Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 80

wtf, United States nr 10 ? Really ?

On June 28 2018 05:46 Stroggoz wrote: all governments are run for the benefit of elite interests. elite interests in America, whether it's business or state elites, have designs to control the public. That's a large part of the functional role of public relations. We know this because they have been very open about it; they have written books on it, like the grand chessboard, or the numerous writings on their intent to control the public with PR/propaganda. I havn't really got any documents for the prison industrial complex where they outright explain their designs, but it would be consistent with the overall goals of state/corporations. The wealthy are not a big portion of society. When i use that term i mean elites-1% of the population or less. For the most part they share class values. Actors at the top of states and corporations have pretty similar values; since presidents are essentially bought with campaign finance, they really have to share the values of those who finance them. Again, it is rather obvious that the war on drugs is designed to enslave poor blacks since that's who the police are targeting. it's more about class than race really, though race is a big part of it. if a black guy lives in an upper middle class suburb, the police stay away from those areas, they arn't going to have any trouble if they go home and sniff cocaine every night[. I doubt that the state is too ignorant about the health effects of drugs. Most actors in the state are well educated. Neither is the republican party ignorant about climate change. Rex tillerson obviously knew about climate change being man made, his corporation knew that many decades ago.

thats the wrong way to see it, governments dont run to benefit the elite, governments are run by people that for the most part seek self benefit, their self benefit often lies in aligning with wealthy corporations, but its crucial to know this difference because of two reasons: one, it will lead you to the wrong solutions and aiming to the wrong targets, and two, because you will think its just a correctable a problem in the system rather than a core inallienable flaw in humans.

Politicians legally bough is an US problem, I'm not sure about the EU but for example in México campaigns cannot recieve private funding, so campaign come from taxes which of course brings another plethora of problems.


Again the war on drugs isn't designed to imprison poor people that serves no purpose besides a few people who recently started profiting from private prisons, so whats the deal, the rich just hate the poor? thats such a childish perception of how people work. Drugs are illegal in Cuba and other socialist countries too, what the deal there?

On June 28 2018 17:41 VanDerMeyde wrote: wtf, United States nr 10 ? Really ?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/ent...for-women_us_5b339778e4b0b745f179b26f

The hufftington post ranks it at 3rd tied with Syria

lol journalism

On June 28 2018 18:49 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On June 28 2018 05:46 Stroggoz wrote: all governments are run for the benefit of elite interests. elite interests in America, whether it's business or state elites, have designs to control the public. That's a large part of the functional role of public relations. We know this because they have been very open about it; they have written books on it, like the grand chessboard, or the numerous writings on their intent to control the public with PR/propaganda. I havn't really got any documents for the prison industrial complex where they outright explain their designs, but it would be consistent with the overall goals of state/corporations. The wealthy are not a big portion of society. When i use that term i mean elites-1% of the population or less. For the most part they share class values. Actors at the top of states and corporations have pretty similar values; since presidents are essentially bought with campaign finance, they really have to share the values of those who finance them. Again, it is rather obvious that the war on drugs is designed to enslave poor blacks since that's who the police are targeting. it's more about class than race really, though race is a big part of it. if a black guy lives in an upper middle class suburb, the police stay away from those areas, they arn't going to have any trouble if they go home and sniff cocaine every night[. I doubt that the state is too ignorant about the health effects of drugs. Most actors in the state are well educated. Neither is the republican party ignorant about climate change. Rex tillerson obviously knew about climate change being man made, his corporation knew that many decades ago. thats the wrong way to see it, governments dont run to benefit the elite, governments are run by people that for the most part seek self benefit, their self benefit often lies in aligning with wealthy corporations, but its crucial to know this difference because of two reasons: one, it will lead you to the wrong solutions and aiming to the wrong targets, and two, because you will think its just a correctable a problem in the system rather than a core inallienable flaw in humans. Politicians legally bough is an US problem, I'm not sure about the EU but for example in México campaigns cannot recieve private funding, so campaign come from taxes which of course brings another plethora of problems. Again the war on drugs isn't designed to imprison poor people that serves no purpose besides a few people who recently started profiting from private prisons, so whats the deal, the rich just hate the poor? thats such a childish perception of how people work. Drugs are illegal in Cuba and other socialist countries too, what the deal there?

no, your flat wrong on the 1st point. research indicates policy is directly correlated with campaign finance. Although that isn't inconsistent with people seeking self benefit getting into government, they implement policies their doners pay for. The research is clear on it being beneficial to the elites who pay for it.

