They make sense the way Powell is talking about them. Inflation is down, while unemployment is worryingly high. The Fed is mandated to keep both of those things under control, so they're shifting their policy. Only time will tell if it will work the way that they hope it will, but watching bearish investors seethe at Powell will provide me with entertainment in the meantime.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
- Start date
- Status
Conservatives have been broadly pro-authoritarian since time immemorial. They'll hide this by advocating for states and individual rights (selectively of course; mainly the individual rights of property and business owners to exploit those less fortunate than themselves) but tyranny of the individual is still tyranny. If conservatives had their way we'd all be sleeping on a rope in a company workhouse after working our 18 hour shift in the coal mines for just enough scrip to buy bread and water from the company store.
Conservatives attempting to undermine democracy is not something new; they've been doing this forever. McCarthyism and the Reagan era both mark both mark times when conservatives managed to deal serious damage to the health of American democracy, and we're still dealing with the aftershocks of both to this day. The main difference between those movements and the modern conservative movement is that they're not even trying to hide the fact that they seek to overthrow democracy (you'll never have to vote again, folks!), and if their rhetoric is anything to go by, this time they want it to be permanent.
If the ghouls behind Project 2025 get their way, America will be a white Christian ethnostate and the means for leftists and liberals to change that will be done away with. There will be no collapse of the American empire; contrary to whatever copium terminally online MLs have been huffing, it isn't going anywhere on its own any time soon, and if it does it's taking a lot of people in the global south down with it. If conservatives manage to close off the avenues to change it from within, get ready for decades more of the worst kind of imperialist subjugation. There will be no justice for Gazans or the war criminals who slaughter them. There will be no end to aid for settler-colonial projects like Israel. There will be no turning point in the destruction of the climate. There will be no equity for queer people or the working class. If you care about any of these things, that should probably concern you. It fucking sickens me. If they manage to accomplish even a tenth of what they desire to, it will likely mean setting leftist movements back decades, just as they were under McCarthy and Reagan.
Conservatism's original function was ideologically defending monarchies from revolutionaries who sought to replace them with democracies. It is rooted in contempt for the masses, a belief that humans are fundamentally unequal, and a belief that some people are uniquely deserving to wield outsized power over others. Unless the Republicans become less conservative, which is unlikely, these qualities will continue to manifest in whoever they field to replace Trump and his cronies.
Ewwwwww the Kamala speech was cringe. The Middle East part made me want to gag.
Not that my opinions on supporting her change— just to say, solidarity with everyone who found that speech damning.
Not that my opinions on supporting her change— just to say, solidarity with everyone who found that speech damning.
DNC Speech? You thought it was bad?
Btw, RFK dropped out and endorsed Trump. Time to party! NYTimes headline will be “RFK endorsed Trump. Here is why that is bad for Democrats”
(…it’s not bad for Democrats. This is good)
It's so good. Let's go Trump!
I wouldn't really call it "good", I'd call it completely inconsequential and exactly what anyone with at least a room temperature IQ should have predicted. RFK was the most obvious conservative plant in decades, so obvious, in fact, that he was almost completely unsuccessful at pulling voters away from the Democrats. The only RFK supporters I know are politically clueless and mentally underdeveloped libertarians (see above for example) who don't really understand half the verbal diarrhea that pours out of his mouth, but since they're operating on a similar mental wavelength they think they do and they think they agree with it. These clowns weren't voting blue anyways. RFK endorsing Trump changes precisely nothing.
Is there a transcript of the speech yet
I suspect that this tactic isn't going to be very effective because the Democrats know that most of the people threatening to not vote will ultimately fall in line to keep the Republicans out, but I wouldn't call it unprincipled. Even if we accept that it is, being principled is certainly not a standard that the opposition holds itself to.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/po...peech-at-the-democratic-national-convention-2
I don’t think the transcript is that telling though, the delivery is equally as important so I’d recommend watching it over reading it if you didn’t see it
its a personal thing where just watching mainstream american politics stuff in real-time generally kinda just makes me feel icky
im also just more of a reader
i get that i might be missing out though
Agree RFK endorsement does nothing.
Harris has to be more explicit in her criticism and pushback on Israel. That speech is cringeworthy and with respect to the democrats here, but how you can refuse to have someone speak on the Gaza issue during the DNC, given the strength of uncommitted, given the facts on the ground, is awful optics and just plain awful.
And I am sick of hearing the words “Israel has a right to defend itself” in relation to Palestine (Nancy Pelosi - summed up with ‘Israel has the right to defend its apartheid”).
Because, as proven by the ICJ Advisory Opinion in July…no, it does not. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from occupation, Israel as the occupying state does not have the right to defend itself, it must end its apartheid and genocide.
And no, Israel is not “civilised” or “democratic”. In the first instance, you can’t be “civilised” and also have people openly advocating rape of Palestinian prisoners, and you can’t be “democratic” and practice apartheid, ethno-state policies that lead to genocide.
At this point, not challenging Netanahyu is literally the same as appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the 30s.
Mark my words, Palestine is not the end of this where Israel is concerned.
And I am sick of hearing the words “Israel has a right to defend itself” in relation to Palestine (Nancy Pelosi - summed up with ‘Israel has the right to defend its apartheid”).
Because, as proven by the ICJ Advisory Opinion in July…no, it does not. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from occupation, Israel as the occupying state does not have the right to defend itself, it must end its apartheid and genocide.
And no, Israel is not “civilised” or “democratic”. In the first instance, you can’t be “civilised” and also have people openly advocating rape of Palestinian prisoners, and you can’t be “democratic” and practice apartheid, ethno-state policies that lead to genocide.
