Im not defending anyone you clown. Im calling you out. The fact you can’t see the difference should give you pause.
The guy was obviously a jack-ass, and deserving of his ban but for you to take the time to “respond” to him even though you know he is banned is unhinged. Its very telling about your character, and explains alot about the way you interact with others in here.
Even your childish framing of my “fallen hero” and “defending his honour” is dishonest and pathetic.

On the positive side, it's useful evidence to demonstrate that the American right and their representatives don't essentially care about the constitution or any other of the principles that found their hallowed slogans ("give me liberty or death" etc.), they will back anyone on their "team" no matter what the actual content of the behaviour is. They're a collection of ideologies without content, nothing but a black hole of power struggles against anyone who threatens their selfish interests (all the resources for me and those who look and sound like me, now!). So, when they talk of this or that right (guns or whatever) as being fundamental to their position as American citizens, this can be thrown right back in their faces: You supported the denial of the very same rights you're now claiming to be fundamental. Then just watch them fall into the gaping abyss of their own hypocrisy.

I don’t recall claiming sainthood. Anyway, shouldn't you be dismantling my narrative? Trump isn’t divisive? The divisiveness is not strategic? and whatever else.

Absolutely agreed. COVID (re)thought us that about the economy ('every life is sacred'? Not if 'the economy' is in trouble; 'we can't afford that' - trillions thrown at the stock market); This is (re)teaching us that about their 'small government'/'I care about the constitution and freedom of speech' bullshit. It's always been hypocritical trash mind you - these just happen to serve as painful, timely reminders.

Yep, just that there's absolutely no corner of ambiguity for them to hide in now. Video of police flash bombing, tear-gassing, and beating peaceful protesters engaged in exercising their supposed constitutional rights, punching members of the press in the face and generally just practising for the fascist state of their dreams can't be hand waved away. What the right, as a political force, want is an oppressive state that serves the interests of a socioethnic uber-class with everyone else untermenschen only around to serve them their lattes and mow their lawns.

Mm. What been worrying me somewhat is that this fiction can also no longer be used to play the 'moral high ground' card in international politics. In some ways, the abdication of the US from its position as geopolitical steward is to be welcomed, but when fucking Iran tells the US to stop gassing its citiziens, you know they're doing it with total, utter glee. And that's to say nothing of how China will use this to further fuck Hong Kong. Or anywhere else for that matter. What moral cards can a neo-fascist fuckstick like Trump hold against a concentration-camp China? None.

Trump's clear model for the US is Putin's Russia. Only with more Walmarts. But the left is "authoritarian" and against "freedom". Anyway, yes, it poses a huge problem: as the balance starts to tilt towards right authoritarianism, it becomes normalized. If you've got China, Russia, and now the US going this route, open democracies start to look like a weird novelty.

They already are :( Even Australia is getting worse.

I love the opening line: "Australia is now in line with the United States, Ghana and Botswana in terms of civil freedoms." Like - ew, not in line with the US!

(And before someone starts shouting that we're overreacting, you're not there yet, but authoritarianism and the continued erosion of constitutional rights is the clear direction of travel. Does anyone imagine that Trump won't take it absolutely as far he can?)



That's disturbing. The UK to is probably next. Ireland is more naturally egalitarian but the neoliberal juggernaut crushes all in its path and if democracy just slows it down, who knows...

I love the opening line: "Australia is now in line with the United States, Ghana and Botswana in terms of civil freedoms." Like - ew, not in line with the US! — StreetlightX

:lol:

Fuck, the UK is already "narrowed". Ireland is still green. Hang in their lads!

My grim vision of where things are headed is roughly in line with Jodi Dean, who offers a delightful conceptualization of what she calls neo-feudalism. If you would like to cry yourself to sleep, I highly recommend reading the piece.

And before someone starts shouting that we're overreacting, you're not there yet, but authoritarianism and the continued erosion of constitutional rights is the clear direction of travel. Does anyone imagine that Trump won't take it absolutely as far he can?) — Baden

A fun exercise. Watch the following speech. Every time Trump talks about about 'violence', 'assaults' and 'wanton destruction', consider that he's talking about his state-sponsored terrorist cops, rather than the protestors. The effect is quite cool, and worth listening to that vomitus timbre:

Oh and I forgot one more one more permutation. I mentioned what COVID and the protests have thought us about the intellectual depravity of the American right. I forgot to mention both in combination. I present to you - fuckwits of American conservatism:

1.


