The Political Thread - Machiavelli Edition

[Zoraptor]

Carolinas  went for Trump, they'll get plenty of aid.

 

Also, FEMA seems to be one incredibly inept agency.  Wonder why people always had such conspiracy theories about them

 

Bob Page: Your appointment to hurricane relief should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with Puerto Rico.

Walton Simons: I take it they were agreeable?

Page: They didn't really have a choice.

Simons: Have they got water?

Page: Oh yes, most certainly. When I mentioned we might actually get around to distributing it some time they were so willing it was almost pathetic.

Simons: This hurricane — the death toll is increasing to the point where we may not be able to contain it.

Page: Why contain it? Let it spill over into articles and social media. Let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them.

Simons: I've received reports of bad PR in editorials. There's not enough Fox & Friends style positivity and obfuscation to go around, and the libtards are starting to get grumpy.

Page: Of course they're grumpy. They can smell the deaths- something to do with us not getting around to collecting the corpses yet maybe, can't have an official death count if you never do anything official as the great philosopher Roll Safe might say- and the sound they'll make rattling their cages will serve as a warning to the rest.

Simons: Hmm. I hope you're not underestimating the problem. The others may not go as quietly as you think. Intelligence indicates they're behind the problems in Congress...

Edited September 12, 2018 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

Trump as Majestic 12 puppet confirmed.

[Gfted1]

Internet: Lets have FEMA rebuild PR.

PR: Nah man, we cant even scrounge up 10 dudes with pickup trucks to distribute this bottled water to our 35 x 100 mile island.

 

 

Puerto Rico aid is trapped in thousands of shipping containers.

[Azdeus]

 

European Parliament approved new copyright directive, which has some very questionable articles in it (like demands for automatic filters that remove copyrighted content before they are published and compensation for media companies for linking their articles), which makes future look bit darker for me even though it has not got its final approval.

 

Ah. I had forgotten the second round was this week. When these ****heads make Farage look like a genuine freedom fighter, you know it's time to pay your tab and GTFO.

 

For anyone who wants to read up on what this means: An EU copyright bill could force YouTube-style filtering across the Web

 

(quick, click before EUSSR copyright commissars force Obsid to pay royalties to Ars!)

 

 

[kirottu]

People who clap for themselves are worse than those who clap when airplane lands.

[Hurlshort]

People who clap for themselves are worse than those who clap when airplane lands.

 

Ok, I do think it is a bit silly to clap for myself, but airline pilots are in charge of a massive piece of metal filled with hundreds of people flying through the air at a high rate of speed. Every time they gently glide it down to the ground and we don't all die, they deserve some applause.

[Gromnir]

 

fema coordinates efforts to assist state and local governments

 

 

It is the locals responsibility. FEMA is not going to rebuild the government and infrastructure. The government is.

 

 

and it is the duty and responsibility o' fema to assist.  goes w/o saying that the character and quality o' assistance demanded will depend, in large part, on the local government's capabilities following a disaster.  drop off water at an airport, which is quite possible remote and complete inaccessible due to the kinda flooding one would expect from a cat 5 hurricane, is not meaningful assistance.  pickups can't reach 'cause is no drivable roads?   so why not use helicopter?  maybe 'cause fuel is often more precious than water in such circumstances.  spend limited time and fuel moving water when could be transporting people to the few functional hospitals, or rescuing people from imminent drowning?  is a disaster for chrissakes.  private contractors fulfilling half, or less, o' their food/meal deliveries is gonna result in obvious shortfalls, shortfalls which gifted is dismissing as the responsibility o' puerto rico to supplement?  is a freaking island, devastated by a historic hurricane.  the local government were not capable o' rebuild infrastructure w/o assistance. coordinate the assistance is the rasion detre o' fema. 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=maria+puerto+rico+devastation&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjumcbNtbbdAhVPHDQIHSFOBrkQ_AUICygC&biw=1280&bih=642

 

following the hurricane, many roads and bridges is submerged or is utter destroyed.  assume some runway is gonna be accessible to vehicles is suspect following the linked devastation.  but heck, is puerto rico's responsibility.  fema got the water delivered, and it were pr's responsibility to drain flood waters and rebuild roads so they could get to the water.  no doubt those ten "dudes" and their pickup trucks were sufficient to handling the job o' infrastructure rebuild. 

