forjusticethunders
forjusticethunders's JournalDonald Trump Thinks North Carolina Got It Wrong On Anti-LGBT Bathroom Bill
Source: Huffington Post
During a town hall on NBC, Trump said North Carolina’s anti-LGBT bathroom measure, which has hurt the state economically, wasn’t necessary and sought to address a problem that wasn’t really a big issue. The bill also prohibits local municipalities from passing additional measures to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination.
“North Carolina did something that was very strong and they’re paying a big price. There’s a lot of problems,” Trump said. “You leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble, and the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife, and the economic punishment that they’re taking.”
Advocates of the North Carolina law, which only allows people to use the restroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate, say it is necessary to protect the privacy of children. As Trump pointed out, the suggestion that allowing transgender people to use the bathroom they want will jeopardize the safety of other people is a myth.
Trump’s position is a clear break from his rival for the Republican nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), who has called the North Carolina bill a “perfectly reasonable determination for the people to make.”
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-north-carolina-bathroom-bill_us_5718ca1ee4b0c9244a7aec8c
All I can say is what a fucking world.
"Independent", "Democrat" and opting out versus opting into the system
Let's say I, justicethunders, is a socialist lefty who wants to see my views represented in national politics. I have 3 choices:
1: Not get involved
2: Get involved with a 3rd party with no chance of winning
3: Support the Democratic Party while trying to move them left but at the same time compromise with more conservative members of the party even if I vociferously disagree with them and debate with them.
Which option is the MOST likely to give me influence?
The problem is that a lot of people on the Left have this cartoon version of their own history where the people "rise up" and "overthrow the system" and everything was hunky dory. But this ignores the years and decades of underground, behind the scenes organizing, debate, persuasion and outreach that led up to those big conflagrations and big realignments. And yes, oftentimes it requires compromise, it requires some level of acceptance of the system even if you find it inherently unjust, because the endgoal is to help the people downtrodden by the system. Socialist and Social Democratic parties have been compromising with the Establishment for decades, often after life and death battles with said Establishment. Yeah, it doesn't jive with the cartoon revolutionary fantasy of overthrowing your ideological class enemies and shit. But when Von Bismarck implements national healthcare and welfare, or Dwight Eisenhower sends in the troops to integrate the school and his Republican Party are extolling unions, does it matter that the process wasn't as pure as you'd like? Yes you can try for a straight overthrow if things get bad enough, but things in America aren't nearly that bad yet, and revolutions have a lot of unintended consequences that you want to avoid if you possibly can. But if the Left opts out of the "corrupt" system (instead of say, trying to make it less corrupt), stops trying to struggle at the small and medium scale level, and gets lost in symbolism, then that clears space for other forces - aka corporate forces - to take over. The DLC filled the vacuum that unions and other legacy left institutions left behind in order to continue winning elections. Thus, the rise of the Third Way in the face of Republican dominance.
Ultimately, there is a large and powerful movement for a more progressive framing of society. I support this reframing but it's not going to happen through a political overthrow, not because of "corruption" but because many normal, everyday people struggling in this system see the Democratic Party as their lone bulwark against rightist oppression, despite the many flaws and shortcomings of the Establishment, and the wishes and aspirations of those people must be respected. The forces of the Left, represented by Bernie, failed to do so, and spectacularly so. But what CAN be done is, through negotiation, respectful debate, compromise and mutual understanding, the party can be moved, but it won't happen if progressive forces opt out of the process or decide that a fascist Trump/Cruz presidency should fall on the heads of the most oppressed people in society for having the temerity to not vote for the favored progressive candidate. Yes, it sucks to settle for incrementalism but if we had settled for incrementalism in 2000 or earlier than we'd be a lot farther along in 2016.
When's the last time he's actually *been* to E. 26th Street?
Maybe that will drive it home that you need to show up more than once every few decades if you want to gain grassroots support from people who you want to vote for you.
The Revolution will be LARPed
Just like it has been for the past 50 years. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Protest votes and protest candidates have been running for decades, and they've done nothing to stop the corporatism most of us decry because making a lot of noise and play-acting the rhetoric of "revolution" like it's 1917 doesn't actually resonate with real people anymore.
