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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
ranma-official

Anonymous asked:

I can understand being terrified to look up non-msm sources on Venezuela. but you can't just believe CNN Breitbart or vice or other mainstream outlets

mutant-aesthetic answered:

“Venezuela no longer has the money to fund its lavish social programs because their oil isn’t worth what it used to be and they have nothing anywhere else” isn’t a terribly controversial take though.

mitigatedchaos

Also, at least one alternate source of someone living there corroborates that the whole country is running out of money. Communists can sometimes have like this whole alternate reality thing going where they are terrified that “oops we fucked up Socialism” is not that uncommon of an outcome and has happened multiple times before.

anaisnein

I don’t want to touch Venezuela specifically bc I don’t know enough about it. 

But I see this broader shorthand argument from anti-socialists a lot, and this seems as good a moment as any to point out that it’s never going to persuade anyone who doesn’t already reflexively oppose socialism, because it’s built on a sort of dishonest gerrymander intended to leverage outgroup homogeneity. 

In order to be like “socialism always screws the pooch!“ you have to bundle a lot of diverse heterogeneous examples together under the “socialism” umbrella, while excluding a lot of others that also look pretty darn socialist yet have not devolved into mass starvation and atrocity. Defining “socialism” as inclusive of peak Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship due to its having a nominally socialist mythos, but exclusive of Scandinavian-style social democracy despite its possessing overt functional and operational socialist features, just seems like you’re playing dodgy semantic games. And it’s not like capitalism has never screwed the pooch. Capitalism isn’t one homogeneous model, either. It too is a cluster with many diverse variations and bastardizations and multiple failure modes that can do and have done terrible large-scale damage. 

At this point, you could get into the sort of atrocity Olympics squabble where you merrily fling body counts at one another that you sourced by cherry-picking the most damning data cuts you could find on the worst historical fuckups you can plausibly ascribe to the other side. But that’s boring, and it doesn’t accomplish anything, because tactically everyone’s metrics in that type of volley are suspect and overall the entire structure of the debate is ultimately ahistorical. Besides which, it’s sidestepping my point, which is that shit is hard and nobody has the one true magical blessed ideology guaranteed proof against catastrophic failure when live human beings actually try to operationalize it. Your opponents are most likely not malevolent exponents of evil in that they do not actually want things to end up with millions dead and everything in shambles,* and you should give them the fundamental benefit of the doubt in that regard, and not just be like “But $YOURIDEOLOGY kills! Look at history! Q.E.D.” 

*Maybe a few extremists on each side really do want that kind of outcome, but fuck those guys, we don’t dignify them by taking them seriously, and we certainly don’t anoint them as the avatars of their entire wings because this is extremely bad for the discourse and also? it empowers the assholes. ffs do not do this.

ranma-official

Unfortunately, people do routinely acknowledge that European democracies have well-working socialist features, and thus paint this notion of Europe as a horrifying, completely failed, starving hellhole full of rabid rape apes that is completely reliant on America for military protection. I think @this-is-cthulhu-privilege made this point, which was parroted by other fascists, and I think that he still owes me an explanation of his picture of horrors of socialist healthcare and proof that people routinely receive death sentences for things that are cured for free in the US and not the other way round, or proof of literal millions of terrorists moving into the UK on a yearly basis (total population of ISIS territories doesn’t exceed 6 million), or an apology i suppose.

mitigatedchaos

Of course, in this case, when saying “Communists sometimes seem to live in an alternate reality”, I’m referring to the kind of people that think the conditions in Venezeula right now are a vile Capitalist lie, and that the conditions in North Korea are a vile Capitalist lie, and before that that the conditions in the Soviet Union and Maoist China were vile Capitalist lies.

The European countries do have slower economies as a result of their socialist-leaning policies, and unemployment issues, which could be solved in part by doing wealth transfers much more intelligently… but we don’t see them undergoing mass famine or on the verge of collapse.  (Also their health services are pretty reasonable in terms of performance/$.)

And I think that this represents not only a quantitative difference but also a qualitative one.  One of these involves expropriating entire industries and purging “counter-revolutionaries”.  The other involves a relatively capitalist economy issuing welfare checks and having labor laws, and having a handful of natural monopolies or natural resources under state control.

Source: mutant-aesthetic politics

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mutant-aesthetic
twitter.com

Julian Assange 🔹 on Twitter

“10/ Here's Singapore's long term prime minister Lee Kuan Yew:”
a-sleepygoldenstorm

What neither side of US politics wants to admit: the promotion of identity politics combined with the declining white super majority has led to turbo charged white identity politics. Since Dems catered for non-white identity politics, Trump and the GOP took hold of white identity politics.  

