CDZ How did we get to this point?

[JoeB131]

And there was that Milo Yamawhatever.

A negative really can't be proven but I think that when you examine 2016 and compare/contrast it to other elections; historians are going to find that a lot of people who were going to probably vote for Hilary just thought Hillary was going to win and stayed home on election day. They thought that and there was no great shift in the electorate. The election results would have been the same if Jeb Bush had been the nominee. Just my 2 cents.

I think you have a good point that Mac consistently misses. The main reason why Trump won is people just didn't like Hillary. Part of it was misogyny, to be sure, but part of it was the woman has a pretty long history of being involved in questionable behavior and she's kind of unpleasant as a person. It has nothing to so with "Being part of the evil Regressive left" (Hillary was pretty Third Way Centrist) and it wasn't because white people were angry that she said mean things about them.

What I heard a lot more in 2016 from Trump supporters was not praise for anything Trump said, it was because Hillary was a "bitch" and that word we can't say on USMB.

I'll be honest, if the Alternative to Hillary wasn't Trump in 2016, I would have been tempted to vote Republican.

 

[JoeB131]

Trtosky, why do I get the impression you are like a 20-something college radical on the sixth year of a four year program, who doesn't have any real experience in life? I met your type back in the 1980's when I went to college, you were just as amusing then. But let's take your arguments at face value, because at least you make them.

Like the ‘overused’ race narrative, third parties and low turnout are ‘reasons’ without explanation. The question that begs to be asked is ‘WHY’ third party voting, and ‘WHY’ low turnout. One can say that ‘they’re disinterested, or ‘they didn’t like the options they had.’ But again, it must be asked ‘WHY.’

I thought I made that pretty clear. The "why" is that Hillary was never well-liked. She wasn't well liked when she was first lady, and after the 1994 Midterm Spanking, Bill pretty much hid her in the closet for the rest of his term. She wasn't well liked when she ran in 2008, and Obama beat her. She wasn't well liked in 2016, when a large number of Democrats voted for Commie Bernie, a guy who has less business being in the White House than Trump does.

So a lot of people figured, the polling all shows she had it in the bag, I can stay home, I can vote third party, whatever... I'm just not that into her.

Now, that said, the people actually got this right. As awful as the two choices were, she won the most votes.

When Senator Obama campaigned for ‘change,’ proletarians heard a soft word for ‘revolution.’ They wanted a transformative, ‘FDR’ presidency. Instead they got more deportations of immigrants/refugees than all prior Presidents together. They got extrajudicial killings – an international war crime. Bush’ wars continued and broadened. There was the pivot to China. The economy was bled white with a near $1 trillion annual total military expenditure. Domestically, wages, pensions, health care, school budgets, public housing all suffered. Joblessness, mass incarceration, hunger and homelessness thrive. Every year, 1,000 were killed by police, who were increasingly militarized.

Wow, you totally misinterpret why Obama won in 2008. He didn't win because he promised the kind of socialist paradise you want. He won because Bush messed up the economy and got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Nobody really cared that we were peripherally involved in Libya's civil war. It was kind of fun to watch Republicans mourn for Colonel Khadafy, like they forgot the 80's happened. If you were someone who voted for Obama, you kind of got what you wanted. He mostly got us out of Iraq, and he turned the economy around.

Yes, he SHOULD have done more about police killings, but what he did try, people screamed "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE OUR POLICE OFFICERS"? He tried for immigration reform, but yes, he also had to show he was serious about finally enforcing the laws that were already on the books.

Faced with a false ‘choice’ between a symbol of corrupt Washington insiderism and militaristic war criminal, and a despicable miscreant vomited up from the criminal underworld – no ‘blame’ falls on the 46+% of those eligible to vote who made the principled decision not to vote. Under such conditions, elections are a lie. This also means that the Constitution is a lie. And the institutions and processes of state are a lie. The beatific vision of glories yet to be revealed – ever just around the corner of the NEXT election cycle – is a lie. The national narratives which define who we are, what we are about, where we are going and how we are to get there – all of this together is a lie. It is not to be believed.

