Politics 2021

[bvanevery]

Crap, I'm not even sure, having read all that, maybe, 1987-89.  I think you're right.

He's right.  Ford Prefect is the guy who always has his towel, that Arthur Dent meets.  Zaphod Beeblebrox is the two headed President of the Universe.  I can't remember the slightest thing about why he was elected, and I don't think I'm meant to.

[Elok]

Gonna try to put this briefly since I have a LOT of schoolwork to do today: your phrasing implies that it is possible to end this by punishing [Sleezebag] (and associated scumbags) hard enough.  I do not believe that is the case.  You seem to believe--correct me if I'm wrong--that there's a unified USA with resolve to smash a tiny handful of troublemakers, who would settle down if [Sleezebag] stopped riling them up.

The tiny handful is at least one in ten Americans, which considering only the adults or near-adults probably works out to somewhere close to thirty million.  Those people sincerely, 100% believe the election was rigged, and [Sleezebag] played a relatively small role in convincing them of that (the indoctrination apparatus is massive and takes only the odd nudge from him, since even he can only tweet so much).  A smaller set of that tenth also believes still loonier stuff about Satanic pedophiles, a pizza place, maybe lizardmen too at this point.  If you add in the much larger group of enablers and fellow-travelers--the sort who didn't approve of the attack but suspect antifa did it, or can sympathize in a vague way, or who are simply less scared of them than they are of crazy leftists--you've got somewhere close to a third of the country.  [Sleezebag] isn't controlling that wave, he's only precariously riding it, and I'd rather he ride it than somebody else who knows what he's doing.

I don't know what the solution is to reunify the country and convince people that the election wasn't stolen and the pedo cabal doesn't exist.  But retribution or justice barely enter into it, because nobody's really in control here.  It's not practical to silence, monitor, incarcerate, or kill thirty million, and attempting to do so would lead us down some pathways that scare me far more than what has happened to date.  I wish Biden the best of luck, but I don't think he has what it takes to heal the divide.  The start of the solution will have to be understanding the scale of the problem, and not in the way some Democratic politicians have done by restating it as "the problem is white supremacy [so really we have to punish thousands or millions]."  They're not children, you can't spank them.  Democracy doesn't work that way.

That wasn't very brief, but now I really do have to get to work, sorry!  Hope that made sense.

[E_T]

Gonna try to put this briefly since I have a LOT of schoolwork to do today: your phrasing implies that it is possible to end this by punishing [Sleezebag] (and associated scumbags) hard enough.  I do not believe that is the case.  You seem to believe--correct me if I'm wrong--that there's a unified USA with resolve to smash a tiny handful of troublemakers, who would settle down if [Sleezebag] stopped riling them up.

The tiny handful is at least one in ten Americans, which considering only the adults or near-adults probably works out to somewhere close to thirty million.  Those people sincerely, 100% believe the election was rigged, and [Sleezebag] played a relatively small role in convincing them of that (the indoctrination apparatus is massive and takes only the odd nudge from him, since even he can only tweet so much). 

As well as riding it like a Surfer on a killer (literally) wave

A smaller set of that tenth also believes still loonier stuff about Satanic pedophiles, a pizza place, maybe lizardmen too at this point.  If you add in the much larger group of enablers and fellow-travelers--the sort who didn't approve of the attack but suspect antifa did it, or can sympathize in a vague way, or who are simply less scared of them than they are of crazy leftists--you've got somewhere close to a third of the country.  [Sleezebag] isn't controlling that wave, he's only precariously riding it, and I'd rather he ride it than somebody else who knows what he's doing.

A surfer that can't walk down a ramp, but a surfer none the less

I don't know what the solution is to reunify the country and convince people that the election wasn't stolen and the pedo cabal doesn't exist.  But retribution or justice barely enter into it, because nobody's really in control here.  It's not practical to silence, monitor, incarcerate, or kill thirty million, and attempting to do so would lead us down some pathways that scare me far more than what has happened to date.  I wish Biden the best of luck, but I don't think he has what it takes to heal the divide.  The start of the solution will have to be understanding the scale of the problem, and not in the way some Democratic politicians have done by restating it as "the problem is white supremacy [so really we have to punish thousands or millions]."  They're not children, you can't spank them.  Democracy doesn't work that way.

