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TrickstaPriest

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  1. Thanks
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Ragitsu in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Oh, socially speaking? Yes, we've moved the needle left in a number of ways. I'm not ungrateful that people have put their reputations and lives on the line to ensure that the everyman isn't going to be discriminated against if they are gay or possess a skin tone darker than Morticia's Addam's...er...you know what.
     
    The economic factor troubles me most. It is a trifling matter for a modern day politician or business to chant about diversity and "We're all in this together" and all that fuzzy-wuzzy kumbaya type pablum. No, what happens is that the social inequality which is invariably tied to dire economic straits gets focused on...but it's just the one angle: one facet. Minority populations (ethnic minorities, to be clear) that have been chronically disadvantaged for decades aren't necessarily going to get ahead if all you do is you tell people they're equal to everyone else. You can eradicate a good portion of this malignance if you address the underlying rot instead of dousing it with gallon upon gallon of perfume before declaring "Mission accomplished". "Socially liberal but economically conservative" (or any close enough description) quickly becomes a self-evident contradiction once you recognize that the latter attitude hinders or even outright reverses reconstructive attempts based around the former.
     
     
  2. Sad
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Joe Walsh in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    I'm struggling with this election as well
     
    On the one hand, I've been voting for the lesser of two evils since 1988, and things have just gotten worse and worse. In each election we're told that next time we'll have a better choice, but right now, we have to choose one of these two, so choose the lesser evil. But the next time it's always the same story. Every time someone even mildly progressive starts to gain traction in the presidential race, the party elites and media unite to put and end to their campaign.
     
    On the other hand, the evidence suggests Trump could be an existential threat to American democracy. One that our sociopolitical system seems unable to deal with. Do I want us to end up like Hungary or Russia? Absolutely not. Coming back from that costs blood, not votes...and may not be possible with today's surveillance technology.
     
    I'll be voting for down-ballot progressives where possible (and giving what I can to down-ballot progressives in other districts). I know the weight of the party will be against them in every case, but sometimes it works. And that gives me hope.
     
    And I suppose I will reluctantly vote for Biden. But goddamn, I can't help but feel that's part of the problem. Every time we vote for the lesser of two evils, we move the center further right. Voting for the lesser of two evils made Trump's rise possible. What was crazy right-wing stuff when I was a kid is now mainstream. And it's partly my fault.
  3. Like
    TrickstaPriest got a reaction from Lord Liaden in Coronavirus   
    Also, the hundreds of thousands of child deaths are in reference to a UN report.  I think they are referring to children not exclusively in the US.  The main reason I bring this up is that it means it's not saying we are saving a hundred thousand adult lives by trading them for a hundred thousand children - it's saying that if we don't plan for this economic burden, a lot of US and other children could starve around the world.
     
    By that, I mean it's not a report exclusively about US response, but the individual responses of economically vulnerable countries as a whole.
  4. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Badger in Coronavirus   
    Yeah, it would make sense just to put a total freeze on it. as if the months of quarantine never existed.
  5. Sad
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Lord Liaden in Coronavirus   
    Please note this passage from that article: “We must act now on each of these threats to our children,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Leaders must do everything in their power to cushion the impact of the pandemic. What started as a public health emergency has snowballed into a formidable test for the global promise to leave no one behind.” in other words, the Secretary-General is saying governments have a responsibility to use their financial resources, acquired from the populace through taxes, to assist the populace through this difficult time. Countries with a low level of financial resources need at least short-term assistance from more affluent ones to mitigate these impacts.
     
    There is no reason why at least some of the many billions of dollars the American government is prepared to expend to subsidize corporations impacted by this virus, can't be diverted to the populace hardest hit by it. This is not a matter of a response to a pandemic inevitably causing economic hardship to working-class citizens. That's the line the elites are trying to sell us. This is a matter of those who have wealth, those who consider themselves the controllers of national economies, attempting to retain their wealth by shifting all the financial burden onto the working class. "Labor or lives" is a much more compelling slogan than "Lives for profit."
     
     
  6. Thanks
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Old Man in Coronavirus   
    Just trying to make sure no one else gets PMed by people they've managed to offend in this thread.   I try to put medical stuff here and economics in the Other Thread, but the question of reopening America kind of falls in between.
  7. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Lord Liaden in Coronavirus   
    As the absolutely magnificent Internet ranter linked to above eloquently expresses it, there's a great deal the government and financial institutions have it within their power to do, right now, to ameliorate the financial burden on the public. Sadly, I've seen little from the current American administration to lead me to believe they're more concerned with lives lost than with $$. While you're (legitimately) concerned over a false dichotomy between economics and lives, I'm concerned over a false dichotomy between saving lives from preventative measures, and saving lives from opening the economy.
     
    As for estimates of mortality from the IMHE, their methodology is questioned by other prestigious medical organizations: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hershshefrin/2020/04/18/what-makes-the-covid-19-mortality-forecasts-upon-which-the-white-house-relies-seem-so-low/#444c620e2f70
  8. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Ragitsu in Coronavirus   
    Unless you're working for Howard Stern or the late George Carlin, that is 😄.
     
