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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:07:07 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:12:04 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:12:44 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:23:40 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:25:29 GMT -7
Health care for all people
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Post by pieter on Feb 22, 2020 19:37:22 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2020 7:27:03 GMT -7
Buttigieg blasts Bernie: "Sanders' revolution does nothing to change the toxic tone of our politics. I believe the only way to truly deliver any of the progressive changes that we care about is to be a nominee who actually gives a darn about the effect you are having from the top of the ticket." But Bernie Sanders has his answer ready. Watch the video above here to hear his answer to Pete Buttigieg.
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2020 7:29:51 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2020 7:52:40 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Feb 23, 2020 18:52:40 GMT -7
Pieter, although Bernie Sanders was not my favorite nominee I would vote for him if he would become the official nominee of Dem party. I prefer him rather than a billionaire, Bloomberg... since we don't need to have billionaires to share their charity with us.I hope Bernie health would be OK until the elections. I liked this commentary about Bernie versus billionaire election. www.mediaite.com/tv/like-out-of-touch-aristocrats-msnbc-analyst-calls-out-democratic-establishment-chris-matthews-after-bernie-nevada-win/“Something is happening in America right now that actually does not fit our mental models. It certainly doesn’t fit the mental models of a lot of people on TV, it doesn’t fit the mental modesl of a lot of people in the parties, it doesn’t fit our cultural mental models. You have someone talking about, in a way we have not heard, genuine, deeper democracy, popular movements, human equality in a meaningful way, and a politics of love in the tradition of Dr. King. And winning elections, in America, the United States of America. And I just have to say — I’ve been encouraged watching you on air talk about your own rethinking of things, which I think we all have to be in this type of work, I think this is a wake-up moment for the American power establishment. For Michael Bloomberg to those of us in the media, to Democratic Party, to donors, to CEOs. Many in this establishment are behaving, in my view, as they face the prospect of a Bernie Sanders nomination, like out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy. Just sort of ‘How do we stop this How do we block this?’ And there is no curiosity. Why is this happening? What is going on in the lives of my fellow citizens that they may be voting for something I find so hard to understand? What is happening? This is a moment for curiosity in America. I think about this network, which I love, you love, and I think we have to look within also — why is a lobbyist for Uber and Mark Zuckerberg on the air many nights explaining a political revolution to us? Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory of Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holcaoust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France? The people who are stuck in an old way of thinking, in 20th century frameworks, in gulag thinking, are missing what is going on. It is time for all of us to step up, rethink, and understand the dawn of what may be, frankly, a new era in American life.”
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2020 8:35:22 GMT -7
Dear Jaga,
More and more I realise how European I am. Yesterday I finally watched the movie Bombshell in the Arnhem Art House cinema. I watched the incredibly interesting America's Great Divide saturday (part 1: Obama) and Sunday (Part 2: Trump). I have been to the USA only twice in my life. Westcoast (California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah) in februari 1999 and New York - Manhattan (Eastcoast) in June 2008. Although I am from the generation that is influenced by American sitcoms, tv series, Hollywood movies and excellent American Art House movies from New York. I am of course as a cultural and rather academical European more connected to the liberal West-coast and East-Coast than to the South or Midwest of the USA. But that said, like in Europe I try to do my best to see, listen too and open my mind for the rightwing, Populist right and sometimes far right of the USA. Not being conceited, omniscient, nor having a Intellectual giftedness, I do realise that for decades I had followed American press and media also shaped me.
A a European progressive liberal I started to watch and seriously listen to rightwing to far right populist messages, agitprop and statements, because news is news and you can't be partisan as a journalist, cultural person, someone with psychological and sociological interests and therefor I got to understand compatriots, rightwing Europeans and Populists better. I watched PVV and Forum for Democracy, Trumpist propaganda, Fox news intensively, Breitbart, the Republican Party website, saw many and listened to a lot of youtube video's and radio broadscasts of Rush Limbaugh Glenn, The Sean Hannity Show Glenn, The Savage Nation (of conservative commentator and conspiracy theorist Michael Savage), The Laura Ingraham Show, and InfoWars by Alex Jones.
