dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 9, 2016 12:07:56 GMT
I'm loving the tears and the hypocrisy from the left.
Thank you everyone who made this possible.
Love always
Xx
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Post by nemolives on Nov 10, 2016 2:47:23 GMT
I'm on the Left, and I feel strangely calm about Trump, thank you. Perhaps because we've already had our "Burn it all down" moment with Brexit; but let's face it, the modern online Culture Warrior has nothing to do with the true left any more. It's all about virtue signalling with the correct ideological hashtags, whilst the working class continue see their standard of living implode. Someone online put it like this, "There's only so long you can kick the dog before it bites back", and Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate, in love with and her family married to the Banker class, a neo-liberal militarist, and someone that if you criticised you had to be a misogynist because didn't you know she had a vagina?! And that was one kick to people suffering financially too many this time.
But Trump is going to be a spectacularly incompetent President. I suspect many of the "Burn it down" votes were thinking the same. They get to wreck the entire system that works against them and then impeach Trump pretty damn quickly before he does too much damage. And maybe they won't! But people are sick of death by a thousand cuts. So something was going to explode all the same. And now the explosion has happened... and thank gawd it was only Trump, and not a true Hitler Redux.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 10, 2016 6:46:25 GMT
I'm just glad the popularist is gaining traction and the system can be attacked. Brexit and trump the two biggest examples. Hopefully our shitty leaders will realize it's not about them or their buds too
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titsup
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Post by titsup on Nov 10, 2016 18:48:13 GMT
I'm just glad the popularist is gaining traction and the system can be attacked. Brexit and trump the two biggest examples. Hopefully our shitty leaders will realize it's not about them or their buds too If the early leaked candidates for Trump's cabinet are accurate, you'll see his buds there as well. Guliani, Gingrich, Christie, Palin are all rumored for positions and all were among his most vocal supporters and surrogates. Populist can come from either side and it nearly did in the primaries. Sanders was a populist candidate, but the allure of a return to Clinton proved too much. She struggled against Trump in many of the same areas she struggled against Sanders. White, middle to lower class, with less than a college education. Sanders probably would have brought in even less of the minority vote, but he would have at least been competitive with the aforementioned groups. That's not to whine 'if only Sanders!' because who knows what would have happened. It does seem though that he and Trump were more popular with the crowds I mentioned and it would have at least countered Trump's appeal while Clinton demeaned Trump supporters with her deplorables comment. One difference between Brexit and Trump. Brexit was elected by popular vote, which Trump lost. Electoral college is our system, so thems the breaks as they say, but still had it been a straight up election by vote, he'd have lost by I believe it was around 2 million Correction ~280,000 votes. The popular vote getter has only lost the election 5 times, last time was Gore in 2000. Funny way the system works, had she gotten those 280,000 votes divided up between Florida and Pennsylvania, she'd be president. In the end, its all for naught. I pretty much agree with what nemo had to say. I'm left, certainly left of Hilary. I'm not hot and bothered by a Trump presidency.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 10, 2016 19:59:39 GMT
I'm just glad the popularist is gaining traction and the system can be attacked. Brexit and trump the two biggest examples. Hopefully our shitty leaders will realize it's not about them or their buds too If the early leaked candidates for Trump's cabinet are accurate, you'll see his buds there as well. Guliani, Gingrich, Christie, Palin are all rumored for positions and all were among his most vocal supporters and surrogates. Populist can come from either side and it nearly did in the primaries. Sanders was a populist candidate, but the allure of a return to Clinton proved too much. She struggled against Trump in many of the same areas she struggled against Sanders. White, middle to lower class, with less than a college education. Sanders probably would have brought in even less of the minority vote, but he would have at least been competitive with the aforementioned groups. That's not to whine 'if only Sanders!' because who knows what would have happened. It does seem though that he and Trump were more popular with the crowds I mentioned and it would have at least countered Trump's appeal while Clinton demeaned Trump supporters with her deplorables comment. One difference between Brexit and Trump. Brexit was elected by popular vote, which Trump lost. Electoral college is our system, so thems the breaks as they say, but still had it been a straight up election by vote, he'd have lost by I believe it was around 2 million Correction ~280,000 votes. The popular vote getter has only lost the election 5 times, last time was Gore in 2000. Funny way the system works, had she gotten those 280,000 votes divided up between Florida and Pennsylvania, she'd be president. In the end, its all for naught. I pretty much agree with what nemo had to say. I'm left, certainly left of Hilary. I'm not hot and bothered by a Trump presidency. And Bernie got fucked by the corrupt system. Personally I thought Bernie seemed quite moderate. I feel you're little left hearts quavered. Of course a popular candidate can be either side what I'm saying is the establishment got fisted for once. The media has been revealed for what it is. It's fucking huge. Your brexit point is pretty much null. The point im making is across the democratic world there is a backlash to this morality bullshit and the suppression of the middle class. The bitching about electoral college again is rediculous. You seem butt hurt argyle.
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Post by grimgryphon on Nov 10, 2016 20:01:38 GMT
I didn't vote for him (Libertarian and always vote LB), but I'm willing to give him a chance. I would have done the same for Hillary.
Let's face it - we had a choice between two piles of shit. The only difference was the smell.
I think the more alarming thing is in this vast country those were the best two candidates we could come up with. WTF?
Now that the Republicans control everything, no more excuses. They are now responsible for what happens in the next four years. If they fuck up, this country will turn on them and rip them apart like a pack of rabid wolves.
