Quasi-democracy is probably the best way to put it. To be an outright oligarchy that would have to be a more explicit thing. Instead we have what masquerades as a democracy despite actually functioning as an oligarchy
Instead we have what masquerades as a democracy despite actually functioning as an oligarchy
Just like every other oligarchy…
I’ll never understand why people legitimate think people used to run around saying:
I’m evil, am doing evil things, everyone knows it, but no one will stop me.
Propaganda has been around since Og told everyone Grog just fell over for no reason and hit his head on that rock 5-10 times.
Even back to “real” oligarchs like medieval royalty, none of the peasants thought it was an oligarchy at the time. They thought royalty was chosen by God and who were they to argue with God?
By your metric of people needing to recognize in the moment, we’ve never had an oligarchy and never will, and you don’t even seem to understand that.
The only time the populace realizes they live under an oligarchy is the short time it takes them to have a revolution.
Right like “we have what masquerades as a democracy” so it’s all oligarchy, you’re just too chicken shit to call it that LOL. What’s under the MASK? Or did OP forget what “masquerade” meant ??
I don’t really get the thinking that he’ll run for another term. In order to do that, he’d need to not just defy some court order, but throw the constitution out in a way so blatant that even the people not paying attention could see it (given that the two term limit is common knowledge). And if he does that, why would he do it in the form of “I’m running in another election”, even if rigged, rather than just declaring “my term no longer expires, I’m president for life”?
Lmao burned. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the headline was the experience of southern Blacks trying to vote between 1870 and 1965. The White terrorists made sure America was not a democracy. The thing now is that more of our White brothers and sisters are starting to find out this truth, and it is shocking.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the headline was the experience of southern Blacks trying to vote between 1870 and 1965. The White terrorists made sure America was not a democracy. The thing now is that more of our White brothers and sisters are starting to find out this truth, and it is shocking.
Still streets behind I’m afraid…
“The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States, 1880-1950” states that, contrary to present-day popular conception, lynching was not a crime committed exclusively against black people. Between the 1830s and the 1850s the majority of those lynched in the United States were whites. From 1882-1968, some 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States (not all lynchings were recorded). Of these, 3,446 or 73 percent were black and 1,297 (27 percent) were white. In other words, whites were the victims of more than one-fourth of all lynchings in the United States.
Now, the first Black man to vote in Alabama (maybe it was Georgia, going off memory) was shot in the back by the Klan. But before they used violence primarily against minorities, they first used it against any white person who was publicly against racism.
But if we’re talking about white people finally figuring this shit out, that was almost 200 years ago.
None of this shit is new, and the reason we’re still having to fight, is people refuse to learn how long we’ve been fighting.
Copping was one of the few ways an “able bodied man” could get out of WW2, so those pigs got used to just bullying women and frail men, and didn’t want to stop when a bunch of war hardened locals showed back up.
One group thought they were tough, but the vets really were.
Hmm, you usually have pretty accurate takes on things so I’m going to take a second to reply to this.
When you respond to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter”, you’re saying in effect that Black Lives Don’t Matter and we can continue with the status quo, which is White Supremacy. The article you linked described White on White violence throughout America in the 19th century, which has nothing to do with the structural racism Blacks face in America (and Whites do not) but instead is used as a distraction to discourage change. Talib Kweli explains it pretty well:
ELLIOTT: You said, of course all lives matter. But until black lives matter, all lives won’t matter. Can you expound on that a little bit?
