Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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Dachshund
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Dachshund »

Steve3007 wrote: December 14th, 2017, 7:58 am In some ways, Australia seems like a two dimensional analogue of the Earth as a whole. Almost the entire population lives around the green and blue edges and there's a huge, red, hot interior.
Steve,

Funny that you should draw such a comparison, just when I was thinking in a similar (analogical) terms about the South of England and its native inhabitants. You see, it seems to me that in some ways, the South of England and its indigenous culture resemble a rather large tropical coconut. What appears, on the outside, to be a very firm, robust and forthright entity, - one that is ostensibly the essence of a genuinely solid moral integrity is, in fact, merely an ersatz facade that hides the reality of a huge, "dripping - wet" , hypocritical interior; one that is literally awash with the gross prejudices of petty gossips and inveterate "net-curtain narks".

So, in answer to your earlier query regarding whether or not I happen to believe that cultural stereotypes are real, I would say that in your particular case I have absolutely no shadow of a doubt. Oscar Wilde sums it all up very nicely, I think, in the following little passage from his novel ,"The Picture of Dorian Gray"...

"And what sort of lives, do these people (i.e. the Southern English middle -classes) who pose as being moral, lead themselves ? My dear fellow, you forget that we are living in the native land of the hypocrite !"(Boom Boom ! :))


With Kindest Regards,


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Sy Borg
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote: December 14th, 2017, 7:58 am In some ways, Australia seems like a two dimensional analogue of the Earth as a whole. Almost the entire population lives around the green and blue edges and there's a huge, red, hot interior.
Beautiful! It's quite misleading because Australia is considered a very sparsely populated country, yet we are so crammed in together in the few habitable zones that Sydney's real estate has in recent times held the dubious honour of having the most expensive housing in the world.

I think it was the 70s or 80s that the Japanese were planning on doing a mass irrigation of Australia's desert lands to create huge food crop farms. I suppose the economics were too much, especially given the stagnation in their economy not long afterwards.

It seems to me that, ideally, much seawater would be desalinated and used to irrigate arid zones to create more carbon absorbing greenery that can help to feed the world and other animals, ideally reclamation of lands that humans desertified. However, the processing would need to be done using renewable energy, plus there would need to be safe and responsible places to put the excess salt.

If such a project was implemented worldwide, with more people fed in a less desertified world, many of the tensions spoken about on forums would reduce.
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

How about the north?
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote:...If such a project was implemented worldwide, with more people fed in a less desertified world, many of the tensions spoken about on forums would reduce.
Maybe. But you know how they say that nature abhors a vacuum? Perhaps the more ingenious methods we invent to squeeze more productivity out of the world the more people we'll create to consume that extra produce.
Dachshund
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Dachshund »

The North? Elizabeth Gaskell captures the Northern English cultural stereotype superbly in her novel "North and South".
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

I used to like the TV sitcom "Brass" which parodied the whole D H Lawrence dark satanic mills stereotype.
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote: It's quite misleading because Australia is considered a very sparsely populated country, yet we are so crammed in together in the few habitable zones that Sydney's real estate has in recent times held the dubious honour of having the most expensive housing in the world.
Yes, I've read that before and was surprised by it, as Australia, including the uninhabitable zones, is so vast. I always think it must be strange to live in Perth which often seems to be classed as "the most remote city in the world".
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Dachshund »

Steve3007 wrote: December 20th, 2017, 7:06 pm I used to like the TV sitcom "Brass" which parodied the whole D H Lawrence dark satanic mills stereotype.
I expect you would love the Rowan Atkinson's sitcom, "Mr Bean" and the "Black Adder" series, as well. Those and stuff like Monty Python's "Life of Brian" - all quintessentially Southern English wrt their sense of humour ( i.e. the characteristically dry delivery of self-deprecating sarcasm/irony, and so on, with an absurdist twist) ?
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Dachshund »