The rich don't hate the poor they just don't care about them. You don't have to hate a group of people to imprison them. It's quite clear though that if the rich cared about the poor then they would let them have a say in politics or enact policies that allow them to have human rights, at the very least. It's not childish, it's just the facts. You can tell how much they care about the poor just by looking at their actions. It is largely true in history that elite groups don't care about the underclass so I don't see what is childish about it. Your saying i think the rich hate the poor, but I merely think they just don't care about them-with some exceptions of course.

I don't know why drugs are illegal in cuba but it wouldn't surprise me if it was also for purposes of social control. There arn't any socialist countries in the world, cuba isn't socialist, it's a dictatorship. it just exploits the word to make the government appear socialist.

@drone, yeah tillerson has changed his views across time. I havn't heard that nixon used drug laws to break up movements but that certainly wouldn't surprise me if what your saying is true. You can have a lot of reasons for drug criminalization, and use it for multiple goals. It doesn't seem inconsistent to mass incarceration of blacks to me. If you want to use the words re-enslavement, i guess that's one way you could describe mass incarceration. Like i said before I think it has multiple functions of cleansing those from society that don't fufill the purpose of making profit, but also to induce fear in society, for purposes of population control.

There's no way Sweden is below the USA cmon... Stieg Larsson's data given in his Millenium trilogy books on sexual harrassment and violence towards women is official data and it was like over 50% of women being harassed by men at some point in their life included in a police report.

On June 28 2018 20:37 Stroggoz wrote: no, your flat wrong on the 1st point. research indicates policy is directly correlated with campaign finance. Although that isn't inconsistent with people seeking self benefit getting into government, they implement policies their doners pay for. The research is clear on it being beneficial to the elites who pay for it. The rich don't hate the poor they just don't care about them. You don't have to hate a group of people to imprison them. It's quite clear though that if the rich cared about the poor then they would let them have a say in politics or enact policies that allow them to have human rights, at the very least. It's not childish, it's just the facts. You can tell how much they care about the poor just by looking at their actions. It is largely true in history that elite groups don't care about the underclass so I don't see what is childish about it. Your saying i think the rich hate the poor, but I merely think they just don't care about them-with some exceptions of course. I don't know why drugs are illegal in cuba but it wouldn't surprise me if it was also for purposes of social control. There arn't any socialist countries in the world, cuba isn't socialist, it's a dictatorship. it just exploits the word to make the government appear socialist. @drone, yeah tillerson has changed his views across time. I havn't heard that nixon used drug laws to break up movements but that certainly wouldn't surprise me if what your saying is true. You can have a lot of reasons for drug criminalization, and use it for multiple goals. It doesn't seem inconsistent to mass incarceration of blacks to me. If you want to use the words re-enslavement, i guess that's one way you could describe mass incarceration. Like i said before I think it has multiple functions of cleansing those from society that don't fufill the purpose of making profit, but also to induce fear in society, for purposes of population control.

I'm not wrong, they act benefiting the rich because thats in the politician best interest because how the lobbying quid-pro-quo system is set, but that is the resulst of such system, not an intrinstic dynamic where politican benefits the wealthy.

It's childish to think the rich want to enslave poor people, there is a big gap between not caring and wanting to enslave.

Cuba is socialist what are you talking about, its not democratic-socialist, its dictatorial-socialist, but its the closest country in the world to a classless society with the abolishion of private property, there is no rich to exploit the poor (the rich and powerful is only the state), so whats your theory of drugs being illegal if its just a move to punish poor
people?

The USSR also had harsh policies against drugs, they were consider a lavish burgeois vice, yet alcohol wasn't banned despise being more harmful than most drugs, why? because some conspiracy? no, because of ignorant public perception.

