USPOL Fall: Biden the hand that feeds you

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Fall: Biden the hand that feeds you

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

Dammerung posted:

Of course, I'm not saying that they should continue to wield any power over anybody else, or that helping them should be our top priority. To be quite frank, whatever suffering they have gone through as a result of their work is considerable, but is utterly insignificant to the pain felt by the families torn apart by, starved in, deprived within, and in some cases, killed by our concentration camps. At the same point in time, I don't want to give up on everybody involved with the DHS either. The actions of ICE are monstrous, but I don't believe it's staffed entirely by monsters. Maybe I'm just too weak to believe that, I dunno, I just don't want to give up before trying to some extent. We don't have to pick and choose: obviously the victims are going to need far more help instantly, but I think we can eventually get around to everybody if we really try.

So I'm going to explain a phrase that's used occasionally around here, but rarely fully explained. That's ACAB, or all cops are bastards.

I personally make the distinction between the cop as a position and the cop as a person. Now the cop as a person I personally have no comment on. They might be a bad person, a good person, a regular person or some mix of the three because people are complicated.

When I say ACAB, I talk about the cop as position, part of an institution and the position that enforces violence on behalf of the state. The position forces the person into ugly situations where they must choose to participate in some sort of violence or at least tacitly accept it. If they don't, they will be ostracized. This is why I don't say that all people who want to be cops start off as bad people. They can make the choice to leave. Some stay for what they feel are the right reasons, to be the good ones. The problem is that the longer you stay a cop, the likelihood of you compromising your morals accelerates towards 100%. You view the public not as people to take care of as you careen from one bad day or one bad night to another, often the worst day or night of a person's life, but it wears on you. A full 40% of police officers beat their significant others. White supremacists infiltrate in high numbers to gain power over marginalized people. Non-white cops will often be more violent than white cops because they'll feel a need to fit in. Cops will lie as a matter of course to get convictions, occasionally beat and generally vent cruelty on the people they are supposedly there to protect. Racism, sexism and homophobia will be de rigueur.

I will say that I've met one good cop in my life. The county he patrolled was so underpopulated that he was almost always the only cop on duty, though on occasion he'd meet up with cops from other counties if he needed help. He was responsible for several hundred people and most of them were armed, many of them heavily. So his approach to keep from getting his rear end killed was to get to know people, even the criminals, because his relationship with them was what protected him. He had no backup. It was his relationships and to an extent his position that kept him safe, not his access to state violence. If he bullied people, he'd likely be run out of the county in time or shot to death. He worked out of a post office that was also the police office. He was it for twelve hours out of the day. Good guy as far as cops go.

What he lacked were other cops. That culture. He was it and so it was up to him. But for many departments, they're little more than an armed, racist gang. Chicago, Boston, NYC, ABQ, lots of problematic departments because the culture is hosed. And these are a class of people that not only can kill you on a whim, but you cannot resist them for fear that they might kill you. Their training is low in terms of hours, the lowest being about 300 hours in Louisiana, with the average around 500 to 600. They do and see hosed up things constantly. They deal with hosed up situations. They deal with hosed up people. That permanent position wears on them. And these are also the people who are sanctioned by the state with power over life and death as well as the power to incarcerate. A man who does horrible things can be fired, but often enough they're transferred to another department. One of the bad ones.

I'd suggest taking a look at this youtube video which does a good job of explaining what I just said in better terms if you're interested in why cops are bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk5xnEL8mYg

Now border patrol? Imagine taking the worst cops who have the worst impulses and concentrating them into a system that regularly disappears children and we still don't know where the teenage girls are that are captured, which is supremely hosed up in its implications. They've been caught making people drink out of toilets. The people they watch over are horrifically starved and dirty, exposed to the elements. There are other parts of ICE that do good work tracking human traffickers, but again, the normal parts of ICE kidnap children to give to other people. That's not only human trafficking, but literally one of the definitions for genocide. So you have the majority of the workers in ICE doing what the ICE investigators are investigating.

Add stuff like literally half of them in a facebook group that regularly posted racist and sexist memes and openly delighting in cruelty, the fact that they're so awful that their crimes were literally stopped being recorded and a rapist giving children AIDS through rape and you end up with what I fully to believe to be akin to no poo poo SS Nazis. They are explicitly terrible people and if someone somehow makes it through the approval process and doesn't flee in the first few weeks, they are explicitly bad people too.

