Democracy and peace in the USA

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, October 28th, 2018 - 115 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, internet, Media, twitter, us politics - Tags:

There is this really famous Simpson’s clip where Homer tries to vote for Barak Obama in the 2008 election but instead the voting machine records a vote for John McCain.

Of course the Simpsons predicted all sorts of things, like Donald Trump becoming President, 16 years before it actually happened.

And this video is another spooky Simpsons prediction because the same thing is apparently happening now in Texas.

The story appeared a couple of days ago on twitter.  The problem seems to be that people electing to vote Democrat throughout the ballot have their Senate preference recorded for Repbulican Ted Cruz.  Officials are claiming it is a user caused problem.  But you have to wonder.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Some straight-ticket voters have reported that voting machines recorded them selecting the candidate of another party for U.S. Senate, exposing a potential problem with the integrity of the state’s high-profile contest between U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Beto O’Rourke and leading good government groups to sound the alarm.

Several Democratic voters, for example, have complained the voting system indicated they were about to cast a vote for Cruz, a Republican, instead of Democrat O’Rourke as they prepared to send it. Some said they were able to get help from staff at the polling place and change their votes back to what they intended before finalizing their ballots.

Most of the 15 to 20 people who have complained to the state so far said that their straight-ticket ballot left their vote for U.S. Senate blank, according to Sam Taylor, communications director for the Secretary of State. A spokesman for the Texas Civil Rights Project said the group has received about a half dozen complaints, mostly of Democratic straight ticket voters whose ballots erroneously included a vote for Cruz, and one Republican straight ticket voter whose ballot tabulated a vote for O’Rourke.

There are the more conventional voter suppression techniques being used as well, like removing half a million Georgians from the electoral rolls even though 340,000 of them were still living at the address they were enrolled to vote for.

And the moving out of town of the one voting booth for Hispanic dominated Dodge City.  From the Wichita Eagle:

Moving the only polling site in Dodge City, Kansas, outside the city limits will make it more difficult for the city’s majority Hispanic population to vote because they tend to have less access to transportation and flexible work schedules, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.

The lawsuit also seeks a temporary restraining order that would force Ford County to open a second voting location in Dodge City for the Nov. 6 election after the county sent newly registered voters an official certificate of registration that listed the wrong place to cast a ballot in the general election.

The southwest Kansas city, located 160 miles (257 kilometers) west of Wichita, has only one polling site for its 27,000 residents. For nearly two decades, that site was at the civic center in the mostly white part of town. Citing road construction, the county moved it for the November election outside the city limits to a facility more than a mile from the nearest bus stop.

The federal lawsuit was filed by The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens and voter Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, and names Ford County Clerk Deborah Cox as its defendant.

“We understand that there are people who believe voting is a privilege, but we don’t. It is a right that must be fiercely protected. We can and must do better,” said Micah Cubic, executive director of the ACLU in a news release announcing the lawsuit.

Cox did not immediately return a call for comment.

The iconic Dodge City of yesteryear embodied the romance of the American West with its cattle drives and buffalo hunters, but today this western Kansas town is 60 percent Hispanic after an influx of immigrants drawn to its two meatpacking plants.

The Wichita Eagle reported that after the ACLU initially objected to the Dodge City’s single, out-of-town location. Cox forwarded to the state an ACLU letter asking her to publicize a voter help. “LOL,” she wrote in an email to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office.

LOL is right.

America’s electoral system is hopelessly politicised and hopelessly partisan.  It is not fit for purpose.

And meanwhile the logical development of Trump’s reckless rhetoric is occurring with crude pipe bombs being sent this week to George Soros, various Democrats and CNN.  And there was a false flag operation by conservatives such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh suggesting the bombs were a Democratic attempt to embarrass the Republicans.

Donald Trump was not pleased when news of the arrest of a right wing kook was apparently given to him.  Who would have known that violent right wing language would cause violent thugs to act like violent thugs?

This event was quickly followed by the recent shooting up of a Pittsburg Synagogue.  From Nymag.com:

11 people are dead and six injured after a shooter — shouting “all Jews must die — opened fire during weekly services at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday morning.

The gunman attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. At the time of the shooting, weekly Shabbat services were underway, and a baby naming ceremony had just gotten started.

KDKA reports that police received emergency calls from people who had barricaded themselves inside. The gunman, reportedly armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle and at least three handguns, shouted “all Jews must die” during the attack. The shooter, Robert Bowers, killed 11 people inside the synagogue, authorities confirmed on Saturday afternoon. Six people were injured, including four police officers.

And there are some crazy theories floating around the right about George Soros. From Talia Lavin at the Washington Post:

But it’s no surprise that Soros would wind up as a target. He’s become the subject of escalating rhetoric on the right — including from President Trump — that posits Soros as a nefarious force, fomenting social dissent and paying members of a migrant “caravan” that has been the subject of intense right-wing fearmongering leading up to the November midterms. And that rhetoric draws on old, and deep-rooted, anti-Semitic ideas that have been deployed by the right for decades.

On Oct. 5, Trump theorized on Twitter that Soros was behind vocal protests against Brett M. Kavanaugh’s appointment as a Supreme Court justice, stating that “the very rude elevator screamers” were “paid for by Soros and others.” More recently, extreme-right Rep. Matt Gaetz pointedly raised the question of whether Soros was paying members of the migrant caravan. More bizarrely, a top lobbyist for Campbell Soup Company was chastened by his patrons for suggesting on Twitter this week that Soros’s Open Society Foundation controlled the migrant caravan — “including where they defecate.” (I work at Media Matters for America, which received a $1 million donation from Soros in 2010, eight years before I joined.)

The far right has ecstatically embraced the spectacle of elected political figures such as Trump and Gaetz theorizing about Soros. After Trump’s Soros tweet about Kavanaugh, the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer echoed and surpassed Trump’s assertion that anti-Kavanaugh dissent was a nefarious, paid-for plot.

“It is impossible to deny that subversive anti-American Jews were the primary force involved in a sinister plot to destroy Kavanaugh,” Lee Rogers wrote on the site a couple of days later. “These Jews do not represent the interest of America. They represent the interest of their diabolical and evil race first and foremost.”

America badly needs new political leadership. Leaders who will talk about the need for kindness and respect in politics.  There are candidates who realise this.  But thanks to the mess that is the US electoral system I don’t like their chances of succeeding.

115 comments on “Democracy and peace in the USA ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    28 October 2018 at 11:34 am

    The Syrianisation Of The World

    “There was violence on both sides folks”

    I have predicted earlier, that if Trump lost the midterms his supporters would react violently against the people and organisations Trump regularly targets in his speeches.

    It looks like one of his supporters couldn’t wait that long.

    It seems inevitable that wider Right Wing violence targeting the Left will break out in response at any electoral setback or check to Trump’s Right Wing political program. And as the Left naturally act to defend themselves, I think we can expect that Donald Trump will again say, “There was violence on both sides folks.”

