US Politics XXIII: Law & Order SOU (Stupid Orange Unit)

[LJT]

Isn't the conversation over the statues only happening because they are being taken down? Many statues stand for decades without provoking anything other than the pigeons to sit on them.

It is like the Colston statue in Bristol which was thrown in the river, no one was discussing his crimes against humanity until it was torn down (just in case missed in the US he was a massive slaver but heavily invested in buildings and such around Bristol). Most people in Bristol before this couldn't have even really told you why his statue was up other than his name was on lots of stuff.

It doesn't sanitise history by removing a statue, nobody is banning anyone learning about Jefferson good or bad likewise with Churchill from books or documentaries where they can all be discussed in the correct context. Cities and towns are not history books, they should be an extension of the communities that live in them (though there is an issue where many European cities are little more than open air museums these days, I think that is a sad and bad thing but different discussion). It wasn't the communities that pined for or erected these statues but often members of the ruling political classes that decided this is what should be celebrated.

But ultimately the statues wouldn't be such a big deal if more was being done to tackle structural racism in societies, but as a symbol of that, they are probably the only structure people feel they can take down sufficiently fast enough to feel like something is happening or being done.

 

[LemonMelon]

Without having a ton to add to this album discussion in terms of informative historical context, I think it's valuable to suggest that we not shame anyone for iconoclasm or reactions to it. These are valuable discussions that our ancestors will benefit from; history curricula are shaped by what we prioritize, and now is as good an opportunity as any to make those value judgments. Would we rather be remembered for conquest or grace? Strength or humanity?

I hope we can all learn to accept that change, uncomfortable change, is a consequence of fresh understanding.

 

[womanfish]

FRAUD!!!

 

[LemonMelon]

BYPASS THE TYRANNY OF ANTlFA BY VOTING FROM HOME

EXERCISE YOUR CIVIC DUTY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP

DON'T BE LIKE THE SNOWFLAKES IN TULSA

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AGAIN!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

McEnany actually defended Trump's use of the racist term Kung Flu. She did so in response to the Asian reporter from CBS who called Trump out weeks ago- Weijia Jiang.

Barely made the news that he said that in Tulsa.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

The only black Nascar driver gets a noose placed in his garage stall. Because he wore a Black Lives Matter shirt and put the words on his car? And of course just because he's black. Probably anger about Nascar getting rid of the Confederate flag too.

Goes even beyond politics, but this is the disgusting state of affairs under orange in chief. MAGA.

Utterly horrifying. I hope they find the asshole who did that as soon as humanly possible and throw the book at him.

It's a really tricky situation. You've seen statues of Julius Caesar toppled - at some point we have to ask what is part of our cultural heritage and maybe preserve some in museums/galleries versus what has little artistic value and is prominently displayed in places where the public gathers and does little more than stir up controversy.

We in the west also don't really understand the effects of colonialism in other parts of the world. What the British did in the Indian subcontinent was repulsive and not talked about enough. If people in India our South Africa don't want statues of Winston Churchill to be up, then we should defer to them. Arguing against it is nothing more than semantics to us, but to them it represents ongoing inequalities and strife within their society.

I really do think its rightful place in the museum where you can understand the good and the considerable bad. It is rare for statues of historical figures (though Churchill has an enduring legacy in the how the modern world has been formed) to convey any of that, they just sit in prominent positions in the spaces of our towns and cities which just adds one particular narrative of their lives and especially since much of Britain's dubious past is not taught at schools here, not even comparatively near stuff like Britain's role in Ireland.

Time generally shows that statues are very political in why they are where they are and sometimes we just need to move on. And many statues like myths need to be toppled at some point. Anyway we don't have a lot of respect for figures of imperial Britain in West Belfast...As kids we used to shove cigarette butts up the nose of the queen vic statue outside our main hospital

Isn't the conversation over the statues only happening because they are being taken down? Many statues stand for decades without provoking anything other than the pigeons to sit on them.

It is like the Colston statue in Bristol which was thrown in the river, no one was discussing his crimes against humanity until it was torn down (just in case missed in the US he was a massive slaver but heavily invested in buildings and such around Bristol). Most people in Bristol before this couldn't have even really told you why his statue was up other than his name was on lots of stuff.

It doesn't sanitise history by removing a statue, nobody is banning anyone learning about Jefferson good or bad likewise with Churchill from books or documentaries where they can all be discussed in the correct context. Cities and towns are not history books, they should be an extension of the communities that live in them (though there is an issue where many European cities are little more than open air museums these days, I think that is a sad and bad thing but different discussion). It wasn't the communities that pined for or erected these statues but often members of the ruling political classes that decided this is what should be celebrated.

But ultimately the statues wouldn't be such a big deal if more was being done to tackle structural racism in societies, but as a symbol of that, they are probably the only structure people feel they can take down sufficiently fast enough to feel like something is happening or being done.

