Bothsidesing

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Seabass
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Bothsidesing

Post by Seabass » Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:50 pm

Ok, I was going to try to let this go, but this one is too fucking crazy. We now know that the Trump administration's covid plan was to let people in blue states die, then blame Democratic governors for the deaths:
Animavore wrote:
Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:25 pm
Jesus fuck!
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07 ... w2U8oOmbOA
Seriously, this is fucking psychotic. Not necessarily surprising from this bunch, but still stunning. I mean, we are getting close to eugenics/genocide territory here. If we're not in the same neighborhood, we're in the same postal code. These fuckers were going to let a deadly infectious disease burn through blue states and then blame Democratic governors for the deaths in order to gain a political advantage so they could hold on to power. I'd go so far as to say that this is some evil shit, not to mention stupid, given how spectacularly it failed.

So my question is this: does ANYONE think an Obama administration would have done something like this? Well, we know he wouldn't have done this because there were several outbreaks during his presidency and they always put science before politics as any sane, decent person would do. But can you fucking imagine how absolutely BERSERK the Republican half of the country would have gone if Obama had done something like this? There would have been impeachment, investigations, commissions, hearings, trials, the whole nine yards, and god knows what else. But Trump does it and no one bats an eyelid. Just another Thursday. Shrug. This is seriously fucked.

So I just want people to remember the Kushner covid strategy the next time bothsidesing rears its absurd head. They are NOT all the same...
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by rainbow » Sun Aug 02, 2020 8:29 am

They are genuinely too stupid to be properly evil.
:smug:
I do hope that the new administration gets to the bottom of this, but I actually believe that it is incompetence rather than intent.
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Scot Dutchy » Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:09 pm

Nothing is not low enough for Trump. We are going to see some very strange happenings in the next few months. Just remember he only has to win the Electoral College. The popular vote counts for bugger all. There will be some very rich Electors by the time the vote is over.
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Seabass » Sat Aug 22, 2020 6:04 pm

Ex-Republican, Jennifer Rubin:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... ts-wackos/
The GOP is a refuge for bigots and wackos [her words, not mine... :coffee: ]

It is a favorite game in politics to take the most extreme member of the other party and then paint the entire party as extreme. However, when many candidates and officials plus the head of the party evidence nuttiness, it is fair to label the party as such.

That’s where the Republican Party is now. At a White House briefing on Wednesday, there was this exchange:
Reporter: QAnon believes you are secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Are you behind that?
President Trump: Is that supposed to be a bad thing? We are actually. We are saving the world.
QAnon believers, Trump says, are just a bunch of people who “love their country.” Actually, the FBI, in May 2019, said the conspiracy theory is a domestic terrorist threat pushing baseless allegations such as Pizzagate: “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.”

In a written statement, Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, responded to President Trump’s remarks, saying that, “not only is our president refusing to take responsibility for his failed leadership that has cost over 170,000 American lives and tens of millions of jobs — he is again giving voice to violence.” Bates continued: “After calling neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville ‘fine people’ and tear-gassing peaceful protesters following the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump just sought to legitimize a conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorism threat.” But you’ll hear no objections from Republicans.

Also on Wednesday, former Florida governor Jeb Bush tweeted that, “nut jobs, racists [and] haters have no place in either Party.” Perhaps he confused the GOP with a mainstream party.

Trump also warmly welcomed Republican primary winner Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She has been a vocal QAnon devotee and a bigot. (“In a series of videos unearthed just after Greene placed first in the initial June 9 Republican primary, she complains of an ‘Islamic invasion’ into government offices, claims Black and Hispanic men are held back by ‘gangs and dealing drugs,’ and pushes an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish, collaborated with the Nazis.”) Greene will fit right in. QAnon finds a home with no less than 60 current or former Republican congressional candidates.

Laura Loomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe” got the nomination in Florida’s 21st Congressional District. For her anti-Islam comments, according to the Palm Beach Post, she has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Uber and Lyft. The GOP will take her — enthusiastically!

Let’s not forget Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.). She has praised a racism-spewing, far-right figure and a far-right media outlet that peddles conspiracy theories. (“ICYMI — watch my conversation with @JackPosobiec & @OANN. . . . I’m continuing to speak out against cancel culture and taking action to restore law and order in our cities,” she tweeted last month.) A WNBA team co-owner, she also excoriated the league for allowing players to wear a Black Lives Matter insignia on their uniforms.

But you need look no further than Republican senators and House members on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees who have echoed the discredited Russian propaganda that Ukraine has the hacked DNC server and worked to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016. And, of course, Trump will support debunked covid-19 cures (hydroxychloroquine! Try disinfectant!), raise the racist birther charge against vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris and defend Confederate symbols. The president will create bizarre narratives about nonexistent voter fraud. He continues to point to a made-up horde of Mexican immigrants ready to engage in a crime spree.

