The Socialist Response

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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Sounder » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:02 pm

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38352&p=650518&hilit=regime+change+is+always+bad#p650518

Anybody care to challenge the substance of the allegations that White Helmets are a product of Academy/Blackwater?

AD wrote….

I think principled voices for Peace and Justice can differ on all kinds of things but that said is Regime Change inherently bad?




Inherent in your concession that I may represent a ‘principled voices for Peace and Justice’, is a claim that you represent a ‘principled voices for Peace and Justice’, and this troubles me because takfiri headchoppers cannot in any way be considered to be ‘principled voices for Peace and Justice’. Regime change that is funded with international money is inherently bad, yes that can be said with confidence.


When a person suggests; is Regime Change inherently bad, in the context of western powers and oilmen supplying terrorists trying to tear apart a country, for me at any rate, it is clear that this person has little respect for human lives.

peartreed wrote...
and others

speak for yourself
Last edited by Sounder on Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:08 pm

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:20 pm wrote:@srp

We haven't really gotten very far with the "warmongering" policy. If I'm not mistaken, it seems to hinge on some particular interpretation of this:

Posts advocating violence, or espousing hatred of a people based upon race, religion, gender or sexuality, are not permitted.


We should all be clear what your policy regarding "warmongering" says is proscribed speech, right?


Right! I'm not sure why this is unclear, but if you just read the part I bold, and not the part I diminish, my policy should be crystal clear as how this rule applies to warmongering:

Posts advocating violence, or espousing hatred of a people based upon race, religion, gender or sexuality, are not permitted.


American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:20 pm wrote:Also, I did not think you intended to ignite a flamewar with Elvis. My point was only that I do not want to, nor do I have to, engage with anyone where there is a destructive dynamic.


\<] Are you saying there is a destructive dynamic between you and Elvis???

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:20 pm wrote:I would ask that any moderators who want to do a good job here be consistent about interrupting bullying, abuse and related behaviors.


\<] When has Elvis ever bullied or abused you? You certainly never hit the alert button.

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:20 pm wrote:I invite you to (re)post whatever questions you think have slipped through the cracks and I will be happy to respond, though i may seek clarification on your premises, since I want to give a meaningful response.


Just one question, which will hopefully put this thread's focus back on the issues:

What do you really think about the article you posted, aside from it not being warmongering?
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:54 pm

peartreed » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:40 pm wrote:I’m with Burnt Hill and others disturbed by your unfair actions and I also object. You need to cite the new rules and policy.


Your protest is duly noted. There is no new rule. Please see my reply to American Dream above for my interpretation of an existing rule.

:backtotopic:
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:19 pm

@srp

Are you saying there is a destructive dynamic between you and Elvis???


Mostly just that we strongly disagree in ways that I find deeply upsetting. Given the chances of success from any possible dialogue, it doesn't seem worth it.

When has Elvis ever bullied or abused you? You certainly never hit the alert button.


I'm not saying he did.

What do you really think about the article you posted, aside from it not being warmongering?


I think he makes some important points. His tone etc. are not always what I would use but escalating censorship here is not the solution.


That said, You still haven't been very responsive as to your new interpretation of the old rule, which as I read it proscribes racism, sexism, homophobia. religious bigotry and the like. How did that become a rationale for banning certain opinions regarding the Syrian War, assuming this is the case? In other words, what specifically is prohibited according to you, and why?
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Sounder » Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:53 pm

I want discussion.

When AD repeatedly asserts that his 'opponents' represent 'The Anti-Imperialism of Idiots' and pairs that with a call for more nuance, then he has an obligation to display some of this elusive nuance.

There is a reason AD will not engage, -if he did he would lose all credibility.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:00 pm

I'll just say this and let Sounder go at that- when it comes to gassing children and other such war crimes, I do get upset. I'm giving 100 to 1 odds that the Syrian regime is involved, 1000 to 1 odds that it brutally tortures civilians. Oh, and I do know there are headchoppers.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Sounder » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:10 pm

I'll just say this and let Sounder go at that


Yes, yes I've heard it before, you will say this and no more. Because you cannot examine your premise that Assad did the gassing. Did it even happen at all? There is no reason for Assad to gas civilians, who Syriagirl says were Alawites being held hostage. Your premise that Assad did the gassing requires us to believe that the White Helmets are credible. Very few here believe that.