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titsup
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Post by titsup on Nov 10, 2016 21:39:28 GMT
And Bernie got fucked by the corrupt system. Personally I thought Bernie seemed quite moderate. Hilary was the much more moderate candidate of the two. Bernie wasn't even party affiliated until 2015. Prior to that he was an independent socialist which is about as liberal as one can get here.Agree that can be a good thing as long as he isn't a disaster.I have no idea where I came off as bitching. I prefer the electoral college system to a popular vote. I agree with the results. I don't think she was cheated or robbed. I agree with you that Trump's election could be a shock to the establishment except I'm not certain it will be given he'll be working with the same party establishment any other Republican would be. Ryan is still speaker, McConnell is still majority leader in the house. The Republicans have controlled the Senate and House for the last 6 years and the supreme Court for the last 20+ years. Whether Donald Trump changes that we will have to see. I'm not butt hurt. If i were a Clinton supporter then maybe. I'm not. I'm ok with what happened.
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Caliya
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Post by Caliya on Nov 10, 2016 23:09:06 GMT
I'm loving the tears and the hypocrisy from the left. Thank you everyone who made this possible. Love always Xx Love trolling, eh?
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Caliya
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Post by Caliya on Nov 10, 2016 23:14:49 GMT
I have to say it, you all know I do. I have a reputation to uphold as a man-hater.
Of course the men aren't too upset about it. But for dozens of women who were aghast that this adultering pussy grabbing asshole could be a leader and serve that example to our children and grandchildren, it's pretty appalling. Disgusting.
He does not represent me or any of my views. I'm not "meh." He is not my president. He did not win the popular vote and about 1/4 of all registered voters actually voted for him. So a minority elected him, and for that, it's pretty tragic. Here in Germany, all the news and people we know are shaking their heads at what this means.
I can only hope that he will be found guilty in his Trump University trial later this month so he can be impeached. Pence is worse in some ways, so that's not hopeful either.
As for "draining the swamp," we're all laughing at his supporters. He is considering Jamie Dimon as his treasury secretary. The #1 most corrupt banker on Wall Street. Good job team Trump. lmao
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Post by grimgryphon on Nov 11, 2016 4:39:46 GMT
I have to say it, you all know I do. I have a reputation to uphold as a man-hater. Yep and people like you were the motivation for white males who felt demonized by the constant "racial divide" and "a woman can do better" proponent's finger pointing at them to rise up and let you know all about their dissatisfaction with being an 8-year scapegoat. Pat yourself on the back for electing Donald Trump. That and most people wouldn't trust Hillary to carry their dog's shit from the yard to the dumpster.
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Post by myrcello on Nov 11, 2016 7:03:26 GMT
The main reason he got voted:
Huge areas of the USA are living in poverty, surviving from day to day. The industry gone. Then anybody who does effective populistic speeches can get them to vote in hope. Sad thing that it did not exist alot of other options to show the frustration then Trump for them.
The countries and areas that vote for Clinton are wealthy areas who can afford school and enjoy live.
Actually 53% white females votet for trump. 100% not because he represents females and respectful interaction. But if your husband can't feed your kids anymore with his coal mine job and you can't afford the rent for the place you are living and a good school then females again show that they are willing to do anything for the family. On a hirachy of priorities food, shelter, secure feeling in the Future , clothing comes before having the luxury to think of respectful approaching each other no matter what gender or color.
We can see that everywhere - the areas where klimate change had affected resources like water turned extrem and violent. ( watch leonardo de capriod klimate movie)
All i wan't to say is that "respect, tolerance , thougts about equal rights" come after a certant level of wealth and secure feeling is established.
Let the poor areas get wealthy to be middke class and respectful with each other will come next.
Sad but that is how we humans are.
Easy to think about equality if you are wealthy.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 11, 2016 7:21:46 GMT
Military service prerequisite for voting
Bam!
Problem fucking solved
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Caliya
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Post by Caliya on Nov 11, 2016 8:55:40 GMT
I have to say it, you all know I do. I have a reputation to uphold as a man-hater. Yep and people like you were the motivation for white males who felt demonized by the constant "racial divide" and "a woman can do better" proponent's finger pointing at them to rise up and let you know all about their dissatisfaction with being an 8-year scapegoat. Pat yourself on the back for electing Donald Trump. That and most people wouldn't trust Hillary to carry their dog's shit from the yard to the dumpster. Nice try but that's not the reason he won. He won because people said he spoke their minds, and their minds are pretty filthy, obviously. I have no idea what you mean by 8 year scapegoat. The Republicans have made all the decisions for the US for decades. They blocked Obama at every turn. The GOP dominated Supreme Court made Citizens United a law, making it possible for them to give that much money to someone like Obama and Clinton in their campaigns. But it made no difference because the GOP is controlling the laws even if they get elected. They have been running the country into the ground for so long, this white male dominated Congress, that enough is enough. They are trying to take away women's rights at every single turn. And it just goes on. A country of equality? You say white males feel demonized, but why don't you take a look at who's been making the decisions for everyone in this country for 2 centuries? You want to lash out at women, as if they've "done" something to men, like want an equal voice. Oh and dodgy, of course women have equal rights <snicker>. And now when Dimon is being considered treasury secretary, I have to laugh. He is the King Pin on why the housing bubble started. Talk about the fucking fox in charge of the hen house. He was the primary reason all those Americans lost their homes and savings accounts, and Trump profited on that. Of course Trump would want someone like Dimon there. They can bilk Americans out of their money any day of the week, let them suffer while the rich get richer. It's ruling with no conscience. As for the poor looking to a fucking bankster and other white collar criminals like Trump to help them get jobs and out of debt, I just have to shake my head. Of course they're going to ignore the vile crap that's come out of Trump's mouth, if they think they can get jobs. They refuse to allow clean energy to come into this country where they can have those jobs. They fight it every step of the way, thanks to the GOP congress and climate deniers. They want to keep the status quo with dirty energy. When Obama has promised jobs in clean energy, and the fucking GOP blocks that progress, wtf can he do? Oh yes, blame Obama. Such idiocy comes from not researching the facts. They wanted Obama in there as a tool to blame so the GOP wouldn't. But now they will have no one to hide behind. Everything is now dominated by the GOP and soon again to be Supreme Court. You think these white collar mafia are going to make jobs for the poor when they're the ones that put them there to start? Come on, tell me you're kidding. They will make a mess of everything, then make sure that a Democrat takes office to be the scapegoat. The same way Obama was blamed for everything, including 9/11 when he wasn't even in office. Bush declared an illegal war in the wrong damn country, killing 10s of 1000s of US soldiers and civilians, but hey, "Benghazi!" Blame a woman, fucking idiots, without researching the facts and how much worse things happened under Bush's watch. Bush should be jailed for what he did but he walks scot free. And you blame women for your backlash. lmao
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 11, 2016 9:02:35 GMT
Cal is this really your belief?
