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Twitter permanently suspends Trump's account:
US President Donald Trump has been permanently suspended from Twitter "due to the risk of further incitement of violence", the company says.
Twitter said the decision was made "after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them".
Mr Trump had earlier been locked out of his account for 12 hours.
Twitter then said that it would ban Mr Trump "permanently" if he breached the platform's rules again.
Reacting to the permanent ban, Trump 2020 campaign adviser Jason Miller tweeted: "Disgusting... if you don't think they're coming for you next, you're wrong."
It comes after Mr Trump tweeted several messages on Wednesday, calling the people who stormed the US Capitol "patriots".
Hundreds of his supporters entered the Capitol building as the US Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. The ensuing violence led to the deaths of four civilians and a police officer.
The siege took place just hours after Trump addressed supporters and told them: "We will never give up; we will never concede."
[...] On Thursday, Facebook said it had suspended Mr Trump "indefinitely". The popular gaming platform Twitch also placed an indefinite ban on the outgoing president's channel, which he has used for rally broadcasts. So has Snapchat.
Two online Trump memorabilia stores were closed this week by e-commerce company Shopify. On Friday, Reddit banned its "donaldtrump" forum for the president's supporters.
[...] The big question now is, can Trumpism survive without the backing of mainstream media? Or will it simply slip into the shadows of the internet?
(Emphasis retained from original.)
Also at Ars Technica, CNET
Full Twitter explanation at: blog.twitter.com
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:16PM (42 children)
I've said it before. The President of the United States of America has no business posting directly on a private social media web site. Anyone of power should not be posting directly to private social media web sites such as Twitter(R)(TM).
I honestly wish Trump had not given us such a vivid example of why this is the case. I wish he had just stuck to putting his foot in is mouth as usual.
His actions have placed a large stain on the use of social media. I can only hope that going forward people will realize the folly of social media. (Who am I kidding, they won't).
We should probably be glad that Trumpy's Trolletariat was just made up of twisted sick versions of Disney's "Minions". If they were people of real power, we would probably see our internet connections drop out as they rounded us in to death camps.
BTW, He said he would create his own social media network. That thought makes me shiver. Would you post on TrumpIt?
Somewhere in a dark corner trump is childishly sobbing "no ban! no me ban!"
realDonaldTrump has been kicked from the server. Reason: trying to overthrow the US government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:37PM (14 children)
Is social media of today so different than media of yesterday?
Politicians, who care at all about the people that elected them, need to engage with those people. In yesteryear the government could have easily published "The Congressional Times" with nothing but verbatim dialogue from elected officials, but nonetheless they chose to utilize the private systems already in existence to aid the spread of their message. Along with all the downsides such utilization entailed. And so too today. I really think the only thing that's changed so much is that the fact our private institutions are not exactly political neutral becomes much more apparent when their entire service is simply working as a middle man who relays messages. Them deciding they don't like the message, and thus changing or even deleting it, is much more overt than an article written using half-truths.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:21PM (12 children)
Yes. It IS different. It is instant, it is direct, it is raw and often unfiltered. Most importantly, people view it quite differently. Sure, previous forms of media have also been abused. But the scale and magnitude is much larger.
If I want to read news from a newspaper, that information is usually handed down through multiple levels, run through an editor who may choose to change or not publish that information. Then it is printed, distributed, i have to go out and buy one, take time reading it, and have time to think about what I read. In the past anyway, people took the time to scrutinize newspapers and papers that regularly published blatant lies or such would have been discredited.
TV and radio can be more direct, but they still have editorial control. As we have seen lately they can and will break away even from a Presidential announcement to correct what is being said.
But Twitter(R)(TM), Facebook(R)(TM) or even the Internet itself is much more direct. Filtering does not usually occur until AFTER something is posted. Because it is all still relatively new, people still view it as pure freedom of speech.
Idiots crave these little alerts lighting up their glorious toy cell phones. Reading a message that was posted DIRECTLY by the President of the United States (or someone else famous) makes them feel so special.
People need to change the way they perceive this kind of media. It needs to be taken much more seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:26PM
I would much prefer the President be mainlining Fox News content that reading social media. That way, he will be protected from frothing rightwing paranoia.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:46PM (1 child)
You're obviously liberal. You should think about your stance and what you wrote. You might do a major about face if Biden tweets. And if he does, I hope your conservatives start calling him "divisive".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @01:07AM
It's almost as though you're unable to imagine any other mode of thought than uncritical authoritarianism. So since that is the only way of thinking you can comprehend, you believe your opponent must be doing the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:07PM (4 children)
Is being "unfiltered" somehow a bad thing now? The lowly plebs don't get to read what's not approved by their nannies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:11PM (3 children)
If you're a filterer, than unfitered is ipso facto bad.
If someone brings up fake news from the MSM I ask them: "Who are you, that you can demand to be informed what really happened, and do you think entertainment companies would really tell you the absolute truth?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @05:47AM (2 children)
No one of any particular account. Why do you ask?
No, I don't think "entertainment companies" are really telling me the truth. I think entertainment companies are for...wait for it!...entertainment. Instead, I turn to journalists and reporters for my news and information. Yes, particularly those nasty, icky MSM sorts of news sources. And why shouldn't I demand that someone who is telling me the news inform me what really happened? What are you afraid might happen to you if you were told the truth? Why do you have so little respect for yourself that you would willingly accept a comforting lie rather than uncomfortable truths? Why do you despise yourself so much?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:04AM (1 child)
Because if you are nobody, you'll get what the entertainment companies choose to give you.
Who are working for entertainment companies. In any case, you will get what the corporate ownership chooses to give you.
Right back at you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:04AM
My! What a poor deluded little stooge you are! You may find this incredible but, unlike you apparently, I don't just accept whatever is handed to me. True, it requires that I critically evaluate the source and the content of my information but I find this extra work to be well worth the effort.
I dunno. I was hoping you would give us...something...more. This has been a disappointment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @07:24PM
The most interesting thing here is I suspect you don't agree with yourself. Without straw manning you, you are suggesting it's a problem when people can read (or presumably hear) what the politicians they elect are saying. And as a solution you want greater corporate control over the government and politicians. In effect you have become an inadvertent lobbyist for overt corporatism.
