US Politics Thread

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

I always thought that but the criteria seems to be: Over 35, US citizen and resident for 14 yrs according to the US gov website. Nothing about having to be born on US soil.

Edit: Another page says natural-born but there's a wiki page about it being untested. Hopefully one of our US posters can confirm.

Have to be born on US soil, which was the genesis of why we have had to endure this prick for these years. Trump mobilised a base around the birther conspiracy theory shit that Obama was born in Kenya and so not eligible to be President.

 

[Hart of the Matter]

Morning Sam :)

Yes I would take companies power away, I would nationalise them. Companies would be under the democratic control of the workers, not random Billionaires using their wealth to influence political decision making.

A lot of people replied to my points yesterday, it was not possible to reply to them all, I apologise to anyone who feels neglected and I will attempt to address those points today when time allows.

I reiterate once again, Trump has crossed the line and acted in an undemocratic fashion, the man is a lunatic, yet still I do not believe it is corporations who should be holding him to account. It is an undemocratic abuse of corporate power and it could possibly lead down the path to Oligarchy.

It feels like it is only me who is upholding democratic accountability whilst a majority are happy for their lives to be run by the Billionaires who control the corporations. Nobody elected them to wield such power.

Thanks for your daily patronising. It helps put a smile on my face each morning.

 

[Vic]

Biden the warmonger, the man who supported American Imperialism.

No wonder the American corporate elites are so happy, there is treasure to be plundered. Get Trump out of the way and the road to plunder is wide open, the riches are on the horizon.

Biden is a hawk, his advisors are Hawks, the British will follow him blindly into military adventurism and then everyone will mourn the deaths of British troops and ask why.

Will the lessons of Bush/Blair/Obama never be learnt.

Channelling Bigga? Or just wishing Trump had won?

Not the point, it is corporate censure.

Driving extremism underground.

Rather than attacking the Capitol at the instigation of a mad fascist.

 

[Vic]

I prefer my fascists where i can see them.

Said every Jew on Kristallnacht.

 

[Ban-jani]

Since when was having a Twitter account a basic human right?

Should be a punishment if anything.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Would you get gig's there Michael?

It’s gigs, Dave. Gigs.

 

[west didsblue]

It’s gigs, Dave. Gigs.

You'd probably get him there if his brother's wife was there, Steve. I'm sure there's a g missing though.

 

[metalblue]

Morning Sam :)

Yes I would take companies power away, I would nationalise them. Companies would be under the democratic control of the workers, not random Billionaires using their wealth to influence political decision making.

A lot of people replied to my points yesterday, it was not possible to reply to them all, I apologise to anyone who feels neglected and I will attempt to address those points today when time allows.

I reiterate once again, Trump has crossed the line and acted in an undemocratic fashion, the man is a lunatic, yet still I do not believe it is corporations who should be holding him to account. It is an undemocratic abuse of corporate power and it could possibly lead down the path to Oligarchy.

It feels like it is only me who is upholding democratic accountability whilst a majority are happy for their lives to be run by the Billionaires who control the corporations. Nobody elected them to wield such power.

I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with you! To a point :)

Firstly a bit of admin; I do not agree with nationalising business as a principle but there are certain industries that could be better for the tax payer if they were in the public purse.

The problem for me, and the one I believe you are flagging, is that private corporations should not have the unilateral power to decide what message is acceptable and what isn’t. These are powerful media companies who have the ability to force one message or another down our throats 24/7 if they so choose.

And this can matter beyond the ramblings of one lunatic, in the case of Twitter there have probably alienated 20% of the US population around 65m people. They will now likely gravitate to a media that will allow them to say what they want to say and here they may find some much darker messages that they eventually buy in to (tell someone something often enough and they believe it).

So the net outcome of these types of action Twitter has taken is that you lose a single platform where all sides of the debate are encouraged and people potentially educated and you end up with people gravitating to platforms that preach to the choir.

Heck if I was a crazy as Trump I’d be setting up TrumpChat.com to allow my followers to rant and rave - think about the advertising revenues!

What would be a far more preferable route would be to have an independent body who review material and if it is deemed unacceptable the person or group is banned from all media outlets including being in a position of power in one.

 

[SWP's back]

Neither was Trump this time. It's worth mentioning that Twitter only banned Trump after he failed to be elected and then tried to effectively seize power regardless, basically sending in thugs to attack elected officials doing their job. Obviously the fact that he's still technically president two months after losing is a flaw in their system.

Exactly

That is an interesting point.

Ric, bless his little cottons could quite easily decide to ban everyone he disagrees with politically. He could cull the politics forum of all the cranks and i would be left with nobody to argue with.

So you see that private entities can have their own codes of conduct.

I reiterate once again, Trump has crossed the line and acted in an undemocratic fashion, the man is a lunatic,

So you’re fine with him being banned then?

It feels like it is only me who is upholding democratic accountability

But you’re doing the exact opposite. You just can’t see it.

You’re arguing that a POTUS, Once elected, can do whatever they like. That’s despotism.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

If you know somewhere your utopia exists, could you tell us, explain its political and economic structure and illuminate the path the US might need to follow to such a Goldilocks society?

If I may be permitted to have a go at answering your questions, the more dysfunctional societies tend to be those within which extremes of economic inequality are tolerated, and the USA is an example. For the relevant research, see the bestselling publications of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

Unfortunately, the neoliberal economic policies pursued by Thatcher, Reagan, Clinton, Blair and others, which are - to a greater or lesser degree - based on the macroeconomic theories of Hayek and Friedman, have exacerbated economic inequality, as noted by authors like Ha Joon Chang, Manfred Steger, and David Harvey.

So the solution is to regulate capitalism a little more, in order to avoid events like 2008 and the opening of fractures and fissures within our society that are illustrated by the current emphasis on divisive forms of identity politics.

As for a political system, I have to be more utopian here and suggest that a system known as deliberative democracy is preferable to the one that we have, as it is more empirically grounded and less open to manipulation by powerful interest groups. For more on that (and how it has been shown to work on a smaller scale), see Paul Verhaeghe’s Says Who? The Struggle for Authority in a Market Based Society.

Incidentally, the reason for the book references is because I was once required to teach a course from scratch that entailed looking at how ethical the macroeconomic systems of capitalism and socialism actually are.

After several years of extensive reading in the territory of recent economic history, in terms of my own perspective, I have ended up coming down on the side of a restrained form of capitalism.

However, I now refrain from voting as I do not consider the system we have to be fit for purpose. The only reason I would vote now is to prevent an extremist party from taking power. Unfortunately, the Republican Party at present seems to be heading in that direction and so if I lived in the USA, I would have voted for the Democrats.