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    Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

    Men did, probably, but it still depends where and when. Catching a buffalo took a lot of short-term intensive, dangerous, work but it would feed the group for some time so then the guys could sit on their asses. The women, as gatherers, had to work much daily longer hours. Plus they had children to care for and, its believed, breast fed them for up to five years as a contraceptive. This limited movement from place to place and meant the men might have to roam further in order to catch prey. It wasn't easy, and life tended to be short.
    Additionally, it would take hours to stalk and corral the prey in such a way that when you attacked the hunt would be successful. Watch a wildlife documentary where the big cats work in co-ordinated fashion to capture prey.

    Comment


      There were other techniques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_jump

      Comment


        Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post

        AOC must have attended loads of black churches growing up, so.
        Somehow, i sincerely doubt that.
        me too. the internets may have not transmitted the sarcasm of my original post

        Comment


          Beto surprisingly taking a stance against Netanyahu. Someone must have polled the Democrat base and told him this will get him some progressive points:

          https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/07/polit...ahu/index.html

          I'd be extremely surprised if Beto highlighted this issue after the primaries.

          Comment


            Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
            It's just a style of public speaking. There have been no major technical innovations in oratory since the days of the roman republic. Just different ways of combining certain of the elements of rhetoric.

            TG, no presidential candidate is going to support reparations in the way you want, because they would only get a handful of votes from anyone outside the african american community.
            I'm confused, how do I want reparations? have you actually read my posts because I have no Idea what you are on about here?

            It is true that most African Americans are relatively poor, but most relatively poor people aren't African Americans, not by a long shot.
            So you are equating black poverty with all the other demographics, that's interesting....... and quite illuminating.

            There is no real reason to tie dealing with economic injustice to slavery. Slavery is horrendous, by itself,
            Not horrendous enough to stir you to want some restorative justice for hundreds of years of free labour. Getting generations of people to work for free does not see to count as economic injustice in your book as you seem to make it distinct from slavery.

            but The Economic injustice happens primarily in the period after that.
            Berebaslug doubles down with this point so nobody have a go at me for misrepresenting his point above.

            It makes considerably more sense to separate getting America to finally address its whole history as a white supremacist shithole,
            Past tense, when did this stop?

            and then dealing with the money side of things separately, because you don't want one to distract from the other. Nobody is going to want to reconsider their views on endemic structural racism if the other thing that they know is that you've just got a big ball of cash, and they didn't get any cash. The sort of thing that she is talking about is a substantial expansion of state provision of services and financial support, which would benefit people in the bottom half of the income distribution regardless of race, but because the African American community is starting from such a low relative position, it would benefit disproportionately.
            Hmmm, i'm confused, alot of words but not sure of your point here.

            The only way that you are going to be able to get the American Govt to spend more money on disadvantaged african American communities, is if you can convince disadvantaged white communities and disadvantaged hispanic communities to form an economic bloc. If you can do that, you are talking about sums of money on an ongoing basis that dwarf any conceivable possible reparations settlement. That while unlikely is at least at the margins of possibility.
            No, it is for white people to finally openly admit the system of Racism/White Supremacy/White privilege is wrong and should be dismantled and replaced with a system of justice. But we all know that will never happen easily for obvious reasons which have nothing to do with giving black people a cheque.

            Comment


              Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
              There were other techniques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_jump
              Indeed. It is the same principle, herd your prey into an area where there is little or no escape route and then strike. It probably took hours to manoeuvre the buffalo to the cliff edge before the final charge.
              Last edited by Tactical Genius; 08-04-2019, 13:18.

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                It sometimes took days. The plains are immense and cliffs are rare (as they would be on plains).

                it wasn't unusual for Native American hunting parties in that region to be gone for several weeks at a time.

                Comment


                  I'm confused, how do I want reparations? have you actually read my posts because I have no Idea what you are on about here?

                  The Issue of an apology and certain legal redress for Slavery, and the subsequent discrimination. That bit shouldn't be that problematic. The Tricky bit is the payment of a sum of money to a group of people, based on being the descendant of an african slave brought to America. That seems reasonable enough to me, but I'm not anyone that needs to be convinced. The issue always comes back to the divide and rule nature of racism in America. Any measure that benefits one group like this is going to be immediately unpopular in all other groups. It's not something that can beat the divide and conquer basis underpinning structural american racism. Any efforts to meaningfully improve the legal, and economic position of the African American community is going to have to have something in it that improves the position of a lot of other people at least a bit, if you're going to get anywhere with it.

