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What is really going on in the US?


Duke Wellington

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5 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

Now you have gone a bridge too far, from logic into fantasy.  Those people don't vote.   Even we who consider ourselves on the liberal spectrum were not impressed by Ted Wheeler and will be happy to vote against him at the next opportunity.

Thats probably more true.

They will show up at any event to demonstrate, but probably don't vote.

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On 7/23/2020 at 5:49 AM, Cookie Monster said:

We all come from different backgrounds, we all have different live experiences, and they heavily influence who we vote for in elections.

The poor are more likely to vote for socialism, the skilled and financially secure are more likely to vote for conservatism. As the left has traditionally courted minority votes they are more likely to vote for left wing parties too (although this is not exclusively so). But I am confused and concerned about what is going on in the USA.

Looking at the run up to the last election I can see that Trump upset various groups with his antics and past behaviours. But a hysteria seems to have emerged against him. One not based on facts or evidence, but what seems to be an irrational fear. Fear seems to switch off the ability of many people to question what they read or watch from the media.

Even worse, that fear and hysteria is driving people to the point of lunacy where they think they are entitled to riot, vandalise, and burn public buildings down. Rational thought and behaviour has declined in the USA and it is having a negative impact in the country. No good will come from it, people led by fear are easy to control and manipulate as they can no longer see the real reason why they are behaving the way that they do.

They are foot soldiers without even realising it. The level of mass neurosis is very high and we can see that if you confront someone like that with evidence it doesn`t snap them out of it. A grand delusion is taking place in the USA and I fear it will result in Communism in the not to distant future unless people are brought back down to planet earth.

Trump has in no way, shape, or form, behaved like Hitler or any other dictator. He has done well on the economy, he has introduced the largest coronavirus testing program of any country, deaths from coronavirus in the US are very low compared to the infection rate, he has made the US a net exporter of energy creating lots of jobs, the guy has done a good job.

Black deaths at the hands of white police officers are very low. In all fairness it was Obama that implemented the policy change that achieved that but it remains very low. The death of Mr Floyd was tragic, but for some reason the hysterics have switched off their brains and accepted the narrative that there is a racism problem going on without asking to see facts and evidence first.

The call to defund the police is ridiculous, people need protecting from crime. To an outside observer its pretty obvious that the plan is to remove the police so the rioters can have a field day with lawlessness which they hope will no doubt cumulate in an overthrow of a President they do not like. How have things gotten this bad?

Why arent the democrats unable to accept that they lost the election? When a party loses an election it has to self-reflect to find out why the people didnt want them which means listening to them, then make the appropriate changes, then run a better candidate in the next election offering people what they want. The approach of doing everything you can to get rid of the leader that the people voted for, of not changing your political approach to give people what they want instead, is appalling.

Putting aside Trump it shows a lack of respect for the electorate, what the electorate want, and the democratic process.

This year (2020) is the worst level of race relations I've ever seen, a wave of hate crimes and a peak of tension between white and black Americans. The COVID pandemic, lockdowns and economic conditions combined with a president known for some xenophobic and un-PC commentary has fueled the flames into a wildfire. African-Americans along with Latinx-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arabic-Americans, Jewish-Americans and Native Americans claim they never been targeted this much in a long time with hatred, bias and scapegoating for a lot of national ills: crime, drugs, undocumented immigration, welfare rolls, threat of terrorism, loss of American jobs to other countries, the spread of COVID into the USA, and "moral decline". We have more and more "Karens" in supermarkets who not only refuse to wear masks to curb the spread of COVID, they blame minorities and "foreigners" for the pandemic anyway. And I'm sick and tired of white conservative Republicans saying "the people who were shot or beaten by the police weren't cooperating with the officers, that's their fault", when they don't realize nor understand the police were highly aggressive on people of color they normally wouldn't on a white person when being stopped, questioned, apprehended and arrested. 

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4 hours ago, acidhead said:

Portland, Oregon

Liberalism is a mental disorder

 

With the name Dr. Etiquette, I presume children and teens should stay out of politics (or religion)...more like anything liberal or center-left. Never talk about them, get involved in them and even avoiding thinking of them. :-/ I'm so glad to be alive in 2020 despite how bad this year is...American society isn't stuck with a narrow-minded mentality to have authority control our lives, esp certain groups of people, too much. 

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9 minutes ago, Solipsi Rai said:

This year (2020) is the worst level of race relations I've ever seen,

Then you are either a young person or you've led a very insular existence.  I grew up in south Alabama in the 60s and the tensions you see today aren't even a well-cast shadow of what it was like then.  The media is pushing an emotional argument without basis in facts.  One thing is sure... if people who aren't guilty of racism, sexism, homophobia and the like are pushed hard enough and long enough then they may well become what they are being accused of.

