I haven't been able to find any actual confirmation of a planned event. Does the KKK use Facebook events?
8/18/2017 1:26:27 PM
It certainly appears to be a social media nonsense rumor... but still good idea for Durham businesses to take no chances.[Edited on August 18, 2017 at 1:33 PM. Reason : And we got my son from his daycare near downtown]
8/18/2017 1:33:04 PM
hopefully this doesn't affect my 6 o'clock reservation at Dames
8/18/2017 1:57:34 PM
You were still going to wait forever anyway. Made a reservation there once and still had to wait like 45 min. For overrated chicken and waffles.
8/18/2017 2:39:53 PM
Durham said they requested a permit but it was not granted
8/18/2017 3:07:41 PM
good to see that protests that aren't full of nazi's turn into dance partiesDurham, ftw
8/18/2017 4:12:21 PM
anarchists have shown up and it's getting a bit more tense as roads are blocked, it won't stay peaceful when cops break it up
8/18/2017 4:43:06 PM
riot police showed up, might not be good. for a little while it looked like cops were pulling back
8/18/2017 6:10:13 PM
where are you getting this info from? are you there? pics?
8/18/2017 6:47:23 PM
http://www.newsobserver.com/
8/18/2017 9:38:35 PM
^^ i was there for a bit, then watching periscope feeds
8/18/2017 10:21:18 PM
8/18/2017 10:25:59 PM
I'm willing to grant that there's never been real communism, or any communism on a scale that matters. USSR, Mao China, Cuba, Venezuela - all state capitalism. I understand, I think.The problem is that these examples all *started* as legitimate Marxist revolutions. It's not like capitalists were secretly running the show, they actually believed in these leftist ideals. But then, with all their class consciousness, they failed. I'm assuming you believe they failed because the capitalist imperialists interfered with their development or sabotaged the effort in some way.If that is the case, what makes this time different? Communism is so fragile that it can only work if the worker class in every class gains class consciousness at the same time, and then coordinates globally to seize the means of production? When has *anything* ever worked that flawlessly? It just seems completely unrealistic.So, I reject your Marxian analysis on the basis that the left is empirically too weak to counter fascists or any other group. The American left treats weakness as a virtue as inflammatory as that sounds. These are the people that are going to launch the revolution? No. The boneheads you need to make this revolution a relative success are all on the right.And class consciousness isn't going to do shit. Class consciousness is at an all time high. Never before in history has every person been so aware of where they sit in the social hierarchy. It's never been so readily observable, but there also have never been so many distractions and comforts.
8/19/2017 12:03:24 AM
hardcore hipster communists would probably agree with your "dirty capitalist dogs won't let me have muh communizms" theory. Not me, though. The consolidation of power and access to capital (either from the left or the right) can only be maintained through the monopoly of force (the state). The state exercises this force to crush the working poor, or they use their power to crush dissent and put them in gulags (the soviet method). One of the only effective unions left in the united state belongs to the police. Think about that for a second. "Blue lives matter" is a slogan that is endorsed fully by the rabid right wing. They endorse them for a reason. That is a scary combination.Anyway, we are so dangerously close to full-blown state authorized fascism that I fail to see why you would even bother to muse about the communist boogeyman right now. We are so fucking far away from a communist uprising that it is irrational to fear it. We would have to first go back to simply being a liberal democracy first, then go through social democracy, then democratic socialism, and THEN communism would be the end result. It will never happen, so there's no reason for you to fear it. It could only occur through a genuine revolution as a response to the rapid and prolonged plummeting of the material conditions of most citizens before they considered it a reasonable alternative. And even then, I could argue that communism only becomes a reasonable alternative after years of experienced fascist control. State authorized fascism, on the other hand, is only a few tinkers away in our current landscape. That is the immediate threat to democracy that we currently face. That is why I think a genuine socialist counter ideology needs to immerge immediately. This can be achieved temporarily through unionization in the work environment as a quick way to resist the growing fascist elements. Depriving the state of our collective labor is a means of resistance that we'll probably all become amenable to in the near future. Because the alternative is barbaric.And the "class consciousness" you speak of is not as self evident as you claim. The petite bourgeoisie never see themselves as being middle class. They aspire to be wealthy, but almost always think they are at the edge of poverty (and in many respects, this fear is legitimate). And I'm not sure why you reject a Marxist interpretation of political epocs. Almost every ascending fascist regime immediately followed years of economic stagnation and an overall loss of material wealth in the respective countries. And those regimes ALWAYS push austerity as the solution to the sudden loss of wealth. Turn on any mainstream cable outlet that is interviewing someone with a hint of social democratatic reforms, and the anchors will immediately hit the viewer with high numbers about the national debt, or scare them with tax increases, or resort to red-baiting scare tactics. It's laughably predictable. They only resort to those scare tactics because most of their viewership thinks that they are the "makers" of society, rather than the "takers" that they actually are.
8/19/2017 12:33:16 AM
One day the silent majority (who is all left) will reach a tipping point that causes them to wake up. only then will we create a revolution but it will happen quite suddenly and the majority is so large that it wont really matter that we are already so far to the right. the flip will happen suddenly behind the demands of the people.
