US Politics: Talk Radio Ravings and Other Mindless Mouthing

[Varysblackfyre321]

32 minutes ago, Ran said:

Re: Radicalization, I have to say that I don't think that's an accurate way, at all, to try and come to grips with what happened. It's not this straightforward thing where he's some white supremacist kid who hopes to kill protesters. For example, here he is offering medical help to a young woman being supported by two men (one of them black) when they said she had been shot in the foot:

 

True. I don't think there's been actual evidence of him being a white-supremacist.

 

[Week]

5 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

True. I don't think there's been actual evidence of him being a white-supremacist.

 

Blue Lives Matter and MAGA are white supremacist organizations/mantras. He may not have had a good but he sure as shit doesn't care about Black people. Less controversial to call him a MAGA enthusiast despite it having the same meaning.

[Ser Reptitious]

8 hours ago, Gareth said:

Or we can call a teenager, a teenager regardless of race or crime they committed.  

I don't recall anyone referring to him as a teenager yet, even though that term is technically correct. Since he's white, everyone calls him a "kid", which implies he's too young to know what he's doing (akin to a 6 year old who accidentally shoots someone with a gun). Had he been black, he'd have been labeled an armed thug looking for trouble (age be damned). 

But hey, I'm open to being shown evidence of armed 17 year olds being labeled the same term regardless of whether they are black or white (and who may or may not have killed one or multiple people). Consistency in this regard is all I'm asking for, in this case. 

 

5 hours ago, Ormond said:

Sorry, a 17 year old is a "kid" in most everyday conversations. When people that age are crime victims, they are often referred to as "children" on this board.

I think your objection is backwards. Instead of not calling 17 year old White murderers "kids", we should start calling 17 year old Black perpetrators "kids". 

 

See above. If black armed 17 year olds who killed one or several people also get referred to as "kids" in the media and in general (such as on this board) then I'm cool with it being applied in this case as well. 

 

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

He's a fucking kid. It's the same thing I've long said about any young person in this situation--race has nothing to do with it, except I've taken longer to come around to these little white terrorists. These young people who are indoctrinated to hateful ideologies, whether they're white boys in racist environments, or people overseas responding to US "interventions" around the world, or whatever, do not have the neurological ability to resist when that's the world they live in.

This kid killed people, and they are innocent victims in this who were supporting a just, necessary cause. As far as we know, they were good people, and it's tragic.

This kid doing this is tragic too. It's a waste of a life, and likely this little shit never had a chance to develop otherwise. Escaping the influence of your family, your environment, your entire life in your adolescence is not a matter of character. 

Again, see above. Was he brainwashed? Quite possibly. But until black people (or any other visible minorities for that matter) who commit the same crimes as he did get the same innocent-seeming label ("kid") attached, I am going to protest. 

Don't get me wrong, I agree that more people of all stripes and colours should be given the benefit of the doubt in general. It just pisses me off when it predictably once again only happens for a member of the most privileged group, while members of other, less privileged groups can get justifiably murdered for just about any reason (and they wouldn't be labeled "kid" either, even if they meet the legal definition). 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

42 minutes ago, Week said:

Yes, agree 100%. I've generally only seen poorly worded or poorly argued attempts. Though maybe I don't notice when it's done well because I agree with it. /Shrug

My main issue has always been the over promising without any plans to deliver. It’s why I’ve argued that a Sanders presidency right now would probably set back far left liberal causes many years, maybe as much as a generation.

[Ran]

24 minutes ago, Week said:

Blue Lives Matter and MAGA are white supremacist organizations/mantras. He may not have had a good but he sure as shit doesn't care about Black people. Less controversial to call him a MAGA enthusiast despite it having the same meaning.

There are black people who support Blue Lives Matter and MAGA. It doesn't make them white supremacists.

There has to be some daylight between the idea that someone is wrong-headed and someone is a white supremacist.

[Week]

Just now, Ran said:

There are black people who support Blue Lives Matter and MAGA. It doesn't make them white supremacists.

There has to be some daylight between the idea that someone is wrong-headed and someone is a white supremacist.

Pardon, *supportive of white supremacists. Police in the US is a white supremacist institution. MAGA orthodoxy is overtly white supremacist.

[Tywin Manderly]

Protesters set up a guillotine outside Jeff Bezos’ mansion and demanded higher wages for Amazon workers after the CEO’s net worth surpassed $200 billion

Quote

 

More than 100 demonstrators gathered outside Jeff Bezos’ Washington, DC, mansion on Thursday and constructed a guillotine outside his front door to protest Amazon workers’ wages.

The protest came the day after Bezos’ net worth surpassed $200 billion, making him the richest person in history, according to Forbes. His wealth has grown by about $85 billion since January, boosted by Amazon’s soaring revenue amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

 

[DanteGabriel]

I get the feeling that this Rittenhouse issue is going to become George Zimmerman all over again. Shitty and unbalanced trial, feelings running hot on both sides, and ultimately a disappointment for people who think a murdering cop-cosplayer should be punished.

[Fragile Bird]

9 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I get the feeling that this Rittenhouse issue is going to become George Zimmerman all over again. Shitty and unbalanced trial, feelings running hot on both sides, and ultimately a disappointment for people who think a murdering cop-cosplayer should be punished.

Even though he killed two people, not one, and shot a third? And they were all white?

Have white people who are not Trump supporters become the equivalent of black people in Trumplandia?

I gather there are go-fund me type pages for his defense on conservative sites and he’s been adopted by them. Is Trump going to defend him too, do you think? Of more nudge-nudge wink-wink?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Saying "If his parents and family and community are racist assholes who are saying they want to kill people of color" is pretty inflammatory. Maybe you should wait for some proof before saying that? Yes, you said "If", but it's a pretty loaded statement. Maybe he's the racist asshole?

