Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Mischief Maker]

Is that a Super Metroid map

Make sure you get the Varia suit before you set foot in Flint.

[BryanM]

Taibbi has been a pretty excellent commentator on the endless waking nightmare that is modern american history.

[Ed Oscuro]

If the US is going to go down the tubes, it's because white people gave up on doing better for themselves.

Frankly most immigrants are more motivated than people who have been living here for years.

This was fun too.

[Opus131]

I've lived in America for almost 12 years before returning in Italy. I can say from personal experience that you are talking nonsense. If you want to see lack of motivation you should check my own country.

The problem with whites in America is that they are categorically not allowed to have a shared identity connected to any particular culture or history. But then, this is what happens when your society is dominated by the agents of 2+2=5 thinking.

[CIT]

I've lived in America for almost 12 years before returning in Italy. I can say from personal experience that you are talking nonsense. If you want to see lack of motivation you should check my own country.

Im not surprised, as the country just came out of 10 years of Berlusconi — who is pretty much exactly the Italian version of the Donald.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've lived in America for almost 12 years before returning in Italy. I can say from personal experience that you are talking nonsense. If you want to see lack of motivation you should check my own country.

Sounds like you're the one talking nonsense, trying to pass off Italian problems on unrelated immigrants.

[quash]

If the US is going to go down the tubes, it's because white people gave up on doing better for themselves.

LOL, this is rich. As if there aren't plenty of whites who are trying to do better, but are being told that their opportunities are best given to someone else.

Frankly most immigrants are more motivated than people who have been living here for years.

Careful, you're talking to someone who's lived with immigrants his entire life. They drop out of college, work dead end jobs and blow all their money on weed just as much as anyone else. Now the ones that come here to work in tech are a different story, but if they have kids here they end up just as demoralized as everyone else. The CDC recently did a study on two particularly competitive Bay Area high schools and found that the ones killing themselves were mostly the rich ones.

Clearly, you can't pin the blame on these things on opportunities or lack thereof. There's something much more pervasive at play that nobody seems to want to acknowledge.

[BulletMagnet]

As if there aren't plenty of whites who are trying to do better, but are being told to direct their grievances towards the wrong targets entirely.

Fixed.

[quash]

There's a good number of ways you can pin the blame, but ultimately it comes down to America not giving a shit about its own people.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, Republicans give a shit when somebody is "stealing their money." About the people? Yeah, they don't care.

A great recent example of this (which I've mentioned before) are laws that kick people out of government assistance if they have a bank account. That's not going to help anybody plan for their future.

Meanwhile the banks don't get any scrutiny when they double-dip on welfare recipients.

But I was talking about immigration here, can you stop with the obvious flailing to take things out of context?

[Mischief Maker]

Asher Edelman, the inspiration for Gordon Gekko, endorses Bernie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfz4O7jGOfE

(skip to 2:40 if you're impatient)

Jesus Christ is the media in the pocket of Hillary. Less than a minute after he starts making his case he gets the bum's rush. "Whoops! We've suddenly run out of time for you to talk, but still have juuust enough time to have this fucking guy contradict you without any concrete points while taking the most patronizing tone possible! Now for these messages."

Edit: Snipped some boring stuff

[Rob]

[BryanM]

One of the indicators on if a state is going to outperform the polls is to check it in Google trends. In good states, there's a consistent and growing gap up to the election. In poopy bad ones, there's intersection.

The good news is the states coming up look like good ones - so the absolute bloodbath coming on the ides might not end up being fatal like the polls say it is.

Today I went ahead and checked out how the googling is going in upcoming western states. In many of them, such as Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, West Virgina (it's a "west"!).... there isn't significant enough search volume yet to put Hillary on the fucking chart. Think about it - all the madness and hijinks going on - fate of the future at stake... "Hey brah, wanna google Hillary Clinton a little bit?" "Nah d00d, I'm good."

Only one state that has voted has a chart like that: Vermont. It sounds completely impossible, but the idea is out there: she might not be viable in MULTIPLE states.

Win or lose, that makes me happy.

