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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
My post mentioned long-term public campaigning, media political activity (in the UK, the media is highly politicised and has been for decades), and political lobbying. It also mentioned a single age-group voting block not changing its majority position on a single, specific subject for forty years.
If you think that translates to 'conspiracy theory', you've misunderstood my post.
It's also worth pointing out that smear campaigns are not conspiracy theories. They're part of mainstream political strategy. They shouldn't be, but they are.
Yes, when we compare the actual voting day (EU Referendum versus 2016 presidential election), the comparison ends. They were very different activities and carried out in very different ways. For an every-single-vote-counts referendum carried out with pen(cil) and paper, things like gerrymandering and non-working voting machines didn't apply, whereas they were factors of concern on the day of the presidential election.
edited 20th May '18 8:56:26 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Yeah while Brexit wasn’t a giant well planned conspiracy the people behind it went from their inital referendum lose to hold most positions of power in the country, and they used said positions of power to lie to the public for years to bring Brexit about.
Also the Trump comparison works, because while Trump came relatively late to the game against Hillary people often wern’t voting for him, they were voting “fuck Hillary Clinton”, the same way people wern’t voting to leave to have an independent tariff system so much as they were voting “fuck Europe”.
Corbyn by the way is different in that there’s a lot more room to take issue with Labour’s record (the Dems under Obama had power for two years and still faced filibusters, Labour under Blair/Brown had power for 13 years and didn’t face filibusters) and Corbyn for all his issues with the party never lapsed his membership, and much as many of his supporters would hate to admit it much of Corbyn’s ideas are the natural evolution of Blair’s ideas.
Thing is because of Iraq, 2008 and Murdoch saying anything positive about Blair around Corbyn’s more hardcore lot tends to start a fight.
edited 20th May '18 8:28:37 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAs Silasw says, Trump being 'new' to the political arena isn't relevant because I was comparing the similarity in the barriers faced by both Hillary's campaign and the pro-EU campaign.
By the way, Deathorcake, if you are pro-Brexit, we could really use you in the British thread. It's very much in need of having that perspective be active there.
edited 20th May '18 8:48:56 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.I'll also post the relevant bits of this to the Brit thread and this conversation can get out of the way of the USA talk.
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I'm not exactly pro-Brexit, it'll sting and it's pointless since we had all the opt-outs in the world and enough clout to just ignore any EU laws we didn't like if we really had to, but I don't think it will be the end of the world or "unimaginable suffering". There will be some import inflation and cost-of-living rises, but the ability to get protectionist on stuff like renewables might be handy. Soft Brexit is probably the worst option assuming a competent government, since you don't even get that upside.
So second referendum if possible (and it might be) and leave outright if not, do more deals afterwards. Also, the EU's record on dealmaking and democratic leadership is abysmal. Remember that time they deposed the elected government of Greece in order to slash the Greek budget massively against the wishes of two-thirds of their people? If we were a smaller country with less diplomatic inertia I'd be advocating that we leave immediately and start using tariffs and subsidies to carve out some kind of specialised economic niche that isn't "tax haven", since that's all the Tories seem to be advocating with their "attract international investment" rhetoric.
We can't go along with the EU's ordoliberal system, not if Germany is going to demand everyone suppress wages in the name of export competitiveness and ease of big business operation. Is the entire world meant to run export surpluses to the States? I'd rather not crash the British economy whenever the States has another demand crisis and stops buying our stuff. We have an excellent tech sector, let's use that to train up a high-skill workforce companies can pay good money for and treat our trade deficit as the near-irrelevance it is.
I think it's a lot more structural than that. Sure, all these people share the same goals, but you can plot clear trends from 1979 to now in terms of increasing corporate profits, stagnant real wages and inequality. That's going to produce similar results across the world as the backlash comes, since the causes are the same and any centre-left establishment figure that tries to stand up and say "everything's FINE, we're going to keep right on with the neoliberalism" as the Democratic Party is doing and the Blairites want to do will be thrown out in short order. Look at the SPD in Germany, they're in mid-teens in the polls and falling as the extremes slice into the lesser coalition partner. Seems familliar.
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You can see the Labour Party evolution leftwards for the last decade. Brown said Labour would spend their way out of the recession, they got thrown out for the pack of lies and economic poison that is austerity and Milliband's 2015 manifesto could easily have been Corbynite if he'd bent to a few more of his MP's demands.
