US Politics, January 2022 — a pro-God, pro-family, pro-bitcoin state

Where’s the congressional Trump subpoenas?

Ooh, a subpoena, I'm so scared

what about the ones who are doing it with old bits of strategising

I have no idea who they are and what they're doing. enlighten me.

Yeah no one could have ever predicted a new strain after there had already been more then one strain. How about not abandoning the testing program they were talked about setting up? Contacts tracing? What about being on the same page as your CDC? Do you really think they are doing the best job possible when this is what they fucking ran on?

So like half the country won’t get vaxxed but there is a whole other half trying to do the right things and they don’t have all the tools that should be available.

Had they paid people to get vaccinated, we'd be in a much better position.

As you may recall, quite a few governors pursued this policy last June and July, using federal funds that were provided by a relief bill passed by the Dem Congress. They all abandoned the policy when it became clear that whatever marginal increase in vaccination rates it inspired had been exhausted.

But maybe you were thinking about bigger sums than were already tried. Let's make it $5K per each newly vaxxed holdout. Only problem is that if you want to increase the bounty to that level, first you'd need Congressional approval, including our dear friends Manchin & Sinema, or else you need republicans breaking ranks.

Next you'd have to deal with the massive political fallout among tens of millions of the already vaccinated, angry that the anti-vaxxer jackasses all raked in a huge pile of loot as a reward for being anti-social jackasses while they were never paid a dime. If you try to deal with that by giving everyone $5k, see problem number one, above.

lol @ preemptively blaming Manchin for failure to enact policy that Biden has never suggested and has no interest in pursuing. Sure is convenient to have a fall guy like that, huh?

The detour into 'if you cancel student debt then people who've paid their student loans off will be mad'-land is some top shelf shelf aimlessing tho.

best thing would have been to brand the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines the “MAGA” and the “America is Great Because America is Good”. leave it to the two pharmas to decide which will be which. then pay Trump $$$ to pump the MAGA vax on Fox and at rallies, even let him claim he personally oversaw its development in the lab.

we would have been at 90% by June

as you read this, ask yourself, what should joe biden have done differently

The setbacks for Biden last week came from every direction. Inflation last year hit a 40-year high. The Supreme Court blocked his vaccine-or-test mandate for employees of large companies while upholding the mandate for health-care workers. He struggled to defend against criticism that his administration had no plan to make coronavirus testing easily available and that it was providing confusing guidance about dealing with the omicron variant. Talks with the Russians aimed at avoiding war in Ukraine broke off with no apparent progress.

And then there was the issue of voting rights.

The president traveled to Atlanta to pump for two pieces of long-stalled voting legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Instead of being welcomed by allies, he found voting rights activists in Georgia choosing not to show up. Their absence was embarrassing for the White House while unhelpfully highlighting the lack of a strategy to enact either bill.

Biden’s speech in Georgia was rhetorically red-hot, as when he said, “Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

A week earlier, Biden had won praise for a tough speech on the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol in which he repeatedly called out Trump, though not by name, and issued a vigorous defense of democracy under threat.

The Georgia speech prompted a far different reaction. Republicans panned it, and while many Democrats praised Biden for the forcefulness, even though some of them suggested he had gone too far with his words. The speech was meant as a rallying cry for the Democratic base, demonstrating Biden’s passion on the issue. As a piece of rhetorical persuasion, it appeared to have the opposite effect by hardening the opposition.

On Thursday, Biden met with Senate Democrats, having called for a change in the filibuster rules to help ease passage of the legislation. Before he even arrived, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) delivered a speech on the Senate floor outlining again her firm opposition to changing the rules, a position she shares with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

Her speech erased any doubt about the fate of the legislation. Leaving the meeting with the senators, Biden told reporters: “I hope we can get this done. The honest to God answer is, I don’t know whether we can get this done.” The Senate will vote next week with the outcome seemingly preordained.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sundaytakebidenfirstyear-presidency/2022/01/15/57c5fbfe-7610-11ec-bc13-18891499c514_story.html

Biden and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Firstly, to Aimless and everyone else asking what could be done: there's plenty that could be done, but politicians don't give a flying fuck about citizens (much less undocumented people) of this country, only about growth growth growth growth growth and fattening donor wallets, not to mention their own.