Again, spoken like a 20 years old who spent too much time listening to professors who've never held real jobs. You know, I'm starting to agree, maybe we SHOULD cut all this college funding if this is what it's producing. Anyway... the main reason why 46% of us don't vote. If you don't live in a Swing State, there's no point. So really, only five states really counted last time- PA, WI, MI, FL, and NC... and as a practical matter, Hillary neglected the first three... which was her own damned fault. Your vote in Congress only counts if you belong to one of 31 Swing districts. The other 400 or so are done deals. Your vote for the Senate only counts if you are in one of nine states that have competitive races...

Voter participation was actually UP in 2016 from 2012. I suspect it will be up even higher this year, as Trump has so inflamed passions on both sides that they will feel a need to have a say on it.

History has caught up with the United States of America. There is no podium in the country where a politician of either party can stand and speak to the working class authoritatively, and especially to working class youth. The bourgeoisie parties squandered the public allegiance. People are waking. Nowhere is that more evident today than with the response of the whole ruling class to the COVID pandemic – forcing children into schools so parents can be forced into factories to enrich the obscenely wealthy. Why should they agree?

Again, not what I'm seeing. What I'm seeing are a lot of people who think COVID isn't real, and that this whole thing is a fraud.

I'd be the first one to agree with you that wealth inequality is a problem. But most Americans, kind of don't see it that way. They are more upset about that welfare person getting food stamps than the rich person getting a new Dressage Horse they slaved away for.

 

[candycorn]

And there was that Milo Yamawhatever.

A negative really can't be proven but I think that when you examine 2016 and compare/contrast it to other elections; historians are going to find that a lot of people who were going to probably vote for Hilary just thought Hillary was going to win and stayed home on election day. They thought that and there was no great shift in the electorate. The election results would have been the same if Jeb Bush had been the nominee. Just my 2 cents.

I think you have a good point that Mac consistently misses. The main reason why Trump won is people just didn't like Hillary. Part of it was misogyny, to be sure, but part of it was the woman has a pretty long history of being involved in questionable behavior and she's kind of unpleasant as a person. It has nothing to so with "Being part of the evil Regressive left" (Hillary was pretty Third Way Centrist) and it wasn't because white people were angry that she said mean things about them.

What I heard a lot more in 2016 from Trump supporters was not praise for anything Trump said, it was because Hillary was a "bitch" and that word we can't say on USMB.

I'll be honest, if the Alternative to Hillary wasn't Trump in 2016, I would have been tempted to vote Republican.

Its off the point another degree but I think her collapse at the 9/11 memorial may have been the thing that did her in with some of the undecideds. You can be a lot of things as President these days. Being frail to the degree where you can't walk to a van is probably not very confidence inspiring.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

I'm assuming you're defining class as a socioeconomic construct

Mac1958:

'...leverage class to push their larger racial agenda.'

Perhaps I ought to have posted this first ...

'Class' derives from Karl Marx' insight that under the Capitalist system, society is organized into three social classes based on relationship with the system of production.

You have an ownership class. These people OWN -- factories, fields, forests, mines, transportation lines [shipyards, dry-docks and vessels; rail yards and railways' airports and airlines; communication lines; energy, etc., etc.]. The ownership class amounts to 1% of the population. That is the bourgeoisie.

You have an investment/banking/finance class. These people INVEST -- in the stuff that the ownership class owns. While certainly priviledged and comfortable, they have no where near the social prestige or wealth as the ownership class. The investment class is the Next 9% after the 1%. That is the petty-bourgeoisie.

You have a working class. These people WORK -- expending labor power and operating everything the ownership class owns, and in which the investment class invests. They have immense labor power and zero political power. The working class is the 90%. That is the proletariat.

The 1% are too few to rule. They would be swept away literally overnight but for the Next 9%. They lack the social status and resources to rule but for the 1%. To gain what each needs to rule, the 1% and the Next 9% form a mutually necessary yet decidedly hostile alliance which is called the ruling class. Together, they make all the political decisions.

The 1% is the Republican Party.
The Next 9% is the Democrat Party.
The 90% is the International Social Equality Party in all its national sections.

The 1% and the Next 9% compete for the divided spoils of the 90%'s labour.
The 90% struggles with both the 1% and Next 9% to take what is its own.
Divided themselves, the 1% and Next 9% unite to subjugate the 90%.

The 1% strategy is to dominate the Next 9% and through it, mediate its dictatorship of the 90%.
The 90% strategy is to break that yoke through global revolution and assume all political tasks.
The Next 9% has no strategy and so it must base its agenda on the interests of the 1% or 90%.

