US Presidential Election 2020

[dada]

"And yet, nobody moved to contravene events. And there you have it. Events served all the powers concerned."

That isn't a there you have it end of discussion, it's the beginning of a discussion. About conflicting loyalties of cops, feds and military, loyalty to principles or loyalty to the organizations. About avoiding civil war in the Pentagon.

Could be about who is in and who is out, or will be soon. If you challenge the old boss, you're undermining your own authority when it is your turn to wear the boss hat. I think when the complex relationships at play are taken into account, it isn't so easy to chalk it all up to a design meeting.

[JackRiddler]

Can you point to a side I've taken? No, you cannot.

Yes, I can: "Holier than thou at the moment, Jack. Ripe for plucking. (Although I can talk!)" This is a position in the context of an ongoing debate.

You should take a side. Against fascism, or "movement fascism" if you prefer, acknowledging that to be against it is not the same as being any less against the established regime of capitalism and imperialism.

Against attempts to shut down the legislature conducted by fascist mobs incited by the president himself, even if these turn out to be weak and ineffective.

You have no evidence that anything unusual happened, except to point to Trump as an exception, an untruth you have already refuted, yourself, in your own words, above.

Of course, and it's what you keep failing to say. Unusual: The official president, who has accelerated all the bad trends (especially the income inequality that is supposed to be an excuse for the fascist mob) invited a mob to Washington, incited them to riot with his best-ever Hitler performance (he does have talent), and ordered them to go to the Capitol and stop the ongoing certification of the election that he lost, so that he might stay in power. This would be a test of strength, his lawyer said. Anyone who didn't go along, including Pence, was betraying America.

This was, of course, in keeping with one of the major unusuals of the Trump regime the whole time: active encouragement of movement fascism to come out into the open and build its forces. Stand Back and Stand By!

Here's video of the stormers, greeted by the Capitol police.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5hksM_R59M

I've set the following one to a point where we can see this is no randomly assembled or unprepared crowd that's spontaneously found themselves on the Capitol grounds.

https://youtu.be/lhjRXO72v1s?t=392

Yeah, yeah, it's MSNBC, I think I'm allowed one or two of those once every four years.

.

[dada]

"I see technocracy, despite the PR of technocracy, as precisely, the further consolidation of power and control in fewer hands. How do you see it?

I see it as a wild card that confounds historical analysis, because there is no precedent. Frustratingly unpredictable, like the future. Also as the natural reconfiguring of society around the technik, which itself is a natural expression of life. Thridly, I see it a bit like the next installment in a blockbuster revenge of the nerds franchise.

[stickdog99]

What has to be done? Trump removed asap, the whole thing investigated, everyone involved in inciting it and planning and facilitating it (the coppers) put on trial. No new laws or agencies necessary for any of that. Otherwise it turns into a Munich Beer Hall Putsch for the successor fascists.

Exactly. But "they" already know the answers to all these questions because these answers can all be found on highly public social media. But so far, nobody is getting prosecuted as far as I can tell except the few yahoos whom the media sensationalized. What about the individuals who clearly showed the gatekeepers their official government IDs? What about those gatekeepers themselves? Why haven't they been arrested or at least pulled in for questioning? Why instead are the most "liberal" Democrats calling for new domestic terrorism laws, as if our current already highly repressive laws are somehow insufficient?

[stickdog99]

Anyway the issue on the table is institutional racism. The argument is, is this institutional racism what allowed the mob a pass, to avoid the beat down we've come to expect in situations far more benign than this one? I'd say so.

OK, so what do you suggest should be done about this? Far more repression of white people, you know, just to even things out a bit?

[stickdog99]

Rhetorical question, BTW, before any of our resident experts decide to weigh in on how right-wing fascists are actually the downtrodden there to help me out if only I would join their cause.

No 1984 Orwellian Doublethink is required to acknowledge serious systemic problems in our society and governmental structure while also calling bullshit on Trump's antics. What is really sad is that so many of his followers are simply weak-minded individuals who believe whatever he says; that so many are convinced this proven liar is a beacon of truth. This cannot rightfully be blamed on a "liberal biased media." It is in fact the exact opposite. Twenty plus years of Fox news and their talk radio echo chamber has built an impenetrable wall of disinformation fed to an audience that won't ever consider any source that doesn't conform, while convincing followers that they are the free thinkers. It is obscene.

