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What's your take on David Faris' new book It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics?
His arguments strike me as broadly compatible with yours, but he argues for a platter of considerably more ambitious things.
In short, he argues that once Democrats run the table again (like in 2009), they should ram a bunch of reforms through that are explicitly designed to undo unfair Republican advantages. Such reforms include:
- Packing the court so that we don't have such a large percentage of justices nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote.
- Term limits for Supreme Court justices structured in such a way that guarantees every president at least one nomination.
- Admit Puerto Rico and DC to the union.
- Break California into several states to get it more senators.
- National early voting.
- Pre-voter registration of 17-year-olds nationwide.
- Making Election Day a national holiday.
- Other voting rights reforms as well (e.g. bans on disenfranchising ex-cons, making it a federal crime to intimidate voters, etc).
- Fighting gerrymandering by doubling the size of the House and having multimember districts with proportional representation.
- Abolishing the filibuster so all those things can be enacted with a simple majority.
These things seem philosophically in line with your proposal to fix the Electoral College, so I was wondering what you thought of each of those ideas.
Also, if you could amend the Constitution with whatever changes you like, would you simply abolish the Electoral College? Would you abolish the Senate too? (I would.)
>And we don't have an equal and opposite force exerted by a liberal propaganda machine.
Michelle Obama is one of the smartest and classiest people ever, but sometimes I think she gave bad advice when she said "when they go low we go high." It only works, in a political environment like the USA is dealing with right now, if people care about someone going low. Not enough people do. The book It's time to Fight Dirty is awesome in how it lays out solutions like giving DC and Puerto Rico statehood, expanding the SC and so on. I don't know how realistic it is but it's a good blueprint. I'm fucking sick and tired of the Dems trying to play by the book and the fact they still respect traditional norms. Fuck that. It's time to go Moscow Mitch on their asses.
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Time-Fight-Dirty-Democrats/dp/1612196950
Read up on your history before making assumptions
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618001905/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aB8TBbCQ7Q6M1
What Taison says here is almost a pretty direct quote from the beginning of the latest book by Ibram Kendi. The book, called How to Be an Antiracist does a pretty nice job of clearly describing some of the issues with structural racism that we see today.
If you think Antiracism is a topic that is really interesting to you, I would recommend that book and also White Fragility by Robin Diangelo.
(Source: I work on a Structural Racism task force in my city in America and have done a lot of work in the field of Antiracism for the last 5 years or so.)
Has anyone talked about the hypocrisy of his BEZOS act coupled with this information?
That is, how does he reconcile his assertion that Amazon doesn't pay fulfillment workers a living wage while simultaneously leveraging this labor by selling Our Revolution and Where We Go From Here on Amazon? I imagine a substantial portion of his book income came from sales on Amazon.
Highly recommend reading "King Leopold's Ghost" to anyone interested in the history of Belgian colonialist atrocities in Africa. Warning: it makes for grim reading.
> If you can accept that Muslims are inherently violent, uncivilized, brain deficient, unintelligent, etc then
This is an extreme misrepresentation. His position is that many of the ideas of Islam (as well as those of most mainstream religions) are potentially or likely dangerous, such that they can lead good people to do bad things. What else explains the majority of suicide bombings (within the last few decades) being committed by jihadi groups?
edit:
>... Harris' inherent anti-theism.
Also, fun fact, did you know despite being an "anti-theist" (a label he would likely disagree with), he has spent much of his life studying Eastern religions directly? He's a proponent of many Eastern meditative practices, as well as a borderline Buddhist. He's also co-authored a book with a Muslim.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent/dp/0231156839
Collected data on protests between 1900 -2006. Showed that non-violent protests are about twice as likely to work than violent protests. This is the book that extinction rebellion frequently talk about.
A note about the author's bias: David Faris is the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty, which is all about how he believes the only way for Democrats to gain more power is to play the same partisan hardball that Republicans do. He couches it in the language of democratic reform, but where Pete's values revolve around deradicalization, Faris seems to lean into radicalization. Fundamentally, I think the difference between them is that Faris takes a short-term view, advocating moves like splitting California into several states and a partisan packing of the court, while Pete takes a long-term view. What he proposes might let us win a battle for the next four years, but it does nothing to talk the country off the ledge that we've climbed up on. Pete's been very upfront that most of his ideas about democratic reform aren't actionable within the span of a single presidency, but must be the culmination of long pushes of advocacy that possibly end in constitutional amendments.
Quick fixes versus lasting solutions. Which do you prefer?
Realise nobody cares about "Norms" which throughout the Obama era just acted as a weight around the Democrats necks and that politics is actually about winning and pushing your ideology and not "compromise" and "bipartisanship" which generally just moves the Overton window in the direction you don't want it to go by nature? That would be a nice start.