Your empathy for these people is misplaced. Good cops quit, but good ICE agents shouldn't even make it through the training process.

VorpalBunny posted:

All I can think of is that family of alt-right shitbirds. You just can't make this stuff up. (second article for clarity, that's a doozy of a timeline to keep track of)

To end this on a lighter note, if you want to laugh, go check out these links. The leader cheated on his wife with his mother-in-law and their entire movement broke up.

Cat tex.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Nov 11, 2019

# ? Nov 11, 2019 07:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:08

MSDOS KAPITAL: Jun 25, 2018

bird cooch posted:

Oh come on.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 07:30

predicto: Jul 22, 2004; THE DEM DEFENDER HAS LOGGED ON

A GIANT PARSNIP posted:

Gonna take this page 1,002 opportunity to say gently caress Donald Trump.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 08:51

Kit Walker: Jul 10, 2010; "The Man Who Cannot Deadlift"

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1193627279106039808

When we elected President ILoveDoingCrimesAllTheTime, he bragged often about his many crimes and how he loved doing them. And now the Democrats want him arrested for doing THESE crimes? It jut doesn�t make any sense to me. He�s been honest and forthright about all his crimes, except for all those times he lied about the crimes he did, and that�s the kind of President I want leading this fine country

# ? Nov 11, 2019 09:12

Ague Proof: Jun 5, 2014; they told me
I was everything

# ? Nov 11, 2019 10:37

SocketWrench: Jul 8, 2012; by Fritz the Horse

Amazing Zimmo posted:

I'm trying to work out what that last word is, is it "mutation"?

Is ben trying to mutate into an adult sized person?

Nutrition

# ? Nov 11, 2019 10:48

SocketWrench: Jul 8, 2012; by Fritz the Horse

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/RepLeeZeldin/status/1193713627502657537

That still doesn't make it ok dumb dumb.

"Well Joey over there got his finger blown off by a firecracker, but his insurance kicked in just before he hit the ER, so insurance is good and caring"

# ? Nov 11, 2019 10:51

ManBoyChef: Aug 1, 2019; Deadbeat Dad

Ershalim posted:

Please do! Nutrition being a hotbed of crazy good studies, terrible studies, and literal magic is super fascinating.

id like to read something about supplements also. I'm more into hearing about folk remedies though.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 10:56

StrangersInTheNight: Dec 31, 2007; ABSOLUTE FUCKING GUDGEON

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Nov 11, 2019 11:15

Barry Foster: Dec 24, 2007; What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

Billionaire philanthropy is bullshit, all billionaires are a danger to society, gently caress Bill Gates, Warren is demonstrably just another Obama

If you would like to know why this is come to the Dem Primary thread, sorry to the thread for talking about primary candidates

# ? Nov 11, 2019 11:20

Gyges: Aug 4, 2004; NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/ZubyMusic/status/1193211571356520448

Imagine being born in 1984 and writing poo poo in cursive. What a worthless piece of poo poo. Same goes to anyone writing in cursive still, nobody can read your non-standardized frilly chicken scratch.

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

Dude just gave millions and millions of dollars away so he could help destroy public education and then slink off when he realized he hosed up. A HERO philanthropist!

Also he was in the news for considering voting Donny because the mean Democrats were talking about talking pocket change from him.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 12:14

J.A.B.C.: Jul 2, 2007; There's no need to rush to be an adult.

Gyges posted:

Dude just gave millions and millions of dollars away so he could help destroy public education and then slink off when he realized he hosed up. A HERO philanthropist!

Also he was in the news for considering voting Donny because the mean Democrats were talking about talking pocket change from him.

Wasn't that in response to Warren putting out her Medicare plan and something like a 2% wealth tax to help fund it?

It is a hearty lol when the supposed pro-business dem gets people that shook as to float voting for ol' Donnie Smoothbrain instead of paying a dreaded 2%.

Robin Hood 2020, lets go.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 12:29

Doctor Spaceman: Jul 6, 2010; "Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1193851246597292033

# ? Nov 11, 2019 12:34

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

Doctor Spaceman posted:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1193851246597292033

Throw it onto the pile of "how bad will things be for republicans in 2020?"

