the US Radlibs that infest the US demsoc/socdem left are literally worst than the 20th century opportunists like Kautsky, they only live to stall actual progress for the american workers only so their side can win like its a fucking game, they dont actually care about anyone but themselfs.
Radlibs will be the death of the US left unless purged from the movement
It's bad politics but I agree in principal that reparations should be prioritised over M4A - reparations to black Americans but also to every victim of American imperialism, including native nations being returned their lands (necessitating the dissolution of the United States) and the turning-over of the profits of every large multinational to the workers of their manufacturies, then the leveling of all of the infrastructure of government and the disbandment of the military, in the interest of reparative justice. Like, morally speaking I mean. So I guess I agree with Dixon on that level but it's not great politics, M4A is popular and those two policies as he conceives them are not in a zero-sum competition
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Like I said it's bad politics and the reparations have to be on a scale unimaginable in the political reality of the US. But put it this way: let's say instead of events well out of the hands of actual Brits leading to both happening (imperfectly as they did happen), you were faced with a choice between decolonization or founding the NHS in the postwar UK. The NHS is probably the best thing the UK ever produced, and it wouldn't mean beans if it were between that and dissolving the empire. Now obviously that's meaningless in terms of actually understanding what happened in the UK, but in the perfect invisible realm of morality, which is the more imperative in terms of making the world better?
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Not solely reparations for slavery no but if you read my post I was talking about a little more than a check for a little more than just black Americans lol, that was also my point. It may be hard to tell but if read carefully is a criticism of Dixon as well as social democracy
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I can and I did 😎. In terms of my contribution in the political sphere, you're right and I understand that it makes more sense to work towards improving the living standards of those suffering around me, so I do try to do that. I don't think I have said otherwise although I was not as clear about that as I should have been at first (I agree with Joy Gray in this thread and in lots else). Thats good politics. Truth is though repairing the damage done to the people of the world by America is more important to me and should be more important to everyone. When my teeth fall out and my fingernails bleed and I lose my mind from lack of health insurance I will still believe that. If I starve I will believe that. If I thought I could advance that end by dying I would die. If I could take from every American a single eye and for each one restore sight to anyone she blinded, I would ask to take two. If I could burn down one American house to unbomb one Iraqi house, I would burn until each bomb used to level that country was undropped and I would probably burn some more for good measure.
We can narrow it though to bring it down from the lofty height of 'destroying America' to something more reasonable but just as impossible. Lets say there was a plan for reparations that could actually address the lasting effects of slavery in America, more or less completely. If it weren't contradictory to that end (since robust social programs do address racial inequity) I would trade M4A for that, I would trade Social Security, I would trade the interstate system, I would trade the New Deal, I would trade Amtrak. I would doom every American to a century of squalor or of foreign domination, an era of national shame and insecurity, if in doing it slavery could somehow be undone. In fact that it will help to achieve that even a little is a huge reason for me in supporting M4A in the first place.
Of course, nothing is so simple. There is no such choice actually being presented. And I know some of my reasons for feeling this way are irrational. I do think there are rational reasons to feel like this - how safe will M4A be while the evil empire fueled by and built on a foundation of suffering is still responsible for administrating it, for example - but it is my moral stance anyway, and I will tell you two reasons why: M4A would only help Americans whereas reparations for America's crimes would help the health of most of the world, to say nothing of sparing future injury; also, (although I hate pokemon-type internet ideology labeling so please forgive me) because I consider myself a communist and not a socdem lmao
you got me on the defensive so bad that I missed a chance to point out you did the "slavery ended 150 years ago" thing like that isn't the standard MAGA response, and also a really just reparations program would benefit more than just black people because our economic fates are entwined, if I accepted your vulcan "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" premise, which I don't, and if it were a response to the point I was actually making, which it wasn't. Quite a bad post I think but sorry for double replying
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Yeah and it's not a coincidence and they in reality were never in conflict because the empire wasn't at that point profitable for the state, and also decolonization wasn't Britain's doing but something their subject nations seized. My hypothetical isn't at all historically valid I was just using it to illustrate what I think is a pretty uncontroversial point here, which is that social democracy for the imperial core alone is less important than redressing the historical injustice of the empire; which is to say, reparations are more important than M4A, politics aside
Dixon's point is dont make dems look bad, he probably doesnt care about reparations, the dissolution of the United States is something i want but this radlib just want to protect their team from progressives making demands
Dixon is just speaking out of pure class interest. He will benefit from reparations, at least how he sees the term "reparations", because he's a black man. He doesn't give a shit about M4A because he has a good job and health insurance, and besides, he survived without it, those poor suckers can just keep whining. Don't fuck up his bag.
If he was serious he would've at least supported Mariam Williamson since she was literally the only person running who had reparations as a serious priority. Instead he just mocked her and her supporters throughout the primary.
He's serious about getting his bag, like all media figures.
I think we are playing politics here.
Yeah I agree more with Joy Gray about the politics, and I sincerely doubt that Dixon is talking about anything of the right scale, but just morally speaking, M4A should be secondary as a goal to correcting the injustices of America's past. Like if in the 50s the UK could choose between (hypothetically speaking since neither was perfect) between decolonization and the NHS, then fuck the NHS really. And I think the NHS is great. It wasn't zero-sum then though just like it isn't here; M4A is a form of racial justice, but just trying to get priorities straight that's where I am
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IDK why you're getting downvoted. We totally should dissolve the USA as our first priority.