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Trump's budget proposal calls for the elimination of all funding for PBS.
His budget will never pass, but now the Repubs may very well do it themselves, but it will survive anyway, we will just get commercials, or should I say more commercials.
Very interesting, as far as I know there has never been a real communist country in the entire history of countries. I'll wager you came from an authoritarian country, probably self labeled as 'peoples republic" or some such title and labeled by the "west" as communist. Nether label was true. If you can't tell the difference between American liberals (not a monolithic bloc) and those who controlled power in the country you came from then you need to educate yourself and stop believing the right wingers who tell you all liberals are this or that. Its as dumb as believing left wingers who tell you all conservatives (not a monolithic bloc) are this or that.
There's never been a communist country because that technically can't happen at all. A country, as it's conventionally understood, requires a state, and a communist state is a contradiction. Communism advocates for a stateless society. You can't have a stateless state so you can't have a communist state. The countries we generally describe as being communist were/are actually socialist. They may have been led by Communist Party's, but that's a different thing entirely.
And indeed, no political movement is monolithic. There's usually some diversity within each group, unified by a common principal, but not without disagreement. Libertarians tend to be unified by a believe in a governments only duty is to protect people from force or fraud, and ultimately, some may be more interested in protecting one more than the other, so they may argue. Same is true of any political ideology.
With that in mind, I'll finish my point on Communist Party's real quick. According to Marx (who doesn't technically have a monopoly on communist thought), a communist society cannot exist until the means of production have been publicly owned via a socialist state. This is often called the dictatorship of the proletariat. The working class needs to overthrow the ruling class in a revolution and seize the means of production, transitioning a state from capitalist/liberal to a socialist state. This is step one in creating a communist society. But speaking of not being monolithic, not every socialist see communism as the ideal end goal.
Is this thread about Bannon or Fascists? Tonight's PBS "Frontline" is about Bannon. "Populist Nationalism", is what Bannon avows, I think. Right-wingers claim him as he is now in power. Man is conservative socially, hates corruption. Wants to change Washington, including taking on the GOP establishment-- which includes Sessions and Pence. He has a voice, no different than any other...
I'm hesitant to call Bannon a fascist... but in fairness, the only reason for that is because most political movements tend to have an expiration date and that date on fascism has passed. However, political movements that have expired typically still plant the seeds for new ones to rise... I don't feel it's much of a stretch to connect the alt-right as being the descendent of fascism. What's more... I think it might be worse.
Now, before people (who think liberalism and communism are the same) get all pissy with me, it's worse in a very specific way; the name. That probably sounds ridiculous, but I feel I have good reason for that. See, fascism was actually very anti-political. It's whole existence was essentially an effort to undo the political trends in the west created by liberalism. Fascists and socialists agree that liberals suck, but socialists tend to see themselves as moving past liberals while fascists want to move back from them (admittedly oversimplified, but I think it makes the general point). Now, to be very clear, what liberalism did was revive politics. After Rome fell, the world turned away from politics. People just let the church handle things; they didn't want to be apart of it, which is a pretty serious change from the Greeks who basically invented the modern notion of democracy. Fascists opposed politics.
The name 'alt-right' sort of implies the same thing. Ignoring the intense nationalism, anti-rationalism, and heavy critique of recent political thought which ties fascism with the alt-right, just consider what the name suggests. It's an alternative to "the right." What the **** exactly is the right? Well, to the political people, it's nothing. It's a mostly meaningless but sort of convenient umbrella term used to describes a trend in current events. It essentially means nothing. But now it's being used as part of a label of a movement that smells suspiciously similar to a movement that happened only a few decades ago that hated politics. If terms like "right and left" are anti-political, that surely a movement that is using the word 'right' as a signifier has an anti-political flare.
Now, I'm not really making much more of a claim than that. I can't remember who said it, but it was once said that trying to understand an historical or political movement while living in it is sort of like appreciating a painting that's 2 inches from your face. You can technically see it, but you cannot see the big picture. Maybe I'm wrong about the alt-right... I certainly hope so... but if I'm not, it seems like the right thing to talk about right now. Steve Bannon certainly is a part of the alt-right; if I'm correct, having him in the white house is probably not a good thing assuming you like politics.
Laugh all your want, but liberals and communists are essentially the same thing. The difference is in the semantics.
No they aren't. Not even close, but you can tell yourself that if you'd like. Hell, its the Republicans that seem to love communist Russia and China ($$$$) more than the the liberals do.
After Watching the Frontline Documentary on Bannon
To say I was disgusted and alarmed by what this program presented, would be an understatement. Just to think that something so malignant and destructive could come from within our own country, is appalling. How many Trump supporters do you suppose watched this documentary and realized how they'd been played for fools and pulled down a pathway to chaos and regret? Probably not many of them. After all, they're fools, so why would anyone expect that they would become wiser and change?
Frontline was taking the position that Bannon had conceived this whole thing and that Trump was not much more than the frontman for it. Bannon at first thought that Sarah Palin would fill this role and become his puppet-president. That shows how much substance and judgement there is in his thinking. It might be a toss-up between her and Trump, about who could make our nation appear more ridiculous and unstable. We can only hope that as Trump devolves into his madness and is removed, that Bannon will quickly become just a bad and easily forgotten memory.
Last edited by Steve McDonald; 05-24-2017 at 12:35 AM..
It will be interesting to most intelligent people who understand intolerance and the use of fear-mongering to influence people's minds.
it will be "fake news" to Trump supporters, especially the ones who do not even watch it.
Ya see tiger, most "intelligent people" understood right away this was just another Frontline smear job. It was done well, certainly. And I'm sure many of you had to leave the lights on and pull the blankets over your head when you went to bed last night.
But it was just another smear job...another shot at the Trump administration, done PBS style this time.
Ya see tiger, most "intelligent people" understood right away this was just another Frontline smear job. It was done well, certainly. And I'm sure many of you had to leave the lights on and pull the blankets over your head when you went to bed last night.
But it was just another smear job...another shot at the Trump administration, done PBS style this time.
Please offer examples of what was not factually accurate. Did you even watch the program?
I was disappointed in the Frontline documentary on Steven Bannon, maybe because I knew quite a bit of what was narrated. (I was interested that - in contrast to the way right-wingers claim that PBS/Frontline is one-sided - they included a number of people from the conservative Breitbart.)
But what intrigued me is that Bannon had previously latched onto Sarah Palin, another ignoramus, like Trump, apparently hoping he could ride her coattails into the presidency. I guess he attaches himself to dumb people - he's clearly smarter than either Palin or Trump - in the hopes of manipulating them.
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After Watching the Frontline Documentary on Bannon
