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[Arx]

RedKing, I'm surprised how little empathy you seem to have for Republicans given that you're behaving exactly the same way as them except on the other side. You're railing on in literally exactly the same way as Republicans that want to repeal Obama's laws just because Obama made them.

Well, no. He's railing on them because of what they've done, not who has done it. Unless you call hating obama for being a black person doing friggin' anything as equivalent to being real pissed off at the GOP (or businessfolk, or whoever) for that whole decades of persistent sabotage and hate thing, I guess.

No, when you say

Fuck the other tribe

You're definitely railing against people because of who they are not because of what they've done.

I find the attitude immature and incredibly characteristic of the cancer eating at American politics. I understand why he thinks like that, but I also find it absolutely disgusting.

I don't even care if you pursue the same policy for different reasons. You know what happens if you (especially openly) aim to take "total, scorched-earth revenge"? The electorate goes "what the fuck" and takes total, scorched-earth revenge on you. The United States burn themselves down in an inferno of virulent self-hatred and the world is the less for it.

It's taking refuge in black-and-white thinking and decreeing that you might have done things wrong, but on the whole you're Good and that's all that matters and the people you don't like are Evil and that's all that matters. The next step is to start rounding up the rich in the final solution to das Oberklasseproblem.

[RedKing]

RedKing, I'm surprised how little empathy you seem to have for Republicans given that you're behaving exactly the same way as them except on the other side. You're railing on in literally exactly the same way as Republicans that want to repeal Obama's laws just because Obama made them.

Recognizing your enemy has effective methods doesn't create empathy. For years, whenever Republicans lost, they didn't trend to the center, they doubled-down on the crazy. And it finally paid off, bigly.

When Democrats lose, they engage in a bunch of namby-pamby "we need to reach across the aisle and connect with uneducated straight white blue-collar males" talk. They trend to the center (i.e. rightward). When both parties continually trend rightwards, that leaves a whole lot of the populace dissatisfied.

Democrats need to double-down on their own brand of crazy, the Bernies, the Warrens, etc.
That, or finally complete the divorce between the progressive wing and the neoliberal wing. Maybe the neoliberals can merge with the disaffected moderate Republicans.

EDIT:
@Arx:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm so beyond worrying about false equivalencies. I actually agree with McTraveller that I'd prefer to see this done peacefully. I've also been alive long enough to recognize that it's never going to happen peacefully. The entire trajectory of the US for my 42-year lifespan has been one of ever-accelerating decline into hypercapitalism and income disparity that would make feudal kings envious. The longer it goes on, the less likelihood that it gets reversed at anything other than the point of a pitchfork, metaphorically speaking.

[Arx]

Democrats need to double-down on their own brand of crazy, the Bernies, the Warrens, etc.
That, or finally complete the divorce between the progressive wing and the neoliberal wing. Maybe the neoliberals can merge with the disaffected moderate Republicans.

This I can get behind, but I don't know that I'd call it revenge.

[RedKing]

Democrats need to double-down on their own brand of crazy, the Bernies, the Warrens, etc.
That, or finally complete the divorce between the progressive wing and the neoliberal wing. Maybe the neoliberals can merge with the disaffected moderate Republicans.

This I can get behind, but I don't know that I'd call it revenge.

Well, the resulting corporatist party would also be an enemy, but at least a differing one from Los Deplorables.

Supporting progressives at the ballot box is the carrot. You can still wave the carrot while you sharpen the stick. Maybe I'll get pleasantly surprised.

[EnigmaticHat]

Re: Redking.  There is the old Malcolm X/MLK split*.  MLK got to do his thing because people were afraid of riots and Black Panthers.  If the civil rights movement had been 100% non-violent it would have been far easier to suppress.  And you can see this with both Ghandi and MLK.  People play up how effective their non-violence was, and that's totally true.  But a good chunk of what they did was standing in front of armed cops/soldiers and being like "you want to but you won't."  Cause they knew that if they were killed in such a public way there would be consequences.  Same as how publicly influential political dissidents are often imprisoned but unharmed even in authoritarian regimes; because they know that you can't just vanish someone like that.  The threat of violence is a protection unto itself.

So like, things can be done on the end of a pitchfork without anyone actually dying.  There is power in being the angry guy in the room; no one does anything to placate someone who's already chill.

What's distressing in America is how far the big cable news companies have fallen.  Its really their fault that Occupy got pushed aside, they've gotten too complacent with the status quo.  There's something weird when big topical protests go down and other county's news media covers them more than we do.  I feel like if, say, that bus through the south thing happened now no one in the US would have heard about it.  The women's march went a similar way.  For such a large event, its media footprint was relatively small.  I remember reading an article at the time from an experienced activist who was saying in so many words that meatspace protests like that are obsolete.  And I gotta blame the big three for that.  Or at least two out of three, I don't really follow MSNBC.

*which is a false dichotomy; different isn't the same thing as opposite.  But I digress

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In the spirit of the Poor, Misunderstood, Anxious right-wing who we need to make ever further concessions to, it's Alex time, baby!

If only the wrenched leftist dystopia we live in hadn't made him that way.

[McTraveller]

Now if you want a crusade against the Evil Media Empires, I'd probably be on board with that.

