#JAILTOTHECHIEF- Shit Just Got Real

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Romana

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The current government have lost the plot completely. It's frightening to watch. Since late last year, when it became clear that the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Theresa May wasn't going to pass, the cabinet (or some of its members, at least) have completely forgotten all notions of cabinet responsibility or, indeed, just about everything other than the electoral fortunes of the Conservative Party and the identity of its next leader.

This isn't the worst of it, by any means. I think the prize goes to Gavin Williamson who, a couple of months of ago, was sacked from his position as defence secretary for leaking details of the disagreement over the Huawei 5G contract (though he denies responsibility)


There's some more speculation here:


I lol'ed when I saw that second article's headline. 45 criticizing anyone for messing up! The pot really shouldn't talk like that about the kettle.
 

Kara Spengler

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I lol'ed when I saw that second article's headline. 45 criticizing anyone for messing up! The pot really shouldn't talk like that about the kettle.
Have you seen the donnie supporter call biden a socialist? She basically started attributing to Biden a lot of the things that are objectively true about donnie (it was all the reporter could do to not crack up).

I could not find the original TYT vid but here is another one:

 
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Beebo Brink

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The current government have lost the plot completely. It's frightening to watch.
So here we have two different countries which share significant cultural traditions and histories, both once steeped in rule of law and democratic governance, both now floundering under mind-boggling partisanship, greed, and incompetence. What's up with that?

I can trace each torturous step of the U.S. slide -- following a pattern that Eisenhower could predict decades before -- and yet I'm still surprised at the disintegration that led to Trump's presidency and the inability of our system to right itself, even if ponderously. And as for the UK, Brexit is just gobsmackingly impressive as a nationwide clusterfuck. It could be just co-incidence, I suppose, that both nations are shattering simultaneously, but I tend to think there's a larger wave that ties all of these events together.

Just as the Enlightenment swept thru Western civilization and inspired people, we seem to be experiencing the wide sweep of an anti-Enlightenment. There's a dearth of idealism and purpose, of reverence for science and intellect, and I wonder if capitalist greed has edged out higher principles, or the lack of higher principles has left a void that capitalist greed is exploiting. Maybe we've hit the hard limits of humanity's ability to scale governance so far beyond the tribal level. Maybe we're simply glutted and drunk on an excess of stuff that surrounds us, stuff to be grabbed and hoarded, the way a monkey will grab more bananas than it can possibly eat. Mine! Mine!

Lord knows we live in calm and prosperous times compared to past ages, but we're just now at the edges of direct living memory of WWII, which surely ranks as one of the horrible of times for our species. Maybe what we're feeling is exacerbated by the shift away from the generation of hard lessons learned. I just feel like we're hurtling toward a dark tunnel. Not there yet... but you can feel it just up ahead....
 

Kamilah Hauptmann

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anti-Enlightenment
That's actually a thing: Dark Enlightenment - Wikipedia

Maybe we've hit the hard limits of humanity's ability to scale governance so far beyond the tribal level.
I read a thing in print decades ago about complexity and empires falling. It suggested the Babylonians outstripped their technical capacity to govern themselves, and something about overspecialized professions with no redundancy. The article spoke a lot about catastrophic collapses, but gave a shout out to the Byzantines for winding down operations in an orderly manner. At least until some dolt forgot to lock a gate.
 

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So here we have two different countries which share significant cultural traditions and histories, both once steeped in rule of law and democratic governance, both now floundering under mind-boggling partisanship, greed, and incompetence. What's up with that?

I can trace each torturous step of the U.S. slide -- following a pattern that Eisenhower could predict decades before -- and yet I'm still surprised at the disintegration that led to Trump's presidency and the inability of our system to right itself, even if ponderously. And as for the UK, Brexit is just gobsmackingly impressive as a nationwide clusterfuck. It could be just co-incidence, I suppose, that both nations are shattering simultaneously, but I tend to think there's a larger wave that ties all of these events together.

Just as the Enlightenment swept thru Western civilization and inspired people, we seem to be experiencing the wide sweep of an anti-Enlightenment. There's a dearth of idealism and purpose, of reverence for science and intellect, and I wonder if capitalist greed has edged out higher principles, or the lack of higher principles has left a void that capitalist greed is exploiting. Maybe we've hit the hard limits of humanity's ability to scale governance so far beyond the tribal level. Maybe we're simply glutted and drunk on an excess of stuff that surrounds us, stuff to be grabbed and hoarded, the way a monkey will grab more bananas than it can possibly eat. Mine! Mine!

