Election 2020

[john eden]

you didn't answer the questions. what's the better alternative?

Well there is the reformist argument that “democracy” can be massively expanded beyond a vote for billionaires in one of two parties every 5 years which then gets mangled by the electoral college.

And there is the revolutionary argument that ordinary people rather than billionaires can run the world and share the wealth and resources fairly, based on cooperation rather than competition.

 

[john eden]

I think the issues Martin raise are good.

I think there is a liberal argument here about manners and respecting the sanctity of institutions which I’d reject.

The problem for me is what the protestors were trying to achieve, not how they did it. And of course the fact that they were invited to do so by the President and were composed of cops and military. All of this means they were given colossal leeway which would not happen for BLM or anarchists or trade unionists or whatever.

 

[...]

Democracy isn’t sacred, but you’ll miss it when it’s gone.

 

[DannyL]

It’s not weird that there weren’t many arrests on the day. Same thing happened at the poll tax riots and indeed most riots in the UK afaik. That’s because the priority on the day for the cops is (1) staying safe and (2) keeping order.

Making loads of arrests is time consuming and also escalates the situation. Plus they know CCTV & a mugshot gallery in the media will be their friend.

To state the obvious, they were hugely underprepared as well. To start pulling people out of the crowd in a way that police do on demos and protests, you need that industrial size fully equipped police presence. Even the 2011 riots, pretty much all of the arrests came a few days later IIRC?

 

[DannyL]

- would have pissed in her filing cabinet though).

Made in Britain really left its mark on you, didn't it?

"Errol.... took a shit on his"

 

[DannyL]

I think the issues Martin raise are good.

I think there is a liberal argument here about manners and respecting the sanctity of institutions which I’d reject.

The problem for me is what the protestors were trying to achieve, not how they did it. And of course the fact that they were invited to do so by the President and were composed of cops and military. All of this means they were given colossal leeway which would not happen for BLM or anarchists or trade unionists or whatever.

A key issue for me is that I can see a slightly different timeline where things went really really nasty. Pretty easily there could have been more shootings, hostage takings and so on. So it's about more than manners in a sense.A smigden more planning and that could easily have gone down.

I see Parler is going to be hoofed off Amazon. You could probably fold that into the above discussion somehow, it's certainly evidence for the power of big tech.

 

[luka]

I'm glad Martins instincts are still good.

 

[DannyL]

This is a fantastic essay. Timothy Synder is brilliant - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/...kPxj6dCRkH1_1z2MNyfBy2Fqc_7xEl4&smid=fb-share

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

 

[luka]

Resisting the urge to lol

 

[DannyL]

But you can't resist the urge to tell me? V passive aggressive

 

[luka]

I'm going to do it all the time

 

[luka]

Get really bad till you go insane. Just keep needling and needling for a laugh

 

[DannyL]

Well go for your life, but would say probably more about you than me

 

[luka]

That's probably the plan for this year.

 

[DannyL]

@sufi invent that ignore button mate

 

[luka]

In all seriousness though I get annoyed by things you say and want to annoy you back and the same thing happens in the other direction. It's not great but it's definitely a two way street. I'd like to break that dynamic. But it's quite hard

 

[DannyL]

Fair enough. But why get annoyed at say, me posting that article? That's relatively innocuous and I can't any way in which it;s a dig at you

 

[luka]

Well, put your therapist hat on and I will explain

 

[DannyL]

Fire away.

 

[luka]

This is the facts thread

FACTS

There are two types of people in this world, people who like facts and people who can live without them. Are you a fact man? Speaking for myself I can't stand them but this troubles me occasionally and I buy a book of facts, for self improvement reasons, which I never read. When I see a whole...

dissensus.com

which you chipped in to yesterday. reminding me I'm engaged in silly low intensity guerilla warfare. So your impassioned plea for facts I then registered as another jab. So I thought I should get in a dig in too.