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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#261

Post by nostromo »

CameronNemo wrote: post #180
bwanab wrote: post #156

This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.

Also the Emmet Till accuser admitting she lied, once she was on her death bed.

She was 14. I don't think we can blame her for what happened to Emmet Till.

Edit: thanks for the correction, she was 21. However, I still think the blame should fall on Till's murderers.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#263

Post by kbenson »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #67
the-dude wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is everybody you disagree with an ?

For me, when the disagreement is about turning the planet into a hollow cinder for naked protection of wealth accrued in an unjust system and justified by Puritanical memes of free will and individualism, it's either a naughty word ascribing malice or one ascribing stupidity. (Consequentially, the difference is sadly zero.)

> turning the planet into a hollow cinder

There is disagreement about the magnitude of things, but this is hyperboloic.

> for naked protection of wealth

An opinion on their motives.

> accrued in an unjust system

There's so much that can be discussed there. But simple, name one system that isn't unjust in some way. You can optimize for advancement though capitalism, or you can optimize for equality though communism, or some variation thereof. If you optimize too much for capitalism, the lower class are left out, if you optimize too much for communism, after a while everyone is lower than the lower class in what capitalism would result in. Different people will view the right balance differently, so "just" has no meaning here.

> it's either a naughty word ascribing malice or one ascribing stupidity

Or a bit of humility in assuming that you don't know every single thing there is to know about economics, sociology, political theory, and the motives of other individuals.

To be clear, I probably have similar views and beliefs to you on all these topics, but where we differ is in my willingness to put my views forth as fact and condemn others on limited evidence, public relations pieces put out by them and others, and my views on soft sciences that are still very much being worked on and in flux. Thinking someone else is an asshole is not an excuse for adopting bad behavior youself.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#264

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

blfr wrote: post #27

The US seems to be in the middle of another realignment, like in the 60s. The Democratic party is consolidating its support from the big corporations, while the Republican party is making inroads with the working class.

You mean the white working class. And no one in their right mind thinks that the Republican party is less corporatist than the Democratic party. With the CARES Act, the Trump administration fought to keep secret which businesses received money. Come to find out, multinational and conglomerate entities like Ruth Chris' Steakhouse received funds.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#265

Post by a-nikolaev »

rurounijones wrote: post #177
a-nikolaev wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), as well as from possible terrorist attacks. Imagine a 9/11 type of accident with a nuclear plant as its target. Potential danger is still extremely high, even if the chances of it are very small. We still cannot correctly estimate the risks of nuclear energy, after all these years.

> Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), I mean, if we are going to be bringing up a single datapoint then allow me to raise a counterpoint. Nuclear energy is still safe. For example, it is still safe against possible natural disasters (Onagawa) [1] [1] https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear...

If it is safe 99.98% of the time, 0.01% you get Onagawa, and 0.01% you get Fukushima, the new data point does not make the whole picture look safer.

We are talking about a system that is mostly safe, but with a non-negligible probability of a catastrophic accident.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#266

Post by pjscott »

I looked a bit at what Charles Koch has been saying recently, and this doesn't look like a change of opinion; it looks like a change of tactics. He's de-emphasizing the partisan tug-o-war stuff, which looks less promising now than it did during (for example) the early days of the Tea Party, and focusing on the less fought-over parts. It's a reasonable approach if he wants to get things done, but not the about-face the headline suggests.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#267

Post by nicetryguy »

crocodiletears wrote: post #243
nicetryguy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired over it. They also dismantled the superdelegate system. Changes were made. The media was still heavily biased against Bernie before the pandemic; probably due to half of their commercials being for drug and insurance companies. I'm just looking forward to a period of relative stability the next four years. #MakePoliticsBoringAgain

I don't think politics will reset just like that. Schultz was sacrificed at the altar to calm the public. The superdelegate system, too. The political establishments (Dem and Rep) have been given a taste of how much their constituencies resent them. If they want to maintain power, primaries can only become less democratic going forward. I'm worried that insurgent candidate like those in 'the squad' were only allowed…

Trump's pivotal point was Super Tuesday where the Republican moderate vote was split between 8 choices: he was able to build an insurmountable lead.

Much like marijuana legislation finally passing now, i think it will take the previous generation to die off before we start seeing more democratic progressive candidates like AOC. Bernie's numbers were Yuge and dominating with people under 40. Give it another decade or so: if gen Z shares values with gen X and Millenials, which is yet to be seen, i think the AOC type candidates will make inroads in many places in the Democratic party.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#268

Post by bsanr2 »

nostromo wrote: post #261
CameronNemo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the Emmet Till accuser admitting she lied, once she was on her death bed.

She was 14. I don't think we can blame her for what happened to Emmet Till. Edit: thanks for the correction, she was 21. However, I still think the blame should fall on Till's murderers.

The tragedy of Emmitt Till's murder wasn't just his death, but that it was representative of a corrupt and violent White Southerner culture that lasted despite the horror of what was done to him (and the loss of face the Deep South experienced when it was exposed). She spent 70 years standing by her lie. About 4 years into it, she was old enough to start making it right and didn't.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#269

Post by sudosysgen »

nicetryguy wrote: post #222
StreamBright wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember what DNC did to Bernie? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sa...

Sure do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired over it. They also dismantled the superdelegate system. Changes were made. The media was still heavily biased against Bernie before the pandemic; probably due to half of their commercials being for drug and insurance companies. I'm just looking forward to a period of relative stability the next four years. #MakePoliticsBoringAgain

The relative stability you want in the next four year, if it comes, will come at the cost of something even worse after.

If you want not to have Trumps anymore, you need to get rid of the factors that lead to Trump happening, and that's not going to be done calmly given the opposition of the DNC and other established interests.

As a non-american, the best shot you had of establishing long-term stability was Bernie Sanders. The way things are going, the Democrats will continue alienating themselves from more and more of their base and the Republicans will continue ramping up fear and instability.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#270

Post by pmoriarty »

leftyted wrote: post #247
jaggederest wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? The US, in general, does not have any non-conservative judiciary. Stare decisis by itself ensures that there is a strong conservative streak in the available pool of jurists. So yes, the Supreme court…

> Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? Are any of them arguing for an ethnostate? For shipping non-whites "back to where they came from"? For re-establishing anti-miscegenation laws? Your perspective is absurd. Of course the court has a l…

"Are any of them arguing for an ethnostate? For shipping non-whites "back to where they came from"? For re-establishing anti-miscegenation laws?"

Don't kid yourself. This is exactly what they're after. Another couple of elections of the likes of Trump and they may get it.

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