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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOn economic versus social issues--
I'm so old that I was taking sociology when the Civil Rights movement was beginning to emerge into national attention in the early 60's. In one course, we put a lot of attention toward the question of how you might go about changing the culture and values of a southern community.
Well, one guy said he'd just climb up into the rafters of the local Baptist Church with a megaphone--"This is God speaking…"
but the rest of us tried to seriously think out how to approach the problem. What would you change first? The economic conditions? Education? Institutionalized racism (drinking fountains, lunch counters, buses, schools)?
The answer, as hearly as we coulg arrive at one back then, was "Everything." You had to move everything at once, or nothing worked.
Today we are confronted with, or imagined for ourselves, the division between social and economic issues. What is more important?
I haven't moved beyond that old answer. Everything. You have to change everything simultaneously.
I think the dichotomy we are pushing on ourselves is worse than divisive, it is destructive. We need leadership that seeks to change everything at once, and we need to get behind that leadership and push.
All great ideas seem trite once we put them into words. That does not make them less true.
We need to be the change we seek.
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Maedhros
(10,007 posts)is no more helpful than socially conservative and fiscally liberal.
It's got to be liberal all the way.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Right wing economic policies quash civil rights.
The whole issue is just a big case of cognitive dissonance by those pushing it.
Salviati
(6,008 posts)"Fiscal conservatism" is also highly fiscally irresponsible, I mean just look at the last few decades. You show me someone who prides themselves on their fiscal conservatism, and I'll show you someone who's going to drive the economy into the ditch in the name of their failed ideology.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Instead we are driving the very biosphere into a ditch. With every hour of service and every dollar invested we are making life that much more miserable for our children and whatever wildlife can still survive in the future we are creating for them.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Please explain.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Money = power. It is exactly what we are seeing now. 99% of all new income is going to the top 1% AKA the Oligarchy. The result? The civil rights act is being eroded. The voter rights act is being eroded. Elections are being bought. The voting rights of African Americans are being marginalized. Why are they doing this? Because civil rights level the playing field, and a level playing field takes away their power.
In order to hold onto power, the oligarchy and their brownshirts must take away civil rights. Civil rights are the tool that keeps them at bay. This is how it works in the third world. This is how it works in the USA.
In the feeding frenzy of right wing economic policies in the mid 2000s, the middle class lost 40% of it's wealth to the oligarchy, who stole it with right wing economic policies.
As it is now, one Oligarchist family can buy the politicians of their own choosing. This is what right wing economic policies do.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Civil liberties with civil rights.
The right to marry the person one loves, or to maintain employment and housing, despite one's sexual orientation is unaffected by the "oligarchy" ... nor, is a woman's right to control her healthcare/reproductive decisions ... nor, are most of the things PoC talk about.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Both are being quashed and stripped away by the Oligarchy.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)"As the American civil rights movement emerged in the 1950s, the established American oligarchy, in all its various forms and avenues of influence, set in motion simultaneous attempts to control the evolution of the movement, in order to both divide the movement and its leaders against each other, and also to control its direction. The Civil Rights Movement arose as an independent and people-driven movement in a struggle for black rights in America. In this, the movement presented a great threat to the establishment oligarchy, as historically the subjugation of black people within western society was not merely a result of western policies, but lies at the very foundations and bedrock of western ‘civilization’, politically, socially, and economically. Thus, challenging the segregation of race inevitably challenges the entire political, economic and social system."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-american-oligarchy-civil-rights-and-the-murder-of-martin-luther-king/22168
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)Force doesn't get used against you unless you're poor or allied with poor people. Not only that, but if you're going to enforce your rights in a saccharine, make-everybody-happy kind of way, it takes money. Lawsuits aren't cheap.
Social justice is a term that's widely misunderstood on this site. As originally conceived, it was both the freedoms (and responsibilities) necessary for human dignity and the means to achieve them. It's sort of a helix-like idea, where you really can't remove one without destabilizing the entirety.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)You don't get one without the other, but you get more of the other than the one.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Anyone who is "economically conservative" is my sworn enemy: Regadless of their stance on ANYthing else.
