But it (social democratic state) would have to address explicitly what I referred to in shorthand as the Jesus and race issues - and the Jesus issue is heavily inflected by the weird sexual anxieties that afflict American society (the kinds of cultural things that a lot of traditional lefties don't like to talk about).
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So let's cut to the chase on race and Jesus. It's all about dicks, pussies, and tribes, in other words the material ground of social life. The basic question is who gets to control and regulate that ground and for what purposes?
Whatever the specifics, I think reducing all the nuanced bullshit about morals down to their material parameters makes discussion a lot more clear.
Obviously, I think here and now in the US, white men over forty with a rod stuck up their ass control this ground for only one reason, power. And that power is predicated on fear---their fear not others. Just about everything else falls into place after you reach this extremely simple minded conclusion.
The basic trouble with fear is, there are no direct ways to assuage it. The only indirect way is by a subservience to power through an infinite regressive road that leads to domination and control which never ends, even in slavery.
So the discussion has to proceed on to ways of dealing with power.
Chuck Grimes