Canada is great.

You're welcome to visit anytime Jla.

Need to renew my passport so I can go hang out in Vancouver.

Nah, don't just stop there, keep going!

If I ever have the time.

I vote that my t shirt post above be promoted to feature comment.

Sorry- Canadian exceptionalism is N. American exceptionalism. https://globalnews.ca/news/5887716/first-nations-boil-water-advisories/

  http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/paying-price-human-cost-racial-profiling/impact-racial-profiling-aboriginal-community

And the last time I had to deal with disruptive hate language in public was in Hamilton- in the main public library (nice building, but when people yell slurs everyone hears it thanks to the concrete)

Agreed, but such is the case with the two-party system. I'd love to see some type of meaningful plan put forth to get rid of it. I don't even have a problem with parties as long as there are more than two dominant ones.

Point taken. However, there have long been only two (main) parties but many more policies, with some folks willing to (sometimes awkwardly) navigate toward the center. That approach seems to be on life support.

I blame the death of local news. & I blame that on the internet. Still not sure how we start to undo that damage.

Thank Bill Clinton for deregulating the FCC. Now 5 corporations own just about all of it.

Running with the life support analogy (bear with me) ... only letting two doctors in the room who can barely stop arguing long enough to acknowledge there is a patient there doesn't seem to be doing much for the patient. But getting rid of a forced dichotomy and allowing some other doctors in to see the patient might have a better success rate. It doesn't guarantee they'll stop arguing long enough to get anything done, but it at least increases the probability that they'll find some common ground rather than needing to be instantly against the other's views.

Also really damn sick of this one-sided game of "You should reach out to the opposition" while Republicans are openly, proudly disdainful of liberals. Why should I bother to respect a bunch of people who are more than happy to see me suffer just because I have different ideas?

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/21/why-arent-trump-republicans-pilloried-failing-reach-out/?

A democrat can't win with just the Democrat vote thanks to the electorate and gerrymandering districts. They'll have to swing Independants and make traction into the Republican moderates. Those two groups aren't liking the polarized partisan politics going on. So they might go for someone who can unify and is willing to negotiate; Hillary didn't give that impression, nor do several of the mainstream candidate front runners.

The right is obsessed with this 'PC identity politics socialism" narrative that's entirely blown out of proportion. It's a bad faith argument, where anything they want to portray as negative can be labeled Socialism or Identity Politics. Sadly, it works.

mightyaa: My point is that the independents are already anti-Trump (look at his underwater polls) and the Republicans are never going to be convinced to ditch him (because the GOP is a cult). So there's really no point in playing to a "middle" that's actually quite skewed to the right.

.

From 1961: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bejdhs3jGyw They've been playing this game for a long time and the dumb electorate keeps falling for it.

Can be, but rarely is.

More importantly, you hear these kinds of appeals to racism, fascism, privilege, etc. mostly from the so-called "extremely online" left and various small time activists, with the occasional politician wading into the rhetoric. Conversely, the bad-faith accusations have been standard campaign rhetoric for the Republican establishment since Lee Atwater dredged up Willie Horton to scare the racists into voting for Bush. Yes, there is bad faith on both sides. But it's important to look at *who* is doing the talking.

Perception is reality and one group has been disproportionately shaping perception through misinformation and lies. I don't think the way to fix this is by meeting in the middle. 

How about unity for education? Unity against propaganda? 

Why does being "above the bullshit" only seem to skew in one direction? The bullshit is not evenly distributed, and yet there seems to be a constant insistence that it be evenly called out. Which only hurts the less-bullshitty party, since the bullshitters aren't even pretending anymore.

Really what we need more than a politician who will do this is a united media voice that's willing to hold the GOP accountable for their bullshit. Not that the Democrats don't engage in bullshit, but when they do they're largely taken to task for it. The Republican party gets away with everything because no one will call them out. Start calling them out if we ever want to recover from this insanity.

What would you consider "Left MSM"? I'm also not sure what you're referring to when you say " Covington"

*sigh* 

That Kavanaugh was confirmed and Roy Moore is still in public while Al Franken resigned is evidence of this double standard. That Ilhan Omar can't open her mouth without a shitstorm of anti-semitism accusations while those same accusers equivocate on protesters who chant "Jews will not replace us" is evidence of this double standard. That the media is losing their minds over Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez' "socialism" while heaping praise on a president who is putting all kinds of state influence on the economy through tarriffs and targeted subsidies is evidence of the double standard. That Mitch McConnell can whine about "the left’s never-ending judicial war" while being personally responsible for more than 50% of the judicial filibusters in the country's history is evidence of this double standard. I could go on. 

 [From the op-ed I posted above] "How do we explain this double standard? One explanation: Republicans don’t even bother to pretend that they care about the votes of liberal Americans, or even about their fate. Democrats try to get health insurance for people in red states and write environmental plans that include help for coal communities, but Republicans don’t ask how their policy choices might hurt people who don’t vote for them — unless it’s to figure out how they screw those voters even more. They don’t try to show “respect” for liberals, and they don’t publicly agonize about their inability to “connect” with them. 

 After a while, it stops even occurring to people in the media to ask whether Republicans need to do more “reaching out,” and they don’t chastise those Republicans for not doing it. Democrats, on the other hand, act like they have a responsibility to represent all Americans, so they're constantly told that they're falling short in fulfilling that responsibility."

Just for absolute clarity I want to emphasize that I'm not saying the Mainstream Media is *good*, I'm saying that it's not *leftist*

I've often wondered, and have found little to try to explain it (though admittedly I haven't tried very hard), why Fox gets a pass on being mainstream when the mainstream media gets brought up. 

Also curious to hear both of you discuss the media bias chart by Vanessa Otero ... https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

"CNN, MSNBC, etc are exactly as left biased as FOX is right biased. " No they aren't.

I think the chart is a very good starting point. I could argue some things are slightly out of place (a little to the left here, a little down there) but for the most part it is a correct assessment. 

Of course, the echoed refrain of anyone who disagrees is to claim the chart itself from being biased. Which, at that point, just give up because you're never going reach common ground with that person.

That's basically my take on it as well. You might argue a little movement here or there, but overall a good starting point. But yeah, it only works as an assessment if people can agree that it is close to accurate.

The other thing I like about the chart that I think get's lost in most of the rhetoric as left vs. right is the overall news quality represented by the Y-axis.

Wildly misleading, ignores vast majority of media ownership by 5 corporations. Knowledge of the results of the Church Committee hearings is also helpful in understanding media. 

Required viewing, films on media: Orwell Rolls in His Grave and Spin by Brian Springer. Required reading: George Seldes.

FWIW - television cable news is a complete wasteland. If you're getting the majority of your information from television, you're simply not informed. That said - only one of the major cable networks gleefully employs white nationalists and has inspired terrorism.

jla stop telling us to get out of our bubble when your talking points are suspiciously in alignment with Fox.

Hillary Clinton is politically indistinguishable from a 1960s Republican. I mean if we're going to talk about the rightward tilt of *all* of the US - media included - let's not lose sight of that.

Lose the tinfoil hat & maybe we can talk.

