This seems like a good loophole: he’s not really our president, he’s a president who leaked through from a parallel universe. For instance, he thinks we’ve got invisible airplanes.
Amazing job, and amazing job. So amazing that we’re ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35. Do you like the F-35? I said how does it do it in fights, and how do they do in fights with the F-35. He says we do very well, you can’t see it. Literally you can’t see. It’s hard to fight a plane you can’t see right? But that’s an expensive plane you can’t see. And as you probably heard we cut the price very substantially, something other administrations would never have done, that I can tell you.”
He repeated this claim several times!
According to the pool report of the president’s Thanksgiving Day visit to Coast Guard Station Lake Worth Inlet, in Florida, Trump told his audience he had discussed the
invisibleplane withsome air force guys. He asked them, he said, if it would perform in a dogfight like similar planes he had seen in movies.
They said: ‘Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it, even if it’s right next to it, it can’t see it,’Trump said.
I guess he’s from the universe where Wonder Woman is real.
Also, he seems to think we peons have to show our ID when we buy groceries.
You know if you go out and you want to buy groceries you need a picture on a card. You need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture. In this country, the only time you don’t need it in many cases is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. But we’re turning it around.
I’m kind of afraid, though, that he’s not a dimension-hopping alien, and that what he’s actually saying is what he hopes to be true, or wants to make true, and he’s unable to distinguish his fantasies from reality.
I guess we better make sure to bring our passports next time we visit the local Dairy Queen.
His technical acumen was apparent even back during the 2016 campaign. When Hillary Clinton’s technical staff, with court permission, wiped a disk drive, they used open source software named BleachBit. In Trump’s speeches, this software transformed into actual bleach, and then into acid wash. Because bleach and acid are the same thing. /s
And “he” called for Microsoft to turn off the internet to stop all the insulting talk about him.
He clearly lives psychologically in an alternate reality, where fact is fake and his lies are truth. Fabricating fantastical scenarios only he thinks are reality.
That would be fine, for a blundering old man to dodder about, the horror is the number of people who buy into his blather and think he is speaking reality.
oh dear
Re @1, Another example is after the mass shooting in Santa Barbara (California), when the FBI wanted to break into the dead suspect’s mobile phone. Excepting bugs, this was impossible, which Apple kept pointing out. Traitor don suggested a boycott of Apple until (paraphrasing) . There is no such thing, Apple had no (intentional) magical / backdoor way into the phone. Eventually, the FBI bought (for a rumoured cool million or so, as I recall) an Israeli firm’s package which attacked a bug in (as I recall) a remote-access method, and broke in. (Apple is said to have, fairly recently, fixed that bug; no help from the FBI, which never publicly divulged the details of their successful hacking — albeit some
police departmentsgoon squads are known(? suspected?) to have also purchased the package.)The thing that killed irony once and for all were all the Trumpites whining about those darn “elites” while voting and rooting for a guy who quite literally never done grocery shopping in his life, or even witnessed grocery shopping being done. This is just a stark, and hilarious (and scary) reminder of this.
Today I read a story about him claiming his health insurance plans are doing “record business” despite the fact that they aren’t even available yet.
Eh? The only thing similar to that I can recall — and an admittedly very quick search finds — is, as Snopes describes it, “Donald Trump made some confusing remarks about an internet shutdown or ban, but he appeared to be describing a counterterror plan”, and “the specifics of his proposed internet counterterrorism initiative remained so unclear that gleaning a specific policy course of action from them was, by all interpretations, completely impossible.”
Yes, traitor don did gobbledygook about , but he also gobbledygooks essentially everything, probably including his own gobbledygook covfefe. Which, when it can be deciphered, is extremely frequently lies or deceptions. In poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread, Lynna (today) quotes from the Washington Post, “In his first year as president, Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims. Now, just six months later, he has almost doubled that total.”
“we’re ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35”
That would be approximately one, if we’re talking about life cycle cost ($300-ish million each, versus the often quoted “flyaway” cost which is much less, or about $120 million each for the B and C variants). Flyaway cost is what it costs to “build one more” and does not include program R&D, upgrades, maintenance, etc. We have already purchased over 300 of these money pits, or perhaps better to say “DoD welfare units”.