In any reasonable country with any sort of moral compass, people would be getting paid to stay home, and anyone working in *Actually* essential industries would be getting triple pay AND hazard pay, tests would be available everywhere all the time, and so on and on and on.

The US government has the money to do this, just not the will.

Founded on enslavement and death, and will probably end that way too, despite what leftists have been warning and suggesting for years.

“what we lack right now in American society and culture is any sense of order, and when we’re missing order, people get nervous.”

This feeling in my view predates the pandemic somewhat but feels right. There’s a very real sense of anarchy.

― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Saturday, January 15, 2022 6:11 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anarchy is good, actually, and what you are describing is disorder. They're not the same. Anarchists love sitting through boring meetings, reading obscure theorists, smashing bank windows, and beating up fascists.

Disorder is not surprising when the social contract has been irrevocably broken, and anyone with any sense understands that this is so. There is no collective, there is no community, and there is no "us" or "we" the people, and *that isn't the fault of the people, because they're simply responding to conditions outside of their control.*

I wish this weren't so, but it's what I see when I walk anywhere in my city, and it's what I hear from friends elsewhere, too.

there's plenty that could be done, but politicians don't give a flying fuck about citizens

so what you're saying here is that what you believe "could be done" first entails changing the entire system and everyone who runs it. ok. but that "could be" seems rather remote in the time scale required to do much about a virus that is infecting 700,000 people a day.

You're literally caping for a government that has said to its citizens "get back to work or die, you motherfucking unwashed plebes"

Sure is convenient to have a fall guy like that, huh?

I think that if you examined your own posts over the past year that you are quite willing to designate your own convenient fall guy and assign blame just as readily. my fall guy at least has the attribute of having publically and proudly obstructed what your fall guy has proposed.

anarchy is not good, actually

Seriously, though, Aimless, what I cannot comprehend is how after nearly two years, it seems like not much has changed. Placing the onus of that on Sinema or Manchin or Biden or any number of republicans or anti-vaxxers or whatever is convenient scapegoating for what is, at its core, *a massive failure of the US government to educate, protect, and care for its citizens*. Saying, "well that's not the way the system works" doesn't change the absolute immensity of the US government's failure.

anarchy is not good, actually

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, January 15, 2022 10:35 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Whatever, lib

Well if is really their best efforts than as we say “good luck USA”

Yes, I believe most of us would do much worse.

― Van Horn Street, Sunday, January 16, 2022 12:15 AM (four hours ago)

worse than this guy?

I have no idea who they are and what they're doing. enlighten me.

just checking - you believe that no countries or territories are handling their pandemic response better than the US, or that none of them are handling it differently?

You're literally caping for a government...

I am describing the situation as I see it, not approving of it or the results. I fail to see how calling Harris's response a 'totally incompetent faceplant' amounts to literally caping for the government. I do see a hell of a lot of unspoken assumption that this pandemic and the havoc it is causing could all be cleaned up and solved in a calm, rational manner just by summoning the correct balance of political will, scientific know-how and fiscal policy, and all that stands in the way is a bunch of venal and incompetent politicians.

My basic point isn't that venal and corrupt politicians aren't a problem. They are. The republicans are almost uniformly venal and corrupt, but having marginally fewer venal and corrupt democrats doesn't exactly amount to a ringing endorsement of that party.

My point is more that, in the case of this deadly pandemic, the nature of the problem means the solution is not as simple as installing a better social system run by better people. That would go a tremendous distance toward solving dozens of social ills we all suffer, but it doesn't solve a raging pandemic that throws out variants like omicron. That's just reality, as demonstrated by looking at every nation and culture on earth that is trying to deal with this virus.

You may now all resume correcting my many flawed ideas.

by looking at every nation and culture on earth that is trying to deal with this virus.

I have no idea who they are and what they're doing.

sic, if I didn't know you just like trolling people for fun, I'd say go fuck yourself, but since it's all in fun, I say haha good one!

My point is more that, in the case of this deadly pandemic, the nature of the problem means the solution is not as simple as installing a better social system run by better people. That would go a tremendous distance toward solving dozens of social ills we all suffer, but it doesn't solve a raging pandemic that throws out variants like omicron. That's just reality, as demonstrated by looking at every nation and culture on earth that is trying to deal with this virus.

