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the_steve posted:Doesn't change the fact that he said it, in a room full of people including congresspersons, who were there specifically to see him speak, unless someone wants to tell me exactly how far the goalposts plan on being moved on this whole counterargument that fascism stopped existing after WW2 and didn't start again until Trump took office. That’s a massive exaggeration of what anyone has said. And fascism like most things exists on a spectrum. Was Bush more fascist than Jimmy Carter? Sure. But I think the gap between Trump and Bush is bigger than the gap between Bush and Carter. I don’t think Bush was dictatorial. I don’t think he tried to suppress the opposition, militarily or judicially. He willingly gave up power at the end of his term. I don’t see how someone for whom those things are true can be called a capital F Fascist.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:06
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Any given politician was probably being referred to as a fascist by someone at any given time. There was no general sentiment that Bush was an actual fascist posing an actual threat of fascist takeover, even if there were segments of the population that completely hated him and even if he was actually horrible for many other reasons. There was a critcism at the time that the Republican party as a whole was moving in the direction of fascism, both rhetorically and structurally, and I think that has obviously born out.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:08
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i want to agree. but I could see paxton being a dumb enough rear end in a top hat and thinking him being untouchable in texas means he can do what he wants. and i could see her being arrested on some bullshit mistomener charge based on some bi-line crap. I dont think they will imprison her but who knows. There is no Texas law saying that what she did is illegal*. If he arrests her for this he won't be able to hold her for very long and then she will sue the state with a very strong case backed by the ACLU and other powerful friends. It's exactly the sort of precedent his side doesn't want *for now
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Dec 11, 2023 22:08
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Edge & Christian posted:I assume the difference is less the fanciness and more the size of the chain; Macy's has over 500 stores, while Nordstrom has roughly 100 actual department stores (and several hundred Rack stores, which are just clothing stores). There are other surviving department store chains, and some of them are still close to the size of Macy's (JCPenny has 500+ stores, Dillard's has 285) so "the last department store" is overstating it. Even Sears still has a dozen stores. Macy's was, perhaps, the last one to not have big contractions/bankruptcies/selloff/etc. Yeah, I meant "Last nationwide department store to not declare bankruptcy" and not literally the last one in existence. I'm surprised that Dillard's still has three figure locations. Although, most of the remaining JCPenny and Dillard's locations look to be in malls - which are themselves living on borrowed time.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:10
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https://twitter.com/metzgov/status/1734247930087845966 This'll probably be the final nail in the coffin for her with the political left, or what's left of it anyway. quote:During the 2020 primary, the New York congresswoman publicly acknowledged some of those concerns, even as she told the hosts of "The View" that Sanders "works very hard" to handle the issue. quote:The congresswoman later said it was "not smart" for the Sanders campaign to publicize what appeared to be an endorsement from controversial podcaster Joe Rogan, saying that Rogan "alienates so many people and platforms alt right figures." I would draw a distinction between your average Bernie supporter and the Jimmy Dore FTV "left". I think Sanders had a lot of problems in 2020, and chief among them was that he respects and likes Joe Biden and wasn't willing to go after him like he did Hillary.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:11
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:That’s a massive exaggeration of what anyone has said. And fascism like most things exists on a spectrum. Was Bush more fascist than Jimmy Carter? Sure. But I think the gap between Trump and Bush is bigger than the gap between Bush and Carter. Whether he was or wasn't a textbook fascist isn't the point I've been trying to argue, just that the accusations were there and that it isn't some accusation unique to Trump. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 11, 2023 22:12
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the_steve posted:Whether he was or wasn't a textbook fascist isn't the point I've been trying to argue, just that the accusations were there and that it isn't some accusation unique to Trump. You can find accusations that any American President was fascist though, in recent history at least. It’s a word people like to throw at people they don’t like. It just also happens to be true for Trump. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Yeah, I meant "Last nationwide department store to not declare bankruptcy" and not literally the last one in existence. Are they though? The two malls closest to me are still chock full of stores and people. The unrelenting attack on any space that a teenager can occupy for free or even low cost (I just paid $60!?!? to bowl for an hour) seems to have inspired a new generation of mallrats from what I’ve seen. Many have died off for sure from the peak but I don’t think malls are going anywhere.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:16
