US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

general strikes require pre-existing organization and coordination. They don't happen spontaneously

The general strike in May 1968 in France had no pre-existing organization, in fact the main unions opposed it.

My latina friend who has a lot of kids and a shitty husband and makes the most money in all of her family so she has most of the responsibility was lamenting that she wasn't doing more. And I told her that by all means she needs to do what she needs to do for her family first and foremost. This is a fight I am wholly telling white people, especially the men, that they need to get their shit together.

I understand where pomenitul is coming from (I'm Canadian) but it was presented pretty harshly and I do feel a lot of empathy for my neighbours and ilx posters from the US. It is easy to feel inundated as an outsider with the US politics threads-media coverage and also fear that it will fork up our country (which has a lot of its own problems tbf). Worst I can say about US is it feels like another planet to me, one that hasn't really changed but I hope things improve for you all and dmac otm as well.

Pomenitul you blab a lot of shit on the canadian politics thread too

Go for a walk

^^^^

I don't recall saying anything unusually controversial in the Canadian politics thread, though. Refresh my memory?

It’s a pile-on bro, just put on your helmet and wait for it to end.

I do strongly disagree with the idea that trump is a true democratic representative of ordinary america though.

Fair enough (x2).

it’s not even up for discussion. he lost the popular vote.

I don't recall saying anything unusually controversial in the Canadian politics thread, though

I don't recall this either fwiw.

how about everyone turn their smugness levels down to 1 and back off a little

it’s not even up for discussion. he lost the popular vote.

If the popular vote were the only thing that mattered, Americans may have voted differently (for better or worse). Anyhow, only 40% 'strongly disapprove' of Trump at the moment. Disapproval is higher, of course, but my anger is such right now that I don't think it enough, especially in light of Kavanaugh's imminent confirmation.

If the popular vote were the only thing that mattered, Americans may have voted differently (for better or worse).

Don't people also vote based on their electoral college?

Nearly everyone I encounter everyday in America not only hates trump but is obsessed with hating him.

Maybe this is a “bubble” but at the very least he is bitterly divisive. No sort of bland consensus figure that reflects pre-existing sentiment.

Don't people also vote based on their electoral college?

If the popular vote were the only thing that mattered, Americans may have voted differently (for better or worse).

Anyhow, only 40% 'strongly disapprove' of Trump at the moment. Disapproval is higher, of course

fwiw, this makes him measurably the least popular president in modern history, esp. as these numbers have been consistently awful through his entire presidency, territory that most other presidents have only dipped into at occasional low points, or slid into on the way to defeat in their bids for a second term. it's fair to be disappointed that these numbers are not even higher, and it does say some sad things about the state of the american polity, but it's rather different than him being a measure of what the majority of americans want.

If the popular vote were the only thing that mattered, Americans may have voted differently (for better or worse).

well sure, but that's a hypothetical universe - shouldn't what happened in this universe count for at least some kind of data point?

switching to a popular vote system would certainly change campaign strategy and the types of people that get nominated but i don't know how that would affect the ideological breakdown of the population

that's a hypothetical universe - shouldn't what happened in this universe count for at least some kind of data point?

Oh, it most certainly does. It's just not quite the 'gotcha' moment some assume it to be.

We gotcha though

That’s where you’re wrong

pomenitul is a Canadian dairy farmer and I claim my five

The general strike in May 1968 in France had no pre-existing organization

The level of political organization and awareness in France is an order of magnitude higher in France than in the USA. The fact that strong unions existed is more to the point than whether the leadership opposed the strike. If the rank and file didn't oppose it, the leadership would be impotent to stop them. Also, France had successful general strikes before 1968, which laid the groundwork. The USA has never gone on general strike.

I mean there's no way some idiot racist faux populist shithead trainwreck of a human being could get any popular support in progessive Canada

https://m.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2149824/canadas-trump-doug-ford-populist-brother-crack

veg otm

this is OT but i have to confess that my eyes have been reading it as "pomentiful" for god knows how long. like pomegranate + plentiful.

I like it.

elsewhere on the intertubez, not news but a nice reminder of what's what here in the US of MAGA ~

1. The issue whether Kavanaugh told the truth is crucial here, irrespective of one's opinion of the testimony (or claims) against him. It's pretty clear he did not tell the truth, yet the party of "morality" and "honor" will put him on the court. The quality of the testimony or proof presented by others is totally irrelevant to this question; Kavanaugh's testimony had more holes than swiss cheese, the Mets' infield, and the Giants' offensive line, combined.

2. The defense of Kavanaugh's demeanor and temperament only confirms the overall affirmative action program that still exists for the privileged. Simply stated, a high school dropout who has never held a steady job or had a break, wrongly accused of crime, behaves that way in court and he's held in contempt and doing jail time for behaving exactly the way Kavanaugh did.

