tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post2991095820461993833..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Civil War parallels: GOP wins 2020, Democrat party DEFUNCT, most Dems re-group as Populist party to win 2024 and become dominant for 40 yearsagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-3079233433937311022019-03-10T10:17:10.421-04:002019-03-10T10:17:10.421-04:00I don't believe there is a threat of Civil war...I don't believe there is a threat of Civil war.<br /><br />The reason is the effect of the crime slump we're experiencing. If it is true that the crime wave goes in 30 year cycles, then that means that crime rose from about 1840-1870. The Civil War took place towards the second half of a crime wave.<br /><br />Likewise, in the 1980s, there was significant militia activity in the U.S.(they made a Tom Berenger movie about it). In the 1920s, there was also significant militia activity(in the form of labor movement - as you know, and as Turchin has pointed out, those labor strikes were downright militaristic in nature - with strikers fighting battles against the army).<br /><br />Internationally, in the early 90s, another crime wave peak, there were civil wars such as the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina.<br /><br />The main reason for this is that it takes strong social bonds to organize yourselves into a militia and rebel against the government. Americans are way to socially isolated to do that. The election of Trump shows that - everybody is still in the "get a strongman to do it" mentality, which is more typical of a the beginning of a crime wave - when people are becoming politically active again, but not trusting enough for serious activism.<br /><br />Furthermore, the Gen Xers, the last socially tough generation, are too old to fight a civil war - the Millenials not tough enough or socialized enough. You can have a major war after a period of cocooning, such as WWII or the War on Teror, but you need soldiers to come from a more outgoing generation.Curtisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-72715156689310566782018-05-29T03:19:43.071-04:002018-05-29T03:19:43.071-04:00Aside from populism, de-globalization will be a ma...Aside from populism, de-globalization will be a main theme of the Bernie paradigm -- mainly in the military domain, since that's the primary source of our global entanglements.<br /><br />They, whether Dems or Populists, shouldn't have any trouble with that because the military is the head sector of the GOP coalition. Easy to cut off your rivals than your own elites.<br /><br />Mainstream Dems making a bid for a new era, even if not endorsed by Our Revolution, are already talking about de-occupation of the entire world ("countless other countries," not just Iraq):<br /><br />"I was a senior in HS when George HW Bush announced US military action in Iraq. Today, I'm 45, have three kids of my own, and we're still using military force in that country. In countless other countries too. Time we stop endless war."<br /><br />https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1001275010265305088<br /><br />And that was posted on Memorial Day, from Ted Cruz's challenger. He's Gen X, like Chris Murphy from CT, who has been good on shedding our Saudi baggage.<br /><br />Whether he wins against Cruz or not, he's probably about as populist as Texas can expect -- and being pretty anti-interventionist, too.<br /><br />If the dethroned Reaganites try secession, they'll get instantly cut off from their military funding by the real government -- and there goes all of their globalist occupations, overnight.<br /><br />No Bernie-based government is going to keep funding that globalist shit after the Reaganites secede from the union, when the money is so desperately needed elsewhere. He'd turn it around on the Pentagon brass, giving generously to veterans and current grunts and junior officers, while de-funding the globalist occupations that only the brass gives a fuck about.<br /><br />The only thing getting in the way of that is, again, any Dem leadership who insists on running a bunch of spooks and Feds as quasi-Republicans.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-59811375349210965072018-05-29T01:25:33.792-04:002018-05-29T01:25:33.792-04:00If there are no Bernie people in the running, that...If there are no Bernie people in the running, that's one thing. The DNC leadership, corporate media, etc., can breathe a sigh of relief in that case. And I'd vote for that Democrat -- like Sherrod Brown running against some cuckservative for Senator from Ohio.<br /><br />Brown is a trade hawk, supports a Medicare buy-in option -- lite-populist, at least. He was not challenged by a Bernie person, so his appearance in the general does not represent the deliberate thwarting of change in a climate of change. So no need to punish his appearance, rather than that of some Bernie person, in the general.