Race, class and above all power.

VG

Again I what don’t you understand how simple do you need things to be – do you really need to be walked through everything?

What history do you think it might be? I mean do you know what subject is under discussion? From that can you maybe work out what history is been talked about?

 

VG

Sorry but from your post I’m getting the feeling it is not a matter of you not seeing it but of you not understanding it.

I mean are you honestly saying you don’t even know what is meant by ‘class’ – have you thought of googling it maybe and doing some research?

 

Yeah, thats not class. Seperates the population into only two categories for starters

 

VG

Again I’m not sure what you are talking about – what’s not class where did you get two categories from?

[edit] Oh you are mistakenly thinking ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ are classes, I think you really need to do a bit more reseach you could start by re-reading what I said – if you don’t understand some bits I’ll be here to help.

 

So basically I just said saying "history" is too vague. You come back with - how much more vague do I need it to be?

This thread is already a train wreck

 

VG

Again I’m not sure what you are talking about – try again what is the subject been discussed? From that can you maybe work out what history is been talked about?

 

Class and racism

The debate over the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor was common in Victorian Britain but at a time when the vast majority of population were white. It was a class based prejudice and the same arguments presented today were used - about dependency, not been willing to work themselves out of disadvantage, of choices and taking responsibility.

There was talk of a destructive lower class culture of drink, fornication and gambling that was in contrast to the middle classes work ethic, religious values and temperance.

Which brings me to pointing out that in many places ethnic groups due to history and racial prejudices are the poorest in particular societies and so they can get burdened with both the class and racial bias and often the boundaries become blurred so that views based on poverty are seen as fitting to a racial group.

So rather than someone believing that lower classes people are lazy it morphs into a belief that black people are lazy. So rather than putting forward the question why can poor people make better choices it becomes why can’t black people make better choices.

And I’ve meet Americans that have talked of a destructive black culture that was to be contrasted with that of white culture.

 

So why are the disadvantaged less likely to succeed than the advantaged – well do I need to go on – well maybe for some – surprise, surprise it’s because they are disadvantaged.

They have limited resources and fewer choices open to them.

During the twentieth century as wealth became more distributed lower class Britain’s started getting the resources and the opening up of choices. Education, the pill, social services, welfare, the NHS and living wages all contributed to people moving out of lower class status, with many lower class children getting to university and becoming doctors, architects and engineers. The supposedly undeserving and lazy lower class showed themselves to be anything but.

However the ideas of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ never went away and with the rise of neoliberalism which has tried to dismantle the successful distributive policies the argument has been used to cut welfare and social programmes so that we have had a rise in the number of the disadvantaged or those close to it.

In the US it never went away and as said has become associated by many with race.

 

So adding on from the above right wing viewpoints based in Social Darwinist thinking are likely to bread contempt for the disadvantaged (and racism) rather than empathy or sympathy for the hardships and plight of others but which are likely to bring about feeling of superiority and entitlement.

(You can see that entitlement and superiority on display within the Trump administration)

Now people could argue in the old chicken or egg way over whether right wing views brought about the racism or racism causes people to support right wing ideas. But it has to be understood when rebuilding the police in the US that the two often go together.

 

As far as racism & class go ……………….. let me offer this scenario : We have Lori Loughlin the actress and her husband, both white and rich, cheating the system by paying big money to get their daughters admitted to USC, and producing pictures of them "rowing" a racing boat. Lets' see the penalty for those two when THE LAW comes down.

Then - lets' imagine Tyrone Jackson and his wife Carlotta doing the same thing. Both black and avg. citizens. They pay money to get their kid into USC, making an end-run around admissions testing - and by producing pictures of their kid making a leaping catch of a football. What's the penalty for Tyrone and Carlotta when THE LAW comes down on them????

Can anyone here say with a straight face that the two couples will be treated the same?? The black couple will be serving significant jail time, and fines - Lori Loughlin & her husband will get house arrest or MINOR jail time, and fines …………………. which they can easily pay without blinking.

Look at "white collar" criminals. They can steal money by deception to the tune of hundreds of $$$millions from working Americans …………….. and they get fined $2 million and get 18 months in a "country club" jail where they can feed the deer, photograph birds, etc.

Hell - that's a great gig. Steal hundreds of millions, pay $2, 5, or even 10 million in fines and do my 18 months. I leave the "jail" with a couple hundred million and now I can write a book on how I was a "bad boy." (Think Michael Milken, and the other corporate raiders. How many of the GUILTY Wall Street bankers went to jail over the 2007 / 2008 financial meltdown caused by their casino-like use of OUR money??? I can't think of one!!! Many of them are still CEO's and top executives making GOBS of money for their criminal roles. What about the Wells Fargo CEO and those millions of fake accounts??? How much jail time did he get??? These CEO thieves get to "step down" and resign - taking with them their hundreds of $$$millions of their guaranteed "golden parachutes."