KWELI: Yeah, well, the problem with a lot of social movements for change is that people who are on the opposite side of this change, people who don’t get to experience why we’re even protesting in the first place, they start to feel guilty and they start to feel like their relationship to the situation is more important than the actual situation. So right now, police brutality has not gotten worse in this country, we just have cell phones with cameras on them, now. So now the things that hip-hop has been saying for years, the things that activists have been saying for years, are now videotaped. The fact that the police disproportionately brutalize communities of color, now we can not just show you the stats, or just yell it from the mountaintops or just say it in a song. Now we can show you the videotape. And so it’s clear that the police are doing this disproportionately to us. To young people of color, to black people. And so that’s the issue. When you make it about all lives matter, you’re making it about yourself. When you’re saying what about white people, you make it about yourself. When you say what about black-on-black violence, you’re somehow saying because you personally believe that black people are more prone to violence that somehow that means we don’t have the right to exist. That’s a very slippery slope. It’s very dangerous to think that– You know, first of all, black-on-black violence is a myth. All races kill each other more than other races. Do black people kill each other disproportionately more than other races? Yes. Because disproportionately we have higher unemployment. Disproportionately we’re forced into poverty. We have, we don’t get to be educated. We get denied jobs. We get denied good housing, good healthcare. And that creates crime. So yes, poor people are going to murder each other more than rich people are, definitely. But that comes from white supremacy. That comes from Jim Crow. That comes from the prison-industrial complex. If you don’t add a historical context or historical perspective to your discussion, then you’re being selfish, you’re being a coward, and you’re making it about your personal feelings.
But even if we don’t agree on this point, we do agree on a lot of other things that we both agitate for (like such hot takes as “Genocide is Bad”). Kweli also spoke to your point about how now more people are seeing the footage of what the Black community has been undergoing for hundreds of years, which is fascism (and never was Democracy) so the truth is undeniable for more and more non-Blacks.
You are probably already familiar with this but the history of the Black Panther Party is illustrative of this theme. The BPP “represent[ed] the greatest threat to internal security of the country” according to the director of the FBI. One of the more troubling aspects of the BPP was their Free Breakfast for School Children Program. In the J. Edgar Hoover quote above, “internal security” was being used euphemistically for… you guessed it, White Supremacy.
Stewart’s cast spoke with a professor who worked with our CIA to develop a predictive model for a country’s destabilization.
She speaks on this and calls us an anocracy. Basically the state of being between democracy and authoritarian which is, predictively, one of two key destabilizing factors.
She further states that by no one’s definition of democracy are we a democracy anymore.
No, they haven’t, and obviously never will. The narrative seems to have switched to “yeah it sucks but move on already!”
Why the fuck would I move on when the attitude that caused this hasn’t changed at all?The exact same shit could happen today and these guys would do the exact same rhetoric bullshit they did then, so how the fuck am I supposed to be just like “yeah you’re right it’s fine now.”
It’s because it is not an especially significant incident within the framework of the system. Parties are private entities with a long history of shenanigans going back to the very beginning. The parties are actually a lot more “democratic” than they have been at other points in history and the 2016 shenanigans were relatively minor. If Bernie were making a stink about it things would likely be different but he isn’t so only Republicans and their allies still care. What actually matters is state power, specifically how it is organized and wielded has changed in increasingly anti-democratic ways. Liberals are definitely starting to wake up to the reality facing the US, you can see them freaking out with some regularity in various opinion columns over the past several months. The situation hasn’t fully sunk in yet with all of them is all it is, there are many who are still in varying degrees of denial. There’s also a huge number who are somewhat naive, barely pay attention to politics, and are largely ignorant of reality until it becomes unavoidable. As reality becomes increasingly unavoidable we will see more and more of these liberals waking up and getting radicalized. They seem to historically be slow to recognize what is happening and have to be dragged into actually fighting fascism but they should get there eventually.
Are you being serious or is this humor I’m not getting? It’s a paragraph. I could maybe force a break in there to make it two paragraphs but it’s no where near being a wall of text.
Well maybe you should rewrite it then because calling the things the DNC did “relatively minor shenanigans” makes it seem like you don’t think it was a big deal when it very obviously was.
If you look at what went on it is not a big deal. It’s obviously lame, but if you know history it is seriously tame and there is no point being pissed about it still. It’s a waste of time. Bernie has moved on. Bernie wants you to move on. The whole party is a different beast in many ways now. It you are still fixating on this and bringing it up when literally no one cares except for Republicans and their proxies you are wasting your time and failing to meet the moment. Study some history if you think this was a big deal. Party politics is fucking ugly and always has been. Wasting time on this dumb shit is pointless, if all of that energy was put into infiltrating the party and learning how to wield it we could actually being making a difference.
i’ve been hearing about how the electoral college means that the federal government is a sham democracy since 2002, and money as political influence means we live in an oligarchy since the 90s. this is not new, just no one has been listening to the warnings of marginalized people until now when the ruling class deploys fascism to crush dissent
This headline is so fucking wrong it might as well be misinformation…
Like, it’s the same flawed thinking that says there can’t be a communist democracy.
