This video of Chancellor Merkel congratulating @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris is worth your time. Merkel talks about German history, the role of the United States and much more. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/6t7pEYgVOZ
— Marcel Dirsus (@marceldirsus) November 9, 2020
Look at those lags….
Baud
Thank you, Chancellor Merkel!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m struck by how Merkel doesn’t say, in reference to 1938, that it was the Nazis that perpetrated the atrocities but *Germans*.
I’ve noted over the last decade or so how here in ‘Murka, people say “The Nazis did this and the Nazis did that”. Well, yeah, true but the Nazis were Germans.
The fact that the leader of Germany can publicly acknowledge such a heinous act while we’ve probably got 70 million people in this country who probably would welcome fascists with open arms is telling.
Betty Cracker
Well said, Chancellor Merkel.
germy
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
And they have a law against displaying the swastika.
Meanwhile, my wife and I just came in from our morning walk and passed a car with a confederate flag sticker on it, along with a bunch of other stickers like “I’m a gun owner and I vote” etc.
Wag
An excellent statement from a true friend and statesman
SiubhanDuinne
I’ll listen to Chancellor Merkel in about 25 minutes. Can’t right now because I’m streaming my cousin’s “Open Line” radio show (on CFOS Owen Sound, ON) — he’s doing a program of Remembrance Day music, interspersed with listener phone calls. It’s very moving
But I want to thank the chancellor for her words of support for our undoubted President-elect and Vice President-elect.
leeleeFL
I have always liked this woman. She has ever been a good ally for the Presidents that we elected, and a thorn in the sides of the ones we didn’t! Smart, savvy, clever and reliable.!
Danke!
Jinchi
Nothing defines the Trump administration like being upset about the lack of fraud.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@germy:
I have mixed feelings about that. Years ago I got into a debate with someone I knew in the Netherlands. He was screaming at me about “how can the USA allow a book like ‘Mein Kampf’ to be published/available?” It’s banned in the Netherlands.
I told him that we valued the free flow of ideas, now matter how horrible and that the “market of ideas” would ultimately determine their fate. Basically I was saying that something like MK would whither and die on the vine here when exposed to the public light of scrutiny.
Same thing for symbolism. In some ways I want to be able to identify the assholes among us so sure, let em let their freak flag fly.
But, I will admit that every time I see some asshole displaying the American Swastika (that’s the late Steve Gilliard’s name for the Treasonous American Battle Standard), I want to rip it down or off their car and beat the shit outta them.
Yeah, I’m a bundle of contradictions.
Kattails
Saw that clip last night, definitely worth watching all the way through.
Stonekettle just linked to this fascinating-looking read by Citizens for Ethics: “President Trump’s 3,400 conflicts of interest”. I’m old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm, and the furor over Billy Beer. Will bookmark this for later. Nice day here so want to go wash the windows, clear out the spider webs and whatnot.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Y’know, when the ACLU (and sleazy fucks like Greenwald) sails in to protect Nazis out of “principle”, I quit donating. Why?
Because there are a lot of well funded right wing legal shops, and if you claim to care about freedom and expression, you let them carry their own fucking legal water.
Jinchi
Sure, but Americans need to remember that it’s okay to punch someone for being a Nazi. It’s not okay to punch someone for being a German.
Frank Wilhoit
She was, of course, addressing a German audience and my German is just barely good enough to keep up with something like this spoken deliberately (quickfire informal conversation not so much). But she has English, and wouldn’t it have been a good idea for her to record a message in English, for an American audience? Perhaps she will yet.
Frank Wilhoit
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Exactly. The reason to ban Nazi paraphernalia is less because the Nazis were uniquely horrible, but more simply because they lost. Same for CSA.
germy
Good point, but my thinking changed in 2016. I have less faith in about half the country. Lots of people would look at MK and say… “cool!” Young, aimless, directionless people, incels, etc.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sure you have read “And No Birds Sang”?
John S.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: There’s a difference between allowing access to the source of hate — complete with its falsehoods, poor logic and obvious flaws — to be accessible for future generations to examine, and allowing a symbol of hate to flourish. The symbol doesn’t tell you what’s behind it.
Symbols, iconography and slogans are far more dangerous because they do not have the proper grounding. They make it easy to embrace something without someone understanding what they are embracing.
Just recently, some young folks on Twitter started a movement to get tattooed with a symbol they truly thought represented progressivism, but it turned out to be a Nazi symbol. Without the knowledge behind what that symbol represented, it would have been allowed to flourish.
ETA: My point being, ban the symbol, not the books or the history behind it.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Greenie is a special case, in that I think he had his own fucked up reasons for taking that case. He’s someone who has all sorts of issues related to his school years, and wanted to commit vandalism on a larger scale.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Oh. I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yep, this.
Edmund Dantes
@John S.: what symbol?
Elizabelle
In watching what’s happening with the Confederate Monuments, I am really interested in how Germany handled it. It’s undeniable the Americans/Allies had decades of watching the Daughters of the Confederacy swathe the US with monuments to their glorious forbears. So, they nipped it in the bud.
And the German people, for the most part, did the work. I remember asking a young German man, years ago, about collective guilt. He said that his generation felt “collective shame.”
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus: Nazis in America don’t need to use obvious symbols like swastikas or confederate flags to identify themselves, and in fact many of them don’t anyway specifically so they can blend in.
Thats why they have taken to using coded symbols instead as a way to identify to each other without identifying to the rest of us. Once the symbol is overt, it’s useless to them.
I am a Jew who had an ex-skinhead as a roommate in college, and we were very close friends until she died. It gave me a lot of perspective that I otherwise would never have had.
John S.
@Edmund Dantes: Swastikas. Confederate flags. Any symbol that is a specific representation of hate or malignancy should be shunned.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
My uncle (the aforementioned cousin’s stepfather) was part of the Canadian/Allied in Asian of Italy. I don’t know whether he would have served with Mowat.
Yes, I remember attending a Canadian Studies seminar years ago on Canadian war memoirs or something and one of the presenters did a paper on “And No Birds Sing.” I know I’ve read swaths of it but don’t think I’ve read it straight through. Thank you for the reminder — I’m a big fan of Farley Mowat!
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yes, I remember attending a Canadian Studies seminar years ago on Canadian war memoirs or something and one of the presenters did a paper on “And No Birds Sing.” I know I’ve read swaths of it but don’t think I’ve read it straight through. Thank you for the reminder — I’m a big fan of Farley Mowat!
My uncle (the aforementioned cousin’s stepfather) was part of the Canadian/Allied invasion of Italy. I don’t know whether he would have served with Mowat.
TS (the original)
Thank you, Chancellor Merkel and thank you AL for highlighting these honest and thoughtful words of past and present.
germy
Elizabelle
Chancellor Merkel looks forward to meeting Kamala Harris. That will be a joyful occasion.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@John S.:
Key word there is shunned, not necessarily banned. You’ve outlined how overt symbols are counterproductive to such hate groups and are abandoned. This is precisely because the “market of ideas” has basically said “this is trash” and such groups are forced to minimize their profile because they’d be shunned.