Lord knows we live in calm and prosperous times compared to past ages, but we're just now at the edges of direct living memory of WWII, which surely ranks as one of the horrible of times for our species. Maybe what we're feeling is exacerbated by the shift away from the generation of hard lessons learned. I just feel like we're hurtling toward a dark tunnel. Not there yet... but you can feel it just up ahead....
While the US and UK stood out on the world stage even before their recent messes what they are going through is part of a worldwide trend. Some countries have insulated themselves better than others but it is not hard to find other donnie clones out there, just operating on a smaller scale.

How the ground became ripe for them and their associated movements lately is strange though. I am sure there are academic papers on the subject.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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So here we have two different countries which share significant cultural traditions and histories, both once steeped in rule of law and democratic governance, both now floundering under mind-boggling partisanship, greed, and incompetence. What's up with that?

I can trace each torturous step of the U.S. slide -- following a pattern that Eisenhower could predict decades before -- and yet I'm still surprised at the disintegration that led to Trump's presidency and the inability of our system to right itself, even if ponderously. And as for the UK, Brexit is just gobsmackingly impressive as a nationwide clusterfuck. It could be just co-incidence, I suppose, that both nations are shattering simultaneously, but I tend to think there's a larger wave that ties all of these events together.

Just as the Enlightenment swept thru Western civilization and inspired people, we seem to be experiencing the wide sweep of an anti-Enlightenment. There's a dearth of idealism and purpose, of reverence for science and intellect, and I wonder if capitalist greed has edged out higher principles, or the lack of higher principles has left a void that capitalist greed is exploiting. Maybe we've hit the hard limits of humanity's ability to scale governance so far beyond the tribal level. Maybe we're simply glutted and drunk on an excess of stuff that surrounds us, stuff to be grabbed and hoarded, the way a monkey will grab more bananas than it can possibly eat. Mine! Mine!

Lord knows we live in calm and prosperous times compared to past ages, but we're just now at the edges of direct living memory of WWII, which surely ranks as one of the horrible of times for our species. Maybe what we're feeling is exacerbated by the shift away from the generation of hard lessons learned. I just feel like we're hurtling toward a dark tunnel. Not there yet... but you can feel it just up ahead....
The collapse in Britain is pretty surprising, too. There have been a whole series of missteps and bad decisions that have led to this mess, and what makes it even more surprising is that Brexit didn't really feature on the political radar as an issue for most people. David Cameron originally backed the proposal for a referendum thinking he'd win it, and that it was a good way to placate, and eventually silence, Conservatives who were defecting in droves to UKIP because they were unhappy with both Cameron's leadership and the way the Lib Dems in the Coalition Government were preventing him carrying out several Conservative policies. Cameron didn't expect, in fact, to have to deliver on it, since he expected that, if he wasn't defeated, then he'd need to form another coalition and the Lib Dems would refuse to support the referendum and thus kill it as part of the price for their support.

Then John Bercow unexpectedly allowed the Queen's Speech to be amended, which forced Cameron to bring forward his referendum legislation (which he'd hoped to avoid) and the rest is history. Since then, we've had a whole series of mistakes and unforced errors (most dramatically, the 2017 election), largely attributable to Theresa May, though any MP who voted to submit the A50 notification without first agreeing on the British side's aims and objectives most also take responsibility, which have all gone to make a bad situation worse.

Both the Referendum and the 2016 US elections were, of course, marked by massive interference from external actors via social media. That's certainly something both have in common, and I think it's probably fair to say that, over the last 10 years or so, the Russians -- who have been quite open about they're doing -- have been very successful in disrupting what they see as the hostile and anti-Russian project of political liberalism, parliamentary democracy and rules-based international trade and relationships, without us noticing until it's too late.

This article from last year about Ivan Ilyin, the Russian fascist philosopher now very much rehabilitated as Putin's court philosopher, casts a worrying light on what's been happening in Europe and the USA over the last 10 years or so:

New York Review of Books: Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s Philosopher of Russian Fascism

ETA: Hugo Rifkind in The Times suspects he sees Nigel Farage's hand in leaking the Ambassador's cables:

 
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Innula Zenovka

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Kalel

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Maybe we've hit the hard limits of humanity's ability to scale governance so far beyond the tribal level. Maybe we're simply glutted and drunk on an excess of stuff that surrounds us, stuff to be grabbed and hoarded, the way a monkey will grab more bananas than it can possibly eat. Mine! Mine!

