[RD] Why y'all always trying to defend Nazis?

[Красный Комиссар]

Indeed. This does not refute what I said though. Soviet history spans 70 years. Some periods were worse than others and some people lot less lucky than others.

I did not see ideal societies at all.

But if we compare the USSR and the present Ukraine - but the secular union is a paradise.

 

[inthesomeday]

They are waiting for the same fate as their predecessors - strong states will conquer them.

So far no strong state has conquered Chiapas, as much as Mexico has tried. Likewise, Rojava continues to hold its own against powerful enemies.

A closer-to-home example for you would be the PRD, in the former Ukraine. They've fought the fascists on the streets and won consistently, as well as maintaining internal defense. The fact is that any army is built of citizens, and those citizens can arm and organize themselves with or without a state lording over them. You forget that the Red Army started this way, as a very well-organized militia of the people independent of a state.

These societies can not develop themselves. For an economic basis, an organized force-that tis, the state-is needed.

I disagree. A state or capitalist class has been needed historically to develop these economic conventions, but that doesn't mean it would always hypothetically be necessary. I don't like hypotheticals, though, so let's look instead at the real world, where much of the Western economic base has already been developed. The abolition of the state would put further development as well as implementation of this base in the hands of the people, where it belongs.

By self-organization it is not possible to build factories, factories, or armies. It is necessary to develop science, medicine, and planning. For this people who will do it, someone must feed, dress, protect, provide shelter, etc. People themselves are not organized, this is not a tribe of 100-200 people, millions of people.

The ability of the people to self-organize is the fundamental assumption of communist practice. The vanguard party as a model of revolution was successful in the short term but resulted in long-term autocracy. I disagree that hierarchical organization is always necessary for human progress; otherwise there never would have occurred an agricultural revolution, and indeed our species would have become extinct quite long ago.

In short, I am for communism, but I doubt the possibility of building an anarchic society.

But the ultimate goal of any communist is the establishment of a society free of economic hierarchy, no? The existence of the state undermines and disarms this in its entirety. Anarchy does not mean chaos, it means decentralization of power until complete equality can be reached.

Can I have a few questions?

Always, comrade.

- Where are you from?

The States. Originally the Midwest (from an industrial city in the American agricultural belt), now on the West Coast (big city in the big cities).

- How do you feel about the protests in the US about the dismantling of monuments to the Confederates.

Because the monuments are being taken down by the government, it's essentially a meaningless gesture, and I would prefer they were dismantled by organized groups of citizens. However, I do think they must be taken down as a symbol of class oppression (manifested as race), and protesting this is reactionary to the greatest degree.

- Why are the left in the same ranks with LGBT activists.

LGBT rights are at their core human rights, and while these rights are not based on economic oppression, the social hierarchy against Queer folks is a hierarchy nonetheless and must be destroyed.

- What they are trying to achieve (the ultimate goal)

If you're asking what my ideal goal is, it is the establishment of a post-hierarchy global human society. This society would have economic surplus of necessity goods (already achieved) as well as luxury goods (easily achieved after the means of production are retaken by the people). These goods would be distributed to the global population equitably.

Eventually all human hard labor would be fazed out as most agricultural or industrial jobs would be mechanized, leaving the population free to pursue artistic and scientific endeavors.

 

[Yeekim]

But if we compare the USSR and the present Ukraine - but the secular union is a paradise.

1) Besting present Ukraine is not much of an achievement, really.
2) Present Ukraine is a paradise compared to Ukraine in 20s, 30s and 40s.
3) Present Ukrainians have an important advantage over Soviet Ukrainians - they are free to seek better life elsewhere.
EDIT: @inthesomeday @ PRD as an example of self-sufficient anarchist society.

 

[Cutlass]

Opinion
Donald Trump is operating straight from the white supremacist playbook: Neil Macdonald
Trump's supporters cannot, by now, have any doubt about what they put into high office
By Neil Macdonald, CBC News Posted: Aug 29, 2017 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 29, 2017 5:00 AM ET

The New York Times Daily podcast featured an interview last week with a fellow named Derek Black, who was suckled from childhood on white supremacy and even helped create a children's page on Stormfront — his father's website — which is variously described as "white nationalist," "white supremacist" and "neo-Nazi."

His godfather was David Duke, probably the most famous Ku Klux Klansman in the United States.

Black spent his youth attending rallies and learning how to proselytize, and generally bathing in the notion that the only way to make America great again would be to purge it of non-white races.

In any case, the arc of the interview was that eventually Derek Black went off to college out of state and found himself contending with educated people who would systematically shred the studies and pseudo-science Black cited in support of his beliefs that, for example, there are IQ differences between races.

In short, Black himself received a humiliating education, decided white supremacy was a fringe movement for ignorant, angry people and publicly abandoned it. In return, his family basically disowned him.

Selling white supremacy
It was much more, though, than a feel-good, I-have-seen-the-light interview. Black explained the white supremacist movement's recruiting strategy, which, he said, necessarily involved some self-concealment.

"We told people all the white nationalist talking points, without necessarily saying that we're white nationalists," he said.

"My whole talk was the fact that you could run as Republicans and say things like we need to shut down immigration, we need to fight affirmative action, we need to end globalism, and you could win these positions, maybe as long as you didn't get outed as a white nationalist."