I’m sounding far too glibertarian on this subject because I do agree that symbolism without the context behind it can be dangerous to the unknowing.
And to come back to my original, scattered thoughts, the fact that the leader of a country with Germany’s 20th century track record can, on the anniversary of a dark event on that track record, acknowledge the country’s collective responsibility for it sits in stark contrast to here.
The Moar You Know
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: But that never happens!
The last 4 years have me seriously questioning the wisdom of the 1st Amendment. The last 30 have me more than ready to just consign the 2nd to the dustbin of history.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: Shunned, certainly. Banned? I don’t think so. And so this thread goes down a free speech rabbit hole. The difference between the Germans and the US isn’t they have banned certain symbols and we have not. It is that they collectively have recognized and rejected their crimes against humanity and we have not.
Jeffery
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: A lot of German would welcome it as well. The division in this country isn’t unique it’s worldwide.
germy
germy
Amir Khalid
@Frank Wilhoit:
As a scientist, Merkel is certainly accustomed to reading stuff in English — research papers, conference proceedings etc. — and is probably well capable of understanding spoken English. But as I understand, she’s not comfortable speaking English herself.
Cheryl Rofer
I look forward to a time when all our international communications of state sound like this.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed.
If anything, in the US of A, we have commercialized our “sins against humanity.” I give you the rightwing media ecosystem.
I agree with Moar. Stuff like that should not be hiding behind the First Amendment. Other countries got it right. We need to punch some of that back down under its rock.
You cannot replace brainwashing and purposeful disinformation with factual information. You just. Cannot.
Raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Almost 100,000 Canadians served in Italy with 20,000 casualties. They served “together “ in a sense but maybe closer. Do you know what unit? This is a good overview. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/italian-campaign
Omnes Omnibus
@Frank Wilhoit: Well, as you noted, she is a German speaking to Germans. Not everything is about us.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Canadian Remembrance Day stuff?
Capri
Noticed that she pronounced Kamala’s name correctly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: In German? There was a European tendency toward that in the middle of the last century. It went poorly.
Immanentize
Eli Savit — former RBG Clerk — won a hard faught race for Washtenaw County Prosecutor. A small thing, but so meaningful:
Cheryl Rofer
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow, you really missed the point
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: I like that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I blame the whole Nazis thing in the US directly on the History Channel and other pop history shows. They glamorous Nazis Germany, play up the Nazis successes and outright ignore Nazis were such pig ignorant fools who were toxic to their own country.
It’s always France 1940 with the Nazis, never anything about crippling food and oil storages that Germany went threw during the Nazis or the Meth addiction crises Germany had in the 40s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: No, I didn’t. I made a snarky comment. Have you never seen my comments before?
raven
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
John S.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes, you are sounding pretty glibertarian on this subject, but I won’t hold that against you. Clearly your perspectives are quite different than my own.
Just remember, Germany doesn’t just shun symbols of hate, they outright ban them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
No idea. I expect my cousin knows. I’ll ask him next time we talk.
The main thing I know is that Uncle Frank had a brilliant promising career as a concert pianist but while serving in Italy he had some kind of injury to one of both hands which put an end to that. So he went back to conservatory to get a degree in conducting and composition, and had a very nice — if not flashy — career.
Here’s an entry on him in The Canadian Encyclopedia. I have never know why it talks about his first wife but never mentions his second marriage, to my aunt, which lasted much longer!
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-thorolfson-emc
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus: Waving a swastika around isn’t “free speech”. But obviously people have differing views on that.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous for you to cherry pick the “differences” between the US and Germany. It’s impossible to say whether it’s the one or the other which effected the outcome. Perhaps it’s the combination of the two.
ETA: Case in point, marching with tiki torches saying “Jews will not replace us” is free speech, and within their right to say such odious things. The tiki torches are not a symbol of hate. Swastikas are. The symbol doesn’t “say” anything. The people who brandish them do.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I prefer this one by the same songwriter.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Nice, I could have been frostbite. Italy was a horror show that fewer recognize.
germy
Alison Rose
@Capri: Aside from being racist, the schtick of right-wingers and Trumpies purposely mispronouncing it is so lame. It’s not a difficult one to say! It’s six fucking letters, it’s pronounced phonetically! All you have to know is on which syllable to place the emphasis, which can be deduced by hearing literally one person say it properly one time.
But then, these are the groupies of Mr “Person Woman Man Camera TV” so maybe a three-syllable word is a bit much for them.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I actually like Bob Kerrey’s version of Matilda.
Feathers
@germy: May be less of a special case than you think. He said he defended pornography companies as a first amendment issue, and it turns out he was actually a producer and owner of one of the companies involved. His connections with his other “free speech” clients have turned out to go deeper than just a client-lawyer relationship as well.
Jinchi
I don’t really see it as a contradiction. You can condemn speech personally all you like. Americans worry about the state censoring speech because the state can enforce it’s laws by force and imprisonment. If he had the power Trump would’ve banned “BLM” and “Antifa” and armed klansmen would still be patrolling the streets.
And this is what we see around the world. People usually get beaten, arrested and jailed for flying the rainbow flag, not the Nazi flag.
Immanentize
@raven: “And I ask myself the same question.”
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Could very well have been. I don’t think his hands got run over by a truck or anything. Frostbite much more plausible.
raven
@germy: And then there is The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Funny, that was one of the songs my cousin Dave played on his radio program this morning!
germy
@Feathers: Yes, and in the white supremacist case his behavior extended beyond what a lawyer would ethically do.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: Is that *my* Washtenaw County, home of *the* UM? Awesome.
ETA: Meanwhile, a lying, ethics-challenged, pistol-packin’ GOP mama has won the DA’s race in my region. Another trashbag reactionary who will doubtless plunge the DA’s office back into the morass of corruption and scandal that the current (Governor-appointed) DA was cleaning up. Le sigh. Good for journalism, perhaps, but bad for the district.
raven
And with all this, Veterans Day is for the living, Memorial Day is for the dead.
Jinchi
It’s not the language, it’s the words.
Yarrow
We have free speech but we don’t currently seem to have an agreed upon reality. We don’t agree on facts. Without the latter the former becomes more challenging and dangerous. There are several organizations that seem to focus or support the spreading disinformation a lot of the time, or at the very least they do little to stop it. Fox News of course and more recently Facebook.
We are not dealing very well with this style of disinformation and propaganda and how easily it spreads. These organizations design their product to keep people hooked and it works. There are ways to combat it but I’m not seeing that issue discussed a lot. The discussion stays at the result level, “OMG, can you believe what X said! It’s so dangerous!” and not at the more root cause of who is spreading disinformation and why. We need to deal with both ends of it.
geg6
@germy:
I want a sticker that says “I’m a gun owner and I vote Democratic.” We Dems who have guns don’t advertise the fact in addition to supporting common sense gun laws and that’s why they all think we are a bunch of gun shy wimps. It would be good for them to know that particular bit of fake news is NOT true. There are a lot of households like mine, staunch Democrats who own guns and know how to use them.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: First Amendment jurisprudence says waving a flag is symbolic speech just like wearing an armband that says “Fuck the Draft.” Call it disingenuous if you want, but recognizing that those symbols are the symbols of crimes against humanity is or should as hell should be a bigger factor in not using them than banning them would be. That being said, this is an endless argument, but I already did it endlessly in law school. I am not going to convince you and you are not going to convince me.
catclub
@germy: eta oops
germy
@geg6:
I thought only Republicans were staunch.