Sure. You are 100% right about all of this, IMHO. But who did this to us? Not the yahoos who watch and believe Fox News. They are not our true enemies. IMHO, our true enemies wish us to believe that other generally well-meaning (albeit obviously misled and seemingly semi-moronic) regular people are our worst enemies and we theirs simply because they root for a different color team than we do.

And we have been fully conditioned to cheer for anyone and anything, including BushCo war criminals, authoritarianism, Big Tech, Big Pharma, billionaires, the military-intelligence complex, a never-ending, uncompensated quarantine of perfectly healthy individuals, censorship, cancel culture, political speech censorship, and red baiting, just as long at we perceive these entities are aligned with us against our neighbors.

[stickdog99]

BS asks: "What exactly is the argument here?"

Trump announced a rally. The President. Promoted it. Spoke to it. Ordered them to go to the Capitol, "show strength," and suspend the Congressional certification of the election. That is what happened. The President of the country incited a riot at the Congress, so as to overturn the election results. Do you deny this?

This is what you are -- laughably -- trying to disguise as some incidental outbreak of "legitimate frustration" by the "downtrodden."

You are incapable of saying it: Why were they there, at the rally? Who invited them?What was their stated purpose?

Who was there? Republican apparatchiks. Small-town police chiefs. Proud Boy boot-boy brutalos. Confederate flag-wavers. Owners of large, expensive private arsenals. White idiots who think it's possible to storm the Capitol in cosplay outfits, beat up cops, trash offices, take selfies, post them online, and not be arrested. Because, let's face it, for them, being white and right-wing, it was fucking possible. It could have been so. No one else in this society would ever think they had a chance to do that. People who could afford to drop everything and be in Washington FOR TRUMP. Carrying Trump flags. "The downtrodden."

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I'd wager that most that were there are certainly far more in the 'downtrodden' (read: working/labor classes) category than the comfortable/privileged/ZOOM-meetings demo that certainly did NOT attend this "event".

Pure deflection. Vague as shit. That's right, most working people forced to do Zoom meetings may not have attended this TRUMP RALLY. 99.9 percent of everyone did not show up for the planned Trump riot at the Capitol. Whether they're FORCED to work on Zoom or delivering pizzas. And presumably it being a Trump Rally is a factor in that wise decision?

How many times are you going to ignore the question?

You are talking about a Trump Rally.

TRUMP RALLY
TRUMP RALLY
TRUMP RALLY

Trump Rally for the purpose of staging a riot at the Capitol so as to suspend the counting of an election that Trump lost.

Go ahead, ignore that again.

A bit more relevant than your imagined, hated people forced to work on Zoom -- fucking liberals! working on Zoom!! -- who aren't dumb enough to show up for the Trump riot is the Trump family gathering at the White House in front of the TV to watch the Capitol riot they just incited.

That's not notional. That's not your image of some imagined group. That's real. That's what happened.

The Downtrodden!

The presidency. Watching the Congress shut down, on their orders.

You think this is the downtrodden!

Disgusting.

But beyond that, as I mentioned a number of times before: however misinformed/conditioned these people are, there is clear frustration being expressed (even though some of it may have been staged).

Nazis, Proud Boys, nice white folk: legitimate frustration.

Not like those other protesters who outnumbered them 100:1 earlier this year. That was sick shit, Soros, etc. Not legitimate.

Legitimate frustration. Frustration that will only grow in the coming year, given all we've seen and heard thus far for the plans in play.

This justifies showing up for a rally called by the neoliberal pro-billionaire PRESIDENT who hopes to bully the Congress into reversing the election result so that he can cut more taxes.

How fucking incoherent can you get?

Let's go back six months. Did you allow this for the crowds, 100 times bigger, who showed up for Black Lives Matter? Did you?

What exactly is the argument here? The people are getting f'd more this year than,

The Trump mob who showed up to shut down Congress on behalf of Trump's attempt to steal the presidential election are not "the people."

perhaps, any prior year of the history of this Empire, arguably, and it will get worse, at least over the near term (12 - 24 months), barring larger uprisings. Is this in dispute?

Ginning up fascist terror is a well-known way to INOCULATE against legitimate "larger uprisings" by the people against the system.

It is an effort to seize the meaning of protest and rebellion on behalf of fucking fascists who are willing to storm the Capitol building FOR TRUMP.

There is good cause to be angry.

Yes, if you've ever protested for a legitimate cause and met with the typical police response and then see footage of this mob ginned up by their leader, sent off to help steal an election for him, get greeted by columns of police as they walk into the Capitol, certainly, there is good cause to be angry.

much of the legitimate frustration will likely be directed towards disingenuous movements, which in turn will provide the Technocrats in power more leverage to pass ever-more draconian laws/mandates/policies.

