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SedanChair posted:Are poligoons liking House of Cards? I just started watching it and really like it, but the actual stunts Underwood pulls really strain my suspension of disbelief. This is generally how I feel about it. The show is entertaining, but half the time incredulity is the only reaction I have to some of the plot lines and/or actions of the characters. The BBQ joint guy is the only person who doesn't talk like a stereotype of a conniving Beltway wonk, and is therefore the only character I never really have an urge to punch in the face.
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Apr 3, 2014 05:00
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Negative Entropy posted:Demographic change as Millennials and minorities grab a larger share of the electorate, which could shift the Overton window. But not before this decade closes with possibly majority GOP in both houses and another Clinton, like we all time warped to 1994. Is there a way to put an end to this response? The whole "wait til the baby boomers die off" thing? Because I feel like it's ultimately self-defeating on so many levels; if nothing else it encourages voter apathy and civic disinterest or disengagement. I mean, I'm not attacking you, personally, but I hear this repeated so, so often. Liberals, progressives, et. al shoot themselves in the foot with this stuff. Yes, changing demographics will shift the political landscape slightly, but that won't do much if people aren't engaged (for example: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/us/hopes-frustrated-many-latinos-reject-the-ballot-box-altogether.html?hp&_r=0&referrer=). It seems like the Left side of the aisle in this country loves to pat themselves on the back in regards to how great our policy ideas are, ignoring that rarely do those policies ever get implemented in a form which will actually affect real, lasting change, and when they get pushback it's always the response of "well, eventually they'll come around to our side and realize that we've got logic/science/whatever on our side". No, they won't. Conservatives are constantly rallying the wagons and doing everything they can to enact their agenda or at least stymie the opposition and I hate to break it to you, but not every person under the age of 50 is a Liberal. Yes, Millennials trend left, but I know a poo poo ton of "fiscal conservative, social liberal" people my age who are one bad experience or one misinformed discussion away from voting for a Republican candidate and feeling like they did the right thing. Where hope lies is that if half the people who are "waiting for the baby boomers to die" got involved in a local political organization or campaign, things would begin to change very quickly. Hell, if they even went to community meetings once a month that'd be a drastic shift. Not saying I'm any better than your average citizen because I read the news and volunteer a few hours here or there, but really, waiting around is part of the reason we're as hosed as we are right now. It seems like everyone is waiting for some inspired leadership from on high to start organizing some kind of movement or at least give people a direction, but if you haven't noticed already, that ain't happening. We all have to start doing more than just waiting for demographics to be in our favor.
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Apr 3, 2014 06:53
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Apparently, the US created and implemented a fake twitter-esque service to foment rebellion in Cuba against Castro and they did it under the guise of "humanitarian outreach" via the USAID. In the big scheme of things this isn't surprising in the least, it's hilarious in a really hosed up way. I mean, this is the stuff conspiracy theorists dream of, something out of a Tom Clancy novel. Salon posted:"USAID is generally known for delivering humanitarian aid to the international community, not engaging in covert missions to overthrow governments. Yet, USAID spokesman Matt Herrick maintains that this action was within humanitarian goals. He told the Associated Press: http://www.salon.com/2014/04/03/the_secret_is_out_u_s_built_cuban_twitter_to_stir_up_political_unrest/ http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/3/5577254/us-created-cuban-twitter-to-fuel-anti-castro-dissidence-ap http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26872866 Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 19:26
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Hobologist posted:So how do you explain that after the spike in gun deaths there was a reversal for a couple of years. Did people just IIRC, they realized that a spike in murders didn't look good on paper and reclassified deaths where SYG was invoked to count as "accidents caused by self-defense" instead of straight-up murder.
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Apr 15, 2014 19:31
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zoux posted:Literally every society since they were invented was to some degree racist and it's really only in the last 100 years or so when anyone ever thought "hey maybe bigotry isn't cool". Is it accurate to say that every society ever has been racist? Lots of societies have been xenophobic, and a fair few have had extreme biases against other groups, but from what I've read and been taught, the kind of ingrained, structural racism that we deal with today is a result of a very specific path of development tied to Western modernity ideas of constructing nation-states around racial and/or ethnic identities which requires juxtaposing other racial and/or ethnic groups as being antithetical or somehow otherwise inherently different (see Andrea Smith's the Three Pillars of White Supremacy). Not saying that every society before the peace of Westphalia was dancing in a circle singing Kumbaya, but there's plenty of evidence that shows many ancient societies were racially and/or ethnically diverse or at the very least, not trying to kill other people solely based on being a different color than them. I'd say in the last 100 years we've seen just how bad the whole idea of ethnic and/or racial nationality can get (see: Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, various genocides in African nations, etc) but now the trouble is that we're dealing with issues of transitioning from modernity to post modernity as far as nation-states, societies, and governance are concerned, but we haven't dealt with the problems created by the last round of significant pivotal development as far as human civilization goes. Deconstructing the primacy of white supremacy that acts as superstructure for many modern societies is going to be a problem, especially considering that people don't even want to admit it exists (see: Sotomayors most recent dissent) and even when you have bigots like Bundy running their mouth, the problem is reduced down to "oh this guy is just a crazy racist outlier" instead of "look what crazy poo poo our society encourages", which is by far the bigger problem.
