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US Politics Mass freedoming: the one thread noone wants but everyone needs

There's plenty of evidence for the fascism angle. The most worrying is how this seems to follow too much ISIS's playbook:



Many scholars of terrorism see worrying similarities between the rise of the Islamic State and that of white nationalist terrorism, seen most recently in the carnage in El Paso, Tex. "The parallels are stunning," said Will McCants, a prominent expert in the field. And they are growing more notable with each new attack.

Experts say that the similarities are far from a coincidence. White nationalist terrorism is following a progression eerily similar to that of jihadism under the leadership of the Islamic State, in ways that do much to explain why the attacks have suddenly grown so frequent and deadly. In both, there is the apocalyptic ideology that predicts — and promises to hasten — a civilizational conflict that will consume the world. There is theatrical, indiscriminate violence that will supposedly bring about this final battle, but often does little more than grant the killer a brief flash of empowerment and win attention for the cause. There are self-starter recruits who, gathering in social media's dark corners, drive their own radicalization. And for these recruits, the official ideology may serve simply as an outlet for existing tendencies toward hatred and violence.
[...]
The feedback loop of radicalization and violence, once triggered, can take on a terrible momentum all its own, with each attack boosting the online radicalization and doomsday ideology that, in turn, drive more attacks.

The lessons are concerning. It is nearly impossible to eradicate a movement animated by ideas and decentralized social networks. Nor is it easy to prevent attacks when the perpetrators' ideology makes nearly any target as good as the next, and requires little more training or guidance than opening a web forum.
And global changes that played a role in allowing the rise of the Islamic State are only accelerating, Mr. Berger warned — changes like the proliferation of social networks.

Which is damn worrying given that america has infrastrucutre for this kind of thing since the post Civil War (heyo KKK!)
 
Nazis had a strong uebermensch complex that allowed them to rationalize genociding the untermenschen. There's no such thing in the US, the Americans don't think they're excep... oh wait a moment...

The Nazis had a strong articulated theory of racial breeding that is unique in history.

In the 30s, there were gas vans moving around Germany euthanizing people with any of a set of diseases (my great-granduncle was one of them) as part of the project of breeding a superrace, by culling the weak. Trump is Archie Bunker*, not Heinrich Himmler.

"Trump is a Nazi" is just the liberal version of "Obama is a communist who is going to stick us in FEMA camps." That's because the libs and conservatives have become increasingly ideologically closed groups who project their fears onto each other.

EDIT: Involuntary confinement of the mentally ill who are deemed dangerous is not Nazi, it's normal.

This is fear-mongering. Trump says something that sounds vaguely like this bad thing some other guy did -- BE AFRAID! Trump says that the mentally ill should be involuntarily confined! You know who else said that -- HITLER! (and millions and millions of other people, but we won't mention them)

* I'm guessing a Slovak probably won't get this reference.
 
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Ahh...so he's delusional.
No, he's right. Actually calling Trump a 'nazi' is stupid as it 1) kills any useful debate about Trump's policies and 2) delegitimizes large parts of US electorate. It is a manifestation of the horrible radicalization of US politics, which is 10-times more dangerous than Trump - and which actually got Trump where he's now. You know, people knowing what Trump is but voting for him anyway because there's no way they would vote for the other guys' candidate, just on principle.
But I get that it's much, much easier simply hating Trump and laying on him the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by the whole race from Adam down, than it is to try to discuss, and maybe mend, the deep divisions within the American society.

"Trump is a Nazi" is just the liberal version of "Obama is a communist who is going to stick us in FEMA camps." That's because the libs and conservatives have become increasingly ideologically closed groups who project their fears onto each other.
I'm not actually worried about Trump. He's just a symptom. What worries me is the culture of exceptionalism that became standard in US foreign politics since at least Albright. And that isn't dependent on who's in the White House, it was the same under Obama as it is now under Trump.
 
Oh, I'm not saying he's delusional because he's against saying Trump is a Nazi. I happen to agree with him on that. 'Nazi' these days seem to be going the same way 'awesome' went; from a word that describes something strongly, cheapened by the masses.

I'm saying that Alcibiades is delusional if he thinks he's left wing.
 
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Problem with the American electorate, is that they are prone to hyperbole. If you read of what went on in the lead up to the American Civil War, it's almost as if we saw a repeat of that when Trump came to power, when Abraham Lincoln came to power, just that the sides switched. Abraham was viewed as a great threat to the slave owners and he would take away the power of the slave owners by freeing the slaves (though Lincoln was not really pro-freeing slaves at the beginning). He was viewed as such a great threat that they pretty much declared secession just before he came to power.

Fast forward to the present, what is clear is that the remnant that still believes in White power still exists and has embedded itself in power in various forms over the century. It should be noted that even the German Nazis looked at America as a model for race policy.


