Danny Posted January 21, 2021 Posted January 21, 2021 It is mental how people treat Biden, how far Trump took things that Biden is seen as a saviour, I understand people overlooking the bad things Obama done because he was black, living black people in America met relatives who were slaves, and then saw a black president, that’s immense and enough to make you forgot for a moment that he had ordered more drone strikes than Bush...but Biden. Biden is going to bring back the mundane feeling of hopelessness that politics generally brings imo, which is better than Trump, but still really really shit, as it is in the UK. But also the level of celebrity that surrounds American politics is hilarious and feeds perfectly into how brainwashed a lot of Americans are with nationalism, will Lady Gaga for example align herself with the inevitable fucked up shit Biden and Harris will get up to in office? Probably not. Quote
Subscriber RandoEFC+ Posted January 21, 2021 Subscriber Posted January 21, 2021 1 hour ago, Danny said: It is mental how people treat Biden, how far Trump took things that Biden is seen as a saviour, I understand people overlooking the bad things Obama done because he was black, living black people in America met relatives who were slaves, and then saw a black president, that’s immense and enough to make you forgot for a moment that he had ordered more drone strikes than Bush...but Biden. Biden is going to bring back the mundane feeling of hopelessness that politics generally brings imo, which is better than Trump, but still really really shit, as it is in the UK. But also the level of celebrity that surrounds American politics is hilarious and feeds perfectly into how brainwashed a lot of Americans are with nationalism, will Lady Gaga for example align herself with the inevitable fucked up shit Biden and Harris will get up to in office? Probably not. I think we've seen enough evidence over the past decade that boring politics is better than identity politics. A real liberal revolutionary would be great but that's a once in a lifetime thing if you're lucky enough to find someone that's both capable of delivering a better life to a lot of people in a major way, and also capable of convincing enough of the sceptical public to give them the opportunity. Biden is an unexciting President beyond the fact that he isn't Trump but until you find the occasional person who's going to do something really special and successfully break the status quo, that's what you want. A boring person with standards and principles who just gets on with the nitty gritty of running the country. I know we've all been inspired to different extents in recent years by Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders but every time you elect someone like that who's hated rather than begrudgingly tolerated by the 45% of the electorate that didn't want them, you get a massive backlash like you did with Trump following on from the first black President in the US eight years later. A few years of steady, middle of the road, competent governance is what the US are crying out for at the moment. Two weeks ago there were domestic terrorists storming government buildings with guns and cable ties. You can't understate just how volatile things have gotten in the US. I'm not saying things would necessarily go that way if it was a significantly left-wing President who is the next one they get when they want to shake up the establishment but that's why a lot of people voted for Trump, because he was different from the hopeless, dry, established political order. There's a lot to be said for boring politics in my opinion. Especially in the US, the President should be a unifying figure. Your revolutionaries are better off making a difference from outside of government to be honest. 1 Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted January 21, 2021 Posted January 21, 2021 2 hours ago, Danny said: It is mental how people treat Biden, how far Trump took things that Biden is seen as a saviour, I understand people overlooking the bad things Obama done because he was black, living black people in America met relatives who were slaves, and then saw a black president, that’s immense and enough to make you forgot for a moment that he had ordered more drone strikes than Bush...but Biden. Biden is going to bring back the mundane feeling of hopelessness that politics generally brings imo, which is better than Trump, but still really really shit, as it is in the UK. But also the level of celebrity that surrounds American politics is hilarious and feeds perfectly into how brainwashed a lot of Americans are with nationalism, will Lady Gaga for example align herself with the inevitable fucked up shit Biden and Harris will get up to in office? Probably not. One positive is Biden's policy platform has moved way more to the left since winning the nomination than when he was running in the primaries, where his positions were more in the centre. It seems as though he's listened to the base of the party that was skeptical of him. So he's promising a more left-wing vision for America than Hillary Clinton, and even Obama, and unlike Mrs. Clinton he doesn't have decades of right wing propaganda that has pretty successfully worked to demonise her in the eyes of the right wing base of the GOP and the left wing base of the Democrats. I agree with you re: Obama's drone policy - but I think hoping an American president will stop having a hyper imperialistic stance on the Middle East is an absolute pipedream. For as long as the US is a superpower and as long as oil is black gold, they will be trying to have significant influence over as many countries in the Middle East as possible. It's part of the reason why China, the other superpower, has been slowly but surely spreading it's influence into the Middle East (and they've now got significant influence over resource rich Africa) - and Russia's not a superpower but a definite power-player on the world stage and by being located on the Caspian sea... probably have the most legitimate "cause" for