    Instead of denouncing his followers and urging them to call off the violence, It is quite possible that Trump will instead use the unrest as an excuse to impose martial law and rule by executive fiat. (A form of rule he has often alluded to as his favoured political model)

    Trump Denounces Political Violence

    (Sort of)

    Frank Scheck on politics – Hollywood Reporter, October 26, 2018

    After denouncing political violence in strongman terms, Trump then minimises the mail bombs sent to his political opponents.

    In a particularly sinister twist of logic, Trump equates his political opponents receiving mail bombs, on the same level as him receiving their criticism.

    “I get attacked all the time,” he said. “Come to think of it, who gets attacked more than me?” he asked, while the crowd yelled “fake news!”

    The dog whistle here is; you brought this violence on yourselves.

    Trump’s one-sided strongman denouncement of political violence, was framed in the traditional Right Wing law and order manner. But more than this, he went on to say that he will take every measure to quell it.
    Whatever extreme anti-democratic measures Trump plans to take to quell “political violence’ from “both sides” he will paint himself as the one preventing anarchy and restoring order and stability. Just as Bashar Assad does in Syria.

  2. Bill 2
    28 October 2018 at 12:00 pm

    That’s a lot of quite varied ground being covered there! 🙂

    Anyway.

    Leaders who will talk about the need for kindness and respect in politics. There are candidates who realise this. But thanks to the mess that is the US electoral system I don’t like their chances of succeeding.

    Nah. Fuck the kindness. Give us the politics and the policies that will diminish the power of vested interest.

    The Progressives taking on the Democratic Party establishment are having a bash at it. Independents running against the Democratic Party are having a bash at it too.

    I dare say people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democratic Party) are ever so polite and nice and kind in person and at media events… as they see to it that voting papers get shredded and corporate funders continue to be serviced.

    On Pittsburg, I’m just going to cut and paste this short excerpt from The Guardian and comment that Israel’s Zionists insisting that they represent Jews from whatever country (‘We’re all Israeli’s now’) makes Jews unsafe and feeds straight into anti-semitic b/s..

    Internationally, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his sympathy while his minister of the diaspora, Naftali Bennett, tweeted that he was “flying to Pittsburgh to be with our sisters and brothers on their darkest hour”.

    On pipe bombs. Mainstream media absolutely play their part in ramping up tensions through their constant bullshit that focuses everything on Trump – demonising him as though he’s the root, stem and branch of all problems. Guess what? If you convince people to focus on individuals, then individuals will be focused on. (Just maybe not the ones and not in the ways you’d prefer)

    • marty mars 2.1
      28 October 2018 at 12:15 pm

      Fuck the kindness? Nah.

      No one’s demonizing trump they are calling out his bullshit and his hateful rhetoric which contributes to disturbed acts by people – – sometimes there isn’t a big conspiracy.

      • Bill 2.1.1
        28 October 2018 at 12:38 pm

        Maybe I should have been clearer.

        Kindness means what in terms of politics or policies? Anything? Kinder politics based on actual programmes and policies and vacuous (dare I say “sincerely insincere”?) kindness are two entirely different beasts.

        The media don’t demonize Trump in a way that would have people believe he’s the entire problem rather than a somewhat forseeable outcome of recent US political history who’s running with policies formulated and enacted by past administrations?

        His spouting definitely validates people who’d turn to violence, but there’s much more to the problems in the US than the effects the words of one man may be having.

        Maybe if the structural and institutional bases of US problems were being addressed instead of being ignored, and if solutions to those deep rooted problems were being proposed, then Trump’s words wouldn’t have the effect they have.

        On conspiracy….yeah, I agree. There is no conspiracy.

        • marty mars 2.1.1.1
          28 October 2018 at 12:59 pm

          He has played a significant part, just because he is pres, in lowering the bar truthwise and his loathsome attacks on people empower the weak and give them excuses for their own disturbed fantasies and actions of murder and mayhem. But yeah for some much easier to blame the bogeyman rather than use their brains.

          Eating an elephant is done one bite at a time. Going after structural institutions without a plan or resources is just wishful thinking and a distraction from taking a bite imo.

          • Bill 2.1.1.1.1
            28 October 2018 at 1:10 pm

            Going after structural institutions without a plan or resources …

            Isn’t that what the Democratic Party is meant to be for? Y’know, going in to bat for ordinary people and protect them from powerful and vested institutional interests by (for example) legislating to contain them?

            Problem being that the Democratic Party has become a part of the fabric that they ought to be holding up for inspection and possible alteration.

            Which is why Progressives are running against Democratic Party incumbents (tellingly, with with no DNC support), or as Independents.

          • Muttonbird 2.1.1.1.2
            28 October 2018 at 5:11 pm

            Yeah, I think you can blame Trump directly for the synagogue massacre because he’s encouraging these hard right wing extremists with easy access to guns. By attacking institutions in the way he does he’s effectively telling the crazies they have a right and a duty to take matters into their own hands.

        • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1.2
          28 October 2018 at 2:00 pm

          Maybe if the structural and institutional bases of US problems were being addressed instead of being ignored, and if solutions to those deep rooted problems were being proposed, then Trump’s words wouldn’t have the effect they have.

          They’re not just being ignored – they’re being compounded. And the rich will never allow solutions to them as the problems are what make them rich and powerful.

    • Jenny 2.2
      28 October 2018 at 8:19 pm

      Mainstream media absolutely play their part in ramping up tensions through their constant bullshit that focuses everything on Trump……

      Bill

      Hi Bill

      It is not the media, which you and Trump, are claiming are responsible for “ramping up tensions”, and so, accordingly are partly responsible for the pipe bombs they received in the mail.

      It is, Trump and his supporters building up the personality cult which “focuses everything on Trump” – The strong leader, who will solve everyone’s problems, and his violent rhetoric which is “ramping up tensions”.

      • Bill 2.2.1
        28 October 2018 at 8:26 pm

        Well, hi Jenny.

        I take it that second para wasn’t meant to be in quotes? (since edited out – cheers)

        Regardless, I didn’t say the media are responsible in the way you insinuate. I said (wrote) that they have played a part in casting Trump as the devil in a kind of diametric opposition to his supporter’s lauding of him as some kind of a saviour.

        There are far too many players (media, Democratic Party, Trump supporters etc) revolving US politics around a personality. And that bullshit has consequences.

        • Jenny 2.2.1.1
          28 October 2018 at 11:02 pm

          I didn’t say the media are responsible in the way you insinuate. I said (wrote) that they have played a part in casting Trump as the devil in a kind of diametric opposition to his supporter’s lauding of him as some kind of a saviour.

          Bill

          The dog whistle; They criticised Trump they got what they deserved.

          Whether you said it or not, you have again alluded to it.

          Doubling down on your fake equivalency between the media who criticise Trump, and Trump’s violent rhetoric. Bill to again criticise the media for casting Trump as the devil. I am guessing you missed my comment and links @1.
          Many, including myself, are of the opinion, and with good cause, that Trump is worse than any fictional devil. He is an actual living breathing dangerous right wing authoritarian demagogue with little regard for democracy and even less for facts, who feeds his own personality cult.

          Trump also feeds his support base on division and hate. And yes violence.

          That Trump threatens violence against those he targets is not in question. It is a matter of fact.

          That some of Trump’s supporters act on this, or are threatening to, is also not a matter of opinion, but of fact.

