In the Aftermath of Trump's election loss.

hanimmal said:

And Putin will have a lot to answer for with the propaganda they slammed our minority communities with.

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Maybe not fuck with Putin for a while. The last time it got you Trump and he accelerated the US into the post-truth era where disinformation is more powerful than rockets and bombs.

Putin had his revenge and will soon be retired by whoever really runs Russia nowadays. Russia isn’t as dangerous for the world as the US potentially can be under a Trump, so maybe focus on doing whatever is necessary to prevent another Trump.

hanimmal said:

Humanity was not ready for social media. We will get there though.

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Right, more specifically, humanity is not ready for the democracy of knowledge.

Max Ehrmann said:

Barry Sanders was a football GOD. Dude had no team behind him and still shined! I'm from Detroit I remember. Poor guy... one of the best running backs in history and no rings to prove it...oh well we all know the deal.

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Except, he retired the year that me and my friend bought season tickets when we were waiters in Ann Arbor.

We really wanted to see him break the record, but nope, retired.

We still had a blast. It was great we were in the end zone and used to taunt the kick returners because we were loud enough to be heard while they set up. Deion Sanders fell for it when we all started chanting "Deion Sucks", and miffed the punt because he was show boating spinning his hands like a conductor. My favorite sporting event memory.

Still sucks how much better it would have been to see Sanders break the record.

Sativied said:

Maybe not fuck with Putin for a while. The last time it got you Trump and he accelerated the US into the post-truth era where disinformation is more powerful than rockets and bombs.

Why Putin hates Hillary

Behind the allegations of a Russian hack of the DNC is the Kremlin leader's fury at Clinton for challenging the fairness of Russian elections.

www.politico.com

Putin had his revenge and will soon be retired by whoever really runs Russia nowadays. Russia isn’t as dangerous for the world as the US potentially can be under a Trump, so maybe focus on doing whatever is necessary to prevent another Trump.

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Whatever happens is on Putin, I agree, he got his troll in on our democracies, and caused us all a lot of damage in both our health and our relationships by exploiting all of our societies weaknesses by spamming all our citizens with it nonstop.

If this becomes a hot war, it is because Putin decided to go that next step and make it one.

This feels a lot like that letter that I heard Hitler gave his generals right before they invaded a country (Poland/France? I forget) that told them if a shot from the other side was fired to turn around.

Sativied said:

Right, more specifically, humanity is not ready for the democracy of knowledge.

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I don't know, it is not knowledge that is the problem, it is the ability for people with the knowhow and resources to manipulate all that person's feeds to reflect what they want it to, convincing them that bullshit they see online is the actual reality, when it is just amplifying the propaganda that they are most likely to have a strong reaction to.

Apply a constant stream of information that is not real and it is amazing what the human mind can convince itself of.

January 2020

Sativied said:

Yeah, I don’t handle beer as well as mj

I remember we talked about this a bit a few years ago. I said something similar to what you are saying now, that you still all have to live together, find some middleground and all that... I underestimated how messed up so many republicans would become. And not just the uneducated rednecks.

What they want above all is a leader figure who tells them it’s ok to be as flawed as a human being as Trump is. An unacceptable request. They’ve already shown that has a higher priority than something like affordable healthcare. The suggestion you can somehow please them enough to prevent them from continuing on the same path sounds like Stockholm syndrome.


That difference is extremely dangerous, as people have shown throughout history, especially when that rethoric includes inciting violence against political opponents.

Trump is a terrorist, by definition. The GOP a terrorist organization. They need to be dismantled and outlawed else it’s only a matter of time things get worse. Trump is rather dumb, his republican successor will be even more dangerous.

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That's a really good post, Sativied.

When something big happens, I tend to get analytical and challenge my assumptions. This time, with Trump's loss/Biden's win, I challenged my attitudes towards Trump's supporters, asking if there is a path forward with them. Perhaps the stubborn one is me. Maybe if we focus on nonpartisan and common goals, like jobs, security, etc., maybe we can make some progress and heal.

But I think your summary is a good counter to that idea. Republicans already have those things, for the most part. Why would they cooperate with Democrats so that everybody else has the same chances they have? So, they flock to Trump who supports the status quo and follow him as he takes their conservatism farther to the right with his ethno-nationalist rhetoric and anti-democratic policies. As you say, what they want is a strong central leader who tells them it's OK to do and say the terrible things he does. That is unacceptable.

Listening to Trump, Republican leaders, right wing talk radio and his followers this week, I see that they are committed to their radical right wing agenda. They are at this very moment trying to defeat our democracy. So, I reject my hypothesis that there can be peace. No peace, that is, at a political level, I don't think we are on the brink of a shooting civil war. The GOP with its white supremacist leadership and authoritarian policies must be opposed, not reasoned with.

