I've deliberately avoided commenting on America's troubles for a while, God knows we've got enough of our own, what with the Covid situation, Brexit and Boris the Buffoon's rancid Tory government, but...
I've been watching the ongoing crisis in the United States with horror. Interviews with Trump supporters at his recent rallies reveal the ugly backside of American politics. The people crowding together with neither masks nor social distancing to worship at the feet of the foul priest Trump should sicken every decent person in America. The ignorance on display is breathtaking. His supporters spout all kinds of dangerous nonsense, some saying that the pandemic is 'just a hoax designed to destroy America'. (No, pal, it's you that's destroying America.)
The whole Trump cult has brainwashed and hijacked the Republican party, (and a way too large number of 'The American People.') Facts, evidence and science don't mean a thing to these gullible dupes.
It seems we're witnessing the slow death of a once great nation as Trump feeds his ego and leads the country down into the sewer.
Joe Biden may not be the best politician in America but he can't possibly be worse than Trump. Time to vote Trump out of office and hopefully regain some of what has so sadly been lost...
Interesting update from Professor Tim Wilson on a confusing situation developing . . .
Remember, we were warned that Russia would destroy us from within!
So, business as usual, eh!? LOL
Not meaning to be mean spirited to anybody but I think we need to be just a bit concerned about the many more people that are losing their lives to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, alcoholism, depression and poverty because of the government's obsession with a virus that is not life threatening to 99% of the population. Even now with the majority of the population vaccinated and others with their own natural immunity , the gov.t and the left leaning liberals are still obsessed with this virus? Maybe it's more to do with a political agenda? I neither have any desire to debate this further but just to hope that people on this site may acquire a little more critical thinking and logical nouse.... I'll get mi coit ;)
Boris Johnson admits it's ludicrous he's PM, says Cummings - BBC News
Why does every term Republicans use as a scare tactic, sound like a cool band name?
.
Sign of the times: There is a ten pence piece on the pavement near where I live. Normally, someone would have picked it up within a few days. Its been there for months.
Guys, just look up "social democracy". That's the form of socialism that most of mean when we talk about it.
From a guy who declares himself a defender of laissez-faire capitalism and name drops Ayn Rand . . .
"Fascism and communism are two variants of statism. Both are forms of dictatorship. Neither one recognizes individual rights nor permits individual freedom. The differences are non-essential: fascism is racial statism and communism is statism of economic class.
Communism advocates the abolition of private property; socialism advocates government ownership of the means of production."
-- Harry Binswanger, contributor to Forbes
I'm constantly amused by the fact that so many American's seem terrified of the word 'socialist' whilst wishing for an autocratic, lying, far right wing government that sees corruption as acceptable and lies as a means of manipulating those that vote for them. It's sick and deeply disturbing.
Too me, and to any decent, rational human being, it's transparently sly, devious and cynical. They seem to think that their voters are dupes, saps to be taken advantage of and manipulated, exploiting innocence and ignorance for their own power lust and monetary benefit. It's shameful and yet people fall for it. Some gullible folks are, unfortunately, far too quick to swallow conspiratorial falsehoods spread by crazy fools on the internet.
I'm not attracted to right wing ideologies in the least. They have no appeal whatsoever. It's a political movement that, in my opinion, has had it's day and will, when a better future arrives, seem as antiquated and damaging to people's health as smoking cigarettes. And I'm not a Marxist either. Viva la revolution! 🤣
Sometimes when people start talking about Boris Johnson, I think of his politically left-leaning great-grandfather, Ali Kemal Bey (Ottoman Turkish: عَلِى كمال بك; 1869 – 6 November 1922), who seemed to have gotten many people cross with him as well.
From the Ali Kemel Bey Wikipedia entry . . .
Kemal's death was also described in a poem by Nâzım Hikmet: “I saw the blood run down into his moustache. Someone yelled: ‘Get him!’ It rained sticks, stones and rotten vegetables. They hung his body from a branch over that bridge.”
😶
In the US, during the George W Bush administration, 'cognitive dissonance' was a term that was often thrown around, kinda like how 'Occam's razor' has been often thrown around recently.
I was merely trying to make a joke for our funny right wing chum when I suggested that cognitive dissonance might be a musical term.
'Cognitive dissonance' : "the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change."
Not sure how you can get that 'stuffed up your 'arrises' though, (or your arse for that matter.) Perhaps only he has the answer to that. But I suppose practice makes perfect! 😉😜😁
The title of an excellent track by the genius Robert Fripp (and The League of Gentlemen).
First heard that term "cognitive dissonance" in relation to George W Bush and by extension his administration and supporters.
Did remind me immediately of musical terminology. In fact, I'd imagined John Cage's voice saying it and something that sounded like a Penderecki composition heading straight for me.