You're not wrong in assuming all media outlets have a bias and a preference. Where you're wrong is assuming there is a single "they"

YES! I've noticed this recently - the subtle shift from saying "Democratic Party" (i.e. a group of ideas) to saying "Democrat Party" (i.e. a group of people). I first noticed it with Trump, but now I hear it from all over the right.

I wasn't sure if I was just over-analyzing. I might be, but there's definitely something telling in this simple re-branding.

I would think a thing that is happening is more important than a thing that isn't happening.

My ignore list is tingling.

tduds, it's a tactic that is not new, but (surprise, surprise) gained a new resurgence via Tadpole Gingrich and Rush "The Human Opioid" Limbaugh.

It's funny to me how the people who are absolutely obsessed with making political affiliation into an immutable identity are also obsessed with complaining about "identity politics"

This is a neat graphic. Thanks.

The reply function really incentivizes this by using "return" to post instead of making a paragraph break.

tduds, assuming of course that anyone besides you is actually reading his dribblings. maybe if you stopped feeding it ...

I'm going to be offline a lot between now and October. We'll see if the well dries up in my absence.

I'm also not a Marxist.

Yup. It's rather sad.

What happened this morning specifically to cause that thought?

I'm guessing this: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30220580/mitch-mcconnell-senate-impeachment-trial-sham/

I hadn't read that article specifically, but it pretty much outlines the reasoning behind my thoughts. To offset the left bias in the Esquire piece you could also add a bunch of things the Democrats have done too ... Each majority party in congress, tasked with oversight, looks the other way when it's their own guy in the oval.

this where I am too...just came from reading The Hill reporting on how Mcconnell says the senate is "in lock step" with the WH & how Trump is having the GOP Senate Judiciary committee members over for a private event...HOW THE F*CK IS THIS REASONABLE FROM THE PARTY THAT IS COMPLAINING THERES BEEN A LACK OF DUE PROCESS?!?

One thing that drives me absolutely mad is the way the media has run with this framing. It's not "the House is impeaching the President" (which is technically true & how the government works) but "The Democrats are impeaching The Republican" (which frames this as a political maneuver and not a constitutionally-mandated exercise of oversight). The House is doing it's job, the Republicans in the House are not doing their job.

https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1205488724097802240

Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said: "Rather than help Americans move into the future with confidence, Democrats are attempting to knee-cap our democracy. They're telling millions of voters that Democrats will work to overturn the will of the people whenever it conflicts with the will of liberal elites."

Right, Doug. That's why the Democrats tried to impeach Reagan, Bush, and Shrub. Oh, wait...

Meanwhile...

I could never buy the argument that impeachment is somehow overturning the will of the voters. It's like they don't realize that people also vote to elect their representatives in Congress.

As if congress is answerable to "the people" ...

In an ideal scenario, the more public support a bill has, the more of a chance it should have of being passed by congress. I don't recall where, but I read that studies have found that increasing public support of legislation basically has zero effect on that legislation actually getting passed.

Miles, you're sounding like my parents. They're not left, but they commonly make the same arguments you are. It's tiresome, my friend.

Here it is ... and some excerpts: 

"When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." 

...

"Overall, net interest-group alignments are not significantly related to the preferences of average citizens. The net alignments of the most influential, business-oriented groups are negatively related to the average citizen’s wishes. So existing interest groups do not serve effectively as transmission belts for the wishes of the populace as a whole." 

...

"In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it." 

...

"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts."

I'm particularly fond of the bottom 3 points in the bi-partisan section

Miles, I almost included a 3rd branch (as a H/T to you) ... the "career politician branch" where the goal is to do the things outlined in the Venn diagram above.

I have my beef with the old-guard Democratic establishment, but the Republicans are essentially proto-fascist at this point. They really aren't similar.

Yeah, the "pox on both their houses" sounds remarkably similar to "There were very fine people on both sides" to me.

.

REPs and DEMs in the House overwhelmingly passed the largest military spending bill ever: $738b.

• no repeal of AUMF that gives the cedes congressional responsibility for war to the president
• authorizes creation of US Space Force
• bans US withdrawal from NATO
• provides money to research low-yield nuclear weapons
• prohibits military cooperation with Russia
• sanctions businesses and people involved in the NordStream Piepline

41 DEMs voted against.

Admitting the GOP is significantly more corrupt does not imply the Democratic Party is *good* ...that's the only point I was making.

Beware of cognitive bias.

Back at ya.

Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

^classic french throwback.

I wish. The parts I do hear are infuriating though .

I catch whatever happens to be on NPR on my way home in the evening. Schiff is presenting a very clear narrative that should result in overwhelming consensus that Trump is guilty, but will persuade exactly no one.

tduds, I think about the only defense the republicans have is "sure he did what the house is saying he did, but it's not that bad." I was seeing comments from Trey Gowdy earlier questioning that if Biden wasn't running for president, would Trump's actions rise to the level of being impeachable. 

That doesn't sound like he needs to be convinced of what Trump did, he tacitly admits that the facts say he did it ... he needs to be convinced that it's impeachable, even though by the way he sets up his hypothetical he implies that it is worthy of impeachment. There's no need for a hypothetical where Biden's an ordinary american if you think Trump's actions are worthy of impeachment to begin with. Even then, the hypothetical has no bearing on the actual trial so it's simply something thrown out there to distract from the issues. 

I see no logical way that they can justify Trump's actions without simply drawing a line and saying "it's not bad enough to be worthy of removal from office." And if that's the answer ... I'm not sure what to expect in the next handful of elections.

I’m doing exactly what tduds is doing, listening when I can and feeling it’s really, really important but ultimately won’t be anything.

ACQUITTED!

Congratulations?

Now who am I going to half-assedly argue with?

jla-x is still around, no? Or is that more whole-assedly arguing?

I give him a good 3/4 ass most of the time.

Looks like Interpol's comments were also nuked from the Trump border wall news thread too.

While this is clearly not a democracy I vote for nuking the account.

why is Iowa so important? I've never been, have no plans on ever going... yet it's in my news feed.

It's not important. It's just first.

https://gen.medium.com/f-ck-iowa-638cb9ab15a8

great article. thanks.

Utter incompetence. Why the Iowa Dems thought it necessary to shoehorn an app into the caucus is beyond me. All we had to do was count people in a room and then make a phone call. But no, we had to get some company named "Shadow Inc." (no joke) to build a half-assed vote reporting app and go ruin everything. There really is an app for everything.

Huge CF. I was following along for a little bit to 538's live blogging of the results and they were all getting pretty annoyed with this. They started saying journalists had headlines to write and deadlines to meet and the story was going to be about how much of a screw up the process was this time around rather than any meaningful results. Also with the State of the Union today, the impeachment trial vote to convict/acquit tomorrow, and New Hampshire's primary next week, the winner in Iowa expecting a bump was going to get lost in the news cycle. Huge CF.

"They started saying journalists had headlines to write and deadlines to meet.." This, to me, is the bigger problem. News cycles are hurting our ability to parse information.

That wasn't lost on them as well ... but that headline bites the hand that feeds them.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. I'm ready for this shit show called human existence to end anyway. ELE where are you?!

That's a bit drastic don't ya think.

Here's around 5.5 minutes of video where Nate Silver is pretty visibly frustrated (use headphones if you're at work or around children): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0j7JTeyIlU 

Galen Druke had this comment as well...

