Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Dr. Claw]

I don't mean to detract from the awfulness of Trump's covid response, but I'm sick of all these goddamn centrists crowing about the "reasonable republicans" of yesteryear (ie. fictional republicans they saw on the show West Wing).

Have they forgotten Ronald Reagan's response to AIDS?

If they forgot that George W. Bush lied to start war in Iraq, because he gave Michelle Obama candy, is Ellen's (LOL) friend, and dislikes the current POTUS, anything Reagan did doesn't stand a chance.

Dianne Feinstein was especially cowardly back then, and somehow she is still in government...

[system11]

So I have it on good authority that Kanye Wests first rally or whatever it was supposed to be, is quite ... "special".

All I want for nearly-Christmas is Kanye and Biden on a debate stand, for a couple of hours. Please 2020, grant me this one thing. And popcorn. Lots of popcorn.

[BulletMagnet]

I don't mean to detract from the awfulness of Trump's covid response

Apologies, but I think we'd better, just for a sec.

So anyways, remember how, for eight straight years, certain folks among us were screaming at the top of their lungs that the President was, any day now, going to provoke a race war by violating states' rights and sending in troops without their consent who would snatch people off the streets without a shred of accountability or probable cause?

Remember how you were all stockpiling guns for the coming fight for freedom and were just raring to show those government thugs how genuine and deeply-held your beliefs on liberty and justice really were?

I have to say, in spite of myself I can't help but admire the downright saintly modesty of you ever-steadfast patriots: your clairvoyant predictions were actually several years early, and instead of crowing about it, now every last fucking one you all finally decide to keep your fucking tree-of-liberty-watering mouths shut.

[BryanM]

Nah, I understand bullshiting isn't meant to be taken literally and exists to be ignored.

[To Far Away Times]

I don't mean to detract from the awfulness of Trump's covid response

Apologies, but I think we'd better, just for a sec.

So anyways, remember how, for eight straight years, certain folks among us were screaming at the top of their lungs that the President was, any day now, going to provoke a race war by violating states' rights and sending in troops without their consent who would snatch people off the streets without a shred of accountability or probable cause?

Remember how you were all stockpiling guns for the coming fight for freedom and were just raring to show those government thugs how genuine and deeply-held your beliefs on liberty and justice really were?

I have to say, in spite of myself I can't help but admire the downright saintly modesty of you ever-steadfast patriots: your clairvoyant predictions were actually several years early, and instead of crowing about it, now every last fucking one you all finally decide to keep your fucking tree-of-liberty-watering mouths shut.

Conservatives should be flooding into Portland as a well armed militia to defend against a tyrannical federal government that is kidnapping people but, yeah, historic silence.

[system11]

I don't mean to detract from the awfulness of Trump's covid response

Apologies, but I think we'd better, just for a sec.

So anyways, remember how, for eight straight years, certain folks among us were screaming at the top of their lungs that the President was, any day now, going to provoke a race war by violating states' rights and sending in troops without their consent who would snatch people off the streets without a shred of accountability or probable cause?

Let's break down what's actually happening in Portland.

Far left militants are using the GF unrest as an excuse to cause trouble, they've spent 50 days provoking a response and finally, in the face of local government pretty much endorsing their lawless bullshit by doing nothing, the feds have to turn up to stop them burning down public property, which I would add would have to be repaired with public money. So the mayor in his infinite cowardice, demanded that the feds stay within federal property, which they did, and the aforementioned thugs with their army of useful idiots turned up again, last night, virtually besieging the building. They also looted a nearby shop, a victimless crime I'm sure but hey, who's counting? In a world where people dressed in black are allowed (even assisted by the police) to blockade a freeway after midnight until one of them is hit by an unsuspecting driver and killed, I think we're long past caring about the law or common sense.

Let's briefly review cause and effect.

Cause: mob repeatedly tries to destroy federal building.
Effect: federal officers have to come to protect federal building.

This ceased to be about George Floyd's murder and police reform several weeks ago.

