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***Official Political Discussion Thread***
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by rico x hood,
- Start date
- Sep 26, 2012
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This dude right here.
https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/0...fies-against-reparations-bill-during-hearing/
https://atlantablackstar.com/2021/0...fies-against-reparations-bill-during-hearing/
- Mar 30, 2007
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Wait.. this dude Rafael really left his dog too!?!
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batman villains
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I'm sorry, but this is nonsense
No liberal or liberal progressive in here has come close to giving socialists the same sort of energy they give Republicans.
You act as though socialists should exempted from all criticism no matter what. Everyone is fair game to go after, but criticizing any socialist is out of line because they are socialist.
What do I even criticize some socialists for? Class reductionism, petulant behavior, counter protective political tactics, supporting bad bad economics, prioritizing being adversarial with liberals over helping people. Are these socialist ideals worth protecting? Are these even socialist principles? Are the worst of the worst on the socialist left representative of the whole coalition? If not, why can't anyone, especially other progressives, take issue with this behavior.
Hell people can direct their criticism to a smaller subgroup of people within the socialist coalition, and you still got an issue.
Listen, I know what you are doing. Given your background, and the background of others in this thread, there is a roadblock to you calling folk out. **** can be thrown back in your face real quick, and you clearly don't like that. So you make this rather gross argument that basically uses the existence of black, Latino, and poor people within the coalition as a shield for the affluent white socialist whose voices dominate socialist spaces and social media. That because black socialists, Latino socialists, working-class, poor socialists exist, that any criticism of any socialist is unfair. It is the same rhetorical move conservatives use against liberals.
It is especially beneficial in this thread because it makes the black dudes that lived through poverty and economic insecurity the ones punching down on a rich white guy that never had to deal with those things. Because one is a liberal and the other a socialist. And no, I am not calling you a racist or white supremacist, but I am simply letting it be known I am not gonna respect this framing.
This is entitlement plain and simple. That you think you and other socialists should be able to say anything you want about any and everyone: no matter of out touch with reality it is, no matter how condescending it is, no matter how petulant it is. But no one is allowed to call that behavior out because......checks notes.....THEY ARE SOCIALIST!
You are not asking for fairness, you are asking for privilege.
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- Dec 8, 1999
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Imagine having the audacity to tell a Black man that he's "punching down" when criticizing this guy's Twitter posts, because his political beliefs aren't yet sufficiently privileged within policy circles:
This guy represents the downtrodden common man, but he's also the minority - because of the corporate-political machine that's so favored *checks notes* Black Democrats?
Wait, how did dirtbag left Twitter trolls come to represent socialism writ large? Did I miss a special primary?
This implication is - and by far - a greater affront to democratic socialism than whatever slights you feel Rusty's made against Bernie Sanders or the DSA.
I've followed your discussion with Rusty on student debt relief on and off, and, honestly, I don't think it's difficult to thread the needle between the two positions.
There exists a well-known tendency within public policy to disproportionately assist the most privileged members of a beneficiary group. That's essentially why targeted policies exist in the first place.
This is not to suggest that everything must be stringently means-tested. Means-testing is not without administrative or political cost, and we shouldn't make perfect the enemy of progress. We wouldn't cancel Medicare just because Michael Bloomberg is eligible to receive benefits. By that same logic, if we fail to provide adequate access to education and financial independence for an entire generation because some billionaire's family members might save a few bucks, are we really sticking it to the billionaires? That's the definition of hustling backwards.
A proposed 1% wealth tax in Washington state would cost Jeff Bezos $2 billion per year. We should, as Elizabeth Warren suggests, be imposing similar wealth taxes - and, I would add, windfall capital gains taxes for pandemic profiteers - nationally. At that point, who really cares if Bezos manages to claw back $50k in debt relief by participating in a universal program he largely, and unwillingly, funded? If you want to be petty about it, tax those with immoral concentrations of wealth 6% plus $50,000 – don't cancel the program outright.
Universal programs, however, operate under the premise that a rising tide lifts all boats. That doesn't really hold water for those ships currently under artillery fire. If you don't want these programs to perpetuate inequality, then, they must at minimum be offered in concert with a raft of targeted programs designed to counteract contemporary and historic injustice.
Texas' problems have been under the microscope this week, so let's continue to use them as our go-to source of cautionary examples:
Texas' concept of a “fair" college admissions policy was to ensure that the top 10 percent of each high school's graduating class would receive guaranteed admission to the public college of their choice. Proponents often portrayed this as if it successfully addressed racial disparities in higher education without, as Roberts so speciously and unjustly characterized race-based affirmative action, “discriminating on the basis of race.” Just think of all the students in Texas' many hyper-segregated schools who'd be the first in their families to attend college! Don't you want them to have a chance, you monster? And whether your school was under-funded or affluent, the top ten percent of your class would be automatically eligible! Doesn't that sound so very fair to the poors without discriminating against innocent White prep students?
Here's how that worked out:
(Source: https://www.educationnext.org/texas-ten-percent-plans-impact-college-enrollment/)
Forgiving student loan debt is simply a humane thing to do, and it's an achievable goal. It's not difficult to understand why anyone would be eager to pluck the low-hanging fruit and start providing tangible relief to those suffering during a crisis, while, at the same time, disproving the cynical "both sides" myth that, no matter what the outcome of an American election, corporations win and workers lose.
