Geoff > Status Update

On a morning where even the right-wing Brookings Institute is worried about the long-term effects of increasingly inequality in America (they point the finger at the 20% rather than the 1% or the 1% of the 1%), this article on Neo-Nazism in the US scared the bejeezus out of me: https://www.theguardian.com/world/201.... [BTW: it was hard to find this thread again, had to scroll for eons, is there an easier way?] Oh, and David, watched the 1st debate and Teresa May's adjutant Amber Rudd is even more scary!

W.D. wrote: ".On a morning where even the right-wing Brookings Institute is worried about the long-term effects of increasingly inequality in America (they point the finger at the 20% rather than the 1% or the 1% of the 1%), this article on Neo-Nazism in the US scared the bejeezus out of me: https://www.theguardian.com/world/201....

Given that the US has just elected Donald Trump, it would have been surprising to hear that Nazism was not on the rise. Unfortunately.

Manny wrote: "...But hey, I don't want to offend any Buddhists who happen to be reading this. I know, all life is sacred and it is not for us to decide who lives and who dies..."

You may have confused Buddhism for Islam here.

Well, one of those non-Christian religions that spread terrorism behind a misleading facade of advocating peace and love. They're all pretty much the same aren't they?

Zadignose wrote: "You may have confused Buddhism for Islam here. "

Yeah, the monks in Myanmar and Sri lanka are a shining example of how much devout Buddhists value non-violence and sanctity of life.

Jimmy wrote: "The country is like a big dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, every day is Thanksgiving."

This wins the internet.

Hadrian wrote: "A few days later, Trump got his revenge. He proclaimed from the Rose Garden, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”."

Did you see the follow-up where the mayor of Pittsburgh claimed they voted 80% for Clinton?

http://www.politifact.com/pennsylvani...

Mayor of London: "Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. No reason to be alarmed."

And Trump tweets: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed'!

Fuck you.

Yeah, he really managed to be obnoxious from all directions there, didn't he? Not only is he exploiting the tragedy to promote his own brand of race-hatred, he's not even doing it in the reassuring Iron Fist of the State Will Make You Safe way that Theresa May is attempting. Left-wingers can hate the core message; right-wingers can hate the way that rather than welcoming a police clampdown he instead implies it's pointless and a sign of failure; and apoliticals can hate the fact he's an arsehole.

Truly, he is a wonderful uniter.
[now wants to hear Trump recite the St Francis/Thatcher speech...]

A far right crackhead butchers two people on a train and Trump responds with the silence of a graveyard. Mayor of London gives assurances to people after the attack and Trump gets a fit of verbal diarrhea.

He is not interested in fighting terrorism, or he wouldn't be kissing Saudi ass a couple of weeks ago. His only purpose is to whip up mass hysteria and not sit until there are riots and people are at each other's throats. That's what that frigging buffoon wants, so he can tell his voters how right he was.

This looks good. Very, very good.

https://www.ft.com/content/d50a9332-4...

I had argued for new elections soon after the Brexit. The mood was different at the time. Cameron had done an honourable by resigning and a snap election would further cement Tory support and gain them new seats. But I was told that there would be no election and that the Tories would complete their term.

Tories shot themselves in the foot twice in two years. They are a consummate mess. Do they still want to rule? Imagine a Tory-SNP coalition looool

Labour's surprise gains are completely down to Corbyn as their leader. The same Corbyn who was hounded by the Blairite pack of dogs not so long ago.

Tories are stupid.

The third way is dead.

Corbyn is the man.

UKIP got no seats. That makes me happy.

May's "cunning plan" completely backfired. That makes me happy.

In my traditionally Tory area, the result is so close that they have done 3 recounts already and we probably won't know until Saturday if Labour have actually won it. The fact it is this close is enough to make me happy on its own. Kensington and Chelsea possibly turning red. Never would have thought it.

What fun. Plus I like saying "hung parliament". Sounds sexy.

https://twitter.com/samknight1/status...

All I have to say is that Trump is the biggest moron in the history of morons! He has absolutely no clue what he is doing....other than the fact that he knows how to make everyone hysterical.

David wrote: "https://twitter.com/samknight1/status..."

That is just perfect. Thanks for that. He totally knows what we are thinking too. Look at that cheeky face.

Catherine wrote: "All I have to say is that Trump is the biggest moron in the history of morons! He has absolutely no clue what he is doing....other than the fact that he knows how to make everyone hysterical."

Thinking back to Kurt Vonnegut's classic Sirens of Titan, is it possible that Trump is doing the Martian Invasion thing? A large part of the world is now on the way to uniting against him and accelerating their renewable energy programs, just because he's such an offensive buffoon. It works in the novel.

Manny wrote: "Catherine wrote: "All I have to say is that Trump is the biggest moron in the history of morons! He has absolutely no clue what he is doing....other than the fact that he knows how to make everyone..."