Sound familiar?

The plain fact is that America now has a president who operates straight from the white supremacist playbook. At the very least, Donald Trump and his most rabid followers have been objective allies of the white supremacist movement, even if they thought they weren't. Vladimir Lenin would have called them "useful idiots."

Earlier this month came the march in Charlottesville, Va., which was organized by a white supremacist, Jason Kessler, and whose promotion contained unambiguously white-supremacist and even neo-Nazi symbolism. This was a march for whites, mostly male whites.

The pretext was preventing the removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the military effort to maintain slavery. Charlottesville had already renamed the space in which the statue stands from "Lee Park" to "Emancipation Park," and the white supremacists saw it as a chance to recruit under the guise of "protecting our history and culture."

Black said he expected the usual denunciations by politicians of both parties at just about every level, because "everyone knows it's extremely easy to condemn a white nationalist rally."

Put another way, it's a moral imperative.

And indeed, the condemnations flowed freely on Aug. 12, the Saturday after the rally took place. With one prominent exception.

That Donald Trump did not immediately denounce the marchers (though he read a boilerplate repudiation from a teleprompter on Monday), said Black, was "weird" and was taken as somewhat of a victory by his racist former fellow travellers, some of whom had shouted "Hail Trump" at the rally.


'George Washington was a slave owner'1:00

Then came Trump's news conference on Tuesday, Aug. 15, when he said that some of the marchers in the white nationalist rally were "very fine people" and focused on criticizing the counter-protesters and those who wanted to take down the statue of Lee.

Ask yourself this: how in heaven's name do "fine people" find themselves among torch-waving men shouting about non-white minorities and "blood and soil?" (Look up the provenance of that slogan). And why would a fine person not bolt at the first chant of "Jews will not replace us?"

Trump then said: "You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

Now. Look at those last three words: "to another name." Donald Trump, president of the United States, not only thought there were fine people among the white supremacist marchers, he refused to say "Emancipation Park."

Some might argue that this president is just too dim to know the park's new name, but remember, Trump emphasized that he waited a few days in order to collect all the facts. Presumably, this Ivy League-educated president, who has access to the most knowledgeable advisers and who by his own word took the time to gather all the facts, knew the park's new name and just couldn't bring himself to say it.

Validating bigotry
Derek Black, listening in a coffee shop, said Trump's words "took my breath away."

The president had, in his view, validated the white supremacist messaging strategy in a stroke.

What they heard, he said, was "Donald Trump thinks we're fine." All the people who just needed a little extra nudge, to be told their son would be denied university because of affirmative action, or that an immigrant would take their jobs, had just been nudged.

Black called it the most important moment in the history of the modern white nationalist movement. David Duke and other white supremacists rejoiced. They've crawled out from under their rocks and are basking in their president's complicity.

A lot has already been written about this. Criticism has been ferocious. Still, most in the mainstream media have stopped short of saying outright that Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, is a white supremacist, or white nationalist, or whatever it is these people call themselves.

But then, for the longest time, the mainstream media stopped short of saying outright that Trump is a liar. The New York Times busted that dam, citing Trump's perpetuation of the lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and now, it's barely controversial to call the president a liar.

Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa https://t.co/tTESdV4LP0

— @DrDavidDuke
By the same logic, it's now time to start referring to Trump as what he clearly is. And by that, I mean someone who panders to racists and appears determined to maintain a system that grants whites huge entitlements. And that system is known as white supremacy.

Look at some of the people he's surrounded himself with since becoming president. I am mildly ashamed for having, at an event I moderated last spring, upbraided an audience member who proclaimed there are white supremacists in the White House.

However, to me, the most telling moment last week was when Trump deliberately avoided the term "Emancipation Park." What sort of person finds the word "emancipation" unspeakable?

Then, a week or so later, he pardoned his friend and political ally Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff whose brazenly racist policies – pulling over anyone who looks Latino on suspicion that the person might be breaking U.S. law – had earned him a criminal contempt conviction in federal court.

Arpaio jailed people who couldn't produce immigration documents, effectively tortured and humiliated them and cost the citizens of Maricopa County tens of millions of dollars in civil rights lawsuits. (Arpaio also enthusiastically shared Trump's lies about Obama's birthplace, and he appeared at Trump rallies.)

• Trump pardons controversial sheriff, Joe Arpaio, convicted of criminal contempt over racial profiling
• Trump has emboldened white nationalists with racist policies, says author

As it turns out, Trump tried to have the Justice Department's case against Arpaio dropped, and when that didn't work, made the conviction go away with a stroke of his pen.

To Trump, "Sheriff Joe" was convicted for "doing his job."

That this president thinks rounding people up and abusing them based on their skin colour constitutes doing one's job pretty much says it all.

The office of the president is meant to confer dignity. It is hard for the media to outright label a sitting president a white supremacist, or even a garden variety racist. If Trump was still a private citizen, this would be easier.

But by your words and actions shall you be known. Trump's supporters cannot by now have any doubt about who they put into high office and neither can the congressional Republicans who still treat him so gingerly.

It reminds me of the old ditty my dad used to sing about the drunk collapsing beside a pig in the gutter: You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses / And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/donald-trump-playbook-1.4265374


See, the racism may be veiled. But it's not any less real for that.