Or wasn't the USSR socialist or communist too? are we gong to play true scottsman?

the USSR was as communist as north korea is democratic. There has never been a communist regime. Cuba is closer than the USSR ever was, but that also falls very short. Communism is designed for heavily automated, post-scarcity societies, there being enough resources for everybody is a fundamental requirement for its implementation. A dictatorship is in complete opposition to marxist ideals. Now, they're also not capitalist - and I agree with the general point that drugs being illegal is not a capitalist enslavement-plot, and that it's caused by ignorant public perception - but there's nothing true scotsmanny about stating that the USSR (or Cuba) are not communist countries. They're not remotely close to being realizations of Marx' descriptions of a communist society.

I mean about drugs in general, I've smoked a lot of hash and weed and continue to do so occasionally. There's no question that alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. But it's also easy for the general public to see the relation between drug use/abuse and being a societal outsider or even 'loser', because most cities feature quite a lot of very visible examples of just this. Couple that with efficient propaganda, and you get a lot of genuine believers. Then weather vane politicians (who actually also frequently are genuine believers in drugs r bad mkay) end up perpetuating a truly stupid piece of policy. Not because of malice (the original war on drugs was malicious, but not the continuation of it), but because of ignorance and not wanting to challenge public opinion.

Also stroggoz I read up on it a little, and I misremembered a bit. There's this quote by Ehrlichman, a Nixon staffer, where he actually says that the war on drugs was designed to criminalize hippies and black people - nixon's political enemies. He then goes on to talk about breaking up communities and jailing leaders - which points towards civil rights activists rather than 'generic black people for being black', but it's possible to read it both ways.

I don't agree that ignorance is the main factor here. Future politicians go to school just like us and receive the same propaganda about cocaine, weed, or meth as we do, so there is at least some ignorance. A lot of it has to be intentional ignorance though, they do see the views of scientists-they pick the views of scientists who decide to shill, and ignore the ones who don't. That was true of weed criminalization in the 1930's, and true of Derterte's war on drugs in the Philippines. And the Clinton administration funded studies by the rand corporation that turned out to show that government funding should be switched from law enforcement to treatment. So I don't think the government is very ignorant on this-unless it is very intentionally ignorant, they are the ones funding the research which shows what they are doing is basically pointless from the point of view of combating drug use. And the CIA was helping the contras to smuggle cocaine into america during this drug war as well. So it can't really be just about ignorance.

On June 29 2018 19:05 Liquid`Drone wrote: the USSR was as communist as north korea is democratic. There has never been a communist regime. Cuba is closer than the USSR ever was, but that also falls very short. Communism is designed for heavily automated, post-scarcity societies, there being enough resources for everybody is a fundamental requirement for its implementation. A dictatorship is in complete opposition to marxist ideals. Now, they're also not capitalist - and I agree with the general point that drugs being illegal is not a capitalist enslavement-plot, and that it's caused by ignorant public perception - but there's nothing true scotsmanny about stating that the USSR (or Cuba) are not communist countries. They're not remotely close to being realizations of Marx' descriptions of a communist society. I mean about drugs in general, I've smoked a lot of hash and weed and continue to do so occasionally. There's no question that alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. But it's also easy for the general public to see the relation between drug use/abuse and being a societal outsider or even 'loser', because most cities feature quite a lot of very visible examples of just this. Couple that with efficient propaganda, and you get a lot of genuine believers. Then weather vane politicians (who actually also frequently are genuine believers in drugs r bad mkay) end up perpetuating a truly stupid piece of policy. Not because of malice (the original war on drugs was malicious, but not the continuation of it), but because of ignorance and not wanting to challenge public opinion

True scottsman it is.

Then the US isnt capitalist since clearly the US economy is very far from a Laissez faire free market.

Sure they were not what Marx had invisioned but that doesn't matter, the USSR, NK, Zedong's China and Cuba are the results we have so far.

I agree with the 2nd paragraph for the most part, except that the war on drugs was just an intensification of already stablished laws, but I think we agree mostly on the drug issue its Stroggoz the one who believes its a conspiracy to keep poor people down.

