News about Covid-19 should be illegal, tweets Trump

The fact that this has to be explained pains me in so so many ways. Damnit, I am not that old! Now you kids get of my lawn!!

5 Likes

My brother, wo lives in a in a lily white wealthy enclave in upstate NY, had to wait in a 2 hour line to vote. He said he has never had to wait 20 minutes before. But the enthusiasm of those who have been chomping at the bit to get a say in what is going on is very encouraging. My other brother asked if they were all dems, my reply was that it doesn’t really matter. As a minority party, increased voter turn out will inevitably favor the majority, i.e. us, and hurt the minority rule party.

11 Likes

I’ve been advocating this for a long time! You fill out your taxes, so you still owe $20K or whatever. $10K of that is budgeted by Congress, but you can decide the other $10K-- you turn over your tax form, and on the back are the 12 cabinet departments, with a short pitch of what they are doing to make your life better, and a blank where you can fill in the amount you want to allocate to them.

For every godless hippie out there funding the dept of interior, there’s a redneck funding the DoD. It would all kinda work out in the end.

1 Like

My President didn’t say "illegal. "

I could say the same things about any far right parties in Europe, Europe’s anti-immigration and racist policies, etc. etc. Yes, the USA has many problems. So do a lot of other parts of the world. I’d love to hear about your thoughts of the rise (rather, constant presence) of a virulent far-right across much of Europe. Or what about a raging extremist left, that burns down Paris for months because of a hint at an increase in gas taxes? Those who live in glass houses…

1 Like

That was pretty much the right too. Not urban so always classed as “real people” by the media. The kind of working class i.e. white working class people that “don’t get listened to”. They were protesting that their car centric life which costs us all was going to o have to pay its way. So the centre right neoliberaliam of Macron which introduced a carbon tax triggered the further white/right into protests.

4 Likes

My main intent really was for non-US folk who can’t look away from this flying flaming dumpster situation! But sure, the kids too have a lot of media to catch up on.

1 Like

Ah, so not that different than far-right groups causing problems by starting fires/looting in the midst of progressive protest in the USA. Of course there was some “leftist” violence as well, as well as looting/stealing by organized and semi-organized criminal groups.

I guess my point is, it’s very easy to throw punches at the USA while we’re down. They’re certainly deserved, on many counts. But this idea that the USA has problems that are somehow “unique” to it strikes me as quite absurd.

2 Likes

Ignore the polls,vote. Assume you’re losing until you win.

5 Likes

Fascism is, literally, a European immigrant to America. We’re not sending you our best are we?

8 Likes

I know hating America is basically a sport in Europe (and somewhat in Canada) but before you fall and hurt yourself from that high horse, take some advice from a non-American who has lived in the US for 20+ years- people are trying. The US is so so so much wealthier than you can possibly imagine from any other country. That wealth is concentrated and able to affect change that goes against what most people living here want. That’s a much tougher fight than you have if you were born into an already nicely functioning social democracy. So take it down a notch, okay? We’re all on this lifeboat planet together and we need to make a go of it.

26 Likes

Well, fascism (and I think we all have our own definitions for the word) strikes me as the most overriding form of human society organization throughout history. Pharaohs were fascist, in a sense. Asian emperor god-kings as well. So it’s not on Europe, really, is my point. We can all succumb to it!

They would be proto-fascist, although I have’t gone through Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism to check them.

The obvious proto-fascists would be the Roman Empire, and possibly the Roman Republic. Mussolini was heavily influenced by them, far more than other European leaders were.

9 Likes

e35

17 Likes

I’d argue that fascism is a modern phenomenon. They might have taken influence from the Roman Empire or the Egyptian kingdoms, but they weren’t fascist.

I’d argue that for a couple of reasons, such as fascists were appealing to modern categories of identity (based on race, national identity, ethnicity, etc) that just weren’t around in the past. Fascists were also responding to real weaknesses in the modern capitalist system that very much made people far more vulnerable to economic collapse than in previous generations (no longer any sense of collective well-being and mutual obligations). I’d also say that fascism had new tools and greater reach than previous types of governments as a result of modern mass society. While central bureaucratic states came out of antiquity, and had some level of control over people’s lives, especially in urban centers, the further away you get from those centers, the more lose that control was (the Ottomans were generally pretty damn effective at controlling the edges of their empire in an effective way, but primarily due to, like the Romans, giving out some autonomy and safety in return for loyalty). Modern fascist governments (and left-wing authoritarian governments like Stalin’s and Mao’s) had far more sway and control over the farther reaches of their empires that previous ones could only dream about. Pharaoh’s control was far less secure the further away you moved from the cities of ancient Egypt.

But all that rigid control made fascist governments far more fragile and susceptible to challenges. Even the most brutal regime still needs some buy in to function. It also needs to not be suicidally arrogant about it’s chances of retaining power. If I take some comfort from history on this topic, it’s that truly controlling and brutal regimes based on high levels of violence and suppression of some “other” tends to not have a long shelf life. If a regime does not embrace some sort of inclusion and autonomy for the people living within it’s borders, it is not long for the world.

16 Likes

Pots and kettles come to mind here, not to mention the mere problem of the most egotistic, narcissistic and downright thoroughly nasty bit of work in American politics - EVER! I do wonder sometimes whether the great orange wonder is actually right in the head. People who vote for him are also certainly suspect. It’s high time he was deposed.

1 Like

Why can’t it be both?

I’m not on a high horse, I am well aware of what it took for Europe to finally achieve a little bit of peace and collaboration (the two most murderous and destructive wars in the history of mankind), and that even this foundation is showing some cracks again already.

I am not confident the US will be able to learn similarly tough lessons without major turmoil.

Sure, let’s.

1 Like

Shush man. I’m sure that his button is TOTALLY functional and not fake at all.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.