Is there any thread brexiters and antibrexiters can't turn to discussing their problem?
Is there any thread brexiters and antibrexiters can't turn to discussing their problem?
You mean that Marx was divorced from the trope of Jews as part of a cabal of bankers controlling the world? Marx wasn't especially anti-semitic, but he was somewhat, like just about everyone back in those days, in today's terms. More relevantly, Corbyn is unimaginative enough that he believes in the validity of the past to overrule the present, eg. he recently overruled the decision of the Labour conference because he'd read a biography of Wilson. Corbyn takes in these 19th century tropes unquestioningly, while others in his inner circle are known to believe the more developed forms of these tropes. Hooked nosed bankers controlling the world's economy? It's one of the far left's canonic myths, and that image is known to Corbyn and approved of.
"Send her back" - Insight to 21st century Fascism.
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
"If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."
[IMG]https://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4917/logoromans23pd.jpg[/IMG]
Sure, but in this case the criteria are met.
Tangential to the above, but a thought to tweak the"culturalists"racists out there: Aren't Latin Americans, and especially Mexicans, more culturally compatible in the United States than "white" Europeans are?
I've said it before, including with respect to Muslim-restrictionism, but it really needs to be hammered home that it's the reactionaries who are incompatible with most American cultures and they're the ones who need to buzz off. (Maybe Rod Dreher could still be taken up on shipping the jacobites to the rez? )
Also, a crack about Trump I'm stealing: Dr. Frankenstein is operating a secret program to genetically engineer the most perfect refutation of the concept of meritocracy. Journal entry dated 11/8/16: "I've worked on this project my whole career...and...HE...he just tweeted his way up.'
Last edited by Montmorency; 07-21-2019 at 04:41.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Backing Bannon's projects certainly doesn't help. If not fully functional, the US was not yet collapsing pre-Trump, nor the UK pre-Brexit. You yourself cited, as an argument for Brexit, taking away the scapegoat for the rulers so that they would be forced to confront their own mistakes. May I present to you the possibility that revolution for the sake of revolution, without anything else in its place, as you've suggested, is the reason for this accelerated collapse. May I present to you the corollary argument that stability is good, and that it is possible to address imperfections in the politic without resorting to revolution.
The US is having it a tad better than the UK in the Great Bannon Experiment though. The US is a more coherent state than the UK, is big enough to absorb changes, and is likely to retain the U in US, unlike the eastern Atlantic edition of the Experiment, where its followers seem content to jettison the U in UK. Still, look on the bright side. Revolution is the thing, eh.
The sad fact is that while Trump is incredibly racist, this whole past week has been a diversion.
He's trying to lay some cover down for his Epstein escapades and that while we were debating whether or not "Go Back Where you Came From" to a native born African American or Latina is racist...the SDNY released evidence that Trump was intimiately involved in the actions to subvert election laws in Oct 2016.
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
It would be a great idea to systematically analyze Trump's tweets (or press secretary briefings) in connection with political and news events, but if he has a diversion strategy it doesn't look like it's very focused or has worked that well. My impression has long been that he is just prone to acting out on impulse without any deep consideration. For example, how easily influenced he is by Fox News commentary that a huge proportion of his tweets are immediate comments on or repetition of it.
It's also recursive with media coverage: he loves it, he acts to generate it, he absorbs on a physiological level the connection between his actions and media coverage of them - it's a reinforcement schedule.
And finally he knows which way the Wonderbread is buttered when it comes to his base, a group of people perhaps as collectively important to him psychically as his set of children. I don't know how to develop this as a metric, but his "go back" tweets are some of his most 'hearted' of all by users.
It's not fascism in itself to be racist or to want to eliminate/delegitimize your opposition, or both at once, but it should be placed in context with a preponderance of other features such as cultural reaction repudiating alleged cultural decadence and degeneration driven by vaguely-defined strong (or maybe weak) internal (or maybe external) elites - see: "cosmopolitan", implacable resistance to the existence of a political Left ("liberals"), ideological fixation on the (rhetorical) welfare of the insider class, definition of the insider class in purely national terms (further conceived racially), arrogation of authority to a messianic figure uniquely poised to channel the will of the people, the hollowing out of government institutions to be replaced by parallel structures of the party, the disposal of rule of law where it does not align with the leader's interests, the co-option of mainstream conservative and business elites, the encouragement of non-state or extra-legal violence to further political objectives, the general authoritarian practice of flooding incoherent bullshit (in the technical sense) as propaganda to overwhelm people's ability to discern truth (a more Orwellian term than our unlawful Migrant Protection Protocols is not easy to invent)...
And there's like, a lot more. It's hard to keep events lined up with such an unbelievable character. Truth is stranger than fiction.