Don't count on U.S. relations with the world reverting comfortably to a pre-Trump norm, however. In the past few years, American allies have received a crash course in how easily global agreements with the U.S. can be undone, depending on which party holds office.

As well, the polarization of American politics has spilled into the global arena, with new debates over U.S. nationalism and the country's role in the world.

"There will be concerns about the credibility and reliability of U.S. commitments," said Jonathan Wood, lead North American analyst for Control Risks, an international political and economic risk-consulting firm.

"One thing that is abundantly clear, when you raise the question in Canada or Europe or elsewhere, is that some of the things that have been let out of the bag the last four years can't easily be put back."


We've seen the moronic clusterfuck that is the US political system. We've seen that you don't give a fuck about anyone outside your borders. We've seen that you will use and manipulate us for your own selfish ends. We've seen that good-faith negotiation means nothing and protocol and decency and honesty can be ignored at your whim.

We've seen that the USA is not a friend or an ally, and that you can't be trusted.

If you think you can put the last 4 years behind you and pretend it never happened, you are wrong.

H G Griffin said:

Don't count on U.S. relations with the world reverting comfortably to a pre-Trump norm, however. In the past few years, American allies have received a crash course in how easily global agreements with the U.S. can be undone, depending on which party holds office.

As well, the polarization of American politics has spilled into the global arena, with new debates over U.S. nationalism and the country's role in the world.

"There will be concerns about the credibility and reliability of U.S. commitments," said Jonathan Wood, lead North American analyst for Control Risks, an international political and economic risk-consulting firm.

"One thing that is abundantly clear, when you raise the question in Canada or Europe or elsewhere, is that some of the things that have been let out of the bag the last four years can't easily be put back."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-election-biden-result-1.5790534

We've seen the moronic clusterfuck that is the US political system. We've seen that you don't give a fuck about anyone outside your borders. We've seen that you will use and manipulate us for your own selfish ends. We've seen that good-faith negotiation means nothing and protocol and decency and honesty can be ignored at your whim.

We've seen that the USA is not a friend or an ally, and that you can't be trusted.

If you think you can put the last 4 years behind you and pretend it never happened, you are wrong.

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Unless while negotiating a treaty it gets passed by the congress and senate, and then signed into law by the POTUS, it is unfortunately open to the whims of a despot like Trump.

Outside of being a moronic troll, he really was not able to hurt any of our NATO allies, and Mexico and Canada were nice enough to let Trump act like an idiot in his lame attempt to rebrand NAFTA.

H G Griffin said:

We've seen that the USA is not a friend or an ally, and that you can't be trusted.

If you think you can put the last 4 years behind you and pretend it never happened, you are wrong.

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Moral failings are hard to forgive and we just witnessed another one, to a lesser degree, but the shadow still lurks in the background. Friends understand, we know Americans well, and share their faults too, but not their history, we must make the effort, for their sakes and ours. We are in bed with the elephant sometimes and sensitive to it's every twitch, though donkeys can kick too, in fact they stand up better for their country's interest than republicans. Dealing with Trump was about the same as dealing with Hitler, Justin did make him look like a cuck with the Trump women though, so there's that!

H G Griffin said:

Don't count on U.S. relations with the world reverting comfortably to a pre-Trump norm, however. In the past few years, American allies have received a crash course in how easily global agreements with the U.S. can be undone, depending on which party holds office.

As well, the polarization of American politics has spilled into the global arena, with new debates over U.S. nationalism and the country's role in the world.

"There will be concerns about the credibility and reliability of U.S. commitments," said Jonathan Wood, lead North American analyst for Control Risks, an international political and economic risk-consulting firm.

"One thing that is abundantly clear, when you raise the question in Canada or Europe or elsewhere, is that some of the things that have been let out of the bag the last four years can't easily be put back."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-election-biden-result-1.5790534

We've seen the moronic clusterfuck that is the US political system. We've seen that you don't give a fuck about anyone outside your borders. We've seen that you will use and manipulate us for your own selfish ends. We've seen that good-faith negotiation means nothing and protocol and decency and honesty can be ignored at your whim.

We've seen that the USA is not a friend or an ally, and that you can't be trusted.

If you think you can put the last 4 years behind you and pretend it never happened, you are wrong.

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I think there’s a lot of truth in this post. Just another thing Biden will have to deal with.

Something like trump can happen in any democracy but it’s a lot more relevant when that country is a super power. Constitutional checks and balances turned out to be no match against political polarization.

Also I really think America just proved to the world that we are still indeed a responsible nation.

It doesn't seem that in world history too many dictators got handled as cleanly as we just clearly did.

CunningCanuk said:

I think there’s a lot of truth in this post. Just another thing Biden will have to deal with.

Something like trump can happen in any democracy but it’s a lot more relevant when that country is a super power. Constitutional checks and balances turned out to be no match against political polarization.

