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u.s. politics: faygo to the polls


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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Holy fuck dude, look up the racist history of Washington some time. The Pacific Northwest was settled by white people looking to establish racially pure domains. I have a friend from Boston, a 6'5" black man, who was totally thrown off by the blatant hostility he encountered in liberal enclaves like Seattle and Portland. And if you head inland, not too long before you encounter the racist bugfuck militias emanating from Idaho.

You can't swing a dead cat in this whole fucking country without hitting some racists. Boston has a shitty racial history and there's still a ton of dumb racists here. But the progressives here know how to rally. Massachusetts is the one fucking state in the union where not one county went to Trump. Our Republicans would be liberal Democrats in half the other states. We're trying. That's a fuck of a lot more than I can say about other places.

I'm proud of my city today. No amount of poo-pooing from outsiders looking in is going to change that.

Shatner voice:"I can't decide...but...I must"

Fuck it, i'll spare Massachussets!!!!

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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm proud of my city today. No amount of poo-pooing from outsiders looking in is going to change that.

Ha, the Boston guy got all butthurt, and lashed out at another place in the process.  Shocker.  In all seriousness, it'd be very hard to argue Massachusetts isn't one of the best states to be in politically, and I'd be more than happy to end up living there.

27 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Sorry Trumpenstupido, deletions on Twitter are a waste of time.

:lol:

You're just misunderstanding.  What he meant was protests are a good way in order to bring the country to heel.

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38 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Ha, the Boston guy got all butthurt, and lashed out at another place in the process.  Shocker.  In all seriousness, it'd be very hard to argue Massachusetts isn't one of the best states to be in politically, and I'd be more than happy to end up living there.

 

I was responding specifically to a poster who said he'd replace Massachusetts with Washington. Eat Trump's tiny flaccid Queens-accented dick.

And yes, today of all days, I will stand up for my city when someone tries to "well actually" us. I generally don't argue when people make general references to Boston's racial problems, or try to tar all of us with the Tawmmy from Quinzee jokes, but fuck no, not today.

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9 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I was responding specifically to a poster who said he'd replace Massachusetts with Washington. Eat Trump's tiny flaccid Queens-accented dick.

And yes, today of all days, I will stand up for my city when someone tries to "well actually" us. I generally don't argue when people make general references to Boston's racial problems, or try to tar all of us with the Tawmmy from Quinzee jokes, but fuck no, not today.

Wait....why is Trump's dick flaccid?  I'm offended.

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6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm talking about the most simple and logical of philosophical axioms: that one can only expect to be treated as well as they treat others. Hence, any group or movement seeking to deny another group its humanity, or some of its basic rights, can expect to be seen as less human by others.
And this does, in fact, work perfectly for religious extremisms: it is precisely because of the way women are treated due to some traditions and religions that these traditions and religions are then criticized as primitive or barbarian.

But by this measure, the white Americans (and especially the white American men) who are currently angry are doing exactly what you would expect: they have been subject to officially sanctioned, overt discrimination against by corporations, the government and academia for several decades so now they have a grudge against the beneficiaries of said discrimination.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Actually, I would tend to believe the very opposite: that the more acceptable some nauseating ideas become, the easier it is to persuade the most extreme believers to commit atrocities.

This is true too, but your impact on the degree to which ideas become acceptable is minimal: they are becoming more popular despite overwhelming public and private disapproval and they will continue to do so until the underlying social dynamics change. On the other hand, whether people influenced by these ideas perceive you specifically as human is a more malleable parameter.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Assuming these are actually a problem (I'd have to do some research to form an opinion on them), they are still politically irrelevant and I'm fully confident that the over-legalized American society will sort this out (it has already started).

It will eventually be sorted out, but they've still hurt people in the process. Besides, if you are judging them by political relevance, the alt-right is just as politically irrelevant as the alt-left. Politics in the US is controlled by the neoliberals and they don't like sharing power any more than they like sharing wealth. They will occasionally use either variant of radical to further their own goals, but there is never any doubt about who is using whom in these situations. Even Trump (who was widely touted as an ally of the alt-right) has done practically nothing for them -- what little he has tried to do (e.g. the travel ban) has been either blocked by the other two branches of government or watered down into irrelevance.

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

But again, I'm talking about politics, not violence. Violence is scary, but without political support it's not hard to either avoid or confront.

There are lots of things one can do to fight against a dangerous political movement, and even against a dangerous government.

After violence reaches a certain scale, it will either draw political support to itself or intimidate the politicians. In fact, I suspect this may already be the case to an extent in the US.

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

And if all else fails, it's always useful to know when to pack your bags and leave your country. My grandparents on my father's side fled two authoritarian governments in their lifetime.

I did this once as a child and I have absolutely no desire to do it again as an adult. I don't think it is quite so bad and hopefully there is still enough time to turn things around.

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30 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I was responding specifically to a poster who said he'd replace Massachusetts with Washington. Eat Trump's tiny flaccid Queens-accented dick.

And yes, today of all days, I will stand up for my city when someone tries to "well actually" us. I generally don't argue when people make general references to Boston's racial problems, or try to tar all of us with the Tawmmy from Quinzee jokes, but fuck no, not today.

