Every political position must exist in context, as an alternative to or criticism of some other position. That is what everybody does by necessity. Not everybody scapegoats.

Socialists verbally abuse capitalists, for example, but I don’t consider it scapegoating. They attack capitalists because they reject capitalism, a condition for which the existence of capitalists is both necessary and sufficient.

Similarly, Democrats accuse the Russian government of specific crimes. At the end of the day, the last US presidential election was decided by just 79,000 votes in swing states - a perfectly plausible number of voters who might have been manipulated by Russian propaganda. While some people have gone overboard with accusations of astroturfing, it’s usually a mode in which Russians have been known to operate. What is the difference between scapegoating and reasonable suspicion? Why is this not legitimate fear and concern?

And regardless of your specific opinion about the above, I doubt you seriously consider them a worse sort of behaviour than fascist ethnocentrism.

Yeah, at least being afraid of Russia has some basis in fact, compared to Jones' friend's fears.

It's not the case that every political position inherently requires scapegoating for some kind of internal inconsistency. But scapegoating also isn't a function of right-leaning politics any more than its a function of left-leaning politics, as Reid claimed. For instance, there's scapegoating happening when center-left liberals deny that "economic anxiety" played a role in Trump's electoral victory, and instead attribute his victory to racism in American society, as if some unappeasable, permanent racist class, which, supposedly, cannot be weakened or diminished through government policy, is the great invincible obstacle that is preventing center-left liberals from bringing the Democratic agenda into fruition. People on all parts of the "political spectrum" can engage in scapegoating, or can claim that if it weren't for a certain class of troublemakers in society, the entire country would be better off.



I get the impression that you think left-wing demonization of certain well-off classes in society isn't scapegoating because you happen to agree with the ideology, or because you think it's "right". But plenty of socialists attack "capitalists" out of reasons other than ideological coherence alone. There's plenty of animus in American left-wing populism right now that has very little to do with thoughtful critiques of capital. A lot of it is demonization based on resentment, frustration and other emotions.

I'm curious why you don't think it's scapegoating in the case of socialists, but either way, whether it's scapegoating or not according to however you define that word, it seems very much like it is taking " the internal problems of the current social order and [externalizing] them onto an "enemy"".



I'm a little surprised that question is being directed towards me but, what can I do? I suppose you can't expect people to have very good memories when it comes to online discussions.

I am asking you these questions because you made a very specific and strong claim without supporting it at all: “that’s what everyone does”.

The problem with this kind of thinking is illustrated perfectly by your response. Politics is about people. That means all political problems are ultimately caused by people. It is not possible to have a political disagreement without criticizing people for something they’ve done or something they want to do. I provided socialism as (I thought) a relatively uncontroversial example of this in practice, but I might as well have provided murder. Is it scapegoating to blame murders on murderers? No, it is clearly a legitimate criticism. Why is it scapegoating for a socialist to blame capitalists for capitalism? How do you distinguish between a good faith criticism of people and what you claim “everybody” does?

Contrary to proving your point about scapegoating, all you’ve really done is prove that someone with a bone to pick can distort pretty much any political opinion to sound like irrational scapegoating. I hope you understand how toxic that is.

Specifically regarding liberals blaming their election loss on racists and Russians: of course they do. How could they not? When your political position is that capitalism raises all boats, it is inconceivable that economic liberalism could create a permanent class of the economically frustrated. By definition, acknowledging this fact means you are no longer (neo)liberal.

Right. The only thing I was pointing out is that a certain behavior isn't found exclusively on the right and isn't a feature of right-leaning thought in particular. So I guess your response proves my claim.

Let's be clear. If you want to have a conversation about what makes scapegoating different from blaming the problems of society on an out-group that is deemed an "enemy", perhaps we can have that discussion. But your trying to push a definition of scapegoating on me (when did I say "good faith" criticism is something separate from what "'everybody' does"?) that has little to do with the "very specific and strong claim" (in your words) that I put forward. You're the one who brought "scapegoating" into this conversation; you're trying to impose on me and force me to defend arguments that have nothing to do with my position.

So why isn't it scapegoating? Despite their "verbal abuse", why is what socialists do not scapegoating? Because, in your view, Socialists happen to be right (i.e., because they have legitimate grievances)?

Reid was clearly talking about fascist racial scapegoating. If that’s not what you were talking about then you picked a very poor way of introducing your point.

I agree that fascist racialists are more likely to perform acts of fascist racial scapegoating than the general population. Good point; well said.