The one thing I'd encourage you to consider is that the messaging that led you to this train of thought is coming from the very corporations who seek to supplant democracy with corporatocracy.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 09 2021, @09:34PM (2 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @11:04PM (1 child)
Which is why Runaway kept complaining that he wouldn't shut his mouth. Not that he disagreed with Trump, but that he didn't like their fascist agenda being broadcast so clearly. Hard to recruit young people when Dear Leader is spouting off their racist grandpa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @05:21AM
They want dog whistles, not megaphones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @05:37PM
Actually, you do know that the White House does maintain a press office where the President can say whatever he wants on camera and not take questions, and he can post statements of his whenever he likes without any review or intermediary saying he cannot? That would, of course, entail the general press being able to easily analyze and editorialize on everything he says, which is why he rarely-if-ever uses it. (And his delusion that such outlets are 'fake.') And that he is even now free to open his own web hosting and social media network - I'm sure it would be Huge and The Best Ever.... All it would take is his doing so and I'm sure he'd have millions signing up for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:31PM
I do know whether twitter will updates from RSS or some such, (I don't use it) but he really should have been running his propaganda off a private site anyway. It isn't like he can't afford it. CC'iing his posts from a blog to twitter should have been relatively easy to accomplish, even if it required custom programming to do it. That way the ban wouldn't have really mattered.
I disagree with the idea that he shouldn't use twitter. Just as I think that politicians should get full reproduction rights of their interviews to prevent out of context soundbites. We should see them in all their glory, not just through the selective collections of massive conglomerate corporations. By the same token, we shouldn't be limited to state supplied copies of what they said either.
Obama did it fairly really well when the created the petition engine for whitehouse.gov. This gave them a way to work directly with the public, but within a response context. BTW, not a member of either party. I just think that we have a right to engage in real dialog, not just the crumbs passed to us through any particular corporate cheese grater.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @06:41PM (1 child)
he should have had someone set up a activitypub server like mastodon, pleroma, etc for him. It would have been harder to gain followers but it would have been much more difficult to censor him. Safer for his followers too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:07PM
I found an instance with this description:
Source: https://trump.pub/api/v1/instance [trump.pub]
Registrations closed so I'm guessing it's just for trump.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Sunday January 10 2021, @03:06AM (1 child)
So, you're saying this guy has no business posting on Twitter?
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden [twitter.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @05:56AM
There is still a few weeks left, but yes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @03:07AM (21 children)
I think one of the problems with how America is set up is that it's set up such that messages from politicians need to get filtered through private media to really get out there. It's hard for people to get direct access to government, politicians, and political candidates, at least outside the Internet. Even within the Internet many of the platforms are privately owned, webhosts can perhaps filter platforms they don't like, and even if you try to start your own platform and you want to raise funding private payment processors can stop people from sending you funding. The lack of a publicly hosted information platform with free speech principles enforced that no private entity can interfere with, alongside the private ones, I think is a bad thing.
With respect to payment processors I can think of two possible options. One is to require payment processors that directly or indirectly benefit from FDIC insurance to be speech neutral with respect to payment transactions (ie: My bank account is FDIC insured. So if my bank provides a payment processing service or works with one then the payment processing services they provide or work with must be speech neutral all the way down the chain to the intended end recipient of the payment).
Or the government can provide its own optional payment processing service to compete with (but not replace) the private ones. Any banks or entities (ie: brokers) that provide payment processing services or work with any payment processors must also work with the government provided one (the government can cover the legitimate costs this may incur, I don't mind) and any recipient is eligible to receive payments from the government provided payment processor. Sure, the government can monitor my payments but no one is forcing me to use the government's payment processing service, I can still use the private ones. If this really does drive the private payment processors out of business then maybe the government is just better at providing payment processing services than private businesses? I wouldn't have a problem with that.
People get their message from broadcasting. The FCC grants broadcasting monopolies to private media. So if you don't have cable or the Internet you generally get your media from private media (yeah, there are often government stations as well, mostly local though).
Cable. Cable companies are private media and many of the stations on them are private (ie: Fox and CNN).
OK, now we finally have the Internet but not everyone has an Internet connection. So finally there does exist .gov websites that you can access the government directly and get information directly from them. Still, it's not enough.
This is not to say that private media needs to go away. It should be allowed to exist alongside public media. But we also need public, government sponsored, media as well. Broadcasting should, for example, have a lot more government owned spectra. It should have spectra owned from local, county, state and the federal government. While cable should be allowed to have private media outlets it should also be required to host public media as well. Of course the government can pay for this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:16PM (20 children)
I think you are wrong. I believe journalism is an integral and important part of a well-functioning democracy. Politicians need to be filtered by a journalist who act as a mild opposition, questioning the truth of a politicians statements. It's a very current issue and it does not seem to me that the democracies of the world is better off with politicians mass-communicating directly with voters.
I think the best source of news is actual newspapers (those on paper).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @04:35PM (14 children)
When you show me a traditional newspaper that criticizes intellectual property extremism then maybe I'll agree with you (I'm sure there are extreme examples out there but, for the most part, traditional media is unfairly very one sided on the issue). Until then I hold the position that newspapers are private entities that care about their own private interests and their private interests can conflict with the public interest.
Furthermore one of the problems with this line of thinking is that it assumes that some self selected 'journalist' is somehow smarter or better than the rest of us. That this 'journalist' is special and is somehow worthy of being my filter because they know what's better for me than I do. They know what I should know more than I do. I think this line of reasoning is dangerous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @05:15PM (8 children)
(same poster)
The more and more I think about it the more I realize that this whole model we have in America where speech should get filtered through private media (ie: 'journalists') before having the opportunity to be widely disseminated is unacceptable. Private companies have their own private interests in mind (whether it's online media such as social media or traditional media) and their private interests may conflict with the public interest and when they do I have no reason to trust that they will act in the public interest. In fact I have good reason to believe they won't.
With respect to government sponsored media competing with private media I wouldn't mind politicians appointing their own journalists and the government funding them. At least it would provide competition for private journalists and it removes the conflict of interest that may exist between a private company, with a profit motive, and a government journalist (sure there may be a conflict of interest between the government journalist and the elected politicians that appoint them but the private media can help keep them in check. They can keep each other in check). Or perhaps we should vote for a public journalist to head the public media. Or we could consider how other countries do it like how yo have the BBC and whatnot.
Just some random thoughts to consider. The current model needs to change though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @08:35PM
Anyone can set up their own site and publish news, as evident from stormfront and breitbart. Can you elaborate on how anyone's freedom to publish news is being restricted?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @12:42AM (4 children)
The mechanism at work is that the readers pay for the newspaper, so that they depend on you and are motivated to deliver quality journalism. If you're reading free news, you're being used.
