@Mufasa I think this is relevant to your response too.
@loppar He has to rely on demonizing their original purposes through defining them by their most violent and criminally minded “supporters”. AKA - people who are using the plight of undergoing systemic change to their advantage by committing violent crimes. An overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful despite what some people on this forum and several well-known media outlets would have you believe.
I feel like Trump pushing on BLM and Antifa as terrorist organizations is going to hurt his chances of reelection more than anything, so he has to have Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson spew his vitriolic white supremacist bullshit for him amongst his base, which is what they’ve been doing.
This both saves his polling numbers from utter destruction (some 63% of Americans support the BLM movement) and still achieves Trump’s main goal of propagating the message that BLM and Antifa want to gruesomely murder his entire voter base. Base-pandering and corruption are the only two things that can get Trump re-elected, and he’s expertly engaging in both as we type.
@Mufasa I think foreign corruption will play a large role in him winning again, if he does. He’s done too terrible a job for anybody with an ounce of dignity left to vote for him again, so he only has his hyper-conservative base and Russian trolls. He didn’t even build the wall.
The problem is that there isn’t another solution. Any sort of daycare is going to pose the same risk as school. Fortunately kids are at a very low risk with this virus, but it would be a good idea for kids and teachers with health issues to stay home.
I don’t know how true this is. I thought that the laser pointer to the eye causing blindness thing was a myth, but maybe the more powerful pointers are capable of it? If it turns out to be a legitimate threat of blindness, I would not feel bad at all if lethal force is used against those trying to blind others.
That results in the same problem of parents not being able to work. Over here there is no definite plan yet, but one of the options is that some kids would go to school on Monday and Tuesday while the other half go Thursday and Friday with schools closed on Wednesday. But that means you can only work 2 days a week, and if you have 2+ kids and they aren’t all going on the same days you can never work.
If school doesn’t go back to full time like before then there will be a lot of people who are indefinitely unable to work.
I think there is a rising sense that downplaying or under-reporting a lot of this stuff is no longer an option. I think this finally tells the story of the Federal Agents to a broader audience. Time to stop worrying about what may help or hinder Trump. These men are there lawfully protecting OUR property. Not the demonstrator’s/rioters property to unilaterally demolition. That is OURS. And they’ve been doing their best against a violent mob. A few excerpts.
The chaos in Portland spread this weekend to other cities, from Oakland to Aurora, Colorado, to Richmond, Virginia as the nation reels under its division.
“We are not here being violent or being destructive. We have a positive message — there is nothing to quell here,” she said, referencing Trump’s statement that the agents were there to quell unrest. “The people of Portland are saying, ‘We don’t want this presence here and we don’t think we need them at all.’”
As she spoke, small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories. The agents above were silhouetted against the dark sky as dozens of green laser dots and a large spotlight played on the courthouse walls, projected from the back of the crowd.
Thirty minutes later, someone fired a commercial-grade firework inside the fence. Next came a flare and then protesters began using an angle grinder to eat away at the fence. A barrage of items came whizzing into the courthouse: rocks, cans of beans, water bottles, potatoes and rubber bouncy balls that cause the agents to slip and fall.
Within minutes, the federal agents at the fence perimeter fired the first tear gas of the night.
nside the courthouse, it was dark, pitch dark except for one narrow ceiling bulb that cast a cone of light over the stairs.
Without lights, the agents hoped they would be better protected from people in the crowd who were firing metal ball bearings through the windows with sling shots. Thick ribbons of green light from blinding lasers crisscrossed the courthouse lobby, forcing the agents who were resting in between deployments to the fence to duck and weave to protect their eyes.
The firework came whizzing over the fence so fast that the agent didn’t have time to move.
It exploded with a boom, leaving his hearing deadened and bloody gashes on both forearms. Stunned, with help from his cohorts, he stripped to his boxer shorts and a black T-shirt so his wounds could be examined and photographed for evidence.
He told his fellow agents he was more worried about his hearing than about the gouges and burns on his arms.
By the end of the night, five other federal agents would be injured, including another who got a concussion when he was hit in the head with a commercial-grade firework. One agent was hospitalized. Several agents have lingering vision problems from the lasers.
After each night of protest, they seize dozens of homemade shields, slingshots, blocks of wood and chunks of concrete.
“My friends have been hit in the head with hammers. I know people who have been shot with fireworks. It’s disgusting,” said the Deputy U.S. Marshal who’s been at the courthouse for weeks. “I’ve never thought I’d have to walk around in my office building wearing a gas mask to go sit in front of my computer.”
Again, not condoning any violence… but remember a few weeks ago when no one was talking about portland rioting, and rioting in general was pretty dead or dieing?