When you say gassing children, it is a tell or giveaway regarding your need for emotional triggers.

The rebels are desperate loser frauds backed by Western arms and the MSM.

Hope you don't mind bedbugs.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Belligerent Savant » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:28 pm

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:00 pm wrote:I'll just say this and let Sounder go at that- when it comes to gassing children and other such war crimes, I do get upset. I'm giving 100 to 1 odds that the Syrian regime is involved, 1000 to 1 odds that it brutally tortures civilians. Oh, and I do know there are headchoppers.


How did you arrive at those odds? What metrics are you utilizing to support your figures?

Bonus question: how do those odds reconcile with repeat postings of questionable pro-imperialist material?
(None of which appear to provide any measure of detail or corroborating evidence to support your odds -- if they do, please cite them in your reply.)


Lastly:
What are the odds of a direct non-dodgy reply from you?
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Elvis » Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:08 pm

Burnt Hill » Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:28 pm wrote:On this being a "discussion" board and the demand that more in depth discussion takes place.
What about the readers that never post a single thought? Should we lock them out?
What about Jeff Wells himself? He started this shit.
No one owes anyone anything. Get over it.


But those people don't try to dominate the board with manifold threads promoting their views, do they? Maybe the least AD could do is respond to the occasional critique of the more questionable articles he posts. If not, it's okay, I doubt he has a good argument anyway, if he had one he'd give it. I try to decide based on evidence, for others, it's more about a belief system. I'm reminded of the guy who refused to look through Galileo's telescope.


peartreed wrote:Both Elvis and MacCruiskeen have consistently trolled and teased AD mercilessly on the pretense of engaging in discussion only to escalate argument and harassment.


Peartreed, for my part of this accusation of yours, think what you like, and type your fighting words, but I don't have time to come online just to harrass or troll people. I read and post in threads that interest me, recently that's Syria and Russia. If someone posts an article that I think is BS, I say so, I explain why, and seek to temper my views with the views and responses of others.

I posted two critiques of articles posted in this thread, here and here — do you find those posts to be trolling? They're concerned with the articles and their writers and I think I brought up some quite valid points; does that somehow constitute harrassment?
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Elvis » Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:21 pm

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:00 pm wrote: gassing children and other such war crimes [...] I'm giving 100 to 1 odds that the Syrian regime is involved


That's the crux of this debate—are the charges against Assad to be believed? For me, all of the evidence says no, and if I had to make odds I'd put them at 100 to 1 the Syrian "regime" was not involved.

Adopting the view that Assad ordered the attacks is a choice one can make for any number of reasons, but it doesn't appear to be a rational choice. If there is a good evidence-based rationale for it, I haven't heard it.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:38 pm

We could really use the input of Jeff Wells right about now...
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Belligerent Savant » Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:04 am

.

Non-productive comment removed.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby mentalgongfu2 » Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:57 am

American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:38 pm wrote:We could really use the input of Jeff Wells right about now...


What we could really use right now is for several posters to make a good faith effort to step away from their usual bullshit and engage a little more sincerely in the forum dialogue,

This does not reflect just on you, but I'm quoting you, as you are one of the biggest purveyors of cp articles who regularly promises to respond to things, and then doesn't or just flat out refuses to respond, or responds with insinuations along the lines of "Are you still beating your wife?"

Considering we have new, active mods for the first time in a long time, it seems like a good opportunity for everyone to take a step or two back from the personalities, and just address the questions, concerns and issues that make this forum relevant - a chance to get away from the long-brewing animosities and tendency to write off the thoughts of certain user names.

I presume Jeff Wells is the one who made SRP and 82-28 our new mods, as I don't believe anyone else has the power to do so. Isn't that why this place was bereft of mods other than Wombaticus Rex for years? I assume I'm correct, and given that, making new mods is the most active Mr. Wells has been at this place in years. Calling out for his intervention now seems to me both pointless and confrontational.

I don't quite agree with how the "ban" last week was justified, but that may just be because I missed a post or was not privy to a PM. It's about time someone enforced some order here, so even though I don't know the reasoning of the cops, I'm going to take this is an opportunity. We can all take it as an opportunity to resume the function of a discussion board, rather than a private pissing ground. There will always be some crossover (this is the Internet, after all), but more discussion and less pissing will make for a better ratio.