There is always trash tabloids and the like, but I'm talking about journalism, those who does a lot of work collection data and details and verifying information.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @01:48AM
There's a new model that has arisen in Germany: Nobody read traditional media anymore, so the publishers allied with the government. The government pays subsidies to the publishers in the name of "opinion diversity", the publishers in return dutifully praise Dear Mommy Leader's government and policies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:01AM (2 children)
"The mechanism at work is that the readers pay for the newspaper"
Newspapers make, or at least have traditionally made, most of their money through advertising. What they charge isn't meant to cover their costs (or really even come close), it's meant to deter people who aren't really interested in reading them from getting them (ie: using them for other purposes).
If you like newspapers that's fine. It's your prerogative. You have absolutely zero right to use the government to try to take away or limit my alternative options so as to force them down my throat. I don't want newspapers. I see them as self interested private companies. They aren't interested in the public interest. They are interested in their own private interest. I'm not interested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:12AM (1 child)
(Same poster)
To be clear I am (borderline) pirate partisan. So if there is a newspaper that releases its content under a creative commons license and substantially covers intellectual property law so as to mostly criticize it (at least to criticize the intellectual property extremism that currently exists and call for more reasonable law) I might consider subscribing to such a newspaper.
I have contributed money to Techdirt, Soylentnews, and Wikipedia. I'm willing to put my money where I believe it should go.
As far as I can tell there is a conflict of interest between the interests of private newspapers and the public interest (ie: in the case of intellectual property) and most newspapers will put their own private interests ahead of the public interest. This is true for the mainstream media as well. I see this as dishonest and despicable. A newspaper that either doesn't cover intellectual property issues because doing so conflicts with their private interests or one that supports intellectual property extremism because that's what's in their private interest is dishonest. I would say most newspapers are, by and large, dishonest. They don't deserve my attention. Why should let a self serving private entity be the source of my information and opinions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:16AM
Why should I let a self serving private entity be the source of my information and opinions? *
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:15AM (1 child)
Sounds to me like what you are describing is a communications director. You know, like what they (used to) do at the White House? The big elephant in the room, of course, is that the current yutz in the Oval office keeps stepping on his own messaging. The real solutions is to replace said yutz with someone else. Help is on the way on January 20.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @10:20AM
You're still not reading.
Private media outlets are still not required to carry the message of the communications director, for instance. The way that media in the U.S. is structured is such that in order to get your message out to the masses it almost needs to get filtered through private media (as explained before). That structure itself needs to change. Politicians should not be required to have their message filtered through private media to communicate with the masses. The masses should have free and unfiltered access to what the government has to say. The private media is free to use their private media platforms for commentary and journalism but the government itself should have a stronger media platform of its own.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @12:38AM (4 children)
A journalists' job is not to shield you or censor information. They do the job of tracking down sources, investigating and including different perspectives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:23AM (3 children)
No one is saying they can't have their own private media outlets to do so. Just that the government (or anyone, really) should not be beholden to (self interested) private (commercial) entities in order to communicate to the masses. The journalists are also free to communicate to the masses as well.
Private entities / corporations (Facebook, CNN, Fox, Twitter) should not be the gatekeepers of mass information. This model needs to change. They should be allowed to spread information but they shouldn't be the gatekeepers of information. The media has gotten out of control in this country (especially CNN, they are polarizing everyone, they are dishonest and they take everything out of context, but this is true for the media in general) and it shows what corporate controlled communication results in. It's toxic. This model needs to change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:27AM (2 children)
Sorry, but none of these entities/corporations is a "gatekeeper of information. They have absolutely no power to stop you from finding alternative sources of information. Seriously, what do you think would happen if CNN or Fox found out you tuned in to BBC as well, for example? Exactly what leverage do you think they might have to stop you?
Sounds to me like what really irks you is that they refuse to hop on the Trump train and toe the party line. What you really want is propaganda. Sorry, but no thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @01:24PM
"They have absolutely no power to stop you from finding alternative sources of information."
and you're still missing the point. For those that are interested go back and read what was typed in by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10, @03:07AM (#1097774)
https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=41551&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&threshold=0&highlightthresh=0&page=2&cid=1097774#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @02:30PM
"They have absolutely no power to stop you from finding alternative sources of information."
As stated, most of those alternative sources of information are private as well. The government shouldn't be at the mercy of private media to get its message out. That's not a good model.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @06:16PM (4 children)
Also what qualifies someone as a 'journalist'. Does their opinion have to align with yours? Do they need certifications? Is there a government approved certifying body? Does someone need certifications to express their 'free' speech now? Must they pay for those certifications? Can they have their certifications revoked if the certifying body doesn't like their speech? What if they criticize the certifying body? Or can anyone simply claim to be a journalist certifier? Do I get to certify myself? Can I declare myself a journalist?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @12:34AM (3 children)
Write me an article and I'll tell you if it lives up to the standards of journalism. It does not matter which opinion the journalist holds, the reporting is probably always a bit colored, but when I read a newspaper whose editorial line don't align with my personal philosophy, it's usually still great journalism, sometimes it's even more interesting. The only difference between editorial lines is their focus, and even though it is possible to guess what they would vote, they still deliver thoughtful analytical articles with plenty of details, because they're educated journalists trained to report on facts, ask good questions and talk to sources from different angles. Journalism is a craft and I would strongly encourage you to persue that career and learn the craft of written journalism. A good journalist work almost like a scientist. They ponder different perspectives, investigate, travel to where things happen and interview people.
You don't find the good articles on the internet is my point. Even those from establised newspapers are watered down clickbait summaries, compared to those you get in your newspaper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:35AM (2 children)
Find me a newspaper that's honest enough to substantially discuss and criticize intellectual property (at least the way it currently is) and I'll consider it.
Intellectual property laws are very obviously one sided.
Term limits are way too long
Copy protection privileges are opt out and not opt-in. They should be opt-in.
The penalty structure is one sided. The penalties for infringement are insane relative to the penalties for falsely claiming infringement.
Copy'right' isn't a right, it's a privilege. Perhaps it should be renamed.