Most countries that do not have a 70%+ super majority ethnic group have ethnicized electoral politics.

mitigatedchaos

Yes, my fear is that Lee Kuan Yew is right.

Source: a-sleepygoldenstorm politics torches in the night racepol

I actually suspect that the switch to identity politics over class politics may have been based on a growing ineffectiveness of class politics.

“BUT THE POOR!” lost ground as more cached arguments were built up against it, even if it wasn’t entirely justified.

“BUT RACISM!” still had a lot of bite and could circumvent some of those cached arguments.  So, it’s natural to shift to it and build the platform around it.

It had a lot of bite, anyway.

There was always the focus on what was morally right, even in the minds of people who claimed they didn’t believe in morality, over what was effective policy, so now we get a lot of talk about guilt, or about pie in the sky ideas of “dismantling the systems of X oppression requires dismantling capitalism” (and people remember how “we need to dismantle capitalism” went last time), and not so much about “we should distribute multivitamins to the poor.”

I mean, that does sometimes get through, but the zeitgeist doesn’t seem to care about it as much as it cares about language policing and thinks that beneficial policies will just naturally unfold once everyone acknowledges their sin.

politics
sinesalvatorem

Anonymous asked:

It's not how white you are on the outside that counts, but how white you are, in your heart.

sinesalvatorem answered:

Leukemia is not actually a good thing, anon. If your blood is over-saturated with white cells then please seek medical assistance.

mitigatedchaos

I just saw an article last week suggesting that using identity politics in the US was a bad plan because the majority can practice identity politics, too, and the definition of “white” has expanded in the past.

I’m pretty hyped.  What exciting new races or ethnic groups will be considered “white” in the future?  Could Asian-Latin fusion cuisine become the next official white people food?  When will they be issued their official White Man™ polo shirts?

race politics politics maybe a shtpost
bambamramfan
marcusseldon

I said I’d talk about politics less, but I feel like I do need to get this out of my system. 

There’s an idea going around both on my dash, and people I know in person, that the behavior of people on the left is what caused Trump to be elected. Different groups get the blame, whether it is rich white liberals in Silicon Valley, DC, and Hollywood, the campus left, black lives matter, internet SJWs and feminists, mainstream media journalists, late night comedians, or some combination of these, the theory goes that Trump was essentially a white working class middle finger to the condescension, radicalism, and disrespect toward traditional values of members of these various left-wing groups. People who put forward this theory say that to win back Trump voters, the left needs to be kinder, more compassionate, and less radical toward white working class (WWC) culture, values, and way of life. The claim is that if only the left were nicer to WWC people and respected their way of life more, Trump would have never even won a Republican primary, let alone an electoral college majority.

Now, leaving aside whether it would be personally moral and virtuous to be more compassionate and less radical toward the WWC (probably to at least some extent), I want to raise doubts about whether this perspective is actually useful for winning elections and defeating Trumpism.

No doubt many WWC people, and those sympathetic to them, feel condescended to, disrespected, and that their way of life is under attack by the left. There is also no doubt that there have been individuals and groups on the left that have been openly hostile to the WWC way of life, where “white male” is an insult, conservative Christians are publicly degraded and mocked, performative flag-waving nationalism is seen as not just gauche but stupid and hick-ish, and where white rural people are assumed to be personally racist and homophobic.

But, all political movements are going to have their assholes who degrade the other side and openly disrespect them. It’s easy to miss when you largely live in left-wing bubbles online and off, which I imagine is true of most people on my dash, and is certainly true of me, but the right has their own version of this, and it’s popular. There’s a post going around my dash about a condescending line in a Meryl Streep speech, and how this is an example of liberal condescension that created Trump, but I guarantee you that more people listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on the radio every day than saw that Meryl Streep speech. And Limbaugh and Hannity on an almost daily basis disrespect, mock, and condescend to liberal constituencies, values, and ways of life. And guess what, Republicans still won.

People like Limbaugh and Hannity, not to mention Fox News and Breitbart, make their money by inflaming a sense of grievance and resentment of the left among the disproportionately rural, older, religious, and WWC Republican base. These outlets have far more political reach and power than random SJW blogs, the campus left, black lives matter, actors or tech billionaires giving speeches, or even late night comedians. 

In the educated liberal bubbles that I and many people in my online and offline circles reside in, the reverse can seem true. It can seem like left-wing culture is omnipresent and the right is completely stifled by blacks lives matter, SJWs, and late night comedians. But in other circles, which comprise nearly half the country, the reverse is true. 

