yes, it reads as a long whine, extending through a bunch of straw horses.
i'm eager for you to get to the part where you share what you think needs to happen now. what i've been thinking: leave the democratic part, join the democratic socialist party and find someone somewhere who can inspire like bernie can. to leave behind left and right, and focus on people needing money in their pockets, and the help of things like affortable health care and bridges that don't fall down. ie, a new approach to taxes, and protection of our and the planet's environment... and some other things
Self Interest...for some self interest simply means Survival...this poem was written a while back but damn...you got white people sending text messages to children telling them to report to slave camps...breaking down doors and killing people in bed...proposing to lock up homeless people...put immigrants in tent cities...it's the same shit and we sit trying figure out who to vote for and nothing changes...poor children remain miseducated and poor people have no way out or up...Human Beings are the worst animals on the planet. So after you finish debating just HELP somebody and maybe your living will not be in vane.
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of life, poetry trends
That awareness, consciousness, poems that screamed of pain and the origins of pain and death had blanketed my tablets
And, therefore, my friends, brothers, sisters, in-laws, outlaws, and besides, they already knew
But brother Torres (George Floyd), common ancient bloodline, brother Torres (Floyd) is dead
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more words down about people kicking us when we’re down
About racist dogs that attack us and drive us down, drag us down and beat us down
But the dogs are in the street
The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts has scarcely diminished
It has scarcely brought us the comfort we suspected
The recognition of our terror and the screaming release of that recognition
Has not removed the certainty of that knowledge—how could it?
The dogs, rabid, foaming with the energy of their brutish ignorance
Stride the city streets like robot gunslingers
And spread death as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun butts and police shields
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
But the battlefield has oozed away from the stilted debates of semantics
Beyond the questionable flexibility of primal screaming
The reality of our city, jungle streets and their Gestapos
Has become an attack on home, life, family and philosophy, total
It is beyond the question of the advantages of didactic niggerisms
The motherfucking dogs are in the street
In Houston, maybe someone said Mexicans were the new niggers
In LA, maybe someone said Chicanos were the new niggers
In Frisco, maybe someone said Orientals were the new niggers
Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina they decided they didn’t need no new niggers
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
But dogs are in the street
It’s a turnaround world where things are all too quickly turned around
It was turned around so that right looked wrong
It was turned around so that up looked down
It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security
So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack
It became so you couldn’t call a spade a motherfucking spade
Brother Torres (Floyd)is dead,
Donald Trump, George DeSantos, Marjorie Taylor Green are still alive
And the dogs are in the motherfucking street
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
"Voters who are motivated by the conservative framing on issues like immigration, campus political activism, and trans people are just going to vote for the party that made these into issues in the first place."
This is something that gets glossed over, and even your phrasing elides a crucial reality- there are more people *motivated by pure bigotry* than most people who define themselves anywhere along the left/progressive continuum are ready to acknowledge. They are THE problem, when we talk about unsuccessful efforts to establish a just, equitable, inclusive society (and have been the problem for generations).
Messaging focusing on economic interest and shared benefit has never worked, and will never work with this cohort, because these are not what this cohort cares about.
This is not about Trump, and there is no such thing as Trumpism. There is fascism, and he is a figurehead, a prop of the fascist crowd that elevated him. He represents what they want, and how they see themselves.
When confronted with a person as odious as Trump, and policies as abhorrent as those promulgated by the GOP, it seems inconceivable that individuals we know and encounter could embrace the awfulness, but they do. Enthusiastically.
We can't fix all the problems we face if we don't recognize THE problem- each and every person who votes GOP. The fascist crowd, without who the GOP would simply not exist.
They are not merely opponents- they seek to dismantle every facet of pluralistic democracy. They've shown this decade after decade, long before they created Trump, and will continue to long after he is gone.
I disagree somewhat, the average person voting for fascism isn't voting because they are irredeemable bigoted ideologues. They are voting for a narrative. Trumpism provides a scapegoat for the alienation inherent in capitalist relations of production. People hate the status quo and Democrats since Clinton have been the party of the status quo. Like there's a reason so many people went from Obama, to Sanders, to Trump. They are searching for the outsider that provides them with the narrative.
This is what happened with Nazi Germany by the way. Hitler was competing with the socialists for the outsider who can shake up the status quo and fix this shit. It was just that the powers that be at the time decided that fascism was a more lucrative bet than socialism if one of the two was going to win out. Most of the people who voted for him thought he wouldn't really do half the shit that he said he was going to and by the time he saw he was serious, it was too late.