In fact, you should watch this clip. Here's a black cop from Portland describing the behaviour of the more deranged activists, and the actual racism from the activists and their army of useful idiots, who people are defending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-7SETmJD4

I suspect the clip won't get nearly as much viewing as it needs to. Listen to this man.

[Mischief Maker]

This ceased to be about George Floyd's murder and police reform several weeks ago.

Correct, a better term for them would be:

"Bread Riots"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-7SETmJD4

I suspect the clip won't get nearly as much viewing as it needs to. Listen to this man.

Or better yet, listen to this man.

[orange808]

When we start building barracades, that's the intersection of far left and far right, isn't it? Libertarians and anarchists are naturally aligned with similar goals.

[bottino]

Libertarians and anarchists are naturally aligned with similar goals.

Where did you get that from?
Capitalism without a state is a MadMax scenario, with a thousand Bezos as our mecha overlords. That's basically what these neo-feudalists advocate and that has nothing to do with Anarchism.

[orange808]

Libertarians and anarchists are naturally aligned with similar goals.

Where did you get that from?
Capitalism without a state is a MadMax scenario, with a thousand Bezos as our mecha overlords. That's basically what these neo-feudalists advocate and that has nothing to do with Anarchism.

It's a commentary on these naive "collectives" and Texas-style "let's secede" movements.

Eliminating the police entirely and switching to the honor system is beyond naive. Doesn't matter if you want anarchy or freedumz, it's all the same.

Not anarchy? Okay. Switching to a militia is trading one insufficiently accountable entity for another. That eventually becomes a "gang" and you can find plenty of that brand of law enforcement throughout South America and Africa. It doesn't work well. People are awful.

I'm sorry society is frustrating, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater isn't going to solve anything. It moves slow, but there's no shortcuts.

I agree we have problems, but I also understand that the next opportunistic grifter is always waiting to seize the reins--because human beings are generally awful and selfish by nature. So, "starting over" would amount to: trading one problem for a new one (and our "cure" would likely be worse than the disease).

What did North Koreans use before candles? Light bulbs. They traded bad for worse.

So, you can't go 'round tossing up barracades and pretending that a better society can be built from scratch. We need to find ways to make what we have work better, not open the doors to slide backwards.

[Mischief Maker]

What did North Koreans use before candles? Light bulbs. They traded bad for worse.

How in god's name do you go from discussing anarchism to North Korea, one of the most repressive totalitarian regimes in the world? This is beyond a slippery slope, it's a sci-fi null-gravity pad.

Mass movements without clear leaders often have difficulty getting the most polished message out, especially through a hostile oligarch-controlled media. People understood the dire extrapolations that were being drawn from the term "autonomous zone" which is why they changed the name from CHAZ to CHOP "Ongoing Protest." Likewise, "Reallocate excess funding for militarized police to social services better suited to treat the social ills that police by default are expected to solve when their only tools are a club, pepper spray, and a gun." doesn't roll off the tongue as neatly as, "Defund the Police!"

And holy shit are you missing historical context behind the gangs and/or militants of Africa and South America you mention. Look up Patrice Lumumba and compare and contrast the Congo before and after the CIA assassinated him. Look up the nun-murdering Contras in Nicaragua that Ronald Reagan sold crack to arm in contravention of the constitution. Behind every "people are naturally awful" bromide is a repressive power looking to justify its inexcusable actions after-the-fact with appeals to "natural order."

If humans really were so naturally murderous and warlike, why do wars require so much propaganda? Why is so much training dedicated to psychologically breaking down soldiers' natural resistance to killing fellow human beings?

[system11]

This ceased to be about George Floyd's murder and police reform several weeks ago.

Correct, a better term for them would be:

"Bread Riots"

Yes, let's compare a time of actual food scarcity to a bunch of mostly spoilt kids looking for their 'revolution', filmed from an iPhone.