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Caliya
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Post by Caliya on Nov 11, 2016 11:29:03 GMT
Cal is this really your belief? A belief system is nothing but words on paper that people choose to have faith in. A fact is a fact. I am stating facts, not belief. We say we immigrated to America for "freedom from tyranny" but when we arrived, we raped, killed and plundered, put people on prison ration foods in encampments they could not leave or escape, their children taken from them and educated in white men's ways -- the very thing America is terrified Muslims would do if they came in enough numbers. They came here to make money and exploit every resource known to humankind. That has never ended. Just look at the Dakota Pipeline, how the natives land has been crossed and their graves decimated, for the sake of industry. If you look at the history of the US government, you will see they have always done this to the natives from day 1 and continues even now. I don't blame men as a gender, per se. I blame greed. That greed continues on obscene levels in Washington. Trump isn't going to change any of that. He's part of it! Oh but he's an "outsider." lmao Just remember, the same way that England ran around the world exploiting people and resources, making slaves and people subject to their rule, it only continued in America under a different name.
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Caliya
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People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
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Post by Caliya on Nov 11, 2016 11:46:50 GMT
Just look at the fact: We had politicians in Washington while corporations run America. Now there is no masking who is running America - Trump is a corporation, not a politician, that wants corporate power to continue in ever-increasing ways.This cannot be disputed.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 11, 2016 11:58:41 GMT
Wow cal. You're batshit crazy.
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Post by grimgryphon on Nov 12, 2016 4:21:19 GMT
Wow cal. You're batshit crazy. Probably not crazy, but maybe the "signals" are somehow getting through her tinfoil hat. Two quotes that I think are apropos in regards to the recent events and this thread. "Liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them." -Lenny Bruce "Every nation gets the government it deserves." -Joseph de Maistre
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Post by kb on Nov 12, 2016 15:58:11 GMT
You're all crazy.
It's all just circus maximus spectacles to keep us distracted from the truth:
"Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you...."
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Post by nemolives on Nov 12, 2016 23:56:36 GMT
You're all crazy. It's all just circus maximus spectacles to keep us distracted from the truth: "Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you...."
Exactly. And Caliya, that goes for "Feminism" too. Not First Wave Feminism no, but modern Third Wave is a deliberate co-opting of women's rights by the entrenched power systems to neuter it, turn it against what would have been their former allies in the wider Left / Socialist movement and get them to waste all their time attacking non-existent problems or squabble over ridiculous terminology and get them away from tackling anything that would ever make a genuine difference. The people here are completely correct; The DLC put up Hillary Clinton, an appalling Neo-Liberal whose husband was the exact President responsible for NAFTA et all that gutted the American Working Class... and that includes working class women. They assumed however that all the "Pussy Grabbing" would keep Third Wave Feminists in line behind her. But that's just illustrating how much contempt, how little independent thought the power class thinks you have; it assumes that women wouldn't notice their own declining standards of living, and would be so appalled on a personal level by Trump they'd vote for more of the same economically. They thought the Woman vote was locked up, but as others have pointed out, a majority of white women actually voted FOR Trump... because the wider damage to their way of life was so much greater than any media fuss about transgendered people in bathrooms or what ever the current outrage supposedly was. Because it's no use talking about the war on reproductive rights, the lack of decent care for rape victims etc, when as the Democratic Party drifts ever further right, those things are coming anyway; but Trump for all his personal sins (and the man is a sexist, egotistical small handed clown) is actually pretty liberal on a lot of social issues. Sure he's probably stuffing his cabinet with far right culture warriors right now; Gotta pay those debts to evangelical voters. But then again, as someone famous for stiffing the people who builds his infamous Trump towers, maybe he's not! That's what makes Trump so exciting. He doesn't seem to care for the rules at all. Yes, on the other hand he's going to blow up all the current political assumptions. For any woman who actually lives in the real world, not the online alternative world of Jezebel et all, where wages are down, job security is down, where health care even under Obamacare is still a nightmare compared to other Western standards, blowing the lot up has come to mean a lot more hope than worrying about "Pussy Grabbing"... hell, name the other President who was famous for that, eh? Again, it's a staggering misunderstanding of real women to assume they must all be utterly immersed in the online culture of blogs which, by their very nature, tend to drive out dissenting voices over time, and slowly bring around a "Bubble" of acceptable opinion; In the real world, anyone called "Clinton" was the LAST person to lecture about the sanctity of marriage and respect for women outside of that bubble... Meanwhile the culture of blaming white men especially is now the perfect