The Good Post Gallery

[Marokai Backbeat]

The tangent Vosem is taking this thread on is the perfect example of what is wrong with the Republican Party right now. 

I have no problem with people taking conservative stances on issues, but recently it appears conservatism is supposed to be some sort of lifestyle where you take conservative stances on everything.  They invent a "conservative side" to every fact whose author might have voted Democrat at one point in his life.

There is no reason to debate Vosem on the "issue" of the morality of caps on campaign fundraising because it is not an issue.  There is no right or wrong side.  There is the fact that the campaign fundraising system is broken due to corporate spending and SuperPAC influence.  There is no opposite side. 

On campaign financing, like on all the subjects, the Republican vs. Democratic debate should be on how best to fix these loopholes. 

But there are no "hows" to compare.  The problem with the Republican Party is that they've turned politics into a series of Yes or No questions.  There's no option A or option B.   That's where things went south for me in my ability to support the party.   

On Obamacare, the debate was never "which plan is best suited to give our populous universal health care coverage?"  The debate was "do you believe the populous has a right to universal health care coverage?" That's a ridiculous question; a question where I'm forced to say yes because no is such a stupid response and therefore support the Democrats not because I believe in their plan but because it's the only plan.

Yeah, that's my moderate rant.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm pretty sure this has already been posted here (and very deservedly so, I must add).

It is certainly one of the best summations of the American Right at this point in time, and one of the biggest reasons our political system is hopelessly f***ed.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Generalization aside, it's unfortunately very true.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't see how anyone who calls him/herself left-wing can support reactionary, neoliberal forces who want to re-centralize control of the country with the wealthy elite and foreign corporations instead of Chavez. Yeah, he's not perfect on civil liberties and human rights, but he's hardly the first and he won't be the last Latin American president who isn't. You need to remember that the people that are working against him have been trying to delegitimize him and his supporters since he first came to power, up to and including literally overthrowing him in a military coup at one point. It's not like he's some murderous dictator; at worst there's a small amount of election fraud (but he still has the support of the majority of the Venezuelan people) and some press restrictions (on, let's remember, a faction that led an armed military coup against him after he was twice democratically elected by a wide margin).

If the neoliberal opposition ever came to power, there is absolutely no question that they would be just as bad or worse when it comes to using the government to silence and oppress Chavez and his supporters. Their history of opposition to him proves as much. Their first two attempts to remove him from power were anti-democratic and done outside legitimate means. First there was the 2002 military coup, which resulted in the forces that took over abolishing the constitution and immediately adopting totalitarian control of the country, leading to massive protests that forced them to allow Chavez back to power. Then in 2003-2004 there was a "general strike" at the state oil company, not of workers, but of the management, in an attempt to sabotage an industry that is crucial to the Venezuelan economy and weaken Chavez's position in the process. This extra-legal, anti-democratic attempt to remove Chavez failed as well. Only then, on their third try, did the rich elite turn to democratic means, a recall referendum that they lost overwhelmingly.

If you want a real example of political conflict between the 1% and the 99%, there is none greater than the fight that is going on in Venezuela. On the one hand, you have a neo-imperialist upper elite that has held a stranglehold on the country's economy for decades, profiting off the sale of the country's resources to the west while the majority of the country toiled in endless poverty. On the other you have Chavez and his supporters, mostly the poor and racial/indigenous minorities who for hundreds of years have had little to no say in how their country is governed. Is Chavez perfect? No. Have his policies fixed all the problems of social and economic inequality that have plagued the country since its inception? No. Would I prefer that he have greater respect for civil liberties? Yes. But at the end of the day, the choice is not between Chavez and some hypothetical perfect Third Way left-winger. It's between Chavez and the champions of an autocratic wealthy elite that has controlled the country for most its history.

I'll end by recounting what former Brazilian president Lula da Silva, a leader who I think all on the left and center-left can admire and support with few reservations, said in his endorsement of Chavez's re-election:

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[Marokai Backbeat]

Take heed. This is what tenbatsu for decades of profligacy looks like.

Only neoliberalism can save Greece now.

At first I thought this was a sarcastic joke, but then I remembered you're the guy who actually unironically refers to himself as a neoliberal. Please take note of a few things:

1. "Neoliberalism" carries very negative connotations; no serious politician or organization (outside of a couple of DC think-tanks in the early 1980's) has ever referred to themselves as a neoliberal. Its only used in political discouse to deride one's opponents.

2. Neoliberalism isn't really a political philosophy. It's used to describe the ideology behind internationally-imposed austerity programs, budget cuts, and trade liberalization measures. The term originated to describe the "Washington Consensus" implemented throughout the Americas by the IMF and IADB in the aftermath of the Latin American debt crisis. The strict mandates were done because it was the only way international banks would feel secure enough to get their money back from these short-term emergency loans coordinated by the IMF. Even at it's root neoliberalism has nothing to do with promoting economic growth, it's just a way to force a country to cut back on spending enough that international lenders didn't have to face a default. The other enforced reforms which sought to deregulate and liberalize the "recipient" nation's economy were at best misguided efforts to promote long-term economic growth to even out the nation's economy by making up for the fact that the immediate economic "readjustment" would be disasterous. Even then, it hurt more than it helped and plummetted many nations into intense socioeconomic instability.

