Twitter has declined

I just deactivated my twitter account. I’m not going back.

Here’s why:

  1. I am pretty sure they are hiding my posts. I had over 2800 followers and I got maybe 100 impressions per tweet.
  2. It clearly didn’t show my tweets to the people who actually interacted with me.
  3. I had time off work and I decided to unfollow people who weren’t following me back (mostly Dixiecrats). So it decided I couldn’t follow people, like tweets, they were basically slowly deactivating my account while still showing me ads.

I didn’t post hate speech. I didn’t harass people. I didn’t post racist tirades (unlike some foreign presidents I can name) yet it deactivated my account for being active?

Twitter sucks. Facebook sucks. If you find people you like, use an RSS feed like www.feedly.com

I’m done with Twitter.

Marx on Trade Unions

A common misconception is that trade unions are a critical part of Marx’s theory of revolution. I’m here to convince you that is not the case, and the presence of unions in the First International was merely a temporary and doomed-to-fail alliance of convenience.

The First and Second Internationals

The International was formed on 28 September 1864 as an alliance between a wide array of left-wing statist, mutualist, and anarchist organizations. These three competing visions had many disagreements throughout the organization’s history. While there were some victories, such as the 8-hour work day, Baukinin accused Marx of being an authoritarian, and Marx believed Baukinin was naive. They split 8 years later into two different organizations, one following Baukinin and the other following Marx.

There was a major split between different unions, some followed Baukinin, and some followed Marx following the collapse of the First International.

They tried to come back together again during the Second International, but there was such a large divide between reformists and revolutionaries which led to many reformist organizations leaving in 1896.

These Internationals could never have continued to exist for a long period of time. The Reformists and anarchists (particularly Baukanin) believed Marxism would inevitably lead to totalitarianism, while Marxists believed they had the only real answer.

Where Trade Unions fit in Marxism

There are precious few quotes about trade unions in Marx’s writings. Perhaps the most notable one is:

Trade unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fall partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effect of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

Which fits in with the rest of his writings. The abolition of the wage system is Marx’s goal of working with unions. The goal of unions is to improve wages and working conditions. As working conditions improve (the goal of labor unions), fewer people are going to be interested in a violent revolution. For this reason, these two goals are incompatible.

Marx saw unions as a convenient way to bring people over to his school of thought because if he had been able to change their methods towards revolution instead of incrementalism, he would have been able to spread his ideas around the world.

At the end of the day, the majority of trade unions are inherently incrementalist in their nature and theoretically opposed to Marxism. Marx’s attempt to bring unions over to his side failed, and the two sides have never joined again.

 

References:

Marx, Karl. “Value, Price, and Profit.” Economic Manuscripts: Value, Price and Profit, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm.

What really happened in 1968

The 1968 election is one of the most misunderstood elections in the history of the United States. The common narrative is that Hubert Humphrey lost because he supported the Vietnam War and those radical hippies didn’t vote for him. I’m here to prove that that is not what actually happened. Plus, Nixon didn’t truly oppose the war, so this argument doesn’t make sense.

First of all, let’s talk about California which was the second largest state. 1964 was the only election between Roosevelt and Clinton where it voted for the Democrat. It was only barely won by Nixon, without a majority. 1968 was the second-worst performance by a Republican between 1944 and 1992. Democrats did relatively well in California for this era. LBJ’s Great society plan in 1964 was the only time a Democrat won a majority of the vote between 1944 and 1996. Another point is that in California had a very progressive Republican Senator who voted for the majority of the Great Society. He was defeated by a conservative Republican in the primary, and then the California Senate seat flipped to a Democrat. Basically, a progressive Republican was narrowly defeated by a Goldwater Republican, which gave the seat to the Democrats. That seat has been held by the Democrats ever since.

Nixon clearly did not win California because he presented a more conservative vision. Neither did he win because of opposition to the Vietnam War. There’s something else going on.