Why oppose that just to spite the rich person who would be paying for it through increased taxation?
This is one of those things that drives me to distraction when it comes to reparations as well, like we should deny those for whom reparations would represent the very least the government could do in acknowledgment of (to say nothing of atonement for) its own complicity in an incalculable theft of lives, labor, and resources because some unscrupulous scumbags will inevitably try to exploit it for their own selfish gain. (e.g. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626-story.html )
We have got to stop letting people get away with cynically wielding hypothetical small-scale unfairness to cement grand-scale injustice.
That said, with limited time and political capital available, focusing on this to the exclusion of other goals, without tying it to other benefits, could be characterized as a form of trickle-down social justice.
Ivanka Trump likes to tell a story about how, as a child, she was strolling down Fifth Avenue with her father when he pointed at an apparently unhoused man seated outside Trump Tower and said, "you know, that guy has $8 billion more than me." Ivanka, in demonstration of her internationally-trademarked obliviousness, seems to consider this story "relatable," but it demonstrates that even debt can be a form of privilege, in that its very accumulation requires a line of credit. Residential segregation in our society has been literally built on unequal access to credit.
Through her family's privilege, Ivanka faced no real threat of eviction or privation, despite the Trumps literally losing more money than any other American family in the 1990's.
Though college loan recipients, by definition, did not enjoy the luxury of a full ride scholarship, tuitions made affordable by academic fellowship, assistantship, or parental assistance, they are, nonetheless, a relatively privileged cohort compared to those who never attended college to begin with.
Where's their $50,000?
Knowing that college admissions and attendance themselves reflect broader social inequality, focusing on student loan debt to the exclusion of other forms of relief isn't quite so "universal."
In the same way that an eviction moratorium - while both urgent and necessary - can help prevent people from losing their homes, it does not help those who've already lost their housing - or never had any to begin with.
So the mutually agreeable point in all of this is that we shouldn't do these things in isolation, or else it comes across as tone deaf and preferential.
If there's a grievance here, it's not, from my perspective, with socialism so much as with White socialism.
Imagine a group of people outside of a bar at closing time in the dead of winter and one of them says, "I can't believe our ride left! Now we're all stuck out here in the snow and we don't have enough for a cab. You know what, though? I have a car at home. If we all pool our money together, I can take the subway home and come back to pick you all up. I'll have to pop upstairs to get the keys, of course. And I'll need to use the bathroom, but then I'll be right over. Well, I should let my partner know that I made it home safe, but that goes without saying. Obviously I should get some coffee in me, too, so I'm awake enough to drive back here safely. A quick power nap would be even better. Then I'll see how the roads look. What's the point if I just wind up crashing before I can even get you, right? So yeah... just give me all the money you have and I'll take it from there! Sound good?"
Bristling at this suggestion is not false consciousness.
This was a big election. Everyone wants to see immediate action.
Many, if not most, proponents of student debt relief aren't actually trying to go from "not me, us" to "not me, but, you know, people in my general situation who still can't get a mortgage," but the messaging for some of these policies has been abysmal.
If you want to promote these policies, you have to be willing to accept critique.
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- Jul 20, 2009
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In regards to the Cruz situation, I think people are ignoring what is truly important
That is, Tim Scott is one step closer to the Republican nomination...
That is, Tim Scott is one step closer to the Republican nomination...
- Mar 30, 2007
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Yo!!! Shout out Brooklyn for this one!!!!
- Nov 29, 2012
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AOC helped raise $1 million for Texas relief as Ted Cruz coming back from Cancun doing interviews...
dacomeup
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THIS.
Absolutely, which makes the framing of us somehow hating Black socialists even more absurd.
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aepps20
Supporter
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In regards to the Cruz situation, I think people are ignoring what is truly important
That is, Tim Scott is one step closer to the Republican nomination...
Nike Jordan
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This is a mischaracterization of the origin and aims of the 10% plan. No one involved in creating or advocating for it believed that it was anything like fair. But in the wake of Hopwood, there was a very real fear that BIPOC enrollment in Texas public schools would drop to near-zero. In 1996, many of the people involved in the response had grown up in Texas and were locked out of state higher education in the 60’s and 70’s by unwritten racist policies. They were very afraid that we were heading back down that road.
The 10% plan was always known to be heavily compromised, but was politically feasible. The white trustees in College Station and Austin could hardly argue against the merit of 10% students at poorly performing high schools without alienating the TEA and calling attention to the unjust allocation of resources in public schools: 1993’s Robin Hood law and the MALDEF lawsuit that brought it about was still fresh in people’s minds. So it was a squeeze to keep the door open for some people of color. No one thought it was great, but It was a countermeasure to Hopwood that could be implemented quickly and with little push back.
Now, predictably it was immediately weaponized as Latino and Black students in highly competitive high schools graduating outside of the top 10% started to be denied entry. But at the time people took that as evidence that absent the rule, no one would have gotten in anyways.
Not that you need it, but thanks for the rest of your post. You clearly articulated what had been a jumble in my head and helped me clarify how I think about the debt relief efforts.
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elpablo21
Supporter
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I have no idea how you thought this was acceptable or appropriate. No one said anything about hating socialists in that series of comments.
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This article does a decent, if not restrained, job of showing the feeling at the time. David spoke more candidly in private..
The Michigan Daily Online
web.archive.org
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Air Champa
formerly champa
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I think “some truth to that” is a massive understatement.
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