8/19/2017 7:40:38 AM
If there is hope it lies in the proles
8/19/2017 10:25:48 PM
^^ lol if there's anything the Left is, it's not silent. The silent majority ready spoke dude.[Edited on August 20, 2017 at 12:14 AM. Reason : Shit I got Earl'd. Happens to the best of us.]
8/20/2017 12:13:26 AM
Arnold's message to Trumphttps://www.facebook.com/attn/videos/1475398805828907Arnie for Pres 2020!<3
8/20/2017 5:02:31 AM
the left that you hear from is obviously not the majority. we are like 2-10% of the country at best. most of the country is thebsilent majority because they are not politically active and do not identify or know that they hold the same left values. big events bring those people out.
8/20/2017 5:12:09 AM
Identifying politics brings those people out in large part and most of them are the same centrists that the Democratic Party caters to. That's why you see women's march's and responses to nazism/white supremacy (not that these arent important).The actual progressive left, as you know, is likely concerned with that because it's the decent thing to do but more concerned with labor, corporatism and trade. But you almost never see rally's like we've seen recently for that simply because of the sheer number of centrists. Those causes get drowned out.[Edited on August 20, 2017 at 10:23 AM. Reason : actually you may be saying that. The last line is worded weird and I can't tell who it refers to]
8/20/2017 10:21:58 AM
o i meant big events like the great depression, industrial revolution, and the proliferation of information access. All of which might be currently taking place. no human who hasnt been fed propaganda of societal constraints or an advantageous starting position would disagree with what you consider "far left" values.[Edited on August 20, 2017 at 12:00 PM. Reason : its haaaapppppeningggg]
8/20/2017 11:38:12 AM
^^Union membership in the US has declined from ~30% of people being in unions to around 10% of people being in unions today (and mostly only public employees, mainly police). The decimation of the UAW (see the recent unionization effort defeat with Nissan in Mississippi) and other unions seriously dealt a blow to the American Left. Organizations such as IWW (the wobblies, with whom Heather Heyer was marching) have seen serious decline. Unions, as much as conservatives loathe them, are critical activists for workers rights. They have a strong history of marching and protesting to protect many issues that affect all workers, and are openly antagonistic toward the negative sides of capitalism. The night before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King met with the union of sanitation workers in Memphis, where he told them, "We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end." At this point in his life, he had moved beyond racial activism, and had aligned himself with the cause of class struggle as well as racial equality. The two causes walk hand in hand. When we progressives finally realize this, we can build a stronger united alliance moving forward. My biggest beef with moderate Democrats is that they think that issues of oppressed classes (police brutality, gay rights, trans rights, women's rights, etc) can be fought for on an individual basis against a corporate class that seeks to exploit all of them. This is a losing strategy. Without a strong labor component, these minority classes will not have the solidarity needed to fight back on a unified front.
8/20/2017 4:36:24 PM
Also, this is worth reading if your interested in a leftist take on the Weimar Republic and the parallels to today:
8/20/2017 5:45:04 PM
8/21/2017 12:00:37 AM
we are talkimg about 40% who dont vote and 60% who dont relate witg either party. trumps language is populist at times and was more populist than anyone in my life so he drew a ton of our people. especially bernie people. that doesn't make then trunpian. those people had nowhere else to go so they were vulnerable and he knew it. "what the hell do you have to lose?". the answer was nothing. some may seem trumpian but they have been confused by media and other Trumpians. I am a high school teacher who has taught around the country and can tell you from experience that most core values are on the left. if you ask them to identify and thats it, sure they would be repulsed by the word "left "but that is only because they dont know how to identify their own core values. When you lay the situations out in front of them, and they dont have time to get their parents take, they are overwhwlmingly leftist. I always end up having to play devil's advocate from the right and they always shoot it down. this also goes for people i talk to around tge world. on a human level, we are all hold these values until society poisons our mind.[Edited on August 21, 2017 at 6:17 AM. Reason : ok]
8/21/2017 6:13:09 AM
forgot to throw in the large number of democrats who are only moderate because theyve been convinced their leftist goals are unrealistic because not enough supportersalso the republicans who hold the same leftist views but are voting with the temporarily good economic position. in a crash, they will switch fast.
8/21/2017 6:21:49 AM
The fact that Earl has such radical views and is teaching our youth is a pretty scary thought. One that makes me want to *cringe* think about private school.
8/21/2017 7:24:58 AM
rest assured a much larger portion of the nation is still being taught the traditional alt right/ evangelical/white supremacy/american exceptionalism. i dont teach anyone what to think but i and every other great teacher teaches students how to think and reach fact based conclusions. and its something parents around the country are eager to put 6 figures into even though they could get a "good" education for free.[Edited on August 21, 2017 at 7:35 AM. Reason : point is they arent radical views, they are just not in line with how you've been indoctrinated ]
8/21/2017 7:33:48 AM
People with your views find it hard to hold back in the classroom. I taught alongside a teacher in Wake county during the Bush administration who was about as anti-Bush as you could get, and he never let a moment pass by that he could work that into his students somehow. My dad taught for 35 years and has worked with teachers on the far-left who would try their best to get in some politics into their lesson plans.Sure, these are anecdotes, but if one person has 3 or 4 incidents where they've seen it, then it's happening elsehwere. You should leave your own politics out of the classroom. If that view makes you think I'm some kind of nazi sympathizer, then so be it, but there are places to go to get indoctrinated. Public schools shouldn't be one of them. And I really don't want to pay for private school.
