Edit 2020-11-02: Added anchor tag. No substantive changes.
You have an interesting perspective, theymos. You seem to see the bipolar-uniparty dog and pony show as just that; yet here and elsewhere, you nonetheless seem to ascribe some significance to the election other than a sophisticated propaganda device (or perhaps meta-propaganda device). The underlying point of OP is that I think that voting is not
useless: It is
counterproductive.
Following is some food for thought; I will somewhat elaborate on my position in reply to you and to eddie, respectively.
Especially after watching both conventions, I really got the sense that both parties are at their core fascist parties, with only relatively minor differences between them.
Although I know that that’s a popular idea, especially amongst contemporary libertarians, I do infer a dig at my placement of the Communist red star with hammer and sickle, and the Antifa (Antifascist Action) logo, together with the logos of the big banks, the stock markets, and the Federal Reserve.
My choice was deliberate. My
Wall Observer post about the Antifa logo was made when I had just completed the OP cartoon here. I began to write an explanation, which I may fit into one of the reserved posts above
if I ever actually finish it. (That’s questionable; it would require terrific time and energy to make a brief conspectus of historical and political issues too complex to address adequately in the format of forum posts. But I didn’t reserve so many posts without reason!)
The idea that Capitalism and Communism work together is not new—and alas, I must admit, it is
far from original to me.
(Yes, by the way, I have read all of Ayn Rand’s works; I think that in this context, I should probably mention that. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal is the other side of the coin of, “True Communism has never been tried.”)
To correct the caption: Andrew Carnegie is also in the cartoon. He is the one labelled, “Andy”. By the way, what with this being the Internet, I think that I should probably point out that the only ethnic Jew in that cartoon is Karl Marx. Morgan, Carnegie, Ryan, Perkins, Theodore Roosevelt, and (despite some claims, I think) Rockefeller were all non-Jews. I think that the Warburg brothers and Jacob Schiff should have been depicted, but they still would have been outnumbered by the utterly corrupt Gentile plutocrats. #justsayingAn old political cartoon alone is not much of an argument, and is not hereby presented as one. Rather, it simply goes to show that in your own country, in 1911, astute political observers were already accusing the big banksters of bringing Communism to America.
N.b. that whoever drew this, did so two years before the big banksters created the Federal Reserve system with the help of their boy Woodrow Wilson and a pliant Congress.
h/t Last of the V8s. I don’t know if V8s agrees with me or not. I asked if anybody had the cartoon, which I saw somewhere years ago. He happened to have it, with appropriate sourcing in the same graphic.For both of them, their central tenants are nationalism, collectivism, authoritarianism, and maintaining the American empire. In the Democratic convention, "UNITY!!!" was the resounding message, while in the Republican convention, "LAW & ORDER!!!" was what they chose to most focus on.
For both of them, their
central tenets are to get elected by telling their popular fan bases what they want to hear. It’s just advertising: Some people like Coke’s ads better; some people, Pepsi’s ads. Either way, you are getting
some awful swill that I would never drink.
After the election, it is business as usual. Trump has done nothing of real, long-term significance about the single most important principal issue for most of his base: Immigration. (And he
can’t: Demographically, in the long term, America’s
destiny to be a white-minority country is already an
accomplished fact. His promises are just salesmanship.) Obama was such a bad warmonger that he was justifiably accused
by a disgruntled faction of his own supporters of being Dubya Bush’s third term. Etc...
After the election, there will probably be quite a bit of violence, which is really sad and pathetic.
It all depends when your government finds it convenient to roll some tanks (eh, “APCs” or whatever) and kill some Americans. From their track record, they excel at that.
If the rabbles now run riot, it is only because TPTB so permit.Support for what are fundamentally Antifa riots—which so happen to exploit peculiarity American racial tensions via BLM. Now, do you begin to get why I put the Antifa logo into OP together with JPMorgan Chase’s logo?
Mt. Kisco, New York, 5 June 2020
Image source: CNBC reporterThe violence will be quelled by means of bigger violence, whenever Mr Dimon,
et al. decide to stop playing submissive. LOL.
