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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On January 04 2022 21:46 Silvanel wrote:
I had somewhat similar thoughts. I first saw the MTG (it's written in capitals, so obviously that is the first thing my eyes lay on) and thought "How on earth did USMT ended up talking about Magic?", must be interesting. Then I read the rest of the sentence, and it was clear, who is it about.
@Zambrah he is clearly a corporate shill in disguise.
Y'know, Ive been thinking what Magic archetypes famous politicians would play, and a gruesome realization dawned on me.
Joe Manchin would be counters.dec
and I like to play counters.dec...
I like to play UB Faeries/Blue tempo though, Joe Manchin strikes me as an Azorius control player, the kind that exists to make games take forever and draw on time.
Bernie would probably play Selesnya, Trump would play Mardu tokens. I think Biden would play an Orzhov deck.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and QAnon GOP people definitely out there playing some sort of awful Jund, Mardu, or Rakdos sacrifice decks.
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On January 04 2022 13:37 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +If different people aren't able to elect different representatives, how do you explain Texas when compared to Oregon? How is Bernie a senator? I think you and Zambrah are fundamentally viewing the problem incorrectly because you try to frame it as something that can't be fixed when it totally can. In every great revolution in history, the deciding factor was widespread willingness to participate and to properly frame what ideas were good and what ideas were bad. No, I'm well aware that electoral politics can be fixed, but I also can kill everyone I come into contact with with a single punch to the head, but the odds of that are extremely unlikely, not least because people aren't just going to let me come up to them and punch them in the head. My problem with electoral politics being framed as so important is, 1. the scale of time on which is operates is huge, and huge time scale means a lot of things, but in the case of the US it means huge time for fascists to get in power, lots of continued suffering and hardship, lots of time for the billionaires and the politicians, etc. to develop, create, and deploy capitalist propaganda and framing devices. 2. the system itself is set up to be so easily abused and misused by bad actors that reforming it takes a colossal stroke of luck or an absurdly long time frame. AOC proved you can win against an incumbent... when an incumbent basically tells their constituency that they don't care about them, like literally. In the mean time lots of other challenges have failed because challenging the Democrats is very very hard, their one area of real aptitude is keeping their party basically on lock down for their conservative faction. Show nested quote +It isn't some weird form of victim blaming to point out we have a profound issue with capitalism-fueled-propaganda destroying cultures and communities. Framing the issue correctly is the only way to resolve it. Until you can change people's minds, this is just another Twitter rant. My issue here is that we do have a capitalism-fueled-propaganda machine ruining shit and brainwashing people into supporting ruining shit, but I dont blame the brainwashed, I blame the propagandists. I target blame towards the people with power and encourage others to do the same, the people who we need to actually beat the wealthy and connected are the people who most often get shit on, the cletuses and what have you. Time spent belittling working class people is better spent harassing Joe Manchin, and every Senator from Delaware, and Kristen Sinema, etc. Show nested quote +May I ask how much time you have spent in neolib/conservative communities that identify with capitalism as a form of pride? I really think that echo chambers have made you not understand just how many people are deeply proud of capitalism and how widespread those beliefs are. It is a daunting, awful reality. Dude, I live in Virginia. Neolibs up north, conservatives down south. I am deeply aware of how casually racist people here are, Im deeply aware of how deep the propaganda penetrates, I work with people who run the spectrum of "dont care just trying to get by dont have energy for anything else," through full on "I hate Joe Biden and love Trump and also black people are reaaaaal shifty, but like, I dont mean that in a racist way haha." Try walking up to these types and going, "man, those fuckin' cletuses that vote Trump, really ruining our country right? We should kick them out and let them all just live in Nebraska or something so our country can move forward!" What I do is I say, "yeah I dont like Joe Biden either, all politicians really, they really screw the working class, we really gotta rally against the politicians and Bezos' of the world." At this point theres the potential for an anti-socialism comment, from here I just tell them socialism just means workers own the company, that the billions their company generates wouldnt all just go to the CEO, that they'd get a real cut of those profits, and after all, they work hard, why shouldnt their hard work be rewarded with a cut of the profits they help generate? And they're usually fairly amenable to that. They mostly get behind the sentiment of statement two, obviously its not that easy to completely remove them from their capitalism-best-thing mindset, but its better than deriding them for their crappy beliefs.
I think we were talking past each other. I'm not blaming those people, I am just pointing out there is no path to the world being better without their minds being changed. Nothing will change until they start voting for different people. I am not saying outreach to these communities should be "you're all idiots", I am just pointing out that in order to win elections and expand senate margins, more people need to be voting for progressives, because right now, not enough are.
The reason I compared Oregon and Texas is to show that Oregon's senators would not be elected in Texas. It wouldn't be because of the democrat establishment, it would be because Texas doesn't want the policies Oregon's senators push for. We need more voters to agree with more progressive positions. Whatever form of outreach that takes, full speed ahead.
I am speaking against the idea that if only the establishment didn't suppress folks, we'd be a socialist paradise. I am not saying you are implying that. Your experience in Virginia matches my experiences. There's a tonnnnn of people in our country who deeply love capitalism.
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On January 04 2022 18:43 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2022 09:41 WombaT wrote:
I wonder if MTG is an absolute calculating charlatan or an absolute dumbass/lunatic/both
Jaysus Can we use anything else but MTG to refer to her? Greene maybe? MTG always gets me exceedingly confused, because it always means Magic The Gathering first to me.
The ogress?
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On January 05 2022 02:45 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2022 13:37 Zambrah wrote:If different people aren't able to elect different representatives, how do you explain Texas when compared to Oregon? How is Bernie a senator? I think you and Zambrah are fundamentally viewing the problem incorrectly because you try to frame it as something that can't be fixed when it totally can. In every great revolution in history, the deciding factor was widespread willingness to participate and to properly frame what ideas were good and what ideas were bad. No, I'm well aware that electoral politics can be fixed, but I also can kill everyone I come into contact with with a single punch to the head, but the odds of that are extremely unlikely, not least because people aren't just going to let me come up to them and punch them in the head. My problem with electoral politics being framed as so important is, 1. the scale of time on which is operates is huge, and huge time scale means a lot of things, but in the case of the US it means huge time for fascists to get in power, lots of continued suffering and hardship, lots of time for the billionaires and the politicians, etc. to develop, create, and deploy capitalist propaganda and framing devices. 2. the system itself is set up to be so easily abused and misused by bad actors that reforming it takes a colossal stroke of luck or an absurdly long time frame. AOC proved you can win against an incumbent... when an incumbent basically tells their constituency that they don't care about them, like literally. In the mean time lots of other challenges have failed because challenging the Democrats is very very hard, their one area of real aptitude is keeping their party basically on lock down for their conservative faction. It isn't some weird form of victim blaming to point out we have a profound issue with capitalism-fueled-propaganda destroying cultures and communities. Framing the issue correctly is the only way to resolve it. Until you can change people's minds, this is just another Twitter rant. My issue here is that we do have a capitalism-fueled-propaganda machine ruining shit and brainwashing people into supporting ruining shit, but I dont blame the brainwashed, I blame the propagandists. I target blame towards the people with power and encourage others to do the same, the people who we need to actually beat the wealthy and connected are the people who most often get shit on, the cletuses and what have you. Time spent belittling working class people is better spent harassing Joe Manchin, and every Senator from Delaware, and Kristen Sinema, etc. May I ask how much time you have spent in neolib/conservative communities that identify with capitalism as a form of pride? I really think that echo chambers have made you not understand just how many people are deeply proud of capitalism and how widespread those beliefs are. It is a daunting, awful reality. Dude, I live in Virginia. Neolibs up north, conservatives down south. I am deeply aware of how casually racist people here are, Im deeply aware of how deep the propaganda penetrates, I work with people who run the spectrum of "dont care just trying to get by dont have energy for anything else," through full on "I hate Joe Biden and love Trump and also black people are reaaaaal shifty, but like, I dont mean that in a racist way haha." Try walking up to these types and going, "man, those fuckin' cletuses that vote Trump, really ruining our country right? We should kick them out and let them all just live in Nebraska or something so our country can move forward!" What I do is I say, "yeah I dont like Joe Biden either, all politicians really, they really screw the working class, we really gotta rally against the politicians and Bezos' of the world." At this point theres the potential for an anti-socialism comment, from here I just tell them socialism just means workers own the company, that the billions their company generates wouldnt all just go to the CEO, that they'd get a real cut of those profits, and after all, they work hard, why shouldnt their hard work be rewarded with a cut of the profits they help generate? And they're usually fairly amenable to that. They mostly get behind the sentiment of statement two, obviously its not that easy to completely remove them from their capitalism-best-thing mindset, but its better than deriding them for their crappy beliefs. I think we were talking past each other. I'm not blaming those people, I am just pointing out there is no path to the world being better without their minds being changed. Nothing will change until they start voting for different people. I am not saying outreach to these communities should be "you're all idiots", I am just pointing out that in order to win elections and expand senate margins, more people need to be voting for progressives, because right now, not enough are. The reason I compared Oregon and Texas is to show that Oregon's senators would not be elected in Texas. It wouldn't be because of the democrat establishment, it would be because Texas doesn't want the policies Oregon's senators push for. We need more voters to agree with more progressive positions. Whatever form of outreach that takes, full speed ahead. I am speaking against the idea that if only the establishment didn't suppress folks, we'd be a socialist paradise. I am not saying you are implying that. Your experience in Virginia matches my experiences. There's a tonnnnn of people in our country who deeply love capitalism.