Frankly, there are a number of posters here who I am inclined to just write-off because of the way they behave in conversation - Resorting to insults, dredging up incidents long past, constantly derailing conversations, just plain being assholes. But mayhaps they can become productive members of our little segment of society. I'm not sure how the new mod regime will work out - I actually was a fan of WR's attitude of "do almost nothing except when shit gets ridiculous."

But invoking Jeff's name will not help, nor will confrontational crap like the above from Belligerent Savant have any positive effect.

It took years for Hugh to get to the point the mods decided he deserved a permanent ban. Maybe some of the current posters are approaching that point. Longevity doesn't matter, and shouldn't, if your presence only results in disruption.

So maybe everybody should just tuck their dicks between their legs, and try addressing the fucking points for a week or two, before we all get ourselves banned.
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby SonicG » Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:41 am

Elvis » Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:21 am wrote:
American Dream » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:00 pm wrote: gassing children and other such war crimes [...] I'm giving 100 to 1 odds that the Syrian regime is involved


That's the crux of this debate—are the charges against Assad to be believed? For me, all of the evidence says no, and if I had to make odds I'd put them at 100 to 1 the Syrian "regime" was not involved.

Adopting the view that Assad ordered the attacks is a choice one can make for any number of reasons, but it doesn't appear to be a rational choice. If there is a good evidence-based rationale for it, I haven't heard it.


I have no claim of expertise on the Syrian conflict...I willfully ignored it for quite a while but just for purposes of answering your question, Juan Cole laid out an argument although I do not know if it was ever echoed by bombing cheerleaders. Cannot locate his post but it was basically that he didn't want to lose any more elite troops in the fighting in that area. I am sure that Moon of Alabama, who do seem very on top of the detailed aspects of the actual fighting, disagree.

Glenn Greenwald and Patrick Cockburn have said they believe Assad did order chemical weapons attacks.
(Cockburn)

Possibly it was the Syrian government’s frustration at the continued resistance of part of Jaysh al-Islam, the Saudi-backed jihadi movement in Douma, that led it to use chlorine gas. It had done so before without provoking an international reaction, but this time authentic-looking video was broadcast around the world showing dying children gasping for breath. The pictures provoked a wave of international fury which culminated in the US-led airstrikes on 14 April.
If the Syrian government’s purpose in launching a chemical weapons attack was to force the final surrender of the Douma rebels, then it succeeded. Within hours of it happening, Russian military police moved into Douma to supervise the departure of rebel fighters and to suppress looting by government forces. On 12 April, the Syrian national flag was finally raised over a building in central Douma and the long siege was over.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/13 ... d-strikes/


None of these three are socialist and there is, of course, a whole swath of the Left of various stripes that reject them so...cavet lector...
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Re: The Socialist Response

Postby Elvis » Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:43 am

Getting back to the socialist response to Trumpism, I wasn't aware of these "Democratic Socialists" working within the Democratic party to elect socialist candidates. I'm not too sure about the Democratic party becomeing the vehicle for socialism, but the point is made that it might be the only way—"if they can continue what the Sanders campaign started"—in this pretty good (but long-ish) article from Politico:

Could America’s Socialists Become the Tea Party of the Left?

No longer happy to languish in principled irrelevance, socialists are plotting a Sanders-like insurgency inside the Democratic Party.

By ANDREW HANNA and TAYLOR GEE

October 01, 2017

If America’s democratic socialists learned anything from watching Bernie Sanders’ deep run in the Democratic primary last year, it’s that they don’t have to be losers anymore.

Inspired by the Vermont senator’s success at forcing left-wing ideas into the nomination battle, the nation’s largest socialist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, has watched its dues-paying membership, which historically has hovered around 5,000, swell to 29,000. The DSA is still nowhere near the levels of the Socialist Party in 1920, when nearly a million people voted for Eugene Debs, but its members, too young to remember the Cold War, much less the “red scares” of the 1910s and 1950s, aren’t content to sit quietly on the political sidelines, perennially irrelevant in a system built to sustain two major parties.

They want to win. And to do it, socialists are dispensing with their penchant for symbolic protest votes and their principled disdain for an electoral process they believe can’t deliver meaningful change. Sanders’ ability to run well in primaries across the country, say new DSA members, proved that democratic socialism isn’t destined for the kind of third-party tokenism that bedevils the Green Party and World Workers Party, among others. And it has opened their minds to an electoral strategy that was until very recently considered heretical.