Stuff like net neutrality and the crap the FCC is doing actually irritates me greatly - basically the "let's get our monopoly made legal, with no antitrust protection" crap.

It's not even the most insidious way that capitalism has run amok, but it is one of the more obvious.

[Frumple]

No, when you say

Fuck the other tribe

You're definitely railing against people because of who they are not because of what they've done.

Not... really? It's real hard to be republican without doing something (registering as one if absolutely nothing else). Pretty literally impossible to avoid it, to be part of the chunk materially/electorally supporting the shit that's pissing RK off. You can refer to that as who, I guess, but it's an identity primarily/entirely defined by actions. The who, in this case, is what you do.

Meanwhile it largely doesn't sodding matter what obama does. It's notably not what he does that catches flak (or at least large chunks of it), but rather who/what he is.

There's a fairly different sort of categorization going on, basically. Even if you can use the same words. Part of that is probably because you're talking group vs. individual, but you could pretty easily change obama to "democrat black president" (to the extent that could be considered a group when we've only had the one) and get the same sort of reaction. Generic individual republican (or the party in general, really) that stopped supporting reactionary radicals with a penchant for rotting out our country's infrastructure and administration (i.e. the GOP and functionally just about all its politicians) is prolly gon' get a pretty different response.

You have two things that get different sorts of responses when they do the same sort of stuff, be it a specific individual or otherwise. Y'ain't dealing with the same sort of thing when that's happening, y'know? Maybe they're similar things, but they're very much not literally exactly the same.

[SalmonGod]

I don't want violence.  I don't want revenge.  But I do think threat of inevitable violence is the only thing that's going to work.  Specifically, it will be when there's internal conflict within law enforcement and military because enough of them refuse to be henchmen for wealthy interests anymore.  That's what it will take to give them enough of a scare to start backpedaling on the death march of corporate feudalism.

I actually agree with those observations, I just generally try to think about why, not just "it is."

That said - one thing that saddens me is that there are two approaches to bring things away from the inevitable concentration that happens with capitalism as we now have it.  The first, which is probably more difficult and requires more patience, is to start working toward a cultural shift so that people start moving away from that type of capitalism naturally.  The second, which seems to get the most attention, is the "we need to get people in a position of power to force it to happen quickly."

These measures can only ever be temporary.  Because capitalism's foundational structures reward those who erode their influence.  The toxic culture of capitalism is a natural evolution of capitalism itself, because of what it inherently rewards and reinforces.  A short-term burst of meta awareness can trigger a cultural shift through concentrated effort, but it will drift back towards toxicity over time.  Concerted effort by a majority poor can make use of political power, too, but again that can only be temporary.  Because it takes that group of people a lot more effort to maintain their influence, and that guard will inevitably let down over time.  Meanwhile, the rich have their influence just by nature of being rich.  As soon as that guard is let down, politics shifts in their favor again.

Aren't there enough wealthy people on the left that could start buying up lots of land and simply not concentrating the wealth?  There is no law against not trying to get the biggest profit you can, so why don't people do this?

Here's where "the left" is kind of a useless term.  As demonstrated by the D party, you don't need to be economically progressive to be associated with leftism.

There's no law against not trying to get the biggest profit, but any rich person who lives according to that will be superceded over time by people who are still competing for the biggest profit.  Generosity is systemically unsustainable.  It's a competitive environment.  Those who handicap themselves will lose, and the game will be carried on by those who are still earnestly competing as ruthlessly as they can, and that includes using power granted by winning the game to change the rules of the game to allow ever increasing heights of ruthlessness.  This is the fundamental problem.

[EnigmaticHat]

There actually is a law against not trying to get the biggest profit.  For publicly traded companies, the shareholders can sue the CEO if they can prove the CEO acted against shareholder interests.  AKA stock values AKA the bottom line.  Its one of the main things forcing companies to focus on yearly growth over, say, 5 year plans.  That's part of why companies would rather keep wages low and not hire people even if that means leaving positions unfilled.  Any new payroll means immediate money out of the bottom line, which means less stock value next yearly report.  So in a way, treating employees right is low-key illegal.  Unless you can sell the shareholders on it somehow.

[Doomblade187]

Can you provide link? I am curious.

[nenjin]

If it's not an actual state or federal law, I have no doubt it's part of the corporate/board's bylaws.

[Akura]

I tried looking it up real quick, all I found were things suggesting it exists as part of some states' laws, but not the actual text of said laws.

[Jopax]

AFAIK (might be different in the glorious capitalistland of US) the general practice is if the board/shareholders consider one of the members of the board/CEO to be working against company interests they can do a vote of no confidence or something similarly named and boot them out of the company.

[McTraveller]

That's actually, from what I can tell, a myth. It is more of a business philosophy that came to prominence I think the early 1980's.  The term to look for is 'fiduciary duty', and it's not a real law anywhere as far as I know.

It is more or less a de facto law for large enough but not too closely held companies though, because of what @Jopax said - you start not being as profit hungry as the majority shareholders want, elections or board changes will happen.  Basically it applies to any company that is owned mostly by investment groups, rather than a founding family or group actually interested in what the company does.