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19 minutes ago, Solipsi Rai said:

This year (2020) is the worst level of race relations I've ever seen, a wave of hate crimes and a peak of tension between white and black Americans. The COVID pandemic, lockdowns and economic conditions combined with a president known for some xenophobic and un-PC commentary has fueled the flames into a wildfire. African-Americans along with Latinx-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arabic-Americans, Jewish-Americans and Native Americans claim they never been targeted this much in a long time with hatred, bias and scapegoating for a lot of national ills: crime, drugs, undocumented immigration, welfare rolls, threat of terrorism, loss of American jobs to other countries, the spread of COVID into the USA, and "moral decline". We have more and more "Karens" in supermarkets who not only refuse to wear masks to curb the spread of COVID, they blame minorities and "foreigners" for the pandemic anyway. And I'm sick and tired of white conservative Republicans saying "the people who were shot or beaten by the police weren't cooperating with the officers, that's their fault", when they don't realize nor understand the police were highly aggressive on people of color they normally wouldn't on a white person when being stopped, questioned, apprehended and arrested. 

You had me agreeing until your comment about the police.  Not all are bad.  If we judge all police because of a few, yet are told not to judge all people of different ethnicities, colours or religious beliefs because if a few.  And I do believe that you make bad choices, you put yourself in bad situations.   There are repercussions fir your actions.   Al lot of people think that doesn't apply to them.  It applies to us all.  

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30 minutes ago, Solipsi Rai said:

This year (2020) is the worst level of race relations I've ever seen, a wave of hate crimes and a peak of tension between white and black Americans. The COVID pandemic, lockdowns and economic conditions combined

Yes, it may be worse than it has been in a decade or two, or maybe it is just bubbling to the surface again.

Andthen is right about his memories.  I grew up in segregated Texas about the same time.  There were still lynching's going on when my parents were kids.   It has improved a lot, but admittedly may not be great for some people.  Racism, sexism, and homophobia are still out there, but are no longer cultural norms.   I hope you are young and get to see more change yet.  

Frankly there have always been problematic cops.  Growing up in Dallas, my mom told me if I ever needed help, call the Sheriff because the police can't be trusted.    There are some really great police and law enforcement people, I know some. Sometimes the problems are more than just one or two bad apples.  In some areas the bad cops get cover from their peers more than they should.  Some reform is definitely needed.

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1 hour ago, and then said:

Then you are either a young person or you've led a very insular existence.  I grew up in south Alabama in the 60s and the tensions you see today aren't even a well-cast shadow of what it was like then.  The media is pushing an emotional argument without basis in facts.  One thing is sure... if people who aren't guilty of racism, sexism, homophobia and the like are pushed hard enough and long enough then they may well become what they are being accused of.

I'm 40 years old after all, I wasn't alive in the 1960's or the previous 4 centuries before the Civil Rights Act outlawed many acts of racism and yet, I'm figuring out this is the closest to the 1960's I ever get. I have memories of the 1992 Los Angeles riots here in Southern CA on TV and word of mouth from my parents and grandparents generation had flashbacks of the massive spree of urban rioting in the 1960's. As a person of partial Native American/Cherokee-Osage ancestry, who lived in a largely Latinx/Mexican-American town and personally knew or befriended black/African Americans, I was informed and educated about the seriousness of racism, be it institutional or societal, and racism deprives a person their basic civil rights afforded to them by the US constitution which to blacks, this country wasn't always the "land of the free". 

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1 hour ago, Tatetopa said:

Yes, it may be worse than it has been in a decade or two, or maybe it is just bubbling to the surface again.

Andthen is right about his memories.  I grew up in segregated Texas about the same time.  There were still lynching's going on when my parents were kids.   It has improved a lot, but admittedly may not be great for some people.  Racism, sexism, and homophobia are still out there, but are no longer cultural norms.   I hope you are young and get to see more change yet.  

Frankly there have always been problematic cops.  Growing up in Dallas, my mom told me if I ever needed help, call the Sheriff because the police can't be trusted.    There are some really great police and law enforcement people, I know some. Sometimes the problems are more than just one or two bad apples.  In some areas the bad cops get cover from their peers more than they should.  Some reform is definitely needed.

