|
|
Post by sarapen on Jun 8, 2017 12:39:36 GMT -5
I know that not everyone here follows the video game thread, so I'm reposting this link, which I think is excellently expressed analysis of the liberal democratic zeitgeist valuable even if one has not played the video game being reviewed.
This article is about the modern politics of rage as expressed through the 2016 reboot of the DOOM game franchise. It's all great, but here are some choice bits for the tl;dr brigade:
|
|
|
|
Post by ComradePig on Jun 11, 2017 16:06:03 GMT -5
This is 290% a complaint that only applies to anyone dumb enough to browse Twitter on the regular (me) but blithe dismissal of Soviet crimes by folks I otherwise agree with on just about everything really sticks in my craw. If socialism is about extending empathy to and lifting up the suffering of the common people it's pretty fucking shit to punch down at a bunch of murdered peasants because lol communismz is guud prob were rich neoliberal kulaks amirite. It's entirely possible I am too self-serious for a site where irony reigns supreme.
|
|
|
|
Post by ganews on Jun 22, 2017 14:17:14 GMT -5
Today while cleaning up so I could vacuum I found my 1.5-year-old Bernie 2016 button. It would be small print, but I'm thinking about covering up the "2016" with "maybe coulda won but just as likely not and we'll never know so stop re-litigating the primary and do something useful for the world instead".
|
|
Tellyfier
TI Pariah 
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552 
|
Post by Tellyfier on Jun 27, 2017 0:21:59 GMT -5
Angela Merkel really, really wants another four years as Lady Boss of Germany and she will most probably make it by lack of real competition. Also by being a cunning and, grudgingly admitted, very smart person. One of the very few things the other parties can nab some votes from her is Gay Marriage. She's with the Conservative Party and their official party program is a big fat No to gay marriage. Merkel does yet know that in the public there's a comfortable majority for it. So she just went and declared it a "decision of conscience" which means in a parliamental vote the party members don't have to vote according to party line but as they please. This is a smart move because she knows with the other parties being for it plus the about 40-50% of her party members there will be a majority for gay marriage but avoids the inner party turmoil because the official party line doesn't change. So in mixed bag news today: Re-election probability for Merkel just went up from 95% to 98% And in really good news today: It's via election tactics but whatever, Germany gets Gay Marriage! Edit: I just have to add that because it must be exactly what Martin Schulz feels like today:  Another Edit: The social Democrats, who are still in a coalition with the Merkel's conservatives but most likely won't be after the election and the other parties have made a swift move. Basically they went "Hey there's this template for gay marriage that's been postponed by the social dems for 30 times (the Socials want gay marriage but the coalition contract with the Conservatives says no dice), since Merkel is not against it anymore let's have a vote RIGHT THIS WEEK!" So they kicked the ball right back to Merkel, now she has to keep her word and let her party members decide after believe. But if she does that gay marriage goes through and, for once in this country, the credit goes not to her. Which she will hugely dislike, what with the election in three months. Or she backs up and keeps the party on the official line. Then there will be no gay marriage (yet) and it will be perceived as Merkel's fault. Which she will hugely dislike, what with the election in three months. So Social Dems, Greens and The Left (actual party name) just took Merkel's maneuver on it's head and said: It's a thrilling show right now in Berlin, I'll keep updating! |
|