So pumping money into public health infrastructure instead of the MIC, commanding that companies make vaccines open-source or risk losing government funding, and utilizing what little social net remains to help people stay fed and sheltered aren't things that the current government could have done or could be doing? The problem with so much of what you argue on here, Aimless, is that you take this clear-eyed view that can often be correct in its diagnosis— I know we agree about many things, for example— but then you wave away the idea that maybe things could be done differently as insanity or something that could never happen, *even though it easily could.*

Anarchists love sitting through boring meetings

speak for yourself

go fuck yourself

just checking - you believe that no countries or territories are handling their pandemic response better than the US, or that none of them are handling it differently?

Brad, I don't do meetings either, don't worry.

https://i.imgur.com/BBO6LMj.jpg

can anyone tell me where the meetings are held

*even though it easily could.*

the difficulty I see in that "easily could" is that the only things I see as easily changed are things I have control over. I do have control over my imagination and I can *easily* imagine all those things being done and how beneficial they would be if they were done. when what is required to happen escapes my personal control, my ability to make changes in other people's actions or the way reality is constructed begins to involve ever more complicated and ineffectual gyrations. My sphere of influence is sadly limited.

question for table and Brad - what is the distinction between anarchy and disorder, and I guess in general I've never really understood what people who are anarchists envision for what an anarchic society would look like? basically libertarianism at a large scale?

Society by chore wheel

question for table and Brad - what is the distinction between anarchy and disorder, and I guess in general I've never really understood what people who are anarchists envision for what an anarchic society would look like? basically libertarianism at a large scale?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

same question

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/robert-paul-wolff-in-defense-of-anarchism

It has been 15ish years since I really re-read this but part III (Beyond the Legitimate State) is a good case for an anarchist vision IIRC.

Also: Anarchy Poll and Discussion Thread

I just can’t think how anything will ever get actually done in an anarchist version of complex modern industrial society—and I’m sympathetic to their viewpoint. Anarchism has indeed actually happened in a pre-industrial agrarian setting.

Thanks, all.

Sometimes I think this board needs an in-person fight club, just to ease some tensions.

Nah, kidding. But man, there’s a lot of frustration to burn, it seems.

Imagine this place when Trump gets re-elected.

Better thread titles

Wow you really think hed beat hilary again

just checking -

sic is just a guy askin' questions

I agree that we’re not currently seeing anarchy but, rather, a devolved sense of stasis that has many wishing for anarchy instead. The net result of there being no illusions about a “greater good.” Biden’s pleas on behalf of one sound particularly feeble to opponents AND constituents.

Sometimes I think this board needs an in-person fight club, just to ease some tensions.

i did a lot of work organizing this and the results were horrible, just fucking terrible

The 200,000th Thread Anticipation, Celebration, & Physical Fights Thread

thanks for the links will check them out

i will fight you on those links
it's time to blow off some steam and duke it out

Capitalism and Covid has left us alienated and atomized. We need to organize into One Big Fight Club.

it's all one thing

Karl, wanna fight again

let's do it

but here's one thing about biden. i posted that long excerpt from the washington post earlier, about joe biden's no good terrible bad week. there are some things he could have done better - i was expecting someone to launch into a tirade on his covid response, including the embarrassing recent episode where some reporter asked psaki something like "hey why don't we have free covid tests, like other wealthy countries" and she's like "as if", like clueless, and then a week later they were all saying "d'oh!" and working on plans which led to the recent announcement that free tests would be available starting on the 20th. wow, that was dumb.

but in general, he is in a very, very bad spot. what's he going to do about manchin or sinema? so sick of reading backseat drivers that think they could talk to joe manchin in the right way and change his mind. it's very clearly joe manchin and sinema vs 48 other democratic senators. you can imagine a handful of other democratic senator assholes who are also in their pool but don't speak up, but i can very realistically point to the fact that new democratic candidates have an anti-filibuster litmus test -- the winds are completely in the direction of getting rid of it, and the only thing holding it up is manchin and sinema. biden just made a complete ass out of himself, the other day, trying to make it happen. dude is fucked! he's in a pickle!