We see the same pattern in Oregon which was reliably Republican between 1944 to 1992 except for 1964 when it voted for Johnson’s Great Society. Oregon wouldn’t give the majority of its votes to a Democrat again until 2004. Their existing senator was one of only two Democrats to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. He lost to a Republican who supported the war. Humphrey clearly did not lose Oregon because he supported the Vietnam War.

Illinois was a critical loss to the Democrats. The liberal Republican Everett Dickson was running for reelection in the Senate. He was critical in breaking the Southern Filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. He won. Again, just like in California, Republicans did not win the Senate election because they had a conservative person running, that urban legend is completely contrary to the facts on the ground.

Likewise, let’s look at actual approval polls on the Vietnam War from Gallup:

Source: Gallup

Year 1 is 1964, so the peak of Vietnam importance was in 1966.  By the time we get to 1968 (year 5) Only around 43% of Americans think Vietnam was the most important problem, fewer than the Democratic victory in 1966.

We also see that anti-Vietnam War protesters protested both major party candidates in the general election. It was not a wedge issue after the primary.

So why do we see Humphrey do so poorly while the Senators who supported the Great Society and the Vietnam War kept winning the general elections?

It’s actually very simple. Nixon had been campaigning through the primaries while Humphrey had not announced his campaign until April while Richard Nixon had started his campaign in February. Nixon had 2 more months of campaigning and that is a significant advantage in political campaigns. The other issue is that Humphrey flip flopped on Vietnam in September and said he was against the war, but that wasn’t enough to bring voters back.

So we have two more months of campaigning plus a stable message which didn’t change near the end of the election for Nixon, so voters took him more seriously. Humphrey lost his chance to focus the campaign on the very real successes of the Johnson administration in the beginning of 1968.

In regards to the flip flopping, it is ok if politicians change their stance over a long period of time, but changing your stance on a major issue in the middle of a campaign only in order to gain political support has always made politicians appear disingenuous to voters. Especially when you won almost no votes from average American voters in the primary elections.

A flip-flopping establishment candidate who came last in the primary became the nominee because of party insiders.

Who would expect that would fail to attract voters in the general election?

Consequences

As a consequence of the failure by the Democrats to win the Presidency in 1968 and 1972, the 1976 primary election included primaries in all 50 states. Super delegates still exist like they did in 1968 but we saw a total realignment of power in the primary system to include more delegates who are more or less bound to what voters choose in the primary. Problems still remain. The long period of time between the first and last primary means that a candidate who does well in the beginning of the 5 month long primary might not do well in the later states as more information comes out. Superdelegates (aka party insiders) still have power over the primary, although less than they did in 1968.

This is also good for the Democratic Party. In the primaries running from 1912-1972, when the general election candidate was not the victor of the popular vote in the primary, Democrats lost the general election every single time. There were only two instances when the winner of the popular vote was the general election candidate and did not win the presidency, those elections were 1928 and 1956. Every other time when the general election candidate was the same as the winner of the popular vote in the primary you saw the Democratic candidate become president. Since the reform, the Democrats have won the popular vote in the general election 8 out of 12 times. We have won half of the Presidential elections since this reform was passed due to the electoral college.

Year Winner of popular vote Winner of primary Same candidate? Won general popular? Won electoral college?
1912 Wilson Wilson Yes Yes Yes
1916 Wilson Wilson Yes Yes Yes
1920 Palmer Cox
1924 Gibbs Davis
1928 Al Smith Al Smith Yes
1932 Roosevelt Roosevelt Yes Yes Yes
1936 Roosevelt Roosevelt Yes Yes Yes
1940 Roosevelt Roosevelt Yes Yes Yes
1944 Roosevelt Roosevelt Yes Yes Yes
1948 Truman Truman Yes Yes Yes
1952 Kefauver Stevenson
1956 Stevenson Stevenson Yes
1960 Kennedy Kennedy Yes Yes Yes
1964 Johnson Johnson Yes Yes Yes
1968 McCarthy Humphrey
1972 Humphrey McGovern
1976 Carter Carter Yes Yes Yes
1980 Carter Carter Yes
1984 Mondale Mondale Yes
1988 Dukakis Dukakis Yes
1992 Clinton Clinton Yes Yes Yes
1996 Clinton Clinton Yes Yes Yes
2000 Gore Gore Yes Yes
2004 Kerry Kerry Yes
2008 Obama Obama Yes Yes Yes
2012 Obama Obama Yes Yes Yes
2016 Clinton Clinton Yes Yes
2020 Biden Biden Yes Yes Yes

It is obvious to me that having the Democratic candidate be the winner of the popular vote in the primary is good for the party.

