The Politics Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

 

So is this only happening in Communist countries or what?  I bet Trump won't chastize the Chinese government like he did the Cubans.

 

US consulate staffer in China has brain injury

[Khan]

Re: Judy Woodruff's tweet -- I've long suspected that the Russians' involvement in our last election went way deeper than merely influencing potential voters on social media and the like; that, in fact, they might have tampered with the votes themselves.  I mean, not only does he win on the slimmest of margins BUT he wins in the exact same places that pundits said said he would need to win BEFORE the election.  I've heard pundits call it pretty close before, but not THAT close.

[DRW50]

So shocking. So, so shocking.

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/24/trump-calls-off-historic-meeting-with-kim-jong-un-607126

 

The only parts of this that do anything but terrify me are my amusement that the NK spokeswoman called Pence a "dummy" and seeing the people on the right who went on and on about how his tough guy diplomacy was getting us results unlike appeaser Obama now having to chew on their cheeks. 

Edited May 24, 2018 by DRW50

[DramatistDreamer]

Only Trumpists and the rest of his fans ever believed that that summit would even happen. 

 

They won't admit that all that Nobel Prize talk was the height of idiocy. Trump hasn't achieved one gottdamned thing, other than environmental and human degradation for people in the U.S. And he's being praised for his abundance of failure.

 

The silver lining is the U.S. averts yet another embarrassment on the worldwide stage because surely North Korea (with China advising) would've made a fool out of the Trump administration in Singapore.  

[DramatistDreamer]

Speaking of things that many of us knew all along...

 

 

[Juliajms]

I hope all who have the time will read and share this thread. 

[DRW50]

I read about that earlier. I have a feeling people will say, "That's why they shouldn't come here!" but it's so much more, and so terrifying to think of is happening to these kids. 

[DramatistDreamer]

I am only painfully aware of how America disregards the plight of certain children.  I was reading a news article about a cold case from the early 1970s in Washington D.C. where a cluster of young Black girls and women were found murdered and how negligent many of the police were in the investigations into their killings. 

At the same time there were two cases of White girls who were killed that got the lionshare of media attention.  I won't tell you which cases were solved and which remain unsolved to this day because I think you can guess that.

In the case of "foreigners" unfortunately many people feel justified in mistreating them, even children. 

[Juliajms]

That's one of the many disheartening things going on right now.  People are willing to excuse anything. They just brush it all of and blame the people trying to come here.

Yes. That's definitely happening. The government actually losing over 1,000 children in a program that is just gearing up and not being held to account in any meaningful way? That is nuts. I think YZ is right about how this is going to go. Children lost to disease, trafficking and taken from their parents and raised in foster homes.

[dragonflies]

Holy [!@#$%^&*] 

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

Reading these pieces about how children have been ripped away from their families at the border reminds me of the history courses I took where I read pre-Civil War accounts of slave children being ripped away from their families and sold off.

 

People in the U.S. constantly talk about how that's all in the past and how America is not that kind of country anymore but I see the same brutal tactics being used nearly 200 years later.

Edited May 25, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[Juliajms]

^ I can see why people might have felt that way pre- 2016, although now reports are coming out about children being abused while in custody even before Trump was elected. 

 

Now I think we don't really know how things will shake out. What will America be like after Trump?  Now we know first hand (as opposed to various experiments and the historical record) that there are a lot of people who will just go along. 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Juliajms

[Vee]

[DramatistDreamer]

Trafficking and exploitation of the  marginalized has always been a part of the American fabric but at least other people in America are beginning to wake up to just how brutal this all is. 

[Vee]