 

is mindboggling this is proving problematic to comprehend.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps

 

update:

 

'ccording to multiple articles, the water were deemed unpalatable by locals-- literal could not give it away. in any event, am not gonna blame this one on fema or feds as they seemed utter clueless as to the existence o' a problem. water were delivered.  water were received.  water were not delivered to people in need.  as far as we can tell, fema were never informed that the water were unpalatable.  "bad water" is a thing, but when you is desperate, water is either potable or not. have personal consumed some pretty foul smelling/looking water once or twice in our life, and we were glad to have it.  get somebody to make a determination as to whether is safe or not, then if folks would rather suffer w/o, is all on the people refusing, or so is our opinion.  regardless, am gonna concede that this seems most like a near complete local fail.  even if fema delivered so-called bad water, they were not informed o' a problem so they could fix.  

Edited September 12, 2018 by Gromnir

[Guard Dog]

On the topic of storm preparedness http://reason.com/blog/2018/09/12/waffle-house-index-fema-hurrican-florenc

 

OK, Reason (bless their hearts LOL) is trying to make a point here. They missed because the comparisons are not even close to being the same. But the thought of a Waffle House Storm Recovery Command Center and a team of volunteers working to keep the supply of watery eggs, cheap coffee, and waffles coming is jut too funny not to share.

[Guard Dog]

In other news it looks like the storm is suffering from high level wind shear which is weakening it. Pressure is rising in the eye (a very good thing) and it's becoming a little more ragged. Still a strong Cat 2 and moving too slow for comfort. Especially for SC. But a hurricane losing energy is never bad news.

[Gfted1]

Mmm, Waffle House.

 

Ill bet that the ~3.3M population of PR could have stood hand-in-hand and formed a human chain to that water supply.

 

EDIT: By god, I think Ive solved the problem! Even though the airport was "inaccessible" (even by pickup truck), and obviously the port was also "inaccessible" (even by pickup truck), FEMA could have "done something more" via a flotilla from FL to PR. I picture it something like this:

 

[kirottu]

 

People who clap for themselves are worse than those who clap when airplane lands.

 

Ok, I do think it is a bit silly to clap for myself, but airline pilots are in charge of a massive piece of metal filled with hundreds of people flying through the air at a high rate of speed. Every time they gently glide it down to the ground and we don't all die, they deserve some applause.

 

I have lost all the respect I had for you.

[Gromnir]

well, the real problem with these hurricanes and storms ain't the flooding... it's the democrats.

 

"U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday disputed Puerto Rico’s official death toll of 3,000 from hurricanes last year and accused Democrats of inflating the figure reached in an independent academic study."

 

an obviously less smart and completely biased paul ryan doesn't dispute Puerto Rico death toll.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

Cynthia Nixon lost in the Dem primary for NY Governor. The moral of the story is know-nothing celebrities with bad manners and worse ideas don't make good political leaders. Experience really is the best teacher isn't it?

[injurai]

 

Far-right extremism is bad and has no place in the modern world. Especially if it's of the ethno-nationalist bent.

 

I can't help feel though this is a bit pearl clutchy in favor of the EU. Like it's over emphasizing the scarier showings from the Polish nationalism. It's not like the EU is without it's corruption and profiteering. Especially against some of the more "satellite" member nations. Just look at all that bad lending with Greece.

 

 

Personally I want the EU to survive by if it's anything like America's globalist left, they have lost the ability to grapple with what is necessary to preserve the things they love so instead the let things decay so they can decry the mounting hordes on the right. It's simply bad neoliberalism trying to dupe their victims as some how lesser, which is why their hail mary is always feverish identity politics of the most obscure minority victims. Victims of many of the systems they themselves perpetuate. Which is payouts to the smallest minority groups possible are the cheapest gestures to imply progress is actually being made. I'm not surprised Poland and Britain sought some alternatives to their economic crises, and I'm not surprised a displeased people end up handing over the reigns to the only other loud faction in down. Which end up being the nationalists.

 

Like is it really Poland's fault the EU is in crisis? Or is it the EU's fault that Poland is now in crisis.

 

The more I read about how Europe in general uses migrant workers, the more I'm reminded of America's deficits. Except ours are offset more by the petroldollar and the EU is by creating bitch nations that they can whip as under the guise that these nations are  "not nearly perfect enough" that are caught between being first and second world. EU's banks really really need to sort this out. Unfortunately they are sorely under-capitalized so the status quo is the way that they will play it safe, which means they are avoiding economic bubbles by risking social-crises bubbles instead.

