Prelude to the Apocalypse

[BulletMagnet]

The more I read your posts, the more I see how dogmatic you really are, and the more clear it is that you do not understand the human element of politics in the slightest.

Clinton didn't get to be the politician he became by, in your words, "making sense". This was a guy so likable that he could've lied to us about anything and gotten away with it.

I didn't intend to insinuate that liberal(ish) politicians never screw with the facts or attempt to gloss over unpleasant realities with charm, as unfortunately no faction is innocent of that; what I meant was that the modern left hasn't, at least anywhere near the extent the right has, built its platform around the worldview of "if it's inconvenient for us, whoever said it must be lying and we will thus continue to ignore it" (see climate change, supply-side economics, race relations, corporate malfeasance, the military-industrial complex, torture, drug-related incarcerations, omni-privatization, separation of church and state, etc.). Feel free to quibble with the minutiae if you must, but few if any liberal figures have been as roundly dismissive of such a wide landscape of science, economics, sociology, history, and so on as nearly every major conservative figure of the last several decades; once libs start leaning towards the "eh, sticking to established facts to the best of one's ability and demanding the opposition do the same is less important than talking really big no matter what" strategy, we're screwed, as cons have been, out of necessity, leaning on it a lot longer and will always be a lot better at it. Not to mention that basing real-world strategy on wishful thinking tends to, you know, not work all that well.

[quash]

Not to mention that basing real-world strategy on wishful thinking tends to, you know, not work all that well.

I hope you aren't feeling the Bern too much, for your sake. I'm aboard the Trump train, but I know damn well that it's not going on its determined course, and may very well go off the rails.

If you want politics to make sense, we should just hand everything to the machines and call it a day. I doubt they'll make any promises of free college, healthcare, etc. Such things wouldn't make sense to them, you see.

[Rob]

Counterpoint:

Hamsters are made of meat and subject to physical laws.

The Economy is a mental concept that exists only in the abstract.

And that is why hamsters are good. I don't think the video is intended to be taken literally.

The takeaway should be that the extreme consumption that accompanies this desire for constant growth is making the world more polluted and depleted and less livable as a result.

Basically, the standard political promise to add a few belt notches is not too thrilling, before even getting into the accuracy of his figures.

[Xyga]

Size doesn't mean anything for hamsters, small ones are the toughest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzdhS6koxok

[Ed Oscuro]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0noDEI2nLY
"They're not sending their best"

The Art of the Deal: The Movie - also required watching for anybody voting for Trump. "How to intimidate rent controlled tenants!"

[Rob]

Size doesn't mean anything for hamsters, small ones are the toughest

Listening to Edward Abbey this evening and I found him speaking my mind better than my mind speaks for itself: Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom

I see the preservation of wilderness as one sector of the front in the war against the encroaching industrial state. Every square mile of range and desert saved from the strip miners, every river saved from the dam builders, every forest saved from the loggers, every swamp saved from the land speculators, means another square mile saved for the play of human freedom... It is my contention that if we wish to save what is good in our lives and give our children a taste of a good life, we must bring a halt to the ever-expanding economy and put the growth maniacs under medical care.

[BryanM]

Unfortunately Donald Trump is going to become god emperor and turn our world into the bad version of the future as seen in Back to the Future 2.

Those swamps are gonna be turned into Biff's Pleasure Paradises. Sorry.

[Xyga]

Where did that accelerationist enthusiasm go ?

[BryanM]

I'm not actually overly excited for President Biff Tannen : (

Ah, democrats suck. :kicks Nevada:

[Mischief Maker]

Ah, democrats suck. :kicks Nevada:

Hey, don't go falling into liberal despair, it's the one thing more annoying than conservative martyrdom and that's exactly the emotion Hillary's campaign taps into, "Undoing the damage of Bush jr. is just not realistic!"

That said, I kinda predicted this with all the reports of Hillary's superior ground game. The future of this great nation is in the hands of those fucking undecided voters and the only way to decide them is to have boots on the ground putting them in headlocks and dragging them to the polls. I'm reminded of a moment near the end of the 2004 election when the supposedly lost-cause red state of Colorado started polling swing. People were excited by the possibilities but it was too late to capitalize on it. The DNC in 2004 was playing to lose and didn't have much of a ground game in Colorado at all, sending all their resources to so-called battleground states because they couldn't conceive of a democrat raising nearly as much money as Bush jr.

Speaking of red states that unexpectedly poll swing, don't you go sitting this one out if Hillary's the candidate. Scalia's seat is definitely up for grabs, Ginsburg has cancer, and the republicans are going to burn DC to the ground before they let the [urban] president nominate his own replacement.

[Skykid]

I think if this goes on he will report us as undercover guoanbu agents.

They gave me a day off yesterday from monitoring the gulag, so I'm rested enough to finalise this thread within a thread.

some cyclical stuff

Minty, I'm about to finish all this because it's pretty much dusted. You've left a big footprint of ignorance here for future googlers to stumble across.

But - I'd just like to ask you one thing directly about this discussion before closing. You earlier brought up Tiananmen Square and asked if someone was willing to dispute it. I did, and presented factual evidence and several sources regarding the incident being heavily misreported and twisted into a fabrication that has lingered like a cloud over China ever since it didn't occur. Since the cables and CIA transmissions surfaced on Wikileaks it was reported even by the BBC, who included it in an (actually very good) documentary about Deng Xiaoping's influence in changing the country's fortunes.

Of course the damage has been done and the Wikileaks break is minor compared to the influence of the original story, which is why you and vast majority know nothing about the spin.

Now: you didn't comment on that at all. You didn't acknowledge what I posted in reply to your request at all. I don't know if it's because you didn't read the sources or decided to purposely sidestep it.