Revolutions generally *aren't* televised, tweeted or anything else, they take years, often decades of effort, time and organization that the Left has neglected because of the mistaken belief that we're just "one crisis" away or something. It took the Right 2 election cycles after World War II (where Eisenhower basically said any party that tried to roll back the New Deal would be politically irrelevant) to get their extremism to the General Election, and 2 more after that to win, and several crises on top of massive corporate funding and religious institutional backing to push it along. I may not be super excited about Hillary, but it's clear that her base is closer to a "revolutionary" one than Bernie's, and has the support of the groups and organizations and entities that have fought the grass roots fight, rather than making noise.
"If we refuse to vote for Hillary if she wins and Trump/Cruz burn America to the ground"
"America will wake up and stop voting GOP!!!1111"
Yep, that's why Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, after Republicans turned those states into borderline Third World countries, are rock solid blue states where the chastened inhabitants vote progressives in en masse to clean up the messes of the Republican wreckers...
actually that didn't happen lol
The problem is that what Bernie needs to accomplish his agenda
should have been built by the left grassroots starting in 2000, if not in 1980. But for the most part the "Professional" Left retreated to their highly-paid, highly-privileged and highly-white cul-de-sacs instead of continuing to fight and organize the downtrodden when Nixon and Reagan defeated the union movement (granted the unions had their own problems) and broke the New Deal coalition. When the far right was defeated in 1964, they reorganized and rebuilt their coalition into a winning one 16 years later. Now we're playing catch-up by trying to forge an intersectional left-wing movement, but that movement, because of the abdication of the economic/socialist left, has more or less decentered class despite the fact that class intersects every single person. The corporate Dems essentially took up the space that the left abandoned.
Because of the left's refusal to participate in coalition politics, they're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. They sit out elections because the Dems is too far to the right? The Dems aren't going to listen to them, let alone be pushed to the Left. Even now you have people on the left saying Bernie is a sheepdog, who sucks progressives into Democratic politics where their "energy" is dissipated. But don't you think, looking at a voting bloc that is roughly 45% of the party, you WANT that energy in the Democratic Party as opposed to the Green Party where you'll just throw the election to a fascist, and thus move the Dems even further right because that's what happens when they lose?
Also a key thing is that a lot of leftists are making money off the status quo just the same as DLC insiders do - by complaining about it while not doing anything to change it other than virtue signaling. But POC, LBGT and other oppressed groups don't want to hear you whine about their oppression, they want you to support them in their struggle, interact in their communities, and make an effort to listen to that. Centrist DLC Dems have done a better job in that than the "Left" has even when Bill signs DOMA and welfare reform and Hillary supports marriage equality at the LAST possible moment, listening matters.
There's a reason the entire Progressive Caucus has endorsed Hillary.
There's a reason most unions have endorsed Hillary.
There's a reason Bernie is losing AAs 80-20 nationwide.
The economic, class-oriented Left has failed for half a century due to horrendous tactics and strategy and the fact that Bernie is not winning, indeed, not crushing Hillary (who's a rather flawed candidate in and of herself) , is a testament to that fact.
Here's a rundown of how it went wrong
and how history is being repeated:
http://socialistreview.org.uk/378/lessons-of-defeat
At the very time when the crisis of capitalism was destroying the lives of millions and Hitler's Nazis were making huge electoral gains (rising from 2.6 percent of the vote in 1928 to 37.4 percent in 1932) the KPD concentrated its attention on attacking another part of the left. It made preposterous accusations against the socialists, accusing them of being "social fascists" and "1,000 times worse than an open fascist dictatorship" (emphasis mine).
This article will not dwell on the theory of the Third Period itself. The notion that either the leaders, or the mass of workers who made up the base of the Socialist Party were "1,000 times worse" than Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels or Göring, was preposterous. That approach is so thoroughly discredited that no sensible person would draw a direct comparison between the Labour Party and the BNP or conclude that the former was more of a fascist threat. However, the nature of the mistake itself is worth discussing. (emphasis mine)
Vote your preferred candidate in the primary, support either of them against Trump or Cruz. Period. There is NO other ethical standpoint.
