General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

Bee

It really is.  I mean, there was that one time Fighteer threatened to ban me for "arguing in bad faith" when I bothered to source a good page's worth of objections to Hillary and her voting record (EDIT: misremembered -- that one was over Obama, though the attitude is the same).  I'll disagree but can respect if someone actually agrees with Hillary without being in willful denial of the stuff she's done, but that dude is drinking the punch like water.

I really don't miss that forum.  There was a good month or so when I really felt like I was only hanging around OTC to help counteract the echo chamber.

Serocco

I still love the TVTropes site, because it's very addicting and fascinating, but the forums?

Fuuuuck the forums. Remember Luminosity? The Russian Bernie supporter? He was banned from the OTC for saying "Paul Krugman is lying" about the big banks.

I am dead serious. I expect such nonsense from Republicans, but NEVER from Democrats. Yet when it's the Clintons, people throw up their hands and adopt Republican talking points ("Not even the appearance of corruption!") to defend them.

I just can't. I'm astonished at just how quickly liberals and Democrats turn into sycophants for the Clinton dynasty.

The part that honestly disturbs me is their silence when Hillary said Henry Kissinger, the Butcher of Cambodia, is her idol and mentor on foreign policy. The man who caused the deaths of actual millions of people, and she hails him as an elder statesmen whose ideas and opinions are somehow worth a damn. AmbarSonOfDeshar, over on the OTC, hates Kissinger, but doesn't talk at all about how Clinton pegs him as her foreign policy adviser.

It's this wilful blindness that irks me so goddamn much from Democrats and liberals.

KilgoreTrout

^ ^ The "bad faith" thing appears to be his go-to excuse for getting rid of people, since it was used against me too, as I was telling someone else recently. Which, no, stop pretending you can read my mind. If you could, then you'd know that I was absolutely not just telling you stuff about Hillary while knowing it was untrue or an exaggeration or whatever. If I tell you something, it's because I trust the place I read it and because I believe it.

You know what? I'll play devil's advocate and say that there were legitimate reasons for a mod to tell me to get out of that thread at that time. One would be that I was pretty angry. As a matter of fact, I got a PM from somebody saying "Dude, try to calm down, take a break and do whatever you need to in order to cool off. I don't want to see you get banned." Which I appreciated. (I did leave the thread, but what I thought next was "Hey, you know where they're probably NOT talking about what assholes The Young Turks are? In The Young Turks thread!" So I posted in that how I was frustrated at how people were painting TYT as horrible for criticizing Clinton, Obama, or Democrats in general and then BOOM! Thump, response about Cenk being a genocide-denier from somebody I never talked to, and goodbye ability to post and use PMs.) But that wasn't the reason. No, it was "bad faith".

And as I'm sure you learned, Bee, you can't counteract an echo chamber, so it's good you got out of there. If they let me back in, I'm sure as hell gonna stay away from that thread.

What aggravates me is when Clinton supporters outright say Clinton is as progressive or more so than Bernie

Oh good lord. However, even that isn't as bad as one thing I saw on Twitter. You may have already seen this since you follow me there, Serocco, and I retweeted it, but for those who haven't:

https://twitter.com/bendykoval/status/740509235017076736

"The most progressive nominee in U.S. history." Yeah, I'd say that the reaction in that tweet is appropriate.

Fuuuuck the forums.

Some of them, at least. Others I've had enjoyable discussions on, and if I'm never allowed to post there again then I'll miss participating in threads in Forum Games and Video Games. But yeah, don't go in U.S. politics.

Serocco

I first got into politics over in 2009, mainly through TYT. Half the reason I became a follower was because they were willing to criticize Obama as much as Bush ("If I hated it under Bush, why should I love it under Obama?") Back then, Cenk and TYT were lambasted by Democrats who thought they were "undermining the President," and Greenwald (along with Hastings, Scahill, Sirota, and a few others) called out the Democrats for hating Bush's policies until Obama copied them.

This election took that partisanship and made it ten times worse, because there are so many liberals who are willing to completely ignore any and all legit criticism of Hillary Clinton, pretty much just 'cause they want a woman President. That's really how it all boils down. If you had a male presidential candidate with Clinton's record, he would have been demolished by Bernie, easily.