In many ways, the left is already on net more compassionate to the WWC than the right is to left-wing constituencies. There were countless articles in left-wing outlets talking to Trump voters in order to understand and sympathize with Trump voters. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen an article in a right-wing outlet that went to Harlem, San Francisco, or Ann Arbor, trying to compassionately understand the motivations and lifestyle of people on the other side from their point of view.

So the idea that the left must hold itself to an even higher standard on compassion and  than the right to win elections seems implausible to me (again, leaving aside whether holding ourselves to a higher standard would be more virtuous and moral). 

Even if the left was nicer to the WWC, I don’t see that changing vote patterns, or making the WWC feel any less resentful and under attack. Suppose 90% of the left-wing people who are being blamed for the rise of Trumpism became nicer. The Limbaughs and Hannitys and Breitbarts of the world, and the millions who follow them, wouldn’t take a step back and say “you know, maybe the left doesn’t hate me or my way of life”. No. They would continue to cherry pick the worst examples, as they already do, from a smaller set of mean liberals in order to inflame cultural resentment and grievance among their followers, and they would also continue to see things that I think aren’t mean and are true that the left says, like that black people have a rougher relationship with the police than other groups, as offensive and attacking their dignity and way of life.

I’m not saying there’s no way to convince some of these people over to the left. But, pointing the finger at the meaner (and numerically smaller) strains of the left and thinking that if only for them being condescending and disrespectful we would be in a golden age of liberal dominance in politics doesn’t strike me as true or productive.

bambamramfan

So I get your frustration, and a lot of what you say is correct. It’s far too tempting to say “Hey leftists-who-disagree-with-me, YOU’RE the reason our enemy won!” without sufficient proof. That’s just opportunism.

And we should treat the WWC (and all of the WC) in this country with compassion, and we should help their material needs, regardless of whether it wins us elections. Trying to come up with political justifications for basic human decency is a bit creepy.

(Plus, not to mention a Far Right resurgence is occurring across the entire developed world. It seems very petty to blame that on a few annoying American liberals. There are deeper trends here.)

I feel you here.

However, there is some countervailing evidence here.

1. If we’re not being condescending to them, we should listen to what our enemies are saying. And in between accusations of corruption and defending the free market, Republican voters seem really, really upset about Political Correctness. Obsessed with it, and explicitly saying they support idiots like Trump just to defy Political Correctness.

You can dismiss what they say and come up with other reasons they voted the way they did (they just want to be racist, or economic anxiety) but then that is being patronizing because you aren’t really listening anymore. If you listen, Political Correctness is a huge deal to them, and teasing out the source of that sounds like a worthwhile endeavor.

2. A lot of this is just projection from some left-of-center allies about the illiberal tactics used by establishment social justice, such as extreme arrogance, dismissiveness, shallow analysis, using institutional power to punish dissenters, and a bunch of other mindkilling, groupthink tactics. Said allies (or, former allies) really hated those tactics, and so rejoice in blaming them for the defeat of the mainstream SJ candidate.

Projection is not a good source of analysis of course, and so they might be wrong that this really caused Trump’s victory. But said establishment really should pay attention to how many enemies it has, even “on its own side.” Their tactics are really ticking off their friends, causing dissension every step away. SJ can try to ignore this dissent and pain as long as they wield the hammer, but don’t be surprised when their enemies leap at any weakness as a chance to earn some rhetorical points.

Social justice has enraged and alienated conservatives, libertarians, moderates, socialists, communists, and artsy anarchists. At some point it will have no friends left except the business-friendly / socially liberal wing of a city-based party.

3. Something happened between 2012 and 2016. There’s some reason Republicans started really getting into unbridled rudeness and race-baiting. You can’t even wholly blame Trump for finally opening the floodgates, he tried in 2012. What the hell happened to make voters so much more racist, or at least racist-tolerant? It’s not like there are a lot more immigrants around or other normal causes of racial strife (let alone to explain the tolerance of crude sexual behavior.)

And to the unaided eye, one of the real changes of the past 4 years was the political visibility of intolerant liberalism. So it’s at least worth considering “the thing that changed in the last 4 years, is somewhat responsible for the rather different outcome this time around.”

mitigatedchaos

Regarding #1: If a 100% black company is okay, but a 100% white company “isn’t diverse enough”, this implies whites are inherently worth less than PoC. If women have equal beneficial capabilities to men, but men are uniquely violent and oppressive, this implies women are better than men.

I think people can feel this even if they don’t consciously realize it.

Also, as one of those alienated types, those tactics you mention make SJ a liability to me in many ways.