At this point, not challenging Netanahyu is literally the same as appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the 30s.
Mark my words, Palestine is not the end of this where Israel is concerned.
Last edited:
Go on then. Explain it to me. Give me your point of view on this. Do you think you can practice apartheid policies and also be a democratic state?
Do you think it is civilised to call for state mandated rape?
Come on, you’ve put your head above the parapet. I am awaiting your explanation.
.... Not my family trying to lecture me on why Republicans are better
Some things they said...
"Republicans stand for hard work and earning things" (...... no comment)
"Kamala Harris is only campaigning at colleges because they haven't experienced the world yet and they don't know any better (the college students, not knowing any better than to vote for Trump I guess) and that this is her only hope to keep Democrats in office" (it's not her only hope, but okay; also gen Z is primarily liberal anyway so her campaigning at colleges is pretty standard, is it not? Not to mention they mispronounce her name)
"Democrats are letting felons vote because most of the felons are black and they're gonna vote for her" (Can I facepalm yet?)
"There are more black men in prison than there are in college" (Not only do I not even believe this, but if it is true, black people are disproportionately arrested to begin with and they have less resources to be able to go to college, so this whole stereotype of 'black people are criminals' is very old)
"Obama started the recession because (they) lived through it and the history books are lying" (Because documented historical events by an exuberant amount of unbiased sources would lie)
"Inflation is so high because Biden gave the stimulus checks to everyone during the pandemic, even to millionaires" (I'm not an economist but I still doubt this is entirely true)
"Democrats don't support women's rights because they let men take women's rights" (trans women are women, and no, trans people aren't pedophiles, the stereotype is very old)
The moral of this: Don't vent your political beliefs onto people when they don't ask for you to
Some things they said...
"Republicans stand for hard work and earning things" (...... no comment)
"Kamala Harris is only campaigning at colleges because they haven't experienced the world yet and they don't know any better (the college students, not knowing any better than to vote for Trump I guess) and that this is her only hope to keep Democrats in office" (it's not her only hope, but okay; also gen Z is primarily liberal anyway so her campaigning at colleges is pretty standard, is it not? Not to mention they mispronounce her name)
"Democrats are letting felons vote because most of the felons are black and they're gonna vote for her" (Can I facepalm yet?)
"There are more black men in prison than there are in college" (Not only do I not even believe this, but if it is true, black people are disproportionately arrested to begin with and they have less resources to be able to go to college, so this whole stereotype of 'black people are criminals' is very old)
"Obama started the recession because (they) lived through it and the history books are lying" (Because documented historical events by an exuberant amount of unbiased sources would lie)
"Inflation is so high because Biden gave the stimulus checks to everyone during the pandemic, even to millionaires" (I'm not an economist but I still doubt this is entirely true)
"Democrats don't support women's rights because they let men take women's rights" (trans women are women, and no, trans people aren't pedophiles, the stereotype is very old)
The moral of this: Don't vent your political beliefs onto people when they don't ask for you to
90% of the time, using dictionary definitions in specialized conversations implies that you don't understand the situation. Political terms exist in these subjective, complex, fluctuating human and conversational contexts that the dictionary cannot fully capture – its definitions tend to be inadequate for deeper conversations like this. This is one of those times – I will brief you on the situation re: civilized. Your use of democracy would merit a similar explanation, but I hope the "civilized" point is enough to get my message across, and you can start to fill in the blanks for democracy.
"Civilized": What some people say is (and what Martin is responding to) is that, "Unlike those backward savage Palestinian terrorists that use human shields and commit war crimes, the Israeli army is super moral and selective". People like... the literal Prime Minister of Israel, who said the Palestinians used the "law of the jungle" and implied they weren't even human. This specific claim stems from a wider idea of some people in Western countries being really snobbish and bigoted towards non-Western countries, thinking they're total failures who are worse than the West in every way. Think about someone who hears "Africa" and only thinks about starving children.
Martin's response is pushing back against this "Palestinians are savage terrorists" idea, criticizing people for giving Israel the highground as this really praiseworthy, moral force when attitudes like "we should rape our enemy prisoners of war" are so common. The hypocrisy is pretty clear – that is literally war crimes. There other ways people could push back against that awful argument – debunking myths about Palestine (see the third paragraph for the human shields myth), exposing more awful behavior from Israel, pointing to Israel's immense geopolitical leverage over Palestine, etc.
Martin's response is pushing back against this "Palestinians are savage terrorists" idea, criticizing people for giving Israel the highground as this really praiseworthy, moral force when attitudes like "we should rape our enemy prisoners of war" are so common. The hypocrisy is pretty clear – that is literally war crimes. There other ways people could push back against that awful argument – debunking myths about Palestine (see the third paragraph for the human shields myth), exposing more awful behavior from Israel, pointing to Israel's immense geopolitical leverage over Palestine, etc.
Last edited:
I’m S.A.C. Martin and I approve this post. Well said.
She does not need to be more explicit. Harris’ DNC speech was well received domestically. The Gaza conflict was 3 sentences in a 30 minute speech. It is far down the list of topics of importance of American voters.
The amount of privilege dripping from this statement is off the walls.
perhaps some observers would rather their leaders' rhetoric and actions be more guided by what is right than what will be "well received domestically". food for thought.
It is what it is. This is the reality of the American voter. Gaza is not more important to American voters than the US economy, “safety” (immigration / crime), health care, democracy, and abortion. Those are the top issues.
- Status