President Joe Biden

[Bigga]

Interesting vid from Vice News about the mining community and their complicated situation. What really caught my eye is the silent voter as they keep their counsel until voting day.

 

[cjn]

And that’s the simple version.
I’ll be honest. It’s totally foreign to me. It doesn’t seem like the most democratic way to elect a government or does it just elect a president?
How do local governors get elected?

All of our other elections are just popular vote. And yes, it's dumb that it is this way.

 

[Bigga]

Ha! To think I've not even watched 'Rising' in ages but they see the shit that I've been seeing from a wide set of Progressive media.



Dems have learned nothing.

 

[SWP's back]

The daft one is the Senate where all States get 2,,,,,

Yeah that’s nuts. States with 50x fewer populace having the same say as California etc.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I'm not a regular contributor to this thread, but I do read it and that's why I felt compelled to post, just to break the circular argument, but all I've done is start another one and your post encapsulates it.

You rightly point out here....


That this constituency has been poorly served by both main parties, and that is undoubtedly true, but what they've really been poorly served by is an economic system, to quote Gore Vidal....

“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”

Both parties are just two cheeks of the same arse, the fact that Trump has been able to carve a constituency out of this chaos by lying, cheating and playing the white man card does not, as you imply, make him an aberration, he is in many respects the logical conclusion to this double bind of corporate Democrat or corporate Republican.

That does not mean you have to opt for socialism to escape the misery of a political class in hock to the rich and powerful, but what it does mean is that options beyond global capitalism, beyond Wall Street, beyond the 1% must be entertained and brought in to mainstream political discourse. Because if you don't then the downtrodden only have the colour of their skin and their sense of cultural identity to cling to, and as we've seen crooks like Trump know how to exploit that, hence my point that Trump is a product of the system and not a one off charlatan.

The Republicans are a lost cause, but the Democrats contain the possibility of re-invention, but what do they offer? What is their answer to the monumental challenges America faces, not only from Trump, but the power of global capital, climate change, and the growing power of Russia and China?......They offer Joe Biden.

Is it any wonder, given the scale of the challenges the USA faces, that some folk, with justification, throw up their hands and shout "fuck this for a game of soldiers!"

The US has been a two party nation for an awfully long while, but it’s taken us until now to evolve a Trump. You’d think we would have had several Trumps by now. I mean, a simple read of Nixon’s views on the environment or Kennedy’s perspective on relations with Russia or Clinton or Bush’s on the importance of affordable housing — all not quite representative of their parties stances today — would indicate Red and Blue have been “two cheeks of the same arse” for a very long time. So why now? What happened this time? Has it really been bubbling and boiling since Reconstruction?

I disagree 100% that Trump is the natural outcome of the divide you refer to. I’ve written several times about exactly why I think he’s acceded to power precisely now (it has a lot to do with a complete alteration in how media operates). The plight of poor rural whites is only part of it. What makes him a charlatan is how he has levered that, why he levered that, and his conception of what the office of the Presidency is actually for, which was unshared by most all his predecessors — only Nixon and maybe Harding are his potential forebears in that regard. He acceded because average people (not his cult) thought he’d behave like a fucking President — which means among other things respect, care and love for ALL Americans. He’s probably going to lose because he didn’t behave like one.

Gore Vidal may be right. But the question you have to ask yourself is WHY America evolved like that — over 250 years of history, not 20 or 30. I think it’s because there are more voices in America than so many other nations. Is there a nation with more varied topography, of such a scale, built on immigration (and conquest), with a more diversified economy, with such importance placed on the first amendment (it’s first for a reason, folks), acting as a world’s policeman, influencing all corners of the globe, with a vast university system hundreds of thousands of foreign students attend, with — well, I could go on. We have more different voices here x topographic scale x economic diversity x long-standing democratic roots than any nation on the planet. Almost by definition those voices cannot be unified. As evolutionary scientists predict someday we’ll all be the same color eventually (kind of a pale pumpkin color) so the American voice has converged too into a dissonant hum which at its core is the aural consistency of a mud that please no one. No wonder we miss tricks, we ignore voices until they get loud enough, and we have two parties who look and sound alike, with distinctions. There are downsides, but I prefer to think of that as also a good thing because they have to represent a constituent base that is in and itself a reflection of exactly that vast set of diverse influences.