3.It's worth pointing out that the only nation in South America to make it through the Washington Consensus mostly unscathed was Chile, because their dictator forced the reforms through at gunpoint, and they got an early enough start on liberalization so the IMF was never able to Chile to sell off the extremely lucurative government-owned copper mines. Colombia also made it through mostly okay thanks to the tons of cocaine money constantly entering their economy as well as the constant blank checks sent from the US to help Colombia fight the spread of communism and such. Besides that, it was disasterous.

4. This social and economic unrest is BECAUSE of neoliberalism. Greece doesn't have an oppressive dictator and moneymaking nationalized industries like Chile did, and Greece doesn't have a superpower sugardaddy and a very profitable black market export like Colombia did. The problems Greece suffers from currently are virtually identical to those caused by the Washington Consensus elsewhere. If a nation is forced to cut back on spending so much that the police can't even operate effectively, and shrink social safety nets to the point that the retired and the unemployed can't even put food on the table, things like this happen. Neoliberalism is quite obviously part of the problem, not the solution. 

[Marokai Backbeat]

No post without proper paragraphing has ever been good.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't normally respond to Krazen's baiting, but I actually do find this to be a very interesting and important topic. And it reminds me how much the "copyright rule" we have on this forum can be twisted and used as a convenient excuse to only post portions of an article you like, and ignore those that do not fit into your narrative.

Here are some more quotes from the article that Krazen found it convenient to omit:

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Unions aren't mentioned in the article. Not even once. However, there are multiple references to private companies and contractors and their rampant corruption. And really, I'm not naive to believe unions don't play a role in this. They likely do. But if so they would be one of many factors. And isn't it interesting that the very article Krazen decides to use as evidence doesn't even mention them? Perhaps he's just hoping most won't actually read the article --- which I suppose is likely... Also funny that a lot of these countries doing it better than us are run by Socialist and Communist governments. What kind of message is Krazen trying to send?

But as someone who would like our country to invest in better mass transit, I did read the article, and it certainly doesn't lead one to the same conclusions as Krazen. In fact, what I see is the opposite. I see more and more private sector influence in government. Whoever donates the most money to political campaigns and lobbying gets their way. Yet Republicans seem to think Citizens United was a good ruling. I suspect it will just lead to more and more of this.

There are very specific problems we run into with infrastructure projects, many of which are mentioned in the article. These are problems that can and should be fixed. Quitting and letting our infrastructure crumble as some Republicans would prefer is just lazy and dishonest.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The average American family has a mother and a father, and two children. They are white and consider themselves "Christian", but attend church only a few times a year. One of the spouses votes, the other does not, though neither follow the news particularly closely. The husband works, probably in a call center or some other office job where he's selling products bought with debt or nagging people to pay up on the debt they've used to buy things. The couple owns a house worth about $200,000, but the family owes most of that money to the bank. While they stay up to date on their mortgage payments, they know plenty of people who are unable to. The wife may have a part-time job, but is probably unemployed. Their yearly income is about $45,000. The family receives health insurance through the husband's job and is generally satisfied with it, though the co-pays and premiums are very expensive and if any family member suddenly got very sick or badly injured, they would quickly realize their insurance plan is wholly inadequate. The family has a few thousand dollars in the bank, but owes about as much in credit card debt (they receive a phone call at least once a week from a credit card company trying to get them to pay up; they allow this call to go to the answering machine). They have no money saved for retirement, nor do they have any investments (stocks, bonds, etc.), nor do they have any money saved to pay for their children's college education. They go on a "vacation" once a year, which involves a short drive to the beach or staying with family for a few days during Christmas or Thanksgiving.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The key point is that the pressure for privatisation doesn't just come from ideology or from a governmental version of the feeling that leads people through the doors of depressing little shops with the words 'cash for gold' in the window, although both these things are factors, obviously. Privatisation also often acts as a form of legalised corruption.

[Marokai Backbeat]

So bold.

[Marokai Backbeat]

CNN = Clown News Network

[Marokai Backbeat]

The US healthcare system is basically an institutionalized organized crime protection racket.  You take some person that needs to get medical care.  You don't tell them what anything costs and then you bill them whatever you want. 

It's like in the movie Goodfellas where they sell their protection services to the bar.  They force the business to take their help, they frequent the bar and run up huge tabs and extort money and then when it goes belly up, they burn it down.  That's exactly our healthcare system.  They take the sick person, charge them $56 for a bottle of asprin without telling them and they leave with a gigantic bill.  After the insurance has paid, the person is broke and they don't have any more money to make, you have a medical bankruptcy (burning down the bar in this analogy). 

If you like the free market, you should hate our healthcare system.