          Trump praises Republican politician who body-slammed journalist: ‘That’s my kind of guy’
          Zamira Rahim – The Independent, October 19, 2018

          Greg Gianforte attacked the journalist in May 2017 on the eve of a special election that he went on to win.

          He pleaded guilty to assaulting the Guardian reporter but avoided jail time and instead was told to undergo community service, anger management therapy and pay a fine.

          I note here that the Guardian is one of those news sources that you also despise. Your hatred for the Guardian is mainly for their exposure of that other authoritarian strongman you give support to.

          • adam 2.2.1.1.1
            28 October 2018 at 11:33 pm

            So no chance of you seeing that corporate fascism is poised to take over the USA once they remove the idiot trump.

            • Stuart Munro 2.2.1.1.1.1
              29 October 2018 at 12:10 am

              He’s hardly an obstacle – as corporate as they come and on first name terms with the KKK.

              • McFlock …
                29 October 2018 at 12:21 am

                Massive deregulation.
                Massive tax cuts targeting the rich.
                Even the trade war is helping some primary producers (like steel) while harming downstream producers (those who relied on cheaper steel).

                But HRC was the one who was going to help the corporates more /sarc

                • adam …
                  29 October 2018 at 11:22 am

                  Really Mcflock, you calling the blunt politics of trump corporate fascism – is just odd. He is an old school white supremist mussolini type fascist. Not the inverted totalitarianism of corporate fascism, who offer diversity and the drug of incrementalism to sooth the liberal classes into think it’s getting better – when the reality for the majority – is it is getting worse.

                  • McFlock …
                    29 October 2018 at 11:49 am

                    Mussolini had the support of the 1%ers, too.

                    Other than apparently being a corporate shill, how is HRC a “fascist”, again?

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 4:08 pm

                      So mass incarceration and wars of expansion are all things freedom loving people support again are they?

                      Free trade and the propping up of financial institutions at the expense of working people are more of the same?

                      Do I need to make a list of what constitutes fascism for you? Because I’ve got other things to do, and your a big boy – work it out. The modern democrats are fascists just with a smile. Whilst the republicans are a bit more blunt about it.

                      Mind you your the guy who shrug his shoulders at censorship – so I’m not surprised you can’t put two and two together.

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 5:26 pm

                      Oh, so “fascist” is shorthand for “things Adam doesn’t like”.

                      I guess NZLabour’s a little bit fascist then, too.

                      Firstly, I’m not sure how “expansionary” HRC’s foreign policy was as secretary of state: barely holding onto what they had, more like.

                      Secondly, “mass incarceration”. She was against it in the 2016 election. Yes, some funding from some lobbyists for private prison owners. But if you’re going to bring up policies she supported 25 years ago as first lady, you might want to try a bit harder.

                      On the other hand, 45 wanted to lock her up and numerous calls for violence against his opponents. Newt Gingrich recently outright said that SCOTUS blocking tax record subpoenas would show the benefit of the fight to put Kav in, i.e. using the judiciary’s bias to protect the regime. We have the kidnapping and adoption of the children of immigrants. The massive expansion of the drone campaign and delegation of pretty much all conventional weapon deployment to the US military. Fuck, the fetish for a military parade in Washington DC.

                      But incrementalism is worse than all that /sarc

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 7:49 pm

                      Oh do grow up read what a fascist actually is.

                      Too soon.

                      And stop making this about h.r.c. (she lost by the way) I said the democratic party and it’s sale to corporate america.

                      But like you always do – makeup shit up to knock it over, because you got nothing. I see even a retreat from incrementalism to some degree. It’s all in flux, so you got nothing. How much pathetic postmodern cop out wankery can up offer up mate – it’s dribbling out today.

                      So Obama did not suspend habeas corpus, black people aren’t being shot indiscriminately on the street and 1 in 3 male adults being sent to prison is business as usual for you.

                      I get trump is a turd, do you get the DNC is a turd with a nice smile, or are you that much of a apologist?

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 8:16 pm

                      Calling the DNC fascists as well as 45 is classic false equivalence. Dropping bombs, or even favouring corporates, just isn’t enough for the term.

                      You are trying to make the term meaningless, when actually it’s the most relevant now that it’s been in decades. And not because of the fucking DNC.

                      But let’s hear exactly what the dems would do that’s worse than the current lot. Other than “smile”, which is apparently a bad thing.

                      And then let’s hear how real change will happen in the USA, given both parties are “fascist”?

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 8:25 pm

                      But like you always do – makeup shit up to knock it over, because you got nothing. I see even a retreat from incrementalism to some degree. It’s all in flux, so you got nothing. How much pathetic postmodern cop out wankery can up offer up mate – it’s dribbling out today.

                      Of course it’s always going to be in flux. What, you think as soon as Bernie had gotten in then everyone would have become a socialist?

                      There is no utopia that, once achieved, will continue for eternity. If it doesn’t change with the next election cycle, it’ll change with the next generation, or the next crisis.

                      Incrementalism is the only way to get shit done in that environment: revolutions whip back and get bitten in the arse. Work for what is achievable now, so you can defend it tomorrow and also work for what is achievable tomorrow. Hoping for a magical fucking brightness to permanently make things better just stops people working for the achievable today. Or, to put it another way, religion is the opiate of the masses.

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 8:37 pm

                      and your religion is incrementalism.

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 8:39 pm

                      ‘This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.’

                      Edit:

                      ‘Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.’

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 9:07 pm

                      MLK recognised the intransigence of the Democrats, and pushed against them, but I’d be surprised if you googled a quote where he called the DNC fascists.

                      Even though George Wallace was a democrat.

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 11:21 pm

                      Oh, do I have to hold you to every micro comment you say out of context – is that how you want to play it?

                      JIm Crow is a form of white nationalism. Funny the USSR was able to beat up the US over that during the cold war. Over and over and over.

                      That said, inverted totalitarianism is at the core of new fascism. Something Dr King had little experience with. Unlike Cornel West who has suffered at the hands of the Democratic party.

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 11:48 pm

                      So the DNC aren’t a bunch of fascists?
                      Or is the answer not love?

                      Or is the way to stop fascism and neoliberalism to lovingly call the DNC a bunch of fascists? Because third-party voting just helps the republicans each and every time.

                      Tell us all how you’ve moved a step beyond MLK. What’s your solution that makes incrementalism a stupid approach? How is the US (and probably the rest of the globe) going to manage a big jump to the left without a followup step to the riiiight?

                    • adam …
                      30 October 2018 at 4:00 am

                      WOW, I really must have offend you.

                      So are you just making shit up to feel better, or what? Or is the delebrit twisting of what I said just your way to feel secure again?

                      Totally confused by your missing the point of my argument – you threw up h.r.c. when I didn’t mention that loser. Your now accusing me of being beyond Dr King – whatever that means in your little head.

                      And yeah I do think incrementalism is stupid, simply because it does not work. It offers the illusion of improvement, for some. Whilst for many it’s the same old vial grind of poverty with bigots and apologist putting the boot in. And all the time telling people to wait – because it will get better. Wait, whilst nothing changes and the rich get richer. And the poor are terrorized.