Though, I don't regard America as rather unique with regard to race relations. In many of the British colonies, race was an issue even in the early 1900s in Australia, with the fears of getting overwhelmed by Chinese immigrants. Even now, Australia is the "other" country with camps for immigrants and conditions have been appalling.
 
Inserting text because you fucked the quote function up and itll probably malfunction or some shit if I try to quote a textless post

Also, do note that I said 'There was an article on how similar Trump's proposals to the 'mental illness' question are in line with Hitler's regime' not 'There was an article on how Trump is a Nazi,' (and I said precisely neither in the post of mine you actually quoted with this post) I think claiming Trump's critics are accusing him of being a Nazi when they really aren't, and are merely pointing out similarities between his regime and other dictatorships, is a common strategy of his benefactors and those who stand to gain the most from said regime at the ecpense of everyone else...
 
Problem with the American electorate, is that they are prone to hyperbole. If you read of what went on in the lead up to the American Civil War, it's almost as if we saw a repeat of that when Trump came to power, when Abraham Lincoln came to power, just that the sides switched. Abraham was viewed as a great threat to the slave owners and he would take away the power of the slave owners by freeing the slaves (though Lincoln was not really pro-freeing slaves at the beginning). He was viewed as such a great threat that they pretty much declared secession just before he came to power.

Fast forward to the present, what is clear is that the remnant that still believes in White power still exists and has embedded itself in power in various forms over the century. It should be noted that even the German Nazis looked at America as a model for race policy.


Though, I don't regard America as rather unique with regard to race relations. In many of the British colonies, race was an issue even in the early 1900s in Australia, with the fears of getting overwhelmed by Chinese immigrants. Even now, Australia is the "other" country with camps for immigrants and conditions have been appalling.
Ummm... Lincoln was always an abolitionist. That was the central platform of his party at the time. He just moved from a "buyback" to a "confiscation" model and from wanting to send them all back to Africa to making them citizens.
 
Ummm... Lincoln was always an abolitionist. That was the central platform of his party at the time. He just moved from a "buyback" to a "confiscation" model and from wanting to send them all back to Africa to making them citizens.

Yeah, you are right. He went back and forth quite a bit. The 13th Amendment wasn't a sure thing at the beginning.
 
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Yeah, you are right. He went back and forth quite a bit. The 13th Amendment wasn't a sure thing at the beginning.
A lot of the changes are thought to be from his friendship with Frederick Douglass.
 
I'm saying that Alcibiades is delusional if he thinks he's left wing.

Whoa whoa whoa, of course Trump's not left wing. He's quite right wing. Specifically, he represents the long-dormant isolationist wing of the GOP.

Part of the problem is that the left and right in the US have been conditioned to view everyone on the other side as maximally whatever that said it. If you're left-wing, you're a communist. If youre right-wing, you're a Nazi. That's a function of political propaganda. A lot of leftists can't imagine an antiwar right-winger, and a lot of rightists can't imagine an anti-environmentalist left-winger. Both actually exist, but the respective political propaganda machines won't let you know about it.
 
Whoa whoa whoa, of course Trump's not left wing. He's quite right wing. Specifically, he represents the long-dormant isolationist wing of the GOP.

Part of the problem is that the left and right in the US have been conditioned to view everyone on the other side as maximally whatever that said it. If you're left-wing, you're a communist. If youre right-wing, you're a Nazi. That's a function of political propaganda. A lot of leftists can't imagine an antiwar right-winger, and a lot of rightists can't imagine an anti-environmentalist left-winger. Both actually exist, but the respective political propaganda machines won't let you know about it.

Sorry, I meant you, @Alcibiades would not be viewed as a left winger. Betcha if you ask those who identifies as left wingers they'd say you're a 'Soc-Dem' or a 'Left to Center' or some other thing.
 
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Sorry, I meant you, @Alcibiades would not be viewed as a left winger. Betcha if you ask those who identifies as left wingers they'd say you're a 'Soc-Dem' or a 'Left to Center' or some other thing.

I was a self-identified radical leftist (member of the Socialist Party USA actually). My sympathies are generally socialist to this day. I don't particular care for what seem to have become the American left's concerns in the past 20+ years, and the center-left seems to have gone insane,. Which really depresses me -- that the people that I should in principle feel closer to are engaging in such awful stuff.

Today, I hate politics as a class. It's a den of lies by nature.
 
Isn't a very big key issue in that the Democratic center really is Republican lite these days? I remember reading an article in the Atlantic that mentions that the Democrats that came after Watergate embraced the function of corporatism and all that went with it and eased out the politicians that came into power after the Depression, erasing a lot of the legislation that went with it. We are seeing a reverse of that now, but clearly the 'center' is not giving up without a fight and needs another crisis to completely ease them out.
 
Isn't a very big key issue in that the Democratic center really is Republican lite these days? I remember reading an article in the Atlantic that mentions that the Democrats that came after Watergate embraced the function of corporatism and all that went with it and eased out the politicians that came into power after the Depression, erasing a lot of the legislation that went with it. We are seeing a reverse of that now, but clearly the 'center' is not giving up without a fight and needs another crisis to completely ease them out.