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We have a lot of checks and balances here in America.

Our state run elections just proved a big check on the federal government's executive branch.

And hopefully in January Georgia can provide another for the legislative branch by voting in the 2 Democrats so Biden can get his appointments in place as soon as possible. The sooner that happens the sooner the world gets to learn the truth about the very real attack Russia has been conducting on our world's democracies.

CunningCanuk said:

Something like trump can happen in any democracy but it’s a lot more relevant when that country is a super power. Constitutional checks and balances turned out to be no match against political polarization.

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Like so many others, I was shocked by how Trump was able to run roughshod over the entire country. I wasn't a Hillary fan and remember saying that even if Trump got in, his inexperience combined with the system of checks and balances would keep him from doing too much damage.

Nope, he exposed the "check and balances" as an utter joke. He openly broke the law and bragged about it, he openly encouraged criminal activity against opponents, he openly called for various government agencies to investigate and imprison his opponents in violation of Constitution. He bragged he could commit murder and it would not affect his following.

And yet he was barely voted out and his party actually strengthened their position in congress.

H G Griffin said:

Don't count on U.S. relations with the world reverting comfortably to a pre-Trump norm, however. In the past few years, American allies have received a crash course in how easily global agreements with the U.S. can be undone, depending on which party holds office.

As well, the polarization of American politics has spilled into the global arena, with new debates over U.S. nationalism and the country's role in the world.

"There will be concerns about the credibility and reliability of U.S. commitments," said Jonathan Wood, lead North American analyst for Control Risks, an international political and economic risk-consulting firm.

"One thing that is abundantly clear, when you raise the question in Canada or Europe or elsewhere, is that some of the things that have been let out of the bag the last four years can't easily be put back."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-election-biden-result-1.5790534

We've seen the moronic clusterfuck that is the US political system. We've seen that you don't give a fuck about anyone outside your borders. We've seen that you will use and manipulate us for your own selfish ends. We've seen that good-faith negotiation means nothing and protocol and decency and honesty can be ignored at your whim.

We've seen that the USA is not a friend or an ally, and that you can't be trusted.

If you think you can put the last 4 years behind you and pretend it never happened, you are wrong.

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Sounds reasonable to me.

Trump sucked. Obviously, one would wonder about a country in which 70 million people voted for him to have a second term. 75 million voted not to see him get one. Many of us in the US are still sorting out what that means too. I don't know what more you think we expect from your country, (Canada, is it?). Personally, I'm more focused on getting through the next four years without another Republican take-over of our government. It could happen. So, yeah, keep an eye out and agree that people outside of the US should be wary. We are sketchy.

Besides, it's not at all clear to me that I want the kind of US trade deals and global economy that we had before Trump and especially Coronavirus hit. I'm hoping we pull out of some of those anyway. I've always wanted US Defense to be just that too.

DIY-HP-LED said:

Justin did make him look like a cuck with the Trump women though, so there's that!

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Aw man, don't sink to their level.

Fogdog said:

Personally, I'm more focused on getting through the next four years without another Republican take-over of our government.

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And there it is.

Your system is so broken that the best you can hope for is to hold your position. There is nothing in your future but fighting and hating each other. You can't even imagine an actual resolution, can you?
Only endless cycles of lies and division and hatred. An endless waltz of back and forth with nothing accomplished but the further erosion of your nation.

Can't you see that isn't right?

H G Griffin said:

And there it is.

Your system is so broken that the best you can hope for is to hold your position. There is nothing in your future but fighting and hating each other. You can't even imagine an actual resolution, can you?
Only endless cycles of lies and division and hatred. An endless waltz of back and forth with nothing accomplished but the further erosion of your nation.

Can't you see that isn't right?

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Because you said so?

What you are describing is the steady march of progress.

Fogdog said:

I've always wanted US Defense to be just that too.

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So you'd have no problem with Canada allying with China? A multilateral approach is the only way forward with China. We share a power grid too and that is vital for American defense, as is the polar regions. We are in bed together, so we might as well like each other, there are not many reasons why we can't thrive in partnership, lot's of people have bipolar spouses!

Take yer lithium Uncle Sam!

DIY-HP-LED said:

So you'd have no problem with Canada allying with China? A multilateral approach is the only way forward with China. We share a power grid too and that is vital for American defense, as is the polar regions. We are in bed together, so we might as well like each other, there are not many reasons why we can't thrive in partnership, lot's of people have bipolar spouses!

Take yer lithium Uncle Sam!

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Canada should act in it's own best interest. I don't think China is a great country to ally with but if Canada sees otherwise then we screwed up or Canada screwed up or I'm flat out wrong about China being an undesirable country to partner with.

Personally, I think we should pull back on our trade ties with China and have no major issues with our trade ties with Canada. Mexico is more problematic due to the way they suppress organized labor, labor rights and low pay. I'd like to revise Nafta or whatever it's called now to put more teeth into agreements that level wages and worker's rights so that US labor competes on the basis of quality and productivity, not lowest wage.