 

[inthesomeday]

You silly he was just protecting Joe Arpaio's right to free speech

 

[Yeekim]

Trump clearly can't be white supremacist.
He is orange, isn't he?

 

[Ryika]

"My whole talk was the fact that you could run as Republicans and say things like we need to shut down immigration, we need to fight affirmative action, we need to end globalism, and you could win these positions, maybe as long as you didn't get outed as a white nationalist."

Don't really want to make a response to that whole opinion piece, but the logic loop here is interesting. "Among the people who agree with these things are white supremacists, so ALL people who agree with these things are actually white supremacists." Say what you want about Trump, but that's just a different version of the old "Hitler liked painting, so all artists are Nazis."-meme. People can agree on issues and have entirely different reasons for doing so.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Note: As I type this, I have read up to the end of Page 14 of 23. I'm posting this batch of comments now, so as to avoid posting a small novelette later.

Do you understand that you can't have "Black" without "White"?

Why not? Hundreds of thousands of years ago, there weren't any white people. Everyone was still in Africa.

And it's like, why do you even care? Ok, you think "White identity" is stupid, so what? What do you have against people that wish to identity themsleves in that way? What effect does it have on you? There are also black people that don't wish to have a "Black identity", but that doesn't mean they go around ruining the fun for the black people that do.

Along with this "identity" usually comes hate speech and calls to discrimination and violence. None of those are good things.

Yeah if you really break things down everything becomes arbitrary, but so what? By the same logic we can also say that different breeds of dogs are not really different "races". Hell, if you really want to get into it all forms of biological classification are ultimately arbitrary. That doesn't change the fact that we have a natural tendency to group things in these ways.

Dunno about you, but I think it's pretty important to know the difference between a human and an earthworm. At least if you're hoping to have offspring. They're not going to be successful as breeding pairs.

Dog breeds is probably the worst example you could have come up with, because they are entirely the opposite of how you are asking us to imagine human races. Dogs are, in the first place, man-made: wild dogs are wolves, and must be deliberately bred by humans to take on the diversity of appearances we see in the modern domestic dog. There are no pugs, bulldogs or mastiffs in nature. Second, the breeds are themselves works of fiction, drawn up by private organisations, and defined by certain physical standards rather than by strict hereditary. That's why these standards are so aggressively policed.

This was true. It isn't true anymore. If you take a stray male pug and a stray female pug and they mate, the offspring will be pugs, not wolves, not poodles, not Basset hounds.

In 1986, my tortoiseshell cat had 5 kittens. Three were tabbies (all very different types), one was tortoiseshell, and one was tuxedo. While not all of those kittens were sired by the same male, none of them were anything other than DSH (domestic short-haired cats).

Honestly, I tend to feel really uncomfortable in any groups that is more than 80% homogeneous, whether racially, politically, culturally, etc. That just seems unnatural. Groupthink is dangerous.

That must just apply to in-person groups, then, since CFC is very likely overwhelmingly populated by male Americans who own computers and have some interest in such areas of pop culture as TV, movies, music, and gaming.

Almost none of the technological advancements from Europe were anything more than minor refinements of techniques borrowed from other continents.

I'll grant that the Chinese had some interesting inventions (gunpowder, for example) and they had their version of the printing press... but it's to Johann Gutenberg that the modern world owes its widespread literacy. Back around the turn of the century (the last turn, 16 years ago), A&E had a 2-night special, in which they had a countdown of the 100 most influential people of the previous 1000 years. There were theologians, clerics, politicians, entertainers, athletes, even Princess Diana(!)... but getting down to the last few, that's when the truly influential came up: Newton, Galileo, Shakespeare... and the #1 spot - the most influential person of the past 1000 years was Johann Gutenberg.

Gotta ask: Who invented the telescope? I was always taught that it was a Dutch invention, and Galileo was the first to use it for astronomical purposes.

If you want to make this claim, you'd need to clarify what the West "owes" Arabs. But usually when people say this, they talk about the Arab world storing the texts of ancient Greek thinkers. They did do this but even if they hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered as the Byzantines stored them anyway.

Does the year 1453 ring a bell? The year Constantinople fell to the Ottomans? They could have destroyed everything if they'd wanted, but didn't. Some things were preserved.

Do you still write your numbers as Roman numerals? When you need a symbol for "zero", do you have one? Thank the Arabs for the fact that nowadays we use Roman numerals either for tradition's sake or for decoration (for instance, I prefer wall clocks and watches with Roman numerals vs. Arabic numerals; it just looks more traditional, but I wouldn't want to use them to do my taxes).

the vast majority of white people really do seem to just end up in a giant vat called "white" with no real connection to their ancestry. Ditto Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, although there might be slight differences there.

In North America it depends on how long ago one's ancestors immigrated. There are some snooty right-wingers here who think that only people whose ancestors came here prior to 1850 are "real" Canadians; the term our thankfully ex-PM Stephen Harper used during the 2015 election was "Old-stock Canadians." By his definition, I'm "new stock" since my ancestors have only been here a century (on my grandmother's side) and not quite a century (on my grandfather's side). On my mom's side? Dunno, and don't care.