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:You can find accusations that any American President was fascist though, in recent history at least. It’s a word people like to throw at people they don’t like. It just also happens to be true for Trump. Those teenaged mallrats aren't spending lots of money at Macy's or Nordstrom.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:20
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the_steve posted:Is The Bush Administration Fascist? I'm not really here to talk about empty, half-considered insults people throw out during campaigns. Trump is different in that he is fascist, in the most absolute definitive by-the-book way you can fit a somewhat imprecise label like "fascist." It is a widespread view that he is a fascist, not something restricted to activists and the party base, and he is being described in mainstream circles as such. The overall point is that, although THIS election is, no, not every election is a gun being held to your head telling you democracy will end if you lose. Yes, some people will treat every election like that, and have invoked the idea when it was dubiously true. That doesn't mean fascism isn't an actual threat. It also doesn't mean that the only thing we can ever hope to accomplish through elections is defeating fascism. After all, we aren't electing Mitt Romney as the alternative to Trump, we are electing a liberal Democrat. There are good things about that besides the preservation of democracy. Misunderstood fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 22:25
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Tayter Swift posted:Those teenaged mallrats aren't spending lots of money at Macy's or Nordstrom. Oh yeah department stores are, I think, on their way out. Just not malls. I actually went in a Macys last weekend for my kids to try to find stuff for their mom for Christmas and it might be the last time I go in one. If you want clothes they’ll be better and at worst the same price at a clothing store. Same for cookware, electronics, etc. About the only thing they were good for, weirdly enough, was toys since they had a toys r us section, but even that was no better than Target’s selection and the prices weren’t any better either. Edit: the mall back where I grew up, which is also doing well, has converted its former department stores into an annex for a local college and they split the other one into a Dave and Busters and a bunch of other small storefronts. It has no department stores left. The one I usually go to has a Nordstrom and two separate Macys. The one I don’t go to as much doesn’t have a department store but does have a Target attached which could be what ends up happening to a few other ones. Fork of Unknown Origins fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 22:28
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:This gives him way too much credit. I hadn't ever actually heard how that really went down, that's fantastic.  He actually attempted the "nobody ever tries to stop an important-looking person with a clipboard" strat and failed it.
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Dec 11, 2023 22:31
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ElegantFugue posted:I hadn't ever actually heard how that really went down, that's fantastic. I think that's how they broke into the CIA mainframe in the first Mission Impossible movie
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Dec 11, 2023 22:32
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Macy's is basically the last surviving national department store chain. Even though it has outlived most of the other department store chains, it is still doing fairly poorly. Merely making a billion dollars a year on assets worth $6 billion just isn't enough for the capitalist class these days, seems pretty nuts
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Dec 11, 2023 22:54
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zoux posted:WaPo WH Correspondent Jeff Stein is noticing some trends: as a broad trend american city roads have long straight roads and european cities are more chaotic I wonder if - shorter sightlines give less opportunity for the sun to shine directly in driver faces in older non-gridded cities and/or - is there an increase in pedestrian fatalities in a given gridded city during periods when the sun most closely aligns with the angle of its streets
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Dec 11, 2023 22:57
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zoux posted:I recall his second run for president, I do not recall everyone calling him a fascist, 10 thinkpieces a week about if he was a fascist, or that what does supporting Bush mean for America. As I said, there were probably plenty of counter culture people calling him a fascist, maybe that's where you remember hearing it from, but they've called every American president since Ike a fascist. I mean you can't really make this comparison. Yes, the NYT/CNN/Fox existed in 2004 but they didn't mean the same thing then as they do now. Crucially, click-bait media had not yet evolved yet and hot-takes didn't really exist yet. Most internet media was still taking cues from real life media. Also it's worth noting that the late 90s/early 00's were the birthplace of modern centrism, we were coming off of years of 'actually neither side is correct and everybody would be better off if politicians would agree on things.' 9/11 really marked the beginning of extreme right-wing perspectives - it became much more culturally acceptable to scream violent, anti-immigrant, Islamaphobic nonsense and likewise the left started to galvanize in opposition to that. 'The left' as we know it today hadn't yet organized even the extremely low bar we have today. Most of SA was still making fun of furries. What I mean is, weekly thinkpeices on fascism weren't possible in 2004. Those kinds of thoughts were shared privately, and yes, in counter-culture. There was no barometer for consensus, memes were still in their infancy, there were no canon leftist opinions propagated by Twitter and other social media spaces. I can tell you that my social circle certainly thought Bush was dangerous, particularly when he started claiming he was speaking to or for god. Music and art from that period reflect this but I think popular opinion was more South Park centrism than anything else. We had to share those kinds of opinions quietly - not because it was dangerous to think Bush was a fascist dipshit but because there were no obvious, open venues to express those kinds of ideas. The world before #content was a very different place.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:00
