Trump voting town opens "socialist" grocery store

[K1052]

The job creators of at least the last ten years are concentrated in tech and are socially liberal...and yet, suddenly very very concerned about Sanders and Warren.

You need to find a new punching bag.

You'll find few true liberals in the three comma club of tech. Mostly a bunch of rich libertarians leaning into conservatism just to keep the tax regime favorable, fuck everything and everyone else.

 

[pmv]

Military service for those who elect to. Volunteer service like peace corps or infrastructure for the rest.

That's a weird tangent to go off on.

There are precedents, I suppose - e,g. the work programs of the New Deal (and similar work schemes in the UK in the same period). But those were about putting unemployed workers to work, rather than forcing different social groups to mix, which seems to be what you are getting at. Like an urban/rural or class-based form of desegregation?

Your point about getting people out of their echo chambers makes me think of Mao sending the pampered educated urban youth off to toil in the fields and learn what life was like for the peasantry. That didn't really work out according to plan. From what I've read the educated young ended up disliking the peasants far more than they did to start with. And I don't think it did much for agricultural production either.

I dunno - seems like there's a trade-off between socio-economic/racial segregation and state compulsion?

I guess I'm saying I don't thiink I agree with the idea, but I think there's a valid issue in there. Isn't it the same logic of race-based school-bussing or (here) mixed-ability comprehensive schooling? It's not good if the elites never have to mix with those they have power over.

 

[Jhhnn]

No, it's FMGY on their part.

That's supposed to mean something? Does it make you feel superior to look down upon the less fortunate?

 

[Starbuck1975]

So you see yourself as a product of this idea, and something everyone should aspire to?

I see service to society as a way to reduce tribalism, and it also provides paths for those who may not otherwise have the means to escape their situations. Many people have benefitted from this idea.

 

[jackstar7]

I see service to society as a way to reduce tribalism, and it also provides paths for those who may not otherwise have the means to escape their situations. Many people have benefitted from this idea.

You see a military unit as a way to avoid tribalism.

 

[Starbuck1975]

That's a weird tangent to go off on.

He asked for a policy idea, and I happen to support social service as a unifying force.

There are precedents, I suppose - e,g. the work programs of the New Deal (and similar work schemes in the UK in the same period). But those were about putting unemployed workers to work, rather than forcing different social groups to mix, which seems to be what you are getting at. Like an urban/rural or class-based form of desegregation?

This was largely how the immigration populations of the time affiliated with unions and slowly blended into the melting pot, so I would say it worked out fairly well.

Your point about getting people out of their echo chambers makes me think of Mao sending the pampered educated urban youth off to toil in the fields and learn what life was like for the peasantry. That didn't really work out according to plan. From what I've read the educated young ended up disliking the peasants far more than they did to start with. And I don't think it did much for agricultural production either.

I was thinking more in terms of geography, because there is a growing geographic divide

I guess I'm saying I don't thiink I agree with the idea, but I think there's a valid issue in there. Isn't it the same logic of race-based school-bussing or (here) mixed-ability comprehensive schooling? It's not good if the elites never have to mix with those they have power over.

No solution is perfect, but it is harder for the elites to turn working class demographics against one another once they understand their common bonds.

 

[Starbuck1975]

You see a military unit as a way to avoid tribalism.

I see social service as a way to avoid tribalism, with military service being one of several options available to eligible citizens.

 

[theeedude]

That's supposed to mean something? Does it make you feel superior to look down upon the less fortunate?

It means "Fvck Me, Get Yours" which is what rural America has been voting for over the last 40 years. That's not fortune, it's stupidity, and yes it should be looked down on.

 

[brandonbull]

it's amazing how these people can't understand the (lack of) difference in things. Beyond hypocritical. Hell the mayor even directly spells out a socialist program as his "defense".

A poor, Trump-voting Florida town opened a government grocery store to end its food desert, but it's "not socialism"

68% of the 1600 residents of of Baldwin, Florida — where the median income is $44k/year — voted for Trump in 2016, and in the years since, they've lost their…

boingboing.net

I don't think grocery store is the socialist shiny object you think it is. Private sector didn't fill the need for a grocery store so a municipality run one was established and not that the municipality decided that the private sector couldn't run one. Do they charge different prices for different levels of income?

 

[ch33zw1z]

I don't think grocery store is the socialist shiny object you think it is. Private sector didn't fill the need for a grocery store so a municipality run one was established and not that the municipality decided that the private sector couldn't run one. Do they charge different prices for different levels of income?

Socialism can take many forms. Your personal requirements to call something socialism don't matter. Government meeting the needs of it's constituents on a break even basis certainly fits under that category nicely. Your feels tho.

 

[pmv]

I don't think grocery store is the socialist shiny object you think it is. Private sector didn't fill the need for a grocery store so a municipality run one was established and not that the municipality decided that the private sector couldn't run one. Do they charge different prices for different levels of income?

It's the state stepping in to meet a real need where the market has failed. That's precisely the sort of thing that neo-liberalism has been attempting to eradicate for 40 years on the grounds that capitalism doesn't need it and it's inherently destructive. You can call it a 'mixed economy' rather than 'socialism' if you want. But it doesn't sit well with Reagan's quip about 'the most terrifying words in the English language'