As far as neighborhoods go, I lived most of my life in white neighborhoods. There were some Chinese kids in the public schools, and a family of East Indian kids in the county school I went to. I never started living in the more obvious multicultural communities until moving to my first apartment (a neighbor had been a child soldier in Africa), and the building I live in now has a lot of people from various regions of the world.

Some would wonder why I don't move, or push them to move. Well, why? As long as they're quiet, keep the rules, and are courteous, I really don't care if they're white, black, plaid, or paisley.

I might even pull the speciest card against cancer, our common enemy.

You do know that humans aren't the only species that can get cancer, right? It's what killed my first cat and one of my dogs.

individual/family > extended family/clan > tribe > ethnicity > race

Most people would include state/province and country somewhere in that.

What we really need is to find life on other planets. Then "the other" won't even have evolved on this planet.

It's gonna take a very long time to get anywhere close to IDIC.

See, you're doing it again. "History's biggest bastards" -- you seem to be not just interested in removing racism, but actively putting down White people as a group. You've could have just as easily said "History's greatest inventors" or "History's greatest thinkers" or "History's greatest civilization builders" but instead you opted for the glass half-empty approach. I choose to take the glass half-full approach, because I believe that is a much healthier way to view oneself.

A half-full glass is still half-empty. The poster did use the word some. He didn't say all.

What if I told you white identity wasn't some malicious conspiracy, but rather just a way to feel good about oneself?

Personally, I would say you're either being disingenuous or naive. We have white supremacy groups here in Canada, in my province, and some of them have either formed political parties or have joined other established parties. Our former Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, used to work for one. It's an open secret - something people usually get censored for mentioning in the comment section of our national broadcaster's website, but it's true. The original political party the Conservative Party of Canada morphed from, the Reform Party, started in my province, and the first leader realized that if the party was to have any credibility at all, he'd have to kick out the white supremacists (at least the ones who openly advertised their bigotry). Some of those either formed their own political fringe parties or they sneaked back into the Reform/Alliance/Reformacon party after Stephen Harper became leader.

I have to ask: Why can't you feel good about yourself for your own personal achievements? Just you personally - like something you achieved in school, at work, some hobby you have, or if you excel at a sport. Why is everything tied to the color of your skin? I really don't understand that. The year I won a medal from the Western Board of Music for taking the top mark in my organ exams, the examiner couldn't have cared less about the color of my skin. What mattered was how well I could play, knew my definitions and facts regarding various musical forms, read sheet music, and sing on key, using sheet music I'd never seen before.

What would it take to convince you that there is no conspiracy?

Get rid of all the hate groups. Make it so teachers could never indoctrinate students in Holocaust denial, or politicians could never spew hate speech in the guise of "patriotism" or "values."

I mean we are reaching peak levels of anti-White hysteria. All over the country people are desecrating historical monuments to White people. They are digging up the graves of Confederate soldiers. These are people's ancestors that fought and died at war! How much more disrespectful can you get?

The anthropologist/archaeologist part of me says that destroying cultural artifacts, no matter how much I may personally disapprove of them, is wrong. The monuments are to people who approved of slavery, and our modern world now considers slavery to be immoral.

Digging up the graves should not be happening. Only graves deemed to be hazardous for reasons of public health, or for forensic reasons should be disturbed.

My own take on the statues is that they should be moved to a museum or other educational facility where the public can learn the more balanced version of history that many probably weren't taught in schools, depending on which school system they attended.

So, what are positive uses of "white people"? A sense of tribal belonging. A sense of family. A sense of a shared European heritage. I care that there are other people that look like me. I don't want to be the only white guy around. I don't want to be blamed for stuff I had nothing to do with because of my race. I don't want my daughter being taught that she has "white privilege" in school while other kids are taught they are "oppressed" by her. I don't want her to grow up in a country where she is a hated minority, a country that her ancestors built.

I hope you would want your daughter taught that there were thriving civilizations throughout North and South America for many thousands of years before the Holy Year of 1492, the point at which far too many Americans think history really started on this continent.

Y'know what? Put you on a ship full of aliens for any length of time, and you would probably be grateful to have another human around. Any human, no matter the skin color.

The fact that 99.9% of humans for 99.9% of history lived this way seems to suggest that it is entirely natural. The fact that despite our best efforts at forcing integration, people still live in relatively segregated neighborhoods. Even Blacks prefer to live amongst themselves, and neighborhoods routinely flip from Black to Hispanic. Inner city gangs, prisoners, kids at school lunch all segregate based on race. In every multi-racial societies there exists racial tension.

Welcome to the potential "new natural." Of course you didn't get much mingling before travel became really easy and much cheaper.

As for kids at school self-segregating, that's not something I ever noticed. But then I grew up in a country where multiculturalism is government policy.

@civver_764

Did you know that long ago, North America was not a white majority? In fact there was an entirely other race of people who lived here. Are you opposed to colonialism? Do you wish white people had never become the majority in North America? Because otherwise claiming that white people deserve to maintain their majority in North America makes no sense.

In fact, this historical fact disarms the entire argument. Say that the apocalyptic influx of Muslims and Latinos does happen and the United States in thrust into a dystopia of diversity. Would you then say, "fair game. Now they own this country and deserve to maintain their majority." Or would you hark back to the glory days of white majority?

Because if your belief is that whoever is the "majority race" of a region deserves to maintain that majority, then you must be the world's greatest native peoples activist who supports the return of federal lands to native tribes and is highly critical of the foundations of nation-states like the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.