What party in Congress consistently refuses to write tougher laws against such "white-collar" crimes and impose stiffer penalties for such crimes???? Why …………………. it's the REPUBLICAN PARTY of course. The bought-and-paid-for party that depends on those HUGE political contributions from corporate "America" for their political campaigns.

Here's the question that haunts me …………………… Why do average, good, working Republican folks - tax-payers all - vote for the party that allows white collar crimes at Wall Street firms, that swindle away their life savings, retirement savings, college savings - and then let them go largely UNPUNISHED????? Do those good, average, working Republicans enjoy their money being stolen and swindled away by white-collar crooks???? Do they like the fact that those responsible ARE NOT HELD to account and go to prison??? But they vote for the ethics-less, no-integrity REPUBS that allow this to happen!!! I just don't understand that sort of thinking.

Just as India has a "caste system" - we have "classes" here too. Certain folks are "above the law" …………… and it shows. Rump has made it even worse.

 

Wrat

You have said that you stand by your support for slavery, if that slavery served you own interests.

But again would you accept the end of the democratic process, or say unjustified imprisonment, gulags, or even gas chambers if it served you own interests?

I mean if you will accept slavery, you could just about accept anything couldn’t you – as long as it served your interests?

I’ve often said that it seems to me that a number of right wingers would not care if the US had an authoritarian regime as long as that regime was right wing.

But the thing is that those ideas seem to run counter to the ideals on which the US was founded and which most Americans say they aspire to so it opens the question

Have you and these other right wingers become un-American?

 

True.
Also, it is an advantage to be born in an advanced, wealthy, 1st world nation. we see parallel advantage & disadvantage here.

 

True.
Also, it is an advantage to be born in an advanced, wealthy, 1st world nation. we see parallel advantage & disadvantage here.

 

Piney

That is why I support the idea of global social governance -

It seems to me that the political history of the 20th century (in the industrialised nations) has been to one degree or another about the curtailment of the adverse effects of 19th century exploitative capitalism (some call classical liberalism).

People in many nations fought for voting rights, social benefits, safer working conditions, progressive taxation, and decent living wages. The result of that movement was that the economic benefits of production were much more distributed. Many people saw their wages grow and in the period between the end of WWII and 1970 many in Europe and the US gain middle class status.

But from the 70’s onward a new idea was promoted in some of these nations (often referred to as neo-liberalism) it was in many ways opposed to the ‘distributive’ system that had developed. One thing it promoted was economic globalisation, which basically allowed back some aspects of exploitative capitalism by promoting the moving of production to nations that had not developed the more distributive systems away from those nations that had.

In this way the long fought for distributive system has been undermined in those places where it had developed. Neo-liberals argue that to ‘compete’ in the global market the elements of the distributive system need to be dismantled what is needed they say is deregulation, the cutting of welfare, tax cuts that benefit the rich, lower wages, weak government oversight etc etc.

So what we are getting in is the dismantling of the distributive system in the developed countries while in some developing countries the conditions resemble what was happening in the west before the people’s struggle to get rid of exploitation

- To me what neoliberal inspired right wingers seem to be aiming for is for a few to be able to exploit the many more easily across the globe.

I think we need to fight again for social balance but this time it has to be global. To counter the economic globalisation that has already taken place we need social globalisation to be brought in, and that means social global governance to counter the already in place economic global governance.

 

Not anything he wrote refers that he would be happy bringing back slavery. I really think you should think about what you're saying. You state that to you, his kind of philosophy is to accept dictatorships, gulags and even gas chambers. You are a very dangerous and poisonous person.

 

To anyone with eyes, this should be easily seen. "So-called" American companies led the way with REPUBLICAN Ronnie Reagan's speech to the nation when he announced that the U.S. economy was going to be changed from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy, and that there will be a new, "global" economy.

This didn't fall out of space like a meteor. It was pushed for by the richest, most powerful, well-connected corporate elites so they could take even further advantage of a global labor force which would essentially be competing against each other. The countries with the absolute lowest wages, least benefits (or NO benefits), no workers' rights, and weak or non-existent environmental laws would get the jobs. And where have all the jobs landed?? COMMUNIST China, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, Honduras, Pakistan> ( A REAL headscratcher, given their terrorist ties / hiding Bin Laden), Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Dominican Republic, etc.

