United States Politics Thread 47

[Travis B.]

(For those not living in Wisconsin, I would forgive you if you had mistakenly thought that Elon Musk was running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.)

[keenir]

(For those not living in Wisconsin, I would forgive you if you had mistakenly thought that Elon Musk was running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.)

The morbid part of me, wonders how many people would have voted for Musk, if there had been the possibility/chance/promise, of him staying at work once elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

on the other hand, we know how he handles promises...so that'd've been a no-go. drat it.

[Torco]

He and Musk don't understand soft power, so they're throwing away all the things that make the US actually beneficial or a good example or an essential source of outside information: disaster assistance, mine clearing, epidemic readiness, seed banks, foreign aid, broadcasting. They think being nice is being a loser. Perhaps you approve of this pullback as being more "multipolar"; what it means in practice is hundreds of thousands of deaths, vulnerability to disease and famine, plus more control by dictatorial regimes.

But he also doesn't think ahead. Could the US support a forward policy in Yemen without US bases in Europe? Probably not, but treating Europe as hostile means that those bases might disappear.

Yeah, I like that reading a lot more. and incompetence is a perfectly reasonable hypotheses, considering the actors. we've had the convo about the costs of the collapse of the empire before, and I think i've made my position clear: it's that it's not like it won't have any bad consequences, of course there'll be a human cost but then again, it's not like USAID and the rest of what I'm here calling the apparatus of empire were causing zero harm. just recently the US couped bolivia (and arguably peru) they funded mercenary raids on venezuela constantly, galvanizing support for the regime, they fund lies and right wing think tanks throughout the world, and ¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights to a mujahadeen-and-later-taliban-ruled hellhole? a lot. america ceasing to act as world police is, I think, overall, a good. and look on the bright side (since regardless of whether one wanted trump to win or no, he did end up winning after all): it seems plausible that the disastrous consequences of the trade wars, gratuitous hostilies, eschewing of NATO and all the rest of it will take a lot of wind out of the global rise of the fascists: canada's going elbows up instead of going maga, and lepen is going to jail!

Seems to me they're concerned the existing institutions of empire aren't exploitative enough. They think the people doing the work are taking advantage of the exploiters, and a lot of psychotics think that sounds about right. It's a sad indictment of the mental health crisis in America.

I mean... at this point i really get the feeling this "new" or "alt" right, especially in the US, has little to no boundaries regarding what they will believe: for all my life, tariffs were the most socialdemocrat, radically left wing position one could take in international economic matters, but orange man says tariff good and now the whole US right is like yay tariffs! if orange man were to go like "we need to ban insulin" even right-wing diabetics would hail it as an excellent measure. I say "alt" in quotations cause there's really nothing alt about it, being the official ideology of the richest man on earth *and* that of the most powerful politician on the planet, not to mention the official religion of social media at this point, it's basically the establishment at this point

[Travis B.]

(For those not living in Wisconsin, I would forgive you if you had mistakenly thought that Elon Musk was running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.)

The morbid part of me, wonders how many people would have voted for Musk, if there had been the possibility/chance/promise, of him staying at work once elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

on the other hand, we know how he handles promises...so that'd've been a no-go. drat it.

The thing is that Schimel would have done significantly better if Musk was hands-off, just pushing money under the table. Musk is a target that attracts everything people don't like about the second Trump administration, so people voted for Crawford just to stick it to Musk. And Musk's outrageous antics with things like money giveaways did not help Schimel at all ─ they gave the Democrats the perfect opportunity to say in just the right way that Musk was attempting to buy the election.

[Travis B.]

I wonder how long Musk will remain bros with Trump, because while Musk has been a convenient 'heat shield' for Trump, to do Trump's dirty work while pulling the resulting unpopularity away from him, now Musk is a loser because he not only went all in and his favored candidate was defeated decisively, but that candidate was likely defeated so decisively specifically because of Musk.

[rotting bones]

I wonder how long Musk will remain bros with Trump, because while Musk has been a convenient 'heat shield' for Trump, to do Trump's dirty work while pulling the resulting unpopularity away from him, now Musk is a loser because he not only went all in and his favored candidate was defeated decisively, but that candidate was likely defeated so decisively specifically because of Musk.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... y-00265784

[Ahzoh]

He did that "Liberation Day" tariff rollout. The numbers he cites are complete bullshit. Canada has been imposing 250% tariff? No way.

And his proposed tariffs for many countries are crazy, like one of them is like 45%.

[keenir]

Yeah, I like that reading a lot more. and incompetence is a perfectly reasonable hypotheses, considering the actors. we've had the convo about the costs of the collapse of the empire before, and I think i've made my position clear: it's that it's not like it won't have any bad consequences, of course there'll be a human cost but then again, it's not like USAID and the rest of what I'm here calling the apparatus of empire were causing zero harm. just recently the US couped bolivia (and arguably peru) they funded mercenary raids on venezuela constantly, galvanizing support for the regime, they fund lies and right wing think tanks throughout the world, and ¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights to a mujahadeen-and-later-taliban-ruled hellhole?

at the risk of asking a dumb question, were those by USAid, or by the CIA et al? I thought the CIA was at fault there, while USAid was doing things like helping Cambodia remove landmines.