Otherwise this argument is hypocritical to the point of utter dismissal on purely logical grounds, before even considering the racist implications.

These are excellent points, which show how utterly hypocritical the "whites did everything worth doing in North America" attitude is. The first Europeans got here around 1000 AD, and left evidence behind - a small Viking settlement at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada. Leif Eriksson's people were there, on a trip to find new sources of wood and other resources needed by their colony on Greenland. They didn't stay long; there were clashes with the local Native people, and ultimately the Greenland colony didn't survive. But they were here first - 500 years before Columbus.

And in the meantime, the aboriginal civilizations of both North and South America continued. They had vast trade routes, some of them had sophisticated cultures with literacy, bureaucracy, they knew mathematics and engineering, and had complex spiritual beliefs.

 

[Hehehe]

Their permit was for a gathering and speakers in the park on Saturday. The Friday night terror march with torches was just a "fun thing to do while in town." The local police were confronted about trying to break it up by the reality that it would almost certainly lead to a deadly confrontation. So your continuous "well they had a permit so they were okay" defense falls flat.

If they really were marching without a permit, then I suppose the police has grounds to break it up. I feel like we're going circles here.

The Holodomor is primarily a propaganda myth of Ukrainian nationalists. There was indeed a famine in the country. Not only in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, but also in the Volga region and in the Kazakh USSR, and even in the territory of Ukraine that was part of Poland. The reason for the famine is a cold winter and a dry summer, and not a purposeful genocide. The state helped people - distributed food aid, created shelters for orphans, etc. The perpetrators of the ill-considered food policy were punished.

The second cause of hunger is the non-effective use of land. The land was either from poor peasants who could not effectively process it. Either the kurkuls that speculated with grain, therefore, were interested in starvation, since this increased the price of grain many times over. The state solved this problem - it created collective and state farms.

Ah, I see. So you are a soviet equivalent of a holocaust denier. I guess I could quote you the Holodomor wiki page, but this is going off-topic anyway.

And yet I would argue that the natural state of a society's products is under collective ownership by the society, and that the theft occurs when individuals or small groups and classes try and claim ownership over things.

Equal distribution of wealth either is or isn't. There is no middle ground, because those with more will always establish themselves as the powerful class.

I said "more equal", as in more equal than it is now. Not as in "completely equal". And equality in and of itself is a difficult concept too. Yeekim already explained some of the problems with your "equality". I would add to that the distinction between equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes.

Does the year 1453 ring a bell? The year Constantinople fell to the Ottomans? They could have destroyed everything if they'd wanted, but didn't. Some things were preserved.

What? What kind of argument is this? Yes, the Ottomans converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque, instead of destroying it. Why should I be grateful for any of this? This is like saying "yeah sure I broke into your house and stole all of your valuables, but I didn't kill your entire family although I could have. You're welcome!"

Do you still write your numbers as Roman numerals? When you need a symbol for "zero", do you have one? Thank the Arabs for the fact that nowadays we use Roman numerals either for tradition's sake or for decoration (for instance, I prefer wall clocks and watches with Roman numerals vs. Arabic numerals; it just looks more traditional, but I wouldn't want to use them to do my taxes).

And do you know where these Arabic numerals (aka Hindu-Arabic numerals) come from? Do you know where zero comes from? These were all Indian inventions. I suppose you could credit Arabs for transmitting that knowledge to the West, but I daresay that even if they didn't exist, someone else would have transmitted that knowledge.

If you actually look into the intellectual achievements of Arabs, you'll find out that the vast majority of them were not done by Arabs

 

[Berzerker]

Most people would include state/province and country somewhere in that.

Those are artificial distinctions

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Opinion
Donald Trump is operating straight from the white supremacist playbook: Neil Macdonald
Trump's supporters cannot, by now, have any doubt about what they put into high office
By Neil Macdonald, CBC News Posted: Aug 29, 2017 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 29, 2017 5:00 AM ET





http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/donald-trump-playbook-1.4265374


See, the racism may be veiled. But it's not any less real for that.

If you read any of the comments on that page, you'll soon see that the right-wingers here do not like Neil Macdonald. They see him as one of the journalists who "always" supports the Liberal Party (which they hysterically see as communist/fascist/pro-Muslim/pro-whatever else they don't like), and insist that CBC is nothing more than the Liberal Party's propaganda tool (in spite of 9/11 of the people on the board of directors being Stephen Harper-appointed Reformacon supporters/donors).

What? What kind of argument is this? Yes, the Ottomans converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque, instead of destroying it. Why should I be grateful for any of this? This is like saying "yeah sure I broke into your house and stole all of your valuables, but I didn't kill your entire family although I could have. You're welcome!"

I wasn't even thinking about Hagia Sophia, since we were talking about knowledge, not buildings. Yes, the Ottomans could have utterly destroyed everything if they'd wanted - documents, literature, history, artifacts... but they didn't. They showed some bit of respect for the artifacts and knowledge of the people they had conquered.