The F-35 program cost is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion over its lifetime.
The military-industrial-congressional complex: The reason why we can’t have nice things.
For a moment there, I hoped he was talking about the republican party.
After all the things this bastard has said and done, the fact that he has not be removed from office (one way or another) seems to indicate that the American people really don’t give a damn who is in charge of this country. I’ll be voting straight Democrat this November, but I’m not expecting anything in this shithole country to change. In fact, I’m only expecting to get worse.
There is an alternate or additional explanation for Trump’s perpetual confusion.
He may be suffering from an age related cognitive impairment syndrome.
The guy is after all, 71.
Some people have looked at his presentations a few decades ago.
His speech patterns and content were much more coherent.
“I guess he’s from the universe where Wonder Woman is real.”
This explains why he despises women – she kicked his arse and he’s been sulking ever since.
What to the simple folk do
To help them escape when they’re blue?
Remember when an OCR at a grocery store stumped George H.W. Bush? And here I thought we fought a war ot three to be free of Kings and other parasites.
Enough with the clever, snarky comments. Let’s get rid of this madman as soon as possible! Are you listening, you armed Secret Service guards????
weylguy @13
Are you suggesting the Caligula option?
#14 Caligula or Nero, taken your pick.
So is the F35 that “stealth” thing? If so it’s meant to be hard to see with radar, not visible light. But shucks anyone could confuse the two, surely?
raven@10 “He may be suffering from an age related cognitive impairment syndrome.
The guy is after all, 71.”
Well, I’m 74 and a half and know the difference between “stealth” aircraft and “invisible” aircraft. Also I can still play a decent game of chess without forgetting the rules.
Keep in mind if traitor don is disappeared, then Pence is in — but he is competent (at least compared to the current loon) and a religious extremist — so the authoritarianism could take on a very strong theocratic hue.
It’s been speculated there was a deliberate attempt to get Agnew out before Nixon, to avoid an analogous same-but-even-worse scenario back in the Watergate days.
There is also the long-lasting problem of all the so-called “judges” traitor don is appointing & the thugs then (usually) rubber-stamping. Those positions are for life, unless they are impeached. (The problem is not just the Supreme Court.)
Other sabatoge — for example, by law (some?) retracted regulations cannot be restored — can be solved by legislation, but that takes time, a determined Congress effectively free of thugs, and a serious President. Those judges, and the inevitable spurious lawsuits, will be a problem.
#18
1) This is still an improvement
2) The fact that another arsehole is lurking in the shadows is no reason to stop opposition against the current arsehole.
#15 The Caligula option would make him into martyr. It has to be done legally, although… it’s pretty frighting when the president is climbing up a curve of exponential stupidity and an entire party backs him up with unquestioning loyalty, including Pence. As if loyalty to an evil man is good thing.
Holms@19, I did not mean to imply not doing anything because of Pence. And no, Pence is very unlikely to be an improvement — it could all-too-easily be all the present crap, but more competently done, plus a heavy dose of exclusive xianity by a fanatical believer.
No alien from another dimension or from anywhere in the entire universe of universes could ever match the assholes we grow here on Earth. Nobody could blame aliens who have survived their own adolescent asshole phase if they stayed away for that reason alone. The only interest they’d have in us is as a valuable object lesson on what happens to allegedly intelligent civilizations infected by stupidity and dishonesty, so they’d be content to watch us expire from afar.
I’ve been pushing my own ridiculous Trump theory.
Donald Trump died of a cocaine overdose in the 1980s and was replaced by a body double. Due to a very unhealthy lifestyle (being an asshole is not healthy), that body died of venereal disease in the 90s, and was then replaced by another. The next one died of self strangulation (by a men’s corset) around 2006. He was becoming morbidly obese and his handlers were concerned the public would notice. So we’re actually on body “double” number 3 now.
Proof… His Twitter handle. “@RealDonaldTrump”. You know they’re hiding something.
Another unnerving thing about his remarks on the F-35…he seems to think that modern air-to-air combat is conducted the same way it was in WW2. I’m not even sure if the F-35 has guns. It’s going to be doing combat with heat and radar seeking missiles, mostly fired from beyond visual range. That’s if we’re in a fight with another country that has opposing aircraft by the time the F-35s arrive on the scene, let alone ones that can even engage with a modern, “front line” fighter.