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:You can find accusations that any American President was fascist though, in recent history at least. Ironically the major "Bush is a fascist and is gonna set up a fascist state" guy I recall back then was Alex Jones, who was actively courting discontented liberal students despite his own avowedly conservative politics. I'd say "Bush is just a puppet being manipulated by Dick Cheney" was closer to the mainstream than Bush being a fascist. Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 23:01
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rscott posted:Merely making a billion dollars a year on assets worth $6 billion just isn't enough for the capitalist class these days, seems pretty nuts To be fair that is only the real estate assets. They have about $16B in total assets. Not that a company making a billion dollars a year needs to be shut down by vulture investors.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:01
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A wage data graph for showing more data got posted elsewhere. Median and above is down. Below median is up. https://www.nber.org/digest/20235/pandemic-related-shifts-low-wage-labor-markets
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Dec 11, 2023 23:04
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shame on an IGA posted:as a broad trend american city roads have long straight roads and european cities are more chaotic I wonder if - shorter sightlines give less opportunity for the sun to shine directly in driver faces in older non-gridded cities Americans being dumb about headlights / American streets being worse lit in aggregate, maybe? e: vvv we've had some very detailed discussions of what counts as fascism and I personally tend to mostly stick by eco Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 23:09
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Whether or not the American media entertained public discourse on whether or not GWB was a fascist / had fascist tendencies has zero bearing on the question itself. US media won't even call Donald loving Trump a fascist. They barely use the word "lie" to describe what he does, hundreds of times per week. They invent terms like "untruth" or use softer terms like falsehood, because they ultimately are capitalists, and will do everything they can to minimize the fundamental link between corporatism and fascism. Eco's 14 features of fascism are the most convincing parameters I've ever come across, and most/all of those describe features of the Bush administration to a pretty strong degree. The Neocons were better at decorum (another form of lying they practice) but their beliefs, and those of Bush and his inner circle, are very much aligned to Trump's. They don't give a gently caress about the integrity of elections, and they sure as poo poo don't care about the rights of minorities.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:13
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Mendrian posted:Music and art from that period reflect this but I think popular opinion was more South Park centrism than anything else. We had to share those kinds of opinions quietly - not because it was dangerous to think Bush was a fascist dipshit but because there were no obvious, open venues to express those kinds of ideas. Music was in a weird place at the time. Leftist music was generally going to be anti-whoever was in power as, like you mentioned, “everyone is wrong” was the zeitgeist of the day. I remember a lot of pearl clutching when Incubus put out a video (Megalomaniac) which insinuated a connection between Hitler and Bush in 2004. And of course the Dixie Chicks basically lost their career over not supporting Bush. But yeah, it was a weird time.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:14
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It has and always will bum me out that RATM broke up when they did. We needed those guys from 2001-2008. I mean we still need them but gently caress did we need them in Bush's first term.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:20
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zoux posted:But sure enough, right around sunset, you see a spike in pedestrian deaths. Americans also have lovely headlights compared to Europeans because of outdated (and probably industry captured) regulations. As for why deaths are rising here when they're not elsewhere... well, it's probably related to the other current points of American exceptionalism.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:23
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Google Jeb Bush posted:e: vvv we've had some very detailed discussions of what counts as fascism and I personally tend to mostly stick by eco Entire threads for some of us. Trump is a fascist by several serious definitions.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:29
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Failed Imagineer posted:A fine post USCE 2023: Avogadro Toast? In THIS economy?