😂😂😂
Cognitive dissonance? Is that a musical terms? If so, I'll have a few bars worth on my next album! 😉😅
You're all Marxist muppets on here with a large portion of cognitive dissonance stuffed up your arrises. :)
I fully believe that history will judge both David Cameron and Boris Johnson very harshly indeed. Perhaps post-UK, after the next indieref.
Thanks to inept opposition, and having the mainstream media in their pocket, the Conservative government of the past decade has had a completely free ride. In a functioning democracy, any one of a number of very serious issues ought to have brought them down and ended a few political careers.
As it stands, we are enjoying an economic honeymoon period post-covid. The full impact of government incompetence, hubris, and misinformation will only be felt when the honeymoon is over and we have to start paying for it.
As for Cummings, for some reason I can't help thinking of Iago.
Cummings has said it was crazy that he was allowed to hold a position of such power in government and that Boris should be allowed to become PM. Since that's what he seemed to want at the time, I wonder if he's having second thoughts about Brexit as well.
Just watching a clip of Dominic Cummings giving evidence on UK government's handling of Covid pandemic before a joint parliamentary committee.
He's basically confirming all the most scathing criticisms of Boris Johnson & co as true. Bozo portrayed as out-of-his-depth, with his head in the sand, etc. Health Secretary Matt Hancock described as serial liar (provably so). Basically the government shown as bunch of hopeless idiots with destructive incentives.
Cummings:
"It's clear that the official plan was wrong, it's clear the whole advice was wrong, it's clear we should have locked down in the first week of March at the latest."
"In February the prime minister regarded this as just a scare story, he described it as the new swine flu."
No doubt it'll lead to a lot of media reporting in the days ahead...
Hmm... Peter Oborne (a long-time Conservative supporter from a similar background to Boris Johnson) writing in the Guardian:
Fixed it.
.
I’m detecting a trend here…
.
😂😮😂
The job of satire has always been to hold the powerful to account, not to strengthen those already holding the whip hand. This does not auger well.
The Mash Report: BBC satirical comedy cancelled after four years - BBC News
UK gov spending:
£37,000,000,000 (ie 37 BILLION) on privately contracted Test & Trace.
£3.50 on NHS nurses ("insulting" weekly pay rise).
What a worthwhile 'charity'.
Boris Johnson's No 10 flat: Top level talks about cost of makeover - BBC News
Amazing how things are. Tranquility hopefully sprouts from all of this.
👍👏💪💕
Never thought I would ever read this :
President Joe Biden bluntly stated that we are "at an inflection point" between those who believe "autocracy is the best way forward" and those who think democracy is. While making it clear that we have to "defend" and "strengthen" democracy, he affirmed, "I believe that — every ounce of my being — that democracy will and must prevail."
'bout sums it up for me
(Give it 50 seconds 😀)
Especially after the newspaper here (NL) published a long article saying that overweight men over 60 should be vaccinated first because this is who is filling up the ICU beds... and their survival rate is low. Unfortunately, I are one of those. As if I didn't have enough corona paranoia already! 😱
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
Biden is freezing US arms sales to Saudi Arabia (& reviewing the billions of dollars of arms sales approved by Trump), restoring aid cut by Trump to Palestinians, and stopping new oil and gas leases on public lands. Seem like good things?
Wait a minute: didn't DEVO have this same image almost 40 years ago?
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo - UK Virgin
Duty Now For The Future - UK Virgin
New Traditionalist - UK Virgin
And I forget which album they wore the yellow gear. But on the inside jacket, they sold it world wide along with the energy domes.
Live 1981 Seattle
All I have to say is: Come Back Jonee.
Heeeeehehe that was a terrific album. I played that one a lot in the early 80's.
😂
From Cold War Steve:
I hope the 'left' pressures him towards a more progressive direction, but also backs him when his policies are right. But unfortunately I can't see them backing him any more than they backed Hillary Clinton's better policies. It's like the radical philosopher Richard Rorty said: the reformist working-class left has been largely replaced by a more vocal moral-purist 'left' which sees 'liberals' as the problem (like the old Marxists with their purity tests, denouncing everyone as bourgeois). The right seem much better at unifying, despite their differences.
He's definitely hit the ground running with all those executive orders. 👍 Reengaging with the climate agreement alone would be an enormous step forward.
But people will have to give him a chance if they want him to succeed. The world is going through a shitstorm at the moment, and it'll only intensify in the short/medium term. Of course, some people desperately want him to fail.
And on separate note, I wonder how long it'll be before 'secret documents' appear online supposedly photographed during the coup, confessing how all non-right wing extremist are lizard overlords from Mars.
Trump has gone - let's move on please. Bidden is now here and he needs to hit the ground running (without breaking an ankle). The whole world is watching him and he needs to be tough from the start. The last thing any of us need at the moment is a weak, indecisive leader of the USA.
Democracy survived 👍👏😁💪. And we should never have a self serving person be a leader again. Impeachment has to go forward to banish from public office, any and all leaders that were involved in overthrowing our democracy. There is plenty of evidence to go through I'm sure.