For reference, in the Battle of Britain (lots of movies set around then), a Spitfire had 8 .303 machine guns that fired 1200 rpm, each. At take off, each gun had…300 rounds. So the pilot could fire for a total of 15 seconds (which makes it kind of amazing that they shot down anything). Ideal range at which the fire was under 100 yards. This with aircraft doing +/-350 mph.
I recently say a chunk of an interview with the man who was the youngest RAF pilot in the Battle of Britain (he very recently died, aged 96). He described his first sortie in a Spitfire as a head on attack on BF-109s. Closing speed in excess of 600 mph. And that’s with piston engine and propeller aircraft.
Oh please! If you’re afraid of replacing Trump because Pence will become president, let me remind you that Pence is likely already de facto president? Trump is a puppet and no more. The GOP may be evil enough to put him in the Oval Office, but they aren’t stupid enough to give him power.
Replacing Trump with Pence will change absolutely noting, Pence is already president.
willj @ 20
Then you imprison, kill, or otherwise silence the right-wing, redneck, shitkicking, trailer-trash who’d consider Trump a martyr.
And for everyone who’d condemn me as an “eliminationist”for suggesting such a thing, then BOO-FUCKING-HOO! The only reason we’re dealing with a Trump Administration and the rise of the alt.right is because they aren’t afraid of the Left. All this side of the political spectrum will do is wave placards and chant maudlin slogans while the pigs come to pepper-spray and curb-stomp the naive college brats who think nonviolent protest will change anything.
Time to abandon Lennon, and rediscover Lenin.
Time to stop being wimpy Flower Children and become Bolshevicks again.
If you want a better world, you better be will to kill those making it worse, because good vibrations and choruses of “Give Peace a Chance”certainly won’t change our enemy’s minds.
He’s so disconnected from reality, and he’s putting the entirety of the American public in danger of physical harm, as well as inflicting serious mental trauma on us… how has he not been sectioned?
Just so we’re clear on this, just how many people are you personally prepared to kill, let’s say with an improvised melee weapon such as a claw hammer? Are you fully prepared to look their children in the eye while you wipe their brains off your face? And exactly how will you determine who’s a target? Also, since such violence is never one way, or restricted to those who “deserve” it, just how many of your friends and family are you prepared to sacrifice for the cause, and how many entirely innocent bystanders?
there was a great cartoon about the Grocery thing:
https://www.gocomics.com/jackohman/2018/08/02?ct=v&cti=739840
Mebbe someone can sell El Thuggo a really truly fabulously beautiful “stealth” wall that nobody can actually see.
I bet the Trump family kids never learned to launder their own money.
How many are we sacrificing right now?
I’m not sure Akira’s suggestion is the way to go, but it’s not clear to me what the alternative is. Doing the same thing we have so far? Akira does point to a simple and (I think) indisputable problem: They’re not going to stop unless we make them.
Not nearly as many as you would in an actual civil war. Are you prepared to notch it up by an order of magnitude or two?
Obviously not, but seriously, what is the alternative? What are we going to do about the fact that some people would rather flush the world down the toilet than treat their fellow citizens with even the most basic respect?
Seriously, what the fuck do we do about this? I’m totally open to hearing suggestions. I’ve come up with many a brilliant plan, but they all suffer from the same problem: They don’t actually work in the world we’re in. If you’ve got one that will, lay it on me.
“For a moment there, I hoped he was talking about the republican party.”
He was actually referring to the reptilian party (which is only spelled differently), an easy mistake for anyone to make.
I’m not convinced that having an alternative handy is necessary before pointing out the rather obvious pitfall with mass murder or civil war, but if you really want one: the hard work of politics. It does actually work. It often takes a bloody long time, it’s not 100% guaranteed to give you exactly what you want (in fact, it’s pretty much guaranteed not to give anybody exactly what they want), and there are many pitfalls and setbacks along the road, but it certainly beats fighting to the death with whatever comes to hand in the burned out remains of what used to be civilisation. Certainly, American politics today are a right fucking mess, but that would not be improved by making it look more like Rwanda during the genocide, or Paris at the height of The Terror, and anybody who thinks it would is a danger to themselves and others.