<br /><br />But no way I'm voting for Cordray, or the neolib faggot who is challenging the incumbent GOP-er for my House district. In both cases, there was a Bernie guy in the primary, so the non-Bernie guy's appearance in the general represents the deliberate thwarting of change in a climate of change, so it must be punished.<br /><br />"But that just represents the will of the voters" -- no it doesn't. It represents Democrat primary voters, and they could easily choose the wrong person for a general election.<br /><br />If the party leadership's job -- and the corporate media building a consensus before, during, and after a race -- is to "only" intervene to prevent unelectable candidates from advancing, then they should have intervened to tell Cordray to run for some other office. Especially since he's already lost to DeWine in a state-level election in Ohio! Attorney General, 2010. And with Ohio being even more Republican now, due to the populist campaign of Trump in '16, the neolib Dem will do worse than the populist Dem would have, against a generic cuckservative like DeWine.<br /><br />Airhead liberals and partisan Dems would've been happy to vote for Kucinich in the general if he had been the only choice in the primary, assuming the leadership had blocked the already-failed neolib Cordray. The airheads are happy to vote for ANYBODY with a D after their name. And Kucinich would've brought in way more Independents and cross-overs who voted for Trump on populist grounds, given what a corporate globalist DeWine is.<br /><br />Same with that neolib who ran and won the D primary in my House district over the Bernie guy. The leadership should have blocked the dumbass who will go down in flames against a long-time incumbent Republican.<br /><br />At this point, the leadership's job is to figure out how populist their populist candidates can be in order to win their electorate -- very populist in the city of Pittsburgh, lite-populist in the new district that Connor Lamb will be running in, which has more rural voters.<br /><br />But in no case should they be blocking any-shade-of populists and going with outright neolibs.<br /><br />Look at their heavy intervention in the New York Gov race -- last I checked, New York voters are more populist than the nation overall, so it should obviously be Nixon rather than Cuomo. Even if Cuomo wins the general, it would be by a smaller margin -- so, to leave nothing to chance, tell Cuomo his time is up, here's your golden parachute, and make way for Governor Nixon.<br /><br />In the race for NY Gov, maybe blocking the populist to advance the neolib does not lose the race -- but in a nation-wide election, like president, absolutely it does. There goes the White House yet again for the suicidal neolib faction, which if it keeps up this thwarting of change, needs to become its own third party, and the populist majority their own major party.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-88511241370520969822018-05-29T00:47:30.225-04:002018-05-29T00:47:30.225-04:00The populist Dems are making progress -- unlike po...The populist Dems are making progress -- unlike populist Republicans, they actually exist, in large numbers, they're winning primaries, and even general elections (where they won the primary and where the general never goes to a Republican).<br /><br />They're getting some of the mainstream Dem politicians to sign onto their ideas, like the 16 Senators who support Medicare for all, and other Senators who support at least a buy-in option for Medicare. As with the Whigs changing to Republicans, most old Democrats will carry over into new Populists -- I don't care if Corey Booker transfers over, as long as he supports the overall new vision. Not every Democrat was a far-left socialist during the New Deal era, and neither will every one be in the Bernie era. But they did support the same overall vision.<br /><br />But this progress is largely happening despite the party leadership, which again is supposed to only be concerned with who can best win elections against the actual rival party in the actual political climate we're living in now and going forward.<br /><br />Tom Perez & co. at the DNC, the corporate media, and the info-tech cartel, and the finance sector are all leaning pretty hard against the Bernie revolution. Not just putting their thumb on the scale beforehand, but breathing a sigh of relief and even gloating when a populist loses to a neolib in a primary -- like they did against Kucinich when Cordray won the Ohio Gov primary.