Wanderthread

And y’all say I never post anything cheerful… :wink:

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Hell no.

But I think the chance of a double impeachment is even lower than the almost-nonexistent chance of just impeaching Trump.

Just for a reference: the estimated number of draft dodgers who moved to Canada from the US during the entire Vietnam War is estimated at 30,000-40,000.

At the same time, about 30,000 Canadians volunteered to join the US Army in Vietnam.

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Australia’s list of wars:

Out of that entire lot, only one (Operation Astute, stabilising East Timor after the Indonesians trashed it) was fought primarily in Australia’s direct interest. The rest were all in service to our Anglo-American overlords.

They haven’t included the near-extermination of Indigenous Australians in that. There were a handful of notable skirmishes, and a few brief guerrilla campaigns, but the assault on Aboriginal Australia was primarily a one-sided and informal civilian operation.

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Korea needs no coalition; the South are in it whether they want to or not. The US can annihilate NK single-handed if it doesn’t care about collateral damage.

For Iran, it’s the Saudi Alliance. I’m still expecting the US to use them as proxies and then come in afterwards, but we could see overt US involvement from the beginning.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see US and Russian troops working together in Syria relatively soon. That probably would’ve happened already if not for the media attention on Trump/Russia.

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The general vibe I’m getting from America is that 1/3 are Trumpists, 1/3 are too busy staying alive to do anything else, and 1/3 are waiting for the courts or Congress or the midterms to save them.

Am I missing something?

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Bannonites trying to purge the West Wing:

Skip to 5:30 for the most important bit.

Thinking on peaceful protest and how to make it work.

You don’t achieve political change with witty street theatre. That doesn’t work, and never has. Meaningful protest in a spot like this isn’t about PR; it’s about preventing the continuation of business as usual until the issue is resolved.

That doesn’t require violence. Violence is unnecessary and counterproductive. But non-violent doesn’t mean polite. If you’ve got traffic marshals and a permit from the government, you’re missing the point.

If the protest isn’t disruptive, it’s irrelevant. But again, disruptive does not mean destructive. It isn’t about smashing up a Starbucks, it’s about blocking the streets and making noise. No violence or destruction required, but you are required to get in people’s way and fuck up their day.

Non-violence from the protesters does not magically create non-violence from the police. At some point, the batons and tear gas are going to come out.

Non-violence does not require martyrdom. If they start breaking heads, run. Ain’t nothing wrong with a tactical retreat. But don’t run forever. Get clear of the police violence, stop, turn around, and do it again.

The whole point is to shut down the street; a street full of tear gas and riot cops is shut down just as thoroughly as one full of protesters. Every time that the cops attack is a win for the protesters; they’re expanding the area of disruption. If you can get them to chase you across the city, you shut the entire city down.

The key is persistence.

The US situation is complicated by the demographics. The Trumpeters are in the suburbs, the cities are populated by the left. But the flashy bits of the cities are owned by the 0.01%, including Trump and his cronies. So it’d be good to keep the focus on those, and try to avoid the cheap end of town.

What else? A need to protest is never a good situation, but what can be done to make it work and minimise the suck?

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Effective protest is not about “hearts and minds”, it’s about applying economic pressure. Occupy (especially the London version) fucked this up, badly.

To use the London example, instead of having a few hundred people sitting outside a cathedral and calling it a protest, how about a few dozen people sitting in the middle of the 30-odd bridges that span the river Thames?

Shut shit down, get shit done.

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BLM has used this tactic a lot, unfortunately to very little apparent effect.

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Turkey Time!

Goebbels, goebbels, goebbels…

Wake up and smell the fascism.

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It requires scale. There just aren’t enough Americans of colour to do it solo; the authorities are perfectly willing to besiege (and, if necessary, level. Remember MOVE in Philadelphia?) a few majority-black cities.

This is why it needs to be focussed where the money is. Not the cheap bits of Ferguson, the rich bits of New York City. And anywhere else that there is a building with Trump on the facade.

The idea is to make it impossible for rich people to get richer until the situation is resolved.

Speaking of which: what can ordinary people do to fuck with the stock prices of Trump-connected companies?

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Alt-history.

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There is a slight chance that the GOP legislature are attempting to use Lee to gain leverage on Trump.

There is a much greater chance that they’re using Lee as an opening to expand the war making powers of the executive even further.

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Trumpist purge of the GOP is stepping up a gear, with Russian assistance:

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Lockdown of the GOP-controlled states proceeding smoothly:

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