Steve3007 wrote: December 20th, 2017, 7:24 pm
Greta wrote: It's quite misleading because Australia is considered a very sparsely populated country, yet we are so crammed in together in the few habitable zones that Sydney's real estate has in recent times held the dubious honour of having the most expensive housing in the world.
Yes, I've read that before and was surprised by it, as Australia, including the uninhabitable zones, is so vast. I always think it must be strange to live in Perth which often seems to be classed as "the most remote city in the world".
With the exception of the fact of its geographical remoteness, you would probably find life in Perth very similar in many ways to life in the South of England. Perth, you see, currently hosts a particularly large cohort of affluent , middle-class, ex-patriot English businessmen/ professionals and their families and has , in fact, done so for many years (i.e. since at least the early 1980s) to date.
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Sy Borg »

I am thinking that remoteness is not the worst thing these days.

It will be enlightening to see how climate change plays out with Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska. These will be the places that people will increasingly want to go, certainly those sweltering in the middle east and on the subcontinent. It would seem that a world of arable land and more accessible resources will open up, although they will probably then have to deal with wildfires and hordes of would-be migrants and climate change refugees from the hot and tempestuous south.
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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D -

Forgive me for actually addressing the thread by suggesting that radical groups thrive in places where the strain of economic inequality is most heavily felt. Forgive me for complaining about talk of the situation in the UK as being too far removed from the topic ... steve is happy to let it play out though so I have nothing more to say about the matter in suggesting you drop whatever nonsense you are choosing to spit out next.

Ribbing aside you have now explained why you've brought it up more clearly. Thanks for that.

I would say that IF the Islamic world conforms to more liberal views it will create a coherent and sustainable future. If it doesn't then it will fracture further, and perhaps very violently. I cannot imagine, in the current global climate, that a mass dictatorship can be reasonably sustained across the whole Islamic world - because there is a great deal of infighting. They would have to be more liberal and more democratic to sustain a functional political institution on such a grand scale. The only way they could combat the "west" is by bringing the west to its knees, which they cannot do unless they unite against the "west"; which they cannot do because they are deeply fractured and the only means we know of through which stability can ensue is through greater liberalism and democratic structuring (like we have in some vague form in the western world.)

To argue this point I could perhaps look to China as a counter argument (a country where if you are in government you are not allowed to practice ANY religion.)

The rest of what you wrote is some strange impression of who you think I am and what I am saying. If you find facts "tiresome" then I am curious as to why you are here? Merely to ignore any relevant data are plough ahead with you myopic view of the world? Do you always assume Marxism if someone mentions economic inequality. I have noticed this a few times now. Someone makes a point and you blow it up into some radical claim so you don't have to actually respond to what is being posed. So tiresome? You mean you're fickle and lazy? Or simply pushing aside all counter arguments by marking them as "Marxist"? It may look like that to you, but I would not say I am a "cultural Marxist". I think cultural differences should be celebrated and that humans are naturally diverse and complex creatures that are capable of doing all kind of bizarre, and often crazy, things. Very different cultures clashing does often lead to violence due to opposing world views and general misunderstandings. I have repeatedly expressed concern in regards to mass global communications and I do think that much of the world, and its cultures, have been dragged into a modern era without a chance to catch its breath (so we'll have a few generations who'll have to take up the slack and I just hope for more education.) As an example at some places in the world people were riding around on push bikes in the early 90's and would stop and stare if they saw a car. That was in the 90's!!! Now they are carrying around devices in their pockets that can access practically any information they can think of. I haven't even mentioned the effect in the US, where the political sphere is deeply entrenched in sensationalism and has been for a long time compared to less "entertainment" based politicking like seen in Europe, Canada and Australia. The US is a very different beast compared to other English speaking countries.

