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In reply to the discussion: Do political pundits who deny the Russian invasion of Crimea deserve to be taken seriously at DU? [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)71. I've seen that framed as 'the 1% doesn't care about civil rights, only money.' So we don't either?
Last edited Tue Mar 3, 2015, 04:11 AM - Edit history (1)
Was it not social acceptance of the denial of civil rights that preambled income inequality? And the idea that some people don't deserve equal treatment with the privileged is not a form of economic darwinism?Watching how 51% of the people's concerns are mocked and their rights to controlling their own bodies, such as slaves never had, has been an eye opener. Voting rights that affect POC to keep them out of competing with the privileged, is 'old hat' now, only the civil liberties of those who already had those protections, thus privileged, matter now.
It's like what Tim Wise said:
Whiteness, NSA Spying and the Irony of Racial Privilege
Tim Wise - June 19, 2013
That said, I also must admit to a certain nonchalance in the face of the recent revelations about the National Security Agencys snooping into phone records, and the dust-up over the leaking of the NSAs program by Ed Snowden. And as I tried to figure out why I wasnt more animated upon hearing the revelations and, likewise, why so many others were it struck me. Those who are especially chapped about the program, about the very concept of their government keeping tabs on them in effect profiling them as potential criminals, as terrorists are almost entirely those for whom shit like this is new: people who have never before been presumed criminal, up to no good, or worthy of suspicion.
In short, they are mostly white. And male. And middle-class or above. And most assuredly not Muslim.
And although I too am those things, perhaps because I work mostly on issues of racism, white privilege and racial inequity and because my mentors and teachers have principally been people of color, for whom things like this are distressingly familiar the latest confirmation that the U.S. is far from the nation we were sold as children is hardly Earth-shattering. After all, it is only those who have had the relative luxury of remaining in a child-like, innocent state with regard to the empire in which they reside who can be driven to such distraction by something that, compared to what lots of folks deal with every day, seems pretty weak tea...
http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/
This refrain is now old with many of us as we see people thumbing their noses down at the 'lesser people.' Wise has issues with the Democratic Party as Chris Hedges does with pornography, because in the end, being a progressive and a liberal is about individual lives.
That is left out by pundits celebrated by Putin supporters in online forums, cable shows by Republicans, and talk radio pundits like Alex Jones. The latter come out actively against the government that supports the rights of women and the poor against the privileged and powerful. They have determined what their place will be in the society they want - and it's not what Democrats want, so we must be eliminated totally.
Those civil rights issues are the dirty underbelly of empire and privilege and how the population is felled by the status quo. Dismiss one civil right, and they'll go after all of them. And some of them claim to be from the 'left' as some now define it. It's not how I define it, but I see a pattern. Tell me how this is not the way that some are defining the Democratic Party and its followers:
Lumpenproletariat is a term that was originally coined by Karl Marx to describe that layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a classless society.[1] The word is derived from the German word Lumpenproletarier, a word literally meaning "miscreant" as well as "rag". The term proletarian was first defined by Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology (1845) and later elaborated on in other works by Marx. The Marxist Internet Archive writes that "this term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers" which include "beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements."[2]
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), Marx gives this description of the lumpenproletariat:
Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème.[3]
In the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx rhetorically describes the lumpenproletariat as a "class fraction" that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte of France in 1848. In this sense, Marx argued that Bonaparte was able to place himself above the two main classes, the proletariat and bourgeoisie, by resorting to the "lumpenproletariat" as an apparently independent base of power, while in fact advancing the material interests of the "finance aristocracy".
For rhetorical purposes, Marx identifies Louis Napoleon himself as being like a member of the lumpenproletariat insofar as, being a member of the finance aristocracy, he has no direct interest in productive enterprises.[4] This is a rhetorical flourish, however, which equates the lumpenproletariat, the rentier class, and the apex of class society as equivalent members of the class of those with no role in useful production...[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpen_proletariat
'All Men (women) Are Created Equal' isn't in those perjoratives applied to victims of class warfare. They don't count as they are unwilling to give up all they are left with, their very lives for the guiding hand of the intellectual elitists. Nor do the social policies promoted by progressives to mitigate the genocide committed upon them matter. They are denied humanity for what was done to them, despite the identity politics used to claim they are part of the cadre. If they dare squeak about the voting to support the pillars of democratic socialism such as are in the New Deal and fought for by Bernie Sanders, they are supporting continuing evil, supposedly. Like living an imperfect life isn't worth it. Conveniently given advice by those who are not on the chopping block.