|
|
Post by Prole Hole on Jun 27, 2017 8:45:00 GMT -5
Liked both for the content, and of course for referring to Merkel as Lady Boss Of Germany. But who would win in a fight, Lady Boss Of Germany or Lady Boss Of Scotland? (Lady Boss Of America sadly in absentia)
|
|
Tellyfier
TI Pariah
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552
|
Post by Tellyfier on Jun 27, 2017 10:23:20 GMT -5
Liked both for the content, and of course for referring to Merkel as Lady Boss Of Germany. But who would win in a fight, Lady Boss Of Germany or Lady Boss Of Scotland? (Lady Boss Of America sadly in absentia) Angie would totally lose that one, she doesn't even have a Claymore. |
|
|
|
Post by Prole Hole on Jun 27, 2017 10:24:34 GMT -5
Liked both for the content, and of course for referring to Merkel as Lady Boss Of Germany. But who would win in a fight, Lady Boss Of Germany or Lady Boss Of Scotland? (Lady Boss Of America sadly in absentia) Angie would totally lose that one, she doesn't even have a Claymore. Amateur! |
|
Tellyfier
TI Pariah
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552
|
Post by Tellyfier on Jun 27, 2017 10:26:28 GMT -5
Vote in Parliament this week, Merkel gave her party members release of voting according to party line. This is totally happening   |
|
Tellyfier
TI Pariah
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552
|
Post by Tellyfier on Jun 30, 2017 2:27:59 GMT -5
So here we are, the vote is going on and if there's no huge surprise we'll have gay marriage in Germany. Not right away, there's laws to change, maybe even an adjustment to the constitution but there's no going back from today's vote. Merkel is... not amused about the proceedings. She's the one who nonchalantly dropped that she's not against gay marriage anymore in an interview with "Brigitte" (quite traditional ladie's magazine, fashion, recipes, health/diet tips) on sunday to take the topic out of the campaign. When the other parties forced the vote for today she went "I wish we could have discussed that in a more calm manner" She also also cited a meeting with a lesbian couple who foster care for a lot of children as what changed her mind. Sadly for her it came out that said meeting did already happen in 2013. So the big newspapers are having a field day bashing her, if anybody didn't know yet, Angela Merkel has one and only one virtue: Pragmatism, she'd be pro puppy murder as an olympic events if that brought her votes. Will that hurt her in the election in September? Only marginally, when I say "big newspapers" I mean serious media like Spiegel, FAZ, Süddeutsche etc. I disabled my adblock to check out Bild (imagine Fox News, not that much right wing but equally loud, conservative and stupid) and there's not a word about Merkel's sudden, yet delayed from 2013, change of heart. So yeah.. Stray Observation: Merkel's party, the Christian Democrats, are the Catholic church endorsed party in Germany, so the church does have some influence. For example Merkel wasn't married to her decades-long SO but only married him when becoming Bundeskanzler, because the Catholic church "recommends" that the parties top people are married. (the only virtue = pragmatism thing again). The Catholic Church is against gay marriage, no surprise here. There are gay people in the CDU. The dilemma now: If a gay member of the CDU has a fabulous gay wedding, do the endorse it because the are pro married party members or not because they are against gay marriage? EDIT: It's done 393 pro gay marriage, 226 against. (Merkel voted against so she doesn't upset her conservative party base even more  ) |
|
|
|
Post by Prole Hole on Jun 30, 2017 2:38:26 GMT -5
Can they not simply endorse it for fabulousness? Either way fantastic that it's passed, typical hypocrisy from the top, and business as usual everywhere else.
I'm still giving this a well deserved
WOOOOOOO!
AW YE YE!
WHEE!
Well done, Germany!