                  My point about the African American Community being mostly poor, but they were not most of the poor people is an important one. African americans make up one eighth of the US population roughly, and the inequality of income and wealth distribution of the US means that most people are poor, though no group is on average as economically disadvantaged as African Americans, and no other group has its aspiring middle class busted down by Crashes half as hard. On the One hand this makes it radically harder to get financial redress to one particular community, however it does mean that if you can convince enough people that it is in their interests to vote for a more equal distribution of wealth, then the african american community would benefit by far the most, given that they start furthest from equality as a group.

                  There are a lot of things that the African American Community genuinely need from a presidential candidate. White Nationalists have essentially taken over the whitehouse, and the President is pouring out increasingly aggressive racist nonsense every day. Any vague efforts to reign in police forces have been abandoned and the justice department doesn't care how many black people the police shoot, or that police can stop black motorists and essentially rob them of any money under civil forfeiture laws. A good place to start would be a new Civil rights bill, given that people have been rolling the first one back since Nixon. Massive criminal justice reform, and an end to the bullshit war on drugs nonsense, that seems primarily to be a means to lock black men up to take them off the electoral rolls. A federal Voter suppression bill.... then on the economic side you need better workplace regulations, higher minimum wages to push up the whole wage floor, radically increased investment across the board in education, housing and healthcare.... all of these are things where they can manage to develop a coalition with the rest of the disadvantaged. majority.

                  In this context the idea that you wouldn't support a candidate for president, unless they choose to support a political course of action that would make them almost instantly unelectable, well perhaps there could be a better time for this.

                  Not horrendous enough to stir you to want some restorative justice for hundreds of years of free labour. Getting generations of people to work for free does not see to count as economic injustice in your book as you seem to make it distinct from slavery.

                  Slavery is undoubtedly horrendous, and its cultural effects were very long lasting, and as someone who thinks that the after effects of the Irish famine on our society lasted in a meaningful way into the 90's, and still shape our society in weird and unpleasant ways today, I completely accept that even if every other aspect of discrimination stopped in 1865 its cultural impact would still be felt today. But then again, you're not trying to convince me. There are two issues here. The first is that it's generally speaking 6 generations ago for most african American people. I'm not sure that a lot of people are going to see the link, and the second thing is that the greatest economic impact comes down to what happened in the intervening period. In 1865 after the end of the civil war, the African American community was in pretty much the same boat as everyone else. Most people in the US were breathtakingly poor, huge proportions were living on the verge of starvation. Had discrimination ended in 1865, the wealth and income distribution of the African American community today would look a lot like the Irish American, or the German-american one. That gap appeared as the US got wealthier and discrimination carried on at full tilt, and most of it is relatively recent. Yes Slavery had horrible economic effects, but what has happened since is cumulatively worse, more recent, and happened to people who are actually alive, (In part because it is still happening today). There are a lot of african americans being effectively incarcerated so they can work as prison slaves today. I mean who is going to put out those California wildfires Kamala?

                  The other thing is that even if a reparations bill were to be passed, and if a non-trivial sum of money was to be paid to every eligible person, it would be a pittance set against the structural inequalities facing the African American community in its daily lives. It is also a pittance set against the sum of money that you would get by constructing a more equal healthcare, education and welfare system. Reparations are all well and good, but there is a choice to be made between whether people are going to expend their political capital on focusing on dealing with a 150 year old wrong, or dealing with the myriad massive problems today. Problems that are not limited to the African American community.

                  It boils down to this. The challenge facing people seeking reparations, is that the US system is and has always been set up on the basis of racist divide and rule, where poor white people don't notice so much how poor they are (compared to the rich people) because they can look down on people with darker skin. It's always been like this. the only possible window of opportunity for reparations comes in the time period after you have convinced people that poor people have far more in common with each other regardless of background, than with wealthy people of nominally the same ethnic group. Any attempt to do that before you can fundamentally undermine divide and rule is essentially doomed to fail, and only likely to provoke intense hostility. So making it a sticking point now may feel right, but doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. I'm getting an awful bang of Barcelona 1938/ UK 1983/ germany 1932 off of this whole scenario. That didn't end well for anyone.
                  Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 10-04-2019, 13:17.

