u.s. politics: faygo to the polls

[GAROVORKIN]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You'll be too busy hunting cockroaches to have any time to criticize anything.

I disagree ,  there will always be time to offer criticism .

[GAROVORKIN]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

And that cops and mercenary hires by Big Money show up to shut them up with violence ranging from denial of rights to gather, court orders, fists and feet, clubs and guns, and mass arrests, from when mass beatings are again administered, indictments and imprisonment, is also normal.  Read the history.

 

I think there is the makings of an epic summer blockbuster movie in all that .

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I disagree ,  there will always be time to offer criticism .

Goddamn, whoever prepared these cockroaches is a culinary genius. *Smacks lips*

[DanteGabriel]

55 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Been wanting to address the privilege argument for awhile here as it has been used repeatedly throughout this argument. This is likely to get me blasted from many sides here, but at this point I feel like I need to pushback against it to some degree as it has been used repeatedly on these threads for the past week or so to discredit debate.

 I'm not even going to attempt to deny my privilege here. I'm a white, straight male, from a firmly Middle Class background. My parents are white, blue collar professionals who did everything right in terms of providing a stable environment for their children. I grew up in a firmly Middle Class neighborhood in a suburb of San Francisco. I've never gone to bed hungry. I've never been homeless. I've enjoyed just about every social advantage one could hope to enjoy. I get that. I haven't experienced social/political/economic oppression on say the same level that your Trans friend you were talking about has. I understand and acknowledge that my political views are colored by these facts.

 That said, I don't believe any of this makes my opinion or position less valid. Having experienced systemic societal oppression makes a more extreme or less moderate view more understandable, but it doesn't necessarily make that view superior. That merit has to be determined on the strength of their arguments at the end of the day, not based solely on how terrible their life experience has been.

 You mentioned the old Liberal argument of "there is no excuse for violence against speech" as if it is entirely hacky and outmoded. I have to disagree. I think it's rather foundational. I can understand someone more oppressed than myself wanting to turn to violence, wanting to justify a violent solution. I sympathize with that instinct, but I simply cannot agree that it is an acceptable political tactic. These nazis have studied the CRM. On more than one level, they want you to attack them physically at these sorts of events. Doing so plays into their hands in my estimation. How do you think it would've looked yesterday if say a thousand or so more violent minded counter-protesters had charged that gazebo and stomped some Nazi ass on national television? Who's cause would've been better served by that sort of action? 

I think it's easier to stand on principle when it's not you that they want to disenfranchise, drive out of the country, or murder for using the bathroom, yes.

I think you can make an exception to the principle of non-violence when the ideology being espoused is a genocidal ideology. It wasn't free speech that defeated fascism in the previous century.

I think I'd be a lot more confident in good ideas winning out if I still had any faith that the majority of Americans can be swayed by good arguments or sound logic or simple fucking decency. But my understanding of human nature and the very nature of this country has been shaken by the election of an obvious monster to office and the ugly forces he has awakened and empowered. My family came to this country to escape a murderous, kleptocratic dictator. I was raised with the idea of American exceptionalism to a degree that those born in this country  may never understand. Even in my most cynical Hunter S. Thompson worship, I never lost the idea that America was better, kinder, more generous, and more just than the empires that had preceded it. And I think, for all its fuckups, that was broadly true. But now we're being ruled by a guy who throws in with the kind of people we fled. Fucking Christ dude, Paul Manafort did PR for the very dictator we escaped. My father's blood is almost literally on the money he got paid, money that was stolen from my country.

Even now, a deranged authoritarian racist abuser hasn't been disowned by the party that controls all three branches of the federal government and 2/3 of state governments. It came out the other day that White House staff was dismayed by Trump's defense of Nazis because they didn't expect him to say things in public that he's been saying in private all this time. They are actively trying to gaslight us about our rotten President! This party has signed on with, and continues to cover for, a racist, fascist wannabe dictator, and it's partially because they share his goal of trying to disenfranchise minorities even further and to make life more dangerous for LGBTQ people. They are also trying to pack the courts with their own ideologues -- the one branch of government that has actually stopped Trump from implementing his worst policies. So -- a party that holds openly discriminatory beliefs is trying to consolidate absolute power. Police infiltrated by white supremacists. A monstrous President who's only been limited by a fading judiciary, and by his own rank incompetence. Seriously -- how fucked would we be if Trump wasn't constantly shooting himself in the foot?