constantly meddling in the region. I also agree with you that one of the worst things Trump did was rehabilitate the image of status quo politicians - because Biden's equivalent in the UK would probably be as a "moderate" Tory... and that's not a ringing endorsement of Biden (despite the positive I listed earlier, which does make him better than most Tories nowadays). George W Bush is a war criminal, and one super distasteful after-effect of Trump is... his image has really been really rehabilitated to much of the US public after being pretty widely hated in the US (but he lost republican support more for the recession happening under the watch of a president of their party after having served 2 terms, rather than being a war criminal). I don't know if I agree with @RandoEFC that the "revolutionaries" need to work outside politics, because at the end of the day without the positions to affect change in the US... then you've got a bunch of legislators that won their seats due to huge amounts of corporate money then tasked with creating a US government that treats actual people at least equal to the way big business is treated in the US. But expecting one man, like Bernie Sanders or, in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn to bring about change by themselves is unrealistic. These people need to still be voices for big and meaningful change, but they need to be able to get enough other politicians and enough voters onboard with the idea of bringing about change. Otherwise, you need at least enough of them to be able to influence a party that can take a leadership position - like Bernie Sanders seems to have done with Biden - to bring about more graduated change in the party's manifesto. I think it can also be pretty tough to remember this, especially after a decade under the Tories, and before that we had Blair for a very long time and he's about as right-leaning as possible for Labour... but America is MUCH MORE RIGHT WING than I ever imagined. And they built their political system with as many roadblocks as possible for anyone with power - which maybe(?) can be a benefit, but it slows down the US political machine's ability to make change. And it does a lot to ensure that all politicians can spread the accountability to as many people as possible - so politicians that fuck things up can pass blame elsewhere. To me the political culture in the US is very fucking weird. And yeah, US celebrity worship is hilarious/weird as fuck as well. Quote
Danny Posted January 21, 2021 Posted January 21, 2021 1 hour ago, RandoEFC said: I think we've seen enough evidence over the past decade that boring politics is better than identity politics. A real liberal revolutionary would be great but that's a once in a lifetime thing if you're lucky enough to find someone that's both capable of delivering a better life to a lot of people in a major way, and also capable of convincing enough of the sceptical public to give them the opportunity. Biden is an unexciting President beyond the fact that he isn't Trump but until you find the occasional person who's going to do something really special and successfully break the status quo, that's what you want. A boring person with standards and principles who just gets on with the nitty gritty of running the country. I know we've all been inspired to different extents in recent years by Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders but every time you elect someone like that who's hated rather than begrudgingly tolerated by the 45% of the electorate that didn't want them, you get a massive backlash like you did with Trump following on from the first black President in the US eight years later. A few years of steady, middle of the road, competent governance is what the US are crying out for at the moment. Two weeks ago there were domestic terrorists storming government buildings with guns and cable ties. You can't understate just how volatile things have gotten in the US. I'm not saying things would necessarily go that way if it was a significantly left-wing President who is the next one they get when they want to shake up the establishment but that's why a lot of people voted for Trump, because he was different from the hopeless, dry, established political order. There's a lot to be said for boring politics in my opinion. Especially in the US, the President should be a unifying figure. Your revolutionaries are better off making a difference from outside of government to be honest. I mean yeah I’m not arguing with you re: Trump and that mad shit, but mad shit won’t stop happening, it’ll just stop happening around well off white people and America will be back to normal. My reference to boring politics was that of one that continually ignores change, Trump was just a natural reaction that a country founded on and fuelled by white supremacy would have when a black man was made president. Quote
Subscriber RandoEFC+ Posted January 21, 2021 Subscriber Posted January 21, 2021 26 minutes ago, Danny said: I mean yeah I’m not arguing with you re: Trump and that mad shit, but mad shit won’t stop happening, it’ll just stop happening around well off white people and America will be back to normal. My reference to boring politics was that of one that continually ignores change, Trump was just a natural reaction that a country founded on and fuelled by white supremacy would have when a black man was made president. Yeah, I don't think US and UK politics have really ignored change that much, things are always dawdling along in the right direction when you have a pretty boring mainstream leader. Racial equality, gender equality, women's rights, LGBT rights, trans rights, all of these things have improved in our lifetimes and will continue to improve. That's not to say that all of those things have reached a good or even acceptable level, but they tend to plod along in the right direction even under Republican/Conservative leadership. Trump is the obvious exception which is why I'm just slightly reluctant to pray for a real out-there progressive Messiah type. If