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

[shosta]

Classical Marxism is unblemished, no complaints if OR reads Lenin's Imperialism like Kara made me do

[benjipwns]

Read Lenin, not Stalin. Why would you want to read Stalin? Even Stalinists have never read Stalin.

[shosta]

You're the guy who said that out of "the big 5", Stalin was "the best writer"

[OnlyRegret]

I also bought the Parenti book I read, I intend to try and get other people to read it. Plant a seed in some minds.
Now that's praxis baby 

[benjipwns]

It's like with a President, most everything a President says when they're President, SOTU, speeches, etc. is mostly garbage because they aren't truly writing it and the audience is quite different. It's like with Trump's Twitter or his campaign rallies versus his big speeches as PRESIDENT. Stalin lost his romantic side and wrote bureaucratic justifications for bureaucracy. You can read that kind of crap in any MPA program.

[BisMarckie]

I also bought the Parenti book I read, I intend to try and get other people to read it. Plant a seed in some minds.
Now that's praxis baby 

Have you read Adorno? It‘s some relatively light reading, but not as populist and easily debunked as Parenti.

[OnlyRegret]

Thanks, I'll be sure to keep that in mind.
Although I don't plan to read tons, I've got unproductive pasttimes to numb the pandemic panic with.

[Crash Dummy]

did you guys start the german idealism reading group thing btw?

[BisMarckie]

did you guys start the german idealism reading group thing btw?

Yes, it’s the reading part that is kinda stopping me right now, 

[OnlyRegret]

 

https://twitter.com/BriteRedOctober/status/1239657436140777473

https://twitter.com/faizashaheen/status/1239545623814254592

[OnlyRegret]

https://policytensor.com/2020/03/13/notes-on-the-myth-of-working-class-racism-2/

[Rufus]

https://twitter.com/faizashaheen/status/1239545623814254592

The foundations of society are repressed so that they stay in place.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, there are a lot more of them.

[close]

[jakefromstatefarm]

As liberty can never subsist without equality, nor equality be long preserved without an agrarian law, or something like it; so when men's riches are become immeasurably or surprizingly great, a people, who regard their own security, ought to make a strict enquiry how they come by them, and oblige them to take down their own size, for fear of terrifying the community, or mastering it. In every country, and under every government, particular men may be too rich.
...
But, will some say, is it a crime to be rich? Yes, certainly, at the publick expense, or to the danger of the publick. A man may be too rich for a subject; even the revenues of kings may be too large. It is one of the effects of arbitrary power, that the prince has too much, and the people too little; and such inequality may be the cause too of arbitrary power. It is as astonishing as it is melancholy, to travel through a whole country, as one may through many in Europe, grasping under endless imposts, groaning under dragoons and poverty, and all to make a wanton and luxurious court, filled for the most with the worst and vilest of all men. Good God! What hard-heartedness and barbarity, to starve perhaps half a province, to make a gay garden! And yet sometimes even this gross wickedness is called publick spirit, because forsooth a few workmen and labourers are maintained out of the bread and the blood of half a million.

[Joe Molotov]

Locking this thread as politics are no longer laissez or faire.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1240628868966502400

[Great Rumbler]

The Star Citizen of TV evangelists.

[toku]

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/483528-coronavirus-world-capitalism-barbarism/

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/TheSocietyDude/status/1240732358506164225

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/DavidAgStone/status/1240878744203476992

[toku]

daddy joe being radicalized, you love to see it:

https://twitter.com/spaceprole/status/1241059322177695746

[OnlyRegret]

[curly]

Massive Mike Davis interview about coronavirus, lots of good global analysis and historical info:

https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/mike-davis-on-coronavirus-politics/

[jakefromstatefarm]

anyone know what book he mentions as the ‘best book on the history of the spd’ or whatever? listened to it earlier, forgot the title and dont feel like combing through 2 hours of podcast

[OnlyRegret]

[OnlyRegret]

Cheer up, I bring tidings from Lenin.
Social distance, recover, and take care of yourselves.

[OnlyRegret]

Okay sorry, one more for the time being cuz I finally found out why people consider troyskyism a meme

[benjipwns]

far left professor does not cover Judeo-Christian foundations of America at all, instead spends weeks claiming that many of the Founding Founders were radical liberals, has wasted class time to childishly mock President Washington

it's only like a week, not "weeks"

[shosta]

someone called you far left and childish

[benjipwns]

at a prior school this one professor got an evaluation that graded him a 1.0 and simply said "spreads Marxist propaganda"

dude was basically like a John McCain circa 2000/Colin Powell type Republican

and the class was about the election process

he called it the most thought-provoking evaluation from a student he had ever received

[OnlyRegret]

dox

Well doxmachine, did you let a bit too much slip or is it falsified numbers?

