US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4924

On April 12 2025 09:11 Razyda wrote:


Bolded - so farcical...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

"Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/terrorism

"terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective."

On April 12 2025 13:51 Jockmcplop wrote:


The complete destruction of the global capitalist system.

On April 12 2025 14:08 BlackJack wrote:
The fact you’re even asking for the demands before signing up proves you’re just some status-quo genocide-enabling pissant and not a true revolutionary socialist

An estimated 15 to 26 million people participated in Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making it one of the largest protest movements in the country's history. Despite being characterized by opponents as violent, the overwhelming majority of BLM demonstrations have been peaceful.

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones and computers from reciprocal tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.

US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late on Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.

The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China.

The exemptions also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.

On April 12 2025 22:42 Billyboy wrote:

Boom! 3.5 percent sign up, 100% of those go on strike for some length of time, global capitalism falls apart, utopia replaces it. The concept of a plan folks!

On April 13 2025 00:10 Jockmcplop wrote:

I'm kinda serious though.

If you're going to go on a general strike, you might as well aim big.

On April 12 2025 23:52 Timebon3s wrote:
So I guess USA is the first to back down on the trade war.
So China will win this now, right?

On April 12 2025 16:54 Acrofales wrote:

Is it? Here is you:


You seem ready to "push back against any anti-education policies". And you think other professionals could also push back. How do you think you and they should "push back"? Do you think that refusing to work on those anti-education policies is a form of pushing back? Or is that too radical? Is the most pushback you'd support to change your Facebook page (like Kwark is ironically suggesting)? Or should they voice their concern to their superior while collaborating on implementing the, and I repeat, *anti-education* policies these educators are asked to implement? Or is even voicing that concern to your superior too personally risky, and calling for pushback on a gaming forum is about the extent of your rebelliousness?

For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that the pushback against *anti-education* policies that, as an educator, you would personally be willing to commit to is to lay down your work until those policies are reversed.

Now, let's imagine another government employee. Maybe a park ranger who knows nothing about education policy. They are happy to believe you that Linda McMahon is generally incompetent and her policies should be reversed, but don't really know or care too much about specifics. Nor do they feel their own striking would send a very clear message about education policy. However they do feel empowered to push back on fracking in national parks? For instance, by not doing the work they were hired to do, when that work has changed from "work to protect the nature in the park" to "accompany prospectors to find the best places to frac"?

So there are educators ready to strike for education policy and park rangers ready to strike for environmental policy. Now for the private sector. Laying down your job at Meta, Ford, Walmart, your local small store, isn't going to have that same direct impact: you don't want something at your job to change, but you are generally fed up with most of what this government is doing and want general change. Maybe your primary concern is to reverse the tariffs, or you're afraid of being picked up off the street and being deported as an American citizen and without due process. Or you don't want a Nazi-saluting technocrat feeding your tax information into whatever AI he's using to decide whether you are a good citizen? Or you oppose cozying up to Russia and dropping support to Ukraine? Or you support your educators' fight against anti-education policies. But the overarching demand is that you want to hold your government accountable and meet your basic needs, even if everyone has slightly different basic needs, in the same way the park rangers and educators above do.

Now, all of these groups could start organising their individual strikes, which the powers that be would deal with individually and you might not even hear about that strike in the news. Or they could realise that a lot of what they want is generally the same, and band together in a general strike. That strike, when it starts, may not have any specific demands. Occupy didn't. They were just really angry people who lost their livelihood overnight and wanted people to be held accountable and their basic needs met. The specific demands came way later. The same for mass protests in Brazil before the football world cup and Rio Olympics. It all started because the price of public transport was raised in Rio. Do you think people in Porto Alegre were on the streets because of the price of a bus ticket 2000km away? The Arab spring started over some Tunisian street vendor setting himself on fire in response to the government confiscating his stuff.

Now, do I personally believe signing up in advance to https://generalstrikeus.com/ , so that when there's 3m signaturories there, they can start shaping the specific demands, is the way to organize this kind of mass protest? No. I think it's a bit ridiculous. I support it, and wish it the best, but that isn't the way any protests ever have started. But the general sentiment to be ready to go out on the streets in support of the people when something somewhere sparks enough outrage for a local protest is good. I personally would've thought the increasingly alarming price of eggs would be a good thing to latch onto and start protesting. Or the deportation of an innocent man to an El Salvador jail. Or any of a large number of evil things the government has demonstrably done, which would each have been plenty to send most Europeans out into the street. But then again, we haven't forgotten how to strike and protest for what we want from our governments. Even if that something isn't always too clearly defined from the start (just look at the gilettes jaunes). So maybe the way it works in the US is through a change.org style petition, until there's a critical mass. I don't know. But I know ridiculing that support is definitely the opposite of what I'd be doing as an American.

On April 13 2025 02:15 Broetchenholer wrote:
Ahahaha, tariffs are so great, we want them so much. Wait, a smartphone now costs what?!?! Tariffs need to be removed, art of the deal. Has nobody explained trump what other goods are produced in China?

On April 13 2025 05:35 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
Normally when the economy goes down (and particularly the stock market) bond yields go down. It's logical.

This time, US bond yields go up. Japan and China are quietly ditching US bonds. As in, they aren't trying to crash them they are getting out.
European allies (Germany in particular) is getting twitchy about storing their gold reserves in New York.

I heard a stat (don't know if it's true) that 98% of the countries that reach a government debt/gdp ratio of 130% default.

It's mainly about trust in the US in this point but it's insane that Trump has been in office for a few months and the rest of the world is now unsure if the US is going to default on their debt.

All the man had to do was tariff China and do some select strategic tariffs on other countries, don't do all of the tax cuts (brings down stock markets, lower stock yields, higher revenue) and do the cuts to federal government. With low employment, lowering inflation and general positive outlook; if Trump had reversed the deficit like Clinton the economic success would have been huge.

And here we are.

On April 13 2025 00:53 GreenHorizons wrote:


Think this is an excellent post that doesn't deserve to be ignored.

That said, I'd like to try something different from what usually happens. Instead of shitting on each others ideas/posts destructively, let's try to constructively build something.

This question/conversation is open to anyone that wants to stop the Trump administration's worst actions. I implore all of those people to put their personal animosities aside and try. Let's start with 1 "must have", 1 "wants", and 1 "deal breaker no" (you can do as many as you'd like but they should probably be mostly "wants" by proportion)

What would a General Strike you would support demand? I'll start:

Must Have: The return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia

Want: The protection of Mahmoud Khalil's rights.

Deal Breaker No: More police funding/cop cities

Now you (EDIT: The 'you' here is DPB since that might not have been clear) (or anyone else that wants to stop Trump's worst actions) go

As of 2020, over half of the members of Congress were millionaires and the median net worth of members was approximately $1 million.