Of course Gore is pissed off for the same reason as Bigga — they crave audiences and can’t understand why others might not be listening to them. The American voice — which represents the input of ALL voices — is much louder than they can ever, or should ever, be — not just them, anyone. That’s the nature of a democracy.

 

[DrBlueBob]

If the assumption is that Progressive ideology and and politicians aspiring to offer such policy cannot get a foothold with voters because the entrenched interests in the Democratic Party, corporations, the media etc. are conspiring in some way to shut down the, what, I guess, “opportunities” (?) for the ideology to flourish, then whether or not Americans embrace progressive ideas isn’t relevant. But I don’t believe this. I believe average Americans have heretofore understood and rejected the Progressive agenda because to this point democracy has worked okay and voters have said they don’t want it. That might change someday as you say if the nation crumbles to dust but that sounds more like SPECTRE (“After America and Russia have annihilated each other we shall see a new power dominating the world.”).

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

 

[Bigga]

You know for all the writing Fog has posted, he doesn't realise he's as brainwashed as every other NeoLib MSNBC/ CNN watching dogooder.

How can a constitution written for the intention of a White leader be equal in its distribution? How can any Black person believe in a national anthem designed to hold up and celebrate the power of the White man?

I know this is solid cos it's NEVER contested on here, so therefore the 'house' is built upon shaky foundations. When you can't acknowledge the system is lopsided, you will believe what you're told especially if you benefit from it.

When in a race, the person you're supposedly running with already has a 60 metre start, there's an issue of unfairness, right??

All the OTHER shyte he speaks of is the icing around the cake those people critique, unwilling to actually cut into it to see the substance. They love the look of it too much!

Since I like analogies try this as an overview:

How many times did you walk past the homeless person or cross the road or said you can't help them before you gave them a coin and went off home to your own bubble, feeling like you've done a good deed? Only the dogooder notices there's a real problem when the homeless person occupies their street as it's too close to home then.

It's always the quick fix to the ease the conscience rather than the prevention of homelessness for that homeless individual.

I'd ask if people like FISF supported reparations but I reckon I know the answer, but the problem is there's a groundswell beginning to voice this now. If NeoLibs want to help the disenfranchised, they'd seriously look at it, but they'd not be NeoLibs anymore.

And then there's this false notion of if Biden wins there's more chance of Progressives getting in.

Since Biden is not entertaining ANY Progressives in his would-be cabinet, it's going to be down to the people to vote them in down ballot as people are doing now, despite opposition from Dems (actively campaigning against them and losing on a more regular basis now) and the GOP.

So, as you can see, it doesn't matter who's the pres in that sense, so stop voter shaming, you deaf and blind NeoLibs.

 

[Bigga]

Here's Timbs-wearing-finger-on-the-pulse-of-Black-America-and-all-round-cool-Black-lady-leader Kamala Harris on who she likes in modern day Black music.



Her pandering 'hot sauce' a la Clinton moment, that she uses every time she has a chance to... connect. Here, she swiftly moves the conversation on as she realises she doesn't know any Black music of today by name.

I'm just surprised she didn't mention 'Eminem' for more points...

 

[FCBarca]

Fog, looney as all hell - that diatribe was chalk full of the typical myopic American views of the world. 250 years makes the country in it's infancy compared to those with functional democracies that have been around not only longer but have not wreaked more havoc around the planet than any other country, including those painted as terrorists. A violent country armed to the teeth whose young history is littered with eras of racism (Slavery, Civil rights movement, Anti Chinese legislation, Korean & Japanese internments, Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo) & genocide of the indigenous people of the land may comfort you to describe it as the world's policeman but when you see how the US police handle their own citizens you recognize how delusional that is

Then the audacity to somehow spin how 2 parties suffices and distills the different voices of America which makes absolutely no sense. It's precisely why you have a lunatic in office (Who got half of the vote in the election against Hillary seemingly ignoring the fact that 45 million Americans actually support him, even if he loses the election) and a dementia patient leading these 2 parties that represent all these voices. Lunacy

Don't puff your chest out thinking you're exceptional. America is not a functional democracy, it is a plutocracy

 

[DrBlueBob]

Interesting vid from Vice News about the mining community and their complicated situation. What really caught my eye is the silent voter as they keep their counsel until voting day.

Not finished watching the video but what the heck is Junior mining? Sausage rolls?