Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
Literally no one is defining their terms, which is why this discussion is not working.
I feel like we have, multiple times. I copied a portion of "The Handbook of Neoliberalism" that seemed very on point for defining what we were critiquing.
It's just everyone ignored it because spatting over "Are you calling me a fascist" was somehow a more interesting conversation than actually delving into the history of fascism's rise and it's parallels today.
Someone just posted on this page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Because they weren't neoliberal before that either.
The big problem is that it feels like someone wants to have another fucking stealth discussion of 2016.
Was anybody saying that or are people just having a grand ol' time taking offense to imaginary insults right now?
Who here has said that all Democrats were neoliberals or that the Democratic Party is neoliberal?! Quote them!
Edit: Which isn't even an insult! Being neoliberal isn't an insult! It's just what you are! It's only offensive if you don't want to be neoliberal, in which case... I dunno, don't be neoliberal!
If you think the New Democrats are neoliberals then people were absolutely saying this.
But again, that's the problem with throwing around neoliberal so willy-nilly. It is a term that kinda means a specific ideology but it is also a term used by like all sorts of people left of centre to attack others for various things they don't like. It's not terribly precise is the problem.
Literally no one is defining their terms, which is why this discussion is not working.
I feel like we have, multiple times. I copied a portion of "The Handbook of Neoliberalism" that seemed very on point for defining what we were critiquing.
It's just everyone ignored it because spatting over "Are you calling me a fascist" was somehow a more interesting conversation than actually delving into the history of fascism's rise and it's parallels today.
Someone just posted on this page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Because they weren't neoliberal before that either.
The big problem is that it feels like someone wants to have another fucking stealth discussion of 2016.
Was anybody saying that or are people just having a grand ol' time taking offense to imaginary insults right now?
Who here has said that all Democrats were neoliberals or that the Democratic Party is neoliberal?! Quote them!
Edit: Which isn't even an insult! Being neoliberal isn't an insult! It's just what you are! It's only offensive if you don't want to be neoliberal, in which case... I dunno, don't be neoliberal!
If you think the New Democrats are neoliberals then people were absolutely saying this.
But again, that's the problem with throwing around neoliberal so willy-nilly. It is a term that kinda means a specific ideology but it is also a term used by like all sorts of people left of centre to attack others for various things they don't like. It's not terribly precise is the problem.
I don't think that. The New Democrats aren't all Democrats, so saying that New Democrats are neoliberal isn't saying Democrats are neoliberal. From Wikipedia: "New Democrats, also called centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party." (bolding is mine)
Like mrondeau said, this isn't that hard! Just... stop putting on the shoes if the shoes don't fit!
It's not fucking complicated:
Neoliberals are people who think that employees having some level of security and rights is bad, that regulations are inherently bad, that an economy "liberated" from government is the best thing ever, and that basically anything that prevent the unrestricted accumulation of wealth is bad.
If you don't have those traits, then people are not talking about you. If the shoe does not fit, don't put it on. It's not that complicated.
The Liberal Party of Canada is not a neoliberal organisation, because it does not have those traits. The Conservative Party of Canada does have those traits.
So no, Trudeau is not the same as Harper and Scheer, as not one said they were.
That being said, it's not a coincidence that the main sources of fascism in Canada are associated with the CPC.
FFS, when I talk to friends from Europe and they go on a tirade against the evil of liberalism, I don't get offended on behalf of the LPC because I know what they mean and what they mean does not include the LPC.
Similarly, when I talk about the importance of voting Liberal to beat back the conservative hordes, they don't think I'm advocating for the abolition of minimum wage.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. It's not new and it's not hard to remember.
If someone says that the New Democrats are neoliberal but you don't think that Democrats are neoliberal... well... there's an obvious way to square those together. Why go out of your way to equivocate Democrats with New Democrats, just to take offense? It seems like it's you throwing around the term nilly-willy and then getting mad at other people for it.
Leftists and rightists both hate centrist liberals but centrist liberals have traditionally almost always allied right, because to the right is an unpleasant form of power structures they approve of, and to the left is reform that they don't approve of.
Liberals do not fight fascists they enable it because they compromise with it, historically. It's nothing to do with the "power base of the left," after all, both liberals, conservatives, the far right etc all cooperate in trying to destroy the left when possible. Historically, you have seen this.
This is a strange read on history. It was after all the KPD who were the ones pushing "After Hitler, our turn" and the ideas of "social-fascism". Shit, they even supported the nazis is trying to bring down the Prussian regional government in 1931.
There's a whole idea being pushed here that "the only answer is the far left, all others are fascist allies in waiting" or something, but it's not accurate, historically or otherwise, and basically seems to exist as a bludgeon to attack political positions some people think aren't left-wing enough.
Lumping social fascism in with socialism as a whole is ahistorical. Even contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. They're a weird footnote in history, nothing more.
Social fascism was an idea pushed by several people, including the KPD during the rise of fascism in Germany. This isn't ahistorical, it's literally just history. And directly pertinent to all these claims about who is enabling fascism and why. Like basically everyone honestly, the far left in Germany was enabling the rise of fascism (and sometimes making common cause with it) because they were after goals they saw as being "more important".
I didn't say "social fascism is ahistorical", I said treating it as part of socialism as a movement is ahistorical.
It was literally a position of socialist parties in the 1930s dude. Supported by the Communist International and everything.
Like I also said in that post, contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. Trotsky aggressively argued they were just fascists in sheep's clothing. Citing Communist International's support for social fascism as a part of socialism is silly because branches of Communist International were the primary advocates of social fascism.
Its little more than the favored historical trivia of anyone who wants to tie socialism to fascism.
This last sentence really suggests to me you don't actually know what Social Facism even means. It is not a thing that ties socialism to fascism. It was a theory that tied social democracy to fascism. And regardless of the fact that some people thought it was dumb back then (and it is dumb), it was still a thing people actually did believe and acted on. And you trying to pretend it wasn't is just wrong.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
Antifa. I was referring to antifa when I used the word antifa.
That might be what you thought you were saying. But that is not what your words meant. Maybe if you hadn't directly quoted something referring to a specific incident upon which to place the labels it would be the case as you're claiming. But you did.