Other than the use of legitimate -- no, sorry, "I'm angry because my white supremacist candidate for president lost the election" is not "legitimate" frustration -- you have just described, word for word, exactly the function of the Trump rally you are defending as "downtrodden."

Disingenuous? Certainly. But in a way honest. They wave the Trump flags and the Blue Lives Matter flags and the Confederate flags, so they're not really disguising the fascism. Apparently you're the only one who can't see it.

They gathered to demand MORE repression. The only difference is that the repressive apparatus should be run by their Leader, and be directed against those whom they see as natural inferiors and foreigners. They get liberated from having to wear a mask (supposedly). The billionaires get more subsidies and tax cuts. The police get beefed further and unleashed to impose martial law on urban populations. The Mexicans get locked up in dungeons and shot at the border.

This is what they wanted. This is what they were there to demand. And as you point out, they may get it. They may have just helped it happen, only, again, as an anonymous state thing, and not under their choice of charismatic dictator.

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OK. Now suppose these people had been protesting a nomination stolen from Bernie Sanders by DNC-rigged voting machines.

Would that change anything about your outrage?

[dada]

What should be done? Not much. We're discussing it.

As for what about this person or that gatekeeper, as I said to Henry, I don't think these questions prove that there is an overarching design, but belong at the start of a discussion about organizational power dynamics. Matters of honor and loyalty in conflict with one another within the groups, within individuals. It may well be that the same forces acting on the surface of things are also playing out right through to the Pentagon, and beyond.

The question about new domestic terrorism laws, I don't know. I guess the idea is to break up the brownshirts before things get any more serious. You may think that's just the stated idea, I won't try to change your mind on it.

[stickdog99]

Nobody's desire to see the full force of the law come down hard on every person who entered the Capitol, along with their chosen leader, is either equivalent to - or supportive of, directly or indirectly - any additional draconian plan to clamp down on everyone, by prior design or as a consequence.

Excellent, to the point.

Just don't forget the coppers who enabled them, every one.

Even if the painted faced patriot is a total deepstate provocateur, hell, especially if he is, he should have every possible charge thrown at him. I mean, you wouldn't want somebody who misappropriates legitimate concerns about the deepstate's activities and thereby renders them laughable along with all his other bullshit get away with it would you? As far as it being a shame that he would not be exposed to the world for what he really is, were he to be other than what he seems to be -- that's a lost cause either way and remains under purview of places like this and other less savory fora.

Self-evident. What's the difference? It's impossible to see it otherwise, unless of course you're engaged in obscuring the fact that this was a Trump rally, called by Trump, with Trump speaking and issuing orders to his people.

Regarding the downtrodden among the greater MAMAverse, I do think it is crucial to admit, however, that it is by way of the people represented by surely a shitload of ballots among the 74 million who chose to re-elect this guy that better conditions for the entire spectrum of wage slaves and unemployed would go a long way toward removing the air of legitimacy that these insurgents wrongly believe they have behind them.

Well of course. But both objectively (regardless of what they think) and in their actual stated demands, the active Trump mobs (a small fraction of the Trump voters) are fighting for WORSE "conditions for the entire spectrum of wage slaves and unemployed."

It is not our job to coddle this. We should tell them the truth: in a society of patsies, they occupy the lowest rung of patsydom. Where almost everyone is persuaded to cheer for their own oppression, these guys are the bleeding edge.

But that only goes so far. Because so many of them (the active Trump mobs) are explicit white supremacists. So it's not just patsydom. They're looking forward to the benefits they believe they will get from being recognized as the superior people. In case we were wondering what is even dumber and worse and more violent than the fake neoliberal meritocracy.

Exactly. So be sure to run right back into the arms of the fake neoliberal meritocracy because we can't have its sanctity threatened. I mean, do you really want the rabble to rule?

Don't think I can't appreciate your entire argument clearly. But can't you see any parallels between your (and the entire MSM's) current outrage and the outrage of 90% of Americans against Muslims on 9/11?

Yes, terrorists and armed "patriot" white nationalists are both legitimately scary. But what did Trump and his rabid band of yahoos actually accomplish other than to disgrace themselves and Trump to the point that Trump finally made his concession speech?