Politics these days isn't a boutique to browse: It's about survival.
meow2u3
(24,761 posts)I think that would keep me off your enemies' list. 
Economic equality must be Job One. It's easier to be a social liberal, especially if you're living high on the hog, because social liberalism doesn't cost billionaires, corporations, and the political class one red cent out of their pockets.
Economic progressivism/populism, on the other hand, is harder but the right thing to do because populists have the guts enough to stand up to those very powerful bully boys (they are mostly men) who don't want change to cost them money, power, and privilege. I say let's take the powerful down a few pegs and start waging an all-out war on greed, even to the point of criminalizing wealth hoarding.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)And the silence is definitive.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)do not want ot address the social? i just got accused of , well a lot of ridiculous shit, when i simply said bring social up.... is shut down.
the reason i wanted sanders was his economic. i also wanted ot talk social.
that was not allowed. as it is not allowed in this thread.
it does not make me ..... what are you calling us? neoliberal, rw, conservatives, turd way, whatever?
so, honestly i ask you, how much and what, are you creating people as, that is totally false?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Rights are made of laws, words, hearts and minds. The word 'versus' in both arenas of sport and of law means 'against' or 'opposed to' while in other areas and contexts 'versus' can mean 'in contrast to' the typical and DU use of 'versus' clearly is the sporting definition 'against' or 'opposed'.
The title of your piece could be "On economic and social issues-" and it would be a far more descriptive title for the content you provide.
There are times in life when it is really not good to describe the process or exchange you are taking part in as being 'against' the other person or thing.
People who are against social justice are horrific bigots, people who are against economic justice are greedy shits.
Also, anyone who has advantages others lack due to legal inequity who seeks to enhance the area of advantage prior to correcting the legal inequity creating disadvantage for others is both a bigot and a greedy shit.
ismnotwasm
(41,976 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)one of my standing speeches. We limit the range of solutions we might consider when we resort to war/sports (essentially the same thing at a symbolic level) metaphors, because the language we use essentially primes us for aggression. Just think of all the "wars" we're fighting: The War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on Terror--everything's a fuckin' WAR. I try to use terms like "influence" rather than" impact," etc. to avoid this.
While I did write "versus," that was only in the context of pointing out a false dichotomy that others have been obsessing about. On re-reading my post, I really don't see much combative verbiage, other than calling the dichotomy "destructive," etc. I used verbs like "change" and "move" in describing what I viewed as the positive actions.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)chosen do have meanings of their own, and that the discussion itself should be about the harmonic and inseparable nature of various elements of our rights as human beings. Many people use this 'versus' and many openly say they see all human interactions as warfare or a fist fight. When people from the class that oppresses me announce that this is about my rights VERSUS their money and that they see it as a fist fight, what should I do, stand there and be sucker punched? Be forced to throw a punch myself?
I'd rather suggest that we drop the warfare and try to make a symphony, a duet, a pas de deux of rights. I say that I am not against any of your rights, I'd never use language to suggest such a thing, and that when people say they are against my rights I take them very seriously indeed.
I don't even accept the binary nature of 'rights' as some people seem to see them, I do not agree with the compartmentalization, and I am frankly suspect of those who have suddenly manufactured the need to divide and compartmentalize human rights.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)"I am frankly susp{icious} of those who have suddenly manufactured the need to divide and compartmentalize human rights."
The only reason for doing that is if there is some portion of the spectrum you want to ignore or give special attention to. Otherwise, why do it, when they are all obviously deeply enmeshed?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)One of the results of these discussions on DU is that I have learned that many members of the majority populations don't really know much about the political goals of minority populations.
A recurring theme in these discussions, for example, is that 'gay rights' don't matter because jobs matter, I have been asked more than once 'what good will your marriage do if you can't get a job'. Of course, the first legislative goal of LGBT Americans was and still remains the passage of protections for LGBT people from discrimination in employment. You can't get a job if bigots refuse to hire your kind.