Find me a newspaper that covers these issues and at least tries to be balanced. Because our intellectual property laws are so dishonestly unbalanced and corporate bought that any honest journalist should make a reasonable effort to cover them and to allow critics the opportunity to be heard. Our current intellectual property laws are so outrageous that for me to consider a media outlet honest I require that it covers these issues and does an honest job of allowing intellectual property extremists to be heard. It's an absolute requirement, I will not settle for anything less. I don't see how an honest media outlet can be serious about ignoring this issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @03:39AM
err.... and does an honest job of allowing critics of intellectual property extremists to be heard *
I don't see how an honest media outlet can be serious about ignoring this issue or how they can be in favor of such intellectual property extremism (which would naturally be in the private interests of a media outlet but is not in the public interest) *
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @09:15PM
I can't. It's such a niché topic and I don't think a newspaper completely dedicated to that topic could afford to pay a journalist. Perhabs you should check if the Pirate Party publish some sort of magazine, if not you could suggest it. It sounds like that would be where the topic would get most attention and now don't forget to subscribe to the monthly IFPI,RIAA,MPAA newsletter as well to get some different perspectives :P
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Socrastotle on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:18PM (59 children)
Fascism as we know it was not started by "fascists", in their mind. This [wikipedia.org] is the Fascist Manifesto. It is the book that laid out the principles for Mussolini's fascist party. The fascism itself is just a an 'ism-ification' of fascio. Fascio meaning something like a sheaf or a bundle of sticks. The idea is that each stick individually is weak and easily broken, yet together they vastly stronger the the sum of their parts and unbreakable. And indeed as you read the Fascist Manifesto (or at least Wiki's cliff-notes of it) it becomes clear that his fascist party was hardly fascist in the connotation we think of today. They wanted:
- Universal suffrage (including for women) and to lower the voting age to 18
- Abolition of class biased systems
- A national normalization for labor unions
- A law specifying an 8 hour work day
- A minimum wage
- The termination of Italy's military industrial complex
- A large progressive tax in order to enable a more equitable society
- And so on...
Those filthy fascists! The point of this is that the reason fascist today is now used as little more than a slur has absolutely nothing to do with ideology. It has everything to do with behaviors. Even if their ideology was very sociable and well intentioned, the way that Mussolini's fascists began to behave in pursuit of their ideology was not. They began to attack anybody and everybody perceived as an opponent, and to actively censor and destroy anything they perceived as against their own regime's interests.
But we only say this now with hindsight. There's no doubt that people living during that era did not view themselves as doing anything especially egregious. Because it all happened step by step. And after all, the people they were destroying were *bad* (in their mind) and so, if you do bad things to bad people - is it still bad? The fact that their movement's name would go down in history as a literal pejorative should be more than sufficient answer to that question.
And so too today in America. I'd encourage people (on both sides) to remember that the ends do not justify the means. Because while you ends will likely never happen in the method you envision, we all live through everybody's means. Machiavelli was, frankly, a fool.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:34PM (26 children)
The policies of both US parties are fascist. Book written by a communist visiting Germany in the 1930s describing fascism:
https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Economy-Doing-Business-Fascism/dp/161016038X [amazon.com]
Trump kind of went against the fascism maybe? I don't really see it though. The debt and spying increased more under him than Obama, so I don't see why they hate him so much. Maybe it was all fake, or like a high school feud. Biden did say yesterday they need a strong opposition party.
But yeah if you vote democrat/republican you are voting for fascism, if anything Democrats advocate for an even stronger version of fascism but that's probably a matter of opinion. It is clear Americans love fascism because they wont stop voting for it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:58PM (20 children)
You make great points, until this:
Paring a political platform down to one issue is essentially a strawman argument with some false dilemma tossed in.
Most people would (obviously) never vote for what Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Idi Amin, Gaddafi, Hussein, etc., became. It's not a matter that anyone likes Trump, or anyone else for that matter. For sure I'd rather hang out with 100 Bidens than 1 Trump. It's whether that person gets in and does some needed butt kicking.
But the liberals (politicians, news media, social media, Hollywood / TV) made it personal and very strongly influenced the masses of sheep. Remember Trump got the 2nd most votes in history.
Voting would be better if we didn't allow so close an election. It should be obvious that the difference in the vote counts is in statistical noise. There were enough proven irregularities, errors, and illegal votes that the whole country should vote again. And all states need to be forced to abide by uniform voting rules and procedures, ratified by the people. COVID restrictions, distancing, etc., caused havoc in tabulation inspection.
Trump did some of the most for world peace of any president ever. We'll have to watch and see what happens now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:06PM (17 children)
What one issue? It is all the issues of both parties. Both just implement crony-corporatism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:12PM (2 children)
World peace - didn't you read to the end of the post?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:21PM (1 child)
How is world peace contrary to fascism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:27PM
I think that's the point - only through world peace can we finally enjoy fascism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:20PM (13 children)
I might be starting to understand some of you who post like this. I think you made a series of logic-leaps. At best, you skipped over several steps, but I see your point.
I was being specific in that previous post stated we (US) intentionally proactively vote for "fascism" (an extremely misused term). As if we had a choice. As if anyone who tries to run for congress or any govt. position, has any choice, due to need for advertising budget, but also all of the well-oiled machinery of political campaigning.
You and I are in 100% agreement, we just illustrate it differently. You're looking at (writing about) the underlying problem, and I'm trying to solve the problem. I see many insightful and well-intentioned people, like you, posting very pessimistic defeatist writings. I consider myself an optimistic realist. Fixes, improvements, progress, are born out of optimism and hope.
That said, sometimes reality sucks and no amount of optimism will come up with a solution. But we must not give up hope.
We (US) currently (obviously) have a compromise between pure capitalism and socialism. Corporations are the heart pump of the economic machinery, money being the blood. The whole system is a house of cards. Wall street (investment) is too big an influence over the whole system. How to reign them in without damaging them, and the whole economy, is the problem. How a corporation can be worth more than the actual assets is insane. It's basically a huge pyramid scheme. The problem is: if you start to reign it in, you'll hurt the whole investment dynamic and things start to collapse, unemployment rises, stagflation ensues, mayhem.
I'd like to see radical campaign finance reform, but who in congress will vote to reduce their own income? Some, but very few, not enough. We The People are not being represented, which is the more fundamental problem.
Love or hate Trump, he, more than any politician in history, reached out to the people, largely with tweets. I think that's a good thing, and love or hate Trump, Trump aside, I feel strongly that we need more interaction with govt. The Capital storm mob did not loot, burn, and did minimal damage (in spite of news media attempting to sensationalize the whole thing). They wanted Congress to know they want to be heard. The human loss was due to violent cops. It's called escalation. No question the mob was illegal, but so were the Revolutionaries of 1776 (and don't ever forget that).
