Totalitarian fascist .....Schumer

Discussion in 'Politics' started by sculptor, Mar 5, 2020.

  1. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    No need.
    There are plenty of anti-Trumpist here already.
    (hauling coals to newcastle?)
    You need not my help in pushing the pendulum in that direction.
    Conversely, do you recall me defending Trump beyond a reasonable neutral point?

    meanwhile,
    What Schumer did was unacceptable .
    “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Mr. Schumer said. “You will not know what hit you"
    Roberts:
    “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,”

    If our elected officials have no respect for decorum, or the structure of our government, are they serving us?
    Politicians pander. When is it safe to pander to radicals by seeming even more radical?

    ...........................
    Meanwhile
    Why are we still militarily engaged in the middle east?
    Is Trump toadying up to the MIC?
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2020
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  3. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Since about 6000BC
     
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  5. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    i don't recall you ever taking a reasonable neutral position
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    ...eye of the beholder...
     
  8. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    When voters make it clear that the only way to win elections is to be as radical and over the top as possible.
     
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Which begs the question:
    Safe for whom?
    (shades of the mass hysteria of national socialism?)
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    For the winners, of course.
     
  11. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    and this beholder is using one of his eyestalks to use ray of bullshit detecting on you and yep ray says you bullshitting.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Safe from whom or what is rather more to the point.
    That post's been passed. Unless you have some other definition of national socialism.
    Anyway, all references to nazis and fascists are invalid. This is different - a uniquely 21st century American version that could not be replicated elsewhere, just as the Hitler anomaly was a uniquely German phenomenon of its time.
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Neurotic tension 'twixt traditional assertions of right and wrong, to the one, and a seemingly pathological need to explore and experience wrongness while pretending to hew to what one ritually claims is right.

    It's like the old story about Crowley throwing a sherpa off a mountain because it was his one opportunity to know what it was like to possess the power of life and death. It's like, okay, one, sure, I get it; two, no; and three, c'mon, he's the Beast, and ought to be able to come up with something better. And that story gets a whole lot more interesting if we do the original-incel bit, which, to the other, he's clearly not, considering the fact of Sanhedrin 75a in the Talmud. But, still, while we can easily understand why he eventually tried to destroy the early writings for reading like juvenilia, the bit where he envies a friend for dying—jealous of an imagined wet dream—makes its own point, and when combined with a confession of masculine insecurity and what reads like a gay intimiate-violence temper tantrum threatening to murder Christ, only more so.

    No, really, it's kind of like post-Dawkins, pre-Cheezburger memesters rediscovering basic behavioral psychology without any experimental protocol or discipline.

    Oh, wait. Sorry, that's not entirely a digression. But if we think for a moment of the fourth chapter of the Book of Acts (4.31-37), which is the source of the famous communist motto, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", juxtaposed against the 1954 adoption of the motto, "In God we trust", as a Christianist rejection of communism, it is possible to perceive the neurotic tension in open view.

    Come all the way forward to the bitter folk desperately clinging to guns and religion. Some conservatives so wanted to revolt against Obama, but they're supposed to be American patriots, so they kept trying to posture themselves as if the moment would come, and there they would be, firing away, bawling, "Goddamn you to hell for forcing a patriot like me revolt!" And the rest of society didn't meet their special need. Not when Obama apparently tried to start the right-wing rahowa by attending the platitude that a dead victim could have been his own son; and not when the Army was scheming to come after all the righteous, patriotic, gun-owning Christians on behalf of Obama, McDonald's, and Walmart.

    There's a song, called "Lorelei"↱, and it would blow the young'n's minds, today, to think this absurdly hopeful song about unmarried cohabitation could possibly be controversial for anything other than being ridiculous: "She calls me on the telephone, she says be there by eight. Tonight's the night she's moving in, and I can hardly wait. Lorelei, let's live together! Brighter than the stars, forever!" There's even a wanker joke in a '76 live recording.

    Yeah. 1976.