                      Then someone like you come along and want us to get rid of trump who is one of the bigots whilst offering nothing after his removal – except the same drug – incrementalism. Because if we wait it will be alright.

                      You get that the US is actually a militaristic imperial state right? Because that does seem to be the big point your missing in what I’m saying.

                    • marty mars …
                      30 October 2018 at 8:08 am

                      Adam incrementalism is movement in the direction wanted. By definition it means change, albiet small, IS happening.

                      “And yeah I do think incrementalism is stupid, simply because it does not work. It offers the illusion of improvement, for some. Whilst for many it’s the same old vial grind of poverty with bigots and apologist putting the boot in. And all the time telling people to wait – because it will get better. Wait, whilst nothing changes and the rich get richer. And the poor are terrorized.”

                      You are talking about something else here not incrementitism – don’t know what cos so many contenders.

                    • adam …
                      30 October 2018 at 11:58 am

                      So by you argument marty mars – stop complaining about trump. He’s just making incremental change .

                    • McFlock …
                      30 October 2018 at 12:53 pm

                      OK Adam, the world is shit and full of fascists.

                      What’s your solution, that is so much better than incrementalism?

                    • marty mars …
                      30 October 2018 at 1:20 pm

                      @adam- you forgot the direction. His ‘incremenral progress’ moves in the opposite direction to where i want to go. It is incremental deterioration imo. That’s why I want him out.

              • adam …
                29 October 2018 at 10:40 am

                trump is a white fascist through and through. You know his dad got arrested at a kkk rally? I’m not arguing trump is not a old school fascist pig.

                What I’m say is that there is a difference between the trump style of white race based politics (old fascism) and the corporate style inverted totalitarianism (new fascism), which is the only other option playing out in mainstream american politics.

                • Stuart Munro …
                  29 October 2018 at 11:33 am

                  You’re deluding yourself.

                  Hillary is a pretty wretched specimen of self-serving rubbish. But the half the crap about her online is propaganda. Which you appear to have swallowed.

                  She would’ve been much better than Trump – and so would anyone else.

                  • adam …
                    29 October 2018 at 11:38 am

                    You’re deluding yourself.

                    I’m just basing my response on the last democratic presidents and how truly shitty they we’re. NAFTA and mass incarceration were just the tip of the iceberg of how pro-corporate and anti-working people the democratic party has become.

                    • Stuart Munro …
                      29 October 2018 at 11:09 pm

                      Sure they’re shit.

                      Trump is worse though. And no bulwark against any kind of fascism.

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 11:29 pm

                      Worse, or unpalatable to your sensibilities?

                      Because quite frankly we’ve seen these white supremacist pop up on a regular basis, he just another in a long line of them who has had too much influence in the USA.

                      And yeah he a fascist, a real one. But behind the mask the US wears is waiting another version of fascism with a nicer smile. With less of the loud rhetoric, but still expansionist, militaristic, and deeply racist.

                    • Stuart Munro …
                      29 October 2018 at 11:49 pm

                      unpalatable to sensibilities…

                      It does occur to you that sensibilities are as close to moral positions as politicians generally come? Maybe not.

                      Trump is conducting a pretty full on war on moral positions progressives had long thought were settled.

                      He is also degrading their pretense of democracy to breaking point – and the pretense is important.

                      “behind the mask the US wears is waiting another version of fascism with a nicer smile”

                      I don’t see that it’s waiting at all – it’s going gangbusters at the moment. The limit on US aggression is more the cost or weight of present commitments than any particular rein applied by Trump. The same would’ve been true of Hillary – though she might have offered more support to Arab spring opponents of Assad.

  3. marty mars 3
    28 October 2018 at 12:22 pm

    This as well. Dirty politics US style.

    “Like the poll tax, literacy test and grandfather clause of the Jim Crow south, the real purpose of voter ID laws like the one now in effect in North Dakota is to plant a white thumb firmly on the political scale. Native Americans and many others across the nation – including African Americans in Texas and Georgia – are staring down the prospect of a post-civil rights era.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/26/the-real-reason-for-voter-id-laws-to-prevent-native-americans-from-voting

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      28 October 2018 at 1:50 pm

      The rich generally don’t think that anyone else has any rights as has been seen throughout history.

  4. marty mars 4
    28 October 2018 at 2:21 pm

    A good read.

    “The grand tragedy that martyred President Lincoln seems to dwarf the farce of a MAGA (make America great again) -inspired former exotic dancer, Cesar Sayoc, mailing homemade pipe bombs to Democratic leaders. But the same misguided patriotism inspired both.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/27/when-trump-demonises-opponents-unhinged-partisans-take-their-cue

    • Bill 4.1
      28 October 2018 at 2:45 pm

      So, let’s try this. (Just taking the third paragraph)

      In both eras, [badness happened] when a small group of wealthy men elites recognised that their economic interests ran counter to those of most voters. Setting out to shore up their waning influence, by limiting access to information, dominating government and warning supporters that political enemies were urging minorities to harm them out to get them, they built a fervent following. Those followers came to believe America was a white man’s land theirs and saw those challenging their leaders as dangerous…

      See how it works? How Richardson goes all one eyed on it? I mean, should we be talking Muslims or Russians or neither or both? And are the shit stirrers Democrats or Republicans or liberals or supremacists or the whole shower?

      • marty mars 4.1.1
        28 October 2018 at 3:30 pm

        Youve changed the meaning. It actually didn’t need changing imo. I can’t see how your adjustments even mean anything in the context of the effects namely people killing their opponents after those opponents are demonized.

        As for the Russians dunno why you’re bringing them into it – is there a conspiracy re this and them?

        • Bill 4.1.1.1
          28 October 2018 at 4:35 pm

          Bar substituting out a few words around assassination, I didn’t change the meaning. I merely broadened the focus.

          Some “over there” blame Muslims, while some others “over there” blame Russians. It’s the same shitty dynamics being promoted for the same shitty reasons.

          If you really want to get into the bias of the piece, then you might want to reflect on why it covers Republican Party transgressions but makes no mention on which administrations ramped up the drone programme, started more wars, signed more free trade deals, repealed legislation around banking, open the doors on the prisons….all contributory factors to creating a very disenchanted and desperate population that eventually voted for a reality TV star to be President.

          Or maybe reflect on why no mention is made of the fact that Democrats keep enabling the Trump Admin by gifting votes to support expanded Presidential powers, an increased military budget, or to ‘wave through’ court judge appointees.

          In short, Richardson only looks at half the picture they claim to be looking at….which itself is part and parcel of how wealthy elites hoodwink “the masses” into supporting them against supposed enemies. (It’s just that the imagined enemies are different)

          • marty mars 4.1.1.1.1
            28 October 2018 at 4:41 pm

            yeah its an angle. It is not purporting to be the definitive piece on the whole subject – it is an angle – do you understand that point? Because it is an angle it discusses the angle and does so congruently. That’s all it does. Your ‘what about this and that’ is just a distraction from the main point which you don’t like because it doesn’t fit with your preconceived views imo.