But Kavanaugh is "wrongly accused" therefore had the right to hold his questioners in absolute contempt. And accordingly he's going on the Supreme Court where he'll pass on the contumacious behavior of his lessers,

and, of course,

get on with the business of ending "affirmative action."

pomenitul is a Canadian dairy farmer and I claim my five

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Saturday, October 6, 2018 9:30 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's not canadian, but he sure as hell gives off the same smugness you see in a lot of canadians that talk shit about america. the typical canadian knows jack shit about america because they are fed news reports by canadian news agencies that repost/reword news articles from major american news outlets, which are already far disconnected from the regular american

he's not canadian

Um, what do you mean by this?

most of the canadians i know IRL know more about US politics than the average american

^ yep.

xp

i'm talking about canadians who live in canada obviously

me too

well i live in vancouver and the dumb things canadians say about america is endless

fa and karl both have fair points - there's definitely a vibe in Vancouver that are shit doesn't stink vs. the U.S. which is not correct.

Rep. Jim Renacci, the Republican Senate candidate, defends flying on strip club owner's plane to meeting with faith leaders https://t.co/I2jxqtvmZR

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) October 6, 2018

hypothetical time: if it was possible to go back in time to just before blasey ford came forward, and convince her not to do it, would you do it?

positive outcomes of her coming forward:
- serves as an inspiration for many survivors, helped to push a difficult but essential "national conversation", #metoo, etc
- possibility that kavanaugh's influence on the court will be diminished in some ways, at least for a while
- prominently solidified the party identify of republicans as giant fucking assholes

negative outcomes of her coming forward:
- demonstrated clearly to survivors that the people running the country don't give a shit about them, even as they claim to be moved by their stories
- civil war 2 doomsday clock moves closer to midnight as more people realize just how evil republicans actually are
- continued demoralizing evidence that aggressive lying defeats compassionate truth, at least in the short term
- according to some reports/polls, significantly increased republican voter enthusiasm while having a milder effect on democrats (who were already highly "enthused", relatively)

??? outcomes of her coming forward:
- led to several red state democratic senators to vote against kavanaugh who probably would not have otherwise (will this hurt in midterms? or hopefully lead to more support from left-leaning people in those states who typically feel forgotten?)

-----
given all that, would it be better to go back in time and just erase all of that? hopefully it's obvious that i'm not blaming ford. what she did was extremely courageous. the GOP and state media are the villains here. it just seems like the nightmare scenario might be taking place - not only did her coming forward not stop kavanaugh, but it might have led to a number of other things getting "worse". personally, i think that this is all very painful but necessary step toward something that's better - it's necessary to confront our national demons head-on. but in some ways that argument also feels like #accelerationism. i guess it depends on who is actually confronting the demons in this country.

I'd argue that second guessing the consequences instead of just doing the right thing in the moment is what has hamstrung the progessive movement in the US, so yeah I agree with your 2nd-to-last sentence there

i mean, ethically i think i would feel compelled to just apprise ford of what ended up happening and leave the decision up to her. it's her life and her trauma, not mine.

sadly, even i cannot identify my second to last sentence there, lol
xp

oops 3rd to last, before the accelerationism

feel like I'm gonna be trying to wrap my head around "we believe Dr Ford, but we don't think he did it" for all eternity

we believe she was assaulted by bart o'kavanaugh, not the next supreme court justice

Press them on it and it basically has to be some variant of the Whelan doppelgänger theory.

Republicans control the Senate by a 51-49 margin, and Saturday’s vote seems destined to be nearly party-line. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is the only Democrat expected to vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is opposed, but says she will vote “present” as a courtesy to another Republican who will be absent for his daughter’s wedding.

looks like the private plane of physical assaulter gianforte won't be needed to transport montana senator daines to cast the deciding vote for sexual assaulter kavanaugh. great job congress

i would go back in time and plead with democratic leaders not to embrace the stories of the 2nd and 3rd accusers until and unless their stories had been appropriately vetted. i would get on feinstein's case to deny being the source of the leak vigorously the instant someone said the word "leak," not weeks later. i would ask the democratic senators to actually listen to kavanaugh's testimony and call him out in real time on every little thing he got wrong, like those "four" "witnesses" who "denied" ford's allegation, instead of just sitting there. i would go back and ask all pseudo-liberal commentators and op-ed writers not to start their columns with such easy targets as michelle goldberg's "Obviously, I believe Christine Blasey Ford..." like, what happened in 1982 might have been obvious to michelle goldberg, but it wasn't obvious to anybody else. i would ask the democratic strategists to for god's sake think about what they're doing before they do it, and think about things that could be used as memes against them, so that they don't keep handing gift after gift to donald trump. i would ask them to study and devise strategies against their opponent's tactics. i would invent some democratic strategists.