The one time in the past three presidential election that Dems ran on a modicum of economic populism, they actually won in 2020. Then Biden swiftly cut off most of the programs that allowed people to survive the pandemic recession and stay on their feet.
We disagree on our reading of the US electorate, and the circumstances of Hitler's elevation.
I think the emphasis on the supposed economic concerns of those who embrace fascism misses entirely the social psychology of bigotry, their wish for demographic dominance and exclusion/elimination of the other. These enduring elements of the right wing worldview historically has not been- cannot be- adequately explained by an analysis of economic conditions.
Historically, right wing fascism comes into power during times of economic turmoil. Its not that the bigotry doesn't exist before hand, but rather the tying that bigotry into a grander narrative of "them" causing all of the economic/societal anxiety one feels is what gives that bigotry political purchase through mass politics.
One of the things that people missed about 2016 was that it wasn't really poor whites who swung it for Trump. It was relatively wealthy whites who lived in areas surrounded by poverty. When people are afraid of losing what they have, they tend to go with the strong man promising to fix everything.
I'm familiar with that narrative, both as an explanation of 2016 (and undoubtedly, this election), and claims about the conditions that promoted fascism in Europe in the early 20th century. I'm saying that narrative is false, and unsupported by the evidence.
For whatever it's worth, Noah Belatsky has arrived at the same read on the situation as me-
"Although inequality in income and wealth may have increased substantially, support for right-wing movements is spread across a wide spectrum of society. A shared value system transcends contradictory and, even conflicting, class interests. Society seems to be divided in terms of value systems which are nominally and somewhat lazily categorised as conservative or liberal.
That there could be intrinsic conditions in the collective psyche resonates to a surprising extent in the current context. When we explore the underlying causes or drivers as it were, it boils down to two key elements: the politics of identity and the politics of resentment...
...the politics of mass fascism are deliberately nurtured. Its people cannot be victims, but must be willing participants in the process. The supporters of the regime are not merely content to support it but also actively demonise and attack the real or imagined enemies of the regime. That is undoubtedly the fascism of the masses."
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”-
T.S. Eliot
Vulnerability inside all of mankind no matter who you are it's not winning or losing; it's having the courage to voice your opinions and take a stand. Fear is what motivates those in control. It's sad most folks don't do their homework and are willing to take the easy way out by following whom they fear the worst. Racism and homophobic folks use any means necessary to win. They elected a person void of any human compassion only the greed and his need to become a dictator... You will reap what you have sown, America!!- KV
It was clearly inflation. To such a degree that I think other explanations are side quests.
However, the leftist mode of cancellation makes big tent politics impossible. Purity tests are for fringe groups with no real juice.
Maybe stick to your guns or your ideology and make yourv case, but make it on Rogan so you reach an audience outside of your base.
We also see the way Boomer Liberalism has everyone stuck. Fighting the last war. People think Fox News is still mainstream, so that counts as reaching out to people where they are, if you've decided that people over 60 matter more because they vote more.
The Free Palestine movement definitely took millions of votes. The 11m vote discrepancy matters. The gains of the GOP amongst minorities matters. A lot more black people, Latin people and gay people voted for Trump than in a previous election. The idea that Democrats own minority votes is dead. Meanwhile Democrats made gains among white people.
It was inflation in so much that Trump could provide an understandable narrative for inflation and the democrats could not because such an explanation that wasn't rooted in scapegoating bigotry would upset their donors. Kamala was at her strongest when she was talking about going after price gougers and rent control. Then her brother in law said stop that shit and the rest is history.
Honestly, I think it was because Trump's narrative was simple but wrong, and to refute it you had to teach economics to people who haven't spent one day in a university class.
The supply shock explanation for inflation is pretty compelling. Seeing the interplay between increased demand while supply lagged, due to stimulus as the cause of inflation has a very strong economic case behind it.
There is a massive gulf between the educated classes and the working classes. Thus the educated identitarian classes are dumbfounded that the working class abandoned them.
Yes you're right that there was power in the simplicity of the argument, but the more important factor is that Trump gives people someone to blame whereas democrats can't functionally.
Thanks for making me feel less crazy this week. Excellent breakdown
yes, it reads as a long whine, extending through a bunch of straw horses.
i'm eager for you to get to the part where you share what you think needs to happen now. what i've been thinking: leave the democratic part, join the democratic socialist party and find someone somewhere who can inspire like bernie can. to leave behind left and right, and focus on people needing money in their pockets, and the help of things like affortable health care and bridges that don't fall down. ie, a new approach to taxes, and protection of our and the planet's environment... and some other things
Karen's second post came from Babu...
