webpage says this:
probably changed it right quick after criticism.
and
A version of this article appears in print on October 1, 2017, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Mayor Known for Her Bluntness Stood Up to a President Over His Storm Response.
Trump is arresting faster but deporting slower. And the slowness in deportation is probably not accidental; ICE is busy focusing on other things, like expanding and militarising.
Krang’s argument is not that Trump is better than the Dems, or even that Trump and the Dems are equally bad. He isn’t saying “there’s no danger now”; he’s saying “we’ve been living with extreme danger for our entire lives”.
His argument is that both established parties are intolerable, and that rapid, radical change is essential. Negative peace and incrementalism are not enough.
These are the sorts of arguments that US leftists have traditionally bit their tongues on, for the sake of maintaining the left-liberal alliance. But the left has decided that continuing to ally with liberals is suicidal, so they are now trying to discredit and neutralise them. The gloves are off.
It isn’t a total rejection of the Democratic party; the Berniecrats will take Dems who are willing to abandon neoliberal economics and collaboration with fascists. But the Pelosi/Schumer right wing of the Dems are (accurately) seen as treacherous dead weight; they’re trying to wipe them out.
This isn’t a war started by the left, though. The US libs have never stopped trying to destroy socialism. The Red Scare was a bipartisan thing. The new factor is that the left has had enough and are now fighting back.
Just the nature of the beast when it comes to Twitter, unfortunately. Think of it as political jazz. The music is in the gaps between the notes.
The left vs liberal contest is a classical socialist vs capitalist fight. The liberals are biased towards middle class whites; the left are biased towards a more racially diverse and working class set of supporters.
If we lived in a sensible world, they would be joining together to fight fascism. The left has been trying to make that happen ever since the election. However, unfortunately…
I understand that many folks don’t appreciate Chapo, but this bit is only four minutes long and it’s bang on point about Korea and Iran.
I’m feeling introspective, so a bit of meta-discussion of propaganda tactics.
Opening caveat: I’m talking about tricks of political manipulation here. So, obviously, it’s going to make me look manipulative as all fuck. These aren’t things I do in ordinary conversation. These are not ordinary times.
Y’all are probably aware that I’m on the radical fringe of BB, and that I occasionally make posts that evoke strong reactions. This is a good example of that:
Sometimes, that’s just me being a clueless Aspie.
But most of the time, it’s me taking a deliberate whack at the Overton Window. As the GOP figured out, if you want to move it, you need to attack the edges rather than the middle.
What I believe, and what I have been arguing for, has remained consistent the whole time that I’ve been posting. But I have been deliberately ramping up the degree to which I am explicit about what I’m talking about.
Interrupting caveat: relax, I’m not a deranged Stalinist. MLK/Gandhi/Klein peaceful revolution is what I’m going for, and Nordic DemSoc is what I’d like to see in the aftermath. And what happens is up to you folks, anyway. I’m just an advocate.
Back to the main thread: anyway, it will often be the case that I want to say something that I know is too radical to be easily accepted by the audience. It’s usually something that I feel needs to be said, but I know that if I post it as a response to a regular I’ll upset people.
So, I wait.
And, usually, within a day or two, a troll will snatch some bait and give me an opportunity to say it to someone I don’t care about offending. It may still create a bit of a stir, but nowhere near as much if I hadn’t waited for the right context.
Whenever I can, that’s what I do. But, occasionally, the opportunity doesn’t arise and I need to bounce off a regular instead. In that case, I’ll wait for something thematically close enough, then use that as a springboard to what I want to say.
@emo_pinata: that’s what happened with the “red granny” post.
I’m sorry about that; I get that it probably irritated you, and I’m grateful for the restraint of your response.
It’s not something I’d do normally, but like I said: not normal times. I try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum.
BTW: this story smells dodgy to me. May be fascist disinfo. Don’t trust until confirmation.
Right, leftists don’t care who gets hurt so long as they get their way. CHIP expires this week. I posted about it on Facebook, and the only Bernie-or-Buster I know who didn’t gloat at me about the loss of this program is my husband. They’re happy to see it go because it’s not berniecare. They’re happy to see sick kids die for lack of care now in the hope of getting what they want sometime in the future. That’s why Bernie didn’t join Kamala Harris in calling for a vote - what’s a little child suffering to a rich white dude!? He knows his base wants to see children feel the bern.
As someone who could only insure her kid through CHIP until my jobs’s benefits (first job with real benefits! I’m in my 30s!) kicked in Oct 1, fuck that. Fuck purity that says “children have to die now so I can get my namesake legislation.” I’m interested in Medicaid for all, abortion on demand from federal funds, nationalizing colleges with massive pay raises and a hiring binge funded by looting the military and ending DHS. But I will never get on board with rich, enititled Berniecrats telling me what they know about suffering and loss and then inflicting suffering and loss on 9 million kids.
Edit: float -> gloat
On disinfo, the far right-- specifically, the Gateway Pundit-- has fingered the wrong people for the main Charlottesville attack and for the Las Vegas attack, in order to blame the left.
And the centrists have already accepted the far right’s alt-facts to condemn anti-fascists. I never knows how far that goes-- if the fasc want to kill us, do the centrists condemn us? Having read the Turner Diaries, the fasc want to kill most of humankind.
Read this?
Summary of the recent disinformation campaigns. Long, but worthwhile.
No. itsgoingdown won’t work on my browser, with my animation-blocking tools.
I’m sorry about your healthcare situation. No-one should have to worry about not being able to get care for their kids. It’s barbaric.
On this thread, I focus on description more than advocacy. I attempt to explain what I see happening, but I am not in control of the US left.
This is not politics as usual.
The M4A push appears to have two major goals. Firstly, signal to the left that the Dems are not a completely lost cause. Secondly, force the wavering collaborationist centrists to pick a side.
M4A is not going to pass the current Congress. Neither is anything else that isn’t evil. Nothing good can or will happen until the fascists are overthrown.
The healthcare situation in the USA is horrific. But it is not the first priority of the current political reality.
Three million Puerto Ricans. Eleven million undocumented Americans. Twenty-five million North Koreans. Fifty-one million South Koreans. Eighty-one million Iranians.
If the Trumpists are not overthrown ASAP, they will kill millions. Directly. With guns and bombs. At home and abroad.
The issues here are bigger than domestic health policy.
This is not new, but it’s highly relevant to the M4A push.
On-topic bit starts at 5:30.
See also Naomi’s Step 5.
It’s good to point out these others (Colfax, St. Louis, etc.), but I’m not sure how they conclude “And the Las Vegas mass shooting was the deadliest in, at the very least, modern history” since all these others are equally modern (Colfax, St. Louis, etc.).
(I’d define modern as post-1492 in America, as opposed to post-1346 in Europe.)
Thoughts and prayers. Both parties.
And for current relevance:
“Only” 21 dead, but over 200 shot.
Want me to cut and paste the text in a PM? It’s a few thousand words, but worthwhile.
Much of the US gun debate essentially boils down to a contest between “we should maintain dominance of the working class by disarming them” and “we should maintain dominance of the working class by arming ourselves”.
Notice how the “bad” gun owners are portrayed as poor black people in the cities or poor rednecks in the country? Whereas middle class suburban whites are the canonical image of the responsible gun owner.
Despite the point that domestic violence handgun use in the suburbs forms a core part of the firearm murder toll.