And while concentration camps are not a necessary or sufficient condition of fascism, it should further alarm us in this reinforcing web of features that the administration operates them with the explicit purpose of causing suffering (and even death) to a racially-framed class of marginalized outsiders the administration has fundamentally anathematized as an "invasion" and "infestation" fatal to the health and hygiene of the American nation, a class that he is going out of his way to intern by the tens of thousands, restrained only by a lack of facilities and the small size of Border Patrol and ICE relative to the population (these agencies have been notoriously difficult to recruit for, so they're not growing). And the facilities have gotten demonstrably worse in condition the longer the admin has operated them, outright meeting the level of crime against humanity. The natural progression of these things is clear... and let me also be clear, if it "only" gets as far as an attempt at an analog to a Japanese internment (note the amenities at Japanese relocation camps were superior to the ones made available in these "), it would still be a tragedy of historic proportions. There are enough corpse-fat stains on the American ledger; the index furnishes many examples, from Fort Cass to Andersonville, Batangas to Manzanar, Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay.
And with all due respect to the conservative patrons here, the following images represent the danger beyond Trump as an individual:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Unrelated, but since I don't see an opening for it elsewhere, behold: The Passing of the Great Generation
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Last edited by Montmorency; 07-24-2019 at 05:43.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
demographics have been on the Dem's side since Gore won in 2000... past 19 years have only increased that 'lead' yet they still keep winning. Texas could probably add another million blue votes and still give their state to Trump. As far as geography, better hope we pick up more state chambers in 2020 to reverse the gerrymandering, otherwise you can count that path dead for another 10 years.
There were a lot of narrow victories (<1%) in the midterms. Lot of similarly-narrow defeats too. Drop the turnout of the infra-Boomers just a little, and we may not retake the House. Don't take the votes for granted, we need every one. (Note: I'm being hyperbolic, just off the top of my head the 18-point Dem majority would not disappear completely if even all the wins with <2% were inverted. But you get the picture; a slim Dem majority would be doing literally nothing, rather than just grindingly)
Last edited by Montmorency; 07-24-2019 at 22:02.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You realize that 2 of the 4 members of the squad at least have told people to go back to their countries and even threatened to deport immigrants who disagreed with them, don't you?
I'm not supporting the chant, as I think it is stupid, but if it is fascism, then the squad brought us there first.
#justsayin
Hammer, anvil, forge and fire, chase away The Hoofed Liar. Roof and doorway, block and beam, chase The Trickster from our dreams.Vigilance is our shield, that protects us from our squalid past. Knowledge is our weapon, with which we carve a path to an enlightened future.
Everything you need to know about Kadagar_AV:
Good to be back! I miss this old place and all the regulars. I am very sad to see Frags left, because he and Frogbeastegg were my favorite Orgahs still around.
I've seen videos of Tlaib talking about how Trump should leave the country because he is unAmerican, as well as a video of Ilhan Omar saying that immigrants who don't support other immigrants should just go back (ie, immigrants who are conservative and support legal immigration). Google's slanted search algorithms being what they are, I was not able to find those with a Google search. I did, however, find this article to some Tweets they have made saying basically the same thing with links in the article to their Tweets. I was actually unaware that they had Tweeted these.
lol, as far as my politics, you probably will, as I am still very conservative. I have actually only gotten more conservative on every issue, but with a much stronger libertarian slant. For instance, I now believe in decriminalizing psychedelics, which I used to think the use or possession of should warrant the death penalty. I have evolved to love freedom even more. The one thing you may actually find refreshing though, is that I am not a fan of Trump. I find myself defending him a lot because so many of the accusations against him are false, but I did not vote for him in 2016 and will not vote for him in 2020. I think he is immoral, dishonest, and big government Democrat at heart who is only putting on the guise of a conservative because that is the direction the wind is blowing. I neither vote nor support people who I think are genuinely evil (not just wrong, but evil). Last election, I thought both Clinton and Trump were firmly in that category, and this election, I believe everyone running is repulsive, so I will vote 3rd Party again.
Hammer, anvil, forge and fire, chase away The Hoofed Liar. Roof and doorway, block and beam, chase The Trickster from our dreams.Vigilance is our shield, that protects us from our squalid past. Knowledge is our weapon, with which we carve a path to an enlightened future.
Everything you need to know about Kadagar_AV:
Indeed.
Without seeing the deleted tweets it's hard to tell, but Omar seems to have been indicating in her replies that white conservatives should be just as subject to arbitrary deportation for defying "our culture" as the ooga boogas. A perfectly cromulent point to make.
Tangential further thoughts on the subject of 'presidential distraction': Maybe it's a more reciprocal sense. As I mentioned in another thread recently, social grievance politics is wildly popular among the Republican base, but the party's economic platform (and Trump's execution of it) is resented, at least on paper. If the party's only value over replacement is its rejection of d/Democratic pluralism and cultural liberalism, the red meat of grievance is what masks the flavor of the bitter pill of austerity and deregulation. Or that's the old story. What if we look at the premise from another angle, that the two kinds of politics cannot be detached from one another? Note that this dynamic is also why we can expect corporate and "moderate" Republicans will inevitably and increasingly embrace outright ideological fascism in the coming years. (We can also expect it because we're observing it in real time, especially among state-level politicians but even at the level of ignobles like Lindsay Graham.)