“The only viable electoral strategy is to work with the Democratic Party,” says Michael Kazin, the editor of leftist magazine Dissent. “There is no viable third party.”

The consequence of this willingness to play in the main arena is that a loose confederacy of splinter groups—socialists, anarchists, communists and leftists, all spearheaded by the DSA—are more willing than ever to sacrifice ideological purity for a chance to work as an insurgent coalition inside the Democratic Party. The DSA leadership insists that it feels no loyalty to the Democratic National Committee, but it is eager to challenge Democrats on their own turf.

“Absolutely, we definitely want to primary neoliberal Democrats,” says Maria Svart, the DSA’s national director, who, like others in the DSA, uses the epithet “neoliberal” to paint moderate Democrats as insufficiently progressive. “What we’re trying to do is build an organized grass-roots constituency for democratic socialism, and the politicians we’ll support are the ones who can win.”

Of course, when it comes to throwing electoral weight around, 29,000 members collectively don’t make much of an impact. But that doesn’t discourage the group, which points to a surprising precedent as proof that it can punch above its weight class. In April 2010, the Tea Party claimed just 67,000 members, and yet it still managed to win 47 seats in the House of Representatives that November. That’s because millions more Americans supported the Tea Party movement without signing up, and voted for Tea Party-affiliated candidates running as Republicans. By positioning themselves as the natural heirs of Sanders’ 2016 campaign, the DSA leadership thinks it can claim the allegiance of Americans who might not want to pay its membership fees but nevertheless support the ideas of democratic socialism.

Whether Democrats need this kind of progressive shot in the arm is a matter of debate within the party. But there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for the party to play host to a Tea Party-like parasite.

“The country is an overwhelmingly moderate country looking to see its political system pull away from extremism,” says Mark Penn, a former pollster and adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Penn warns that competitive primaries should help build the party rather than tear it apart. “Are they splintering the Democrat vote or are they adding to it?”

***

The evolution of the Democratic Socialists began almost as soon as Hillary Clinton sewed up the nomination. Sanders does not affiliate itself with the DSA, but the DSA actively supported Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination. Once the Sanders campaign dissolved, the DSA became a landing ground for former volunteers in Bernie’s campaign, many of whom were registered Democrats.

“I already considered myself a socialist,” says Amy Zachmeyer, now co-chair of the DSA’s Houston chapter, “but didn’t realize there were so many of us until Bernie Sanders kind of made it OK to talk about being a democratic socialist.”


By signaling its willingness to compete within the Democratic Party, the DSA has attracted more than just out-of-work Bernie staffers. Even incumbent Democrats look at it with new interest. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, a Chicago alderman and member of the Democratic Party who joined the DSA last year, says he joined DSA once he recognized the organization had begun to embrace a kind of democratic socialist realpolitik.

“While they had the right analysis, they had the right values, [they] were not necessarily engaging in the electoral arena in a way that I thought was necessary if the left was going to win,” says Rosa. But starting last year, he “began to see a DSA that was much more focused on being a disciplined force to help elect leftists.”

Rosa is not alone: khalid kamau, a city councilman in South Fulton, Georgia; Mike Sylvester, a state legislator in Maine; and Nirva LaFortune, a city councilwoman in Providence, Rhode Island, are among the elected Democrats who’ve joined the DSA.

And although it took the rise of a 76-year-old independent senator from Vermont to normalize socialism within Democratic Party politics, it was another event that kicked the DSA into high gear: the election of Donald J. Trump.

“If you look at our growth in membership, our big surges have been after big announcements by this administration,” says Margaret McLaughlin, the chair of Washington, D.C.’s, DSA chapter. “Like the Muslim ban, DACA. Charlottesville was huge.”

DSA leaders hope their bolstered roster and influx of new funds—along with the continued specter of the man in the Oval Office—will help position the organization to challenge the Democratic Party from the left. Currently, there are 25 DSA members running for office—from Seattle to Lakewood, Ohio, to New York City—and the group expects to endorse a larger wave of candidates for the 2018 midterms.

One of the DSA’s members running for office this November is Lee Carter, a former U.S. Marine and self-described socialist who is challenging the GOP whip in Virginia’s state House. In Carter’s district, Clinton beat Trump by nearly 13 percent. And yet, Carter says he has received little support from Virginia’s Democratic Party. “The state party’s resources are stretched thin,” he explains.