                  Comment


                    Buttigieg is a Macron clone, manufactured candidate, he's a product of the David Axelrod and the Chicago Dem establishment machine. Pro-war (Iraq war apologist:" “we who were against the invasion had been wrong about the weapons, but right about the war."), pro-Israel (condoned the recent massacre of unarmed Gaza protestors), neoliberal policies and light identity politics, comes in with tremendously favorable, effusive MSM coverage and a large financial backing (mostly from billionaires like the Pritzkers), all packaged with an astroturfed fake small town image. Like Macron, he's very low and vague on policy, and high on image as the young, refreshing clean-cut wunderkind moderate reformer.

                    He was parachuted into the South Bend mayoral position, a college town with a large minority population which has pretty much been a Democrat stronghold, where he's not particularly popular. The MSM fluff pieces will mention he was elected with 80% of the votes, but they won't mention that the participation rate was under 12%. As a mayor, he led an aggressive gentrification program in South Bend that consisted of razing entire neighborhoods, and swept under the rug issues of local police racism.

                    https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/...mpression=true

                    This guy has done a pretty thorough job of dismantling PB's candidacy:

                    https://twitter.com/RealTrevorReese/...l%23pid1963825
                    Rising Democratic star Pete Buttigieg went to Israel at the height of Gaza killings last May on an Israel-lobby-sponsored trip and came home praising the country for its clear-eyed decisions on security. He faulted fellow Democrats for making snap judgments of the country based on 90-second cable news versions of what's going on over there.
                    Last edited by linus; 13-04-2019, 16:19.

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                      This is the first good article I've read about PB, it came out a few weeks ago, it's based mostly on a critique of Buttigieg's book:

                      https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/...GSW9Sjxjr5Yj4U

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                        Originally posted by Bruno
                        Mayor Pete's interview by Chris Wallace on Fox News:

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97QknIG-Eo

                        I'm linking it because I found the comment section underneath to be surprising, given that it's a Fox News video.
                        He's got an army of a few dozen cyber-activists who plaster the main articles and videos with organic-sounding praise.

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by Bruno

                          Do you know that for a fact?
                          "Fact"? Let's just say it's my gut feeling, you have people on there claiming to be Trump voters with subscriptions to channels like CNN and Ellen, it just doesn't feel organic, and that's the same impression I got in comment sections of other articles about him. He does have some genuine motivated activists, but there is an astroturfed seed element there as well.

                          What's fairly indisputable is that he has the same kind of MSM cheerleading you had in France for Macron, like for example this new Salon article, which reads like a Buttigieg campaign PR piece:

                          Mayor Pete Buttigieg's popularity continues to surge as he tops more polls in Iowa, New Hampshire

                          Buttigieg saw a 33 percent jump in name recognition in New Hampshire — the biggest increase among 2020 candidates


                          The first survey of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa, conducted by Monmouth University, reveals that Buttigieg has the support of 9 percent of those who say they are likely to attend the state's nominating event in February 2020. The small-city mayor, who is set today formally kick off his presidential campaign Sunday in his home town, finishes in third behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

                          Biden, who is likely to enter the race later this month, is the first choice of likely caucusgoers with 27 percent, followed by Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, at 16 percent.

                          The poll places Buttigieg marginally ahead of a host of candidates who entered the race with more established profiles and experience in higher office: Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are at 7 percent, followed by former congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas at 6 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota at 4 percent and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey at 3 percent.

                          The previous poll of likely Iowan Democratic caucus participants, conducted by Emerson Polling last month, also had Biden leading the 2020 Democratic presidential field with 25 percent. Sanders came in a close second at 24 perfent, while Buttigieg came in third at 11 percent.
                          https://www.salon.com/2019/04/12/may...new-hampshire/

                          The only number in the headline says "33% jump... biggest increase", it's as if they've cherrypicked the one stat that makes him look like he's totally crushing it. Burried deep into the text we find out that he came a distant third, with Biden and Sanders getting 3 and 2 times as many points, with Harris, Warren and Beto all in the same peloton and within the margin of error of PB's score. And further down, we learn that the previous poll had PB at 11%, which means that his score has actually dropped slightly...