            • Bill 4.1.1.1.1.1
              28 October 2018 at 5:38 pm

              you don’t like because it doesn’t fit with your preconceived views

              I haven’t challenged anything that was said in the article, so I can’t see where you’re drawing that conclusion from.

              • marty mars …
                28 October 2018 at 8:26 pm

                “… If you really want to get into the bias of the piece…”
                “…Or maybe reflect on why no mention is made of …”
                “…In short, Richardson only looks at half the picture they claim to be looking at….which itself is part and parcel of how wealthy elites hoodwink “the masses” into supporting them against supposed enemies…”

                • Bill …
                  28 October 2018 at 8:37 pm

                  Yup. Not arguing with anything she wrote. Just highlighting some obvious omissions and pointing to the propagandic nature of the piece…. her subtext being that if/when Trump is assassinated he’ll be the one to blame as he’s brought it upon himself with his shenanigans.

                  Which…an odd dog whistle (sub text or insinuation if you prefer) for a historian claiming to be concerned at, and seeking to explain some reactions and actions swirling around in ye olde U S of A, don’t you think?

                  Does she really think all “unhinged partisans” are loyal only to Trump? (Maybe she does)

                  • marty mars …
                    28 October 2018 at 9:16 pm

                    Well we then get back to the ‘angle’ angle. Can her article not stand as an article from a particular angle. It doesn’t cover everything and may miss some glaring bits but it is what it is and within the article it is internally consistent and aligned with the angle of the article.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.2
      28 October 2018 at 5:32 pm

      They refused all popular calls for government involvement in the economy, insisting that the founders’ government was designed to do nothing but protect property. Active government was unconstitutional, they argued, it impinged on the liberty of wealthy men.

      And they were actually right. The Founders of the USA had set up the system to protect the rich from everyone else:

      In order to do this, the Patriot leaders of the Revolution used ‘a language inspiring to all classes, specific enough in its listing of grievances to charge people with anger against the British, vague enough to avoid class conflict among the rebels, and stirring enough to build a patriotic feeling for the resistance movement’ (1999: 68). But this was a difficult game for the Patriot leaders to play because it required a balancing act, maintaining broadly popular support for the War of Independence and Revolution by appealing to universal notions of liberty and democracy, on one hand, while simultaneously defending the sanctity of property and the rule of a rich capitalist minority, on the other.

      History of Democracy by B. Roper

  5. gsays 5
    28 October 2018 at 3:54 pm

    Call me a paranoid hippy…
    This electronic voting (without physical evidence), is in the same basket as a cashless society.(looking at you DTB).
    The pros just do not outweigh the cons.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      28 October 2018 at 5:06 pm

      You’re paranoid hippy

      😛

      There’s nothing inherently wrong with electronic voting. The problems come from those who produce them in ways that allow voting to be bent to their own use. This needs to be addressed which present IP laws don’t allow. Just look at how present programming of the US voting machines (I’m fully against dedicated voting machines BTW) is considered proprietary and nobody is allowed to even look at the code never mind actually test it.

      In other words, laws made to boost rentier capitalism encourage and support more corruption while preventing that corruption from being detectable.

      • Gareth 5.1.1
        29 October 2018 at 9:18 am

        There are things inherently wrong with electronic voting.

        https://www.csoonline.com/article/3269297/security/online-voting-is-impossible-to-secure-so-why-are-some-governments-using-it.html

        http://time.com/5366171/11-year-old-hacked-into-us-voting-system-10-minutes/

        https://estoniaevoting.org/

        There are jobs that computers and the Internet are very very good at. Voting is not one of them. If it’s voting via the Internet, then you worry about DDOS, man in the middle attacks and lack of an audit trail. If it’s computers at voting places, then still the lack of a verifiable audit trail, and lots of people having local access (read superuser access) to the votes. You can’t beat paper for voting. It’s not simple to falsify and the effort required to change large numbers of votes makes it impractical.

        America has lots of other issues around voting, but e-voting is just a bad idea.

        • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1.1
          29 October 2018 at 10:09 am

          Voting being hacked applies just as much to paper voting. That’s what all those shifting and removal of voting stations and efforts to remove people’s right to vote that we see in the US is all about. And, yes, it can even be hacked by the people doing the counting.

          There is risk in everything that we do as a society but we usually don’t allow it to stop us.

          • Gareth 5.1.1.1.1
            29 October 2018 at 3:56 pm

            Of course anything can be “hacked”.

            Yes, you can remove people’s right to vote and make it as hard for them as possible. These are very visible. Everyone who is denied the chance to vote remembers it and will talk loud and long about it.

            Yes, the counters can miscount. That’s why there’s a verifiable audit trail in the form of the ballots which can be referred back to if the errors go above plausible human error and change a result.

            Yes, recounts can be stopped. Again, very visibly and everyone remembers the last big one in America.

            E-voting is different.

            There is no verifiable audit trail. If you change the numbers on a machine from 58,654 D vs 42,756 R to 49,981 D vs 51,429 R there’s no comeback, no way of arriving at a different number unless you persuade a judge to rule the whole thing has to be re-run.

            A single person with a bot-net can stop thousands of people voting via DDOS, or worse, they think they’ve voted correctly, but a man-in-the-middle attack changes their votes. Such attacks are demonstrated every year at various events like DEFCON uncovering different exploits every time, but none have ever been noticed in online voting.

            There is a reason that secure military systems are always air-gapped from the Internet. When all the computer security and encryption people say it’s a bad idea, why persist?

            Who leads our country is too important to say “Oh there’s a risk that someone people didn’t vote for might be elected, but let’s not let that stop us”.

  6. One Two 6
    28 October 2018 at 4:09 pm

    11, 6

    As for Soros…no comment could be regarded as ‘crazy’…

    Too much influence to imagine he’s not using it…

  7. JohnSelway 7
    28 October 2018 at 4:35 pm

    I was thinking to myself “what would CV have made of the bombing threats?” But realized he’d probably be pushing to false flag narrative

  8. adam 8
    28 October 2018 at 5:06 pm

    American Fascism is alive and well, it also has a very long history.

  9. Siobhan 9
    28 October 2018 at 5:31 pm

    yep, American democracy is broken at all levels and on all sides…

    “As a member of Sanders’ campaign, I’ll never forget watching the primary votes being counted for Michigan, one of the key states that decided the 2016 election. Sanders’ “pledged delegate count” – which reflected the number of votes he received from rank-and-file Democrats – exceeded Clinton’s by four. But after the superdelegates cast their ballots, the roll call registered “Clinton 76, Sanders 67”.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/democrat-primary-elections-need-reform

    • Dukeofurl 9.1
      29 October 2018 at 8:59 am

      Clintons was millions of votes ahead of Sanders in the nationwide tally for those states that had voter primaries.

      Even in Michigan his lead was just over 1%

      So you think someone who got 16.9 mill votes compared to Sanders 13.2 mill shouldnt have been the Democratic candidate ?

      Thats 55% to 43% in the pouplar vote.

      Even if you ignore the superdelegates Clinton was still ahead and would have won.
      That was 2200 to 1800 delegates.