For almost everyone, 99.9% of life will be the same under Trump or Biden, but yet probably at least a quarter of Americans are going to feel a certain sense of hopelessness and/or fear after their candidate loses the election. According to an August Pew poll, only 16% of voters say that "things will be pretty much the same regardless of who is elected," even though this is in fact the reality. I feel bad for all of the people who have tied themselves up personally with this election, as if Trump or Biden actually cared about them, or as if their election will actually matter much to the voters personally.
Well-stated. But this is a feature, not a bug. As I argued in my “
Voting Votaries” post briefly referenced below, and as I allude in my OP cartoon here, the “polarization” keeps the voting masses engaged. It thus maintains the “consent of the governed” without which the American régime would eventually collapse just like the Soviet Union.
That said, the election result won't be unimportant. The executive branch has been ceded more and more power by Congress over the decades, so a president can do quite a bit. A president could for example wield the administrative state in such a way as to make it very difficult to use Bitcoin without existing in the shadows, and a Biden administration is probably more likely to move in this direction than a Trump administration. I'd also prefer to see a Trump win because it's likely to lead the coastal states to think much more seriously about secession, which would be one path toward ending the Federal Reserve as we know it. (I think that political action of any sort almost never has positive expected value, though, including in this election.)
Concentration of power in the executive branch has been a very bad idea for you folks. In addition to the issues that you describe, it results in everything from
rule by emergency order, to the proliferation of an entrenched bureaucracy (all execuctive-branch stuff!) ruling with “administrative law” tyranny. I think that most American consider the U.S. Code to be “Federal law”; well, what about that other conjoined-twin body of Federal law, the C.F.R.? (To say nothing of the thicket of Federal case law...)
Anyway, if
presidential precedent has already been set for seizure of your gold by E.O. before asking Congress, I think it’s safe to say that any which way, you exist at the mercy of whoever holds the reins of power in “your” government.
maintaining the American empire.
I see a lot of value in "maintaining the American empire".. Do you not?
For my part, I don’t!
Yes their is a lot wrong with it, but what other chance does the world have for freedom and libertarian principles than "the American empire" (staying mostly constitutional) remaining the dominant force?
America is not the world-police!America
is the tyrant of the world.
America’s spreading of the Orwellian American idea of “freedom” is NOT WELCOME.
To be “liberated” by Americans is to be enslaved by them, if not killed outright.
Of course, I do not mean that all individual Americans approve of all the work of bombing countries into “liberation” under the imposition of American-approved régimes, to “make the world safe for democracy”. In fact, I am sure that many individuals disapprove. That may be unfortunate.
DOWN WITH THE AMERICAN EMPIRE!If only Bruno’s witty “conspiracy theory” were correct. :-(Which makes me think of another theory. The entire crypto space is under attack by Russians with an attempt to get nullius elected president of the US where nullius is really a US citizen.
What’s the probability? (...that “WANTED” poster did say “politically incorrect”, did it not?)
As for US-USSR being distinct without difference—why yes, I think you’re right. They’re evil twins.
[...]
If "the American empire" collapses and is replaced, what do you realistically think it will be replaced by?
Me? Probably Chinese communism, including complete lack of respect for the right to LIFE, much less speech and self defense..
That is like suggesting that a patient with advanced metastatic cancer should avoid the removal of his biggest tumour, because he suffers other big tumours that may grow.
The world is collapsing. I say this not from some eschatological fantasy, but from an historical perspective that is purely rational, and rejects
all mysticism and quasi-mysticism
(except for my beliefs in the god of Bitcoin, and the apotheosis of the Catbat goddess! ;-)Yeats was grasping for mysticism at a time when the world was in chaos, and his wife had just almost died of the flu. Global pandemic flu with high lethality, which cut through populations of young, healthy people like a scythe felling wheat. Thus, “The Second Coming”. Any Day Now™.
(Anyway, it has already happened. The true “Second Coming” was Karl Marx, who reformed the original second-century dogmata of the faith on a new foundation. In the Age of Science, fairytales became unsustainable, and rather embarrassing. The essence of Communism is a synthesis of Sermon on the Mount 2.0, Post French Revolutionary Edition, with the economic worldview of Capitalism—wherefore the Communist Bible is titled, Capital.)
