I have not seen any indication that Mamdani has advocated for violence to achieve his goal, so calling him a communist seems unfair, but I think he would also agree it is unfair to simply say he is "left of the center-right".
Mamdani seems very proud to be a socialist and you get a taste of it where he says "...the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment" and "..we have to continue to elect more socialists and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism", etc. He is very clear about his beliefs.
Is Mamdani proposing a "one time" tax of 5% of all of a person's wealth or anything remotely similar? If not, I don't think it is reasonable to compare the two situations.
Not sure why you are bringing up private prisons. Private prisons are a tiny percentage of federal prisons and prison labor is used throughout the USA.
>...Someone in a Scandinavian country where there are virtually no unsheltered homeless people probably doesn't index their zero to "dying of exposure on the sidewalk due to untreated mental illness," while an American who sees that regularly would.
Maybe I am not understanding this - do you think the average American regularly sees people dying of exposure on the sidewalk? Or what do you mean?
When I was going to grad school in DC, I'd suggest to classmates that we place bets on the date of the first person dying of exposure in the city every winter.
This bet kinda horrified some people, but I think I got my point across.
Reading through your link, I don't see how one can say it "calls for a "A New Pearl Harbor":
>...Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and
industrial policy will shape the pace and
content of transformation as much as the
requirements of current missions.
...
>...Absent a rigorous program of
experimentation to investigate the nature of
the revolution in military affairs as it applies
to war at sea, the Navy might face a future
Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the
post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war
at the dawn of the carrier age.
> Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.
The existence of modern conspiracies should hardly be surprising. And are precisely the business of intelligence services such as those with established links to the attackers. The attack itself was, by definition, a conspiracy. There's a great deal of conjecture about who exactly was involved in that conspiracy besides the attackers themselves, and a great deal of evidence both concrete and circumstantial. Too much for a single HN comment. But I've made no claims about that beyond "Rebuilding America's Defenses" being conspicuously prescient. Which it demonstrably was.
>...The book's title was Svirsky's, chosen as a deliberate homage to George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). Asimov feared the title would be seen as elitist and condescending, and he suggested Everyone's Guide to Science as an alternative, but Svirsky refused. Years later, when he was confronted by annoyed feminists who asked why the book was restricted to men, Asimov would claim that the "intelligent man" of the title referred to himself;[3] thus anticipating the title Asimov's Guide to Science adopted for the third edition.
I appreciate how open and honest you have been in this discussion. While it might be that taking Prozac is the best choice for your child, I have to admit I would never let a pediatrician prescribe Prozac (or any other SSRI) - this is enough outside their normal training, I would want to consult with a specialist. Can't you get a referral to a pediatric psychiatrist of some sort?
No, that is not true. The first school lunch programs started with private initiatives in the 1890s. The first major federal program for student lunches was the National School Lunch Program enacted in 1946. That has since been updated several times: the Child Nutrition Act in 1966, the Child Care Food Program in 1975, etc.
What you're saying doesn't contradict the argument that the goal was do outdo the black panther lunch programs.
Certainly I'd like to read more about the idea before I buy into it, but it does make a lot of sense - schools in black neighborhoods are chronically underfunded and the black panthers were first and foremost a direct action and mutual aid group, and furthermore the USA government viewed them as a huge threat to government authority and did many things to attempt to undermine the black panthers... Including outright assassination.
> [Original, emphasis added]: the only reason we have school lunch programs in the US at all is because the Black Panthers started a free breakfast program for black children in the 70s
> [Response, emphasis added]: The first school lunch programs started with private initiatives in the 1890s. The first major federal program for student lunches was the National School Lunch Program enacted in 1946
Are you saying that the government started trying to one-up the Black Panther school lunches 30 years before the Black Panthers started offering them?
Is it possible that the people in charge of school lunches in the 1970s viewed the Black Panther program as some kind of competition? Sure. Was the 1970s Black Panther program "the only reason" the US started a national school lunch program in the 1940s? I don't see how that would be possible.
> the only reason we have school lunch programs in the US at all is because the Black Panthers started a free breakfast program for black children in the 70s
> The first school lunch programs started with private initiatives in the 1890s. The first major federal program for student lunches was the National School Lunch Program enacted in 1946
How does the existence of a food program in the 1890s, or 1946, automatically invalidate the notion that the promulgation of the food programs into 2025 is due to the efforts of the black panthers? Similarly, one could attribute gun control laws in California to the black panthers focus on arming black neighborhoods, rather than some kind of liberal anti-gun attitude.
> automatically invalidate the notion that the promulgation
Goes the other way around too? Regardless government continuing doing what they were already doing for the past half century seems reasonable. Without any additional evidence that seems like an inherently much more valid argument that attributing it to the Black Panthers. So equating them seems disingenuous...
>2. Solar does receive more subsidies, intentionally. …
>3. Taxes aren’t flat rates, so when you make more you pay more progressively. A poor person pays significantly less than a rich person does for solar subsidies.
Yes, subsidies are done to help drive adoption. The key is that the subsidies should go where they can do the most good. Money is limited and is fungible - a dollar spent subsidizing utility solar will go much, much, further to decarbonizing the grid than a dollar spent subsidizing rooftop residential solar. It is understandable that anyone getting free money thinks it is good. But if the less well off people (renters, etc.) learn that they are paying a great deal more for power to subsidize wealthier residents (when that money could have gone MUCH further if spent on other solar projects) - it isn’t hard to imagine that might lower enthusiasm for government subsidizing the move away from fossil fuels. This sort of wealth transfer to the more wealthy actually hurts everyone in the long run. The goal should be to decarbonize the grid - not implement some kind of a reverse Robinhood scheme.
Mamdani seems very proud to be a socialist and you get a taste of it where he says "...the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment" and "..we have to continue to elect more socialists and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism", etc. He is very clear about his beliefs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K7HDuoJ0MQ