      Get some facts. yes you love Sanders but dont bullshit the numbers that led to Clintons victory

      • Siobhan 9.1.1
        29 October 2018 at 12:09 pm

        So you think someone who got 16.9 mill votes compared to Sanders 13.2 mill shouldn’t have been the Democratic candidate ?…

        yes, actually, i do.

        Bernie would have been a stronger contender against Trump.

        There were trump voters who could have voted for Bernie. And the disenfranchised who would vote for Bernie. Hillary is toxic and represents a political ideology that is simply not believed in any more.

        If my vote today could have helped Secretary Clinton win the presidency, I would have voted for her. But as the Electoral College meets all across this nation on this day, I see no likelihood of 38 Republican electors defecting from their party and casting their ballots for Secretary Clinton.

        So Hillary Clinton will not become President, and there is nothing I can do about that. Knowing this, I was left to find a positive statement I could make with my vote.

        David Bright, democratic Elector, Maine.

        “I am not a Clinton elector, I am a Democratic elector. I do not represent Democrats all over the country, I represent the Democrats in Maine.

        I cast my vote for Bernie Sanders not out of spite, or malice, or anger, or as an act of civil disobedience. I mean no disrespect to our nominee. I cast my vote to represent thousands of Democratic Maine voters – many less than a third my age – who came into Maine politics for the first time this year because of Bernie Sanders. They organized, telephoned and sent in their 27 dollars. Many stood in line for hours in order to navigate our byzantine system of caucuses and convention this Spring so they could be among the two thirds of Maine Democrats who cast a vote for Sanders.

        Most importantly, they did this to vote FOR someone they believed in, not to vote against someone they feared.

        Sadly, when the primary season was over, and their candidate was not successful, many of them lost hope, as well as interest. Many felt the Democratic Party had not listened to them, did not care about them, and did not respect them. Their sense of loss in July became our Party’s loss in November.

        Democracy is hard, and messy, and complicated, and those of us who have been at this game for a long time have learned to take the defeats when they come. But those lessons don’t come easily for new voters.

        So I cast my Electoral College vote for Bernie Sanders today to let those new voters who were inspired by him know that some of us did hear them, did listen to them, do respect them and understand their disappointment. I want them to know that not only can they come back to the process, but that they will be welcomed back; that there is room in the Democratic Party for their values.

        To go forward, the Democratic Party needs these young voters.

        More importantly, America needs these young voters.

        I can’t do anything to change the results of the election this year. But perhaps by encouraging these idealistic voters to stick around, I can change the results of elections to come.”

        https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/12/19/read-why-one-maine-elector-tried-to-vote-for-bernie-sanders

        And have you noticed that even the poor delusional mega bomber, who has a long and wide list of targets doesn’t include Bernie.

        • Dukeofurl 9.1.1.1
          29 October 2018 at 1:30 pm

          The Democrats who voted in the primaries and even the super delegates – all of them elected democrats/previously elected- thought different to you. Millions more.

          You seem to articulate a form of “I know best for you’ delegate that you despise when those Michigan super delegates voted for Clinton. But of course Sanders who only has faced Republicans in tiny Vermont would never had won against Trump.

          Do you even know what the margin of democratic voters in the 2008 primaries was, when it was between Clinton and Obama

          Clinton WON that ( popular vote) 17.8 mill to 17.5 mill for Obama.
          Obama sneaked in with the super delegates 2200 to 1978.

          Notice those numbers in the primaries 17.5 mill plus each

          What shows what nonsense the Maine elector was saying about ‘young voters’ when Sanders could only get 13 mill.

  10. Ad 10
    28 October 2018 at 5:51 pm

    Agree.

    Shades of Democrat LBJ that Robert Caro covered in Johnson’s rise to power in Texas 60 years ago.

    Beto O’Rourke down about 6 points on average had too big a hill to climb but will still be a massive missed opportunity for the US Senate. I really liked what I saw on the stump, and continued to foreswear any corporate donor or major pac help, which is seriously amazing.

    I know it was going to be too hard to unseat the Senate Majority this time, but I sure hope O’Rourke sticks around for next time.

    • Andre 10.1
      28 October 2018 at 6:49 pm

      You think Beto has a chance against Cornyn in 2020? Considering Cornyn seems fairly well liked but everybody hates Cruz, Cornyn is an actual Texan while Cruz is Canadian, Cornyn is Majority Whip with some real actual power while Cruz was just a loudmouth noob that was mostly just ignored when he wasn’t being told to shuddup and siddown …

      • Ad 10.1.1
        29 October 2018 at 6:04 pm

        No.

        Cruz is a really solid campaigner and Republican soldier.

        Beto is an outstanding and appealing Democrat candidate, but his fight to get there will be at least as ugly as LB Johnson’s was if he is to win. And I don’t think he has enough requisite ugly in him. Whereas Cruz has that ugly – and massive Superpacs – to bring him home .

    • Dukeofurl 10.2
      29 October 2018 at 8:48 am

      Beto O”Rourke could have a serious chance at running to be the Democratic candidate for President

      Even if he won in Texas, he would be immediately running in 1 year for President

  11. Sabine 11
    28 October 2018 at 6:26 pm

    they just got themselves new political leadership. You know the one not called Clinton.
    And today he just had ….as himself said ‘ A bad hair day’, and please put armed guards in front of your religious houses, your schools, your shops, your hospitals and and and …….MAGA.

    Some of us saw that coming, some of us said no please not, but then he is gonna bring the empire down, right? Cause nothing says peace better then a fucking failed state with nuclear weapons run by an Ersatz Nazi.

    • adam 11.1
      28 October 2018 at 7:05 pm

      You moaning about old fascists is tired, they have been a part of US politics since inception. You know white male privilege.

      Meanwhile people like you keep supporting the new fascists that run the Democratic party. Who will give us ‘diversity’ whilst they sell our children back to slavery.

      It really is a sad joke Sabine, over and over the same line from you “our fascist is better than your fascist” – any chance you could actually stop for one minute and see that there has been a corporate coup d’etat in the USA?

      That the last election just put the white male racist FASCIST in power, instead of the corporate FASCIST one.

      • Sabine 11.1.1
        28 October 2018 at 10:18 pm

        our children? you mean white children?

        cause the brown children, the black children and many of the asian children are already in slavery.
        without them you could not buy your cheap shit made overseas.

        do you really think that your whiteness will help you in Trumps world? Good grief, what ever education you got was wasted on you, you did not learn a single thing from history.

        Your whiteness does not make you special. You are no more and no better then any other person of colour.

        btw, i will always vote for the lesser evil, because sometimes time is all you get to buy with your vote.

        • adam 11.1.1.1
          28 October 2018 at 11:23 pm

          How silly are you, I’m not white.

          So trying to shoot the messenger is an epic fail by you, again.

          This may seem difficult for you but a whole lot of people think trump is the lesser evil.

          Personally I think fascists are scum, but unlike you I know a modern fascist when I see one. And corporate lap dogs inside the democratic party are such facists. h.r.c and co are the worst type of fascist, one which creates the illusion there is progress and carry on the con of incrementalism.

          • McFlock 11.1.1.1.1
            28 October 2018 at 11:50 pm

            Yeah, complete bastards, extending healthcare like that.