/
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: Does no one here know me at all?
Cheryl Rofer
@Omnes Omnibus: Some snark lands better than other
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: That’s why shunned v. banned matters.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Omnes, you smartass.
@Cheryl Rofer:
VOR
@Elizabelle: First, notice Chancellor Merkel pronounced VP-Elect Harris name correctly. And it flowed off her tongue which meant she is familiar with it, as if practiced, not just read for the first time.
Re: confederate monuments. Many years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Budapest, in Hungary. They were “liberated” from the Nazis by the Soviet Union and then part of the Warsaw Pact. This meant a lot of Soviet and communist statuary and monuments. After the fall of the Berlin Wall they took down statues and dumped them in a park on the outskirts of Budapest. Later, someone realized Western tourists would pay money to see it and Memento Park is now a tourist attraction. Why not do that with the Confederate monuments?
Cheryl Rofer
Okay, y’all. Before everyone jumps into the fray.
Omnes’s comment had an undertone of accusing me of Nazi sympathies. That’s how I took it, and I see I’m not alone in finding it offensive. I don’t know why others found it offensive. That’s what I saw in it.
ETA: I’m sure that’s not what Omnes meant, but none of us manages to express ourselves perfectly at all times. I assume it’s a one-off and am willing to leave it there.
Add to that, that for other reasons I have limited patience this morning.
Let’s end it there.
PST
@SiubhanDuinne:
I have a distinct memory of an episode of MASH on television maybe 40 years ago that could have been based on that very story. The pompous Boston replacement doctor is pleased with himself that he saved a guy’s leg, only to find out that the kid is a pianist devastated over a much less serious hand injury. The doctor convinces him that there are still ways to exercise his musical gifts. I never liked that show, but it grated on me more and more over the years as it got more sappy and treacly.
Feathers
@VOR: Because the Confederate monuments have active followers with political power and are not just a historical curiosity.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: Bullshit.
different-church-lady
Can hardly wait for the sparkle bronies to tell us how this is no different from Trump
kindness
You all know that each one of these that comes across is tearing out the guts of the Orange Shitgibbon in the White House. You know it tears at his soul as he thinks he’s truly the only real leader ever. 1000 cuts won’t be enough for what The Donald has dragged us through over the last 4 years.
Well done Angela. Well done.
different-church-lady
General note: as I journey further through life, I find the weight of my lifetime of habitual chronic sarcasm gets heavier and heavier.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
Actually, Cohen was wearing an army jacket with “Fuck the Draft” written on it. Tinker wore the black armband to school.
/Law pedant/?
JCJ
@Frank Wilhoit:
As Amir states, Bundeskanzlerin Merkel is not that comfortable speaking English. She grew up in East Germany so English was likely not as emphasized in school as it was in West Germany. I find her very easy to understand and I have not spoken German regularly in nearly 40 years.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: Hey, when I was six weeks old, I had surgery in Owen Sound.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: I made a composite for brevity?
Matt McIrvin
I’ve had this conversation with Europeans, who are horrified that we let Nazis run around free and wave their flags, that we haven’t outright banned these types of expression. Having been raised since childhood on reverence for the First Amendment I said some kind of hollow stuff about the marketplace of ideas, but the fact is, the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work so great in this case. It’s all very well to analyze this from some Olympian viewpoint when you’re not the one in the greatest danger. And I don’t think the German laws against this stuff are particularly oppressive.
That said, I know a stronger reason that American liberals can insist on this sort of neutral, extreme freedom-of-speech viewpoint is that we’ve still got a lot of quasi-fascists in positions of power here, and if we did have strong bans on hate speech and associated symbols, they’d waste no time in weaponizing them against the rest of us. “You’re bigoted against my bigotry” is fash jiujitsu move No. 1.
(I also know the fascists in Europe have a way of getting around these things–in some countries where the swastika is banned they’ve taken to the Confederate battle flag as a substitute.)
Felanius Kootea
She starts by acknowledging Germany’s historical mistakes and the harm done to others. A US president that did the same thing would be savaged by Fox News and the right. It’s hard to move forward as a country when you cannot acknowledge your mistakes because a not insignificant portion of your people see those mistakes as unfinished business they’d love to continue.
rikyrah
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: And I appreciate the conflation, because true!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Alison Rose: there is a video of Trump screwing up to the word Nevada as Newhuduh, or what ever the damn East Coasters do, to the boos of a crowd in Los Vegas. Small wonder he lost that state.
Elizabelle
@VOR: I have heard about Memento Park. As long as the Confederate Monuments do not become a pilgrimage site …
The Robert E Lee monument in Richmond, VA is on its last months. Still an appeal in court about taking it down, but would bet he is removed before too long. Maybe January, maybe sooner. I kind of hope it is after the Georgia runoff races; why give the present day Confederates down there another reason to spite-vote against Democrats? Take it down before Trump is dragged out of the White House, though.
Our Attorney General, Mark Herring, has gone to court this week to ask again that the statue be removed. There is also talk that removing those Confederate statues he could, and with alacrity, helped re-elect Richmond’s mayor, Levar Stoney.
FWIW, Confederate Avenue — on which Tim Kaine lives! — has just been renamed Laburnum Park Boulevard. 75% of its residents approved of the name change. City Council unanimously approved the change this week.
Here’s the Richmond Times Dispatch article on the subject. You will see the area’s deadenders in there, whinging that we are erasing history and about the “cancer of political correctness.” Uh, no. I’ve been really glad to see the bigots get pushback; readers did not use to bother with them.
I am glad to see this lovely city dragged into the 21st century. The majority of the region’s residents are already there, but, boy, do we have some throwbacks out there whining.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re right, we’re not going to convince each other. Though I’m not sure you having this “endless argument” in law school somehow lends special credence to your position, or if that was your intention for mentioning that.
I fully recognize that my position is an extremely minority viewpoint in this country, and that free speech absolutism is a common ethos on both the right and the left.
mad citizen
I think I can slip in this remarkable new song I’ve heard a few times on a magazine’s compilation cd. It took me a time or two to understand the point of view. Jerry Joseph “Dead Confederate” (with slide from Jason Isbell and produced by Patterson Hood of Drive By Truckers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7O1npNDrbw
Omnes Omnibus
I was merely acknowledging that this is not a new argument and noting one of the reasons I was not interested in renewing it here. It’s a philosophical argument at heart and, as such, not really something that can be resolved.
ETA: Actually, free speech absolutism is a minority position too. Why do you think people get pissed at the ALCU all the time.
evodevo
@geg6: You can have a custom one made at Makestickers.com..I’ve had several different ones printed up over the years…good service, reasonable price..I currently have one on my car that says “Pro-union, pro-choice, gun-lovin ACLU member and proud of it”
One thing…no one has ever bothered the car even though it has an old “I voted for Hillary” sticker on it lol
Zinsky
I have a very brief message for Donald Trump and his enablers regarding the 2020 election: GROW THE FUCK UP!
