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Post by slartibartfast on May 4, 2016 19:12:42 GMT 10
Cruz to be president?
Does this mean there's no God or God prefers Trump?
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Post by KTJ on May 5, 2016 12:20:57 GMT 10
There is no god.
And Trump's elevation to GOP canididate for Prez proves what I have been saying for years about STUPID Americans.
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Post by pim on May 5, 2016 14:21:04 GMT 10
It "proves" nothing of the kind.
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Post by KTJ on May 5, 2016 14:53:26 GMT 10
It "proves" nothing of the kind. So are you implying that Trump's supporters are INTELLIGENT Americans? How so? |
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Post by pim on May 5, 2016 15:49:16 GMT 10
Trump’s supporters are angry Americans. You don’t have to be dumb to be angry. For you to claim that a person's conscious and rational side determines the way s/he votes is to fly in the face of every principle that claims the label "socialist". The dialectic of class struggle, which Marx analysed more deeply than anyone else, which he called dialectical materialism, turned the traditional notion of dialectics on its head. The philosopher Hegel had put forward the idea of the dialectic as a way of analysing how ideas are formed: a "thesis" creates its opposite "antithesis" and the struggle between the two results in a "synthesis" which in turn becomes the new "thesis", producing its opposite "antithesis", and they result in a new "synthesis" which becomes the new "thesis" and so on it goes forever. So if Hegel was right and this is how "progress" happens, through the clash of ideas, then he (Hegel) was arguing that ideas determine reality. Or, put another way, consciousness determines being. Marx directed this dialectic to the study of social classes and in so doing turned Hegel's dialectics on its head. He said that the way each society throughout history organised the production of goods and services generates the class struggle. He himself said (in German but I'll give you the English subtitles) that the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle. Slaves and slave owners, masters and servants, workers and capitalists ... that sort of thing. His insight was that workers need to be made aware of themselves as a class before they are in a position to realise how powerful they are when they organise and act collectively. You're a worker before you realise what that means in the big picture scheme of things. Your "being" determines your "consciousness" and not the other way round.
So a Marxist would look at the forces of petit bourgeois despair and rage that drive people to embrace a guy like Trump and, to a Marxist, it would make perfect sense. In Trump the Americans are reaping what they've sown over many years.
I can't speak for New Zealand but in Australia the political culture, particularly within the Liberal Party, is leading them down a similar road and to a similar fate. It isn't anywhere near as bad here and it doesn't help if you make too many close parallels, but yesterday there were was a bunch of valedictory speeches in the Australian Parliament by departing MPs whose careers are ending with the 44th Parliament and who won't be back for the 45th Parliament. Tony Abbott rose to bid farewell to a Liberal hack from Qld called Ian McFarlane who is retiring and pissing off with his big fat parliamentary pension. McFarlane had been Minister for Mines and a whole lot of other stuff when Abbott was PM and he was the one who buried Labor’s mining tax and generally made sure the big mining companies got everything they wanted. He’s a rotten corrupt piece of ... well, you get the idea. Abbott praised McFarlane to the skies and said that now McFarlane is retiring, the mining companies should show him their "gratitude"!
Think about that for a second. The former PM of Australia called upon the big mining companies to break every ministerial code of conduct and make McFarlane transition from his rich ministerial salary and perks straight into the boardroom salaries and perks of something like BHP Billiton. If you shrug your shoulders and say "So what! It's what they all do. Nothing to see here. Move on!" then it's no wonder you're unable to see why people who aren't dumb, people who in their ordinary lives are probably really nice to know, love their kids and help old ladies cross the street, get so white hot angry at big business and their political cronies while they struggle to make ends meet that they'll turn to a guy like Trump.
Being determines consciousness. Your problem is that for you it's the other way round. No wonder you're confused.
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Post by KTJ on May 5, 2016 18:09:22 GMT 10
And Trump is going to solve all of America's problems.
Yeah, right!!
And....BTW....god is an unproven concept.
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Post by pim on May 5, 2016 18:16:33 GMT 10
And Trump is going to solve all of America's problems. Yeah, right!! Whassamadder KTJ, getting out of your depth?  lol, you ARE out of your depth, arencha! Gentle reader, expect him now to resort to the old KTJ tried-n-true fart in a crowded lift. It's what Donald Trump would do. You've been giving that blowhard blatherskite campaign advice haven't ya!!  |
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Post by pim on May 5, 2016 18:31:03 GMT 10
I wasn't the one who brought up the US presidential campaign on the Religion Board, but I'm happy to go with it ... Here's Crikey's take on the values that Abbott clearly stated he espouses: the goal of getting into politics is to give enough breaks to industry so that they'll give you a cushy job when you retire. Tony Abbott gave us a peek behind the curtain yesterday, in his tribute to former resources minister Ian Macfarlane, a man so loyal to the Liberal Party that he tried — and failed — to defect to the Nats late last year. Said Abbott:
“It was a magnificent achievement by the [member] for Groom in his time as minister … and I hope the sector will acknowledge and demonstrate their gratitude to him in his years of retirement from this place.”
Yes, Abbott is openly calling for the mining industry to repay the former minister’s kindness with a cushy job, just as it did with Labor’s Mar’n Ferguson. And the same way so many industries reward former pollies who did them a solid during their parliamentary careers.
Maybe ScoMo will be given a sweet gig in a big company — the only real beneficiaries of this year’s budget — when the good people of Cook have had enough?www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/05/crikey-says-170/ |
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Post by pim on May 5, 2016 18:34:47 GMT 10
You wanna know why people in the US are so pissed off that they'll turn to Trump on the right? Or Sanders on the left? Because that sort of stuff happens there too - only on a gargantuan scale that dwarfs anything that Australian or NZ politics could come up with. Let that sort of corruption run rampant and you'll get a Donald Trump.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Jun 19, 2016 1:23:11 GMT 10
American politics are so polarized! Why does there have to be only 2 options?
I believe there are varying degrees of right and wrong; and no one position holds all the cards.
I am however, very worried about the world's state if Trump should win.
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