As in, racism is spontaneous? These ideologies aren't learned somewhere? Okay

[DanteGabriel]

11 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Even though he killed two people, not one, and shot a third? And they were all white?

Have white people who are not Trump supporters become the equivalent of black people in Trumplandia?

I gather there are go-fund me type pages for his defense on conservative sites and he’s been adopted by them. Is Trump going to defend him too, do you think? Of more nudge-nudge wink-wink?

Trumplandia is very willing to cut loose white liberals, yeah. I see it all the time in my lily-white corner of Massachusetts. The Trump dead-enders hate everyone who disagrees with them. I've seen so many "make liberals cry again" type signage going up with Trump signs.

And yeah, Rittenhouse is becoming a cause celebre for the right. Nick Sandmann's lawyer is representing him and a legal organization dedicated to "fighting liberal smears" is taking up his case.

https://www.insider.com/kyle-rittenhouse-lawyers-john-pierce-lin-wood-fightback-foundation-2020-8

Surely a police-loving teenager who was protecting property and cleaning up graffiti earlier that day shouldn't be cancelled by vicious liberal mobs just because he *checks notes* shot three people and killed two of them. You know how the right wing arglebarglesphere operates. He's the real victim, it was a hoax, the people he killed were Antifa agitators paid by George Soros, etc.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I get the feeling that this Rittenhouse issue is going to become George Zimmerman all over again. Shitty and unbalanced trial, feelings running hot on both sides, and ultimately a disappointment for people who think a murdering cop-cosplayer should be punished.

There are a number of overlaps, but the laws in WI are different than FL. 

First things first, is he being charged as a minor an adult? If it's the former, just drink all that white privilege in.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

First things first, is he being charged as a minor an adult?

He's being tried as an adult:

Quote

Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

He's being tried as an adult:

 

Thanks. I'm also curious if the parents are going to face charges, assuming they bought it for him.

[Martell Spy]

Lock them up: The danger of political prosecutions in a second Trump term
Trump hasn’t managed to prosecute his enemies yet. What if he has four more years to try?

https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21358181/trump-barr-justice-department-second-term-agenda

Quote

 

Yet the most pessimistic person I interviewed was Matt Miller, the former public affairs chief under Holder. “I actually think the damage is done, whether he gets reelected or not,” Miller said.

As Miller diagnosed matters, the problem wasn’t just that Trump wanted to politicize the administration of justice and that Barr was willing to help him. The even more worrying trend was that much of the Republican Party — from members of Congress to conservative media commentators to the voters who were part of his base — was either defending Trump or egging him on to go further.

I spoke to Miller shortly after the congressional hearing at which Aaron Zelinsky testified about Barr’s interference in Roger Stone’s sentencing — and what he saw from the Republican side troubled him. Whistleblowers had made accusations of misconduct, he said, and they “were treated as combatants, as instruments of the Democratic Party that were there to get Donald Trump and Bill Barr.”

Things weren’t always this way. Back in May 2017, when Trump fired Comey, there was widespread hesitancy among the congressional GOP to defend the firing. But gradually, Trump fought back against the Mueller probe, constructing his alternative narrative that the real crimes were on the “other side.”

Republican politicians have realized that they wouldn’t be struck down if they defended potentially corrupt behavior by Trump. Indeed, for many of them, quite the opposite happens. Those who most vocally defend Trump from accusations of scandal become stars in the party — and would often be rewarded with top jobs from Trump himself, like Chief of Staff Mark Meadows or Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.

President Trump speaks on the first day of the Republican National Convention on August 24. Jessica Koscielniak/Getty Images
Lately, the Republican base has increasingly cheered on Trump’s efforts to interfere with the Justice Department, with Fox News commentators urging Trump to give clemency to Roger Stone and hyping the possibility that some former Obama officials will be indicted in the Durham investigation. They are, it’s quite clear, catering to their audience — voters who believe Trump’s conspiracy theories and claims of Democratic crimes, and who want him to move harder against them.

The next Democratic president, Miller predicted, would genuinely try to restore norms of the Justice Department’s independence, because the party truly believes in those norms. But Republicans have learned that they no longer do — and that lesson will be applied in future Republican presidencies.

“The post-Watergate norm that the department should operate independently of the White House when it comes to criminal matters, and without consideration to politics, has completely broken down in the Republican Party,” Miller said. “And I just don’t know why anyone thinks it would just snap back.”

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

6 hours ago, Week said:

Pardon, *supportive of white supremacists. Police in the US is a white supremacist institution. MAGA orthodoxy is overtly white supremacist.

So show any support to police you're knowingly supporting white-supremacysct?

This idea is extremely faulty. 

Many Trump are white-supremchists. But you don't literally have to be a white-supremacist to support Trump.

[Fragile Bird]

22 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

So show any support to police you're knowingly supporting white-supremacysct?

This idea is extremely faulty. 

Many Trump are white-supremchists. But you don't literally have to be a white-supremacist to support Trump.

Things have become so ugly in the US, it’s hard not to be extremely cynical.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Things have become so ugly in the US, it’s hard not to be extremely cynical.

It's been this way for a long time. Now everyone can't avoid seeing it.

16 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Yeah, you kind of do.

Eh, not exactly. The starting point is ignorance or willing indifference. From there everything moves on a scale towards the worst among us.

[TrueMetis]

Apparently we're all the way back to people trying to parse the difference between "a white supremacist" and "supports white supremacy" how fun.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

You guys are way behind on these definitions.  This is some serious 2017 talk.  Have you not read D'Angelo?  

This one? Or do you mean someone else?