The Obama presidency nor the Clintons in the WH (Bill the president and Hillary the first lady) promoted a politically correct, post-racial society, but in reality, it hasn't been quite achieved. My own mother in the 1970s-80s worked for local city and county law enforcement and she was a matron and dispatcher. She described each had half Mexican/Latinx representation of officers and at least one black officer on the force, but the issue is does she know Blacks, Latinx and Native Americans (she has that background) are racially profiled in law enforcement? I have to say she does, but knowing her, she brought me up not to racist and prejudiced against other racial groups. 

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1 hour ago, glorybebe said:

You had me agreeing until your comment about the police.  Not all are bad.  If we judge all police because of a few, yet are told not to judge all people of different ethnicities, colours or religious beliefs because if a few.  And I do believe that you make bad choices, you put yourself in bad situations.   There are repercussions fir your actions.   Al lot of people think that doesn't apply to them.  It applies to us all.  

Obviously most law enforcement officers follow the law and don't abuse their powers, but in cases like the 4 LAPD officers who physically assaulted Rodney King back in 1991 and Minneapolis PD officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd this year, there are evident cases of police brutality against Blacks then and now. The war on drugs (Reagan and Bush Jr and Sr), crackdown on crime (Bill and Hillary Clinton), and racial profiling policies of "young adult-minority-males and their high likelihood of committing crimes" (Nixon and Ford) along with the 1960s urban unrest caused by past abuses of law enforcement on the Black community reacted back in protest, it's no wonder there's a wide rift of distrust between the Black community and law enforcement in the USA.

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2 hours ago, Solipsi Rai said:

but the issue is does she know Blacks, Latinx and Native Americans (she has that background) are racially profiled in law enforcement? I have to say she does, but knowing her, she brought me up not to racist and prejudiced against other racial groups. 

Salute to you mom. It is still hard for some people based on no more than skin color or origin.  I have some Indian friends.  A couple have been told to go back where they came from, which they find rather ironic.  I have been in a few sweats in which I was the only person without a relative who had been to prison, mostly for non-violent petty stuff. Some older folks for their religion.  It was not until 1978 with the Native American Religious Freedom Act  that traditional sweat lodges became legal.  Prior to that, BIA agents used to hunt secret ones down on the reservation and bust people.  I still know men who were taken away from their families as small children and put in an Indian Boarding School.  It is still true that a Black man can drive by in a Lexus wearing a suit and there are people that assume he is a dope dealer or pimp rather than thinking he might be a doctor or lawyer. 

I see you are 40, I wish we were handing you a better world, I can't even tell you we did the best we could.  In the next 30 years, I hope you can make a difference.  

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9 hours ago, Solipsi Rai said:

I'm 40 years old after all, I wasn't alive in the 1960's or the previous 4 centuries before the Civil Rights Act outlawed many acts of racism and yet, I'm figuring out this is the closest to the 1960's I ever get. I have memories of the 1992 Los Angeles riots here in Southern CA on TV and word of mouth from my parents and grandparents generation had flashbacks of the massive spree of urban rioting in the 1960's. As a person of partial Native American/Cherokee-Osage ancestry, who lived in a largely Latinx/Mexican-American town and personally knew or befriended black/African Americans, I was informed and educated about the seriousness of racism, be it institutional or societal, and racism deprives a person their basic civil rights afforded to them by the US constitution which to blacks, this country wasn't always the "land of the free". 

I was going to point out that you must not have lived in the 50's or 60's because it is better now,  In the 60's my family took a camping vacation to Big Bend, TX where the Rio Grande flows into the gulf.  We stopped for groceries in Del Rio, TX and my mom let us go in with her.  The first thing we saw were two water fountains (adult size) next to each other, they had signs, "White" and "Children", but the "Children" sign covered another sign.  I wanted to see what was under that sign and my mother freaked.  She told me to leave it alone.  She knew what was under that sign.  When we were standing in line my mother paid for the groceries and was given some trading stamps (don't exist anymore, replaced by the points cards you get now).  They were some she had never seen and didn't want so she asked the lady standing behind "Do you use these stamps?"  The lady said "Yes, ma'am". and my mother gave them to her.  She looked frightened, but she took them.  Then my mother looked at the clerk who had checked us out and told us quietly, all of you run to the car NOW.  The clerk was white and she looked like she was going to reach over the counter and grab my mom.  We ran, when we got to the car my mother was so angry she couldn't talk.  Eventually she exlplained to us what had happened.  In that town it was still wrong for white people to talk to black people.  And violence was done often with no legal recourse.

