OP was talking about how things would be better. This guy said they (Carter and Reagan) would be the same and cherry picked some data.
70s was a mix Stagflation, inflation and high unemployment meant hard choices. Carter made hard choices some very likely bad because he was too conservative.
Carter tried some questionable things and definitely shares some blame but he wasn’t a traitor and he sure isn’t the same as Reagan.
Reagan poured fuel on the fire that burned out so many of us, and started a bunch of new ones that didn’t need to be started (War on Drugs comes to mind), absolutely.
OP of comments here made a direct call out that Carter implemented policies that started us on the path of neoliberalism.
You just seem to want to argue that Reagan was worse. That’s an argument that nobody here is on the other side of.
The reason why we’re here is not because we failed to chose Carter over Reagan, but because those were the two choices we were stuck with…
Yeah we’re here because we chose Reagan over Carter. And out of those choices we picked the one who was the piece of shit. I am pretty sure that Carter would have been capable of reversing course or realizing mistakes. Reagan was all in on the destruction.
Same as we’re here because we chose Bush over Gore, Obama over McCain… Trump over Clinton/Harris etc.
One side is trying to do the right thing as best they can (even if they fail or get some bad apples). The other is actively (and purposefully) trying to make things worse. Our choices are what got us here. Saying things would be the same is how Republicans keep winning and the Overton Window only seems to move right and never left.
Why don’t you ask a search engine and learn something instead of asking me to educate you? Most people aren’t as nice as I am.
Next, based on these indicators, we classified all Democratic members of Congress and viable congressional candidates into (or, in some cases, between) three factions.
The Left Progressives include members and candidates who support an arms embargo on Israel, accuse the country of genocide and apartheid, and typically receive support from Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption or DSA.
The Mainstream Progressives are members or candidates who support conditioning military aid and arms sales to Israel based on human rights and legal standards; use strong language to criticize Israel’s wartime conduct while tending to avoid the terms genocide and apartheid; and generally receive support from J Street.
The Pro-Israel Establishment includes members or candidates who oppose conditioning military aid to Israel, generally avoid harsh language when criticizing Israeli policy, and typically receive support from AIPAC and DMFI.
By including congressional candidates who have a reasonable chance of winning in November, while also taking into account expected retirements among incumbents, we were able to estimate not only the size and influence of each of the three factions in the current Congress but also within the Congress that will take shape after the November elections.
One side took a dollar from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray and stole a pack of smokes. The other side shot the brown teller behind the counter and emptied the till. Then lit the store on fire while yelling about the brown guy being an illegal immigrant.
We’re talking about orders of magnitude of shenanigans. And being wrong like Carter and being a traitorous, lying sack of shit like Reagan. Are completely different things.
The both sides are the same crowd are going to get us all killed.
My brother came home from Afghanistan with severe PTSD and started shooting meth to cope with it. My family was torn apart as he threw around all sorts of paranoid accusations and threatened to harm himself or others, always in language just vague enough to be actionable. He wound up picking up one of his many guns, driving out to some random, innocent person’s house, and, fortunately, got shot in the arm by the cops who’d followed him there.
I spent a full year of my life essentially being an on-call 9-1-1 operator. I quit using social media accounts for fear that he’d see I was online. But the pain and trauma that I experienced was nothing compared to what I could see in my mother’s eyes.
That was the most traumatic experience of my life. But I fully understand that it was nothing compared to the trauma he experienced, which was, in turn, nothing compared to the trauma the Afghan people experienced. What I experience, this second-, third-hand exposure to the horrors of war, it’s literally just a first-world problem. But that tiny glimpse into the things the media doesn’t like talk about, was enough.
Who was the president, the commander-in-chief, who ordered him over there? It was the great, liberal progressive hero, Mr. Barack Obama. A guy who was, “just trying to do the right thing” but who occasionally makes some teensy weensy mistakes like prolonging a pointless, unwinnable war of aggression and getting hundreds of thousands of people killed for no reason and subjecting countless millions to horrors far worse than anything you or I could even comprehend. And that’s just like taking a few too many coins from a take-a-penny, is that right?