We’re 100% an oligarchy, and a sham if a democracy…
But that’s not new at all, trump is just terrible at hiding shit.
Telling people “America isn’t a democracy” like some just changed isn’t helping anything
Quasi-democracy is probably the best way to put it. To be an outright oligarchy that would have to be a more explicit thing. Instead we have what masquerades as a democracy despite actually functioning as an oligarchy
Just like every other oligarchy…
I’ll never understand why people legitimate think people used to run around saying:
Propaganda has been around since Og told everyone Grog just fell over for no reason and hit his head on that rock 5-10 times.
Even back to “real” oligarchs like medieval royalty, none of the peasants thought it was an oligarchy at the time. They thought royalty was chosen by God and who were they to argue with God?
By your metric of people needing to recognize in the moment, we’ve never had an oligarchy and never will, and you don’t even seem to understand that.
The only time the populace realizes they live under an oligarchy is the short time it takes them to have a revolution.
Right like “we have what masquerades as a democracy” so it’s all oligarchy, you’re just too chicken shit to call it that LOL. What’s under the MASK? Or did OP forget what “masquerade” meant ??
He may have cheated to win the last election and he’s at least somewhat likely to run a third time and cheat to win that too.
I don’t really give a fuck about your nuanced opinion on how things were before vs. now.
I don’t really get the thinking that he’ll run for another term. In order to do that, he’d need to not just defy some court order, but throw the constitution out in a way so blatant that even the people not paying attention could see it (given that the two term limit is common knowledge). And if he does that, why would he do it in the form of “I’m running in another election”, even if rigged, rather than just declaring “my term no longer expires, I’m president for life”?
I’m just happy you and others finally woke the fuck up…
Silver linings and all.
But I don’t see how getting pissed at people who saw this coming will help you
Logically you should be apologizing instead and asking for advice…
But if logic was your strong suit, we’d have been having this conversation a decade ago
Lmao burned. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the headline was the experience of southern Blacks trying to vote between 1870 and 1965. The White terrorists made sure America was not a democracy. The thing now is that more of our White brothers and sisters are starting to find out this truth, and it is shocking.
Still streets behind I’m afraid…
https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/opinion/2017/09/25/many-whites-were-lynched-fighting-racism-opinion/700690001/
Now, the first Black man to vote in Alabama (maybe it was Georgia, going off memory) was shot in the back by the Klan. But before they used violence primarily against minorities, they first used it against any white person who was publicly against racism.
But if we’re talking about white people finally figuring this shit out, that was almost 200 years ago.
None of this shit is new, and the reason we’re still having to fight, is people refuse to learn how long we’ve been fighting.
I know this is a much later date (1946), but i figured i should share this Wikipedia page on The Battle of Athens
This is who we are as a nation.
That was just one of the most infamous too…
Copping was one of the few ways an “able bodied man” could get out of WW2, so those pigs got used to just bullying women and frail men, and didn’t want to stop when a bunch of war hardened locals showed back up.
One group thought they were tough, but the vets really were.
Maybe part of the reason there’s still fighting is that the guy just agreed with you and you were still an argumentative dick about it.
Have to stand up for the Whites in America. They’re the real victims here o7
Lmao all lives matter ok
Huh. Really thought we were making progress …
No worries
Hmm, you usually have pretty accurate takes on things so I’m going to take a second to reply to this.
When you respond to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter”, you’re saying in effect that Black Lives Don’t Matter and we can continue with the status quo, which is White Supremacy. The article you linked described White on White violence throughout America in the 19th century, which has nothing to do with the structural racism Blacks face in America (and Whites do not) but instead is used as a distraction to discourage change. Talib Kweli explains it pretty well:
He goes on.
But even if we don’t agree on this point, we do agree on a lot of other things that we both agitate for (like such hot takes as “Genocide is Bad”). Kweli also spoke to your point about how now more people are seeing the footage of what the Black community has been undergoing for hundreds of years, which is fascism (and never was Democracy) so the truth is undeniable for more and more non-Blacks.