Yeah, it was a shitty thing for me to bring up given the events of the day. I've been in a negative mood of late.

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From the Mayor of Boston:

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“There have been questions about why we granted a permit for the rally tomorrow,” said Walsh. “The courts have made it abundantly clear. They have the right to gather, no matter how repugnant their views are. But they don’t have the right to create unsafe conditions. They have the right to free speech. In return, they have to respect our city.”

“At the same time, we can’t look away. The children of our city are watching, and I want everyone who goes to the Common tomorrow to understand that. The young people of our city are watching TV, are following this. We have to make it clear what we stand for in the City of Boston.”

From the Massachusetts Governor:

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“Boston and Massachusetts are the home of some of the most important moments in the fight for freedom and equality in this nation’s history,” said Baker. “Tomorrow is one more chapter in that honored tradition, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure tomorrow is about liberty and justice, freedom and peace, and yes the right for people to peacefully assemble.”

What Nazi apologists!

 

If it wasn't clear already, @DanteGabriel, I was just giving you shit.  Answered an honest question about Boston, but still complimented the city because I do love it (although the traffic and layout really does suck).  No reason to impugn Seattle and Portland though - and you still have to answer for Scott Brown!

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 Have to say also that I'm really digging watching the phone videos and coverage of this event. The tone and tenor is a complete 180 from the Charlottesville crap last week. Marching bands, singing, smiling faces all over the place. It's a really nice change from the horror and outrage we watched last weekend. Good for the soul.

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For anyone who's interested, I have some observations from one of my friends who was there today, a deeply religious, white, trans woman.

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Takeaways from today's protest:

1) Today's white nationalists had neither the organization nor the courage to meet the level of resistance we showed them. Still, we know that Boston and Massachusetts have plenty of white nationalism and other strains of bigotry underground.

2) The police were clearly there to protect the fascists, not us. There were some non-white cops along the march route, but the Commons were lily-white and heavily militarized. They shepherded fascists to safety dutifully whereas several of my friends report being threatened by bigots while cops looked on (Antifa came to the rescue and intimidated the bigots down, as they are wont to do). The police were on hair trigger to arrest resistors long after the white supremacists were gone, and in several instances clearly and openly instigated violence against resistors. We know that aside from merely enforcing racist policy, American police forces are heavily infiltrated by explicit white nationalists. BPD did less than nothing today to disprove that hypothesis.

3) As such, the precedent set today that nothing that can conceivably be used as a weapon will be allowed at protests is actively dangerous. If the police are with the fascists and only they are armed, numbers are our only weapon. The combined fascist and police presence needs to fear for their safety if they escalate, every time, or things will get incredibly dangerous.

4) Happily, we brought the numbers like an absolute boss. We outnumbered the white supremacists 10:1 before our rally started marching, and in their cowardice and disorganization they were gone before the last of us reached the Common. Final estimates were on the order of 200:1.

5) All of this was down to the organizational efforts of Black women. Black women also did (surprise!) an enormously better job of real intersectionality than the pinkwashed nonsense that was the women's march. Unlike the Boston women's march, it was clear that we stood for Black lives, Latinx lives, Muslim lives, queer lives, trans lives, disabled lives, and with everyone under attack, before we got out of the gate. White people: women of color are better at intersectional organizing than us. They understand the realities of struggle better than we do. When they tell you they can't absolutely commit to nonviolence, take a seat and assume that's sound and tacitical. When they tell you not to selfie with police officers and thank them along the route, stay in your lane and obey that guideline. White people need to take a knee, show up, and follow instructions if we want to keep the fascists underground in Boston.

If we do, I think today was good news for our chances, all in all.

 

And some observations from a friend who attended an anti-Nazi rally in Portland, Oregon, especially as a testimonial to the behavior of the Antifa.

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I want to talk Antifa, protest, and media for a sec.

At the pdx Eclipse Hate rally last night, there were Antifa people all dressed in black, with black or purple bandannas over their faces. They looked kinda intimidating at first glance, at least until you saw the signs explaining the purple bandannas all had medical training, if you needed help.

It was reported in a news story here that while we were on one of the bridges (stopping traffic), some protesters got up on a car. They did! I saw it, and heard the driver honking their horn, and had this moment, looking at these people in masks, up on this car that couldn't drive away because they were surrounded by a sea of chanting protesters, and I thought, oh no, this could be bad. Would I be scared, if I was in that car?

But then they got down off the car, and hugged the driver, who seemed to know them, or at least be super into everything we were doing - hugs, some handshakes and high fives, more honking, which once I could see the driver was clearly being done in a Woo! Yes! way. The news didn't mention that part.

There was one part, near the end, when we were silently marching through the streets, when a couple of men started to yell at us - really angry yelling. Out of nowhere, these same antifa people made a wall between the yellers and the rest of us protesters. One of them stayed on our side of the human wall, and just told us to keep going, don't let it interrupt the march, they had it under control. And they did - from what I saw they weren't escalating, they just cut problems off and kept the march marching.

So yeah. It was a really great rally and march. Bravo to the organizers, who did a great job start to finish, and who ended the march on a really powerful and yet calm note. And thanks to the pdx Antifa who were there; I saw and appreciated what you did.

 

 

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