Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

by Guest » Mon Jun 03, 2024 7:13 pm

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced and predictable than Donald Trump...
https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin ... 379a8a3bd3

Re: A rose, by any other name...

by Clarkmod » Mon Jun 03, 2024 5:16 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2024 2:24 pm
You have to define the various labels for the words to have any meaning.

Marxism existed primarily in theory, but proposed that the revolutionaries would support and enhance the people. In practice, you got communists who would support and enhance the communists, who were in effect the state. As the time of revolutions passed, the members of the communist party were replaced by the oligarchs. In Russia, the name changed. This did not change the essence. The same people did the same stuff.

In the Gilded Age, we had our Robber Barons. With people like Jobs and Musk, they pretty much still exist, though use of the name has faded. These are our equivalent of oligarchs. Different names. Similar ability to amass wealth and influence the government. If you count the name change as important, you can support your obscure academic. I look at reality rather than names.

Supposedly the old traditional Republicans were gung ho anti communists. They were all for strength, preparedness and containment. In practice, it was the Democrats who acted in Korea and Vietnam. Of late in the Trump era, not so much. Putin is a Trump friend, Trump tried to delay aid to Ukraine and is proposing to leave NATO. Whether the name change is important or not, the new Republicans seem to be against containment and in favor of what the Russian communists have become.

There is also the domestic divide. The Democrats are pro labor, the Republicans pro management. Note Biden walked the picket line with the auto union while Trump visited a non-union shop in response. As a matter of abstract principle, this echos revolutionary favoring of the people or the communists.

The proposition that the Democrats are Communist is this strange at several levels. As I see it, the communists were never for the people, but were in it for themselves. But the Democrats are for the people not the autocrats. Isn’t the government supposed to be for the people?

Speak for yourself. Stop quoting obscure academics who no one has heard of. While you are at it, stop censoring viewpoints favoring your own opinions.
You were given the opportunity to show that your post in the news thread was something other than a flimsy political attack ad, and your response doesn't meet the rigor required to put your original post back into the news thread, to put it politely.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain aired an ad similar to the one you posted about Trump, after which Sarah Palin upped the ante, saying, "Barack Obama pals around with terrorists." Trump no more pals around with communists than Obama pals around with terrorists. This kind of flimsy, deviant nonsense will be moderated. You can buy an ad if John wants to sell you one.

A rose, by any other name...

by Bob Butler » Mon Jun 03, 2024 2:24 pm

You have to define the various labels for the words to have any meaning.

Marxism existed primarily in theory, but proposed that the revolutionaries would support and enhance the people. In practice, you got communists who would support and enhance the communists, who were in effect the state. As the time of revolutions passed, the members of the communist party were replaced by the oligarchs. In Russia, the name changed. This did not change the essence. The same people did the same stuff.

In the Gilded Age, we had our Robber Barons. With people like Jobs and Musk, they pretty much still exist, though use of the name has faded. These are our equivalent of oligarchs. Different names. Similar ability to amass wealth and influence the government. If you count the name change as important, you can support your obscure academic. I look at reality rather than names.

Supposedly the old traditional Republicans were gung ho anti communists. They were all for strength, preparedness and containment. In practice, it was the Democrats who acted in Korea and Vietnam. Of late in the Trump era, not so much. Putin is a Trump friend, Trump tried to delay aid to Ukraine and is proposing to leave NATO. Whether the name change is important or not, the new Republicans seem to be against containment and in favor of what the Russian communists have become.

There is also the domestic divide. The Democrats are pro labor, the Republicans pro management. Note Biden walked the picket line with the auto union while Trump visited a non-union shop in response. As a matter of abstract principle, this echos revolutionary favoring of the people or the communists.

The proposition that the Democrats are Communist is this strange at several levels. As I see it, the communists were never for the people, but were in it for themselves. But the Democrats are for the people not the autocrats. Isn’t the government supposed to be for the people?

