They're doing things to fix it though, through community lookout, programs, working together - all kinds of stuff I've seen first hand. The stuff any kind of community does anyway. That's an entirely separate thing from cops brutalizing them no matter what they're doing and decades of systemic racism from outside their own neighborhoods.

I don't give a fuck about burning and looting. Who cares? That's really the big issue in your mind with everything else happening?

No, just pointing out the hypocrisy of it all.

I don't really see any hypocrisy personally.

And personally, I do.

Of course you're gonna see hypocrisy if you don't think about the issue any more than the talking points you dutifully regurgitated.

I do, hence the reason why I see the hypocrisy in it all. That's the beauty of sitting in the centre, I'm not going to blindly follow groups just because they 'say the right things' when there is more than enough evidence to show that these groups are just another in the long line self-serving hypocrites.

Oh man, I forgot about that other most annoying strand of centrism-- the notion that having any ideological convictions at all makes you a blind follower.

I never said that.

Still didn't say what you're implying.

Are you? Because it sure doesn't seem like you do from what you've written below.



This whole argument rests on the assumption of the wholesale, en masse replacement of the entire Federal fleet within a single fiscal year, which ain't gonna happen. For starters, that can't happen on the basis of an executive order; to replace the whole fleet simultaneously would require the new appropriation of funds, which means it would have to go through Congress and be passed into law, not decreed by Presidential fiat. In any event, large federal purchase orders are invariably scheduled for delivery over a period of years and the costs amortized in the same way. This will take the form of replacing vehicles already scheduled to be retired with electric models, so it will take decades to accomplish.

The growth of the hybrid vehicle park and the flex fuel park in the federal fleet under the Obama administration probably gives us a pretty accurate idea of the actual rate of replacement. From the originally referenced article:



Actual replacement rate was about 2500 vehicles/year for hybrids and 7000 vehicles a year for flex fuel, so roughly 10000 vehicles a year in total. In other words, instead of 8% of total annual vehicle production, you're talking about 0.125% of that production, which, again, isn't likely to be a major driver of industrial development or corporate strategy.

Let me be real here... ALL POLITICS IS IDENTITY POLITICS.

It is, if you want it to be. I choose to not play those games. Those that choose to, fine for them. I'd point out that those who believe that 'unity through diversity' will work, while they focus on what makes them different (superficially, I might add), is a fool's dream.

It's worth defining terms - how do you mean 'identity politics' ? Worth nailing down, as Identity politics as a concept was invented by sociology types & is defined as pretty much the opposite of 'trad' politics; one is served by policies derived via, and representative of, the experiences of a given body politic; the other generally by policies arrived at technocratic-ally, or via a philosophically abstract position, for example. No criticism implied, both are valid, both have existed and continue to exist, usually in opposition to each other, sometimes together.

It's perfectly possible to have political views that aren't derived from your identity or experiences, after all - it's why the world has been / is plagued by so many upper middle class Marxists, for example.

You do also realize that the federal 700k cars, if replaced solely with electric vehicles, will mean 100k cars a year, even assuming a seven year life cycle for them? And that, for the whole fleet, equals that 8% of a year's manufacturing figures, just spread over a number of years, just like any governmental procurement? The executive order does not mean replacing the whole fleet at once, it means only buy electric when you need new ones. That's how I try to plan stuff at work: replace the aging stuff with better things when they reach their retirement age, don't immediately go all ballistic when something slightly better appears. Life cycle management can be tricky, but use some of that and a dash of determination, and you can achieve surprising things.

Just because Obama couldn't do more with a lackluster directive, at a time when the technology was essentially still in its infancy, does not mean it can't be done now. If the executive order is followed, either the vast majority of federal vehicle fleet (and massive amounts of state vehicles) will be electric in 7 to 12 years, or your people are going to be driving a decade old clunkers all over the country, because, hey, you can't buy gas-guzzlers any more either. Until the next trump wannabe makes you buy vehicles that use immigrants and general suffering as fuel, of course.

The road to renewable energy is not easy. But I guess it's OK to leave the R&D to the Chinese, if you just don't feel like it. Just prepare to welcome your new Asian overlords if you do that, because they are investing in it. Heavily. And the future is not based on fossil fuels.