GALEN DRUKE
11:09 PM

While most Americans probably aren’t holding their breath for results from Iowa, the people responsible for tomorrow’s media narrative — journalists — are. Based on a sample of about 30 people in our newsroom, journalists are getting increasingly annoyed. Those same journalists are going to be responsible for tomorrow’s narrative, and it’s growing increasingly likely that that narrative will be: SHITSHOW IN IOWA

Live Blog here for those with time to kill: https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/iowa-caucus-2020-election-live/ 

Of course it is, but we need to save the planet, dinosaurs, humans, next-generation evolutionary species will do better.

Never use an app for something that can be done without an app.

*throws phone away*

I'll give the digital benefit of the doubt and revise tduds statement: "Never us an app for something that can be done better without an app."

If you are looking for election meddling look

no further than the DNC. They’re doing it again because it worked so well last time.

No. They just screwed up.

I have zero patience for this idiot narrative in which the DNC is too incompetent to win elections and at the same time so competent that they secretly rig elections.

Hanlon's Razor looms large here.

@ tduds Fantastic logic. "the DNC is too incompetent to win elections and at the same time so competent that they secretly rig elections." Elections that they lose. LOL

So Wasserman Schultz did not resign as DNC head over a leak of internal DNC emails that showed officials actively favoring Hillary Clinton during the presidential primary and plotting against Bernie Sanders?

The NYT today had a page on all the democratic candidates positions ... except Sanders. Whoops.

And DNC chair Tom Perez hasn't stacked the nominating committee with vocal opponents of Sanders?

Don't be surprised when the new caucus app is found to have been somewhat less than legitimate ...

There is no evidence — none, zero, zilch — to suggest the results of the Iowa Caucuses will be in any way inaccurate, and people suggesting otherwise are irresponsible. Did this take longer than everyone hoped? Yeah. But somehow faking the results of the caucus, when there are extensive paper trails, and when people LITERALLY CAST THEIR VOTES IN PUBLIC, is essentially impossible. https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1224751886881951744

Anyway California has like 500 delegates, votes in less than a month, and Sanders is polling ahead so none of this is going to matter.

Also the page that doesn't exist was really easy to find https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/bernie-sanders.html

NYT print edition. As to the app, it is a compromised system from the start, just like electronic voting machines that are susceptible to manipulation. Reference Clinton Curtis sworn testimony to congress. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121903/iowa-results-delay-app-reporting

If Pete is cheating, at least he's trying. Go Liz!

When he was elected, my first response was, "Please, whatever God or Gods are listening, don't let him get his tasteless, tiny hands on the 'Guiding Principals for Federal Architecture."

Apparently, no Gods were listening.

So Dictator is deciding what style is or isn't allowed to be used. This isn't hyperbole. Banning of an architectural style is on par with banning a religion.

it's like trump wants to be literal hitler. https://archinect.com/news/article/73841759/hitler-s-classical-architect

curtkram - Also my first thought when I saw it. I wonder who will be Herr Drumpf's new Albert Speer...

bullshit, obviously. also, i can't vote for the senators and congress reps from other states. my state is great, not part of the problem.

my point being that the efforts of reasonable people to influence this will fail because they have no impact on the states dominated by unreasonable people.

Which former Hillary Clinton staff member? What we this staff members job while with HC?

Gerard Niemira. Hillary For America Total Duration1 yr 2 mos TitleDirector of Product Dates EmployedMar 2016 – Nov 2016 Employment Duration9 mos LocationBrooklyn, NY - Promoted during the campaign to lead the small but mighty team in charge of all of the campaign’s tools for field organizers and volunteers. - Created a platform for field organizers to contact voters and manage volunteers in their communities as efficiently as possible while opening up new avenues of data collection for the campaign. - Pioneered voter contact via SMS, resulting in the most efficient voter contact method ever on a presidential campaign (over 40 time as efficient as phone calls) used to reach tens of millions of voters. - Led a cross-functional team to scale our platform’s capacity to handle an over 4000% increase in usage during the critical “get out the vote” weekend before the election. … see more TitleSenior Product Manager Dates EmployedOct 2015 – Mar 2016 Employment Duration6 mos LocationBrooklyn, New York - Produced a suite of tools, used by millions of voters and supporters nationwide, for field teams to collect commitments to vote, share polling place information, and make voting plans. - Built an online call tool that resulted in millions of voters and volunteers contacted remotely by campaign volunteers by phone.

taken from linkedin

Thanks for the info JLC-1!

The DNC has little, if anything, to do with the Iowa Democratic Caucus. Separate entities. Pursuing the Hillary Clinton/DNC Boogieman path of inquiry is asinine and unproductive, however fun and thrilling in the near term. Leaning on weak conspiracy theories is foolish. Never presume malfeasance in place of good ol' incompetence.

Focusing on this makes us useful idiots.

@3oh The Iowa Democratic Party and the Nevada Democratic Party retained Shadow to develop its caucus app.

@Pete ignoring this makes us useful idiots.

We have the very best government that money can buy and that money is terrified of Sanders. The corporate media blatantly sabotages him, the DNC is working against him, Hillary's foaming at the mouth over him is widely reported. There is a full court press by the establishment to derail his campaign. Watch what they do next, this is only going to get worse. I’m surprised that they have linked Bernie to Putin yet.

Who really gives a flying shit who the nominee is? Hold your damn nose, pull the lever not marked Trump, then we can argue for four years about this all you like.

A vote for anyone other than the eventual Democratic nominee is a vote for Trump. There are many places to advocate for changes to the system, and many other ballot races to support minority party candidates. The presidential general election is not the place.

https://chomsky.info/an-eight-point-brief-for-lev-lesser-evil-voting/

“A vote for anyone other than the eventual Democratic nominee is a vote for Trump.” Silly me, I thought voting was supposed to determine the nominee. Care to share your foreknowledge and save us all the trouble of voting?

I read that more as eventually, when the nominee is selected, a vote for anyone else at that point is a vote for Trump.

Don't vote for what you believe in: vote for someone you hate as a vote against someone you hate even more. This largely explains why we inevitably end up with a choice between two detestables like Hillary and Trump.

The mechanism for our elections is in need of repair. The mechanism for our elections is not broken in a method that allows you to vote your beliefs or conscience. Doing so doesn't make you smarter or better, It just makes you lose the election.

Change doesn't happen in the presidential general election. Change must already have happened for the presidential general election to contain a desirable candidate. I find the focus on The President, at the expense of focus on thousands of other elected officials and tens of thousands of policy initiatives, frankly annoying.

You have two choices: vote for the Democrat or vote for fascism. If you want to make change, start reading up on your county school boards.

You think Trump came out of nowhere? Trump's candidacy was the result of 45 years of subtle but deliberate action from the right. Same with Bush. Same with the Senate. Things accelerated post-2010 once the money shackles were off, but I tell you one thing they didn't start with the damn president.

Trump was put up by Hillary to insure her victory. The establishment media focused - at the behest of Clinton - on the most despicable Republicans (Ted Cruz!) and gave Trump billions in exposure. Trump thought he would get some delegates and trade them for something sweet at the Republican convention. Look at the election night video - when Trump is announced as the winner his entire family looks like deer caught in the headlights: WTF?! He wasn’t supposed to win. The Dems handed it to him, and they are poised to do it again. 

