Is this where the West is heading? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15186868
ckaihatsu wrote:
This definitely sounds like scapegoating and demonizing.



It's a valid question.

The answer is obvious, so why the whine? It's because you like the music, even when you know the words are full of it.

Google cyberwar, sport.
#15186879
This is pretty weird shit, and I agree with the cynics in the thread mostly, but that's about it, I found one thing to comment on though.

late wrote:Chinese and Russian propagandists are selling doom and gloom. Ask yourself, would you prefer living there?


I've considered living in Russia, and have lived in China. I don't know much about Russia, but hell, in China, I had it pretty good. And in general, life is much more interesting in China.

As an American, I honestly prefer to live in America, because I speak the language perfectly, and know the scene better, but in some ways, I prefer to live in China. And, America is the one that is full of shit, more often, to be frank about it.
#15186880
Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't think the politics of this group is that relevant to my point. I think the video shows what happens when the hyper-sensitive PC culture is taken to an extreme.



So you have 'cultural' issues with a group that you don't even identify with -- ?

Your concern here is about someone else's political culture?


Unthinking Majority wrote:
Most of these young people at the conference seem like very compassionate and nice people. However when you come up with new social customs you have to figure out a way for them to work in a social system. Everyone declaring "he/him" before speaking assumes people are going to remember everyone's preference. Seems more reasonable for people who aren't trans to not declare this, far easier just to assume a guy who looks like a guy is a he/him unless informed otherwise.



I guess it's all related to the transgenderism politics thing, which is certainly harmless enough. You seem surprised that a political organization would go out of its way to make certain *accommodations* for a historically disempowered group / demographic, instead of just doing things the conventionally 'easy' way.
#15186881
late wrote:
Chinese and Russian propagandists are selling doom and gloom. Ask yourself, would you prefer living there?



ckaihatsu wrote:
This definitely sounds like scapegoating and demonizing.



late wrote:
It's a valid question.

The answer is obvious, so why the whine? It's because you like the music, even when you know the words are full of it.

Google cyberwar, sport.



Alleged non-Western political 'propaganda' is 'cyberwar', according to you?

Do you *approve* of the Democrats scapegoating other countries -- ? Doesn't this smack of infantile 'playground politics' (my term) -- ?
#15186883
ckaihatsu wrote:Your concern here is about someone else's political culture?


It's a valid concern. We used to ignore fringe right-conspiracy nuts. Now we have to take them seriously because Trump. What we are seeing in this video is the other side of that same looney coin.

Earlier I basically said, it's ok to ignore these people, because they won't attain any sort of influence. However, I could be dead wrong, since many people said the same of MAGA types some 5-6 years ago. We were dead wrong about that. :hmm:
#15186885
I don't think you all are wrong to bring up Nietzsche here. To me the DSA PC stuff seems like Christian morality of pity for the poor and weak to the absolute extreme. And taken to its logical conclusion, that means pity for extreme cringe and time-wasting procedural nonsense. A socialism that only has Christian slave morality, and nothing of a will to actual power, will find itself in a dead end like this. It is a politics more about catering to the sensitivities and guilt of elite privileged college students than actually achieving anything whatsoever for the working class. People who actually have to work for a living don't have the time or patience to qualify every single statement to consider how it might offend 100 different "identities" / mental illnesses in a room of 100 people.
#15186886
Rancid wrote:Earlier I basically said, it's ok to ignore these people, because they won't attain any sort of influence. However, I could be dead wrong, since many people said the same of MAGA types some 5-6 years ago. We were dead wrong about that.