Trump lost – get over it! Goddamn snowflakes….
evodevo
@VOR: Yes. this…put it on private land and call it confederate memorial park or some such…I don’t know why they didn’t think of this, but I suppose the MAGAts just want to whine…
Or you can do like Lexington, Ky did and put Morgan’s statue in the backyard of his house…
NotoriousJRT
@raven:
Wow. That goes from apparent inside joke to poignant in a whiplash.
He gets through it without a voice break or tears – not so for me.
Yarrow
Meanwhile, the current leader of our country continues to embarrass us and make an ass of himself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Good! Obviously it was successful :-)
OS (and the entire Georgia Bay region) is one of my favourite place’s anywhere. It’s a beautiful and peaceful area.
Edmund Dantes
@John S.: no what symbol were these idiots trying to get tattooed that they didn’t realize was a Nazi one?
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
He didn’t even leave the White House until 11:00. And at Arlington when he was standing in front of the wreath, he was swaying back and forth on his feet so much I thought he might topple over right there.
terraformer
We need more women in positions of power and influence throughout the world.
Men have dominated such positions throughout history. This has often led to less equality and increased belligerence. Maybe it’s a Y-chromosome thing. We need more compassion, more understanding – more empathy.
raven
@NotoriousJRT: I know, and remember he lost a leg and was awarded the Medal of Honor. (He also was on a very questionable raid where civilians were murdered.)
germy
@Yarrow:
O. Felix Culpa
@Cheryl Rofer: Me too.
Ksmiami
@Zinsky: Fuck their feelings over and over
cain
I’m afraid the CSA did not lose. Sure they lost in the sense that they were defeated in a war, but they were not treated like they were defeated – they were embraced, and since then we have been a nation based on racism.
We won and then turned around and surrendered.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Good analogy. I remember that.
germy
Tom Metzger Dies at 82; Notorious KKK Boss, Supremacist Who Ran for Congress
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Can you imagine if Obam….
Oh forget it!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: My father grew up in Southampton on the other side of Bruce Peninsula
jnfr
I will be so happy to see our ties with Europe mended.
waratah
@raven: thank you.
Steeplejack (phone)
@John S.:
I think Dantes was referring to this:
What specific symbol were they getting tattooed?
topclimber
@Omnes Omnibus: Speaking of snark, that’s good news for you.
trnc
In case you missed it, Biden leads by 5.1 million in the popular vote now.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
Wow, that is really good.
OGLiberal
Question re: Georgia and the recount. I have no doubt that Biden will prevail but this is just going to drag things out further. GA has no automatic recount trigger and the Trump campaign has not requested one. Can the SoS just call for one if he/she thinks the race is “too close”? (and based on the changes in vote totals based on previous recalls, it is not “too close”) Again, I’m sure Biden will prevail but dragging this thing out just plays to Trump’s chaos strategy.
trnc
@germy:
Personally, I like being able to identify the assholes.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Slow moving drive-through line at the McDonald’s on the way to Arlington.
//
Ksmiami
@cain: They should have listened to Sherman not Lincoln
raven
@NotMax: They should have locked him out like they did us.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
This version by the author is pretty damn good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnFzCmAyOp8
trnc
Caroline Kennedy wrote a pretty good book named “In Our Defense,” which says the same thing and that I used to agree with. That was before facebook and twitter came along. I still don’t think I’d support an outright ban; I think there should be clearer lines on what constitutes inciting others to engage in criminal acts, especially violent ones.
cain
I think we do need to look at this – and I mean this from a national securityi/defense issue. With platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and news orgs like OANN – we can find our people succumbing to messaging that would put our nation in danger.
Just look at our national conversation about the elections, over 70% of Republicans believe that there was election fraud – I think we need to acknowledge that there is a clear and present danger if the population completely loses faith in govt to the point that it could collapse because of digital paper tigers.
I think we need to figure out how to respect free speech but also not allow falsehoods and conspiracy theories to grab hold.
Sloane Ranger
@cain:
I’m not sure that’s true. While some on the side of the Union were genuinely committed to equality they were very much a minority. The motivations of the rest were very mixed, with a fear of unfair competition from slave labour being one of the main ones. Racism among Union soldiers was both rife and open.
At one point, Lincoln even mused about sending all the freed slaves to Africa or elsewhere. See this link
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8319858/Abraham-Lincoln-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html
SFBayAreaGal
@raven: Wow.
Frank Wilhoit
@cain: Quite so.
One of Nixon’s third-string henchmen, Fred Ikle (not to rhyme with Michael, but pronounced like “Fred E. Clay”), published his dissertation (a survey history of armistice diplomacy, a very thin piece of work) as a trade book under the title “Every War Must End”. What this neglects, of course, is the fact that, in the modern era, no war ever has.
AliceBlue
@OGLiberal: Yes, the GA SOS can request a recount.
Immanentize
Ok, Slightly OT but this one goes out to all of us who are NOT Betty, or JeffreyW, or etc.:
Kay
@cain:
raven
@zhena gogolia: I didn’t see it as a contest. I was drawn to Kerrey’s because he actually had some experience.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Immanentize
@Kay: Thinking like a trial lawyer — one way to handle this is to predict it months in advance, mock them for being such sore losers months in advance, get people to ask them, “are you going to contest the election if you lose no matter what?” Etc.
raven
@AliceBlue: He already did.
Yarrow
@cain: I mentioned this issue above but we focus on the results of the disinformation and propaganda and not the reason why it’s done. We also focus little on the dangers of it. Sure, there are articles about it but it’s not really discussed on the news, etc. We really do need some kind of robust response to the disinformation platforms that social media provide and to figure out how to deal with the pipeline of disinformation and propaganda from our enemies through sketchy channels to places like Fox News and OANN.
Frank Wilhoit
@Sloane Ranger: Slavery was about several things. We remember it as being primarily, if not exclusively, about sadism towards people-who-look-different; and that aspect should not be minimized, but there were other strands that are also relevant today.
Many types of agriculture were structurally uneconomic except if labor were undercompensated. Today we see the same thing in those types of agriculture that cannot be totally mechanized; undocumented immigrants are today’s slaves.
Another important purpose of slavery as practiced in America (I cannot speak to other places around the world) was to ensure that the people who worked the land (as distinct from those who owned it) could not vote. Again today the parallel is with the undocumented.
schrodingers_cat
A thread about a focus group of undecided voters who were leaning Biden but voted for the Orange Person in the end. What made them change their mind, was the polls that showed an overwhelming Biden win and the unease with “Defund the Police” slogan.
debbie
What a beautiful speech!
Immanentize
Re: Georgia recount. Yawn
Yarrow
@Immanentize: People were doing that with Trump. Hasn’t seemed to do much to change his actions. Maybe not enough mocking?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
There are a lot of things I don’t understand. One of them is determining your vote by deciding that one of the candidates is going to win so you can vote for the other one.