So it seems these straight folks think 'gay issues' are marriage and shopping. And that means they have never paid a bit of attention to any of these issues, ever.
Anyone who has actually read even the one famous Harvey Milk speech the one called 'the Hope Speech' would understand that LGBT politics has always been a progressive and populist politics, has always been about economic and social justice, which we tend to just call 'justice'. It's always been about other minority groups, other people's needs, the fact of the community as basis for the country, the interdependent nature of our selves and our rights and liberties.
It's a Democratic speech, given to a group of Democrats at the California Democratic Committee....
http://www.danaroc.com/guests_harveymilk_122208.html
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)and under capitalism it always has been a war. Like it or not, it's a class war. And as to the "...binary nature of 'rights'..." that is also a war when your money trumps my (and everybody else's) human rights. Capitalism is a system that is built on oppression and wringing wealth from that oppression. To me that means war because I will fight against oppression in all of it's forms.
I do agree that it does not need to be a "war" between the oppressed. It's not about social issues versus economic issues because under capitalism these issues are so intertwined that they can't be separated. The war is between the owners and the oppressed and it does need to be framed as such. One reason the 99% (for lack of a better term) has been LOSING their rights, both economic and social, is because we don't recognize it AS a war. Which means they win by default.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)You say you agree. But you also want it to be binary, combative and all about ranking of rights.
And pal, 'my money' does not trump anyone's anything and I do not have equal rights. TN is a State that has no protections for LGBT people in housing or employment, I know dozens of LGBT people who have left that State because of that sort of thing.
Here is an article for you about homelessness among LGBT youth in Memphis....
"According to a Williams Institute study, 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ. LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide, according to research compiled by The Trevor Project, a national organization that provides LGBTQ youth with “crisis intervention and suicide prevention” resources.
According to that same report, half of transgender people have considered suicide, with those who were rejected by their families being 8.4 times more likely to attempt it.....
Tennessee is the only state in the United States that doesn’t allow people to change their gender on their birth certificate, according to Batts. This makes it even more difficult for transgender people to change their identification.
“If you get pulled over by police and your appearance doesn’t match your I.D., that’s a red flag,” Batts says. “It’s hard to travel by air. It’s an uncomfortable thing. There’s no real safe place for transgender people to go in Memphis. There’re so many things we do every day that we take for granted that are problems within the LGBT community.”
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/01/31/in-memphis-creating-a-home-for-the-homeless-lgbt-youth/
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)good luck with that "equal rights" thing under capitalism. Ask how much real progress the overall black community has made under capitalism since Jim Crow went down. A small percentage of tokens have raised themselves to middle class and there are a handful of truly wealthy, but the overall social grouping of black Americans ARE NO BETTER OFF NOW THAN THEY WERE THEN. That's life for the oppressed under capitalism.
BTW, the "your money" was not directed at you directly, but at the general "you" of the owners in society.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)but when you say that it's different. Sure. And of course you can demonstrate for me that in countries that are or were not capitalist, minorities are or have been treated equally to the majority? If it really is all about money and capitalism, why is it that the USSR and Cuba and China and all those other non capitalistic systems treated LGBT people to jail cells?
If it is all about money then why are 40% of homeless youth LGBT when the proportion of LGBT youth is far lower than 40%? If it was 'all about money' as you claim, the percentage of LGBT homeless youth would be the same as the percentage of LGBT youth in total, but that's not the case.
Are you in fact, black? If not, why can't you speak for you, I speak for me and we stick to the subject? You failed to actually address any of the points I actually raised to you.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)I personally don't believe that all LGBT people are wealthy. In fact I think that MOST LGBT people are NOT part of the ownership of society. Most are just especially oppressed workers, so I actually consider them potential allies against the bourgeoisie. And I personally, never claimed that it was ALL about money. It's about money that has the power to oppress. Who would oppress LGBT people if they all had state guaranteed jobs or a yearly stipend and didn't have to rely on some bigoted owner to offer them a job? And what if the state was worker controlled, NOT bureaucratically controlled like those non-capitalist countries you mentioned all of which were Stalinist and degenerated worker states, so that the current owners had no recourse in how they treated workers of ANY social stripe?