Absolutely fucking not. If you actually try to view the world from a global perspective, if you genuinely believe in equality and treat every Afghan’s life as being equally valuable as your next-door neighbor’s, then you will quickly find yourself understanding and agreeing with my perspective.
The reason why we’re here is not because we failed to chose Carter over Reagan, but because those were the two choices we were stuck with
That’s literally the opposite of what you’re claiming my position is. My position, like the other person said, is that the problems we have are a result of the economic policy of neoliberalism, enacted by both Reagan and Carter. You’re saying that, rather than my position being about criticizing neoliberalism, I “kind of did” say that Reagan was better than Carter, and your supposed evidence of me taking that position is just me saying the problem was the policy of neoliberalism.
One side is trying to do the right thing as best they can
Lmao, that’s utterly delusional. Not that it would matter if it were true.
Would you rather get operated on by someone who thinks your heart is a tumor that needs to be removed for the sake of your health, or by someone who wants to remove your heart because they want you dead? The answer is, who gives a shit? Your heart’s coming out either way. Why would I care if the first surgeon is “just trying to help?”
If we’re being so generous with the Democrats’ motives, then the only conclusion is that they comically incompetent to the point of being a useless liability. I’m not sure that actually makes them look better than the reality.
But again, like I said, I am not St. Peter, I’m not trying to evaluate who’s a good person deep down in their heart of hearts. All I care about is what they actually do. You are looking at things from the completely wrong perspective. Get your mind off the pearly gates and look at the actual policy and actual material results of that policy.
You never really explained why neoliberalism is problematic. Neoliberalism is not incompatible with unions, as you seemed to imply, nor is it incompatible with a government that utilizes tax and spend to provide essential services for the public. It can be regulated markets and free trade, and most of the stuff we associate with Reagan’s brand of neoliberalism are consequences of horrible tax and social spending policies, not necessarily a consequence of a lighter hand at protectionism. What’s the real problem here, that we became more open to importing stuff or that the government abdicated its duty to do anything at all? (Aside from bombing brown people, of course.)
The real problem here predates Carter and Reagan and goes back to the New Deal itself. The New Deal was the carrot, along with the stick of the Red Scare, to root out communists and other radicals in the labor movement. The promise was that the government would protect, or at least tolerate unions, so long as they proved their loyalty by engaging in anticommunist witch hunts, such as when communists were kicked out of the AFL/CIO. The effect that this had on unions was that they became weakened, narrowly self-interested, and complacent.
Once the unions were broken, and the working class had no ability to wield power or fight back against whatever the government and ruling class decided to do, they could then take steps that would weaken them even further, and at the same time they could cut social programs, because nobody had any power to stop them. Something like a general strike was impossible, because after purging anyone who sounded like a communist, there was no solidarity, no greater vision, and no willingness to really fight, since those are all things that make you sound like a communist.
Now, admittedly, from a global perspective, the Chinese people have benefited immensely from offshoring, so whether it’s a good or bad thing overall is hard to say. But, good or bad, it’s the reason why the US in such a shitty state today, why the government is able to cut social programs, why nobody can do shit to stop anything Trump does, etc. The most direct enemy of the American ruling class are, of course, American workers (and vice versa) so us getting fucked means that they are now able to operate with impunity with nobody to stop them.
Regardless, what we need to do now, as a class, is to rebuild organization from the ground up, but this time refusing to punch left and purge radicals, and to instead actively promote solidarity, a greater vision, and a willingness to fight.
Understood, thanks! We have reason to be hopeful: Americans are no longer spooked by the word “socialist” and they treat threats of socialists being secret commies with skepticism. (That said, they also don’t actually know what “socialism” is.) The backlash to MAGA, if it isn’t defeated by fascists entrenched in our institutions, will be a leftward swing of the pendulum across the center ready to embrace new ideas. (Or old ideas as the case may be.) Obviously our current system is rigged and everyone feels it. We tried one extreme and I think most people realized it A) sucked and B) didn’t work at all as promised.
For my part, I likely want what you want, but I don’t know if I agree on how to get there. There are many accelerationists who don’t understand what a revolution would look like for normal people. I want the Senate abolished, but I don’t want to try a famine.