    It's worth pointing out, however, because these supremacists also include the Christianists of the Reagan Awakening in 1980. So here's neurotic tension: A Christian who voted for Reaganomics.

    No, really, when working full time won't keep the rent, at what point does living with someone you can fuck start to sound like a better alternative than your unkempt, farting roommates who can't clean the vomit from behind the toilet? When conservative Christianists voted for union-busting, wage suppression, and tax breaks for the wealthy to be bankrolled by the poor, what did they expect would happen?

    And they were at it for years. It was all wrapped up in a neat little package: Racism, misogyny, inherent Christian supremacism, and a freaking pyramid scheme to carry the rich on the backs of the poor. And these ostensible good American folk carried this water poison for generations; and now their kids are too stupid to figure out how it works, and everyone else's kids are too young to remember when the world was any different.

    And that's why they're acting it out. It's been so long; their neurotic threads are worn that thin; the social fabric of their delusion is tattered.

    On some level, they know they're supposed to be the good people, and also that they refuse to be. Anecdotal scrap from, I think, 2014, is the state legislator running in a Congressional primary and arguing that his Christian duty requires he oppose feeding the hungry.

    The conservative Christianists, I call them faithless usurpers. They don't trust God; they want His power for themselves, because they don't really know how it goes, and if that rainbow wig on John 3.16 is correct, it means they have to share Heaven with homosexuals and single mothers. The literature already tells a tale like that, and they cannot be unaware. It's all through American history, all the way back to the beginning. And it's all through Christian history, since before there were Christians.

    Think of it at Sciforums, and the dumbassed equivocations we have been expected to attend over the years. If we're supposed to be rational people, and are expected to pretend we cannot tell the difference between the exclusion itself, and the exclusion resulting from the rejection thereof, 'twixt the infliction of disempowerment and the disempowerment of infliction—i.e., the difference 'twixt supremacism and the rejection thereof—the toll of bearing such dysfunctional burdens becomes mundane fare.

    On some level, they know they're supposed to be the good people. Y'know, in their own minds.

    And, simultaneously, they know what they're pushing.

    And when they fail according to their own narrative, they know it.

    And as they've broken, and run out of excuses, they know it. And it's like we just saw of Congressional Republicans: The only thing they can figure to do is dig in and repeat themselves. I think back and, like, holy shit, it's been five years, or something like that, but there was a period when Republicans, hemmed in by their talking points, started doing this thing by which they repeated one talking point, over and over, no matter what question the reporter asked. It was weird and funny when it first started happening, but we all just saw Senate Republicans, and nobody can yet explain what the hell is up with Nunes, over in the House.

    How about the Clerks version? Because, knowing what we know, now, about Imperial stormtroopers, I wonder about their place in the discussion about contractors and civilians in the latter Death Star. It's a comparative juxtaposition: Americans aren't clone troopers; no prenatal laboratory fiddling has predisposed Republicans toward insensitivity to cognitive dissonance. Conservatives know that even by their own narratives of right and wrong, they run over dangerously betraying ground.

    There is a broader, both-sides or all-sides question, but it's actually a different discussion attending justification and human frailty. We might suggest, toward the American discourse, the liberal's frailty coincides with the conservative's raison d'être. That is, of course it happens on all sides; frailty is human. But not all sides intentionally pursue those outcomes. This ought to be apparent. History, to the other, tells us much about what ought to be, or what ought to have been, and we should temper our expectation accordingly.

    Still, though. Neurotic tension.

    No, really, it sounds unbelievable: Back before FOX News, people would unironically criticize liberal media bias because reporters supported the First Amendment. What nobody talked about, then, was newspaper publishers. It's part of the reason why Scaife got away with the Arkansas Project, and it would have been impolite at the time to suggest such a respectable businessman would behave in such a terrible way. These years later, they still can't admit it. But they did start FOX News as a counterpoint to that nonexistent liberal media conspiracy apparently run by a bunch of conservative business owners.

    Oh, right. The Arkansas Project. We shouldn't forget how much our neighbor, Sculptor, loathes Hillary Clinton. Between the publishers of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the New York Times, that liberal media conspiracy really did the Clintons some favors, eh? Imagine living with the neurotic tension of decades spent poodling for billionaires.