example of the very Victim Blaming that was supposedly so evil in "liberal" thought until now; Yes, white men have seen the worst falls in living standards. You can even claim, which I'd be sympathetic too, that this is a necessary re-adjustment... IF it included mostly white, RICH men. But it doesn't. The 1% merrily run away with more and more of the world's wealth, whilst it's the middle and working class that get hammered again and again... but turn everything into a Gendered Culture War, and you'll start getting punched back by people who feel cornered... and that's what happened at the election too. For years people who would have been your allies have been abused; blogs like Daily Kos declared anyone who had doubts about NAFTA Clinton was a sexist, declared everyone "Bernie Bros" simply based on perceived gender, and that gender must mean you're a Frat House fuckhead... You've got people whose understanding of modern politics only goes as deep as "Being an unbelievable flower in public gets me attention in these short attention span times" laughing about "Male Tears"... whilst all the while decent people are genuinely suffering. Literal victim blaming. And you're surprised a huge chunk of what was your former Democratic base just decided to sit this one out? The right isn't surprised. That's entirely the point of ginning up these culture wars. To depress turn out amongst the famously fratricidal left. They've been doing these kind of psy-ops for generations. That's the whole point about Brexit people whose understanding of politics doesn't extend outside their own bubbles didn't get; in the UK, the Murdoch press, the Mail and the Express have been pushing xenophobia about Europe to distract people from the suffering their own ruling class doles out to them for decades too... Blame Foreigners. Blame Beggars. Blame "Benefit Scroungers". Blame everyone but the people really to blame. And Brexit shows that kind of rage is also getting out of control here too; people's genuine suffering, and thus genuine anger has reached boiling point and now it's too late to try and turn down the heat. People wanted to blow up the system here too. Many of them voted specifically thinking they were kicking the political establishment, because the vast majority of MPs were actually Pro-Europe. Which is why I was predicting to everyone I knew I think Trump could pull it off too; people who thought they were politically smart were missing just how hated the political class now is globally. By Men AND Women. By people in Iraq (where we're STILL fighting despite Obama), Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia... on and on it goes even under Obama... or in countries where we wage economic war to undercut any moves towards Socialism just as we did under Kissinger... on and on it goes... The reason Putin gets to be so Putinesque is because, after we ignored the UN in 2003, the belief in international law, in international standards is completely broken. "They're all at it, so why shouldn't Russia do the same in it's own interests?" We armed literal human-heart eating Islamists in Syria, so why shouldn't Putin help flatten Aleppo on the side of his allies? The race to the bottom is now well and truly on... Meanwhile, you keep arguing about Male Tears online Caliya. Sells a lot of media clicks for people like Gawker short term. Keeps things at boiling point nicely, and ensures when the pressure cooker blows, you get Trump instead of Clinton long term. But it feels so ideologically good to have simple enemies with simple identities that you can hate, like "Men", eh?
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Post by nemolives on Nov 13, 2016 0:12:34 GMT
Just remember, the same way that England ran around the world exploiting people and resources, making slaves and people subject to their rule, it only continued in America under a different name. Actually, that's not really true; we were never a slave owning nation; we were a slave trading nation. We sold the slaves to you, they never really set foot in the United Kingdom itself. And we didn't really conquer countries; we turned up, said "Hey, who here wants to be on our side?!" found some local allies, bribed the hell out of them, gave them a lot of our much better guns, and used them to conquer the country on our behalf... because we never had the money or the troops to hold that huge Empire directly. Hence the famous Slave Triangle. Local allies in Africa enslaved other people and sold them to us. We sailed them from Africa to America and then sold them to you Americans, who didn't seem to mind owning slaves. We then bought your tobacco and cotton and sailed it to our ports in the UK, and made manufactured goods out of them, whilst pretending it had nothing to do with slaves, because people here did mind that. We sold those manufactured goods to who ever wanted them, and then sent the profits back out to Africa to buy more enslaved people. At least until 1807 when we banned the Slave Trade; but by then our Industrial Revolution was beginning, you'd gone Independent so we didn't fancy helping a competitor, and we found money was so much more powerful than ships or guns... so much so we banned slavery outright a few decades later, which didn't upset our true rulers all that much because people who think they are free are so much easier to bribe and cajole than people who know they're slaves. See the various Indian and Canadian wars where we got to annoy the US lots and lots without sending tonnes of our own troops, because we had lots of local allies to do it for us now instead. Bit us in the ass when those far flung locals all went for Independence in the 1900s of course, because by then they'd got their own entrenched local power structures (including some with tragic consequences, like white power in South Africa); but the Victorians got a century or so of "Empire" they couldn't otherwise have held anyway, and did it on the cheap, so I'm sure if they weren't all long dead by then, they'd have thought it was all worth while.