2.


3.


Reminds me of a certain bloodsuking poster here...

Reading that now. All too likely. Add in technological advances in bioengineering etc. applied in a polarised fashion dependent on social strata and you've got a nice little dystopia in the making.



Ooh. Bullseye!

If you've got China, Russia, and now the US going this route, open democracies start to look like a weird novelty. — Baden

And plenty of people seem to be in favor in Europe, too. Even those that aren't are hardly enthusiastic about open democracy. "The West" seems to have lost it's promise to the people. A large part of that is economics, but there is also a lack of idealism.

He said he stands with protesters but also wants to protect American‘s lives and property from violence, looters, and vandals. I’m not sure why one would have to pretend looters and vandals are protesters, nor can I understand why one would condone or excuse that behavior, but I guess that’s exactly what you need to do to politicize it and blame it on Trump. — NOS4A2

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts... Protestors should get 10 years in prison.'

Be honest: if Obama had said this, you would be advocating for civil rebellion right?

I'm not blaming the riots on Trump, I'm ridiculing Trump for being incapable of properly handling them, and for making them worse with his words and actions/inactions. (his tweets have obviously exacerbated the riots, and his failure to acknowledge the seriousness of covid-19 back in January obviously contributed to America's deaths. These two facts alone render his performance incompetent at best).

Also, what do you mean "politicize"? We're talking about the most politically relevant issues of the day. Are you offended that political issues are political? Are you just incapable of comprehending how a global health pandemic affects politics, and how political and policy decisions affect the outcomes of said global health pandemic?

Again, I'm calling trump stupid for making demonstrably stupid statements and taking demonstrably stupid actions in response to the challenges he has been faced with. As president it was his duty to lead the nation's preparations for the pandemic (he had the most advanced knowledge of it, and the main central powers for quickly taking preparatory action at the national scale. Instead of informing and warning us, he ignored, downplayed, and spewed outright bullshit. And during the pandemic, he seems to have done nothing but bull-shit more and play the never-ending blame game).

Remember when Mitch McConnell, Trumps most valiant supporter, came out and blamed the Obama administration for failing to leave the white house any pandemic response plan, but then had to shut his mouth and hide in his orifice when it was pointed out that since Trump has fired so many people, they just completely forgot about it entirely? It's like republicans have had their heads so far up Trump ass for such a long time that they've forgotten where they're at. The inside of Trump's asshole is now the new norm and standard...

Congratulations.

And yes, state governments are in charge of their own public health. Coronavirus death rates in Democratic areas are triple those in Republican ones. So why do you think it’s Trump’s fault? — NOS4A2

I don't quite get why Republicans love playing stupid... Is it some kind of inside joke?

They spend 8 years (and beyond) blaming every audible hiccup and dog-fart directly on the eternal Kenyan soul of Hussein Obama, and how all they do is obfuscate//deny/deflect any perceived criticism as a matter of course. At this point the apologia is so transparent that Trump's surrogates are starting to intellectually resemble Trump himself.

Speaking of Trump...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

"When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside."

Hopefully more will come out of the woodwork to call out this human excrement for what he is.

I Cannot Remain Silent - Mike Mullen, seventeenth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Ah, I see Baden linked to a related article.

Jim Mattis has released a statement that Trump is a threat to the Constitution.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

Meanwhile Barr has squadrons of paramilitaries on the streets of Washington with no ID, no doubt acting out a Trump fantasy. Although if Trump had his way it would be water canon, police dogs and teargas.

Although if Trump had his way it would be water canon, police dogs and teargas* — Wayfarer

*Bullets.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.

Did Mattis just call Trump a Nazi?

I would like to think so. :fire:

Clearly a Democrat never-Trumper.

We might consider that when we talk about Trump, we are playing Trump's game, doing his bidding.

An alternative to being sucked in to becoming pawns in Trump's media strategy would be to ignore Trump to the greatest degree possible, and focus instead on finding common ground with his base where ever we can. His base is the real power, not Trump.

Trump is President because the Democratic Party has not only ignored it's traditional base, it seems to often enjoy insulting them. There is a regrettable passion among we lefties for snotty superiority poses which are often directed at the very people we need to be winning over. Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comes to mind as a quick example.

