US Politics: The Bully Culprit

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

It's a good thing no one here did that. 

Okay...care to expound on what you meant by your "that's fascism" comment, then?

[Relic]

Just now, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Okay...care to expound on what you meant by your "that's fascism" comment, then?

I did above. I find glib replies like "deal with it" to be fascist precursors. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Just now, Relic said:

I did above. I find glib replies like "deal with it" to be fascist precursors. 

Sorry, I don't see how that's fascist in any way.

Blunt? Sure. But DMC wasn't telling you that you couldn't change things. I am guessing he would be okay with voting reform, for instance. But you still need to spearhead any such changes to the system via the system we have. Those are the conditions, and we do have to deal with it. And Trump vs Biden is the election choice that we have. And hopefully we all deal with that choice in a responsible and thoughtful manner.

[Relic]

Final thought on the subject - I'm not voting for Biden. 

I will vote the same way I have voted every time I've voted for POTUS - Green party. But you don't need to worry, my vote means nothing as a resident of NY State. 

[Dawn Vibration]

The Democrats pushing this through with a christian nationalist party that is laced with neo nazis in it is just proof of how far to the right the Democratic party is moving and how out of touch they are, and how authoritarianism is being enabled and pushed by them as well.

This is ridiculous.
Great idea Dems, succumbing to this stupidity and fascist creep on free speech. Brain rot.
https://x.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1785775817353507053

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

But you still need to spearhead any such changes to the system via the system we have.

But the system protects itself, especially against changes to the status quo. 

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Relic said:

It's pretty incredible that "deal with it" is the best answer we've come up with in the greatest democracy the world has supposedly seen. In the grand scheme of things I'd prefer to riot against Trump than to meekly support extermination.

Well, this just means we are not the greatest democracy in the world.  And that’s very apparent for a host of reasons — including the idiotic and malapportioned electoral college.  But that doesn’t mean a plurality electoral system is fascist.  That’s an absurd statement.

Fascists don’t bother with legitimate electoral systems.  Indeed, that’s precisely what we’re trying to prevent!  Because one of these guys demonstrably DGAF about elections.

[Relic]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

But the system protects itself, especially against changes to the status quo. 

It's ok tho, just vote in local elections and maybe your great grandkids will live in a better world. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

But the system protects itself, especially against changes to the status quo. 

Sometimes, yes. Voting is important, but it isn't the only avenue for change. Protest is a hell of lot more meaningful when it's public, as opposed to in a voting booth. 

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Sometimes, yes. Voting is important, but it isn't the only avenue for change. Protest is a hell of lot more meaningful when it's public, as opposed to in a voting booth. 

I grew up in the 60s. Protests such as this were as common as dirt and huge numbers of students were active. Who won the election in 1968? Nixon in a landslide. 

[Zorral]

35 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

his ain't fascism,

It's not?  Show us.

[Dawn Vibration]

9 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I grew up in the 60s. Protests such as this were as common as dirt and huge numbers of students were active. Who won the election in 1968? Nixon in a landslide. 

A disastrous foreign policy of the Vietnam war and clamping down on student protests certainly was a winning formula for the Dems then. Only difference between now and then is the US is just funding and arming Israel and their war crimes, but the gov is still attacking protesters on behalf bad foreign policy, all to keep the image of Israel clean and keep it's billionaire supporters happy.

Now it might be illegal on campuses to criticize Israel and Zionism. It will be unlawful anti-semitism. Gotta love the erosion of rights the Dems and Repubs are coming together for.

[Zorral]

Right now Workers for Palestine, a thousand strong, are marching up 6th Ave. here.

It is May Day after all.  Long live Karl.  

[IFR]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

I'm supposed to vote for Biden because I'm terrified of Trump, right? That's not democracy, that's blackmail. 

I find this point of view sincerely perplexing. What do you think is practically achievable with this approach?

Let's take a post-mortem look at the Green Party during the 2016 election. Clearly, there was no chance that the Green Party was a winning platform. Could it have influenced the election to Trump's favor? Possibly. 

Argue that the Democrats are insufficiently aligned to your ideology as you might, I doubt that Republicans better represent your interests.

Clearly, with the 2016 fiasco, no "message" was sent to anyone. There was no reflection, no improvement. Voting for Jill Stein did not perturb the system in any way. All that happened was that Trump was elected, and the Supreme Court is now going to be conservative for a long time to come.