I guess what you are generally saying is that the sympathy, shall we call it, for some "white supremacy" ideals is due to the perceived threat of the Islamic world? So, the "white supremacist" groups are using a convenient fear to feed people into their way of thinking about the "others". It makes sense from a political standing that they would try and bring Christianity into play in the US given the equally fanatical following of some Christians in the US (some not all.) In its current state I am willing to accept that most interpretations of the Koran in use today, rightly or wrongly, do allow for violent interpretation more so than the standard interpretations of Christian scripture - and I would further add that the more fanatical sects of Christianity are those that steer clear of the Old Testament (both good and bad depending on your view of Biblical interpretation as literal or metaphorical.)

Any coming war we not be over religion. It will be over resources as per usual. Violent clashes will come and many will no doubt die and suffer. Right now we're living in an incredibly safe period of human history with mass global equality. Because of this nations are becoming more competitive and a the scales have been tipping for some time away from US dominance. I would suggest that this too would be something that has not gone unnoticed by the more radical patriotic groups (such as "white supremacist" groups in the US) and has been used to fuel their influence and agendas. And I do not really take it to be a bad thing that many people in the US find some of the views they have as appealing; I would likely find some views from the most horrible political organisations to be reasonable too, that does not mean I would side with them and ignore some of the more idiotic and ill-founded ideologies they boast about.

You have gone off track. If you'd said I think this is happening due to the rise of Islam fair enough. I think we'd all agree that such hateful groups sustain themselves by such means.

That said too, there is a reasonable claim (although its flimsy) that Christianity led the western world to its current point of rational thought and scientific progress - but I would not say that these claims are held up very well by anyone espousing them and that there are plenty of counter arguments to rile against such things. I would also find these points to be worthy of discussion in their own right and not really worth levelling against the question posed in the OP in any precise way.

Ecurb -

I don't assert it. I merely provided links which support what pretty much ALL social scientists know about. They talk about the correlation and how it can be measured over any population size and give the same results. The higher the rate of male homicides the greater the level of economic inequality (meaning the distribution of wealth between rich and poor is skewed - which I highlighted in the links I provided in previous post and asked people to look at the differences where they take the top and bottom 10% and 20% of the population into account.)

If you won't take my word (which I am happy you are questioning, as you bloody well should if you've never heard about this before!) have a looksee here (I think the first 3-4 mins covers it well enough) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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Greta,

Many climate change scientists are concerned that global warming (due to greenhouse gas emissions), will, if it is not sharply curbed or stopped ASAP, cause increasingly large volumes of permafrost in the colder Arctic and sub-arctic regions of the world that you mention ( i.e. Siberia, Canada, Scandinavia, Alaska, Greenland, etc) to continue melting at an even faster rate than they already are, and that this may well, in itself, trigger a host of dire negative consequences such as the threat of bacterial/viral disease epidemics and the release of massive quantities of hitherto trapped /(frozen) methane gas from the tundra into the atmosphere that will further elevate the existing increase in average global temperature due to CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning to mention but two.

On a personal (and brighter) note, I think that just as the Western technology created the current problem of global warming ( that began in earnest with carbon pollution from the industrial revolution in the 19th century), it will also effectively solve it, chiefly through the increased use of safe/clean nuclear reactors as a primary source of electrical energy in the not too distant future.

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Sy Borg
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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Dachshund wrote: December 21st, 2017, 2:31 amMany climate change scientists are concerned that global warming (due to greenhouse gas emissions), will, if it is not sharply curbed or stopped ASAP, cause increasingly large volumes of permafrost in the colder Arctic and sub-arctic regions of the world that you mention ( i.e. Siberia, Canada, Scandinavia, Alaska, Greenland, etc) to continue melting at an even faster rate than they already are, and that this may well, in itself, trigger a host of dire negative consequences such as the threat of bacterial/viral disease epidemics and the release of massive quantities of hitherto trapped /(frozen) methane gas from the tundra into the atmosphere that will further elevate the existing increase in average global temperature due to CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning to mention but two.