I suppose on the upside, at least Portland isn't yet like the "Chaz" or "Chop" where they terrorised and vandalised the area of the city they took over, bullied shop owners, implemented actual racial segregation, built a border wall, ejected anyone they didn't like the look of, covered up crimes because it would look bad, open carried weapons, shot some people, and then started crying when the emergency services and police were reluctant to go in there. Absolute clowns. At least Portland is locked in an endless cycle of activist violence without aim or reason, during the day people can go about their lives normally if they pick around the litter and debris.

[CIT]

@system11
You're wasting your time getting worked up about this shit. The only reason these forces are (most likely unconstitutionally) being deployed in Portland is so Trump and his corrupt lackeys can provoke chaos and then make themselves look like they're upholding law and order and draw attention away from the real problems facing the US they've completely failed to do anything about: the pandemic and the subsequent economic implosion.

[BulletMagnet]

Far left militants are using the GF unrest as an excuse to cause trouble, they've spent 50 days provoking a response

There was a letter to the editor in the paper yesterday from someone in Portland, which describes the situation as follows:

A small number of protestors, generally far fewer than 100, gather each evening to protest peacefully. A few wrongheaded individuals paint graffiti or throw rocks, and that is certainly not OK. But two blocks away, in any direction, things are completely normal. In fact, I had not watched the news for a few days, and I thought the protests had stopped.

I'm sure you can find other accounts insisting that the entire city is a crater-scarred hellscape, as you always can, but even if you want to believe those, I'd like you to look me in the eye and tell me that "preserving federal property" is the actual reason Donald "I want to parade tanks through the streets" Trump sent in the troops and is threatening to do the same to other cities.

And even if you want to make an argument in favor of that, it doesn't change the main point of my post, namely that the people who threw a near-decade-long temper tantrum over states' rights and government tyranny were, and still are, down to the last man, full of shit.

Oh, and a bonus stage: a separate letter in the paper put forth an intriguing related query:

If the president is able to impose paramilitary troops on states without the approval of state officials, what will happen if he decides to take similar action after losing the election and declaring it "rigged"?

[FinalBaton]

I've seen two comments mentionning that Trump sent the tank to look good in the situation/make good PR.

I think it's the opposite. I think he messed up his image by doing so.

The M.O. of these CHAZ zones is precisely to bait Trump into sending in the tanks. So that the extreme left may yell ''LOOK! TRUMP=HITLOR'', and to give CNN some tasy visuals to go along with their narrative.

[Mischief Maker]

a bunch of mostly spoilt kids looking for their 'revolution', filmed from an iPhone.

Dunno what news sources you're watching, but I'm mostly seeing middle aged Soccer Moms and Grilling Dads getting their bones broken out there. "They were like a gang with sticks! [...] There was no attempt to deescalate."

If you're wondering who these hair-trigger federal agents are, this is who they are.

''LOOK! TRUMP=HITLOR''

Well geez, dude. You've got Trumpees walking around in "Pinochet did nothing wrong" T-shirts for the last 3 1/2 years. Bill Barr's biggest claim to fame before getting to be Trump's latest AG was a wave of pardons for participants in fascist "School of the Americas" death squads. And now the Trump people are dipping their toes in the water by "disappearing" people, but just overnight!

If it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

[BryanM]

Nothing irritates a liberal more than being reminded the homeless exist, nothing enrages a conservative more than a poor person getting free food. This shit never changes.

You never see these guys angry about slavery or wars of capital acquisition. A fat bearded guy in sandals with a t-shirt that boldly states "king cuck" on the front graffiting a wall with "cops are not superheroes" - now THAT is worthy of all their fear and hysteria.

Capitalism is our religion, and like any religion the zealots won't tolerate the smallest of heresies. Power has to be protected, or it could be taken away.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The people who are uncomfortable with comparing Trump to Hitler are not students of history or facism. Myopically assuming Hitler only existed in a tiny timeframe at the height of his power and ignoring any comparisons with his rise to get to that power are a mistake. If we wait until Trump literally forms a modern Gestapo willing to outright kill dissidents before making such comparisons, it will have been too late. He's already responsible for thousands of deaths as it is due to his overwhelming incompetence and unwillingness to assume responsibility as the figurehead of his country.