The so-called “Singularity” is a religious eschatology for irrational fanatics who have swapped faith in gods for faith in technocracy. They want a god from a machine, a literal deus ex machina to save them from their own follies.
Dear Talking Monkeys:
Please get it through your thick primate skulls that you are alone in the universe, you are all going to die, there is no life beyond this world, and nothing whatsoever will remain of you if you do not safeguard your posterity.
Thank you.Moreover, Red China is currently the most Capitalist country in the world: It is ruled from the stock exchanges by giant multinational corporations running factories that are small cities packed with wage slaves. (Ultra-left Silicon Valley liberals have got to get their hipster tech devices somehow!)
America is the most Communist country in the world, as well as the biggest spreader of Communism for the past century. I don’t want to launch into a long essay about that now; so...
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Just for instance, look up what happened to Ngô Đình Diệm for an exemplary illustration of America’s long and sordid history of creating problems, and then pretending to fight them. The CIA set Vietnam up for a total Communist takeover with Diệm’s
unfortunate demise—and then, of course, the valiant American world-police had to make war on Communism in Vietnam! A war that was deliberately set up, and deliberately set up to be unwinnable.
Just for instance.
“WAR IS PEACE”, indeed.
Learn a lesson from Diệm—or from Saddam Hussein
and from the Kurds in Iraq who rebelled against Saddam in ’91—or any other of numerous examples of people who met their demises through American treachery:
Never trust the Americans.
You think something as radical as abolishing the federal reserve is realistic?
It’s not going to happen..
My point was that voting is not merely pointless, but
counterproductive, if abolishing the Federal Reserve with the vote is
unrealistic—as indeed it is.
Politics is the art of the possible. Wasting your energy on elections stops you from doing what is
possible. Improving your plight by voting is
categorically unrealistic.
Quoting myself from your 2020 election thread with suchmoon—sorry, I have not been following it:Like betting on cockfights or football games: The whole concept of this thread adequately sums the value of democracy. It is entertainment. It keeps the proles distracted, and dissipates their energies in a way that is harmless to the system.
On Votaries of the VoteThe best we can hope for is preserving the constitution, stop more infringements in the constitution, mostly through SCOTUS appointments,
“Preserve the Constitution!” was a good rallying cry for American Conservatives about... let’s see...
arguably the 1950s or 60s.
More reasonably, the 1930s. (Insert also a reply to Twitchy in the other thread about Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme.) Maybe earlier.
(By the way, it’s funny that my long-time hatred for America has driven me to learn more about American political history than most Americans know. As when I study Communism
per se, I study the etiology of the disease.)
Your hope is to preserve the horses by locking the barn door
now. Horses gone. Too late.
and otherwise hope that that government does, as theymos says, nothing..
Agreed! But that is unrealistic.
Let’s put it this way: Americans nowadays don’t much remember the debates for the passage of their Federal Income Tax—a big deal, back then, when people gave a hoot about the Constitution; it required action by Congress plus state governments to ratify a Constitutional amendment. Well, a common theme for proponents was to argue that tax rates could never exceed 5%—
because no government could ever spend so much money. Well, nowadays, your government bills you for—how much, in taxes? It wouldn’t want to do
nothing with that! Money needs to be spent. At least, that is the way that modern governments work. Your massive entrenched bureaucracies must find some way to spend their budgets, lest the budgets be cut. And politicians need to make a big show of “Do Something!” to get elected, or re-elected, as the case may be.
It is getting worse and more Orwellian under either the Dems or GOP
Agreed.
but I believe the destruction of America’s founding principles will be slower and lesser under Trump than Biden..
The difference is negligible.
Also, Trump had done an amazing job of redpilling normies the world over.. Many topics are brought to light because of him that otherwise would have never crossed the attention of most average people..
I think that it’s the reverse: Trump only even ran for political office, because people were already starting to talk about things that they hadn’t even dared to whisper about for decades. As a savvy businessman (and a savvier showman), he seized the opportunity to tell people what they want to hear—what they are
desperate to hear! Don’t suppose that the tail wags the dog.
2021-03-14: Edited to add anchor.