You have people saying Bernie's plans are unrealistic. Yet, Clinton will have to deal with a Republican Congress as President, and her policies somehow more realistic? They claim "Oh, they'll work with her," when her husband was impeached for having a blowjob, and she's being targeted by the REPUBLICAN Director of the FBI for an email scandal? Excuse after excuse. You have AmbarSonOfDeshar, for instance, saying Clinton and Sanders are the same on 93% of issues while also saying Bernie is an egomaniac who drank his own Kool aid. You have Bernie being accused of sexism, you have Clinton supporters (like Tactical Fox) saying Hillary treated him with kid gloves, you have Clinton supporters saying Bernie got a free pass by the media (which dismissed and slandered him throughout the primary).

Suddenly, it's now mainstream to defend the big banks, thanks to Paul Krugman or Barney Frank doing so. You have Barbara Boxer claiming that "Establishment" is just a slur from Bernie Sanders that he uses to demonize anyone who disagrees with him - and not understanding that she's the establishment he's fighting against. You have, as Benjamin Dixon noted, neoliberals using identity politics to destroy the progressive faction of the left wing.

I never thought I'd live to see the day when Democrats and liberals largely turn into the Republicans. The DNC is like an abusive spouse at this point - "I can stab you anywhere I want, and you'll always come back, because you have nowhere to go."

The only solace I can take is that, if it's President Clinton, you will see her turn into exactly the neoconservative, neoliberal hack that she is very quickly. All the shit Obama got away with, she will not, because this is why she lost to Obama in 2008. She can't hide it this time.

KilgoreTrout

A post-mortem on the Sanders campaign:

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/the_democrats_party_derailed_bernie_how_the_establishment_has_worked_to_discredit_sanders_movement/

Part of it:

Of course, there are indeed anti-Clinton/pro-Bernie trolls on social media — you’d be hard pressed to find any political movement that doesn’t have its share of trolls and assholes, and anyone who thinks their side is troll-free is either naive or self-absorbed. As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald recently put it on Twitter: “Self-centered people always think their own group is free of trolls because they’re never targeted by them.”

Interestingly enough, polling data indicates that Clinton supporters have been more aggressive than Sanders supporters on social media and the internet, while — not surprisingly — Trump supporters have been the most aggressive by a long shot. A poll supported by Craigslist.com founder Craig Newmark found that 57 percent of Americans say Trump supporters are very aggressive and/or threatening online, 30 percent say the same for Clinton supporters, and 16 percent for Sanders supporters (while 68 percent say Sanders supporters are not that aggressive, 52 percent for Clinton supporters, and 30 percent for Trump supporters).

Unfortunately, “troll” and “harassment” have become terms that are now impulsively hurled by Democratic partisans at anyone who criticizes or disputes their opinion or a claim they’ve made, whether on social media or in a publication. Accusing someone of harassment — even when the person is making a valid argument (admittedly, sometimes substantive arguments can be made in a rude or condescending manner, but is being rude or impolite harassment?) — is an easy way to avoid their argument and discredit them in the future.

A few weeks ago, for instance, former Demos blogger Matt Bruenig (who was later fired for the incident after being rude to Center for American Progress president and Clinton confidant Neera Tanden) responded on Twitter to a column written by Joan Walsh in The Nation that made fairly ridiculous claims, including the declaration that the Sanders movement risked becoming an “angry white male cult” (is this not trolling itself?). Bruenig innocuously wrote that “It’s really about old people versus young people, but you know that,” to which Walsh flatly replied: “Matt, you’re becoming a troll.”

The things that pass for trolling these days!

It goes on to say that, yeah, when they were competing for the nomination Bernie did have the majority of young people behind him, and Clinton the majority of older people.

Serocco

What I also hate is when people, like AmbarSonOfDeshar or Fighteer or Native Jovian, all repeatedly say TYT is Bernie or Bust.

This in spite of Cenk outright saying he will vote for Clinton over Trump because he cannot allow himself to put a fascist in the White House.

The only ones who even count as Bernie Or Bust are Kyle Kulinski of SecularTalk, TYT COO Steve Oh, and Jimmy Dore, and even then, not really, because they both want people in swing states to vote for Clinton over Trump.

What's even worse is that, like the trolling accusations above by KilgoreTrout, it's now very easy for Clinton to say "Sexist!" as a catch-all insult to hide from legit criticisms of her policies.

As anemic as Obama has been, he never did that. He never accused his critics of being racist. If anything, all the problems we have with Obama were kept strictly at policy and politics. He never used his rhetoric to claim that his critics were somehow bigoted or trolls, which is what Clinton has done.

Rhetoric is important. Rhetoric is powerful. Clinton's rhetoric has very dangerous political implications for the future, while Trump's rhetoric has led to outright incitement of violence from his supporters and opponents. As bad as his record has been, Obama NEVER tried to influence public opinion like that.