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a quick and easy fix, then I’m afraid you’re right out of luck. Life’s harsh like that.
rayceeya @ 23:
And if you listen to a particular Howard Stern show backwards, you can hear the words “Trump is dead, don’t miss him, don’t miss him.”
It wasn’t so long ago that someone fantasizing about committing violence would have had regular commenters, and proprietors, come down on them like a ton of bricks. How times, and apparently guiding principles, change.
Akira MacKenzie @26: About those of us who do condemn you as an eliminationist; after you’ve killed, imprisoned or “otherwise silenced” the right-wingers, you can get rid of us in your very own Great Purge. Can’t have wimpy flower children moping about the place, harshing the revolutionary fervour, can we?
A few things about the F-35…
“That would be approximately one, if we’re talking about life cycle cost ($300-ish million each, versus the often quoted “flyaway” cost which is much less, or about $120 million each for the B and C variants). Flyaway cost is what it costs to “build one more” and does not include program R&D, upgrades, maintenance, etc. We have already purchased over 300 of these money pits, or perhaps better to say “DoD welfare units”.
The F-35 program cost is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion over its lifetime.”
You’re not wrong, but there are other elements worth considering. Firstly, though people malign the F-35 for its controversial, protracted, and expensive development period, its life cycle is not at all unusual with aerospace projects in general, and fighter planes in particular. The F-15 was the subject of much the same rhetoric, and people at the time considered it an over-engineered boondoggle. It turned out to be of the most capable (and economical) combat airframes in aviation history. Further, despite the F-35’s high per-unit cost, it is far, far more versatile and efficient than the legacy planes it replaces. Take a hypothetical strike mission on an Iranian nuke plant. In addition to the craft you need to actually put munitions on the target, you need: air superiority cover (F-18], reconnaissance (AWACS), suppression of air defences (F-15), jamming (Growler), along with ground forces and the aircraft to perform CAS for them (A-10 at the moment). Your simple, single-target strike now involves dozens of expensive, highly specialized aircraft all working in tandem, not to mention the dozens of pilots putting their lives on the line in (at times) totally defenceless aircraft. The F-35 can do each of the above, simultaneously, often with greater efficacy than specialized aircraft (within limits). A strike mission with 80 aircraft at 60 mil apiece has now turned into six aircraft at 130 mil apiece. You do the math.
“Another unnerving thing about his remarks on the F-35…he seems to think that modern air-to-air combat is conducted the same way it was in WW2. I’m not even sure if the F-35 has guns. It’s going to be doing combat with heat and radar seeking missiles, mostly fired from beyond visual range. That’s if we’re in a fight with another country that has opposing aircraft by the time the F-35s arrive on the scene, let alone ones that can even engage with a modern, “front line” fighter.”
They do have guns, or rather a single five-barreled gun. I believe they only carry roughly 170 rounds, enough for about a four-second squirt of gunfire, but they do exist. This is mostly a legacy of the spectre of Vietnam hanging over the Air Force, who flew their Phantoms straight at enemy MiGs with zero onboard guns figuring that guns were obsolete in the age of guided missiles. They were horribly mistaken, took heavy losses for it, and their solutions over the coming years were haphazard and ineffective (gun pods that would misalign themselves from their own recoil force, rendering them useless). Anyways, you’re right in that air combat is very different from WW2, but aircraft guns have been remarkably stubborn in the face of retirement. Additionally, there are indeed other aircraft on the horizon that could put the F-35’s capabilities at risk, mostly Russian and Chinese designs, but for several reasons they would be hopelessly mismatched against American planes.
Finally, @PZ Myers, I agree that Trump has the understanding of a child in this subject, but despite the fact that this isn’t Wonder Woman’s invisible jet… it pretty much is the next best thing. There have been many instances, both in war games and actual confrontations, of these planes sneaking right up on opposing jets, only dozens of metres away, without their pilots even noticing. This would be utterly impossible with legacy planes. I think he took buzzwords from his generals at face-value and started dreaming of invasion forces made of dotted-line death-planes. Then he forgot what he was doing and ordered in some McDonald’s.
