U.S. Presidential debate

[Jester]

The Alt-Right is really not being forced into supporting Breitbart and Trump by the lack of credible alternatives. That is a silly narrative. They are genuinely enthusiastic about both, and the sentiment has been well-reciprocated.

Do you have any evidence of Bannon, or Trump courting the alt-right?

About Bannon, I can't tell if you're joking, or if you really just haven't followed the progression of that particular wretched hive of scum and villainy. Stephen Bannon describes Breitbart.com as a "platform for the alt right." That's the website he created, in his own words. Unless you're digging deep into the Chans and /pol/, there is no deeper well of memetic troll-rightism than Breitbart. They even have a helpful guide for "establishment conservatives" trying to understand what these crazy kids are getting up to. David Duke is publically and vocally thrilled with Bannon's appointment.

Trump isn't much more complicated. The single most obvious link is: Stephen Bannon! If this was just some I-know-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy, maybe that would be a dubious link, but you don't hire a guy who runs the internet's premier alt-right mudslinging website to run your campaign, and then install him as chief of strategy in your administration, unless you are courting the alt-right - their style, their ideas, their people. Trump has made a crazy eclectic campaign out of weird (intentionally) contradictory elements, but the use of alt-right media, language and ideas has been pretty consistent. Unlike almost every other candidate since George Wallace, he has been weirdly vague and heel-dragging about speaking out against the far right. He has played on every aspect of xenophobia and identity politics on the right, emphasising over and over the threat of immigrants, of foreigners, of those who are not "like us."

And again, just in case the point gets lost: He appointed Stephen Bannon as his chief of strategy. Not just knows, not just associates with, not just refuses to denounce. Might as well make Ann Coulter secretary of state, or nominate Milo the Troll King for the supreme court, at this point.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

About Bannon, I can't tell if you're joking, or if you really just haven't followed the progression of that particular wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Well, you are correct. I don't follow the right at all, and I avoid all types of click bait "journalism". For this election cycle, I've mostly tuned out as any outcome was an unthinkable nightmare to me in vastly different ways. I commiserate with those who preferred the nightmare scenario of Hillary, although I couldn't bring myself to vote for either of them.

I get the fear of a rise in xenophobia, homophobia and nationalism. You know me, I will resist any force that attempts to deny any person their liberty and dignity.

I just don't think it is at the level of linking Breitbart with something very right wing like Stormfront, just as it wouldn't be correct to link the Daily Beast with something very left wing like Morning Star. There is so much hyperbole on both sides, I'm still not sure if it is Trump or Hillary or both who are in direct league with the Armageddon forces of hell unleashed.

Again, I'm not a consumer of any of the above so I may lack the scrutiny and full perspective of their editorial stance. It is not helpful to merely label and shut down our opponents as a "basket of deplorables". We need to win the ideological battle with rational, respectful debate, or resign ourselves to an eventual civil war.

... or nominate Milo the Troll King for the supreme court, at this point.

Who is this Troll King?

edit: never mind I looked him up. Seems fitting for a Trump evangelist -- no filter. But, he'd be the first openly gay, British, and offensively punk rock conservative on the SCOTUS. Kind of a slightly prettier, more eloquent, gay, tyrannical Johnny Rotten. While there are no prerequisites other than tradition, I'm not sure how they'd skirt the whole "not a citizen, not a lawyer" thing, while technically the original SCOTUS were Brits born in the colonies.

[Ashock]

What's wrong with nationalism and why should people fear it?

[FireIceTalon]

Difficult to sling mud effectively, if you only have one outlet to get that mud to the people - Fox news. OTOH, Marxists have let's see....MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS

I had a good laugh at this. Ironically, your inability (or reluctance?) to distinguish bourgeois leftism from Marxism is indicative of one of the many dangers of nationalism.

Yep, we Marxists sit around and watch liberal news stations to get all of our information about capitalist society and its guardians, as if we dont have our own sources

As for nationalism, Einstein summed it up best when he called it "an infanitle disease, the measles of humanity".