I'm just going to leave it at this. From the time I became politically aware in the late 60s/early 70s I've supported the equality of democratic rights of EVERYBODY and that includes LGBT people. I'm not going to change that now. So I'll go on supporting attempts at reforming capitalism into guaranteeing equal rights for all without any illusions that it will ever happen. And you can continue to support the capitalist system that oppresses all of us to one degree or another.
It IS a war. It's a class war. And that makes Bob Iger my enemy, along with Herman Cain. Not because Iger is gay or Cain is black. They're my enemy because they are part of the oppressors of all of us. .
As I said, have the last word.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)my mouth and continued to preach at me as if I was not an equal party to this discussion. You won't discuss, won't answer a direct question but you allow yourself to tell me what I support.
What does your treatment of me in discussion demonstrate about your egalitarian affectations?
I forgot to mention your urinary aggression theme. It's something remarkable, really.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)That you think jim crow "went down" ... No just changed his name to "James" and put on a suit, and gained a lot of economically insecure progressives in the process.
Really? Granted, we still have a long list of grievances; but, "no better off"?
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Always. Not sometimes, not most of the time. ALWAYS. And that includes today. The wealth of black communities and people is something like six times less than white people today. There are something like 35% of the black population living in poverty. It's about 10% of the white population.
And BTW, Jim Crow was the legal restrictions on black Americans. We're not talking about racism and tacitly supported discrimination, we're talking about legal restrictions. Getting rid of Jim Crow laws was supposed to usher black Americans into the wonderful world of capitalism and upward mobility. Overall, that only happened on the TV, NOT in real life.
Don't really have time for much more.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I know African-Americans are economically oppressed ... higher unemployment rates, lower household and wealth rates (BTW, your living in poverty rate is way of off ... 27% rather than 35% - http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/).
LOL ... I know what jim crow is/was ... And, NO ... Getting rid of jim crow was about establishing legal parity between white and Black citizens, in public and private spaces. And, unsurprisingly, once the legal constrictions were removed, some, but not all, Black folks acquired wealth (and had a legal basis for keeping it).
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)you say:
Okay ... what social justice denials has the straight, white, able, Christian, male faced?
I ask, not to be divisive; but rather, to illustrate that this "99% against the 1%" frame MUST recognize that economic justice is not enough, as it leaves the socially marginalized, still marginalized.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)jamzrockz
(1,333 posts)Fix the economy and the 90% of the social issue will be fixed. Poverty leads to crime, breaks up family, causes tension between police and citizens by pushing them to harass law abiding citizens for fines.
Its always the economy stupid.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)we of the Chosen Class could live pretty high on the hog.
I'm one of those who would walk away from Omelas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
2banon
(7,321 posts)I'm going to look for it in the library.. thanks for bringing it to light. 
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Ursula LeGuin was one of my favorite authors from my SF addiction days.
bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)before. Walking away from Omelas is a great description for your position. I'd like to think I would walk away too.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)None of the social stuff that would be fixed is related to civil right.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)part and it is entwined, as we are then mocked and ridiculed to silence.
people can say it is both, all they want. it does not make it true.
people will go elsewhere.
thought for the day.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)but advances policies that gut net neutrality worldwide, promotes deregulation of the banks, supports military incursions in the Middle East, and personally solves the split between the .01% and the 99.9% by joining the .1%?