Trump talks up the "economy" in a broad way at least as much as he spews racism, but to my knowledge he almost never mentions with any substance his executive branch agenda or proposed economic policies. This can't be mere established ignorance, as he would catch wind of some tidbit from his advisors and officials at some point. If he liked the sound of it - hearing and absorbing a snippet from an advisor or Fox News - he would at least reference something in a tweet, which is his habitual venue for talking points he likes the sound of:
"Great news for the working people of our great Country! I will direct my fine new Labor secretary Scalia (a Great judge) to demolish the wasteful and greedy Unions holding back our brave American workers! GET TO WORK!!"
"By removing bad Obama scheme to limit our vast Internet, companies can invest again. American people will benefit!"
"Food stamps are for losers. all y'all."
To be clear, the above examples are fake tweets I made up to illustrate the kind of messaging Trump doesn't really do. Instead when he talks about the economy it's to my knowledge always in generic terms of jobs, "deals", and stock market records. IIRC he was fairly muted on the 2017 tax cut, even during the very session when it was advanced and passed in Congress... Upon searching his Twitter profile, I see not a single mention of "tax" or "taxes" until June 2018, when he begins to extol the economic effect of the "tax cuts." Of the tweets not mentioning taxes in the context of trade, taxes are mostly used in a list of examples of Republican success ("a winner for his State. Strong on Crime, the Border, Tax Cuts, Military, Vets and 2nd Amendment"), or to strike a contrast against Democratic politicians ("weak on Crime, the Border, Military, Vets, your 2nd Amendment - and will end your Tax Cuts."). In all of the thousands of Trump's 2018 tweets I could find only fewer than a dozen explicitly praising the 2017 tax law, and to reiterate he never mentioned it at all in 2017 or the first half of 2018 as far as I can tell.
The White Power stuff isn't a distraction from economic policy per se, it is deadly serious and an integral part of the platform. It's not that racism is cynically wielded to give cover to corruption, but that the two are syncretized into an informal hierarchy where class divisions are superseded by the cause of national (racial) unity, though not as of yet a putative common purpose. If all this sounds familiar, it should...
Last edited by Montmorency; 07-28-2019 at 20:59.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Those nasty Danes! They won't discuss selling a chunk of their sovereign territory! I refuse to visit!
Bizarre, comic and alarming.
"The republicans will draft your kids, poison the air and water, take away your social security and burn down black churches if elected." Gawain of Orkney
Beat me too it. Throwing a tantrum as Denmark won't let him buy Greenland.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49416740
Living up to his name as a load of nasty hot air.
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
Perhaps he thought since it is Greenland, it is full of long green which is anyone's for the finding.
Plus he suggested returning Russia to G7:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/u...russia-g7.html
Had a nice big post that I lost. :(
Anyway, some lowlights of the week of Trump's intensifying lunacy:
1. Being overtly antisemitic in an overlearned way, again, as he has done many times.
2. Calling himself a "messiah" and "chosen one," echoing the comments many high-profile evangelical Christians have been making about him for years.
3. Declaring China the enemy after the latest round tariffs exchanges and (without executive basis*) "ordering" American companies to divest from China. (It's looking like he'll have the opportunity to acclaim the Dow breaking 25000 again - ahead of schedule!)
4. Other despotic insinuations, which we really should not laugh off or get inured to.
*Actually not entirely without basis, he may order postal carriers to "SEARCH FOR & REFUSE,........all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!)." I wonder what effect this directive might have on our hospitals if carried out.
Lots of Greenland stuff, but it was vaporized in the first iteration. In the rewriting I found this racist tidbit about Trump wanting to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland. Also, the Greenland thing and travel cancellation may be pretextual in light of Obama visiting Denmark next month to speechify. Even more frightening - yet utterly banal by now - is Republicans and movement conservatives reflexively absorbing the Dear Leader's pronunciations on Greenland into the agenda just as soon as he utters them.
Trumpism parody:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Not tangentially, here are a couple articles on the psychological burden of living under Trump. And we're just a bunch of insulated Internet dilettantes here!
Last edited by Montmorency; 08-23-2019 at 23:39. Reason: Fix image
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
"If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
"If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."
[IMG]https://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4917/logoromans23pd.jpg[/IMG]
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
Random trivia(?): Trump affirmed at G7 that Obama was "outsmarted" by Putin because Crimea was annexed during his term and, according to Trump:
That was not a good thing, it could have been stopped, could have been stopped, with the right - (literally waves hand) - whatever. It could have been stopped.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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