Modern Germany regularly teaches its populace that diligence is necessary because the unimaginable could happen again, whereas America is obviously far less concerned with the public's education and general welfare, hence the rise to power of a pathologically lying authoritarian plutocrat who actively encourages the most reprehensible behaviour in his followers in order to solidify and maintain power. Granted, Trump did not exist in a vacuum, and the Republican party and its propaganda media arms have long been building up to this point where its followers will remain blindly loyal no matter how much their country's fundamental tenets are abused and destroyed.

[BryanM]

Like we're always reminded, FDR was not a good guy. He was the "balanced budgets" guy deep into the Great Depression - a complete monster. The extreme communist reforms of that era were taken by mass movements, not given to us. (Which is why the "king cucks" of the world have to be suppressed by every means - because they know this is the only tool we have to make any gains. The Bernie Sanders cheat code fell right through.)

Bereft of the strength we had then, fascism is indeed the likeliest future for us as capitalism continues to fall apart.

At least it's the perfect aesthetic for the apocalypse.

[FinalBaton]

If it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Not saying that people shouldn't say that. just saying that people will say that. Which ties into the point of my post that the ordeal will hurt Trump.

[system11]

So that's where we're at, comparing Trump to Hitler? There are actually two things which are reminiscent of fascism and other forms of authoritarian hell at the moment. Neither of these are Trump who would shuffle away back to Twitter and bickering with the idiot DNC if people would stop rioting. November will be interesting - if Trump loses, his supporter base will complain a lot, probably have protests some of which will turn violent if there are counter-protests, but ultimately everyone will shut the fuck up after a while and retreat to social media. If Trump wins, I expect nothing less than yet more riots, that alone should tell you where the danger is - the response to not winning a vote. Anyway, the two things:

1) You must have all seen the video from China by now of the blindfolded Uighur being loaded into trains. If you want your actual Nazis to fight, there they are - right there. They finally proved the obvious to people who have somehow ignored the vast piles of 20th century history, that horseshoe theory is real and any authoritarian hell looks about the same regardless of the hat it's wearing. Unfortunately I don't really have much faith that Western governments will do much about this. The only person actually causing them trouble at the moment is Trump, regardless of actual motive for doing so.

2) The progressive cult. I struggle with an overall label for this because it's certainly possible for rational people to hold progressive views (many of which are basic liberal views) without unwittingly joining the cult. As cruel as they are censorious, they're reminiscent of the Puritans on a witch hunt looking for anyone sharing views they deem evil. The list of problematic views increases constantly and the cult will turn on one of its own in a heartbeat. Nothing less than total destruction of the target will satiate their appetite, and increasingly their family too. It's not enough to apologise, even for transgressions from many years ago, and the sins of the father can be inherited by the son. These are the people who really scare me because they don't have limits, for all their claimed empathy little is ever displayed. These are mostly the same people winding back progress on racial harmony by putting everyone into racial boxes, chastising them for not sitting in those boxes, and explaining who has wronged who based on the colour of their skin. Where the fuck do you expect this to end? I'll tell you. As more of this creeps into the workplace and government, an intolerant authoritarian hell that erases history, racially discriminates at will, unpersons people and demands complete compliance. And it'll call it love.

Kind of wish I'd been born about 20 years earlier, that's how dark the future looks.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

November will be interesting - if Trump loses, his supporter base will complain a lot, probably have protests some of which will turn violent if there are counter-protests, but ultimately everyone will shut the fuck up after a while and retreat to social media.

This is the sort of assumption that's dangerous to make. You're assuming there is some kind of limit to how low Trump is willing to sink, simply because it's difficult to imagine a president forcibly clinging to power in the United States despite being elected out. It may not have happened before, but that doesn't mean it's an impossibility, and it's one Trump has repeatedly riled up his base by signaling he'd see any kind of election loss as invalid and fraudulent. Even if Trump himself is all bluster in this regard, who knows what his idiotic base is liable to do in response as a result.

