Random Rant Thread

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Nov 8, 2020 0:22:10 GMT 1 gols said:

Ok who the fuck are you?? Haha

Nice reminder about the great new pres from Thomas Frank: 

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/07/trump-defeat-election

Although I think he is overrating what Biden could achieve even if he wanted to...

You meet a lot of people in your life, and the probability of two of them becoming the US president is actually not as low as you would think, depending on where you have been. Joe Biden was always such an outgoing Senator who'd talk to and even argue with anyone human. Donald Trump is definitely an outlier, though. Never imagined this back then. It stings a bit, though, that one is a centrist lib and the other a conspiracy-thoery-addled fool. But such is life. 

And, yeah, that's been Frank's "I'm trying to be positive here" argument for Biden's presidency, lol.

The question is whether Biden can make the political reality in D.C. reconcile with the electoral reality that has shifted markedly leftward over the last decade policy-wise. It's going to be... difficult. People would vote for the $20 minimum wage - and even marriage equality! - and then vote Don Jr. There's a gap between their policy preferences and politico-cultural temperament. That huge issue must be addressed.

And Biden's American exceptionalism always has the potential to make the country go in a very confused direction. That's perhaps what I fear the most. Nationalism is important to win an election, but does he know how to play with that fire properly? What will be the consequences for the world?

I hope he won't give "the left" an extremely bad name. 

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Man, the two runoffs for the Senate seats in Georgia will be fucking wild. They are so incredibly important. It's not really hyperbole to say that they can pretty much decide the fate of the country.

The campaigns have already started, in the middle of what might be the hardest period of this pandemic.

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Hahahaha.

This is the Biden that I knew. He just says it, lol.

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It doesn't matter whether Trump will leave the White House or not. If it's somehow physically impossible to get him out of the building, then wherever Joe Biden is will be "the White House."

It's not that Trump will leave the office; The office will leave him.

[gols]

Nov 8, 2020 7:12:59 GMT 1 miscmisc said:

Hahahaha.

This is the Biden that I knew. He just says it, lol.

Even though this is probably bad news for me as a UK citizen, I would love to see Boris Johnson's face if he watched this clip.

What's the betting that all the EU's "unacceptable" demands are suddenly totally fine and reasonable?

[gols]

www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

Great stuff from AOC as usual, going on the (counter) attack.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

I often wish we had a clone of her over here in the UK Labour Party. Then I realise that she would probably be suspended and tarred as an anti-Semite by now...

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Nov 8, 2020 12:18:41 GMT 1 gols said:

Nov 8, 2020 7:12:59 GMT 1 miscmisc said:

Hahahaha.

This is the Biden that I knew. He just says it, lol.

Even though this is probably bad news for me as a UK citizen, I would love to see Boris Johnson's face if he watched this clip.

What's the betting that all the EU's "unacceptable" demands are suddenly totally fine and reasonable?

I don't really think this is bad news for you as a UK citizen, to be honest. It's going to be fine in the long run.

Of course I mean "fine" in the context of the Brexit reality.

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Nov 8, 2020 15:29:14 GMT 1 gols said:

www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/politics/aoc-biden-progressives.html

Great stuff from AOC as usual, going on the (counter) attack.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

I often wish we had a clone of her over here in the UK Labour Party. Then I realise that she would probably be suspended and tarred as an anti-Semite by now...

She was kind of caught off guard as there was a coordinated attack from centrist libs on the Squad and other progressives. Although politically she should've probably waited a bit more to launch a counterattack, well, who cares. It's always good to be outspoken! Maybe the general rules shouldn't apply to someone like her. The Democratic Party is a pretty nasty place with a lot of landmines, though.

Labour does look worse now, though.

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And Netanyahu gonna Netanyahu. Doesn't give a fuck. Think of how much Team Trump has done for him. It was mostly for mutual benefit of course, but a normal person wouldn't do this at this timing.

This man outlasts everyone. What a monster.

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Why does Pete do this?

He's genuinely super-impressive on TV when he needs to explain something (even things that he himself doesn't really believe), but turns into flaming lips of plastic-bag platitudes like this off TV.

Why would anyone want to talk at this moment to the aunt who believes Joe Biden sells Chinese children as sex toys to wealthy men?

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Immortal Gabriel Byrne (Well, I'm a massive, massive, massive Miller's Crossing fanatic).

Gabriel Byrne: 'There’s a shame about men speaking out. A sense that if you were abused, it was your fault'
www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1604850965

When he emails on Thursday night, he blames the Democrats for the tight result. “This is the second time they’ve come up against a gameshow host and they’ve learned nothing. Again they seriously underestimated the level of anger among mostly blue-collar workers.”

I don’t need to ask if he feels any optimism; he has already been pretty clear. “At least it’s the end of that guy but, personally, I can’t stand Biden. An exceptionalist roaring about America as the moral leader of the world, all this crap. You can’t appeal to people in Maine or Wisconsin or Michigan by saying this is a battle for the soul of America. It’s just political garbage.

“Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let’s return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet.”

Obama’s record stinks, Byrne says. Neither is he keen on the Clintons. The last leader he respected? There is a long pause. “Martin Luther King.” He goes on. Reagan “should have served jail time”. “Since 1945, the US has embarked on 75 different military interventions toppling legitimate regimes. And yet the big thing is that Russia interfered in the American election? The Americans have interfered in every election around the world.”

“When I found out that the Pentagon has a film department, a lot of things made sense to me. America reveals itself to the world through film. We absorb the American dream because they own the means of production.”

Politicians twigged this yonks ago, of course. “Reagan and Bush essentially appealed to American cinema mythology; the good guys out on their farms in cowboy hats. America is Gary Cooper. The terrorists are the Indians on horseback. Trump appeals as much to our cinematic language as to our politics: he works through the old reliables of fear and lies.”

Well, I just stop quoting because every paragraph is quotable. I'd be a bit less harsh on Biden, but this man always sees things so clearly, all the angles. Just like Tom Reagan supposedly does.

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PCR test positivity rate in Wisconsin was 33.5%.

33.5%.

That's crazy.

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If you are American, and still thinking of doing the normal Thanksgiving stuff, just don't.

You'll have every family member tested? No, that won't help. That's not how this shit works.

You're just being completely ridiculous if you still insist. Breathtakingly irresponsible.

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This is where we are in the US in case you're somehow still oblivious.

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The question of "When is the pandemic going to end?" is a really tough, and even tricky one to answer.

The short answer is that no one knows, and it depends a lot on the definition of "end." If you go with the most conventional definition, then I don't think it will "end" even in 2021. All I can confidently say is that it will get a lot better next year, and the need/possibility of socio-economically destructive measures like lockdown and whatnot will be drastically reduced.

But it won't "end" next year. Let's not underrate those little creatures.