Sab
@Immanentize: Those are great.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
I was not criticizing you or calling it a contest. I was just sharing another beautiful performance.
J R in WV
@raven:
Thanks for sharing this bit of horror. My mom’s big brother, my uncle, was a turret guInner on heavy bombers in the Pacific war, from Guam to Burma. After both my parents died, we found Bill’s wings in mom’s jewelry case. Tarnished silver he wanted nothing to do with.
My cousin, who I have become quite close to over the past few years, tells me Bill woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Major PTSD. This poem helps me understand exactly why.
I knew it was horrible, of course, but poets can bring reality close. My cousin has those wings now. I think I’ll share this with him.
Frank Wilhoit
@Kay: There are, in general, no bells that can be un-rung. The grants of unaccountability to police, military, business, clergy are important one-way ratchets. The upshot is to take incremental remedies off the table.
debbie
@Kay:
On the other hand, to borrow images from the time of the founding of this country, we only really need to tar and feather the GOP with these outrages. We must agree to paint a large red “A” on each and every one of them who dares to run for any office. Etc., etc.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: It’s just the dumbest slogan from a marketing point of view. When you’re explaining you’re losing. It requires massive explanations and even when people agree with the goals they don’t like the slogan and it scares them.
The activists who came up with it and insisted on sticking with it are either really stupid or acting against their stated goals. When that sort of thing happens I always start wondering who might be funding them because they’re hurting not helping.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Normies.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:. I read it — those sound like they were Trump voters all along. The real question is “Did any of them vote for Hillary?”
Also, the Refund the Police answer(s) seem primed by the earlier discussion — why did you change your vote should have been upfront Q.
We are sadly going to have to read thousands of such pieces for four years.
SFBayAreaGal
@Immanentize: Did you scroll on down? Some amazing pictures of what creative people create.
topclimber
OT, but Portland voters just went for a new police review board in a big way.
Baud
@Frank Wilhoit:
That advice is why we’re in this mess. What part of “or bust” is ambiguous?
Kay
@Immanentize:
So funny. I had exactly the same thought. It’s been so tense that there hasn’t been nearly enough jeering at what big fucking crybabies they are.
I don’t think we know yet how many of the rule and laws and norm violations that Trump made acceptable in the GOP will transfer to the rest of the GOP. I suspect a lot will. They lurched down a couple more floors on the ol quality elevator. Think about how their defense is “we’re all lying to appease the President- we’re not actually fascists”. That’s the BEST interpretation of their actions. They’re going out of their way to tell reporters “on background” that they’re all huge liars. The thing is eating its own tail. Jake Tapper did a three minute segment seeking to reassure the public – in it he says he spoke to Republicans and they tell him they’re all lying. What? This is the reassurance?
ellenr
@Omnes Omnibus: Well said!
OGLiberal
@Immanentize: Agree. But give the loonies one more thing to hang onto for a bit longer. Of course, they’ll never believe he lost anyway so, I guess, who cares?
Steve in the ATL
@John S.:
Yup–have you ever seen a German KISS album?
Immanentize
@Yarrow: In this way I do think he is sui generous. He seems impervious to that type of pushback, but the lesser Trumpys are not. He doesn’t fold. And he really doesn’t shout and dance like a monkey (Jordan). I think we could get the media on our side on this.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know you. You’re mostly OK, for a lawyer. ;~)
And you are good at snark, but lately people are having a hard time seeing snark for the pollution of Trump and his minions. It was easier to make fun of the Nazis among us before they were in charge of many thing.
I still can’t figure out Stephen Miller, who would be one of the first people into an oven after the darker people were gone, if his right wing Nazi buddies actually took over the nation. He’s really sick in his head. Really sick!
Frank Wilhoit
@Baud: I’m not sure what you think I am disagreeing with, but I don’t think I’m disagreeing with it, whatever it was.
There are no incremental remedies. How’s that?
Baud
@Frank Wilhoit:
I don’t understand you point, but you’re rephrasing sounds better.
debbie
@Yarrow:
Marketing and communications have become hollow shells of their former selves, opting for the catchy catch-phrase over the enduring or universally understood message.
dirge
@Omnes Omnibus: First Amendment jurisprudence says waving a flag is symbolic speech just like wearing an armband that says “Fuck the Draft.”
It is (or should be) possible to distinguish between flags based on content. For example, waving a flag printed with the words, “I, and my 500 friends you see assembled here in front of your house, are going to murder you, your family, and your ethnic group,” is a terroristic threat, not free speech.
It seems to me that any reasonable Jewish observer of the Charlottesville march would receive precisely that same message, and that the participants in the march could not plausibly be unaware of that. Sure, there’s perhaps a bit of a trick to shutting down tendentious arguments that “fuck the draft” or “defund the police” also constitute threats, but it‘s trivial to distinguish using common sense, and I should think at least feasible with legal reasoning.
Granted, that’s not where American first amendment jurisprudence stands right now, but it’s really not much of a stretch from existing precedent.
debbie
@topclimber:
Same thing happened in Columbus OH. Your margin of 81.6% is a bit larger than the 78% here, but they both show things are finally beginning to change.
rikyrah
????
topclimber
@Sloane Ranger: Yes, but Lincoln came around, didn’t he? He was only up to maybe allowing black Union vets the right to vote right before he was gunned down. So he never operated at the leading edge of equality’s Overton window. But he was always in the camp of our better angels. Do you really doubt he would not have been there in the fight for the 14th and 15th amendment the way he was for the 13th?
There are no saints. Only flawed people who try and sometimes actually do better, and those who don’t.
debbie
@rikyrah:
This would be the time for retired members to step up and offer their services.
Kent
I’ve come to believe that letting racists have their Confederate and Nazi symbols is not necessarily a bad thing. I think they should absolutely be purged from public places, yes. No public monuments or flags on public buildings. That sort of thing.
But if a bunch of white supremacist racists want to wear swastikas and carry confederate flags I frankly think that actually limits their appeal. It’s like negative branding.
When I taught HS in TX this subject would sometimes come up in my classes which were usually about 1/3 white, 1/3 Hispanic, and 1/3 black on average. I would tell my students “They shouldn’t get all that upset about the Confederate flag because it’s really just the “Loser Flag”. They are doing you a favor by wearing it and waving it because you then know who the losers are. Without the Confederate flag you have to use other clues and guess. And you might be wrong. But when they are waving it or wearing it it erases all doubt.
If the Neo-Nazis in our midst are banned from using swastikas and confederate flags, they’ll just appropriate new symbols that are less odious which could widen their appeal.
I always expected to some day get pushback from an enraged parent all wound up about disrespecting heritage or some shit. But that never happened. I never got pushback about teaching evolution either. The only topic I ever got pushback on was climate change. Which, funny enough, was actually in the TX State Standards for Aquatic Science because they were so old they were written in the 1990s I think, before it became a lightning rod political issue.
Jean
Just read that Georgia will be doing a HAND-COUNT of all ballots in state. The point, someone made , is to delay the count by running out the clock so the state cannot certify results in time. WTF? And there’s no reason for it. Biden leads by over 14k votes which no recount will overturn. Georgia tax-payers will pay for it.