I give up... I can't compete with MIles' ability to read intent into every coincidence. It must be exhausting to think the world is that laden with sinister plots.

"The Dems handed it to him, and they are poised to do it again." You know how to stop that? Vote for the Democrat.

I have an unflattering reasoning on why people buy into conspiracy theories.

The term "conspiracy theory" was invented by the CIA. Documented quote, CIA Director William Casey to President Ronald Reagan: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

Incredible.

Uncredible.

Barbara Honegger is the source of the quote. Formerly a researcher at the Hoover Institution, Honegger was an assistant domestic policy advisor to Regan. She also disclosed the October Surprise (1980) where Reagan negotiated with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election.

Actually it was the Reagan / Bush campaign. Bush senior had been CIA director under Gerald Ford.

This just keeps getting better. Acronym is a political dark money group (no financial reporting). It was started with money from Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman. Acronym has ballooned since its founding into a massive dark money operation, even launching a Super PAC dubbed Pacronym that has raked in money from hedge fund billionaires like Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman. Tara McGowan - who runs Acronym, which founded Shadow Inc., which created the app for the Iowa caucus - is married to a senior Buttieg advisor.

There is no deep state.

Here's a good thread about how the Iowa fiasco happened. Predictably, incompetence not malice. https://twitter.com/rabble/status/1224820389387223041?s=21

Chad: "I have an unflattering reasoning on why people buy into conspiracy theories." 

The terrifying reality that there is no one in charge but us and that the world is a chaotic, unpredictable, and cruel place is just too much for some. So they invent an omniscient overlord because evil control is preferable to neutral chaos.

I think there are as many definitions of "deep state" as there are people talking about it. As a term, it's meaningless. Yes, there exists a bureaucracy of unelected career government employees. There also exists a money-fueled network of unaccountable power in our country. Both of these groups contain some corrupt individuals and some well-intentioned ones. Talking about these various and disparate groups as if they're a united cabal of "deep state" actors is delusional and unproductive and I have no patience for it.

It's a convenient boogieman for those who are no longer able to publicly project previous versions of men of boogie: racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, jews, etc etc. When life is difficult, who do Americans typically blame? Yep, it's those you consider to be "below" you in status and those with whom you share little. It's 1984 Eurasia. I always laugh at first when I hear people cry about the Deep State, then I become sad.

The NSA is accountable to House and Senate Intelligence Committees, among others. Just because we elect morally corrupt hooligans to these posts doesn't negate constitutional powers.

The military industrial complex is anything but deep. It employs hundreds of thousands of citizens in both public and private capacities. Contracts are public. Most of the companies are public and have their financials posted quarterly. Again, elect war-mongering idiots, get stupid government. 

Don't equate "hard to understand" or "complex" with the plans of nefarious government workers. If anything, we should be proud that our government is so inept such that it couldn't possibly create and maintain some "deep state". 

jla: Read what I said above. All of your examples fit into what I"m talking about. And please don't start on the UFOs

So Eisenhower was wrong, the NSA has never spied on American citizens and congress, CIA directors have never lied to congress, intelligence agencies are vigorously scrutinized by elected officials, whistle-blowers are always protected and never prosecuted, Wikileaks only publishes lies, the NSA does not operate a global ground-based, aerial, and orbital surveillance system run by the same contractors who supply the Pentagon, the CIA hasn't meddled in foreign elections around the globe since 1940, the Church Committee hearings were a hoax, the CIA never sold crack on the streets of LA, etc.

It is utterly impossible that there exists a Shadow Government of unelected, contractor-staffed, highly classified, black-budget intelligence agencies, and there have never been former intelligence officers, staffers, and contractors who have become whistle-blowers who were prosecuted and imprisoned for revealing crimes committed by such agencies, or that there exists, like in all power structures, groups competing for power and control of their common interests.

Good to know. I feel much better now.

Might I suggest everyone take a minute and learn where the term 'deep state' came from.

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/776852841/the-man-who-popularized-the-deep-state-doesnt-like-the-way-its-used

Another take on this: http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/ex-agents-us-military-intelligence-complex/

I find NPR more credible than some conspiracy theory website with click-bait banner adds.

Miles: none of that rant refutes or addresses my point. The term "Deep State" is meaningless. At worst, there are lots and lots of Deep States, all working in their own self interest and often in direct contradiction of each other. Most of it can be explained by scope creep and institutional inertia.

A large part of the dysfunction of our government - especially in the unelected portions - is due to a lack of cohesive direction, not a sinister direction.

I never said any of those things.

Dismantling the various systems of ineffective power and unaccountable inertia that contribute to government intransigence requires first admitting that there is not one element to dismantle, but dozens. There is no Deep State. There is no enemy, only various levels of apathy with a peppering of fraud.

The system is composed of multiple interests that both compete and cooperate with each other. Boeing and Lockheed (entrenched in both military and intelligence complexes) compete to sell military hardware but work together to create the ‘need’ for it. Reps and Dems vie for power via money from such interests, which both parties serve slavishly. These systems are highly effective at promoting their own interests and preventing accountability. Thus the Pentagon's inability to account for $37 trillion in spending or even complete a basic audit.

When people start talking about the 'deep state' all I hear is the 'wa wa wa' from Charlie Brown cartoons.

Ignorance is its own reward.

Sorry, but I have better things to do with my time. 

Ignorance is bliss, or so I am told.

If Trump gets re-elected I'm stocking up on insulin, food, and ammo to fend off the Nazi shitheads who will become even more embolden .

A fellow diabetic! Not so much of a gun person though...might have to move north and restart my hockey career.

What makes you think I'm not being serious jla-x?

threeohdoor - just move back to northern Minnesota like I plan on doing. The state is rather liberal with great schools and healthcare. Also we're really close to Canada so the beer is good. Also it's too cold for Nazi's. Ever since the battle if Stalingrad those dipshits have been scared of the cold.

Oh and hokey is 'uge up north in Minnesota eh! 

Depends on where you live. Also I include the alt-right, tiki torch carrying, women hating dipshits in the Nazi category .

Hate to tell you Chad, but the Nazis are in St. Cloud, they busy banning immigrant settlements in their town.

jlax-x, I'm not watering down the definition of a Nazi. If you have the same ideals and views as the Nazi's, then you're a Nazi and an asshole.

b3t

This map is hilarious. I'll make sure to stay clear of St. Cloud, Nazis, and jla-x when I migrate north.

Yeah, but I hear Nazis portage and like walleye.

Little known fact, Nazis are scared of loons. Just hearing their haunting cry makes them soil themselves.

That's a well known fact, but only Northern Loons, not European Loons.

Well obviously b3t.

Instead of 'Nazi' let's say 'Fascist' then.

jla-x, as I said above if someone has the same ideals and views as the Nazi's then I'll classify and call them as such. If you need me to clarify, if someone believes that theirr race is better than all others and they want to physically harm or kill the other races because they don't consider them human then I'll call them a Nazi, along with other things.

Now I agree with your overall statement jla-x, you can't just throw around classifications willy-nilly.  That being said I do think the alt right and those affiliated with the group are Nazis.

I want to see more state maps like the one Chad posted.

Here you go.