Its not the size of the social phenomenon that matters, its whether there exist checks to it spreading and taking over. Consider a group of liberals in a room, and one of them starts the conversation by saying "everyone say your pronouns." What is the chance that any of them will object that this is a waste of time / unnecessary to respect trans rights? You would pretty much have to be a MAGA asshole to object. Therefore there exists no check in the liberal-sphere on excessive privilege checking etc. Nothing to stop it from spreading. It was the same with QAnon-conspiracy on the right several years ago. In my view this DSA video will absolutely be the future of liberal "socialism" in the coming years.
#15186887
Noumenon wrote:
Its not the size of the social phenomenon that matters, its whether there exist checks to it spreading and taking over. Consider a group of liberals in a room, and one of them starts the conversation by saying "everyone say your pronouns." What is the chance that any of them will object that this is a waste of time / unnecessary to respect trans rights? You would pretty much have to be a MAGA asshole to object. Therefore there exists no check in the liberal-sphere on excessive privilege checking etc. Nothing to stop it from spreading. It was the same with QAnon-conspiracy on the right several years ago. In my view this DSA video will absolutely be the future of liberal "socialism" in the coming years.


hummm, fair point. Something to think about.
#15186890
ckaihatsu wrote:
Alleged non-Western political 'propaganda' is 'cyberwar', according to you?

Do you *approve* of the Democrats scapegoating other countries -- ? Doesn't this smack of infantile 'playground politics' (my term) -- ?



Ain't alleged, sport. There is an annual cyberdefense competition now, where countries send their best to compete against Russian style cyberattacks. Give it a rest.

You're changing the subject.
#15186891
Noumenon wrote:
To me the DSA PC stuff seems like Christian morality of pity for the poor and weak to the absolute extreme.



Have you ever considered joining the 20th Century? I know it's the 21st, but you have to learn to walk before you can run. Or hobble..
#15186892
Rancid wrote:It's a valid concern. We used to ignore fringe right-conspiracy nuts. Now we have to take them seriously because Trump. What we are seeing in this video is the other side of that same looney coin.

Earlier I basically said, it's ok to ignore these people, because they won't attain any sort of influence. However, I could be dead wrong, since many people said the same of MAGA types some 5-6 years ago. We were dead wrong about that. :hmm:

Yeah, I'm with you.

I can't stand the woke bullshit, to again, be frank about it.

The stage performers seemed fairly normal. The main host, I could feel a sense of sympathy for her, although she was also participating.

It was of course an edited clip, but some stupid shit on display there.

Honestly, they are demeaning the term 'socialist'.

Imagine if Marx was there (they had their 'international' conventions), he'd probably tell them all to shut the fuck up and quit bitching, as there are important matters to be discussed.

This bullshit is polluting the society, as much as the rightwing bullshit. (Rightwing, for lack of a better term.)

It isn't a dualistic thing. There isn't really 'right' and 'left', the loonies have their camps, and this is a loony camp.

Many things do have dualism, but politics isn't really so much one of them, it is more diverse than that, but of course in America we are trained to think of politics as a team sport, between two opposing sides.

Politics is more like ice cream. It isn't like chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream are the only flavors, and it would be erroneous to consider chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream as opposing sides of the same coin.

But, we are certainly trained to consider politics in that way.
#15186897
late wrote:China is changing, and lots of Americans have left, and for good reason.

I didn't make it back because of Covid.

I was visiting America in January 2020, mainly to attain a new work visa for China.

Been here ever since.

I have lived in China and traveled in China.

It is an exciting place, with a lot of stuff going on, and cool people all around.

Mostly, people are people, and wherever you go, there is not a tremendous amount of variation, except for local scenes and customs and stuff.

America is a more fucked up place than China, in many ways. China isn't paradise, either. But, it is a cool place, in which the vast majority of people are really just on about going and living their daily lives.

America is a war mongering society, which is very punitive, in terms of rules and laws and fines and imprisonment. A lot of the bullshit in America wouldn't fly in China. The work culture in America is pretty awful.

American exceptionalism is the harp you are harping on. It is a mythology.
#15186901
late wrote:Have you ever considered joining the 20th Century? I know it's the 21st, but you have to learn to walk before you can run. Or hobble..


"Hobble"? That sounds like some disabled-phobic language there. And did you just assume that running is superior to walking? What about folks who are triggered by the sound of feet clapping too hard against the ground?
#15186902
Unthinking Majority wrote:
I don't think the politics of this group is that relevant to my point. I think the video shows what happens when the hyper-sensitive PC culture is taken to an extreme.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Your concern here is about someone else's political culture?



