Coronavirus Thread (sponsored by Anthony Fauci & Pfizer) (Part 5)

[Tierneevin1979]

It used not be like this though, not when moderates were in control of both parties and both at least tried to put the country first rather than their own self interest. Now the only goal is to stay in office as they reap huge financial windfall from it.

A recent example, Biden talking about the rich not paying their fair share of taxes. He and his wife made $13 million in 2017 and 2018 on speaking fees after he left office, and it looks like he avoided about $500K in taxes using loopholes in the tax code. Is he any different to Trump in that regard, using every loophole to avoid paying tax?

They are all hopelessly corrupt.

[The_Most_Infamous]

@maroonandwhite

But democracy is the best system of government and works elsewhere.

I’ve always thought the US is too disparate to be a single country. It should almost be a federation and let states decide their own laws and policy.

Democracy certainly is the best system on paper. Absolutely agree with you on that. I suppose my sceptism with regards to it here especially is the political party whip system.

I think any party or coalition that takes power here after the next election will follow the same path in reality. They have very little room to make a big change.

The real power now are the global multinationals who are A rated ESG contributors etc. Governments are accountable to the central banks. The ECB via government bond interest rates will have a huge say on matters regardless if it was Mary Lou, Leo, Pascal or Alan Kelly as Taoiseach.

Thats how I see it anyway.

[The_Most_Infamous]

@Tierneevin1979

Washington is a corrupt cesspool of politicians lining their pockets for decades, absolutely no difference ion that regard between the parties. They all rake in massive funding from lobbyists and make personal fortunes on insider trading. Even the Fed who are supposed to be above that sort of thing have now been exposed as corrupt, owning the same assets they have been buying up in QE for the past 12 years.

It’s a complete cesspit.

The Fed I suppose are literally a law onto themselves.

[Tierneevin1979]

Since 1913, but it’s fairly recent that they have been lining their own pockets with the asset bubbles they themselves have blown.

[maroonandwhite]

@The_Most_Infamous

The real power now are the global multinationals who are A rated ESG contributors etc. Governments are accountable to the central banks. The ECB via government bond interest rates will have a huge say on matters regardless if it was Mary Lou, Leo, Pascal or Alan Kelly as Taoiseach.

Thats how I see it anyway.

You are 100% right. Politicians are either in their pockets or now on one side of a generated culture war which just purposefully distracts from real inequality and keep profits rolling. The advent of twitter and the internet has entrenched that further than any point in human history.

Tierneevin opines that it wasn’t the way and to an extent it wasn’t. I wonder what impact the erosion of religion in lives plays. If there’s no or a weaker moral obligation towards fairness then does human nature, which is not altruistic in nature take over?

[The_Most_Infamous]

You could argue the financial system hasnt really recovered since 2008 also.

Arguably its on life support from the generous central bank policy of literally printing money by the way of QE.

Thats not sustainable though - pardon my pun.

[Tierneevin1979]

The Fed have been in a trap of their own creation since 2009 where their only response is to keep interest rates at zero and print trillions to buy distressed assets, the proceeds of which end up driving bubbles in all markets including real estate. They are singularly responsible for wealth inequality, as the wealthy already own most assets so bubbles see their wealth skyrocket. Politicians of both parties have no interest in tackling this as they benefit themselves.

[The_Most_Infamous]

Its thoroughly fucked the next generation though.

Wages have stagnated pretty much. 2010 wage vs a 2021 wage in the same role is very similar. Its not good.

That crash in 2008 is the primary reason for the current housing crisis that we have.

Zero or negative interest rates has also resulted in people with cash speculating on the markets which inflates equity prices etc.

[Tim_Riggins]

No alcohol there either, which doesn’t bother me really, but funny given how there were still queues to get to the toilets etc given how most of the ground was closed off.

A few more weeks only at least, was a very nice atmosphere. Lots of kids there making a lot of noise, probably their first ever sports game to go to and it was lovely to see the excitement.

[Cheasty]

Again, this goes back to deliberately choosing any challenge to opinions as a mortal attack. This is something the anti-woke cult claims to stand against but is in fact wholly in favour of.

Trump supporters have engaged in appalling behaviour. They literally tried to stage a coup against democracy in America at his incitement. They openly chanted that Mike Pence, who they saw as not sufficiently loyal, should be hanged. Those who stand against Trump rightly see his supporters as frightening. Trump, and I think absolutely correctly, is seen as the leader of a mass cult which wants to install a version of fascism in America.

Even a cursory look into what Trump and his movement and is is frightening. Those who understand history know that Trump is the leader of a movement which wants to abolish democracy in America and reinstate white supremacy, not that it ever really left, but to a much greater degree than has been the case in recent decades.

Those who claim that Trump’s supporters are being “talked down to” never ask why those who oppose Trump are scared. They never ask whether Trump supporters are “talking down” to people. The entire Trump movement’s ideology is inherently tied to talking down to people, to shouting down at them.