Leftists and rightists both hate centrist liberals but centrist liberals have traditionally almost always allied right, because to the right is an unpleasant form of power structures they approve of, and to the left is reform that they don't approve of.
Liberals do not fight fascists they enable it because they compromise with it, historically. It's nothing to do with the "power base of the left," after all, both liberals, conservatives, the far right etc all cooperate in trying to destroy the left when possible. Historically, you have seen this.
This is a strange read on history. It was after all the KPD who were the ones pushing "After Hitler, our turn" and the ideas of "social-fascism". Shit, they even supported the nazis is trying to bring down the Prussian regional government in 1931.
There's a whole idea being pushed here that "the only answer is the far left, all others are fascist allies in waiting" or something, but it's not accurate, historically or otherwise, and basically seems to exist as a bludgeon to attack political positions some people think aren't left-wing enough.
Lumping social fascism in with socialism as a whole is ahistorical. Even contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. They're a weird footnote in history, nothing more.
Social fascism was an idea pushed by several people, including the KPD during the rise of fascism in Germany. This isn't ahistorical, it's literally just history. And directly pertinent to all these claims about who is enabling fascism and why. Like basically everyone honestly, the far left in Germany was enabling the rise of fascism (and sometimes making common cause with it) because they were after goals they saw as being "more important".
I didn't say "social fascism is ahistorical", I said treating it as part of socialism as a movement is ahistorical.
It was literally a position of socialist parties in the 1930s dude. Supported by the Communist International and everything.
Like I also said in that post, contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. Trotsky aggressively argued they were just fascists in sheep's clothing. Citing Communist International's support for social fascism as a part of socialism is silly because branches of Communist International were the primary advocates of social fascism.
Its little more than the favored historical trivia of anyone who wants to tie socialism to fascism.
This last sentence really suggests to me you don't actually know what Social Facism even means. It is not a thing that ties socialism to fascism. It was a theory that tied social democracy to fascism. And regardless of the fact that some people thought it was dumb back then (and it is dumb), it was still a thing people actually did believe and acted on. And you trying to pretend it wasn't is just wrong.
You keep acting like I'm saying that social fascism didn't exist and I'm not sure how else to explain it to you. It existed! It was real! Also real shitty. Also historically insignificant.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
You keep acting like I'm saying that social fascism didn't exist and I'm not sure how else to explain it to you. It existed! It was real! Also real shitty. Also historically insignificant.
No. He jeeps saying that you keep insisting that social fascism wasn't in any way affiliated with other aspects of socialism or derived from other aspects of socialism and that is wrong. It was. It was shitty but that is where it came from.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people or the political coalition.
We can go into that discussion back like I said its a doozy.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
That's an.....incredibly generous definition of socialism.
Literally no one is defining their terms, which is why this discussion is not working.
I feel like we have, multiple times. I copied a portion of "The Handbook of Neoliberalism" that seemed very on point for defining what we were critiquing.
It's just everyone ignored it because spatting over "Are you calling me a fascist" was somehow a more interesting conversation than actually delving into the history of fascism's rise and it's parallels today.
Someone just posted on this page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Because they weren't neoliberal before that either.
The big problem is that it feels like someone wants to have another fucking stealth discussion of 2016.
Was anybody saying that or are people just having a grand ol' time taking offense to imaginary insults right now?
Who here has said that all Democrats were neoliberals or that the Democratic Party is neoliberal?! Quote them!
Edit: Which isn't even an insult! Being neoliberal isn't an insult! It's just what you are! It's only offensive if you don't want to be neoliberal, in which case... I dunno, don't be neoliberal!
If you think the New Democrats are neoliberals then people were absolutely saying this.
But again, that's the problem with throwing around neoliberal so willy-nilly. It is a term that kinda means a specific ideology but it is also a term used by like all sorts of people left of centre to attack others for various things they don't like. It's not terribly precise is the problem.
I don't think that. The New Democrats aren't all Democrats, so saying that New Democrats are neoliberal isn't saying Democrats are neoliberal. From Wikipedia: "New Democrats, also called centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party." (bolding is mine)
Like mrondeau said, this isn't that hard! Just... stop putting on the shoes if the shoes don't fit!
It's not fucking complicated:
Neoliberals are people who think that employees having some level of security and rights is bad, that regulations are inherently bad, that an economy "liberated" from government is the best thing ever, and that basically anything that prevent the unrestricted accumulation of wealth is bad.
If you don't have those traits, then people are not talking about you. If the shoe does not fit, don't put it on. It's not that complicated.
The Liberal Party of Canada is not a neoliberal organisation, because it does not have those traits. The Conservative Party of Canada does have those traits.
So no, Trudeau is not the same as Harper and Scheer, as not one said they were.
That being said, it's not a coincidence that the main sources of fascism in Canada are associated with the CPC.
FFS, when I talk to friends from Europe and they go on a tirade against the evil of liberalism, I don't get offended on behalf of the LPC because I know what they mean and what they mean does not include the LPC.
Similarly, when I talk about the importance of voting Liberal to beat back the conservative hordes, they don't think I'm advocating for the abolition of minimum wage.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. It's not new and it's not hard to remember.
If someone says that the New Democrats are neoliberal but you don't think that Democrats are neoliberal... well... there's an obvious way to square those together. Why go out of your way to equivocate Democrats with New Democrats, just to take offense? It seems like it's you throwing around the term nilly-willy and then getting mad at other people for it.
Dark Primus and Sammich are saying Democrats are neoliberals because leadership won't allow anything else literally on the last page.
You're doing all this arguing to say no one is saying stuff that people are clearly saying, and I'm not sure why since I don't think you agree with them.
Leftists and rightists both hate centrist liberals but centrist liberals have traditionally almost always allied right, because to the right is an unpleasant form of power structures they approve of, and to the left is reform that they don't approve of.
Liberals do not fight fascists they enable it because they compromise with it, historically. It's nothing to do with the "power base of the left," after all, both liberals, conservatives, the far right etc all cooperate in trying to destroy the left when possible. Historically, you have seen this.