Shame the Spaniards didn't do the same with the Aztecs and Incas. And thanks to the English and French not doing that with the aboriginal people here in Canada, right now we've got a huge argument going on over whether to rename all the schools in Ontario that bear the name of our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. He was also the prime architect of the residential schools, which were intended to remove the native children from their families and assimilate them into white culture by educating them. However, the reality was that these places were church-run and the kids' languages and culture were literally beaten out of them, and many were sexually abused as well.

And do you know where these Arabic numerals (aka Hindu-Arabic numerals) come from? Do you know where zero comes from? These were all Indian inventions. I suppose you could credit Arabs for transmitting that knowledge to the West, but I daresay that even if they didn't exist, someone else would have transmitted that knowledge.

If you actually look into the intellectual achievements of Arabs, you'll find out that the vast majority of them were not done by Arabs

Wikipedia has this to say about the invention of the zero:

Middle Ages
Transmission to Islamic culture
See also: History of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system
The Arabic-language inheritance of science was largely Greek,[38] followed by Hindu influences.[39] In 773, at Al-Mansur's behest, translations were made of many ancient treatises including Greek, Roman, Indian, and others.

In AD 813, astronomical tables were prepared by a Persian mathematician, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, using Hindu numerals;[39] and about 825, he published a book synthesizing Greek and Hindu knowledge and also contained his own contribution to mathematics including an explanation of the use of zero.[40] This book was later translated into Latin in the 12th century under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum. This title means "al-Khwarizmi on the Numerals of the Indians". The word "Algoritmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name, and the word "Algorithm" or "Algorism" started meaning any arithmetic based on decimals.[39]

Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi, in 976, stated that if no number appears in the place of tens in a calculation, a little circle should be used "to keep the rows". This circle was called ṣifr.[41]

Transmission to Europe
The Hindu–Arabic numeral system (base 10) reached Europe in the 11th century, via the Iberian Peninsula through Spanish Muslims, the Moors, together with knowledge of astronomy and instruments like the astrolabe, first imported by Gerbert of Aurillac. For this reason, the numerals came to be known in Europe as "Arabic numerals". The Italian mathematician Fibonacci or Leonardo of Pisa was instrumental in bringing the system into European mathematics in 1202, stating:

After my father's appointment by his homeland as state official in the customs house of Bugia for the Pisan merchants who thronged to it, he took charge; and in view of its future usefulness and convenience, had me in my boyhood come to him and there wanted me to devote myself to and be instructed in the study of calculation for some days. There, following my introduction, as a consequence of marvelous instruction in the art, to the nine digits of the Hindus, the knowledge of the art very much appealed to me before all others, and for it I realized that all its aspects were studied in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily, and Provence, with their varying methods; and at these places thereafter, while on business. I pursued my study in depth and learned the give-and-take of disputation. But all this even, and the algorism, as well as the art of Pythagoras, I considered as almost a mistake in respect to the method of the Hindus (Modus Indorum). Therefore, embracing more stringently that method of the Hindus, and taking stricter pains in its study, while adding certain things from my own understanding and inserting also certain things from the niceties of Euclid's geometric art. I have striven to compose this book in its entirety as understandably as I could, dividing it into fifteen chapters. Almost everything which I have introduced I have displayed with exact proof, in order that those further seeking this knowledge, with its pre-eminent method, might be instructed, and further, in order that the Latin people might not be discovered to be without it, as they have been up to now. If I have perchance omitted anything more or less proper or necessary, I beg indulgence, since there is no one who is blameless and utterly provident in all things. The nine Indian figures are: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. With these nine figures, and with the sign 0 ... any number may be written.[42][43]

Here Leonardo of Pisa uses the phrase "sign 0", indicating it is like a sign to do operations like addition or multiplication. From the 13th century, manuals on calculation (adding, multiplying, extracting roots, etc.) became common in Europe where they were called algorismus after the Persian mathematician al-Khwārizmī. The most popular was written by Johannes de Sacrobosco, about 1235 and was one of the earliest scientific books to be printed in 1488. Until the late 15th century, Hindu–Arabic numerals seem to have predominated among mathematicians, while merchants preferred to use the Roman numerals. In the 16th century, they became commonly used in Europe.

Source.

So... they didn't invent it, but they're the people we got it from.

 

[Hehehe]

I wasn't even thinking about Hagia Sophia, since we were talking about knowledge, not buildings. Yes, the Ottomans could have utterly destroyed everything if they'd wanted - documents, literature, history, artifacts... but they didn't. They showed some bit of respect for the artifacts and knowledge of the people they had conquered.

Again, none of this makes any sense. Why should I be in any way grateful towards the Ottomans at all? Why on earth would you expect that?

That's like saying that Jews should be grateful to Hitler for gassing them, because Hitler could have burned them alive or something. No, no, no, no. The Ottomans conquered the Byzantines. I consider this to be morally wrong on their part. Sure, their occupation could have been worse. Anything could always have been worse. So what? The Ottomans did a crime. And you're asking me to appreciate them for not committing an even bigger crime? How does this point even relate to anything? Why are you bringing this up?

Are you suggesting that the Ottomans were somehow super-enlightened conquerors, especially compared to the West? All on the basis of one anecdote?

Shame the Spaniards didn't do the same with the Aztecs and Incas. And thanks to the English and French not doing that with the aboriginal people here in Canada, right now we've got a huge argument going on over whether to rename all the schools in Ontario that bear the name of our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. He was also the prime architect of the residential schools, which were intended to remove the native children from their families and assimilate them into white culture by educating them. However, the reality was that these places were church-run and the kids' languages and culture were literally beaten out of them, and many were sexually abused as well.

