Serious 2020 Democratic Primary Thread

[Myzozoa]

sure the us gov could have prevented some or even all of it, what does all that have to do with reparations for slavery in 2019?

That our community might possibly be due for redress does not exclude everyone else from seeking it. Anti-semitism has never been codified in the American legal and economic system the way anti-black racism is. As I already said, I will not reply to be baited into oppression olympics where the descendants of Jews immigrating at turn of the century/pre-depression are supposed to be as marginalized as contemporary black communities. I am one of those Jewish descendants, so there is no way youre gonna get me to buy into that nonsense.

Must have been nice to have been allowed to own property and go to integrated schools, rather than be owned and be excluded from property (housing/business ownership)

 

[Laurel]

I understand its merits completely.
But it is a bit strange to apply reparations to one systemically oppressed group

I guess the next question to really have an opinion would be was anything ever done for the native Americans that was successful? Obviously they are still incredibly oppressed so I’d think not but I’m not legal historian

The concept behind these reparations is that the US GOVERNMENT financially fucked them for generations

Which is 100% for native americans

 

[Myzozoa]

this is just what-aboutism, as if reparations for situation A excludes any situation B from seeking them, as if the people interested in seeking reparations for slavery aren't also interested in justice for Native American communities. good tries, but tik beat you to it.

 

[Myzozoa]

because yall like totally read the proposals before u came in here to argue w me im sure

 

[tysequaine]

What about reparations for people of wealth, who have been discriminated against for years now

 

[TheValkyries]

It’s really hard to believe anyone saying antisemitism an extremely serious political issue only in the context of using it as a cudgel against efforts to make up for other oppressions.

You can’t argue for the maintenance of the status quo in terms of oppression and then also try to pretend that you think oppression is a very serious issue that needs addressing.

It’s so easy to not be disingenuous in your characterizations and representations y’all. Try it I swear you’ll become a better person for it.

 

[Chou Toshio]

...lean in to hear the voices of our many different brothers and sisters.

 

[Chou Toshio]

After some more review, I've decided that I'm no longer going to show enthusiasm for the Yang campaign. I've decided that while he may to some degree be a good issues candidate, he's not a good solutions candidate, and doesn't deserve my trust.

-The more I hear him talk about VAT, and the more I look into the data around VAT in other countries, the less and less feasible I feel it can be implemented as anything but a regressive flat tax. While I continue to believe that $1000 per month per individual, $2000 per household would be terrific for making the economy more dynamic and potentially bolster community businesses, ventures, and worker coops-- this is not the way to pay for it. A candidate who is not serious about empowering the IRS and creating a progressive tax structure does not deserve support from progressives.

-Yang is too happy to run to UBI as a solve-all for everything. Strengthen Unions? UBI helps with that. Education more affordable? UBI helps with that. Support Worker Coops? UBI help with that. Eliminate tribalism and bigotry? UBI helps with that. etc. etc. Yes UBI could HELP with all those things, but I am sick of listening to a candidate who acts like it is a solve-all to those things without dedicating specific support to further each of those efforts.
Also a UBI that you have specifically set up to be less than the poverty line is NOT the solution when you are COMPLETELY unwilling to talk about regulation, antitrust, genuine progressive redistribution. We need a candidate who says it is on TOP of all those things.

-In the CNN Town Hall Yang clearly stated "Public Option"... "I am in the camp of Medicare for All Public Option." The fuck? That is extremely disingenuous. Moving to Single Payer vs. tweaking ACA with a public option is the entire debate right now. Someone who conflates them deserves no trust.

Watching the CNN town Hall that actually had some really good questions-- I felt disgusted because Yang is more intelligent and sharp in answering them, but his skirting and obfuscating is striking me as more deceptive and concerning than the clearly corporate candidates-- because with the points outlined above, his candidacy is hard to even clearly assign as being left of Kamala Harris or Buttegieg; while unlike them he is more likely to take support from actually progressive candidates.

So while I still think the issues Yang is bringing forth are important, and he adds something to the overall discourse, I think that his campaign platform itself is extremely problematic, and it's important that progressives recognize this and get out of the YangGang.

