Mailwatch(ed) Forum

My dearest uncle, who was mayor of Bath, (or "Bath", if you're a northener), sent me this - a requiem for the present.

"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing 'Amazing Grace' in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

"These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

"And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

"The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

"Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."

- Charles Pierce

Americans are, largely, arseholes.

laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators.

Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious?

What woman is being referred to?

His cousin Fred Trump III recalled how Donald at a family gathering asked why he didn't let his disabled son die and move down to Florida in the sun with his wife. And voters say there's something they didn't like about Karmala Harris. Is it because she doesn't want to murder disabled kids?

Civil disobedience though. You think Trump wouldn't go full Kent State on them?

Civil disobedience though. You think Trump wouldn't go full Kent State on them?

Step 1: campaign for actively authoritarian programme by undermining the other guys
Step 2: help actively authoritarian programme get underway, which is better than not actively authoritarian
Step 3: Gaza?????
Step 4: Profit!

What is it about the left that makes them so amenable to fascists?

Has this absurd self-immolating wishful thinking ever, ever gone the way they expect? Has there ever been a fascist, awful regime elected that makes it so intolerably shit for everyone it has then been replaced within a matter of years by a socialist, super-progressive government?

I’m sure there are occasions where hardcore socialist regimes have come in post revolution, but if memory serves me these have usually turned out to be either corrupt as fuck or fallen apart like a Temu hang-glider. And between those events is usually decades of dictatorship and misery.

Yet here we are again - like the Corbynistas, wilfully letting in an absolute bunch of cunts and branding moderates as somehow even worse, in the vain hope of emerging from the inevitable ashes like a phoenix whereas the reality is if we’re really lucky some form of democracy might stagger away like a shit-covered pigeon with a gammy foot.

davidjay wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 2:14 pm What is it about the left that makes them so amenable to fascists?

I think the example in question is called accelerationist thinking.

Capitalism is bad, but if we make it worse (elect libertarian leaning rightists, roll back welfare provision) then the plebs will see the light and storm the bastille.

Serve with a generous side order of "From the constitutional left to the far right; they're are all the same".

The tonic of teleology is too much.

'This time will be the proof. You'll see!'

Trump has had his orders from Putin, it seems. So the question is now, how much of Ukraine will be given away and what other penalties is he demanding, and can Zelinsky tempt him with what he likes most - money - with his mineral and metal deals?

And what will Europe do?

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 5:22 pm Trump has had his orders from Putin, it seems. So the question is now, how much of Ukraine will be given away and what other penalties is he demanding, and can Zelinsky tempt him with what he likes most - money - with his mineral and metal deals?

And what will Europe do?

In relation to your previous post, the Corbynistas will be pleased, this is the strategy for peace Corbyn voiced two years ago, give the aggressor whatever they want and tell the oppressed to suck it up. That's how to stop wars.

This is totally normal.

Civil disobedience though. You think Trump wouldn't go full Kent State on them?

“Tin soldiers, and Nixon coming”

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 5:22 pm Trump has had his orders from Putin, it seems. So the question is now, how much of Ukraine will be given away and what other penalties is he demanding, and can Zelinsky tempt him with what he likes most - money - with his mineral and metal deals?

And what will Europe do?

They can do all this muscular "steadfast", "resolute" posturing, but the USA has just outed itself as an unreliable ally.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 5:22 pm Trump has had his orders from Putin, it seems. So the question is now, how much of Ukraine will be given away and what other penalties is he demanding, and can Zelinsky tempt him with what he likes most - money - with his mineral and metal deals?

And what will Europe do?

Zelensky already tried that.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 5:22 pm Trump has had his orders from Putin, it seems. So the question is now, how much of Ukraine will be given away and what other penalties is he demanding, and can Zelinsky tempt him with what he likes most - money - with his mineral and metal deals?

And what will Europe do?

There's nothing Europe can do. The continent is too divided to fight Putin. Meanwhile, Starmer is still in denial about how to deal with Trump.