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jwirr

(39,215 posts)
1. Now THAT was a movement. That is what we need now.
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 03:53 PM
Jan 2016

It bothers me how many unions today seem to think the opposite.

polly7

(20,582 posts)
5. Thank you so much for this.
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 08:00 PM
Jan 2016

He was such an amazing man. Absolutely perfect for the message of this song.

polly7

(20,582 posts)
4. Omg .... this is what - the 5th time you're having your little tantrum over
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 07:48 PM
Jan 2016

me hating the destruction of Libya?

Gtf over it.

Jack Rabbit

(45,984 posts)
6. What has the situation in Libya to do with general support for ther labor movement?
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 08:14 PM
Jan 2016

I have an answer to your point, sir, but I'll give it to you at a more appropriate time and place.

 

uhnope

(6,419 posts)
7. you can't pretend to be on labor's while simultaneously on the side of anti-democratic dictators
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 08:29 PM
Jan 2016

Gaddafi & Putin, both hell to the common person, are just two that the OPer is well known to support as I have shown in the link

polly7

(20,582 posts)
8. I support human beings the world over the right to live in peace and not have to live in
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 08:37 PM
Jan 2016

fear of bloody, evil, ugly military invasion - as in Libya.

Got it? Good.

Btw ........ Qaddafi had allowed in hundreds of thousands of Africans desperate for work - for decades (those 'mercenaries raping and looting on behalf of the Libyan Gov't!/aka just one of the lies fed to you via your MSM propaganda outlets). People in Libya worked, got wages and had one of the highest standards of living in the region. But NO MORE! - we fixed that!

Now .......... go away. This thread isn't about your red-baiting, western military interventionist wet dreams

Jack Rabbit

(45,984 posts)
9. My good man
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 10:03 PM
Jan 2016

I believe that I am the only person in the world with whom I agree 100% of the time. Even then, I am not so smug as to think that I'm always right.

I think it is quite possible for a person to support a worker's right to organize or join a labor union and still hold to other ideas that I might find repugnant. There are many Catholic priests who support organized labor as a human right, but I don't suppose very many of them also think that woman has any right to terminate her pregnancy, let alone that it is a human right for her to do so if she wishes, as I believe. You will not hear me say that these clerics cannot "pretend" to support organized labor while opposing a woman's right to choose. For one thing, I don't assume that they are "pretending" to support organized labor.

I am aware that Ms. Polly has a different view of Vladimir Putin than I do, and I believe, my good sir, that you are well aware of my personal views of Putin. However, while I am not at all sympathetic to Putin's designs on Ukraine, I am also unsympathetic to the European Union and the US government in the same regard. I would like to see this matter resolved in a way most favorable to the Ukrainian people. I do not believe that anyone involved in this diplomatic clusterfuck has any concerns for the health and welfare of one single Ukrainian. Why Ms. Polly should have any admiration for a tyrant like Putin I don't know, but that's not the issue on this thread.

As for Colonel Gaddafi, if I ever said anything nice about him, I've long ago forgotten it. Ms. Polly raises one good point in that the standard of living in Libya under Colonel Gaddafi was probably better then the standard of living in Libya under King Idris, who was overthrown in the coup led by Gaddafi in 1969. Nevertheless, he was a supporter of terrorism and something of a narcissist. Like most leaders who lead for too long, he lost touch with the people of Libya. To what extent that was the cause of his downfall and to what extent it was intrigue by foreign powers is hard to say. Nevertheless, foreign powers including the US were involved and, like the Frat Boy's invasion of Iraq that also caused to overthrow of a bloody tyrant, after the overthrow of what had once been a stable though unpalatable regime was accomplished, but none of the tyrant's successors have been able to re-establish stability to this day. It would be fair to say that Libya is in worse shape now that it was under Gaddafi, much like Iraq before and after Saddam. One could reasonably conclude that the enterprise of regime change undertaken by the US in both Iraq and Libya might have been forgone altogether to the greater benefit of all.

polly7

(20,582 posts)
10. Thank you!
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 10:19 PM
Jan 2016

You are a very polite person. (I'm kinda ......... not but some days I do work on that!) I have no problem not coming to the same conclusions on these types of issues with someone who thinks it all through so thoroughly, and can acknowledge there is always more than one side to every situation.

Thank you very kindly for your comments.

 

uhnope

(6,419 posts)
13. thank you for your reply
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 11:08 PM
Jan 2016

Actually, I think you are right that perhaps there was no reason for me, in this thread, to point out the OPer's obnoxious opinions on other matters related to freedom and democracy. I might have reacted just because I have the OPer on ignore so I'm not used to see her proselytizing at all. On the other hand, there is a chance that it was indeed appropriate to comment, when an OPer is in fact an active supporter of anti-democratic forces in general throughout the site. So, color me undecided.