    Their neurotic threads are snapped; the weave is torn asunder. They're running out of make-believe, and there are only so many variations on any given theme. At the point telling us what they're doing is the watch the birdie misdirection, they seem bereft of creative threads.

    They scrabble after the scrap and tatter, desperate for any purchase, because some part of whatever their consciences have become knows the alternative is countenancing what they have done and become.

    It's hardly unique to their circumstance; I see it even at times when I am otherwise sympathetic to someone. I think of someone I know; while it's flippant to simplify the whole thing to, someone hurt his feelings once upon a time, it's also true the whole thing is so personal he will humiliate himself for the satisfaction of thinking he's just needled someone who only holds him in contempt, anyway. And I mention him because, any day of the week, when we get right down to the basic core issue of his fixation, well, sure, he's not wrong. Actually acknowledging how he behaves seems beyond him; he pushes onward, ever more determined. Like I said, it's human.

    But the neurotic conflict of destroying a society is probably pretty stiff. They're tapped. They can barely tell us what's going on. In their minds, it all sounds like a fine excuse.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Nazi references are invalid (outside of certain Eastern European and South American applications).

    Fascist references are just ideological labels - if they're accurate they're valid, along with socialist, liberal, humanist, etc.
    Clout, impunity, power, etc, is not legal right.
    That's kind of the point of flaunting it - a legal right would automatically provide a margin of safety for one's enemies.
    - - - -
    Same reasons we militarily engaged in the first place. Once the American public re-elected W&Cheney, a fifteen or twenty year hot operation was pretty much guaranteed.
    Fewer than Republican memespreaders and media echos such as yourself.
    And there are even specific Trump defenders.
    There are no defenders of Schumer at all, afaik.
    Meanwhile, false equivalences such as the one you attempted to draw between Schumer and Trump are among the most common postings in the vulnerable forums here.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2020
  15. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    And judges have the legal right to criticize the behavior of despicable human beings. I imagine that the vast majority of other career criminals feel the same way about their respective trial judges, and if such inane requests for recusals were granted accordingly, the whole legal system would grind to a halt.
    Schumer simply pointed out the obvious, that there are consequences for one’s actions, even judicial ones. How criminal is that?
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    In a nutshell.
     
  17. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Saying that it's unconstitutional for an elected body to use its constitutional power of impeachment in response to an admitted abuse of presidential power, it just seems a little bit over the top.
     
  18. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    True, but my contention is that no ideology applies here.
    One emotionally insecure and intellectually fragile narcissist is throwing tantrums; while a gaggle of ethically bankrupt, sociologically compressed invertebrates cower behind him - and they're allowed to carry out this charade of governance, so long as they serve the interest of the feeding-frenzy at the top of the dollar-chain.
    Is if you have your supreme stooges change the law at your whim. Other guy does the same, you change the law again.
    "Will adjudicate to suit".

    _______

    "Well, we should've kept the oil when we got out."
    BTW, I recall him saying, way back in the 90's of even 80"s "We should take the oil."
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    But Trump isn't doing that, in general. That would defeat his purpose, undermine his agenda.

    Fascists gain power by flaunting their ability to break or ignore the law. Trump doesn't have to bother changing the law - that's the point of his (and McConnell's, etc) behavior.

    And that's a central part of the ideological difference between the Republicans, who are the US fascist Party, and everybody else. It's true that fascism does not have an ideology of its own in the technical sense, but it does have a strategy and agenda for dealing with ideological restriction, opposition, - or opportunity.
    If you draw false equivalences between fascist demagogues and the merely corrupt or venal, you open the door to fascism.

    That's dangerous. Shutting that door - restoring the rule of law, say - may prove impossible.
     
  20. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    Trump isn't doing anything - in general, or in a directed manner. He's just getting even. I very much doubt he's sane enough to have an agenda beyond getting even.