J R in WV
@geg6:
I am a gun owner, target shooter, avid Democrat.
I want to run underneath, in total stealth mode, so the Nazis won’t expect me to shoot back. No sticker for me. I hope to have the advantage of surprise!
Concealed carry all the way!
KenK
Sehr gut danke, Kanzler
Baud
@Jean:
I can think of no better way to win the Senate seats in GA than for the state not to certify the results for Biden.
Kattails
WTF? Georgia announces a hand recount of Presidential election votes?? PRESIDENTIAL ONLY?? fucking bastards. I hate every goddamned one of the GOP enablers. I can’t take this. I remember years ago reading the comments of a Jewish man who had survived the concentration camps during WWII. He said that what kept him alive, after a while, was pure hatred for his oppressors. I can understand that.
Many many years ago a friend’s ultimate curse for someone was “cocksuckingmotherfuckingblueballedbastard” pretty much said as one word. I’m feeling it right now
I see Jean beat me to it, but doesn’t include that nice swear :-)
Kay
@Immanentize:
If I were a candidate running against a Republican I would make it part of the campaign. Insist they commit to recognizing the results. Make it specific. There will be no challenges unless it falls at or below the state recount cutoff. It’s not enforceable but after this weeks-long national shit show it might be both enjoyable and worth trying. Call it the “no crybabies pact” or something. Reciprocal.
pamelabrown53
@Jean:
I just read that too over at TPM. The article states that Trump requested a hand recount which they have to complete by Nov. 20th. Just another obscene example of unconscionable Trump coddling. Never seen anything like this.
Betty Cracker
@topclimber: Lincoln was our greatest president, but I think the larger point Sloane was making is true. There’s a counterfactual narrative that if only the Union had completely crushed the Confederacy, we’d be a nation of harmony and brotherhood. It’s bullshit, IMO.
scav
@Jean: Well, then, I guess we should steal ourselves for the inevitable Republican outcry and legal challenge if Biden get’s more than 10 votes. Only a Hand count is legal! No Toes allowed !
Yutsano
@Jean: Let’s say that’s true. It doesn’t matter. For two reasons.
A) Unca Joe doesn’t need Georgia to win. If Georgia doesn’t have their electors ready by December 14th, they just don’t get counted. That’s it. It doesn’t change or nullify Biden’s win.
B) the meeting of the Electoral College is December 14th. Even Georgia can manage to get the recount done by then. The electors are already chosen on both sides. They just need the go to get to the state house and vote.
Kay
@pamelabrown53:
It’s a cult. We’re governed by cult members who are terrified of their leader.
I read yesterday that the Trump campaign people were leaking that they’re pissed that they have to stay on and answer the ridiculous “tip line” so none of them can get other jobs.
“Have to”. Jesus. They have completely lost agency and free will. I guess it occurs to NONE of these people that they can actually walk out? I would be embarrassed to leak that to a reporter. It’s supposed to create sympathy but all I think is “are you a fucking moron? Walk out!”
Baud
@Kattails:
That’ll make it go faster, actually.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I read that they do that anyway, its an audit. They hand count the ballots of anyone state wide race.
trollhattan
This is pretty cool.
H-Bob
@evodevo: In Cancun, they used old statutes to provide the base for a coral reef — they could combine the Budapest sculpture park idea with the Cancun coral reef concept and dump all the statues into the Gulf of Mexico (just off the Gulf Coast). Visitors could rent scuba gear and visit the Confederate sculpture reef !
Kent
I think under state law the counties have to submit their certified results to the SOS by Nov 20 regardless. If they don’t have a recount finished they go with the older numbers. I think that is what happened in the Florida recount for Scott.
In any even, recounts typically favor the Dem anyway as undercounts are more likely to be discovered in large (Dem-leaning) counties.
In the 50+ statewide recounts on record in the modern era, the average number of votes changed due to a recount is 262. The most ever was in 2018 in the Scott recount for governor which was about 2000 votes and that was due to other reasons (disputes about which ballots count and such) and also favored the Dem if I remember.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Then they would be doing the Senate races too.
pamelabrown53
@Baud:
Read the article at TPM: the SOS said it will be a heavy lift to have the recount done by their deadline of Nov. 20th.
Baud
@pamelabrown53:
Doesn’t matter. Biden is ahead by a lot. If they can’t finish the recount, Biden wins.
Kay
I’m as or more pissed as anyone that we’re all being held hostage to the sleazy Trump family and their inability to admit they lost, but it’s tempered with relief that they didn’t get another term.
We wouldn’t have had another election if they had gotten four more years. We came really, really close to losing everything. We still may! But if these people had had four more years to dig in like ticks and poison everything we wouldn’t have a democracy left.
hueyplong
@Baud: Why on earth would you want the GA senate races recounted? Our people have a zero chance at 50%
OGLiberal
@J R in WV: Or like the gun nuts who love Trump. If Trump ever became a real authoritarian he’d be coming for their guns at some point, no doubt. They would be a potential threat to his rule, especially for a paranoid freak like him. Can have those armed citizens out there if they could turn on you at any time.
Baud
@hueyplong:
I don’t. I’m responding to the different comments about what gets counted in a recount.
dww44
@Jean: Well, maybe it will fire up the Dem side. I just came from an Ossoff rally here and there were a few more folks than were at the one here the Saturday before the election. Favorite sign we were handed to wave:
VOTE YOUR OSSOFF!
Baud
@dww44:
I can’t believe they didn’t come up with that sooner. Like.
hueyplong
@Baud: Ah, that’s what I get for jumping into the middle of something.
Gravenstone
@Jean: Georgia’s ballots do not currently factor into Biden’s electoral lead. If they want to slow walk things, that’s entirely to their own detriment.
pamelabrown53
@Baud:
What pisses me off, Baud, is that Biden doesn’t get to put those electoral votes in his column until @ Nov. 20th. Just gives Trump more reason(actually unhinged excuses) to continue his destructive charade.
topclimber
@Betty Cracker: Actually, annoyed with the Telegraph’s Big Reveal of what has been common historical knowledge, not at SR.
The Union beat the CSA like a drum, but Reconstruction fell short because of racism North and South. With a few breaks, it might have turned out better, say a third term for Grant and four more years of protecting blacks and progressive Southern whites. But probably not. Racism was too big a hurdle.
Whites were rewarded with a GOP that presided over the gilded age until TR stopped some of the bleeding. Modern GOP is Gilded Age GOP 2.0.
gwangung
@Jean: That’s not quite true.
Georgia had always planned to do an audit of a state wide race. Doing it on the presidential race is logical. And it’s cheaper to do it on all ballots than to do a selection.
Kent
@pamelabrown53: Trump doesn’t need any reason. He doesn’t have any reason now. None of this will stop him as long as the GOP keeps coddling him.
Today’s WP is starting to report “leaks” from the Trump camp about how none of them think he is going to win and how this is just about coddling his ego and letting him have time to come to terms…etc.