someone comes in and promises the world and under-delivers (or even if they do deliver to be honest) it makes me think now that 'the right' in the US in particular will use it as ammunition to respond by bouncing back to another Trump type and I don't know if I have it in me to watch another 4 years of that. I don't know, for me it's just you'd rather accept guaranteed slow progress than reach too far and end up with the one step forward, two steps back Obama-Trump decade model. I think you're right about the stagnation though, and if Biden delivers the kind of boring, centrist Presidency that quite a lot of people think he will, then I'll be back on your side on this when everyone's had a chance to get over the Post Trumpatic Stress Disorder and things have settled down a bit. 1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said: I don't know if I agree with @RandoEFC that the "revolutionaries" need to work outside politics, because at the end of the day without the positions to affect change in the US... then you've got a bunch of legislators that won their seats due to huge amounts of corporate money then tasked with creating a US government that treats actual people at least equal to the way big business is treated in the US. Yeah, maybe. Lots of hurdles to overcome. I just think in the current climate that it's hard for the left wing political parties to convince the public that they actually want to help them. Marcus Rashford is a good example from the past year. He never would have had as much cut through as he did if he was a Labour politician because of the 'bloody Marxists' rhetoric in the UK that the right-wing press finally managed to get to stick when Corbyn was the leader. Maybe the US is different. Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted January 21, 2021 Posted January 21, 2021 Nah the US is even worse in that regard tbh. More funding for education is needed all around the world Quote
Harry Posted January 22, 2021 Posted January 22, 2021 9 hours ago, Stan said: Ted Cruz can't be this dense, surely?! I dread to think what he believes the Treaty of Versailles or The Geneva Convention is... The real irony of this is 1. Cruz expressing concern for the voters of Pittsburgh, PA, when he voted to have the entire Pennsylvania vote count thrown out (and they voted heavily for Biden) 2. Pittsburgh maintained its commitments to the Paris agreement even when trump abandoned it, so they clearly have no issues with this action. 1 Quote
Harry Posted January 22, 2021 Posted January 22, 2021 It's kind of funny seeing Fauci's joy to just be able to relay facts without worrying and angering the president Quote
Harry Posted January 22, 2021 Posted January 22, 2021 19 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said: He’s a Harvard Law Grad, he’s not this stupid. His voters are though so he’s got to appeal to them. The GOP base reacts well to fear of others and outrage. So here he can say this is a president reflecting European values and putting non-Americans first. That checks both boxes to a lot of these people. He knows what he’s doing. The Republican base has been carefully cultivated to react to this kind of rhetoric - he’s just pandering to that base now because he’s getting a lot of heat for his part in inciting the riots and probably lost a lot of moderate support. He’s got presidential ambitions. He can’t win that nomination without trying to shepherd Trump’s flock. Until the voters feel some sort of sting for snubbing reality, they’ll continue to reward slime like Ted Cruz. Similar to the Tory stranglehold on UK government, despite a decade of failure. They keep doing a shit job, they keep getting elected to run the country. As you say Cruz knows better, but this play shows his contempt for the trump voters he's trying to win. He thinks they're dumb enough to believe it, and he wanted a viral outrage response. I may be wrong but I'm not entirely sure people have taken the right lessons from the trump era. The GOP politicians seem to think the voters wanted the policies and rhetoric of Trump, but I think they may just have been all in on Trump because they liked his belief and confidence and tough guy personality. Trump voters were willing to hang Mike pence. They hated the establishment. They mostly got behind Trump doing a 180 on most conservative views/positions on things and followed him anyway. Was it because they want authoritarianism, and white supremacy or is it just because the GOP supporters are a cult of personality more than policy? I.e. Could Arnold Schwarzenegger run in the Republican primary in 2024 and pull that same Trump base towards support of more moderate conservative positions on issues? Does he have more appeal to the trump base than a lame, nerdy Harvard guy like Ted Cruz who's willing to try to talk like Trump and go all in on fascism in order to achieve his goal of becoming president? 2 Quote
Subscriber RandoEFC+ Posted January 22, 2021 Subscriber Posted January 22, 2021 I like a lot of this guy's stuff. This has to be the best rant about Trump I've heard to date. 1 Quote
Subscriber Viva la FCB+ Posted January 23, 2021 Subscriber Posted January 23, 2021 1 hour ago, RandoEFC said: I like a lot of this guy's stuff. This has to be the best rant about Trump I've heard to date. I saw that the other day. I havent heard his presidency summed up so perfectly Quote
Subscriber Mel81x+ Posted January 25, 2021 Subscriber Posted January 25, 2021 https://www.wired.com/story/faces-of-the-riot-capitol-insurrection-facial-recognition/?utm_social-type=owned&mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=wired "Late last week, a website called Faces of the Riot appeared online, showing nothing but a vast grid of more than 6,000 images of faces, each one tagged only with a string of characters associated with the Parler video in which it appeared. The site's creator tells WIRED that he used simple open source machine learning and facial recognition software to detect, extract, and deduplicate every face from the 827 videos that were posted to Parler from inside and outside the Capitol building on January 6, the day when radicalized Trump supporters stormed the building in a riot that resulted in five people's deaths. The creator of Faces of the Riot says his goal is to allow anyone to easily sort through the faces pulled from those videos to identify someone they may know or recognize who took part in the mob, or even to reference the collected faces against FBI wanted posters and send a tip to law enforcement if they spot someone." Whats really interesting is that the hacker didn't have to go to multiple sources to get the data. Quote