I love the picture of the guy sitting in Pelosi's chair with his foot up on her desk. He did no damage. He just wanted to "occupy". He wanted to "cancel" the "smoke filled rooms" that is our supposed Congress of the People.
Bottom line: as you alluded to, it doesn't seem to matter who runs or who we vote for- it's all the same crony-capitalism, just with one side connecting with different corporations than the other side.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @11:20PM (11 children)
Get fucked fascist. You can dress it up all you want, but anyone not sucked into that rightwing echo chamber bullshit can see Trump is a fascist who cares nothing for the people. This spin you are attempting is disgusting, and if liberals had stormed the capitol you would be calling for blood.\
Your hypocrisy and lies will keep you company in hell.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:26AM (10 children)
So let me get this straight.
The grandparent poster puts forth a reasoned, if terse argument, exploring the landscape of the idea. At the time of writing, +1 interesting, but notably not unquestioningly toeing the line of the left (despite shade thrown at "crony capitalism" and the like).
The parent poster responds with invective and question-begging and strawman plus bald assertion topped with a garnish of moralising. At the time of writing, +2 insightful.
We really, really need a better moderation system in which we can actually view based on the collective opinions of moderators, as modified by our assessment of those moderators. Whoever moderated the parent as insightful just isn't adequately describing the content of the post. This is a crystal clear example of brigade-driven, rather than thoughtful moderation outcomes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @04:59AM (8 children)
You're slowly grasping the culture of the Ds. It seems the most obvious thing, here, TV, newspeople, social media, politicians, Hollywood, etc., is their smug arrogance. They're great with language loaded with modifiers, but little substance. Ask them to quote or link to one of Trumps "lies" and you just get the extreme insults, downmods, flaming trolls. Look at the extreme violent rioting they've done for 9 months, and their "news" media won't show it. YouTube is full of people's videos of the rioting, looting, arson, theft, assault and battery, but liberal media: crickets. Crazy nut mob storms Congress, wanting to be heard, did not loot, burn, or destroy the huge number of things they could have, and it's being called "insurrection" by the mouthy left. Crazy Alzheimer's Pelosi said of the mob: "chose their Whiteness over Democracy." Nope, no racism on the left at all. Carry on, business as usual.
We definitely need a 3rd party that can win.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:02AM (2 children)
Oh, dear, the smug arrogance of people who know better. Someone once pointed out that University professors tended to be Democrats. Clear evidence of bias, no? And I replied, "amazing, isn't it, that the people with the most education and knowledge, are not Republicans?" Yes, amazing. So let me point out to you, you stupid, uneducated right-wing idiot person, that it is not arrogance. It is actual superiour knowledge. I can understand how, since you do not understand that what they understand, that it appears to be arrogance, when you assert that your stupidity is just as good as their actual understanding and knowledge, that you think it is arrogance, but it is not. You are actually stupid and an moron, much like the often posted Runaway1956. He is as dumb as a post, and so stupid he cannot even recognize when he is proven wrong. So please, my dear inerudite AC, defer to your superiours, for they are not faking. They actually do know more than you do. And you only embarrass yourself with taking umbrage at how stupid you are. May I suggest some classes at your local Community College?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:11AM (1 child)
Perhaps you could go to community college to improve on your "superiour" spelling.
At today's university, if you don't have tenure, you must pretend to be a Democrat to not get canceled. Of course, universities /run/ on obtaining taxpayer's money from the government, having to obtain grant money to keep the research going could do a lot to steer someone to the Democrat side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @02:11AM
Hint: They are not pretending! If you be Republican at an institution of Higher Learning, you just make it clear you shouldn't be there, because of the Learning and shit. If you start spouting QAnon insanity, you are likely to have start taking advantage of the employer's mental health benefits. Republicans self-select themselves out of Universities, and tend be found in departments of sociopathy, like Business, or Law. Or Trump University.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:53AM
Leaving newspeople out of this, since they just exist to publish their employers' viewpoint, the power constellation is about to majorly change. Both parties have seriously lost internal cohesion for at least 10 years now. The Democrats have done better because they were propped up by tech and media oligarchs, but the Great Satan Trump is stepping off the stage in a few days.
What's going to happen once the figure of hate is gone?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday January 11 2021, @12:03AM (1 child)
If you had any experience with cults, their "culture" would be far less surprising and make far more sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @01:15AM
Gaslight
Obstruct
Project
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday January 11 2021, @02:22AM (1 child)
People call you stupid because you sound stupid. It's mean and they shouldn't do it but that's the truth.
I mean lets break down your post here:
Trumps lies are many and not hard to find. [washingtonpost.com] When Trump claims his policies are responsible for one million of the twenty six thousand hydrocarbon jobs in Pennsylvania or that he paid "millions and millions" in taxes when the number is actually $750 anyone who's even remotely numerate can tell he's lying. If you can't tell that those are lies then you are either lying yourself, are very stupid, or are very poorly educated. It may be mean but it sounds like the most common response is that people assume you are an honest individual.
The "liberal media" covered the some [oregonlive.com] of the violence [opb.org] that occurred [twincities.com] at BLM protests [usatoday.com], if that's what you're referring to. I know for a fact that they didn't report on all the violence [usatoday.com] but there was so much of it it was impossible to cover everything. What I don't understand is how you think nine months of Republican violence is an indictment of "the Ds."
When a mob attacks the elected government with bombs [nypost.com], guns [politizoom.com], and plans [heavy.com] to kill their political opponents arguing about whether it "insurrection," "sedition," or "treason" is, again, either a sign that you are bing disingenuous or have difficulty understating what any of those words mean.
If Pelosi really does have Alzheimers that sounds like something people should know about. Do you have a link to a source for that claim?
As for racism, I can't speak for other but I despise it from both the left and the right. I absolutely agree that the attempted coup [businessinsider.com.au] wasn't about "whiteness." It was about power, pure and simple, and this kind of casual racism or revers-racism or whatever you want to call it may play well with her base but doesn't help the situation at all.
That said, Pelosi may be a little racist but she is not a literal nazi [dailydot.com], like (some of) the Trump supporters that were in the capitol building that day. Two wrongs don't make a right but given the choice between a nazi and an SJW I'll take the SJW every time.