Gone from office, but he'll never be gone from the headlines. Whether it's due to endless legal cases, or stoking the angry mob for his own ends, I doubt we'll hear much less of him in the future than we have for the past four years.
He has also, like an awful perma-tanned Pandora, opened the jar. And the evils that have been let out won't be stuffed back in any time soon.
And in his final speech to his adoring fans before boarding Airforce One for the last time, Donald 'two impeachments' Trump spouted yet another string of lies and falsehoods, claiming responsibility for developing the Covid vaccine and other 'like nobody has ever seen before' Trumpisms. Totally hilarious and utterly pathetic.
But, what will we do now that he won't be around to horrify and disgust us on a daily basis anymore? I suppose his second impeachment trial might offer up a few nuggets of absurdity.
Oh, well, to the tune of that old children's song 'Nellie The Elephant' : "Donald the elephant packed his trunk and said goodbye to the White House, off he went with a trumpety trump, trump, trump, trump..." 😬😁😁
A parting shot from Jonathan Pie... well, more like a machine gun drive-by.
Mexico has 2 days to pay for the wall.
I can't make this up...
Before the lockdown around the first week of March last year I went to a local pub for their Tuesday night special. It was not my regular establishment but one I did frequent.
They had Tuesday night trivia.
I sat next to a guy I'd seen regularly at the sports bar I frequent and we started to talk.
He was in his mid to late fifties I think, like me.
He told me how much of a Trump supporter he was and was quite proud and prolific about it. He went on about it for a while and like in similar situations I just listened without commenting...
The answer to the current trivia question was announced as "Boris Johnson".
I commented that I should have guessed that due to Brexit.
He asked what's Brexit? I explained to him what it was and about the European Union.
He said "That's good to know.. I always thought Brexit was a corporation or company of some sort...".
He then asked "What's the European Union?"...
So heartbreaking and sad. This country needs an exorcism and return to some kind of better living, peace and harmony. I did bump into Joe at a best buys in Delaware in the 90's lol, he was humbly nice. Hopefully, as these vaccines roll out, our environment will settle down.
American folks -- do you think Biden and the Democrats will be given a fair chance...or will there be a barrage of people trying to undermine them from the start?
After all, there's no quick fix re: COVID and the damage to the economy isn't going to be repaired overnight. It's likely to get worse before it gets better.
He doesn't seem to realise the contradiction of the colonialist Stars and Stripes and the native American head gear, but then, I suspect there's an awful lot that he doesn't realise.
Why are media folk referring to this idiot as a "shaman"? Why not just go with "deranged fool off his tits with QAnon conspiracy drivel"?
I just realized riot is the center of patriotism...
Just on the topic of age, this guy, whether you agree with his politics or not, is heading towards 80. He seems to me about as an articulate and energetic a politician as you'll find.
Yes, you are spot on. It will be a difficult task with an enormous amount of man power to keep everyone safe.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
–– Hanlon’s Razor
But in the current situation, it should actually be: “Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.”
.
It surprises me that there isn't more comment about China, who have unleashed Corona virus onto the rest of the world, either by accident or design. Lives and economies destroyed all over the world with no realistic end in sight. That's the reality. And then think back to 2018 when a UK citizen was killed by one of the deadliest nerve agents in the world disposed of in a litter bin in Salisbury. These are the things that concern me, as does a man of 77 years of age being elected in the USA. Does anyone remember what happened to Reagan?
... and Zuckerberg et al need to stop taking money from the Trump
cabal (and there's a load of them) to place political ads.
Exactly why are Fakebook et al taking money for political ads from anybody ???
Don't they style themselves as the "social network" ?
[yes, I know they want the $$$]
Arbitary / temporary / indeterminate bans will not solve the problem.
Can't say I'm worked up over the permanent Twitter ban of Trump. On the one hand, I don't think it'll have much effect. The real problem is the algorithms that boost Trump's message (and that type of extreme, divisive populism in general), not just Trump-the-person using the platform.
And on the other hand I don't think it's "censorship" when a platform bans someone for repeated abuse. It's not as if Trump is silenced - in fact you still can't get away from him! Real censorship means you silence people - like the way the Russian state silences inconvenient journalists.
Not the usual Dog & Pony show.
... and talking of Trump enablers, look who's legged it from the Covid-19
armageddon that's the USA
(Billionaire US Citizen, vaccinated by UK tax payers) Poisonous Toad in (luxurious) hole
Well Trump needs to be impeached, even if he's skulking off in a few days time.
That we way if he's convicted he can never run for public office again.
Also Biden/Harris need to take a look at what actions they can take against
his enablers ...
The media needs to show this episode for what it was -- a relatively tiny group of extremists. This was not a mass uprising voicing a legitimate protest. I hope those who encouraged and facilitated it are brought to book.
"The National Association of Manufacturers, a major business group in Washington, D.C., has issued a statement saying Vice President Pence should "seriously consider" invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office"