You are probably already familiar with this but the history of the Black Panther Party is illustrative of this theme. The BPP “represent[ed] the greatest threat to internal security of the country” according to the director of the FBI. One of the more troubling aspects of the BPP was their Free Breakfast for School Children Program. In the J. Edgar Hoover quote above, “internal security” was being used euphemistically for… you guessed it, White Supremacy.
Stewart’s cast spoke with a professor who worked with our CIA to develop a predictive model for a country’s destabilization.
She speaks on this and calls us an anocracy. Basically the state of being between democracy and authoritarian which is, predictively, one of two key destabilizing factors.
She further states that by no one’s definition of democracy are we a democracy anymore.
Take that however you like.
Seriously. American liberals still acting totally unaware of what their country is is very on brand.
It’s like taking a submarine to look at the Titanic, spending all day exploring, come back up to the surface…
And with complete and utter sincerity saying:
Like, progressives have been saying this for well over a decade everywhere.
Did people really forget about the 2016 primary already?
Liberals dismissed the 2016 primary as it was happening, that’s what I remember.
Did they ever stop? I don’t think I’ve ever seen liberals (party or base) grapple with how sinister that primary was.
No, they haven’t, and obviously never will. The narrative seems to have switched to “yeah it sucks but move on already!”
Why the fuck would I move on when the attitude that caused this hasn’t changed at all?The exact same shit could happen today and these guys would do the exact same rhetoric bullshit they did then, so how the fuck am I supposed to be just like “yeah you’re right it’s fine now.”
It’s because it is not an especially significant incident within the framework of the system. Parties are private entities with a long history of shenanigans going back to the very beginning. The parties are actually a lot more “democratic” than they have been at other points in history and the 2016 shenanigans were relatively minor. If Bernie were making a stink about it things would likely be different but he isn’t so only Republicans and their allies still care. What actually matters is state power, specifically how it is organized and wielded has changed in increasingly anti-democratic ways. Liberals are definitely starting to wake up to the reality facing the US, you can see them freaking out with some regularity in various opinion columns over the past several months. The situation hasn’t fully sunk in yet with all of them is all it is, there are many who are still in varying degrees of denial. There’s also a huge number who are somewhat naive, barely pay attention to politics, and are largely ignorant of reality until it becomes unavoidable. As reality becomes increasingly unavoidable we will see more and more of these liberals waking up and getting radicalized. They seem to historically be slow to recognize what is happening and have to be dragged into actually fighting fascism but they should get there eventually.
If you think 2016-2025 was “normal” for a political party…
You either have no idea what that DNC was doing, or are so you g you never saw a DNC before the neoliberals corrupted it.
I don’t think that. If that is what you took away from my comment you may want to try reading it again.
If you want people to read a wall of text, you might want to start formatting your comments.
Have a nice life tho bud
Are you being serious or is this humor I’m not getting? It’s a paragraph. I could maybe force a break in there to make it two paragraphs but it’s no where near being a wall of text.
Well maybe you should rewrite it then because calling the things the DNC did “relatively minor shenanigans” makes it seem like you don’t think it was a big deal when it very obviously was.
If you look at what went on it is not a big deal. It’s obviously lame, but if you know history it is seriously tame and there is no point being pissed about it still. It’s a waste of time. Bernie has moved on. Bernie wants you to move on. The whole party is a different beast in many ways now. It you are still fixating on this and bringing it up when literally no one cares except for Republicans and their proxies you are wasting your time and failing to meet the moment. Study some history if you think this was a big deal. Party politics is fucking ugly and always has been. Wasting time on this dumb shit is pointless, if all of that energy was put into infiltrating the party and learning how to wield it we could actually being making a difference.
i’ve been hearing about how the electoral college means that the federal government is a sham democracy since 2002, and money as political influence means we live in an oligarchy since the 90s. this is not new, just no one has been listening to the warnings of marginalized people until now when the ruling class deploys fascism to crush dissent
Ross Perot would like to have a word with you, lol
Some what?