***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[plansb]

World's worst kept secret but he bending over backwards to keep people from finding out

Just like Danny zuko

 

[hipstermike]

dwalk31 still supports Drew Brees

 

[dwalk31]

dwalk31 still supports Drew Brees

I'm from Atlanta... come on

 

[kdawg]

White House releases results of Trump's annual physical

President Donald Trump weighs 244 pounds, stands 6 feet 3 inches, has a blood pressure of 121/79 mmHG and a resting heart rate 63 beats per minute, the White House said on Wednesday in a summary of his annual physical.

edition.cnn.com

(CNN)President Donald Trump weighs 244 pounds, stands 6 feet 3 inches, has a blood pressure of 121/79 mmHG and a resting heart rate 63 beats per minute, the White House said on Wednesday in a summary of his annual physical.

None of that is true!

 

[hipstermike]

I'm from Atlanta... come on

You are a racist

I will not call you anything but a supporter of WHITE SUPREMACY

 

[KHUFU]

MAKE PEOPLE IN POWER UNCOMFORTABLE

President Barack Obama

Here is what I propose, the entire white house press corps should watch Donald Trump walk into the briefing room, then begin to point and laugh. Ask him a question, then laugh at his responses. When he walks out the room, laugh hysterically.

This, I would love to see. Make his punk *** incredibly uncomfortable, and may the looting continue for mr. law and order.

 

[Cashflow]

 

[CoachMiller1981]

Y'all see that now President Trump is admitting he was in the bunker. Not because he was scared but because he was inspecting it. Get the f**k out of here with that BS. He was scared to death. Mr. Bone Spurs. He talked all that hot stuff about rocket man and then when he got face to face with him they were bff's. He's got everyone who thinks he's tough fooled.

 

[Christian Pulisic]

AN ABSOLUTE SPECIMEN

 

[hipstermike]

The amount of Sudafed he does his heart rate would be 120

 

[Based Jesus]

Trump can't weigh 244 because I'm 6'2" 200 and his *** is far fatter than I am.
There's no feasible way he's only 44 pounds heavier than me in my slim fit clothes.

 

[frank 7he t4nk]

Just got sent this article and it's so trippy.

Forgotten Pandemic Offers Contrast to Today’s Coronavirus Lockdowns

Warnings of a potential second wave of coronavirus cases reflect the experience of a relatively recent outbreak—the Hong Kong flu of the late 1960s.

www.wsj.com

The Hong Kong Flu pandemic happened around the time of the civil rights moment which parallels COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests. Also, the HK Flu pandemic according to "The CDC estimated that about 100,000 people died in the U.S; most excess deaths were in those 65 and older" (wiki).

Crazy coincidence.

Also, in before I draw the attention of conspiracy theorists

 

[frink85]

He must be on a nice cocktail of drugs for his BP to be normal

 

[Nike Jordan]

For years I was De Blasio apologist, but dude is has been ****ing up severely all of 2020.

Remember when you wanted him to run against Chuck Schumer?

 

[RustyShackleford]

Remember when you wanted him to run against Chuck Schumer?

In my defense, if I remember correctly I was saying if progressives want to take out Chuck, that de Blasio has a better chance than AOC. So they shouldn't throw him under the bus so much, because as a Senator he could be much more progressive than he is at mayor.

But I will shut the **** up now. And apologize again for wasting everyone's time.

 

[whywesteppin]

He must be on a nice cocktail of drugs for his BP to be normal

Probably had a medically induced coma just prior to getting it checked.

 

[whywesteppin]

ok Jim

 

[IATT]

 

[whywesteppin]

White House releases results of Trump's annual physical

President Donald Trump weighs 244 pounds, stands 6 feet 3 inches, has a blood pressure of 121/79 mmHG and a resting heart rate 63 beats per minute, the White House said on Wednesday in a summary of his annual physical.

edition.cnn.com

None of that is true!

What a specimen. 2-sport star. He could dominate as a shooting guard in the NBA, in the mold of a Michael Jordan or a Dwayne Wade.

In the NFL he could play pretty much any position he wanted except for kicker because he's too manly for that.

Is there any doubt he would bat 300 and drive in 100 while getting the golden glove damn near every year?

 

[whywesteppin]

bUt ThE ProTesTErS aRe ViOleNT



stay safe out there, Rusty

edit: some more news:



NBA suspends season --> all hell breaks loose, pandemic, 100k dead, police brutality and racism, worldwide protests
NBA announces season resumed --> charges against all four officers, Mattis blasts Trump, white supremacists arrested, racist statue taken down, and, best of all, NBA is coming back

 

[junglejim]

No way that centaur is only 240.

