News thread

All in favour of banning Hopkins as an act of defiance in the face of this shitty year? I need to unwind.

2 things with the American political system...

The Republicans don't actually have a super majority in the Senate, which means that the Democrats can literally filibuster every proposal. You need a 'super majority' within the Senate (2/3rds of it) to actually pass things without the opposition being able to timewaste a bill out of existence.

Second, Trump's not really a Republican. He's an independent who tapped into latent fears prevalent in white working class America that were unaddressed by every candidate other than Sanders, he just happened to go via the Republican Primaries. It's unlikely that he's going to have his Senators under the same amount of control that Obama had his, so when he goes to make executive orders, it's unlikely he'll have 50% senete support - remember the leader of the GOP literally condemned Trump.

What is imminently scary, other than his hand being on the nuclear button, is the fact that he's going to appoint conservative as fuck judges to the supreme court in an effort to disenfranchise women from their own bodies. Trump's on trial for child molestation in a few weeks - if he gets impeached the man that will replace him LITERALLY WANTS TO REMOVE ALL HIV FUNDING AND TRANSFER IT TO GAY CONVERSION CLINICS. The executive power over the judiciary is what's actually scary right now. Although, Democrats can throw a wobbly and veto his appointments in the Senate, and it would only take 3 rogue republicans to stop these appointments.

What's happened is completely fucked up, and things are going to be shit, and Republican legislatures will continue to gerrymander districts and voting hours in order to make minority voting as difficult as possible. But there are checks on Trump, and I'd be very surprised if, during the next batch of staggered Senetorial elections, things slip further into his hands (Arizona and Nevada are on the board and could very well swing Blue, Missouri is the only Blue position which could likely go red). If Obama, with a supermajority, didn't get much done during his first 2 years it's difficult to see what Trump will do legislatively, other than Tax cuts on the rich and legitimising racism while denying global warming and overruling all of Obama's G20 work and......

Bring back the Dinosaurs

The sad thing is, we're all speaking here as white males. In the long run, we'd probably personally be fine in Trump's America. I'd shudder to think what it must be like as a minority right now - I was already reading horrible stories about minorities receiving abuse in the run-up to the election, and now with the racist cockroaches all crawling out from under their rocks, it can only get worse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to brand all Trump voters as racists as that absolutely will not be the case. But I'd bet there will be a correlation between the rise of hate crime in the US and Trump's tenure as President.

Remember how hate crimes rose 400% in post-Brexit Britain.

Let's see what happens in a country with guns

In short:

I was in a shit mood when I woke up this morning so I decided to switch off my PC and go to town. I had a KFC, I watched Doctor Strange, I bought a comicbook and came home.

As Athrun mentioned, one day, in the long term, this might be the best result. Clinton represented the old system which needs tearing down. Trump won't be any better- for a lot of people it'll be much much worse- but it will be the shakeup which might see proper agents of change like Corbyn and Sanders put forward instead of more of the same.
That said, that's an easy stance to take as a straight white man living in the country where I was born as the gender I was assigned at birth, with people I can live with, but still. Silver linings.

Trump is a monster and this is all terrible, but phoenixes from ashes and all that. Fingers crossed.

If only Corbyn wasn't doing such a hashingly terrible job of it. I like the man's policies in theory, and I know he's up against a centrist media that can't abide proper change... but Jesus.

Balladeer wrote:

Oh yes.  Did you not realise beforehand?  Unlike Obama's two terms, laws are actually going to get passed this time.

I kind of hadn't noticed, only really started paying attention yesterday when it started looking like a Trump win.

Quote :

straight white male

At the risk of stepping on some toes I actually think this radical push for "social justice" is another factor that allowed Trump to win. See, the push for social "justice" the fight against discrimination, has essentially created a reverse set of discrimination. Now don't get me wrong, I get that there is real discrimination based on race and gender, Trump himself is likely going to be a force that pushes it, but I've observed a lot of behaviour that amounts to "you can't complain because of your gender and race!" Which is the very thing social justice should be ending. And a lot of it has been very hostile too.


What that has done is, essentially, caused "white straight males" to grow increasingly disillusioned, both with the message and the message bearers. Then along comes Trump, a man who shatters those conventions, who speaks his mind regardless of how disgusting it can get (and believe me I find a lot of what he has said to be disgusting).

And so an entire class, sick of being lectured and talked down to, heads out to vote, both to give the middle finger to the establishment, but also to give the finger to those who they perceive as trying to squash their views.


