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ShinyCottonCandy Everyone's friend Malamar from Lumiose City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Everyone's friend Malamar
#328226: Sep 21st 2020 at 11:49:26 AM

Given the broad tent nature of the democratic party, would any candidate excite a majority of the base?

My musician page
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#328227: Sep 21st 2020 at 11:51:05 AM

I'm not sure why progressives should be *happy* that decade-old ideas being heavily watered down are mainstream. It's basically the bare minimum of progress when we need to be so much more.

Yes, that's the point. We're saying the same thing, just with different emphasis. "It's not enough, but at least we're making progress" vs "We might be making some progress, but it's not enough!". No one's saying that if/when Joe Biden gets elected we can say "alright, we got a moderate Democrat into office, nothing more to be done here, everyone pack it up and go home". We're saying that even if we elect Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or whoever your preferred candidate is, that's still progress.

My point is that the fact that Joe Biden is to the right of Sanders/Warren/whoever is not an indication that the left wing of the Democratic party has failed. The fact that Joe Biden in 2020 is to the left of Joe Biden in 2010 is an indication that they've succeeded. A limited success, to be sure — one that must be continued and expanded upon, absolutely. But still a success, and it's important to acknowledge this.

My concern is when the left wing of the Democrats treat the moderate wing as an enemy to be defeated, rather than as allies to be convinced. By all means, we should pull them as far left as we can as quickly as we can. But we need them to move left with us. Leaving them behind to move farther and farther left on our own is a mistake. Not because those farther-left positions are wrong, but because if we can't convince our closest allies to stick with us as we move left, then we'll never get the whole damn country to.

Yes, this is a slow and painful process. Yes, it's heartbreaking to see people suffering needlessly because people, even our own people, can't get their shit together and get with the program. Yes, we should do everything in our power to reform things as quickly as we can.

But not everyone agrees with our positions and not everyone trusts our judgment. And they have a say in how things run as well — as they should, because they live here too. This is their country as much as it's ours. So our job is to convince them that we're right — to win them over, issue by issue, until we can all agree on the problem and come together to create solutions.

Some people will never be convinced. Some people will fight us to the bitter end on everything we try to do. We can beat these people — but only by working together with the rest of the Democratic party. The left wing Democrats can lead the charge, but we need the rest of the party behind us or we'll never get anything done. We need to work with them against the conservatives and the reactionaries and the authoritarians even as we work on them to convince them to move farther left with us.

All of which is why, yes, the left wing of the Democratic party should be excited about President Joe Biden. Because he represents real and tangible progress. Because he's not just better than Trump, he's better than any previous Democratic president has ever been, and putting him in office gives us a jumping-off point to push things even further left, so that the president after him will be even better than that.

Don't be disillusioned at how much farther we maybe-coulda-hypothetically could've gone. Be excited about how much progress we stand to make anyway.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#328228: Sep 21st 2020 at 11:53:11 AM

T He other problem is that we can't know what an "everything is fixed forever" bill looks like. Such a bill would have looked very differently 100 years, or even 20 years ago. Trans rights were not really seen as very important until the last few decades, for example. Would a "perfect bill" have included trans rights in 1980? Maybe. How about 1940? No way.

And this extends into the future as well. We simply do not know where progressive thought will take us next. What groups could still be enfranchised that even we are overlooking? We simply don't know, because we can't be aware of things that are not visible to us yet. Even the most progressive feminist in 1900 could not have predicted that we would be talking about gay and trans rights today, what's more, they would probably have thought that rather repulsive to consider.

So by analogy, even if we managed to construct a "perfect bill" today, people in the far future could see major flaws with that bill, and even find it disgustingly flawed in who it excluded or overlooked.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#328229: Sep 21st 2020 at 11:56:56 AM

Thank you, Jovian. That's amazingly well-put.

It's been fun.
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#328230: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:04:41 PM

It appears that There is potential for turning Texas blue. A feat that combined with holding our own "fortress" would likely ensure a lockout for Republicans.

Also an article about how minority rule in America is possible and enforced,and also how to solve it.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#328231: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:07:33 PM

Biden is better than any other previous Democratic president? I think you'll have to elaborate on that one.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Zarastro Since: Sep, 2010
#328232: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:07:35 PM

This also assumes that progress is something that is naturally guaranteed and only its' pace is uncertain. The last four years should have taught everybody that there are forces that can and will push back if given the chance.

Maybe Hillary and Biden are not progressive enough for some people. But their election promises at least some progress, while Trump is hell-bent on turning back the clock. And he might very well succeed if he can stack the SC with his candidates who will frustrate the agenda of a hypothetical future progressive president.