The only way we get this is if we change our voting system. First past the post voting leader to a two party equilibrium. I favor instant runoff voting / ranked choice voting because it's easy to understand and implement as a drop-in replacement for first past the post and might have a slim chance of being attainable. Make sure to support any candidate or ballot measure that offers this change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2021, @07:42AM
No, what we really need is a viable third party alternative. The last best hope of this was Gary Johnson in 2016, but he rapidly imploded under the first bit of scrutiny. If you want me to vote for your alternative you better make sure that alternative really is substantially better that the Republicans and Democrats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @01:41PM
The problem is the gpp attempted to white wash the protesters as just some upset people trying to fight corruption. The bullshit is palapable and I will continue to call out fascists when they attempt to get support through such sleazy tactics.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 10 2021, @04:28AM
How a corporation can be worth more than the actual assets is insane.
No, it's not. The "value" of a corporation that you're probably talking about is the "market cap", which is simply the sum value of all the shares of its stock, at the current selling price. Yes, this is usually more than the total assets, but for good reason: the assets are never worth that much for any company. The value of a company is what it *can do*, not what stuff it owns.
Let's take a big tech company, like Intel: an alien ship flies over Earth tomorrow, and teleports all the employees and executives of Intel to their ship, and warps away to another star system for some inexplicable reason. The current shareholders now own shares in a company that has no people, only physical, intellectual, and monetary assets. What exactly are they going to do with it all? Can they get back to work making Core i7 and Xeon chips? No, because they have no idea how to: all that stuff is institutional knowledge that resided in the employees. Some of it is written down, but it's probably all encrypted and password-protected, and the people with the passwords are all in the Regulus star system now. Now there's multibillion-dollar fabs sitting idle because no one knows how to run them, no one knows how to get the supply chain going, etc. Intel could have made billions of dollars in revenue this year if the aliens never showed up, but now it won't make any, and it'll take many years to get the company back to normal operation, if ever.
In short, you're forgetting the value of the humans and the organization they're in, their institutional knowledge and experience, all things which you simply cannot place a price tag on. The share price is merely a reflection of what investors think the company is worth, based on its future earnings. This changes over time, sometimes rapidly (and is usually called a "correction" when it falls rapidly, and is said to have been "overvalued" when this happens).
Anyway, no the system is not a house of cards. Publicly-traded corporations have existed for centuries, and the entire nature of investments is that they're only worth what you can sell them to other people for, which is the same as anything really. And considering that investing money in index funds for the DJI or S&P500 have always, over many decades, shown consistent growth, shows it's not some kind of house of cards. Even with the Great Depression in the 1930s, the stock market did come back after a few years. It always does, because our need for the things companies make never disappears.
The Capital storm mob did not loot, burn, and did minimal damage
They murdered one police officer, and sent dozens more to the hospital. They stole materials, including laptops with classified information. Somehow they even somehow knew where some of these items were, even though they were in unmarked rooms that even people who work in the building have trouble finding.
The human loss was due to violent cops. It's called escalation.
Bullshit. The crowd was violent, and armed. It was the cops' job to keep them out of the building, and they failed for various reasons. Luckily, they shot and killed one of the terrorists, but they should have shot many, many more.
Try this sometime: get together an armed, angry, violent mob, and try storming a US Air Force base that holds nuclear weapons. See if the guards let you in, or mow you down with machine guns.
When you attack the seat of government, with the intent of capturing and murdering government officials, then you can expect to be shot and killed, and you deserve it. Every person who stormed that building should be rounded up and tried for sedition, insurrection, and felony murder.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:49PM
Remember Trump finished the election in second place and Biden finished next to last.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday January 09 2021, @07:54PM
I have started to wonder just how susceptible anyone is to delusional thinking. We all do it to some extent. Even the smartest, most rational people of us all can be tricked and gulled, and do it to themselves. Just responding to the parent may be me suffering under the delusion that the rational seeming tone of the parent post is reflective of the assumption that the AC poster is rational.
But there are some real whoppers in there. Trump has done the most of any president ever for world peace?? WTF? Tell me, was assassinating the Iranian general Soleimani a step towards peace? Has America pulled out of Afghanistan? No? How about Iraq? Still there too, eh? The American military is still performing drone strikes in Yemen. I have not heard that Trump actually received a Nobel Peace Prize, despite pretenses to the contrary. The Doomsday Clock has jumped a lot closer to midnight. And how's that NATO Alliance holding up?
And you want a do-over of the national election, because you just don't believe or accept that it was fair and accurate enough to correctly reflect the will of the people. Or so you no doubt claim. That has never happened, and it's not going to happen this time either. That is not a reasonable request, not even close. We can check the votes, count them again, and we have. But to hold a "redo" election is asking far too much.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:10PM
I see, so both sides. Some good people too, I imagine.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:13PM (1 child)
I think the problem is that we have *extremely* good politicians.
The nuance is in what that means. People would like to imagine the job of a politician is to make the country (and even the world, ideally) a better place. But it's not. In a democracy the one and only job of a politician is to get elected. It doesn't matter how good or a bad job they do - if they get elected, they stay in office, if they don't then they're out. This why the first thing a congressman does when he's elected is start planning for the next election. Because that alone is what determines whether they have a job, or not.
And it just so happens that the sort of people capable of getting corporate support and convincing tens of millions of people they're awesome - well, they tend to be pretty awful people. Because you don't convince tens of millions of people with honesty, integrity, rationality, and logic. You manipulate people's most base instincts, emotionalism, tribalism, fear, and so on. At the same time you arrange deals behind the scenes to get corporations to back you, knowing full well they'll get those favors returned tenfold once you're elected.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @05:56PM
We really don't, but the foreign intelligence agencies that prop them up have *extremely* tight control of the media and enough power over businesses that you can't talk smack about these idiots or you lose your job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @07:04PM (1 child)
"Book written by a communist visiting Germany in the 1930s describing fascism:"
What do you know! It's a Jew communist in Germany pushing Jew propaganda...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @11:10PM
We prefer that to Nazis in the US pushing Nazi propaganda. Hence the election results. Sad to see so many Americans choosing Nazi though.