But more specifically, nationalism is intrinsically a reactionary ideal and usually is a slippery slope to racism if isn't outright racist to begin with. The whole idea that your country (which really isn't yours, btw), and its culture, way of life and institutions is somehow superior to another's is shallow, chauvinistic, short-sighted, and downright irrational. Too often, it's used as a means of getting people to hold racist and xenophobic views in order to deflect economic and social blame on foreigners and immigrants, when the real culprit is capitalism and its institutions. Nationalism, like religion, is one of the more prominent forms of 'false consciousness'.

It also helps to open the door for demagogues like Trump, the Yankee Mussolini who vows to make America white again (certainly not 'great again', since it never was great).

Trump pandered (and still continues to) to white nationalism flawlessly; and lots of people bought it hook, line and sinker. The message was that Mexican, Muslim, and black workers are inferior to white workers, and this was done to further divide the working class along racial lines so that BOTH white and minority working class people will be easier to exploit. And now, you officially have fascism in America. All the idiots who voted for him will soon have no one to blame but themselves when they see what this means. Although, I think his tenure in office will be a short-lived one, but that's another topic.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the working people of the world have no country. It is all owned by the capitalists. So it is foolish to take pride in what you do not own, and what is used as a way of both oppressing you and ideologically controlling you, so that you hold positions which are against your own objective interests. To be nationalistic or patriotic is to do the will of the bourgeois. At best, this is foolish and naive....at worst, extremely dangerous. You will never see ME saluting those stars n stripes, for any reason whatsoever. Come the victory of socialism, we will replace the 4th of July with a holiday commerating the defeat of capitalism and the liberation of humanity and planet earth.

[eppie]

Difficult to sling mud effectively, if you only have one outlet to get that mud to the people - Fox news. OTOH, Marxists have let's see....MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and numerous printed so called "publications", that have been (and still are) slinging mud on Trump ever since he became the Rep nominee. The truly amazing fact is that Trump won DESPITE everything that has been thrown at him and despite EVERYTHING that the mainstream media has been supressing about Clinton.

If that does not give someone food for thought, then they are as blind as a mole. This condition can be very closely duplicated by burying one's head in the sand.

Please read previous comments. You are right if every voter makes a conscious well educated decission when voting. Now you know just as well as I do that this is not the case.

[eppie]

What's wrong with nationalism and why should people fear it?

Nationalism doesnt need to be wrong. It is just a thing for the masses that are to stupid to see the big picture. So when you are talking about nice friendly bonding type nationalism it is perfectly fine.
However nationalism is like religion.....it easily flips over and shows its bad side, which is an anti-others kind of thing. But you knew that.

[FireIceTalon]

What is this "nice, friendly bonding" nationalism you speak of? Just curios. Because as I understand it, nationalism is a product of class distinctions and conflict. Usually it's an appeal to populism laced with vicious rhetoric, that on the outside looks to be unifying but at its core is extremely divisive.

[kandrathe]

... And now, you officially have fascism in America.
...

I think we've had Fascism in the US for along time. According to "As We Go Marching" by John T. Flynn

• The government is totalitarian because it acknowledges no restraint on its powers (e.g. Gitmo, Patriot Act, or FISA courts). This begins back before even Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). Not to mention the growing surveillance state.
  
• Government is a "de facto" dictatorship based on the leadership principle (i.e. unchecked executive branch power, e.g. Executive Orders -- you'll like this one -- it's essentially a declaration of Fascism).
  
• Government administers a capitalist system with an immense bureaucracy.
  
• Producers are organized into cartels in the way of [national] syndicalism (e.g. oil, pharma, defense, banking -- "Corporatocracy")
  
• Economic planning is based on the principle of autarky (e.g. Oil wars, "national interest").
  
• Government sustains economic life through spending and borrowing.
  
• Militarism is a mainstay of government spending.
  
• Military spending has imperialist aims.
  

Although, there are many takes on the hallmarks of Fascism...

Probably the best proof so far that we live in a Fascist system, the Micheal Froman (CitiBank) email to John Podesta on the composition of Obama's cabinet. The exact composition of the Obama administration was determined (by the banker who got the biggest bailout) two months before the election.

Candidates for Obama's Inner Circle | MICHAEL FROMAN
The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

Please read previous comments. You are right if every voter makes a conscious well educated decision when voting. Now you know just as well as I do that this is not the case.

However, it would be worse to remove the vote from any not deemed worthy. At least with "one person, one vote" there is the hope you can shine truth through the fog of election propaganda.