<br /><br />I voted for Kucinich in the primary, and might as well go with the Republican DeWine in the general -- two Reaganites, one with a D and one with an R, Cordray is more culturally liberal, plus the need to punish the Democrat party leadership for thwarting change in a climate of change. Or I could vote Green, to signal a lost Democrat primary vote. If it's not close, I'll go Green. If it's going to be close, I'll go GOP just to make sure the traitors are purged from the opposition so that they can provide true challengers to overthrow the dominant party.<br /><br />If they stick to that, they will wipe themselves out in 2020, and delay the Bernie victory until '24 -- when the Democrats qua Democrats will have no representation in any political office, but only to the extent that they have chosen to join the re-grouped and re-branded Populist party, adhering to its platform, as the opposition to the GOP.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-38091853365166657712018-05-29T00:42:27.590-04:002018-05-29T00:42:27.590-04:00The main warning sign of neolib purists delaying t...The main warning sign of neolib purists delaying the re-alignment from '20 to '24 is their refusal to acknowledge that Bernie would have performed better than Hillary against Trump in 2016.<br /><br />He would have saved Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota (widened the D margin away from 1%), the district in Maine, and probably Iowa. Still think he would've lost Pennsylvania to Trump, based on primary performances, and of course lost Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina to Trump.<br /><br />Conversely, there are no blue states that Hillary won that Bernie would have lost against Trump. Virginia is debatable, but between two anti-Establishment choices, I think they would have gone with the one who was not promising to "drain the Swamp" and "dismantle the administrative state," holding their nose for Bernie.<br /><br />So Bernie still loses to Trump in 2016, but with Trump only getting 273 or 279, not 306.<br /><br />The whole argument from neolibs was "OK, we get that you want a whole different set of policies from what we normally offer -- but you have to put all that aside, and put it on hold for the moment, because your policies are unelectable, and your candidate would be less electable in a general election against Trump."<br /><br />That was just a hypothesis. It was put to an experimental test in November 2016, and the results were that it was decisively rejected. Whether Bernie ultimately won or lost, he would've done better than Hillary against Trump. Conclusion: Bernie's platform is more, not less, electable than Hillary's in the current political climate that demands populism, and is at least getting some lip service on those issues even from Republicans.<br /><br />If that argument had been serious -- electability trumps substance -- then the neolibs should have shifted the party in the populist direction by two years later. Remember, they supposedly don't stand for any particular group of Democrat-friendly policies -- they only want those that are most electable against their rival party. Before, they thought these electable issues were neoliberalism, and now it turns out that it's populism -- so they should be dumping the former for the latter.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-62700846961138355352018-05-29T00:11:31.753-04:002018-05-29T00:11:31.753-04:00It's a more fundamental split than whistle-blo...It's a more fundamental split than whistle-blowing DNC corruption during the 2016 primary. WikiLeaks could have never existed, and this dynamic would still be playing out.<br /><br />I am still hopeful overall -- Reagan era ending near-term, either 2020 or '24, replaced by a whole new system of populism, drawn from the Bernie revolution. I rarely say "the Democrats" since it's specifically the Bernie re-aligners, and now it's a more conscious hedge against the risk of the Democrats destroying themselves with neoliberal extremist-purists, and the Bernie revolution being a separate party.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-23459619490291708392018-05-28T20:40:55.691-04:002018-05-28T20:40:55.691-04:00"Like the Know-Nothings, the Neoliberal third..."Like the Know-Nothings, the Neoliberal third party of Hillary and Cuomo would be remembered in utter disgust by the future -- for splintering the opposition"<br /><br />Very ambitious post, but intuitively, this feels more correct than your more hopeful posts as of late...<br /><br />It's so bad out here for ANYONE -Berniac, Trumpster, or Corbynite and especially Julian Assange- who gave aid and comfort to the whistleblowing over DNC corruption and/or Brennan.<br /><br />Serendipitously, found this yesterday, after sitting in church yesterday and saying to myself, "He's never going to forgive me," and it's so appropriate given the forces mentioned in this post.<br /><br />John Pilger on Julian Assange: Good journalists are never forgiven.<br />https://youtu.be/xpMoVQ2W7f4<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com