This is neither the conduct nor the mind-set of a rational, mainstream organization. The party takes its cue from a deeply disturbed and easily bamboozled president who will adopt any theory or embrace any person who likes him — whether it be Greene or Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un or QAnon. The only requirement is that praise be lavished upon him. This is deeply unhealthy and dangerous for any democracy, which requires a modicum of good faith and adherence to reality.

Republicans often turn a blind eye (Didn’t see the tweet!) toward Trump’s racist and misogynistic outbursts. Those who do know better go along with the craziness hoping to be rewarded in the post-Trump GOP. In the meantime, the party has devolved into a cesspool of bigotry and mind-numbing conspiracies, with a large dollop of science denial. When a party wants to honor at its convention the couple who waved weapons at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters, you have to conclude that it’s not only lost touch with Americans but also with decency and reality.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by JimC » Sat Aug 22, 2020 9:04 pm

Given the above, it still astounds me that at least 40% of Americans are perfectly happy with voting for that party and that man. Usually, in every western democracy, there are ratbag extremist parties of the right or left who attract 5 or 10 % of the votes, max...
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Sean Hayden » Sat Aug 22, 2020 10:00 pm

Trump supporters refuse to learn and they are constantly butthurt about it. "You're saying I'm ignorant", "You're saying I'm selfish", "You're saying I'm stupid" ... like it's the worst thing to have happen to them, to discover they don't in fact know what they're talking about, they are in fact --like most of us-- selfish, and yes, even stupid.

They absolutely refuse to be any of those things when doing so would mean changing their opinion about social/economic issues, ever.

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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Joe » Sat Aug 22, 2020 10:34 pm

Also, we still have a lot of party line voting in the US. I know people who will vote for Trump simply because he's the Republican candidate. They just can't stomach voting Democratic.
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by JimC » Sat Aug 22, 2020 10:55 pm

There is something of that here as well, lifetime Labour or Liberal voters. However, when either party starts to lurch too much away from the mainstream, or endorses policies or people that are Trump-like, voting polls tend to scare them back towards the centre...
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Seabass » Sun Aug 23, 2020 12:21 am

JimC wrote:
Sat Aug 22, 2020 9:04 pm
Given the above, it still astounds me that at least 40% of Americans are perfectly happy with voting for that party and that man. Usually, in every western democracy, there are ratbag extremist parties of the right or left who attract 5 or 10 % of the votes, max...
5% would be acceptable. 10% would be serious cause for concern. 40% though?!? I don't see how a populace can come back from that level of madness... :worried:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Aug 23, 2020 7:28 am

..
Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails, and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought...

Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance, 1965
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Hermit » Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:48 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 7:28 am
..
Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails, and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought...

Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance, 1965
"the democratic argument implies a necessary condition" Marcuse then lists three necessary conditions. :D

Going by the bits I have read so far the essay is a very sophisticated explication of how "what is proclaimed and practised as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression". What he wrote about it in 1965 applies in spades today. I was not particularly impressed by One Dimensional Man (1964), so I might change my mind about this work yet, but, so far, so good.
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Seabass » Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:15 pm

Image
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by JimC » Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:08 pm

That is almost forced on those people who are strongly wedded to their chosen party. For Republicans, the rusted-on Trump supporters will simply see "not acceptable" as a criticism of Trump, which they cannot bring themselves to do, of course. It's interesting that, even then, a significant number chose "not acceptable". For Democrats, the high "not acceptable" is less of an ethical position than part of their rage against Trump.

The wording is somewhat absurd, in any case; surely no deaths are acceptable in a general sense. It would be a better poll if the choice was phrased thusly:
"Has the current administration done an acceptable job of fighting this virus?"
Yes or no...
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Hermit » Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:41 pm

JimC wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:08 pm
That is almost forced on those people who are strongly wedded to their chosen party. For Republicans, the rusted-on Trump supporters will simply see "not acceptable" as a criticism of Trump, which they cannot bring themselves to do, of course. It's interesting that, even then, a significant number chose "not acceptable". For Democrats, the high "not acceptable" is less of an ethical position than part of their rage against Trump.

The wording is somewhat absurd, in any case; surely no deaths are acceptable in a general sense. It would be a better poll if the choice was phrased thusly:
"Has the current administration done an acceptable job of fighting this virus?"
Yes or no...
That was question 13/17 in the poll, except it mentioned Trump instead of the administration, which I think is fair. Trump pretty much clobbered the administration and replaced much key personnel of what is left of it with his how swamp creatures.
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Re: Bothsidesing

Post by Seabass » Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:00 pm

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
"They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." —Sebastian Gorka

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