I agree with all of these posts. Seriously, there are plenty of other ways to learn about these notable figures and this particular part of history, it seems beyond bizarre to me that people still think that by losing the statues all of that suddenly disappears or something (speaking in general terms, I know people here don't think that). I hope this whole thing with the statues does lead to a deeper discussion about how to better talk about these people and their actions in school, and books, and so on.

Two more Trump campaign lead team members have tested positive. They were there for days in advance and during the rally. That makes 8.

Gee. Who could've possibly seen that coming?

 

[womanfish]

Mental decline

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1275210912077680640

WOW! The Trump Rally gives
@FoxNews
the “LARGEST SATURDAY NIGHT AUDIENCE IN ITS HUSTORY”. Isn’t it amazing that virtually nobody in the Lamestream Media is reporting this rather major feat!

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Were people eating "hamberders" while watching Fox News, Trump?

 

[womanfish]

https://mobile.twitter.com/weijia/status/1275422015059615750

 

[womanfish]

Vanity Fair reporting that Pascale is most likely resigning. We shall see. I kinda hope not. I mean, he's been doing a bang up job so far...

 

[womanfish]

Nothing like a good self-own in the morning.

https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1275438658091278336

 

[mikal]

So if Trump doesn't "kid", does that mean that it actually wasn't just locker room talk?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Ah that grab the pussy talk is all hustory at this point

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

He doesn't have a racist bone in his body, nope.

Trump tweets videos of black men attacking white people, asks ‘Where are the protesters?’


By Tim Elfrink, The Washington Post
updated on June 23, 2020


As protesters demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism again clashed with authorities outside the White House on Monday night, the president took to Twitter to ask why he didn’t see a different kind of demonstration instead.

Above a retweeted video of a black man repeatedly punching a white department store employee, Trump wrote, “Looks what’s going on here. Where are the protesters?”

He also retweeted another account that asked “Where are the protests for this?” with a clip of a black man pushing a white woman into the side of a subway car.

“So terrible!” Trump added above that video.


To critics, Trump’s tweets implied that individual crimes by black men are equivalent to the systemic police violence against people of color that has sparked weeks of nationwide protests. The tweets also come days after Trump repeatedly used racially offensive stereotypes at his Tulsa campaign rally, a preview of the “racially inflammatory messaging” he’s likely to use in his bid for a second term, The Washington Post’s Jose A. Del Real reported.

False claims about the prevalence of violent black-on-white crime have been a hallmark of white supremacist websites, the Southern Poverty Law Center found in a 2018 study. Those sites radicalized Dylann Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015 while falsely claiming in a manifesto that huge numbers of “black on White murders got ignored.”

Trump has spread similarly untrue allegations before, notably in 2015 when he tweeted an image of a dark-skinned man with a gun alongside “racially loaded and incorrect murder statistics,” as PolitiFact found in a “pants on fire” rating of the tweet.

Trump’s tweets on Monday highlighted disturbing videos of seemingly random attacks by black men against white people.

The first, which originated from an account that regularly spreads anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant content, shows a 2019 attack in a Brooklyn subway station. A 28-year-old suspect described as a well-known “transit nuisance” was quickly arrested.

The second, retweeted from conservative blogger Matt Walsh, shows an assault inside a Flint Township, Mich., Macy’s store on June 15. Some claimed on social media that the white employee had used a racial slur before the attack, the Detroit Free Press reported, but Macy’s told the paper its own investigation found that “the attack was unprovoked.”

Flint Township police are still trying to find the two men in the video, the Free Press reported.

Critics lambasted Trump on Twitter, questioning the true message behind the tweets.

 

[womanfish]

He doesn't have a racist bone in his body, nope.

Trump tweets videos of black men attacking white people, asks ‘Where are the protesters?’


By Tim Elfrink, The Washington Post
updated on June 23, 2020


As protesters demanding an end to police brutality and systemic racism again clashed with authorities outside the White House on Monday night, the president took to Twitter to ask why he didn’t see a different kind of demonstration instead.

Above a retweeted video of a black man repeatedly punching a white department store employee, Trump wrote, “Looks what’s going on here. Where are the protesters?”

He also retweeted another account that asked “Where are the protests for this?” with a clip of a black man pushing a white woman into the side of a subway car.

“So terrible!” Trump added above that video.


To critics, Trump’s tweets implied that individual crimes by black men are equivalent to the systemic police violence against people of color that has sparked weeks of nationwide protests. The tweets also come days after Trump repeatedly used racially offensive stereotypes at his Tulsa campaign rally, a preview of the “racially inflammatory messaging” he’s likely to use in his bid for a second term, The Washington Post’s Jose A. Del Real reported.

False claims about the prevalence of violent black-on-white crime have been a hallmark of white supremacist websites, the Southern Poverty Law Center found in a 2018 study. Those sites radicalized Dylann Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015 while falsely claiming in a manifesto that huge numbers of “black on White murders got ignored.”