KilgoreTrout

I agree with your last post, Serocco, although we should probably not complain about TVT too much in here. Because we want to keep this thread on the rails.

I didn't know about Barbara Boxer, and am disappointed in her, though.

If Clinton does get elected--and I'm gonna be honest here, much as I hate what she's done and will likely do, I'm not scared of a Clinton presidency as much as I am of a Trump presidency. Like if a Trump presidency actually turned out well, I would be fucking astonished and start wondering if I were hallucinating the whole world--if she gets elected, I'm worried that she'll get a pass on a lot of what she does.

In Obama's case, there were a lot of people who were outraged or disappointed by the drone program and its tendency of killing innocent people, by Libya, by the NSA spying, etc. But there were just as many people who were willing to turn a blind eye to all of that stuff, or to make excuses for him. My prediction is that it'll be the same with Clinton.

EDIT: Actually, wrote this before I saw your current last post, so I was responding to your second last one. But I agree with your last one too.

Serocco

You actually transitioned into something I've been meaning to ask about. This next topic is something the Progressive media outlets have talked about before - Majority Report, Secular Talk, TYT, The Ring of Fire, Thom Hartmann, Benjamin Dixon, Sane Progressive, Humanist Report, Salon at times, The Intercept, Counterpunch, etcetera.

It goes like this: is Hillary Clinton worse for the left wing than Donald Trump? Those who say yes believe Clinton's center right record and rhetoric will cause half the left wing to follow her lead, which will keep progressives from getting anything done while the Republicans win in 2018 and likely 2020. I've even seen many socialist-leaning websites like Counterpunch say Trump is at least paying lip service to non intervention, while Clinton has a proven record of hawkishness.

On the other hand, Trump is a clinical narcissist and a possible psychopath. What happens when you let someone like that in charge? You don't have a left wing anymore, as Erdogan in Turkey has proven.

That's even before you get into Trump's actual fascism (registering a minority for their religious beliefs, glorifying and advocating for violence, scapegoating entire groups of people whenever convenient, personality cult cultivation, advocating for deportation squads, speaking out in favor of internment camps, outright authoritarianism in his disdain for the press alone).

 I fully sympathize with people who hate the status quo and fear Clinton will, at best, continue it. I fully sympathize with people who say Clinton's more conservative record than Obama will cause half the left wing to basically turn conservative themselves, since Democrats will have to fight both the Republicans and the Clintons. I know that and I really hate how we've come to that.

But anyone who's studied fascism knows exactly what you'll get with Donald Trump. If you think it's bad with Clinton, remember how it was with Bush, and how liberals had to claw just to get people to understand climate change is real? That's tame next to what you'll see from Trump, whose rhetoric has already caused bullying in schools to skyrocket. You cannot allow that in the White House.

Bee

Honestly Trump's publicly-espoused political views about 15 years ago were distressingly close to Hillary (they were basically bffs at the time).  I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it turns out the whole thing was for show and he winds up being a generic 90's Democrat in practice.  If there's one thing Trump will say in front of a microphone, it's whatever he thinks people who give him money want to hear.

I mean fuck, here's a whole bunch of glowing endorsements of both Clintons by the big T himself.

Of course, he's acting far, far too insane for anyone in their right mind to be willing to risk it, and even if they were the gambling type the point remains that he's spent two election cycles stoking racism and xenophobia that already has very real and concrete consequences for the well-being of our society even if he bowed out right now.

Serocco

This is where I put on my Marxist helmet for a bit: the only reason Wall Street would ever keep power is if they faced an abomination as their opponent, even though Wall Street is the reason for that abomination to begin with.

Or to put it more simply, Clinton would only ever become President if her enemy was a monster like Donald Trump, even though Clinton's policies in the 90s helped lead to the rise of Donald Trump.

Fascism is so inherently destructive that you'd honestly rather a theocracy (see Ted Cruz), because at least a theocracy is a functioning government. But fascism only ever actually has a chance at developing when the socioeconomic conditions of a society start to collapse. The Democrats turning right wing in the 70s, 80s, and 90s helped that right along, which is the ultimate fuck up of the Obama presidency, because we had a shot at changing that, and we didn't take it.

BassFishing

The worst thing about this election is to see how much of the material in articles around terrible supporters for either Trump or Sanders is fed solely through ex-goons (whether it's via ex-Laissez Faire Weird Twitter or nipsters like My Posting Career) pestering wonks on Twitter. 

