The Politics Thread

[Juliajms]

The voter suppression this year is pretty disgusting. There was a time when it really would have stunned me that anyone would try to take away the votes of the people who have traditionally been oppressed in our society.  How can you try to stop Native Americans from voting after this country was built on their land and their deaths? After everything African Americans have been through you would really dare to take their voice? I'm an atheist and I think I still have more fear of the lord left in me than some of these Republican bible thumpers ever had.  Of course now it's not surprising that people are this awful, it's just Monday.

[Vee]

I'm just not over my grandparents' old neighborhood being shot up. They could've so easily been at Tree of Life.

[Juliajms]

It's awful. I don't think this is the kidd of tragedy that people with personal ties to the event really get over.

 

The individual stories of the victims and survivors coming out now are so heartbreaking.  One was a doctor who rushed to help.  He had been know for treating AIDS patients in the 80's.  Remembered for holding their hands without gloves and hugging them when people were still paranoid about how the disease was transmitted. Two were brothers with intellectual disabilities. A 97 year old survivor of the holocaust was killed.  To survive that and be killed in a synagogue in the United States nearly 80 years later is unfathomable.

 

Is it in poor taste to say that this didn't even catch me by surprise? This is what happens when leaders play footsie with white nationalists. When the right wing media starts floating conspiracy theories about rich Jews (Soros!) controlling the world behind the scenes.  The only thing that surprised me is that it didn't happen sooner. Sadly antisemitism is rising on the left as well.  It's not as bad because it's not sanctioned by leaders, but it's become common place for Jews in general to be blamed for the actions of the Israeli government on social media.

[Vee]

Antisemitism on the left ("Because Israel" is always the excuse) has been a personal peeve of mine for quite awhile.

 

I wasn't shocked by the attack. I was shocked when I saw the hashtag "Squirrel Hill". I never thought it would be so close to my own family.

[Juliajms]

I'm really sorry it hit so close to home for you Vee.

[I Am A Swede]

I'm feeling really pessimistic about the future right now. Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil was perhaps not unexpected, but reading about him and his politics is frightening. His rhetoric and people's responses to it makes me think of the 1930s, and it's not a happy feeling.

Add to that Angela Merkel's announcement that she's stepping down in a few years. I've felt somewhat safer knowing that she's around, and I can't help being a bit nervous about who will take over from her.

[DramatistDreamer]

More violence and threats of violence.  Yet another school shooting. Yet another suspicious package is reported.  I had hoped that this week wouldn't carry the madness of last week but here we are at Monday, and I'm exhausted already.

[Juliajms]

Me too. Maybe we can hope this wave of right wing extremism will pass by then.  That may not be likely, but it's not impossible either.

People being harassed by these white nationalist while doing nothing except living their lives. People being shot at the grocery store, at their schools, at their houses of worship. It's just sad to see it happening on a daily basis while the people running the show are mostly trying to make it worse. Then when they are called on it they act shocked and do their "who me?" act.

[DramatistDreamer]

[DRW50]

Looks like part of the drop was from new tariff threats. 

 

Republicans are so good for the economy!11!!

[dragonflies]

LOVE THIS!!!

 

 

[DRW50]

I would think that these celebrities know that Trump (or his backers) wants them to respond because they want the conversation to shift toward easier, safer topics, like out of control elite liberals.

 

I'm sure George Clooney had struggles, but most people aren't going to believe that, or care. 

Edited October 29, 2018 by DRW50

[Juliajms]

 

I dread the arrival of this caravan. Even if no one dies, it's going to be a clusterf*ck of human rights violations and suffering.

[Vee]

[Khan]

 

Nor should you be.  Even if your grandparents weren't there, it's still terrifying to think about.

 

My father, a systems technician at AT&T, was scheduled to work at the Murrah Building on the day Timothy McVeigh ripped a hole through it, and through the OKC community as a whole; killing 168 people, including innocent babies whose parents had dropped them off at the daycare, believing April 19, 1995 would be a day like any other.  And even though Papa Khan would die, unexpectedly, in 2010, I still become numb at the thought that we COULD have lost him much, much sooner.  (Thank God he had decided that April morning to stop at McDonald's and have a cup for coffee before showing up for work.)

 

When people who are SUPPOSED to be my FB friends fear the coming migrant "invasion," because, "EEK! LOOK OUT! THEY MIGHT HAVE DISEASES!," it's all I can do not to climb aboard the nearest clock tower with a high-powered rifle and hurt some people.  ("They're not following the rules!  They're coming here to hurt us!"  Trust me, the damage they could do to us doesn't compare to the damage we're doing to ourselves.)

 

I'm serious.  I'm this [!@#$%^&*] close to losing it over others' insane reactions to the migrants.

 

 

I think that's the story that affects me the most deeply.  Here we had someone who survived perhaps the greatest atrocity committed in modern times -- someone who, no doubt, was witnessing what had been unfolding since the election and wondering if it all was happening again -- and how does he die?  At the hands of a white supremacist.  As one of my fellow members of the Philolexian Society would say, "there's an irony in there...somewhere."

 

Forget the needle, I want the s.o.b. who killed these people to get the gas chamber.  His delusional ass deserves nothing less.

 

 

The GOP is good at selling snake oil to the masses, I'll grant 'em that!

Edited October 30, 2018 by Khan