US politics (7 Viewers)

@Lili Marlene Yeah, that kind of goes back to my boiling the frog idea. The US just progressing along the transition to authoritarianism slowly (Dems) or more quickly (Reps). We're only comfortable if it's happening at a certain rate, and there's bad guys (Reps) and the corresponding Good Guys so we can shout about things and feel partisan.

My hope was that the current crop of Reps would be so bad, so extreme, that some realisation would happen, and something might actually change. Biden would bring a bit of calm, and then we can all congratulate ourselves that the good guys are back in power, and get back to boiling the frog slowly again.

just to respond to the imaginary question: "congratulations dickhead, and what do you propose is done in response?"

The appropriate response to anonymous Federal paramilitaries beating/seizing political enemies, is a general strike. Train drivers don't turn up, people stop paying rent, wide-ranging general basic stuff.

There needs to be an absolutely crushing response, which is still nowhere near coming. So, things still have to get worse before there's a chance they can get better, I guess.
 
@flashback what actually is the deal with these paramilitary things happening in Portland? My understanding of the USA is that there's already a lot of outsourced policing, prisons, security etc. Are these actually that different? Is it just new (and i'm not being sarky or anything) because it's happening at home rather than abroad this time (i'm thinking of all the private security firms used in Iraq and the like)?
 
@flashback what actually is the deal with these paramilitary things happening in Portland? My understanding of the USA is that there's already a lot of outsourced policing, prisons, security etc. Are these actually that different? Is it just new (and i'm not being sarky or anything) because it's happening at home rather than abroad this time?


So the Fed can fund you either directly, or indirectly. I think in this case they are direct, that is their paycheck is coming from the Feds directly (as opposed to being routed through a third party contracting company).

It's not new or different, and it's been going on within the US for ages. As a Fed employee there's certain restrictions, as a contracted employee there's less. For example if you write a computer program as a Fed (which isn't intel / special) it's automatically public domain. If a contractor does the same thing it can be put under any license.

What's odd is I think the current Rep. Paras are Federally paid. I heard one justification of the Portland case running along the lines of "Portland is within 100miles of the border, therefore border enforcement / DHS / different rules apply." It's odd though if they were direct Fed employees, because it does change things.

But what's really happening is the continual piling on of illegal things. It's the same tactic that the current admin have been using; it's difficult to get annoyed about some specific abuse if there's been 5 more worse incidents subsequent to the one you're trying to look at. Legality or not feels irrelevant, because the law doesn't matter if it's selectively not being enforced, or enforced and then overturned. That's what I meant by the fight is on two fronts. The current Reps have broken so many laws, and done so many things, it's not feasible to keep them accountable.
 
Yeah was talking to an american buddy last night who was saying very similar things about the way the country is going. Didn't have the heart to tell them my thumped people are basically all trying to leave the place.
 
Just to explain what I mean about the constant barrage of illegal stuff;

a couple days ago the creature's dickhead daughter is in the White House, using it to advertise tins of beans. That's definitely illegal. Straight up, no questions, explicitly written down, illegal.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that a dickhead is whoring out the White House to sell cans of beans.

What does matter that none of these laws, even the really clear cut and dried ones, are applicable. There's a psychological thing going on: we now understand that the law does not apply to Republicans, and those that align themselves appropriately.

So, people are going after them via the legal route, while simultaneously the current reality that everyone understands is the law doesn't apply here.
 
i have friends who had to head back there recently, they'd stayed as long as one of their visas here had allowed. headed back to michigan, which was a hotspot at the time.

they're kinda hoping trump will win again. they reckon the place will have to burn down before it can be properly rebuilt.
 
But what's really happening is the continual piling on of illegal things. It's the same tactic that the current admin have been using; it's difficult to get annoyed about some specific abuse if there's been 5 more worse incidents subsequent to the one you're trying to look at. Legality or not feels irrelevant, because the law doesn't matter if it's selectively not being enforced, or enforced and then overturned. That's what I meant by the fight is on two fronts. The current Reps have broken so many laws, and done so many things, it's not feasible to keep them accountable.

Same kind of thing is happening in the UK actually, just lots of straight up lying by the UK government recently:



none are huge things (although Priti Patel's is pretty horrible), but they add up because there is no accountability for any of this stuff. Meanwhile they spent years combing through every like Corbyn on facebook or interview he ever gave. Not to make this about Corbyn specifically, just that the rules that apply to those on the left never apply to those on the right. That's the game I guess, people should stop falling for it.
 
You're hardly saying that the left don't sift through old quotes and social media feeds looking for people saying inappropriate things, are you? Or do you just mean that the right don't usually resign when they're caught out?
The second one there.
 
Ah fair enough. I think the right excels at using the left's own weapons against them. We're useless at doing it the other way around, because the left fundamentally doesn't understand the right
We also have to bear in mind that the right in the US is tearing itself apart as well, with a George Bush super pac and those Lincoln Project guys both working to get Biden voted in. They're also the ones clinging to the institutions for power, like, for all the talk of Trump being a "populist" he relied heavily on the technicalities of the US system rather than, you know, winning the popular vote.
 
We also have to bear in mind that the right in the US is tearing itself apart as well, with a George Bush super pac and those Lincoln Project guys both working to get Biden voted in. They're also the ones clinging to the institutions for power, like, for all the talk of Trump being a "populist" he relied heavily on the technicalities of the US system rather than, you know, winning the popular vote.

Maybe this is a reach:

You could argue that it's the conservatives vrs the radicals in the US at the moment.
The Lincoln Project / David Brooks / Bush / Biden types are all almost identically aligned: very conservative (in the sense the want to conserve the status quo). And a radical movement is rising up behind the figurehead of Trump (who to be fair to the guy doesn't stand for anything other than outstanding shit-talking).

Maybe you could say it's not the right tearing itself apart, it's the right thinking - oh shit, the usual nutjobs we've previously used to make numbers are rising up into their own movement and getting out of hand, this isn't a joke any more, we can't control this. And in response are doing some pragmatic reorganization.
 
Tell you what though, the media has successfully convinced me that unless something major changes, Trump is going to lose big in November.

Have I learnt nothing from 2016?
 

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