Still the USA is far away, the USA is a different reality, a country on a different (North-American) continent, a different culture, people with a different mindset and different experience and practice of Democracy, a country with different architecture, a different infrastructure, a different history, different monetary system, different economy, different tax system (U.S. tax system), the different political reality of an extremely large and powerful Federal government next to the governments of the National states (Idaho, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, California, New York state, New Hamshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Alabama, Oregon and etc.), the fact that many Americans are a Pan-European mix of European peoples, the fact that many ethnic Americans are more American than European despite their heritage (Polish Americans, Slovak Americans -Kai the Alaskan-, Dutch Americans), the fact that an American civilization exists and is still developing itself, because the USA is an incredibly young nation. As a European in a Eurocentric vision I for a long time had a distorted (a bit of self criticism here) Eurocentric perspective of the USA. In a dream, desire, wishfull thinking and countervailing power Idea we West-Europeans for a long time saw and see a World Anglo-American power of the USA-Canada-the United Kingdom (Great Britain/England)-Australia and New Zealand. I secretly ad White English South-Africans, Zimbabwians (Rhodesians), and British-English and english speaking American expats (diplomats, business people, artists) in the world to that.
In this world intercultural, social, psychological, religious, national, personal, political, financial, economical and sociological certainties begin to crack. In my case there is an anti-thesis between my liberal fatherland and my conservative motherland, the West-Germanic and Western slavic elements. British and American influences shaped me too. Next to that as a European in the North West with a lot of international influences I was exposed to the Belgian Walloon and French culture, Islam in the form of Muslims that are present here in the form of migrants and refugees, the Dutch/Flemish influence due to the fact that I live in the Dutch speaking and Dutch culture zone, and next to that due to Central- and Eastern European influences I was exoposed to and linked to to the Polish, Czech and Hungarian cultures and the fact that Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian, Serb, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Macedonian, White Russian (Belarus), Bulgarian, Romanian, Greek, Armenian, Georgian cultures are present here too. I often encounter women with a Slavic accent, and I admit that I often think, are you Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Serb, Croat or Bosnian?
That USA-Canada-the United Kingdom (Great Britain/England)-Australia, New Zealand, plus white Anglo-African South-Africans and Zimbabwians (Rhodesians) (linked to my blond and blue eyed South-African family) thinking is a white centric, Anglo-Saxon, WASP, Germanic vision of the West. Disconnected from my other half the Polish Slavic Central-European element. An element I am wrestling with. Being raised and educated and worked in a West-European setting with such a huge Anglo-American influence. (I even have to take an effort every time I link myself to German speaking sources, because that is a different mindset than the Dutch ones. English is the second language in the Netherlands. Uk English and American English battle for the number one position. Amongst young people American English is more predominant, my generation was raised and educated with British English). Americans in that 'old', 'old European', 'Eurocentric' perspective of mine were the blond and typical redheads English and Scottish colonisers, expanding English settlers that pushed asside the Native American tribes, the French settlers and the Spanish/Mexican settlers in the South and the Westcoast (Latino California - In LA I saw that the old city centre of LA was typical Latin American, Mexican). The present American president with his German/Scottish square face, bluntness and rather primitive capitalist course looks like the early rough American settlers, who used their elbows, pushing others asside, fighting battles with native Indians, the French settlers (pushing them back to Louisiana and Quebec -Canada-).
Todays USA is polarised, but the positions of the political parties have changed. The Trumpist present day republican party looks more like the Democratic party in the late 19th century and early 20th century and the present day Democratic party with it's democratic party elite and establishment looks more like the Abolitionist Republican party of the 19th century. The present day Republican party according to Wikipedia is a "conservative", "economic conservative", fiscal conservative, and I (Pieter) believe that Trumpist Rightwing Populism and American nationalism is changing the Republic party apparatus, the Republican party machine, the Republican party establisment in Washington D.C. and the capitals of the 50 states, the federal district Washington, D.C., and five major self-governing territories (Puerto Rico). America's Great Divide shows how far the USA today has drifted apart from the original ideals, ideas and practice of the American Democracy of the Founding Fathers.
