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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Have you checked the news lately? Everyones in a panic over something or another, whether it's war or politics or the environment, or some damn thing.
Point is, people are always in a panic. Don't take it too seriously. We survived worse situations than the one we are in. Doom and gloom is uncalled for.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.![]()
The rest of the world is still fighting Global Warming, and green companies in the US, especially California, are still putting up a fight.
Could've put a Sarcasm Mode, though. That's what threw me off.
edited 26th Feb '17 1:53:38 PM by Bat178
I'm far from knowledgeable on International Relations but I don't think most of the right-wing authoritarians with access to nukes are as unhinged and petulant as Trump is. They're not going to fire a nuclear weapon nilly willy. It's far from something to take lightly and even a vile reactionary knows that. They can't oppress anyone if there's nobody to be exploited.
Someone once said that the news (particularly the American news media) is specifically calculated to keep people in "a heightened state of anxiety." The more of it you watch, the more paranoid you'll become. Therefore, take a break, tune it out, turn it off. If the world needs you badly enough, it can try calling back later.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
It's kinda hard to do when my surviving grandfather who I live with keeps on watching the news every single day, and my room is right outside the living room so I can hear it even with my door closed and my headphones on. Not to mention politics being flung freaking everywhere now. In gaming, in cinema, on TV, on websites that typically have nothing to do with politics at all, constantly talked about in public now, etc. Hell, I was ignoring politics just fine until last year's mayhem which started with Brexit, then I had no choice but to be involved as I am a British person living in America.
edited 26th Feb '17 2:48:58 PM by Bat178
So here's something I've been thinking about.
I think we're all pretty much in agreement that the current Republican party needs a pretty massive overhaul, if not replaced by another party entirely.
My question is, if this WAS going to happen for whatever reason, how different could they reasonably be from the Democrats while still maintaining a bare minimum of decency and sanity? What platform can and should they run on that isn't essentially reactionary and "fuck you got mine"?
Because the american public needs to have a meaningful choice. Two parties that are the same isn't a meaningful choice, and one that's a dumpster fire and another flawed but decent party is not a meaningful choice either.
edited 26th Feb '17 3:22:05 PM by Draghinazzo
Well, If Perez doesn't work out, we just have to admit this was a mistake and find the rightful successor to Norton I and put him back on the throne "to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity."
Technically, Congress is still in violation of his imperial edict.
Meanwhile...Sean Spicer targets own staff in leak crackdown The push includes random phone checks overseen by White House lawyers.
The push to snuff out leaks to the press comes after a week in which President Donald Trump strongly criticized the media for using unnamed sources in stories and expressed growing frustration with the unauthorized sharing of information by individuals in his administration.
Last week, after Spicer became aware that information had leaked out of a planning meeting with about a dozen of his communications staffers, he reconvened the group in his office to express his frustration over the number of private conversations and meetings that were showing up in unflattering news stories, according to sources in the room.
Upon entering Spicer’s office for what one person briefed on the gathering described as “an emergency meeting,” staffers were told to dump their phones on a table for a “phone check," to prove they had nothing to hide.
There, he explicitly warned staffers that using texting apps like Confide — an encrypted and screenshot-protected messaging app that automatically deletes texts after they are sent — and Signal, another encrypted messaging system, was a violation of the Presidential Records Act, according to multiple sources in the room.
But with mounting tension inside the West Wing over stories portraying an administration lurching between crises and simmering in dysfunction, aides are increasingly frustrated by the pressure-cooker environment and worried about their futures there.
...During a recent staff meeting, Spicer harshly criticized some of the work of deputy communications director Jessica Ditto had done, causing her to cry, according to two people familiar with the incident. ...Ditto also denied the accounts.
During meetings, the press secretary has repeatedly berated his aides, launching expletive-filled tirades in which he’s accused them of disclosing sensitive information to reporters and saying that they’ve disappointed him.
As word of the hunt has ripped through the office, talk has turned to the question of whether firings are to come.
To help streamline the office, the administration has tapped Dubke, a veteran under-the-radar Republican operative known for his organizational skills. Yet the move has infuriated Trump campaign aides, who argue that someone who’d been a vocal Trump supporter — which the establishment-minded Dubke hadn’t been — should have gotten the job.
“People are on fire about it,” one campaign veteran said of the Dubke hire.
To some degree, the challenge Spicer and other press aides face is unique — they are working for a president who takes an unusually intense interest in the work his communications office does. Trump is known to watch Spicer’s daily press briefings while eating lunch in the White House dining room. ...the president ...has offered the press secretary his private assurances that his job is safe.
...on Friday, Spicer blocked certain media, including CNN, The New York Times, Buzz Feed and POLITICO, from attending an off-camera press briefing in his office. Time and The Associated Press boycotted the briefing out of solidarity.
On Saturday, Trump said he would not attend the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.
Which one's reality? You'll never know.
edited 26th Feb '17 3:28:23 PM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesCould always look to the pre-nationalist European liberal wing. Centrist-right, concerned with economic and industrial reform, infrastructure and the rule of law.
Granted, a great deal of our liberal wings are currently looking to the Republicans as a source of inspiration and needless to say it's all kinds of fucked.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.Uh, the system itself is in existential crisis right now, and Athenian Democracy isn't going to be what comes out the other end if it fails. We should very much keep a big tent coalition together to at least sustain the bare minimum of liberal democracy before betting everything against the house.
And during these times we certainly don't want a party of everyone thinking the same way—that's the republican hat. The comment on the DNC race says it thusly:
The Democrats should merely agree on the problems that affect our society: jobs for all who want them, a sustainable environment, and equal treatment of all people under the law. While the Republican Party seems to believe that the market is already fair (and no one is disadvantaged or requires assistance), Democrats should focus on finding sustainable and efficient solutions to balancing economic fairness. There is no right solution. There are merely an array of solutions from which one discards failures and picks the best approaches to try out. America is a work in progress - and all people can help make it great.
edited 26th Feb '17 4:40:03 PM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives@MadSkillz We'd have to implement a non FPTP voting system for that to work, and the Democrats and Progressive Democrats would still probably coalition together unless the pre-Tea party Republican establishment (or Libertarians I suppose) managed to take control of the party, so it wouldn't be a magic bullet even if it wasn't extremely difficult.
We need major reforms to our political system, and while we're on that topic we should really push for a voting system that doesn't force liberals and socialists into a party together, because this kind of perpetual party infighting is greatly exacerbated by the nature of FPTP voting.
edited 26th Feb '17 4:53:04 PM by CaptainCapsase

I'm just tired of having to fear for my life because of fascism and the chance of nuclear war and having to hear about US politics and get it shoved every single day no matter where I go or how much I try to get away from them now. I now wish for the complete and utter destruction of all right-wing parties worldwide (Though that would probably make me a fascist of a different stripe) and the full disarmament of all nuclear weapons, as I believe that is only way we will truly ever have peace.
edited 26th Feb '17 1:25:40 PM by Bat178