What's the deal with Glenwood Springs?

glenwood springs, and a couple of towns to the left and right of it, is where all the service and construction workers for aspen live, it's also where we shop in big boxes that aren't allowed in the rich man's landscape. It's a nice town, getting crowded by driving tourists that stop for a soak in the hot "springs". Lots of new construction going on, mainly multifamily.

They like to be their own 'thing'. I think this is because they are the gateway to a few major ski areas to their south but don't have good skiing themselves. They're have a rather rugged sense if individualism.

I made this a bunch of years ago & it make the internet-rounds every so often:

SE Mass is a wasteland too. Basically the 95/195/Bay zone.

.

You Canuks are just weird.

Rest assured that the political operatives in Canada are paying close attention and will be adopting successful tactics in your elections soon.

Jla, I see you're a big Nickleback fan... maybe your definition of awesome band needs some re-evaluation.

Sick burn.

Neil Young is the only god that has ever existed.

Indeed he is. His auto biography is filled with more info on model trains than music. Also, no Neil means no Pearl Jam... and we can't exist without PJ.

"He became a United States citizen, taking dual citizenship on January 22, 2020."

I must say that Canada is lacking in the heavy metal department though. . . .

Chad, heavy-metal is not my scene (see Young and Pearl Jam notes above)... but we do have a Dave Mustaine and Unibroue colab. See here: https://www.unibroue.com/en/our-beers/a-tout-le-monde/10

I got turned on to Tragically Hip way too late. In my mind, way better than Rush.

Chad - Check out a Band called The Headstones not heavy metal but they rock!

Thanks for the band names!

Ahip7, I’ll be seeing headstones (along with tea party, moist, big wreck) in Ottawa this summer. Going to be a great throw back concert day.

I saw them last year and the year before at a small bar in my town. I’m going to the same tour just down in Edmonton. I have the headstone logo tattoo’d on me

Seen them New Year’s Eve 1992 at The Volcano Clud in Kitchener. And I was hooked ...been about 10 times after that till now.

My favorite Canadian band...https://youtu.be/bBBDCwZECLQ

Great Big Sea is Canadian fucking royalty.
Ahip, it’ll be my first time seeing them.

I'm 34 years old. In my lifetime - including 2020, unless Trump dies - there will have been two presidential elections in which neither nominee was born between 1946-48 - 1988 and 2008. For a presidential election where no "serious" candidate (that is, a candidate who earned a significant number of primary delegates) was a 1940s baby you have to go back to 1984. We're approaching 40 years of one small group in power. I'd contend that's too long. 

There has not been a president born in the 1930s (there almost definitely won't be). There might not be a president born in the 1950's (in 2024 people born in 1960 will be 64...above average age for a president). The only other decade with 0 presidential birth years is 1810-1820. 

 In 2024 the eldest Millennials will be in our mid-40s, right around the age that Obama, Clinton, Kennedy & Roosevelt were when first elected. The next-next-president could very well be an 80s baby. 

 All this to say that 40's Baby Boomers siezed power ahead of expectations and held on to it well past expectations. Anyway, sorry Gen-X. As usual you got skipped.

Strictly speaking, neither Joe nor Bernie is a Boomer. Their generation is almost as forgotten as Gen X - if either one of them wins, he will certainly be the only President from their generation.

I predict Gen X will be totally skipped by the US Presidency.

They're boomers to me.

Don't care if they are boomers, just as long as it's not Trump.

I was told I was gen X growing up in the mid 90s... now they tell me I'm millennial. I chose to identify as a lampshade.

if only generational labels qualified as identity.

Gen X has been absorbed by Millenials + Boomers because our easily-digestible-narrative-obsessed media insists everything be described as one of two sides only. Sorry.

" Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."

Strong disagree with all of that.

Open primaries just create an environment primed for garbage gamesmanship. I voted.

Luckily for me, I don't hate Joe or Bernie - I would've strongly preferred Liz, but those two have been my 2nd & 3rd picks since Kamala dropped out.

A Stacey Abrams or Kamala Harris pick for Biden would nearly seal the deal. Optics alone says avoid the 'old white dude' ticket--which is what the race is now down to--on either side.

In modern history the VP pick is a ticket balancer. Biden needs someone younger, more liberal, ideally a woman, a person of color, or better a woman of color (Abrams?). Bernie needs the same but more moderate (Booker?, Harris?).

I'm guessing it'll be some serious back-room dealing over which one of them gets Liz.

Learn to post.

This is an absurd chart.

Julian?

Either one of them should be able to beat Trump easily, assuming all of us do our jobs (voting, convincing others to vote, NOT voting for 3rd party or independent candidates).

Honestly, if she had any real insight or fortitude, I would entertain the thought of voting for her. She is, after all, the stop all wars candidate. But she never really offered anything else other than a pretty face and joe rogan podcast appearance (there's a venn diagram there I'm sure)

Both. This is a brief good thing for immediate Democracy because of the ant-democratic problems with first past the post, but it won't, in the long run, do anything to solve them.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/justin-amash-could-cause-some-trouble-in-november/

My secret hope is that he'll take away votes from Trump in a demonstrable way which will influence more people to support ranked choice voting or something like that so you can vote third-party without feeling like you've thrown away your vote.

"Biden is a senile rapist and Trump is a narcissistic senile rapist." FTFY

jla-x, I'm not sure where you're seeing in this little aside that I expressed a desire for Biden over Trump. I simply stated that I hope Amash's third-party run pulls support away from Trump in a demonstrable manner. The reasoning is that I think more Republicans oppose measures like ranked choice voting and if they can see that Amash get's a lot of votes, that might have picked Trump as their second-choice vote, they might be more open to it when it comes up. No, I don't think ranked-choice voting is the answer to all the US's issues, but I think it could help more third-party candidates in local and state elections which might eventually have a shot at influencing congressional and presidential elections.

I think a popular vote distribution of each states electoral votes would be a good system. For example in the last election California's 55 electoral votes would have been 18.26 Trump and 33.83 Clinton. I think a system like this would allow a third party choice to have a chance of working.

Political parties are an inevitable result of the coalition-building inherent in representative democracy, and a two party system is the inevitable result of first past the post voting. Talking about eliminating parties or moving to a multi-party democracy is useless without addressing the way we vote. You can't "abolish parties", you can only create the conditions that facilitate their dwindling.

I would like to see more states get rid of plurality take all awarding of electors and adopt a system like Nebraska or Maine. 

I'm not such a big fan of the popular vote winner take all nationally either that some states are trying to establish as a counter to the electoral college process. I'm not sure if I'm describing that correctly. I'm referring to the coalition of states that are trying to award the states' electors to the winner of the national popular vote if they can gain enough states to join where the total of the coalition's electors would get the national vote winner past the post.

tduds, we now have ranked-choice voting here in Maine for local elections, as it's not allowed for Federal elections. Most intelligent people like it, but it is surprisingly confusing to others. I believe we have more independent voters than any other state and only enrolled voters can participate in primary elections, so I can see what you mean about needing to change the way we vote.

^ I love this! But we should be clear that many other demographic categories could easily star in this meme.

"The democrats and republicans ... do not care about the people." 