Ah well, I think everyone can agree that the issues of the rich getting richer at the expense of the average persons opportunities and quality of life is going to continue for the short and long term.

I'm not touching that with a pole.

Sadly I don't think Athers is entirely wrong. Trump says something offensive and people see it as 'straight talking', because they think (rightly or wrongly) they're being censored and he isn't.

It is a true thing that is happening but those people can absolutely do one.

Unfortunately telling them to do one just pushes them further that way. Something needs to be done to address them at this point, sure we may think they're entitled moany bellends, but something needs to be done to show that somebody gives a shit about them, otherwise they are going to be easily swayed by the far right...

Don't blame ya Drunka, last time this sort of subject came up we almost came to metaphorical blows.   And I doubt the rest of this post will be much better!



I do firmly believe that one side has created a lot of ill will that didn't help them because of their way of handling things.  It's hard to really describe it without being able to display some examples that would require personal experience, the best example of what I mean is a pendulum.  The more it's forced to swing in one way the harder it'll swing the other.  When one combats something through aggressive means they likely create aggressive retaliation, and sometimes invoke a retaliation they otherwise wouldn't have.  


Right or wrong in their intentions the pendulum has swung the other way as a result of their actions. On the plus side there will come a time when things swing back, the question will be when.




I do stand by the reverse discrimination remark however.  I'd dare any of them to go back in time and tell my younger self on the day he attempted suicide because of the crap he'd been subjected to emotionally that "you're a privileged white male".  To pretend that the maliciousness of humans is reserved for one specific sector of the human race, and by extension the emotional turmoil and absolute despair others can suffer is essentially trivial, that makes my blood actually boil.  


I don't side with them and what Trump stands for makes me sick (in his world there would be no place for some people I hold dear in real life for example, or indeed myself), but I can easily understand where the emotions of those who have had it with the various movements are coming from.



/ragefuel

I can definitely see how people come to feel like that, and I know they can't be ignored. If I were a politician, or a person in a position of power, I'd have to be more tactful and find a way to progress towards a fairer society without alienating the people who have become accustomed to their privilege.

But I'm not, and I won't be any time soon. So fuck 'em.

The other point you make is valid, as well. I don't think anyone can argue that straight white males aren't in a position of privilege, but that doesn't mean their lives are perfect, or their problems are invalid. Everyone, from the poorest starving African to the richest Bel Air socialite, has problems. People are complex creatures, and we can be so cruel to one another for a litany of reasons.

I've been homeless. I've been heartbroken, disenfranchised, depressed and scared. Telling me other people have it worse doesn't make my problems go away, and I'd never use it to tell someone else not to feel how they feel.

When I argue this point, I don't mean to belittle your position, or that of anyone else. Affirmative action is important, but it hurts the people who are already represented.

The truth is, none of this will be solved while we live in a capitalist society with scarcity. When science and effort builds a better world, where nobody has to go hungry or homeless for any reason, and the relatively modern concept of a job can be ignored, we'll have a fairer, more representative world. Until then, we're never going to please everyone, and I think those of us who are better off can probably afford to make a few sacrifices for everyone else.

I'm not going to chime in on the above, but I will say that was an interesting read from both sides and I loved the civility of the discussion. If only the rest of the Internet had our cooler heads...

On a slightly concerning note, I've been reading a bit about the power plays Putin is planning (try saying that sentence ten times fast) and it's... concerning. He's planning to improve relations with the US now that Trump's in power, and Trump's mentioned in the past about withdrawing US troops from mainland Europe, which has now led to Juncker talking about a European army to avoid dependency on the US. It's all a bit World War for my liking, although it may be the horrific pessimist in me viewing it that way.

A quick scan of Twitter and Facebook has revealed a few hate crimes in the US following Mr. Trump's election. I've not read as many as I did post-Brexit, but then I've not looked as hard either.

Maybe this is a very white middle-class selfish and above all non-American viewpoint - actually I'm pretty sure it is.  But the hate crimes aren't even what scares me most.  In fact, what scares me most would probably have happened if any Republican had taken the White House.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html

I've seen some collected tweets about the hate crime and it is bad.
But yeah, that's like the side quests in an RPG and the climate change issue is the giant godbeast that's going to destroy mankind if we don't collect the crystals.

2016 has now taken Ron Glass, this year

Wretched year, it has been.

With the world currently going down the s*****r know what we need?  A real life cute baby Fennekin doing cute things!

Now that is just precious.

They - have massive ears. #incisive

Good dog.