Random Politics Thread

[Virtual ghost]

that's only because the people who own your government want it to work. The people who own ours are trying to punish us for getting too uppity in the last few years.

But there is hidden point in my post. Which is that the cure for this disease is already invented and now it just has to be "deployed". In other words fixing this for good would make one pretty good campaign promise.

 

[ceecee]

That sucks.

To me this stood out:


This suggests to me the level of incompetence we've all come to know and love.

It's far more than incompetence. Republicans as a rule (sure there are exceptions here and there but most have left the party and/or are no longer in government), are incapable of governing (they wait for the Dems to clean up their messes every time). Not only that, they are wholly uninteresting in governing. Not to mention that they are the most spineless people. Trump is an excellent front for them as he is for most Trump voters - if I do what he says I'm no longer responsible for anything I say or do. Just following orders. It's the messiah they have been waiting for since the 90's.

 

[Totenkindly]

Amateur hour continues.

Rand Paul Floats Musk for Speaker

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's far more than incompetence. Republicans as a rule (sure there are exceptions here and there but most have left the party and/or are no longer in government), are incapable of governing (they wait for the Dems to clean up their messes every time). Not only that, they are wholly uninteresting in governing. Not to mention that they are the most spineless people. Trump is an excellent front for them as he is for most Trump voters - if I do what he says I'm no longer responsible for anything I say or do. Just following orders. It's the messiah they have been waiting for since the 90's.

I know the GOP engages in this behavior, of having insane devotion to messianic figures. They did it to Bush first, however they're trying to revise that these days.

That's why I was so disappointed when Democrats began doing it, too. I lack that part of my brain that allows me to stop being critical just because my side's doing it. I know I'm supposed to convince myself it's different somehow but I can't do it.

If people keep doing things like that, and letting Democrats off the hook for things they criticize Republicans for, how is anything ever going to get better? Isn't it important to recognize the full scope of the problems we're facing?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Trump ramps up EU trade war threat unless bloc buys American oil and gas

Trump tells EU to boost US energy imports or face tariffs


Truth to be told: if that is what EU should do to avoid open trade war the EU will do it. After all it basically needs all the energy it can get if the price is at least somewhat reasonable. However it is worth saying that here he is calculating (what is good sign that things wouldn't get too crazy). In other words it seems that he realized that trade war with EU is something he can't afford if he is doing one with China (and some smaller or neighboring countries). What overall indicates that there will indeed be strong anti China axis. Because EU is moving away from China even as it is. What should in the end put China under huge pressure. Because their economy mainly exists to mass export into developed countries. What will then create drama of it's own. Things will surely brake somewhere but for all of us it is better that what brakes are links with China than the link between US and EU.

 

[Coriolis]

It's far more than incompetence. Republicans as a rule (sure there are exceptions here and there but most have left the party and/or are no longer in government), are incapable of governing (they wait for the Dems to clean up their messes every time). Not only that, they are wholly uninteresting in governing. Not to mention that they are the most spineless people. Trump is an excellent front for them as he is for most Trump voters - if I do what he says I'm no longer responsible for anything I say or do. Just following orders. It's the messiah they have been waiting for since the 90's.

It's more like malfeasance than incompetence. They know what they are doing, are doing it deliberately, and it is a gross betrayal of their obligation to represent the actual needs and concerns of their constituents. That sort of passing the buck didn't work with Hitler, and won't work with Trump in the end, though many will use it to skate by for as long as they can.

I know the GOP engages in this behavior, of having insane devotion to messianic figures. They did it to Bush first, however they're trying to revise that these days.

That's why I was so disappointed when Democrats began doing it, too. I lack that part of my brain that allows me to stop being critical just because my side's doing it. I know I'm supposed to convince myself it's different somehow but I can't do it.

If people keep doing things like that, and letting Democrats off the hook for things they criticize Republicans for, how is anything ever going to get better? Isn't it important to recognize the full scope of the problems we're facing?

Who have Democrats displayed this kind of devotion to? The only one I can think of is FDR and he actually did quite a bit of good, though personality cults in general are bad for politics, and government.

 

[Totenkindly]

Who have Democrats displayed this kind of devotion to? The only one I can think of is FDR and he actually did quite a bit of good, though personality cults in general are bad for politics, and government.

Yeah, I haven't really seen this kind of personality cult around a Democratic pres -- nothing on the level of Trump.

 

[ceecee]

Yeah, I haven't really seen this kind of personality cult around a Democratic pres -- nothing on the level of Trump.

I would put Barry O in this category. Not as much as Trump but certainly with Dem leadership and a certain kind of NIMBY, wealthy, entrepreneurial type Democrat that likes to be around celebrity. Which is what Obama is and Trump wants to be.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, I haven't really seen this kind of personality cult around a Democratic pres -- nothing on the level of Trump.