Anyone who believes in e.g. LBGT-rights yet does not vote for Biden is in the end just as morally culpable for the consequences as Trump-voters.

Edited by Zarastro on Sep 21st 2020 at 9:07:55 PM

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#328233: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:09:56 PM

@Morning: I'm actually going to be casting my absentee ballot in Houston, so here's hoping. What a coup that would be.

It's been fun.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#328234: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:13:41 PM

Jovian's based as usual I see.

I see no reason that:

1. I can support Biden against Trump because Trump is a literal Nazi.

2. Be pissed at Biden for not being nearly as good an alternative.

Exactly [tup]

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 21st 2020 at 12:13:55 PM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
devak They call me.... Prophet Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
They call me.... Prophet
#328235: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:25:32 PM

"is that we can't know what an "everything is fixed forever" bill looks like"

Fixing the issues we know about would already make the last 100 years of progress look quaint.

Fixing global warming alone requires a rethink of how we do everything, it'll make the industrial revolution look like playing with toys. Our very civilization is not sustainable to it's core. It requires little more than a few glances at some graphs to come to that conclusion. We suck at green energy, recycling, sustainability. Our consumerist lifestyle is killing the planet. My day job is being a material scientist, and basically 99% of the field is busy with enabling us to fix all our problems. Better, smarter, stronger, less waste, more re-use.

But that doesn't do anything unless we build what we build with repair in mind (antithetical to modern consumerism), recycle what we can (antithetical to the plastic lobby) and reduce our use of energy and material across the board (antithetical to the industry and energy lobby). Not just that, but we're already 50 years behind on schedule to do so at an acceptable rate, 100 years behind on preventing any issues, and we're nowhere near actually meeting even "acceptable damage" levels.

It's not the time to hem and haw about banning fracking. Incrementalism is why we haven't done shit since Kyoto, other than incrementally pushing real change forward.

Edited by devak on Sep 21st 2020 at 9:35:16 PM

ShinyCottonCandy Everyone's friend Malamar from Lumiose City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Everyone's friend Malamar
#328236: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:34:12 PM

I think this xkcd sums up the disconnect between social attitudes and political progress pretty well, as well as why it's particularly infuriating since the progress wasn't always so far behind the social curve.

Linked to explainxkcd instead of the main site since the Alt Text is a large part of the point and not all browsers would make that convenient if viewed in the original site.

My musician page
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#328237: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:38:17 PM

Biden is better than any other previous Democratic president? I think you'll have to elaborate on that one.
What are the issues where he's to the right of any previous Democratic president? He supports LGBT rights (including trans rights, which I don't recall being mentioned in presidential politics before). He supports a public option for health care (which as I mentioned earlier, Obama did initially, but walked it back to get the rest of the bill passed). He supports criminal justice reform, rather than "tough on crime" rhetoric. He supports immigration reform (including a path to citizenship for Dreamers, which has never been on the table before to my knowledge).

Of course, you can make the argument that Biden personally isn't especially left-leaning in 2020, and I'm comparing apples to oranges by putting 2020 Biden up against 2008 Obama or 1992 Clinton. But again, that's the point. The progressive wing of the Democratic party has successfully moved the entire party left, and a firmly moderate (by 2020 Democrat standards) Joe Biden is still poised to be the most progressive president the country has ever seen.

This also assumes that progress is something that is naturally guaranteed and only its' pace is uncertain.
Absolutely not, and that's my entire point. Joe Biden could be running as Obama 2.0. He could be running on a return to the heyday of the Bill Clinton '90s, when everything was great and things were looking up for everyone until Bush Jr ruined everything. But he's not. He's running left of that. Not because time has passed and progress is inevitable, but because progressives have fought tooth and nail for every scrap of progress that's been made — and the fact that we're getting a campaign from Joe Biden that takes many progressive positions is a direct result of that.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#328238: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:38:28 PM

2. Be pissed at Biden for not being nearly as good an alternative.

Not as good an alternative as what, exactly? As the people who lost the primaries, who are thus more likely to lose against Trump, thus resulting in no progress at all for the next four years?

This is what really frustrates me about so much of the whining about Biden and incremental progress. In order to accomplish anything in a democracy, you have to hold power. The most progressive ideals and shiniest proposals amount to zilch if you can't actually get elected. Biden is not that far short of the Progressive wing's ideals, and he has a substantially better chance of actually getting into office than any other Democrat candidate. He is absolutely the best alternative, because an alternative that doesn't win is useless.