Identity politics is a petty-bourgeoisie Next 9% strategy aimed at advancing a thin layer of privileged [identity faction] presented with progressive rhetoric for working class appeal.

Thus I say -- the class/race connection is that, as with other 'identity issues,' race is a distraction from class interests and exploitation.

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[JoeB131]

Perhaps I ought to have posted this first ...

'Class' derives from Karl Marx' insight that under the Capitalist system, society is organized into three social classes based on relationship with the system of production.

You have an ownership class. These people OWN -- factories, fields, forests, mines, transportation lines [shipyards, dry-docks and vessels; rail yards and railways' airports and airlines; communication lines; energy, etc., etc.]. The ownership class amounts to 1% of the population. That is the bourgeoisie.

You have an investment/banking/finance class.

Okay, buddy, this is where you are confused... I realize that you don't get this, but most of us are in the "investor class" now, in that we have pensions, investments, 401Ks., etc.

Now, this kind of commentary kind of made sense in Marx's day, when the industrial working class lived in horrible conditions... but it's certainly not true today. Today we have middle class working folks living very nice lives in the suburbs.

Of course, you have the One Percent who've been trying to do backsies on this... and that's what you need to fight back against.

But the Marxists were kind of wrong about everything.

I want to add one more issue to this thing of Class. I know a lot of black folks in the Middle Class, they have good educations, they hold down well-paying jobs... By your silly Marxist definition, they are "Petty Bourgeois"

... and they still tell stories of not being able to get a cab downtown, being pulled over by the police because there's no way a black dude should be driving a car this nice, or being watched by the store owner.

 

[JoeB131]

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

I want to revisit this flawed Premise, because you can't attack the flawed Premises of Mac nearly enough.

Or candidates have been what they've always been, a reflection of ourselves.

One can harken back to William McKinley, who ran a "Front Porch" candidacy in 1896. When he was informed that the US Navy had seized the Philippines, he couldn't find the Philippines on a globe. You all talk about Trump and Biden being clueless...

McKinley further compounded his ignorance by saying it was our mission to "Christianize" the Filipinos, not realizing that they were already 90% Roman Catholic.

Nine of our presidents never attended College... including Harry Truman.

so this idea, that somehow, we have a "decline" in our quality of president? Um.. Not really.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Having read virtually every published collection of Trotsky’s works (as of say 1980 — 4 decades after his assassination) I can report that Trotsky's Spectre gives an entertaining but very inaccurate view of what that old anti-Stalin Communist revolutionary wrote and thought.

Trotsky would never speak of Democratic and Republican Party differences in such a silly way, even though he lived through FDR “New Deal” days. Trotsky was consumed with international issues relating to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and with his desire to build a new “Fourth International.” Also, perhaps, with his own personal legacy.

The U.S. section of his movement, though tiny and much smaller than the Stalinist Communist Party, actually had some notable influence in a few areas of the American labor movement. Trotskyist leadership in Minneapolis during the great Teamster General Strike there in 1934 was significant. His writings also influenced important anti-Stalinist intellectuals like the writer George Orwell. But the Trotskyist movement was persecuted by the FBI (first use of the “Smith Act”), murdered by Stalinists worldwide, and of course wiped out in countries under fascist rule. Today, with the U.S. almost wholly devoid of a class-conscious socialist-inclined labor movement, the “Spectre of Trotsky” may hover like a ghost from the past, but that is about all.

 

[JoeB131]

Having read virtually every published collection of Trotsky’s works (as of say 1980 — 4 decades after his assassination) I can report that @Trotsky's Spectre gives an entertaining but very inaccurate view of what that old anti-Stalin Communist revolutionary wrote and thought.

Again, I peg TS as being about 24, in the sixth year of a four year Liberal Arts program, hanging out with two or three other progressives and quoting mutilated Marxism....

I saw the type back in the 1980's... they were just as funny to watch then as they are now.

 

[Mac-7]

Well, I can’t help you if you believe that the two nominees for president are both unqualified for the job and are both incapable of representing our nation well. That’s not a point of view that can be supported with honest intent.

But allow me to address one of your theories. The idea that our best and brightest have abandoned politics and public service due to the growth of social media and the internet.