Democrats, Republicans and Independent Americans understand the dangers of Donald Trump and Trumpism. But Trump is losing support from some hard line conservatives, because he can't deliver some promises and he is hindered by internal party opposition, government employees who ignore his orders, foreign infiltration and possible blackmail and an increasingly uneasy Western partners who do not trust the USA today. They don't know if deals, contracts, negotiations, and cooperation is real or ramshackle, not firm, temporary or not really serious. They believe that Trump is more interested in Putin's interests, Saoudi's interest, American isolationalist causes than in the mutual interest of a firm and stabile Transatlantic relationship and alliance. An Alliance that worked for 70 years on both sides of the Isle and created a lot of prosperity, wealth, peace, stability, economical development, trade, scientific achievements and succesful transatlantic multi-lateral European American cooperation. If the Trump course will continue, the European Union and the European nation states will follow an increasing Isolationalist, Pan-European, Economical nationalist course. Neo-colonalism will emerge, when former European colonial powers will try to establish new relations with former colonies. The French, Germans, the British and the Poles will expand their armies further more and they will realise that despite the resistance towards Brussels and the EU, European cooperation will become more important. Because we face Russian, Chinese, Middle eastern (migration, refugee crisis, Islamization), African (refugee streams) and American dangers (if Trump will follow a hard line anti-European, aggressive trade war policy).
An economical trade war and cultural and visa barriers will be damaging for both the USA and Europe. China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and the despotic Central Asian former Sovjet republics will gain from such a primitive world order. We will return to the 16th century Anglo-Dutch wars, scenes like the Battle of Vienna (German: Schlacht am Kahlen Berge or Kahlenberg (Battle of the Bald Mountain); Polish: bitwa pod Wiedniem or odsiecz wiedeńska (The Relief of Vienna), the bloody French revolution, and I fear and hope not that we might return to the primitive 19th century class society, discord and re-emerging primitive forms of Nationalism, socialism, Populism, religious sectarism and thus the downfall of the West. I hope that the American democracy will reform itself, end the American bi-partisan political aristocracy and the economical patrician class of billionaires. A New American revolution is needed in my perspective. The revolution of the transformatioin of the American political system. A multi-party system would replace the eternal bi-partisan system of the Democratic and Republican aristocracies created by the party machines, political marketing organisations, lobby groups and corporate money. Maybe Bernie Sanders might manage that, maybe new powers will come to the forfront. I watch your political proces from far away, 8 thousand kilometers from the other side of the North Altantic Ocean. I wish the best for my American friends. You have a beautiful democracy, you have a beautiful culture, you have wonderful people and a wonderful country with fantastic landscapes, prairies, forests, mountains, lakes, cities and deserts. I hope you do not end up in a political desert without an Oasis (the American dream, the American democracy and a United America).
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2020 9:20:35 GMT -7
Jaga/John/Kai/Karl/Jeannne/Ludwik/Eric and others,
This Eurocentroc vision is totally outdated and I see the achievements, the struggle, hard work, contributions, and part the Black African Americans and Latino-Americans have had and have in the US society. The American politics, economy, music, culture, cinema, sport, army, agriculture, cities, education system and society of today would not exist without the hardship, suffering, contributions, hard labour (blood, sweat and tears), resilience towards discrimination and simply the taking part in society of the Black Americans and the latino Americans. I hope that in this 21th century, or at least in the 22th century the American civilisation will have reached that point that racism, xenophobia, discrimination, anti-semitism, Polonophobia and islamophobia will be behind us. Bernie Sanders is inclusive, he doesn't discriminates Muslims, Latino's, nor women or other minorities. He might made wrong statements, made mistakes and maybe is not good at admitting them, but he is a good presidential candidate, like the other democratic candidates are. I hope that on the Republican side the Republican party will restore itself as a moderate, centre right, decent conservative party with some liberal elements in it.