[Mischief Maker]

It sounds completely impossible, but the idea is out there: she might not be viable in MULTIPLE states.

Well she may have sliced another 10% off her base with her comment that Ron & Nancy were the vanguard in the fight against AIDS. Not the savviest political move, especially considering the number of voters who still have raw memories of watching friends and lovers die during Ronnie's 7-year silence.

[BryanM]

At this point it doesn't matter much what she says at all, as long as she doesn't use the n word and doesn't squat down and take a piss on tv.

Meritcrats gonna vote for her anyway. To them, it's about proportional representation of race and gender in the bourgeois. It's why they care whatsoever that "she's a woman". Egalitarians don't and can't give a damn about that. Who the hell cares about identity check boxes when we don't own our own government.

[BryanM]

In Trump news, how about those rallies eh? Talking about "intersectionality", he sure managed to get the support of everyone he's insulted. Which is roughly all of them.

[quash]

Some people can see through the narrative, others ride the wave and end up voting for Hillary.

[Rob]

Inciting violence is a disqualifier for people who aren't knuckle draggers. Sorry.

[quash]

It's either riots in the US or invasions in Libya, Syria, or whatever the flavor of the month is for Hillary. We need a good awakening, and if you think the price is too high you can feel free to jump ship.

[Ed Oscuro]

You have no reason to think Don "we should take their oil" Trump is going to be a less bellicose President than any of the other candidates.

It turns out that somehow we all missed the damning evidence that Trump supported the Iraq War.

For something different, Jonah Goldberg has a piece on how Trump works that's actually quite funny at times. Here's the best bit:

Dog Fart America

I’m reminded of a scene from Don Quixote: A man walks into the center of town and gathers a crowd for the show he’s about to put on. The man picks up a dog and inserts a tube into its ass. The man then begins to inflate the canine like a balloon. The crowd watches, fascinated. The dog grows larger and rounder. Eventually, the man pulls the tube out and the air escapes loudly from the poor pooch’s rectum as it runs away.

The performer turns to the crowd and asks something like: “You think it’s easy to inflate a dog with a tube?”

That guy may be the best dog-inflator in the world. He may have tapped into something real — the need to see extreme reverse dog farting — but that doesn’t mean we should make him president.

Now here's a picture of Wishbone to make you feel guilty at laughing, again.

[quash]

I totally do, actually. Part of the issue is that there's still going to be numerous forces at work trying to keep the status quo enforced, but Trump most likely has a plan to work around that.

The real war happening right now is between Trump and the puppet masters (Donohue, McConnell, Soros, etc). Everything else is collateral damage.

[Opus131]

"Inciting violence". As in, i don't like what you are saying, so i'm going to beat you, and then i'm going to have the media pretend my violent acts are entirely your fault:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GepGO6HqL3o

Personally, i like the way Stefan Molyneux characterized this as a struggle between makers (Trump) and takers (Sanders), and also the illuminati (Hillary). Ok, i added that part.

[Opus131]

I've lived in America for almost 12 years before returning in Italy. I can say from personal experience that you are talking nonsense. If you want to see lack of motivation you should check my own country.

Sounds like you're the one talking nonsense, trying to pass off Italian problems on unrelated immigrants.

More like you seem to have a certain bias in favor of immigrants, trying to paint them as invariably good and hardworking, as opposed to Americans, who are invariably lazy and entitled.

[Ed Oscuro]

Let's not lie about things: At the Trump rallies the protesters have been peaceful. They haven't beaten anybody. The worst thing I've read about is that one guy apparently has been incited for recklessness in thinking about charging the stage. They have a first amendment right to protest, no matter how Trump wants to spin that fundamental right to mean that he should get 100% uninterrupted speaking time at a public function. But it's been rally attendees, Trump's campaign manager, and even the Secret Service who are sucker punching and choke-holding protesters and even journalists. So, stop lying about this.