In six years I have never seen you mention this.

Trump’s supporters are consumed by identity. He and the Republican party in general, and the right-wing ecosphere in the US, have created this situation through careful political technology. Everything in the US right wing ecosphere has been geared towards creating a tribal culture war. This goes back decades. Trump supporters and right-wingers in America overwhelmingly value identity above knowledge and truth. This means the ego is so fragile that it cannot accept any challenge.

It is an extreme form of political correctness and censoriousness. And because tribal loyalty as created by Republicans and the right-wing ecosphere in America has not been created by facts but by hatred and the deliberate turning of anger at “the other” - which is a group so large it includes not just the most bog standard centrists like Biden, but concepts like basic medical science, and even very right wing Republicans like Liz Cheney simply for the “crime” of them refusing to go along with the Big Lie of the election “steal” and the January 6th attempted coup - even Mike Pence is now “the other” to them.

The most prevalent and the most damaging form of identity politics both in the US and worldwide is anti-woke identity politics, which overlaps with white identity politics and male identity politics and every form of pathology you think of on the right. Anti-woke identity politics unites right-wing politics internationally. It is based on eternal victimhood.

“Woke” is essentially the challenge of long standing hegemonic supremacy and its false narratives, be it imperial supremacy, white supremacy, male supremacy, straight supremacy, ethnic supremacy, religious supremacy or whatever.

For instance you cannot be truly be a supporter of the cause of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland without being woke. Because to do so challenges ingrained supremacy.

Literally anything that challenges anti-woke orthodoxy is automatically held to be an attack not just on the individual but on the whole group identity. In such a mindset, the search for knowledge effectively ends and the individual relinquishes their power to think to the dear leader or leaders - usually it’s a leader but not always.

We in Ireland should be extremely familiar with this. Unionism has practised it forever.

Timothy Snyder’s stuff on this really good.

That kid from Covington knew what he was doing. Everybody could see what he was doing. He was being a fucking cunt and he was being a casual racist. He became a cause celebre for the right because we exist in a brutal modern media environment where cameras are never off and somebody can be humiliated in a way that is out of proportion for doing something.

But he was no hero. And here’s the other thing. He got, how much? You say “multi-million”? Some, ie., sensible people, would call that a giant fucking scam. Real honest wages, not. Trumpism in a nutshell.

[Tim_Riggins]

Vaccinated and he looked quite healthy tbf, though you never know.

[Fulvio_From_Aughnacloy]

Sure that’s it.

Nothing to stop fit and healthy people from dropping with flu.

Life’s about living at the end of the day and I’m a bit of a fatalist. What’s meant to be will be.

[Cheasty]

@Tierneevin1979

Washington is a corrupt cesspool of politicians lining their pockets for decades, absolutely no difference ion that regard between the parties. They all rake in massive funding from lobbyists and make personal fortunes on insider trading. Even the Fed who are supposed to be above that sort of thing have now been exposed as corrupt, owning the same assets they have been buying up in QE for the past 12 years.

It’s a complete cesspit.

@Tierneevin1979

It used not be like this though, not when moderates were in control of both parties and both at least tried to put the country first rather than their own self interest. Now the only goal is to stay in office as they reap huge financial windfall from it.

A recent example, Biden talking about the rich not paying their fair share of taxes. He and his wife made $13 million in 2017 and 2018 on speaking fees after he left office, and it looks like he avoided about $500K in taxes using loopholes in the tax code. Is he any different to Trump in that regard, using every loophole to avoid paying tax?

They are all hopelessly corrupt.

Who are the people that are campaigning to try and make politics better for the ordinary person?

Grass roots progressives throughout America. The “woke”. The people fighting for fair wages, for labour rights, for healthcare, for a real education for children, for the environment, for fair taxes. for good public services funded by fair taxes.

The same people you vilify.

Complaining about politics being terminally corrupt - which you only ever do in broad brush strokes which paints everybody as equally corrupt to each other - which is NOT the case - the Democrats are far from perfect but the Republicans as a whole are worse on every level and truly terrifying in their rapaciousness - when you do that while simultaneously vilifying those who seek to change things for the better - that’s the road to fascism.

[Tierneevin1979]

@Cheasty

That kid from Covington knew what he was doing. Everybody could see what he was doing. He was being a fucking cunt and he was being a casual racist. He became a cause celebre for the right because we exist in a brutal modern media environment where cameras are never off and somebody can be humiliated in a way that is out of proportion for doing something.

But he was no hero. And here’s the other thing. He got, how much? You say “multi-million”? Some, ie., sensible people, would call that a giant fucking scam. Real honest wages, not. Trumpism in a nutshell.

There you go making my point. He and the group of school kids he was with were in Washington doing what every person in the US has the right to, peaceful protest. It is clear as day from the extended video of the incident that they were subjected to harassments by a Black Hebrew Israelites group, and the intervention from the “Vietnam vet” Phillips was a sideshow.

