Trump's Card

[Tubby Isaacs]

Also from West Virginia.

MonmouthPoll
@MonmouthPoll
WEST VIRGINIA POLL: US Senate #WVSen
All voters:
@Sen_JoeManchin (D) 48
@MorriseyWV (R) 39
@DonBlankenship (C) 4

Likely voters:
Standard model
Manchin 49
Morrisey 40
Blankenship 5

(50 JM - 43 PM w/o DB)

[Amor de Cosmos]

People organized about Vietnam because there was a draft and shit was real. Right now we're in a very low-unemployment booming economy.

The problem with a 5-alarm-fire approach to our current situation is just that. If we truly believe that fascism is here or will be if we do nothing, then we all need to be in the streets, and the result will definitely be violence which could easily destabilize things to an all-bets-are-off extent.

There was low unemployment in the mid-60s too, and this current shit seems pretty real to me. Organising and "taking it to the streets" implies neither violence nor incipient fascism, it didn't then and wouldn't now. It does mean that there's a substantial number of engaged people who aren't finding their concerns addressed by their electoral representatives. If we're being reminded of anything at the moment it's that democracy isn't something we can be complacent about.

[Lang Spoon]

1968 wasn’t all peace and love at all at all, but that was the year public opinion really turned against the war.

[Lang Spoon]

Ditto to some of you's. I was called a "vile shit stain" recently for expressing some somewhat moderate views in another thread. No one objected, but that's fine. I didn't call you a fucking asshole, I called you an asshole because I'd had enough after umpteen condescending derogatory posts explaining to me what's happening in my own country on the assumption that I'm blind and referring to me in the third person in response to my own post. I'm not a political expert but my closest friend is a tenured political scientist who's published three books and I'm in political discussions a fair bit. I'm left-wing everywhere except here, where I'm a fascist sympathizer or fellow traveler. It's ridiculous.



This place is the slightiest in my experience. If I deserve it I deserve it, but it's not my imagination.

But then again, someone on THIS VERY THREAD defended you from an ad hominem attack. The fucking in my sentence was Scottish punctuation. I don’t really differentiate too much between being called an asshole and a fucking asshole.

I’m glad your friend has tenure and all, and I promise to never Eurosplain your country to you ever again with my measly Scotch MA in Politics(BA everywhere else). It’s not like the shite youse get up to effects anyone else.

[Lang Spoon]

Man, I wish Toro were back sometimes. Expect he would be slighting me to kingdom come. All except one or two threads seem fairly vanilla now.

[Amor de Cosmos]

By shit being real I was just referring to it feeling life-and-death to everyone exposed to the draft. Of course it's real in different ways now. And I'm all for peaceful protests but was assuming the level of polarization and mutual hatred and the fact that it's not the Summer of Love would virtually guarantee a powder keg situation.

Not to mention all the open-carry folks now.


There's always a place for effective direct non-violent action — such as Kirstjen Nielsen's interrupted Mexican meal — but they aren't the only tools available these days. Figuratively speaking the streets are electronic as well as asphalt. Guns aren't much use there.

[Lang Spoon]

stubby thumbs mistype. They won’t give me more than a 5SE as a workphone.

[Lang Spoon]

Nah man, I was lurking back in the day, not obsessively taking notes about somewhere I never posted at. And I sure as shit haven’t crawled through your posts on the search function.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I so agree. But I figure that sooner or later we'll* digest it and make it work fruitfully.

*By "we" I don't mean you or I, or probably anyone over twenty-five.

[Satchmo Distel]

He will jump from one illegal policy to the next indefinitely because his style in business has always been to keep breaking a law until a court stops him, after which he settles and then moves to the next illegal action.

Although today was a cave to public opinion due to pressures of the midterms, the cave is of minimal value if it does not lead to a more humane attitude towards the families and an end to stigmatization.

[Amor de Cosmos]

We can hope! But I assume the internet is also the new authoritarians' greatest hope.

Yeah, true enough but you gotta hope too brother

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA

[jason voorhees]

This shit has left me unable to sleep for a few weeks.

My nervous system is absolutely shot to shit.

It didn't help that girl looked exactly, exactly like my daughter.

Grabbing her hands in terror the way toddlers grab their own hands in terror.

Then seeing her brave stoicism in her mother's arms.


The curiosity at her shoelaces being untied, because ICE takes everything from everyone, including shoelaces from a toddler.


John Moore, bless his soul.

He at least, at least, did something that did something.

I literally may need therapy. This is an evil I've never dealt with. 9/11 was bad, but at least there was a reason. There's no reason to this, other than torture and cruelty.

As a teacher, dealing with students of crackheads and murders, seeing what trauma does...hearing how these kids are on antipsychotic medications...

Too much to bear. Too much for my soul to bear.

[Femme Folle]

That Exec Order is not worth the paper it's written on. It's a publicity stunt.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Oh shit JV I just lost it totally.

[jason voorhees]

Here's the nightmare story.

[E10 Rifle]

That Exec Order is not worth the paper it's written on. It's a publicity stunt.

And it says families can be detained INDEFINITELY. That's kids in cages, indefinitely, potentially.

[hobbes]

Jesus. I don't know why, but it's the taking the laces thing that has done me.

[ad hoc]

Jesus. I don't know why, but it's the taking the laces thing that has done me.

This

[Lang Spoon]

If this gets spun as a climbdown we are fucked.

[Snake Plissken]

Jesus. I don't know why, but it's the taking the laces thing that has done me.

Yeah. That photo.

[E10 Rifle]

If this gets spun as a climbdown we are fucked.

Absolutely. "We've listened to the protests and have now agreed to torture families together rather than separately".

Evil fucking cunts.

[jason voorhees]

And it says families can be detained INDEFINITELY. That's kids in cages, indefinitely, potentially.

At this point, being that they're taking infants to Michigan to Betsy DeVos's friends who run charities there, or that they have no records of the kids they took, or where their parents are, or having any idea of what kid is where or where their parent is, or if the parent was even deported or is still here;

And ICE isn't allowing politicians or journalists into the facilities where kids or small children are kept;

And kids are in outdoor tents in 100º + weather;

And there's no plan to unite 2,300 children with their families...

[Satchmo Distel]

Awesome posts, j.v., putting into words and pictures the horror of this episode. If Congress stays GOP after this atrocity, you'd have to conclude that racism runs deep in the US. And if they re-elect Trump, the national shame will take decades to wash off.

[Ginger Yellow]

I don't see how a second forced separation after 20 days wouldn't cause an even greater backlash.

It may cause another backlash, but I suspect the GOP will fear and/or stoke the backlash from the base that would result from not detaining the parents. As far as I can tell, the likely outcome is that when the courts say they can't hold the kids with the parents after 20 days, Trump blames the judges and the Dems again and at best we're back to square one. Whether the electorate buys it, we'll see.

[Femme Folle]

Absolutely. "We've listened to the protests and have now agreed to torture families together rather than separately".

Evil fucking cunts.

This