That wasn't very brief, but now I really do have to get to work, sorry!  Hope that made sense.

Likely, only years of Bloody Civil War with them losing none the less will open their eyes as to what they had gotten themselves into.  Am I wanting this, Not in the least bit as there is no way that this country will fully survive.  And, as the Doctor stated, "Once you fire that first Shot, you don't know who's blood will be spilled, what lives will be shattered...." or, whom will be the victor and thus the ones whom write the history of this...

[Buster's Uncle]

...I would like to mention that it's tough to nail down googling, but I appear to reside in NC's 10th Congressional district, and the Hitler Youth Kid in the wheelchair is my Congressman.  [blinks] [blinks]

Funny thing about that; he first came on my radar when he upset-won the primary in the spring, and based purely on his party registration and the look of him, I started calling him the Hitler Youth Kid.  Nothing did I know about the Hitler fandom and the barely-not-explicit white nationalism when I tossed off THAT psychic bulletin...

[bvanevery]

and [Sleezebag] played a relatively small role in convincing them of that (the indoctrination apparatus is massive and takes only the odd nudge from him, since even he can only tweet so much).

That's what I don't believe.  Regarding the election being rigged, he clearly played 50% of the role.  If he hadn't played that role, people wouldn't be chanting that the election was rigged in quite such large numbers.  If he repeatedly intoned to everyone, from 2016 to 2020, that elections were free and fair, we wouldn't have this as a widespread belief.  This is totally at [Sleezebag]'s door, and he deliberately orchestrated this belief.

RIGGED led directly to the insurrection.  He's responsible for this, and you can't simply posit that some other faceplate would have gotten the same results out of a mob.  You need to come up with the political figure that's as shameless, well funded, and well connected as [Sleezebag] is, to do such a thing.  He's not nuthin'.

A smaller set of that tenth also believes still loonier stuff about Satanic pedophiles, a pizza place, maybe lizardmen too at this point.  If you add in the much larger group of enablers and fellow-travelers--the sort who didn't approve of the attack but suspect antifa did it, or can sympathize in a vague way, or who are simply less scared of them than they are of crazy leftists--you've got somewhere close to a third of the country.  [Sleezebag] isn't controlling that wave, he's only precariously riding it,

I agree with you here.  [Sleezebag] is not the fount of all conspirational windups.

I don't know what the solution is to reunify the country and convince people that the election wasn't stolen

Drain the swamp.  For instance, stop pretending that [Sleezebag] is harmless or incompetent when it comes to this piece of social engineering.  "Well I'd rather [Sleezebag] be in charge" would definitely count as spinelessness if uttered by a Republican congressperson.  Or just pure realpolitik, that they're willing to undermine democracy in order to gain a political advantage in some other area.

and the pedo cabal doesn't exist.

Social media purveyors have been shutting down certain conspiracy theorists, starving them of platforms.  It won't make such beliefs go away, but it could drain the swamp.

It's not practical to silence,

Actually from the swamp draining perspective, it is.  The general doctrine and strategy goes by the name "No Platform" in various countries.

[Buster's Uncle]

[bvanevery]

On the serious side, why should the country proceed with business as usual?  When George Floyd was killed, I was surprised at the amount of BLM support that suddenly turned up, but I certainly wasn't upset about it.

[E_T]

On the serious side, why should the country proceed with business as usual?  When George Floyd was killed, I was surprised at the amount of BLM support that suddenly turned up, but I certainly wasn't upset about it.

Partly due to the fact that they had nothing else to do, while being in lock-down (or out of work, etc, due to C-19).  Actually, the best time for that to have happened, unfortunately, as it has allowed it to remain near the forefront of out limited, want it now, 24 hews cycle perceptions.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm not sure it was unfortunate, notwithstanding the political cost.  Maybe we needed the issue dominating some serious news cycles-

-'Cause Nazi Wednesday sure made it look like what the Black folks been trying to tell us about the kkkops all along had way more too it than we've wanted to believe.  We ain't been trying to hear that...