After 2016, I became personally involved in my local Dem party. The absolute fact is that, here in my community, dozens and dozens of highly capable people of very high character have raised their hands to become candidates for positions ranging from local environmental boards to US Congress.

That’s not the reason that you seek.

What the op is saying is that he’s smarter than everyone else

and if we dont come around to his way of thinking then we can all go to hell

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

Looking at the "options" we have in November for President, I can't help but wonder how we got here (by the way, if you think your guy is a great option, this thread probably isn't for you). And full disclosure: It could definitely just be me, and maybe I've just become too cynical over years.

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

First, with the advent of the internet and the proliferation of "news" sources (ha ha), I strongly suspect that our REAL "Best & Brightest" know to stay the hell out of politics, since anyone who jumps in will be immediately and viciously attacked in real life, online, and in every other possible way. Their families will be scrutinized to an absurd degree, and they and their families' lives may never be the same again. So we end up with people who just exist only on their egos, everything else be damned.

Second, maybe it's just me/us. Maybe as we age, our cynicism increases and people with big names just impress us less. Maybe the quality of our options hasn't increased much, and my frustration is more about being worn down over time by all the BS than it is about the quality of these people.

Your thoughts?

Seems pretty simple to me.

I think standards have gone way downhill since reality shows and 'Internet Fame' became a thing. Kim Kardassian is famous for what, a sex tape? Her rapper husband is trying to become president. The Orange Virus is President. What more can I say? Many of today's notorious people are deplorable people promoting deplorable causes. It's hard to respect that. The worse part is these people influence other people with their misanthropic values of entitlement, constant disrespect, bullying/erosion of empathy, instant gratification and greed. Sadly, current society awards these values by giving any crackpot a platform to spew their alternate version of reality, and here we are. Dividing makes more money than uniting.

The standards of decorum in our elected offices are all but gone. Turned into a cosmic joke. Any example for future politicians is that you run for office to enrich yourself instead of the public you're supposed to serve and represent.

Due to this, modern American society and our democratic experiment are coming apart at the seams quite nicely.

 

[JoeB131]

The standards of decorum in our elected offices are all but gone. Turned into a cosmic joke. Any example for future politicians is that you run for office to enrich yourself instead of the public you're supposed to serve and represent.

Due to this, modern American society and our democratic experiment are coming apart at the seems quite nicely.

One more time, nothing new under the sun.

A key element of the Andrew Jackson/JQ Adams fight was an argument over Jackson's wife being a bigamist. (She died of embarrassment a few months after the election.)

Grover Cleveland - "Wah, wah, where's my Pa, in the White House, Haw, haw, haw".

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

The standards of decorum in our elected offices are all but gone. Turned into a cosmic joke. Any example for future politicians is that you run for office to enrich yourself instead of the public you're supposed to serve and represent.

Due to this, modern American society and our democratic experiment are coming apart at the seems quite nicely.

One more time, nothing new under the sun.

A key element of the Andrew Jackson/JQ Adams fight was an argument over Jackson's wife being a bigamist. (She died of embarrassment a few months after the election.)

Grover Cleveland - "Wah, wah, where's my Pa, in the White House, Haw, haw, haw".

Thanks for your opinion.

 

[Mac1958]

Looking at the "options" we have in November for President, I can't help but wonder how we got here (by the way, if you think your guy is a great option, this thread probably isn't for you). And full disclosure: It could definitely just be me, and maybe I've just become too cynical over years.

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

First, with the advent of the internet and the proliferation of "news" sources (ha ha), I strongly suspect that our REAL "Best & Brightest" know to stay the hell out of politics, since anyone who jumps in will be immediately and viciously attacked in real life, online, and in every other possible way. Their families will be scrutinized to an absurd degree, and they and their families' lives may never be the same again. So we end up with people who just exist only on their egos, everything else be damned.

Second, maybe it's just me/us. Maybe as we age, our cynicism increases and people with big names just impress us less. Maybe the quality of our options hasn't increased much, and my frustration is more about being worn down over time by all the BS than it is about the quality of these people.

Your thoughts?

Seems pretty simple to me.

I think standards have gone way downhill since reality shows and 'Internet Fame' became a thing. Kim Kardassian is famous for what, a sex tape? Her rapper husband is trying to become president. The Orange Virus is President. What more can I say? Many of today's notorious people are deplorable people promoting deplorable causes. It's hard to respect that. The worse part is these people influence other people with their misanthropic values of entitlement, constant disrespect, bullying/erosion of empathy, instant gratification and greed. Sadly, current society awards these values by giving any crackpot a platform to spew their alternate version of reality, and here we are. Dividing makes more money than uniting.