Human-centered capitalism, left-libertarianism are ideologies that deserve space/development in our discourse. UBI and progressive concern for how woefully unprepared our economy, government, and social systems are for the upcoming transformations in the market are issues and ideas that need to be addressed. I am at this point convinced that Yang2020 is not the champion for them that we should trust.


As expected, the best trait to look at for ability to trust in a candidate is enmity to the establishment. Yang really has none, and while he calls industry the problem, he makes excuses for them instead of attacking them. Yeah, thanks but no thanks.

So I support:
1. Bernie Sanders
2. Tulsi Gabbard
3. Elizabeth Warren as a distant 3rd
<end list>
Also, again I hope everyone helps Mike Gravel make the stage-- he is already past 20k donations after just 2 weeks.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Also did anyone else find it bizarre that Fox News gave Bernie Sanders a better/more fair Town Hall than CNN?

Actually I was not at all surprised...

 

[Celticpride]

Curious who people even mean by “someone else” at this point. Howard Schultz? Michelle Obama? Hillary Clinton again?

 

[UncleSam]

The notion of giving someone money based on race rather than class / income is insane. If you’re going to redistribute wealth it should be to those who need it most regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Doing otherwise opens an enormous can of worms and openly promotes racism.

It isn’t that hard to help poor black people without discriminating against anyone at all. You just have to target the most economically and educationally needy areas and statistically you’ll help a disproportionate number of PoC. The difference is instead of also helping rich black people you’ll help poor white, Hispanic, or Asian people.

The exact same thing applies to affirmative action btw, but that’s an entirely other discussion to tackle imo a more difficult problem.

 

[Myzozoa]

reparations is not based on simply being a race, it's based on the history of racist violence and exploitation against that race, and the persistent legacy. the us gov has payed reparations to racial groups for its wrongs many times, just not for slavery, as one example.

i will resist going into this more since we seem to agree that other avenues are more essential, however you are clearly unaware of the history and the context of the policies you condemn so I suggest you read them and think a lot before you do the 100000th online white dude take of 'people talking about historical and present-day racism are actually promoting racism', which is explicitly suggested in your first paragraph (reminds me of when orch recieved a warning for posting the exact same thing) and probably the direction ur going with your affirmative action talking point.

 

[Chou Toshio]

The notion of giving someone money based on race rather than class / income is insane. If you’re going to redistribute wealth it should be to those who need it most regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Doing otherwise opens an enormous can of worms and openly promotes racism.

It isn’t that hard to help poor black people without discriminating against anyone at all. You just have to target the most economically and educationally needy areas and statistically you’ll help a disproportionate number of PoC. The difference is instead of also helping rich black people you’ll help poor white, Hispanic, or Asian people.

The exact same thing applies to affirmative action btw, but that’s an entirely other discussion to tackle imo a more difficult problem.

Then I guess Ronald Reagan was an insane regressive leftist.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

reparations is not based on simply being a race, it's based on the history of racist violence and exploitation against that race, and the persistent legacy. the us gov has payed reparations to racial groups for its wrongs many times, just not for slavery, as one example.

i will resist going into this more since we seem to agree that other avenues are more essential, however you are clearly unaware of the history and the context of the policies you condemn so I suggest you read them and think a lot before you do the 100000th online white dude take of 'people talking about historical and present-day racism are actually promoting racism', which is explicitly suggested in your first paragraph (reminds me of when orch recieved a warning for posting the exact same thing) and probably the direction ur going with your affirmative action talking point.

I really dont think history matters, dude. Its all about utilitarian application of funds and political capital - nothing else matters other than that. Who was wronged by who, how bad it was, whatever. You have money and a limited amount of political capital, you help those who need it the most.

If some group had a better history than another group, but as of present day, they are worse off than the group with the worst history, you have to give them the money. Thats just the right decision.

 

[Bughouse]

If I’m understanding TIK right, thinking of reparations as inferior to other targeted assistance seems to come from thinking of it with a sunk-cost lens. Essentially, although slavery was bad, it’s in the past. We should consider how money can be best used now.