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dodgy
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Post by dodgy on Nov 13, 2016 11:54:11 GMT
Id love to know nems thought on the iron lady. You socialist basted Frankly no empire no Australia. I welcome the British Empire as it brought more people out of the stone age then any other. Guess that's just my white male privilege talking. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Socialism is utter bullshit and has always been about appearing to care for the masses while secretly hording power. Look at modern day unions run by lawyers and other executive scum people who have never worked in the field they represent. Capitalism has done more good then anything else However that too has been corrupted by corporatism, globalisation, focus groups and other nefarious actions from all sides of the political spectrum. To still claim the left has a morale high ground is a fantasy. They care bout the elite and their pals. At least a business (not multi national corps ) cares about its employees as quality employees are invaluable. Yes trump and brexit are a big fuckyou to the establishment. It put all our shitty politicians who care only for themselves for a long time on notice. It shows how corrupted the "free" media is with its disgusting skewing of facts and selling opinions to further their elitist masters. The system is sick and needs to be fixed. Hopefully this is the western spring where we return to nation building for all western countries instead of this constant supression of democracy and personal freedoms. The cult of tearing apart our society by looking at our religion our gender our skin colour our sexual preferences needs to end. It's all been a tool to keep us stupid angry and Ill informed. This is a class war. When the middle class is fractured no real change can happen. And that's what the establishment has been doing for decades. Typed on my phone so sorry if it's got lots of errors
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Post by myrcello on Nov 13, 2016 18:23:42 GMT
Turns on Star Trek and wonders why he always loved it so much.
Ahh..i remember:
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Caliya
Strong in the Force
People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
Posts: 2,121
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Post by Caliya on Nov 13, 2016 22:29:05 GMT
Just remember, the same way that England ran around the world exploiting people and resources, making slaves and people subject to their rule, it only continued in America under a different name. Actually, that's not really true; we were never a slave owning nation; we were a slave trading nation. We sold the slaves to you, they never really set foot in the United Kingdom itself. And we didn't really conquer countries; we turned up, said "Hey, who here wants to be on our side?!" found some local allies, bribed the hell out of them, gave them a lot of our much better guns, and used them to conquer the country on our behalf... because we never had the money or the troops to hold that huge Empire directly. Hence the famous Slave Triangle. Local allies in Africa enslaved other people and sold them to us. We sailed them from Africa to America and then sold them to you Americans, who didn't seem to mind owning slaves. We then bought your tobacco and cotton and sailed it to our ports in the UK, and made manufactured goods out of them, whilst pretending it had nothing to do with slaves, because people here did mind that. We sold those manufactured goods to who ever wanted them, and then sent the profits back out to Africa to buy more enslaved people. At least until 1807 when we banned the Slave Trade; but by then our Industrial Revolution was beginning, you'd gone Independent so we didn't fancy helping a competitor, and we found money was so much more powerful than ships or guns... so much so we banned slavery outright a few decades later, which didn't upset our true rulers all that much because people who think they are free are so much easier to bribe and cajole than people who know they're slaves. See the various Indian and Canadian wars where we got to annoy the US lots and lots without sending tonnes of our own troops, because we had lots of local allies to do it for us now instead. Bit us in the ass when those far flung locals all went for Independence in the 1900s of course, because by then they'd got their own entrenched local power structures (including some with tragic consequences, like white power in South Africa); but the Victorians got a century or so of "Empire" they couldn't otherwise have held anyway, and did it on the cheap, so I'm sure if they weren't all long dead by then, they'd have thought it was all worth while. Nemo, your public schools are as good at hiding real history as American schools. It's what governments do to retain loyalty of the populace. If people really saw what their governments do, they would rise up, and that is what causes major uprisings - when the writing on the wall cannot be hidden any longer. The compensation of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners was the largest bailout in British history until the bailout of the banks in 2009. The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 formally freed 800,000 Africans who were then the legal property of Britain’s slave owners. What is less well known is that the same act contained a provision for the financial compensation of the owners of those slaves, by the British taxpayer, for the loss of their “property”. You forget about the West Indies sugar trade. And opium in India. The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed linkAnd come on, the Brits didn't just "show up" and say, "who is on our side?" They "showed up" to exploit both people and resources to grow an empire. That's what empires do. It just happened to spread to N. America and all these European countries wanted resources. For pete's sake, look at Christopher Columbus - Spain - enslaving the indigenous population and forcing them in sexual acts, gold mining, giving any amount of wealth they had. One of the reasons it failed is that native populations refused to be slaves. But eventually gunfire overcame everything and everyone, to get the goods they were after. Come on, none of you can dispute this BS. America is not lily white, it never has been. It's been at the heart of domination, conquests for riches, and trampling over anyone and anything that gets in its way. America has never been a "peaceful country." It's literally been at war since they set foot in N. America - either outright wars or secret wars with the CIA. That's not left wing or liberal. It's factual history.
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Caliya
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People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
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Post by Caliya on Nov 13, 2016 22:41:16 GMT
You're all crazy. It's all just circus maximus spectacles to keep us distracted from the truth: "Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you...."