Well...having not read "Sirens of Titan", I can't say. But I agree that he is an offensive baboon!!!

Jonathan wrote: "UKIP got no seats. That makes me happy.

May's "cunning plan" completely backfired. That makes me happy.

In my traditionally Tory area, the result is so close that they have done 3 recounts alre..."

On the one hand, yay for the Tories being humiliated. On the other boo for the Tories still winning. Yay for the ridiculously high youth vote (72% for under-25s higher than the overall average). Boo for the return to two-party politics - LDs, UKIP, Greens, SNP all lost votes (though the LDs, with their traditional cunning, gained seats).

Boo also for the utter chaos and the prospect of yet another bloody election in a couple of months (it'll be the fifth in just over two years for most of the country). And for the ominous rumbles that are Boris waking up and scenting a prospective leadership election...

So Ms May is building a coalition with Ulster Unionists? lolwut?

If the Tories can't convince the party that came third, then the ethical thing would be to back off and give Labour a chance to form a coalition.

But May should go. She's delusional if she thinks she can still play Maggie 2.0

And most importantly, imagine her going into Brexit talks with a weaker position. Open hunting season for the EU guys.

Jibran wrote: "So Ms May is building a coalition with Ulster Unionists? lolwut?"

Exercise for the student: if an informal coalition between the Conservatives and the Ulster Unionists with a combined majority of 6 is 'strong and stable', what would 'weak and unstable' look like?

Manny wrote: "Exercise for the student: if an informal coalition between the Conservatives and the Ulster Unionists with a combined majority of 6 is 'strong and stable', what would 'weak and unstable' look like? "

Anything that keeps May in power is 'strong and stable!'

Wastrel wrote: "Boo also ..."

Oh absolutely. This is a complete car crash. Absolute chaos. But we will see where we are in a year's time - it may be something positive can be salvaged in the long run.

I also think of the most likely alternative result (May with an increased majority) and cannot be anything but happy that that did not occur...

Plus the DUP are fucking awful. Denying Climate Change? Tick. Anti-abortion? Tick. Don't believe in LGBT rights etc? Tick. Oppose same sex marriage? Tick. Want return of death penalty? Tick.

Jonathan wrote: "Wastrel wrote: "Boo also ..."

Oh absolutely. This is a complete car crash. Absolute chaos. But we will see where we are in a year's time - it may be something positive can be salvaged in the long ..."

Oh absolutely. And for a bit there it was looking like the other extreme would be possible too - if the Tories had done a bit worse, we'd have been left in a situation where effectively no government could have been formed, and while tories doing badly is obviously good, nobody would have benefited from a total breakdown.

Jibran: by convention, the plurality party has the first opportunity to form a government. May could do that quickly, so there was no need to give Corbyn a chance (although I'm sure Labour have been making phonecalls behind the scene nonetheless).

In reality, though, Tory-DUP is probably the only possibility. Labour are just far too far behind. Labour+SNP+PC+Greens would still have been short of a majority. Sinn Fein don't take their seats (which is also why the working majority is actually iirc 12 rather than 6). That means Corbyn wouldn't just have to ally all the progressive parties, he'd also have to do a deal with the DUP, who are further right than the Tories, and that's just not happening.

On a point of pedantry, also note: this won't be a coalition (the DUP won't have ministers, for instance). Instead, this will be a tory minority government. It could be through a formal 'confidence and supply' arrangement (the DUP agree to vote for her in motions of confidence and budget bills, allowing her to remain PM), but it sounds like it may be an more informal arrangement, with the PM having to beg the DUP for help on a vote-by-vote basis.

May has reacted by celebrating the historic, decisive victory, which she considers a resounding mandate for her policies, and which has returned "certainty" to the country. Possibly certainty that she's lost her marbles?

Jonathan wrote: "Plus the DUP are fucking awful. Denying Climate Change? Tick. Anti-abortion? Tick. Don't believe in LGBT rights etc? Tick. Oppose same sex marriage? Tick. Want return of death penalty? Tick."

If it weren't for the fact that they used to be even worse, the DUP are literally the worst. It's hard to find any issue where they aren't on the wrong side.

Next time I need to explain to someone what "being in denial" means, I'll have the perfect example just ready to roll out.

The Republic of Ireland has made great progress on liberal issues but it is difficult to imagine that Northern Irish electorate are so regressive that they voted in a party such as DUP.

Can anyone briefly explain what makes DUP so popular in their Irish enclave?

I'm not an expert on NI, but I'd offer four suggestions:

- the Protestant community in NI was always one of the most fundamentalist, conservative Protestant communities in the UK - about half of them are hardline Presbyterians. The DUP's founder was not just a Presbyterian, but the Moderator of a breakaway, even-more-conservative Presbyterian sect.