Self Interest...for some self interest simply means Survival...this poem was written a while back but damn...you got white people sending text messages to children telling them to report to slave camps...breaking down doors and killing people in bed...proposing to lock up homeless people...put immigrants in tent cities...it's the same shit and we sit trying figure out who to vote for and nothing changes...poor children remain miseducated and poor people have no way out or up...Human Beings are the worst animals on the planet. So after you finish debating just HELP somebody and maybe your living will not be in vane.
https://youtu.be/b8d1ZlOCupk?si=cf1jTzL9b7yWLkYs
A poem for Jose Campos Torres(George Floyd)
Gil Scott-Heron
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of life, poetry trends
That awareness, consciousness, poems that screamed of pain and the origins of pain and death had blanketed my tablets
And, therefore, my friends, brothers, sisters, in-laws, outlaws, and besides, they already knew
But brother Torres (George Floyd), common ancient bloodline, brother Torres (Floyd) is dead
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more words down about people kicking us when we’re down
About racist dogs that attack us and drive us down, drag us down and beat us down
But the dogs are in the street
The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts has scarcely diminished
It has scarcely brought us the comfort we suspected
The recognition of our terror and the screaming release of that recognition
Has not removed the certainty of that knowledge—how could it?
The dogs, rabid, foaming with the energy of their brutish ignorance
Stride the city streets like robot gunslingers
And spread death as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun butts and police shields
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
But the battlefield has oozed away from the stilted debates of semantics
Beyond the questionable flexibility of primal screaming
The reality of our city, jungle streets and their Gestapos
Has become an attack on home, life, family and philosophy, total
It is beyond the question of the advantages of didactic niggerisms
The motherfucking dogs are in the street
In Houston, maybe someone said Mexicans were the new niggers
In LA, maybe someone said Chicanos were the new niggers
In Frisco, maybe someone said Orientals were the new niggers
Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina they decided they didn’t need no new niggers
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
But dogs are in the street
It’s a turnaround world where things are all too quickly turned around
It was turned around so that right looked wrong
It was turned around so that up looked down
It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security
So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack
It became so you couldn’t call a spade a motherfucking spade
Brother Torres (Floyd)is dead,
Donald Trump, George DeSantos, Marjorie Taylor Green are still alive
And the dogs are in the motherfucking street
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems like this
I made a mistake
"Voters who are motivated by the conservative framing on issues like immigration, campus political activism, and trans people are just going to vote for the party that made these into issues in the first place."
This is something that gets glossed over, and even your phrasing elides a crucial reality- there are more people *motivated by pure bigotry* than most people who define themselves anywhere along the left/progressive continuum are ready to acknowledge. They are THE problem, when we talk about unsuccessful efforts to establish a just, equitable, inclusive society (and have been the problem for generations).
Messaging focusing on economic interest and shared benefit has never worked, and will never work with this cohort, because these are not what this cohort cares about.
This is not about Trump, and there is no such thing as Trumpism. There is fascism, and he is a figurehead, a prop of the fascist crowd that elevated him. He represents what they want, and how they see themselves.
When confronted with a person as odious as Trump, and policies as abhorrent as those promulgated by the GOP, it seems inconceivable that individuals we know and encounter could embrace the awfulness, but they do. Enthusiastically.
We can't fix all the problems we face if we don't recognize THE problem- each and every person who votes GOP. The fascist crowd, without who the GOP would simply not exist.
They are not merely opponents- they seek to dismantle every facet of pluralistic democracy. They've shown this decade after decade, long before they created Trump, and will continue to long after he is gone.
I disagree somewhat, the average person voting for fascism isn't voting because they are irredeemable bigoted ideologues. They are voting for a narrative. Trumpism provides a scapegoat for the alienation inherent in capitalist relations of production. People hate the status quo and Democrats since Clinton have been the party of the status quo. Like there's a reason so many people went from Obama, to Sanders, to Trump. They are searching for the outsider that provides them with the narrative.
This is what happened with Nazi Germany by the way. Hitler was competing with the socialists for the outsider who can shake up the status quo and fix this shit. It was just that the powers that be at the time decided that fascism was a more lucrative bet than socialism if one of the two was going to win out. Most of the people who voted for him thought he wouldn't really do half the shit that he said he was going to and by the time he saw he was serious, it was too late.
The one time in the past three presidential election that Dems ran on a modicum of economic populism, they actually won in 2020. Then Biden swiftly cut off most of the programs that allowed people to survive the pandemic recession and stay on their feet.
We disagree on our reading of the US electorate, and the circumstances of Hitler's elevation.
