Perfidious Albion will no doubt stand firm, sadly. It’s fucking embarrassing, so it is.
No, not needed, per se. I’m sure there’s plenty of sources on the cognitive dissonance in the Soviets use of “People” as a justification to divide, persecute, and pursue whatever the Politburo wanted, since I know I’ve read it many times and heard the topic in more than one lecture on Soviet history long ago. But that premise wasn’t an academic argument, but a generally accepted premise in a political argument. Why, do you disagree or something?
I just don’t recognise what you are saying as being very clear.
In the Soviet Union there were a number of words for people - люди, народ, жители for a start. Krushchev identified the entire population of the USSR as советский народ. The specific term for Soviet citizens was Граждане СССР. It is not possible to write a blanket statement about the Soviet use of the word “people” when there is simply no single equivalent word.
I would have more sympathy with your statement if you had referred to the term “враг народа”, enemy of the people, which goes back to Lenin. But even that had different signification at different times.
Broadly, советский народ was supposed to be the inclusive, non-nationalistic term for all inhabitants. The use of народ in a right wing sense seems to be very much a post-USSR syndrome.
Everyone: don’t be complacent. So far, this is looking a lot like what happened in MN with Jesse Ventura. Trump is Jesse, minus the muscles and the intellect. And the personality. And temperament. And the mustache.
and the feather boa…
I hope you will excuse the slightly off-topic congratulations on your post.
I once worked with a South African whose family had moved there in the 1650s, and he was able to trace his ancestry right back. He was a secret-ish ANC supporter (this being during Apartheid and before Zuma) and his contempt for 99% of Afrikaners was withering. His favourite put-down when one of them referred to “Africans” was to say “I am an African, I just happen to be a white one. You are just a Dutchman whose grandparents got on a boat.” (He was pretty big and had been a WW2 fighter pilot, he didn’t get much comeback.)
“Speaking to real Americans…”
One of our 2 political parties has just become a real life example of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
Don’t despair - if he does get into power you have a fully armed militia ready to take him down shortly afterwards when he fails to deliver all his promises (and that can only be a good thing right, praise the NRA!)… the irony being they’ll all have voted for him in the first place.
I suspect “Trumpets” (?) are a fickle bunch easily pleased by whatever sociopathic egomaniac makes them the most promises.
[…pretend I didn’t just reply to a comment with that and posted this the right way…]
“I’m George VI.”
“Wow, your family named six generations of men George?”
“No. It’s just me, my father, and my four brothers.”
Same for “Land of the Free”
I didn’t mind it. I came here to make a joke about it:
But it’s all the fashion these days!
oh, it’s a movement alright… a bowel movement
So that was the giant sucking sound I heard.
I hear you, as I’ve heard the same sentiments expressed. I’m genuinely curious about the thought process leading to that approach (as I gather you are). What do these people think the protest vote will accomplish? Who do they think is paying attention to the protest?
It is a FACT (I’ll state this with a totally unsupported 99.98% certainty) that either Clinton or Trump will be sworn in in January. Do they believe that a significant number of protest votes will fuel a viable third party in 2020? If this is the case, why not 1) choose the best (or least damaging) of the two candidates available to you now and 2) take advantage of the discontent that’s out there to IMMEDIATELY start a third party with 2020 intentions? Shouting into the void accomplishes exactly nothing in the real world.
Sadly, I do believe they can sink yet farther. I sincerely hope they do not take that as a challenge.
Well, the official duties of the Vice-President are pretty inconsequential, but that didn’t stop Cheney from exerting tremendous power simply because he asserted that he could, and enough people acted accordingly.
The limits of power are more “what people will acquiesce to,” than “what is actually legal/constitutional.”