(and for the record, "BuT ThE ChiNeSe ArE PollUTinG MorE thAn tHe UsA" carries no weight in this. Yes, they are still building coal plants and whatnot. But like a good socialist centrally controlled state, they have a plan, and a big part of that plan seems to be being the leader in green tech and renewable energy. Buy an affordable solar cell now, and it's very like been manufactured in China. Any talk and excuses supporting coal or oil is like whining of the fat kid huffing and puffing on track during PE class, after being left behind by those who can actually run. The Chinese have been manufacturing the crap we've thought we needed for the better part of the last half a century. Now they intend to make the stuff we really, really, really need in the future. Biden is doing exactly the right thing, with the tools he has at his disposal, and anyone saying otherwise has already accepted losing in the global race towards monetizing sustainable societies. The combo of "buy American" and "go green" should obviously be seen as the best play of the mediocre hand of cards the US holds, and as a step in the right economical and ecological direction, but since it's, like, totally communist and/or not leftist enough, it's a bad idea... m'mkay...?)

I know a bunch of people that have said the same things and all of them have many things in common. So, let's point this out, so far:

-Defined yourself as "centrist", yet you only see the hypocrisy on the left and you just forget about the bad things the right does - or just stay quiet about it

-Effortlessly put in the balance some riots and destruction of some private property stuff to the death of people fueled by racial bias in an everyday basis

-Deny the racial bias that started the BLM or diminish the merits of the argument despite the massive evidence behind it

-Instead of recognizing the historic evidence of oppression and social marginalization blacks have endured, you start your argument saying they have their own inner problems "as blacks" that contribute to their place in society

-Saying "unity through diversity" is a joke or some sort of utopia (which is basically a statement of wishful homogenization).

So, connecting the dots is easy: You are what is called a "3rd way" guy. Basically there are 2 types of these people:

a) Full blown fascist; loves Hitler, Mussolini, Franco; hates jews, blacks, asians and in general every non-white person and wish for *insert random ethnic group here* supremacy while kicking out or just plain exterminating the others

b) "In the closet" fascist; a pussyfied version of the first type. Someone who share most of the neonazi views but faces 2 problems:
i- Lacks enough balls to declare himself a neofascist
ii-Lacks enough neofascist friends to come out as one.

c) Banned

TheFinalSleep has been put to bed. Got to love people who shield racist dogwhistles with disingenuous "BOTH sIdeS aRE baD" arguments.

About time. If people like TheFinalSleep are gonna be like this with their opinions, then they should probably stay away from this forum.

And now a trophy for Derigin:

People who claim to be "centrists" can almost infallibly be revealed as right-wingers/Republicans/whatever by means of a little questioning. The word ultimately has little to no meaning, as most mainstream political ideologies, in the US anyway, are pretty centrist.

You understand that publicly traded corporations operate essentially on a 90 day planning window, driven by the tempo of the quarterly earnings report, right? Unless government fleet sales are a substantial earnings driver on a quarter-in, quarter-out basis, they are unlikely to meaningfully impact design and production decisions. 8% of annual production is a meaningful number, 1% or less (your very optimistic assessment of 100k vehicles annually) is not. You're not bending the decision curve with 1 out of every 100 vehicles produced and sold. It's worth noting that the feds and the states have had huge fleets for decades, but those fleets have not meaningfully impacted design policy for the major manufacturers. The consumer and commercial fleet markets are the drivers because they're just so much larger.

Moreover, there is the question of implementation timeframe. Because this is a matter of procurement policy, it will have to be implemented as regulatory change within the federal executive department agencies. First, each agency will have to draft the rules under which it will undertake the switchover to an electric fleet, a process that typically takes 1-2 years. Then, these changes will have to go through a period of public review and comment, before being sent back for finalization. This typically takes another 1-2 years. Only on the completion of this process, which generally takes 3-4 years in total, can actual implementation begin. In other words, in all likelihood, the first vehicles in the new electric fleet won't begin to actually be procured until a hypothetical second Biden/Harris administration, and that assumes, of course, that there is a second Biden/Harris admin.

Bottom line: this is much closer to a symbolic gesture than a substantive action. If the Democrats want to meaningfully spur the adoption of electric vehicles and the development of "green" industry around them, they will have to increase consumer subsidies for the purchase of such vehicles and commit federal resources to the construction of the infrastructure to support them, which means legislation, not executive orders. If they wanted to do more with executive orders, they'd target CAFE standards and regulatory changes for commercial fleet management.

I gotta say, I agree with S&P on this one. It's unrealistic to think that such a Herculean task as making the government vehicle fleet go all-electric can be accomplished with private corporations' help in any short-term timespan, if at all.

He's going to Twitter (or Parler, or GAB) to whine about "censorship". Probably call some people facists or something.

What is missed is exactly what Napero reiterated; a large government program, done properly, establishes supply chains, drives design decisions, drives corporate planning & purchasing directions, hiring and site development, and does so for years. GM or Ford are already planning to build electric models; the chance at a big government contract will move them along faster. NASA did just the same thing towards the end of the lifespan of the Space Shuttle - the US now has a healthy private space industry. Every country with a space program wants a re-usable rocket.