 

At any case, sort yourself out Poland and maybe take the reigns on some of the EU's benefits instead of just giving up on it all. Might just help the EU sort itself out too.

[Elerond]

Nationalism is rising all over EU and Europe, there are multitude of reasons for it, which varies from country to country. But there are some major issues that can be pointed out, like for example European economic crisis 2007 and how it was handled and lack of solidary felt by some states and resentment that some states felt towards those states with debt probles, were massive stimulats for nationalist parties all over Europe. And when said economic crisis was followed by immigration crisis, which just continues to give fuel for nationalist parties, in some states through resentment towards states that didn't give them solidary during economic crisis now demanding them to handle most of the imigration crisis by themselves and in other states nationalist parties have been able to harness fear of uncertanity which people have felt past decade, because of lack of clear vision where we actually want to steer EU towards.

 

Nationalism and transnational institutes don't really work well together which creates tension between members of said transnational institutes which creates its own crisis.

 

Most of Poland's problems are homemade and their roots are in time before they joined EU, but reflect on their politics and actions in EU.

 

Lots of EU's problems from fact that currently there are multitude of different vision about its future among its member states, which don't really work well in common goal organizations like EU, as too much compromise always starts to bother those who feel that they sacrifices are bigger than others. Also times of complex problems which are difficult to grasp even by those who have delved into subject in hand always increase popularity of those who offer simple source for these problems and simple solutions and it does not matter how wrong they are in their conclusions, because simplicity attracts people and people are willing to ignore lots of things in order to maintain their simplified view of world.

[Agiel]

Paul Manafort has ‘cooperation agreement

 

With his days as a freewheeling lobbyist over and given the fate of the Skripals I'd have to imagine Manafort will have to spend the rest of his days in witness protection:

 

 "And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action... have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some caviar with smetana, and I got salmon roe with Daisy sour cream. I'm an average nobody... get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."

 

Edited September 14, 2018 by Agiel

[pmp10]

Like is it really Poland's fault the EU is in crisis? Or is it the EU's fault that Poland is now in crisis.

It's easily both.

By now this relationship is far too intertwined to lay blame solely on one side.

[Volourn]

Whining about Nazism but praising the EU which si 100% Nazism. Only a matter of time for them to order   a war against one of their  'rbeel countries'' that they think they own. The EU doesn't car eabout democracy or freedom. They care about power, control, and slavery.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Volourn

[HoonDing]

"Nationalism is rising all over EU and Europe,"

 

hating scary refugees and other assorted brown ppl != nationalism

[Ben No.3]

For being the fourth reich, our politicians seem pretty inept at maintaining a unified majority, no?

[smjjames]

"Nationalism is rising all over EU and Europe,"

 

hating scary refugees and other assorted brown ppl != nationalism

 

It's fuelling the nationalism though.

[Chilloutman]

nationalism is not inhertly bad anyway, its just oppositum to globalism.

[Guard Dog]

Few political ideologies are inherently bad. It's what bad people are able to do with them that matters. IMO is most correct ideology is one that makes it the most difficult for one person or group to exert their will over others. Political power is what is to be feared. Not a political rule set.

[Volourn]

Yup. Globalism is pretty bad too because it leads to interving  and wars. Just ask the US how globalism can turn into endless wars. EU constantly inteveres  in other parts of the world too. China used to be  anti globalism but now they aren't. That seems to eb working out. L0L

Edited September 16, 2018 by Volourn

[213374U]

nationalism is not inhertly bad anyway, its just oppositum to globalism.

 

Not really. "Modern" nationalism as opposed to, say, the transient panhellenism in antiquity, is something that arose as a result of the birth of modern states under the Westphalian sovereignty model. The globalism you are referring to was a reaction after the two world wars in which nationalism played a central role. That gave us the UN.

 

That's the weak, pie-in-the-sky strand, though. The one that's actually tried and true is economic globalism. That wasn't invented by hippies or left-wing university professors, but by policymakers of different branches of the US government during the mid 20th century. The organization of the whole world under a capitalist regime tailored to keep the US in a position of pre-eminence by removing all barriers to the circulation of goods and capitals while maintaining the dollar as the premier trade and reserve currency. The application of a mix of soft and hard power to create a global network of client states amenable to US interests is how this status quo is enforced. 

 

Turns out that economic globalism is just American nationalism in disguise.