The standards of decorum in our elected offices are all but gone. Turned into a cosmic joke. Any example for future politicians is that you run for office to enrich yourself instead of the public you're supposed to serve and represent.

Due to this, modern American society and our democratic experiment are coming apart at the seems quite nicely.

Well, it's appropriate you bring up Kardashian, and that whole story -- mega-celebrity based on pretty much zero talent -- is the best example of a culture in decay, along with Trump.

We've spent the last three generations consistently lowering our standards as a society and culture, and this is the predictable result. The only question is how much worse this gets.

What's the movie about this? "Idiocracy"?

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

Looking at the "options" we have in November for President, I can't help but wonder how we got here (by the way, if you think your guy is a great option, this thread probably isn't for you). And full disclosure: It could definitely just be me, and maybe I've just become too cynical over years.

Anyway, for those of you who agree with me that we've really sunk in the quality of our "leaders" and "candidates", why do you think that is? Right now, I can only come up with two ideas:

First, with the advent of the internet and the proliferation of "news" sources (ha ha), I strongly suspect that our REAL "Best & Brightest" know to stay the hell out of politics, since anyone who jumps in will be immediately and viciously attacked in real life, online, and in every other possible way. Their families will be scrutinized to an absurd degree, and they and their families' lives may never be the same again. So we end up with people who just exist only on their egos, everything else be damned.

Second, maybe it's just me/us. Maybe as we age, our cynicism increases and people with big names just impress us less. Maybe the quality of our options hasn't increased much, and my frustration is more about being worn down over time by all the BS than it is about the quality of these people.

Your thoughts?

Seems pretty simple to me.

I think standards have gone way downhill since reality shows and 'Internet Fame' became a thing. Kim Kardassian is famous for what, a sex tape? Her rapper husband is trying to become president. The Orange Virus is President. What more can I say? Many of today's notorious people are deplorable people promoting deplorable causes. It's hard to respect that. The worse part is these people influence other people with their misanthropic values of entitlement, constant disrespect, bullying/erosion of empathy, instant gratification and greed. Sadly, current society awards these values by giving any crackpot a platform to spew their alternate version of reality, and here we are. Dividing makes more money than uniting.

The standards of decorum in our elected offices are all but gone. Turned into a cosmic joke. Any example for future politicians is that you run for office to enrich yourself instead of the public you're supposed to serve and represent.

Due to this, modern American society and our democratic experiment are coming apart at the seems quite nicely.

Well, it's appropriate you bring up Kardashian, and that whole story -- mega-celebrity based on pretty much zero talent -- is the best example of a culture in decay, along with Trump.

We've spent the last three generations consistently lowering our standards as a society and culture, and this is the predictable result. The only question is how much worse this gets.

What's the movie about this? "Idiocracy"?

'Idiocracy', correct. More of a documentary every passing day.

 

[Correll]

It's actually impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Agreed! And the US' 'rags to riches' bourgeoisie bedtime story is insignificant statistically.

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

both me and my wife are in a better financial situation then our parents were this time in their lives. just saying.

 

[Mac1958]

Having read virtually every published collection of Trotsky’s works (as of say 1980 — 4 decades after his assassination) I can report that Trotsky's Spectre gives an entertaining but very inaccurate view of what that old anti-Stalin Communist revolutionary wrote and thought.

Trotsky would never speak of Democratic and Republican Party differences in such a silly way, even though he lived through FDR “New Deal” days. Trotsky was consumed with international issues relating to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and with his desire to build a new “Fourth International.” Also, perhaps, with his own personal legacy.

The U.S. section of his movement, though tiny and much smaller than the Stalinist Communist Party, actually had some notable influence in a few areas of the American labor movement. Trotskyist leadership in Minneapolis during the great Teamster General Strike there in 1934 was significant. His writings also influenced important anti-Stalinist intellectuals like the writer George Orwell. But the Trotskyist movement was persecuted by the FBI (first use of the “Smith Act”), murdered by Stalinists worldwide, and of course wiped out in countries under fascist rule. Today, with the U.S. almost wholly devoid of a class-conscious socialist-inclined labor movement, the “Spectre of Trotsky” may hover like a ghost from the past, but that is about all.