            The only way Trump would be the lesser evil is if he makes things so bad that the yanks have a civil war and an actual leftist group comes out of nowhere and happens to win it outright.

            BTW, I love the way that in one comment you ridicule the “our fascist is better than your fascist” position, yet in your next comment in the thread you talk about lesser evils. And that’s if I even believed that HRC was as bad as you bleet about.

            • adam 11.1.1.1.1.1
              29 October 2018 at 10:34 am

              Why is it healthcare is all you got, because the democrats are corporate lap dogs. Even obama care was a corporate system which was an old republican plan.

              But then again you worship at the soothing drug of incrementalism. So I guess that why you believe h.r.c is so good.

              • McFlock …
                29 October 2018 at 12:23 pm

                “so good”.
                Not so much that, as “not as bad as all that, and a fuckload better than trump”.

                Yes. I prefer to see small gains, rather than none at all. Because I recognise that perfection is aspirational, not immediately achievable.

                • adam …
                  29 October 2018 at 3:59 pm

                  That is the problem incrementalism, there are no gains, when everything can be rolled back at the whim of a idiot. Only you are comparing incrementalism to perfection, rather than comparing it to the real world aspirations with all its foibles. In the meantime your keep supporting the bosses/elites/masters whatever label you feel comfortable with.

                  As for better, well people thought more of the same crap they were being served up was not better. That the slow grinding to death by another corporate democrat was just not worth it. If that is the better you think people should support, then sorry for you.

                  • McFlock …
                    29 October 2018 at 4:09 pm

                    What “real world aspirations” are you thinking of?

                    Because they’re not happening.

                    Sure, incremental gains can be wound back. So can revolutions. There is no victory. There is just constant flux between moving forward and moving back, until energy is free and limitless.

                    HRC would have moved things a little bit more forward.
                    Trump is in hard reverse.

                    But it’s amazing what people will choose if you make up enough stories about a candidate.

                    • adam …
                      29 October 2018 at 7:39 pm

                      Wow, you believe that b.s – that is depressing.

                    • McFlock …
                      29 October 2018 at 7:49 pm

                      Which bits do you disagree with – do you think utopia is just around the corner, or do you believe Clinton would have doubled-down on 45’s tax cuts for the 1%?

      • joe90 11.1.2
        29 October 2018 at 7:53 pm

        Meanwhile people like you keep supporting the new fascists that run the Democratic party.

        And the 94% of black women and the 69% of Latinas who voted for Hillary Clinton, were they supporting the new fascists that run the Democratic party?.

        • adam 11.1.2.1
          29 October 2018 at 7:58 pm

          Do you?

          • joe90 11.1.2.1.1
            29 October 2018 at 8:02 pm

            I’m not the one averring that the new fascists run the Democratic party.

            • adam 11.1.2.1.1.1
              29 October 2018 at 8:35 pm

              So why are you talking about voters and not the people who run the democratic party?

              • joe90 …
                29 October 2018 at 9:24 pm

                Electors opt for parties that represent their interests.

                Do you consider the interests of the 94% of black women and the 69% of Latinas who voted for Hillary Clinton were represented by the new fascists that you say run the Democratic party?.

                • adam …
                  29 October 2018 at 11:03 pm

                  Do they, or do they as you lot have said over and over vote for the lesser of two evils? Because the republicans are essentially a white party.

                  • joe90 …
                    29 October 2018 at 11:30 pm

                    So the 94% of black women and the 69% of Latinas who voted for Hillary Clinton were motivated by race.

                    Weak sauce.

                    • adam …
                      30 October 2018 at 3:40 am

                      So there are no internal colonies in the USA – where poor Afro-american and latinos live in terror?

                    • reason …
                      30 October 2018 at 7:08 am

                      Leaving out the proportion of non-voters ….makes it factually wrong to claim that 94% of black women voted for hillary war criminal

                      ‘ vast majority of voters at 94%’, powerfully makes your point with no need for jacking the stats.

                      Its A bit like how the nacts used to shit me … with their bogus claim that over half the country supported them …

                      Merrill Lynch sub prime math

                    • joe90 …
                      30 October 2018 at 8:59 am

                      So there are no internal colonies in the USA

                      Arcane claptrap.

                      Again, if as you say, the new fascists run the Democratic party, why did those women vote for the new fascists?

                    • Morrissey …
                      30 October 2018 at 9:29 am

                      Where do you get those fantastical figures from? Debbie Wasserman-Schutz?

                    • adam …
                      30 October 2018 at 12:00 pm

                      So poor Afro-americans and latinos are not being terrorized in their communities Joe90?

                      edit: what makes people vote for fascists – generally economic failure and distrust of the system would be one of many answers. But in your context and framing of the question you keep putting up – who knows.

                      You seem to think people vote for one reason only, and in that context I can’t offer an answer becasue I disagree with how you framed the question.

                  • joe90 …
                    30 October 2018 at 12:28 pm

                    You’re unable to defend your putrid libeling by association so you trot out more arcane claptrap. Weak.

                    btw, it’s terrorising

                    • adam …
                      30 October 2018 at 12:45 pm

                      Oh a grammar nazi!!

                      Well the democratic party can sue me if i’m wrong. Which I don’t see happening because the democratic hierarchy are in bed with the corporate inverted totalitarianism. Or new fascism as I like to call it.

                      Please don’t get upset by the next police killing of a young black man caught on video. Because it’s just arcane claptrap which is weak ah. Just weak.

                    • joe90 …
                      30 October 2018 at 9:18 pm

                      Spelling Nazi, you witless knob.

                      And if you’re going to persist with your deconstruction of a genuine inquiry, then suck it, sport.

  12. SPC 12
    28 October 2018 at 6:50 pm

    The USA is the first world nation most in need of external oversight of its democracy in practice to identify the corruption taking place.

    Normally a nation has centralised and non partisan oversight of electoral boundaries, voter registration and voting access – but nothing in the USA is beyond a fight for partisan control – not their Supreme Court nor democracy.

    Both Wall Street AND Capitol HIll need to be occupied by democrats in the next revolution there.

  13. Doogs 13
    29 October 2018 at 8:57 am

    Actually, the whole scenario in the US is a lot simpler than that, and is based on jealousy and longing.

    All those years ago they fought against and banished the soldiers of a class-ridden system embedded in a place called England. Over there there was a monarchy, occupied at the time by a crazed and disease ridden madman. Nonetheless, although they wanted autonomy from the British, they were jealous of the hierarchical nature of their class system. They craved a figurehead. Hence the US presidency and all the power that is invested into that role. They also made it hard, if not impossible, to get rid of this figurehead.

    The economy needed workers so they invented slavery, and created a whole class of valueless workers who propped up the cotton and other industries. Hence the white elite’s deeply entrenched ‘colour-is-bad’ attitude to all who don’t look like them.

    Move to the 19th and 20th centuries and they began making new idols and heroes/heroines to look up to – movie stars and celebrities. This is another extension of their longing for figureheads to revere. They put people on a pedestal – people who are neither fit nor prepared for such elevation. Thus the myth of a created ‘monarchy’ lives on.

