Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[scriver]

* scriver sweeps Sweden's last 20 years in under the rug.

You saw nothing!

[alway]

I hate to interrupt this discussion but,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/11/10/obama-to-the-fcc-adopt-the-strongest-possible-rules-on-net-neutrality-including-title-ii/

Do you guys think the FCC will follow his advice?

Not if Republicans have anything to say about it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-net-neutrality-is-obamacare-for-the-internet-2014-11

[10ebbor10]

Remember, in the US corporations are people.

[LordSlowpoke]

the solution to that would be to make sure that connections incoming and outgoing from the us can have their speed easily measured in bauds until morale improves

[Phmcw]

I don't think it's really fair to blame our politicians. I'd blame the people who use their economic power to debase our government, or the general populace, who refuse to give a fuck.

Could it be because the American left isn't up for the challenge? I cannot say I'm too impressed with neither the "elite" of the Democrat party nor with the internet activist I've seen.


I deeply respect Stallman but that's about it, and I think that "privilege theory" is making more harm than good and in particular is driving the working class out of your left.
Going back to Marxist thinking and social democracy would do a lot of good, but it doesn't seems to appeal to the American blogospere a lot.

[LordSlowpoke]

Could it be because the American left isn't up for the challenge?

how can something be up for challenges if it doesn't even exist

[penguinofhonor]

Could it be because the American left isn't up for the challenge? I cannot say I'm too impressed with neither the "elite" of the Democrat party nor with the internet activist I've seen.

Do you rate all political parties on the quality of their associated internet activists?

[Sheb]

Well, he's Belgian, so he hasn't much opportunity to talk to real-life Democrats activists.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Personally, I think the American left is having such a bad time because it hasn't fully figured out what it believes. There's something amorphous, present but not fully codified, that makes American leftists.

We don't need Marxism. It's contributions to leftist thought are by now infantile and demonstrably not useful. No Orthodox Marxists have been able to carry out their ideals. If you work under Marxist theory you have to eventually disseminate either to reformism or vanguardism.

Social Democracy is far more useful, but again, it's reformist. I'm fairly friendly towards reformism, but that still has low efficacy. Even Glorious Sweden, home of social democracy's victory party, is running into issues with less-than-rational policy making causing right wing blacklash and horror stories like Feminist Initiative (Ban urinals for being patriarchal? Force children to use toys intended for the other gender? They're literally one step away from otherkin advocacy.).

So yeah. I think new evolutions in leftist thought are necessary, ones free of the old baggage. I've had a lot of thoughts on the matter, I'll probably write out some of it later today.

[Helgoland]

Going back to Marxist thinking and social democracy

How can you back to two contradictory things at the same time?

MSH, social democracy is indeed reformist, but it is the answer to America's woes. What you see as bad in Sweden is not a product of social democracy but of Swedish leftists (leftists in the European sense!) having too much influence. If you want to see social democracy at its best, look at Germany, and in particular at Schmidt, Schröder, and Merkel. (Yes, she's a CDU member, but she's a social democrat in everything she does.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My political familiarity of Germany is limited, but I think you can see why I'm going to be very weary of anything that describes itself as Christian and conservative. You've even got a tea party analogue in the form of Bavaria. Christian democracy does not equal social democracy. I mean, what the hell is SDP if CDU are social democrats? For that matter, what is Die Linke if SDP are actually the radical left?

[Helgoland]

Dude, the SPD are the social democrats allright. The CDU is what we call bürgerlich - think Republicans in the fifties. I was kinda making a joke about Merkel, but it's commonly agreed that she pulled the CDU way to the left, crushing the SPD in the process. Die Linke is split between the ex-GDR and the West: In the East, they're basically social democrats with a bit of leftist veneer, while in the West they're complete nutjobs. It's a shame they weren't crowded out by the SPD in the East in the 1990's.
Calling the CSU our tea party is wildly inaccurate, and calling Bavaria that is just plain weird. Bavaria may be closest to Texas: They have a strong regional identity, a conservative bend, a thing for populism, the occasional bout of separatism, and a disproportionally large say in federal matters. The CSU is the ruling party of Bavaria - they've been in power ever since the Bundesrepublik was founded, and their leaders are quite frequently compared to monarchs. They occasionally do stupid stuff and are stubborn enough to get their way in Berlin quite frequently, but they're certainly not abortion-banning, social-safety-net cutting Jesus freaks with an assault rifle boner.
BTW, if you want religious nuts, you need to go a bit further west - they're quite large in Baden-Württemberg. But politically they're unimportant.

[Sheb]

Well, many Germans would tell you that the SPD is the CDU dressed in red. :p Seriously, they really don't differ that much on policy.

Also, I really dislike Schröder, but that's mostly for ending up on Gazprom's payroll, I don't remember much of his policies.

[Helgoland]

Reform of the labor market, mostly - Hartz 4 was his idea, and many people hate him for that. His policies are the reason Merkel is so popular, ironically
And he raised the retirement age from 65 to 67, which many hate as well. He turned the Sick Man of Europe (I actually remember that term from my childhood) into the economic powerhouse Germany is today by these measures!
Also he got us into the wars on the Balkan, which many people disapprove of as well. Oh, and he kept us out of Iraq, but got us into Afghanistan!

I hold all these achievements to be positive, mind you, but that should show why he's... controversial.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My comparison of Republicans-Tea Party to CDU-CSU is just relative, not calling them the same thing.