That’s actually perfect reporting and exactly the right tone. Turn the whole thing into an internal firing squad of leaks and recriminations within Trump world. Biden can just watch the hole thing with “sadness” And would be a perfect way for his presidency to swirl down the drain.
piratedan
my guess is, that with all of this bullshit about not conceding and calling into question the vote counts in each state that he lost, he’s amping up the vindictiveness factor amongst Democrats who might have counselled to “just try and get on with it”. The other factor that plays into this, is the overwhelming silence from the GOP letting him play this shit out… so while he’s busy stamping his feet about every vote has to be counted and recounted until he gets numbers that he likes, I can now see the Dems saying that as attentive as we were to the votes, now we also have to address corruption and chase down every stinking rat in his admin. no mercy, no quarter
Steve in the ATL
@Jean:
If I end up having to pay more than $750 next year….
Emma from FL
@Kent: Agreed. I just watched Biden answering some reporter’s question, and he was saying all the right things with this little ironical smile. He was really amused at the question, and it showed.
schrodingers_cat
The latest tantrum by Twitler makes him look pathetic, not strong.
Kay
Keep in mind in Georgia that if we win one or both races the Republican Party will not accept the results, so there will be a multi-week period of incessant whining and screeching and bullshit lawsuits after each and every election now. Just add that in. The now-obligatory GOP weeping and keening and ranting period. There will eventually be a special legal progress needed to get them to relinquish public property once they grab it, with escalating sanctions ending only with physical removal of their ass from the seat and walking them out of government buildings in handcuffs.
JPL
@Jean: The SOS did not change the date of certification. He did add a lot of work to the counties though, and a lot of overtime. The date for State certification is a week from Friday.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
We can stop paying them after January 20th. They’ll still be hunkered down in there, now completely unemployable, so actually living there. Then we cut off the utilities and tow their cars.
Sab
@Kay: Yeah. Their Republican Sec of State just destroyed his political future by doing his job properly.
Kattails
@Baud: @pamelabrown53: OK gang I’m just slowly backing off feeling hair triggered at any and everything that entire party is doing; and the general calls for a recount only targeted at stirring up trouble and coddling Trump. The whole atmosphere is repulsive, infuriating. Just trying to cope here, thanks.
Kay
@Sab:
It was brave. You can’t be in that Party and be a decent person. If he didn’t know that before he knows it now. It’s bankrupt. It runs exclusively on lies and fear and competing self interest.
I don’t know why they don’t leave the Party. I watched this video that was making the rounds of a Republican election official in Minnesota. One of the sleazy national liars had targeted her for reprisals by the lunatics and she was so brave. She did a video defense of her work. Why put up with that? I mean, my God, GO lady! Walk. They even treat THEIR OWN like shit.
Kay
Just pure lunacy. They don’t even try for consistency. Here’s one of the Trump squatters tweeting from behind the sofa where she’s hiding so we can’t throw her ass out:
Ivanka Trump
@IvankaTrump
· 57m
BREAKING: President Trump and Senate Republicans win Alaska, overwhelmingly and by a massive 20 point spread! Put AK in the books for @realDonaldTrump! Congratulations Senator @DanSullivan_AK!
The AP called it for Trump. They called the presidential for Biden but Ivanka and her cult followers won’t recognize that.
They only recognize the elections they win. This is now the position of the Republican Party. Incompatible with the basic principles of democratic governance, but the stated position of the Republican Party.
Yarrow
@Kay: Ivanka Trump is facing all sorts of lawsuits. Her dad staying president is her best protection. She’s canny enough to know that.
Kay
I think it’s naive to think this matters to the Republican Party now. I’m grateful various institutional actors are doing it, but these people are beyond norms now. They don’t follow laws. Why would they follow pleas for sanity?
Another Scott
@The Moar You Know: The problem, as we know, with banning speech and symbols is – who decides what to ban?
Shunning is much, much better than banning.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Yarrow:
The number of lawsuits that will be filed against the Trump family on the afternoon of Jan. 20 will break the judicial system.
Betty
@Immanentize: But Betty put up an entry on Twitter.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I was wondering if Trump could take the Electoral College, or throw it to a contingent election, by just slowing down the certification process in various states where Biden is ahead, to miss deadlines and remove their electoral votes entirely from the picture.
I don’t think so, though. The wording in the Constitution is that you need a majority of the votes submitted, not a majority of 538. If some states don’t submit electors, the threshold goes down. (I think New York state actually missed the deadline to elect George Washington.)
And at least FIVE of these states’ EVs could be eliminated and Biden would still have a majority of votes submitted. I think they’d have to do six, which is pretty implausible, especially for the states where the executive officers are Democrats.
glc
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Noted.
I on the other hand continue to support equality before the law, even in difficult times.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@schrodingers_cat:
Unpossible. The country is super eager to operate pursuant to the benign leadership of Senator Sanders and his trusty sidekick AOC, all backed up by the rest of the Squad.
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nazi stuff has been popular in (at least parts of) the USA for a very long time. In late-60s, early-70s suburban Atlanta, I had grade-school friends who were really into WWII technology, said AH was misunderstood, etc., etc. They were big fans of Lee, also too, of course.
We need to teach history much earlier.
“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” ― Aristotle, The Philosophy of Aristotle
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Good to know. The other thing to keep in mind is that if GA messes with the result for any reason other than Trump legitimately wins a recount, the consequences would make Sherman’s march to the sea look like a day at Disney World.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Yarrow:
Giant puppets and drum circles will appropriately illustrate this.
Yarrow
@Kay: What matters to the Republican party is staying in power to protect themselves from what’s coming. That’s all they care about, with a few of them caring about money or abortion or some other side hustle things.
Not allowing the transition to go forward is putting the country in danger. Mainstream infotainment show the Today Show talked about the 9/11 commission report talking about how the delay in the 2000 election results being part of how 9/11 happened – the new administration wasn’t prepared enough. Whatever you think of that, they mentioned it, which means the national security apparatus is getting nervous. I expect a much harder push back from them soon.
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
There were also GWB’s immortal words, “You’ve covered your ass.” It was less about the delayed transition than the moronic new president. We don’t have that problem this time.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: I had the same experience in 1980s suburban NoVa. War nerds with a particular unhealthy fanboy fascination with Nazis. Sure, the Nazis were into lots of fascinatingly bizarre military tech, as were the Allies. But I got the sense it went way beyond that.
Immanentize
@Kay: I love that!!
JPL
@Yarrow: The time to ignore trump is now, but as long as the republicans support him, the Intelligence reports will be blocked.
When the GA election is certified a week from Friday, hopefully that will be the impetus that McConnell needs to sit the president down and let him know it’s time.
Immanentize
@pamelabrown53: PS. There are no paper ballots or paper Ballot backups in Georgia
Baud
@Immanentize: So what are they hand counting?
Peale
I guess if there is a silver lining to this, is that the longer he holds out and denies that he lost, the less time he has to sign presidential pardons on his way out the door. We’ll all suffer for this poor transition, but it does mean that those staying around being forced to kowtow and pretend that he’s won aren’t begging him to sign those papers.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@glc:
Your tone of concern is noted, and I wasn’t suggesting that their requests be opposed – just that they should find their avatars and resources within their own ideological framework, considering what they’re opposed to.