What changed? What breathed new life into this, fanned the flames and made this dumpster fire grow?
The federal agents are in a tough position, and their leadership is making their job even harder for purely political reasons (IMO). Its too bad they are stuck in the middle suffering the acute consequences.
What changed was that they had enough time to get organized, travel the distances, bring in more and more out of towners until they had a teaming mass to throw at the fences while the press and certain politicians decided to remain quite at the first convulsions of violence. Now that it’s predictably built to a frenzy and spread, now notables are finally thinking “hrmmm, might our relative silence actually help Trump?” Is vilifying the agents, and ignoring the depth of violence being committed against them and these cities feasible when videos and images simply spread across social media putting the lie to idea that this is nothing but “peaceful protestors” being inexplicably set upon by ravenous Trump goons
Yep.
When did Biden last make a statement condemning these rioters?
Yeah, I get that, but if we reopen schools at full capacity (20 kids in a classroom, lunchrooms packed, etc) we’ll also have an infinite number of dead teachers and super-spreader kids walking around.
Unfortunately, unlike every other country, we’re not being given any kind of economic assistance. We got $1,200 in four months as the US economy totally shut down. Now it won’t reopen until someone takes care of this thing over here. Isn’t the government giving Canadian citizens financial assistance?
We both know that Trump fanned the flames, and its a really good political move. It makes the left look extreme, and biden cannot denounce the “protestors” because then he will lose a chunk of the left that already thinks he is too “white, old, center”.
No real surprise, but again, politicians care more about gaining/keeping power than they do about doing and saying the right thing to help the country. Both sides in this are fucking up big time because of political ambition.
With Trump’s hand shoved up both of their asses, does it really matter? He’ll let children die so he can reopen the economy and have half a chance at getting re-elected, because Trump’s adamancy about opening public schools come fall is solely based on his desire to get parents back to work. While I understand that desire, the sleazy part is found in Trump’s approval of untrue medical data, the stifling of data by the White House, and the Senate’s refusal to “make the lives of the unemployed too easy by incentivizing more than minimum wage payments.”
Nope. Trump isn’t the ringleader of leftist violence. The left made the left look extreme. There
comes a point where that story starts to fall apart. And you can already feel it happening over the weekend.
Its called gaslighting, and the trump administration is doing a great job of it right now. Trump is great at it, and his supporters eat that shit up (thats what won him the republican primaries). But, its at the cost of fanning the flames and breathing new life into riots which causes physical violence, and property damage… easy trade for him though as it benefits his goal of maintaining power. Meanwhile Biden is damned if he denounces the rioters (loses some far leftists), and damned if he doesnt denounce them (will lose some centrists).
Not to mention, we are now talking about leftist rioters right now (which is a small, contained problem comparatively still) instead of the bumbling stumbling Covid response, Ballooning national debt, 20% unemployment and scary AF economic future (the economy is what trump had planned to rely on for reelection).
The majority might be peaceful (at least in daytime) but even a lie repeated often enough becomes true. So ultimately it doesn’t matter for purposes of the election. The reports of violence are helping get the attention off the pandemic, and that helps Trump.
Who is worse: The guy gaslighting the drunk asshole into punching holes in your wall at a party, or the drunk asshole’s buddy who sits back and doesnt do anything to stop the drunk asshole?
Personally, id rather kick them all out, but we have to live with everyone here, drunk assholes included.
I would think it matters. It is the CDC and AAP. I live in Florida, and I see how the stupidity of Trump, DeSantis, and others cost us. But man, the school thing seems a whole lot more nuanced than “Trump bad.” You have to wonder how long you can keep a generation out of formal school settings. Not just for the academic concern either, which is serious enough. Yeah, you can home school with online courses, but will somebody be there daily to keep the children on top of things? Socialization. Some kids rely on schools for meals. Schools offer at least a temporary refuge from abusive households. And, often help in identifying children trapped in such households, beginning the process of getting them help. Staying home and practicing social distancing has very real mental, financial, social, and physical health consequences.
Here in Florida, we’re might opt for signing the kids up for the online option just because of our notorious position in the covid race to the bottom. Still, it’s not easy. The teenager will be devastated for sure. Almost any other state, we’d probably let them go for sure. And, still might.
Schools are a really tough decision. Like you said, there is so much good beyond the academics that comes from our public schools… but damn those little petridishes love to spread colds/flues/pox/etc, and id imagine it would be no different with covid and there are too many parents/grandparents that would be affected. Fuck, i havent heard any ideas that seem like good solutions yet. Really, really tough. I think schools are where some “outside the box” thinking and solutions should really be considered…