I agree with this but I disagree with "equally"

Political parties are clubs. Bands of supposedly like-minded people gathering their clout. Their benefits are given via laws at a federal and state level, making "get(ting) rid of political parties" something of a quixotic endeavor.

lol Cuomo. Hilarious.

I’d be more worried about Biden’s inherent racism than some silly misspelling honestly...

Biden's inherent racism worries you? Interesting.

More so than some spelling errors in a tweet that go viral, yes. Doesn’t that worry you? Interesting!

Naw, he's a racist who's also a narcissist.

Please define "true racism."

Yeah the guy whose first big move as a professional adult involved getting sued for keeping black tenants out of his housing projects... that guy isn't racist at all.

But getting sued is not a move, was he actually found guilty by the way?

Please define "immutable racial characteristics."

jla - exactly. & also we live in the first system. That's what we've all been trying to say.

"Under an agreement reached in June 1975, Trump Management was required to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week, for two years. It was also to allow the league to present qualified applicants for every fifth vacancy in Trump buildings where fewer than 10 percent of the tenants were black." (https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/07/30/1973-meet-donald-trump/) (also https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...)

So you have a settlement to avoid an official admission of guilt, which is a very lawyerly way of getting around an actual hearing / trial in which you'd probably lose. All this to say that "technically not admitting guilt" isn't really a slam dunk counterpoint to being racist as hell. I could point to dozens more examples (Central Park Five, anyone? Birtherism? Accusations among his hotel employees) but you can do your own research if you care.

You're looking too narrowly if you're focusing on codification (laws) supporting racism. There is a middle ground you're glossing over and that's where there isn't necessarily codified racism, and it's not just racist individuals, but a systematic racism supported by codification and racist individuals. That's where your crack cocaine sentencing comes in. 

It's not necessarily codified racism, and it's not an individual judge acting racist in how they hand out sentences, but rather a system that supports the unknowing racist (probably sometimes knowingly racist) actions of those individuals (in power) to hand out harsher sentencing because it has been "codified" in sentencing guidelines put in place by other individuals unknowingly (or knowingly) supporting racism. 

There are a lot of examples that fit into the middle ground. This is the hard one to solve because it requires rethinking the system, not just a law here or there, or dealing with some individuals here or there.

"Please reduce a complex web of explicit & implicit biases, vestigial generational trauma, and persistent economic / environmental inequalities into a single example of a law." 

No. I cannot and will not try.

The simplest way I can explain it is this: The problems in the US are class problems, but because of the residual effects of the way we codified class until ~40 years ago, they are - in effect - racial problems. 

We haven't finished digging ourselves out of the cultural  / systemic pit we built, and we're acting like the fact that we stopped digging was enough.

Sure okay. I can't speak for the world (though I think many anti-racist activists would agree with me), but my aims are not "eliminating racism" but rather "introducing consequences for racists", which our country is severely lacking. A system that makes racist cops not racist is a huge lift. A system that makes racist cops not cops is pretty easy, if you try.

Ahhh we were so close.

Arrest the cops who shot Breonna Taylor is a popular one that's going around.

I think, not so much police brutality in general but the culture of Policing that protects offenders - the "thin blue line" / "blue wall of silence" - is an example of systemic racism. The fact that it requires significant public outcry *every single time* an example of racist police brutality comes to light, rather than the system being able (well, willing) to deliver justice internally, is an example of "a lack of consequences."

Please explain how to change a system -a system that has relied on codified racism for most of its existence and used codified racism to bolster itself against being dismantled at every opportunity-  from within said system.

Here are a couple of good articles that elucidate how the culture insulates bad actors: 

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-police-unions-fight-reform

I would not have called it "defunding," but I don't get to pick the words other people use. Then again I also looked into the actual policies being discussed under those words and found I agreed with the ideas instead of just copping out and using a dictionary to avoid critical thinking.

I'd settle for "faster" rather than "instant"

You're pretty lousy at both. You're good at calling other people out, but fail to admit you're just as incapable of finding solutions as anyone. I don't claim to have solutions, but I also don't pretend the problems aren't as bad as they are just to make myself feel superior.

Personally, I think one single thing (not easy, but single) that could solve a lot of problems is to normalize amending the Constitution. It was intended as an imperfect, incomplete document. We were given a mechanism to evolve our national contract in alignment with our national culture, but somewhere along the way folks got all 'Religious' about it and now we're stuck with a calcified 18th century text trying to handle 21st century problems. Jefferson suggested it be re-written wholesale every 20 years. That might be extreme, but surely a middle ground exists. There should be hundreds of Amendments, not 27 (the last ~10 of which are mostly so minor & technical they don't impact our lives in a significant way) .

I know that police are asked to do much, much more than they should be due to the inconsistent or unavailable resources for things like mental health, housing, food, drug addiction, etc.

That's a weird sentiment... Protests are an expression of anger of unacceptable outcomes. Their aim is to get the people who *do* know enough about policing and/or have the political knowledge to craft policy off their butts, to work on inputs that result in more acceptable outcomes. Expecting the protesters to bring their own inputs is expecting too much, imo. I don't go to a restaurant with my own recipes...

I didn't create anti-police sentiment. Decades of unaccountable brutality doled out disproportionately to disadvantaged communities did. If the police are acting this way because people are finally asking for accountability, they're telling on themselves.

Police should absolutely be held to a higher standard. Lead by example. Pay them commensurate to the job, but tighten the standards.

Hyperbolic or not, the response to being called out on brutality is not more brutality.

I rarely bring this up because it's anecdotal, but my father was a cop for 32 years (retired about 5 years ago) and whenever we talk about this he mostly agrees with me. He finds the lack of accountability disgusting, and the defense of bad officers insulting to good ones.

I think if you really dug in you'd find that more cops silently feel this way, but stay silent because of a professional culture that punishes speaking out. That culture is what needs fixing, and - frankly - it *is* an issue that can be tackled via law and policy.

I mean, by definition holding everyone to a higher standard holds no one to a "higher" standard. If you want to pontificate about a perceived decline in overall civility, okay, but it's a weird thing to do in the same thread where you're insisting on concrete policy solutions from everyone else.

I would never choose to be a police officer. It's bad enough the assumptions I get in Architecture due to the preponderance of bad apples.

"and then remain silent" ...big assumption there.

I don't talk about things that aren't relevant to police brutality in threads about police brutality. I talk about them elsewhere, where they're the topic of conversation. Conversely, bringing it up here, where it's not the point, is a whatboutism.

The existence of other problems - however real they may be - doesn't diminish the problem at hand, nor does it de-legitimize peoples' efforts to address either.

Some people must only do one thing at a time. Seems like it would be difficult with the amount of stuff to do between breaths.

Who has the larger amount of the power to affect change in that dynamic?

Thanks tduds, so Trump has not been found guilty, noted ;-)

Ain't this some shit.

I'm sure these are just some nice police men.

That "true racism" comment, boy if that ain't a Yo-Semite two step, I don't know what is...wow.

Those nice police men might have even been “white hispanic”...

'but not as simple as “racist cops are hunting people down”.' 

Good thing no one is making that argument then.

Rando: "Not found guilty" is different from "found not guilty." FWIW

True...and “not guilty” doesn’t mean innocent either.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/03/french-reporter-who-joined-police-exposes-racism-and-violence-valentin-gendrot

x-jla, you have no understanding of statistics, and your use of them is like attempting surgery with a cudgel. The patient is dead, man. You killed it.