Lord knows we live in calm and prosperous times compared to past ages, but we're just now at the edges of direct living memory of WWII, which surely ranks as one of the horrible of times for our species. Maybe what we're feeling is exacerbated by the shift away from the generation of hard lessons learned. I just feel like we're hurtling toward a dark tunnel. Not there yet... but you can feel it just up ahead....
We are stuck in survival/tribal mode. technology has made it easier to acquire stuff compared to previous generations. we have set the ground work that future generations don't have to work or provide. even with all the excess of stuff we are afraid to lose it or share it with others who haven't earned it. we are accelerating into an evolutionary wall.( the great filter?)it would explain why previous civilizations have vanished cause they have been unable to get past the collapse..... it would take massive mental shift in how humanity works to break away from our natural instincts... we spend allot of time in fear, too busy fighting each other trying to maintain what we have (Status quo), Even with all of our current knowledge and history how does one prepare for the unknown? no one is going to want work together for something that hasn't happened yet.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Still more on Sir Kim Darroch's resignation, which seems to have disgusted many Conservatives -- Tories who are fanatical about Brexit because they want to escape from what they see as the country's subservience to the EU are hardly likely to be impressed by Johnson, in effect, signalling his intention to sack Sir Kim on Trump's orders:

 

Kamilah Hauptmann

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Nations who don't kiss USA butt end up on the bad end of future dealings and have for a long time. Agent Orange just says the hush part out loud.
 

Innula Zenovka

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OMG, don't tell me the UK isn't going to kiss 45's lardy orange butt too?
No, I don't think so. This episode is really going badly for Boris Johnson. He is roundly disliked and distrusted by many Conservative MPs, and they're taking the opportunity to express their unhappiness about the leader their party members seem about to impose on them.

Trump really is very unpopular indeed in the UK, with Conservatives as much as everyone else, so Johnson's being seen to throw Sir Kim under the bus to suck up to the current White House is really not a good look.

It certainly suggests that he can't be trusted to protect the NHS or our food standards if pushed by Trump, which really destroys the point of Brexit for a lot of his supporters -- swapping, as they see it, being vassals of the EU for being a US satellite with roughly the same status of Puerto Rico doesn't really enthuse them a whole lot.
 

Romana

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I'd like to see the nations of the world say openly what they think of him. Not that it would make him change course at all; he'd just snarl and say F*** them, we're so great (meaning with him in charge) we don't need the rest of the world. His base are too stupid to realize, but maybe a few more Rs might realize what that would do to their investment portfolios and grow a bit of backbone.
 

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Unfortunately, the damage is done. Immigrants - particularly the undocumented - will equate the Census with an effort to ferret them out, and a lot of them will refuse to fill them out.

Edit: Okay, apparently I cannot link to BBC articles without the forum mangling the URL beyond recognition. I've linked to ABC News instead.

Edit 2: Trying again, this time hand-coding the BB code:
 
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Brenda Archer

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This is really bad.

Florida’s efforts to create the database to track students who might be considered threats. For the database, the state considered collecting categories of information such as children who have been victims of bullying based on protected statuses such as race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation; children who have been treated for substance abuse or undergone involuntary psychiatric assessments; and children who have been in foster care.

While this database indicates the Florida legislature’s and the governor’s desire to prevent another mass shooting, we believe the database represents a significant safety risk because it collects highly sensitive information without a clear, evidence-based rationale for inclusion; could be used to stigmatize and blame children who have been victims of bullying or whose only “risk” factor is their disability; and will create a de facto state repository designed to track children based on federally protected characteristics. Signatories to the letter include the ACLU, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Common Sense Media, the Florida Council of Administrators of Special Education, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, the School Social Work Association of America, and other prominent organizations (see full list below).
33 Organizations Send Letter to Florida Governor DeSantis – Ferpa|Sherpa
 

Kara Spengler

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Unfortunately, the damage is done. Immigrants - particularly the undocumented - will equate the Census with an effort to ferret them out, and a lot of them will refuse to fill them out.

Edit: Okay, apparently I cannot link to BBC articles without the forum mangling the URL beyond recognition. I've linked to ABC News instead.

Edit 2: Trying again, this time hand-coding the BB code:
Yes, the census always has problems with undercounts and incorrect data. This one will probably be worse than normal though. What I am also concerned about is when most people say 'the census' they think of it as a thing that only takes place every ten years. There are smaller versions of it going on all the time: the census puts out new stats every month. How long will it take before a major thing like this in the big census stops being a huge factor in the small ones? The smaller ones are used for planning all sorts of things, even if it is only the full population count that we think matters.
 
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