(Score: 5, Informative) by loonycyborg on Saturday January 09 2021, @02:55PM (3 children)
People just keep confusing fascism and nazism. Even Mussolini's party turned against Hitler towards the end of the war.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:05PM
Don't go throwing actual facts into a perfectly stoked flamewar!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 09 2021, @08:00PM
Even some republicans turned against Trump towards the end of of his term. And his civilian supporters will blend back into the crowd, and be all polite 'n shit, "standing down and standing by"
Both "ism"s are cultivated popular movements.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 10 2021, @04:31AM
These days, because of the infamy of Germany, when people refer to "fascism", they're referring to Nazi-style fascism, not Mussolini-style fascism.
It's just like "communism": usually, people are referring to Stalinism or something like that, not people living in communes the way Marx envisioned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:01PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism#Totalitarianism [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, and nothing else exists because everything else is evil. Thanks, but no thanks. Totalitarianism is the opposite of democracy. And here you are, promoting it.
Fuck me
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:43PM
"Democracy" as you understand it was called "oligarchy" before the eighteenth century. "Democracy" for most of the history of mankind meant a (surprisingly repressive) form of government in which the people, assembled together, made all the decisions and passed laws. The majority rules without protections for minorities, including resident aliens (Athenian metics) or the wealthy (who are always a minority in any state). Officers of the democratic state (except ambassadors and generals) were chosen by random lot from lists of volunteers, the method of creating magistrates known as "sortition." "Election" characterized instead oligarchies, in which a small group of people (a senate or gerousia) made the decisions and laws. Names were changed in the eighteenth century, some time between the American revolution and the French one; note that "democracy" in its original sense, which the American founding fathers disdained, does not appear in the Constitution—it was regarded as a failure, not a viable model as oligarchy was.
Totalitarianism is orthogonal to either concept of democracy and in fact compatible with both. In totalitarianism, the state becomes identified with society, replacing or co-opting all competing forms of authority such as religion, academia, science, fraternal organizations, etc. What the people want and what the state wants become the same thing. That's in no way incompatible with old-style direct democracy, where the majority rules absolutely, nor would it be incompatible with an oligarchy. Many people talk about totalitarianism without bothering to find out what it really means. I'd suggest reading Schmitt's Der Begriff des Politischen.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:34PM (1 child)
That might have been what Mussolini said he wanted, but it had absolutely nothing to do with what he did.
Benito Mussolini and his Blackshirts spent the early 1920's attacking labor union members in the street and breaking strikes on behalf of corporations and the state.
That is exactly backwards. Mussolini had formed the fascist party specifically to abandon the Marxist ideas of elimination of class in favor of "class collaboration".
Benito Mussolini and his party took power by threatening to attack the capitol city of Italy, and the king backing down rather than fighting for democracy (which he didn't have much use for anyways, being a king and all). Which meant Mussolini didn't want "universal suffrage", he wanted and ensured the exact opposite, namely no votes that really counted at all. When, early on in Mussolini's rule, a member of the legislature presented evidence of the fascist-run election results being fraudulent, that legislator was murdered by a group of fascists.
He did nothing of the kind.
He did the exact opposite, working to expand industry and create more military production, which he used to attack and take over Ethiopia. By the late 1930's, military industry spending was 10% of Italy's GDP, making Italy under Mussolini about 3 times more militarized than the current US military-industrial complex, and about half as militarized as modern-day North Korea.
So I'm going to call bullshit on your claims about what the Italian fascists stood for. And no, you aren't anything remotely resembling a combination of Socrates and Aristotle when you completely ignore a basic fact about politics, namely that political actions speak far louder than words.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @06:47PM
can you not read? he said they didn't execute according to their purported ideals. wtf is wrong with you?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @03:49PM (3 children)
Observation: this perfectly describes most socialists.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @05:06PM
> Observation: this perfectly describes most socialists.
Observation: this perfectly describes most fanatics.
ftfy
The problem is the absolute value of the beliefs, not the sign.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 09 2021, @09:41PM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:34AM
Exception: economists.
Some of us talk a lot about socialism.
Some talk about how it ended up failing, and why it keeps failing, and what the lessons to learn from it in mixed economies might be.
Some try to fix it. Some few even try to figure out how to implement it so that it works this time. Depending on where you go, you'll find economists trying to rehabilitate Marx (the interesting ones start by pulling the more egregious errors out of Marx's thinking, but it's not universal).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @04:35PM (2 children)
In fascism you are told what to do for the "good of the nation", as defined by an aristocracy. In communism you are told what to do for the "good of the proletariat" by the same aristocracy. Objectively they are pretty much the same to any one person. Of course few think objectively, which is why people like Trump are successful.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @06:32PM
I think the word you were searching for is "capitalism"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @06:52PM
https://gentilesrising.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/capitalism-communism-jewish-hegemony/ [wordpress.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @10:15PM (14 children)
Actually, given the arguments of the far right, the modern hard right in the US mirrors the plot of the The Turner Diaries [wikipedia.org] more than it does the manifesto of the Italian fascists.
That's not to say that manifesto's ideas aren't already somewhat baked in to the Turner Diaries, but the latter is more digestible for Americans.
From spurious claims of "They're gonna take your guns away!" to bullshit "White Genocide," "Communist infiltration" and generalized hatred of, and wanting to do violence to the Constitution and government of the United States.
Hell, those jackbooted thugs even raised a gallows [theatlantic.com] outside the Capitol, which directly mirrors the plot of the Turner Diaries.
Most folks who support Trump are either angry and disillusioned, lifelong Republicans who wouldn't vote for a Democrat if it saved their lives (as we've seen in the past year, it might have), or both.
However, a small group are violent extremists who are happy to use lies aided by our (really wonderful, for the most part) free speech ethos, violence, intimidation and terror to achieve their political aims.
It's important to separate those two groups.
The first, while often cantankerous and unwilling to give others the benefit of the doubt, are mostly decent Americans pushing for their view of how things should be -- peacefully and within our constitutional system of government.
The second group, however, is violent, dangerous and will happily subvert the ideals of our free society in their quest to create a totalitarian (note, I don't say fascist, as there are elements that distinguish them from the historical fascists) society that reflects only their desires and can end only in pain, suffering and death.
To that first group: I disagree with many of your views. However, you have just as much right to those views and I will protect your ability to express and attempt to advance them the same as I do my own.
To that second group: You disgust me and I hope you and your repugnant ideology are wiped from the face of the Earth. And the sooner the better.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @10:38PM (13 children)
While you're on a roll stereotyping, where do you put me: a 50 year old small-d democrat, grew up with the idea that all humans are created equal, opportunity should be equal, opposed to 80s-00s sanctimonious Republican politicians, believing in people's freedom to live their life as they choose, generally voted third party but favoring the Democrats.
