Redd_Kross wrote:
There's plenty of evidence for the former, though it's that very weird American white middle class male-dominated moralising Christianity that's all about control, money-making, hypocrisy and bake sales. Essentially cherry-picking the Bible on a Sunday morning to justify whatever bigotry one had in mind for the rest of the week. Not so keen on giving up things like possessions, money lending, wife swapping or guns, but very keen on guilt-tripping homosexuals, single mothers, and anyone who stands up against corruption.
I'm not a fan of the religious right, but that's an extremely uncharitable take on them, I think most of them are sincere in their beliefs, but misguided. They also have next to no cultural power nationally, and what political power they can still muster is highly regional and waning, it's nothing like even the early 00s when they still had enough pull to influence TV and music, or get the feds to prosecute the occasional pornographer. I'm happy that they're no longer in power, but I'm much less happy at the secular identity politics based religion that has replaced them, it's figured out how to masquerade as something other than a religion and so has more easily slipped under the church/state division we're supposed to have.
Redd_Kross wrote:
As for "an authoritarian government acting in partnership with private industry to oppress you..." that has been happening for years through consolidation of companies into mega-corporations with monopolistic levels of control. So they control the markets (of both sales and employment) and buy political influence. It's now at epidemic levels thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that companies are effectively individual citizens. So business and employment laws are all about protecting the profits of multinationals, not the rights of small businesses or employees. Same with taxation policy.
No argument from me there, though I don't think we've reached full authoritarianism quite yet, not for lack of trying from some quarters.
Redd_Kross wrote:
Republicans generally make it easier for companies to exploit buyers and workers by refusing to intervene, even though the fundamental weakness of capitalism is the lack of controls at the top, to prevent those already in charge from rigging the system ever more in their own favour at everybody else's expense.
Still no argument from me.
Redd_Kross wrote:
Democrats claim to be against this but in practice do very little. Yes taxes are slightly higher for the rich and more money is spent on social policies, but it's mainly window dressing. Nothing fundamentally changes, some people might get a few more crumbs from the top table. In addition both parties rely heavily on private contracts and public debt. In other words they're putting every citizen into debt to help their business partners earn private profits through poor value for money contracts. That happens in all areas of spending but Defence seems to be the biggest cash cow of them all. Democrats tax higher and spend more, but how much of that achieves real-world benefits for ordinary people, and how much of it is pocket-lining?
Now you're really speaking my language, plenty of American politics is kayfabe, but
Democrat politics is more so, partially because they don't tend to have a religious outlet and so derive identity and a sense of purpose from their politics, and partially for some of the reasons you've described, it's an easy out for someone who wants to go through the motions of making a difference without making any actual sacrifices. Interestingly, many of your criticisms of US religious conservatives can be just as, if not more easily applied here, as this is where you see people go all out in signalling their virtues (hello woke corporations) but not doing anything beyond the superficial, the arch example being progressives in expensive cities refusing to upzone where they live while still wanting to claim the mantle of "ally".
I'll be honest, I'm harder on the liberals for this kind of hypocrisy, both because I'm much more familiar with it having lived my whole life in a very progressive city, and because they're so convinced that they're the smart ones, and so holding them to a higher standard would be consistent with what they're claiming to be.
Redd_Kross wrote:
If you don't think the US is authoritarian, stop to consider how anyone outside of the dominant culture of centre-right white christian capitalism is treated. That is very much the ideological norm and anything or anyone "other" is treated with ridicule and threats, and shut down as quickly as possible. For the most part control is exercised simply by never allowing anything remotely alternative to be discussed in the first place, so ordinary people think the options they actually have are the only ones they could ever get. Very strict control of the narrative.
Uh, not to be rude, but I notice you're not in the US; what makes you think you have such a keen grasp of how people that fall outside of a particular norm are treated? My experience in the Seattle area is very different, as in Christianity is suspect at best, capitalism is bad, wh***y is the devil, and if you're going to be threatened or ridiculed about anything it's going to be because you dared to complain about the homeless in public, or didn't do a land acknowledgment before speaking to a group. We do have annoying narratives that are difficult to shatter, but there are at least two, and the two audiences tend to be siloed largely away from each other and treat each other like space aliens when they try and talk about the news.
Redd_Kross wrote:
When I try to talk to Americans about Scandanavian politics - which don't really conform to traditional ideas of left and right wing - or even European democratic socialism, which is essentially centrist, what I normally encounter is a sea of 404 error messages. Options outside of the American system don't exist and can't be understood.
American politics don't really conform to a traditional left/right binary either, nobody is really left wing in the government should control the means of production sense, but the desire for various government programs and regulations has a ton of variation across our political spectrum. From what I understand of the Scandinavian system, it's much less socialist than is commonly thought here, they just have very high taxes and a very strong social safety net, and what I've heard is that it's actually gotten more capitalist since the 1960s, which was the high water for true socialism there (I could be off on this, going from second hand memory). I think the bafflement goes both ways, non-Americans have a very hard time understanding our attitude towards our government (we don't trust it) and our sometimes extreme individualism, but those are some of the very attributes that have made us strong as a country (all those natural resources helped a little too).
Redd_Kross wrote:
Well sorry but that's an ideological blindspot, not a truth. Big business runs America, and despite all the hyperbole nothing will be done about it by either Republicans or Democrats. They're simply there to give the illusion of choice, and to foster artificial disputes as "divide and conquer" distractions. And look, it's working!
Again, preaching to the choir here, though there are enough differences between the two flavors we get to choose from to make personal choices have some impact; my own state has gotten
much more heavily Democratic in my lifetime, and the results are very noticeable (and aggravating).
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“The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson
Last edited by Dox47 on 05 Sep 2021, 4:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
04 Sep 2021, 6:20 am
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