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Politics
- Thread starter Anubis
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Speaking of the lunatic fringe.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
How is it that the Republicans can be the ones that want to be the ones to tell the "big corporations like Facebook, Twitter, and Google" what they can and can't do, while at the same time preaching that government shouldn't interfere with corporate America? It's like their ideology only applies so long as it suits their pursuit for power. And yet, like Noem, some of the stuff he says about cancel culture is disconcerting.
How White Religious Conservatives Invented Cancel Culture
It’s time to toss that broken record into the trash. It’s played out. It’s fake news.
level.medium.com
When Republicans Attack 'Cancel Culture,' What Does It Mean?
"Cancel culture" attacks are everywhere among Republicans: Marjorie Taylor Greene's defenders say the left is canceling her. Others claim they're being canceled for not standing by Donald Trump.
www.npr.org
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isn't it though. Basically it's OK for tech companies to favor conservatives, but not try to be balanced or favor the other side.
It's OK to run huge deficits when it comes to financing tax cuts for rich people, but bad form when it comes to covering the needs of poor people. The U.S. government under Republicans has engaged in a massive transfer of wealth to the rich.
It's OK to run huge deficits when it comes to financing tax cuts for rich people, but bad form when it comes to covering the needs of poor people. The U.S. government under Republicans has engaged in a massive transfer of wealth to the rich.
Long and short, antifa is most often used as an excuse by right-wingers to deflect blame for the things they do:
www.nytimes.com
How Pro-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa at the Capitol Riot (Published 2021)
On social media, on cable networks and even in the halls of Congress, supporters of Donald J. Trump tried to rewrite history in real time, pushing the fiction that left-wing agitators were to blame for the violence on Jan. 6.
Alternet: "The most stunning part of President Biden's speech was totally missed by the media"
John StoehrMarch 12, 2021
"The president said something stunning last night during an address that marked the one-year anniversary of the start of the covid pandemic. If the press corps had been truly paying attention, it would be headline news. What Joe Biden said reflects the sea change I've been talking about here in the Editorial Board, a fundamental shift in thinking about pretty much everything. "We need to remember the government isn't some foreign force in a distant capital," he said. "No, it's us. All of us. We, the people."
I might be wrong, but I don't recall any president talking like this in my lifetime. Not even Barack Obama. While the former president certainly spoke of the importance of duty and community, it was always placed in an acceptable framework, one assuring white voters that the first Black president represented consonance with a conservative view of government, rather than dissonance. The current president is not making any such attempts at assurance. This is something new, something wholly extraordinary.
Think about it. Without those assurances, all the assumptions of the past must be rethought. The biggest assumption, the one that was so widely understood as to be "natural," was this: the government is not public good. Ergo, the political solution to most, if not all, political problems was minimizing its role in the lives of individuals. Key to this assumption was the raw conviction that the government and the citizenry are two separate and unequal things—the diametric opposite of what the president said.
This presumed separation between the government and the citizenry is important to keep in mind, because without it, it's impossible to understand conservative attitudes toward taxation, an attitude that has dominated policy discourse over the last four decades. Because of this presumed separation between the government and the citizenry, conservatives starting with President Ronald Reagan could characterize taxation as a form of "government tyranny," as something done to citizens, instead of something done by them—instead of something citizens should take responsibility for. Of the many sources of "political polarization" we experience today, I'd say this one, the unequal separation between the government and the citizenry, is its main source.
But what is the source of that? The answer, I think, can be found in the reaction to Harry Truman's civil rights platform at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, during which Jim Crow states walked out and later rallied around the presidential "Dixiecrat" candidacy of South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, who said:
Thurmond is a footnote to political history, but he articulated a key feature to periods in our history of white-power backlash against the slow liberalization of the republic, a feature that was never discussed while conservatives dominated political discourse. That feature was this: white supremacy demands what monarchy demands, the right to hereditary rule. The legitimacy of that demand depended to a great degree on the willingness of the American people—and the opposing party—to see the government as separate from the citizenry, a predicate reaching its zenith in the era of Donald Trump. Polarization wasn't a byproduct of Trump's partisanship. It was the point.
The press corps continues to define "bipartisanship" according to the old assumptions. The president, meanwhile, appears to feel the ground shifting. Three-fourths of Americans favor the passing of the American Rescue Act, even though it literally turns the government into a clearinghouse for pushing wealth downward to the bottom half of society. Additionally, 44 percent of GOP voters approve of Biden's handling of the pandemic, as do a sizable number of Republican governors and mayors. In the past, bipartisanship meant the Democrats working with the Republicans. Now, it means the Republicans working with the Democrats, only the Republicans in the United States Congress are choosing not to, as if they believe the old assumptions are still in play.
More than half a million Americans are dead from the covid, more than all the men and women who died fighting in all foreign wars combined. That's not just a tragedy. That's a preventable tragedy that was impossible to prevent as a result of the prevailing belief over 40 years that the government and the citizenry are two separate and unequal things. Biden is not only mounting a public-health campaign. He's mounting an ideological campaign to crush the old conservative assumptions that came close to crowning a king. In order to get everyone working together, he must bridge the divide between the government and the citizenry. He must convince us they are not separate and unequal but one and the same. He must remind us that the people are the republic.
The most stunning part of President Biden's speech was totally missed by the media
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
AlterNet - Bias and Credibility
LEFT BIAS These media sources are moderate to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may
mediabiasfactcheck.com
Interesting opinion piece. One might consider this as another one of Murphy's Laws: The portion of the spectrum of an individual's worldview that is common to that of a randomly sampled group, increases in proportion to the number of people in the group.