Are you trying to start a historical game of tit for tat? Why? Why does any of this matter in any way? How does this comparison play into anything at all?

And if you really want to compare the history of the West compared to the Islamic world, you might want to look into Islamic slave trade (both on the European and African continents), the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans and the Armenian genocide. Also perhaps the Timurid empire was more Mongol than Islamic, but they racked up quite a kill count, if any of this matters. I mean bad schools certainly weren't the worst crime Timurids ever committed.

Wikipedia has this to say about the invention of the zero:

Source.

So... they didn't invent it, but they're the people we got it from.

Why are you quoting Wikipedia to me? That just confirms what I said, and it contradicts your original point. Why? Do you honestly think that I don't know this, after I just told you this?

I know I only took two university courses on the history of science, but I know who Brahmagupta and Al-Khwarizmi are.

 

[inthesomeday]

What's the argument here? Every time one group of people takes authority over another, terrible things happen. West or East or Islamic or Indian.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Again, none of this makes any sense. Why should I be in any way grateful towards the Ottomans at all? Why on earth would you expect that?

Oh, FFS! Where did I say you should be grateful? Stop putting words on my keyboard.

That's like saying that Jews should be grateful to Hitler for gassing them, because Hitler could have burned them alive or something. No, no, no, no. The Ottomans conquered the Byzantines. I consider this to be morally wrong on their part. Sure, their occupation could have been worse. Anything could always have been worse. So what? The Ottomans did a crime. And you're asking me to appreciate them for not committing an even bigger crime? How does this point even relate to anything? Why are you bringing this up?

Simmer down. I'm very much against Holocaust denial, and despise anyone and everyone who engages in it. I'm in favor of Canada's hate speech laws which make Holocaust denial illegal.

As for the Byzantines, I am saying that the fact that they didn't utterly destroy the Byzantine people's cultural artifacts should be acknowledged. You don't have to be happy about it, grateful about it, or whatever. Just acknowledge it as a fact that happened.

You really shouldn't make such a panic out of this. Relax, it's a long weekend.

Are you suggesting that the Ottomans were somehow super-enlightened conquerors, especially compared to the West? All on the basis of one anecdote?

Are you trying to start a historical game of tit for tat? Why? Why does any of this matter in any way? How does this comparison play into anything at all?

And if you really want to compare the history of the West compared to the Islamic world, you might want to look into Islamic slave trade (both on the European and African continents), the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans and the Armenian genocide. Also perhaps the Timurid empire was more Mongol than Islamic, but they racked up quite a kill count, if any of this matters. I mean bad schools certainly weren't the worst crime Timurids ever committed.

Why are you quoting Wikipedia to me? That just confirms what I said, and it contradicts your original point. Why? Do you honestly think that I don't know this, after I just told you this?

I know I only took two university courses on the history of science, but I know who Brahmagupta and Al-Khwarizmi are.

I could have asked you for a link, but that tends to produce the reaction of "Google it yourself" (which is rude) or "You're calling me a liar" (which is untrue).

The point is not who discovered zero. The point is that the Europeans acquired this knowledge from the Arabs.

The rest of your rather overly-excitable post is not something I have the inclination to respond to.

 

[Красный Комиссар]

So far no strong state has conquered Chiapas, as much as Mexico has tried. Likewise, Rojava continues to hold its own against powerful enemies.

A closer-to-home example for you would be the PRD, in the former Ukraine. They've fought the fascists on the streets and won consistently, as well as maintaining internal defense. The fact is that any army is built of citizens, and those citizens can arm and organize themselves with or without a state lording over them. You forget that the Red Army started this way, as a very well-organized militia of the people independent of a state.
.

I do not agree with you about the Donbass completely. These republics declared themselves to be states. Chose the government. The history of the NDP begins in 1918, when the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donets-Krivoy_Rog_Soviet_Republic) separated from the UPR (and these were also states) The current separatists were just taking their example. They purposefully organized the state. Yes, small and with support from outside. But this state.

The Red Army also fought for Soviet power and the state, the republic of Soviets. Although the anarchists in this army were present.

But the ultimate goal of any communist is the establishment of a society free of economic hierarchy, no?

I agree.

The existence of the state undermines and disarms this in its entirety. Anarchy does not mean chaos, it means decentralization of power until complete equality can be reached.

But I do not agree with this. In the sense that it is not possible for a man with capitalist thinking to place one moment in the society of victorious communism. Imagine that tomorrow came communism, everything is free, no one forces you to work, there is no police and army. What will people do? They will go to plunder and kill, because thinking has not changed.

I was born in the USSR, in this country the worker could talk to the director as an equal and live in the same house with a deputy. There was equality. But most of the thinking remained capitalistic. The desire for accumulation has not disappeared even to half a century of Soviet power. Most of my friends still today, after almost 30 years, have many items bought at home in the USSR. Utensils, household appliances, clothes, cloth, spare parts for cars ... People did not even use this stuff, it's new. And the question "why did you buy it?" They can not clearly answer. But I repeat, these were people born in a stable socialist country. The economic basis of the United States allows us to declare communism today, but people are not ready for it. They will kill each other by sharing junk.