There is no other response to Sarandon's comments other than horror and disgust.
The idea that allowing the fascist candidate win in order to "bring the revolution" is revolting on its face, and should be verboten among ANYONE considering themselves on the left, no matter who you support.
Again this is the mindset that allowed Hitler to take power in Germany - the Communists refused to throw their support behind the Social Democrats because they felt the Social Democrats were sellouts (which was true, the SPD were sellouts to capital, but they weren't fascists).
The idea that it would be preferable to have Donald Trump (or Ted Cruz) for that matter as President over Hillary Clinton is absolutely unacceptable. If you oppose Hillary, I understand, I'm not voting for her in the primary either. But saying there's no difference between her and Trump (like the KPD thought there was no difference between the SPD and the Nazis, at least until the Nazis started throwing the Communists in concentration camps) is ridiculous.
Absolutely indefensible comment.
I feel like many supporters of both candidates aren't really listening.
Many Clinton supporters call real issues of wealth, economic security and basic rights "puppies and rainbows" and use right-wing framing in order to condescend to people who are struggling economically and feel like the current system is letting them down (even suggesting that they're not working hard enough or are lazy, which is pure GOP-style framing)
Many Sanders supporters act in a very paternalistic and condescending manner wrt social justice issues, get visibly angry when oppressed groups express doubts or criticisms about his message, and are more comfortable with telling these groups what they should want instead of asking what these groups want.
Time to make people mad: The modern left sucks and this primary proves it.
Oh not the ideas; I'm probably to the left of 95% of everyone on this forum. In my ideal Overton Window, Bernie would be running as the Republican and his current stances would be closer to the right-wing of the Republicans. Social democracy and democratic socialism are awesome, if not expansive enough for my tastes. But I have had to face the fact that the left fucking sucks at bottom-up organizing and is always dormant waiting for a savior like Bernie or Obama to do the work they refuse to do. They sit at their well paid CounterPunch or AlterNet posts bitching about how shitty things are while the centrists are in the streets organizing and reaching out to people to win votes and political power. The old labor organizers and Communists were literally fighting in the streets to build a mass movement, often facing real life gunfire to do it, and we're sitting here saying all is lost or trying to unskew the polls because one leftist candidate is losing. The irony is that Bernie understands this which is why he talked about changing Congress, trying to build a movement for progressive ideas, whether he wins the nomination or not, trying to get more progressive candidates and campaigners in the system (though his execution has been flawed). But the left is refusing to have it, they don't realize that Bernie is losing because they didn't spend years organizing on the ground, reaching out to core groups and moving them leftward. Hillary isn't as good as Obama at organizing, but at least she's trying.
The American left should have spent every year after 2000 grooming candidates to run at the local/state level, organizing on the ground level in conjunction with minorities, African Americans, and other key groups, and creating a critical mass that would not only push mainstream candidates left, but keep the pressure on even in defeat. But instead the Left expects people to vote and act purely on ideology, without having done the ground work of outreach (or even worse, you take Reddit hype as actual outreach) Look at the Right and how they've done it. They've managed to push public policy far right in the face of TWO Democratic wave elections and the election of Obama. They've effectively repealed Roe in many states, and are now successfully assaulting LBG (and ESPECIALLY T) rights in several states. If only the Right could take it's ball and go home the way the left does.
You don't have to like Hillary or vote for her in the primary. I don't. But you can give her critical support (as in, support her because she's not a fascist, and exert pressure on her to force her to triangulate left, not right, unless you don't believe people power can overcome corporate power). I'd love to elect someone who's truly for progressive values, but if it doesn't happen, then you can still make it happen by not taking your ball and going home. I mean, bottom up progressive activism got the entire Democratic Party to flip on such topics as Civil Rights (while getting a Southern racist from Texas named Lyndon Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act), gay rights, and drug laws.
If the political revolution can't go forward even if Bernie loses, then it was doomed from the start.
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