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:10

J.A.B.C.: Jul 2, 2007; There's no need to rush to be an adult.

For a second I thought that said Steve King and almost believed in a merciful god.

Still good. Another one on the pile.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:22

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

J.A.B.C. posted:

For a second I thought that said Steve King and almost believed in a merciful god.

Still good. Another one on the pile.

Steve King is a dead man walking either way.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:25

John Wick of Dogs: Mar 4, 2017; A real hellraiser

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

Philanthropy is a sham. It's a rich person hobby where they give a small percentage of their wealth away so people are cool with them stealing billions of dollars.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:34

Prester Jane: Nov 4, 2008; by Hand Knit

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

"An ounce of charity can hide a multitude of sins".

I really don't think you should judge a billionaire by their charity but rather by their obscene collection of wealth accumulated on the backs of the poor.

There are no good/moral billionaires.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:40

Barry Foster: Dec 24, 2007; What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)

AlBorlantern Corps posted:

Philanthropy is a sham. It's a rich person hobby where they give a small percentage of their wealth away so people are cool with them stealing billions of dollars.

See Wilde, Oscar, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism'

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:41

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

J.A.B.C. posted:

For a second I thought that said Steve King and almost believed in a merciful god.

Still good. Another one on the pile.

Yeah, Peter King's that tried to paint American Muslims as 9/11 collaborators and supporters, while but the Irish Republican Army is good folks to give money to.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:46

punishedkissinger: Sep 20, 2017

Prester Jane posted:

"An ounce of charity can hide a multitude of sins".

I really don't think you should judge a billionaire by their charity but rather by their obscene collection of wealth accumulated on the backs of the poor.

There are no good/moral billionaires.

It's pretty wild that people are so easily duped that they think the guy who founded and ran Microsoft during their most exploitative and immoral years is a good guy because he maximizes his tax break.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:46

Ice Phisherman: Apr 12, 2007; Swimming upstream
into the sunset

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, I dunno if it's begun for you guys, but the purity races in my circles of friends for Bernie above all other Dem candidates has begun

Saw someone bitching about Warren being ok with Bill Gates bc clearly she's just cuddling up to monied interests. Dude's a well-known philanthropist! Jeff Bezos he ain't.

Bill Gates met with Epstein quite a lot after Epstein was convicted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:49

TulliusCicero: Jul 29, 2017

Ague Proof posted:

Eat. Each. Other :unsmigghh:

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:52

John Wick of Dogs: Mar 4, 2017; A real hellraiser

The only thing Bill Gates had going for him was Steve Jobs, his direct counterpart, was a huge rear end in a top hat who made him look like a saint by comparison

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:55

WeaponX: Jul 28, 2008

Billionaire philanthropy is like stealing money from the poor and then returning a 1/10th of it back to them in tax deductible packages.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:56

Mr Ice Cream Glove: Apr 22, 2007

Peter King served 14 terms

# ? Nov 11, 2019 13:58

Sir Lemming: Jan 27, 2009; It's a piece of JUNK!

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/RepLeeZeldin/status/1193713627502657537

I feel like this tweet makes a lot more sense if you replace "Dems" with "Republicans"

(The opposite of how to make the government make more sense)

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:06

oxsnard: Oct 8, 2003

billionaire worship culture that sprung up over the past 10-15 years is so mind boggling.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:12

FizFashizzle: Mar 30, 2005

oxsnard posted:

billionaire worship culture that sprung up over the past 10-15 years is so mind boggling.

More billionaires around to buy it.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:15

ewiley: Jul 9, 2003; More trash for the trash fire

WeaponX posted:

Billionaire philanthropy is like stealing money from the poor and then returning a 1/10th of it back to them in tax deductible packages.

Perversely the recent tax cuts effectively removed a lot of the deductibility of charitable donations for a large swath of the middle to upper classes. The standard deduction raised so high that unless a taxpayer is donating huge amounts, the itemized deductions don't reach the threshold of the standard deduction. So not only are the charities going to get less donations from people who are incentivized by the deduction, the government will also have less money to serve social needs, so everyone loses.

It's not just billionaires who are culpable and amoral, they're just the most visible.

