Jump to content

US Politics: Weimar, Washington, Whining, Bush II


A Horse Named Stranger

Recommended Posts

14 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

if we're cool with Biden accepting the endorsements of Kasich and Colin Powell I'm not sure what the difference is.

Other than the UN speech which he obviously deeply regrets, I don't think it's fair to compare Powell to Rogan.  Kasich..yeah, definitely give ya that one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Progressive Activist Begging the Left to Stop Owning Itself
Sean McElwee has a simple message for his compatriots: Rigid doctrinarianism doesn’t win elections.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/joe-biden-sean-mcelwee-and-future-progressive-power/616213/?

Quote

“I’ve come to the realization that the Democratic Party is actually ripe for a transformation into a progressive vehicle,” McElwee told me. Progressives should be working to build power and influence within the party, district by district and voter by voter—not to overthrow it. “We have lost this muscle of persuasion,” he said.

This conflict over progressive purity is the newest iteration of the one leftists waged during the Democratic primary—a fight that started between the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren wings of the left and lives on in progressive-activist circles and on Twitter. As progressives attempt to chart their path forward, how they resolve these tensions will determine whether and how they will be able to exert influence in a possible Biden administration. Who will hold actual power, and who will be on the outside looking in?

Yes. More of this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Yeah, there's no comparison. What Powell did was much, much worse. 

The Powell Doctrine was a well articulated framework that helped limit military intervention - until Dubya ignored it while Powell was SoS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, DMC said:

The Powell Doctrine was a well articulated framework that helped limit military intervention - until Dubya ignored it while Powell was SoS.

Colin Powell was an active participant in leading the US down the road to war, supported the decision to go to war when it was made, and has never apologized for his role. It was an evil, destructive war, and many people knew better at the time. There are no excuses. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The ways of stealing elections are without number, and this was true long before electronic technology of any kind.  Read the accounts of how the NY state Republican party stole the primary from Theodore Roosevelt, for instance, when he decided to run for a third term nomination against Taft.  Violence was used, but it was far from the only technique. But when it did come to violence, the cops enabled (sometimes performing it).

By the way this primary and election for the Republicans was a conflict among those of the party members and voters -- the progressives, of which TR was one, and the traditional, business enabling members.

39 minutes ago, Week said:

This conflict over progressive purity is the newest iteration of the one leftists waged during the Democratic primary

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Colin Powell was an active participant in leading the US down the road to war, supported the decision to go to war when it was made, and has never apologized for his role. It was an evil, destructive war, and many people knew better at the time. There are no excuses. 

It's well documented he, Rice, and Armitage were the main forces within the administration trying to get Dubya to avoid war.  He failed and went along with it, but of course he did he's a soldier.  Like I said his only main contribution to the public push for war was the UN speech - which he has publicly said he regrets, albeit not technically apologized.  In fact, he publicly regrets and takes (partial) responsibility for the entire failure in the lead up.  I agree there are no excuses, but there is room for forgiveness.  And also consideration of true responsibility.  If Powell quit would that have changed Dubya's decision-making at all?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's well documented he, Rice, and Armitage were the main forces within the administration trying to get Dubya to avoid war.  He failed and went along with it, but of course he did he's a soldier.  Like I said his only main contribution to the public push for war was the UN speech - which he has publicly said he regrets, albeit not technically apologized.  In fact, he publicly regrets and takes (partial) responsibility for the entire failure in the lead up.  I agree there are no excuses, but there is room for forgiveness.  And also consideration of true responsibility.  If Powell quit would that have changed Dubya's decision-making at all?

Nope, and Cheney's influence would have grown even more. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What a nut job. Does he actually believe this? 

 

William Barr Wildly Compares Coronavirus Safety Measures To Slavery
In an absurd claim made on Wednesday, the attorney general compared coronavirus stay-at-home orders to centuries of anti-Black murder and sexual assault.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-barr-wildly-compares-coronavirus-safety-measures-to-slavery_n_5f6383d9c5b6ba9eb6eaf9b9

Quote

 

On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr absurdly compared stay-at-home orders and other measures instituted by local officials to curb the spread of coronavirus to slavery, the centuries-long policy of anti-Black murder, rape and theft. 

During a speech at the private, conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan on Wednesday, Barr misled listeners about the steps health officials have actually taken to curb the virus, electing instead to compare their actions to violent slave drivers.

“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest,” the attorney general said. “Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” he said.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Wait...Trump said you don’t need to count Covid deaths in blue states?

Not exactly, but pretty much.  Plus, he's *shocker* wrong:

Quote

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that if you excluded blue states, America’s Covid-19 death numbers would look much better. “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at,” he said at a White House press conference. [...]

But it’s also flatly false: When dividing states based on their 2016 votes for president, 11 of the top 20 states for Covid-19 deaths went for Trump. Overall, blue states fare worse with a death rate of 74 per 100,000 people, but red states still have a relatively high death rate, by global standards, of 49 per 100,000.

To put it another way: If you somehow “take the blue states out” and red states were their own country, they’d still be in the top 20 for Covid-19 deaths worldwide. Blue states would rank in the top five. Among only developed countries, blue states would be in the top five and red states would be in the top 10.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Triskele said:

 I think that I used to be on the "but Sanders should probably accept his endorsement" side, but wow.