>How can/should the next Democrat President/Administration take advantage of these broken Precedents.
Stack the Supreme Court FDR style or at least routinize appointments and ratfuck the Republicans from top to bottom. Seriously, why in hell should Democrats be stuck with a Supreme court that basically just voted for national "right to work" under the most absurd reasoning and weaponisation of the 1st Amendment?
Political Scientist Professor David Faris recently released a book on how and why the Democrats should fight dirty and ratfuck the Republicans instead of caring about Norms and gentlemans agreements that the right never really cares about beyond virtue signalling while they flaunt them the second they grab power anyway.
Let's not forget all the Soviet soldiers summarily executed or sent to die in gulags for "political crimes," like being captured by the enemy, or retreating to save their own lives, or writing in private letters about the hardships of Soviet army life.
Your body will thank you. Raised vegan, sometimes saw my parents “lapse” into vegetarianism, went to mostly vegetarian as an adult but rebelled by trying inconsequential quantities of meat. I had a myriad of mystery health problems that I couldn’t understand and neither could my doctors; I’m early 30’s. It was a horrible journey, but I feel like a new person on carnivore/zero carb and I’m only three months into it. Also everything is starting to make sense which is glorious.
I’ll be honest with you, changes in weight or muscles are not as visually dramatic for me initially. If your experience is like mine, your body will spend a lot of time nourishing deprived joints, bones and muscles in the beginning, but you’ll feel more energy and stronger. I also experienced extreme oxalate dumping which was tough. I wrote some of my experience here (kind of went on a tangent, tbh!): https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/df5qdp/optimizing_my_way_of_eating_for_further_health/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
If you have more questions, feel free to message me. I’m still learning about meat (I didn’t even know what each cut was or how to cook it) but I hope you enjoy that first steak as much as I did!!!
Oh I suggest some good reading for recovering vegetarians/vegans, message me if you’re interested in a book list but “vegetarian myth” by Lierre Keith is a good primer: https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804/ref=nodl_
>Princeton University’s Omar Wasow studied protest movements in the 1960s and found that violent upheaval tended to make white voters more conservative, whereas nonviolent protests were associated with increased liberalism among white voters. “These patterns suggest violent protest activity is correlated with a taste for ‘social control’ among the predominantly white mass public,” wrote Wasow in his study.
>
> Stephan and Erica Chenoweth produced a book, <em>Why Civil Resistance Works</em>, which found nonviolent resistance movements were twice as likely as violent movements to achieve their aims in the 20th and early 21stcenturies.
Important message here. It shows that violence is counter-productive.
> it coudl be argued much of africa has a better life and opportunity under colonialism
Read King Leopold’s Ghost from cover to cover before you ever make this claim again.
>Anti-racism is a talking point invented by the right recently
That's not true. Ibram X Kendi released a book on anti racism in 2019, and who knows how long the concept had been making its academic rounds prior to that?
Political scientist Erica Chenoweth studies the amount of a population that is protesting in effective popular revolutions and failed revolutions. IIRC, she found no protest movements in her dataset that failed with over 4% of the population protesting regularly, and no nonviolent movements that failed with something like 2.5% protesting regularly.
I don’t mean to say that’s predictive here, where the movement has to overcome not just the local HK authorities, but a superpower as well, and furthermore I don’t think this is the scale of protests everyday. But clearly it shows the power of a small group of people protesting regularly, and, as you say, 10% is nothing to laugh at.
From now until April 2022, you are a black male. Don't even mention being white at all, T10's will be bowing down to you. You think I am joking, but this is truly for your own good.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0525509283
King Leopold's Ghost is a powerful book on Beligian atrocities in the Congo during its colonial period. Highly recommended for understanding what's taking place there to this day.
Now you're just talking out of your ass. Read his book. Read some articles. Bernie Sanders grew up with his brother in a Brooklyn rent-controlled tenement apartment where he and his brother slept in the living room because the apartment was so small. His father sold paint for a living. His mother died when he was a teenager; his father was dead by the time he was 21. All of his father's family, and some of his mother's were killed in the Holocaust.
Edit - here, I'll help you. Amazon has excerpts of his book https://www.amazon.com/Our-Revolution-Believe-Bernie-Sanders/dp/1250132924
I never read the book,but here is a synopsis from the Amazon page:
In Our Revolution, Sanders shares his personal experiences from the campaign trail, recounting the details of his historic primary fight and the people who made it possible. And for the millions looking to continue the political revolution, he outlines a progressive economic, environmental, racial, and social justice agenda that will create jobs, raise wages, protect the environment, and provide health care for all―and ultimately transform our country and our world for the better. For him, the political revolution has just started. The campaign may be over, but the struggle goes on.
They also print his filibuster from 2010 in book form, which was all about corporate greed and the decline of the middle class.