There's also a clash between the old guard in punditry and the new guard: http://pointofproduction.tumblr.com/post/144760924869/a-theory-of-pundit-war

KilgoreTrout

That was a good read, Bass. Thanks for sharing.

One of the things it mentions about older media is something that has bugged me since I began following politics, that being "We won't say anything really bad about you if you give us access, cross our hearts."

vandro

It's a necessity of the system.

Bee

Not really.  Investigative journalism used to be a thing among actual journalists (as opposed to random bloggers and comedians that are easily dismissed even when they're right).  I'm even old enough to remember some of it.  The kind of crony-advertisement journalism we see anymore isn't a necessary evil -- it's just evil.

Serocco

Deadliest mass shooting in American history happened in Orlando over the weekend. 50 dead and 53 wounded.



Trump immediately took to Twitter to say "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terror!"

lrdgck

Is it radical Islamic terror or just loony terror? Haven't been following the news close enough to be sure.

Bee

It was a local-born American citizen who radicalized to ISIL.  He targeted a gay bar.

KilgoreTrout

The entire tweet read:

Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!

The first sentence is still horrible, of course.

Reza Aslan's response to Trump:

"Appreciate the congrats." 50 dead you soulless creep.

glennmagusharvey

Bee wrote: »

It was a local-born American citizen who radicalized to ISIL.  He targeted a gay bar.

Honestly, pledging allegiance to Daesh in the middle of an incident that one is perpetrating seems more like checking off one more box for getting attention than anything else.

KilgoreTrout

Reports are now surfacing that he might have been gay himself. If so, then self-hatred may be a motivation.

Serocco

Trump has now set the tone for the general election: he wants Americans to report their suspicious neighbors, Nazi Germany or Soviet Union style. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-orlando-san-bernardino_us_575f1802e4b0e4fe51435eb2

BassFishing

In b4 security industry starts running attack ads because Statsi-tactics get in the way of big dollar mass surveillance measures. 

Serocco

It's even worse: if you don't report your suspicious neighbors, you'll be arrested under Trump.

BassFishing

>paranoid reports clog system

>actually makes it harder to do job

Why is it so hard to combine security issues and limited government into one? Why can't we ever have a candidate who doesn't give in to security theater?

Serocco

I have to ask. Usually, whenever a right winger is in charge, they screw things up so much that, when a left winger is elected, they have to focus on cleaning shit up rather than actually progressing the country in a meaningful way (on just economic grounds alone).

Much as I criticize Obama, he won because he was more liberal than Hillary. If she wins, would that be seen as a step back for the country?

KilgoreTrout

Yes, and also for the party.

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/14/the_unexpected_side_effect_of_hillary_2016_how_she_transformed_democrats_into_new_republicans/

Ever since the post 9/11 era of George W. Bush the nation had increasingly witnessed a turn in the Republican party from conservative values to hysterical ones.  There were numerous studies that showed that the Republican brain was less open to nuance, critical thinking, and reason. One study showed how Republicans would hold on even more fervently to their beliefs even when presented with bipartisan evidence to the contrary.

One party could process facts. One party considered them a conspiracy.

One party voted rationally. One voted illogically.

Well, the 2016 election shattered that neat little breakdown.

Serocco

What drives me insane is when Democrats, usually those who support Clinton, keep saying there's really not that much of a difference between Bernie and Hillary, or that Hillary is as progressive as Bernie.

Number one, no. She has an infinitely more hawkish, pro-Israel, pro-Saudi foreign policy than Bernie. Massive red flag. She sees Henry "The Butcher" Kissinger as her mentor and idol on foreign policy. Instant disqualification.

She doesn't want single payer; he does. She doesn't want free college; he does. She wants gun control; he basically didn't until this election. She wanted the TPP as Secretary of State until this election; he never did, and repeatedly tried to stop it. He never wanted the Keystone XL Pipeline; she did until this election. She doesn't want to overturn Citizens United; he does.

Granted, Obama's almost the exact same, so it'd really be just a continuation of the status quo rather than Clinton turning the party more right wing - it was always right wing.

lrdgck

Just for the record, try not to assume too hastily the other side is mentally ill.

BassFishing

I always assume my side is mentally ill (e.g. the fringer the politics, the fuller of neurodiverse beepboops) and therefore sees things with a clarity no-one else will. 

Stormtroper

Why assume that the other side is mentally ill, when you can instead assume they're evil?

(Though on a more serious note, try not to assume that the other side's common folk is anything but a normal citizen.)

Anyhows, courtesy of the TVT thread: