Most people consider themselves a “moderate”.
Others will not consider you a “moderate”.
You will not consider others “moderate” who themselves self-ascribe to moderate views.
I don’t understand why you consistently pretend to have a unique, objective view when it is just as subjective as those with other experiences. You are not the only sane person in an world gone mad.
Well, you can always take the assets from someone, but that does not really reduce their potential for future counterrevolutionary activities. That is why people like Lenin were pretty specific about ways to determine if a person is a class enemy. One’s personal politics are pretty irrelevant to the process.
It always amazes me that so many college professors seem very keen on Marxism, including those teaching my son. Academics have traditionally played an important role in Socialist revolution, but once they have done their part, they usually end up in a mass grave somewhere.
I understand that people often see themselves as moderate, and almost always see themselves as taking a perfectly reasonable position.
That being said, in the company of left wingers, I am usually considered to be to the right. Among the right, I am frequently called out for left wing views. I do not think it is unreasonable to believe that I am somewhere near the center of the spectrum.
Read what you’re saying again.
You are a person with subjective political opinions, and no amount of Internet tests and charts will make you an objective “moderate” with powers of rationality, you’re lumped in with the rest of us humans.
How you define yourself is how you define yourself but irrelevant to how seriously persons should take you in matters politic.
@Cowicide, come here and defend your title!
Can we take a break from all the –isms and just speak in concrete terms? This discussion is turning opaque to us wallflowers.
I do not claim superpowers. I am also pretty clear that I understand that all of us have viewpoints that are shaped by our personal experiences and unconscious biases. Nobody is immune from that.
I think that I can discuss both Fascism and Communism with a reasonable level of knowledge, in part from learning about those ideologies from family members who experienced those movements, and ended up watching them from behind barbed wire. Of course, their views were also influenced by those experiences.
Then give us facts and valuable opinions.
Implying that your opinion is valuable because you are a “centrist” “moderate” offers very little to whatever discussion. If your family gives you unique insights OFFER THEM instead of telling persons how special the insights are, falling back to claiming the superior position in any political discussion because of a perceived unconventionality of thought.
Fair enough. I will endeavor to do so.
Okay, back to the NYT’s horrifying video of hatable Trumpsters. I think the idea that it’s “horrifying” could be read another way – isn’t the video implying that Trumpsters in general are horrible racists? Doesn’t the video “horrify” for us Trumpsters in general, by focusing on grotesque racism and sexism, and ignoring the legitimate ecomonic complaints that most of them have? Doesn’t this focus on racism and so on distract from the legitimate rejection that a lot of them are performing by supporting Trump of a system that’s long been rejecting them economically?
Trump and his supporters strike me as overly easy punching bags for their racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Attacking them for that is of course important, but doing that while also failing to acknowledge their legitimate economic grievances seems lazy, and dangerous. Trump is connecting with people via the grotesque red-meat issues, but he also spends a lot of time pointing out the elephant in the room that Clinton should also be pointing out, and that Sanders did point out – as Trump often puts it, “The system is rigged.”
In economic terms, “the system” really is rigged, against the economic interests of most Americans, whose living standards have been steadily declining for decades, and Trump is pretty much the only major political candidate now who’s openly acknowledging that economic decline and promising to do something about it, like rejecting job-killing, elite-serving trade deals (not that I think Trump would actually do anything to reverse the economic decline suffered by most Americans once in office). I think the Clinton camp and her fans ignore Trump’s success with his sympathetic economic message at their peril.
Extremely well said.
I had a discussion about Trump with some supporters this week - chatting inside a video game, of all places - and I had to acknowledge that their concerns were real, although I had to facepalm at how they reasoned Trump as a solution:
The problem: Government has become increasingly corrupt! People who claim to be acting in the public interests are helping themselves and getting rich at the expense of the common person.
The solution: Do away with government and treat it like a business! Because business is rational and accountable, meaning an end to us being coerced into schemes which exist only to make profits for an elite.
