Caesura109 posted:

John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled example of human decency and American service.

As an intern, I learned a lot about the power of humanity in government through his deep friendship with Sen. Kennedy.

He meant so much, to so many. My prayers are with his family. https://t.co/iu28V3snDm

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) August 26, 2018

not even the fucking ttrump people are doing this. big win for civility

"Why is this DSA member acting like a liberal... oh *galaxy brain* "

Ruzbihan posted:

I’ve made it this far without ever finding out exactly what a trust fund is or how it works. No one tell me please

its like a swear jar for when you expropriate surplus value from workers

Today East Bay DSA voted 88 - 65 to NOT endorse Cat Brooks for Oakland Mayor.

As it became clear that Cat was losing the vote, knots of young white men smiled ear to ear, clapped, cheered, exchanged high-fives and fist bumps.

One speaker after another had repeated the bizarre accusation that she is a secret crusader for privatization of schools and healthcare.

Several of the 88 dismissed Cat’s years of work fighting against police terror as empty, ineffectual, rhetoric.

Cat was intentionally disparaged, misrepresented, and disrespected.

It was a palpably racist attack that can’t be tolerated.

Petrol posted:

(Is china imperialist?) ...I think a good way to approach this question would be to refer to the links article about Russian 'imperialism' and research the same data points it relies upon (financial capital and GDP per capita, capital export destinations, etc). I leave this as an exercise for any motivated reader as I honestly don't have the time to devote to this right now, but I'd be keen to see the results.

A month later and i am pleased to report someone took this idea and ran with it. Kind of. Uh https://www.wsj.com/articles/imperialism-will-be-dangerous-for-china-1537225875

sovnarkoman posted:

mr gorbachev, tear down this paywall

its really not worth it, but okay.

Imperialism Will Be Dangerous for China
By Walter Russell Mead
Sept. 17, 2018 7:11 p.m. ET

Spoiler!

China’s real problem isn’t the so-called Thucydides trap, which holds that a rising power like China must clash with an established power like the U.S., the way ancient Athens clashed with Sparta. It was Lenin, not Thucydides, who foresaw the challenge the People’s Republic is now facing: He called it imperialism and said it led to economic collapse and war.

Lenin defined imperialism as a capitalist country’s attempt to find markets and investment opportunities abroad when its domestic economy is awash with excess capital and production capacity. Unless capitalist powers can keep finding new markets abroad to soak up the surplus, Lenin theorized, they would face an economic implosion, throwing millions out of work, bankrupting thousands of companies and wrecking their financial systems. This would unleash revolutionary forces threatening their regimes.

Under these circumstances, there was only one choice: expansion. In the “Age of Imperialism” of the 19th and early-20th centuries, European powers sought to acquire colonies or dependencies where they could market surplus goods and invest surplus capital in massive infrastructure projects.

Ironically, this is exactly where “communist” China stands today. Its home market is glutted by excess manufacturing and construction capacity created through decades of subsidies and runaway lending. Increasingly, neither North America, Europe nor Japan is willing or able to purchase the steel, aluminum and concrete China creates. Nor can China’s massively oversized infrastructure industry find enough projects to keep it busy. Its rulers have responded by attempting to create a “soft” empire in Asia and Africa through the Belt and Road Initiative.

Many analysts hoped that when China’s economy matured, the country would come to look more like the U.S., Europe and Japan. A large, affluent middle class would buy enough goods and services to keep industry humming. A government welfare state would ease the transition to a middle-class society.

That future is now out of reach, key Chinese officials seem to believe. Too many powerful interest groups have too much of a stake in the status quo for Beijing’s policy makers to force wrenching changes on the Chinese economy. But absent major reforms, the danger of a serious economic shock is growing.

The Belt and Road Initiative was designed to sustain continued expansion in the absence of serious economic reform. Chinese merchants, bankers and diplomats combed the developing world for markets and infrastructure projects to keep China Inc. solvent. In a 2014 article in the South China Morning Post, a Chinese official said one objective of the BRI is the “transfer of overcapacity overseas.” Call it “imperialism with Chinese characteristics.”

But as Lenin observed a century ago, the attempt to export overcapacity to avoid chaos at home can lead to conflict abroad. He predicted rival empires would clash over markets, but other dynamics also make this strategy hazardous. Nationalist politicians resist “development” projects that saddle their countries with huge debts to the imperialist power. As a result, imperialism is a road to ruin.

China’s problems today are following this pattern. Pakistan, the largest recipient of BRI financing, thinks the terms are unfair and wants to renegotiate. Malaysia, the second largest BRI target, wants to scale back its participation since pro-China politicians were swept out of office. Myanmar and Nepal have canceled BRI projects. After Sri Lanka was forced to grant China a 99-year lease on the Hambantota Port to repay Chinese loans, countries across Asia and Africa started rereading the fine print of their contracts, muttering about unequal treaties.

Meanwhile, China’s mercantilist trade policies—the subsidies, the intellectual-property theft, and the coordinated national efforts to identify new target industries and make China dominant in them—are keeping Europe and Japan in Washington’s embrace despite their dislike of President Trump.

China’s chief problem isn’t U.S. resistance to its rise. It is that the internal dynamics of its economic system force its rulers to choose between putting China through a wrenching and destabilizing economic adjustment, or else pursuing an expansionist development policy that will lead to conflict and isolation abroad. Lenin thought that capitalist countries in China’s position were doomed to a series of wars and revolutions.

Fortunately, Lenin was wrong. Seventy years of Western history since World War II show that with the right economic policies, a mix of rising purchasing power and international economic integration can transcend the imperialist dynamics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But unless China can learn from those examples, it will remain caught in the “Lenin trap” in which its strategy for continued domestic stability produces an ever more powerful anti-China coalition around the world.

Workers say that Sunkara promised that if workers took a settlement of only 70% of the back wages that they were owed that he would bring them back as staffers after taking over the publication. However, Sunkara in a statement to Payday confirmed that he would not bring the staffers back.

The workers in a series of open letters have accused Sunkara of lying to them and simply taking over the publication to expand Jacobin’s content reach into European markets under the Tribune’s prestigious name.

“In the capitalist world someone who buys an ailing company and dumps its committed workers is known as an asset-stripper or robber baron, but at least they don’t claim to be socialists,” said former Tribune employee Ian Hernon.

ghostpinballer posted:

handjobs on the clock

well hey wait just a second here. next thing you're gonna say is that drinking on the job is a problem!