Rancid wrote:
It's a valid concern. We used to ignore fringe right-conspiracy nuts. Now we have to take them seriously because Trump. What we are seeing in this video is the other side of that same looney coin.



Incredible. You're really comparing a violent *attempted coup* / domestic-terrorism, to the internal political culture of a *left wing* group.

Just because people can watch the video of the DSA convention doesn't mean that anyone / everyone automatically has a valid *interest* in that internal culture, regarding the organization's own internal politics.


Rancid wrote:
Earlier I basically said, it's ok to ignore these people, because they won't attain any sort of influence. However, I could be dead wrong, since many people said the same of MAGA types some 5-6 years ago. We were dead wrong about that. :hmm:



Sure, but it wasn't just the fascists themselves -- the 'deep state' readily accommodated their antics:



[T]his [199 minutes] was the length of time between his initial request to top military command for the deployment of National Guard troops on January 6, 2021 and its final approval.



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/0 ... s-m06.html
#15186904
Crantag wrote:
American exceptionalism is the harp you are harping on.



Nope, I have been arguing against that for half a century (Among other things, I was a Nam protester).

"More than a dozen academics, NGO workers and media professionals CNN spoke to, who in pre-Covid times regularly traveled to China, said they were unwilling to do this once the pandemic restrictions lifted, over fears for their personal safety. Several in the international business community said they would significantly modify their behavior while outside China to avoid attracting the ire of authorities in the country, where they need to do business.
The dramatic detention of a handful of foreigners in recent years has instilled a deep fear in some people, especially those with politically adjacent occupations. As President Xi breeds a culture of nationalism and forges increasingly hostile relations with Western governments, some fear that if a diplomatic spat between their government and Beijing occurred while they were in China they could become a target."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/china/china-travel-foreigners-arbitrary-detention-hnk-dst-intl/index.html

I have seen similar from several other sources. It is, in fact, screamingly obvious.
#15186905
Noumenon wrote:
"Hobble"? That sounds like some disabled-phobic language there. And did you just assume that running is superior to walking? What about folks who are triggered by the sound of feet clapping too hard against the ground?



hob·ble
/ˈhäbəl/
Learn to pronounce
verb
verb: hobble; 3rd person present: hobbles; past tense: hobbled; past participle: hobbled; gerund or present participle: hobbling

1.
walk in an awkward way, typically because of pain from an injury.

The point is... we have learned a crapload since the 1800s. Your thinking is over a century past it's shelf life.
#15186907
ckaihatsu wrote:
Alleged non-Western political 'propaganda' is 'cyberwar', according to you?

Do you *approve* of the Democrats scapegoating other countries -- ? Doesn't this smack of infantile 'playground politics' (my term) -- ?



late wrote:
Ain't alleged, sport. There is an annual cyberdefense competition now, where countries send their best to compete against Russian style cyberattacks. Give it a rest.

You're changing the subject.



Okay, so alleged nationalist propaganda = cyberwar.

Yeah, whatever. Enjoy that.
#15186909
Crantag wrote:
Many things do have dualism, but politics isn't really so much one of them, it is more diverse than that, but of course in America we are trained to think of politics as a team sport, between two opposing sides.



And yet, there really *are* two opposing sides of material interests in society, also known as 'class'.


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

Spoiler: show
Image



Here it is by societal magnitude:


History, Macro-Micro -- simplified

Spoiler: show
Image
#15186911
late wrote:hob·ble
/ˈhäbəl/
Learn to pronounce
verb
verb: hobble; 3rd person present: hobbles; past tense: hobbled; past participle: hobbled; gerund or present participle: hobbling

1.
walk in an awkward way, typically because of pain from an injury.

The point is... we have learned a crapload since the 1800s. Your thinking is over a century past it's shelf life.


And weighted down by excessive pity and lack of concern for attaining power, we sure have been hobbling our way through the 21st century :)

My point is not that we should have no concern for the less fortunate. I'm not that hardcore of a Nietzschean. My point is that there is a tradeoff between slave morality and attaining power. There exists some point where excessive moralizing gets in the way of actually accomplishing anything. And that includes achieving anything substantial to actually help the less fortunate. It's a paradox that we have yet to really come to grips with.
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