    Anyhow...I thought those bits appearing in the lower-left quadrant of the screen were insects flying in and out of the car; turns out, that's the man's saliva. Ho-lee crap is he pissed. Can't say I blame him, though, as we have socialism for the upper class (titans of business, to be specific) and near-anarchic capitalism for the middle-class/poor.
  9. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Ragitsu in Coronavirus   
    This factor above all else cannot be stressed enough; the adverse effects of those other considerations you mentioned can be mitigated (to varying degrees) with the right mindset. At a time when we should be acting as Neutral Good or even Lawful Good, far too many have decided to embrace Chaotic Neutral instead.
  10. Sad
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Old Man in Coronavirus   
    Yes, my Singaporean coworkers are not happy about that.  At all.  Their case trajectory is starting to look like that of any other country, only delayed by 40 days.
  11. Haha
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Bazza in Coronavirus   
  12. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Lord Liaden in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    IME that kind of knee-jerk angry reaction generally has little to do with the person's actual feelings for the subject. There's something much deeper that's upsetting them, usually something very personal, which they can't or won't acknowledge. The subject is just a convenient target to let their anger out on, so they won't have to face the real issue.
  13. Haha
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Pariah in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    The concept of Communism may have been the brainchild of Karl Marx, but the execution looked more like Groucho Marx.
  14. Sad
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Old Man in Coronavirus   
    Accuracy of testing methodologies:
     

    Molecular and antigen tests are pretty good.  Antibody tests are... not.  I suppose they are better than nothing.
     
  15. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Ragitsu in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Quote-mining is a scourge on humanity.
  16. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Badger in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    My biggest gripe, is it seems a couple times putting foot in mouth, when straying too far from his field of knowledge.  I cant really fault a person for that, really.  Especially, with news conferences, and possibly not being first hand experienced with how journalists can operate.  Too much made of nothing by paranoid ,in this case.
  17. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Ragitsu in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    The more it becomes clear that (insert-beloved-authority-figure-here) cannot repel this virus through sheer patriotic will alone, the more the people around them are going to be thrown to the wolves by the figure's constituency.
  18. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Lord Liaden in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    If that were true I would certainly have to admire Dr. Fauci's patience in waiting all of his 79 years to make his big move.
  19. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Tom in Coronavirus   
    7 digital libraries you can visit from your couch
     
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/19/us/digital-libraries-from-your-couch-trnd/index.html
     
     
  20. Sad
    TrickstaPriest reacted to csyphrett in Coronavirus   
    Why not all three?
    CES
  21. Like
    TrickstaPriest reacted to Duke Bushido in Coronavirus   
    We are having a fit of human nature right now who's outcome I'm rather curious (and concerned) about.
     
    I have noticed at work today that there are fewer people out in masks and gloves; fewer people paying attention to personal space, etc---  and that there are more people actually out and about (and I thought it was bad before!).  Seeing them, and listening to pieces of conversations--
     
    people are starting to normalize this.  I don't mean the quarantine-- that would be _great_!  If everyone could handle it the way Italy did:  this is life for the next little while; let's see how pleasant we can make it!  The _Mafia_ delivering food and checking on high-risk people!  Kudos to you, Italy!  You are a beautiful people, and an absolutely brilliant display of what should all aspire to be!
     
    But people (at least not in this part of the US) are starting to normalize the presence of Corona.  More and more, they are getting that "well, I didn't get it; it must be declining" or "I didn't get it; it must be harder to get than they said" or any of a hundred rationalizations that boil down to "this is just some minor background part of my world; let's get on with things" as if everything was normal.  At this point, I don't think extending things is going to do more than be met with a "you poor misguided panicky children, you" and ignored.
     
    I get the survival aspect over-all of being able to normalize change, but this-- this is _bad_, and I fear it will make things much worse, long-term.
     
     
  22. Thanks
    TrickstaPriest reacted to assault in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    All the social democratic reforms have been under sustained attack for the last 40 years. When they haven't been simply reversed, they have been cut back, privatized and so on. There's a good chance they will come under further attack once the dust settles, justified by the economic cost of the current crisis.
     
    So it's quite likely that the US could converge with us in the next decade or so. You might get something a bit better than you have, while we will have something much worse.
     
    The other thing with social democratic reforms is that they aren't just handed out. They need to be fought for. That's one of the reasons why they can be reversed.

    And, if I was to be honest, it requires aiming for more radical goals than what you are actually going to get. The result is always a compromise, aimed at pulling support away from the "more radical goals" and towards supporting people like the Clinton/Obama/Biden Democrats. If you support them in the first place, you get (next to) nothing.
  23. Like
    TrickstaPriest got a reaction from assault in Coronavirus   
    And thus the story of the last year and a half in my life is well-understood.  XD
  24. Like
    TrickstaPriest got a reaction from assault in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    While I don't want to pile on you, Badger, I will point out that I don't think Obama ever encouraged his base by saying that his political opponents should be forced out of the country, or shouted 'liberate' on twitter at his rival states.
     
    As enthused as people ever were for Obama, the words "Civil War" never once came up.  I never thought I would literally have to flee the country.
     
    edit: and that's including the changes to the drone strike program, which I still hate him for.
  25. Thanks
    TrickstaPriest got a reaction from Cygnia in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    While I don't want to pile on you, Badger, I will point out that I don't think Obama ever encouraged his base by saying that his political opponents should be forced out of the country, or shouted 'liberate' on twitter at his rival states.
     
    As enthused as people ever were for Obama, the words "Civil War" never once came up.  I never thought I would literally have to flee the country.
     
    edit: and that's including the changes to the drone strike program, which I still hate him for.
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