News/Current Events, discussion (Bullets, Ballots & Bombs)

[starfox64]

also:

[qalandar]

A Hegelian Marxist presents why he thinks trump being elected is a good thing

[rublev]

putin's favourite biker gang 'night wolves' opened a new "patriot park" in annexed crimea

[rublev]

hard brexit (whatever that means) on the ropes, richmond park by-election win for the lib dems, boost to merkel in the polls, hofer loses in austria by a bigger margin than before... european moderates let out a very small sigh....

also lmao at farage being blamed by the FPÖ

[ramseames]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/maa ... 57301.html

[rublev]

[radicalbusiness]

ughughguhg is anyone else seeing that bullshit russian propoganda narrative from eva bartlett and US peace council? i.e. the story is the whole conflict in Syria is purely a proxy war between foreign aggressor US and gulf state coalition + al nusra versus Assad's government (supported by the syrian people). Key aspects of this narrative is complete rejection of US and international reporting / figures, newfound legitimacy in 2014 elections (??? WHY), general sympathy for Ba'ath party, and ignorance of russia's role. Several acquaintances are spreading this shit on facebook and it is actually rage inducing that people I know are drinking this kool aid.

[rublev]

-

[rublev]

wtf have you done america!!!!!

[adiabatic]

[rublev]

i made this so now you too can play 'populism bingo'



simply print and mark off every time someone says or alludes to the above, whether you're getting ready for inauguration or looking forward to the many euro elections coming to us through 2017

[rublev]

[adiabatic]

[saptapadi]

hahahahahaha

[rublev]

cannot believe this child will be president on friday

- the bild one will be around too somewhere. moscow released a statement saying they agreed with president elect trump on NATO being obsolete, lmao.... christ

trump pissing off europe / berlin will potentially leave the UK in a pickle not too far down the line but maybe i'm being too pessimistic (who knows these days)

here's how one paper did the tv listing for friday...

[rublev]

[nope]

Absolutely delighted to hear that we've decided to "explicitly rule out membership of the EU’s single market". Hard Brexit here we come! Rainy Fascism Island, back in the driving seat of our own sad, irrelevant destiny.

Also quite entranced by the breath-taking chutzpah required to enact 6 years of ruinous, utterly ideological austerity measures and then claim that EU migration has "put pressure on public services".

[nope]

In much more positive news:

[Vox]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/ ... of-eritrea

Thought this was a very well written and insightful piece. As an Eritrean, this meant a lot to me because our country doesn't receive all that much global attention.

I've seen some really interesting stuff in this thread and I'm hoping to contribute more in the future!

[rublev]

shouldn't be surprised but here we are





euro papers taking a different line



says "final proof to the rest of Europe that UK government is at once nasty and blind to reality"

the 'reaction' of corybn to this should sink any support he has left, embarrassing and hopeless

ho hum

[bels]

Do you mean the overwhelming support he has within the party that shows no sign of abating.

I mean I'm not crazy about him, but they tried a coup, it didn't work.. He obviously has some support... Somewhere.

He does seem useless in opposition viewed through the mainstream media though.

Hard brexit looks like a riot.

[pirxthepilot]

interesting that none of the dire economic problems thought to be the inevitable consequence of brexit have materialised yet, remember all that osborne/lagarde stuff about house prices falling 30% etc. could be that its still to come. economic forecasting is about as post-truth as it gets though from what i understand.

[bels]

There's still plenty of time for dire economic forecasts to come true. The idea that the world would fall over in six months was far fetched but I don't know who believed it. Surely the effects will be convoluted, far reaching, barely understandable on a human timescale? (food prices rising seems to be the main problem so far)

(There was that twitter thread in the leftwingisphere talking about how May's reasoning could be that the economic effects will be much harder to pin on her, compared to immigration stats which would be easy.)

[pirxthepilot]

im sure that's true but once you get into longer term prognostications it seems like all bets are off anyway? was talking to a guy from the treasury a few weeks ago who says the EU still has vast problems that have just been papered over and the very nature of the union prevents any effective solution (german banks cant do debt writeoffs because then the italians will want to do the same etc).
and thats before you get to any more populist revolts, huge youth unemployment etc.

[bels]

Agree with you in general. Longterm (10+ years) it's a crapshoot (Who knows how the EU will cope+The intolerable lightness of populism). But there's still plenty of time within 5 years for it to go to hell. All we've done so far is vote. No article 50 engagement, no negotiations. Expecting the economy to tank overnight on a referendum and a speech is a grasp.

[rublev]

yeah i don't think it will, but it should. it's acquiescence not opposition. he seems incapable of forming a structure to hold any of tory brexit to account and i don't think that's just something to do with how he's portrayed in the media. tim farron's response at least had a bit of fight in it. the only thing worse than a 'hard brexit' is surely one where your main opposition party seems to have vacated the stage because it's too difficult? or they don't care? unelected PM who was against leaving the EU now decides 52% of population voting in a referendum dominated by spurious / vague claims means we must leave single market and customs union without any further debate or scrutiny because the british public 'have their eyes open'... (lots of open goals here) corbyn's response - "we need more detail", ffs.

this whole also sounds like he outsourced the strategy to a first year poli-sci student. don't get why so many people see him an authentic figure.

i agree with pirx about the economics being a bit of a minefield. the doom was really laid on thick before the referendum... now the IMF are making its second u-turn in its forecasting for UK economy. difficult to pick out drivers for it all though. how much worse would it have been if BoE had not intervened immediately post-vote? was that behaviour already factored into forecasting? is forecasting and prediction just expensive group think? flawed model or flawed system? *sips coffee* either way i think the attitudes and arguments during the referendum relied on everything being 'immediate' (whether it was economic disaster, or leaving the EU) - reality is that most things will be slow and uncertain for quite a long time. i'd imagine the far reaching economic consequences aren't even being tweeted about yet...maybe...

[rublev]

yeah left wing populism is certainly a rarity in europe just now... although southern europe tends to lean that way - more anti-austerity than anti-migration etc (to be blunt). syriza in greece had a horrid time... eventually had to implement measures they spent most of their short political life railing against. I think it's easy to forgot out much of a earthquake that election caused in brussels at the time though. only other candidate i can think of is podemos in spain (franco still raw...right wing populism has never really taken off there). i suppose it's probably a symptom of progressive centre left politics crumbling across most of the continent. 2017 could be grim.

yeah i've read stuff like that too but don't really see that scenario playing out. but who knows.

sun editor just posted tomorrow's front page :\

[rublev]

is this a stump speech?

[rublev]

confirmation hearings going well

[radicalbusiness]

fuck