Source: marcusseldon politics gender politics race politics trump
collapsedsquid
mitigatedchaos

Hell, why don’t we re-enact Sherman’s march and raze the US south, the southern US is full of shitty people with shitty politics.  Maybe burn down all Mormon churches and compounds, they got both nasty shit going on and nasty politics.

I get you wanna piss your fuckin pants because it’s those dirty furriners doing those dirty furriner crimes, but horrible shit didn’t start with immigration and it won’t end when it’s cut off.

Things being bad is not a reason to make them worse.  (This part of the problem with arguments about alcohol/drugs, too.)

We have no obligation to import these people.  We do not have an obligation to import people that will make the country worse.  We don’t have an obligation to tolerate criminal acts favored by their cultures, or tear our national social cohesion to shreds to tolerate those acts.

So some fringe groups of Mormons are still polygamists and practice shady things with young brides and that sort of thing.  Oh look, Westerners doing a bad thing.  Better import enough people that have similar practices so that it becomes normalized and gains political power!  That’ll sure improve things!  Yay justice!

but horrible shit didn’t start with immigration and it won’t end when it’s cut off.

How much FGM was happening in the US before it was imported?  It won’t stop now if immigration is shut off only because we won’t literally kick all those who practice it out of the country.

Kicking out only individuals who are actually convicted of it is the individualist approach.  And it makes sense.  The preconditions for citizenship included not bringing foreign criminal/terrorist activity to this country.  Those preconditions were violated.

In light of that, how does removing citizenship not make sense?

And I don’t really think the problem we have is “We don’t execute criminals grotesquely enough.“  I think there’s a reason why we don’t do that sort of thing anymore.  If you wanted to heighten investigation, that could make sense, but public executions don’t really help anyone.

It apparently cost $500,000 to prosecute three guys, and the number of crimes committed is far worse.

However, “diversity” ideology covered up that the crimes were even happening in the first place.  Admitting that some cultures practice this bullsht more than others was “racist”.  I mean it’s just economics, right?  Cultural differences beyond food aren’t real, right?

What is your plan to force assimilation on this issue?

Maybe we don’t have to publicly execute them.  Maybe we can just ordinarily execute them and make sure it gets in the news where their buddies we read it.  

Maybe I don’t even want to go that far.  Maybe I just want to throw the Overton Window far enough to the right that Cultural Antirealism will die and Left/Libs will at least start admitting that there is a problem and we can get a gentler solution that actually works.

uncharitable politics
bambamramfan
Jon Stewart, John Oliver…mostly enact the pure arrogance of the liberal intellectual elite: “Parodying Trump is at best a distraction from his real politics; at worst it converts the whole of politics into a gag. The process has nothing to do with the performers or the writers or their choices. Trump built his candidacy on performing as a comic heel—that has been his pop culture persona for decades. It is simply not possible to parody effectively a man who is a conscious self-parody, and who has become president of the United States on the basis of that performance.”
Zizek citing Stephen Marche
(via slavoj–zizek)
Source: slavoj--zizek politics trump

Anonymous asked:

Tbh I really like your politics but find your writing style and incessant self-meming insufferable.

The memeing (#augmented reality break, #chronofelony, #the year is, etc) serves several purposes…

  1. Provide a break from the politics for people that do like it (which is some of them - the guy tagged in the last post about a children’s rhyme on the cybersecurity of cybernetic augmentations almost immediately liked it)
  2. Lower the tone of the blog from Serious Politics into something more playful (and more closely matching my actual energy/focus/seriousness levels)
  3. Obscure my race and sex, which both constitute potential Discourse Attack Surfaces
  4. Fuck over certain kinds of blog attacks by pre-establishing a range for spontaneous tone-shifting.  Various bad-faith social attacks do not deserve a serious response, but regular counter-attacks are too much effort, too, and silence isn’t always appropriate.  The meme persona is an option for twisting and distorting these attacks into something that their authors did not intend and against which they do not have pre-existing defenses.  (Some people put warding symbols on their blogs for this instead.)  

As for the writing style, it is what it is, you either read it or you don’t.

If you only want the actual serious stuff, I recommend the #flagpost and #policy tags.

anons asks politics
punished-cel
rainy-days-are-over rainy-days-are-over

the politics of any country would be vastly improved if politicians were forced to commit seppuku in shame when they fuck up

mitigatedchaos

The politics of any country would be greatly improved if the politicians had such a sense of shame when they fucked up that they committed seppuku on their own.

But if they had shame, would they still be politicians?

Source: rainy-days-end-is-nigh politics
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