On June 29 2018 22:31 Stroggoz wrote: I don't agree that ignorance is the main factor here. Future politicians go to school just like us and receive the same propaganda about cocaine, weed, or meth as we do, so there is at least some ignorance. A lot of it has to be intentional ignorance though, they do see the views of scientists-they pick the views of scientists who decide to shill, and ignore the ones who don't. That was true of weed criminalization in the 1930's, and true of Derterte's war on drugs in the Philippines. And the Clinton administration funded studies by the rand corporation that turned out to show that government funding should be switched from law enforcement to treatment. So I don't think the government is very ignorant on this-unless it is very intentionally ignorant, they are the ones funding the research which shows what they are doing is basically pointless from the point of view of combating drug use. And the CIA was helping the contras to smuggle cocaine into america during this drug war as well. So it can't really be just about ignorance.

Most people dont want to legalize cocaine, weed is slowly getting legalized because the majority of people want it legalized, the same thing with gay marriage.

As I said, politicians seek self interest, and they are elected through popularity contests, therefore yjru won't take positions against public opinion unless it is specifically beneficial for them, what science, morality or logic dictates is absolutely irrelevant.

However, that level of cynicism is reserved to the upper echelons where brilliant people are, but for the most part government is just an almost identical but smaller sample of the public, the public is ignorant and stupid so will be the state.

I agree that most politicians are self interested. (some exceptions), and it is largely a popularity contest. but that isn't inconsistent with what i said. You say it's childish that i think the rich don't care about the poor. But you have some similar views of those in government, which i largely agree with. I'm not trying to caricature these people i'm sure they are all complex human beings but you can still gain info on them about their values. It's not true to say the government is a part of the public, most US presidents come from ivy league universities, and the one right now is a billionaire. They are administrators for the business community and often come from that class of people, and benefit greatly through the 'revolving door' phenomenon.

It is true that the US is not a capitalist society, it isn't really a market based society. It's actually fairly obvious that this is the case when you look at all the state intervention that has been done, in baillouts, corporate and labour laws, and research and development is largely lead by the military as well. As well as the natural tendency for capital to agglomerate, markets are self defeating. the US and western societies are not capitalist except in peripheral ways it has capitalist elements to it. and russia is not communist. Don't see the fallacy since that's just what the facts show. I don't really like saying it's not 'true' capitalism. It's just not capitalism fullstop. the word 'true' is unnecessary.

Have to agree with Baal. Politicians are bureaucrats. By definition bureaucrats are people that will do anything possible to be re-elected, thus they serve their self-interest. If that same self-interest aligns with corporations like 99.9% of the cases, then so be it. The whole system is quite complex though and you're both right, as corporations are the ones that own all of the media, thus can swing the public relations towards their candidate whenever they want, which is what wins elections. The factors are very bound together but it doesn't change the fact that politicians are driven by self-interest and would sell their partners in a heartbeat if it gives them a rational edge. That's also why societies despise politicians, cause no normal individual would become one, the burden is too big for an irrational reward. Lobbyism has such deep roots into the American politic world that it will never go away though, it's just as bad as guns.

You guys also see the drug-imprisonment-whatever problem based on a race, when it's based rather on a caste. The caste with lowest social status is naturally taken advantage of as they don't have either the resources nor the knowledge to protect themselves properly, plus are inclined to "commit felonies" the most for obvious reasons.


Anyone got a good explanation on why the US left the UN Human RIghts committee? Not That dumbass chick Haley's explanation, but a rational one

they left the UN human rights council, not committee. The reason why the US left was that they kept rightly criticizing Israel.

I mean you can make the argument that 'Israel is not the biggest human rights violator in the world and thus it is weird to single them out so much' and it's kinda right but.. the other culprits (cept the US) aren't 'western democracies'.

On June 25 2018 21:02 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On June 25 2018 07:31 jax5466 wrote: Couldn't give less of a fuck about some illegal alien kids. good for you buddy. Adults who actually care about suffering and the human condition are having a dicussion you clearly are not fit to have

I think you are too emotionally invested in this. Mexicans are all economic migrants. They are not running away from misery, they simply want more money from doing nothing.

