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Here Comes The Left

steve_bank

Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Joined
Nov 9, 2017
Messages
19,010
Location
seattle
Basic Beliefs
secular-skeptic
The left scares me far more than the right. Mao's Cultural Revolution' comes to mind.

Tear everything down without any idea of a working system to replace it. And no experience to make it work.

Obviously changes have to e made, the income disparity that is getting worse. Social democracy lokng l[ke a slppery slope to Marxism, at least for some of hte left.

Trump and the wacky right is obviouisly attmping a kind of coup. The far left won't be any better, maybe worse given the chance..

There has been similar rhetoric from progressives here in Seattle.

A no experience PHD student endorsed by the mayor of NYC based on ideology. There is a slippery slope for you. Endorsed by a mayor whose only experience is activism, not management. Just like Trump is doing on the right.

Are we headed to full blown third world armed civil war?



Deleted tweets on Darializa Avila Chevalier’s account had favorable references to communist leaders and Marxism


Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic congressional nominee endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who ousted longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat in Tuesday’s primary, maintained a since-deleted Twitter account with repeated sympathetic references to communism, Marxist ideology and Soviet figures, including Vladimir Lenin.

Avila Chevalier, a sociology PhD student whose victory sent shockwaves throughout the Democratic establishment, has been under fire for a since-deleted Twitter account, previously reported by CNN, that included phrases such as “seize the means of production,” along with calls to abolish police, prisons and borders. Other controversial tweets include one that said Black and Arab men are both “Fetishizing ugly colonizer women” and another that described wiping her dirty hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin.


Mamdani-backed congressional candidate deleted posts calling to seize private property, abolish police, borders, prisons

, a democratic socialist congressional candidate endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, deleted a previous Twitter account that included thousands of posts and reposts expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, as well as seizing private property and nationalizing major industries and calling into question Israel’s right to exist.

Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old investigator at a public defender’s office in New York City and doctoral student, has emerged as one of the most prominent left-wing challengers in the country after Mamdani endorsed her bid to unseat longtime Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District.

But the posts from her since-deleted account from over the last decade have drawn scrutiny amid her high-profile challenge of Espaillat, a five-term incumbent and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. That primary, scheduled for June 23, has become a closely watched proxy battle between the Democratic Party’s establishment and its ascendant democratic-socialist wing, with Mamdani’s endorsement last week elevating the race’s national profile.

 
No amount of failure anywhere will dissuade the far left from thinking "It can work here. We just need to try a little harder".

No amount of fairy dust can completely cover that type of thinking.
 
The left scares me far more than the right.
You should probably stop using fear as your primary lens through which to view the world.

The right has made fear its ally; They want you to be scared and confused. And they know that lots of people - particularly old white guys - are now addicted to fear, and to its companion, outrage.

Reality doesn't even get a look in. You are too busy being outraged and fearful to care whether any of what you are scared of, or outraged at, is real.
 
The far left won't be any better, maybe worse given the chance..

Well I'd counter that the "far left" (at least here in 'Murica) is nowhere near the reach and power of MAGA cultists. Up until Mamdani, the farthest (furthest?) "left" mainstream politician in the country was Bernie Sanders, who - while he proclaims himself a Democratic Socialist - isn't really anymore "radical" than the man who was arguably the most successful US President of the 20th Century...FDR. Comparing Mamdani to Mao is frankly bonkers.

There's a vast gulf of difference between the progressive side of the Democratic Party (which is a long way from seizing control of the whole thing) and far left revolutionaries calling for the rounding up of intellectuals and working towards a "workers paradise" where everyone wears the same uniform.

Given that the current incarnation of the Democratic Party is incoherent and feckless, falling all over themselves to be "centrist" and doing little more than crafting a strongly worded letter as Trump continues his quest for kleptocracy, I'd welcome a little bit more effective leadership coming from the other side of the aisle, even if it is a populist firebrand. It has to be better than the corporate stooge Democrats we've had for the past several decades.
 
This thread is... Something I guess.

You do realize that damn near everything progressives want for America HAS in fact been tried in various places and is wildly successful at making a healthy and stable country be "healthy and stable" somewhere.

The reason that it doesn't get implemented here is because kleptocrats fond ways to either sabotage or scare people away from implementation.

The furthest "left" America gets (Mamdami) is actually to the right of most of Europe where social services are concerned.

No amount of fear of the words "democratic socialism" will change that.
 
The reason that it doesn't get implemented here is because kleptocrats fond ways to either sabotage or scare people away from implementation.

The other day I saw a news story that said the Social Security system will be broke by 2032. When do I hit the new and improved "retirement" age when I can start getting back some of the money I put into it?

2032.

I was really hoping for some socialism, but I guess it'll be "work until you die" for me.
 
Avila Chevalier, a sociology PhD student whose victory sent shockwaves throughout the Democratic establishment, has been under fire for a since-deleted Twitter account, previously reported by CNN, that included phrases such as “seize the means of production,” along with calls to abolish police, prisons and borders. Other controversial tweets include one that said Black and Arab men are both “Fetishizing ugly colonizer women” and another that described wiping her dirty hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin.