The good-paying jobs are gone ...……….. courtesy of the REPUBLICAN PARTY. George W. Bush signed a whole batch of "free-trade" (cheap labor) agreements in the final days just before he left office - gotta repay all those big corporate donors to the REPUBLICAN PARTY before he was no longer president.

Anyone seeing any GOOD-PAYING jobs returning to the U.S.??? .................................. NO??? Well don't hold your breath. It's NOT HAPPENING as long as most U.S citizens expect to be paid a good living wage, so working full-time lands a family not IN poverty ................... but a significant distance OUT of poverty. It's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Rump isn't the "savior" so many hoped for to bring good-paying jobs back here to the U.S. Stop hoping. It'll take a massive movement throughout the whole world where workers from everywhere demand better pay, better benefits, and better working conditions. This is why the corporate elitist tycoons set the world economy system up like it is .................. because they know it'll take damn near a miracle to accomplish those conditions stated in the previous sentence. The more people are spread out, and the more they can control the news and communication between countries & peoples, they can keep right on raping the earth and it's people for their own HUGE FINANCIAL GAIN.

So go back to your clerking in some type of store or business (if you haven't been replaced by "self-checkout" registers), waiting on tables (also on the way out because of robot waiters!), delivering products or food ( also on the way out with drones for deliveries), or working for some type of contractor (if you haven't been replaced by Chamber of Commerce-welcomed CHEAPLY-PAID foreign workers - either documented or un-documented), .............................. hey maybe you can cut people's grass for a living ........................ or shovel snow in the winter.

Most economists have said that automation in one form or another will eliminate MILLIONS more jobs in the very near future. Many of the jobs that remain will also be gone.

Maybe someone can explain to me and the rest of us just HOW Rump is "making America great again" and what CONCRETE STEPS he's taken to insure good-paying jobs are returning to the U.S. ???? (Remember - the companies that are planning to leave COMMUNIST China after the corona virus debacle are already laying the groundwork to move them to Mexico ................. and they've said that.) And the tariffs Rump said the Chinese would pay ..................… he lied again - we're paying the increased prices right here!! Just like he was going to "force" Mexico to pay for the "wall." AAAAAAAAHH - HAAAAAAAA - HAAAAAAA - HAAAAAA !!!So how "great" do you see Rump making us??? Come-on …………………….. name the new plant openings. Name the good-paying jobs. Name the industries.

 

Oh ……………. by the way …………….

The latest economic survey of how much money one must have here in the U.S. to retire with a "decent" level of financial security is ……………… $1.5 million dollars.

That is to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses, food, housing, hospital stays, transportation, taxes, insurances of various types, prescription medications not covered by insurance, and if you lose your medical insurance because someone in an office somewhere determines you have a "pre-existing condition" well ...…………………….. you're out of luck ………………… and money. Pray for a quick, painless death.

 

I dont buy it by 65-70 y/o mortages should be done medicare takes care of MOST medical what transportation?? you cant lose medicare wtf? fear mongering

 

Hey wrat ……………………. wake up wrat ………………….

The REPUBLICAN PARTY has been for decades, and is STILL trying to slash or eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid !!! Muck-mouth MOSCOW MITCH McCONNELL has been pushing for this to make up for the increased debt THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has caused by giving HUGE tax breaks to the filthy rich 1% or 2%. So ………….. very publicly …….. muck-mouth MOSCOW MITCH has been pushing for slashing Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. This isn't a secret - the REPUBLICAN PARTY has been trying to accomplish these things for many, many years …………. it's been one of THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S stated goals .................and since the HUGE TAX BREAKS for the rich, muck-mouth MOSCOW MITCH has been pounding the drum even louder.

The idea is to convince people that the way to make up for this big budget shortfall - made much worse by the HUGE TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH - is to cut their own financial throats in their later years and elect Repubs to "tackle that nasty debt."

In short - If the people elect REPUBLICANS in the House & Senate, and the White House - look to have your Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid slashed. They SAY THIS publicly ……….. and PUSH for it !!! Your later years will be even tougher.

When the REPUBLICANS state that these are their goals - and push for them to happen - this IS NOT FEAR MONGERING ………….. it's telling the truth.

 

Republicans and Social Security: 4 Facts You Need to Know | The Motley Fool
There's, therefore, been a long-running belief that Republicans would aim to do away with Social Security sometime in the future. This is nothing more than another in a long line of pervasive Social Security myths.

Republican Views on Social Security | Republican Views
very few Republicans will argue that Social Security should be done away with. Instead, they believe in large reforms to the system. They believe that workers need to be given greater control over their own retirement investments.

 

Euphamisms for its total abolition !!!