I stand by what I said before. It all has to move at once. Any candidate who endorses only part of the Progressive platform is not acceptable to me.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)garbage you tried to assign to me.
and
that is my point.
all i did was say, when social tries to have a voice we are shut up with mocking, ridicule and scorn.
that is telling social to shut up.
that we do not get to participate.
that it is not entwined, that we are shoved to the back of the bus.
that.... is those sittin in economic creating the VS
not .... and
and ya. i too stand by what i said.
i will find a candidate that addresses both the social and the economic, as much as i can
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)If I have, it was not intentional. The body of progressivism can't stand without both legs.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)at me
that was for simply saying the word social.
the ironic.
you shot one leg out, right quick, before you even saw i was part of the same group. a friend. a ally. one, ..... of you. you can succeed standing on one leg for a while. eventually, you will tobble over.
2banon
(7,321 posts)
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)"advances policies that gut net neutrality worldwide, promotes deregulation of the banks, supports military incursions in the Middle East, and personally solves the split between the .01% and the 99.9% by joining the .1%? "
another one to make my point how populist absolutely are not both. populist do not welcome social AND.... populist only allow economic.
your group is consistent anyway.
2banon
(7,321 posts)On the other hand, your post is quite unclear to me. Perhaps we're simply "talking past each other", I'm not really sure.. I'm just going to leave it at that cuz I've read a few your posts today and I just don't get you. at all.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)Socially liberal/economically conservative is now some sort of openly defended political ideal.
Corporate Democrats used to dress up their 1%er policies with liberal positions on social issues-- that was the fig leaf that made it possible to identify themselves as Democrats while attacking unions and working to undermine the middle class on behalf of the wealthy.
But they've been getting away with it for so long, they seem to have bought into their own bullshit. They're openly mocking the cause of economic justice now, and simply threatening voters with the specter of losing their rights. They've become so accustomed to their 'where else you gonna go, plebe?' position that they don't seem to understand they're supposed to hide that attitude.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Every. Word.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)how ideal is that. gets to be all about economics, excluding social, while declaring both.
brilliant.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)You seem to me to the proverbial hammer that sees everything as a nail, no matter what is said. I doubt you'd be satisfied with any post that isn't 100 percent socially oriented.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)throws the conversation to conservative liberal, turd way, and all the garbage. just the mere mention of social, has construed the democrat to the right.
YET.... your very fuckin' argument is that you all are about both.
how do you reconcile the contradiction in your posts, and your statement, you are both.
i suggest, what this is about, is the MERE mention of economic is the way you automatically are stating you are both.
and anyone daring to say, ..... may i please have some social justice, are thrown into the rw trash bin.
you are literally trying to redefine.... what social justice is this election.
fuck that shit.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)democratic and socialist to better understand. (he just went thru an advanced political class that addressed all this thoroughly, at university). i am having a sneaky suspicion that socialist is about an economic equality as there way of arriving at a level playing field, while it fails in the social justice, because they do not address social justice. why should they. they think that bringing equality thru the dollar will take care of this.
i might be totally fuckin' out there. totally fuckin wrong. but, i am gonna do my research. because what i am hearing on du here lately makes no sense and is just wrong and a contradiction.
i said over a month ago, this was gonna be a very interesting and educational election.
Marr
(20,317 posts)...and it sure as hell isn't liberals. Liberals stand for-- and demand-- both.
You just keep repeating the same tired lie over and over, claiming that liberals are poo pooing social issues. They aren't. But I've seen posts right here (and you've cheered for them), that mocked the very idea of economic justice, as some kind of optional frill, and an either/or proposition.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)...and it sure as hell isn't liberals. Liberals stand for-- and demand-- both.
then stop. thru out the thread that is exactly what populist have been doing repeatedly. interesting that you should say that, right? i think. as i consider if socialist do it.
Marr
(20,317 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)2banon
(7,321 posts) 
BainsBane
(53,032 posts)Where you all completely deny everything you've been saying for the past two years because it suddenly becomes convenient.
As a little reminder:
212. Sorry if you suddenly have a problem with the term 'social issue', but...
...it has an established definition.
The OP is trying very hard to convince people that a politician who takes a liberal stance on social issues is a liberal, no matter where they stand on Wall Street regulation, international trade, foreign policy, etc. It's what the DLC did in the 90's, it's what the Third Way does today, and it's as weak and deceitful and lame as it ever was.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026535531#post212
Checkmate.