The key changes between Obama & Biden's attempts at electrification ? Those giant Tesla factories forcing GM, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, all of them to drag themselves out of the 1950s in terms of drivetrain and engine design. The prices are down and falling, the infrastructure build out is taking place in the consumer space. The opportunity is now there for the government to say 'buy electric', and for the CIA or whatever to say to GM 'we need 10,000 blacked out SUVs with electric motors. That isn't a pipe dream now !

Obama didn't have the opportunity that exists now, therefore achieved sub par results.

Yes it will take years, naturally. Yes its symbolic, it should be. To reiterate my point above - consider also the global impact, too - other governments ape US decision making in a broad range of things from naval architecture to internet service provisioning.


(NB - S&P is probably forbidden from being positive about stuff like this - actually understanding it aside - there'll be some sub-clause in a party paragraph that says "in the event that crypto-fascist-so-called-democrats do something good, find a way to moan about it anyway")

As usual, Europeans simply don't grasp how small the American public sector economy is relative to the size of the private consumer economy. What is driving and will continue to drive the American electric vehicle market are consumer spending, and, above all, private fleet procurement from companies like Amazon. What would really accelerate things from the government end is funding for the infrastructure development to support electric vehicles, especially outside the coastal urban belts.

The bigger picture problem is that private automobile ownership and travel is an unsustainable model, and that's true whether the cars are electric or old-fashioned gas guzzlers. The whole mode of living , development, and land and energy use based on private automobile travel is unsustainable and destructive, and our efforts should be ultimately be geared toward the abolition of private automobile travel and the end of car-centric society.

And what will replace the private ownership of automobiles? Will we go back to horse and carriage for our personal transit?

Subways4All. Most socialists are pretty hardcore supporters of public transportation and major detractors of private transportation. A total ban on cars sounds radical until you realize just how completely fucked the planet is over the next ~50 years.

I was gonna say. The overwhelming majority of socialists want and heavily advocate for robust public transportation in this country. Europeans need to realize how shitty the state of public transportation is in most of the US. This country is almost universally based around cars for transportation, and it's killing the planet faster and faster each year.

Also, the very first thing that pops up in a Google search for "Europe public transportation" is an article from 2012 about how cars are used so little in much of Europe thanks to the advanced public transportation on the continent that many Europeans never even learn how to drive. As an American, I can only dream about what it'd be like to be in a situation like that.

I would love a better public transportation system. Hell, in Germany there's at least one train station in every incorporated town. But the US is so enormous when compared to the US state-sized European countries that building such a system would be nigh impossible in any decent amount of time.

Public transportation aside, one thing that surprised me in a smaller US town was the lack of footpaths - it was just impossible to walk to one of those big-box shopping parks, they'd only bothered to lay roads, or even in a town centre; the road system was worse than the 1960s 'ring roads' in Britain - just cut the place in half and made it impossible to get around without a car / a deathwish.

Every city, not just in America, should invest -heavily- in bicycle infrastructure.

Yes, it's not a transportation panacea. No, it won't really work outside of cities. But goddamn is it a great way to better urban planning, transportation, health, lower both air pollution and ghg emissions.. Ticks just about all the boxes as a part of city infrastructure. That's one of the best things about living in Copenhagen.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/politics ... index.html



I have no faith in the Biden administration or any other American ruling class clique to truly do the right thing and cut off the most brutal allies of the United States from access to the tools of destruction, but this pause at least provides an opening to apply pressure to the administration to do the right thing. This is not a Left issue. This is not a Right issue. This is not a "Center" issue (whatever that might be). Whether you are a leftist opposed to US imperialism in all its violent manifestations, a small government conservative tired of obscene welfare handouts to brutal foreign dictatorships and giant military-industrial concerns, or simply a person of goodwill who wants to see an end to the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet, this is an opportunity to raise your voice and speak out against your tax dollars being put to use to murder innocent children and civilians. Stand up and FIGHT BACK!

This is only true to a degree by how fucked up the major political spectrum in this country is. The republican party is increasingly far right, and the Democratic party is in its very very best of times center of left and most usually just bog standard centrist. As a result people who find both the democrats and the republicans too extreme usually are in reality just boring people that drift around the center-right margin with boring opinions about social issues and next to no knowledge about economic issues

I really wish both parties hadn't subjugated any attempt at left wing movements in this country for literally more than a century at this point, but sadly the republicans are really good at assimilating right wing movements and the democrats are really good at tossing leftists to the hounds whenever convenient to maintain the status quo

I considered myself a centrist back in college about ten years ago. To me, centrism used to mean weighing the pros and cons on all aspects of an issue and then making a decision based on what stance was most aligned with my personal beliefs. But then I realized that's a thought process most normal people go through and American centrism is just what happens when you spend too much time letting Eric Cartman and Rick Sanchez tell you that caring about literally anything is dumb.