Edited by Wryte on Sep 21st 2020 at 12:45:56 PM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#328239: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:42:48 PM

Saying we are 50 or 100 years behind on global warming is rather misleading, we've only been aware that there even is a problem with global warming for the past three decades or so. You can't really blame people from the 1920s for not seeing global warming coming.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#328240: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:43:10 PM

Not as good an alternative as what, exactly? As the people who lost the primaries, who are thus more likely to lose against Trump, thus resulting in no progress at all for the next four years?

This doesn't work logically, losing a single primary is evidence only of losing a primary. It's not evidence that one cannot win an election ever.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#328241: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:44:57 PM

It is hardly axiomatic that the candidate who wins a primary is the best possible one for the general election... it's impossible to prove, for one thing.

It's also irrelevant to the question. "What if X had won instead?" Well, X didn't win, so the hypothetical is pointless.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 21st 2020 at 3:45:47 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#328242: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:45:35 PM

A woman in ICE detention says her fallopian tube was removed without her consent

Pauline Binam has come forward after a whistleblower complaint on hysterectomies of immigrant detainees in Georgia.

Pauline Binam, a 30-year-old former detainee at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, had been in custody for about two years when she started having irregular menstrual bleeding. She feared that confinement was taking its toll on her body.

Binam, who came to the US from Cameroon when she was 2 years old, was being held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center while awaiting deportation.

According to her attorney, Van Huynh, she consulted with medical staff at the facility who told her that the condition could be treated by a minor surgical procedure in which a doctor dilates the cervix and scrapes off the lining of the uterus.

Instead, the doctor informed her that he had also removed one of her fallopian tubes and that she could expect to have difficulty conceiving if she wanted to have more children.

Binam is now at the center of a congressional inquiry into allegations of a pattern of nonconsensual gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies, performed on detainees at Irwin in recent years. ICE ordered her deported on Wednesday morning, but she narrowly avoided deportation only after two Congress members got involved in her case.

“I’m often not surprised by things in the world of immigration nowadays,” Huynh said. “I was shocked and appalled, hearing Nurse [Dawn] Wooten confirming what Pauline had been telling me all through 2019.” Binam says she had invasive surgery with no opportunity to consent

Before her procedure in August 2019, Binam gave verbal consent, indicating that she understood the course of treatment. But she was not given the opportunity to consent to the much more invasive and life-altering surgery she received while under anesthesia. She later expressed to a psychiatrist that she was “bothered” that she had one of her fallopian tubes removed when she was expecting a different procedure, according to medical records from August 2019, which Huynh shared with Vox.

“She was adamant that she did not give consent for them to do anything to her fallopian tubes,” Huynh said. “Had she been informed of what was being done with regard to her fallopian tubes, she would have been able to respond fairly to that.”

To this day, Binam, who has a US-citizen daughter, doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to conceive again, or whether it was medically necessary that her fallopian tube be removed.

Wooten, a nurse at the facility, was the first to raise concerns about the hysterectomies, which were performed by a gynecologist described as “the uterus collector” in a whistleblower complaint filed Monday.

Multiple attorneys have since come forward alleging that their clients had been subjected to hysterectomies and other gynecological procedures. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, vice chair of the House immigration subcommittee, said that, based on conversations with three of those attorneys, it appears that at least 17 detainees had such procedures.

Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist associated with Coffee Regional Medical Center and Irwin County Hospital in Georgia, allegedly performed at least some of the gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies, that were described in the whistleblower complaint and by the detainees’ attorneys. (His attorney has “vigorously” denied the allegations.)

It’s not clear whether he alone performed the procedure on Binam or cooperated with other doctors, but he is listed as the “ordering” doctor on a pathology report relating to her surgery.

The House Committee on Homeland Security is investigating the allegations in the complaint, and more than 170 members of Congress have called for a separate investigation from the Homeland Security inspector general’s office.

Testimony from Binam and other detainees at Irwin will likely be critical to those inquiries. Binam was almost deported — just as she came forward with the allegations

Binam came to the US when she was 2 years old from Cameroon. She might have been eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which has allowed more than 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as children to live and work in the country legally, if it weren’t for a shoplifting conviction from when she was 17. She paid a resulting fine without understanding the consequences: She was essentially admitting guilt to the charges against her.

A couple of years later, she was charged with larceny in a separate case from the first shoplifting incident and was offered a plea deal. She took the deal, again admitting her guilt, which qualified as a second strike on her record. Immigration officials consequently launched deportation proceedings against her and detained her at Irwin starting in October 2017.