On a personal (and brighter) note, I think that just as the Western technology created the current problem of global warming ( that began in earnest with carbon pollution from the industrial revolution in the 19th century), it will also effectively solve it, chiefly through the increased use of safe/clean nuclear reactors as a primary source of electrical energy in the not too distant future.
Yes, there could be some risks; it's all new terrain. I am not convinced that technology will be save anyone but the very wealthiest who are the very most responsible for it (and don't discount Chinese and Indian technology which will soon overtake the US due to the latter's scientific hubris with Trump and his team of anti-science fundamentalists and fossil fuel advocates - which I find frightening because he's creating a fossil fuel bubble and we are going to be hit when it pops).

Much of the world cannot use nuclear because they are on the earthquake belt; Fukishima provided a warning. What's needed is for renewables to bridge the gap (and to cover energy needs for countries on unstable ground) until fission is made economically viable. The advantage there is that the energy-intensive task of building any kind of reactor can be minimised by smart use of the free energy around us 24/7 just asking to be tapped (when the coal barons and their friends allow).
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

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Greta -

The Chinese have already overtaken the US in both genetics and nanotechnology (last I heard ... and that was a few years ago.)

I don't believe any particular section of society are responsible for the situation. As a whole responsibility should be taken. The wealthiest are in a position where if they want to help it is really hard to break the system. It's a vicious circle of blame because the poorer members of society may complain about lowered standards if implemented to help combat the ecological crisis (it is not merely a matter of 'global warming', and that is a scary things to realise in and of itself to call 'global warming' "mere".)

There plenty of good people in positions of power, but those positions are not all that powerful. Some CEO's are really passionate about ecological problems and do their best, some are really passionate about economic disparities and do their best; there are also those less concerned about the long term and generally taken along on the tide of more short-term problems and trying to make life better for people now or they'll place their votes elsewhere simply wanting a job, food and some kind of immediate security for their children and families.

Class divides, or how ever else we wish to phrase it, are ignored at our own peril. Not all government positions are good and not all corporate interests are bad.

D -

To add to this, I would ask you what factors to you believe are more relevant here? Do you believe the rise of more "right wing views" is due to a division of culture more than a division of class/wealth? By this I am not suggesting that "cultural differences" are unimportant only that I believe they are less significant for people on the breadline; or simply, people who feel their getting an 'unfair' start in life and having to (as Peterson put in it the video I linked above) climb a much steeper slope to make up very little ground toward the top of the social hierarchy - in those sitiations race takes a back seat as a major course of problems whereas in the more liberal western world economic problems are not anywhere near as severe historically compared to other nations and so the driving force of social disharmony becomes more prominent in other areas such as ideas of 'sexual equality' and 'race equality'.

It does make sense to me that if large proportions of people are dramatically less well off than others, and more to the point unable to "progress" and reach any kind of normal goals in life, then they're going to course greater levels of social disharmony - the more I look at these issues I see an almost impossible balancing act between communicating the right ideas at the right times and creating enough divisions in society for greater diversity and progress as opposed to free roaming "anything goes" ideas that allow anyone to say or do anything, thus imploring humanity to move toward a banal existence where we are all reading from the same book.

I just hope and plan for diverse and critical conflict that remains non-violent enough to help us be "better". Disagreement and conflict I welcome with open arms. I love it, I thrive in it, but it is not in order to create some idealized harmony.

We can only be what we want to be by trying to be more than we currently are (may that never change!)
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Re: Is white supremacy normal in the USA?

Post by Belindi »

Burning Ghost wrote:

"I am not suggesting that "cultural differences" are unimportant only that I believe they are less significant for people on the breadline; or simply, people who feel their getting an 'unfair' start in life and having to (as Peterson put in it the video I linked above) climb a much steeper slope to make up very little ground toward--"

This makes sense, that poor people have interests in common and therefore sympathise with each other. It doesn't always happen, as Brexit voters showed when many Brexiteers who are the poorer people voted Brexit because they like to look down upon and fear poorer migrants. There is snobbery at all levels.
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