Let's work on developing a list of common ground projects. Here's a start....

1) Immigration - The population of the United States has doubled in my lifetime. Over the same period the population of Florida (where I live) has grown from 3 million to over 21 million, a seven fold increase. It's certainly reasonable for any citizen to question how much farther we wish to travel in that direction. Politicians on all sides have generally ignored such questions for decades and so, no surprise, large segments of the population are attracted to any national figure who won't ignore them.

We don't have to become Trumpers or agree with a wall or the demonization of immigrants or any of that. We just have to acknowledge, to Trump voters, that they have raised a serious question about the future of the country which merits open minded discussion. We just have to acknowledge, to Trump voters, that we are part of the problem when we vote for any politician who sweeps such concerns under the rug as soon as they are elected if not before.

2) Abortion - Many religious people held their nose and voted for Trump due to their concern about abortion. It's not unreasonable for them to have serious concerns about the mass killing of babies. Who's next, inconvenient old people like me?

I'm not suggesting any person of conscience needs to change their position on abortion. But what we lefties do need to do is reach out to Trump voters and publicly acknowledge that they have reasonable concerns. If we choose to demonize and insult them instead, then we shouldn't be surprised if they then choose to vote for somebody other than us.

Nothing serious on pretty much any subject can be accomplished on party line votes. If we win that way then whatever we're won gets undone the next time the other side takes power, which happens regularly.

Remember, every time we insult Trump for no better reason than it makes us feel good to do so many millions of Americans hear us insulting them. The wiser strategy is to largely ignore Trump, reach out to his base, and win them over. Winning them over will require offering them respect where ever possible.

Remember, every time we insult Trump for no better reason than it makes us feel good to do so many millions of Americans hear us insulting them. — Nuke

I'm OK with that.

Besides, I insult him because he says and does things worthy of insult. It's not to make me feel good.

But what we lefties do need to do is reach out to Trump voters and publicly acknowledge that they have reasonable concerns. — Nuke

Except for a lot of people their "reasonable" concerns aren't reasonable at all. Pro-life, pro-religion (to an extent that allows LGBT discrimination), and pro-guns are red lines that many liberals just aren't willing to negotiate over, just as pro-choice, LGBT-protections (at the expense of religious beliefs), and gun regulations are red lines that many conservatives just aren't willing to negotiate over.

I'm OK with that. — Michael

You're ok with not reaching any of our substantial goals? Is that what you meant?

Besides, I insult him because he says and does things worthy of insult. It's not to make me feel good. — Michael

Rather than challenge a report from inside of your own mind, let's try this instead.

I recently spent about 3 months daily following every nuclear weapons expert and activist I could find on Twitter. These are intelligent, well educated, well informed, well intentioned people, some of whom are risking jail on this issue. And yet, I couldn't find a single such "expert" who understood that there is exactly no chance of any real change in nuclear weapons policy without millions of Trump voters agreeing. Instead, Trump bashing, Trump bashing, Trump bashing, tweet after tweet after tweet, day after day after day, a clear triumph of emotion over reason and self interest.

Of course Trump is worthy of insult. That doesn't make insulting him a smart tactical strategy.

Before we run around the net calling Trump voters stupid, perhaps we should wise up and become smart enough to grasp what is in our own self interest.

You're ok with not reaching any of our substantial goals? Is that what you meant? — Nuke

I'm OK with them feeling insulted when I insult Trump. That's on them, not me.

what we lefties do need to do is reach out to Trump voters and publicly acknowledge that they have reasonable concerns. — Nuke

Somehow I don’t think that a public “there there now, you have reasonable concerns” will do the trick. Validation may be a good starting point but it only goes so far. Got any other ideas?

Except for a lot of people their "reasonable" concerns aren't reasonable at all. Pro-life, pro-religion (to an extent that allows LGBT discrimination), and pro-guns are red lines that many liberals just aren't willing to negotiate over, just as pro-choice, LGBT-protections (at the expense of religious beliefs), and gun regulations are red lines that many conservatives just aren't willing to negotiate over. — Michael

As I already said, we don't have to negotiate away anything that is important to us. We just have to start respecting those whose votes we need. We need to acknowledge, to ourselves at least, that we lefties have a problem with the snotty superiority poses, and that the price tag for those poses can be pretty high.