Exactly. And Caliya, that goes for "Feminism" too. Not First Wave Feminism no, but modern Third Wave is a deliberate co-opting of women's rights by the entrenched power systems to neuter it, turn it against what would have been their former allies in the wider Left / Socialist movement and get them to waste all their time attacking non-existent problems or squabble over ridiculous terminology and get them away from tackling anything that would ever make a genuine difference. The people here are completely correct; The DLC put up Hillary Clinton, an appalling Neo-Liberal whose husband was the exact President responsible for NAFTA et all that gutted the American Working Class... and that includes working class women. They assumed however that all the "Pussy Grabbing" would keep Third Wave Feminists in line behind her. But that's just illustrating how much contempt, how little independent thought the power class thinks you have; it assumes that women wouldn't notice their own declining standards of living, and would be so appalled on a personal level by Trump they'd vote for more of the same economically. They thought the Woman vote was locked up, but as others have pointed out, a majority of white women actually voted FOR Trump... because the wider damage to their way of life was so much greater than any media fuss about transgendered people in bathrooms or what ever the current outrage supposedly was. Because it's no use talking about the war on reproductive rights, the lack of decent care for rape victims etc, when as the Democratic Party drifts ever further right, those things are coming anyway; but Trump for all his personal sins (and the man is a sexist, egotistical small handed clown) is actually pretty liberal on a lot of social issues. Sure he's probably stuffing his cabinet with far right culture warriors right now; Gotta pay those debts to evangelical voters. But then again, as someone famous for stiffing the people who builds his infamous Trump towers, maybe he's not! That's what makes Trump so exciting. He doesn't seem to care for the rules at all. Yes, on the other hand he's going to blow up all the current political assumptions. For any woman who actually lives in the real world, not the online alternative world of Jezebel et all, where wages are down, job security is down, where health care even under Obamacare is still a nightmare compared to other Western standards, blowing the lot up has come to mean a lot more hope than worrying about "Pussy Grabbing"... hell, name the other President who was famous for that, eh? Again, it's a staggering misunderstanding of real women to assume they must all be utterly immersed in the online culture of blogs which, by their very nature, tend to drive out dissenting voices over time, and slowly bring around a "Bubble" of acceptable opinion; In the real world, anyone called "Clinton" was the LAST person to lecture about the sanctity of marriage and respect for women outside of that bubble... Meanwhile the culture of blaming white men especially is now the perfect example of the very Victim Blaming that was supposedly so evil in "liberal" thought until now; Yes, white men have seen the worst falls in living standards. You can even claim, which I'd be sympathetic too, that this is a necessary re-adjustment... IF it included mostly white, RICH men. But it doesn't. The 1% merrily run away with more and more of the world's wealth, whilst it's the middle and working class that get hammered again and again... but turn everything into a Gendered Culture War, and you'll start getting punched back by people who feel cornered... and that's what happened at the election too. For years people who would have been your allies have been abused; blogs like Daily Kos declared anyone who had doubts about NAFTA Clinton was a sexist, declared everyone "Bernie Bros" simply based on perceived gender, and that gender must mean you're a Frat House fuckhead... You've got people whose understanding of modern politics only goes as deep as "Being an unbelievable flower in public gets me attention in these short attention span times" laughing about "Male Tears"... whilst all the while decent people are genuinely suffering. Literal victim blaming. And you're surprised a huge chunk of what was your former Democratic base just decided to sit this one out? The right isn't surprised. That's entirely the point of ginning up these culture wars. To depress turn out amongst the famously fratricidal left. They've been doing these kind of psy-ops for generations. That's the whole point about Brexit people whose understanding of politics doesn't extend outside their own bubbles didn't get; in the UK, the Murdoch press, the Mail and the Express have been pushing xenophobia about Europe to distract people from the suffering their own ruling class doles out to them for decades too... Blame Foreigners. Blame Beggars. Blame "Benefit Scroungers". Blame everyone but the people really to blame. And Brexit shows that kind of rage is also getting out of control here too; people's genuine suffering, and thus genuine anger has reached boiling point and now it's too late to try and turn down the heat. People wanted to blow up the system here too. Many of them voted specifically thinking they were kicking the political establishment, because the vast majority of MPs were actually Pro-Europe. Which is why I was predicting to everyone I knew I think Trump could pull it off too; people who thought they were politically smart were missing just how hated the political class now is globally. By Men AND Women. By people in Iraq (where we're STILL fighting despite Obama), Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia... on and on it goes even under Obama... or in countries where we wage economic war to undercut any moves towards Socialism just as we did under Kissinger... on and on it goes... The reason Putin gets to be so Putinesque is because, after we ignored the UN in 2003, the belief in international law, in international standards is completely broken. "They're all at it, so why shouldn't Russia do the same in it's own interests?" We armed literal human-heart eating Islamists in Syria, so why shouldn't Putin help flatten Aleppo on the side of his allies? The race to the bottom is now well and truly on... Meanwhile, you keep arguing about Male Tears online Caliya. Sells a lot of media clicks for people like Gawker short term. Keeps things at boiling point nicely, and ensures when the pressure cooker blows, you get Trump instead of Clinton long term. But it feels so ideologically good to have simple enemies with simple identities that you can hate, like "Men", eh? I would mostly agree with everything you say here, except the stuff about distracting women and the male tears. Did you read the part that I said it was not men, per se, but greed. That cannot be disputed. Freedom to exploit is what America and the UK are all about. Of course everyone wants freedom and happiness. That is also a driving force. But one tends to breed the other. I was no fan of Bill Clinton (did not vote for him). I was no fan of Hillary. I know people are outraged, and rightfully so, about government inequities. When Obama ran his campaign, "Yes we can!" he did not deliver so many key promises we expected, such as getting lobbyists the hell out of Washington. He did the opposite of his platform, they are there more than ever. Of course, the Republican Supreme Court made sure of that BS, by making Citizens United the law. I'm outraged by that, as every American should be. Elections should not be bought and paid for by corporations. I also believed Trump would win, and it caused me deep concern. You could see the rabid dogs nipping at his heels, egging him on and he told them the most disgusting things that were in their minds, and they thought he thought along with them, giving them a voice. Now the whole world sees this minority population for what it is. Only roughly 1/4 of voting age Americans voted for Trump. He did not win the popular vote either. But his message of hate continues to grow and spread in the national dialog. I've been witnessing all kinds of accounts by the emboldened Trump supporters threatening women and races. People who are native born Americans, but have other than white skin, have been taunted that they will be thrown out of the country as well. The KKK has celebration marches for Trump. Now that dingbat woman in France wants to run on the same platform as Trump. We will continue seeing this grow until we're all at each other's throats. People were hollering, omg, omg, Hillary's gonna start WWIII. Nonsense. The people are doing that BS. Trump is going to fan the flames. And here is dodgy, laughing. Your country is not far behind dodgy.