Great post.
Talking about the system and negative outcomes doesnt really solve anything. Other than a violent overthrow, which no one except the crazies or psychopaths is actually advocating for, the only way to improve our situation is to overcome and win the battle of ideas and hearts&minds.
What sucks is that we have to fight and overcome a huge amount of inertia that keeps things the way they are. Its harder to change course than stay on this same path but thats just an unfortunate reality we have to deal with in our democracy/republic.
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On January 05 2022 08:00 plasmidghost wrote:
My mom tested positive for Covid yesterday, still very much symptomatic. Since it had been five days from her initial positive test, her work followed the CDC guidance and made her go into her office. All of her coworkers were made to be there too, and she was told to not tell them. The GOP and the Democrats have abandoned us. There is no amount of electoral politics and voting that will get us out of this capitalistic nightmare. It's not surprising that the Biden administration's CDC disregarded actual science and decided that our lives were worth less than the profits of billionaires and corporations. We could very well have the entire population of the US catch Covid and have at least 15% become permanently disabled by long Covid. It doesn't matter which party is in charge, we're all going to die because of their greed.
This is really sad. This whole 5 days thing is a train wreck. It is especially bad because, as JimmiC points out, it is being incorrectly cited. Even cited properly, it is terrible. But for your mom to still have symptoms? Total dumpster fire. Her whole job is gonna get infected. What kind of work does she do?
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Yeah, not to detract from the fact that the 5 days guideline came at about the worst possible time, as the most infectious variant ever hits critical mass, but also nobody flat out should be making people go into the office 5 days after a positive test when they're still symptomatic. Incubation period is up to 2 weeks, but the duration of one's symptoms can be even longer than that. It's absolutely asinine to drag suffering people who will act as infection vectors back into the office.
"For muh productivity" gets people killed all the time. I hope your mom makes it through ok.
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On January 05 2022 08:47 NewSunshine wrote:
Yeah, not to detract from the fact that the 5 days guideline came at about the worst possible time, as the most infectious variant ever hits critical mass, but also nobody flat out should be making people go into the office 5 days after a positive test when they're still symptomatic. Incubation period is up to 2 weeks, but the duration of one's symptoms can be even longer than that. It's absolutely asinine to drag suffering people who will act as infection vectors back into the office.
"For muh productivity" gets people killed all the time. I hope your mom makes it through ok.
It is plain and simply capitalism run amuck. Capitalism can't provide and it also can't support itself. A core quality of capitalism is that it requires government oversight in order to not eat itself. This company will suffer from its own foolishness. More people will get sick and it will cause an even greater loss of productivity. It is flat out wrong and stupid.
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Northern Ireland27355 Posts
I’m not particularly happy myself, having only fucking found out today that 5 of my coworkers came down with Covid over Christmas. I don’t work in an office it’s retail and not distanced, indeed one of the people I get on pretty well with so we were working side by side for 3/4 shifts in a row.
I usually work up to Christmas Eve and visit family for a week, so I’m only back now and finding this out.
Great yeah just don’t tell me this, give me any kind of heads up whatsoever.
Anecdotally, Omicron is absolutely killing us at the minute, so it’s possible that my direct boss was off with Covid and a ball was dropped through disorganisation, but still.
We’re getting fucking slammed. Even before vaccines came in I was (pleasantly) surprised at really how few Covid cases there were around me, considering packed supermarket, at the time mask uptake was pretty bad, people didn’t distance.
We had something like 100 Covid cases and isolations over the Christmas week/Jan period. Out of a workforce of about 400 (lot of part timers)
Not to suck the corporate teat (I am no fan) but, depends how long this spike continues, that really isn’t sustainable.
We’re big enough to suck it up being a behemoth, if those kind of proportions are occurring in smaller businesses across the land, without some kind of governmental assistance they’re either fucked, or they’re going to cut corners and guilt/leverage workers into coming in when it’s an awful idea.
And of course workers, without some kind of government assistance to enable them to isolate without risking not being able to pay the bills, will be forced into infecting other people needlessly.
