US election 2020
Users browsing this topic:0 Registered, 0 Hidden and 0 Guests
Registered Users: None |
 |
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Who do you hope wins the US Election? |
| Trump |
|
39% |
[ 9 ] |
| Biden |
|
39% |
[ 9 ] |
| Don't Care |
|
21% |
[ 5 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 23 |
|
| Author |
Message |
David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
|
| Post subject: |  |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | | David wrote: | | Wokko is spot on in his diagnosis, I reckon. This is no one-off thing; Bloomberg has a long, long record of saying stuff like this. There's no need to overthink this: if it crawls like a snake, it's a snake. |
Except there is a need to use the rest of your brain because you're weighing up a list of factors that go beyond the visceral; you can't suddenly pretend you're non-utilitarian.
Trump is moral dog faeces, but you might otherwise consider voting for him despite himself if he had constructive policies rather than billionaire tax cuts, environmental protection rollbacks, healthcare rollbacks, national destabilisation, global GDP suppression, fasco-protectionism, fasco-executive abuse, etc.
The effects matter. Trump's second term will be about paying for the billionaire tax cuts and setting the mob on new victims to justify social service cuts. And do you think the world will continue to tolerate ongoing GDP suppression without biting back? So yes, there is a need to think harder.
Psychiatric stability and leadership credentials also need to be assessed. Trump was always an unstable narcissistic wrecker, had no mates except other cheap cons, and was never able to build a self-sustaining reputable organisation. And boy, does it show.
That still may mean Sanders is the right choice, but don't fall for the fundamentalist moral card trick until you get a better look at the policies. Ideally, of course, you get solid principles, leadership credentials and decent policy in one package, but it's going to take a serious tradeoff analysis. |
Even if I concede the lesser-of-two-evils utilitarian argument (and Bloomberg severely strains that logic), I'm still very ambivalent about the question of whether to vote for Bloomberg over Trump. There are plenty of valid reasons not to, including that him winning might just about suck the hope out of the US left (and thus any functional US progressive activism) for a generation*, that those in non-swing states are perfectly entitled to cast a protest vote, that focusing on lower house and senate races and ensuring a lame-duck Trump second term might be preferable to an effective Bloomberg presidency. I perhaps place lesser stock on declared policies (particularly during a primary; watch him pivot to the right if he gets the nomination) because I simply don't trust anything that a politician like him says: past behaviour tends to be a more reliable guide. In Bloomberg's case that's an authoritarian nanny state whose "progressivism" on topics like climate change is likely to look something akin to Macron's France – regressive taxation, declining public sector, Yellow Vests and all.
Anyway, obviously as an Australian I'm very much a powerless audience member to all this, so if Bloomberg gets nominated I can watch the grim spectacle of the Hindenburg crashing from a safe distance – until, that is, either his or Trump's inevitably disastrous foreign policy (and I'm not actually sure there even is a lesser of two evils on that front) washes up on our shores.
*There are some on the left who take the (some might say accelerationist) position of seeing the destruction of the Democratic Party as a functional entity, which a Bloomberg nomination would quite possibly bring about, as a good thing and a necessary precursor to any substantial change; but I fear that, in a two-party system as rigid as the US, that just condemns the left to the wilderness. There's a good reason why Sanders is running as a Democrat again even though everyone knows he isn't one; there's literally no other choice. So the best hope surely lies instead with a party takeover by an army of leftists like Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib, and a restructuring of the Democratic Party around their politics.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
 |
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^BTW, I meant to ask: do we know anything about Bloomberg on foreign policy?
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Backed the Iraq War and "doesn't regret it", which is always a good sign...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/477144-bloomberg-on-backing-2003-invasion-of-iraq-i-dont-live-in-a-regret-world
The rest seems pretty predictable:
https://theintercept.com/2019/11/25/michael-bloombergs-right-wing-views-on-foreign-policy-make-him-a-perfect-candidate-for-the-republican-nomination/
| Quote: | Bloomberg is a longstanding supporter of Israel and especially Benjamin Netanyahu, who he has called a friend and wished him well on his birthday. During both the 2009 and 2014 Israeli assaults on Gaza, Bloomberg flew to Israel to express solidarity with Tel Aviv. “Israel is doing the right thing in defending itself,” he said in 2009. “Israel was entirely justified” in attacking Gaza, he declared in 2014.
You might argue that Bloomberg was only parroting the standard liberal defense of Israel but, no, he went much further than that. During the 2014 bombardment of Gaza, in which more more than 500 Palestinian kids were killed, Bloomberg told CBS News that Israel “cannot have a proportional response” when fighting Hamas. |
| Quote: | Sticking with the Middle East, also consider Bloomberg’s awful stance on Saudi Arabia. During the most recent debate, Democratic presidential candidates, including Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, fell over one another to attack the Saudis for their role in both the Yemen war and the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Even Biden, who served in a Democratic administration that sold more weapons to Saudi Arabia than any other in modern American history, took to the stage in Atlanta to denounce Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, for ordering the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi while promising to make the Gulf kingdom a “pariah.”
Bloomberg, on the other hand, helped launder the reputation of the crown prince in March 2018, when he hosted the reckless autocrat in New York and smiled for photos with him in a Starbucks.
Have Bloomberg’s views of MBS or Saudi Arabia changed in the wake of the Khashoggi killing last October? Nope. Two months ago, the former mayor sat down for an interview with the Saudi-owned newspaper, Arab News, and heaped praise on the economic and social reforms introduced by the crown prince and his father, King Salman, claiming that the Saudi royals had “made progress” and were “going in the right direction.”