Their lives, thus their survival as 'losers' don't matter in the face of ideology, only the revolution matters. The one ending up creating a system of feudalism with a different name, with little worker input. Evolution of society as preached from feudalism to the paradise of communism, sans any talk of civil rights, ends up being no different than the Biblical view of 'every man with his own vineyard' as the ultimate society. Don't bring up the uncomfortable issue of who is going to be doing the childbearing and menial work. Social stratification benefits those at the top, not the rest. Let's not talk about what enables and sweeps that under the rug.
You never answer my replies, but you struck a chord, and thus I answered with my take on just how screwed up the support, some of it coming from a misguided vision of Putin remaking the USSR or a communist society based on Marx coming to pass. That is not what Putin is doing. He's an oligarch and friend of oligarchs and if people would open their eyes up to that fact, they might see him as the fascist that he is, no matter how he presents himself.
Russia is now an experiment melding religion, corporate and state power working together for the benefit of the corporations and destroying civil society and protections. That is the way that Mussolini termed what he was doing with Fascism in Italy.
The West has successfully combined corporations, oligarchs, monarchs and strong state government to afford individual rights and freedoms to its citizenry, but that is going to fall in the face of what is now embraced in the USA and the Anglosphere, and more directly by ISIS.
The voices against the Democratic Party, IMHO, are not for democratic, accountable government but for a simplistic vision no one will be able to ignore when they destroy the state. It will seamlessly control everything necessary to live. Yes, that is a pessimistic view and I am still working these things out in my mind, seeking to find a way to define my position on maintaining the living. I'm a 'WIP.'
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Do political pundits who deny the Russian invasion of Crimea deserve to be taken seriously at DU? [View all]
Tommy_Carcetti
Mar 2015
OP
If we did that we would have to deny everybody who is divorced from reality a voice here.
Agnosticsherbet
Mar 2015
#2
What makes it worse is when an individual who once had respectable journalistic credentials....
Tommy_Carcetti
Mar 2015
#9
Video: A Russian soldier from Siberia talks about his service in Donetsk. (link to DU thread)
Agnosticsherbet
Mar 2015
#65
they should be treated like Alex Jones and be shunted to the Creative Speculation forum
uhnope
Mar 2015
#32
No, there are a lot of falsehoods in the second. Putin has admitted Russian troops' role in Crimea
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#20
There is no dispute. Having bases somewhere doesnt greenlight invasion. That's dishonest to the core
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#30
So if the US sent troops from Guantanamo towards Havana, seizing territory
geek tragedy
Mar 2015
#41
Exactly. Using that persons same logic, it's OK for us to takeover whatever countries in which we
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#47
This is hilarious. It's not unique. Invading another country is invading. We invaded Panama.
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#68
Yes, they are. And Putin has admitted they were terribly wrong or lying about this. nt
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#48
If Cohen and Chomsky have claimed that there was no Russian invasion of Crimea, then yes.
Tommy_Carcetti
Mar 2015
#63
Back in the 1930's, these people would have excused Germany for annexing Austria too.
FLPanhandle
Mar 2015
#19
As I wrote in my #20, Putin has already shown what Parry and Pilger wrote to be wrong (or a lie) on
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#21
So because I called out one of your favorite sources, I'm suddenly Dr. Strangelove?
Tommy_Carcetti
Mar 2015
#23
Buddy, I served with Dr. Strangelove. Dr. Strangelove was a friend of mine. I knew Dr. Strangelove.
Octafish
Mar 2015
#28
Pilger is pretty much on Team Putin when it comes to GLBT rights. Fuck him.
geek tragedy
Mar 2015
#26
I've seen that framed as 'the 1% doesn't care about civil rights, only money.' So we don't either?
freshwest
Mar 2015
#71
No, there was no foreign funding or arming of the citizens who revolted at Yanukovych's
geek tragedy
Mar 2015
#37
Stand trial in Ukraine means very different than stand trial mostly anywhere else
JonLP24
Mar 2015
#50
So because Russia is not as bad as the US, that makes Russia's behavior just fine.
NuclearDem
Mar 2015
#52
Interesting argument as to why we shouldn't object to what Russia is doing nt
geek tragedy
Mar 2015
#58
And so if we invade those countries where the bases are, it's not really an invasion?
stevenleser
Mar 2015
#69
Yanukovich was elected in 2010 on a platform of closer integration with Europe, not "closer ties
pampango
Mar 2015
#54
The Soviet sympathizer has been the disgrace of the left for a century
Sen. Walter Sobchak
Mar 2015
#66