All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[Tami]

for me, this thread gets boring when everyone is going after each other instead of going after the politicians and others who are causing so much trouble in the world.

[4saken1]

I reached out to WBE a while back after noticing the same thing. He's well just very busy.

That's good to hear.

[AnakinFlair]

Oh I know the context, I meant for Met's to explain why it's a "joke".

You know, life is so much better if you just ignore Mets. I do it, and my skin is clearer, my hair is fuller, and even my teeth are whiter!

[aja_christopher]

for me, this thread gets boring when everyone is going after each other instead of going after the politicians and others who are causing so much trouble in the world.

This side discussion is more about ensuring that if people are going to take the time to provide facts and evidence upon request then those requesting them should respect said time and effort or just admit that they didn’t really care about the facts after all.

Other topics are being addressed in the process — the majority of those involved are actually discussing the issues (Tennessee, IVF, The Supreme Court, autocracy, etc) while others choose to ignore those topics and make it about personal victimhood rather than their actual commentary and political ideology.



As stated before, nothing is stopping anyone from simply addressing said issues.

[ed2962]

This should certainly give all her opponents in the race ample material to prove she is unworthy. Terrible mother, and horrible ineffective harpy

I dunno...six out of the nine candidates have admitted to having been arrested before.

[Tendrin]

Mets consistantly doubling down on the Mets T-Shirt Standard is a shining example of the problem: he can not admit he made a ridiculous point and invented an arbitrary standard, when it is clear that he both did this *and* will not apply that standard evenly. This was pointed out to him once before with a specific example and his choice was to ignore that, like he does.

[Adam Allen]

Exaggerating fascism is certainly a problem. Among other things, it encourages right-wing wierdos to think they're on the verge of victory.

The whole discussion about fascism strikes me as similar to how some people on the right see secret communists everywhere, so that certainly influences my interpretation here.

Well, I admitted during enlistment that I believed in the dissolution of nations and the establishment of one world socialist government. And they still let me in the military, so by the definitions of some on the right, no doubt commies everywhere would not be completely wrong.

Honest question though, if others are exaggerating fascism, where do you see it? Or how would you define it? I guess I'd echo an earlier poster's question of whether you would wait until genocide is being committed in real time, before you would say "fascist"? Or is there some point before that?

(Also, fwiw, aren't there something like ten different people who have expressed some concern about what seems to the fascism emerging in the US? How is saying they are each and all exaggerating not being dismissive?)

[ed2962]

Man, I don't envy Biden having to cater so many different groups of people. Too much to one side and he might lose the moderates, too much to the other and he might lose those who expect him to work miracles.

That's why I think his campaign has got to do a better job of promoting what he's gotten right over the past few years rather than just running "democracy is a stake". That may or may not be the case, but plenty of people will make their decisions based on whatever Tik Tok clip made the greatest impression on them. To say nothing off the cynical people ( both conservative and liberal ) who'll stay home. They've got get folks motivated to leave the house, and it can't just be based on fear.

[ed2962]

See that's a strange point to make in the first place, this isn't a left vs right thing, it's bigotry vs tasteless, though bigotry is part of the right wing DNA. Gunn's jokes, which as pointed out he apologized for AND was temporarily let go for, are mostly just edgy tasteless crap. Carano's stuff though, was just mocking bigotry(and a baffling holocaust comparison). We wouldn't be having this debate if she instead tweeted a bunch of stereotypical Black, Asian, Jewish, etc. stuff, but generally transphobia mostly gets a free pass, she just managed to push it too far.

It was the Holocaust thing that ultimately got her fired. If it was just the trans stuff and the COVID stuff, I think she still would've been working for them.

[ed2962]

for me, this thread gets boring when everyone is going after each other instead of going after the politicians and others who are causing so much trouble in the world.

As a palate cleanser, there's a fair amount of ironic laughs in the Taylor Lorenz Chaya Raichik interview....



Afterwards Chaya took Twitter to whine about how bad it made her look

[Mister Mets]

Well, I admitted during enlistment that I believed in the dissolution of nations and the establishment of one world socialist government. And they still let me in the military, so by the definitions of some on the right, no doubt commies everywhere would not be completely wrong.

Honest question though, if others are exaggerating fascism, where do you see it? Or how would you define it? I guess I'd echo an earlier poster's question of whether you would wait until genocide is being committed in real time, before you would say "fascist"? Or is there some point before that?

(Also, fwiw, aren't there something like ten different people who have expressed some concern about what seems to the fascism emerging in the US? How is saying they are each and all exaggerating not being dismissive?)

I didn't say all ten of them were exaggerating.

I did want to answer the question of where I see fascism in the US. This is a separate question from right-wing authoritarianism in general, and would cover people whose political understanding is influenced by the fascists, who think that what Mussolini did for Italy can work for America. I think there are figures on the right who are sympathetic to it (Tucker Carlson possibly), including some political candidates, but it's largely a fringe position, with less support than something like decriminalization of hard drugs.

I don't see many politicians pushing for the things that make fascism unique (according to Wikipedia, it's "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.") If politicians were advocating for fascism, that would be the point to say it's fascist.

To answer a potential follow-up question of where I would see right-wing authoritarianism, the main thing would be some kind of unfair attack against a political opponent. That would be the metric.

[Tendrin]

Good grief.

[Mister Mets]

Please clearly explain the beep/bop/boop "joke".

Wouldn't it be like asking someone to clearly explain James Gunn's baby-eating joke in a way that doesn't diminish the seriousness of harm to infants?

[aja_christopher]

[Tami]

I didn't say all ten of them were exaggerating.

I did want to answer the question of where I see fascism in the US. This is a separate question from right-wing authoritarianism in general, and would cover people whose political understanding is influenced by the fascists, who think that what Mussolini did for Italy can work for America. I think there are figures on the right who are sympathetic to it (Tucker Carlson possibly), including some political candidates, but it's largely a fringe position, with less support than something like decriminalization of hard drugs.

I don't see many politicians pushing for the things that make fascism unique (according to Wikipedia, it's "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.") If politicians were advocating for fascism, that would be the point to say it's fascist.

To answer a potential follow-up question of where I would see right-wing authoritarianism, the main thing would be some kind of unfair attack against a political opponent. That would be the metric.

I'll admit, Mets does invite conflict with comments like this. So, the fact that the Republicans in House are trying to impeach President Biden on the false testimony of someone who admitted to.being an Agent for Russia isn't some kind of unfair attack?