This is a strange read on history. It was after all the KPD who were the ones pushing "After Hitler, our turn" and the ideas of "social-fascism". Shit, they even supported the nazis is trying to bring down the Prussian regional government in 1931.
There's a whole idea being pushed here that "the only answer is the far left, all others are fascist allies in waiting" or something, but it's not accurate, historically or otherwise, and basically seems to exist as a bludgeon to attack political positions some people think aren't left-wing enough.
Lumping social fascism in with socialism as a whole is ahistorical. Even contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. They're a weird footnote in history, nothing more.
Social fascism was an idea pushed by several people, including the KPD during the rise of fascism in Germany. This isn't ahistorical, it's literally just history. And directly pertinent to all these claims about who is enabling fascism and why. Like basically everyone honestly, the far left in Germany was enabling the rise of fascism (and sometimes making common cause with it) because they were after goals they saw as being "more important".
I didn't say "social fascism is ahistorical", I said treating it as part of socialism as a movement is ahistorical.
It was literally a position of socialist parties in the 1930s dude. Supported by the Communist International and everything.
Like I also said in that post, contemporary socialists thought they were full of shit. Trotsky aggressively argued they were just fascists in sheep's clothing. Citing Communist International's support for social fascism as a part of socialism is silly because branches of Communist International were the primary advocates of social fascism.
Its little more than the favored historical trivia of anyone who wants to tie socialism to fascism.
This last sentence really suggests to me you don't actually know what Social Facism even means. It is not a thing that ties socialism to fascism. It was a theory that tied social democracy to fascism. And regardless of the fact that some people thought it was dumb back then (and it is dumb), it was still a thing people actually did believe and acted on. And you trying to pretend it wasn't is just wrong.
You keep acting like I'm saying that social fascism didn't exist and I'm not sure how else to explain it to you. It existed! It was real! Also real shitty. Also historically insignificant.
Historically quite relevant since it shaped the ideology of the KPD during the rise of Nazism which is the whole point of the historical example that exists to demonstrate the problems with the idea that "it was everyone allying with fascist to get back at the left". Because it was also far left parties making common cause with fascists to attack the centre-left.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
The Democratic party isn't a monolith and neither is the Republican party. Thinking of them in those terms is erroneous.
Clinton represented a important part of the Democratic coalition in the 1990s that believed in neoliberal policies like financial deregulation. Hillary Clinton even in the 2016 election wasn't running on tougher financial regulations like much of the party that was behind Sanders and Warren wanted.
Not all of the Democratic party wants the same things.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
That's an.....incredibly generous definition of socialism.
Its... really not. Like. What would a true socialist be required to do?
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
But they didn't. They're not "literally the exact same people" because people get old and die. The reasons for actions; the defining throughline for action and policy has not changed significantly*
*It has expanded to cover racial, gender, and sexual equality in addition to social construction to fix the problems of capitalism. But it has not lost aspects of those prior policies. We have not dismantled those policies we have fought to keep them.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
See, the actual fault line in the US is white supremacy and always has been.
Meanwhile, the most powerful Democrat in the country:
1) Saved the nation's largest socialist program (Social Security) in 2005.
2) Passed a public health insurance program (which Lieberman killed, but she passed it in the House)
3) Is holding hearings on Medicare for All this year.
For starters. I dunno what you call her ideology if not at least a social democrat.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
See, the actual fault line in the US is white supremacy and always has been.
Meanwhile, the most powerful Democrat in the country:
1) Saved the nation's largest socialist program (Social Security) in 2005.
2) Passed a public health insurance program (which Lieberman killed, but she passed it in the House)
3) Is holding hearings on Medicare for All this year.
For starters. I dunno what you call her ideology if not at least a social democrat.
Social democrats are one of the major political movements that adopted neoliberal policy during the 90s, in the US and all over Europe.
The Third Way and New Labour were exactly the kind of intersection between neoliberal economic regulatory and trade policy, and traditional social democratic politics that we're talking about.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
The Democratic party isn't a monolith and neither is the Republican party. Thinking of them in those terms is erroneous.
Clinton represented a important part of the Democratic coalition in the 1990s that believed in neoliberal policies like financial deregulation. Hillary Clinton even in the 2016 election wasn't running on tougher financial regulations like much of the party that was behind Sanders and Warren wanted.
Not all of the Democratic party wants the same things.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
Literally no one is defining their terms, which is why this discussion is not working.
I feel like we have, multiple times. I copied a portion of "The Handbook of Neoliberalism" that seemed very on point for defining what we were critiquing.
It's just everyone ignored it because spatting over "Are you calling me a fascist" was somehow a more interesting conversation than actually delving into the history of fascism's rise and it's parallels today.
Someone just posted on this page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Because they weren't neoliberal before that either.
The big problem is that it feels like someone wants to have another fucking stealth discussion of 2016.
Was anybody saying that or are people just having a grand ol' time taking offense to imaginary insults right now?
Who here has said that all Democrats were neoliberals or that the Democratic Party is neoliberal?! Quote them!
Edit: Which isn't even an insult! Being neoliberal isn't an insult! It's just what you are! It's only offensive if you don't want to be neoliberal, in which case... I dunno, don't be neoliberal!
If you think the New Democrats are neoliberals then people were absolutely saying this.
But again, that's the problem with throwing around neoliberal so willy-nilly. It is a term that kinda means a specific ideology but it is also a term used by like all sorts of people left of centre to attack others for various things they don't like. It's not terribly precise is the problem.
I don't think that. The New Democrats aren't all Democrats, so saying that New Democrats are neoliberal isn't saying Democrats are neoliberal. From Wikipedia: "New Democrats, also called centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party." (bolding is mine)
Like mrondeau said, this isn't that hard! Just... stop putting on the shoes if the shoes don't fit!
It's not fucking complicated:
Neoliberals are people who think that employees having some level of security and rights is bad, that regulations are inherently bad, that an economy "liberated" from government is the best thing ever, and that basically anything that prevent the unrestricted accumulation of wealth is bad.
If you don't have those traits, then people are not talking about you. If the shoe does not fit, don't put it on. It's not that complicated.
