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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#162951: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:03:49 PM

Listen. There’s only one way for us to win this. Provoke outrage, outright. That’s right. Don't engage, strike by night. Remain relentless till their troops take flight. Make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight. Outrun. Outlast. Hit em quick and out fast. We're gonna raise a lot of flags half mast.

Hm. I'm thinking of Iraq and Afghanistan, and on how it must suck to play the role of the global superpower harassed by irregular overenthusiastic underdogs.

But, back on topic, you're not going to achieve anything by engaging the déplorables and their enablers in a frontal way. You need to work on them slowly and carefully. They've been molded over decades of propaganda. They can be molded again. But it will take money and power. It would be nice to have the upper class on your side.

[up]My expectations are low. As far as I'm concerned, Obama is the friendly, smiling face of wedding splatter.

edited 16th Dec '16 5:08:39 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#162952: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:08:20 PM

Hmm, I have a few manuals laying around.

But I must warn, some of those resits and asymmetric warfare guides will put you on several watch lists. Though I find the irony of using the White Resistance Manualnote  to resist White Supremacists quite entertaining.

Inter arma enim silent leges
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#162953: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:10:42 PM

Indeed, get yourself the right wing books. The alphabet agencies turn a blind eye to those.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#162954: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:12:31 PM

[up][up][up]

My expectations are low. As far as I'm concerned, Obama is the friendly, smiling face of wedding splatter.

...Which means what exactly?

edited 16th Dec '16 5:12:48 PM by kkhohoho

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#162955: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:13:12 PM

I'm guessing he's referring to the drone bombings of weddings.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#162956: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:13:50 PM

Nah, they all put you in watch lists, but the Anarchist Cook Book should be aptly named: Darwin Award Contender's Guide. The WRM is better written and actually bothered to give a detailed guide of the stuff it teaches you including the don't blow yourself up part.

Though I should stop here, since I am sure this isn't something we should be discussing outside Private Messages.

Inter arma enim silent leges
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#162957: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:16:53 PM

Among many, many things. Obama is many things, but he is not the Messiah. He is a very naughty boy, and he will not save you. He had a movement behind him on 2008, and he sent them home.

edited 16th Dec '16 5:18:37 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#162958: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:23:24 PM

[up]...So if you don't think Post-President Obama is all that, then why are you looking forward to him going all out?

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#162959: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:33:17 PM

Because not all that is not nothing.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#162960: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:36:04 PM

I'm perfectly calm, that's part of the problem. This is where my emotions seem to be settling for the long term.

Quite debating starting a blog to sling my more fiery and thumpable opinions. Originally it was going to be a twitter account, but man is that 140 character limit restrictive.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#162962: Dec 16th 2016 at 5:57:02 PM

There's never any such thing as a Messiah outside of religion and general stories. There's never gonna be one singular man to fix everything and make the "bad guys" go away. What you'll likely get is a government that is just as inefficient and corrupt as the old world order, if not moreso, with the added bonus of the suppression of civil rights and freedom of speech and the press. If things seem better and more orderly it's simply because the government wants you to believe otherwise. It's essentially voting for government-mandated blissful ignorance. It's happened before but people just don't seem to learn anything.

Part of the issue with these neo-nationalist quasi-fascist regimes springing up is that people fail to acknowledge that or simply don't care as long as the people they don't like suffer. Trump is no exception.

edited 16th Dec '16 6:00:54 PM by Draghinazzo

Madrugada MOD Since: Jan, 2001
#162963: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:00:43 PM

ADVOCATING VIOLENCE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE HERE.

Clear?

If this thread hasn't stopped being one shitstorm after another when I check it tomorrow, I will lock it down for at least a week. That means a week is the minimum, not the maximum.

Now get your emotions out of the driver seat or go drive on someone else's road.

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#162964: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:02:42 PM

[up][up]Well, I wasn't trying to suggest that Obama was any such thing. Sure, I still think he's going to be helluva important in the days to come, but if I thought he could magically fix things all by himself, than there wouldn't be any need for the rest of us to put up our dukes, would there? He's probably going to be more like MLK or Malcom X; an important political activist and public speaker, but not a wizard ('Arry!) who can fix everything with a wave of his magic wand. Doesn't mean he still won't be amazing to watch.

edited 16th Dec '16 6:02:55 PM by kkhohoho

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#162965: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:04:49 PM

I wasn't really talking about Obama or replying to anyone in particular, just making an observation about how people have a tendency to submit to a highly personalized and powerful authority over and over again in spite of all evidence pointing towards that being a horrible idea.