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Dec 11, 2023 23:30
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Bar Ran Dun posted:A wage data graph for showing more data got posted elsewhere.  Right now it's only showing a 1% decrease from pre-pandemic for 50th percentile. That doesn't seem that bad - it's not uncommon for wages to fall (they fell about 4% over the course of Reagan's presidency and people seemed fine with that economy), but barely over a year is a pretty quick pace for wages to fall 1%. And of course they fell from an artificially high peak from the pandemic, which boosted wages in multiple ways, so technically it is a 6-8% drop. (Posters have hypothesized that people are missing the security pandemic income made them feel, even if they don't quite realize that's what is making them upset. It's probably a factor.) I think wages ought to be rising for everybody over the next year; certainly for the 50th percentile, as wage growth is currently comfortably outpacing inflation. Every bit of increase, and every day that the dip recedes into the past, will help Biden. I gotta say it's worth celebrating that the current economy has led to such strong gains for the very poor, even if it hasn't been enough to bring their lives up to the reasonable standard we owe them.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:41
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I wonder if this whole Kate Cox fiasco in Texas will finally wake Americans up to the true nature of the Republican party and why they fought so hard to overturn RvW Abortion access seems to be the one thing that Republicans actually get punished for
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Dec 11, 2023 23:54
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Trazz posted:I wonder if this whole Kate Cox fiasco in Texas will finally wake Americans up to the true nature of the Republican party and why they fought so hard to overturn RvW I mean I feel like they’re pretty awakened to it. Like you said this seems to be the thing piercing through the noise for a lot of people. I have no idea if she wants to take on the responsibility of standard bearer of the pro choice movement (I hope she does if only because it’s been half foisted upon her already) but I’m sure the Democrats will message hard on it.
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Dec 11, 2023 23:59
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Nm, not really adding much.
MixMasterMalaria fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Dec 12, 2023 00:05
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Democrats are not chicken little for calling Bush an authoritarian as well as Trump. Both of them were in different ways. Both represented serious threats to democracy and both did lasting damage while in office. The intellectualized right has been plotting to destroy US democracy for 50 years. This isn't a new thing. They were not happy about the New Deal. They were not happy about desegregation. They didn't sit back and idle on it they sat to work trying to figure out a way to take back the country they'd lost. If it feels like every election is the "most important election" there is a reason for this. The same way that progressives are always trying to come up with new ways to make peoples' lives better, conservatives are constantly trying to come up with new ways to make peoples' lives worse. It's yin and yang. They keep finding new Constitutional exploits to try to use over time. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/03/08/democracy-chains-interview-author-nancy-maclean quote:The results of her years-long investigation is the book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (Viking, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Award, which uncovers the history of the well-heeled radical right’s network and its effort to not only change who governs, but to fundamentally change the rules of governance. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...orms-heres-why/ The plan to take over all the state houses and gerrymander them hard in 2010 was well documented before it happened and lefties sleepwalked into it without paying much attention until it was too late. Veith V Jubilerer 2004 paved the way for this kind of massive lockdown of state level democracy. The goal was to get a majority of state governments for a long lasting House majority, and ride out multiple political cycles then bank more states whenever they had a good year, until they got enough states for a constitutional convention. quote:While in Chile, Buchanan offered government officials detailed counsel on how to draft a “constitution with locks and bolts,” MacLean says. He advised changing the country’s constitution to protect the rights of wealthy elites, so that future democratic majorities would be hard-pressed to alter it. Project 2025 is just the latest head on the Hydra. They failed to get enough state legislatures (although they came scary close). So now they're trying a new thing. I'm sure it'll be fun. This poo poo's too dangerous to play around with.
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Dec 12, 2023 00:43
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A constitutional convention that is ratified through the rules as they exist is impossible. If they want to make it stick that's one of the few "actual civil war" nightmare scenarios. I'm not sure if project 2025 is an actual existential threat or "just" a Trump 2.0 ruining of the administrative state. The second one is pretty horrible as is, it's nice living somewhere where the basic machinery of government functions well enough that everyone takes it for granted.