The Liberal Party of Canada is not a neoliberal organisation, because it does not have those traits. The Conservative Party of Canada does have those traits.
So no, Trudeau is not the same as Harper and Scheer, as not one said they were.
That being said, it's not a coincidence that the main sources of fascism in Canada are associated with the CPC.
FFS, when I talk to friends from Europe and they go on a tirade against the evil of liberalism, I don't get offended on behalf of the LPC because I know what they mean and what they mean does not include the LPC.
Similarly, when I talk about the importance of voting Liberal to beat back the conservative hordes, they don't think I'm advocating for the abolition of minimum wage.
Words have different meanings in different contexts. It's not new and it's not hard to remember.
If someone says that the New Democrats are neoliberal but you don't think that Democrats are neoliberal... well... there's an obvious way to square those together. Why go out of your way to equivocate Democrats with New Democrats, just to take offense? It seems like it's you throwing around the term nilly-willy and then getting mad at other people for it.
Dark Primus and Sammich are saying Democrats are neoliberals because leadership won't allow anything else literally on the last page.
You're doing all this arguing to say no one is saying stuff that people are clearly saying, and I'm not sure why since I don't think you agree with them.
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
Again, are you just ignoring their posts? Or just misinterpreting them? I just wrote a post about how you shouldn't conflate "New Democrats" with "Democrats," and you respond with a post conflating "Democrats" with "the Democratic Party," referring me to posts on the previous page that explicitly distinguish "the Democratic Party" from "Democrats."
Like, if you have an actual dispute with the things they are saying, if you don't think that New Democrats are neoliberal, or if you don't think that they should be allowed to distinguish Democrats from the Democratic Party, or if you object to the Democratic Party even being called neoliberal, then that'd be one thing, but this is just... constant misrepresentation, over and over again.
Seriously, I get that y'all might think you know the politics of some posters here, but quit jumping to the where you think they'll end up and criticizing opinions that they haven't expressed. If you have an issue with what they're actually posting, then reply to that, but disputing things you think they might say or that they secretly believe is ridiculous. I don't agree with Sammich on everything, no, but I'm still going to read their posts in good faith and see where their ideas lead me, rather than just presume that since I disagree with them on some issues, therefore I MUST ABSOLUTELY find something to disagree with them on here.
The social fascists are relevant as a reminder that the left isn't somehow inherently immune to the allure of fascism.
In the same way that neoliberals theoretically shouldn't be on board with giving up economic freedom to make common cause with fascists, but do, because people largely don't give a shit about being ideologically consistent.
I struggle to see why populist left-wing coalitions built on 'fuck the capitalists' without a strong emphasis on social liberalism wouldn't be at risk to drift into fascist waters, in fact.
The risk factor for fascism isn't directly left or right-wing economic preferences, in fact, but a disregard for equality and universal rights.
That risk factor is more common on the right, of course, because no one sane believes an unfettered free market can do that whole equality thing.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
November 12, 1999 President Clinton signs the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; courtesy of the William J. Clinton Library
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
See, the actual fault line in the US is white supremacy and always has been.
Meanwhile, the most powerful Democrat in the country:
1) Saved the nation's largest socialist program (Social Security) in 2005.
2) Passed a public health insurance program (which Lieberman killed, but she passed it in the House)
3) Is holding hearings on Medicare for All this year.
For starters. I dunno what you call her ideology if not at least a social democrat.
Social democrats are one of the major political movements that adopted neoliberal policy during the 90s, in the US and all over Europe.
The Third Way and New Labour were exactly the kind of intersection between neoliberal economic regulatory and trade policy, and traditional social democratic politics that we're talking about.
And I'm not talking about the 90s or Third Way. I'm talking about now.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
November 12, 1999 President Clinton signs the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; courtesy of the William J. Clinton Library
I literally, literally, just explained that to you twice. What do you think i was referring to when talking about the GLB act that ended Glass Steagall? This is the third time. Signing GLB did not make Bill for deregulation.
In the same way that neoliberals theoretically shouldn't be on board with giving up economic freedom to make common cause with fascists, but do, because people largely don't give a shit about being ideologically consistent.
From earlier in the thread. This isn't quite true. "Neoliberals"* tend to believe that they are not giving up economic freedom by siding with fascists. I will take some time to go find it because it was pretty succinct and i don't want to accidentally contradict myself.
*which really just means "classical liberals of the laissez faire type
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
November 12, 1999 President Clinton signs the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; courtesy of the William J. Clinton Library
I literally, literally, just explained that to you twice. What do you think i was referring to when talking about the GLB act that ended Glass Steagall? This is the third time. Signing GLB did not make Bill for deregulation.
You're trying to split hairs. He signed the law. There's a photo of him smiling surrounded by congressmen while he does it.
On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90–8,[18][note 4] and by the House 362–57.[19][note 5] The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[20]
That's support. The 90s DNC is definitionally neoliberal.
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
"Styrofoam Sammich" Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
Social democratic parties aren't usually monoliths of moderate leftists, they're coalitions of interventionist liberals and reformist socialists. Macron himself bailed on his social democratic party and ran as French Reagan.
Like, these things are pretty fucking complex with a lot of intra-party conflict. I agree that Styrofoam simplifies it too much.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The social fascists are relevant as a reminder that the left isn't somehow inherently immune to the allure of fascism.
In the same way that neoliberals theoretically shouldn't be on board with giving up economic freedom to make common cause with fascists, but do, because people largely don't give a shit about being ideologically consistent.
I struggle to see why populist left-wing coalitions built on 'fuck the capitalists' without a strong emphasis on social liberalism wouldn't be at risk to drift into fascist waters, in fact.
The risk factor for fascism isn't directly left or right-wing economic preferences, in fact, but a disregard for equality and universal rights.
That risk factor is more common on the right, of course, because no one sane believes an unfettered free market can do that whole equality thing.
Social fascism was an ideology or theory, not a group. And the people pushing it didn't really like the fascists either. They just thought the centrists were basically the same as fascists and were the real enemy that needed to be fought first.