Whew, that got long…
wingnut @39: In addition to having an obscenely inflated development cost, the F-35 requires far, far more maintenance per plane than the jets it’s supposed to replace. A “superior” aircraft that’s stuck in the hanger is very inferior to the jet that can actually fly.
If that were all the F-35’s issues, it would be bad enough. But because it was intended to be a single airframe that could do everything, it got crammed full of compromises and thus can’t do anything well. It’s got a shorter linger time, a smaller ordnance loadout, less armor (meaning that it can’t provide close air support), and a ridiculous system of using its fuel supply as lubricant (making it more prone to fires as well as loss of control in the event that it runs out of fuel and the pilot needs to try and glide before ejecting).
And while it does have a 25mm autocannon, the targeting software package for it was flawed, so the gun couldn’t actually be used. A patch was supposed to be implemented several months ago, but I haven’t heard anything about it actually having been delivered.
Sad article in Huffington Post about the plans you can get under Trumpcare. The premiums for the original plans (Obamacare) will rise, and the new Trumpcare plans’ premiums will be lower than the current plans. So let’s all switch to Trumpcare!
The tradeoff is Trumpcare doesn’t cover prescriptions and they can deny you for preexisting conditions and drop you if you have a large claim. Anyone who happens to get cancer while “covered” by Trumpcare will eventually—literally—be covered by a sheet.
microraptor @40
Sorry if I’m derailing the thread but…
“In addition to having an obscenely inflated development cost, the F-35 requires far, far more maintenance per plane than the jets it’s supposed to replace. A “superior” aircraft that’s stuck in the hanger is very inferior to the jet that can actually fly.”
Much of the work being done over the past decades has been improving logistical efficiency, and it shows. Streamlining of maintenance and parts commonality have made huge gains toward reducing costs. Also, advanced flight simulators were part of the initial appeal, as now a much higher proportion of a pilot’s training can be done on the ground, avoiding premature aging of airframes. I would argue that, in 5 years, the F-35 will be one of the most economical planes around in terms of maintenance costs (do remember that this isn’t a B-2 with their special climate-controlled hangars and fragile stealth coating).
“If that were all the F-35’s issues, it would be bad enough. But because it was intended to be a single airframe that could do everything, it got crammed full of compromises and thus can’t do anything well. It’s got a shorter linger time, a smaller ordnance loadout, less armor (meaning that it can’t provide close air support), and a ridiculous system of using its fuel supply as lubricant (making it more prone to fires as well as loss of control in the event that it runs out of fuel and the pilot needs to try and glide before ejecting).”
Can’t do anything well? I challenge you strongly on that. In all recent war games, it has flown circles around US and allied assets, and has regularly flown its sorties with zero losses. Read pilot testimonials on both sides; they are very revealing. The examples you list seem to be geared for CAS. While the F-35 can do CAS, it also seems like you’re trying to compare it to the A-10 (armour, loadout, loiter). People love the A-10 because it carries dozens of missiles, is armoured with titanium, has a GIGANTIC gun… but it is utterly useless in today’s battlefield. It’s far, far too slow and conspicuous for high intensity combat, and in any other situation a drone can do more for a lot cheaper. Also, not sure why you mention the lubricant thing when all control surfaces are actuated electrically, and the plane can maneuver just fine even with bingo fuel since it has backup batteries to articulate them (other planes use the engine compressor to drive hydraulics: no power, no control.)
I do agree with you on the gun issue, though. If it were up to me, it would have no cannon at all; in my opinion they are the product of aging, paranoid brass who fear Vietnam 2.0. Drop the cannon and use the space for more AESA elements.
Laurian @#12:
Most people do. Exept that’s not at all what happened.
Rather more than that, I would think, if whichever side is losing has some nukes.
BTW: Akira Mackenzie, fuck off, you total roaster (see definition 7).
Rob Grigjanis @ 38:
It’s not me, but the Right-Wing pigs who don’t care about your misplaced devotion to nonviolence you should worry about. Thet don’t care that you’re passive They don’t care you’re commited to peace, love,Tbe Beatles, and marajuna..