- the religious polarisation triggered by the War of Independence and, the mass migration of Protestants to the North that followed, and the subsequent decades of sectarian divide and civil war, have made religion an incredibly salient social cleavage and part of individuals' identities in a way that's not been the case in most of the rest of Western Europe. This hasn't prevented the decline in religiosity seen across Europe (and beyond), but it has slowed it. So while hardline Protestantism in places like, say, Wales, has faded from power, it's remained much more relevent in Ulster.

- the DUP were at one stage the smaller political faction in the unionist political sphere, just as Sinn Fein was a minority faction in the nationalist sphere. However, under David Trimble and John Hume, the UUP and the SDLP came to an agreement to end the civil war (the Good Friday Agreement), and both parties have been almost wiped out as a consequence. The DUP strongly opposed the Good Friday Agreement, and severely criticised the UUP for being willing to work with Catholics in the northern ireland assembly. As a result they have essentially replaced the more centrist UUP, just as Sinn Fein (who did accept the Agreement but remained more hardline and associated with the IRA) have replaced the SDLP.

- in general, the enormous salience of the issues of Catholic vs Protestant and peace vs war have, as it were, "frozen" the political arena in Northern Ireland as regards other issues. Because other issues have been drowned out, and because the government there is so dysfunctional it rarely has to actually do anything meaningful, the parties have been able to maintain positions that would have been long ago abandoned elsewhere. On the unionist side, that's seen in the power of evangelical religious conservativism; on the nationalist side, it's reflected in the hard-left stances of both Sinn Fein and the SDLP (the nationalist platform traditionally combined nationalism with communism, or at least hardline socialism).

Possible takeaway from the past year: Machiavellian intrigue is overrated; the way to win power is to have a clear message that appeals to a lot of people; 'electability' may be a metaphysical prejudice of the media class.

The Jacobin for the win:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/06/je...

I think the biggest political-campaign message of recent times is the necessity of building a campaign message founded on hope. You need to tell people that things are going to get better. What we saw from May, from Clinton, from Remain, from Goldsmith in London etc, was extremly negative campaigning - don't vote for the other side or bad things will happen. Trump, Leave, Corbyn and Khan, on the other hand, were all offering essentially hopeful, feel-good messages of renewal and fraternity (even if their target audiences, and hence their scapegoats) were different. As a result, those elections were all marked by a big gap in enthusiasm, which lead to one side failing to achieve the vote levels that they 'ought' to have been capable of.

In some ways, Trump seems to have surpassed Crosby at his own game: Trump's dead cats are, as the theory goes, thrown on the table to grab the conversation, whereas Crosby seems to have forgotten his own theory and is just throwing dead cats directly at the opposition...

I cannot believe Labour won Kensington and Chelsea. That is absolutely insane and wonderful. Am very glad I managed to make
it to the polling station...only 20 votes in it!

Jonathan, thank you for your critical vote!

What a fantastic outcome. May called an unnecessary election on the spurious ground of needing a mandate. She ran the election on the basis of her strong and stable leadership then gloriously crashed and burned. Poetic.

Mays refusal to engage and her arrogant sense of entitlement meant that she got her just desserts. It is but a matter of time before the men in grey adults tasks her into a back room and present her with a bejewelled revolver.

Corbyn exceeded expectations and ran a positive campaign. Though as a reality check labour should perhaps have won against the most disastrous campaign since mark ostend libdem leadership bid. One positive is that more Tory sestrs are now in play for the inevitable re-run. Amber rudd anyone?

Suits. Oaten. Bugger spellcheck

Jonathan wrote: "I cannot believe Labour won Kensington and Chelsea. That is absolutely insane and wonderful. Am very glad I managed to make
it to the polling station...only 20 votes in it!"

Labour seem to have had 10% surges across the board in west london. As well as losing both Kensington and Battersea, and also Twickenham to the LDs (and how often does a seat change hands and the new party instantly have a 15 point margin of safety!?), they held Putney (Justine Greening) by only 1,500, London and Westminster by only 3,200. Wimbledon's probably safe for now (about 5,000, or another 10% surge needed), but Chelsea's the only really secure-looking seat for them anywhere in that part of the world (8,000, or nearly 20%). In the north of London too - Finchley's down to less than 2,000 votes (a couple of percent). 1,000 in Hendon and only 300 in Chipping Barnet.

The disappointment of course is that Odious Zac managed to weasel his way back in Richmond, taking the seat back from the Liberals (in hindsight, was May taking Zac's suicidal pointless byelection there as a model?). But they only hold it by under 50 votes, so he probably shouldn't get too comfortable...

@Wastrel, thanks for explaining the situation in Northern Ireland. I know about the bitter disputes that divide people in NI, but now I understand how it translates into DUP getting a hold on the electorate.