Yeah imagine making an argument instead of using words you don’t understand and expecting lemmings to go along with it because you’ve built an echo chamber of emotional association.
Uhhh what points?
Ah. You can’t even see the point. Got it.
Question: What do you think about the policies that Carter implemented to address stagflation of the 70s?
EDIT: to be clear, I’m not trying to argue one side or the other. I’m just trying to point out that your posts appear to be arguing in bad faith.
That’s not relevant to OP’s post.
OP was talking about how things would be better. This guy said they (Carter and Reagan) would be the same and cherry picked some data.
70s was a mix Stagflation, inflation and high unemployment meant hard choices. Carter made hard choices some very likely bad because he was too conservative.
Carter tried some questionable things and definitely shares some blame but he wasn’t a traitor and he sure isn’t the same as Reagan.
FWIW, I generally agree with you.
Reagan poured fuel on the fire that burned out so many of us, and started a bunch of new ones that didn’t need to be started (War on Drugs comes to mind), absolutely.
OP of comments here made a direct call out that Carter implemented policies that started us on the path of neoliberalism.
You just seem to want to argue that Reagan was worse. That’s an argument that nobody here is on the other side of.
Fair enough but he kind of did.
Yeah we’re here because we chose Reagan over Carter. And out of those choices we picked the one who was the piece of shit. I am pretty sure that Carter would have been capable of reversing course or realizing mistakes. Reagan was all in on the destruction.
Same as we’re here because we chose Bush over Gore, Obama over McCain… Trump over Clinton/Harris etc.
One side is trying to do the right thing as best they can (even if they fail or get some bad apples). The other is actively (and purposefully) trying to make things worse. Our choices are what got us here. Saying things would be the same is how Republicans keep winning and the Overton Window only seems to move right and never left.
Oh my sweet, sweet, summer child.
Game of Thrones sucks and I thought we were well over “bothsides” in 2026.
Lmao. Which side is against genocide in 2026?
Why don’t you ask a search engine and learn something instead of asking me to educate you? Most people aren’t as nice as I am.
So those first two factions. These factions are absent in the Republican party. This isn’t hard.
Yeah I don’t get it from some of these people.
One side took a dollar from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray and stole a pack of smokes. The other side shot the brown teller behind the counter and emptied the till. Then lit the store on fire while yelling about the brown guy being an illegal immigrant.
We’re talking about orders of magnitude of shenanigans. And being wrong like Carter and being a traitorous, lying sack of shit like Reagan. Are completely different things.
The both sides are the same crowd are going to get us all killed.
Reagan was far worse than Carter.
Carter was a neoliberal and set the ball in motion for a lot of the worst that capitalism has reeked on the planet
Two things can be true.
I wasn’t saying that, but looks like that other guy went off the rails so good luck to him.
My brother came home from Afghanistan with severe PTSD and started shooting meth to cope with it. My family was torn apart as he threw around all sorts of paranoid accusations and threatened to harm himself or others, always in language just vague enough to be actionable. He wound up picking up one of his many guns, driving out to some random, innocent person’s house, and, fortunately, got shot in the arm by the cops who’d followed him there.
I spent a full year of my life essentially being an on-call 9-1-1 operator. I quit using social media accounts for fear that he’d see I was online. But the pain and trauma that I experienced was nothing compared to what I could see in my mother’s eyes.
That was the most traumatic experience of my life. But I fully understand that it was nothing compared to the trauma he experienced, which was, in turn, nothing compared to the trauma the Afghan people experienced. What I experience, this second-, third-hand exposure to the horrors of war, it’s literally just a first-world problem. But that tiny glimpse into the things the media doesn’t like talk about, was enough.
Who was the president, the commander-in-chief, who ordered him over there? It was the great, liberal progressive hero, Mr. Barack Obama. A guy who was, “just trying to do the right thing” but who occasionally makes some teensy weensy mistakes like prolonging a pointless, unwinnable war of aggression and getting hundreds of thousands of people killed for no reason and subjecting countless millions to horrors far worse than anything you or I could even comprehend. And that’s just like taking a few too many coins from a take-a-penny, is that right?