Speak for yourself. Stop quoting obscure academics who no one has heard of. While you are at it, stop censoring viewpoints favoring your own opinions.

Re: Censorship

by Clarkmod » Sun Jun 02, 2024 5:31 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 5:08 pm
Clarkmod wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:35 pm
Show us how the communists favor Trump. Which communists? How did they favor Trump? Who or what did they favor Trump over versus someone or something else? Do communists as a majority favor Trump?

If you can give us a deep dive showing communists favor Trump, I'll move this post back to the news thread.
Primarily Putin, but by implication the entire Russian administration. Putin's goal is to bring back the old Soviet Union. He is former KGB. His is the good pal of Trump. Trump opposed defending Ukraine. Putin is also as much into censorship as you guys, opposed to free speech.

Not a deep dive, but if you are at all into modern politics you know it is so.
To start, you would need to discuss who the "communists" are. Of course, there are many versions of this. One would be what respected and published academics who study communism generally accept as to who the communists are. For an example, consider the following:
Decades after its demise, world communism still casts a long, strange shadow
Berkeley scholar and author George Breslauer explores our preoccupations — and illusions — about the once-vast global threat

By Edward Lempinen
Today, there are just five communist states left — though China, with nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, is clearly a global power. But in the view of eminent UC Berkeley political scientist George W. Breslauer, if Karl Marx were alive today, he would not recognize the species of communism that survives there, or in Cuba, Laos, North Korea or Vietnam.
“Putin was born in 1952 — he was 39 when the regime collapsed,” Breslauer said. “He made his career in the KGB, and the KGB was about the protection of state authority against internal and external enemies. … He’s not a communist, but what he does maintain from his earlier career is the veneration of state authority.”
https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/12/15/de ... ge-shadow/

If you can show that this particular academic is at odds with what is generally accepted as a communist or communist state today, then your comments may have merit. Alternatively, it may be that other posters you are communicating with have referred to Putin as a communist. In that case, you would need to provide quotes showing that they did that. I don't recall anyone in this forum referring to Putin as a communist, but I may be in error.

Aside from Putin, you still need to address China and the Chinese Communist Party, which is what Full Moon referred to when you responded to his post, implying it was these actors who favor Trump. It doesn't seem that either the Chinese Communist Party or any of its members have indicated that they favor Trump over any alternative. If they have, please enlighten the forum.

Censorship

by Bob Butler » Sun Jun 02, 2024 5:08 pm

Clarkmod wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:35 pm
Show us how the communists favor Trump. Which communists? How did they favor Trump? Who or what did they favor Trump over versus someone or something else? Do communists as a majority favor Trump?

If you can give us a deep dive showing communists favor Trump, I'll move this post back to the news thread.
Primarily Putin, but by implication the entire Russian administration. Putin's goal is to bring back the old Soviet Union. He is former KGB. His is the good pal of Trump. Trump opposed defending Ukraine. Putin is also as much into censorship as you guys, opposed to free speech.

Not a deep dive, but if you are at all into modern politics you know it is so.

Re: Communism

by Clarkmod » Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:35 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 2:49 pm
FullMoon wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 1:45 pm
Communists are defined by their state of mind.
Will Communism triumph in the Clash of Civilization or the basic tenets as put forth by the great documents created by the founders of the greatest country in history? Bob is on the wrong side and he'll ride the atom bomb all the way to the ground. Then be ground to bits in the gulags. That's just simple trajectory calculation together with historical precedent
You have it backwards. The communists favor invasion over containment, big money making the rules for the sake of big money, and of course Trump. The progressives disagree. The conservatives seem to favor the abuses.

Bob,

You said,
The communists favor ... of course Trump.
Show us how the communists favor Trump. Which communists? How did they favor Trump? Who or what did they favor Trump over versus someone or something else? Do communists as a majority favor Trump?

If you can give us a deep dive showing communists favor Trump, I'll move this post back to the news thread.

