General Politics Thread
- Thread starter Watanabe Ken
- Start date
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Not easy to pronounce though. Won't be hearing it too much on HIGNFY
ayase
State Alchemist
So in these trying times MPs have voted for an extra £31m to protect vulnerable… MPs.
Does the thought ever occur to them that maybe, just maybe, the reason they increasingly require such protection from harm is because they increasingly behave in ways that make people want to harm them? I’m guessing probably not. Maybe if instead of giving them more protection we removed it all they’d feel a bit less inclined to do so. I don’t imagine that sword would have bothered Damocles so much if there’d been 3 inches of bulletproof glass between it and his head.
Protests descending into mob rule, Rishi Sunak warns police
Officers must use their powers against people who undermine democracy by targeting MPs, Rishi Sunak says.
www.bbc.co.uk
Does the thought ever occur to them that maybe, just maybe, the reason they increasingly require such protection from harm is because they increasingly behave in ways that make people want to harm them? I’m guessing probably not. Maybe if instead of giving them more protection we removed it all they’d feel a bit less inclined to do so. I don’t imagine that sword would have bothered Damocles so much if there’d been 3 inches of bulletproof glass between it and his head.
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ayase
State Alchemist
Edition of Friday the 1st of March, 2024, in which Rishi feels the need to make an impromptu speech warning of the impending destruction of polite society and democracy, race wars in our streets, murdered politicians and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes, coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue. Ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now leg-warmers, family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald. Any day now, the year of the Diamond Dogs. This ain't rock and roll! This is genocide!
I don't think times are getting nearly as exciting as our dear leader says they are, but one can hope.
I don't think times are getting nearly as exciting as our dear leader says they are, but one can hope.
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BrokenPhoenix
Hunter
That's a big question. I don't think it was staged by Trump himself or the US Republican party. Why risk killing the guy who has the best chance of getting into the White House come November from their perspective? There's no way you can be that accurate with a gun from that far away, to only just clip an ear on a moving target.
Was it staged or perpetrated by another organisation like the CIA? That I can't say.
Anj
Brigade Leader
I see what you're saying. Apparently some sources say his ear was hit by debris rather than a bullet but I guess it would be impossible to know for sure.
I can't pretend to like the man or anything he stands for and God I pray he does not get voted in, but similarly I don't wish death on him and glad he wasn't badly hurt.
I did wonder, as the shooter was a registered republican, if he saw the potential of it increasing Trump's popularity and was mad enough to risk dying for the cause. I wonder if he had no intention of hitting him and if the debris thing was true, that bit was an accident.
For sure i would like it to have some impact on gun reform laws!
BrokenPhoenix
Hunter
Well it's no secret that many Republicans aren't fans of Trump and what he has turned the Republicans into. Some are suggesting that the idea of Trump being a threat to democracy may have pushed him over the edge to try and kill him - the shooter may have been someone who just had a few screws loose and read one too many conspiracy theories. I was actually surprised the shooter wasn't someone with links to the Democrat party.
It all does seem very odd though - the fact that the only vantage point that was available wasn't locked down by security and many of the attendees had noticed him climb up and set up his gun on that roof.
Anj
Brigade Leader
Yes absolutely! It was such an obvious point for someone to do something nefarious, that was quite an oversight on the authority's part!
I don't really blame them for not liking Trump, the whole thing is bizarre, it feels like someone in a meeting about 10 years ago jokingly said 'oh you should run for president' and have a good laugh, but the seed was sown. Then it all played out like some dreadful tv show.
I remember our local radio station announcing that Trump had got in last time then immediately played 'end of the world' by REM
Anyway I hope for some glorious reason he doesn't get in, i don't know enough about Kamala yet to know if she is a good alternative but she does at least have some better environmental policies which is a huge deal to me. I still think given how much influence US has, the rest of the world should be allowed to vote on the presidency
(especially the Ukraine 
)
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
I still think given how much influence US has, the rest of the world should be allowed to vote on the presidency
Balancing the number of totalitarian and populist states in the world to fair and honest democracies, Trump would get a landslide.
Rwanda’s recent election is a case in point, with the incumbent getting a greater than 99% landslide, beating Saddam Hussein’s final election performance.
Rwanda elections: President Paul Kagame wins with more than 99% of the vote
Paul Kagame wins with more than 99% of the vote, showing Rwanda's lack of democracy, his critics say.
www.bbc.co.uk
I so want to believe a conspiracy theory, but it’s the same kind of thing that populists ascribe to, twisting reality to fit their own worldview. The world would make more sense to me if Trump made a deal with the kid to shoot some rando in the crowd, knowing full well he’ll be killed and Trump will never have to pay, then wrestler style razor blades his ear when the Secret Service bundle him in the podium, so he can have his defiant triumph photo op. But life isn’t a movie.