The Nixon Administration significantly changed America. He made no efforts for peace in Vietnam, he started the War on Drugs and appointed conservative Supreme Court justices which significantly changed American politics to the present.

The 1968 election truly permanently changed American politics. The Democratic Party lurched to the left for the next 40 years with the rise of the New Democratic Caucus which has seen three presidents (Carter, Clinton, Biden) ascend to office, believing that the leftward shift of the Johnson Administration led to our loss in 1968.

I hope I have clearly shown in this article why I don’t believe it was Vietnam, nor was it the Civil Rights Acts which caused Nixon to win in the 1968 election. I think the evidence it has to do with how the Democratic candidate won in a corrupt bargain, he didn’t participate in the primaries meaning he wasn’t able to garner support and the party narrative had so very much changed in the primary that with an unclear message he failed to turnout voters in the general election.

The Beginning of Modern Western history

Pretty much everyone knows about the beginning of civilization. Around 4000 BCE different civilizations started to pop up in a few river valleys in Africa and Asia.

Sumer was organized as an early dynasty around 4500 BCE.

The Indus valley civilization appeared around 3300 BCE. It remained stable for 2000 years.

China was established as a state around 3162 BCE.

Egypt appeared as a dynasty around 3150 BCE. It was led by local kings until 744 BCE when it was briefly conquered by the Nubians. There were a few rebellions, but it didn’t overly concern people outside of the Nile River. The Late Period saw alternating leadership by native Egyptians and Persian and Greek pharaohs.

For this post, I am going to focus on Western Civilization.

First Era, Sumer

For the first 2000 years of civilization, the Indo-Aryan civilization was fairly isolated, China broke up into multiple kingdoms in the 8th century BCE. There are interesting stories to tell here, of ancient monarchies ruling their empires, and they stayed mostly to themselves.

In the Middle East, there was the foundation of several kingdoms with distinct languages and cultures, unlike any other part of the world starting around 2200 BCE with the fall of Ur when it fell to the Akkadian Empire. This was the first cradle of civilization to truly fall, and you see the beginning of international relations in what resembles a fairly modern form in this region. Ur was restored as the Third Dynasty of Ur in 2112 BCE, and it lasted for 100 years before it fell to the Elamites.

This is the end of the first clear chapter of Western Civilization, around 2004 BCE

2: Isin-Larsa Period, 2004-1763 BCE

For around 300 years there was no clear dominant power in the Middle East. Isin and Larsa were the biggest poles of the region at this point until they were conquered by Hammurabi.

3: Babylonia and Assyria, 1763-911 BCE

The Old Babylonian Empire dominated the Middle East until 1595 BCE when it was replaced by the Kassite Empire.

In the 1400s Assyria started to grow, and between 1400 and 1000 BCE  the Hittites were in Asia Minor, Egypt conquered the Levant, and the Fertile Crescent was balanced between the Assyrians and Kassites.

You see the foundation of Israel and Judah after the Egyptians leave the area in the 11th century BCE.

4. Neo-Assyrian dominance, 911-609 BCE

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was founded in 911 BCE. It steadily grew to encompass the entire fertile crescent, conquering everywhere from Babylon to Judah by 700 BCE.

5. Formation of Modern dynasties with the Neo-Babylonian empire, 609 BCE – Present

The Assyrian Empire fell in 609 BCE to the Neo-Babylonian Empire led by Nabopolassar. This was a war of conquest, and it changed history forever. The Neo-Assyrian Empire influenced all subsequent cultures to the point of being mentioned multiple times in the Bible and significantly impacting Jewish theology.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire is extremely significant because of its genealogical relationship with every later modern dynasty in the region.