So yes, I am losing my faith in the decency of America. Maybe I was just being naive all along. That's what the last couple of years has taught me. It's  incredibly sad to me that I have to think like this, but here we are. And this kind of world-altering heartbreak is part of the reason I have more or less avoided politics threads for a long time.

How do I think it would have played out if violence had overwhelmed the "free speech" dickheads yesterday? I don't know. Probably not well. I'm sure all it would take for most white Americans to turn back to fearing black people more than Nazis is one more spectacle of racialized violence that our media will blame on minorities. And that's pretty sad too.

[GAROVORKIN]

Just now, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Goddamn, whoever prepared these cockroaches is a culinary genius. *Smacks lips*

This makes me hungry for the Whizzo  quality assortment  . You remember  crunchy frog? and Rams Bladder Cup and the best of all Cockroach cluster ?   

I figure it was time for a Monty Python Reference .

[A True Kaniggit]

24 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You'll be too busy hunting cockroaches to have any time to criticize anything.

No.  The cockroaches will be hunting us. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think it's easier to stand on principle when it's not you that they want to disenfranchise, drive out of the country, or murder for using the bathroom, yes.

I think you can make an exception to the principle of non-violence when the ideology being espoused is a genocidal ideology. It wasn't free speech that defeated fascism in the previous century.

I think I'd be a lot more confident in good ideas winning out if I still had any faith that the majority of Americans can be swayed by good arguments or sound logic or simple fucking decency. But my understanding of human nature and the very nature of this country has been shaken by the election of an obvious monster to office and the ugly forces he had awakened and empowered. My family came to this country to escape a murderous, kleptocratic dictator. I was raised with the idea of American exceptionalism to a degree that those born in this country  may never understand. Even in my most cynical Hunter S. Thompson worship, I never lost the idea that America was better, kinder, more generous, and more just than the empires that had preceded it. And I think, for all it's fuckups, that was broadly true. But now we're being ruled by a guy who throws in with the kind of people we fled. Fucking Christ dude, Paul Manafort did PR for the very dictator we escaped. My father's blood is almost literally on the money he got paid.

Even now, a deranged authoritarian racist abuser hasn't been disowned by the party that controls all three branches of the federal government and 2/3 of state governments. It came out the other day that White House staff was dismayed by Trump's defense of Nazis because they didn't expect him to say things in public that he's been saying in private all this time. They are actively trying to gaslight us about our rotten President! This party has signed on with, and continues to cover for, a racist, fascist wannabe dictator, and it's partially because they share his goal of trying to disenfranchise minorities even further and to make life more dangerous for LGBTQ people. They are also trying to pack the courts with their own ideologues -- the one branch of government that has actually stopped Trump from implementing his worst policies. So -- a party that holds openly discriminatory beliefs is trying to consolidate absolute power. Police infiltrated by white supremacists. A monstrous President who's only been limited by a fading judiciary, and by his own rank incompetence. Seriously -- how fucked would we be if Trump wasn't constantly shooting himself in the foot?

So yes, I am losing my faith in the decency of America. Maybe I was just being naive all along. That's what the last couple of years has taught me. It's  incredibly sad to me that I have to think like this, but here we are. And this kind of world-altering heartbreak is part of the reason I have more or less avoided politics threads for a long time.

How do I think it would have played out if violence had overwhelmed the "free speech" dickheads yesterday? I don't know. Probably not well. I'm sure all it would take for most white Americans to turn back to fearing black people more than Nazis is one more spectacle of racialized violence that our media will blame on minorities. And that's pretty sad too.

Again, I agree with almost all of that, down to the tenor and tone. We are truly in a fucked up situation. I too question the moral decency of this country as a whole. That said, I don't see how the advocation of violence does anything other than to speed us towards societal collapse. I guess if you can get behind an Accelerationist argument for how we are going to deal with our problems, then violence is a viable solution. Outside of that? What does it do for us?

[GAROVORKIN]

1 minute ago, A True Kaniggit said:

No.  The cockroaches will be hunting us. 

I think there is the makings of epic summer  science fiction.  blockbuster here , Yes Planet of the Cockroaches.  A  film will both excite you and bug you. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

10 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

This makes me hungry for the Whizzo  quality assortment  . You remember  crunchy frog? and Rams Bladder Cup and the best of all Cockroach cluster ?   

I figure it was time for a Monty Python Reference .

OH JESUS! Not another Spring Surprise!?!? Fuck that hurts.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I think there is the makings of epic summer  science fiction.  blockbuster here , Yes Planet of the Cockroaches.  A  film will both excite you and bug you. 