You should also not lie about my beliefs about immigrants vs. the so-called "natives." Again, if you have some problem with Italy's work ethic, I'm sure we'll accept you here if you want to come back, so don't worry. That system works because the State Department vetting process is very thorough and perhaps a bit too anal - right now in my state there is a crisis over one Kurdish immigrant's deportation proceeding on a technicality related to his application more than 20 years ago, despite being a political asylum refugee that gave them the relevant information. And he has been a pillar of the community, owns his own restaurant, and has had literally hundreds of endorsements from his community which is mostly white, and the legislation which has delayed his deportation has always had bipartisan sponsors.

It is a strange reversal of the usual to hear you so-called "conservatives" suddenly in favor of truly wasteful and petty government bureaucracy.

So perhaps this logical distinction is too subtle for you, Opus, but it is there: There is a difference between the true statement that "immigrants are overwhelmingly a credit to the US" and the false statement that "immigrants are always good for the US," which I didn't make. Likewise I could drive in any direction and find lots of places were the poorest whites live; I've been involved with some of them, so I do know what I'm talking about here. A lot of them aren't easy to help.

Likewise I do recognize that many of the refugees headed into Europe have few skills; I would daresay that is a problem the US can and should cope with if it saves lives, but I'm not going to pretend it's not an issue. However, most immigrants to the US have good skills.

[BryanM]

You're arguing with delicate SJW's.

You can say "Tan people aren't monsters" and all they'll hear is "kill all white people" 24/7. That's just how their brains work.

It has nothing to do with logic, it's an emotional coddling. He coddles them. They vote for him. We have George W Bush #2 for four years because Bernie didn't survive the holocaust of this Tuesday. Then we all die in a fire. Game over man game over.

It's gonna be spectacular. Gonna be so awesome, you're gonna get sick watching it.

[Ed Oscuro]

I know, but it's gratifying to be told every now and then

Fun story here: I was a Donald Trump ghostwriter

It's just so perfect, and so true. People who wrote to "Donald Trump" weren't getting Donald Trump, they were getting somebody who had learned to write like Donald Trump was supposed to speak.

Now Donald is doing this for himself.

https://twitter.com/TrumpHandsPAC/statu ... 2768716800

[Rob]

"Inciting violence".

He hasn't been ambiguous. He's a real tough guy.

http://mashable.com/2016/03/12/trump-ra ... -violence/

Stefan Molyneux characterized this as a struggle between makers (Trump)

Stefan Molyneux - conspiracy nuts love this guy.

What has Donald Trump made? Has he physically built something, designed something or invented something only a select few are aware of? I like makers.

[BryanM]

Molyneux's video games aren't that good imo.

[Opus131]

But it's been rally attendees, Trump's campaign manager, and even the Secret Service who are sucker punching and choke-holding protesters and even journalists. So, stop lying about this.

Even journalists.

And to think we were just talking about "inciting" violence just a moment before.

There is a difference between the true statement that "immigrants are overwhelmingly a credit to the US" and the false statement that "immigrants are always good for the US," which I didn't make.

Immigrants are not an overwhelming credit to the US. In fact, they are an overwhelming detriment to it. So much so that Trump is about to win the presidency by capitalizing on that fact alone, something which apparently has still not resulted in any degree of self-reflection from either the left or the sellout right.

However, most immigrants to the US have good skills.

Another one of those "true" statements (i guess you can call them statements+, or something) that seems to fly against reality to such a degree one has to wonder about the mental stability of the person uttering such rubbish. Or their honesty.

[EmperorIng]

As far as I can tell, nothing happened until protesters entered the rally and starting acting belligerently towards rally-goers, and that things devolved from there.

I'm ashamed and disgusted that some Chicago protesters - some whom I went to school with!* - attacked the police officers who went there to act as security and created problems for ambulances. And while I have personally been both leery and wary of the carnivalesque and sometimes counter-productive atmosphere of Trump rallies, I am likewise disturbed by the takeaway that the protesters "won" because they used violence and intimidation to cancel the event. Right to assembly and all. It seems to be a common element in our time that partisan mob pressure (or violence) - like on say, a college campus - is a legitimate tool of self-actualization, and I wonder if it's not going to get worse for everyone. The fruits of ultra-polarization and narrative-politics (as some pundits have called this the post-facts presidential race!).