To get back on the USA track, I'm really not sure that the Democrats can get their house in order and make a genuine-sounding leftward move in time to avoid more stompings. Corbyn is only still fighting because the Labour Party structure means that his massive membership support can protect him from MP-led coups, and gerrymandering, superdelegates and your hilariously drawn-out primary process will make that kind of mass enthusiasm really hard to sustain for a Bernie/Warren type. You can rouse the British Left for a month or so if you have to, a year-long primary will lose momentum pretty fast, no pun intended.
"I think it's a lot more structural than that. Sure, all these people share the same goals, but you can plot clear trends from 1979 to now in terms of increasing corporate profits, stagnant real wages and inequality."
None of that has been happening by chance, either. In the US its been a systematic strategy at least since the Powell Memo
, at least since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and probably earlier.
Remember, this class of people all know each other, are highly resourced, and have access to the besy paid advisors on Earth. Its at least a conspiracy on an informal level.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
. Everything we've learned about the Mueller investigation only supports this.
And here's the clip if you can stomach it.
edited 20th May '18 9:58:40 AM by megaeliz
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Same, I had a negative view of them before but it was fairly moderate. Now I despise them.
Very true, it's a terrible idea on their part but unsurprising all the same. The NRA has been drinking the Kool-Aid for a while and it's not like they're going to stop now.
edited 20th May '18 10:26:43 AM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangPanic is really setting it.
....At what point does this soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP! They have found no Collussion with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren’t looking at the corruption...
...in the Hillary Clinton Campaign where she deleted 33,000 Emails, got $145,000,000 while Secretary of State, paid Mc Cabes wife $700,000 (and got off the FBI hook along with Terry M) and so much more. Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam.
Now that the Witch Hunt has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the World, they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party. Don’t worry about Dems FISA Abuse, missing Emails or Fraudulent Dossier!
What ever happened to the Server, at the center of so much Corruption, that the Democratic National Committee REFUSED to hand over to the hard charging (except in the case of Democrats) FBI? They broke into homes & offices early in the morning, but were afraid to take the Server?
....and why hasn’t the Podesta brother been charged and arrested, like others, after being forced to close down his very large and successful firm? Is it because he is a VERY well connected Democrat working in the Swamp of Washington, D.C.?
The Witch Hunt finds no Collusion with Russia - so now they’re looking at the rest of the World. Oh’ great!
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
edited 20th May '18 11:05:20 AM by megaeliz
this tweet
from Dictionary.com made me laugh however.
We did, however, find collusion. #Its In The Dictionary
edited 20th May '18 11:06:17 AM by megaeliz
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I have still not got my head around the fact that the POTUS has constant meltdowns in public about his blatant corruption every week or so. It seems like something you'd find in a bad comedy show that nobody watches.
I mean, our current government is both malicious and very slightly less obviously incompetent, which is probably worse, but we're not the superpower.
Collussion. It rhymes with Russian.
That last tweet is probably the most important one. That's a public decision to order the DOJ to protect his interests. I guess tomorrow is going to be interesting.
The 'Oh, great' stood out to me. It didn't seem like a Trump tweet.
edited 20th May '18 11:42:43 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Hold on, wait a minute:
Is he telling the Department of Justice to investigate themselves? Or does he now know what "DoJ" stands for?
i'm tired, my friendAnd on the cost of the Mueller investigation:
Benghazi "investigation": $7,000,000
Trump's golfing trips: $70,000,000 note
New debt from Republican tax bill:$1,500,000,000,000
Republicans, spare us your selective outrage about the cost of the Trump-Russia investigation.
edited 20th May '18 12:43:23 PM by megaeliz

... Well, I am confident the vote count for Brexit was at least accurate. The exit poll discrepancies for the US election are way past the "Voting machines most likely hacked" point. Seriously. 13 states had final vote counts in Trumps favor that differed from the exit polls by more than the margin of error. In two cases a full standard deviation beyond the margin of error.
It is difficult to express how unlikely this is in human terms, but basically, if it had happened in any other country, the entirety of the US press - and the US state department - would have instantly declared the election stolen. No if, buts, maybees or qualifications. When exit polls differ this much, that is the conclusion everyone draws.