It never really helped anyway. Rogan changes his mind depending on who is sitting across from him. From the time he "endorsed" Bernie (which he never did) to the time Bernie dropped out, Rogan had gone back to full Libertarian.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Week said:

The Progressive Activist Begging the Left to Stop Owning Itself
Sean McElwee has a simple message for his compatriots: Rigid doctrinarianism doesn’t win elections.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/joe-biden-sean-mcelwee-and-future-progressive-power/616213/?

Yes. More of this.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

What a nut job. Does he actually believe this? 

 

William Barr Wildly Compares Coronavirus Safety Measures To Slavery
In an absurd claim made on Wednesday, the attorney general compared coronavirus stay-at-home orders to centuries of anti-Black murder and sexual assault.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-barr-wildly-compares-coronavirus-safety-measures-to-slavery_n_5f6383d9c5b6ba9eb6eaf9b9

 

I really do think they believe this. And this is the definition of privilege--having no clue what it feels like to have lived or currently live as a person of color in the US.

I do think Trumpism is that kind of last, wild attempt for a thing to save itself before it dies. It can be destructive, but it's going to be gone soon. It might take the boomers moving to the next world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

but it's going to be gone soon. 

What flips the switch? Years ago I wrote here that the only way Trump's control over the Republican Party could be flipped is if he oversaw some kind of calamity. I couldn't have guessed a once in a century pandemic would happen. And yet it has hardly moved the needle. 

This isn't going away, win or lose. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like Pod, in terms of discussing something with an American. 
 

A boarder here is a Facebook friend, and we got into a discussion of fires in Oregon. She repeated the tales of Antifa and BLM followers being arsonists. I asked her why either of those groups would burn down forests, and her response was they burn down cities, why wouldn’t they burn down forests. I pointed out to her that Antifa is an idea, not a group people are members of. She must have spent hours on the internet looking for something to refute what I said, and she came up with an article written by two Turkish researchers saying ISIS recruited from Antifa, and Antifa was a militarized group operating in western countries with their own flag, logo and hierarchy. I suggested she not use articles from Turkey to support her position, that she might as well use articles from Russia or North Korea.

Words fail me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

A boarder here is a Facebook friend, and we got into a discussion of fires in Oregon. She repeated the tales of Antifa and BLM followers being arsonists.

https://katu.com/amp/news/local/no-evidence-antifa-is-behind-wildfires-clackamas-county-sheriff-says
 

I live 5 miles from this and while the sheriff’s office is a bunch of yahoos, and they are dealing with 2nd amendment enthusiasts setting up illegal checkpoints on our roads looking for antifa (and apparently in support of some of these, see Karl’s video post), they have found zero evidence of this Facebook rumor mill nonsense.

In addition, I have seen zero evidence that antifa congregates for anything non-protest in the main city center and use public transit like most urban folks.  Not easy to get to rural Oregon when you don’t have a car.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks like the man can put a few sentences together. Maybe he's on drugs?

Quote

 

'Talk about losers': The top moments from CNN’s kid-gloves town hall with Biden
On Tuesday, voters got in Trump's face for the first time. On Thursday, they practically gave Biden a hero's welcome in Scranton, Pa.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/18/talk-about-losers-cnn-town-hall-joe-biden-417560

Scranton vs. Park Avenue
Trump has maintained an unshakable appeal among a segment of working-class Americans —a group he used to refer to as the “super elite” (“We got more brains, we got better houses, apartments, we got nicer boats, we’re smarter,” he told supporters in the summer of 2018.). Biden, a product of Scranton, had made some inroads with the cohort, but on Thursday, he used an answer in which he acknowledged his own white privilege to more overtly frame the race between him and Trump as one of class differences.

“I really do view this campaign as a campaign between Scranton and Park Avenue,” Biden said. Turning folksy, Biden said all the people out there who are “busting their necks” — all they want is a fair shot.

“And guys like Trump, who inherited everything, and squandered what they inherited, are the people that I have always had a problem with, not the people who are busting their neck,” Biden added.

But Trump couldn't care less, Biden said: "All that President Trump could see from Park Avenue is Wall Street. All he thinks about is the stock market.”

It was a direct reference to Trump’s answers on Tuesday, when George Stephanopoulos pressed him on the uneven economy that continues to favor the affluent over working people. “George,” Trump said, “stocks are owned by everybody,” pointing to retirement plans and other investments.

“How many of you all own stock in Scranton?” Biden asked Thursday. “Not a whole lot of people own stock.”

Biden then sounded a more personal note about people who grew up in places like Scranton. He said he was used to people turning up their noses “at us,” “who look at us and think that we're suckers, look at us and they think that we don't — we're not equivalent to them.”

“Well, I tell you what bothered me, to tell you the truth. Maybe it's my Scranton roots. I don't know,” he continued, “But when you guys started talking on television about, ‘Biden, if he wins, will be the first person without an Ivy League degree to be elected president,’ I'm thinking, who the hell makes you think I have to have an Ivy League degree to be president?”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...