    Also, in the early 20th century they imported hordes of migrants from Europe. Misplaced and poverty-stricken people from middle European countries poured into America looking for a chance at a better life. Their names were hard to pronounce and immigrant officers mispronounced and misspelt them. Hence the many weirdly spelt and sounding names of many in the US today. They couldn’t do slavery any more, so this was the next best thing.

    Move forward to today and you have all of these mixed up jealousies, prejudices, longings and biases and a huge mix of every ethnicity you could name. And still the whiteys long for that figurehead to worship. All the ignorant slope heads saw Trump as that opportunity. A chance to slap down those who don’t look like them.

    It’s just a theory, and something I have mused about for a while.

    • Dukeofurl 13.1
      29 October 2018 at 9:07 am

      Invented slavery ?

      It was bought to the American colonies by the British, French , Dutch etc

      http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2008/02/slavery-in-new-amsterdam.html
      ‘In 1625, the DWIC [Dutch West India Company] established the village of New Amsterdam, the main settlement in the Colony at the tip of Manhattan Island. There weren’t enough colonists to do the work of establishing a new colony. The Company tried to persuade more Dutch people to come to the colony, but few were interested. They tried to make local Native Americans work, but they ran off and returned to their villages. Bringing the captured African seamen to New Amsterdam seemed to solve these problems. Africans could be forced to work, and they couldn’t escape and go home.

      • Doogs 13.1.1
        29 October 2018 at 9:46 am

        OK nit-picker, you know what I mean!

        • Dukeofurl 13.1.1.1
          29 October 2018 at 11:43 am

          Surely you knew that slavery existed in Greek and Roman times…and even before that.
          The rest of your screed isnt much better…. but I really cant be bothered to go there.

          • Stuart Munro 13.1.1.1.1
            29 October 2018 at 11:36 pm

            American slavery is a curious institution though.

            My understanding is that it was popularized through the sugar trade, borrowing an Islamic model.

            Estates on Crete and Cyprus differed from those in Muslim countries in that demesne land was much more extensive and the corvee was an important source of labor.6B During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, agricultural labor on these islands was scarce because of the ravages of war and plague. A response to this shortage was the increasing use of slave labor. Even before the Black Death in 1348, slaves were being imported to Crete and Cyprus, but later slavery became even more significant.

            http://www.rogerlouismartinez.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mediterreanean-sugar.pdf

            European knowledge of sugar production was more informed by these northern examples than the peasant produced sugar of Egypt and the Levant. There were slaves in Europe at this time, but precious few. It was a slave owning corporation that became the plantation agriculture model for the Caribbean, Brazil and lastly America.

    • Draco T Bastard 13.2
      29 October 2018 at 1:03 pm

      All those years ago they fought against and banished the soldiers of a class-ridden system embedded in a place called England. Over there there was a monarchy, occupied at the time by a crazed and disease ridden madman. Nonetheless, although they wanted autonomy from the British, they were jealous of the hierarchical nature of their class system. They craved a figurehead.

      The Founders of the USA wanted their own aristocracy but, just like the UK after the 17th century revolutions, they had a lot of well trained and well armed peasants who wanted democracy and so the Founders wrote a constitution that would leave the rich and powerful in charge while giving the peasants a vote and the illusion of democracy.

      The aristocrats in the US system (Which NZ copies) are the rich and it is an inherited wealth system.

      The economy needed workers so they invented slavery

      Slavery has been around for thousands of years in various forms. The one used in the US was probably one of the most barbaric but they certainly didn’t invent it.

      • Dukeofurl 13.2.1
        29 October 2018 at 1:17 pm

        Yes. Even the Indian tribes had slavery in various forms and when black africans
        came in chains as slaves they bought them as well

  14. Doogs 14
    29 October 2018 at 9:01 am

    I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said –

    “America is the only country in the history of the world to have gone from a pioneering state to a state of decadence without any intervening period of civilisation.”

    Probably a bit of an exaggeration, but not too far from the truth.

    • Dukeofurl 14.1
      29 October 2018 at 9:23 am

      Wrong. Wasnt GBS and it was Russia not USA

      Has often been used since and attributed to GBS
      https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/07/barbarism-decadence/

      • Doogs 14.1.1
        29 October 2018 at 9:53 am

        Ok ok – I accept that but it does appear that you exist on this site to troll all wrong sayers. You make it very hard to put across ideas (which you didn’t comment upon, only saw fit to correct me on a detail) when I’m biting my nails wondering if dukey is gonna Goggle correct me.

        How about a view on what I said – fairly light-heartedly I must say.

        • Dukeofurl 14.1.1.1
          29 October 2018 at 11:37 am

          So you have never heard of the Socratic method….get a life… get an education.

          I make clangers all the time …but i check where I can and often delete when I had the wrong angle.

  15. Doogs 15
    29 October 2018 at 9:55 am

    I notice also dukey that you used ‘bought’ instead of ‘brought’. Oh, whoops, there goes me correcting you. Dang!

    • Dukeofurl 15.1
      29 October 2018 at 11:40 am

      Look for every comment, maybe 100 people read it. What purpose is there to be gained from something that is wrongly attributed, some will read the link -or most of it- and think – that was interesting any way

  16. Professor Longhair 16
    29 October 2018 at 11:50 am

    Of course the Simpsons predicted all sorts of things, like Donald Trump becoming President, 16 years before it actually happened.

    Back in 2013, our friend and colleague Morrissey Breen predicted Trump’s ascension to the presidency….

    https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/who-will-be-lead-mourner-at-obamas.html

  17. Professor Longhair 17
    29 October 2018 at 11:52 am

    Of course the Simpsons predicted all sorts of things, like Donald Trump becoming President, 16 years before it actually happened.

    Back in 2013, our friend and colleague Morrissey Breen predicted Trump’s ascension to the presidency….

    https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/who-will-be-lead-mourner-at-obamas.html

  18. joe90 18
    30 October 2018 at 10:04 am

    Long read on how after decades of disenfranchisement via outright racism,gerrymandering and electoral shenanigans, and years of legal battles, a Native American population is going to end minority white government.

    Oh, and the people doing it are running on a Democratic ticket, so you know, new fascists.

    /

    Since its founding, the United States has forced Indigenous people into a democratic system that has done little to serve them. Indigenous populations were excluded from the vote for decades — in many states, until as recently as 1965. Once given the vote, it has been systematically diluted, often through purposeful gerrymandering. This year, a record-breaking number of Native candidates are running for office. At least one — and very likely two — Native women will be elected to Congress, the first in the history of the country. In states like Montana and North Dakota with close Senate races, the Native vote will be a significant deciding factor.

    That power, however, has been met with resistance. In North Dakota, the Native vote’s role in electing Democrat Heidi Heitkamp sparked the voter ID legislation, upheld earlier this month by the Supreme Court, which prohibits the use of tribal IDs without residential addresses — even though many Native Americans who live on reservations in the state, like those on the Navajo reservation, have never had an official address. The implicit message: Natives can vote, but only if they do so in the way those in power prefer. It’s an infantilizing and colonial position to take — not to mention deeply counter to the foundational tenets of American democracy

    https://www.hcn.org/articles/tribal-affairs-in-southern-utah-navajo-voters-rise-to-be-heard

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