If he was a cunt then what are the following progressive leftists in your opinion: Reza Aslan said he had a punchable face, Erik Abriss tweeted that she wanted him and his family to die, Kathy Griffin suggested they should be doxxed (I know right? doxxing schoolchildren), the Huffington Post called them violent segregationists.

This are the people you are aligned with, and they are absolutely hateful cunts. What kind of cunt wishes for the death of a child because of their political beliefs?

He and his fellow students fully deserved every penny they were awarded, if nothing else it sends the message to an out of control media that you simply can’t make an example of a child in your political zealotry.

[Cheasty]

You didn’t address my points.

Again. all you did was create a fantasy scenario in which you portray Trump supporters as a whole as the “real” oppressed and the imagined boogeyman of the “left” as the “real” oppressors.

This is a fantasy.

You have proved my point.

And you have also proved my wider point about the truest representation of right-wing politics being the undeserved handout - handouts which are always measured in millions (at least).

Be it Donald Trump, that twat of a kid and his no doubt wealthy backers, or Ivor Cummins and other disinformation peddlers, the sponge, the grift, that’s what it’s all about.

[Tierneevin1979]

@Cheasty

Grass roots progressives throughout America. The “woke”. The people fighting for fair wages, for labour rights, for healthcare, for a real education for children, for the environment, for fair taxes. for good public services funded by fair taxes.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The progressive left are more interested in defunding police, teaching critical race theory to schoolchildren, politically correct pronouns, destroying the education system by limiting choice on curriculum and eliminating testing to enter college, etc. US kids are falling behind drastically and the progressive left are 100% responsible for this.

This is very like the discussion on Sweden. Sweden has not had the disastrous Covid outcome that was projected, and your counter to that was to find a story about one woman who apparently had a poor health care experience. FFS you could find the same in every country. You were put back into your box by a poster who actually lives in Sweden and knows that he is talking about from personal experience. Sweden’s heath care system is ranked excellent by the WHO and up to recently was heralded by people like yourself as the model for other countries to follow, now apparently their health care is shit.

You have zero real life experience of the subjects you claim to be an expert on, all you have is ideology which at the end of the day is useless.

[Tierneevin1979]

So you are on the side of those that hoped for violence and death for a 16 year old child, because they disagreed with his politics. Have a think about that before moralizing about right and wrong.

[Cheasty]

@Tierneevin1979

You have no idea what you are talking about. The progressive left are more interested in defunding police, teaching critical race theory to schoolchildren, politically correct pronouns, destroying the education system by limiting choice on curriculum and eliminating testing to enter college, etc. US kids are falling behind drastically and the progressive left are 100% responsible for this.

The progressive left are absolutely correct on these things. You don’t support defunding because you support tanks on streets, insane levels of militarism, civil asset forfeiture and general police intimidation of minorities in every way possible.

You have been on here for months cheerleading the banning of critical race theory - ie. real history - non white supremacist history, you support the de-tenuring of academics and the general driving out of any sort of broad left opinion from academia, you vilify broad left academics.

I’ll tell you where you support “choice”. You support “choice” when it comes to things like Young Earth Creationism and whatever other insane shit the right in America believes.

You support the choice to peddle medical disinformation which kills. That’s where you support “choice”.

When right-wingers talk about “choice”, it’s a canard for shoving their opinions down the throats of others, and the destruction of education, something that has been a long term project for the wealthy backers of right wing politics worldwide - but of course, not for their gilded offspring.

You didn’t say a word about choice when it came to Texas’s insane vigilantist abortion laws.

@Tierneevin1979

This is very like the discussion on Sweden. Sweden has not had the disastrous Covid outcome that was projected, and your counter to that was to find a story about one woman who apparently had a poor health care experience. FFS you could find the same in every country. You were put back into your box by a poster who actually lives in Sweden and knows that he is talking about from personal experience. Sweden’s heath care system is ranked excellent by the WHO and up to recently was heralded by people like yourself as the model for other countries to follow, now apparently their health care is shit.

You have zero real life experience of the subjects you claim to be an expert on, all you have is ideology which at the end of the day is useless.

I didn’t dismiss any poster from Sweden. He dismissed me because like you he prefers to wallow in an alternate reality and dismiss facts.

10 times the death rate of their neighbours. Cancer services knocked back 1-2 years because of their pandemic policies.

This is the stuff you dismiss.

Until the pandemic the likes of you were pedding the naked disinformation that Sweden was “the rape capital of the world.”

You have no real world experience. And you’ve never even remotely considered the real world experiences of others, people who are not like you. That, my friend, is a fetid, stinking echo chamber.

Your posting tonight has been angry middle aged right wing white man by numbers.

It’s hilarious, in a very depressing sort of way.

[Alphakrul1]

[Tierneevin1979]

An absolute insane post, even by your own standards.

Sadly I think it’s time to put you on ignore as you appear close to the edge of another meltdown.