This is the only nutty one on the Left. The others seem fairly reasonable to me and Democratic Socialism is not Communism, so stop pretending it is. The Democratic Party has always been a big tent party with people who identify as fairly far left, moderate and even conservative. You know...kind of like cats which are hard to herd. The Republican Party is a party of sheep who bow to their leader regardless of how insane and dangerous their leader tends to be. So, regardless of its weaknesses, regardless of the things I might disagree with, I'll take the cats over the sheep.

All of the crazy things going on remind me of an old high school cheer we kids used to shout at football games. "Swing to the left...Swing to the right...Stand up...Sit down...Fight fight fight!". It's past time to swing to the left again.
 
The reason that it doesn't get implemented here is because kleptocrats fond ways to either sabotage or scare people away from implementation.

The other day I saw a news story that said the Social Security system will be broke by 2032. When do I hit the new and improved "retirement" age when I can start getting back some of the money I put into it?

2032.

I was really hoping for some socialism, but I guess it'll be "work until you die" for me.
It's not going to be broke. It's just going to have to reduce everyone's payments by about 22 percent. If we would stop deporting immigrants and let more in, that would solve part of the problem. If we'd raise the amount of salary that people pay into SS, that would solve most of the problem. It's our lazy, worthless congress that is the primary problem. I might still be alive by 2032, if I live even close to the age that my parents did, so it will impact more than just the younger generations. It will impact many of us who have been receiving the benefit that we paid into for many decades. The Right isn't going to save us. The Left might if they work at it.
 
Furthest, not farthest.

Farthest refers to actual physical distances, whereas furthest is about abstract concepts of comparison.
 
Y'all make is sound like socialism would be worse than what we have right now.
What socialist countries, past or present, would you say is/was better off than the US with regard to the economy, freedom, opportunities and human rights then ours right now?
Norway, Sweden, Denmark......hell even the UK and France are BETTER than what we have here in the US.
 
I was beguiled by the thread title because I thought the thread was going to be about leftists doing cocaine. So, a bit disappointed. :sadcheer:
My father actually did coke in the 70s. I don't think he was a leftist though.
 
I was beguiled by the thread title because I thought the thread was going to be about leftists doing cocaine. So, a bit disappointed. :sadcheer:
My father actually did coke in the 70s. I don't think he was a leftist though.

I did coke in the 70s and I was a leftist. Still am. Don’t do coke any longer, though.
My father sure doesn't anymore. He's dead! But from alcoholism, not the cocaine.
 
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Y'all make is sound like socialism would be worse than what we have right now.
What socialist countries, past or present, would you say is/was better off than the US with regard to the economy, freedom, opportunities and human rights then ours right now?
Freedom and opportunities are such vague terms. I certainly value the freedom and opportunity to be shot by an ICE Agent who will never face any consequences. Does that count as a human right for me, or the ICE agent? If rights were really an issue, I would have become President and become above the law which the rest of us are subject to, but that's a very limited opportunity. I have a better chance of becoming and ICE agent.

As for the economy, I have no complaints, especially since I'm not one of the 4 out of a 1000 infants who died before my first birthday. Having made it past that hurdle, I've managed to avoid medical expense related bankruptcy.

I consider myself one of the fortunate ones to have been born in a place, time and circumstances which allowed me to prosper, and when problems arose, I could afford the insurance to pay the hospital and doctors who kept me alive. It wasn't because of any economy, freedom, opportunities, or human rights. I just got lucky.
 
Change can be scary, because it allows the mind to imagine all types of results. The idea that the “far left”’s potential toehold that will springboard into a full blown totalitarian dystopia is the stuff of miniseries, not realistic analysis in my opinion.

Moreover, the same chicken littles are silent about the much more realistic foothold white “Christian” nationalists have here and their attempted goosestepping towards a different totalitarian dystopia.
 
Y'all make is sound like socialism would be worse than what we have right now.
What socialist countries, past or present, would you say is/was better off than the US with regard to the economy, freedom, opportunities and human rights then ours right now?
Freedom and opportunities are such vague terms. I certainly value the freedom and opportunity to be shot by an ICE Agent who will never face any consequences. Does that count as a human right for me, or the ICE agent? If rights were really an issue, I would have become President and become above the law which the rest of us are subject to, but that's a very limited opportunity. I have a better chance of becoming and ICE agent.

As for the economy, I have no complaints, especially since I'm not one of the 4 out of a 1000 infants who died before my first birthday. Having made it past that hurdle, I've managed to avoid medical expense related bankruptcy.

I consider myself one of the fortunate ones to have been born in a place, time and circumstances which allowed me to prosper, and when problems arose, I could afford the insurance to pay the hospital and doctors who kept me alive. It wasn't because of any economy, freedom, opportunities, or human rights. I just got lucky.
Nobody, including me is saying the US doesn't have its share of problems. Always have, always will. You did not answer the question I asked, though (see bold). Do you have even just one in mind?
 
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