Communism

by Bob Butler » Sun Jun 02, 2024 2:49 pm

FullMoon wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2024 1:45 pm
Communists are defined by their state of mind.
Will Communism triumph in the Clash of Civilization or the basic tenets as put forth by the great documents created by the founders of the greatest country in history? Bob is on the wrong side and he'll ride the atom bomb all the way to the ground. Then be ground to bits in the gulags. That's just simple trajectory calculation together with historical precedent
You have it backwards. The communists favor invasion over containment, big money making the rules for the sake of big money, and of course Trump. The progressives disagree. The conservatives seem to favor the abuses.

Hypocrisy

by Bob Butler » Mon May 27, 2024 10:30 am

Last night, Rachel Meadows emphasized that people were aware of their guilty behavior all along. Over history, there were often problematic things going on, and often people of conscience speaking up about it. There were abolitionist, opponents of the trial to tears, violations of native treaties, treating native Pacific cultures as George III treated us and advocating Fascism before and during WW II. There was Mark Twain, Thoreau and Martin Luther King in addition to Thomas Paine. The summary of the hypocrisy was that Americans preached about liberty as they whipped their slaves.

How different is it today?

Us vs Them

by Bob Butler » Thu May 23, 2024 4:09 pm

Guest wrote:
Thu May 23, 2024 11:31 am
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu May 23, 2024 9:52 am
FullMoon wrote:
Thu May 23, 2024 12:27 am

I see the word 'if' starting each small indictment.
If you were the one being murdered, forced into pregnancy, disenfranchised, prejudiced against, etc... you would not find the problems minor.

Generational dynamics. Oppress the different.
TROLL...or do you really believe this? :shock:
Was George Floyd among many of the black lives that mattered? Do laws outlawing abortion force one group’s religious beliefs on a majority and force pregnancy on the unwilling? Does Trump not believe he should be immune to rule of law? Have gerrymandering and requirements on voting not disenfranchised?

Yes, I believe it. Not that all flaws in US and similar cultures are directly linked to white supremacy. Drugs and gang warfare could be a problem in the most lily white culture. Any time you outlaw anything popular you tempt criminals to profit. You get gang wars. Pointing out that flaws other than white supremacy exist does not disprove those that do.

Generational Dynamics features an instinct to hate, kill and oppress the different. It is real, as illustrated by both sides of the Gaza war. It is a a pain and deadly. Still, as I have frequently pointed out, there is an opposite instinct to love thy neighbor. I would expect both, and in one’s own culture I would discourage hate and encourage love. It is human nature to pit us against them. In America's case, it pits the old white European dominant culture expecting and believing in maintaining their dominance against the new multiracial, multicultural modern reality. I anticipate modern reality triumphing.

Do you really disbelieve this? Do you encourage hate and discourage love? Are you rejecting Generational Dynamics? Do you somehow manage to applaud John’s theory but not apply it to obvious examples of the theory in action?

Is a troll someone who tries to help the blind see?

Re: Democracy?

by Guest » Thu May 23, 2024 11:45 am

Bob Butler wrote:
Thu May 23, 2024 9:52 am
FullMoon wrote:
Thu May 23, 2024 12:27 am
Bob Butler wrote:
Wed May 22, 2024 8:50 pm
If the majority believes it should exercise bigotry, if it believes it should force it's way of worship on others, if it believes rule of law should not apply to it, if it believes minority voting should be hampered, if it believes economic privilege should be resevere for their own group, then of course democracy will not by that understanding flourish.
I see the word 'if' starting each small indictment.
If you were the one being murdered, forced into pregnancy, disenfranchised, prejudiced against, etc... you would not find the problems minor.

Generational dynamics. Oppress the different.
And who is murdering blacks?

Other blacks.

Disenfranchised? That would be the people who voted for Trump only to see their ballots ignored.

Forced into pregnancy?

How so? And by who?

Prejudiced against?

Oh, you white males?

Or Asians being blocked from entering America's best schools?

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