First you should achieve equality, but only after that think about decentralization and anarchy. (Although I repeat, I am for the existence of the state)

The ruling classes will not agree to equality. For them, this is destruction. They will have to fight with them. (This happened in the USSR during the Civil War)

Because the monuments are being taken down by the government, it's essentially a meaningless gesture, and I would prefer they were dismantled by organized groups of citizens. However, I do think they must be taken down as a symbol of class oppression (manifested as race), and protesting this is reactionary to the greatest degree.

In Ukraine, nationalists demolished monuments to Lenin and other Soviet leaders. Monuments are history. Demolition of monuments, renaming of cities and streets is an insult and humiliation of those who respect these statesmen. This is one of the reasons for the civil war in the Donbass.

Slavery is bad, but prescribing the history of the country is dangerous. In the US, a lot of weapons from the population and there is an atomic bomb. Civil war can be terrible. In your country, the opposing sides and ideology are already clearly defined. Even the scenarios of confrontation are similar to what was in Ukraine. The only difference is that in the US so far there have been no "unknown snipers" and "sacred sacrifices"

If you're asking what my ideal goal is, it is the establishment of a post-hierarchy global human society. This society would have economic surplus of necessity goods (already achieved) as well as luxury goods (easily achieved after the means of production are retaken by the people). These goods would be distributed to the global population equitably.

Eventually all human hard labor would be fazed out as most agricultural or industrial jobs would be mechanized, leaving the population free to pursue artistic and scientific endeavors.

The idea is good, I share it. But I do not understand why this should be abandoned by the state.

I suppose that without the state power will be seized by large companies (corporations) or private armies.

 

[Senethro]

Maybe you shouldn't have placed Russian statues in places you pissed off and then could no longer occupy?

 

[Hehehe]

Oh, FFS! Where did I say you should be grateful? Stop putting words on my keyboard.

As for the Byzantines, I am saying that the fact that they didn't utterly destroy the Byzantine people's cultural artifacts should be acknowledged. You don't have to be happy about it, grateful about it, or whatever. Just acknowledge it as a fact that happened.

You really shouldn't make such a panic out of this. Relax, it's a long weekend.

I failed to see why you would bring it up. In fact I still don't understand why you brought it up in the first place. Yes, it could have been worse, and I've never denied that. But I still don't see how it relates to anything.

Simmer down. I'm very much against Holocaust denial, and despise anyone and everyone who engages in it. I'm in favor of Canada's hate speech laws which make Holocaust denial illegal.

Holocaust denial is absolutely stupid flat-earth level conspiracy stuff mixed with anti-semitism, but I'm not sure why it should be illegal.

I could have asked you for a link, but that tends to produce the reaction of "Google it yourself" (which is rude) or "You're calling me a liar" (which is untrue).

Is there still something that you would like a link for? In my opinion, it's not unfair of you to ask for one.

The point is not who discovered zero. The point is that the Europeans acquired this knowledge from the Arabs.

But I don't see why you would credit the Arabs for something they didn't invent, but merely transferred. I mean my chemistry book didn't invent chemistry, it simply transfers that knowledge. I feel no gratitude towards that book, but rather to the people who discovered the stuff the book talks about. I mean I daresay that that information would have been transferred even if the Arabs had never existed.

 

[Красный Комиссар]

2) Present Ukraine is a paradise compared to Ukraine in 20s, 30s and 40s.

Let's compare it with the Paleolith.

3) Present Ukrainians have an important advantage over Soviet Ukrainians - they are free to seek better life elsewhere.

Oh yeah! Since 1991 and until the coup in 2013 the population of Ukraine has decreased from 52 million to 46 million. And now it's not known whether 40 million exist or not. Only they did not go for democracy, but for a piece of bread.

Migration in the Soviet era was also present. Yes, it was more difficult to go outside the USSR, but not impossible. But it was possible to go to any end of the USSR, and this is 1/6 of the entire land. At what the trip did not suffice the worker's salary.

Today I can go to Europe without a visa. (This is popularized as the main achievement of the "Maidan".) Only for my salary of $ 140 per month there is nothing to buy. And I'm not going to work as a toilet washer in this Europe.

But going back to the topic. Ukrainian nazis are very proud that their compatriots will travel abroad as unskilled workers. This has been a tradition since the Second World War.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If they really were marching without a permit, then I suppose the police has grounds to break it up. I feel like we're going circles here.

We're actually moving into a new circle. This one would be about whether the local PD in a small college city really should be equipped for fighting a war against a heavily armed invading column. Charlottesville PD either is not so equipped or for some other reason did not feel inclined to wage that war. This provides further evidence that the white supremacists weren't there to 'peacefully support free speech,' but to intimidate.

 

[Hehehe]

We're actually moving into a new circle. This one would be about whether the local PD in a small college city really should be equipped for fighting a war against a heavily armed invading column. Charlottesville PD either is not so equipped or for some other reason did not feel inclined to wage that war. This provides further evidence that the white supremacists weren't there to 'peacefully support free speech,' but to intimidate.

I guess I really don't understand the intricacies of the US policing system. But here the police will call for backup if they need it. They will call in reinforcements from other police departments if they have to. So are you saying that the US law enforcement can't perform its duties properly?