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Apr 25, 2014 20:08
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Fried Chicken posted:
Can I get your sources on this? I completely believe you on both accounts, but I'd really like to read up more just for my own comprehension.
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Apr 26, 2014 22:05
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Samurai Sanders posted:Didn't a journalist or someone volunteer to have it done to them and was like "yep, it feels like dying"? That would be everyone's favorite neocon warhawk, Christopher Hitchens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58. Although some people have claimed that it was faked.
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Apr 28, 2014 00:42
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Roumba posted:Is there any kind of period in recent history where there was a prison or jail and it wasn't always nearly full or over-capacity and whoever was in charge said something like: "Well poo poo, I guess we didn't need this big of a place after all, or at least for a good while, make it a lasertag arena for the next 10 years." This was technically the U.S. in the 70's. Prison populations were dropping so low, there was very serious talk in a lot of states about closing down and demolishing prisons. But the people who make money off prisons didn't like the sound of that, so you get the War on Drugs and the War on Crime and boom, now we're the nation with highest incarceration rates on the planet.
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Apr 30, 2014 18:23
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Fried Chicken posted:It is problematic because Someone said it before, but I'd be happy to read that manifesto, even just as part of the OP for whatever next iteration of this thread pops up.
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May 1, 2014 01:34
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Texas actually reallocates money away from rich areas and toward poor ones. Not enough to make up the difference, but enough that it annoyed the parents at my insulated bubble college-town semi-affluent school district. People have already found ways to get around this, with it resulting in a huge education budget deficit for the state. I was amazingly surprised to find out that such a program even existed in Texas when I had to take a (mandatory) Texas history course as part of my undergraduate studies, but of course nothing good can last. wikipedia posted:But 10 years later, the Robin Hood plan was in jeopardy again. In November, 2005, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that, since the vast majority of school districts were having to tax at the maximum maintenance-and-operations (M&O) tax rate of $1.50 per $100 of property valuation just to raise enough money to meet state mandates, the school-finance system was, in effect, a state property tax, which is prohibited by the Texas Constitution. The Texas Legislature, meeting in a special session in April and May, 2006, passed legislation that met the court's requirements that local districts have "meaningful discretion" in setting tax rates. A series of bills changed the school finance system to cut school M&O property taxes by one-third by 2008, but allowed local school boards to increase tax rates from the new, lower levels, although generally only with voter approval. Some of the local property tax revenue lost by the one-third cut will be replaced by state revenue from a new business tax and higher cigarette taxes. The Comptroller estimated a five-year $23 billion shortfall from the revised tax system.[2] IIRC, the shortfall could've been covered with the Texas Education "rainy day" slush fund that the state keeps around, but it got used for useless transportation upgrades (the MOPAC 'improvement' project) and some of Perry's pet water reservoir projects. 
Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 19:08 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 19:04
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Install Windows posted:There was no systematic coordinated response involved, the police departments in all the cities did stuff at different times and doing a "coordinated" effort makes no sense to begin with as there was minimal connections. Really? No systematic coordinated response from law enforcement? There's been a fair amount of reporting on the subject over the past few years (you can start here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy) and plenty of FOIA releases of tactics and/or phrasing direction from higher levels on how city/state/etc law enforcement should deal with OWS. Look it up. I mean, I get the point you're making, that generally groups like the Tea Party ,which have outside funding and more expansive political support, don't get cracked down upon nearly as harshly, however, to act like OWS isn't similar in that regard is specious and ignoring the facts. Even though the mainstream US political left didn't latch onto OWS like many hoped, the movement itself didn't just coalesce out of nowhere; it was funded and heavily supported by Adbusters and other alt-media groups, and it just happened to take off beyond their initial expectations. The heavy handed response given to OWS versus how coddled Bundy, the Tea Party, etc are just shows the discrepancy in how "populist" movements are treated basted on their perceived political standing. Sword of Chomsky's response sums it up pretty well, although I think it was meant for someone else: Sword of Chomsky posted:The US government has many times in the past openly coordinated against labor movements, civil rights movements, and other left wing causes. The idea isn't far fetched at all. For you to treat is as a conspiracy theory pretty much shows you don't have an understanding of this country's history. The point being made is that those same forces generally leave right wing causes alone because they fall in line with that ideology. I'm not even making a persecution argument, just a straight fact based argument, and all you have done is open dismissal with no argument. Defenestration posted:We're straying from the point, which is how Cecily's case shows what minorities have known for years: that the police can brutalize you with impunity and it will still be a felony offense on your part. Pretty much the only response that matters. Look at this Cecily McMillan ruling, look at the PRISM/NSA scandal, look at really any kind of civil liberties uproar in the past decade or so. None of these things are really new; the only difference is that now, instead of it only happening to poor minorities, everyone is getting a taste. Plenty of people have written about this as well: http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/ http://davidsimon.com/the-friend of the family-wake-up-call/ Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 23:45
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