And that’s before we even start talking about the forced steralisation and organ harvesting ‘rumours’.
So we are running those camps?
Anyways, I digress, I’m out of my element. I worry about my bubble, cause it’s what I can control
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No, the US companies aren’t running the camps, they’ve been turning a blind eye to the slavery. And now that Congress are trying to stop the use of slaves, Apple and Nike are getting upset and using lobbyists.
Sounds like a UN type of deal. Still doesn’t seem like a solid comparison of the US to 1930s Germany that was in disarray after WWI
I dunno if it’s fair to say no one cares. AFAIK, the bill has had strong bipartisan support so far and already cleared the House (?).
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I don’t think there’s any direct comparison, just saying that US companies accepting slave labour from concentration camps is more of a comparison than what’s happening internally in the US in 2020-21.
I could be wrong of course.
Agreed, but why - when already exposed for their disgusting behaviours, would Apple try to water the bill down?
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Because it affects their bottom line. Money is a great motivator
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I guess what I’m saying is that it’s pretty common knowledge and has been for years, but I’m not witnessing any demonstrations or huge outcry.
Yep. On the button.
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A.p.
Thank you for both your posts. As a former R I’m embarrassed to say. But didn’t vote R in 2016. My thoughts exactly. I don’t spend much time here because I just get so upset. I even have it blocked. I can’t put words down when I’m so upset. Especially with the “both sides” bullshit. So I guess this is how I’ll weigh in. Kinda late but it’s probably better that way.
And what Derek @Englishd said.
I hope we make through to the 21st.
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I really liked Cori Bush’s op ed in the Washington post, which points out the folly of saying, “This isn’t America”. Yes, it’s America. The racism was always here.
[I find it weird when people say it’s too extreme to cite Nazism. The Nazis did in fact make a close study of Jim Crow laws when they were trying to figure out their anti-semitic legislation, but they didn’t want to be quite as extreme as the American South…]
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I wonder a lot about how on earth the world, especially the US, can recover from the fact that so many people live in reality free bubbles of misinformation and hatred. I think one reason it’s so bad in the US is to do with the fact that the country is so much founded on idealizing religious faith; it’s treated as a good thing, not a bad thing, to trust on no evidence at all. Hatred may be a human universal, as is incompetence and narcissism; but the degree of gullibility that’s there in the US, and the willingness of people to drink the kool aid, might be unparalleled. I don’t mean that to disparage religion or religious believers, but just trying to figure out what’s in this culture that is distinctive, and the history of so many extreme-religious-minority-colonizers in early white-settler history is one element that’s distinctive in this country.
I’m thinking maybe one way forward is for people to try to meditate on where their beliefs come from and how they get formed. So for me, personally: I grew up in Thatcherite Britain. One of my earliest political memories is the shock of Thatcher saying, There’s no such thing as society. Seriously. I saw how economic and ethnic inequalities got worse in my city during my teen years. I saw the homeless people on the streets, and the public transportation getting more expensive, and the unemployed people begging. I learned in high school about the history of the British social safety net, and I could see it being dismantled all around me. I got to know lots of people in neighborhood and school and college who were South Asian immigrants, and I could see the level of prejudice leveled against them, and the struggle to get access to services and work. All that informed my perspectives on politics, including now that I’ve lived in the US for 25 years. I wish the US had even a tiny bit of the social safety net that began to be dismantled in Britain in my childhood, but still exists to some extent more than it does here in the US. It baffles me, as somebody born in an NHS hospital, to see how some Americans spit at the idea of “socialism”, even people who really need more help. It makes me so sad to see inequality getting worse, not better. I feel despairing when I think about climate change. I’m a privileged person, over educated, urban, so I know I’m not the prime market for Trumpism. I don’t know a lot of Trump supporters; around here, in my neighborhood, all the signs say Biden/Harris. I offered my daughters $100 if they could find a Trump sign in our neighborhood, knowing my money was safe. It was. I know so much of what we believe comes from deep emotional things as much as anything else. But I wish some of the people who have latched onto the Trump movement could find more productive, helpful, reality-based ways of asserting their feelings. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying that so many people still approve of this crazy administration.
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This is literally about the memes thread. Mostly.
I feel in two minds about the Biden memes posted en masse by @Charlesfreck. On the one hand, it’s comforting that there is really so little to say against him. He’s a decent hardworking guy with a very inoffensive centrist platform. Not crazy, not a criminal, not a fake businessman or tv personality, not born with a golden spoon in his mouth: he is a reader, a family guy, deeply religious, and the country is ready for a bit of basic competence and decency. If the worst you got is that he has a speech impediment and you cite a gaffe from 12 years ago, well, hey… None of the Fox News/meme tropes on Biden are about actual policy, so maybe there’s hope of bipartisan progress. Same for the content- free recycling of old tropes about “Clinton wrote some emails!” Or “Pelosi is a woman in power, yuck!”: it says something about the person posting and the state of right wing media, but nothing about the topic, and no substantive policy disagreement. Maybe there’s hope of actual progress on the economy, climate, jobs, the pandemic, etc. if lots of people who may have absorbed some of the Fox tropes are actually all for at least some elements of the Biden Harris platform. People often worry the dems will ruin the economy, but they like it when the dems save it yet again. So that could be ok. But on the other hand, it’s a downer that there’s so much recycling of tired old tropes, and sad how many people have drunk a whole lot of conspiracy kool aid. I’m not sure how sad to feel for the country and the world, when almost a third of American voters still approve of a president who has done everything in his power to destroy the fragile institutions of democracy. Even apart from the kids in cages, etc. and the mudslinging, the ridiculous claims of victimhood, and the total failure to give a damn about anyone.
But right now I’m trying to hang onto some optimism. The end of this administration is in sight.
Just on the Uighurs, I thought one of the most damning moments in John Bolton’s book was the revelation that Trump encouraged the detainment camps. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.axios.com/trump-uighur-muslim-bolton-73ebf1e2-9d34-4aaf-a9ba-17340d2847e4.html I hope and believe there will be much more consistent attention to human rights policies at home and abroad under the next administration; that alone would be reason enough to be glad he’s voted out. Trump foreign policy was a mess that will take a long time to rebuild, as will the mess of the economy and the battle for souls and minds, many of which are possessed by conspiracy bubbles and hatred.
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Your ‘daming revelation’, the article you cite, in it’s headline, says ‘Bolton alleges’. Alleges.
It isn’t alleged that Barbara Boxer registered as an agent for a Chinese surveillence firm, she did.
And it’s also true that Microsoft and Google have worked with China on AI and surveillence.
I’ve watched Biden for years and his ‘impediment’ seems to have been missing for most of his political life. Sadly, it seems clear that the man is suffering from something much worse. And when I write ‘sadly’ I mean that, I wouldn’t wish what I suspect it is on anyone.
He’s never had a job in his life, he’s a career politician, which of course most people in politics are in the US and UK. Completely out of touch with reality and continually tempted by lobbyists. Kids in cages, brought in by Obama and Biden, AOC crying by the fence of a car park, a whole year of civil disruption, destruction of businesses, beatings, rapes, murders, - all conveniently washed away with one day of lunacy and the Ministry of Truth will tidy everything up.
The interesting challenge for Joe is that he had 8 years with Obama, but to be fair they were hampered, this time he won’t be hampered and I sincerely hope the US benefits enormously from that. Only time will tell.
After the disaster of last year China is now set to take over the US as the World’s largest economy by 2028.
Actually, Kalashnikov was a Communist. There’s a difference.
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If you’re scared by two humans who have very little in common beyond being women in power, is it at all possible that your feelings about women in power might be the issue?
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