[FireIceTalon]

The link you provided on the Marxist view of fascism I generally agree with for the most part. I do disagree with the Marxist Bordiga's take however though (yep, even Marxists disagree with eachother on certain things), that fascism is no different from regular bourgeois democracy, or monarchy (even if it is a type of bourgeois rule, there are still specific conditions that define fascism and make it distinguished from typical bourgeois political systems), and that it isn't exceptionally reactionary. Otherwise, we would be able to label social democratic, capitalist states like Sweden or Norway as being fascist, which they certainly are not. It would also be in error to label all Monarchies in Feudal Europe as fascists, they simply were not.

It's why before Trump's election I was still a bit hesitant to label America as being full blown fascist (though it certainly was well on its way). To me, Trump is the completion of American fascism, the final resulting crown jewel that signifies the ruling class' panic because the capitalist system is in a very precarious state. A demagogue is one of the defining features of fascism and Trump is filler of that checkbox on the list.

[Jester]

Probably the best proof so far that we live in a Fascist system, the Micheal Froman (CitiBank) email to John Podesta on the composition of Obama's cabinet. The exact composition of the Obama administration was determined (by the banker who got the biggest bailout) two months before the election.

Candidates for Obama's Inner Circle | MICHAEL FROMAN
The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton

Froman was career Democratic econoimc adviser, who worked for the treasury under Rubin during the Clinton administration. He, like almost everyone else, moved back to the private sector when the administration changed. He was an early Obama supporter, and obviously a prime candidate for an economic advisory role under Obama. He converses with Podesta about cabinet appointments, making "lists" of candidates for top jobs containing... well, exactly who you'd expect them to contain, high-flying Democrats in their respective fields? That Obama bailed out the big banks, on the advice of pretty much every economist, because the whole global financial system was at stake, and letting it fail would have catastrophic economic consequences? That's "the best proof so far we liver under a Fascist system"?

I'm not saying I love the Washington revolving door, but if that's Fascism, then we've been living under Fascism consistently since the mid-18th century.

-Jester

For fun: This is almost exactly the accusation made of Alexander Hamilton during his tenure as Treasury Secretary. The more things change...

[kandrathe]

Froman was career Democratic econoimc adviser, who worked for the treasury under Rubin during the Clinton administration. He, like almost everyone else, moved back to the private sector when the administration changed. He was an early Obama supporter, and obviously a prime candidate for an economic advisory role under Obama. He converses with Podesta about cabinet appointments, making "lists" of candidates for top jobs containing... well, exactly who you'd expect them to contain, high-flying Democrats in their respective fields? That Obama bailed out the big banks, on the advice of pretty much every economist, because the whole global financial system was at stake, and letting it fail would have catastrophic economic consequences? That's "the best proof so far we liver under a Fascist system"?

I'm not saying I love the Washington revolving door, but if that's Fascism, then we've been living under Fascism consistently since the mid-18th century.

-Jester

For fun: This is almost exactly the accusation made of Alexander Hamilton during his tenure as Treasury Secretary. The more things change...

We may just be arguing about how square the peg and hole are. There is a smoking gun here of corporate/government collusion and obvious conflicts of interest. You may wave it off as a revolving door, or the necessary evil of matching the "right" person to the jobs, but certainly there need to be boundaries in choosing from the incestuous swamp rats we grow out on the East Coast between Wall Street and K Street. It's become an endless cycle of elites pandering to and enriching the elite. As much as we can look at Trumps nationalism as trending fascism, his genesis is from the fascism already institutionalized. The only difference is he's an outsider elite, pandering to the disenfranchised, and negotiating his position with the existing fascist insiders (from both parties).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-as...30406.html

“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

"Yes we can!" "Make America great again!" "A “New Deal” for the American people!"

I'd see it as definitive US behavior in response to the Great Depression and moving forward. Mainly evident by our need for militarism after WWII. Before GWB, it was constrained somewhat by the requirement to convince Congress to declare war. But, since the advent of unmanned war, there is less checks on unilaterally striking enemies of the US without regard to borders or restraints.

[Ashock]

What's wrong with nationalism and why should people fear it?

Nationalism doesnt need to be wrong. It is just a thing for the masses that are to stupid to see the big picture. So when you are talking about nice friendly bonding type nationalism it is perfectly fine.
However nationalism is like religion.....it easily flips over and shows its bad side, which is an anti-others kind of thing. But you knew that.

