The Walking Eagle thread

Away End - General Chat
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When did I say cops can’t be criticised. I have strictly stated, hold them accountable but also allow them to function against law breakers.

My point is letting one side getting a free run to burn down shops and assault people. In some cases even make autonomous zones.

@Reinhol debate.

As for Reinhol. One witness claimed he was unarmed. There were two who claimed that he opened fire at cops first. Who do we believe?

What we do know for certain is that Reinoehl did kill his victim after following him. More importantly, had the mayor acted first then riots wouldn’t have turned into killings.

It’s the same everywhere. Politicians deliberately not acting to gain points/votes from their votebase and things escalating to violence.

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Chris Hayes had a guy on his podcast last week who had a fascinating thesis that the American right was left without a reason for being after the fall of the USSR and the turn of the Dems towards Neoliberalism with policies that were essentially theirs. Without a real enemy to rally against abroad and little room for substantive policy disagreement at home, they turned to creating cultural grievance, which became their reason to exist. It’s not a far step from that to being upset about a supposed war on Christmas and thinking Democrats want to destroy America. And once you’ve framed things that way, after a certain period your guy can be for anything as long as he’s against those other guys.

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It is saying that when one of your foundational arguments is clearly wrong and is a verbatim Trump campaign line, then it’s clear where your ideas on what is happening is being influenced from. Appreciating that the Biden line is false, maybe it should result in a reevaluation of the rest of it?

For example, I have numerous friends who live in Portland and work downtown. Through this period of 100 days of the city burning, they have got on with their life without any impact at all.

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Yup. This is really all the GOP platform is anymore. Boogeymen that the fabricate to keep the voters showing up. It’s horrible.

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So you justify occupying democratic assemblies at gun point but condemn any one who peacefully protests because there’s a small number runnig around commiting arson.
Cops don’t do anything about one but the other is a criminal offense so cops shoot them.
No wonder the worlds in a mess priorities have gone to shit.

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“We are in the death throes of neo-conservatism, and they’re doing everything they can to preserve themselves, but it seems inevitable that it will die. What remains to be seen is how much collateral damage will be caused.”

As if on cue, here’s what’s on Politico today. McConnell is one of the few people I genuinely hope is damned to hell. Just an absolutely garbage person.

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Trump will get in again, he’s all American and that’s all that counts. If course if he loses, I can see a rather extensive military intervention to get him out.

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He’s a garbage human, but an amazing politician. Think where we’d be if he actually used his powers for good?

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He cant. This is was what I not able to express properly yesterday. His tactics are only possible for someone content to burn the place down and destroy the democracy the chamber is supposed represent. If he wanted other outcomes he would have use other tactics. That is why I utterly reject the idea that “he’s good” because the nefariousness of the shit that he is content to do should never be judged separately from the damage.

The whole “well, you have to hand it him, he gets what he wants” sort of attitude just conjures images of someone watching their wife getting taken away to be a breeder in Gilead (Handmaid’s Tale) and just giving a golf clap saying “well played.”

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That is a strange take. Thanos too thought he was acting in the larger greater good. Who cares whether they really think they are acting in the greater good?

But even then I would argue that even with David (the one who got the better press) his philanthropy was the sort common among men of his ill begotten wealth who make a late life attempt to salvage their reputation. Him donating to medical research, while being one of the central opposing forces to environmental regulation and climate change denial is not much different than the sports washing of the regimes of UAE and Qatr.

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I see a posters here having to call out little insults, let’s be clear, this is not a thread that was ever going to be well balanced. The original title of this thread on TIA was called “The world burns while an evil orange c* plays with matches … Its the Trump thread**”, so that should in itself be an indication of how the thread is going to go.

I don’t get to vote in the US, however if I did, it would have been HC in 2016. It was not for policies, it was more to do with that she was generally a more likeable person imo. I remember quite clearly watching months of build up to the elections, the polls, the talk shows, etc. It was much like this thread, a trump bashing. I particularly remember one woman (the blond, too lazy to lookup), that said trump was going to win, and I remember the entire audience having a great big laugh, the rest of the guests on the panel having a great laugh, the host having a great laugh, while she just sat there straight faced, taking it all in. I was watching this with a grin on my face, snickering at the suggestion. Of all the show I watched, articles I read, she was the only person I remember saying that Trump was going to win. I do however remember the “will never be president” quotes from famous celebrities and politicians alike.

I watched the election night on CNN, Florida, Trump winning, and the absolute shock of every person on the show. The rest of the swing states dropped one by one, Trump taking them, and shocking all the experts and news agencies who’s opinion I held in high regard, and in turn shocking myself. The thing I will always remember Trump for, is his victory, that was directly responsible for me trashing all preconceived ideas on reliable journalism. It’s quite a shock to be convinced to believe something with such certainty, and for that certainty to be utterly trashed.