H G Griffin said:

And there it is.

Your system is so broken that the best you can hope for is to hold your position. There is nothing in your future but fighting and hating each other. You can't even imagine an actual resolution, can you?
Only endless cycles of lies and division and hatred. An endless waltz of back and forth with nothing accomplished but the further erosion of your nation.

Can't you see that isn't right?

Click to expand...

We are in the middle of unprecedented societal shift that is at the root of the volatility going on right now. White people have always held privileged status relative to non-white people in the US. This goes back to the earliest days of this country. By the middle of the 2030's that will no longer be true. So, yeah, white people, especially uneducated whites are feeling threatened by these changes. Things should settle down by the early 2030's, when the country will be more diverse and the older boomers have been replaced by the better educated and less bigoted millennial generation. While you view our situation as an endless cycle, I view it as a difficult journey with an end. So, no, I don't think you are right.

The next four to six years will be the most dynamic politically. It could be that the Fascist Authoritarian Republican Teabaggers win by suppressing our Democracy or it could be that the growing majority who reject them win by opening up voting rights to more people. So, yes, I see a real threat if the FARTS to gain power again. But it isn't an endless cycle. We have an opportunity to get away from fascism: Clearly, more people than ever are engaged in our political system. Record turnout. I think that is healthy for democracy. Also, the majority coaltion of Black, Latino, Asian and about 40% of white people are celebrating a win today. I see that coalition as our best hope. Demographic analysis shows it is a growing one while the FART coalition is shrinking. The FART coalition is an angry, anti-democratic and violent group who we must outlast for the sake of the US and probably for the sake of Canada. So, I not only think you are not right about this being an endless cycle, I think we are headed on a path to fix this problem. It will take time to settle this peacefully. But please do be angry with us. We deserve it for putting the world into this position.

I've read that California represents where the rest of the US will be in 15 years. California went through all of the ethno-nationalist, anti-social Republican conflict and is in pretty good shape. If that is true then the US is due for a renaissance in the next decade. For that to happen, our democratic institutions must survive the fascist onslaught. Hence my heightened alert for what happens over the next four years. Trump and Trumpism nearly took us down.

Fogdog said:

I'd like to revise Nafta or whatever it's called now to put more teeth into agreements that level wages and worker's rights so that US labor competes on the basis of quality and productivity, not lowest wage.

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Yep and free people should not compete with slaves or those with limited rights. Dealing with China will be both multilateral and technological, Automation can help to reduce labor costs and pick and place machines and float soldering have led to tens of thousands of layoffs in the electronics industry there. We can begin to move manufacturing with a high automation component back to North America as labor costs become less of a factor.

We'll will have to gang up on China and not just us in North America, a revived TPP is the fastest way, it was a done deal before Trump. Garments are mostly made in places like Bangladesh and India and we are complaisant in the exploitation of people there, our dirt cheap clothing is made on their backs, by a system of subcontractors. Ditto for the ship breaking industry, videos of that are something to see!

America has internal problems to solve, don't worry about us, we're here to help, the faster you get back on your feet the better for us. Hurt feelings are better dealt with among families than strangers, unlike most we watch your TV too, so we sort of share a living room.

DIY-HP-LED said:

Yep and free people should not compete with slaves or those with limited rights. Dealing with China will be both multilateral and technological, Automation can help to reduce labor costs and pick and place machines and float soldering have led to tens of thousands of layoffs in the electronics industry there. We can begin to move manufacturing with a high automation component back to North America as labor costs become less of a factor.

We'll will have to gang up on China and not just us in North America, a revived TPP is the fastest way, it was a done deal before Trump. Garments are mostly made in places like Bangladesh and India and we are complaisant in the exploitation of people there, our dirt cheap clothing is made on their backs, by a system of subcontractors. Ditto for the ship breaking industry, videos of that are something to see!

America has internal problems to solve, don't worry about us, we're here to help, the faster you get back on your feet the better for us. Hurt feelings are better dealt with among families than strangers, unlike most we watch your TV too, so we sort of share a living room.

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I appreciated HG's willingness to speak his mind and debate. He isn't wrong about how frayed the US's international relations are right now. Trump did just about everything he could to mess them up. Probably deliberately so. Oh, and he still has a few months to fuck it all up too.

The Problem with Pardons: The Urge to "Move On" is Strong but Here's Why Prosecutions are Necessary


With the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, there is a powerful urge to move on from the past four years of the unabated crime and corruption that defines the Trump Administration. However, from the perspective of a former career federal prosecutor, here is why the county must now tackle the difficult but necessary task of investigating and, where the evidence supports it, prosecuting all crimes by all government officials - elected, appointed or hired.