Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[viper37]

For as long as I can remember Dems have pushed an idea that education will lift up minorities, the working class and the poor.  In practice you can't pull everyone up into good job through education.  There are only so many positions and not everyone is really good at school. We can't all be gifted.  So we lift up a few people into a comfortable life style but leave the rest to rot.  Not being bright is not a good enough reason to live in poverty.

Does education strictly mean college+ to you?
My understanding of education in the US is that it is very unequal from the beginning, being mostly funded at country level, mostly, right?  Rich neighborhoods get better primary and high school education, poorer neighborhoods lack basic services like enough speech therapists and psycho educators, along with typical criminal problems related to these neighborhoods.  Richer people can afford private education, poorer people can not, and poorer people have less chances to complete their high school, even if they would have the talent for it.

Also, even if you don't have academic talent, education can mean access  to decent professional schools, or technical college.  Outside of military.

Or you know, having a decent healthcare system.  Not that the Dems tried to fix this a couple of times and got flatly rejected for it by their electors (see Clinton's mid terms, Obama's mid terms).

At some point, the left will have to stop acting stupid too.  They can't get 100% of what they want.  They either settle for 80% or they get the GOP to worsen the situation of most who aren't born rich.

[Josquius]

Do theoretical work best if you use extremes?  I don't think they do.  The other extreme is to let anyone into the country at anytime no matter what.  I don't think that many people hold that opinion.  Does that theoretical help much?  Not that I can see.-

They do. Its how you establish common ground with somebody on the other side.
The opposite extreme of complete open borders is certainly something the far right believe is a common belief among their opponents but its really not. It would be one you'd use when discussing with someone who wants very lax immigration controls. But the issue with the populist right is over the top xenophobia not phillia so...
Plus of course it usually makes it obvious you're not talking about a real policy and just illustrating a theoretical.

This is about what the Democratic party should do.  I will note that the Labor party shifted to the right when Corbyn lost and has since won.  The Democrats lost big, and to a convicted criminal.  We need to rethink how we do things. 

Quite a opposite situation there though. Labour in 2019 running with someone drab and not offering much would likely have led to them winning. Contrary someone more to the left and with something about them in the US would have won.
Also worth noting the factor with Corbyn wasn't his platform was too far left, as it broadly wasn't. It was two factors.
1: It was too broad and disorganised. They seemed to just keeping throwing out promises with no central messaging. This hurt credability.
2: Corbyn is a protest politician. He was a shit party leader. He has too much baggage and his whole approach of giving actual answers rather than hammering home the message was absolute gold to the papers. When you're being attacked for links to terrorists you don't try and give an honest account of yourself and keep a balanced view, you say you think those terrorist are awful and you condemn. But he couldn't.

It might surprise you, but I think the Dems need to move left on some issues, the economic ones.

Yes. Which is what I've been saying seems the best idea.

For as long as I can remember Dems have pushed an idea that education will lift up minorities, the working class and the poor.  In practice you can't pull everyone up into good job through education.  There are only so many positions and not everyone is really good at school. We can't all be gifted.  So we lift up a few people into a comfortable life style but leave the rest to rot.  Not being bright is not a good enough reason to live in poverty.

Again though this is a key tactic that the populist right like to hammer in. This zero sum view of the world. That there are only a fixed amount of good jobs to go around and someone else having one means you don't.
In reality it is possible to create more jobs and a more educated population tends to do this better.
More education is absolutely something to support and prioritise.

Further policies are needed to support this and make it happen more often. Better safety nets and less dire consequences for failure are key.

Part of what you say though is a problem we have in the UK too , an over the top focus on academic education. But lifting people up through education need not be through just academic education. More support and focus on practical education is good too.

Instead, our goal should be to lift up the working class and poor as a whole to a better standard of living.  Maybe we should look into the stuff Bernie Sanders is saying.  What we are doing now isn't working.

Yes. This is what I've been saying.
As said Labour have recognised this and are really making noises about it. Time will tell if they're succesful.

[Razgovory]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

[Josquius]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

 

Learn to read.
And what bizarre insults. I represent none of these things.

Corbyn is very far left. But his problem is more that he was shit at his job.

Labour under Corbyn was not Corbyns dictatorship. One good thing that can be said about him is he did compromise on his views giving the party a manifesto far more towards its centre - though Corbyn then did a rubbish job of pretending to actually support this.

Also well done on completely ignoring basically everything to try and pick at a minor point you would like to have seen.

[Zoupa]

Jesus Christ Languish is just terrible sometimes.

Hang in there Josq.

[Admiral Yi]

His brush with Stalinism was his proposal of "activist committees" at some level of government.

[Sheilbh]

His brush with Stalinism was his proposal of "activist committees" at some level of government.

I am very anti-Corbyn but I'm not sure what you're talking about here? Don't think I've heard of this.

There were definitely proposals along those lines among the Trotskyist groups to the left of Labour (who fully expected some form of conflict, possibly bloody with existing bureaucracies/institutions). Corbyn's open to them in a "no enemies to the left" style or popular front approach - and that is the division between hard and soft left is your attitude to groups who want a non-parliamentary road to socialism - but I don't think Labour ever really went down that path.

[Razgovory]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

 

Learn to read.
And what bizarre insults. I represent none of these things.

Corbyn is very far left. But his problem is more that he was shit at his job.