King Nabopolassar was the grandfather of Shahanshah Astyages of Media, who was the grandfather of King Cyrus of the Achaemenid Empire.

Even though the Neo-Babylonian Empire had a short life, it had a profound impact on the world through the descendants of its kings, along with Lydia, and Medes and their kings are also all ancestors of King Cyrus the Great. This might be the first time in history where you see major marriages between political families in different countries as a form of political relations.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire was followed by the Achaemenid/First Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great and his descendants.

The fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was of incredible significance for the history of the world. King Darius’ son-in-law Alexander the Great created the largest empire in history (up to that point in time) and when he died there was no clear line of succession.

After the throne fell to Alexander the Great’s brother-in-law Cassander, the throne went to many different dynasties, and multiple kingdoms were created following the end of the Macedonian empire.

The Seleucid Empire is of particular interest because the Basileus Antiochus Theos was the great-nephew of King Cassander. His grandson Megas Basileus Antiochus was the great-great-grandfather of King Phranaces of Pontus.

King Phrnaces of Pontus was the grandfather of King Aspurgus of the Bosporus.

King Aspurgus was the ancestor of King Aspacures of Iberia. Iberia was a Georgian kingdom, and the Kings of Iberia are the descendants of the Kings of Georgia.

 

In short, King Nabopolassar of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was the direct ancestor of a wife of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was the brother-in-law of King Cassander. King Cassander is an uncle of every monarch of Georgia.

It is clear to see that this era was massively historically to see on the map of the time as well. The Assyrian Empire was the largest empire to date, particularly in the region, but the Neo-Babylonian, Median, and Lydian empires were particularly large compared to preceding empires as well. Those monarchies are all ancestors of King Cyrus the Great of Persia.

 

There have obviously been other times great houses have sprung up since the Neo-Babylonian Empire, but I think it is really interesting how there is a clear genealogical relationship between the kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and every European royal family in the last 1000 years through marriage.

View the full genealogical path here:

http://www.stidmatt.com:2317/dare?em=R;ei=83116;et=S;color=;p=nabopolassar;n=of+akkad

The end of privacy

Abortion is now illegal in at least some cases in all but 6 states.

Miranda Rights have been effectively repealed.

Voter ID laws have been upheld.

Public money must be given to private religious schools if parents request it.

Clarence Thomas has stated that they might repeal Obergefell v. Hodges.

All of this paints a very clear picture of where America is headed right now.

  • Privacy from the government is ending.
  • Religious organizations are entitled to public tax dollars.
  • All science-based policy is at risk if it conflicts with religious dogma.
  • Voter discrimination is being enshrined back into law.
  • Travel is being restricted with the expansion of visas, which started in the aftermath of the PATRIOT ACT.

To me all of this makes a very clear picture. The Republican Party has become a far-right party that does not believe in democracy. They believe that all of your personal data belongs to the State, the State gets to determine whether you participate in a religious practice or not and that their personal religious dogma needs to be followed by everybody.

If they win an election it is legitimate, if they lose an election, it is not. Doesn’t matter if there is any proof or not, elections today are only legitimate in the eyes of Republicans when they win.

They are making it difficult for groups that do not vote for Republicans to vote at all.

The Republican Party is a Fascist Party. It is past time to treat it as one.

Successful leadership

A trick to leadership is to under promise and over deliver. Don’t promise something and then fall through, that’s when people become disappointed. Promise something you know you can and will accomplish, just enough to get elected, and then do more than you promised.

Another important part of leadership is to try to fire up your base more than you upset the people who didn’t vote for you.

There will always be some voters who are either significantly uninformed or ideologically opposed to you who will never vote for you. Don’t specifically work on bringing people over to your side, you will not succeed.

If you can push for policies which will positively impact your supporters without impacting people who won’t support you, you should pass those policies quickly to encourage your base and gain your political capital.

This does not mean that a leader was ethical.