Starship Troopers was solid. See also: Ender's Game.

[GAROVORKIN]

2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Again, I agree with almost all of that, down to the tenor and tone. We are truly in a fucked up situation. I too question the moral decency of this country as a whole. That said, I don't see how the advocation of violence does anything other than to speed us towards societal collapse. I guess if you can get behind an Accelerationist argument for how we are going to deal with our problems, then violence is a viable solution. Outside of that? What does it do for us?

A collapse and break up of the country is not just the stuff of dystopian science fiction speculation anymore. This scenario could happen and heaven help us all if it does. 

[Zorral]

 

[GAROVORKIN]

11 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

OH JESUS! Not another Spring Surprise!?!? Fuck that hurts.

Exactly , otherwise It wouldn't be called Spring Surprise . 

[Zorral]

In New Orleans the white rights paraders to save Confederate monuments got paced by tuba players playing cartoons' music scores, and some were pelted with --- glitter. The belief in NO is that crazyconfederatenaziwhitesupremacistnationalists hate being glitterized and turned into cartoon characters.

So New Orleans!  So excellent!

[DanteGabriel]

52 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Again, I agree with almost all of that, down to the tenor and tone. We are truly in a fucked up situation. I too question the moral decency of this country as a whole. That said, I don't see how the advocation of violence does anything other than to speed us towards societal collapse. I guess if you can get behind an Accelerationist argument for how we are going to deal with our problems, then violence is a viable solution. Outside of that? What does it do for us?

I don't know what it does for us. Maybe it just means there will be  fewer fascists to fight when the shit does hit the fan.

But I'm tired of marginalized people having to wait for white Christian America to come around to equality. "Keep to these non-violent principles and don't scare the majority, even as they tacitly approve your disenfranchisement and the careless killing of your children, or they'll really turn on you" is a shitty thing to tell people, isn't it? I'm tired of the double standard that mediocre white guys are the only people whose economic grievance is worth listening to. White Christian America needs to fix its shit, because y'all go crazy when others try to do it. White Christian America wasn't ready to have a half-black President say that racism hasn't been solved yet, even in the most measured and milquetoast of ways, and they got so fed up with the inconvenience of having to think about racial justice from time to time, they went and elected a proud racist. Fuck, they can't even deal with a half-black football player sitting during the national anthem. And it's people of color and LGBTQ people that are the oversensitive ones?

I'm holding out hope that Mueller's investigation brings down Trump, his family, and a bunch of Republican leaders like McConnell and Ryan. But I don't think it's very likely, and even that may just be bandage on the sucking chest wound of America's sins. There will still be a Republican Party that bases its electoral appeal on white grievance and Fox News gaslighting, and they'll still be mostly in charge. And they'll be eager to tell us, "Gosh, we're sure glad to be rid of those bad people! They definitely weren't really ours! Now look over there while we drop a few million more black people off the voter rolls and throw 20 million people off their health care to cut taxes for the rich!"

[Larry of the Lawn]

44 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Again, I agree with almost all of that, down to the tenor and tone. We are truly in a fucked up situation. I too question the moral decency of this country as a whole. That said, I don't see how the advocation of violence does anything other than to speed us towards societal collapse. I guess if you can get behind an Accelerationist argument for how we are going to deal with our problems, then violence is a viable solution. Outside of that? What does it do for us?

We've had factions in this government and in this country advocating violence every day.  Allowing a Nazi parade is violence.  Most times a cop pulls the trigger it's violence.  Voting to eliminate the ACA is violence.  Violence is already a viable solution for millions of people, especially white people, and it disproportionately affects women and people of color.

If you're of the opinion that violence is leading to societal collapse, violence against Nazis and white supremacists should be the least of your concerns.  Because the fuel to this fire is already thousands of times bigger than the teaspoon of gasoline you're arguing against.  

[Kalbear]

Remember all those ww2 Sims where you're letting the nazis speak their mind and you counterprotest?

[DanteGabriel]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Remember all those ww2 Sims where you're letting the nazis speak their mind and you counterprotest?

Yeah, it always really sucked when you failed a mission for forgetting to recognize the positive qualities of one of the "fine" Nazis.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Remember all those ww2 Sims where you're letting the nazis speak their mind and you counterprotest?

Yeah, the Holocaust was just a couple of picket signs away from not happening.  If only there had been another peaceful protest, crisis averted.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Remember all those ww2 Sims where you're letting the nazis speak their mind and you counterprotest?

Talk about false equivalencies. Where should we start carpet bombing?