But the local chapter of the DSA has made Carter’s race a priority. Once it endorsed his campaign, the group started mobilizing its members to canvas Carter’s district on his behalf. “We’ve managed to knock on tens of thousands of doors,” says Carter.

DSA leadership insists that it isn’t interested in backing only Democrats like Carter. In New York City, the DSA endorsed Jabari Brisport, a Green Party candidate for city council running in a district that is so liberal he actually has a shot at victory.

“We as an organization are not interested in campaigns which are purely symbolic. We are here to win elections,” says Daniel Moraff, a member of the DSA’s election committee. And if their candidate doesn’t win, many DSA members would rather vote for what they see as the lesser of two evils, rather than vote for a protest candidate.

“Most people I know that are in DSA fought really, really hard for Bernie, and then voted for Hillary,” says McLaughlin, when asked whether many DSA members voted for Jill Stein in 2016. “Most if not all voted for Hillary in the general election.”

Democrats in the moderate and progressive wings of the party are glad to hear that young socialists would rather vote for a Democrat than a noncompetitive third party. But the prospect of a progressive Tea Party, challenging incumbent Democrats and dragging the party to the left, sounds like a disaster to some moderates.

“If the democratic socialists were able to take over the Democratic Party, I think it would become a minority party for the next 10 to 20 years,” says Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, vice president at Third Way, a think tank that advocates the centrist politics championed by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Hatalsky authored a report on the perils of leftist populism, based on focus groups with voters who backed both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. These voters see the Democratic Party as anti-business, the report found, and Democratic proposals branded as “handouts” only exacerbate that resentment.

“I don’t think many Democrats would consider themselves socialists,” says former DNC chair Donald Fowler, who has called for Sanders to officially join the party. “I think if people want to be Democrats, they should come into our party and be a part of it.”

Other Democrats welcome a grass-roots movement that can keep incumbents on their toes.

“The democratic socialists I’ve met are constructive people; they want to get things done,” says former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who ran for president from what he called the “democratic wing of the Democratic Party” in 2004. “The DNC is going to be essentially supplanted by whatever institution younger people prefer.”

***

No matter how much Sanders managed to bring democratic socialists into the mainstream, there’s still a taint to the socialist identity that will make its emergence a challenge for a long time.

In September, Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa’s association with the DSA contributed to his expulsion from a gubernatorial ticket in Illinois. State Senator Daniel Biss, who is running for governor, had announced Rosa as his choice for lieutenant governor the week before. But when it was revealed that the DSA had endorsed a pro-Palestinian boycott of Israeli goods, and that Rosa supported the decision, Biss quickly dumped Rosa amid criticism and the DSA lost its highest-profile candidate to date.

Rosa argues that opinions on Israel are changing—liberal millennials have become less sympathetic toward Israel over the past decade, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center Poll. And while that may be true, the country as a whole still overwhelmingly supports Israel over Palestine.

There is also the shadow of the “Bernie Bro” to reckon with—the perception that Sanders supporters are mostly white, male leftists who care more about economic inequality than racial justice and gender equality. The mere mention of the label makes many DSA members bristle.

“You see a lot of women really out there doing the work. You see a lot of women who are in leadership positions,” says Zachmeyer of the DSA. “When people make this argument that we’re really a bunch of Bernie Bros, they’re really erasing women.”

DSA leadership contends that it reserves at least half of the slots on its National Political Committee for women, and each chapter is supposed to have a female co-chair.

The endorsements of candidates of color, like Rosa and Jabari, are also part of a concerted effort to diversify traditional leftist bases of support. In the DSA’s 2017 strategy document, the organization admits it has a problem: “Organizations of the Left (including DSA) generally reflect the interests, aspirations, and cultural assumption of white working- and middle class individuals more than people of color.”

Even if the DSA can cobble together the coalition it aspires to, the group still faces long odds in taking on a Democratic establishment still wary of the label “socialist.” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi drew a line in the sand at a CNN town hall earlier this year when asked about growing anti-capitalist tendencies among young voters. "We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is," Pelosi said.

But that’s not how DSA members see it. And if they can continue what the Sanders’ campaign started, someday that might not be the way the way leading Democrats see it either.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... eft-215661



Edited to add this link to DSA site: http://www.dsausa.org/
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