I know! Maybe you should send a Dharmic Karmic vibration out into the universe, and the ghost of Thoreau, MLK, or Ghandi will come down and stop the fascist’s bullets from reaching you. Or maybe they’ll rapture you up to Hippie Nirvana. Repeat after me: ” Oooooooooooooom. Oooooooooooom…”
KG @ 44:g other t
Right back at ya. If you’re not willing to do somethinhan wave signs and chant tired slogans at capitalists or theocrats, then perhaps you shouldn’t complain about what they’re doing to the world. Because, right now, writing your congressperson or posting to Twitter aint working.
The only thing the Right understand is violence. They aren’t going to listen to reason.
I swear, the 1960s-70s and the Counter Culture was the WORST thing to happen to the Left. It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re a bunch of hippie-dippy, New Age, space cadets who’d rather let the Right walk all over them than get their hands a little bloody.
Lykex:
You’ve taken this really strange, weak-sauce, no-ideas sort of stance before, and asked this same sort of question, when others were proposing violence (don’t remember the exact thread, splashing water on crytpo-Nazis or some bullshit)…. You don’t seem nearly as virulent as the people who somehow gained your sympathies, so here’s to hoping it might not be a total waste of my time to respond.
Let me ask you to consider what we ought to mean by the notion of a plan which “actually works.” Seriously, what’s that mean? That is, not what you think you meant by it when you wrote this, not what you think you’ve been told that you’re supposed to say, not the first thing that comes to mind; rather, what if anything it should mean, for real this time. Be a bit idealistic, if only for a few moments, and think carefully about how it should be. What kinds of outcomes would suffice? It’s awfully vague right now, as I’m sure you realize, and I ask this as an entirely sincere question.
It would be absurdly simplistic (but not out of the ordinary) to write something to the effect that “my side wins and the other loses,” but that is clearly not a way to guarantee a good outcome, which is what you should have been aiming for. Ask yourself if that is what you require of a plan which “works,” whether that is really enough to ask of a person/group who might attempt to carry it out somehow. If it were as silly as what I just described, it should (no matter what) be one in which you personally “win,” aren’t at risk of anything, won’t have to worry, won’t have to think too much or work too hard or too long…. The problem is not with you, or those resembling a good person, but with somebody who is different and is therefore bad, so more or less everything is only expected of them and not you. In general, it is conceived in a more or less self-centered and completely myopic way. You just do what you-the-good-person had been doing all along, it makes no difference at all what happens to “the bad guys,” etc. In the end, it’s not actually about what’s good or fair or anything close to that, only which things will benefit you and cost you as little as possible (thus making it “practical” in the most Orwellian sense you can conjure up).
I take it that it shouldn’t be simply a matter of being good for you or for me. We need it to be fair. An “eye for an eye” sort of approach is not even close to being on the right track — for the time being, I’ll take it as perfectly obvious why that is the case.
I still haven’t given you a direct answer, of course…. I contend that it is not a practical possibility to get an outcome that should make you entirely satisfied and carefree about the state of the world. There will still be dangers and risks and distress and so forth. There will be hate and ignorance and confusion and stupidity and thoughtlessness and selfishness and all of the rest. There will be violence, against people like you, people like me, and against every other sort of person that there is. If you’re not comfortable with such shit, that is of course the right sort of attitude to have. You’d be doing something wrong, if that were how you felt about the real world we live in.
So, “not working so well” is more or less what you should expect things to be like for the rest of your life. Sorry if I’m the bearer of bad news, but your hope/optimism/whatever need a huge reality-check if you don’t already accept that. You’ve got a reason to adjust your plans accordingly: start looking for ones that don’t “actually work” in this bizarre sense that evidently isn’t getting you anywhere (not least in terms of justifying whatever plans you do manage to come up with). It would still be a good start to narrow your options down to those which don’t require that you are doing horrible things yourself. That’s about as simple and as obvious as it gets; and there isn’t a rational position you could try to adopt (although you seem to believe so), according to which deranged expressions of bloodlust like Akira’s are somehow on the same moral footing as that. Don’t even try to pretend that they are — maybe recognizing that’s a good first step. Anyway, there are tons of alternatives. Take your pick of them, invent more of them if you like, let a thousand flowers bloom, etc. Something more specific about which exact sorts of problems you’re trying to address would allow for more specifics in terms of answers, but there’s still no coherent reason to think resorting to violence would make it any better. You’d need a severe lack of imagination to think that sort of “plan” has some potential, that it’s even worth mentioning given all of the non-violent approaches that are on the table.