Though a mother of a US citizen who had lived in the US for decades would typically be able to apply for deportation relief, Binam’s conviction and plea deal made her ineligible. In immigration court, she claimed that she feared returning to Cameroon, a place that she has never called home, and where there is ongoing conflict between the state and anglophone separatists. She was nevertheless ordered deported in an immigration court ruling that she is now appealing before the 11th Circuit.

Even though her appeal is still pending, ICE could have deported her at any moment. But it was only on Wednesday — in the wake of the whistleblower complaint’s publication and after Huynh sought an emergency pause on her deportation, identifying her as a victim of a nonconsensual gynecological procedure — that ICE finally tried to put her on a 9:30 am deportation flight out of Chicago.

“We were just shocked to find out that — just as we were learning about all these things that were coming out from Nurse Wooten — they wanted to put her on a flight and try to deport her as soon as possible,” Huynh said.

A petition that garnered more than 1,800 signatures overnight also sought to halt her deportation. But it wasn’t until Jayapal and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) intervened that she was finally pulled off the plane at the last moment and sent to another immigration detention center, the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas.

“There’s so much about immigration detention that takes away from a person’s life,” Huynh said. “It robbed her and her future because of what we’re learning today.”

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#328243: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:48:58 PM

Not as good an alternative as what, exactly?

As any hypothetical better candidate. Don't get me wrong: there's plenty of room for improvement from Joe Biden. The man is far from perfect, as a human being or as a politician. We should absolutely be pressuring him from the left, both to make sure he keeps his promises and to convince to him take other progressive stances in addition to the ones he's already committed to.

But I think it's important to take the attitude "Joe Biden can and should do better!" rather than "Joe Biden is insufficiently leftist and therefore an enemy of progress!"

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
devak They call me.... Prophet Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
They call me.... Prophet
#328244: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:53:43 PM

Observations of climate change go back to the 1930's, just to be clear here. Meaningful change in CO 2 levels date back to 200 years. Scientific discussion was a thing in the 60's. It didn't start with Al Gore, far from it.

What timeline you want to apply to how late we are, is mostly how charitably you view the world. At minimum, Kyoto is 23 years ago. And we haven't even managed *THAT*.

[up]Which is why the overwhelming attitude is that people do intend to vote for him, even as the attitude is that like, 30%? actually is excited for him.

Edited by devak on Sep 21st 2020 at 9:54:53 PM

astrokitty Happiness is a cup of tea from Somewhere Out There Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Happiness is a cup of tea
#328245: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:55:40 PM

In bizarre news, Rep. Senator Kelly Loeffler released a bizarre campaign ad declaring herself "More Conservative than Atila The Hun". Historical inaccuracies aside, it's nice to be able to make fun of something.

Somebody once told me the world was macaroni, I took a bite out of a tree
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#328246: Sep 21st 2020 at 12:56:08 PM

Oh, sure, some scientists were aware of the problem, but it didn't really enter the public consciousness or political debate until a few decades ago. It was observed, but it was not seen as a problem.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#328247: Sep 21st 2020 at 1:01:44 PM

Yeah, climate change as we currently understand it wasn't really in the public consciousness until the late 1980s. The scientific consensus is older, but not that much older — it was sometime in the '70s that climate scientists started becoming increasingly convinced that global warming was a thing and it was caused by human activity.

Edited by NativeJovian on Sep 21st 2020 at 4:03:16 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
devak They call me.... Prophet Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
They call me.... Prophet
#328248: Sep 21st 2020 at 1:05:16 PM

Noticing that your house is on fire 200 years late doesn't change that your house is on fire. It's been a known issue at least scientifically since the 60's, even if people didn't quite know just how bad it would be. But again, we aren't even managing the ultra-modest Kyoto protocols, let alone Paris accords, and even Paris is significantly short of what we'd need to avoid warming altogether. We're four levels down from where we should be.

Trump may intend to burn the country down, but it's no excuse for Biden to insist he'll only let 80% burn.

Edited by devak on Sep 21st 2020 at 10:07:22 AM

tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#328249: Sep 21st 2020 at 1:06:13 PM

So, anti abortion conservatives what do you have to say about forced hysterectomies being performed on detained illegal immigrants?

(complete silence)

Yeah that's what I thought.

No, that's not directed at anyone here.

Trump delenda est
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#328250: Sep 21st 2020 at 1:11:09 PM

More conservative... than Attila the Hun? Wtf?


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