Scapegoating implies that the person being accused doesn't deserve the criticism. For instance, consider the amount of manufacturing jobs moved down to Mexico. The right will blame Mexicans, "they took our jobs!, but will shy away from criticizing the forces behind NAFTA, or when applicable, will put the blame all on Clinton. The liberals will say "the world economy is becoming more global and American workers can't compete". Both are insensitive, both manage to displace blame away from the wealthy, but the right focuses that blame on Mexicans. The right does this with almost everything. Taxes too high? The right will blame welfare benefits, the problem is welfare queens. The liberals will blame the tax policy of the right.

It's the purposeful lie centered around the identity of the accused that I'm bringing attention to. The Democrats/liberals are still insensitive about much of the same issues, but at least address them and sometimes brush up on the true causes, despite shying away before making the true criticism they need to make, like the reasons for staggering income inequality. In other words, scapegoating is only scapegoating insofar as the accusation doesn't correspond with the actual causes. Which is its own barrel of worms, since what's actually causing what is up for debate, but anyone honest evaluation should have one coming away realizing how much more full of **** Republicans are than Democrats. Which isn't to say Democrats don't scapegoat, but it seems to be less of a feature.

As per socialists, it's a pretty common criticism of socialists to say they view everything through a class war dogmatism. I won't say it doesn't happen, but personally I don't see many socialists today going overboard on "class warfare" distinctions as much as arguing for actual policy positions to fix our lives. I.E. arguing for the benefits of single payer and trying to popularize the idea.

And no, just because politics involves people blaming other people doesn't mean it was typical for the Nazis to place all blame for all of Germany's problems on an ethnic/religious minority. Clearly there's a distinction there which you're glossing over.

Stuff like this is why people need a bit more class consciousness. Anyone who visits a country like India and does this, seemingly unaware of why those men would be willing to do that, is clueless.

I know you aren’t stupid enough to believe scapegoating an out-group isn’t a trademarked strategy of fascism, but I’m not sure what you stand to gain by pretending you are.

I dunno, equating anti-capitalist criticism and Democratic Russophobia with fascist scapegoating sounds a lot like holocaust denial to me. If scapegoating is something that everybody does, and we’re comfortable minimizing the difference between instances of that behaviour and making jokey-jokes about being called out on not drawing a distinction between them, what else could you be saying?

I'm not racist, but I think $3.35 is too much to pay for fuel these days. Furthermore,

Well... that's a very creative interpretation of our conversation.

Lol

would $2.01 be an acceptable compromise?

Check it out yall

I came up with the best idea just now

Take waffles

Make em toasty

Take PB

Take J

And make it a sandwich

Munch on that **** with some whole fat milk

You won't regret it

I have

Celiac's disease

am strongly allergic to peanuts (I will die if I eat them)

am diabetic, and

am lactose intolerant.

(kidding)

as someone trying to put on weight i appreciate your tip

i made pancakes then put a small amount of jim beam in a shot glass (like, enough to cover the bottom of the glass, nothing more) and filled the rest of the shot glass with maple syrup and poured over my pancakes last week

it was also pretty good

I don't think this idea got enough attention. Futhermore,

try the jack daniels honey

pour drambuie directly on pancakes

Hmm.. anyone else hearing a chorus of whistles?

I have on the doggie snapchat filter so it enables my hearing these whistles.

If you catch me drift heh heh

That's just edgy flame/click -bait, Twitter / Tumblr / Reddit fodder. Liberals like yourself are the object of mockery here: there are posts on Breitbart going back to 2014 about how the phrase "white Christmas" is effective at pissing off liberals.

Im so mad right now, they really got me good

Bitcoin went over 10k. Anyone have any dumb comments about tulips? Tulips are much more useful than BTC.

But what does this mean for collapse? What phase are we in in the bubble? Keep in mind .com bubble was several trillions ifrc

Will trump get in on this using russian? Will crypto only for white?

I think with my profits I am going to buy a bunch of bondage rope

all 0.0001 cents of traffic driven to their site, and mine, and anybody else who reads your post

TBF I guess nobody here will be buying any Breitbart t-shirts.

I may

buy Breitbard bondage rope

Lol i stole the image off a twitter post

Almost bought some at $6, thought it would be a waste of money. I would love to sell out right now. Right now is the worst time to buy.

I clicked on their site though

But thanks for not boosting their PageRank by using a screencap.

until it hits $20k, then right now is great!!!!!!

It’s safe to buy until the bear trap. Unless there isn’t one.