What is the big picture?

[kandrathe]

What's wrong with nationalism and why should people fear it?

Nationalism doesnt need to be wrong. It is just a thing for the masses that are to stupid to see the big picture. So when you are talking about nice friendly bonding type nationalism it is perfectly fine.
However nationalism is like religion.....it easily flips over and shows its bad side, which is an anti-others kind of thing. But you knew that.

What is the big picture?

You are here.

[Ashock]

What's wrong with nationalism and why should people fear it?

Nationalism doesnt need to be wrong. It is just a thing for the masses that are to stupid to see the big picture. So when you are talking about nice friendly bonding type nationalism it is perfectly fine.
However nationalism is like religion.....it easily flips over and shows its bad side, which is an anti-others kind of thing. But you knew that.

What is the big picture?

You are here.

Are you sure? 'Cause I can't find my car.

[FireIceTalon]

The U.S. media are false narrators.

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/80046...wsrc%5Etfw

Upping white nationalists now are we? Well they say step #1 of a fascist dictator is to control the media, and Trump was meeting with various figures of them the other day critiquing them on their portrayal of his campaign (even after they just basically game him billions in free publicity). And now they are legitimizing white nationalism as if its something normal or ok..... It is truly unsettling how popular the alt-right is becoming. We need a communist revolution, and soon. Only the radical left can destroy fascism, liberals are useless.

[kandrathe]

The U.S. media are false narrators.

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/80046...wsrc%5Etfw

Upping white nationalists now are we? Well they say step #1 of a fascist dictator is to control the media, and Trump was meeting with various figures of them the other day critiquing them on their portrayal of his campaign (even after they just basically game him billions in free publicity). And now they are legitimizing white nationalism as if its something normal or ok..... It is truly unsettling how popular the alt-right is becoming. We need a communist revolution, and soon. Only the radical left can destroy fascism, liberals are useless.

50 Nazi's go to Washington. Earth stops revolving. News at 11.

They don't matter. It is only the press who is giving them any attention. It is mostly fear mongering by the press at its worst, giving voice to the voiceless. They just need a scapegoat to pin burning down the Reichstag upon. I don't believe there is any massive growing movement of White nationalism. It's the same a-holes as there were 6 months ago, but maybe they feel more free to open their hate spewing pie holes.

And, I hate to break it to you, but the alt-left is also about 4-5 thousand registered communist party members. You ain't prepared.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-h-hami...22214.html

To beat back ignorance, we need to spread enlightenment.

Not vitriol. Not deceptions, and not spin, target, marginalize and ridicule.

[Jester]

To beat back ignorance, we need to spread enlightenment.

Not vitriol. Not deceptions, and not spin, target, marginalize and ridicule.

Sure. So, what does it mean that the guy that runs the internet's premier alt-right website specializing in a particularly vitriolic brand of deceiving, spinning, targetting, marginalizing and ridiculing is now the POTUS' chief strategist?

-Jester

[Ashock]

To beat back ignorance, we need to spread enlightenment.

Not vitriol. Not deceptions, and not spin, target, marginalize and ridicule.

in a particularly vitriolic brand of deceiving, spinning, targetting, marginalizing and ridiculing
-Jester

Examples?

[Jester]

Examples?

On their front page right now: www.breitbart.com/london/2016/11/23/woolworths-axes-christmas-muslim-now/

Yesterday, they were hosting some big piece by Ann Coulter, that most serious champion of journalistic integrity, who certainly would never spin or marginalize. Milo Yiannopolous is a regular contributor, who (by his own admission) makes a career out of mocking and antagonizing, regularly targetting groups he doesn't like for abuse and invective just to stir up the pot and raise his own profile. They were deeply and directly invovled in James O'Keefe's "investigative reporting," which turned out to be obvious and vicious fraud, not that this stopped them from using it to bring down ACORN.

And, oh yeah, they're founded by and named after Andrew Breitbart.

Are you really asking this? I know you and I agree on basically nothing, so perhaps you see things differently. But the case seems self-evident to me.

-Jester

[LavCat]

What's wrong with nationalism? I found the cover of this week's The Economist amusing. I wish I had some way to link to it.