I think there are a lot of people from that political group who try to bend it to fit our modern-day situation in an effort to make easier to get from here to there.

No thanks. While capitalism has been perverted and polluted since the days of Reagan by elements this weird neo-pseudo-psycho libertarian thought, there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not at all. Capitalism, on a macro level, is fine. It's the way it is being implemented that is the problem.

The not-so-great irony here is that today's Right clearly doesn't understand that controls are a critical part of capitalism, not the bane of capitalism as they've been told. And all they're accomplishing with their shallow, simplistic "defense" of capitalism is making it much easier for the socialists, communists and Marxists to get the attention of more people.

I do wish they would find another hobby.

 

[JoeB131]

I think there are a lot of people from that political group who try to bend it to fit our modern-day situation in an effort to make easier to get from here to there.

No thanks. While capitalism has been perverted and polluted since the days of Reagan by elements this weird neo-pseudo-psycho libertarian thought, there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not at all. Capitalism, on a macro level, is fine. It's the way it is being implemented that is the problem.

No, Socialism doesn't work because it ignores human nature.
Capitalism doesn't work because it indulges the worst in human nature.

It's time to stop acting like those are the only two choices on the menu.

The not-so-great irony here is that today's Right clearly doesn't understand that controls are a critical part of capitalism, not the bane of capitalism as they've been told. And all they're accomplishing with their shallow, simplistic "defense" of capitalism is making it much easier for the socialists, communists and Marxists to get the attention of more people.

Actually, the reason why it's easier to get the attention of people. 40% of the population controls less than 1% of the wealth. the Top 1% controls 43% of the wealth and the top 20% controls 87% of the wealth. When Congress moved to bail us out on Trump Plague, they spent more bailing out corporations than they did helping out the working people who lost their jobs.

Personally, I'm as horrified as you are that Bernie Sanders, who for years was "that Crank from Vermont" is now a major political player... But people like you brought us here. Instead of being thrilled people walked back from the brink and nominated Biden, you are whining that he picked a woman of color as a running mate.

I do wish they would find another hobby.

I wish you'd get another hobby. you get on here every day, trying to sell your Wall Street Politics and why do those people who don't invest have opinions that aren't yours.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

Having read virtually every published collection of Trotsky’s works (as of say 1980 — 4 decades after his assassination) I can report that Trotsky's Spectre gives an entertaining but very inaccurate view of what that old anti-Stalin Communist revolutionary wrote and thought.

Trotsky would never speak of Democratic and Republican Party differences in such a silly way, even though he lived through FDR “New Deal” days. Trotsky was consumed with international issues relating to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and with his desire to build a new “Fourth International.” Also, perhaps, with his own personal legacy.

The U.S. section of his movement, though tiny and much smaller than the Stalinist Communist Party, actually had some notable influence in a few areas of the American labor movement. Trotskyist leadership in Minneapolis during the great Teamster General Strike there in 1934 was significant. His writings also influenced important anti-Stalinist intellectuals like the writer George Orwell. But the Trotskyist movement was persecuted by the FBI (first use of the “Smith Act”), murdered by Stalinists worldwide, and of course wiped out in countries under fascist rule. Today, with the U.S. almost wholly devoid of a class-conscious socialist-inclined labor movement, the “Spectre of Trotsky” may hover like a ghost from the past, but that is about all.

 

[Trotsky's Spectre]

Trotsky would never speak of Democratic and Republican Party differences in such a silly way

Trotsky addressed nothing in a 'silly way.' I on the other hand try to accommodate myself to the political education of the US citizen. That is also something Trotsky would never do. I wasn't aware anyone here had read Trotsky.

On other matters you address, so far as you go Trots would take no exception. I'm not aware of having contradicted those points.

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

 

[JoeB131]

Trotsky addressed nothing in a 'silly way.' I on the other hand try to accommodate myself to the political education of the US citizen. That is also something Trotsky would never do. I wasn't aware anyone here had read Trotsky.

On other matters you address, so far as you go Trots would take no exception. I'm not aware of having contradicted those points.

-- Trotsky's Spectre --

Trotsky's thought process was vastly improved by the application of a pickaxe to his head.