    I'm not convinced of that. I'm more inclined to think they gain power by exploiting fear - even if they have to engender the fear themselves. Then they charge to the rescue, demanding extraordinary power to deal with this self-designated extraordinary problem. That would apply to Cheney, the Bushes, and several of their predecessors. They demand/claim a right o change the law - and then use the expanded legal latitude to create more espionage and military arms. To that end, they have whittled the party core down to the most ruthless of my-party-right-or-wrong team player. Yes, in that sense, the GOP is certainly fascist.
    But Trump isn't. I think he's an accident that happened to them after they purged all the intelligent and reasonable - shall we say 'sane'? Republicans (through the Stone -Atwater - Nordquist line).
    They were looking for a figurehead king, and drew the joker instead. Ever since, they've been running around with mops and pails, trying to contain his tantrums, clean up his messes, cover his ineptitude -- while trying to duck whatever he's throwing at them.
    I suspect they all, every last mandrake, close their bedtime prayers with, "Bless my gun and the flag and please send him that stroke soon. Amen."

    I'm not seeing such a false equivalence. And I am not the doorkeeper.
    The door to fascism has never closed. Law has always been an imperfect, incomplete, fragile thing.
    Nobody can "restore" an ideal rule of law - any more than America could "return" to an ideal state of greatness.
    The past is glorious or ignominious or both or neither... all we can be sure of is that it's past.
    Do not look to precedent for a way forward: it will not work.
    Something has been destroyed irrevocably and cannot be mended.
    You'll have to build new, under very different circumstances.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2020
  21. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Amen to that!
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You drew one - that Trump and Schumer were equivalent in their lack of ideology.
    1)It used to be harder to get through, in the US.
    2) That's no reason to open it wide, and lay out the red carpet.
    He is consistently breaking down the rule of law - not just seizing power, but ensuring that it is illegitimate power rather than law dependent.
    There is no contradiction there. Both of those are true.
    That purge was complete by 1994. Twenty five years ago, at least fifteen years after it started.
    How does that conflict with Trump being a fascist demagogue? He certainly looks, acts, and talks like one - the only notable difference between him and the stereotype Mussolini clone is his lack of personal military foundation.
    Classic fascist takeover. The historical norm. The Republican voter - the power base of the fascist movement that took over the Republican Party more than forty years ago - has voted for and lined up behind jokers since 1980 or earlier (Reagan was a joker, HW was a placeholder, W was a joker, Limbaugh was a joker, Coulter was a joker, Fox News is a standing joke, etc etc etc).
    To repeat, for the fiftieth time: fascists are fuckups. That's how they roll - always have.
    Trump is not an aberration - he's a Republican, right down the middle.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2020
  23. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    No. I said not one word - anywhere - about Schumer. I don't know what his ideology is, though I get the impression he feels quite strongly about Trump's high crimes and misdemeanours.
    Only because of this thread have I even gone to look at what he'd said to the Supreme Court, and I can't honestly see that he's got anything to apologize for.
    What I do suggest is that people take a step back and look at the Trump situation dispassionately. He doesn't follow conventional precedent; he's not an ideological or political construct; he's not something the GOP created - he's something they spilled.

    Sometimes harder, sometimes easier. In the MacCarthy era, full red carpet with trumpets. 1964-80, lots of people leaning against the inside. Reagan-Bush II, push and pull.
    Y'all might have thought of that in time to make substantial election reforms, but nobody ever gets around to it, because any administration that could make changes got into power through the status quo and can't see four years down the tunnel.

    Of course. He's inflating his ego by wrecking the country that laughed at him. But it's not a political agenda; it's not because he believes in anything - it's personal and irrational.

    But their agenda invariably includes re-writing the law, rather than simply breaking it.

    I suppose that depends on whom you consider as being inside and outside. I won't quibble.
    In that he is not a party member.
    Plus the dementia.

    No, they were not Jokers; they were merely jokes.
    Those are just organs.
    The Joker is a wild card. They wanted someone they could control; not someone they have to keep mopping up after.

    Okay. fifty's the charm.
     

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