The risk is in missing the big picture and putting smaller scale ideological conflicts ahead of larger threats. That and accelerationism, which is never a good idea.
Frankly, if you've been involved in politics on the left this whole situation should be extremely familiar to you.
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
I'm sorry, but again, I don't think that happened. Jephery said social democrats "adopted neoliberal policy." That doesn't mean they stopped being social democrats and became neoliberals, though it could. It means that they started pushing policies that had more neoliberal elements in them.
People, and especially parties, can partake of more than one ideology at the same time. People's ideas and policies change over time, and this may or may not change their primary ideology. It's perfectly internally consistent to say that Chinese communists started adopting capitalist policies, while still being communists and not capitalists. It might not be externally consistent, and one might say the opposite too, that the Chinese communists became capitalists because they adopted so many capitalist policies, but that's up for debate and it's not the same thing.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
I believe the Democrats, in their role as part of the mainstream political order of the last 50 years or so, have created a situation in which fascism could again become a real threat in the United States. Nancy Pelosi had a role in that in proportion to her power to shape political reality in the US. Like I've been saying, I don't think focusing on individuals in very useful.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
I believe the Democrats, in their role as part of the mainstream political order of the last 50 years or so, have created a situation in which fascism could again become a real threat in the United States. Nancy Pelosi had a role in that in proportion to her power to shape political reality in the US. Like I've been saying, I don't think focusing on individuals in very useful.
I feel like a Who/What/When/Where/Why/How thing is needed here. Because this is not clear.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
November 12, 1999 President Clinton signs the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; courtesy of the William J. Clinton Library
I literally, literally, just explained that to you twice. What do you think i was referring to when talking about the GLB act that ended Glass Steagall? This is the third time. Signing GLB did not make Bill for deregulation.
You're trying to split hairs. He signed the law. There's a photo of him smiling surrounded by congressmen while he does it.
On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90–8,[18][note 4] and by the House 362–57.[19][note 5] The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.[20]
That's support. The 90s DNC is definitionally neoliberal.
That is you lying with statistics and procedure. Stop it.
The original vote was 54-46. One democrat voted for it. And 343–86 (a good number of democrats voted for a much more liberal version of the bill).
At that point it was assured to pass and Bill did not have the political capital to stop it. So what was fought for was what could be achieved.
Oh no there is a photo of him smiling and signing the bill... God forbid a politician put on airs. He must be the first politician to ever have faked a smile. Or to have signed something that he was against.
Someone just posted on the last page, "How dare you call all Democrats neoliberals?" after I made a whole post pointing out that nobody was calling Democrats neoliberals, citing a post in which people were saying that the Democrats had thoroughly swung away from neoliberalism based on their putative 2020 presidential candidates.
Extra irony that they said they didn't repeat a discussion that had occurred in the past four pages.
Edit: cuz I got topped.
\
Silly Goose, YOU called FDR a neoliberal
Right here. This is you calling FDR a neoliberal. The United States was involved in WWII by way of selling arms to the allies because of FDR. You are explicitly saying that you don't know how much credit you're going to give to "neoliberals" which would presumably be the person doing the selling in the thing you're quoting, for doing the thing that was being quoted as explictly an action of a Democratic administration. There is no other reading of it.
In the US case that's a kind of narrow definition of getting involved. We were in the war by March of '41 at the latest. It just wasn't declared yet.
... I dunno how much credit I'm going to extend to neoliberals for selling stuff to antifa.
... do you really think that I'm calling Churchill and Stalin antifa? :eh:
Who else would you be referring to when directly quoting someone who was directly referring to them?(though you could have also been referring to Churchill which would have been more correct as that is where the majority of our arms support went. (iirc))
The Democratic Party is too large to fit into any one section IMO
You've got Liberals of all stripes, some leftists, some nationalists...
When people refer to "the Democratic Party" as an entity all its own, they're talking about the people who are in the leadership positions of the party. Obviously some elected individuals who are registered Democrats might have more radical stances on a variety of topics, but it doesn't fucking matter if they don't ever get to influence what the party brings to the floor to legislate/vote on.
"Leadership" is a woolly term. Does any elected official wearing a blue rosette count? Because if so, you've also got a very broad spectrum there. You've got people who are basically genuinely leftists, all the way to the Blue Dogs or whatever nickname you want these days. There's some extremely hawkish Democrats and some hugely anti-military democrats (who are in a minority, because the Democratic Party in the US is extremely pro-military on account of the US being culturally extremely pro-military).
Know them by the fruits they bear.
Which would be socialist legislation. Democratic Leadership did not push GLB as an example. It had no Democratic co-sponsors and it was whipped against in the Senate. The "final vote" is not indicative of the push since it required significant concessions and had otherwise already passed. (I.E. the democrats were voting to get concessions not for the purpose of the bill). Similarly the democrats fought and won on language which pushed the bill away from the strong deregulation that Republicans wanted, by forcing the negotiators in conference to attempt that type of reconciliation. Now, sure today you would say that this would be terrible. But today the legislation would not have gotten off the ground, as the initial vote to send it to reconciliation was 54-46. So...
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
The Democratic party isn't a monolith and neither is the Republican party. Thinking of them in those terms is erroneous.
Clinton represented a important part of the Democratic coalition in the 1990s that believed in neoliberal policies like financial deregulation. Hillary Clinton even in the 2016 election wasn't running on tougher financial regulations like much of the party that was behind Sanders and Warren wanted.
Not all of the Democratic party wants the same things.
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
Look I'm just going to admit that I'm seeing what I want in Bill and Hillary's records, but at the same time, a lot of Americans saw it too. Whether it was real, or just a perception of them being in Wall Street's pockets', I don't really think this is the thread the refight the Clinton legacy so I'm going to stop before I get modded.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
I'm sorry, but again, I don't think that happened. Jephery said social democrats "adopted neoliberal policy." That doesn't mean they stopped being social democrats and became neoliberals, though it could. It means that they started pushing policies that had more neoliberal elements in them.
