Jump to content

General US Politics


Ansem

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Could cut like a single percent off the military budget. Not being in Afghanistan anymore is a decent excuse as ever. The whole radically against taxation yet radically pro military is one of the most baffling double thinks of the USA's republican party. Where do they think the army is getting the money to pay for that massive military?

It's not double think. It's about priority and that where they believe taxation should be used for. You can say, they believe government should spend their budget to maintain the 'in-groups' power, and not helping the 'out-group' (the out-group being whoever they oppose at the time).

Money used on military might; free gold stars. Money used on  social services; major red flags.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 14.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

9 hours ago, Clear World said:

It's not double think. It's about priority and that where they believe taxation should be used for. You can say, they believe government should spend their budget to maintain the 'in-groups' power, and not helping the 'out-group' (the out-group being whoever they oppose at the time).

Money used on military might; free gold stars. Money used on  social services; major red flags.

 

It would be if that's the way taxes are viewed, that there's nothing wrong with taxation, it's the application that matters. But the Republican base vocally reject taxes as a very concept, saying things like taxation is theft. Leaving military funding as an ignored point entirely despite it being one of the largest receiver of taxes. Where taxes should go is absolutely a conversation worth having, and depending on a nation's circumstances, the military can be a valid place for it, but that's not how the topic is ever framed. It's "Military fuck yeah" and "taxes fuck no", rather than "military fuck yeah" and "taxes fuck yeah, provided they're used in a responsible and necessary manner".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

Could cut like a single percent off the military budget. Not being in Afghanistan anymore is a decent excuse as ever. 

Watch what happens next. Now that the Afghanistan gravy train has run dry and "our very way of life depends on us fighting the existential threat of radical Islam" doesn't pack the same rhetorical punch it use to in the immediate aftermath of 9/11...

The nationalist right and the war industry is gonna REALLY start dialing up the rhetoric on China.

...all the usual demagogue tricks to bring the war rhetoric up to a fever pitch...

Expanding Chinese power is the single greatest threat to Western Civilization today.
We will lose our wealth and our freedoms and our democracy if we don't confront China.
We must be prepared to use force to protect western democracy against China. 
We cannot show any weakness against China. 
We must have a large naval presence in the South Pacific to show ((strength)) against China. 

__

You can already see it starting now.

COVID gave them the perfect boiling point for anti-Chinese sentiment that was already simmering. 

They're gonna try to leverage that into the next forever war. 

Or at the very least the next reason why military spending needs to be cannibalizing more and more and more of the budget every year. 

There's always another boogeyman for the war ensemble. It never ends. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Watch what happens next. Now that the Afghanistan gravy train has run dry and "our very way of life depends on us fighting the existential threat of radical Islam" doesn't pack the same rhetorical punch it use to in the immediate aftermath of 9/11...

The nationalist right and the war industry is gonna REALLY start dialing up the rhetoric on China.

...all the usual demagogue tricks to bring the war rhetoric up to a fever pitch...

Expanding Chinese power is the single greatest threat to Western Civilization today.
We will lose our wealth and our freedoms and our democracy if we don't confront China.
We must be prepared to use force to protect western democracy against China. 
We cannot show any weakness against China. 
We must have a large naval presence in the South Pacific to show ((strength)) against China. 

__

You can already see it starting now.

COVID gave them the perfect boiling point for anti-Chinese sentiment that was already simmering. 

They're gonna try to leverage that into the next forever war. 

Or at the very least the next reason why military spending needs to be cannibalizing more and more and more of the budget every year. 

There's always another nationalist boogeyman. It never ends. 

Not America, but this video touches on the whole issue and I find it rather hilarious.

I can at the very least be optimistic than the fact that damn near everything in the USA is made in China means any real war is logistically impossible (China is the US's biggest trading partner too). And China doesn't really do the whole proxy nation thing so proxy wars aren't all that likely either. The closest would be the African states they're developing, though if the US started fighting proxy wars with China there then it wouldn't even make the news, because Africa. The South China Sea is definitely a potential hot area, but I don't think China or the US are quite stupid enough to let something spiral out of control there (then again people probably said that about the Balkans too).

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

 The South China Sea is definitely a potential hot area, but I don't think China or the US are quite stupid enough to let something spiral out of control there 

I'd be inclined to agree, except there doesn't really seem to be any limit to American stupidity right now. Like we literally have reactionaries OD'ing on horse dewormer, in the alternative to accepting that modern medicine is real and public health advisories aren't an elaborate conspiracy.  

And if America were dumb enough to initiate armed conflict in China's own backyard.

(1) They'd respond just as a point of setting boundaries against a hostile foreign power and flexing their own sphere of influence. They'd have to.  (briefly imagine what Americas response would be if a fleet of Chinese Warships pulled up in the Caribbean, declared the U.S. Virgin Islands independent from the United States of America + under Chinese Protection, and set up an area-denial perimeter around St. John)  

(2) With the state America is in right now and our ongoing political dysfunction + national decline. China has to think they're winning that fight.  