Good lord, no wonder we have problems.

interesting that someone thinks they can dismiss the largest protest movement in us history based on the (poor) use of statistics, anonymously on the web, to add. what's the goal here?

Winning.

So let's not start until we fix it? I don't follow. If there's a problem, you gotta start somewhere, and in this country race as a starting point to fixing a problem seems better than most.

"Tduds, yes people are making that argument." 

Please find an example of someone* making this argument. Not even going to acknowledge your other statements until you cite something.

*Someone with actual clout, not a twitter rando with 13 followers.

Ending stop and frisk is, in fact, an explicit aim of the Black Lives Matter org:

 https://theappeal.org/black-lives-matter-dcs-battle-to-end-stop-and-frisk-in-the-nations-capital/

 (from https://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Black-Lives-Matter.pdf)

Still waiting on that citation, btw.

& while we're at it feel free to point out what sections, if any, of the document I linked that you disagree with. 

"Many people are saying..." 

My garden has a wooly aphid problem but I'm not going to do anything about it until the drainage problem, the deer problem, the broken greenhouse, the weeding, and the remulching are all able to be fixed, too. I guess those plants will just have to die because I refuse to focus on one issue because that's ... unfair?

“Dismantle the nuclear family” Please cite where this is stated.

As best I can discern you agree with all the explicitly stated things that people have brought to your attention with citations, and disagree with all the vague things that "many people are saying"

Please prove me wrong if you can.

Did Jlax just bring Talcum X into the conversation? Did he? Really? The man is a fucking grifter of all grifters.

Don't forget fathers, otherwise you might upset the Dutch.

Yeah I also strongly support the "it takes a village" mentality.

Who else supported that and was ridiculed for it? I can't recall...

Did tduds and jla just make progress? Was this a break through?

SHUT UP EA.

So that rash isn't new, then? ;)

EA - We do agree sometimes. As frustrating as I find jla's philosophies & world view I will give him credit for usually keeping the mud-slinging to the issues & not the individuals. I try to extend, at the very least, the same courtesy. I fail sometimes.

Applause all around. I know it's not the first time, and jla is one who will admit when they fall short or could have done better (I try to as well). I recall an exchange jla and I had concerning environmentalism, climate change, teenagers, politicization of issues, outdoorsy sexy, and Teddy Roosevelt swagger where we seemed to arrive at a point of common ground. 

Cheers all, Have a good weekend.

I'd spend more time running your firm DWG and less time here. It would be more productive. ;)

I was with you for the first sentence & then you slowly lost me.

Generally, though, yea abolish the presidency.

I say we go back to the feudal system.

As opposed to the feuding system?

good one.

I think we can have feuding feudalism.

But can we have Family Feuding Feudalism?

the new Executive Board - Family of Feuding Feudalism...for tduds -

Under the original rules of the Constitution, each member of theElectoral College casts two electoral votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president. The presidential candidate receiving the greatest number of votes—provided that number equaled a majority of the electors—was elected president, while the presidential candidate receiving the second-most votes was elected vice president.

What?

Yeah. And it worked out so well that they stopped doing that retarded sh*t immediately.

what you mean gw, all those duels? Just get rid of the "Executive" being one person, make it more complicated, would make being a Journalist hard and simple peoples lives harder, they couldn't just point a finger and go "it's all the president's fault!" (because that's exactly how it works, one guy, doing all that work - how many people work in the government again?). tduds, you said I lost you either literally or were just expressing you only agreed with sentence one...btw, is this why people argue with bots? assumptions, tones, all this sh*ts missing.

With the orginal "second place gets the consolation prize of Vice President", you get the very real possibility of having two personal and political enemies as President and Vice President, the latter with an actual legal incentive to destroy the former and take his place. That is a very bad situation for the political stability of the executive branch, as became very clear early on in our history, and is why the practice was quickly abandoned.

hamilton, bro

my favorite part of Judge Smails quote is this; "...doing that retarded sh*t immediately." it's the self awareness to edit shit, but not find a better word than "retarded". It's the essence of Trumpist thinking.

He didn't say the word itself was "Trumpist", but rather the hilarious swing-and-a-miss thought process of censoring the word that isn't offensive but leaving the one that is.

yes, G, add two more and then the entire executive branch is a cage match, keep the ego centric fucks who run for the highest office in the land occupied while the rest of work....

This is the prime example of Trumpist thinking;

Think about your comment, critically, and come back with a position as though I wrote it, because the obviousness of this kind of idiocy, passing as "critique of the ruling class" is so full of shit.

More Trumpist pablum;

Nothing to see here;

And Biden is hiding in his basement...but that’s not the point. If Trump is such a bad president y’all should be thankful that he is on the golf course that often, can’t fuck up when you’re not around.

Well, how many innocent Black men has Harris put behind bars on Trumped-up charges? Pence zero! I know who I’d vote for...

as I'm an open minded dude, I watched something I would say is in the conspiracy world but crosses over into common sense (this is where it all gets muddled I guess) but was made by a Dutch person. A lot of it about the US's politics. I find this interesting because as an American whose actually educated enough to know there is more to Holland than legal weed (tolerated as I understand it) I could give two shits about Holland/Netherland's (whatever) politics. Out of curiosity why all this interest in US politics as a Dutchman?

Because it matters...

was trying to find the ESPN documentary, but for some quick history here, which makes all this post all that more interesting...long time ago (maybe 60 +/- years) northern universities started recruiting what would have HBCU football stars to basically win games. eventually the south had to follow suit as the all white teams were not winning. so when it came to winning no one cared about race...let me see if I can find that documentary...

About as much as you hear from Pence.

Nothing needs to be said, but everything's been said.

They actually managed to find somebody with less personal charisma than Hillary. Amazing. But I thought she was dead. I distinctly remember watching Tulsi execute her in cold blood on national television.

Still better than watching Trump or Pence flub their way through a speech.

Chad, reading auto prompters is not that important in the grand scheme of things, is it? Obama gave great speeches but droned thousands of innocent civilians to their deaths, for instance...

right rando, the dutch had great cheese but enslaved thousands of people, for instance...

You must be reading the wrong publications. I've seen, heard, and read a ton about her in the past month.

*the Dutch HAVE great cheese...But square why point to the past of the Netherlands when confronted with the ugly present truth of America today? What’s this cognitive dissonance? You guys really are not used to people telling it like it is, that America is not the greatest country in the world...Your education system must suck even harder than I already thought, I feel for you!

"You guys really are not used to people telling it like it is..." - rando

And you’re the living proof of that! QED

"And you’re the living proof of that!"(!)(!)

Critiquing American Imperialism, mass murder of innocent civilians by a Democrat president and the unjust incarceration of Black men by the Democratic running mate...b3ta: “hold my beer, the Dutch sit around in a circle at birthday parties” QED Qlown Erat Demonstrandum

"Critiquing American Imperialism"

Ooopsy!