I think Zizek is terrible, but he's often vaguely right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g :schniff:

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:15

Prester Jane: Nov 4, 2008; by Hand Knit

CNN: 'Secret and unaccountable': Where some immigrant teens are being taken by ICE

CNN posted:

The human rights researcher had heard that ICE agents occasionally swept up migrant kids and locked them up in juvenile detention facilities, but she had no idea why.

One of the places ICE supposedly housed these young people, Godoy learned, was a few hours from her home in Seattle. She searched online for information about the detentions, but couldn't find anything that explained what was going on. She then filed a series of public records requests with officials at the juvenile detention center closest to her, hoping they could shed light on what ICE was doing and why these minors were being held in places run more like jails than the shelters most migrant children end up in when they are detained. She had specifically requested detailed detainee files, with names and personal information redacted, and the facility was ready to share them with her.

But what happened next stunned her: ICE blocked the facility from sharing the records and the federal government even went to court to keep the information secret.

........

Immigrant youth -- regardless of their residency status -- are supposed to receive a number of legal protections when detained. Yet more than a dozen immigration attorneys describe the agency's detention of minors as a black hole with little oversight or easy access to lawyers who can help them navigate complicated immigration law.

The places these youth are held don't appear on ICE's online map of detention centers. The agency doesn't make its reports about the conditions of the facilities available like it does for others. And family members can't find their loved ones using the federal government's official detainee locator since it only provides information on adults.

"ICE juvenile jails are secret and unaccountable," said Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center. "And ICE wants it to stay that way."

ICE said it follows all rules about when a juvenile can be detained in a secure environment, and described the youth it holds as those with serious criminal histories, saying that "it would be irresponsible and potentially dangerous for the agency to allow these individuals to remain out of custody with a guardian," as they await immigration proceedings or deportation. It did not, however, elaborate on the specific allegations and evidence ICE has used to take them from their families.

.........

At least two of the three juvenile detention facilities used by ICE have been accused of mistreating kids in the past. Abraxas Academy, in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, has been cited by state regulators for alleged sexual harassment and sexual abuse, as well as excessive use of force to restrain children. In 2015, one staffer who was later fired bit a child, and in 2016 other employees put kids in headlocks, according to the state inspection reports. The facility did not comment directly about the findings in these state inspections, but said its mission is to "provide safe and humane care" and that the contract to hold ICE juveniles expired in June, with the last teen released in August.

The NORCOR juvenile detention center, meanwhile, was the subject of a 2017 report from Disability Rights Oregon, a nonprofit that under federal law has the authority to investigate certain facilities in the state. The report highlighted "inhumane conditions" at NORCOR -- saying "conditions were harsher and more restrictive than any adult jail we had visited."

While people quibble over whether or not its worth being socially disruptive to confront evil- children sit in cages dreading the return of the guards.

And we will never know how many children were taken, or how many children simply "disappeared" into the system forever.

If you're not trying to spread the idea that we must rise up and fight the child concentration camps, well then in my opinion you're just not a good person and not on the right side of history.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:18

Paracaidas: Sep 24, 2016; Consistently Tedious!

https://twitter.com/MikeDelMoro/status/1193879793097486338

Will be interesting to see how many win contested primaries.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:18

Mr Ice Cream Glove: Apr 22, 2007

Paracaidas posted:

https://twitter.com/MikeDelMoro/status/1193879793097486338

Will be interesting to see how many win contested primaries.

So glad they included Danielle Stella

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:21

Data Graham: Dec 28, 2009; 📈📊🍪😋

How long have NBC et al been reporting on QAnon? I feel like it's kind of a big thing if they're mainstreaming it.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:32

zenguitarman: Apr 6, 2009; Come on, lemme see ya shake your tail feather

FizFashizzle posted:

More billionaires around to buy it.

Proof that the American Dream is working!

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:35

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

oxsnard posted:

billionaire worship culture that sprung up over the past 10-15 years is so mind boggling.

It's been a very successful marketing campaign.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:37

Neo Rasa: Mar 8, 2007; Everyone should play DUKE games.

These factions of the right now bickering with each other and trying to tear each other down is inevitable for reasons others have already posted but still I'm happy it's going on.

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:38

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1193627279106039808

This is an interesting defense.

"I'm just doing what I always do, you know, committing arson. I'm well known for starting fire and actually ran on a campaign, promising to burn stuff, so all these fires I did is just me bing me, not a crime."

# ? Nov 11, 2019 14:39