Politicians are all self-centered and serve institutional interests to some degree, but there's a wide range in doing so and its lazy generalizing when you simply dismiss them all as pure shills. Usually with that kind of talk you see a lack of describing the actual mechanism by which they're suppressing the masses. How exactly is explicitly advocating raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, in order to pay for healthcare that mostly benefits poor and middle class, shilling for the interests of the elite? Trump and his like don't really care that it makes no sense. They've gotten away with acting like the tax raise proposals are just on everyone (a lie), with the implication being that government employees would basically just embezzle the funds. The "things are bad, and elite power has been keeping it that way" sentiment, which has historically always been liberal, was turned on its head. Of course now "elites" also includes Hollywood elites, academic elites, and media elites, basically anyone with stature. "You're just saying that because you're biased" then becomes a response to any argument.

On June 30 2018 06:05 Stroggoz wrote: I agree that most politicians are self interested. (some exceptions), and it is largely a popularity contest. but that isn't inconsistent with what i said. You say it's childish that i think the rich don't care about the poor. But you have some similar views of those in government, which i largely agree with. I'm not trying to caricature these people i'm sure they are all complex human beings but you can still gain info on them about their values. It's not true to say the government is a part of the public, most US presidents come from ivy league universities, and the one right now is a billionaire. They are administrators for the business community and often come from that class of people, and benefit greatly through the 'revolving door' phenomenon. It is true that the US is not a capitalist society, it isn't really a market based society. It's actually fairly obvious that this is the case when you look at all the state intervention that has been done, in baillouts, corporate and labour laws, and research and development is largely lead by the military as well. As well as the natural tendency for capital to agglomerate, markets are self defeating. the US and western societies are not capitalist except in peripheral ways it has capitalist elements to it. and russia is not communist. Don't see the fallacy since that's just what the facts show. I don't really like saying it's not 'true' capitalism. It's just not capitalism fullstop. the word 'true' is unnecessary.

At first you didnt say rich dont care about the poor, you said they rich wanted to enslave young black ppl, theres a big difference between those two statements, the fist is egotistical and lacks empathy, the other one is one is mounstrous.

Then nothing bad can be said about capitalism since we have no examples of it, which is playing the same old card of "real communism has been tried yet". Yes they are far from their ideals and can be polished but its idiotioc to deny actual results when implementing a theory

On June 30 2018 17:21 jax5466 wrote: Show nested quote + On June 25 2018 21:02 Baalim wrote:   On June 25 2018 07:31 jax5466 wrote: Couldn't give less of a fuck about some illegal alien kids. good for you buddy. Adults who actually care about suffering and the human condition are having a dicussion you clearly are not fit to have I think you are too emotionally invested in this. Mexicans are all economic migrants. They are not running away from misery, they simply want more money from doing nothing.

I am against illegal immigration you dimwit, yes they are economic migrants, when I say misery I didn't mean war, I mean't poverty, and what do you mean "more money"?, do you think people doing nothing get money in México? lol, they migrate looking for jobs but naturally they are a burden in a structure where poor people are a financial net loss.

On June 30 2018 21:08 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On June 30 2018 06:05 Stroggoz wrote: I agree that most politicians are self interested. (some exceptions), and it is largely a popularity contest. but that isn't inconsistent with what i said. You say it's childish that i think the rich don't care about the poor. But you have some similar views of those in government, which i largely agree with. I'm not trying to caricature these people i'm sure they are all complex human beings but you can still gain info on them about their values. It's not true to say the government is a part of the public, most US presidents come from ivy league universities, and the one right now is a billionaire. They are administrators for the business community and often come from that class of people, and benefit greatly through the 'revolving door' phenomenon. It is true that the US is not a capitalist society, it isn't really a market based society. It's actually fairly obvious that this is the case when you look at all the state intervention that has been done, in baillouts, corporate and labour laws, and research and development is largely lead by the military as well. As well as the natural tendency for capital to agglomerate, markets are self defeating. the US and western societies are not capitalist except in peripheral ways it has capitalist elements to it. and russia is not communist. Don't see the fallacy since that's just what the facts show. I don't really like saying it's not 'true' capitalism. It's just not capitalism fullstop. the word 'true' is unnecessary. At first you didnt say rich dont care about the poor, you said they rich wanted to enslave young black ppl, theres a big difference between those two statements, the fist is egotistical and lacks empathy, the other one is one is mounstrous. Then nothing bad can be said about capitalism since we have no examples of it, which is playing the same old card of "real communism has been tried yet". Yes they are far from their ideals and can be polished but its idiotioc to deny actual results when implementing a theory