I get that sentiment. It’s a logical argument that the context doesn’t matter as much as the results.

But you probably shouldn’t think of it that way when the bad situations of the past weren’t by happenstance. It came from the actual laws and policies of the state.

Utilitarianism doesn’t need to strip all context. There are difficult-to-quantify externalities to nearly all economic questions.



All that being said, reparations as a whole is a difficult subject for me, as no real reparations program I think can be fairly done. The amount owed is inordinate, and just isn’t payable. I mean we paid the equivalent of 42k in 2018 dollars to each Japanese internment camp survivor. Even if we paid only that amount for each slave, distributed amongst all their descendants (have fun calculating this and proving ancestry to slaves! It’s notoriously difficult), I think the estimated total number of slaves in US history comes out to around 4 million. That would mean paying around 168 billion. And that’s assuming what’s owed per slave would be the same as per internee, which is obviously wrong. It should be much higher. So in the end we’re talking trillions owed. Which isn’t going to happen. It’s more feasible to develop some sort of advantaged status moving forward than to pay out trillions that the government does not have.

Paying less, what the government can actually afford, seems profoundly unfair. I mean if black Americans would accept billions rather than trillions, which is pennies on the dollar for the stolen labor and lives, then I guess it would do... just not the policy I’d push.

 

[Myzozoa]

once again, red-lining and segregation, for example, both persist to this day in various forms. So the dismissals of reparations that assert that this is a buzzword limited in meaning only redress for slavery, only for one group (presumably black people), or only based on events in the distant past, are just nonsense and should not be replied to seriously.

 

[Pyritie]

once again, red-lining and segregation, for example, both persist to this day in various forms.

Then those present problems should be fixed and reparations made for people who have been affected by current policies for currently alive people?
Getting a benefit just because of your ancestry seems inherently biased to me. It feels like the same thing as saying "my grandfather was a noble therefore I should get privileges that you can't have".

 

[Bughouse]

Wealth is inherited, you know...

If the US had good upward mobility, then maybe you’re right. But we don’t. It’s trash.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_economic_mobility_sawhill_ch3.pdf

 

[Myzozoa]

Then those present problems should be fixed and reparations made for people who have been affected by current policies for currently alive people?
Getting a benefit just because of your ancestry seems inherently biased to me. It feels like the same thing as saying "my grandfather was a noble therefore I should get privileges that you can't have".

lol yeah. black ppl are the new american aristocracy, all because of reparations. if it 'seems' like bias to you, it is probably cause equality often seems like theft when youre used to benefiting from a position of privilege.

idc what it 'seems' like to those who aren't interested in reading the policy or the history. try and wrap your head around it: reparations was always for present day people affected by present day policies, you just aren't willing to ever consider their validity because it is convenient for you to ignorantly assert that the events and policies meant to be redressed exist 'only in the past', or no doubt equally tempting in your case, 'over there'.

 

[Celticpride]

Seth Moulton, a representative from Massachusetts, is reportedly preparing to announce a run for 2020. I'm a fan of his but I'm wondering if he's going to get any oxygen with the field as crowded as it is.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

Hes done before he started, sorry. Pete Buttigieg is the self styled American Emmanuel Macron and obvious media horse they are pushing their chips behind, and Bernie and Biden have name recognition and lots of momentum, and Bernie has a huge grass roots backing also. Nobody else besides those 3 will become the nominee. Not Harris because she lacks charisma and her track record as a prosecutor will sink her, and Warren because she lacks any political instincts, as evidenced by getting baited into a fight with Donald Trump and ending up the loser when she had literally nothing to gain from trying to prove how Native American she was.

 

[THE_IRON_...KENYAN?]

lol yeah. black ppl are the new american aristocracy, all because of reparations. if it 'seems' like bias to you, it is probably cause equality often seems like theft when youre used to benefiting from a position of privilege.

idc what it 'seems' like to those who aren't interested in reading the policy or the history. try and wrap your head around it: reparations was always for present day people affected by present day policies, you just aren't willing to ever consider their validity because it is convenient for you to ignorantly assert that the events and policies meant to be redressed exist 'only in the past', or no doubt equally tempting in your case, 'over there'.