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I think we were talking past each other. I'm not blaming those people, I am just pointing out there is no path to the world being better without their minds being changed. Nothing will change until they start voting for different people. I am not saying outreach to these communities should be "you're all idiots", I am just pointing out that in order to win elections and expand senate margins, more people need to be voting for progressives, because right now, not enough are.
I think this is where the principle disagreement comes from, I don't think that things will change meaningfully via voting in the US, we require some form of direct action like striking, or rioting, or harassing politicians anywhere they may go to really illustrate that we as a populace are not docile. Voting is an avenue for change, but its too slow and too abusable in the US to be of any serious help right now, imo.
The reason I compared Oregon and Texas is to show that Oregon's senators would not be elected in Texas. It wouldn't be because of the democrat establishment, it would be because Texas doesn't want the policies Oregon's senators push for. We need more voters to agree with more progressive positions. Whatever form of outreach that takes, full speed ahead .
I also kind of disagree here, I think its perfectly possible for a progressive type to win deep red states because most Americans want things like Universal Healthcare and to fuck over billionaires. Its immensely difficult for lots of reasons, but I dont think the reasons are to do with policy, I think its more to do with trying to run as a Democrat, and then money. A progressive running as a Republican could probably do really, really well in a state like Missouri or what have you if they had the funds to effectively campaign.
I am speaking against the idea that if only the establishment didn't suppress folks, we'd be a socialist paradise. I am not saying you are implying that. Your experience in Virginia matches my experiences. There's a tonnnnn of people in our country who deeply love capitalism.
If the establishment didnt propagandize the populace so hard we probably would be some sort of western European grade country with good wages and a functioning healthcare system and no student loan crisis, etc.
The establishment doesn't adequately reflect what people want, people don't vote for candidates because they like their policy, they vote for them because of name recognition and a colored D or R next to their name. Thats why I dont think its fair to focus on the voters as being at fault in the state of our political system, they're overall too ignorant and overworked to understand nuanced differences between candidates or even when primaries are and too exhausted to find it worthwhile to get up early or stay up late after work to go vote in whats basically considered a meaningless secondary election featuring a bunch of people who they have no idea about.
I think we're more likely to get more progressives elected if they ran as more antagonistic towards our current governmental system and focused on that, be the progressive tea party, dont play nice with Nancy Pelosi, or Mitch McConnell, be aggressive, be disruptive, lay bare the fuckery that happens in Congress, turn the current divisiveness between parties into divisiveness between elites and the populace.
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Not sure if anyone posted this, but apparently this is an actual ad that played / will play on Fox News
+ Show Spoiler +
Honestly pretty cool if true, grabbed it from Reddit. I like it, no idea who RAP is.
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I'm convinced that had the rioters reached congressmen and murdered a few, the gop's response would be the same as it is now. Downplaying, deflection, excuses. It's just so pathetic.
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Happy Insurrection anniversary day, I look forward to the compilations of all of the consequences experienced by the people who assaulted the US Capitol building and those who incited them into a frenzy that led to them assaulting the US Capitol building!
I'm sure there were myriad serious consequences for all involved.
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The efforts to try to frame the Jan 6 events as "a day that will live in infamy" seem misguided and definitively ineffective. The reality is that, although you will probably get a small majority that says that the insurrection attempts were wrong, there are a lot of people who are least partially sympathetic to the goals or at least the intent of the attempt. And many more still who see it as an unfortunate event but not one anywhere near worthy of the condemnation that it gets from Democrat leadership. The mediocre-at-best rule of Biden over the past year doesn't help draw sympathy for that position either. I see the attempt to elicit outrage at Jan 6 to be a misguided effort; certainly seems unsuccessful.
Take a look at the comments in something like this video to see what people actually think about this kind of outrage farming. A prime example of the kind of video YouTube didn't want dislikes to be shown on (has about 60% dislike if anyone is curious).
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Jan 6th will live in infamy. There may be a solid amount today who dont see it as a big thing but as the years go by that will change and people will see it for what it was. Conservatives will lose the war on history. I am confident about that.
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It is far more likely to be remembered a few decades from now as little more than a footnote of history, significantly less important than the pandemic and even the George Floyd protests. Unless of course there's a chain of events in the future that make it apparent that this wasn't a one-off but more so the start of something bigger and more successful.
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On January 07 2022 11:26 Sadist wrote:
Jan 6th will live in infamy. There may be a solid amount today who dont see it as a big thing but as the years go by that will change and people will see it for what it was. Conservatives will lose the war on history. I am confident about that.
To be clear, social conservatives have yet to win a single war on history. Every single socially conservative perspective of the last 200 years is deeply frowned on. They lose *every* time.
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EPT