 

[rexanglorum]

Rex, you know I appreciate that you’re one of the more reliable sources of Simpsons references here, and that your eventual rejection of libertarianism and its dog whistle racism gave longtime participants cause to feel like our collective patience was not in vain, but you need to step back and reassess this. You've warped Rusty's views beyond recognition and you're doing the same with mine.


Let’s recap:


Yesterday morning, I made a post that opened with a single line asking, rhetorically, if any class reductionists still need convincing that racism is not somehow subordinate to classism.

I haven't exactly been shy about mentioning you directly when I've taken issue with something you've posted in the past. Why would I start now? I quoted you twice in that post, but not in relation to the aforementioned comment, and without any hostility.

You asked me to clarify the subject of that post's initial sentence, which I thought was pretty clear, and I did so. I showed you an example - which did not involve you. (It wasn't even the only one I could've cited from this week alone.) I went out of my way in the following reply to state that, "my comments are directed at class-reductionists."

That post was my last of the night.


Sometime between then and now, I apparently called Frantz Fanon a White Supremacist and was cast as the antagonist in a three act play in which I’m a closeted bigot and you’re an oppressed minority.

This is, to put it kindly, a little much.


Your objections appear to center around:

a) things I did not say about you.
b) things I did not address specifically to you.
c) things I did not even address to a group you personally identify with.
d) my failure to immediately respond to a question requiring a recklessly speculative answer, which you posted at 10:47 PM at the end of a long day in which I, among other things: had to handle staff vetting and training, carefully monitor volatile discussions on COVID-19 and the ongoing demonstrations (a thread frequently disrupted by posts prioritizing property damage over the lives of Black civilians), work on our community fundraiser for COVID-19 relief, discuss scheduling of an upcoming code update so as to minimize the adverse impact on those who rely on NikeTalk as a safe place to discuss the weekend's protests, address a swelling backlog of messages, including five increasingly indignant PM's from a similarly entitled user demanding to know why I was deliberately ignoring his requests to personally instruct him in the academic definition of racism and how it is that we allow White people to be so hurtfully labeled, fit in a workout, and, if there's time, attend to various human functions like eating or communicating with friends and family. And, not that it matters, but I was running on about four hours of sleep from the previous day.

But yeah, let me drop everything and ballpark the percentage of misguided Marxists in the world who think that focusing on class would also eliminate sexual assault, bathroom bills, and racial profiling.

If you're under no obligation to answer to behavior you don't endorse, and you aren't, I don't see any reason why I should have to substantiate a claim I didn't make.



I seem to recall that when you first returned to NikeTalk after finally denouncing your former beliefs, you were disappointed that I characterized your progress as "moving from Point A to Point A[SUB]2[/SUB]" rather than all the way to Point B. And yet, apparently I was a lot "cooler" to you then than I am now - because of my purported hostility to the grave threat you now pose to my beloved capital.

Here's where my memory gets hazy, because I can't for the life of me remember demonstrating a penchant for exalting capitalism and rejecting democratic socialism. In fact, I seem to recall that you used to describe capitalism as something akin to a helicopter that rescued people from the flames of poverty. Your go-to move was to try and handcuff anyone who criticized free market (read: crony) capitalism to Pol Pot. Now, you have modified your outlook in this regard in the intervening years, but I have not. So, what's the angle here? If not everyone who is a Marxist (let alone a socialist) is a class reductionist, and I only called out class reductionists, how is it that we've switched places and I'm the Islamophobic defender of capitalism you used to be? Suddenly I'm the younger you in an ill-conceived remake of the already ill-conceived film Gemini Man.



If you're at all interested in the truth, here it is: my comment was not intended for you - it was intended for people like Rusty, whom I know to share a similar sense of exasperation with class reductionists that predates your arrival on NikeTalk. If you share that frustration, great! If not, you could've focused on the sections of that post that actually were specific to you, or moved on to another reply.


I find it hard to believe that you haven’t encountered a sufficient number of smug class reductionists in your ideological travels to consider that contingent a noteworthy irritant. I know I sure have - and I know that I'm not alone. I've spoken about this with some frequency over the years.

Whatever side of the affirmative action debate in the 90’s and 00’s you were on, when Ward Connerly et al. were waging war on race and gender-based affirmative action programs through misleading ballot initiatives and Karens Involved In Community Schools launched a legal assault against integration, surely you must’ve been familiar with the specious arguments made in favor of “race neutral”, “class based” alternatives. Calling that out is like calling out supply-side economics. To act like my opposition to this began with you backing Bernie Sanders is... not the best look for you. (Incidentally, you might want to push pause on any angry letters you're writing to Carly Simon.)

If you don't identify with class reductionists and don't wish to defend their narrow praxis, it's neither incumbent upon you to defend nor condemn them - especially when your name hasn't even been mentioned.