I think the emphasis on the supposed economic concerns of those who embrace fascism misses entirely the social psychology of bigotry, their wish for demographic dominance and exclusion/elimination of the other. These enduring elements of the right wing worldview historically has not been- cannot be- adequately explained by an analysis of economic conditions.
Historically, right wing fascism comes into power during times of economic turmoil. Its not that the bigotry doesn't exist before hand, but rather the tying that bigotry into a grander narrative of "them" causing all of the economic/societal anxiety one feels is what gives that bigotry political purchase through mass politics.
One of the things that people missed about 2016 was that it wasn't really poor whites who swung it for Trump. It was relatively wealthy whites who lived in areas surrounded by poverty. When people are afraid of losing what they have, they tend to go with the strong man promising to fix everything.
I'm familiar with that narrative, both as an explanation of 2016 (and undoubtedly, this election), and claims about the conditions that promoted fascism in Europe in the early 20th century. I'm saying that narrative is false, and unsupported by the evidence.
For whatever it's worth, Noah Belatsky has arrived at the same read on the situation as me-
https://www.everythingishorrible.net/p/the-economic-anxiety-explanation
Some of the basic points of the nature of fascism globally are nicely outlined here-
https://www.theindiaforum.in/society/why-fascism-rise-world-over
"Although inequality in income and wealth may have increased substantially, support for right-wing movements is spread across a wide spectrum of society. A shared value system transcends contradictory and, even conflicting, class interests. Society seems to be divided in terms of value systems which are nominally and somewhat lazily categorised as conservative or liberal.
That there could be intrinsic conditions in the collective psyche resonates to a surprising extent in the current context. When we explore the underlying causes or drivers as it were, it boils down to two key elements: the politics of identity and the politics of resentment...
...the politics of mass fascism are deliberately nurtured. Its people cannot be victims, but must be willing participants in the process. The supporters of the regime are not merely content to support it but also actively demonise and attack the real or imagined enemies of the regime. That is undoubtedly the fascism of the masses."
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”-
T.S. Eliot
Vulnerability inside all of mankind no matter who you are it's not winning or losing; it's having the courage to voice your opinions and take a stand. Fear is what motivates those in control. It's sad most folks don't do their homework and are willing to take the easy way out by following whom they fear the worst. Racism and homophobic folks use any means necessary to win. They elected a person void of any human compassion only the greed and his need to become a dictator... You will reap what you have sown, America!!- KV
I think this is a historic flip like the Southern Strategy/Great Society flip in the early 70s.
So focusing on class instead of identity is "right wing" now.
I dunno man...im just saying if you wanted to democrats to avoid running on Id pol, this was the campaign for you. And it didnt work.
You know that im critical of how democrats deploy id pol. Stay tuned for part 2.
Im just saying if you're blaming wokness for this, you watched an election in an alternate universe.
It was clearly inflation. To such a degree that I think other explanations are side quests.
However, the leftist mode of cancellation makes big tent politics impossible. Purity tests are for fringe groups with no real juice.
Maybe stick to your guns or your ideology and make yourv case, but make it on Rogan so you reach an audience outside of your base.
We also see the way Boomer Liberalism has everyone stuck. Fighting the last war. People think Fox News is still mainstream, so that counts as reaching out to people where they are, if you've decided that people over 60 matter more because they vote more.
The Free Palestine movement definitely took millions of votes. The 11m vote discrepancy matters. The gains of the GOP amongst minorities matters. A lot more black people, Latin people and gay people voted for Trump than in a previous election. The idea that Democrats own minority votes is dead. Meanwhile Democrats made gains among white people.
It was inflation in so much that Trump could provide an understandable narrative for inflation and the democrats could not because such an explanation that wasn't rooted in scapegoating bigotry would upset their donors. Kamala was at her strongest when she was talking about going after price gougers and rent control. Then her brother in law said stop that shit and the rest is history.
Honestly, I think it was because Trump's narrative was simple but wrong, and to refute it you had to teach economics to people who haven't spent one day in a university class.
The supply shock explanation for inflation is pretty compelling. Seeing the interplay between increased demand while supply lagged, due to stimulus as the cause of inflation has a very strong economic case behind it.
There is a massive gulf between the educated classes and the working classes. Thus the educated identitarian classes are dumbfounded that the working class abandoned them.
Yes you're right that there was power in the simplicity of the argument, but the more important factor is that Trump gives people someone to blame whereas democrats can't functionally.
You familiar with Rene Girard?
Ahh yes, I thought this might be something I forgot rather than never knew. Yes, I'm aware of the concept of mimetic desire.
No, but i'm looking him up now. I've heard the name before.
So focusing on class instead of identity is "right wing" now.