I did try unsuccessfully to point out that business is precisely what the US governments have become corrupted by. That corporations exist to satisfy only their shareholders, and as such have completely different goals and methods than governments which exist to ostensibly benefit the public at large. But they really weren’t listening to any of that. Nevermind that Trump does not even demonstrate much business acumen anyway.
Unfortunately, I am cynical that economics are only another arena for USians feelings of entitlement to play out. People seldom seem interested in practical sufficiency when they can be promised conspicuous consumption instead.
Mind you, I still feel that Trump would advocate bringing back pterodactyls if he sensed that’s what his constituency wanted. He’s a salesman as much as a showman.
But: none of this contradicts the fact that the majority of his supporters like what he’s selling and for them, it’s not racism, but adamant indignation towards Washington and the promise of an economically stronger America in terms of jobs and compensation.
Well thanks. Hope you like the content too. 
Yeah. If only he would target Washington not as Big Gubmint, but rather as the malignant nexus of government and corporations, as @popobawa4u points out. But then if he had any inclination to do that, he wouldn’t be a republican. Nor, come to think of it, today’s kind of democrat.
I didn’t intend my post as any sort of criticism, I was just observing that free market ideologues like The Economist or the Adam Smith Institute treat Smith rather as the Prosperity Gospel treats Jesus - a convenient authority figure on which to hang their own ideas, regardless of relevance to his own.
How can the word “communism” be inflammatory when it was central to Marxist thought?
Unlike Jesus, who never mentioned the other inflammatory C word, Christianity, Marx wrote a lot about communism. Replacing it with “Marxist State” would be like replacing “the kingdom of heaven” with “Jesusist Temple Administration.”
George Bernard Shaw during his (heavily PRed) visit to the Soviet Union noted that married couples who both had responsible jobs also had domestic servants. As for graduate education, if there is one thing that is distinctively a socialist/communist policy, it is wider education. The Soviet Union churned out very large numbers of well educated people, and the English state school I attended post WW2 was staffed largely with socialists and communists - all united by a belief that the way to bring about a better society was through education.
Marx objected to the upper middle classes - the bourgeoisie - because they were oppressors of the proletariat, not because they were educated. The destruction of the Kulaks was a disastrous Soviet policy, just as the Cultural Revolution was a disastrous Chinese one - but in reality by 1990 it’s estimated that something like a quarter of Soviet agricultural output (possibly more unofficially) came from peasant farms. Hardly a death sentence. Being an intellectual in the Soviet Union was more likely to get you a dacha than a bullet - provided you did not challenge Marxism/Leninism.
@Max_Blancke seems somewhat determined, in my view, to misrepresent socialist/communist ideas.
Self loathing much?
I see the same type of crap at the other candidates rallies as well. The american populous has turned vile. An ungrateful nation, lax and expecting entitlement. Bashing one another, pointing fingers baiting with race, wanting free stuff, prioritizing Pokémon go over their responsibilities. Clinton is a shythead, Trump is a masher. This whole thing fueled by a sitting president who has mastered your mind to divide through suave talk and cheap tactics. To top it off, degenerates who know nothing spewing their idiocy. The media plays the fiddle and you dance to the tune. Youve been played like a cheap whore. It’s all ok though. Regardless of who gets in. Life is gonna be real hard soon. Hope you have what it takes to survive. Will you bow to islam. Will you stand aside for an illegal to rob your child from a job. Will you run to Canada. This has been planned for over two decades and right before your eyes while you scroll your lives away everything you knew or ever known will be diluted or gone entirely. How inconvenient huh? By the time you pull up your drawers and realize you’ve been screwed it will be far to late. Adapt and overcome won’t be in our vocabulary.
Canada is my Plan B. The Inuit have a massive shadow army there. Total fire(snow?)wall against Daesh.
When I hear someone talking about Communism, I immediately think of Joseph McCarthy. Even those who support Communism here in the US. like the revcom.us people, usually do not put the word on their signs. But you do have a valid point.