 

Edited by Shoblongoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, Excellen Browning said:

All of America's weapons and their components are made in merica or allied countries, wth are you talking about.

There weapons maybe, but I'm talking tables, clothes, packets, screens and probably even a tonne of screws and stuff used in said weapons. And the same is true in reverse too, the USA is China's biggest trading partner too. That's what happens when you globalize things, everything gets interconnected. This provides risk for the pandemic we're seeing right now, but it does reduce risk when it comes to direct armed conflict, because going to war with someone who is making everything you own is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unsurprisingly, they're already calling the California Recall Election is rigged:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/right-wing-voter-fraud-claims-california-governor-recall

Why they couldn't learn from Trump's idiocy is anyone's guess.

 

But anyways, some people are confused as to why jobseekers aren't looking for jobs, anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

Why they couldn't learn from Trump's idiocy is anyone's guess.

Some do but they're grifters and they get money out of it while others do not because they choose to reject reality and find comfort in the inklings of "truth" found in their victim mentality.

The American right has been on a race to the bottom for a while now.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Armchair General said:

But anyways, some people are confused as to why jobseekers aren't looking for jobs, anymore.

Meanwhile, several unemployed workers in Texas — where Governor Greg Abbott cut off pandemic jobless aid on June 26 — told CBS MoneyWatch that the early end to the support made their lives more financially precarious without helping them secure work. 

"When [unemployment benefits] ended early we basically lost everything we owned," said Kamilla Mills, 59, of Denison, Texas, who sold signs for big corporate events and school events before the pandemic — a business that has dried up during the crisis. She lost her home, and is now living in a motel, she said.

Mills job search has produced customer-service openings that pay about $10 an hour, which she says isn't enough to cover living expenses like rent, which has increased considerably in her region since the start of the pandemic. And she said it's difficult to even score an interview, which she puts down to a glut of potential hires flooding the market with their resumes. 

Before the pandemic, she added, "I had a comfortable living." Now, asked to describe her financial status, she answered: "One step away from being homeless."

 

tl;dr they're looking for jobs, just not finding ones that pay the bills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

Meanwhile, several unemployed workers in Texas — where Governor Greg Abbott cut off pandemic jobless aid on June 26 — told CBS MoneyWatch that the early end to the support made their lives more financially precarious without helping them secure work. 

I also heard that Abbot is trying to abolish water breaks for construction workers in the hot Texan summer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/8/2021 at 5:06 PM, Armchair General said:

Why they couldn't learn from Trump's idiocy is anyone's guess..

They did.

They learned there's a political appetite for for it + they can get away with it.

Edited by Shoblongoo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly, it's going to be a continuing trend. More and more Republicans will start crying fraud the more elections they lose. As shown with Elder, even before results start pouring in.

Ultimately, this is more done to rile up their voter base. Most of these things aren't done in the hope of actually overturning results. It's to convince them the system has a problem, in order to justify any of their so called "fixes", so that even as the minority party and still in decline in terms of numbers they can still win without having to actually change their stances.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Crysta said:

Feeling a lot better now than I did 2+ weeks ago

Glad you're feeling better! I hope whatever you were going through wasn't too bad.

I noticed that the percentages went up for both Reps and Dems, although Dems had the more noticeable increase. Independent voting was the one that went down; I can more or less gather why, but I'm still curious about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As dire as the consequences of this election are, it's refreshing to remind yourself that the person that gets the most votes wins. Nobody's going to stop and say "okay, but how do the Dakotas feel about Newsom...? And Iowa?" It's only the part 2 of the recall that's totally unfair. Since democratic candidates cannot enter into the race without directly sabotaging their incumbent. Seriously, this recall process needs to be looked over one of these days. At the very least, the recall election, and election of a new governor should be two separate elections.

Suffice to say I'm not worried. And Elder should stick to his day job as a podcast host or whatever he is. The first time I heard his voice was in a TV ad where the first words out of his mouth were "do I LOOK racist to you?" and then it hard cuts to his unrelated rant about Newsom. And it's not the first time I've seen a black conservative use that folksy preface to explain that systemic racism is a myth. During one of the 2020 presidential debates, the official GOP post-debate response speech had a guy with the same schtick. That probably plays well here in California. We're prideful of our multiple cultures, and like any Liberal can be self conscious about trying to be "one of the good ones" wherever possible. But how about the rest of the country? Is there always a baseline of people who care enough about the black experience to fall for such tokenism?

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And it has begun. Initial results show 61%-39% favoring not recalling, but as always, this isn't definite. Will be changing as more votes get counted.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...