All I want to know is this: do you acknowledge that the truth of the incident was changed dramatically for purposes of tarring a people? What do you think about that, and what do you think about the information that I provided?

This is all I want to know. Please tell me your thoughts on this (and only this!) particular subject.

Thanks much.

[BryanM]

Hey, don't go falling into liberal despair

Laying down to die is the liberal way.

don't you go sitting this one out if Hillary's the candidate.

It's over man.

Sieg heil to the Toupe-in-chief.

[MintyTheCat]

I think if this goes on he will report us as undercover guoanbu agents.

They gave me a day off yesterday from monitoring the gulag, so I'm rested enough to finalise this thread within a thread.

some cyclical stuff

Minty, I'm about to finish all this because it's pretty much dusted. You've left a big footprint of ignorance here for future googlers to stumble across.

But - I'd just like to ask you one thing directly about this discussion before closing. You earlier brought up Tiananmen Square and asked if someone was willing to dispute it. I did, and presented factual evidence and several sources regarding the incident being heavily misreported and twisted into a fabrication that has lingered like a cloud over China ever since it didn't occur. Since the cables and CIA transmissions surfaced on Wikileaks it was reported even by the BBC, who included it in an (actually very good) documentary about Deng Xiaoping's influence in changing the country's fortunes.

Of course the damage has been done and the Wikileaks break is minor compared to the influence of the original story, which is why you and vast majority know nothing about the spin.

Now: you didn't comment on that at all. You didn't acknowledge what I posted in reply to your request at all. I don't know if it's because you didn't read the sources or decided to purposely sidestep it.

All I want to know is this: do you acknowledge that the truth of the incident was changed dramatically for purposes of tarring a people? What do you think about that, and what do you think about the information that I provided?

This is all I want to know. Please tell me your thoughts on this (and only this!) particular subject.

Thanks much.

Hi,

we shall have to give the impassioned debating a bit of a rest for now along with our fingers and keyboards after our great Opus this last week.

I shall spend some time and get back to you on this as it is pertinent and interesting and good that you raised it.

Cheers,

Minty.

[Skykid]

shall spend some time and get back to you on this as it is pertinent and interesting and good that you raised it.

I only want your thoughts on this one thing. No need to type more than a sentence, really.

[BryanM]

This series really came out well. Trump really is a human blow horn - Jeb's greatest weakness.

[Opus131]

The "please clap" gets me every time.

[Opus131]

God, those memes, hahaha:

[BryanM]

An important observation I just read:

Trump's hat is functional more than just an advertising gimmick. When he's outside, the wind is a hazard that can wreck his comb-over. There are images of that disaster happening online. It's.... not pretty.

[BryanM]

“Hillary is every bit as progressive as Bernie is,” Walters explained, but with more responsible plans and more experience. “She’s going to be a Margaret Thatcher-type leader that’s going to be strong and compassionate and smart as a whip.”

Perhaps the craziest thing I have ever seen anyone say?

[Mischief Maker]

An important observation I just read:

Trump's hat is functional more than just an advertising gimmick. When he's outside, the wind is a hazard that can wreck his comb-over. There are images of that disaster happening online. It's.... not pretty.

[BryanM]

ew put that thing in spoiler tags M2

little kids could be reading this

[Mischief Maker]

ew put that thing in spoiler tags M2

little kids could be reading this

You don't like pink stripes?

[Opus131]

The hair is the source of his power.

[BryanM]

i'm gonna barf

[Rob]

The hair is the source of his power.

Do you want to suck it?

[Opus131]

i'm gonna barf

Wait until God Emperor Trump gets elected and makes America great again.



There's no stopping it now, and the unbeliever and the heretic shall perish in the purge.

[BulletMagnet]

If experience is anything to go by, the eagle in the upper corner is presumably attacking him.

[BryanM]

Basically, Sanders (technically, a guy he goes to for a lot of his numbers) is promising to grow the economy even faster than Bush has said he would (though IIRC Trump's claims to that end were even more grandiose), despite the fact that making even Bush's numbers happen would be next to impossible no matter what the circumstances. Larger point: liberals claim to be the ones with their facts in order, and rightly ridicule the Trump-ish types who seem to believe that anything is possible if you just want it enough, but if we don't push back against overwrought rhetoric when it comes from our own side we won't even have that leg to stand on anymore, and when politics becomes pure theatrics the right will win, every single time.

Thoughts?

This bears repeating.

Friedman, a Clinton supporter, bothered to do some math and came to the conclusion that Bernie Sanders is both cool and good. The machine flips out and has Very Serious People lob over the top ad-hominems at Friedman instead of criticizing the math. Why don't they show where Friedman's assumptions are wrong or where his conclusions are "flippity floppity do crazyland"? Because they obviously can not.

The seven stages of what happened to our friends in Britain is illustrative of how stupid and disgusting this all is.

[Mischief Maker]

Friedman, a Clinton supporter, bothered to do some math and came to the conclusion that Bernie Sanders is both cool and good. The machine flips out and has Very Serious People lob over the top ad-hominems at Friedman instead of criticizing the math. Why don't they show where Friedman's assumptions are wrong or where his conclusions are "flippity floppity do crazyland"? Because they obviously can not.

Psh! You want hard figures? I thought the democratic party was supposed to be scientific! Next you'll be saying Jesus rode a velociraptor!

[BulletMagnet]

What you say about the reaction might be true, but has anyone managed to reasonably dispute the general economic consensus of "I don't care how drastic a change you make, those growth numbers are pretty much impossible to achieve"? Heaven knows I'd like to see a lot of Bernie's proposals implemented, but if the math is off then it ought to be fixed.