Hey how many of you GOODTIME BROS are hittin' up the MARCH AGAINST SHARIA rallies all across this good ol' FREEDOM LOVIN' USA this god blessed day? Sharia Law is MY #1 FEAR AND CONCERN these days - which is totally rational and not insane at all! The midwest is BOUND TO FALL AT ANY MOMENT TO SHARIA DICTATORSHIPS THAT WILL COVER UP MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE LOREEN's tattoos of snakes and beer cans and roses with one of those SATAN BURKAS! And then all Christian churches will be burned and we'll be enslaved forever. THIS ALL MAKES SENSE WE HAVE TO PROTEST SHARIA TODAY! I'm pretty sure I saw a Muslim in the parking lot of WALMART not too long ago AND I SHIT MYSELF IN TERROR! They's comin' after mah babies etc.

Geoff wrote: "Hey how many of you GOODTIME BROS are hittin' up the MARCH AGAINST SHARIA rallies all across this good ol' FREEDOM LOVIN' USA this god blessed day? Sharia Law is MY #1 FEAR AND CONCERN these days -..."

Here's why

https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-...



Stats/facts rarely correspond with mass public perceptions of threat.

Jibran wrote: "Geoff wrote: "Hey how many of you GOODTIME BROS are hittin' up the MARCH AGAINST SHARIA rallies all across this good ol' FREEDOM LOVIN' USA this god blessed day? Sharia Law is MY #1 FEAR AND CONCER..."

Excellent article, thank you!

Oh good, Jeremy Hunt is keeping his job as Secretary of State for Health!

...obviously I don't actually think that's a good thing. I just wanted the chance to say one of those sentences that would otherwise never be said by any single human being in the entire history of the species.

Geoff wrote: "Hey how many of you GOODTIME BROS are hittin' up the MARCH AGAINST SHARIA rallies all across this good ol' FREEDOM LOVIN' USA this god blessed day? Sharia Law is MY #1 FEAR AND CONCERN these days -..."

There was an anti-Muslim rally in San Jose yesterday, and a counter-protest put on by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (and cosponsered by ISO). I attended the latter and we outnumbered the bigots by about 15 to 1.

No disrespect to anarchist friends, but I think this is probably the way to do it. Better to build a coalition to outnumber the fascists than to start a fight you can't win.

Wastrel wrote: "I think the biggest political-campaign message of recent times is the necessity of building a campaign message founded on hope. You need to tell people that things are going to get better. What we ..."

Agreed. It makes no sense to keep trying to triangulate to the least worst position. This means politicians are actually going to have to start standing for something positive.

The odds of an election or a resignation this year are largely reduced only because either might stave off the other.

[on the one hand: they don't want an election with May as their leaer, which means they can't have an election until they've replaced her, which will take the summer at the least. And possibly more, because a lot of them don't want to signal weakness right now and would rather let things calm a little before backstabbing her. And maybe after they've replaced her, the new leader won't want fresh elections!

on the other hand: if they can't get the DUP deal to work, or if backbenchers rebel (apparently even some Remainer cabinet ministers have been talking with Remainer Labour MPs to backstab the Brexiteers), then there will have to be elections. At which point they won't be able to replace May until after the elections, and if she survives the elections it'll be harder to replace her afterwards, I would think.)

Let's just say: I'd be surprised if this time next year there hasn't been a general election and/or a tory leadership election. I wouldn't be shocked - if May can get this deal with the DUP working somehow, and can then use the threat of Brexit and/or fresh elections to force her troops not to rock the boat, then this situation could endure a few years (though she'll almost certainly be done away with before the next general election i that case) - but I'd be surprised.

I'm having trouble seeing how she'll keep things together once the Brexit negotiations start. There will be intense disagreement between the hard-Brexit and Remain factions in her party, and she won't be able to please everyone - that's why she decided she had to get an increased majority, even though it was a risky move. Now she has no majority at all, and Corbyn smells blood. He'll bring her down first chance he gets.

How can it possibly work? This may be the first time I've ever agreed with George Osborne, but looks to me like Dead Woman Walking.

Gonna be honest and swallow my hatred to say good on Trump for this. This kid is from my neck of the woods. Hope that he can recover and live a normal life once he's back, however, it doesn't sound good:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...

My thoughts are with the victims of the shootings at the GOP baseball practice in Arlington this morning. Too many thoughts for too many victims these days...

"President Trump described the attack as a "very, very brutal assault. We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because, above all, they love our country," he added."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-cana...

Aww that's so understanding of you, Trump. I'm just imagining the hysteria you would have whipped up if the attacker had been the wrong type. Since he is called Hodgkinson and belongs to a right race, the poor sod must have been having some mental issues.

It crossed my mind to wonder why the late Mr Hodgkinson so badly wanted to kill some Republican politicians. Call me naive, but it seemed possible that this crime was, well, political in nature.