It's possible my perception is off. I wasn't in a very good place around the time Obama was elected/inaugurated. And people saying things to me like "just you wait" or acting suspicious of me because I'm not enough of a believer doesn't help. I felt like shit then, probably for other reasons entirely, and I could never talk about it.

 

[Red Herring]

So some idiot deliberately drove his car into the crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing an adult and a toddler and injuring several others. The police have arrested the suspected perpetrator. He is a doctor of psychiatry from Saudi Arabia who has been legally staying in Germany for the last 18 years and no known connections to any islamist or other extremist groups.

So far the guy's motive is still unknown, could be islamist, could be something related to Palestine, could be a mental health crises. In any case, here in Europe Christmas markets have been a very popular target for terrorists for many years now. In 2016 a Tunesian member of the Islamic state drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 18 and injuring 56 others. In 2018 another member of the Islamic State shot and stabbed 5 people and injured 11 others at the Christmas market in Strasbourg. Two years prior, the same year as the Berlin attack, several people had been arrested in France for planning a bomb attack on Christmas markets. Similar arrests of people connected to Al Quaeda had already been made in 2000, also regarding the Strasbourg Christmas market. Tat are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

For perspective, here are the known terrorist attacks in Germany of the last few years (leaving out a few that are hard to classify):

2024 so far, excluding today: 1 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 4 x islamist, 1 x related to foreign conflict (Russia/Ukraine)
2023: 1 x leftwing, 13 x rightwing, 2 x islamist (not including a guy stabbing several people in a train who happened to be a Palestinian Muslim but apparently simply was mentally unstable)
2022: 4 x rightwing
2021: 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist
2020: 4 x rightwing, 3 x islamist
2019: 7 x rightwing, 2 x related to foreign conflicts (Turkey & Nigeria)
2018: 2 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist, 5 x related to foreign conflict (Kurds & Syria) ... this was a wild year and several more were hard to classify.

Unsolved attacks on Turkish targets could be either neonazis or Kurdish nationalists. Attacks on synagogues and other Jewish targets could be neonazi, islamist or pro-Palestinian. It's often guesswork when nobody is arrested and there is no confession message. However, overall the main threat is homegrown rightwing extremists.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

So some idiot deliberately drove his car into the crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing an adult and a toddler and injuring several others. The police have arrested the suspected perpetrator. He is a doctor of psychiatry from Saudi Arabia who has been legally staying in Germany for the last 18 years and no known connections to any islamist or other extremist groups.

So far the guy's motive is still unknown, could be islamist, could be something related to Palestine, could be a mental health crises. In any case, here in Europe Christmas markets have been a very popular target for terrorists for many years now. In 2016 a Tunesian member of the Islamic state drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 18 and injuring 56 others. In 2018 another member of the Islamic State shot and stabbed 5 people and injured 11 others at the Christmas market in Strasbourg. Two years prior, the same year as the Berlin attack, several people had been arrested in France for planning a bomb attack on Christmas markets. Similar arrests of people connected to Al Quaeda had already been made in 2000, also regarding the Strasbourg Christmas market. Tat are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

For perspective, here are the known terrorist attacks in Germany of the last few years (leaving out a few that are hard to classify):

2024 so far, excluding today: 1 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 4 x islamist, 1 x related to foreign conflict (Russia/Ukraine)
2023: 1 x leftwing, 13 x rightwing, 2 x islamist (not including a guy stabbing several people in a train who happened to be a Palestinian Muslim but apparently simply was mentally unstable)
2022: 4 x rightwing
2021: 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist
2020: 4 x rightwing, 3 x islamist
2019: 7 x rightwing, 2 x related to foreign conflicts (Turkey & Nigeria)
2018: 2 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist, 5 x related to foreign conflict (Kurds & Syria) ... this was a wild year and several more were hard to classify.

Unsolved attacks on Turkish targets could be either neonazis or Kurdish nationalists. Attacks on synagogues and other Jewish targets could be neonazi, islamist or pro-Palestinian. It's often guesswork when nobody is arrested and there is no confession message. However, overall the main threat is homegrown rightwing extremists.

Right but we're only supposed to pick one kind and then worry about that.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Christmas is at the door and the global mood is at the level of funeral.

 

[Red Herring]

So some idiot deliberately drove his car into the crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing an adult and a toddler and injuring several others. The police have arrested the suspected perpetrator. He is a doctor of psychiatry from Saudi Arabia who has been legally staying in Germany for the last 18 years and no known connections to any islamist or other extremist groups.