As an aside: you shouldn't keep asking everyone how you can help build a more inclusive movement unless you're willing to hear their answers. I've been doing this for a long time, and if you think I'm hostile to an agenda that includes public healthcare, guaranteed public sector employment/UBI, and environmental justice, then you know precious little about my beliefs. It is exhausting to be part of a coalition whose adhesion is secured through unswerving deference to White Fragility, where mollifying "economic anxiety" is paramount and the central pitch too often amounts to: if we achieve the mythical class consciousness whose absence deprives some straight, White, cisgender Christian men of the lone injustice they do face, surely social justice will trickle down like a mighty stream for everyone else. It is exhausting to deal with line-jumping dilettantes who demand that their own liberation be given precedence and their feelings be spared, lest they exercise their privilege to disengage.

If you don't feel you should be made to answer for that: don't. Literally no one has asked you to. That, you have every right to decide. What you cannot decide on your own is whether this constitutes a problem that others might wish to discuss and commiserate over.

TL;DR?

When people Whitesplain every social justice issue in terms of class, it's kind of a turn-off. Does that describe every Marxist? No, and it certainly doesn't describe every democratic socialist - but if you're going to grossly distort the positions of everyone who so much as grazes this raw nerve with you, then you would be protecting class reductionists.

- The comparison of Marxists to Muslims is not that far off, survailed, caricatured and murdered by right wing and liberal governments and generally seen by capital as in the way of what capital wants. To be clear, I'm not at all saying you are Islamophobic.

- I don't see you expressing frustration in this thread with anything liberals do or failed to do. I know you're busy and not as active in the thread as much as I am. Still, you do participate and in the Trump years, you've expressed disdain for neo nazis, Trump, left wing podcasters and Marxists. Since everyone has an ideology (including and especially those who say they don't have an ideology) so by process of elimination all I can guess is liberal, that or "grill pilled." (and ideology which, I must admit, looks pretty enticing)

- Understanding politics requires reading between the lines. When most of what you say about Marxism revolves around how callous it is towards people suffering the effects of white supremacy, it's hard to conclude that you think that that's your general view of Marxism and that intersectional Marxists are the exception, the handful of good ones. What's left unsaid often times matter as much or more than what is said. Every time I criticize the vast deficiencies of the Democratic Party and don't explicitly qualify it with "yes, I'' vote for Biden in November" I get the business about how much worse Trump is.

- In times of trouble, liberals frequently team up with the right wing to crush the left and there are a whole lot of troubles right now.

- Inclusivity has its limits, liberals exclude black conservatives and reactionaries all the time and rightly so. It's hard to be convinced that anti-racist praxis involves taking on an economically more conservative position than you already have. Again, that's not just Marxists who do that. Liberals dismiss PoC who claim that across the board deregulation will foment 18% GDP growth and solve every problem that befalls PoC currently.

- I do encounter people who are class first and some are dg in but many are easily persuaded to change their minds when I explain that intersectional Marxism is definitely not rainbow capitalism and that they should read Marxists of color. It doesn't work every time but I've found that misguided Marxists are easier to convince, when it comes to embracing anti racism, anti sexism etc, than white liberals.

-America has a hell of a lot white people and a lot of poor people. It's easier to get poor whites into left politics by telling them that growing up poor was not their fault nor the fault of their parents. After that, you got to make clear that their struggle to liberate themselves from the tyranny of capitalism involves supporting fellow workers, who are not white, and including their struggle into your praxis. Some will balk at that but it's a better tactic than telling people, who grew up without hot and cold running water, that they are privileged because they can rent any apartment in any neighborhood they want.

- I am weary of any ideology that includes capitalism precisely because capital will always be a threat to other types of liberation. Capital will give ground and will put on a mask of social liberalism but capital wants to take away all the gains won by women and PoC. Capital wants and needs a white proletariat, who can be bought off with a public and psychological wage. Capital wants women's low wage labor and their unwaged reproductive labor. Capital wants a racialized and criminalized underclass that it can hyper exploit.

It's true that ripping out capitalism, root and stem, won't ensure that every type of liberation will happen but it make those things more likely than they are now and that liberation is much more likely to last.


TLDR: The struggle against capitalism is so intertwined with the struggle against white supremacy and patriarchy that anyone who wants to seperate them is wrong.

------


With all that said, you changed my mind and I don't think you and the other critics of Marxism, right here in this thread, are "rainbow capitalists." I read too much between the lines sometimes and for that I'm sorry to both you and RustyShackleford

 

[biggie62]

No way that centaur is only 240.

back during UN week I was looking down madison ave From my desk as his limo came by. Believe me when I say this, my man is AT LEAST 270.

 

[junglejim]

back during UN week I was looking down madison ave From my desk as his limo came by. Believe me when I say this, my man is AT LEAST 270.

this dude is at minimum 300

 

[IATT]