ThriceCharming Since: Nov, 2013
#162966: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:12:57 PM

Wow, things seem to have really gone to shit after I left for a while. surprised

All I can say is, we don't know that Obama is going to take on an active role as a civil rights leader post-presidency. I hope he does, and we know he'd be exemplary at it, but man, did you see the guy today? He looks like he aged ten years in one. He's tired. It's no secret that the job ages you, and I get the feeling he was fully expecting to retire in peace after Clinton took over. Today, I didn't see a man eager to fight against Trump and his gaggle of fascists for four—or, God forbid, eight—years.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#162967: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:21:32 PM

Bad News everyone!

Once more the Republicans prove they are little obstructionist shits who will sabotage the government if they aren't the ones calling the shots.

North Carolina's 'Legislative Coup' Is Over, and Republicans Won

Legislators passed a slate of bills to sharply reduce the power of the incoming governor, over the heated objections of Democrats and hundreds of protestors.

It’s all over but the shouting, and the suing, in Raleigh—though both the shouts and the suits are likely to go on for some time.

The North Carolina General Assembly on Friday wrapped up a special session in which the Republicans who dominate both chambers mounted a brazen and successful effort to strip the incoming Democratic governor of a host of powers afforded to his Republican predecessor and many governors before. Having lost the governor’s seat in November’s election, the GOP legislature opted to simply reduce the governor’s power drastically. The two most prominent bills involve the elections system and the governor’s right to make appointments.

Pat Mc Crory, the outgoing GOP governor, quickly signed the electoral-reform bill into law. He has been presented with the bill reducing the governor’s appointments, but has not yet signed it. Mc Crory, who narrowly lost to Attorney General Roy Cooper in his quest for reelection, had not made any statement on the takeover bid, and he himself had tangled with the legislature over separation of powers, at one point successfully suing to recover appointment powers.

On the appointments front, the legislature withdrew the governor’s ability to make appointments to the state board of education and the boards of trustees of University of North Carolina-system schools; subjected his cabinet appointees to senate approval; and reduced the number of appointments the governor can make for government jobs. That number dropped to 425, near the level it was before the General Assembly increased that to 1,500 for Mc Crory. It appears that many of his political appointees could now become permanent employees.

The election reform reworks the state board of elections and combines it with the state ethics commission. Previously, the state board of elections had a 3-2 majority in favor of the governor’s party, while every county board had a 2-1 advantage for the governor’s party. Under the new rules, the state board will have eight members, four of each party, appointed half by the governor and half by the legislature. County boards will have four members. The chairmanship will rotate, but appears to guarantee that Republicans will lead the board during crucial even-numbered election years for the foreseeable future. Supreme Court elections, which have been nonpartisan but handed a majority to Democrat-aligned justices this November, will now be partisan.

It is difficult and perhaps impossible to construe the changes as anything more than naked politics. Leading Republicans even admitted that they might not have pursued the changes if Mc Crory had won reelection. The timing of the changes was also controversial: Legislators returned to Raleigh for a special session billed as a chance to pass disaster-relief bills for victims of flooding and wildfires. Rumors flew that Republicans would attempt to pack the Supreme Court to restore a conservative majority. That didn’t happen; instead, as soon as the disaster-relief bill had been signed, Republican leaders gaveled the special session to a close, then promptly opened a new special session, with no declared agenda—surprising both the press and Democratic members. House Speaker Tim Moore said the decision to do so had only been made on Wednesday, a claim debunked when documents putting it into motion, dated Monday, were revealed.

It appeared that part of the reason for conducting the business in a special session was to avoid rallying of opposition. That was a tactic that Republicans used to pass HB 2, the state’s controversial “bathroom bill,” in the spring, and it worked this week. Democrats warned that just like HB 2, the new legislation might have unintended effects, and they accused Republicans of sidestepping public opinion. Certainly, it is true that the GOP will return in the new year retaining their current supermajorities, which means they likely could have forced changes through [[over]] a Cooper veto. In this case, all parties had two days to review the legislation, nearly four times as much as they did to review HB 2 before it was signed into law.

“We came here to deal with a natural disaster. What we’re dealing with is a political disaster. Let’s deal with the reality: It’s a power grab,” said Dan Blue, the Democratic leader in the senate. “If Mc Crory had won the election, we wouldn’t be here now, reducing the number of positions he has control over.”

With Democrats so outnumbered, the result of the session was foreordained. During debate in the senate, the two sides largely talked past each other. Republicans argued, accurately, that the state constitution allowed them to make the changes they sought to make. They also pointed out past examples of Democrats attempting to consolidate power. Democrats argued, with equal validity, that the changes violated norms and could easily have been done at the start of Mc Crory’s term. They also noted that the GOP examples dated back decades, and were just the sort of behavior that Republicans had condemned at the time.

At one point, Senator Chad Barefoot, a Republican, insisted that the GOP had to give Mc Crory a chance to appoint 1,500 people because he had been trying to turn the state around. Why would anyone want to fire them? Wasn’t everyone pleased with the result, he wondered? But apparently not—after all, North Carolina voters decided not to give Mc Crory a second term.