So No, 2020 is Not the worst year for racism.  I would say read some history but there are very few history books that talk about the day to day incidents that happened.  My aunt went to school in Dallas when she was 18 and she got on the city bus one morning (this was 1956) and there were two seats available, a fat white man smoking a cigar and a sweet looking black woman.  My aunt didn't think about it that way she saw a fat man smoking a cigar and a sweet woman.  Of course she sat next to the woman,  And when she got off the bus people tripped her and called her foul names.

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I saw the movie Green Book that takes place in the early 1960s Deep South, named after a traveler's guide for African-Americans to find where hotels, restaurants, clubs and other accommodations in racially segregated (and not, in terms of the law) states. The movie had other instances of racism not limited to Blacks, sexism, homophobia, prejudice against other ethnic or cultural groups like Southerners and Italians, class snobbery and religious intolerance, esp. Anti-semitism against Jewish people. It takes place in a time when more people were bigoted, suspicious of minorities and immigrants: the movie had an anti-German slur that originated in WW1 and was thrown around in the 1920s, WW2 and the cold war era-1950s (East Germany under communism); and finally, the movie made a point that Black/African-Americans are the most discriminated group in US society...and I'm afraid it's still true in today's reality. 

Someone said it's been 20-30 years for the US to be the most racist except for the 1950s-60s they grew up in, the decade 1990s had the OJ Simpson trial and verdict polarized the country racially speaking, the Million Man March led by Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, and political correctness which the Clintons and Bush family promoted in their speeches, campaigns, rallies and agendas, seem to not be popular with many Americans, they compared the sociocultural phenomena as stifling like anti-communism or the red scare of the 1950s. 

Again, my Mom grew up in a beach city near L.A. (Redondo Beach or Torrance) where in the 1950s it was more of a fishery/cannery town with a pier often frequented by maritime workers of many nationalities, including Japanese, Filipinos, Hawaiians and other Asian-American or Pacific Islander groups, both Redondo Beach and Torrance extending into Gardena and Lomita is one of the US' largest East Asian and Polynesian (Native Hawaiian and Samoan) cities. She said the city allowed black home owners to live freely at the time and plenty of 3 or more generation with immigrant Mexicans, but the public beach until the end of WW2 had signs read "No blacks, Asians and Mexicans" (the sign had archaic and now considered slurs type of language). And there were European immigrants from that continent's coastal nations like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Malta, Denmark and Netherlands formed communities along the LA basin's Pacific coast.

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31 minutes ago, Solipsi Rai said:

the movie made a point that Black/African-Americans are the most discriminated group in US society...and I'm afraid it's still true in today's reality. 

No, the native Americans are more denigrated and discriminated than any other group in the whole country.  You would know that if you lived near a reservation, and yes it is still true in today's reality, discrimination of all kinds to all kinds happen every day.

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1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

No, the native Americans are more denigrated and discriminated than any other group in the whole country.  You would know that if you lived near a reservation, and yes it is still true in today's reality, discrimination of all kinds to all kinds happen every day.

I seen less discrimination against Native Americans in the Palm Springs area where I happen to live and Californians are said to have less racist attitudes against any people of color than many states in the country. Racism and ethnic conflict is everywhere in the world and the USA is no exception, but what made this country different is our tradition of freedom, liberty and justice for all enshrined in the constitution  . Japanese-Americans in the west coast were placed into internment camps during WW2 for racially resembling "the enemy" after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the majority of them were born US citizens, and Mexican immigrants in the mid 20th century across the southwest were pressured to leave the country, many were forcibly deported by INS officials because they were "taking over" the country despite the border state were historically Mexican land.   

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On 7/23/2020 at 10:49 PM, Cookie Monster said:

We all come from different backgrounds, we all have different live experiences, and they heavily influence who we vote for in elections.

The poor are more likely to vote for socialism, the skilled and financially secure are more likely to vote for conservatism. As the left has traditionally courted minority votes they are more likely to vote for left wing parties too (although this is not exclusively so). But I am confused and concerned about what is going on in the USA.

Looking at the run up to the last election I can see that Trump upset various groups with his antics and past behaviours. But a hysteria seems to have emerged against him. One not based on facts or evidence, but what seems to be an irrational fear. Fear seems to switch off the ability of many people to question what they read or watch from the media.

............snipped for brevity................

Putting aside Trump it shows a lack of respect for the electorate, what the electorate want, and the democratic process.

One "conspiracy theory" that Trump has been correct about (one of very few things it seems), although it would be very unlikely he would understand why, is that his predecessor was not born in the US.