The first two statements yes i think both are true. Not sure why your implying they seem to be inconsistent statements. They arn't, in fact the first seems almost necessarily true given the second. But the first is a generalisation, it is a judgement based on the actions of the rich as a whole. The institutions are more psychopathic than the people, though. I agree that it is monstrous to smuggle cocaine into america while saying your waging a war on drugs that results in many poor blacks being imprisoned, and doing research at the same time that says it's better to do treatment. And then trying to make profits off prison labour. Yes, i think that is monstrous. But i guess it isn't as monstrous as what other countries do. When other countries want to cleanse the underclass they don't enslave them, they just shoot them all, like in phillipines recent war on drugs, run by another autocrat who has seen research done by neuroscientists who visited his country, so he can't claim ignorance on that one. So by comparison the US is not as bad as other societies. But it is still monstrous.

There are always good people who attain positions of power, but when they become good, all institutions act against them and they will lose power very quickly. You can see from the actions of the rich as a whole that they largely don't care. I'm sure they care about their families and loved one's but when it comes to different classes, they are at war with them. A lot of documents out their to back that up, i can give you some of those if your interested.

We can make an educated guess at what society would be like in a capitalist or communist society. A lot of bad things could be said about capitalism. markets have serious flaws as elementary economic theory points out, a capitalist society wouldn't be able to fix those. There would also be a long of good things about it, third world countries would be allowed to make cheap medicine for example because there wouldn't be protectionist laws like intellectual property rights.

I think the lazy assumptions about politicians, big government, ect, come from private propaganda like holywood or nyt; The two big agenda setters in the world for private propaganda. The privatized media works with the state though. the CIA help write holywood movie scripts like zero dark thirty, and the major actors in the state feed 'the facts', to nyt journalists like thomas friedman. But the private media don't want a state to work in the interests of the poor, as it did to some extent in the 1940s-60's. So they want people to hate the government for that reason that's where the cynicism about politicians comes from. Certainly it is true that there isn't much good to say about most politicians...but there are good ones. The good ones are the one's you don't hear about because they have a hard time getting any power.

On June 30 2018 10:23 Spitfiree wrote: Have to agree with Baal. Politicians are bureaucrats. By definition bureaucrats are people that will do anything possible to be re-elected, thus they serve their self-interest. If that same self-interest aligns with corporations like 99.9% of the cases, then so be it. The whole system is quite complex though and you're both right, as corporations are the ones that own all of the media, thus can swing the public relations towards their candidate whenever they want, which is what wins elections. The factors are very bound together but it doesn't change the fact that politicians are driven by self-interest and would sell their partners in a heartbeat if it gives them a rational edge. That's also why societies despise politicians, cause no normal individual would become one, the burden is too big for an irrational reward. Lobbyism has such deep roots into the American politic world that it will never go away though, it's just as bad as guns. You guys also see the drug-imprisonment-whatever problem based on a race, when it's based rather on a caste. The caste with lowest social status is naturally taken advantage of as they don't have either the resources nor the knowledge to protect themselves properly, plus are inclined to "commit felonies" the most for obvious reasons. Anyone got a good explanation on why the US left the UN Human RIghts committee? Not That dumbass chick Haley's explanation, but a rational one

well i didn't say it was entirely racially based. Like i said before if an upper middle class black man lives in the suburbs...that isn't an area that the police target, so he would be fine if he snorted coke. and adderall apparently is very similar to crystal meth. meth users can't tell the difference in lab tests. But meth is used largely by poor whites, adderall is sold by pharma to middle class or richer white people. I think it is a combination of class and race.