry of angry forum posts from those opposed to the SRA on issues unrelated to legal gun ownership. We at the SRA are greatly dismayed that the NSSF has allowed a minuscule, albeit vocal minority of supposed guns rights "activists" to dictate their membership policies to them. The SRA not only represents gun owners who align politically to the left, but also minority groups and members of the LGBTQ+ community who feel unwelcome in many circles that claim to support the Second Amendment rights of ALL Americans. The people that make up these circles represent the same voices that seem to have scared the NSSF away from its initial decision to broaden its scope to include a large contingent of gun owners that feel voiceless in regards to mainstream gun politics.

It is worth questioning the NSSF's wisdom in barring socialists from participating in their trade association. Free market capitalism is deeply unpopular – a 2018 Gallup poll found that a majority of millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, with the latter becoming less popular every year. While many of these millennials may define "socialism" as some form of social democratic system, it is undeniable that "free market capitalism" is not a winning message with the soon-to-be majority age demographic in America. If the NSSF wishes to preserve the right to bear arms, they would be well served by casting as wide an ideological net as possible, so as to avoid becoming irrelevant.

There is a misconception among many conservatives that liberalism and socialism are synonymous, and that both necessarily entail the disarming of the populace. But this is not the case. Gun control is a fundamental component of neo-liberal capitalism and its tendency to commodify, infantilize, and enslave working-class people. Socialism, on the other hand, is a philosophy concerned with emancipating working class people and allowing for their greatest development of individual will and expression. And the right to bear arms for self and community defense is a critical component of that mission. It's a common saying on the left that, "If you go far enough left, eventually you get your guns back." Indeed, there is a long tradition in both socialist and left-anarchist theory of supporting the right to bear arms.

"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." – Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital


"Recollect that in arming yourselves, as you are bound to do unless you are willing to be forced into abject slavery, you are safely within the spirit and letter of the law." – Eugene V. Debs, five-time US Presidential Candidate


"The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an 'equalizer.' Egalite implies liberte. And always will." – Edward Abbey, American anarchist author


"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." – George Orwell, author, member of the P.O.U.M. militia in the Spanish Civil War


"Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any moment." – Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party


While conservatives may doubt our conviction, or believe that our support for gun rights is temporary or conditional, we assure you that we are quite sincere. The right of self and community defense is essential, and firearms are the most practical and equalizing tools for securing that right. If the NSSF and other gun organizations are serious about preserving the second amendment, they would do well to set aside their petty partisan instincts and work to build a diverse coalition that protects the right of all working people to defend themselves.

 

[Himu]

I saw that on r/liberalgunowners.

Pathetic.

[OnlyRegret]

this went from debate to intervention real fast
I'm actually impressed

[benjipwns]

For what it's worth you're right to be skeptical and extremely critical of the state and whoever is in it, that's why I don't mind anarchists, they encourage everyone else to maintain a healthy check on state behavior.

FACT CHECK: No, we don't.

[benjipwns]

I admit I only watched the clips everyone is making fun of, but I certainly saw a party desperately in need of some democratic centralism.

[benjipwns]

You couldn't interrupt a six hour Brezhnev speech like that.

[benjipwns]

are all these pages of posts about how Cindi needs to just settle on malleable form of philosophical anarchism, the final radical view from which there is no escape (until one travels to Poland and sees the beautiful whiteness of all the people there)

[El Babua]

The tacit acknowledgment of our fucked up situation by the powers that be combined with our collective will to just sit by and argue over trivial bullshit is why I'm just getting drunk and high while waiting for the other shoe to drop tbh

[Brehvolution]

lol china isn't stealing our jobs. American businesses are taking those jobs from Americans to china and have been for over a decade.

[Crash Dummy]

based cage https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/07/magazine/nicolas-cage-interview.html

Oh, O.K. I thought you were being metaphorical about going on a grail quest. Yeah, if you go to Glastonbury and go to the Chalice Well, there’s a spring that does taste like blood. I guess it’s really because there’s a lot of iron in the water. But legend had it that in that place was a grail chalice, or two cruets rather, one of blood and one of sweat. But that led to there being talk that people had come to Rhode Island, and they were looking for something as well.

[Great Rumbler]

Cage is actually really interesting to listen to:

[nachobro]

https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1159972587834925057

[nachobro]

https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1159973733542629378

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/RJWithOpinions/status/1158263418681528320

This person figured out that capitalism is the current system we have to work with.

 

[Rufus]

When did people start to think that everything's for free under socialism?

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/cordeliers/status/1159054550311100417

This guy is amazing.

[toku]

https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1160418730217758720

 

[toku]

fucking miss lil peep  :'( rip king

https://twitter.com/a_nice_frog/status/1157635474212761601

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[nachobro]

https://twitter.com/splinter_news/status/1161285305057628160

 

[VomKriege]

Roman sources heavily patrician or from the Senate party ?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Water wet ?

[close]

[BisMarckie]

I am teaching a class in Roman History  of Law next semester and I looking for some different perspectives. I am reading Zosimus‘ Historia Nea  and other shit of course, but what got my attention is Michael Parenti,‘s The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome .

I ordered it on amazon.

I flipped through this at a bookstore. I doubt its good from an academic perspective, but i like it  as a historiographical experiment. It's basically attempting to be a proletarian/People's History of Rome, which I wish we had more of. The only thing I've seen in a similar space is Settlers, I guess. The writer noted that most of our primary accounts of the time period are from the patrician class or people who benefited directly from upholding that class, so he tried to reverse-engineer a history from that. I'm not sure if the end conclusion is so perfect (Caesar was Good, Actually) and I can't help but read through the lines to see Parenti's underlying animus (Marxism-Leninism was Good Actually) but I enjoyed what I read as a thought experiment.

I haven’t gotten around to read it yet, but yeah pretty much every account is biased from a Senate perspective. Emperors who worked against the Senate were presented as history’s greatest monsters. Modern research suggests that Caligula, Domitian and other early emperors were probably better rulers than given credit by the senate because they were populists.(in the good sense)

I fully expect Parenti to take that perspective and run with it.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/livkittykat/status/1162898113725521921

[curly]

https://twitter.com/MitchellCares/status/1163131734713458688

lol

[Mandark]

Greenwald's disappointing cause he can actually do good work (or support others doing so) but spends so much time and focus in dumb internet beefs. With Khachiyan, Michael Tracey, etc. that's just water finding its level.

[benjipwns]

His Twitter beefs are like his entire being now, he doesn't produce much himself for The Intercept anymore.

Is there supposed to be some kind of symbolism behind the masks or is it just a random thing?

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1163220028822564864

[VomKriege]

https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1161708111721185281

Resist oppression... NO, NOT LIKE THAT !

[Himu]

I'm on the verge of going socialist again with this Amazon fire shit. I google amazon and filter by news and just get a bunch of amazon.com crap. What a bunch of absolute fuck. These goddamn Brazilians.

[Joe Molotov]

Fred Flintstone was a wage cuck

[team filler]

Fred Flintstone was a wage giant dad

[Tripon]

Fred Flintstone was a wage giant dad

The Flintstones were pro cucking. 

[Oblivion]

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1163112167421468673

maybe people should only listen to greenwald on brazil related issues and nothing else

[benjipwns]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/how-k-pop-is-tempting-young-north-koreans-to-cross-the-line/2019/08/19/0f984654-839f-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html

As a little girl, Ryu Hee-Jin was brought up to perform patriotic songs praising the iron will, courage and compassion of North Korea’s leader at the time, Kim Jong Il.

Then she heard American and South Korean pop music.

“When you listen to North Korean music, you have no emotions,” she said. “But when you listen to American or South Korean music, it literally gives you the chills. The lyrics are so fresh, so relatable. When kids listen to this music, their facial expressions just change.”

Now, there is evidence that South Korean K-pop is playing a similar role in subtly undermining the propaganda of the North Korean regime, with rising numbers of defectors citing music as one factor in their disillusionment with their government, according to Lee Kwang-Baek, president of South Korea’s Unification Media Group (UMG).

The trend, fueled by growing cellphone ownership in North Korea and the country’s still buoyant border trade with China, has provoked a new clampdown by Pyongyang in the past year, according to reports on Daily NK, a defector-led news service with extensive links in the North. That followed Kim Jong Un’s 2018 vow to “crush bourgeois reactionary culture.”

A survey of 200 recent defectors by UMG released in June found that more than 90 percent had watched foreign movies, TV and music in North Korea; three-quarters knew of someone who had been punished as a result; and more than 70 percent said it had become more dangerous to access foreign media since Kim Jong Un took power at the end of 2011.

Ryu is one of many defectors who say K-pop and Western popular music opened their eyes, convincing them that North Korea was not the paradise it was made out to be and that their best prospects lay abroad.

In her bedroom in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Ryu would sometimes stay up all night watching a single music video on repeat — surreptitiously, for fear of the police.

“We were always taught that Americans were wolves and South Koreans were their puppets,” she said, “but when you listen to their art, you’ve just got to acknowledge them.”

She remembers Celine Dion, the British violinist “with the crazy hair,” Nigel Kennedy, and the Irish boy band Westlife, as well as K-pop bands TVXQ, Girls’ Generation and T-Ara.

Born into a musical family, Ryu played the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument similar to a zither, at an arts school in Pyongyang. A spell in the national synchronized swimming team was followed by a job as a waitress in southern Europe. There, she spent evenings in nightclubs, dancing “Gangnam Style” with co-workers and friends from South Korea. In 2015, at the age of 23, she defected to the South.

The risks for viewers are real, with a special unit of the police and security services known as Group 109 in charge of the renewed crackdown. Even minors who are caught can face six months to a year of ideological training in a reeducation camp — unless their parents can bribe their way out — while adults can face a lifetime of hard labor or, for sensitive material, even execution.

It’s not just the melodies and lyrics that prove catchy, it’s also the performers’ clothes and hairstyles.

“The kind of thing I wanted to do was dye my hair and wear miniskirts and jeans,” said Kang Na-ra, 22. “Once I wore jeans to the market and I was told I had to take them off. They were burned in front of my eyes.”

Kang, who had been a singer at an arts high school in Pyongyang, defected in 2014, so “I could express myself freely.” She tried to make it in K-pop but says the singing styles are too different. Now, she has a successful career as a TV personality and an actress, mainly portraying North Koreans in South Korean films and dramas.

Han Song-ee was just 10 years old when she first saw a video of Baby V.O.X performing in a “Unification Concert” in Pyongyang in 2003, to an audience of comically impassive North Korean bigwigs. “At first it was so shocking and weird to see these ‘capitalist vandals,’ but as I listened to their music, I realized it was pretty catchy,” she said.

Soon, she was hooked. Her father became angry with her mother for copying the band’s hairstyle. Later, Han and her friends began to wear the colorful hot pants popularized by South Korea’s Girls’ Generation — but only in their neighborhood, not the city center.

Han defected in 2013 and is now a well-known vlogger in Seoul, where she also appears on radio and television. She says she dreams of North Koreans being able to watch her broadcasts, and of her parents tuning in, “so they can see how free I am.”

Last year, Kim attended a South Korean musical performance in Pyongyang that featured older music divas, male rock musicians and young K-pop acts, including a trendy girl band called Red Velvet. The concert was broadcast in its entirety in the South but only in snippets on news programs in the North.

One woman in her late 20s, who escaped North Korea last year, said video of the concert was shared behind closed doors in her hometown near the Chinese border.

She spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.

“Kim Jong Un apparently clapped and cheered at the performance, but we could only watch smuggled footage of it in hiding because consuming South Korean music was still a crime that could land us in prison,” she said.

After she defected, Ryu said, she learned from a TV documentary that Kim Jong Il, the father of the country’s current leader, was a fan of South Korean cinema and TV shows.

“I was so, so angry,” she said. “We would literally cry when we sang about the hardships of Kim Jong Il’s life. I never imagined he was watching South Korean TV.”

These days, Ryu is studying for a business degree but still dreams of breaking into K-pop or — better yet — Hollywood.

“It’s so incredible how far I have come,” she said. “South Korean music really played a central role in guiding me through this journey.”

The Conquerors of Juche at work:

[OnlyRegret]

geegee geegeee geegee geegeee geegee geegeee geegee geegeee geegee geegeee geegee geegeee
geegee geegeee geegee geegeee geegee Kim is a false god geegeee geegee geegeee geegee geegeee

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164233656799506433

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164234617861398534

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164244110301192192

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164244793892966401

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164247060281004033

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164251782635249664

[close]

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164259400384679936

edit: posted by Esch and critiqued by Vom in latestagecapitalism, thought to check there after I posted, I am truly sorry

[benjipwns]

no no no no go back to the old one it was fine

[VomKriege]

Damn you benji I was about to roast you with that link !

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/IChotiner/status/1164899264213835777

https://twitter.com/n_r_g/status/1164928619841544192

[Crash Dummy]

there's a derrida team at google 

https://twitter.com/tiff_fitzhenry/status/1165443115207057408?s=11

[Rufus]

https://twitter.com/XluvnuX/status/1165499216426352640

https://twitter.com/iknowandcantslp/status/1165604422757625861

 

[Crash Dummy]

https://twitter.com/Tiff_FitzHenry/status/1165443144332263424

 

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/thucydiplease/status/1166517935877132288

[BisMarckie]

https://twitter.com/thucydiplease/status/1166517935877132288

I lived under socialism and there was never enough of anything, but:

Getting care packages from the capitalists west was a good way to make your friends jealous. I got a c 64 and was the most popular kid in town.

It was used and all the games were pirated. I just lied about it being brand new.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/STaylorRayburn/status/1166347828152680449

[curly]

https://twitter.com/buckligerzwerg/status/1166726599171084288

Reminds me of a girl I knew in college who described her brand of feminism as doing whatever was best for her

[BisMarckie]

I read parts of the Parenti book btw.
It‘s basically him presenting the weakness of biased Senate accounts and spending too much time on the historiography. I get that the audience he writes for aren’t necessarily history scholars, but that part drags on for far too long. He is just stating the obvious most of the time and basically regurgitates stuff ‚‘modern’ research has known for over 50 years.A better writer could have presented his thesis in 10 pages instead of like 70.

Brevitas sapientiae anima est

[Crash Dummy]

Reading through this three part series on marxism and modernity by j moufawad paul. it's a fun read if you want some philosophical wall o' text.

Enlightenment, science, sovereign power in three parts.

http://www.abstraktdergi.net/radiating-disaster-triumphant-modernity-and-its-discontents/
http://www.abstraktdergi.net/this-ruthless-criticism-of-all-that-exists-marxism-as-science/
http://www.abstraktdergi.net/the-transplanting-of-heaven-to-earth-below/

thanks for sharing, gonna start reading these over lunch but shosta, lol @ thinking sam harris has seriously read and engaged with kant

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/broderick/status/1167864720826621952