Examples of leaders who did this include

  • At the end of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency the Federalist Party was extremely weak, and his Democratic-Republican Party dominated politics until the split between Jackson and Adams.
  • Abraham Lincoln. He embraced the values of the Republican Party (of the time), and didn’t alienate the abolitionists. Through this action the south seceded. The emancipation proclamation strengthened his support among Republicans, and it was the right thing to do. The most controversial president of his lifetime (the only one who had to face a rebellion) he is now seen as one of America’s greatest presidents. Republicans dominated the Presidency for the next two decades.
  • Theodore Roosevelt expanded American power, his party dominated government during his time in office, and he expanded American power. His successor abandoned Roosevelt’s policies which l
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched the New Deal and won almost every state in 1940. He didn’t try to keep the more radical Republican elements happy, and was put on our money because of his success.

In the United States presidents have two goals in office, first is to pass the policies which they were elected to do, and also to keep and grow power while in office, ideally to leave office with their policy more powerful than when they entered. Very few presidents succeed in this.

There have only been two times in American history where a party has maintained control of both houses of congress for more than 10 elections in a row.

I believe it is possible to have the Democrats dominate politics for the next twenty years, the reasons are numerous. First of all, while values on issues have swung strongly liberal on major issues, the Republican party platform is still stuck in the past on LGBT, gender, and other issues regarding different groups. There is no major social value where the majority of Americans agree with the Republican Party. Even when it comes to economic values, even Republicans voters balk at the idea of ending social security because they see those programs as that they have “earned them”. A majority of voters support ending student loans, and the majority support a more progressive tax code.

Which brings us to where American politics needs to go in the future. The politics of moderating Democratic policies to improve voter turnout is not going to work anymore. Millennials are adults now, and we got really excited about the candidacy of Sanders over the last two Presidential elections. In the 2020 Presidential primaries, Biden won only 3% of voters between 17 and 29, and only 5% of voters between 30 and 44. If more Millennials had voted, there is a high probability Sanders would have won the election. As long as more of us vote, eventually we will be the key demographic politicians need to win in order to carry the Presidency.

The key to successful leadership over the next twenty years will be to get as many millennials out to vote as possible. The Democratic party needs to endorse ranked voting, which is key to electing politicians who the majority of Americans will support. We need to elect our candidates using ranked voting who can then encourage as many voters as possible to vote in the general election.

If the Democratic Party does this we can succeed on a large number of issues the majority of Americans care about, and then voters will turn out, and we will continuously win elections until the Republicans stop being so extreme in the future.

We cannot afford future Republican governments. They are bad for civil rights, they are bad for economic growth, they have killed jobs, and they are bad for the stock market. There is no good reason to vote for the Republican Party in this era. There are only two reasons to vote Republican nowadays, either you are brainwashed, or you are racist. There’s no other reason.

Democrats need to play hard ball, fight to win, and then pass the legislation our country needs to deal with the major issues which our nation is dealing with.

References:

https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/primaries-caucuses/entrance-and-exit-polls/iowa/democratic

Almost every police shooting is a crime

This is a very simple argument.

In the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty. The only way to prove guilt in our legal system is in a court of law.

Self-defense is a right as well.

As long as a person under arrest does not try to attack a police officer, under which the police officer may legally defend themselves under self-defense statutes, any non-violent person shot by a police officer is legally innocent.

Which means that almost every police shooting is a homicide.

The End of Legal Abortion, How We Got Here

In 2000 Al Gore probably won the Presidential election, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 majority stopped the vote counting in Florida, handing Bush the presidency. Bush would be reelected in 2004 which is how John Roberts and Alito got onto the Supreme Court. This was one opportunity to create a liberal majority that was lost.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton also probably beat Donald Trump, based on numerous reports of voting irregularities in counties that saw large swings toward Trump in swing states. But regardless, enough people felt she wasn’t “good enough” to get their votes, so they voted third party, and Trump became President. it would have taken fewer than 100,000 extra votes each in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for her to have become President. On top of this, there were leaks of her emails on Wikileaks which people used to say that the DNC was biased against Bernie, and so a large number of people didn’t vote. At the core of the problem, Hillary Clinton’s speeches veered too far to the right in a nation that is moving to the left, making her unappealing to many voters. Clinton and the DNC didn’t campaign in the right places and didn’t pay attention to counteract Republican campaigning in key states with Republican governors. The DNC and Obama administration didn’t do enough to bring states to court for voter disenfranchisement. The number of missed opportunities by all Democratic leadership is immense. But none of this is an excuse for people who didn’t see that Trump was as dangerous as he was and chose to clutch their laurels and not vote for the better candidate. We don’t have ranked voting, voting third party is not an option.