I dont think anyone said it was 'only in the past', only that the past should have no bearing on how we should allocate political capital of the present day. We should only focus on who is in the most distress and plan accordingly. Someone may have had it historically worse, but someone else may have it presently worse.

And if you make the argument that reparations wouldnt only effect black people but all poor people well then youve just got a social program, its not really reparations.

As for the Bughouse post, I understand your perspective but the USA probably has like a billion historical things theyve done that they will never make up for properly or will never make up for, so I dont really see the harm in ignoring one more of those things in favor of just helping people who need it the most. Its not like people have been even thinking about reparations that much either. They were watching Netflix or some shit and then all of a sudden Elizabeth Warren or whoever floats it out as an idea, so if we let the idea just die and do whats more practical they will probably just go back to what they were doing before and forget about it.

 

[Chou Toshio]

So watching The Humanist Report note that Mike Gravel's platform is near his ideal, I started to think about-- "What would my ideal be, and why?"

Obviously you could consider reform going on forever, but let's say 3 to push front and center, 10 that become major campaign pieces. What would they be?

I think mine would look like this:
1) Money out of politics -- move to public financing of elections and impose comprehensive anti-corruption laws

2) Single payer taking hints from the German and UK models of Healthcare
-Create a public option by opening Medicare to buy-in by anyone and empower Medicare to freely negotiate with health and pharma
-Dictate that a) All private healthcare companies must join with Medicare in negotiating universally accepted prices and plan prices, and collaboratively negotiate with pharma/health. b) No insurance provider can deny any patient from purchasing a plan, and the price/coverage of plans is universal. c) Everyone needs to have healthcare, either paying taxes into Medicare or enrolling in one of the private plans (if you aren't enrolled in private, you will automatically get Medicare).
-Create a network of federally owned public hospitals (similar to the post office model)
-Guarantee federal employee jobs at public hospitals to all licensed doctors and nurses
-Regulatory reform of Big Pharma (patents, advertising, opioids especially)
Explanation: This model allows us to keep the private companies (and their employees) while keeping market competition in both insurance and in health-- competition not based on profit margin since prices are universal, but on efficiency of service to attract enrollment and usage. Unlike the German model though, by guaranteeing Federal jobs, we will protect medical professionals from the wage squeeze these types of systems tend to create.

3) Worker's Democracy Reform
-All companies with 300 employees or more must register as either a capitalist company or a worker coop
-All capitalist companies must have a Board of Directors that democratically makes decisions, with 50% of Board of Directors seats given to workers to be democratically voted on.
-Foreign companies operating in the US must create a US subsidiary with its own Board of Directors (50% worker-elected), and there will be strict controls on foreign parent companies to influence management decisions being made by the local Board of Directors
-Right of First Refusal: All capitalist companies that wish to close an operation or sell an operation must first give workers the opportunity to purchase that operation and turn it into a worker coop. These decisions will be backed by cheap government loans.
-Any 10 individuals receiving federal unemployment benefits may jointly register to take out 1 year's worth of benefits in order to start a worker coop.

4) Green New Deal
-Create a German-style Internet of Energy
-Rebuild our Infrastructure
-Massively expand federal housing construction
-Jobs Guarantee
-Invest in green house gas reduction technology and advanced battery research
-Become carbon neutral in 10 years.

5) Finance, Tech, and Internet Reform
-21st Century strengthened Glass Steagall and regulation oversight
-Break up our largest banks
-Impose period-based restrictions on selling for influential shareholders
-bring back Net Neutrality
-create nation-wide free wifi and declare internet access as a human right
-nationalize the social media companies and run them as public utilities
-break up the other largest tech companies using antitrust laws
-create a national block chain system to give ownership of user data to users and impose data regulations

7) Education Reform
-Use quantitative easing to forgive all remaining student loans
-Free tuition at public universities
-Demand federal oversight of tuition reform at private universities, cutting off federal dollars to institutions that do not comply
-Universal preschool and robust public childcare services
-Invest in creating robust trade school tracks, starting earlier
-Modernize curriculum for the next century, focusing less on fact memorization and more on skills-- sex ed, relationship management, project management, statistics, code & development, financial planning, etc.
-Bring back socialist theory to our economics courses and departments