Cooper has threatened to sue over the changes, though it’s unclear at this point on what grounds or how successful he might be. The sudden spree of measures to undermine him has sparked outrage and bafflement not only within the state but also nationally—once again putting the Old North State in the spotlight, just a few months after HB 2. Keith Ellison, the liberal U.S. representative who is running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, on Friday said, “Republicans are attempting to do a coup right now.”

HB 2 offers an interesting contrast: While the law is unpopular with voters and has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, and likely contributed to Mc Crory’s law, it remains in place. But whereas costly and public boycotts by musicians and corporations helped turn opinion against HB 2, there’s no obvious similar constituency to fight the new changes.

There is an inescapable racial dimension to the new laws, and particularly to the election changes. African Americans in the state are heavily Democratic, and Republicans have worked to overhaul North Carolina’s voting system through a variety of measures that marginalize black votes. They redistricted the state in order to give themselves a large advantage, with the result that Republican majorities now seem insurmountable for the time being. Although the state is closely divided along partisan lines, with Democrats clustered in cities and Republicans elsewhere, that gives the GOP a strong edge in Raleigh. However, a federal court also ruled that some of those districts constituted unconstitutional gerrymandering, and has mandated some new elections next year. That led Democrats to decry the special session as the work of an illegitimate legislature.

Republicans also passed a massive overhaul of the state’s voting laws, including shortening early voting, ending same-day registration, and requiring a photo-ID to vote. That law was mostly struck down by a federal court this summer, with judges ruling the law had been designed to disenfranchise minorities. The executive director of the state Republican Party then called on the Republicans who controlled all 100 county boards of elections to arrange early-voting hours to benefit the GOP.

The Democratic leaders in both houses, Larry Hall and Dan Blue, are both black, and spoke with frustration about the legislation during floor debate. But given Democrats’ disadvantages, the real action came from protests, which were coordinated by the North Carolina NAACP. On Thursday and again on Friday, protestors in the gallery of the house and senate noisily protested the special session, leading the presiding officers of each chamber to have the galleries cleared. On Thursday, a journalist was arrested for resisting. Once cleared from galleries, protestors continued chanting and making noise outside, at points still disrupting the sessions inside. Multiple protestors were arrested on both Thursday and Friday.

By about 3:30 p.m., the legislature was wrapping up its business, including confirming Yolanda Stith, the wife of Mc Crory’s chief of staff, to the state industrial commission. Republicans complained that the protestors were disrupting a triumphal moment for a black woman. A few minutes later, the General Assembly adjourned for the year. Outside, the protestors were still at it, chanting, “Our house!” But as the special session proved, they don’t make the rules.

Inter arma enim silent leges
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#162968: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:22:01 PM

He already said he was planning on taking the kid gloves off and getting real after his Presidency. He did say he was planning on taking a small vacation before that though.

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#162969: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:23:48 PM

[up][up][up]I honestly don't know what news article it was so I can't exactly source it, but Obama himself said that after a well deserved vacation in February, he would be carrying on the fight even after being out of office, so you can count on him staying the game.

[up]Also what he said.[nja]

edited 16th Dec '16 6:24:32 PM by kkhohoho

pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#162970: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:29:39 PM

So far, Obama has done everything he could do legally, ethically, and by the book. But as the President (one who respects the office, democracy, and the rule of law), his hands were tied. However, once he goes back to being Private Citizen Obama, he'll have quite a bit more freedom to act.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#162971: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:31:21 PM

It's kinda funny how for all their anticommunist and anti-government rhetoric the GOP are shaping up to be the most similar to regimes like the CCP and the Soviets as well as Mobutu, Mugabe, and all their ilk.

RabidTanker God-Mayor of Sim-Kind Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
God-Mayor of Sim-Kind
#162972: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:37:24 PM

So what's up with the "GOP is evil" hype?

Answer no master, never the slave Carry your dreams down into the grave Every heart, like every soul, equal to break
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#162973: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:40:15 PM

Well, the most recent reason is that they just wrote some unprecedented legislation to strip power from the incoming Democratic governor in NC.

But the most important reason that's on everyone's mind is that they made an egotistical fascist president.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#162974: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:40:50 PM

They don't seem to care in the slightest about the fact that the Russians interfered in the election, and seem perfectly willing to be complicit with Trump in spite of the fact that he's looking to be Putin's stooge for his entire presidency.

Like if the situation was flipped the GOP would be throwing an enormous hissy fit, as opposed to the democrats who are respecting the law and trying to be the adults in the room.

I mean there's realpolitik and then there's this.

edited 16th Dec '16 6:41:47 PM by Draghinazzo

RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#162975: Dec 16th 2016 at 6:41:41 PM

Don't forget the white supremacy, rampant corruption, and complete indifference towards things like climate change.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

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