At the end of the day, Clinton’s vote total was within 100,000 votes of Obama in 2012, and Trump got 2 million more than Romney did in 2012. Clinton won the popular vote, but there were large declines in the Democratic vote total in Michigan (300,000), Wisconsin (300,0000) for the Democrats, and a surge of votes for Trump in Pennsylvania, which gave Trump the victory by very narrow margins. They abandoned the 50-state strategy, and people didn’t vote for them.

The consequence of this election is that Trump became president despite losing the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. This was the fifth time in history that a candidate who lost the popular vote became President.

Hillary Clinton is a relatively moderate Democrat, she always has been. But, she was never as conservative as Donald Trump is today. She would not have rolled back progress from the Obama administration, and she would have never appointed a conservative to the Supreme Court. Her husband nominated both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, two of the most liberal Supreme Court justices we have had in the last 50 years and served under Obama when both Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayer were appointed to the Supreme Court. She was clearly better than Trump.

The consequence of not electing Hillary Clinton is simple. Abortion is about to be outlawed in almost every state. Only 4 states have laws that make it so abortion is legal on request. Those states are Washington, New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. Abortion is illegal in some if not all cases in every other state. Even states like Illinois, Vermont, and Minnesota have laws that make abortion illegal. The repeal of Roe v Wade is imminent, and it will impact almost every person in this country.

So, with abortion being illegal on the horizon, we know how we got here. We got here because Clinton didn’t become President.

So what can we do in the future?

The answer is painfully obvious. We need to vote. We can legalize abortion nationwide through congress and pack the Supreme Court to nullify Trump’s appointees next year.

We need to keep the House, and we need two more seats in the Senate to nullify all Republicans, including Manchin and Sinema, and then we can make abortion legal nationwide through US Code.

We can also legalize gay marriage at the same time, and by packing the courts we can make it so that the Republican Party cannot legislate through the courts.

The alternative to this plan is we do not win the Senate, we don’t campaign like hell in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. We don’t defend Senators in Georgia, and Arizona. The alternative is we go back to tried and failed party policies which chose which races are forgone lost, not based on any real evidence, and we surrender our country to Republican extremists.

For the average citizen, what we can do to codify abortion is to vote, donate money if possible, phone bank for candidates if possible, and then win two more seats in the Senate and then codify abortion access in January.

But most importantly, no matter where you live, you need to vote in every election.

Thoughts while sitting at a hotel

My life is going through a massive transition right now as I go through a sad breakup, and I’m sitting in a hotel right now which is owned by the Marriott family.

I read through the Wikipedia page of Bill Marriott and I learned that he is a leader of the LDS church.

Which made me have a few thoughts…

Three things should never touch directly, religion, state, and business.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

I also believe that if someone chooses to serve in politics, they should put all of their investments in a trust which they cannot access until they leave office.

We need to analyze what happens when the three mix.

When state and business mix we get politicians who make decisions to their own benefit, not for the benefit of the people they are entitled to serve. Perfect case in point is when Donald Trump did what he could to keep his hotels open, the health of the nation be damned. People in business can run for office, but they need to sell their assets before they take office.

When state and religion mix you get theocracy. Laws reflect the personal beliefs of the religion, and they won’t reflect the needs of society. You get theocracy which is never a good thing.

When religion and business mix you get more conflicts of interest. Religious leaders need to be focused on the well being of the world. If they also try to run a business at the same time they will make decisions which fail to serve the public but instead serve their own personal financial benefit. You end up with a corrupt religion which often will exist not for the well being of people but for the financial gain of the religious leaders.