I remember growing up, I was taught that I should listen two both truths (each side of the story), and draw a line between the two in order to get a semblance of the truth. It was reasonably accurate, however it is no longer true. It is now much more complicated, media seems to have swung significantly toward a liberal stance, you now have to take a CNN and the like as unbalanced towards liberals, Fox unbalanced towards conservatives, so take a bit of truth from each, then ask yourself is the timing of the story too convenient, are the sources trustworthy, etc. Just too much information now. What I personally do, is ignore news segments or experts/politicians that blindly and repeatedly label people as idiots, rapists, racists, and I never (if I can help it), rely on quotes until I have read the entire quote, and make sure I am reading it in context. I have been burned by this mistake too many times.

In short. The middle ground is shrinking at an alarmingly rapid pace.

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It was Ann Coulter on the Bill Maher show.

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Going back to 2016, I remember the opinion polls had Hillary in the lead till the end. Even in the swing states. It’s only in the exit polls that started to show Trump winning.

I still wonder what happened in those last few days. Or was the opinion polls flawed.

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There is quite a gap between the public image and the person. So much misinformation. That’s it’s difficult to untangle the unpalatable truth from the unpalatable reality.

Until recently I worked for a Koch company. I had to go cap in hand to Charles Koch for funding (for greenhouse gas R&D). I had to convince him personally (and later his son and son in-law) for research money. If you work for a Koch company I would describe it as semi-religious, with guiding principles and using Charles Kochs book as a way of guide your actions. Those who don’t confirm don’t tend to last long.

Whilst my own views, I kept personal. I saw first hand their rationale. Believing how competition brings advancement. Making superior products and superior service. How value is a abstract concept, which is why free trade is so important, the economics of spontaneous order. How ultimately governmental interference leads to inefficiency, and ultimately more productive happier societies tend to be those with greater freedom and less government control.

I absolutely am not a Libertarian (which is what I would describe Charles Koch), Whilst I don’t agree with him. I saw enough that he was very intelligent and very passionate about the political philosophy and how the world works . It was not simply acting in ways that would be beneficial to him (he has supported policies which do the opposite) . This intent does matter.

It differentiates it from lobbies like say NRA which are purely about self-interest, and strikes to a core political-ideological differences. Take something at the other end of the spectrum like communism. At its core there is a belief for good, many people hand on heart believe it is the best thing for the people/country. The realities are often ending up with dictators and abuse of power.

Thats how I tend to look at the Koch political influence. At its core there is a intent for good. There are important learnings, key arguments and challenges. Such ideological stance however leads to falling down traps and not dealing with reality.

The best way of challenging Koch values, it not painting him as evil, bond villain. But a man driving a political ideology. One with flaws similar to other ideologies.

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On 28OCT Comey publicly disclosed that he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s emails. The inside scoop was always that there was nothing there (emails they’d already reviewed) and this was being done out of an extreme abundance of caution so that when she won the FBI could not be accused of helping her win by withholding information about a case they had previously (against protocol) gone on the record to say was closed. However, it was widely viewed by the public as evidence that there was a there there. It was a justification for listening to that thing in their gut telling them that Clinton was such an awful candidate because of all this nebulous corruption that you could feel even if you couldn’t describe any of it. BENGHAZI.

On Nov 1 the NYT falsely reported in a Front Page lead that the FBI had disclosed that the Trump campaign was not under investigation. They didn’t, and it was. But that was still completely under wraps at that time.

The Election was held on 08NOV

The polls could not capture the effects of those late events, and they were already close enough that even an average sized polling error could see Trump win.

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Yes, that was her. I’m sure she has a smug look on her face every time she sees that clip.

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It does not surprise me that kids raised by one of the founding members of the John Birch society would have genuine heart felt libertarian ideas. But as I said in my initial response, I dont much care for what they thought about the goodness of their actions. Ultimately, they come from a family that made a significant part of their fortune from the Nazis and continued to be sympathizers long after the war. The kids then spent their entire lives working as hard as they could to destroy the planet by funding climate change denial and fighting the EPA. Later in life they then were as influential as anyone in pushing Citizens United. That’s an awful track record worthy of condemnation.

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The important thing to appreciate about that exchange is that even she thought she was talking bullshit when she said it. That was not her reading the tea leaves and seeing something that main stream couldn’t see, it was just another case of her performative liberal antagonism that she has made a career out of. Every once in a while people like that can get something accidentally right and surprise even themselves.

There were people saying that Trump had a chance and not many were were taken seriously. That is true. However, not even the people in the Trump campaign thought he was actually going to win. So when you saw his mouth pieces out there declaring that everyone was wrong, it wasn’t that they had better data or a better read on the same data. They were just participating in theatre. From what I saw and recall most of the scorn and mockery was not for participating in this, but was saved for those who made up data to support their claims, which was a common theme.

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Nope. I oppose them both (unless its peaceful protests). I oppose the right wing nuts more if they assembled with guns. Same for autonomous zones. That’s just asking for more trouble.

My point was simple. Had the cops been allowed to maintain law and order (stop shops being broken and looted, people being assaulted, stopping autonomous zones), the politicians not pandered to their respective votebanks, and media been a bit more honest in calling out riots, then the escalation to killings could have been avoided.

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Except, my entire view was not based on just Trump. It was based on reports with video evidence about Portland, a NYT reporter who covered Seattle Chaz, and a whole host of politicians on both sides pandering to their supporters over what was right.