Immanentize
@Baud: I suspect they are re-canvassing all precinct level vote totals. It’s the weirdest idea going. Georgia judges turned down multiple requests to allow the use of paper ballots given the machine problems.
Now mail-in ballots are on paper and could be hand recounted….
ETA. Only recounting mail-in ballots is EXACTLY the equal protection violation Bush v. Gore decried.
debbie
@Kay:
And he won’t get a comeback either. He’s said he wants to run again in 2024, but I bet his percentage will be much lower than he got last week. Ha!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Just the mail ballots, maybe?
dww44
@Immanentize: I worked a precinct on election day. Although the voter votes on a gigantic notepad, he/she prints their ballot at the end and then walks it to a scanner to actually “cast” the ballot. It is the scanner whose results are uploaded at the end of the day to the county and to the state elections office in Atlanta.
However, the physical scanned ballots were removed at the end of the voting day and were placed into a secured bag and transported to the county board of elections office. These in person paper ballots will now be hand counted, along with all the early vote ballots and absentee ballots which remained at the county office.
Aleta
JPL
@Immanentize: We now have paper backups. GA was planning on a hand recount anyway, to insure that the new system worked properly. It has been used before and so far so good. It will take longer an a lot of manpower, but the presidential election was used because of the close margin.
dww44
@dww44: In other words, it will be possible to physically count every single ballot. I discovered that a new voting process which is reasonably easy for the voter is very much more involved for those who set the machinery up and take it down. There really is every effort made to “secure the vote”. The latter is a Raffensperger marketing effort ongoing since before the postponed late spring primaries.
JPL
@dww44: Unless the SOS decides to change the date of state certification, I don’t see a problem. Kemp already said he was not going to ask for a special session to change existing rules on voting.
I assume they will do so in the future.
Immanentize
@dww44: OK. Thanks! That is much better than I understood it to be. That is like Mass., But no machine first.
Then what on gods’ green earth could a judge object to in eliminating the machine middle step? Huh???
geg6
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
What the hell does this even mean? How do East Coasters screw up saying Nevada? Is there some pronunciation of which I’ve never heard? I’ve been there several times (and only once to Vegas, which I will never do again) and said it exactly as I learned to say it here in Pennsylvania and no one ever corrected me.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Fuck them. They can all go DIAF. I will never read another Cletus safari article ever again.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: It’s the A in the middle: Nevadans will tell you that you do NOT pronounce it like the Spanish word, but like the vowel in “cat”.
geg6
@Immanentize:
No, we don’t. We can choose not to read them. I have.
Capri
@SiubhanDuinne: Must be the old bone spurs acting up.
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s exactly how I pronounce it. That’s exactly how every single person I know pronounces it. It’s not an East Coast thing, in other words. It’s an idiot Trump thing.
Immanentize
@geg6: I hear you! And next time I will resist.
opiejeanne
@geg6: There is a town in Missouri (Mizuree) named Nevada. It’s pronounced Nuh-VAY-duh.
Used to be called Hog Eye.
opiejeanne
@geg6: Trump pronounced it Nuh-VAH-duh. It wasn’t clear from the original post. He told Nevadans that was how it was pronounced. They booed him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why do you hate America?
Immanentize
@opiejeanne: pronounced :
Hog Eeeeyayeeee
dww44
@JPL: I missed that. What sort of rules does he want changed? I bet they won’t skew towards more open and easier. Likely more restrictive. I do not trust Brian Kemp. EVER.
spc123
@germy: Since the Swastika is banned, some German neo-Nazis will fly the Stars and Bars. Says a lot.
dww44
@Immanentize: am not familiar with that ruling and honestly not sure I understand it. Which machine middle step? The scanner? The problem with the old system was that the votes were directly uploaded from the machine on which one voted and there was no paper trail at all. That was the Diebold system we had from 2002 till the primaries in the spring.
JPL
@dww44: That’s all he said. I assume that it will be more difficult to vote absentee. They are already discussing combining district 6 and 7 through gerrymandering.
Immanentize
@dww44: This was back and forth and then some counties wanted the option due to broken or too few machines but were shot down
Linky
dww44
@JPL: They just never give up, do they? We can only hope to outvote them. Seriously, that is our only hope. They’ve long since given up on any concept of fairness and transparency. I agree with Kay’s comment upthread that this is who the Republican party is now. There’s nothing pro democratic about them.
J R in WV
@Steve in the ATL:
Dude-Steve in the ATL — I’m so glad you’re back. How is your family doing?
Gravenstone
@Kay: Enjoy those 3 electoral votes, princess. Don’t spend them all in one place!
Sab
@geg6: Californians pretty routinely mispronounce it because they pronounce it same as Sierra Nevada mountains, like Spanish.
In the original CSI series set in Las Vegas almost all the actors mispronoumced it, which was hilarious because they supposedly lived there, and filmed most of their outside locations there. Apparently nobody talked to the locals.
Uncle Cosmo
It wasn’t emphasized at all. Throughout the Warsaw Pact, every schoolchild’s first foreign language was Russian.
My two good friends in Prague both had extensive course work in Russian before they learned English, and they learned the latter because they’re scientists and English is the lingua franca of science. (Both of them spent time at Johns Hopkins University pursuing their PhD’s – >30 years apart. Which is how I met them – in Baltimore.)
When I was visiting Prague in July 1990, the one type of language book it was impossible to find was anything having to do with English, dictionaries in particular. Print runs for the various languages had been set by the State prior to the Velvet Revolution; as a result it was easy to find resources for the tongues of other “socialist” countries – Polish, Bulgarian, German, heck, even Vietnamese and Mongolian – but the small stock of English-related books had been snapped up by the locals as soon as they appeared.
On Wenceslas Square, the night they reported the results of the first free election in 43 years, I ran into a couple of Canadians, two of ~500 young people who’d been hired by the Czechoslovak government to teach English, because they didn’t have enough native teachers. (You knew every one of them hoped for a post in Prague; you knew most of them would end up in the hinterlands instead.)
Anne in VT
@germy:
There are also laws against lying and personal attacks in campaign ads. During the 2016 election an outrageous ad came on tv while I was at my son’s house in MA. The family’s nineteen-year-old German au pair commented, “That ad would be illegal in Germany.”
Sally
@Kent: This has been an interesting topic in this thread. I understand and support the European position of banning nazi symbols. They needed to stamp on the fascists after the second war, and this was a clear message. But now, in the US and other western countries I can see the value in letting these symbols fly. I agree if they were banned, the fascists would find other symbols and codes. Better that they be these clearly understood ones. It means we can easily, directly point to the European wartime nazis and say this is what you are, dictatorship, gas chambers, starvation, labour camps, war, misery. There is no ambiguity, no wiggle room, for them to deny who they are and what they stand for. Ethnic cleansing, white supremacy, slavery, immiseration, dictatorship. Show us who you are and we will believe you. And treat you accordingly.
RobNYNY
@Frank Wilhoit:
She seldom speaks English in an official capacity. For example, she addressed the US Congress in German with a simultaneous interpreter.