I think we've had the other discussion already. I believe I have disagreed to some extent--for example, a comparison of western Europe to eastern Europe in the post-WW2 period indicates that the regular person was far better off under US/UK influence. You can do the same post-USSR in comparing, for example, the Czech Republic in the western sphere of influence to Moldova (or Ukraine) stuck in the Russian sphere--the Czechs have ended up with a huge amount of freedom and personal benefit, and the Moldovans and Ukrainians have less so.

If you don't attribute that huge difference to the possibility that to some extent "anyone (in the US or in Russia) involved...has any concerns (or lack thereof, the the case of Russia) for the health and welfare of one single (European)", then what do you attribute it to?

polly7

(20,582 posts)
14. I'm opposed to freedom?!?
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 11:11 PM
Jan 2016

Oh myyyy ........... you've definitely jumped the shark this time.

Your palpable hatred for anything Russian, Libyan, ......... add in every other country you believe needs 'liberated/freedom-bombed' is really getting the best of you.

(eta: Don't you have another 10 anti-Russia scare threads to start yet today? Time's wasting.)

Jack Rabbit

(45,984 posts)
18. Brief reply
Mon Feb 1, 2016, 04:08 PM
Feb 2016

I don't believe we've had that discussion, and I'd like to keep this brief because this still isn't the place to have it. (As I prepare to send this, it seems that I've failed miserably to keep it brief.)

Western Europe after WW2 benefited from the Marshall Plan, which was quite a different thing than the IMF/World Bank "shock therapy" imposed on Russia after the end of the Cold War. Any benefit Russians enjoy today comes from oil production and transport, not the result of the austerity measures that is the trademark of dealing with the IMF. Since Russia has something it can sell, it was able to emerge from Communism into a relatively prosperous period. This is why Putin smells like a rose to a lot of Russians and is also the reason for Hitler's popularity in Germany in the thirties, which came after a period of economic hardship imposed by the Versailles Treaty.

The more prosperous Soviet satellites became even more prosperous after the fall of Communism. Even Cuba, which according to Wall Street and Washington would fall soon after the Soviet Union (remember how the salivated at the prospect of that?), kept afloat because of its ability to produce sugar and tobacco. In addition, Fidel Castro was wise enough to learn from the mistakes of past Communist leaders like Stalin and Mao and not completely collectivize farming in Cuba.

Your model that blames Russian Communists of the past for all of Europe's problems in the present breaks down further breaks down under the example of Yugoslavia, the one Communist state that didn't align with Stalin after WW2. It was better off under Tito than the Soviet satellites were under Soviet domination. It's problems of the present are due to the problems that are unique to Yugoslavia, starting with the fact that it was never one nation but six. Tito was able to hold the country together during his time, a truly remarkable achievement. It began falling apart soon after Tito's death and Milosevic, the Serbian leader, began armed conflict to try to keep Yugoslavia together under Serbian domination. Armed conflicts are even worse for a nation's economic growth than austerity.

The world has a history that goes back before end of World War II, and much of the problems we still face have roots in ancient conflicts and rivalries.

The world is not so easily divided between good guys and bad guys. For one thing, everybody I know is morally ambiguous, just like me. I don't know anybody who seems to have walked out of a B-Western wearing a White or Black cowboy hat. A philosophical discussion based on the morality of a John Wayne movie is doomed to be shallow. Even Hitler liked children and animals. Gandhi, who knew himself from the inside, didn't think he was a saint.

We will never build a Utopian society. Perfection is like a straight line: it's just an abstract concept with no corresponding reality in physical nature. What Christians call the Seven Deadly Sins are characteristics hard wired into us in order to survive. They cause us pain and grief, but if we didn't have them, we would have become extinct long ago. Some say humans are social animals and some say humans are aggressive, individualistic and selfish. I say we are both. Attempts to build a perfect world based on the idea that humans are one or the others but not both result in living nightmares like Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia or a Wall Street banker's global economy.

What we call morality is a kind social pragmatism. We didn't need a God to hand a list of commandments set in stone to a prophet on mountain to know we shouldn't murder or steal. I don't know of a society in the world, past or present, that hasn't had sanctions against the willful taking of a human life. Very few of them worshiped the Abrahamic God, or even heard of such a thing, but they all knew that we couldn't live together as a society and tolerate murder as a legitimate method of conflict resolution.

Consequently, no Utopian society can be be imagined that assumes that humans are both social and individual animals. Once we admit that we are both, we admit that each of us is imperfect. That which allows us to survive as an individual long enough to procreate the next generation of humans is also that causes us to murder and steal. A society with rules is as good as it gets, but some asshole is going to try to get around the rules, and if that were not the case, it would never have occurred to us that we need to have rules, even to protect us from those entrusted with the power to enforce the rules from abusing their power, like King who goes to war for no reason other than to conquer or who lives it up on funds raised from taxes that are supposed to build roads and canals or who murders or imprisons his subjects who criticize his errant behavior, like bankers who commit fraud, like politicians who allow themselves to be paid off by the banker to look the other way as the banker defrauds the bank's savers and borrowers.