People, and especially parties, can partake of more than one ideology at the same time. People's ideas and policies change over time, and this may or may not change their primary ideology. It's perfectly internally consistent to say that Chinese communists started adopting capitalist policies, while still being communists and not capitalists. It might not be externally consistent, and one might say the opposite too, that the Chinese communists became capitalists because they adopted so many capitalist policies, but that's not the same thing.
This seems to bring up a more confusing discussion about whether labels apply to ideologies rather then people. (Are there neoliberals or just neoliberal policies? What is a neoliberal if not someone pushing neoliberal policy? etc, etc) And it pretty outside the scope of a discussion of fascism. It's kinda the whole problem with these labels because "They did neoliberal things but weren't neoliberals" is an argument that is supremely unclear about what is being said exactly.
I understand the need to define terms but I don’t think going “do you think [Democratic politician x] enabled fascism” is going to lead the discussion down a useful road
Fascism isn’t the kind of thing you can point a finger at one solitary person and go, “you did this”
In the big picture, neoliberalism and overwhelming adherence to the platonic ideal of capitalism have helped to enable fascism
In a very real sense, we are all collectively responsible for it
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
I'm sorry, but again, I don't think that happened. Jephery said social democrats "adopted neoliberal policy." That doesn't mean they stopped being social democrats and became neoliberals, though it could. It means that they started pushing policies that had more neoliberal elements in them.
People, and especially parties, can partake of more than one ideology at the same time. People's ideas and policies change over time, and this may or may not change their primary ideology. It's perfectly internally consistent to say that Chinese communists started adopting capitalist policies, while still being communists and not capitalists. It might not be externally consistent, and one might say the opposite too, that the Chinese communists became capitalists because they adopted so many capitalist policies, but that's not the same thing.
This seems to bring up a more confusing discussion about whether labels apply to ideologies rather then people. (Are there neoliberals or just neoliberal policies? What is a neoliberal if not someone pushing neoliberal policy? etc, etc) And it pretty outside the scope of a discussion of fascism. It's kinda the whole problem with these labels because "They did neoliberal things but weren't neoliberals" is an argument that is supremely unclear about what is being said exactly.
... /shrug?
Is a bus driver a bus driver simply by virtue of driving a bus? If I steal a bus, do I become a bus driver? Is this so difficult a problem that we can't talk about bus drivers or driving buses? Are we just throwing around the label "bus driver" nilly-willy?
I think we should just be charitable with other people's posts. If you really think Jephery may have called all Democrats neoliberals, maybe just ask rather than demanding that they stop using the term so nilly-willy and vaguely to apply to everything under the sun. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me to assume that Jephery isn't calling everybody in American politics a fascist.
I don’t mean to absolve individuals of their responsibility in ushering in the global rise of fascism, though
Some of us have pushed harder and more eagerly down that road than the rest, and it’s more obvious than others’ contributions (looking at you, xenophobes)
I’m not entirely sure those who sold us down the road to fascism out of convenience or ignorance are more or less worthy of scorn than those who actively follow a fascist philosophy, but I am of the opinion that they are both equally responsible
I understand the need to define terms but I don’t think going “do you think [Democratic politician x] enabled fascism” is going to lead the discussion down a useful road
Fascism isn’t the kind of thing you can point a finger at one solitary person and go, “you did this”
In the big picture, neoliberalism and overwhelming adherence to the platonic ideal of capitalism have helped to enable fascism
In a very real sense, we are all collectively responsible for it
I'm trying to decide if I agree with the third line is even true. I just think we underestimated the power of white supremacy (or ethnic nationalism more generally) after we elected a black president. And more importantly how it became increasingly acceptable from 2008-2016.
"No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place where both of us were born and raised"
'
Because that racist motherfucker winking at birtherism is now seen as a paragon of civic virtue.
But maybe the inequities created by unrestrained capitalism primed the pump for this kind of thing. But then I think about the correlation between white supremacist power increasing and economic performance and it doesn't seem like there is one. It's mostly about black people demanding to be full citizens, regardless of economic climate.
I think the really important thing about fascism is that it is amorphous and unique to each country it appears in.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Like, on this page we have social democrats described as neoliberals.
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
I'm sorry, but again, I don't think that happened. Jephery said social democrats "adopted neoliberal policy." That doesn't mean they stopped being social democrats and became neoliberals, though it could. It means that they started pushing policies that had more neoliberal elements in them.
People, and especially parties, can partake of more than one ideology at the same time. People's ideas and policies change over time, and this may or may not change their primary ideology. It's perfectly internally consistent to say that Chinese communists started adopting capitalist policies, while still being communists and not capitalists. It might not be externally consistent, and one might say the opposite too, that the Chinese communists became capitalists because they adopted so many capitalist policies, but that's not the same thing.
This seems to bring up a more confusing discussion about whether labels apply to ideologies rather then people. (Are there neoliberals or just neoliberal policies? What is a neoliberal if not someone pushing neoliberal policy? etc, etc) And it pretty outside the scope of a discussion of fascism. It's kinda the whole problem with these labels because "They did neoliberal things but weren't neoliberals" is an argument that is supremely unclear about what is being said exactly.
... /shrug?
I mean... is a bus driver a bus driver simply by virtue of driving a bus? If I steal a bus, do I become a bus driver? Is this so difficult a problem that we can't talk about bus drivers or driving buses? Are we just throwing around the label "bus driver" nilly-willy?
I think we should just be charitable with other people's posts. If you really think Jephery may have called all Democrats neoliberals, maybe just ask rather than demanding that they stop using the term so nilly-willy and vaguely to apply to everything under the sun.
You can't be charitable when no one is clear wtf anyone is saying. When you are arguing that someone adopted neoliberal policies but that doesn't necessarily mean they were neoliberal, you are being clear as mud about wtf you are actually trying to say when using the term neoliberal and so people cannot engage in a charitable discussion with that. Like, wtf does someone being a neoliberal even mean then? You could have an idea, but it's not necessarily clear to anyone else.
Posts
Wait what socialist legislation does the Democratic Part push?
If you think the New Democrats are neoliberals then people were absolutely saying this.
But again, that's the problem with throwing around neoliberal so willy-nilly. It is a term that kinda means a specific ideology but it is also a term used by like all sorts of people left of centre to attack others for various things they don't like. It's not terribly precise is the problem.