8) Comprehensive immigration reform
-Give citizenship to all DACA holders
-Create a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented now
-Extend voter rights, social insurance program access, and education opportunities to ALL registered tax payers (and we would register all the 11 million undocumented immigrants)
-Establish a rotating joint board of labor representatives, corporate executives, and economics academics to annually make a recommendation to congress on appropriate #'s migrant worker visas annually based on national demand for labor. Congress will hold votes to set those levels.
Explanation: This makes it so that not only are we protecting our workers from economic danger, but we are also making it so that there are NO vulnerable undocumented workers in the territory. The level we allow immigration will be based on demand by our economy, but by giving economic justice to all workers (citizen and immigrant) new workers are a cost to the bosses, not a stress to the workers.

9) Foreign Policy of Peace
-End all regime change wars and tactics that infringe on the sovereignty of foreign nations
-Document and Apologize for all previous regime-change and election interference incidents in America's last 150 years of history
-Enact sanctions against all countries with Apartheid policies
-End military and weapons support to Saudi Arabia and Israel
-Free all individuals from Guantanamo and pay them reparations
-Bring home all troops from the middle east
-Join the International Court of Justice
-Amnesty to all Whistle Blowers (yes, including Snowden and Assange)
-After rebuilding our own economy, launch a new Marshall plan to rebuild central and south America-- notably the countries the US has previously enacted regime change against.

10) Audit the Permanent State on Public Record
-Intelligence Community
-Federal Reserve
-Pentagon
-any others

I feel like I need an 11th and 12th for trade and criminal justice reform... but if I had to squeeze it to just 10...

 

[Myzozoa]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...daiy73anygPh-ku5azMRAvkzmJKtpVfI#66735b8d7ddd
"
“No. 3: 26% of current Bernie Sanders supporters said that they would rather vote for President Donald Trump over Senator Elizabeth Warren, if that were the eventual 2020 matchup.
While many have assumed that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren appeal to a similar progressive voter, many apparent Bernie supporters would seem to disagree. More than one-in-four of them say they would rather vote for Donald Trump’s second term instead of voting for Elizabeth Warren. In the overall head-to-head between Warren and Trump, voters suggest that they would prefer Trump 52% to Warren 48%."

disappointing sanders supporters in this poll, as someone who voted for him in 2016 primary. American people will swallow glass rather than vote for a woman.

 

[Chou Toshio]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...daiy73anygPh-ku5azMRAvkzmJKtpVfI#66735b8d7ddd
"
“No. 3: 26% of current Bernie Sanders supporters said that they would rather vote for President Donald Trump over Senator Elizabeth Warren, if that were the eventual 2020 matchup.
While many have assumed that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren appeal to a similar progressive voter, many apparent Bernie supporters would seem to disagree. More than one-in-four of them say they would rather vote for Donald Trump’s second term instead of voting for Elizabeth Warren. In the overall head-to-head between Warren and Trump, voters suggest that they would prefer Trump 52% to Warren 48%."

disappointing sanders supporters in this poll, as someone who voted for him in 2016 primary. American people will swallow glass rather than vote for a woman.

...ugh... I also have to find that one awful. It’s Liz Warren vs. Trump...

That said 25% of Hillary voters voted for McCain in 2008.

And I’ll bet that a big portion of that 3.26% would vote for Tulsi Gabbard or Jill Stein.

Warren’s unpopularity with that type of Bernie or Buster has more to do with her (un)willingness to fight.
-Saying she’ll take corporate donor money in the general against Trump on TYT
-Not supporting Bernie in 2016
-Not challenging Hillary herself in 2016 when Sanders and progressives broadly wanted Warren to run
-Waffling on Medicare for All
-General tendency to choose party over hard fights



...that said, we’re talking about Elizabeth Warren— 2nd most progressive Senator, strongest anti corruption and progressive tax plans, and enemy of Wallstreet. Voting for Trump over her is truly mind boggling... Liz is not a lesser evil.