Air Jordan’s vs wood clogs? Pretty obvious which one is better, no? QED.

b3ta we are talking about the here and now...Glad I’m not German, you would be posting pics of Auschwitz to deflect from Obama’s war crimes or Kamala’s imprisoning of Black men (I thought you were a BLM fanboy, yet you are supporting the candidate that supported bussing and a running mate that’s responsible for the mass incarceration of Black men) If you are indicative of the current political and intellectual discourse in America, it will be a Trump landslide in November, no doubt...

Non, wooden clogs are climate neutral renewable carbon sinks and made by local craftsmen, those Jordan’s are made by little child slaves in sweatshops, I know which one is better!

^have you tried dunking in clogs? Perhaps a moot point, but the little wood clog magnet on my fridge I bought in Amsterdam was likely made in a worse factory than a typical big brand shoe.

Sure non, whatever you want to believe...

Hoooray!

Welcome to the 21st Century!

The Dutch are inclined to celebrate their so-called Golden Age while ignoring its grimmer aspects.

American neurotic!

Black Pete is still super racist.

And in (former) colonies they paint Saint Nic white, can’t just project North American traditions or experiences and recent racial history onto everything and everywhere, that’s exactly that fascist American imperialism which is causing so much harm all around the globe.

Still super racist. It’s just below wearing a klan robe.

They wear similar robes in Spain, called capirotes, has nothing to do with lynching Black people...again, can’t simply project American use of racial stereotypes and historical symbolism onto the rest of the world, it doesn’t work like that...

^yes we can. Your black pete is super racist and you SHOULD be ashamed of supporting it. But you're not able to see this.

I’m not supporting it...but you only need to look at the use of swastikas in Hinduism or Buddhism whatever and Nazi Germany to see you’re off here, context!

are they not ortho and spin in the opposite direction?

also, fuck context.  Moral relativism cares not for history or local "customs".

That Ameri-imperialist approach, that the American way is always the right way, is simply wrong...like “bringing democracy” or “liberating” unoccupied countries...I wouldn’t navigate on the American moral compass.

I'm not american. Black pete remains super racist and you should be ashamed to defend it.

it's called perspective rando. it's funny that you call out americans for not being able to take criticism, and then go on a defensive, endless rant when someone criticizes your county. my point was it's all in perspective- throughout history there's no such thing as a guilt free nation. i'm not defending america. we suck in a lot of ways, and i agree with a lot of your points. but, whereas america is the "lead culprit" now, the dutch were at one point. but history moves on. so stop whining and learn to take what you dish out.

Non, I’m not defending Black Pete, but you as a Canadian defend the Ameri-imperialist way of doing things and their way of looking at the world. “You’re either with us or against us” that kind of binary black and white(!) way of seeing the world...

No, we're just more capable of self-criticism and pointing out problems others are oblivious to. Try to keep up, it's not that difficult.

i don't know how else to explain to rando this is literally their modus operandi..

square, you're exactly correct. The Netherlands was America, before America, and it was Trumpist, before Trump. Hell, they've even exported the good stuff; legal weed! Thanks Orangé, funny, they were Orange before Trump...kkklasic.

https://twitter.com/nhdagblad/status/1303348172111003648?s=21

Let's leave what is "oppressive" and what isn't to people who are being depicted, because it isn't clear that Black Dutch are altogether happy with this depiction.

Elves are not real and that is an offensive term. But you know that and are simply trolling, albeit poorly.

Little people can be black. Fucking racist.

I am unwilling to entertain your sophomoric jokes when you blend them with offensive spew.

Just saying go away or shut the fuck up, your choice.

Square, I’m not going on a defensive, I’m just explaining to the uninformed here that the American point of view is not always the right point of view, it hardly is when it comes to foreign politics…what you think is racist, might not be racist at all, simply because the context is different, the origin is different, the experience is different, etc. I’m not whining, I just find it typical when mentioning the American imperialism and mass murder of today, the cognitive dissonance-reflex is to create such a transparent diversion tactic to move the discussion away from racists such as Biden, mass murderers such as Obama and incarcerators of predominantly Black men such as Harris. There is nothing in your response that I need “to take”, simply because you’ve missed the mark. 

And for b3ta, here an interview with a friendly left-wing historian about the true origin of the Black Pete tradition: 

Remarkable! A WHITE Dutch historian says it ain't so...let's wrap it up guys!

Except, in every representation of Black Pete - in the ones specifically show in this idiotic piece - Black Pete, is African. EXCEPT, when the character hits the 20th Century, Pete takes on a striking resemblance to Sambo figures, and lawn jockeys.

You're a fucking dope.

You find a lot of American Archinecters suggesting "that the American point of view is ... always the right point of view," rando?

Yes, numbnuts, I watched; did you? All of it is buuuulllshit. His analysis, bullshit. The images he uses either contradict him, or are completely lacking in cultural, sociological intelligence, gross exaggerations, gross generalizations, or downright mis-readings.

https://hadithi.africa/2019/09/30/whats-behind-the-tribal-makeup/#:~:text=The%20Xhosa%20tribe%20of%20South,as%20a%20rite%20of%20passage.&text=Among%20the%20Pondo%20people%20of,between%20them%20and%20their%20ancestors.

The Xhosa tribe of South Africa uses face paint as a rite of passage. Boys entering adolescence undergo a ritual in which they’re separated from the rest of their tribe and embrace the mentorship of an older man. Once the ritual is over, they’re painted red. Among the Pondo people of South Africa, spiritual leaders paint their faces and bodies white because this establishes a mystical connection between them and their ancestors.

Sorry b3ta that accurate historical facts and proper context are bullshit in your narrow mind, my job is done here :-) your classic racist trope that the guy somehow has his facts wrong because he is white, classic racist b3ta! Never change dude...

huilen

Forgot the swastikas and the stiff right arm...lost your touch?

This isn't about you in any way...

...and not even one reference to Urban Dance Squad. You’re loosing your touch Rando.

"i'm not on the defensive, BUT [insert rambling, incoherent paragraph attempting to justify, deflect and excuse]."

To explain and bring in the facts is not defensive, I’m just helping you out to see it from the right angle...and not your usual American Imperialist Bush-like tunnel vision. I’m providing you with a service and opportunity to learn something new, you’re welcome!

The fact you even bring up UDS means my work on that front already paid off!

Not really rando... I still had to google them to make sure I typed their name correctly.

Your worldview has more in common with "American Imperialist Bush-like tunnel vision" than it does with anyone arguing with you. But you know that and you're being disingenuous as usual.

SP, it's fun watching his self-own, his racist shit-posting is just;

But you googled them! Great progress Non! That you had to google how to spell urban, dance and squad is a bit disappointing though...

SP, just indicate where my worldview is American-Imperialistish...I just happen to have more knowledge about (a) certain topic(s) than the lot of you combined...that is all, I don’t really care if you’re with me or against me, just happily filling the gaps of your collective knowledge, use it or lose it...up to you.

And for you b3ta, it would be nice if you could, you know, maybe indicate what I actually said that was so racist, because so far in our little discussion(s) it is you being the racist, don’t you have some pro-boning to do? Some helpless non-white women to bother with your mad skills, all for “free” obviously, and to then humble brag their names all over the place like you’re some Motherfucking Theresa?

^^"Some helpless non-white women to bother with your mad skills, all for “free” obviously, and to then humble brag their names all over the place like you’re some Motherfucking Theresa?"

Nice drawing b3theresa, great colour palette!