Harry Posted February 3, 2021 Posted February 3, 2021 When fear of defamation lawsuits meets crazy guy. 1 Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted February 8, 2021 Posted February 8, 2021 On 02/02/2021 at 21:34, Harry said: When fear of defamation lawsuits meets crazy guy. I will never understand why this pillow salesman has become a loud voice for the American ProFa movement... Quote
Azeem Posted February 8, 2021 Posted February 8, 2021 Biden still hasn't given the inaugural Presidential BBQ party. Did Trump took the Presidential grill with him ? Quote
Burning Gold Posted February 13, 2021 Posted February 13, 2021 Expecting a Senate vote on the conviction today apparently. They voted something like 56-44 for the trial to even go ahead, and I fully expect them to vote on the same lines, therefore failing to reach the required two-thirds threshold, and rendering the last week a complete waste of time. Really depressing how many Republicans continue to stand alongside Trump. Suggests they'll continue to follow his agenda and potentially run him again in 2024 Quote
Administrator Stan Posted February 14, 2021 Administrator Posted February 14, 2021 Trump gets off scot-free then. In other news, Biden not wasting time making changes.. Quote
Cicero Posted February 14, 2021 Posted February 14, 2021 (edited) Good. Far too easy to get a gun in the states and manufacturers need to be held accountable for that. Edited February 14, 2021 by Cicero Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted February 24, 2021 Posted February 24, 2021 On 23/02/2021 at 06:06, McAzeem said: Is he ok ? Looks like he lost his place on the telepromter and he lost his place and started stuttering. He's pretty famously struggled with stuttering his whole life, especially in his political career. Considering we've come from a US President that was incapable of forming complete sentences, I'll take an old man with a stutter any day. I get that he's old (but so was his predecessor), but it seems a bit fucked up that so many people hammer on Biden for "senility" when he's got a stutter. If you want to hammer on Biden - he's got a long track record in politics that isn't always the best reading. Troubling history on race issues, which has been fucking with the United States... probably since it existed as a country tbh... and troubling history with American imperialism in the Middle East, which has been fucking with the world since the US became a global superpower. I'd hammer on actual policy issues with Biden than his mental state, which is certainly in a much better state than the last guy... who also had horrific policy positions I think had the last president been a "normal republican" President... Biden probably wouldn't be the president. He tried and failed several times before this to be the president but was seen as too "gaffe prone" because of things like his policies (because he's so moderate as a democrat, some of his policies look like modern day republican policies) and his stuttering. But America's pulled pretty far to the right and he's probably appealing for anyone still undecided or feeling moderate... and the American left I think had long decided they were for "anyone but Trump." And I think anyone that wanted to see an American president be able to speak publicly without mistakes or without gaffes... probably won't get that for a very long time. The bar's been lowered in so many regards. 1 Quote
Harry Posted February 24, 2021 Posted February 24, 2021 On 15/02/2021 at 06:24, Stan said: Trump gets off scot-free then. In other news, Biden not wasting time making changes.. It won't be scot free. Impeachment was only a political measure, with political consequences. But its damning that so few in the GOP truly compete to win the contest of ideas with their voters - by actually standing up for right and wrong. (Most behave like they think their voters are maniacs and they dare not say anything to let on that they know better. The Georgia senators being a typical example.) Totally separate to that impeachment trial is criminal prosecution to which Mueller laid a clear road map on obstruction of justice alone, let alone the many other things done since or before he took office. He's also being investigated in Georgia, New York and DC and will probably get hit with charges for all three. It's a big statement given he's been dodging accountability his whole life with so much success but I think there is a fair chance he'll be bankrupt, in prison or discredited/irrelevant by 2024 primaries 1 Quote
Harry Posted February 26, 2021 Posted February 26, 2021 Another interesting point about Trump being the future of the Republican party. He's so lazy and so self centred. Why would he use his energy to try to go out campaigning hard to try get Trumpist politicians elected? What's the point of that for him? That's as much or of character for Trump as saying He'll acknowledge the losing result of the election. Quote
Subscriber RandoEFC+ Posted February 26, 2021 Subscriber Posted February 26, 2021 I do think the whole Trump 2024 movement will do well to make it to the actual election season without completely losing momentum and favour. Quote
Cicero Posted February 26, 2021 Posted February 26, 2021 More of a chance Trump forms his own political party than being the future of the Republican party. At least, I'd hope the Republicans aren't that obtuse. Quote
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