[OnlyRegret]

the goods
I shall count on these for hopeful fortitude

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/RentStrike2020/status/1242310331201810432

[team filler]

[benjipwns]

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1242636826864574464

Subway developing a class consciousness? 

[benjipwns]

It's a conflict between different factions of capital, not a proletarian consciousness arising from the big bourgeoisie

Britney Spears?

[Crash Dummy]

It's a conflict between different factions of capital, not a proletarian consciousness arising from the big bourgeoisie

is this the sublated individual?

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/Eater/status/1242926479228485632

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1242636826864574464

Subway developing a class consciousness? 

https://twitter.com/Carrion_Crawl/status/1242878882195243009

 

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1243219538562482177

 

[Rufus]

Everyone knows the best possible perspectives ignore time.

[Great Rumbler]

Rudy's tweet is already outdated, by the way, since we're now up to 1,200 corona deaths.

[Mandark]

Every day someone has tweeted a version of that: "We're really panicking about something that's only killed X people?"

I bet if you curated them it would be a great demonstration of the concept of exponential growth.

[team filler]

socialism for viruses and rugged individualism for the hosts 

[OnlyRegret]

Every day someone has tweeted a version of that: "We're really panicking about something that's only killed X people?"

I bet if you curated them it would be a great demonstration of the concept of exponential growth.

Here is one point in the chain

https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1243212428613226502

[Mandark]

Every day someone has tweeted a version of that: "We're really panicking about something that's only killed X people?"

I bet if you curated them it would be a great demonstration of the concept of exponential growth.

Turns out you can do it just with Bill Mitchell's feed:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1234535839251734528
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1234861140590637059
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1234941633516494858
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1236979909035261953
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1237311169196625920
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1238083177635348482
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1238807094347923459
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1239257391385976832
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1239432471684558850
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1239933092149813250
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1240301428284981251

[close]

He stops referencing the running total at that point, though mentions daily numbers after that.

[OnlyRegret]

gazing too much at Bill's tweeter is gazing into the void
stay safe

[shosta]

this is too awesome

[Great Rumbler]

Cons crying crocodile tears and hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over "suicides" due to an economic are disgusting, because I guarantee they didn't give one single damn about mental health issues before all this started up.

[Mandark]

Cons crying crocodile tears and hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over "suicides" due to an economic are disgusting, because I guarantee they didn't give one single damn about mental health issues before all this started up.

Not true!

Look at the three days following any mass shooting.

[OnlyRegret]

Cons crying crocodile tears and hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over "suicides" due to an economic are disgusting, because I guarantee they didn't give one single damn about mental health issues before all this started up.

Not true!

Look at the three days following any mass shooting.

On one caveat, white shooter.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/hannxbaI/status/1242889858659627013

[OnlyRegret]

Answer peeps

https://twitter.com/liz_franczak/status/1243619427502850048

[OnlyRegret]

He did a sum again

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1243630448888164353

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/lvl29mage/status/1243465588028002304

[team filler]

[shosta]

https://monthlyreview.org/2020/03/27/covid-19-and-circuits-of-capital/

The failure to prepare for and react to the outbreak did not just start in December when countries around the world failed to respond once COVID-19 spilled out of Wuhan. In the United States, for instance, it did not start when Donald Trump dismantled his national security team’s pandemic preparation team or left seven hundred CDC positions unfilled.9 Nor did it start when feds failed to act on the results of a 2017 pandemic simulation showing the country was unprepared.10 Nor when, as stated in a Reuters headline, the United States “axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak,” although missing the early direct contact from a U.S. expert on the ground in China certainly weakened the U.S. response. Nor did it start with the unfortunate decision not to use the already available test kits provided by the World Health Organization. Together, the delays in early information and total miss in testing will undoubtedly be responsible for many, probably thousands, of lost lives.11

The failures were actually programmed decades ago as the shared commons of public health were simultaneously neglected and monetized.12 A country captured by a regimen of individualized, just-in-time epidemiology—an utter contradiction—with barely enough hospital beds and equipment for normal operations, is by definition unable to marshal the resources necessary to pursue a China brand of suppression.

Monthly Review back at it again

[shosta]

AOC breaks with Bernie on how to lead the left

After her victory in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez encouraged progressives to follow in her footsteps and run for Congress with the backing of the left-wing group Justice Democrats, even if it meant taking on powerful incumbents. Sixteen months later, the Missouri primary isn’t the only one Ocasio-Cortez is steering clear of.