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Post by kb on Nov 14, 2016 14:05:51 GMT
I say to all and none in particular: In ancient Rome There was a poem About a dog Who found two bones He picked at one He licked the other He went in circles He dropped dead A victim of collision on the open sea Nobody ever said that life was free Sink, swim, go down with the ship But use your freedom of choice
I'll say it again in the land of the free Use your freedom of choice Your freedom of choice
In ancient Rome There was a poem About a dog Who found two bones He picked at one He licked the other He went in circles He dropped dead
Freedom of choice Is what you got Freedom of choice!
Then if you got it you don't want it Seems to be the rule of thumb Don't be tricked by what you see You got two ways to go
I'll say it again in the land of the free Use your freedom of choice Freedom of choice
Freedom of choice Is what you got Freedom of choice
In ancient Rome There was a poem About a dog Who found two bones He picked at one He licked the other He went in circles He dropped dead
Freedom of choice Is what you got Freedom from choice Is what you want
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Post by kb on Nov 14, 2016 14:28:41 GMT
Turns on Star Trek and wonders why he always loved it so much. hehe, no surprise to me we are different in this regard as well I love me some Trek, and admire Gene Roddenberry's forward thinking and utopian optimism. But... What I *really* love about Trek is DS9. The darkness and brutality. Many Trek fans hates it (for a variety of reasons), but a major reason for people's love/hate relationship to it is because it greatly deviates from Gene's vision of a sometimes overbearingly optimistic view of humanity's destiny:
To his credit, George Takei (Sulu) recently spoke about the choice to make Sulu homosexual to showcase the show's inclusiveness and view about humanity's open-mindedness in the future. He pointed out that 1) Sulu was straight, as a character, and to suddenly change him so much could imply he had been closeted in previous incarnations (which he disliked) and 2) Roddenberry's view of the future was such that if a crew member were gay/lesbian/whatever, it wouldn't even matter (or require pointing out, beyond showing it as a totally ho-hum everyday thing to the fellow crew members). My understanding was that Takei disliked how there are plans to really make an issue about Sulu's sexuality. He may have clarified/softened his position on this, but I'm just pointing out, I think Trek works best when it shows how humanity is striving for progress and inclusiveness, curiosity, exploration of the galaxy etc. BUT still shows that we are imperfect. Think of all the wars the Federation had, even in TOS with the Klingons. Think of some of the mistakes its made during First Contact with other species (which required and requires strict adherence to the Prime Directive). It's not as rosey and Roddenberry believed it to be (and later Trek, after he died, really became oustanding sci-fi without the overbearing need to be positive or to showcase how great humanity would become). I might be a bit wrong on the date, but I think with TNG, the later seasons (4-7), with some of the very darkest and most disturbing (and arguably best episodes came) were made after Roddenberry's death, which allowed the show runners to deviate from Trek's overbearing optimism. Episodes like "The Drumhead", "Chain of Command", and especially those featuring the Borg and the aftermath of Picard's assimilation, signaled the transition of Trek from campy 1950's Western TV shows like Stagecoach to a more mature, nuanced examination of humanity and our condition. I guess I'm a cynical bastard, but I think I'm a lot less optimistic about things than most of you here. Idk what I'm trying to say, need to go run a ton of errands. Sorry for shitposting twice (thrice), but it's what I do best and don't have time to really try to edit this or make it into a coherent thought besides stream of conscious thoughts on Trek :PPP
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Post by Mordecai on Nov 15, 2016 14:43:17 GMT
Gul Dukat for president. Make Bajor great again.