I mean, if we can rightly characterize Bernie Sanders' campaign as effectively a ploy to identify leftists while relieving them of their hard earned slave wages only to leave them even more destitute and hopeless, what can we call what Donald Trump just did to his millions of most misled hardcore true believers?

[stickdog99]

Holier than thou at the moment, Jack. Ripe for plucking. (Although I can talk!)

Still, if this has captured your imagination so completely and with everything you know, then imagine how powerful this must be for true believers. Like Covid19, or 9/11, it seems to provoke such intense fear that all manner of exotic possibilities suddenly become frighteningly possible, and even welcome.

Of the two genuine anti-Semites I've met (many more for whom it was clearly less fixed and impermeable) one of them, who I took to be German from his accent, turned out to be an immigrant from the UK, somehow having absorbed the background cultural radiation more heavily than many natives. The other used to frequent the second hand book shop I worked in at the time.

Neither were visibly racist, both were polite, nondescript, thoughtful and one might never know unless having engaged each for a little while in wide ranging conversation. Both sincerely felt that there remains a 'Jewish problem' in need of some 'resolution' which of course remained nebulous, like a pall of soot in the air. Neither appeared (openly at least) to be advocating a return to Nazism in our fairly brief conversations and both seemed supportive of Israel. Neither were flamboyant actors dressed in a Viking costume, and both, far more frightening for that.

On the subject of fascism, while drinking an ice cold coke in a Chevy by the levy, fascism must seem like something very far away indeed. Especially since it only fully revealed itself to you if you were Native American or black or Vietnamese, Guatemalan or Middle Eastern. For much of the twentieth century, I suppose, fascism must have seemed like a distant and alien prospect to many Americans, even as American wheels rolled over tens of millions of actual bodies.

The question has never been 'when will fascism come to America' but 'when will Americans recognise its distinctly American face.'

Exactly. Why not ask the Japanese. Mexican, and African American troops who "served" (slaved) for the USA during WWII about fascism? Why not ask the Iranians who lived under the rule of the Shah or the Chileans who lived under Pinochet about fascism?

Hell, why not ask Julian Assange and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who currently toil in for profit prisons about fascism? Why not ask the small business owners who are currently standing in miles long food bank lines because they are locked out of the places of businesses that they have dedicated their entire lives to about fascism?

[mentalgongfu2]

Rhetorical question, BTW, before any of our resident experts decide to weigh in on how right-wing fascists are actually the downtrodden there to help me out if only I would join their cause.

No 1984 Orwellian Doublethink is required to acknowledge serious systemic problems in our society and governmental structure while also calling bullshit on Trump's antics. What is really sad is that so many of his followers are simply weak-minded individuals who believe whatever he says; that so many are convinced this proven liar is a beacon of truth. This cannot rightfully be blamed on a "liberal biased media." It is in fact the exact opposite. Twenty plus years of Fox news and their talk radio echo chamber has built an impenetrable wall of disinformation fed to an audience that won't ever consider any source that doesn't conform, while convincing followers that they are the free thinkers. It is obscene.

Sure. You are 100% right about all of this, IMHO. But who did this to us? Not the yahoos who watch and believe Fox News. They are not our true enemies. IMHO, our true enemies wish us to believe that other generally well-meaning (albeit obviously misled and seemingly semi-moronic) regular people are our worst enemies and we theirs simply because they root for a different color team than we do.

And we have been fully conditioned to cheer for anyone and anything, including BushCo war criminals, authoritarianism, Big Tech, Big Pharma, billionaires, the military-intelligence complex, a never-ending, uncompensated quarantine of perfectly healthy individuals, censorship, cancel culture, political speed censorship, and red baiting, just as long at we perceive these entities are aligned with us against our neighbors.

Without thinking too hard, I can think of two groups to blame. One, the people who did it. I feel bad for the weak-willed and weak-minded who have succumbed to the siren song of Trump and his ilk, but being those pitiful things does not give them excuse or license. Two, those who have done the brainwashing of said people. The Trumps and Hannitys and Glen Becks and Alex Joneses. Brainwashing might not be the right term, but they are leading the charge.

I'm not worried about people who "root for a different team." I can deal with reasonable people who see the world opposite to me. What I cannot deal with are unreasonable people who follow their cheerleaders who say that people like me should be killed because we're enemies of the state. This is literally what they have said and continue to say. I am in many ways thankful that I quit my journalism career just before the Trump era, because I would be doing much less well mentally were I directly subject to the very upfront and in many instances actual physical attacks against people who's only job is to write down what happened, despite whatever fantasy these right wing nutters have about them controlling the world.