It is unlikely Trump would be able to rally the military to essentially keep himself in power, but the possibility exists that Trump would not simply slink off in defeat quietly.

1) You must have all seen the video from China by now of the blindfolded Uighur being loaded into trains. If you want your actual Nazis to fight, there they are - right there

This really isn't that different from the purges in Chechnya in 2017. Or the ongoing human rights abuses in North Korean concentration camps. Their existence doesn't make Trump and the Republican regime any less of a threat to America's democracy. The primary reason these have been allowed to continue is because China and Russia are geographically massive and generally belligerent, not to mention of supportive of North Korea as a convenient distraction/deterrent for outside military presence. Any attempts at sanctions or outright military action on one would immediately anger the other two. It could and probably would result in a global war, one where we now have many countries with active nukes. The triad of China/Russia/North Korea is politically an extraordinarily complex problem to manage.

Understandably, developed nations with strong democratic and freedom-oriented values are disgusted by China's actions, but running off to war with them is complex, arguably far moreso than in the era of WWII due to the presence of multiple hostile nuclear powers with a love of authoritarianism. Ideally, what would happen is a strong push for reform and revolution within the country itself would develop and reform the country from within. This sort of thing generally results in far more stable, lasting reforms in the future than outside military action. Something like this is happening with the protests in Hong Kong, but of course China's central government is very powerful and capable of quashing dissent. China should be looking to Taiwan as a role model, an example of how a country should operate, but instead it views Taiwan as aberrant, something that it will probably move to destroy in time much like Hong Kong. Taiwan is basically a bastion of democracy in the region, and has as much claim if not more to true independence from mainland China, so perhaps an invasion of Taiwan would be the breaking point where democratic countries as a whole respond with military action against the Chinese ruling government.

[Mischief Maker]

To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

excerpt from They Thought They Were Free

Do I necessarily think Trump is a perfect Hitler analogue? No, more of a Kaiser Wilhelm type: A spoiled princeling deeply insecure about his physical abnormalities who, in part due to his wanting to prove himself, in part due to the silver tongues of nutty warhawks among his advisors, tore up the delicate peace set up by his predecessor and sent his country on a collision course with economic depression.

My biggest worry with Biden, and all his chumminess with Republicans, is he'll prove to be our Paul von Hindenburg: A beloved but aging president past his mental prime who appointed Hitler as Chancellor to break a partisan stalemate.

Am I calling the Republican Party Nazis? Absolutely.

1) You must have all seen the video from China by now of the blindfolded Uighur being loaded into trains. If you want your actual Nazis to fight, there they are - right there.

Hitlers are like Sith in The Phantom Menace. There can only be one Hitler at a time.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Or better yet, listen to this man.

I wish I could be this hopeful.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

excerpt from They Thought They Were Free

This book ought to be required reading in schools.

[system11]

Their existence doesn't make Trump and the Republican regime any less of a threat to America's democracy.

I just want to address this specific statement (I agree broadly with everything else you said there re: China).

The threat to America's democracy would appear to me, to be a very large group of people both in society and in places of power including the media and government, who refused to accept the outcome of a vote. Some of these same people want to extend voting rights to those with no legal right to be in the country because they know it will cement their vote share leading to an effective one party state. These same people bave banged various conspiracy drums and tried to undermine the elected government continuously for 4 years, sometimes to the detriment of the people. As bad as Trump&co may be, the Democrats are at least as bad - they're putting up Biden, basically a semi-senile puppet.

This is how it is supposed to work:
1) A vote happens
2) A result is declared
3) The resulting government runs the country until the next election
4) Those who did not win act like adults, challenging or working with the government where needed and prepare a policy platform for the next round.

[o.pwuaioc]

Their existence doesn't make Trump and the Republican regime any less of a threat to America's democracy.

I just want to address this specific statement (I agree broadly with everything else you said there re: China).