|
|
|
|
Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jul 3, 2017 19:53:37 GMT -5
Never thought I’d see the combo of French words “adjectif pretentieux,” but here they are in reference to “jupitérien.” Even considering the French presidential system’s just more executive-centric than the rest in western world (even the US, and even when the US actually has someone with the cognitive capacities of an adult), the whole monarchical nostalgia thing is weird coming from him. Sometimes you see it from the right (obviously), sometimes in weird forms on the left (generally in some abstracted, intellectualized form that’s less specifically about the monarchy and more about modernity—e.g. there was more social solidarity, people had a sense of meaning, various strains of anti-Enlightenment thought, etc.), but it’s ultra-weird coming from the boring neolib center. Macron’s going to have a long hard fall, isn’t he? |
|
|
|
Post by Didja Heah That, T? on Jul 3, 2017 20:44:56 GMT -5
get fucked king bitch  |
|
|
|
Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jul 4, 2017 10:27:08 GMT -5
Per my dad, who lived in France in the seventies and eighties, Macron is still less outwardly pretentious than VGE was, which says more about VGE than Macron, I think.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 4, 2017 20:40:11 GMT -5
Never thought I’d see the combo of French words “adjectif pretentieux,” but here they are in reference to “jupitérien.” Even considering the French presidential system’s just more executive-centric than the rest in western world (even the US, and even when the US actually has someone with the cognitive capacities of an adult), the whole monarchical nostalgia thing is weird coming from him. Sometimes you see it from the right (obviously), sometimes in weird forms on the left (generally in some abstracted, intellectualized form that’s less specifically about the monarchy and more about modernity—e.g. there was more social solidarity, people had a sense of meaning, various strains of anti-Enlightenment thought, etc.), but it’s ultra-weird coming from the boring neolib center. Macron’s going to have a long hard fall, isn’t he? More Louis Philippe "Citizen King" than Charles X, perhaps, at least. |
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 5, 2017 13:57:39 GMT -5
Per my dad, who lived in France in the seventies and eighties, Macron is still less outwardly pretentious than VGE was, which says more about VGE than Macron, I think. Reference to VGE puts me in mind of his coinage of "exorbitant privilege" to describe the position of the US dollar in global economics. There's a useful study of the same so titled which Trump could find a corrective to his seemingly truly held belief that American largesse has been taken advantage of, if he read books and his mind wasn't trammelled by sociopathy. |
|
|
|
Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jul 5, 2017 20:15:50 GMT -5
Never thought I’d see the combo of French words “adjectif pretentieux,” but here they are in reference to “jupitérien.” Even considering the French presidential system’s just more executive-centric than the rest in western world (even the US, and even when the US actually has someone with the cognitive capacities of an adult), the whole monarchical nostalgia thing is weird coming from him. Sometimes you see it from the right (obviously), sometimes in weird forms on the left (generally in some abstracted, intellectualized form that’s less specifically about the monarchy and more about modernity—e.g. there was more social solidarity, people had a sense of meaning, various strains of anti-Enlightenment thought, etc.), but it’s ultra-weird coming from the boring neolib center. Macron’s going to have a long hard fall, isn’t he? More Louis Philippe "Citizen King" than Charles X, perhaps, at least. Mitterand also had some of these tendencies, though he did a better job of holding them from public view, though on the other hand he was called “the Florentine” because everyone knew he was hiding them from view (the most theatrical would have been eating that ortolan). |
|
|
|
Post by sarapen on Jul 9, 2017 13:17:19 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by ganews on Jul 9, 2017 13:30:17 GMT -5
Thought: when Bernie Sanders campaigns on the democratic ticket, then refuses to change his party affiliation to democrat, it's just the flipside of the classic snub wherein democratic party leaders take the left, from the rankest partisan to the leftiest leftist, for granted. Look at the embarrassment of the floated slogans by the DCCC; "have you seen the other guys" is party politics for anyone who runs. |
|
|
|
Post by ganews on Jul 9, 2017 20:20:43 GMT -5
One of my friends was late getting to the party this afternoon because he and his wife were having visiting with another friend they hadn't seen for a while. This friend is purportedly both a staunch liberal and also married to someone who just started working for the Trump administration. Like, a reasonably prominent position as an aide in the White House; not a mole or something more becoming of the People's Republic of Tacoma Park, MD, but a true believer.
There are plenty of marriages out there made of sharply divided politics, and it's not that hard to see how they work. But when someone's whole career is politics opposed by their spouse, when they stake a position that even most of their fellow professional partisans won't touch, you have to wonder.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 14, 2017 9:57:19 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 16, 2017 11:40:11 GMT -5
A few observations about the presidentialism and anti-democratic electoral system of the Fifth Republic from the above:
The PCF actually won the legislative elections of 1945, November 1946 and 1956. They were the largest National Assembly party before the Fifth Republic, with Thorez serving as Vice-Premier. (The general opinion of the Western New Left of his tenure seems to be that, in line with Stalin's final volte-face, he was too collaborationist with the bourgeois parties.)