And I hope that in the American party system the bi-partisan system will be replaced by a 3 party, 4 party or 5 party system, because that would be more healthy for the USA. Even coalition governments would be good for the USA. I hope that the Green Party, the Reform party and the Libertarian parties will become stronger. More pluriformity, more diversity, more choice, more positions, more ideas, more ideologies and thus more grassrootsmovements, more thinktanks and more political parties would be good for the USA. Not as much as in the Netherlands with it's 13 political parties in the parliament, but 4 or 5 political parties in the US Congress and senate wouldn't be bad. Some Indpendent senators next to the Republicans and Democrats as deal makers, mediators and pragmatic outsiders would be good for the American democracy.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2020 9:49:53 GMT -7
Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analysed the improved living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
In "De La Démocratie en Amérique" (1835) ("Democracy in America") Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years. The Puritan foundingTocqueville begins his study of the U.S. by explaining the contribution of the Puritans. According to him, the Puritans established the U.S. democratic social state of equality. They arrived equals in education and were all middle class. In addition, Tocqueville observes that they contributed a synthesis of religion and political liberty in America that was uncommon in Europe, particularly in France. He calls the Puritan Founding the "seed" of his entire work.The Federal ConstitutionTocqueville believed that the Puritans established the principle of sovereignty of the people in the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The American Revolution then popularized this principle, followed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which developed institutions to manage popular will. While Tocqueville speaks highly of the U.S. Constitution, he believes that the mores, or "habits of mind" of the U.S. people play a more prominent role in the protection of freedom. These include:
- Township democracy ( www.litcharts.com/lit/democracy-in-america/symbols/the-township ) - Mores, laws, and circumstances ( www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%208%20Ethics/Mores_Law_Morality.htm ) - Tyranny of the majority ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority ) - Religion and beliefs ( www.coe.int/en/web/compass/religion-and-belief ) - The family ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family ) - Individualism ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism / www.britannica.com/topic/individualism ) - Associations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_association ) - Self-interest rightly understood ( www.learningtogive.org/resources/enlightened-self-interest ) - Materialism ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism ) - Situation of women ( www.passblue.com/2015/09/24/the-situation-for-women-and-girls-around-the-world-stark/ )
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835–40) was written on the basis of observations, readings, and discussions with a host of eminent Americans, Tocqueville attempted to penetrate directly to the essentials of American society and to highlight that aspect—equality of conditions—that was most relevant to his own philosophy. Tocqueville’s study analyzed the vitality, the excesses, and the potential future of American democracy. Above all, the work was infused with his message that a society, properly organized, could hope to retain liberty in a democratic social order.
The 20th-century totalitarian challenge to the survival of liberal institutions produced by two world wars and by the Great Depression of the 1930s fostered a “Tocqueville renaissance.” The outdated facts of his books seemed less significant than the political philosophy implicit in his search to preserve liberty in public life and his strategies for analyzing latent social tendencies. His work was found to display a wealth of fruitful philosophical and sociological hypotheses. At a popular level, the renewed upsurge of social democracy in Europe after 1945 combined with the polarization of the Cold War to produce a view of Tocqueville in the West as an alternative to Marx as a prophet of social change. Again, as in the late 1850s and 1860s, Tocqueville rose to heights of popularity, especially in the 1990s in the United States, where his travels were retraced. It seems certain that Tocqueville will continue to be invoked as an authority and inspiration by those sharing his contempt of static authoritarian societies as well as his belief in the final disappearance of class divisions and in liberty as the ultimate political value.
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2020 10:04:45 GMT -7
BBC Podcasts 16,8K abonnees
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his examination of the American democratic system. He wrote De La Démocratie en Amérique in two parts, published in 1835 and 1840, when France was ruled by the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe. Tocqueville was interested in how aspects of American democracy, in the age of President Andrew Jackson, could be applied to Europe as it moved away from rule by monarchs and aristocrats. His work has been revisited by politicians ever since, particularly in America, with its analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of direct democracy and its warnings of mediocrity and the tyranny of the majority. With Robert Gildea Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford Susan-Mary Grant Professor of American History at Newcastle University and Jeremy Jennings Professor of Political Theory and Head of the School of Politics & Economics at King's College London Producer: Simon Tillotson.
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2020 10:24:11 GMT -7
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