I don't think that. The New Democrats aren't all Democrats, so saying that New Democrats are neoliberal isn't saying Democrats are neoliberal. From Wikipedia: "New Democrats, also called centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or moderate Democrats, are a centrist ideological faction within the Democratic Party." (bolding is mine)
Like mrondeau said, this isn't that hard! Just... stop putting on the shoes if the shoes don't fit!
If someone says that the New Democrats are neoliberal but you don't think that Democrats are neoliberal... well... there's an obvious way to square those together. Why go out of your way to equivocate Democrats with New Democrats, just to take offense? It seems like it's you throwing around the term nilly-willy and then getting mad at other people for it.
This last sentence really suggests to me you don't actually know what Social Facism even means. It is not a thing that ties socialism to fascism. It was a theory that tied social democracy to fascism. And regardless of the fact that some people thought it was dumb back then (and it is dumb), it was still a thing people actually did believe and acted on. And you trying to pretend it wasn't is just wrong.
That might be what you thought you were saying. But that is not what your words meant. Maybe if you hadn't directly quoted something referring to a specific incident upon which to place the labels it would be the case as you're claiming. But you did.
You keep acting like I'm saying that social fascism didn't exist and I'm not sure how else to explain it to you. It existed! It was real! Also real shitty. Also historically insignificant.
We can start with the three attempts at socialized medicine for one. The EPA, The New Deal, the Great Society, SNAP. Like... all of the new bills the incoming house has introduced and is in line to pass.
There has been a dearth of successful legislation over the past few years but it was not for a lack of trying.
No. He jeeps saying that you keep insisting that social fascism wasn't in any way affiliated with other aspects of socialism or derived from other aspects of socialism and that is wrong. It was. It was shitty but that is where it came from.
Yeah the Democrats of the 1930s, 1980s, and 2010s aren't the same people or the political coalition.
We can go into that discussion back like I said its a doozy.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
That's an.....incredibly generous definition of socialism.
Dark Primus and Sammich are saying Democrats are neoliberals because leadership won't allow anything else literally on the last page.
You're doing all this arguing to say no one is saying stuff that people are clearly saying, and I'm not sure why since I don't think you agree with them.
Historically quite relevant since it shaped the ideology of the KPD during the rise of Nazism which is the whole point of the historical example that exists to demonstrate the problems with the idea that "it was everyone allying with fascist to get back at the left". Because it was also far left parties making common cause with fascists to attack the centre-left.
They are the ideological decedents of those people. Are you really going to suggest that the reason we don't have Socialized Medicine is that democrats didn't want it? That the reason we have SNAP is that democrats have fought to dismantle it and it was just super hard to convince Republicans to get rid of it?
That doesn't mean anything when their ideologies have changed so wildly. Like yeah modern millenial democrats are I guess the descendants of the 80s but their view their descendants as racist sellouts so I'm not sure where you'd go with that connection.
The Democratic party isn't a monolith and neither is the Republican party. Thinking of them in those terms is erroneous.
Clinton represented a important part of the Democratic coalition in the 1990s that believed in neoliberal policies like financial deregulation. Hillary Clinton even in the 2016 election wasn't running on tougher financial regulations like much of the party that was behind Sanders and Warren wanted.
Not all of the Democratic party wants the same things.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Its... really not. Like. What would a true socialist be required to do?
But they didn't. They're not "literally the exact same people" because people get old and die. The reasons for actions; the defining throughline for action and policy has not changed significantly*
*It has expanded to cover racial, gender, and sexual equality in addition to social construction to fix the problems of capitalism. But it has not lost aspects of those prior policies. We have not dismantled those policies we have fought to keep them.
See, the actual fault line in the US is white supremacy and always has been.
Meanwhile, the most powerful Democrat in the country:
1) Saved the nation's largest socialist program (Social Security) in 2005.
2) Passed a public health insurance program (which Lieberman killed, but she passed it in the House)
3) Is holding hearings on Medicare for All this year.
For starters. I dunno what you call her ideology if not at least a social democrat.
Social democrats are one of the major political movements that adopted neoliberal policy during the 90s, in the US and all over Europe.
The Third Way and New Labour were exactly the kind of intersection between neoliberal economic regulatory and trade policy, and traditional social democratic politics that we're talking about.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
But there was no significant coalition of democrats that believed in Financial Deregulation. Bill was not for it and neither was Hillary. I literally just had to educate you on how GLB passed and it was not a democratic led initiative at any stage in the process... until such a time as it was already clearly passing and effects could be ameliorated. Hillary even campaigned hard on financial regulation.
These things you're claiming happened did not happen.
... on the last page:
Again, are you just ignoring their posts? Or just misinterpreting them? I just wrote a post about how you shouldn't conflate "New Democrats" with "Democrats," and you respond with a post conflating "Democrats" with "the Democratic Party," referring me to posts on the previous page that explicitly distinguish "the Democratic Party" from "Democrats."
Like, if you have an actual dispute with the things they are saying, if you don't think that New Democrats are neoliberal, or if you don't think that they should be allowed to distinguish Democrats from the Democratic Party, or if you object to the Democratic Party even being called neoliberal, then that'd be one thing, but this is just... constant misrepresentation, over and over again.
Seriously, I get that y'all might think you know the politics of some posters here, but quit jumping to the where you think they'll end up and criticizing opinions that they haven't expressed. If you have an issue with what they're actually posting, then reply to that, but disputing things you think they might say or that they secretly believe is ridiculous. I don't agree with Sammich on everything, no, but I'm still going to read their posts in good faith and see where their ideas lead me, rather than just presume that since I disagree with them on some issues, therefore I MUST ABSOLUTELY find something to disagree with them on here.
In the same way that neoliberals theoretically shouldn't be on board with giving up economic freedom to make common cause with fascists, but do, because people largely don't give a shit about being ideologically consistent.
I struggle to see why populist left-wing coalitions built on 'fuck the capitalists' without a strong emphasis on social liberalism wouldn't be at risk to drift into fascist waters, in fact.