Dai
Death Scythe
Depends on whether he was using an M-16, which we all know is the most accurate sniper rifle...
Funnily enough, old Duke was hired to stage an assassination attempt on Trump in one of his adventures four years ago:
ayase
State Alchemist
I've said before that despite all these dire warnings about him being a threat to his country and democracy the major thing which makes me believe Trump is in fact no threat at all to the establishment is the fact he still continues to breathe. Generally, if the powers that be decide you are a threat, the programme is as follows:
1. Do we have kompromat we can threaten you with to make you tow the line or failing that, publicly release in order to discredit you?
2. If no kompromat exists, can we smear you in the press with lies anyway and make people believe them?
3. Can you have an unfortunate accident that scares you into going away?
4. Can you have an unfortunate accident that results in your death?
5. "Suicide"
6. Get the gun, Oswald
If I was running the deep state's black ops (I'm not, but I am available) and it was decided Trump needed to be dealt with, I think sneaking ever higher doses of ephedrine into his Diet Cokes until he suffered an unfortunate heart attack would probably be the much safer way of disposing of him in a believable manner for an overweight elderly man than making him a martyr in a very public assassination and only encouraging his already quite conspiratorial fanbase.
1. Do we have kompromat we can threaten you with to make you tow the line or failing that, publicly release in order to discredit you?
2. If no kompromat exists, can we smear you in the press with lies anyway and make people believe them?
3. Can you have an unfortunate accident that scares you into going away?
4. Can you have an unfortunate accident that results in your death?
5. "Suicide"
6. Get the gun, Oswald
If I was running the deep state's black ops (I'm not, but I am available) and it was decided Trump needed to be dealt with, I think sneaking ever higher doses of ephedrine into his Diet Cokes until he suffered an unfortunate heart attack would probably be the much safer way of disposing of him in a believable manner for an overweight elderly man than making him a martyr in a very public assassination and only encouraging his already quite conspiratorial fanbase.
RadFemHedonist
Mad Scientist
Define the "establishment", and he is a raging misogynist who's succeeded in mostly banning abortion in the US now, I dunno if that threatens "the establishment" but it certainly greatly and direly harms women. Like I don't really have much of an opinion on the recent shooting incident, but Trump is far from harmless.
ayase
State Alchemist
The mass of unelected civil servants who remain in place regardless of who is elected (including, in America, officials the President simply appoints and do not even have to be elected) plus the corporations and interests who support and influence elected officials via lobbying and campaign donations (i.e. bribery, which in the USA is now virtually unlimited since Citizens United v. FEC). These people do not care (and probably even prefer it) if the voting public are at each other's throats over matters like social issues which do not threaten their ability to increase their own wealth and power. Despite his "drain the swamp" rhetoric, Trump has in fact proved to be no threat to them at all. Do they care about the American people's rights and freedoms? Almost certainly not. COINTELPRO, MKULTRA, the Patriot Act, PRISM, everything Snowden revealed, everything listed here, particularly the times they intentionally exposed parts of the population to radiation and chemicals without their knowledge as experiments, Americans have been having their rights violated by their government for decades. I don't expect that will change whoever they elect.
Anj
Brigade Leader
I agree about him not being harmless but I'm in no doubt at all that any president is not the actual controlling force.
I do not want him to get in, he most likely will I'm sure, but I am frankly terrified for what could happen to places like the Ukraine if he does.
I'm studying an environmental science degree at the moment and he is a firm believer in fossil fuel industry being 'where it's at' and going back on the Paris Agreement is, tbh, criminal considering the state the planet is in. What else is he going to do to continue this willful destruction in the name of greed?
Why he is even in the running is a complete mystery to me, it makes no rational sense.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
I think it's safe to say that Labour's flushed their honeymoon period down the toilet, what with the scrapping of Winter Fuel payments, Rachel Reeves blaming the Tories for it all, and intimating that the promise not to raise personal taxes will be broken at the next budget, and the racists taking any excuse to have a riot.
Things can only get better...
Things can only get better...
Dave1988
Pokémon Master
Country has been screwed for many years, people knew really what labour were all about, and still voted.
Just Passing Through
The Wildcard
Oh, and GPs voted to go on strike today.
Thing is, what was the alternative? 5 more years of Tories? At least Labour haven't had the time to shatter any laws, morals or ethics yet in the last month.