Thoroughly disgusted at what the Democrats have become, seeing my ideals of equality thrown away for "equity" (that I would be expected to pay for), pandering to every craziness springing from people trying to get their spot on the positive side of that "equity", destroying the economy of my state for political purposes and throwing thousands of families under the bus - I became a first-time Republican voter for Trump's reelection.
And proud of it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @11:01PM (9 children)
Hmm, too young to be a Boomer, so that leaves racist fascist sympathizer, to stupid to realize he is being used? Trump voter? Yeah, one of those. We'll put you down for "wiping off the face of the earth", is that good for you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @12:40AM (8 children)
Why are you such an asshole Ari?
Were you born that way, or do you have to work at it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @01:32AM (7 children)
AC here. Who's "Ari"? Is he also a far-right nut-job pretending to be a disillusioned former liberal? Does he also have a death-wish for America?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:09AM (6 children)
Nope, just a jackass [soylentnews.org] who's been hanging around here being an asshole for quite a while.
But why are you asking, especially since it's you posting as AC. Asshole.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday January 10 2021, @03:14AM (3 children)
+1 Irony
:D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @03:36AM (2 children)
Is it ironic?
I have a login here too. But I don't go around asking who *I* am like Ari did. That's poor form.
I think the term for doing that is 'sock puppet'.
I don't sock puppet. I just prefer posting AC.
Anyway, enjoy your irony moment. I hope it gives you some pleasure. Toodles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @05:03AM (1 child)
Ari did this? How do you know? And how can it be a sockpuppet, if it is only the accusation of some other sockpuppet of sockpuppetry? This is about as logical as Trump claiming the election was stolen from him. And in fact, stems from the same mythical mindset. For my part, I trust that Ari will reveal himself when it is necessary. And I am not Ari, I don't even know who "Ari" is, but there are some very bubbled minds on this site! !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:41AM
You go, girlfriend!
Are there nice beaches on Samos?
Perhaps I'll go there on holiday this year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @05:08AM (1 child)
Checked out your link. Seems like a standup guy. So what seems to be the problem?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @07:42AM
And perfect for you.
I think you two should get together...oh, wait.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @12:39AM (2 children)
AC you replied to here.
That's great.
While I may not necessarily agree with all your points of view, I applaud your decision to speak out for yourself and participate in our political process.
I take your point WRT stereotyping, however your own words put you pretty solidly in to the first group I mentioned.
Which isn't surprising. Not because I was engaged in some attempt to pigeonhole people.
But rather because I wanted to draw a distinction between Americans who supported Donald Trump -- for whatever reasons -- and who also believe in our constitutional form of government, and those who are illiberal, disingenuous and seek to use violence, intimidation and lies to create an environment where they can rise to power.
As I said, you fit squarely into the first group -- and while I may not agree with you on all the issues, I respect your right to those stances and your political participation. You are a fellow American and I'm proud that you are.
While we may argue, sometimes vehemently, about policy differences, we both want to create an America that works for all of us. We are not enemies. Those that would threaten our system of government and way of life are. And we should treat them as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @02:28AM (1 child)
Thank you for your kind reply. I mostly took exception with the characterization of being a lifelong Republican who wouldn't vote for a Democrat. For me it used to be the exact opposite. I'm not necessarily angry and disillusioned either. Biden had enough negative baggage from the '94 crime bill, his actions around the coup in Ukraine, his family's questionable dealings there and China, while Trump was incumbent and I was better off overall, that the choice was clear to vote for Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @03:31AM
Same AC again.
Fair enough. I suppose I could have left out some of the fluff, but I wanted to make it especially clear that I *wasn't* talking about normal Americans who believe in our constitutional government and the rule of law, when I singled out the violent, vicious hard-right wing that brought plastic police restraints, clubs, pipes, guns and molotov cocktails into the seat of our government to disrupt and harm/kill (why do they need those restraints? did they intend on taking hostages?) our elected representatives.
Because those folks *love* trying to claim that anyone who calls them out for the vicious scum they are is saying that about Republicans. Which isn't and never has been the truth.
Those people are not Republicans. They are totalitarian neo-fascists bent on destabilizing and destroying our democratic republic.
While I often have policy differences with elected R (and D, although less often) politicians, I recognize that our society can only thrive when all voices can be heard and considered. At which point, we should (although that doesn't happen nearly enough) compromise to the benefit of all Americans. Of course, when a compromise is a good one, no one is completely happy. And that rankles with some folks.
Sadly, the talking points of those on the far right have pulled many (slowly, as in boiling the frog) further and further away from positions upon which we can have compromise. There are loud voices on the center left (make no mistake, the Democratic Party is a center-right party on the general political spectrum) but while not marginalized, have nowhere near the influence of the far right on the Republican Party.
I suggest you read The Turner Diaries [wikipedia.org] (PDFs available if you poke around a bit). You'll find that some (note I say 'some', not many or all) of the ideas espoused as good and patriotic by the vicious, racist totalitarian 'heroes' of the novel are right now being used as Republican talking points, even though they don't actually reflect reality.
It's kind of scary, tbh.
Anyway, I'm ranting a bit now, but my point is that regardless of our political leanings, if we believe in the rule of law and the ideals of our constitutional government, we must advocate for our preferred policy positions but remember that those who disagree but share the same belief in our system of government and the rule of law are not our enemies, they are our brothers and sisters who can help us make our nation work better for all of us.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Sunday January 10 2021, @12:01AM (1 child)
I've often thought of something I call "the dictator's delusion".
It works like this:
1. Things would be better if we had X.
2. We're having a hard time getting X.
3. If we did Y, we could get X more easily. Y is bad, but we just need a little of it for a little while.
4. People are pushing back on Y. We need to make sure they don't do that.
5. Don't they understand? Y is X!
6. We must eliminate anybody who opposes Y, by any means necessary.
Fundamentally, the delusion is one of the means replacing the ends.
The dictator's delusion is apolitical. It applies to the far right, as well as the far left. I suppose it could, in theory even apply to some kind of mixed ideology or even moderates attempting to suppress extremists of either stripe, but I haven't seen any real world examples of that kind of thing.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 10 2021, @01:02AM
As noted above--
> Observation: this perfectly describes most socialists.
Observation: this perfectly describes most fanatics.
ftfy
The problem is the absolute value of the beliefs, not the sign.