Such people exist and always will. We just have to deal with them, even when they're not Russians.

 

uhnope

(6,419 posts)
19. but your reply supports what I said
Mon Feb 1, 2016, 04:36 PM
Feb 2016

Yugoslavia was the country that was the least under the Soviet control and, as you say, it did the best. Now Serbia sides with Russia and is a basket case.

You didn't really address my points about Western Europe vs Eastern Europe, either post-WW2 or post-Communism. As a model it's pretty hard to argue with.

Thank you for your views re Utopia.

Jack Rabbit

(45,984 posts)
20. My views do not support what you said
Mon Feb 1, 2016, 05:17 PM
Feb 2016

I may agree with what you said about post-WW2, but I believe that post-Communism the west was entirely unhelpful to Russia, as to many other societies. Russia would have done much better without the "shock therapy" and would probably be doing much better than it is under a leader who cares more about the Russian people instead of an egocentric tyrant who has been most successful at building a personality cult around himself while he has silly dreams about restoring the Romanov/Soviet Empire.

I deleted a paragraph about Greece, whose problems involve her own crooked politicians, our own crooked bankers (especially at Goldman Sachs) and the European Union, especially Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäubel. Unless the Greek people rise up against the EU's austerity regime, they are in for thirty years of enforced poverty. It has nothing to do with Russia.

One of the reasons I didn't really address the problems Western vs. Eastern Europe because be limiting the discussion to Western Europe, which is doing fine, thank you, inhibits discussions of the IMF in Argentina (a failure of the IMF's methods and again an example of the necessity of a popular uprising against a corrupt and tyrannical global banking system), or, for that matter, a discussion of two other basket cases, which you brought up in the first post on your thread, Iraq and Libya. What wonders western intervention worked in Iraq and Libya. Syria is a basket case, too, and you can blame that on the Russians for sure, but the point is that it isn't just the Russians fucking up the world.

Outside of Europe, your model generally does not hold, and even inside of Europe, it doesn't hold in the case of Greece, the trashing of which has more to do with Wall Street and European subterfuge than with the failings anybody in Greece.

polly7

(20,582 posts)
15. I just reread your post and want to make one thing clear.
Mon Feb 1, 2016, 08:49 AM
Feb 2016

I have NEVER expressed admiration for 'Putin'. That poster will say anything to push his red-baiting agenda. I don't believe the people of Ukraine - especially those in the east fighting and dying, deserve to have to live under a brutal coup-sponsored 'gov't' any more than I would wish to myself. They didn't choose to live under brutal IMF austerity but weren't allowed THAT vote. Yet the Crimeans who voted overwhelmingly to join with Russia were obviously forced to, in some way, despite PROOF otherwise.

I've never mentioned 'Putin'. I care about the 37 million Russian people forced to live under sanctions because of his part in denying the west the chance for regime change originally in Syria and the Ukrainians burnt alive, maimed and killed for yet another sickening intervention. If that's 'Putin' admiration ......... well, too bad, I guess.

FSogol

(45,369 posts)
11. Great song. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the Murphy's support O'Malley
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 10:53 PM
Jan 2016
Members of the American Celtic punk band tweeted their approval of O’Malley’s use of their platinum hit, “Shipping Up to Boston,” calling the candidate a “true friend of working people.”

Punk musicians are a prickly bunch and Irish punks may be the prickliest and most anti-establishment of all.

The Massachusetts-based American Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, however, has found a politician to admire in Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who just happens to moonlight in a Celtic rock band himself. Dropkick Murphys’ members this week tweeted their approval of O’Malley’s use of their platinum hit, “Shipping Up to Boston,” saying the candidate “stands up for working people.”


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dropkick-murphys-voice-support-presidential-826194


Dropkick Murphys Verified account
?@DropkickMurphys

Heard Presidential candidate @martinomalley used our music today. It's nice to have a guy who stands up for working people using it !!!

polly7

(20,582 posts)
12. I agree with them completely ....... nice to have a guy who stands up for working people.
Sun Jan 31, 2016, 11:05 PM
Jan 2016

Last edited Mon Feb 1, 2016, 08:35 AM - Edit history (2)

O'Malley seems like he truly does care about ordinary people.

The message of the song is so powerful, it's been used to point out the suffering of ordinary people and the need for action for decades - I hadn't heard it for years though. I'm enjoying now all the different versions after seeing it first in this thread:

islandmkl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511103495




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