The OP in that case was me. The OP wasn't about politicians or your fav word liberal. It was about a tendency by folks such as yourself to dismiss the concerns and rights of the majority of Americans as "social issues," as less, as your quoted post demonstrates. This is a bit of a tangent, but I can't help but feel amused by your evocation of the term liberal as the be all and end all of politics. You seem to feel quite certain that liberal is a term that applies to you and only a few friends of yours. You are welcome to the label. I have never seen anything to suggest you aren't a liberal. The fallacy, is that you seem to imagine there is something radical or leftist about liberalism, when it is in fact a centrist ideology, and even center-right in global terms. As much as I'm glad liberals aren't right wingers and don't vote GOP, there is nothing radical about the ideology. You seem to think it is something special. It ain't. It puts you right there with most of Hollywood, the Democrats in the 1 percent and those who work on Wall Street. Liberalism, the ideology of Adam Smith and John Locke, the political corollary to capitalism. That is where the term neoliberal comes from (the new liberalism, literally). What liberalism does not do is critique capital. That is why we see liberals demonstrate such concern about the white middle and upper-middle class regaining what it sees as it's birthright atop the capitalist world order. What we do not see is a critique of capitalism. Liberalism offers limited economic and social justice (certainly in comparison to RW nut-jobery), but never in ways that challenges capitalism itself. That is why leftists versed in Marxist theory do not describe themselves as liberals, particularly if they have any background in the history of social movements. Now you would know this if you took some time to read Marxist theory, but most liberals, particularly those educated in the wake of McCarthyism, don't do that.
Does Bernie call himself a liberal? I would tend to think not, since he refers to himself as a socialist. One cannot be both, since the two ideologies are diametrically opposed. I have to agree he does seem more like a liberal than a socialist to me, but then he is serving in the US government--a capitalist state--which requires a considerable compromise. Nothing wrong with that. I'm won't do the critique from the left that he is getting in the socialist press. It isn't relevant to the electoral contest anyway.
Marr
(20,317 posts)You just don't seem to get it. Or maybe you do, but you're determined to keep on trying to redefine the phrase 'social issue' into some kind of pejorative. It isn't going to work.
Again, 'social issue' has a definition in modern english, and I say that as a gay person who demonstrated a lot for the social issue known as gay marriage.
I won't even address your weird attempts at mind reading, except to note that I never said 'liberalism' was something extreme, and I believe just the opposite. Liberal positions are quite mainstream-- particularly liberal economic positions. I believe I've mentioned this to you before, btw-- you're the one who always supports conservative Democrats but claims to be 'too far left' to be a liberal, right...?
BainsBane
(53,032 posts)Now you want to pretend you never said such a thing. You have spent the last few years insulting everyone who cares about anything other than a handful of issues, and more importantly refuses to revel in utter contempt for a few politicians. You and your friends have used the term social justice warrior pejoratively, argued that social issues were less important and Third Way, and claimed the two parties were identical on issues that really matter, which excludes rights for those of the subject position you have only just now chosen to disclose to me after many hundreds of posts. Not only that, your conception of true, important issues--economic--are limited to the economic fate of the few. You dismiss the entire economic existence of the poor, women, and people of color as "social issues" and therefore less. You all have carefully cultivated that divide for some time now, yet you lack the intellectual honesty to admit it.
What conservative Democrats do I support? I helped get Franken and Ellison into office. My area doesn't have conservative Democrats. I was a delegate for Jackson in 84, supported him in 88, voted for Jerry Brown in 1996, and, much to my shame, Nader in 2000 (in FL, in Palm Beach county, on the butterfly ballot. Ugh.) I caucused for Obama in 08 and 12, who was not on the conservative end of candidates available that year. What you have observed is my failure to project all the ills of capitalism and the American political system onto the body of a woman, and that for you is unacceptable. My sig line clearly says I'm undeclared, yet you show no more propensity to read that than you do Marx, and it's a hell of a lot shorter.