Reviewing the outcome of that election year, why decide to repeat a process it can easily be demonstrated is completely ineffective at causing any kind of change to the system?

Idealism? Ideally, you can contribute enough money to solve world hunger. Practically, you are limited by your income and own needs, so I imagine you compromise idealism to some extent by not starving yourself for the sake of others.

I'm personally not a fan of Biden or the Democrats either. But I'm very much not a fan of Trump. It's an unfair system, but the only thing we can do is represent our own interests as best we can in the reality we must deal with. I know for sure that not voting for Biden will consequently lead to the least ideal outcome for representing my own interests as a person of liberal ideology.

Edited May 1 by IFR

[Phylum of Alexandria]

28 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It's not?  Show us.

At the federal level? Our current president still honors elections, rather than a state of emergency used as pretext to ignore rights. There are still formal checks and balances between the branches of government. The current government does not rely on a cult of masculinity, or traditionalism, or fear of the other to amass influence among the rabble. National troops are not deployed against citizens. Militias and paramilitary groups are surveilled and sometimes thwarted rather than empowered. Do I need to go on?

Obviously, the MAGA movement is fascistic, and they have captured plenty of powerful people in local, state, and federal government. And even before MAGA, there have been troubling authoritarian aspects to federal government. But our current government in power now is nowhere close to fascism proper. Though that could change rather quickly if we're not careful.

[Clueless Northman]

To be blunt, any political system that provides a realistic choice between just 2 candidates is barely one step above Putin's Russia. (and I had to restrain myself to write "Kim's North Korea)

Which isn't a dig just against US system, it goes for France and plenty other countries as well, and at the end of the day every single democracy around is more or less deeply flawed (some more blatantly than others).

Edited May 1 by Clueless Northman

[Zorral]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/columbia-and-cuny-students-hold-a-joint-press-conference/2024/05/01/d40b26db-5a30-4efb-ba55-00b28b4add2c_live.html

Live. Now.  Complete with Orthodox men in the group.

The NYT isn't doing this.  The divergence between the WaPo and the NYT gets wider all the time.

 

Edited May 1 by Zorral

[Phylum of Alexandria]

39 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I grew up in the 60s. Protests such as this were as common as dirt and huge numbers of students were active. Who won the election in 1968? Nixon in a landslide. 

I'm not trying to say this stuff is in any way easy. Real, substantive change is really, really hard. But the 60s did produce some huge gains in civil rights, albeit following tireless, dedicated, multi-pronged approaches to protest and activist outreach. And maybe Nixon was part of the backlash to that, not to mention the assassinations of King and Malcolm X, and others. It's no wonder people were disheartened. But the fact is that sustained campaigns of action did influence our nation for the better.

On the reverse side, and in more recent history, look at the Tea Party. I sympathized more with the Occupy Wall Street protests, but other than the viral "1%" framing, what did those protests actually achieve? As for the Tea Partiers, I mocked them for their stupid hats and retrograde comments. And of course Tea Party rallies got some major help from wealthy donors. But importantly, they were used for real political organizing: attendees registered to vote, got others to vote, signed up for local and state offices---and they swept into power. We're only now starting to weed those fuckers out.

So how one protests and what one does with one's time does matter in terms of how much political power a movement can amass. Despite their silliness and their scariness, I think we can learn a lot from the Tea Partiers in terms of practical politics. The Indivisible movement has the right idea. I think sustained bottom-up involvement is one of the best paths forward.

[kissdbyfire]

11 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

National troops are not deployed against citizens. Militias and paramilitary groups are surveilled and sometimes thwarted rather than empowered. Do I need to go on?

But the ever-hungry intelligence agencies get more and more power to spy on Americans and others and the MSM barely registers it. 
 

WASHINGTON — Late Friday evening, the Senate caved to pressure from U.S. intelligence agencies and passed a bill that reauthorizes and dramatically expandsSection 702 of FISA, creating new ways for the government to spy on Americans without a warrant.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

But the ever-hungry intelligence agencies get more and more power to spy on Americans and others and the MSM barely registers it. 
 

WASHINGTON — Late Friday evening, the Senate caved to pressure from U.S. intelligence agencies and passed a bill that reauthorizes and dramatically expandsSection 702 of FISA, creating new ways for the government to spy on Americans without a warrant.

Yes, and this shit has brought us closer to authoritarian government, no doubt about it. Regardless of that, our government is still a far cry from fascism as it currently is.