In other words, generally speaking, there's only a portion of another person's worldview that is even remotely comprehensible to another person, but the more people there are in a group, the more likely there will be some common ground.
That's how groups of "like mind" such as political parties tend to emerge This situation leads to a divide between these groups, and as much as those in the middle, whose spectrum spans that divide, can see how everyone should be able to get along, there will always be some polar opposites who simply cannot see beyond their horizon and will never find that bridge.
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Ironic that you post the Dolan rant with all those people who worship Trump and the things he's tried to do to take down the U.S. when he lost a legitimate election, not to mention the right-wing media's fake culture wars, such as the non-existent War on Christmas.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
You know I'm non-partisan. I didn't like Trump, but he wasn't always wrong. I now like Biden even less. Dolan makes a very good point — especially in light of you deciding to delete my other recent post. Presidential health mandates are most certainly political. In fact, they're some of the most important political decisions in your county's history right now. So why delete posts about them simply because they have to with COVID?
That discussion is far from over in the real world. It affects billions of people, and it interlocks with conspiracy theories, as well as alien intervention theories. It clearly should be at the top of the priority list of anyone with a social conscience, and that should have included both of us, so if you get to the point where you see you've unwittingly found yourself on the wrong side of the barricade, we can always talk.
Sorry vaccine mandates are quite normal, they are not political, and those who make them political have their own crosses to bear. The same people who object to the mandates bring vaccination certificates when they enroll their kids in school and few complain.
As to Trump, he was mostly wrong, as history has shown. He also lied tens of thousands of times as documented. How can you believe anything he claimed when it was mostly a lie?
Biden seems to be trying, and he's mostly honest about what he does whether you believe it or not. He's had his failures, but it's too early for history to judge.
As to Trump, he was mostly wrong, as history has shown. He also lied tens of thousands of times as documented. How can you believe anything he claimed when it was mostly a lie?
Biden seems to be trying, and he's mostly honest about what he does whether you believe it or not. He's had his failures, but it's too early for history to judge.
One more thing: The first Presidential vaccine mandate came from George Washington. You continue to ignore that. Dolan was making some points that seem to have mostly eluded you. When he spoke of the Nazi followers in the 1930s, how could you fail to see how that lines up with how Trump's supporters react to him?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
You're still in a state of denial. Mandates are created by bureaucrats and politicians. Whether or not they also happen to hold medical credentials is beside the point. If people want medical advice and a prescription, they should have the right to see their own doctor on their own terms, not have pharmaceuticals pushed on them by anyone, let alone their nation's government. How is it that you don't get that?
Buzz! Wrong answer!
Your response is non-responsive.
We are dealing with a health emergency. Vaccine mandates are nothing new or unusual, and you continue to ignore that. I've mentioned George Washington over and over again — you ignore it.
Listen, I'm tired of the nonsense over this issue. People who are unvaccinated are dying far more often than those who are vaccinated. This is not a matter of freedom, because you're infringing on someone else's freedom when you refuse to vaccinate.
I will not accept any response from you except one that actually answers what I wrote. After that, no more COVID-19 in this thread.
Your response is non-responsive.
We are dealing with a health emergency. Vaccine mandates are nothing new or unusual, and you continue to ignore that. I've mentioned George Washington over and over again — you ignore it.
Listen, I'm tired of the nonsense over this issue. People who are unvaccinated are dying far more often than those who are vaccinated. This is not a matter of freedom, because you're infringing on someone else's freedom when you refuse to vaccinate.
I will not accept any response from you except one that actually answers what I wrote. After that, no more COVID-19 in this thread.
And speaking of myths, here's a great expose of the myth of rampant voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. election:
The REAL voter fraud consists of efforts to overturn a legitimate election by a certain sore loser we all know about.
The REAL voter fraud consists of efforts to overturn a legitimate election by a certain sore loser we all know about.
And about the myth that U.S. employers have trouble finding people to work for them due to the now-expired enhanced unemployment benefits:
So conservatives falsely claim that Facebook (and Twitter) have unreasonably censored conservative thought.
But what is known as "The Facebook Papers" clearly demonstrate that, rather than inhibiting right-wing viewpoints,, the Facebook algorithm actually pushes extreme right-wing myths even to people who haven't expressed those viewpoints:
www.npr.org
In other worse, it makes matters worse.
But what is known as "The Facebook Papers" clearly demonstrate that, rather than inhibiting right-wing viewpoints,, the Facebook algorithm actually pushes extreme right-wing myths even to people who haven't expressed those viewpoints:
The Facebook Papers: What you need to know about the trove of insider documents
"We've been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn't be surprised it's now out of control," an employee reportedly wrote on an internal message board.
www.npr.org
In other worse, it makes matters worse.
So I remember watching Fox News stories a few years back claiming that Google was censoring conservative searches. My random testing indicated this was just not true. Maybe Google has gotten better at such things, but the main point is to deliver targeted ads, so they earn their click revenue. They could care less about content. Obviously Facebook is no different, but reaching three billion people, their impact is awesome.
The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capital was egged on by Facebook allowing the offenders to spread their lies.
The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capital was egged on by Facebook allowing the offenders to spread their lies.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health: Kennedy Jr., Robert F.: 9781510766808: Books - Amazon.ca
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health: Kennedy Jr., Robert F.: 9781510766808: Books - Amazon.ca
www.amazon.ca
Yes he’s become a genuine whack job with some of his theories.