The Political Thread

[Apestrife]

I think this more or less settles it why Stump is the president 'Murica needs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMKFIHRpe7I

[IndigoPrime]

That's going to have a massive fallout.

I agree with everything you say apart from this, purely on the basis that it's already having a massive fallout. My feeds are littered with people talking about minorities being fucked over, women being assaulted on public transport, and so on. Just as we saw in the UK, this election has opened the floodgates to normalise abhorrent behaviour. After all, if the president-elect can do these things, surely that's just the way of things? Ugh.

[TordelBack]

Adams was a very wise man.

I have to agree with Panther. What Trump actually does in office remains to be seen, but what he has done on the way there can't be undone. Taking pride in ignorance, abuse and selfishness, wooing an electorate with fear, hate and blame, and showing others how that's the way forward... that's his legacy before he's even sworn in.

It's okay to be a colossal shit. In fact, that's how you get to the top. Fantastic lesson.

[JOE SOAP]

The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever.

Considering a president can order a missile strike, I don't think that's true.

[SuperSurfer]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/10/the-big-split/

"Trump is not the answer, of course. He is the symptom. He is the symptom of the virus of neo liberal Capitalism."

[COMMANDO FORCES]

It's gonna be interesting with the French and German elections next year (along with the rest in Europe). If anything the last year has proved that the establishment can't rely on the public for their status quo anymore!

[Spikes]

[Modern Panther]

I'd just like to recommend the documentary Hypernormalization, by Adam Curtis.  It should be on the BBC iPlayer.  Curtis is the guy whose creepy, not-quite-real short films appear in Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, with the droning voice over and stock footage.

Hypernormalization was the term used to describe the Soviet union in the 70s, when everything was falling to shit, but the people and government had an unspoken pact that everyone would pretend that things were going great. 

The documentary covers the shift in power from the state (as a representation of the people), to corporations and the financial elite.  It follows the increasing willingness of politicians to present an artificial reality rather than confronting complex problems.

  It also follows the rise of Trump, the use of organized chaos as a political tool, suicide bombings, Gadaffi as an international supervillian, and how the internet started as a dream of an anarchist utopia before corporations realised how much money could be made by repeating your opinions back to you.

And heh, who doesn't love a three hour long documentary?

[JOE SOAP]

I'd just like to recommend the documentary Hypernormalization, by Adam Curtis.  It should be on the BBC iPlayer.

It's on youtube for those without iplayer -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM

And heh, who doesn't love a three hour long documentary?

Not quite sure how much "documentary" might cover Curtis' politics/pop-art collage approach to his films but he's always compelling and it's interesting to see how his own randomised style of communicating a message intersects with what he says about modern Russian propaganda - it's no surprise he was one of the first to see this happening.

[Fungus]

True, 'documentary' doesn't quite feel the right term, more like idea-soaked essays in video form. Haven't got around to this one yet, but really looking forward to it.

[JOE SOAP]

One of the unsettling aspects of Trump's election is the elevation of Alex Jones.

On Election Day Trump's campaign advisor Roger Stone was the special guest who sat beside Jones as the votes came in for his election special and Trump had previously endorsed and done an interview with Jones during the campaign.



The possibility of someone like Jones taking meetings at the White House is not something to look forward to.

The 1957 film A Face in the Crowd shares parallels with both Jones and Trump -

"A boisterous braggart is given a TV show, where his unfiltered coarseness soon makes him a star. His audience, primarily hovering around the poverty line and predisposed to mistrust, regard him as a straight-shooter and man of the people, even as he looks down on them from his penthouse, where his personal wealth and circle of aristocratic supporters grows. Soon, his popularity is such that he begins to entertain political ambitions. At first, he's just a tough-talking mouthpiece for an establishment candidate—the guy who says what the "responsible elite" aren't able to say, but surely would if they could. But his ego cannot be contained. Soon he's no longer under their control, believing that his is the true power behind the power. And nothing—not his own inexperience, his spotty personal record, nor his own scandalous dealings with women—will stand in his way."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO5jQy0wDI

[Frank]

"A boisterous braggart is given a TV show, where his unfiltered coarseness soon makes him a star. His audience, primarily hovering around the poverty line and predisposed to mistrust, regard him as a straight-shooter and man of the people, even as he looks down on them from his penthouse, where his personal wealth and circle of aristocratic supporters grows. Soon, his popularity is such that he begins to entertain political ambitions. At first, he's just a tough-talking mouthpiece for an establishment candidate—the guy who says what the "responsible elite" aren't able to say, but surely would if they could. But his ego cannot be contained. Soon he's no longer under their control, believing that his is the true power behind the power. And nothing—not his own inexperience, his spotty personal record, nor his own scandalous dealings with women—will stand in his way."[/i][/url]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO5jQy0wDI

MA-A-A-A-TLOCK!

Cheers, SOAP. Read about that, never seen it before.

[TordelBack]

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
And the white man dancing.

You'll see a woman hanging upside down;.
Her features covered by her fallen gown .
And all the lousy little poets coming round
Trying to sound like Charlie Manson
And the white man dancing.

[JayzusB.Christ]

We're one of the last three or four generations of humanity as a species, maximum.  Only the anthropic principle stops that fact from sinking in.  I hope there's some other life left when we go; it'll be better off without us.

[Hawkmumbler]

Christ, don't jinx it, Jayzus!