So far the guy's motive is still unknown, could be islamist, could be something related to Palestine, could be a mental health crises. In any case, here in Europe Christmas markets have been a very popular target for terrorists for many years now. In 2016 a Tunesian member of the Islamic state drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 18 and injuring 56 others. In 2018 another member of the Islamic State shot and stabbed 5 people and injured 11 others at the Christmas market in Strasbourg. Two years prior, the same year as the Berlin attack, several people had been arrested in France for planning a bomb attack on Christmas markets. Similar arrests of people connected to Al Quaeda had already been made in 2000, also regarding the Strasbourg Christmas market. Tat are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

For perspective, here are the known terrorist attacks in Germany of the last few years (leaving out a few that are hard to classify):

2024 so far, excluding today: 1 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 4 x islamist, 1 x related to foreign conflict (Russia/Ukraine)
2023: 1 x leftwing, 13 x rightwing, 2 x islamist (not including a guy stabbing several people in a train who happened to be a Palestinian Muslim but apparently simply was mentally unstable)
2022: 4 x rightwing
2021: 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist
2020: 4 x rightwing, 3 x islamist
2019: 7 x rightwing, 2 x related to foreign conflicts (Turkey & Nigeria)
2018: 2 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist, 5 x related to foreign conflict (Kurds & Syria) ... this was a wild year and several more were hard to classify.

Unsolved attacks on Turkish targets could be either neonazis or Kurdish nationalists. Attacks on synagogues and other Jewish targets could be neonazi, islamist or pro-Palestinian. It's often guesswork when nobody is arrested and there is no confession message. However, overall the main threat is homegrown rightwing extremists.

We are now up to 5 dead and over 200 injured.

I am glad the police caught the alleged killer alive but his motives are still unknown. He is an educated man in his 50s, not your usual terrorist material. He also appears to be quite the opposite of an islamist, a self-proclaimed former Muslim and even anti-Muslim. And on top of all that I just read that the Saudis actually did warn Germany about the guy repeatedly (not sure why). This becomes more mysterious by the hour rather than clearer.


Edith: Oh, and he apparently sympathized with the AfD ...so it might even be a weird rightwing thing after all

 

[Lark]

So some idiot deliberately drove his car into the crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing an adult and a toddler and injuring several others. The police have arrested the suspected perpetrator. He is a doctor of psychiatry from Saudi Arabia who has been legally staying in Germany for the last 18 years and no known connections to any islamist or other extremist groups.

So far the guy's motive is still unknown, could be islamist, could be something related to Palestine, could be a mental health crises. In any case, here in Europe Christmas markets have been a very popular target for terrorists for many years now. In 2016 a Tunesian member of the Islamic state drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 18 and injuring 56 others. In 2018 another member of the Islamic State shot and stabbed 5 people and injured 11 others at the Christmas market in Strasbourg. Two years prior, the same year as the Berlin attack, several people had been arrested in France for planning a bomb attack on Christmas markets. Similar arrests of people connected to Al Quaeda had already been made in 2000, also regarding the Strasbourg Christmas market. Tat are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

For perspective, here are the known terrorist attacks in Germany of the last few years (leaving out a few that are hard to classify):

2024 so far, excluding today: 1 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 4 x islamist, 1 x related to foreign conflict (Russia/Ukraine)
2023: 1 x leftwing, 13 x rightwing, 2 x islamist (not including a guy stabbing several people in a train who happened to be a Palestinian Muslim but apparently simply was mentally unstable)
2022: 4 x rightwing
2021: 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist
2020: 4 x rightwing, 3 x islamist
2019: 7 x rightwing, 2 x related to foreign conflicts (Turkey & Nigeria)
2018: 2 x leftwing, 3 x rightwing, 2 x islamist, 5 x related to foreign conflict (Kurds & Syria) ... this was a wild year and several more were hard to classify.

Unsolved attacks on Turkish targets could be either neonazis or Kurdish nationalists. Attacks on synagogues and other Jewish targets could be neonazi, islamist or pro-Palestinian. It's often guesswork when nobody is arrested and there is no confession message. However, overall the main threat is homegrown rightwing extremists.

I sometimes wonder if describing these things as terrorism or in some similar term instead of simply crime or insanity is part of the problem, it is confering a status in the process which it seems many of these perpetrators really want for themselves.

If it gained no publicity or traction for themselves would they even act out in that manner at all? I doubt it, a lot of the time, at least in a lot of the suicidal terrorist types they are pursuing the old fashioned necrophilious idea of a "good death" or "martyrdom", they arent prepared to do the hard work of living for something, living with imperfection (by their lights) and a world that wont ever conform completely to their personal vision, so the better to perish and make a real big noise doing so.

