Laurie Penny at the DNC: "Dissent will not be tolerated. Protest will not be permitted."

America is already Great.

2 Likes

Once again… one position we as Americans (or world citizens) can all get behind.

FUCK CANCER!

10 Likes

Depends on who you are and where you live, I’d say.

4 Likes

. Clinton is the candidate of dull, workmanlike order and continuity. She once described herself as a “mind conservative and a heart liberal,” but her convention has almost been the opposite, with the most liberal platform in decades married to a show of sunny, orderly patriotism. “America is already great!” is as anti-radical slogan as can be imagined.

4 Likes

Well, the problem is that Sanders-style solutions–raising minimum wage, supporting labor unions, economic protectionism to increase manufacturing in the US, etc.–are also just bandaids that won’t really do much to stop the trends you’re talking about. The other elephant in the room is that machines are taking more and more of the jobs involving relatively unskilled physical labor like manufacturing along with a sizeable number of office jobs…

Libertarian death cult shit to the rescue! Too bad none of the billionaires who “own” this technology actually have it in their heads, or can apply it to their market monopolies in a way that improves productivity for actual shit that needs to be done.

Please go fuck yourself back to fantasyland-1993.

4 Likes

Sigh. Okay.

Sorry. I’ve been spending the past week driving up to spend time at a death bed, so I’m not in the best of moods. :wink:

6 Likes

Summer’s never good for me either. Though this one has been mostly angsty yelling at screens. You have my sympathy.

7 Likes

This has been a shit summer and a shit year, I think. We should have known when it began with David Bowie dying.

Thanks, though! What makes it hard is that my natural instinct is to joke around the death bed, and I can’t really do that now as it’s the more serious side of my family.

7 Likes

I am not sure which people I want to punch more the wi-fi ‘sensitives’ or the antivax nuts.

3 Likes

The latter because the former don’t endanger everyone’s children.

7 Likes

Hmmm…on the one hand, Emperor Norton garnered goodwill and respect from the local community. On the other, Vermin wears far to many neck ties.

In conclusion, vote Satan.

2 Likes

And Indira Gandhi did all that before her.

But Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the first to break the glass ceiling

Maggie was the only the fifth woman to run a country.

16 Likes

Damn straight; that’s some brilliant writing. Poetic and incisive.

2 Likes

I have to admit that I find equating the very real troubles with the United States with actual fascist dictatorships somewhat offensive.

Unlike many in such states, you are not putting your life at risk by this posting, unlike many in other countries who would be courting death for both them and their families.

The problems in the developed world are real. Equating those problems with the problems that much of the rest of the world faces is not.

2 Likes

Probably >5 when you include queens.

3 Likes

In case anyone wondered if Donald Trump was watching the DNC or not…

Yep!

10 Likes

Sure, but he’s never NOT been an Independant in the Senate. There has not ever been a (D) next to his name.

1 Like

There’s your problem. You don’t keep elephants inside, silly.

Do you think it’s reasonable to talk with someone in a room where they keep their elephant, I mean, really.

1 Like

You are taking Enso’s remark out of context. They didn’t say that the US is presently a fascist dictatorship. They said that it appears to be the trajectory of the US over the next several decades. Equivalence =/= extrapolation. I agree that it is a troubling notion, although I would find taking personal insult over it odd.

I have been personally threatened by people in police and government before. I suspect that this is not unusual for activists. At present they act mostly to intimidate and inconvenience. But there is a real push for expansion of their powers to infiltrate and attack any dissent in the name of “security”. But security for whom? Also there has been an increasing trend of encouraging xenophobia, racial and religious intolerance to focus the blame for political and economic problems upon immigrants and minorities.

It is not a fascist dictatorship now, but I think it’s not unrealistic to observe that there are influential people and groups in the US who are deliberately acting to bring about such conditions. Is it more offensive to speak of such unpleasant trends? Or to observe them and not voice one’s criticisms?

11 Likes