In fact, I almost wonder if Chicago will nudge people along once again towards a certain nominee. As I heard news of the fights breaking out, I am reminded of much earlier discussion in the topic about the famous Nixon ad Convention. I would not be surprised if Trump will use the event to push moderates, who already have a distaste of BLM agitators and violent protests, into the fold. If so, he is quite a Machiavellian man but not in a way that makes me want to lavish excessive praise.

If the US is going to go down the tubes, it's because white people gave up on doing better for themselves.

I don't know if I'm supposed to take this tongue-in-cheek or an expression of prejudice. This thread has very much frayed my sarcasm detectors!

I assume as you say you live in proximity to white poverty just as much as I do, but I am curious what would happen if you or I were to make, say, similar claims of black poverty or Asian poverty. I do believe that some people, through circumstance or character, just won't get ahead much in life, and this is sad. And I'll certainly voice my gripes about the seeming glut of under-educated and under-motivated people within my generation - at least through personal experience. But I will continue to think that bad government policy and macro-economics does more to hurt people than anything else; or more positively, good policy and smart economic management are the key to success.

Honestly, controlled immigration is part of that (macro-economics). You mention the European crisis, which will, I think, remain the textbook example for why countries in the future should avoid mass undocumented immigration and the need for stronger border control. Especially as human traffickers and drug pushers in the south continue to exploit a weak Mexican government and an overextended USA. In the best of economic times, illegal immigration is a problem, but nowadays, having a group that can fiercely out-compete native citizens due to employer exploitation (which to be honest, rich Republican-leaning employers love hiring illegals) is bad for everyone.

[It struck me as quite shocking how hard Hillary pandered to the Latino vote in the last debate when she declared that she didn't want to deport anyone in the US. Really Clinton? Not even the ~130,00 criminals who fled across the border into the US? Not even the small-but-not-insignificant number of abusers of the system? What a stupid statement from a supremely stupid woman.]

The other part is taking money out of wasteful government programs/overstaffed bureaucracies and reforming tax codes to end corporate loopholes. The net positive of that is that people actually have more money, immediately, in their pockets, and I think that would ultimately do more to help people than raising minimum wages, as one example of a proposed solution.

There are other things but it basically boils down to me being suspect to the idea that it's some simple situation of everyone not wanting success enough, but rather, bad ideas have impeded the path towards success for much of Americans.

Taibbi has been a pretty excellent commentator on the endless waking nightmare that is modern american history.

Yikes, you're going to drive yourself into conniptions with writing like that. These articles always underline to me the existence of a very small intelligentsia and their absolute contempt and hatred towards most people. People can never learn or decide for themselves; they can only be controlled or manipulated (the logical step: it is we who must do the controlling and manipulating). This is actually interesting, because in an unrelated subject I was speaking with my older brother and father this morning, my brother argued that this mindset emerged particularly after both World Wars when cultural leaders shifted away from a more optimistic outlook of a human's capabilities towards a more pessimistic "man will only act out his worst instincts if not kept in check." Food for thought!

What truly amazed me throughout my graduate history education was despite hundreds of thousands of pages of books we went through, outlining the struggles of local communities vs. the abuses of government or other dominant groups throughout history, the takeaway of my classmates was always lip service towards "people need to make their own decisions" - with the rejoinder that we truly knew what was best for people (put in beautiful prose by my good friend and PhD candidate, enjoying a drink after a class of Public History "fuck the public; I'm the expert!" Hey I still love 'er).

You can say "Tan people aren't monsters" and all they'll hear is "kill all white people" 24/7. That's just how their brains work.

Ha ha, hey man last page your were hoping for increased white marginalization leading to a death rattle in Texas just to turn the state Democrat. How else am I supposed to interpret such things, if not the talk of absolutely insane people?

What has Donald Trump made?

Wealth; which is indeed a tangible thing.

*slight clarifier; several former schoolmates of mine were protesting, and at least two friends-of-friends types engaged in displays of public urination to, um, voice their protest, which I think is also pretty low. Why would you advertise this shit as picture evidence on your facebook? Don't people know that, uh, employers scour these things somewhat thoroughly?