While these are very old ideas, certainly predating the sixties, I often wonder about the status that people like Che Guevara got after their deaths, and how it influenced that kind of martyrology, which I think goes back and forth between secular and non-secular vehicles, personally, I really dislike that the opponents of oppression or people desiring change of one type or another think that dying is a good idea, for themselves or anyone else, as nothing surer the oppression out lasts them and the possibility of change per se is terminated with them. Objectively that is so and until the futility of violence and death as a means to achieving anything is known, and undeniably so, then this type of thing is going to just keep on and on happening in some shape or another.

 

[Lark]

We are now up to 5 dead and over 200 injured.

I am glad the police caught the alleged killer alive but his motives are still unknown. He is an educated man in his 50s, not your usual terrorist material. He also appears to be quite the opposite of an islamist, a self-proclaimed former Muslim and even anti-Muslim. And on top of all that I just read that the Saudis actually did warn Germany about the guy repeatedly (not sure why). This becomes more mysterious by the hour rather than clearer.


Edith: Oh, and he apparently sympathized with the AfD ...so it might even be a weird rightwing thing after all

Apparently the same story with Bin Laden you know, I had a lecturer on third world development at university, he was a refugee too as his government or corporations had repeatedly tried to shoot him for meeting with trade union organizers, and he used to say about how that part of the world had tried repeatedly to trade bin laden to the CIA before 9/11 but the CIA didnt want him. He said there was no conspiracy, they just didnt think he was a threat, they just were more suspicious of the state actors saying "take this guy, he is a trouble maker" than they were of bin laden himself. This is likely to be the same story.

Plus, these days, I just think that there are a lot of people who want a sectarian death spiral of political islam versus far right ethno-nationalism, maybe it simplifies things for them, I definitely could see how politicians would want it, makes their job much easier if all they need to do is make the right sort of noises and they benefit from the echo chambers, dog whistles and the like come what may and regardless of how they actually perform in public office. Its now things have been in NI for the whole of my life and there sure are people who would love to see the return of that particular "business as usual", arguably westminister has tried really hard to engineer, or take advantage, of similar sentiments in england, brexit was a result.

The irony, I find, is that while ostensibly opposing each other, the two adversaries within this kind of pairing share more in common with one another than the average member of gen pop. Some of them know that, play on it, are pretty cynical and could care less, others dont.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Senate passes stop-gap spending bill, preventing a government shutdown​

Good-ish news, I think.

Republicans will continue to face similar challenges in the next Congress as they attempt to pass legislation with another razor-thin House majority and a Republican-controlled — but closely-divided — Senate.

 

[Red Herring]

Apparently the same story with Bin Laden you know, I had a lecturer on third world development at university, he was a refugee too as his government or corporations had repeatedly tried to shoot him for meeting with trade union organizers, and he used to say about how that part of the world had tried repeatedly to trade bin laden to the CIA before 9/11 but the CIA didnt want him. He said there was no conspiracy, they just didnt think he was a threat, they just were more suspicious of the state actors saying "take this guy, he is a trouble maker" than they were of bin laden himself. This is likely to be the same story.

Plus, these days, I just think that there are a lot of people who want a sectarian death spiral of political islam versus far right ethno-nationalism, maybe it simplifies things for them, I definitely could see how politicians would want it, makes their job much easier if all they need to do is make the right sort of noises and they benefit from the echo chambers, dog whistles and the like come what may and regardless of how they actually perform in public office. Its now things have been in NI for the whole of my life and there sure are people who would love to see the return of that particular "business as usual", arguably westminister has tried really hard to engineer, or take advantage, of similar sentiments in england, brexit was a result.

The irony, I find, is that while ostensibly opposing each other, the two adversaries within this kind of pairing share more in common with one another than the average member of gen pop. Some of them know that, play on it, are pretty cynical and could care less, others dont.

Oh yes, islamists and the far-right share a lot of ideals as well as common enemies.

As far as the Saudi guy is concerned, things are still a bit unclear but he seems to be an atheist. Right now everything points to him having mental issues - he skipped a court apointment the day before the attack where he was facing a fine for repeatedly abusong emergency hotlines. He also has a history of confronting the police and the folks at the atheist refugee help group that he volunteered at say he was extremely confrontational and constantly insulting and attacking people. Looks like he just snapped.

 

[Virtual ghost]

This is why I said that things probably wouldn't get too crazy. Since Trump's victory on all levels is actually pretty thin one and there is still some of the establishment left in the mix. Some really like to present all of this as a landslide but this just wasn't a landslide. 220 vs 215 in the house and taking swing states by a 1.5 points simply isn't a landslide.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Oh yes, islamists and the far-right share a lot of ideals as well as common enemies.

Technically speaking Islamists are noting more than far right that believes in Allah instead of God.