It won't be long before self-driving cars are the norm and instead of owning a car, a lot of people will use something like Uber to have a self-driving car come and pick them up and bring them to their destination. There will be a point where it won't make sense financially for most people to own a vehicle.

I've only been to handful of European countries, but I didn't notice any difference in the number of cars on the road compared to the US. The inter-city travel was infinitely better than what we have, but I didn't find the subway/bus systems within cities any better or worse.

If there is a strong enough public transit system, it won't make sense for people to own a car; rent one when you ened to go where there isn't such an infrastructure, use public transit and your bike to do the rest. Where I live the system is strong enough to commute, but doing the groceries or going any place that isn't a hub can be a pain so lots of people still own a car.

You know, that all sounds like a really good idea - honestly. I just can't help that slight niggle at the back of my mind, just like with ID cards, that someone somewhere has already worked out how to use that arrangement to control & make people's lives poorer.

Yes that's fucking racist. Like very very much so. Literally finger-wagging black people for not only "not protesting right" against their brutalizers and oppressors, but even having the nerve to tell them their "culture" is "wrong". Hilariously condescending, patronizing, and, yes, racist as all hell.

You mean like how the capitalist states use access to driving privileges as a carrot and stick to control and limit the lives of poor people? Like the way they use "driving without a license" as an excuse to kidnap people from the streets and throw them in jail where more money can be extorted from them? It's weird to me how you are more afraid of the hypothetical abuses of state power that you invent in your head than the actual, existing abuses of power happening right in front of your face. It's almost like you use "liberty" and "freedom" as an excuse to defend a status quo you personally benefit from.

Ah... a novel modified form of the ancient "it could work elsewhere, but USA is so big that it cannot be applied here" argument. You're probably the last one I expected to use that line of reasoning here, but hey, I'm not that shocked, really. You would have more credibility applying it to the public transport side of your argument, to be honest, knowing the importance of owning a powerful car to the American ego, lifestyle, and average male sexual performance.

Government procurement is a huge deal for corporations, because that essentially means building and delivering things en masse, without the pesky needs for marketing, sales networks, deliveries with the individual modifications on vehicles, and the general hassle it takes to sell the rest of the 7.9 million cars every year. Yes, they will be willing to bend over backwards to get the deals. Show me a car manufacturer that doesn't want to do a bit of technical design to sell half a million extra cars over a decade, and gain some valuable experience, build a portfolio of valuable models to sell domestically and abroad, and perhaps stem the tide of EVs from other countries coming in, please. Yes, the numbers are not in the double digits percentage-wise, but when big corporations compete, small differences are big deals.

Also, yes, for publicly offered corporations quarterly earnings and planning are a big deal. But designing a new car is a process that takes years, most likely; in the case of aircraft, it's a matter of a decade and then some. If it was only done on a quarterly basis, no new models would ever become available. The argument applies to sales and financial aspects of the companies, but on the technology and design parts it is obviously moot.

It might even turn out that the Biden executive order eventually turns out to be the excuse the design teams need to get permission to apply their ideas to create new models. Corporations are notoriously bad at risking their established business models, even with the ominous writing on the wall. Just look at how the manufacturers rose and fell in various phases of home computing hardware: 5.52" floppy discs to 3.5 " discs to CD-rs to memory sticks, for example. Or even better, matrix printers to inkjets to laser printers. Every step means a culling, because corporations with established products and sales channels are always afraid of losing their existing business, and end up being outdated and dying. And it is rarely, if ever, the fault of the designers and engineers, they usually have the foresight to know what's coming next, and instead, the higher-ups screw it up. Half a million electric vehicles for the government might just do the trick, and if you look at the US car manufacturers right now, they could certainly use some powerful prodding in exactly that.

I have seen the marvelous socialist traffic in the Soviet Union first hand. It was highly efficient, with only a few cars on the streets, and nobody needed the fabulously free healthcare after collisions, because exactly nobody was left lingering after a crash, that much I can guarantee. At those speeds and with those driving skills, with the vehicles there, they all died immediately, probably by being vaporized. Of the places I've visited, Istanbul comes close, and yes, I very much prefer the current system here... even taking into account that Finland is the world leader in extorting that very same money from poor people only speeding just a little. I happen to like myself and my kids breathing, for example. But hey, utopias are nice places, eh?