Yes. It's a mixture of Republican economic policies and social liberalism.

I think the center in the US and Western Europe is in bad shape, and is trying really hard to protect itself against what it sees from right and left populism. (If I can paraphrase Noam Chomsky, what the elite doesn't like is populism, rather it be right or left, because that means they give up control)
 
Yes. It's a mixture of Republican economic policies and social liberalism.

I think the center in the US and Western Europe is in bad shape, and is trying really hard to protect itself against what it sees from right and left populism. (If I can paraphrase Noam Chomsky, what the elite doesn't like is populism, rather it be right or left, because that means they give up control)
Fundamental problem, is people who have profited in a system they believe has worked for them are generally loathe to give up that system because they think their own children will stand to lose when that system changes.
 
Fundamental problem, is people who have profited in a system they believe has worked for them are generally loathe to give up that system because they think their own children will stand to lose when that system changes.

Absolutely. The system has worked very well for a lot of people, and especially those who have benefited most are those that are at the top.

Look at current US politics. It seems obvious (to me) that the primary target of the Dem establishment is people like Sanders and Gabbard. Trump is totally secondary. That's why they're still pushing RUSSIA! and TRUMPIAN DOOM IS UPON US! as opposed to focussing on issues that most Americans care about, because if they run on issues. someone like Sanders or Gabbard will win the nomination. And that is the real threat, because that threatens the position of people within the Democratic Party itself. If Trump gets a second term, no big deal; the Dem Party will carry on like it has before. If Sanders wins, the Dem Party will be shaken up internally and its lucrative connections with the lobby system will be put in danger.
 
Absolutely. The system has worked very well for a lot of people, and especially those who have benefited most are those that are at the top.

Look at current US politics. It seems obvious (to me) that the primary target of the Dem establishment is people like Sanders and Gabbard. Trump is totally secondary. That's why they're still pushing RUSSIA! and TRUMPIAN DOOM IS UPON US! as opposed to focussing on issues that most Americans care about, because if they run on issues. someone like Sanders or Gabbard will win the nomination. And that is the real threat, because that threatens the position of people within the Democratic Party itself. If Trump gets a second term, no big deal; the Dem Party will carry on like it has before. If Sanders wins, the Dem Party will be shaken up internally and its lucrative connections with the lobby system will be put in danger.


Ah yeah the Lobby system. The entire revolving door is filled with operatives of any stripe etc. moving between think tanks, lobby firms etc. Republican and Democrat is just something people wear on their badge for maybe a few years before switching.
 
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Ah yeah the Lobby system. The entire revolving door is filled with operatives of any stripe etc. moving between think tanks, lobby firms etc. Republican and Democrat is just something people wear on their badge for maybe a few years before switching.

This is the Big Corruptor in US politics.

This is why Trump scares the establishment, I think.. It's not his antienvironmentalism or anti-migrant stuff or whatever. It's the fact that he managed to get elected largely outside of the lobby system. That means he can't be controlled by the usual mechanisms! He's beholden (almost) entirely to his electorate. That's unheard-of.

Sanders is the same kind of threat.

EDIT: it's not about issues, it's about power and access to power.
 
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This is the Big Corruptor in US politics.

This is why Trump scares the establishment, I think.. It's not his antienvironmentalism or anti-migrant stuff or whatever. It's the fact that he managed to get elected largely outside of the lobby system. That means he can't be controlled by the usual mechanisms! He's beholden (almost) entirely to his electorate. That's unheard-of.

Sanders is the same kind of threat.

EDIT: it's not about issues, it's about power and access to power.
Like a lot of things in America, things have a habit of taking a life of its own because of the incessant need to monetize just about every fucking everything you can find on this damn planet.

I mean, even the Opioid crisis is seriously uniquely American. Too many incentives incentivising certain corrupt behaviour (doctors taking a cut of the bill) and insurance companies subsidizing certain drugs because the ones that would have prevented the addiction were too damn expensive etc.
 
Lol omfgwtfbbq just because the establishment hates Trump doesn't make him a non-threat, HE'S THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCK STATES OF FUCKING AMERICA FFFS

EDIT: Also wouldn't call him a "mere symptom" because that also fallaciously makes it sound like he's harmless and would instead, personally, compare him more to a festering myiasis/maggot-infested wound caused by that jagged edge which was the decades of institutionalized racism and corruption in the US. This isnt a fucking cold

Myiasis
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Myiasis is the parasitic infestation of the body of a live animal by fly larvae (maggots) that grow inside the host while feeding on its tissue. Although flies are most commonly attracted to open wounds and urine- or feces-soaked fur, some species (including the most common myiatic flies—the botfly, blowfly, and screwfly) can create an infestation even on unbroken skin and have been known to use moist soil and non-myiatic flies (such as the common housefly) as vector agents for their parasitic larvae.
 
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