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Post by kb on Nov 15, 2016 18:52:19 GMT
It's no surprise you'd throw your lot in with that megalomaniac. What Cardassia needs is a leader who understands the power of a good story and that the ends will always justify the means. #JustASimpleTailor2016
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Post by nemolives on Nov 15, 2016 19:53:16 GMT
Id love to know nems thought on the iron lady. You socialist basted Frankly no empire no Australia. I welcome the British Empire as it brought more people out of the stone age then any other. Guess that's just my white male privilege talking. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Socialism is utter bullshit and has always been about appearing to care for the masses while secretly hording power. Look at modern day unions run by lawyers and other executive scum people who have never worked in the field they represent. Capitalism has done more good then anything else However that too has been corrupted by corporatism, globalisation, focus groups and other nefarious actions from all sides of the political spectrum. To still claim the left has a morale high ground is a fantasy. They care bout the elite and their pals. At least a business (not multi national corps ) cares about its employees as quality employees are invaluable. Yes trump and brexit are a big fuckyou to the establishment. It put all our shitty politicians who care only for themselves for a long time on notice. It shows how corrupted the "free" media is with its disgusting skewing of facts and selling opinions to further their elitist masters. The system is sick and needs to be fixed. Hopefully this is the western spring where we return to nation building for all western countries instead of this constant supression of democracy and personal freedoms. The cult of tearing apart our society by looking at our religion our gender our skin colour our sexual preferences needs to end. It's all been a tool to keep us stupid angry and Ill informed. This is a class war. When the middle class is fractured no real change can happen. And that's what the establishment has been doing for decades. Typed on my phone so sorry if it's got lots of errors My thoughts on the Iron Lady? I grew up literally in the ruins of her economic policy; I remember playing as a child in the abandoned offices of the mines. We'd take torches and climb through the boarded up windows, telling each other ghost stories about dead miners until you were hopefully the last one to not panic and run out, and so you won. I can remember a kettle left on a table in one room, and the huge boiler they used to heat the offices... If you've ever read any DH Lawrence, that's literally where I was from, but by Thatcher's era, all those Collieries were gone. Which was ironic, as Nottinghamshire was the only mining Union that backed Thatcher and went against Scargill. And then, when Thatcher won, she closed the lot. Sutton was the only pit left within 30 miles. They scabbed for her, and then got stabbed in the back. And when the pits went, it all went... all the supporting industries, the catering for the miners, the transport, entertainment venues that now the miners couldn't afford. It tore the guts out of the community. Alcoholism and drug use rose. So did extreme politics; I remember National Front graffitii on a nearby rail bridge, this at a time when there was literally a single Pakistani family in my entire school. Who were my friends, needless to say. But I remember the already hard working class culture becoming unbelievably violent as there was little to do on rural sink estates now drink, get wasted and than fight... And now we buy most of our coal from Germany, at a huge cost to the trade deficit. It wasn't just mining; she destroyed British industry in general, and turned us into the service economy we are today. Because industry tended to be dominated by Unions, because if people who make things are essential, essential people have power. Thatcher's policy was Monetarism instead. Hence the rise of the power of the City of London. And the disastrous state of the UK today directly traces from that. We don't make anything. We don't spend on educating our own people so we rely upon immigrant labour. We use that labour to take the blame for lowering living standards, even though anyone economically active should in theory, in a capitalist system, be producing profit for their own country... except international finance and low taxation means the benefits immigrants bring doesn't go back to the country at all. Socialism, as opposed to Communism which you really should know the difference between, is about the state having the "Controlling Heights" of the economy, so it can make decisions best suited for it's people. The problem is, Thatcher redefined "people" to being Rupert Murdoch and other people who HATE the actual British People. Currently you have our media declaring Judges, who stated that Parliament has to give assent to Brexit because you can't have a single politician decide to vote to take people's rights away, as literal "Enemies Of The People"... It's true Orwellian Double Speak; this is what the vote for Brexit was supposed to be! British Parliament having primacy over British Law. But because it sells newspapers, and furthers the sense that anything that even hints at resisting the rich elite is evil, this kind of politics runs wild. But this also traces back to the Thatcher era of ending control of the media and allowing it to concentrate in few, but sympathetic to Tory hands; It was the case when the South Yorkshire Police collaborated with The Sun newspaper to slander dead and dying fans during the disaster at Hillsborough. But because the Media and Police were all pro-Tory, the Government backed them in turn. It was also the case when the same Police force months later corralled and then charged with horses striking miners at the Battle of Orgreave. But today, the same heirs of Thatcher say "Ok, we don't need an investigation into that second one, what? Ancient history, dontchya know?" Yet if you want to talk about the death of democracy... that's where it all starts. With Thatcher. People from the North haven't forgotten. It's only now, when the model is starting to fall apart for everyone that the anger has spread. Fortunately, they've had 3 decades of being trained to blame entirely the wrong people for their suffering, and taught Socialism is a dirty word, so you're getting a rise in the far right again. Unfortunately, as history should show, when you have that kind of political swamp, they don't suddenly wake up, realise the far right has no answers, and turn back towards the centre. When things get really, really bad... they go further right into Fascism, and the pets end up biting the masters. Women included, Caliya. Because, you see, just getting a vagina owner into power isn't the answer... not when our worst Prime Minister of all time was actually a woman. Second worst would be Tony Blair, whose antics in Iraq in the face of the largest demonstration ever in British history (up to 1 in 30 people in the entire country, 2m out of 60m were on the anti war marches) and the defiance of international law, which opened up a decade and a half and still counting of conflict in Iraq, destroyed any belief that politicians in this country care anything for socialism and everything for spin and sucking up to power, even if that power is the gibbering drooling G.W. Bush. And why would that be surprising, when Thatcher famously said her greatest achievement was the modern Labour party? All you're doing Dodgy is falling for the long con; if you admit that the modern "Left" cares only for Power, but don't see that by definition, that can't be Socialism, you're just throwing away the very lower and middle class movement you claim you need. As you are if you talk "feminism" but treat women as if they're all Ivory Tower Academics and Internet Argument Addicts instead of real people with real flaws. Remember how much of the pressure to go fight in the Trenches of World War 1 came from women walking the streets looking for men not in uniform and giving them a white feather to indicate they were cowards? It's the 100th anniversary of those battles right now; have you read the eye witnesses from the time? The idea that women are always the victims of patriarchy, rather than willing and indeed often joyous participants in it is asinine.
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