For you, politics is defined by allegiance to or contempt for members of the political elite. For me, voting is something I do, a choice I make when the time comes. It does not determine who I am. My consciousness is not limited by petty disputes within the Democratic party. The only political figure I have come close to idolizing is Salvador Allende. Look him up. Given your allergy to Marxism, you might dismiss him as a "populist," as you did Che. The rest I merely vote for. I don't support any conservative Democrat. What I do is fail to embrace the simplistic Manichean worldview that you promote. I find it insufferably inane. I care about issues and causes, not the political fortunes of members of the political elite and certainly not revering or demonizing particularly individuals. Marc Bloch referred to Napoleon as a flash in the pan; a presidential election is not even a spark.
Here is the problem. Your entire political consciousness is limited to narrow concerns about a politicians in the Democratic party. You can't understand issues and social change because you only care about contests among political elite. You operate within a very narrow political spectrum, have no awareness of the great big world of leftism that exists outside the Democratic party, which is not and never has been leftist since it is an establishment party that forms part of the capitalist state. You don't read leftist theory. You know or care not even a little bit about leftist movements outside the US. Who else could invade a thread about Marxist theory and insist it was some cryptic message in support of the demon spawn Hillary Clinton? The absurdity of such comments is astounding. You seem to wear your refusal to inform yourself on any leftist theory or the history of social movements as a badge of honor.
You won't understand because you have a Manichean and provincial world view that you have no intention of getting beyond. You operate at the most simplistic level and can't imagine any other way of thinking. I'm guessing you were probably a business major or some such field where you avoided any exposure to contemporary political and social debates. Or perhaps you were educated long before those discussions were part of the academic curricula.
Now, since your sole concern is defeating the she-devil, Hillary Clinton, you probably want to stop insulting undecided voters. Somehow I don't think that would happen. Your sense of self is entirely linked to a sad and entirely undeserved sense of superiority over the rest of the human race, and that appears to be even more important to you even than the fortunes of the political elite that is the sole focus of your political commentary.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I have never denigrated social issues, nor have I seen anyone else here doing so.
I've seen a small and dishonest crowd who keeps claiming that's the case-- and it's the same small collection of names that always defends every conservative Democrat and corporate piece of legislation they promote. Oddly enough, the same politicians who are always the very last to the party on the social issues they claim to champion.
It takes some real chutzpah to be last on board, then turn around and berate the rest of the party for not supporting liberal positions on social issues though-- I'll give you that.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)I think that we need to address the Economic Issues so all of us Thrive. Look at the strife in the nation over Civil Rights.
These times are reminding me of the late 60's early 70's. Social Issues were perking along through Stock Market Bubbles of the last Decades because people had free time to think about them and work on them because they were making good income and credit was free and easy..
Since the Dot Com/Banking Crash/ Bailout and Austerity what is coming back into focus? Jobs, Workers Rights and those Left Behind along with Militarization of the Police, War and More War and spending taking resources for our Wars.
The times we are living in now remind me more of the late 50's/early 60 Awakening and while Social Issues have gained ground in the decades since-- the issues of Economic Survival and Opportunities for Job Growth and Advancement are now coming back into the forefront. Not that both aren't important... but without Economic Revival....then how can people have the opportunity to be who they are in their new found rights for Women/GLBT and Racial Justice when it seems we are moving backward in the hardest fought for rights Social Issues in the past decades because of Economic Austerity, Militarization of Our Society, War Spending, RW Crazy Legislation and even newly legislated rights for GLBT citizens are still in danger even though so much positive has happened for Marriage Equality? It's time for us to try to protect all of our Citizens by trying to get our Economy Moving into Fair Wages for All and Job Opportunities to go along with it. But, until we get Citizens United Overturned and TPP/TPIP stopped where will we go from here? It's not looking good.
Sorry... this badly written...as I'm still fuming over the Senate Vote on Patriot Act Shenanigans...and probably shouldn't have attempted a reply...
whatever