There are also some interesting points made about how the FN occupied the space vacated by the PCF, the vitiation of the latter Mitterand contributed to, and the FN's (and other far right European parties's) pro-European position in the seventies.
|
|
|
|
Post by ganews on Jul 16, 2017 12:50:01 GMT -5
I found out today that an acquaintance of a few years works for the DCCC on the midwest region. (He recently came back to DC after working in Minnesota for a year.) He's not a fan of the 50 state strategy and doesn't bear much ill toward Blue Dogs if that's what it takes to get elected. I envision interesting discussions in the future.
|
|
|
|
Post by ganews on Jul 18, 2017 9:06:25 GMT -5
If there isn't already a thinkpiece in Jacobin about how Game of Thrones' highborn Arya deserving the beatings of the lowborn Waif to start the class war in Westeros, I think I should write it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Jul 18, 2017 10:45:27 GMT -5
I found out today that an acquaintance of a few years works for the DCCC on the midwest region. (He recently came back to DC after working in Minnesota for a year.) He's not a fan of the 50 state strategy and doesn't bear much ill toward Blue Dogs if that's what it takes to get elected. I envision interesting discussions in the future. What is the Fifty States Strategy? Seriously, I’ve heard a lot about it but everything seems to point to the main advantage seems to have been running while the incumbent Republican president was unpopular, which helped with candidate recruitment everywhere (which is the same thing that’s happening today, minus any sort of strategy). I heard about it being abandoned during the Obama era, but given that a bunch of people were running for reelection who had been elected during the Fifty States Strategy era wouldn’t that have been Fifty States Strategy by default? The whole thing strikes me as “clever self-promotion by Howard Dean” rather than any sort of actual strategy beyond “Send money places and hope it works out,” which is always the strategy. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2017 12:14:03 GMT -5
One of my friends was late getting to the party this afternoon because he and his wife were having visiting with another friend they hadn't seen for a while. This friend is purportedly both a staunch liberal and also married to someone who just started working for the Trump administration. Like, a reasonably prominent position as an aide in the White House; not a mole or something more becoming of the People's Republic of Tacoma Park, MD, but a true believer. There are plenty of marriages out there made of sharply divided politics, and it's not that hard to see how they work. But when someone's whole career is politics opposed by their spouse, when they stake a position that even most of their fellow professional partisans won't touch, you have to wonder. People may well wonder. They however, will be fine. ...I find your lack of faith disturbing. |
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 19, 2017 12:46:56 GMT -5
If there isn't already a thinkpiece in Jacobin about how Game of Thrones' highborn Arya deserving the beatings of the lowborn Waif to start the class war in Westeros, I think I should write it. This is not an intelligent question. I note it's an article from 2015 and I've found quite of bit of value in its pages since then, on the admittedly infrequent occassions I look. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2017 12:58:11 GMT -5
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2017 14:21:31 GMT -5
This is 290% a complaint that only applies to anyone dumb enough to browse Twitter on the regular (me) but blithe dismissal of Soviet crimes by folks I otherwise agree with on just about everything really sticks in my craw. If socialism is about extending empathy to and lifting up the suffering of the common people it's pretty fucking shit to punch down at a bunch of murdered peasants because lol communismz is guud prob were rich neoliberal kulaks amirite. It's entirely possible I am too self-serious for a site where irony reigns supreme. You're definitely not too self serious. Free market capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system invented - across the board socialism/communism/progressivism, whatever they're calling it nowadays - never works, for any people, common or otherwise.  Sorry, I'm new to the commie-bashing. |
|
|
|
Post by Lord Lucan on Jul 19, 2017 14:28:53 GMT -5
Obviously unconstitutional, but those supporting it recommend themselves to the relevant donors thereby nonetheless. At all events, all of the American legislation that can be advanced won't reverse the ignominy of Israel's position around the world. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2017 14:48:16 GMT -5
@patrickbatman That headline they used is very misleading.
|
|
)
Sorry, I'm new to the commie-bashing.