8/21/2017 7:49:48 AM
teachers/schools have a responsibility in the moral development of their students. sometimes you do have to stop and do that. thats one of the main reasons surveyed parents choose private schools. our top notch academics is like 5th on their list. some subjects can be taught without any politics. maths and languages come to mind but in most classes it is impossible not to inject some sort of bias. even if you dont, good students will ask for your thoughts. My political views are only based on science which is what i am teaching anyway.another example is we also take out the overwhelming focus on historical white men most schools have embedded into every subject.
8/21/2017 8:04:39 AM
^^ I understand the overall point you are making on teachers compartmentalizing political views. It's a fine point but also completely undermined when you consider that, likely even during your father's time teaching, there was active suppression on issues such as evolution vs. creationism. In a private school environment it is likely this is still being done is some areas - even outside strict religious institutions. You cannot call out left leaning teachers for injecting their political views and not remember the larger picture where a balanced education - regardless of belief - was so vehemently fought.^ Actually a good point in that science is meant to question what we already know/ think we know. There is no "political leaning" in science. [Edited on August 21, 2017 at 8:26 AM. Reason : don't make me regret this...]
8/21/2017 8:19:58 AM
^One of the reasons I do not want to look at private schools is because I'm afraid many of them still teach creationism. And the ones that don't - we probably can't afford them. So there's the other end of the spectrum as well. When going over evolution, I don't want a fundamentalist Christian teacher teaching my child creationism. And when it comes to world history, I don't want a right wing teacher just glossing over Islam because they think brown=bad.So many places for political (and religious) ideals to work their way into lesson plans.The only other option is home-schooling, and we've set ourselves up to be a two-income household, so that's out.
8/21/2017 9:22:37 AM
Do you live in Texas?
8/21/2017 9:25:11 AM
No, why do you ask?If you are going to talk about private schools teaching evolution - I haven't fully researched all of the private schools in Wake county, but the secular ones tend to be a lot more expensive than those that spring from faith-based institutions.
8/21/2017 9:28:45 AM
Just because they "spring from faith-based institutions" doesn't mean they teach creationism and brown people are bad.Oh wait this is obviously your main point.
8/21/2017 9:30:57 AM
Oh. I think you may be conflating what I said in a previous post - I don't believe that all private schools are going to push those types of agendas, even the faith based ones. My concern is getting teachers that push those right/left agendas in public schools.
8/21/2017 9:32:47 AM
No, I'm not conflating anything.
8/21/2017 9:36:01 AM
^^ Generally speaking, especially somewhere like Wake Co., teachers of either leaning that push personal agendas would:A) likely not last very long due to the diverse nature of the system already (due to the complaints that would arise due to their agendas) B) would likely not have a measurable affect on the overall student population for the same reason - plus the fact that there are so many other factors that determine a person's core values. I don't disagree with the core of your argument at all - i just don't see the issue with it in a system as robust as Wake County schools or similar.edit: teachers typically have way more to worry about/deal with than instilling their views on their students. And worrying that you kid may see a different view point is rather like have blinders on a horse... (edit edit: Yes i see how this last statement could be seen as contradictory to agreeing with the core argument- so I'll emphasize the 'core' part.)[Edited on August 21, 2017 at 10:18 AM. Reason : edit.][Edited on August 21, 2017 at 10:25 AM. Reason : edit edit.]
8/21/2017 10:02:02 AM
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/this is the thing that you need to fearnot your kid having a teacher that's politically different than you
8/21/2017 10:04:57 AM
Lol, I don't know if that article says it but for a time Texas called slaves fucking "imported workers."
8/21/2017 10:30:54 AM
8/21/2017 10:52:14 AM
^ Absolutely. Science has no political leanings.Those who conduct it, however, can and do - be it from outside (funding, etc) or internal influences.
8/21/2017 10:57:19 AM
^^please expand, I'm curious where you're going with that.I think science is science, it has not political leaning. But it can be politicized.
8/21/2017 11:48:47 AM
The tl;dr version of that article about textbooks can be summed up here:
8/21/2017 11:49:21 AM
8/21/2017 11:56:09 AM
^ I acknowledged those in a later post. Just as bad.
8/21/2017 12:05:36 PM
not if you trust your kid to think for themself
8/21/2017 12:07:49 PM
8/21/2017 12:36:27 PM
there are political debates about everything. i incorporate these and randomly assign positions to defend with scientific evidence. there is no scientific debate about climate change, evolution, or gender binary. unless you are talking about debating the effectiveness of potential climate change policies, coping strategies just like you could debate the evolutionary hisotry of a particular trait but everyone accepts evolution on a large scale. ethics debates are awesome in science as well
8/21/2017 1:00:34 PM
8/21/2017 5:48:15 PM