I guess it depends on your definitions for words? I think he spent a lot of time addressing the systemic issues of which corruption is one. In the primary race, he tried to be tactful about invoking corruption in relation to the party and,uh, other candidates.
It's complicated?
Hello and welcome. I had gastroparesis before I had weight loss surgery, and one of the only consistent pieces of advice I was given by multiple practitioners was to reduce fiber intake. As the vegan diet is very high in fiber, it is not optimal, or even suitable, for someone with gastroparesis.
Let me say that I also felt very guilty about eating meat and even fish, but after doing some personal research, I realized that....life IS death. They are opposite sides of the same coin. You cannot have life without death, because all organisms are consuming something in order to live. That is just the natural law of life. Many of us assume that the most compassionate thing is to eat only plants, but in reality, growing plants is very resource-heavy work, too. Harvesting plants kills many animals, particularly in industrial agrilculture. Industrial agriculture also relies mostly on fossil fuels, which pollute the land and destroy watersheds. You really can't have sustainable plant agriculture without animal input from manure....the system isn't a closed loop.
I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804 It is NOT perfect, and there are some logical flaws and hyper-emotional arguments made, but I think there is valuable information for those of us struggling with the ethics of eating meat.
The best advice I can give you is to eat soft eggs and nice flaky fish to start. Your body is going to be SO happy - and my guess is, it's going to tell you LOUD and clear what it needs.
Be well.
Civil War in the United States, slavery ended. A milita was a large part of this, no a militia alone did not do this but it seriously helped.
The formation of the United States also in large part was due to a militia.
The russian revolution as well.
Additionally most of those homicides are from illegally gotten handguns, and gang violence.
>your own crime statistics prove that
millions of fatal incidents are stopped each year with firearms, by our own statistics.
​
Again, read this:
Communism the theory, and communism in real practice, are very very different. I base my idea of communism on what always happens in practice, as do most scholars and historians.
The defining work on the topic would be Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago
That's the condensed version, the full 3 volume version is even better. This is what living under communism is actually like, and an analysis as to why it is that way.
Since the USSR we still don't have a counter case where am attempt has caused anything but poverty and misery. Without freedom and a profit motive, society cannot function. Look also to the original settlers of America, who tried a form of socialism and almost all starved.
I'm just about to place my pre-order and I thought of this:
Do others here know that Amazon offers a donation to your charity of choice? I chose Democracy Now! because they have such high quality reporting and interviews. You have to set it up and order EVERYTHING through AmazonSmile.com rather than Amazon's regular site. Some items you purchase are eligible for the donation and some are not. But, all must go through Smile. And, no, they don't tell you how much is being donated.
I order a lot from Amazon and figure some donation is better than nothing. I know they are terrible to workers, but most retailers are and until others deliver to my house I know I'll continue ordering.
Bernie's Book on AmazonSmile.com:
That seems to be the case:
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Revolution-Believe-Bernie-Sanders/dp/1250132924
EDIT: Amazon also has it for only $16 something instead of $27. -- $13 for the Kindle version.
Assuming we are not talking about white-washed liberal assumptions of nonviolent resistance, the answer to if non violence works is again... it depends. If you have enough people early on enough, violence can be avoided; it incentivizes larger numbers do to a feeling of less risk, and violence is more expen$ive and this fact can be used to the advantage of nonviolent resistors given they don’t have as many budget constraints. Prolonged use of violence is State building- you can do everything with beyonets except sit on them.
Or read a book. Shit, if you even read your own comment it shows that Belgium only sent troops to protect the white civilians. If you actually read that thread you'd see that the other UN members were opposed to providing support to the Belgian-backed secessionists and eventually even intervened to block and engage them. The only reason the US ended up involved on the behalf of the secessionists was because after they didn't want to back up the rebel factions those factions sought and received aid from the Communist bloc.
Though you did remind me that if we get any Free French forces for the Paris Liberation phase, we should probably get some Senegalese representation.
We have no way of knowing. OU athletics keeps a lot of things quiet.
Yes, white people don't get to abuse the n word for their own satisfaction. Black people get to make their own decisions about the use of the word that has a violent history for their ancestors. I would suggest you read some books on this to educate yourself, as it borders uncomfortably close to you making racist comments. Here is one that might help you. It opened my eyes a bit.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0525509283
> I don't see black people talking about qualities that make a good white person. Or a gay person talking about qualities makes a good straight person.
You aren't paying a lot of attention then, I'm guessing. Obviously these things are difficult to bring into common parlance, but on an academic, social, and political level they are constant topics. Books like this for instance. Articles like this for instance.
It's a terrible way to solve things though. Look at the American Civil War. It ended slavery, but it opened Jim Crow and a century plus of racism and deep political divisions in American that go right up through Trump. Also, for 20+ years Americans were deeply scarred with their lost war dead on both sides.
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent/dp/0231156839