You spew a long list of reasonable enemies, then throw in uncompensated quarantine, censorship and cancel culture. So disingenuous.

Who is it who has stood against compensation during quarantine? The Republican Majority, the very same people contesting the election.

Who promotes censorship? On one hand you have a long-coming twitter ban after YEARS of allowing Trump hate speech, and on the other you have Republicans who literally passed a law through AIPAC that means you can't sell goods to most states if you dare to support criticism of Israel as a nation.

Who cancels who? Roseanne Bar loses her TV show revival because she calls a black administration official a monkey, but Roseanne is the real victim?

But no, let us pretend all things are equal, and the grievances of the white majority with a Republican president and a majority Republican congress are the real people being trampled on. Obama is going to take your guns, Hillary's emails, Bill Clinton's blow job. 20 plus years watching this shit as an adult. I'm approaching 40 years old. I've been following politics since I was 8. I did G.W. Bush and Perot impressions in my elementary talent show approaching 92. But my entire adult lifetime, watching it turn, and now you want me to act as if all things are equal? Fuck that.

As Jack has so clearly stated, this is not an either/or proposition. I oppose BushCo war criminals, authoritarianism, Big Tech, Big Pharma, billionaires, the military-intelligence complex, but to pretend these are equivalent to "uncompensated quarantine of perfectly healthy individuals, censorship, cancel culture, political speed censorship, and red baiting," means either you're deluded or trying to delude people. And if you're bright enough to write that sentence, you're bright enough to know what you're doing when you stop at MIC and move to quarantine and pretend as if it's all one big family of evils and not the lumping together of many potentially unrelated things. There are important qualitative and quantitative differences in the two segments of this claim. To pretend otherwise IS to align yourself with our enemies.

Nazi's DESERVE to be canceled. How about that for a start.

[stickdog99]

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Harvey, your post on any other thread would have nothing but truth in it.

Here? What are you telling any of us that we don't already know, and what is the meaning as an intervention in the current discussion here?

What was the rally called by Trump on January 6th?

What was its purpose? What did it do? Are you also going to avoid this subject?

Was it not an effort by the actual president to shut down Congress so as to reverse the result of an election that he lost?

Hmm. Really? So what was the supposed endgame of this supposed master plan? Was it supposed to go down like the Bay of Pigs or the recent paramilitary operation in Venezuela? If so, why did this master plan fail so spectacularly despite no observable physical resistance whatsoever?

[stickdog99]

Regarding the downtrodden among the greater MAMAverse, I do think it is crucial to admit, however, that it is by way of the people represented by surely a shitload of ballots among the 74 million who chose to re-elect this guy that better conditions for the entire spectrum of wage slaves and unemployed would go a long way toward removing the air of legitimacy that these insurgents wrongly believe they have behind them.

Well of course. But both objectively (regardless of what they think) and in their actual stated demands, the active Trump mobs (a small fraction of the Trump voters) are fighting for WORSE "conditions for the entire spectrum of wage slaves and unemployed."
.

I accept your "well of course" and raise you one. The following may be likewise self-evident but it needs to be a part of every conversation now as much as ever, even while stressing the importance of nabbing every single one of the asshole opportunists, including the coppers and commander-in-chief. We would do well to keep in mind how important it is that a the political will manifest itself that would offer social and financial security to what is left of American society, which includes however many of those 74 million, even if it's only a paltry percentage of them. I don't deny they should be reminded how actively against them their sect is, it's just that telling them how very wrong they are only to have yet another neoliberal regime fuck the shit out of everybody is only gonna end up having another would-be dictator foist upon us. This message is gaining steam in the mainstream media, while the incoming cabinet appears to be mostly a diversion of diversity set to go back to 2008. That should scare the fuck out of everybody, especially after what happened Wednesday.

And this prospect, along with that of more an more censorship and repression of any dissent against cultural and neoliberal hypercapitalist orthodoxy, is more frightening to me personally than watching a bunch of cosplay "patriots" get their jollies by putting on a post-modern Civil War reenactment.

YMMV

[Harvey]

Hell, why not ask Julian Assange and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who currently toil in for profit prisons about fascism? Why not ask the small business owners who are currently standing in miles long food bank lines because they are locked out of the places of businesses that they have dedicated their entire lives to about fascism?

Yes.

[mentalgongfu2]

What is a bigger threat, the potential censorship of future truth, or the current promulgation of today's lies?