                          Comment


                            Yeah PB is a centrist.

                            His championing of his success in "renovating or demolishing 1000 homes" sounds a bit suspect.

                            How many were renovated and how many were demolished? What kind of mayor, besides the mayor of Berlin in 1946, is measuring success by number of demolished buildings? Who profited from the renovated houses?
                            Last edited by anton pulisov; 13-04-2019, 19:15.

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                              From the Nathan Robinson article Linus linked to, the 1000 demolished houses thing seems just like New Labour's evil Pathfinder policy in Northern England, creating a desert of abandoned streets and demolished houses in order to "stimulate a property market". Fuck this PB chancer.

                              Comment


                                Culturally, having an openly gay candidate as a genuine contender is a good sign of progress, I would hope, and his being a Christian and a veteran will create some dissonance among those who think gay = left and atheist.

                                Politically, he's indistinguishable from a moderate Republican and is presumably trying to claim that ground that the GOP abandoned when staking its future on Trump, like Tony Blair going for One Nation Tory voters. If he wins, the election is going to be GOP-authoritarian v GOP-nice & lite, even more than it was in 2016.

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                                  He's the American Leo Varadkar. It's great that Ireland has a gay taoiseach. He was brave to be the first ever serving minister to come out, and it shows how much the country has moved on that it didn't damage his career prospects. I'm delighted for him on a personal level. I'd never vote for him though, because I find his politics reprehensible.

                                  Comment


                                    You wouldn't vote for him against the current incumbent?

                                    ​​​​

                                    Comment


                                      Ah right, I was talking about Varadkar.

                                      I suppose if I was a US citizen and it did boil down to Trump vs PB, then you'd have to go for the least evil option. Even then, there are some issues were Trump would be more progressive: he declassified CIA records about undercover ops to murder South American leftists in France. I couldn't see Buttigieg, a former intelligence operative, doing that. And Trump hasn't started any wars (yet). But yeah, if you are an American in the US, looking for more equality, less racism/sexism, better gun control, better healthcare, etc, then Buttigieg would clearly be the better candidate than Trump.

                                      Comment


                                        Originally posted by anton pulisov View Post
                                        He's the American Leo Varadkar. It's great that Ireland has a gay taoiseach. He was brave to be the first ever serving minister to come out, and it shows how much the country has moved on that it didn't damage his career prospects. I'm delighted for him on a personal level. I'd never vote for him though, because I find his politics reprehensible.
                                        Yeah, this sums it up. If I could vote, much as I respect the ambition, I would think more than twice, before him.

                                        However, if he is the Democratic nomination, I will happily clean his dishes, whilst him and his mister are at the hustings.

                                        Comment


                                          I really doubt that 45 had anything to do with the declassification of those documents.

                                          Comment


                                            The comparison with Varadkar is quite interesting though. If only for what it says about the differences in optimal routes to political relevance in the two countries.

                                            Comment


                                              Indeed, Ireland is a multi-party democracy with single transferable vote. Voters can be picky.

                                              Comment


                                                I was going to come in here defending Mayor Pete, as the accusations here mostly come from the usual non-US-resident suspects who find anyone who's not called Bernie Sanders to be utterly disreputable and inherently self-disqualified from being the Democratic candidate. I was going to point out that his suggestion for packing the Supreme Court with 15 members, and his method for getting there, seemed eminently reasonable, for example.

                                                But then Buttigieg comes out with this. And, frankly, anyone who talks about National Service should be inherently self-disqualified. There is no reason for it, it's always a terrible idea, and it's always a pitch to reactionary arseholes who want more discipline hammered into disrespectful kids. It's pure Blairite bollocks, and it puts Buttigieg back where I first thought of him - the kind of person who first came to my attention with a No-Labels label attached, someone for the Clinton nostalgists. Ugh.
                                                Last edited by San Bernardhinault; 16-04-2019, 16:22.

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                                                  That strike me as a weird thing to consider a disqualifying litmus test, especially given how vague he was about what it might entail.

                                                  Comment


                                                    I just find that people who support National Service seem to be trying to appeal to a particular demographic - it always seems like a triangulating move when it comes from the left. It seems to start from the premise that "Kids today, eh? They're all terrible wastrels." And that the solution almost always involves bootcamps and discipline and so on. It seems incredibly reactionary to me.

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