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Dec 12, 2023 01:00
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I could do without the "taking it for granted" part.
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Dec 12, 2023 01:10
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Accelerationism also doesn't work. Every time you have some Latin American country devolve into dictatorship, you don't see leftists gaining strength. You see them being rounded up and disappeared while living standards and basic governance degenerate. When the authoritarian structure finally collapses its just replaced by a weaker, more fragile democracy not full communism because civic institutions have been suppressed and weakened. Yes, I get the ideal is like some Russian Revolution style thing where the old order is completely overthrown, but the Soviet Union almost immediately degenerated into a totalitarian nightmare that imposed its will on its neighbors even worse than its predecessor while paying lip service to socialism.
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Dec 12, 2023 01:21
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Cui prodest? That's the question that should be asked for every political choice. Who profits from leftist and progressives sitting out elections? Who profits from their refusal to engage and exercise their agency? Is it the oppressed people they hold forth to justify their neutrality? Or is it the oppressors who gain a free hand to do their worst? That's why as far as I'm concerned anyone who advocates political disengagement and not voting are either witting or unwitting agents of the Fash because they are the ones who profit from leftists and progressives sitting on the sidelines. Here's the falsification of the idea that voting for the lesser evil doesn't work. The Fash have managed to get their way on Roe and their efforts to undermine the administrative state and don't get poo poo twisted this Roe was a foot note for this court their actual target is the administrative state. The ability of the government to regulate capital and capitalists for the public good. They did so by voting Red even when dead, they taught their voters to vote for the most regressive least progressive choice in every primary and every election at all levels of government. Further they focused massive efforts on discouraging disenfranchising Democratic voters. I mean the fact that we can witness the level of voter suppression and other malfeasance to discourage Democrats from voting that exists. From the SCOTUS scrapping pre-clearance through Georgia outlawing providing water to voters in line on to the Texas legislature taking election administration rights from the largest Democratic stronghold in the state demonstrating that at a minimum the opposition recognizes the importance of voting. We talk about the influence of money in politics, but no seems to talk about where most of that money goes, and it ain't in the candidate's pockets. No most of it gets spent on advertising and GOTV efforts (or in anti-GOTV) Because ultimately votes determine the outcomes. So the idea that voting doesn't matter is as insane to me as climate change denial.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:13
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Discendo Vox posted:I could do without the "taking it for granted" part. well yeah but everywhere I've been that doesn't have a functioning administrative state people know that. They might despair about it, but they're aware of the things government isn't providing, not doing the "I wake up and brush my teeth using government regulated clean water" meme. The fact that people can ignore the underpinnings of our functioning society means that the administrative state is healthy-ish. I am totally on board with making more people aware of that, including right here
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Dec 12, 2023 02:22
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I really must be getting old because the only place I buy "nice" clothes from is Macy's. Does the Supreme store sell suits?
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Dec 12, 2023 02:37
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Morrow posted:Accelerationism also doesn't work. Every time you have some Latin American country devolve into dictatorship, you don't see leftists gaining strength. You see them being rounded up and disappeared while living standards and basic governance degenerate. When the authoritarian structure finally collapses its just replaced by a weaker, more fragile democracy not full communism because civic institutions have been suppressed and weakened. Voting for increasingly Hitler-looking fascists until someone gives me full communism instantly.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:44
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It's like the Laffer curve. You just have to cut democracy more and more until you will find the secret invisible sweet spot where there's suddenly a huge spike in communism
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Dec 12, 2023 02:47
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Hey it worked so well in 2000 and 2016 look how much more progressive democrats got. Thank you for the communism, Joe Biden.
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Dec 12, 2023 03:01
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haveblue posted:It's like the Laffer curve. You just have to cut democracy more and more until you will find the secret invisible sweet spot where there's suddenly a huge spike in communism It's the opposite of "if you go far enough left you get your guns back."
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Dec 12, 2023 03:23
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