Absolutely fucking not. If you actually try to view the world from a global perspective, if you genuinely believe in equality and treat every Afghan’s life as being equally valuable as your next-door neighbor’s, then you will quickly find yourself understanding and agreeing with my perspective.
That’s literally the opposite of what you’re claiming my position is. My position, like the other person said, is that the problems we have are a result of the economic policy of neoliberalism, enacted by both Reagan and Carter. You’re saying that, rather than my position being about criticizing neoliberalism, I “kind of did” say that Reagan was better than Carter, and your supposed evidence of me taking that position is just me saying the problem was the policy of neoliberalism.
Lmao, that’s utterly delusional. Not that it would matter if it were true.
Would you rather get operated on by someone who thinks your heart is a tumor that needs to be removed for the sake of your health, or by someone who wants to remove your heart because they want you dead? The answer is, who gives a shit? Your heart’s coming out either way. Why would I care if the first surgeon is “just trying to help?”
If we’re being so generous with the Democrats’ motives, then the only conclusion is that they comically incompetent to the point of being a useless liability. I’m not sure that actually makes them look better than the reality.
But again, like I said, I am not St. Peter, I’m not trying to evaluate who’s a good person deep down in their heart of hearts. All I care about is what they actually do. You are looking at things from the completely wrong perspective. Get your mind off the pearly gates and look at the actual policy and actual material results of that policy.
You never really explained why neoliberalism is problematic. Neoliberalism is not incompatible with unions, as you seemed to imply, nor is it incompatible with a government that utilizes tax and spend to provide essential services for the public. It can be regulated markets and free trade, and most of the stuff we associate with Reagan’s brand of neoliberalism are consequences of horrible tax and social spending policies, not necessarily a consequence of a lighter hand at protectionism. What’s the real problem here, that we became more open to importing stuff or that the government abdicated its duty to do anything at all? (Aside from bombing brown people, of course.)
The real problem here predates Carter and Reagan and goes back to the New Deal itself. The New Deal was the carrot, along with the stick of the Red Scare, to root out communists and other radicals in the labor movement. The promise was that the government would protect, or at least tolerate unions, so long as they proved their loyalty by engaging in anticommunist witch hunts, such as when communists were kicked out of the AFL/CIO. The effect that this had on unions was that they became weakened, narrowly self-interested, and complacent.
Once the unions were broken, and the working class had no ability to wield power or fight back against whatever the government and ruling class decided to do, they could then take steps that would weaken them even further, and at the same time they could cut social programs, because nobody had any power to stop them. Something like a general strike was impossible, because after purging anyone who sounded like a communist, there was no solidarity, no greater vision, and no willingness to really fight, since those are all things that make you sound like a communist.
Now, admittedly, from a global perspective, the Chinese people have benefited immensely from offshoring, so whether it’s a good or bad thing overall is hard to say. But, good or bad, it’s the reason why the US in such a shitty state today, why the government is able to cut social programs, why nobody can do shit to stop anything Trump does, etc. The most direct enemy of the American ruling class are, of course, American workers (and vice versa) so us getting fucked means that they are now able to operate with impunity with nobody to stop them.
Regardless, what we need to do now, as a class, is to rebuild organization from the ground up, but this time refusing to punch left and purge radicals, and to instead actively promote solidarity, a greater vision, and a willingness to fight.
Understood, thanks! We have reason to be hopeful: Americans are no longer spooked by the word “socialist” and they treat threats of socialists being secret commies with skepticism. (That said, they also don’t actually know what “socialism” is.) The backlash to MAGA, if it isn’t defeated by fascists entrenched in our institutions, will be a leftward swing of the pendulum across the center ready to embrace new ideas. (Or old ideas as the case may be.) Obviously our current system is rigged and everyone feels it. We tried one extreme and I think most people realized it A) sucked and B) didn’t work at all as promised.
For my part, I likely want what you want, but I don’t know if I agree on how to get there. There are many accelerationists who don’t understand what a revolution would look like for normal people. I want the Senate abolished, but I don’t want to try a famine.
Imagine being this fucking stupid.
Yeah imagine making an argument instead of using words you don’t understand and expecting lemmings to go along with it because you’ve built an echo chamber of emotional association.
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