The threat to America's democracy would appear to me, to be a very large group of people both in society and in places of power including the media and government, who refused to accept the outcome of a vote. Some of these same people want to extend voting rights to those with no legal right to be in the country because they know it will cement their vote share leading to an effective one party state. These same people bave banged various conspiracy drums and tried to undermine the elected government continuously for 4 years, sometimes to the detriment of the people. As bad as Trump&co may be, the Democrats are at least as bad - they're putting up Biden, basically a semi-senile puppet.

This is how it is supposed to work:
1) A vote happens
2) A result is declared
3) The resulting government runs the country until the next election
4) Those who did not win act like adults, challenging or working with the government where needed and prepare a policy platform for the next round.

I think they mean it's more that the elected candidate has committed crimes but those who are tasked with holding him responsible have violated their constitutional oaths.

[orange808]

What did North Koreans use before candles? Light bulbs. They traded bad for worse.

How in god's name do you go from discussing anarchism to North Korea, one of the most repressive totalitarian regimes in the world? This is beyond a slippery slope, it's a sci-fi null-gravity pad.

Because, every government starts out promising some kind of magic escape from the last one. In the end, some grifter takes over with a pack of lies. Often, they are promising a short cut.

Mass movements without clear leaders often have difficulty getting the most polished message out, especially through a hostile oligarch-controlled media.

Sure, but what's the benefit of a cult of a personality leader? What you end up with is a grifter that will do anything to maintain power, while lying about bringing change.

And holy shit are you missing historical context behind the gangs and/or militants of Africa and South America you mention.

Oh yes. Gangs of young men with guns (and no accountability) didn't rape and steal because they were natural born paladins? We can look up all kinds of stories. I am not fond of the way foreign policy is performed, but you're ignoring quite a bit.

You also ignored the way the "militia" always grinds axes from the past. They get "revenge" if they were the minority. If they were the majority, they try to finish genocide. Every time. Every darn time. Without fail. When the rule of law goes away, they can't wait to get their "justice".

If humans really were so naturally murderous and warlike, why do wars require so much propaganda? Why is so much training dedicated to psychologically breaking down soldiers' natural resistance to killing fellow human beings?

Why did Egypt spend all their money on the elites? They didn't need to sustain themselves with war. They had the most stable and large income of any society. They had natural protection from most threats. They still didn't do much of anything for the common person--and they had the resources to do more.

Thousands of years they carried on. Robbing each other's graves and doing anything they could to maintain the status quo.

Same song, different verse. That's what human beings do, because they are generally awful.

That's why we have to keep the progress we've made and keep pushing ahead.

I identify with the left, but the solutions are boring and time consuming. They require transparency and forcing humans to be honest. Yes, humans must be forced to be honest.

[BryanM]

My biggest worry with Biden, and all his chumminess with Republicans

As much as I want to ignore the sock puppet show and just relax n' grill as our species sunsets in the coming decades....

I learned today that John Kasich is speaking at the DNC this year.

It's going to get worse before it gets worse.

[orange808]

Like we're always reminded, FDR was not a good guy. He was the "balanced budgets" guy deep into the Great Depression - a complete monster. The extreme communist reforms of that era were taken by mass movements, not given to us. (Which is why the "king cucks" of the world have to be suppressed by every means - because they know this is the only tool we have to make any gains. The Bernie Sanders cheat code fell right through.)

Bereft of the strength we had then, fascism is indeed the likeliest future for us as capitalism continues to fall apart.

At least it's the perfect aesthetic for the apocalypse.

You're being hard on FDR. He was a rare person. He told the robber barons they could trust him, but he had his own evolving agenda.

FDR hammered his changes through ruthlessly. He had a mandate and he knew it. He knocked the Supreme Court out of his way. He ignored and mocked his helpless critics. (See the time he read Menken's own article at the podium and embarrassed him.) He stepped away from the elites and brought outsiders (like a school teacher) in to help him make decisions, because there are lots of smart people without big name degrees or rich families.

FDR had to hammer his changes through. He had to fight and he was the man for the job.

George Bush's daddy was trying to have him murdered in a coup. (See what I've said about human nature in the thread.) The oligarchy was stunned. They couldn't control the president!

Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. I'd take FDR any day over Biden.