The risk factor for fascism isn't directly left or right-wing economic preferences, in fact, but a disregard for equality and universal rights.
That risk factor is more common on the right, of course, because no one sane believes an unfettered free market can do that whole equality thing.
And I'm not talking about the 90s or Third Way. I'm talking about now.
I literally, literally, just explained that to you twice. What do you think i was referring to when talking about the GLB act that ended Glass Steagall? This is the third time. Signing GLB did not make Bill for deregulation.
From earlier in the thread. This isn't quite true. "Neoliberals"* tend to believe that they are not giving up economic freedom by siding with fascists. I will take some time to go find it because it was pretty succinct and i don't want to accidentally contradict myself.
*which really just means "classical liberals of the laissez faire type
Is there anything left of soc dems that isn't socialist?
So unless you mean yes, even soc dems enable fascism, why would you say neoliberals enable fascism.
It's just confusing if you say that but don't mean it.
Let's try this instead.
Do you believe the politics of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States, enable the spread of fascism?
edit: Removed a tag so I'm not calling out anyone specifically. If anyone else can clarify their position based on this specific example, it would probably be helpful.
You're trying to split hairs. He signed the law. There's a photo of him smiling surrounded by congressmen while he does it.
That's support. The 90s DNC is definitionally neoliberal.
Social democratic parties aren't usually monoliths of moderate leftists, they're coalitions of interventionist liberals and reformist socialists. Macron himself bailed on his social democratic party and ran as French Reagan.
Like, these things are pretty fucking complex with a lot of intra-party conflict. I agree that Styrofoam simplifies it too much.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Social fascism was an ideology or theory, not a group. And the people pushing it didn't really like the fascists either. They just thought the centrists were basically the same as fascists and were the real enemy that needed to be fought first.
The risk is in missing the big picture and putting smaller scale ideological conflicts ahead of larger threats. That and accelerationism, which is never a good idea.
Frankly, if you've been involved in politics on the left this whole situation should be extremely familiar to you.
I'm sorry, but again, I don't think that happened. Jephery said social democrats "adopted neoliberal policy." That doesn't mean they stopped being social democrats and became neoliberals, though it could. It means that they started pushing policies that had more neoliberal elements in them.
People, and especially parties, can partake of more than one ideology at the same time. People's ideas and policies change over time, and this may or may not change their primary ideology. It's perfectly internally consistent to say that Chinese communists started adopting capitalist policies, while still being communists and not capitalists. It might not be externally consistent, and one might say the opposite too, that the Chinese communists became capitalists because they adopted so many capitalist policies, but that's up for debate and it's not the same thing.
I believe the Democrats, in their role as part of the mainstream political order of the last 50 years or so, have created a situation in which fascism could again become a real threat in the United States. Nancy Pelosi had a role in that in proportion to her power to shape political reality in the US. Like I've been saying, I don't think focusing on individuals in very useful.
I feel like a Who/What/When/Where/Why/How thing is needed here. Because this is not clear.
That is you lying with statistics and procedure. Stop it.
The original vote was 54-46. One democrat voted for it. And 343–86 (a good number of democrats voted for a much more liberal version of the bill).
At that point it was assured to pass and Bill did not have the political capital to stop it. So what was fought for was what could be achieved.
Oh no there is a photo of him smiling and signing the bill... God forbid a politician put on airs. He must be the first politician to ever have faked a smile. Or to have signed something that he was against.
Look I'm just going to admit that I'm seeing what I want in Bill and Hillary's records, but at the same time, a lot of Americans saw it too. Whether it was real, or just a perception of them being in Wall Street's pockets', I don't really think this is the thread the refight the Clinton legacy so I'm going to stop before I get modded.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
This seems to bring up a more confusing discussion about whether labels apply to ideologies rather then people. (Are there neoliberals or just neoliberal policies? What is a neoliberal if not someone pushing neoliberal policy? etc, etc) And it pretty outside the scope of a discussion of fascism. It's kinda the whole problem with these labels because "They did neoliberal things but weren't neoliberals" is an argument that is supremely unclear about what is being said exactly.
Fascism isn’t the kind of thing you can point a finger at one solitary person and go, “you did this”
In the big picture, neoliberalism and overwhelming adherence to the platonic ideal of capitalism have helped to enable fascism
In a very real sense, we are all collectively responsible for it
... /shrug?
Is a bus driver a bus driver simply by virtue of driving a bus? If I steal a bus, do I become a bus driver? Is this so difficult a problem that we can't talk about bus drivers or driving buses? Are we just throwing around the label "bus driver" nilly-willy?
I think we should just be charitable with other people's posts. If you really think Jephery may have called all Democrats neoliberals, maybe just ask rather than demanding that they stop using the term so nilly-willy and vaguely to apply to everything under the sun. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me to assume that Jephery isn't calling everybody in American politics a fascist.
Some of us have pushed harder and more eagerly down that road than the rest, and it’s more obvious than others’ contributions (looking at you, xenophobes)
I’m not entirely sure those who sold us down the road to fascism out of convenience or ignorance are more or less worthy of scorn than those who actively follow a fascist philosophy, but I am of the opinion that they are both equally responsible
I'm trying to decide if I agree with the third line is even true. I just think we underestimated the power of white supremacy (or ethnic nationalism more generally) after we elected a black president. And more importantly how it became increasingly acceptable from 2008-2016.
'
Because that racist motherfucker winking at birtherism is now seen as a paragon of civic virtue.
But maybe the inequities created by unrestrained capitalism primed the pump for this kind of thing. But then I think about the correlation between white supremacist power increasing and economic performance and it doesn't seem like there is one. It's mostly about black people demanding to be full citizens, regardless of economic climate.
I think the really important thing about fascism is that it is amorphous and unique to each country it appears in.
You can't be charitable when no one is clear wtf anyone is saying. When you are arguing that someone adopted neoliberal policies but that doesn't necessarily mean they were neoliberal, you are being clear as mud about wtf you are actually trying to say when using the term neoliberal and so people cannot engage in a charitable discussion with that. Like, wtf does someone being a neoliberal even mean then? You could have an idea, but it's not necessarily clear to anyone else.