Labour under Corbyn was not Corbyns dictatorship. One good thing that can be said about him is he did compromise on his views giving the party a manifesto far more towards its centre - though Corbyn then did a rubbish job of pretending to actually support this.

Also well done on completely ignoring basically everything to try and pick at a minor point you would like to have seen.

Well, how am I suppose to respond to when your statement is typical of the antisemitic far-left?

[Razgovory]

His brush with Stalinism was his proposal of "activist committees" at some level of government.

Josq response to a statement he doesn't like is "this is typical of the racist far-right", so I just turned it around.  A Stalinist antisemite wouldn't think that Corbyn is "too far left".

[mongers]

Well, this is a thread I regret starting.

Don't worry the worst-ness (intentional spelling) will transfer to another thread in a few days.

[HVC]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

 

Learn to read.
And what bizarre insults. I represent none of these things.

Corbyn is very far left. But his problem is more that he was shit at his job.

Labour under Corbyn was not Corbyns dictatorship. One good thing that can be said about him is he did compromise on his views giving the party a manifesto far more towards its centre - though Corbyn then did a rubbish job of pretending to actually support this.

Also well done on completely ignoring basically everything to try and pick at a minor point you would like to have seen.

Well, how am I suppose to respond to when your statement is typical of the antisemitic far-left?

[Admiral Yi]

I am very anti-Corbyn but I'm not sure what you're talking about here? Don't think I've heard of this.

There were definitely proposals along those lines among the Trotskyist groups to the left of Labour (who fully expected some form of conflict, possibly bloody with existing bureaucracies/institutions). Corbyn's open to them in a "no enemies to the left" style or popular front approach - and that is the division between hard and soft left is your attitude to groups who want a non-parliamentary road to socialism - but I don't think Labour ever really went down that path.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37466034

[Sheilbh]

Oh okay. That's not really to do with government - it's within the Labour Party.

It's another long-standing demand of the hard left, who are often organised around groups with names like "Campaign for Party Democracy". Basically it's about turning MPs into delegates/intimidating the parliamentary Labour Party largely by "open selections". At the minute if you're an MP you are automatically selected as candidate for MP at the next election. Local parties can remove MPs as their candidate but it takes a lot of organising and votes.

Open selections would mean that sitting MPs were not automatically selected. Given that 80% of Corbyn's MP's voted against him in a vote of no confidence and 66% of Labour members voted for him in the subsequent leadership election the assumption was the left would be able to replace anti-Corbyn MPs with loyalists at the next election (because the leadership and membership were united against the MPs).

It didn't go ahead and as it turns out Corbyn and the hard left were very poor at actually imposing their (and the membership's) will on MPs - not least because a lot of critical MPs just went very quiet after the surprisingly good results in 2017 (this was their weakness of their argument being tactical about how Corbyn was unelectable, not fundamental). As it turned out Starmer was very, very effective at using the powers the leadership already has to purge the left in the last five years.

He's also talking about more of a role for the party membership in policy formation via party conference. Again a long-standing demand of the hard left. It really boils down to which smoke-filled rooms you want policy made in because the hard left is very, very good at organising, working through a rule book and going to every meeting - the Labour right (and normally leadership) on the other hand rig things behind the scenes.

[Josquius]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

 

Learn to read.
And what bizarre insults. I represent none of these things.

Corbyn is very far left. But his problem is more that he was shit at his job.

Labour under Corbyn was not Corbyns dictatorship. One good thing that can be said about him is he did compromise on his views giving the party a manifesto far more towards its centre - though Corbyn then did a rubbish job of pretending to actually support this.

Also well done on completely ignoring basically everything to try and pick at a minor point you would like to have seen.

Well, how am I suppose to respond to when your statement is typical of the antisemitic far-left?

So you're just being a trolling little shit and aren't actually interested in the topic. Shame.

His brush with Stalinism was his proposal of "activist committees" at some level of government.

Josq response to a statement he doesn't like is "this is typical of the racist far-right", so I just turned it around.  A Stalinist antisemite wouldn't think that Corbyn is "too far left".

"you just call everything you don't like far right!" is ironically something far right folk love to say. They always trot it out even before the term has been said.
It's a key part of how they go about shutting down conversation and dodge engaging with different viewpoints.

Ya know, I did actually address the topics whilst correctly pointing out where your talking points are popular with the main problem we are discussing here though.
 Not like your thing of ignoring basically everything to focus on a sentence you think you can twist into something that let's you "win".

As again,as I know you struggle with literacy: I never said Corbyn wasn't far left.

[HVC]

That Corbyn wasn't too left is typical of Stalinist, antisemitic far-left.

 

Learn to read.
And what bizarre insults. I represent none of these things.

Corbyn is very far left. But his problem is more that he was shit at his job.

Labour under Corbyn was not Corbyns dictatorship. One good thing that can be said about him is he did compromise on his views giving the party a manifesto far more towards its centre - though Corbyn then did a rubbish job of pretending to actually support this.

Also well done on completely ignoring basically everything to try and pick at a minor point you would like to have seen.

Well, how am I suppose to respond to when your statement is typical of the antisemitic far-left?

So you're just being a trolling little shit and aren't actually interested in the topic. Shame.

If you can't face the inverse of your own argument style you should probably stop doing it yourself