Trump has spread similarly untrue allegations before, notably in 2015 when he tweeted an image of a dark-skinned man with a gun alongside “racially loaded and incorrect murder statistics,” as PolitiFact found in a “pants on fire” rating of the tweet.

Trump’s tweets on Monday highlighted disturbing videos of seemingly random attacks by black men against white people.

The first, which originated from an account that regularly spreads anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant content, shows a 2019 attack in a Brooklyn subway station. A 28-year-old suspect described as a well-known “transit nuisance” was quickly arrested.

The second, retweeted from conservative blogger Matt Walsh, shows an assault inside a Flint Township, Mich., Macy’s store on June 15. Some claimed on social media that the white employee had used a racial slur before the attack, the Detroit Free Press reported, but Macy’s told the paper its own investigation found that “the attack was unprovoked.”

Flint Township police are still trying to find the two men in the video, the Free Press reported.

Critics lambasted Trump on Twitter, questioning the true message behind the tweets.

It's pretty amazing. It's hard to know exactly if Trump's team is giving him this advice or he's just decided this. But it was clear from the "rally" and from this, that the "reset" and new launch of the campaign is to go for racist incitement.
He doesn't have a lot of options against Biden.
You have a white male with a normal name, grew up poor, a model family man, that is attracting minority, female, suburban and older voters in a big way, and also some non-college voters.
His hits on Biden with health and with China won't land with these people. He can't label him a socialist or leftist. Any racial misteps Biden has made in the past is minuscule to Trump's brazen white nationalism.

So this is what he's going with. During an "awakening" of the public, on racial injustice, and support for BLM and police reform in the 70%'s. This is what he thinks is a good path.

He is locking himself in, to not just his broader base, but mostly the core of his base. It's incredible to watch the self-destruction.


Side note. They did a survey of voters in Jacksonville FL, the county that Trump won by 2 points, and is now showing Biden by 10 points.
They were asked about Trump and Covid and mask wearing, etc... They responded that Trump made them feel anxious, upset and disappointed. Biden characteristics were "informed, understanding, leader and smart. "

 

[womanfish]

Just a feelgood video for the day.

https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1275500260618575872


I think there may have been a gay ant on that last step...

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Maybe he's born with it...

...Maybe it's Maybelline

 

[womanfish]

Maybe he's born with it...

...Maybe it's Maybelline

Very... cakey.

Although I must say. That failed rally, a long days sweat, screaming at staffers, putting head in hands, actually improved his hair quite a bit.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Just look at the collar man... look at the collar

 

[womanfish]

Just look at the collar man... look at the collar

And people joked about his makeup being why he wouldn't wear a mask. But I think that really may be true. Fun to know that those "tough" MAGA's who call people snowflakes, worship a guy that wears Marilyn Manson level makeup.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Dude's face is coming off like the lead Nazi in Temple of Doom

 

[anitram]

Dude's face is coming off like the lead Nazi in Temple of Doom

Wait, you don't think that he's a manly God Emperor?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

https://twitter.com/brooklynmutt/status/1275582279289581571?s=19

 

[Irvine511]

Wait.

Do ... do people think Aunt Jemima was a real person?







The upside is, going full racist this early means Twump knows he’s got nothing.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

https://twitter.com/brooklynmutt/status/1275582279289581571?s=19

...uhhhhh...

Okay.

 

[U2girl]

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1261557712590012416?s=20

 

[anitram]

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1261557712590012416?s=20

Finally somebody goes on live TV and calls Trump an imbecile and an idiot. It's as if "civility" has paralyzed everybody while Trump treats America and the rest of the world as his personal toilet to shit in on a daily basis.

You can never let your guard down, but I am now thinking more and more that he will get absolutely humiliated at the polls. The reason I say this, aside from his various current failures, is that anecdotally, all these fund managers and investor class that my husband interfaces who care about only tax cuts and business deregulation can't stand the man and are not going to vote for him. They think Biden will be acceptable (probably not great news for the left) and are totally committed to getting Trump out and removing the 24/7 state of uncertainty in the markets, not to mention the handicapping of US businesses on the world stage given COVID.

He has his insane deplorables left, but the others have already departed the ship.

 

[iron yuppie]

The reason I say this, aside from his various current failures, is that anecdotally, all these fund managers and investor class that my husband interfaces who care about only tax cuts and business deregulation can't stand the man and are not going to vote for him.

To be fair, people like this are likely a very small percentage of his voting base. Hedge fund managers aren't going to swing any states.

 

[LJT]

https://twitter.com/brooklynmutt/status/1275582279289581571?s=19

The discordance between 'the American dream' and 'she started a slave'.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

Seemed like a pretty good night for the left wing in the primaries. Knocked out some establishment picks, most notably Eliot Engel.