It seems he was born in The Kingdom of Hawaii which the US has been militarily occupying illegally for nearly 130 yrs. The US Imperial Forces overthrew the sovereign (Queen - it was a constitutional Monarchy) on behalf of US plantation owners in a military coup and have occupied it ever since. Along with systematically trying to erase polynesian culture and language for much of the occupation. Though the monarchs had been pressured to privatise land and resources (in direct contravention of polynesian culture and their constitution) for some time before this. It was never legally annexed, it was simply ratified via farce. The US has formally apologised for this, but the occupation continues. Although this isn't the version Americans are usually taught. 

In fairness much of the western world owes its origin to Imperialism and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. It should at least make people wonder whether the US has ever been interested in democracy (as if the overthrow of a number of democratically elected governments and installation of friendly puppet dictators doesn't already do that). Since WW2 it has been far cheaper to control and exploit weaker countries via economics rather than occupation (which leads to another myth...capitalism).

A more humorous look at it.

This one seems well sourced and explained quite well.

https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2677489072?profile=default

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3 hours ago, Horta said:

One "conspiracy theory" that Trump has been correct about (one of very few things it seems), although it would be very unlikely he would understand why, is that his predecessor was not born in the US.

It seems he was born in The Kingdom of Hawaii which the US has been militarily occupying illegally for nearly 130 yrs. The US Imperial Forces overthrew the sovereign (Queen - it was a constitutional Monarchy) on behalf of US plantation owners in a military coup and have occupied it ever since. Along with systematically trying to erase polynesian culture and language for much of the occupation. Though the monarchs had been pressured to privatise land and resources (in direct contravention of polynesian culture and their constitution) for some time before this. It was never legally annexed, it was simply ratified via farce. The US has formally apologised for this, but the occupation continues. Although this isn't the version Americans are usually taught. 

In fairness much of the western world owes its origin to Imperialism and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. It should at least make people wonder whether the US has ever been interested in democracy (as if the overthrow of a number of democratically elected governments and installation of friendly puppet dictators doesn't already do that). Since WW2 it has been far cheaper to control and exploit weaker countries via economics rather than occupation (which leads to another myth...capitalism).

A more humorous look at it.

This one seems well sourced and explained quite well.

https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2677489072?profile=default

I get what you are saying but I suppose I just live with it.   Nearly every part of the globe has a similar story.  

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New report shows platforms run by Big Tech companies enable Antifa violence

A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) shows that technology companies enable violence from Antifa and other far-left organizations on their platforms. Memes expressing hateful rhetoric against law enforcement emerged alongside non-violent political slogans during the course of real-world protests, the report’s authors wrote.

The report also found a correlation between increased real-world violence and the proliferation of hate speech on social media posted by far-left groups, such as “anti-police memes” and “code words.” It mentioned that “while these data are only preliminary, they nevertheless suggest that traditionally anarchist, anti-police memes, slogans and code words fluctuated in sync with the recent political protests and unrest.”

https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-10-03-big-tech-companies-enable-antifa-violence.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

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Minneapolis laws barring business owners from protecting property resulted in widespread death and destruction

As reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and relayed by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Minneapolis currently bars area business owners from installing exterior security shutters on their businesses – you know, the kind that would have prevented “protesters” from looting and burning them to the ground.

According to the city of Minneapolis, such shutters “cause visual blight” and “create the impression that an area is ‘unsafe’ and ‘troublesome,'” which is ironic considering Minneapolis is now a ruinous heap of total destruction, thanks to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa.

In the aftermath of the “protests,” many area businesses are bucking the rules by installing large metal shutters – and who is going to stop them, seeing as how Minneapolis police have been defunded?

https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-10-04-minneapolis-laws-bar-business-owners-from-protecting-property-destruction.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

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I didn't see a reason to start a new thread for this but it DOES DESERVE some discussion:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-announces-declassification-of-all-russia-collusion-hillary-clinton-email-probe-documents_3529007.html

 

Between Haspel and Wray, the deep state critters are being protected but Trump has absolute authority to declassify anything he chooses so maybe we'll see some of this before the election OR we'll see him fire anyone who stands in the way.

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On 10/4/2020 at 10:44 PM, Solipsi Rai said:

I was informed and educated about the seriousness of racism, be it institutional or societal, and racism deprives a person their basic civil rights afforded to them by the US constitution which to blacks, this country wasn't always the "land of the free". 

And you believe the situation is still so unjust that blacks have a right to loot and burn cities and to attack whites just for being white?  Because that's exactly what the bomb throwers are trying to accomplish.  Sad thing is that if it keeps escalating they may achieve their goals.

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