[Buster's Uncle]

“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass” -Mo Brooks
“1776 moment”-Marjorie Taylor Greene
Biden is “illegitimate usurper”-Paul Gosar
“call your congressman and feel free — you can lightly threaten them”-Madison Cawthorne
Loong list, including something about [illegally] wearing her gun to work [in Congress] -Lauren Bobert

[Elok]

Okay, I've read half of a 270-page neonatal resuscitation text, so I can take a break.  Bvan: obviously if [Sleezebag] had insisted there was no election fraud, there would be significant difficulty moving forward with that on his behalf--though it would still not be impossible, given that these people also believe that "antifa" dressed a guy up as a patriotic yak fetishist to frame good Americans.  Anyway, [Sleezebag]'s signal is amplified by a vast horde of right-wing subsidiary personalities.  One of them I happen to be familiar with is a guy named Dan Bongino.  Dan is a rank demagogue with a practiced line of "well I'm just an ordinary non-elite American you can identify with, but something doesn't seem right to me" [nonsense].  I have no doubts that he could do everything [Sleezebag] does, and better, since he is fairly intelligent, can hold a train of coherent thoughts, and seems to have both military and security experience.  If [Sleezebag] were removed, a Dan Bongino could inherit the priesthood and use it much more effectively.  He could not get the presidency, but it is highly unlikely that anyone from that faction could get the presidency at this point.  Doesn't matter.

No-platforming or silencing is ridiculously impracticable.  You can't keep a tenth or more of your population from talking without turning into a duplicate of China.  Shutting down Parler, or [Sleezebag]'s Twitter account, is a joke.  Early signs are that they've already started switching to special encrypted apps.  If those are shut down, they'll find other means, and each new protocol will make it more difficult to keep an eye on them.  These people are almost sexually aroused by the thought of the government trying to oppress them.  They've been thinking about it nonstop since their ancestors got kicked out of the Scottish borderlands circa 1650.  I don't doubt that they would suffer tremendously in a crackdown, and possibly lose in the long run depending how you define winning and losing.  More probably we would all lose, and America would come out the other side a much poorer, less happy, less free country.
EDIT: On a more positive note, it's entirely probable that the temperature will cool considerably once the lockdowns end.  As others have noted, the Floyd riots kicked off a couple of months after they started, and things have been on a high level of crazy since.  Letting people get out of the house and back to work will not restart things, but they will make some of us feel less besieged, which is good.  I adjusted okay, but I'm practically a hermit anyway; my family life is almost my whole life, and I socialize almost exclusively online.  I don't think it'll be sufficient by itself, but if we can get those blasted vaccines rolling things should calm down a bit and buy us some time.  For what, I don't know.

[E_T]

He's going to Alamo, TX for some unknown reason, but  the symbology is there

[E_T]

Ah, he's going to visit his beautiful wall....    Part of his Retrospective tour of accomplishments.


I wonder if he's going to cross the border and ask for asylum....

[Buster's Uncle]

[E_T again a Japanese stealth assassin] [twice]

'Lok - You haven't answered my questions.  I was really asking.

As for this morning's post, I'll mostly cosign Brandon's reply and add that the Schwarzenegger tape points the way to one of the very best things that can happen - the Pig is not the party, and ALL prominent Republicans need to make the same speech, LEAD, say it was a lie.  Nut up and say - I'm Not With Him, He's Not A Conservative.  That's the most healing, unifying thing that can happen.

As to this last, MAN, it is an ongoing shock how consistently your articulate and well-reasoned arguments always end in "so let them off the hook.  Ignore the café on fire; this is fine.  Let them organize." 

[E_T]

[E_T again a Japanese stealth assassin] [twice]

'Lok - You haven't answered my questions.  I was really asking.

As for this morning's post, I'll mostly cosign Brandon's reply and add that the Schwarzenegger tape points the way to one of the very best things that can happen - the Pig is not the party, and ALL prominent Republicans need to make the same speech, LEAD, say it was a lie.  Nut up and say - I'm Not With Him, He's Not A Conservative.  That's the most healing, unifying thing that can happen.

What, and lose the next election (primary, mind you)??  Never...