Of the half-dozen incumbent primary challengers Justice Democrats is backing this cycle, Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed just two. Neither was a particularly risky move: Both candidates — Jessica Cisneros in Texas and Marie Newman in Illinois — were taking on conservative Democrats who oppose abortion rights and later earned the support of several prominent national Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez’s reluctance marks a break with the outsider tactics of the activist left, represented by groups like Justice Democrats. This election cycle, the organization is trying to boot not just conservative Democrats but also some liberal Democrats and to replace them with members who are more left-wing. In other words, to replicate what it pulled off against Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018 by recruiting Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez’s shift coincides with turnover among top aides in her congressional office — replacing some outspoken radicals with more traditional political professionals — along with a broader reckoning on the left on how to expand Sanders’ coalition after his failure to significantly do so in the presidential primary. Some progressives have questioned whether Sanders should have softened his anti-establishment rhetoric and tried to build bridges with mainstream Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 rather than betting big on turning out disaffected and first-time voters.

Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement moves are not a fluke but part of a larger change over the past several months. After her disruptive, burn-it-down early months in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez, who colleagues say is often conflict-averse in person, has increasingly been trying to work more within the system. She is building coalitions with fellow Democratic members and picking her fights more selectively.

The changes have divided her supporters, with some lamenting she's been co-opted in short order by the system — and others asserting she's offering the left a more viable path toward sustained power.

In February, she dubbed Pelosi the “mama bear of the Democratic Party.”

when socialism gets old

[team filler]

 

[benjipwns]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/

Originalism comes in several varieties (baroque debates about key theoretical ideas rage among its proponents), but their common core is the view that constitutional meaning was fixed at the time of the Constitution’s enactment. This approach served legal conservatives well in the hostile environment in which originalism was first developed, and for some time afterward.

But originalism has now outlived its utility, and has become an obstacle to the development of a robust, substantively conservative approach to constitutional law and interpretation. Such an approach—one might call it “common-good constitutionalism”—should be based on the principles that government helps direct persons, associations, and society generally toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate. In this time of global pandemic, the need for such an approach is all the greater, as it has become clear that a just governing order must have ample power to cope with large-scale crises of public health and well-being—reading “health” in many senses, not only literal and physical but also metaphorical and social.

Assured of this, conservatives ought to turn their attention to developing new and more robust alternatives to both originalism and left-liberal constitutionalism. It is now possible to imagine a substantive moral constitutionalism that, although not enslaved to the original meaning of the Constitution, is also liberated from the left-liberals’ overarching sacramental narrative, the relentless expansion of individualistic autonomy. Alternatively, in a formulation I prefer, one can imagine an illiberal legalism that is not “conservative” at all, insofar as standard conservatism is content to play defensively within the procedural rules of the liberal order.

This approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers; respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of government and society; and a candid willingness to “legislate morality”—indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority. Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and well-ordered society.

Common-good constitutionalism is not legal positivism, meaning that it is not tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of the legislators who created them. Instead it draws upon an immemorial tradition that includes, in addition to positive law, sources such as the ius gentium—the law of nations or the “general law” common to all civilized legal systems—and principles of objective natural morality, including legal morality in the sense used by the American legal theorist Lon Fuller: the inner logic that the activity of law should follow in order to function well as law.

Common-good constitutionalism is also not legal liberalism or libertarianism. Its main aim is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power (an incoherent goal in any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well.

Constraints on power are good only derivatively, insofar as they contribute to the common good; the emphasis should not be on liberty as an abstract object of quasi-religious devotion, but on particular human liberties whose protection is a duty of justice or prudence on the part of the ruler.

Finally, unlike legal liberalism, common-good constitutionalism does not suffer from a horror of political domination and hierarchy, because it sees that law is parental, a wise teacher and an inculcator of good habits. Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them—perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

This is not the occasion to offer a bill of particulars about how constitutional law might change under this approach, but a few broad strokes can be sketched. The Court’s jurisprudence on free speech, abortion, sexual liberties, and related matters will prove vulnerable under a regime of common-good constitutionalism. The claim, from the notorious joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that each individual may “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” should be not only rejected but stamped as abominable, beyond the realm of the acceptable forever after. So too should the libertarian assumptions central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology—that government is forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech, that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,”  and so on—fall under the ax. Libertarian conceptions of property rights and economic rights will also have to go, insofar as they bar the state from enforcing duties of community and solidarity in the use and distribution of resources.

As for the structure and distribution of authority within government, common-good constitutionalism will favor a powerful presidency ruling over a powerful bureaucracy, the latter acting through principles of administrative law’s inner morality with a view to promoting solidarity and subsidiarity. The bureaucracy will be seen not as an enemy, but as the strong hand of legitimate rule.

Elaborating on the common-good principle that no constitutional right to refuse vaccination exists, constitutional law will define in broad terms the authority of the state to protect the public’s health and well-being, protecting the weak from pandemics and scourges of many kinds—biological, social, and economic—even when doing so requires overriding the selfish claims of individuals to private “rights.” Thus the state will enjoy authority to curb the social and economic pretensions of the urban-gentry liberals who so often place their own satisfactions (financial and sexual) and the good of their class or social milieu above the common good.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh