All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[BeastieRunner]

Donald Trump Is Losing Thousands of Twitter Followers After Election Defeat

Wired had a thing up that nearly 60% were bot accounts.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Donald Trump Is Losing Thousands of Twitter Followers After Election Defeat

I’m skeptical Trump will be banned from Twitter. Although he’s bleeding followers, Trump remains too good for business and can still up the cult even after he’s gone from office.

[Tami]

Wired had a thing up that nearly 60% were bot accounts.

That would still be 40% non-bots he's losing. Many accounts are 'professional' as in, News Media, Organizations, Associations, and foreign countries. He'll definitely lose a lot of those after the 20th. No reason to follow an ex-president.

[SquirrelMan]

Are liberals bad at naming things?
Democratic socialist, Black lives matter, Occupy Wallstreet. I feel a lot of these movements would be more successful if they didn't have either vague names that could mean anything( and thus can be easily twisted) or us words that large sections of the population associate with negative things.

Good point! Republicans make even stuff like the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act sound cool.

Here are some ideas for rebranding:

"Democratic Socialism" -> Compassionate Patriotism

"Welfare" -> Applied Christianity

"Minimum Wage" -> Enforced Fair Pay

"Single Payer Healthcare" -> United Insurees

[SquirrelMan]

Usually when someone keeps yelling about how evil homosexuality is, even when no one else has brought it up, it means they're in denial about their own homosexuality.

Some.

But some people, as Dolly Parton said, just love hating. I mean, racists aren't secretly black, either.

[zinderel]

Quick question that’s been bugging me for a while:

If republicans won the war against ISIS and all...why are we still sending kids younger than this pointless war to die in it? What, other than a pack of lies (and oil) are we even still over there at all for? Can anyone tell me? IS there a legitimate reason it began? Was there ever? Is there a legitimate reason it’s still going, nearly 20 later?

Because, for a nearly 20 year old war - started on Republican lies and Democratic cowardice - I can’t think of a single good reason we keep sacrificing our young to that meat-grinder other than ‘because we’re already there, the people there are brown (and therefore ‘not really human‘), we like oil money, and we need an excuse to play with our expensive war toys, so...why not?’

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Good point! Republicans make even stuff like the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act sound cool.

The Patriot Act always sounded vaguely authoritarian and sub-rosa McCarthyist, it was never cool.

[SIZE=4]"Democratic Socialism" -> Compassionate Patriotism

That would intimidate immigrants or prospective citizens away, and basically make it a kind of reward for being patriotic (which isn't patriotic after all). It basically falls in line with Herrenvolk Socialism or Master Race Socialism (the kind that Nazis practised).

"Welfare" -> Applied Christianity

Which wouldn't fly well with the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist vote among many many others. The concept of welfare for the poor is something that Christianity advocated for sure but it didn't originate with them (Pagan Rome under the Gracchi Bros. created the first state funded food program which outlasted the Republic and many Emperors) nor is it exclusive to them. Such a program would also violate the First Amendment which forbids the government from interfering in religious affairs (i.e. calling a program "Applied Christianity") and it would also create a sense that poor people need to be Christian to get benefits.

"Minimum Wage" -> Enforced Fair Pay

...actually this might not be so bad, but I don't think "Minimum Wage" is a very controversial phrase.


...In general words have meaning, and function, and certain policies and ideas are called that for a reason. Rebranding that isn't something that can be simply done.

[SquirrelMan]

That would intimidate immigrants or prospective citizens away, and basically make it a kind of reward for being patriotic (which isn't patriotic after all). It basically falls in line with Herrenvolk Socialism or Master Race Socialism (the kind that Nazis practised).

Noooo, that would be Patriotic Compassion.

Do you even syntax, bro?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If republicans won the war against ISIS and all...

The republicans did not win squat against ISIS. First of all, it's a mistake to assume that ISIS is fighting symmetrically and thinking that they are fighting a conventional war.

What ISIS wanted more than anything was for USA to send a big surge of troops into Syria and get involved in another Iraq and use that to drive up recruiting. Obama though refused to play that game. As such ISIS and its aftermath will be a problem for Russia and Western European nations who got their claws in. It's going to be them carrying the bag, not USA.

So the Democrats by using Fabian tactics, already eroded one of ISIS's big war aims.

In terms of actual fighting...the Russians are the ones who did the work against ISIS, as well as the Kurds. They are the ones who did it, not US forces or any policy put forth by the Republican government

[BeastieRunner]

That would still be 40% non-bots he's losing. Many accounts are 'professional' as in, News Media, Organizations, Associations, and foreign countries. He'll definitely lose a lot of those after the 20th. No reason to follow an ex-president.

Indeed.

Especially such a crudy one-term POTUS.

[zinderel]

The republicans did not win squat against ISIS. First of all, it's a mistake to assume that ISIS is fighting symmetrically and thinking that they are fighting a conventional war.

What ISIS wanted more than anything was for USA to send a big surge of troops into Syria and get involved in another Iraq and use that to drive up recruiting. Obama though refused to play that game. As such ISIS and its aftermath will be a problem for Russia and Western European nations who got their claws in. It's going to be them carrying the bag, not USA.

So the Democrats by using Fabian tactics, already eroded one of ISIS's big war aims.

In terms of actual fighting...the Russians are the ones who did the work against ISIS, as well as the Kurds. They are the ones who did it, not US forces or any policy put forth by the Republican government

Oh, trust me. I know they didn’t. But wasn’t Mets JUST saying that ‘defeating ISIS’ is something Republicans can be proud of, recently? So if it’s ‘true’ that Republicans can be proud of ‘beating ISIS’, can they explain why we are still there? Or why we went there at all? Can they make all the death mean anything? Can they own up to all the lies that they told to get us there, and JUSTIFY them? After all, they proudly and openly talk about how their voter suppression tactics having the net ‘benefit’ of keeping Republicans in power, and their monstrous immigration policies have the net ‘benefit’ of curtailing the immigration of ‘brown‘ people. So, since they are the party of ‘the ends justify the means’, and all that, I’m just hoping to see some answers to questions that have been burning in my mind since Bush2 got us into that whole mess to begin with.

That’s all.

[DrNewGod]

I’m skeptical Trump will be banned from Twitter. Although he’s bleeding followers, Trump remains too good for business and can still up the cult even after he’s gone from office.

You are correct.

I've been wrestling with some complex feelings about media's role in the last 5 or 6 years. On one hand, I've been grateful for reporters and producers that would throw daylight at the Trumpsters' lies and myriad outrages. At the same time, every US outlet except the Huffington Post indulged in a grotesque orgy at the Trump Attention Buffet during (and since) the 2016 campaign, with CBS's CEO proclaiming "It May Not Be Good for America, but It's Damn Good for CBS". We will never know if Trump would have survived the 2016 Primaries had the rest of the pack followed HuffPost's sensible lead, but I will always wonder just how much of the last four years' miseries must be attributed to media enabling.

The films Network, and Broadcast News long ago warned us about media executives' determination to convert News into entertainment. IMO: that push began about 5 minutes after Murrow's takedown of McCarthey, and got a steroid injection about 5 minutes after Nixon boarded Marine One for the last time. To be fair, trustworthiness of the US Press has been an issue from it's very foundations (the play, The Front Page, or it's better known remake His Girl Friday are worth viewing), and that's before we even talk about You Provide The Pictures, I'll Provide The War Hearst and his shenanigans.

That said, if you contrast the appearance and competencies of the people in telectronically-distributed media after the early 1980s, you'll find they look and sound a lot less like their predecessors, and a lot more like the kind of characters that you'd expect to find on Entertainment Tonight.

To be clear: I do not propose any pruning of the First Amendment, or the protections we have extended the News Vocation. However, we are allowing a stack of wannabe celebrities to help shape our debate, whose goal is less to inform than it is to draw viewership as a vehicle for getting their own show. More than that, we're allowing them to pretend that what they do is good for us.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Noooo, that would be Patriotic Compassion.

Do you even syntax, bro?

I do, pal.

And I am telling you this is a bad idea. These things should be rights and not attached to adjectives and nouns that convey any kind of ideal. The minute you say Compassionate Patriotism or Patriotic Compassion you basically enforce a power structure with Patriots at the top, and everyone else below. It's rife for abuse, misuse, and misunderstanding.

Which is why in politics it's very important to use the proper words, even when those words aren't politically expedient.

[Kevinroc]

I’m skeptical Trump will be banned from Twitter. Although he’s bleeding followers, Trump remains too good for business and can still up the cult even after he’s gone from office.

Possible. But I also think the people who run Twitter just don't like Trump personally.

[SquirrelMan]

I do, pal.

And I am telling you this is a bad idea. These things should be rights and not attached to adjectives and nouns that convey any kind of ideal. The minute you say Compassionate Patriotism or Patriotic Compassion you basically enforce a power structure with Patriots at the top, and everyone else below. It's rife for abuse, misuse, and misunderstanding.

Which is why in politics it's very important to use the proper words, even when those words aren't politically expedient.

Well, those are now the official words and you can do nothing to stop it.