[zompist]

He did that "Liberation Day" tariff rollout. The numbers he cites are complete bullshit. Canada has been imposing 250% tariff? No way.

And his proposed tariffs for many countries are crazy, like one of them is like 45%.

James Surowiecki has explained the bullshit.

They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.

[bradrn]

Ah, so that’s why Lesotho got hit with a 50% tariff rate.

[zompist]

Yeah, I like that reading a lot more. and incompetence is a perfectly reasonable hypotheses, considering the actors. we've had the convo about the costs of the collapse of the empire before, and I think i've made my position clear: it's that it's not like it won't have any bad consequences, of course there'll be a human cost but then again, it's not like USAID and the rest of what I'm here calling the apparatus of empire were causing zero harm. just recently the US couped bolivia (and arguably peru) they funded mercenary raids on venezuela constantly, galvanizing support for the regime, they fund lies and right wing think tanks throughout the world, and ¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights to a mujahadeen-and-later-taliban-ruled hellhole?

at the risk of asking a dumb question, were those by USAid, or by the CIA et al? I thought the CIA was at fault there, while USAid was doing things like helping Cambodia remove landmines.

Here are some of the projects that were run by USAID, which Elon Musk and Torco agree are evil imperialist actions:

Famine early warning networks
Improving soybean yield in sub-Saharan Africa
Assisting African countries to deal with infectious diseases
Programs to combat malaria, tuberculosis and HIV
Promotion of clean energy technologies
Supplying clean drinking water
Improving child literacy and nutrition
Treating child victims of malnutrition
Aid to pregnant women to prevent malnutrition
Communal kitchens in war-torn Sudan
Protection for abused women and assistance for rape victims
Drought assistance
Assistance for the disabled
Covid vaccines
Funding schools and universities
Projects for transparent elections
Hospitals in Burmese refugee camps
Removing landmines in Cambodia
Building shelters and rebuilding schools in Ukraine
Health care for Afghan women
Providing millions of women with contraceptives
Fighting deforestation
Assistance to independent journalism
Diarrhea prevention in Bangladesh
Polio immunization for millions of children
Supporting Native Amazonian communities in Brazil

(If a specific country is listed it's because I took the items from lists of specific programs, mostly to emphasize the worldwide nature of USAID's work. It doesn't mean that that work is limited to that country.

One list of 20 programs-- out of the thousands that have been canceled-- will deny food or health services to 7.6 million people.

Needless to say coups are not organized by USAID; Torco is spreading bullshit to celebrate fascism and death.

[keenir]

Here are some of the projects that were run by USAID,

many thanks.

Needless to say coups are not organized by USAID; Torco is spreading

I figured Torco was reasoning that, even if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing (or if the left hand is using the right as a cover, as we've seen in the past), that they're both part of the same body, and that is ultimately culpable for the sins of the left hand.

[zompist]

Here are some of the projects that were run by USAID,

many thanks.

Needless to say coups are not organized by USAID; Torco is spreading

I figured Torco was reasoning that, even if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing (or if the left hand is using the right as a cover, as we've seen in the past), that they're both part of the same body, and that is ultimately culpable for the sins of the left hand.

--eyeroll--

And yet in that very post Torco asks us to identify with the good parts of the Karmal dictatorship, instituted by a Soviet coup. I guess coups are OK if they're ordered by Comrade Brezhnev.

Personally I think both the US and USSR fucked up Afghanistan for decades. But USAID was still running aid programs in Afghanistan, after the US military left. It really takes some tortured reasoning to go to such lengths to applaud dictatorships and coups, and rejoice at the cessation of programs that help keep people alive.

[keenir]

Here are some of the projects that were run by USAID,

many thanks.

Needless to say coups are not organized by USAID; Torco is spreading

I figured Torco was reasoning that, even if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing (or if the left hand is using the right as a cover, as we've seen in the past), that they're both part of the same body, and that is ultimately culpable for the sins of the left hand.

And yet in that very post Torco asks us to identify with the good parts of the Karmal dictatorship, instituted by a Soviet coup.

I had to go back and see where that was, as i didn't recall seeing any mention of Karmal...I assume you are referring to this?

¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights

Dictatorships are frequently very bad; but things can always get worse - thats the problem.

[Raphael]

It's also complete nonsense for Torco to complain about "Empire", given that he's cheering on Trump's efforts to make things easier for the Russian empire in Europe and for the Chinese empire in Asia. (Yes, Torco, I know that neither Russia nor China have ever done bad things to Chile, but, while this may come as a shock to you, Chile is not the only country in the world.)

[zompist]

And yet in that very post Torco asks us to identify with the good parts of the Karmal dictatorship, instituted by a Soviet coup.

I had to go back and see where that was, as i didn't recall seeing any mention of Karmal...I assume you are referring to this?

¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights

Dictatorships are frequently very bad; but things can always get worse - thats the problem.

Yep, that's the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 1979-89. Babrak Karmal was installed to replaced the murdered Hafizullah Amin. I suppose it's possible that it's the socialist Amin, who took power by murdering Nur Muhammad Taraki, is the hero Torco is referring to. Or maybe it's the socialist Taraki, who took power by murdering Daoud Khan.