Not that it will help Akira, but it may be worth highlighting this mindset for others:
And I don’t care that they (and you) don’t care about such things, nor should I.
You sharing your worldview and your priorities with them (even if you don’t recognize that fact), accepting it uncritically, believing they must be right about any such thing (possibly, in pure capitalist/authoritarian style, because they’re supposedly “winning”), is a good sign that you’ve completely lost of the fucking plot. You’re also pointing out (unwittingly) that we have incompatible goals, so getting our advice from you would be the last thing we should consider, unless you actually presented reasons why we’re mistaken to have them. But with your head up your ass and all, this sort of thing may not occur to you. So you don’t even fucking bother to try reasoning with us about it; you just deliver the usual nonsense that takes right wing horseshit at face value and treats it like it were leftism, because you may not even know what it is.
consciousness razor;
My priorities are atheism, socialism, and eliminating racism, capitalism, religion and believe in the supernatural, sexism, and homophobia. I’m sorry that pachouli oil and tie-dyeing don’t figure into my idea of a Leftist utopia. However, having come from a right-wing upbringing, I have a much better insight in capitalistic and theists than most life-long Leftists.
I can tell you this. They aren’t impressed by your protest, your placards, or your passive-resistance. If anything they think it’s hilarious. Of course, you may say you don’t care that they don’t care, but you better. They’ve been hoping for decades for the chance to get ride of the “commies” out to burn the flag, mix the races, and take away their guns and Bibles, and Trump is just the President who’d let them do it.
Nonviolence just makes you and easier target for the death squads, and the only thing a dead activist is capable of is rotting. You can’t change the world when you’re dead.
Don’t be. Be sorry that you actually think any of that matters. I guess in your mind you think you’re making a point with any of this, but in fact you’re not.
(We’re not in the 60s anymore, by the way.)
I doubt you know much of anything about most life-long leftists.
But sure, whatever, you’re totally special. Nonetheless, renowned authorities such as yourself still need to give reasons for believing and doing things, just like the rest of us. Even if what your kind should do is bring down from the mountaintop the truth entrusted to them, in an act of benevolence toward lesser beings such as myself, it’s usually understood that it will somehow or another make its way to us eventually. I notice that you’re not doing any shit like that, just fucking ranting at us … seems like you’re full of shit.
Still not a coherent argument for anything. Is this supposed The Secret™ that the most of us supposedly don’t know? I mean, you’re the expert here … if it’s not that, then what the fuck do you think it might be?
You can’t make it better by murdering people. Changing it isn’t enough, asshole. How fucking hard is that to understand?
When was the last time you saw a dead Republican discriminate against blacks and gays?
When was the last time a dead capitalist exploit workers and poison the environment?
When did the last dead MRA rape or sexual harass a women?
When has a dead Bible-fucker been able to spread lies and superstition?
Akira @51: Probably pointless, but I suggest you take a deep breath, and read and think about what Dunc wrote @36. You’re in a dark place. Maybe step away for a while, for your own good.
BTW, I hate marijuana, and I’m not devoted to nonviolence. But pogroms, killing fields and bloodbaths never end well for anyone.
Akira Mackenzie,
You should at least realize that someone serious about violent revolution – as opposed to a self-indulgent poseur and mewler like you – would not be posting calls for violence in a public forum, at least until they had good reason to believe that call would meet a widespread welcome among the masses. You are simply indulging the hatred for others produced by your own conviction of inadequacy. It’s sad, and as far as that goes, I’m sorry for you, but it’s also contemptible – and any real revolutionary movement would find it so, and would be careful not to tell you anything of their plans.
After some time to cool down and think about things, I want to apologize for my behavior and my comments. Current events have been really stressful for me lately and I feel incredibly helpless in face of the national stupidity before us. I want to fight. I want to break things. I want to tear down the flawed system and build something better without right-wingers screwing things up.