No mention of Khashoggi’s murder. No mention of war crimes in Yemen. No mention of imprisoned women’s rights activists. |
More here:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-bloomberg-in-2015-saw-russias-point-in-invading-ukraine
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
^Geez, he's an old school hawk. Imagine overlaying that on Trump's authoritarian executive. He's off the table, then.
Next, to get Bernie a pragmatic sidekick.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
|
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
|
|
|
|
|
stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Not that you're actively looking for stuff to nail him about.
Feel the Bern.   
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Not actively looking, but it’s true that a lot of this stuff is coincidentally turning up on rose twitter right now.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| Wokko wrote: | | It takes wilful ignorance to see him as some kind of evil Hitler-lite style cartoon villain. |
You mean the pathological con and serial bankrupt with an endless stream of lowlife criminal associates who gets unqualified relatives to negotiate peace deals, invites foreign parties to interfere in elections, gives handouts to billionaires, creates massive unproductive national debt, neglects serious productive infrastructure, rolls back already insufficient environmental protections, lines the pockets of fossil fuels sponsors, calls Mexicans rapists, incites violence against journalists, abuses his office by doing comment-for-coverage deals with media outlets, hides his finances from public view, refuses to disavow conflicts of interest, suppresses global GDP to inflate his economy, rouses hatred against other countries including allies, supports women-hating Luddites and their backward policies, engages in economic warfare to drive up oil prices for his sponsors, funds war through favoured proxies like Saudi Arabia, dismantles serious healthcare provisions, violates the balance of power and tramples on executive custom, abuses his own charity, breaks election funding laws, makes history by getting impeached, causes widespread national instability and hatred, fails to build a stable government because no one decent will work for him, keeps guns in the hands of crazies, maintains an unrivalled reputation as a serial creep and sleaze, lies like a toddler every other minute, desperately needs psychiatric treatment for the grandiose narcissism which makes him behave like an erratic and vindictive baboon, continues to deceive working people over the high quality jobs that he can't create, and is about to screw strugglers to pay for his bribes to the ultra rich? You mean ignorance of that, or of something else?
How effortlessly you went from being a utopian libertarian to a fasco-protectionist. But libertarianism has always been a euphemism for self-entitlement; predictably, it mutates into protectionism when its adherents can no longer lord it over the planet and actually have to compete.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| David wrote: | | Not actively looking, but it’s true that a lot of this stuff is coincidentally turning up on rose twitter right now. |
Then you have to check out The Portable Bloomberg.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/michael-bloombergs-employees-created-a-book-purportedly-offensive-quotes-2020-2
| Quote: | In 1990, employees at Bloomberg LP gave their boss, presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a booklet containing notable quotes they said were attributed to him over the years as a gag birthday gift.
That booklet, called “The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg,” is a compendium of allegedly sexist, crude, and off-colour remarks that Bloomberg’s employees heard him make, including “if women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of Bloomingdale’s.”
Insider recently obtained a copy of the booklet, and is publishing it below.
A Bloomberg campaign spokesperson told Insider that, “Mike simply did not say the things somebody wrote in this gag gift, which has been circulating for 30 years and has been quoted in every previous election Mike has been in.” |
There's a very prophetic quote about Apple in there.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
Woods Of Ypres
Joined: 27 May 2003
Location: Yugoslavia
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Economy growing 4% quarterly
Unemployment lowest levels
Tariffs introduced
Tax reform
Red tape removed
Defeated ISIS
Dialogue with Fat Kim
The man gets sh*t done.
Trump again please |
|
|
|
|
Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
|
| Post subject: | |
|
| pietillidie wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | | It takes wilful ignorance to see him as some kind of evil Hitler-lite style cartoon villain. |
You mean the pathological con and serial bankrupt with an endless stream of lowlife criminal associates who gets unqualified relatives to negotiate peace deals, invites foreign parties to interfere in elections, gives handouts to billionaires, creates massive unproductive national debt, neglects serious productive infrastructure, rolls back already insufficient environmental protections, lines the pockets of fossil fuels sponsors, calls Mexicans rapists, incites violence against journalists, abuses his office by doing comment-for-coverage deals with media outlets, hides his finances from public view, refuses to disavow conflicts of interest, suppresses global GDP to inflate his economy, rouses hatred against other countries including allies, supports women-hating Luddites and their backward policies, engages in economic warfare to drive up oil prices for his sponsors, funds war through favoured proxies like Saudi Arabia, dismantles serious healthcare provisions, violates the balance of power and tramples on executive custom, abuses his own charity, breaks election funding laws, makes history by getting impeached, causes widespread national instability and hatred, fails to build a stable government because no one decent will work for him, keeps guns in the hands of crazies, maintains an unrivalled reputation as a serial creep and sleaze, lies like a toddler every other minute, desperately needs psychiatric treatment for the grandiose narcissism which makes him behave like an erratic and vindictive baboon, continues to deceive working people over the high quality jobs that he can't create, and is about to screw strugglers to pay for his bribes to the ultra rich? You mean ignorance of that, or of something else?
How effortlessly you went from being a utopian libertarian to a fasco-protectionist. But libertarianism has always been a euphemism for self-entitlement; predictably, it mutates into protectionism when its adherents can no longer lord it over the planet and actually have to compete. |
Just some edited highlights, there, PTID? |
|
|
|
|
Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
|
|
|
|
|
stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Doing a lap in The Beast would have been so cool,
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
|
|
|
|
pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum
|
|
The Rules
FAQ
Usergroups
Calendar
Search
Log in
Register
