In the mega thread - I posted this (prescient?) tweet an hour ago...
By Wednesday it’ll be two weeks and the baby will have to prove it’s looking for work.
“It is down to 4 weeks,” Biden says on CNN of his paid family and medical leave proposal.
My hunch is that the BBB bill will be ~$1.25T and on to of that paltry sum it will be filled with shit like means testing for people and free handouts to energy corporations for their "green" initiatives. In a week or two the consensus at r/politics will "Yeah - the bill wasn't great. But half a loaf is better than nothing. Nobody likes Manchin and Sinema but there's a solution. If need to vote more democrats into office..."
And - of course - next year is an election year so by around March - the r/politics, etc will be entirely back to viewing politics like sports. They'll be back to vuvuzela-ing "Vote blue no matter who!"
Trump and Jan 6th has obliterated any possibility of "pushing democrats left" in the minds of liberals. They are fully convinced they have beaten fascism and that the Democrats have to be in power to stop it from happening again.
If you sort by controversial, you find a couple posts about this
Shocking coincidence, I'm sure, that they are in denial about how fucking terrible Dems are. Also (funnily enough), I saw a pair of articles in controversial about how Biden's approval is worse than all presidents to this point, save 1
Can we please start building dual power so we can stop relying on handouts from these people that don't give a fuck about us?
Can we please get to the “Semi common assassinations of elected officials” stage of US collapse? This is fucking exhausting. How the hell is this man allowed to be in public without his life being in serious danger?
This happened in the 70s, a little bit here, but largely in countries like Italy.
As it does, capitalism adapted, and now we have the modern security state that grew out of those crises. It's a mix of hard (secret service, etc.) and soft (demonization of all violence in politics) deterrents.
So what will happen will be exactly what happened in Italy during the Lead Years or during the Troubles. The government or (often and) the far right will do acts of murder and violence, and the left will retaliate in kind. The right wing violence will be downplayed by the fascist media apparatus, and the left wing violence will come to dominate public perception of the issue. Eventually, there will be something that goes too far (assassinating the PM in Italy's case), and the government will use it as an excuse for a fascist crackdown, and the world will cheer.
Imagine a leftist on MSNBC. I know, I know - it's almost an impossibility but lets watch. The segment has already started...
Talking head: "What do you think should be done about Joe Manchin?"
Leftist: "A very mild thing would be milkshaking."
Talking head: "Uh... milkshaking? I don't follow."
Leftist: "Milkshaking is when a person - a regular person - throws a milkshake on one of the very worst garbage politicians. It has a Wikipedia page. It's happened in the UK and—"
Talking head: "I need to stop you there. Right there. Are you actually suggesting people commit violent acts on duly elected government officials?"
Leftist: "Violence? Nah. It's just a milkshake..."
Then there's back and forth where the leftist tries to express that it's simple civil disobedience and the host keeps saying it's violence. Less than 60 seconds have passed - the ad break is still minutes away.
Talking head: "I shouldn't need to tell you - violence can lead to terrorism."
Leftist: "A milkshake is just milk and ice cream. What next? Are you going to tell me using lactose in this way is terrorism? Lactose terrorism is not a thing."
Talking head: "We need to go to a break. And when we - I mean I - return we will discuss this with our panel."
And then there's a solid ~72 hours where seemingly every single lib pundit in American is speaking on the importance of norms, civility, the vital importance of the discourse, and the danger of extremism on each side of the political spectrum. "On both sides" is only used by the clumsiest lib pundits due to it being a Trumpian phrase.
Full disclosure - I put myself on MSNBC. I couldn't help it.
There is so much pressure in a country with more guns than people. When it bursts it is going to get wild. :doomer:
Can someone just [REDACTED] him already? Like you know where his boat is.
Whenever I think about Manchin, I think about the joke in The Good Place that boat arson is a victimless crime.
I like using my ancient version of Firefox but Twitter makes it crash due to endless glops of javascript.
Maybe fewer people would be willing to step into that role if they knew their lives were at risk
best comment on that boat thread was the link to a picture of a hand drill
Do you know how difficult it is to trace a :cocktail: back to someone? Or just snorkel underwater with a drill? I mean come on do some direct action folks. These people all have names and addresses.
I register all my improvised incendiary weapons on the Blockchain, actually
Adventurism should be discouraged. It means nothing without a mass movement to back it, and invites reactionary crackdowns that harm actual organizing. If it wasn't Manchin and Sinema, it would be someone else. Leave obsessing over individual politicians to the libs
You’re right. Just irks me seeing the most grotesque and horrible humans going unpunished by any stretch.
But you would still not be allowed to call him out, as the alternative to him would be a republican who bragged about his plantation even more.
Haha - so true. I can hear r/politics in my head....
"Look, I get it. Manchin owns slaves and that's bad. Plus he brags about it and that's bad too. But what happens if there are more republicans in congress? I'll tell you what..."
And what they tell me is exactly the same thing if there were more democrats. Except - of course - in those hallowed chambers - the democrats would never, ever use the n-word.
I feel like maybe not slavery, but I can see all these ghouls in congress supporting indentured servitude as a means of helping americans "pay off debt" or some shit like that. Gussy it up with some fluffy neolib language and I can see Pelosi arguing for it.
President Joe: "You changed your mind? $1.75T is too much? How 'bout 1.6?"
VW Joe: "No."
President Joe: "How 'bout 1.5?"
VW Joe: "No."
President Joe: "Could ya help me out a little? 1.4?"
VW Joe: "No."
President Joe: "1.3?"
VW Joe: "No. Can't do it. Still too high."
President Joe: "C'mon - now. 1.2?"
"Ok, Ok....a 2 dollar gift card to Applebee's for families making under 65k per year, one per household"
"Still too much"
"1 dollar then, 45k household income cutoff"
Oh yeah, hence the household income threshold lol
Libs and means testing
hence the household income threshold lol
But I meant... Wait... What?... I don't know what I meant. Haha.
Machin with a big dart board labeled "Policies in this Bill" and darts sticking out haphazardly as though thrown by a drunk intern.
Alright Biden. Here's a little tip.
Go to the CIA and ask them for the heart attack gun, then use it on Manchin and then revive him. Ask him what he saw on the other side and then get him to agree to 40 years of paid leave.
I had a thought - eventually the duration will be so brief (~3 days or so?) that the phrase "paid family leave" will seem ridiculous. The dems will be forced to create a new phrase on the fly.
PFP? Paid family pause.
I think a little more vagueness would be good and that's a little to literal.
Edit - I started from scratch.
Threatening government officials of the United States
Threatening government officials of the United States is a felony under federal law.
I know - I sound like a lib-dork. But I had to say it anyway.
I can't say what I want to. Even though I'm dying to. But we're all thinking along the same lines.
