Trump

[felter]

Also that order that he made up to remove the social media safety, would only result in them having to remove nearly all of his posts that he makes, as all it would do is make them accountable for whatever is posted on their platform and seeing as most of his post are pretty libellous as it is, they would have no other option than to remove them not just warn other about them.

[red assassin]

Also I'm pretty sure there's some sort of fairly important constitutional amendment that says that the government, including but not limited to Donald Trump, shall not abridge the freedom of private entities, such as Twitter, to say things he doesn't like, such as "this tweet is against our rules"...

[Imperial Good]

The reality is Twitter cannot ban trump. If they did then it would be interpreted as taking a political side and a private company trying to influence politics. Not only would this likely end them in legal problems, but it would also chase away a large amount of their customer base. Whoever is manager of Twitter, and associated with them, will likely be fired shortly there after.

If anything Twitter secretly likes Trump using it. Normally a company like Twitter would need to pay fortunes to have adverts mention them on a daily basis but thanks to Trump they get these daily, for free and where the star is the president of the USA. They just have to stay neutral and there is little down side to it.

[red assassin]

Private companies are allowed to influence politics all they like in the US.

You're right that Trump is great for the amount of attention they get, though, and they're unwilling to just ban him for that reason.

[Mightysword]

That to me was an inspiration and made me considered the American - both as a people and a culture - is a far more superior to that of my own - the Vietnamese.

It had the opposite effect on me. My Russian culture has always celebrated generals, political leaders and a Cult of Personality. This looked very similar and unnecessary to me.

You probably know who is Ho Chi Minh. You may know the current Ho Chi Minh city was the former south Vietnam capital - Sai Gon. To rename the capital of the defeated with the name of the victor's leader kinda gave a preview into pettiness that was to come.

- All southern soldiers were put into re-education camps, over 20 thousands of them basically become POW after the war is over. My dad got 7 years, his subordinate got anywhere between 3 to 5, his commanding general got 20 years. Many never returned.
- My mother, a civilian - was told if she wanted to advance any further in her career, she gotta divorce my dad.
- Kids like me were manipulated to act as eye and ears to report on unscrubulous parents in grade school.
- Even after they were let free, the (former) soldiers of south Vietnam weren't allowed to have gathering without risking the government ire, and the south Vietnam flag was like a forbidden relic.
- Even the deaths weren't safe. In just a few years using urban replaning as the excuse, all military cemeteries of the south were dug up and destroyed.


So going through that experience, I don't think there is much need to explain why we southern Vietnamese look at the result of the American civil war with much admiration. In a way, you can say it's the empathy as follow defeated of a civil war, however it goes much deeper than that. What happened in Vietnam was hardly the exception, looking at the history of civil war around the world and that kind of treatment is par for the course. It was the American civil war that was the exception. They may had fought to protect slavery, and they lost, so they had to give that up. But to those who simply fought because they were born in the south, they were allowed to respect their legacy, and celebrate their heroes and the flag they fought under. It's hard to explain my appreciation when I see veteran of the Confederate were still allowed to be buried in Southern honor with the Confederate flag covering their coffin.

I have no reason to celebrate the Confederate flag, the statue of Robert E. Lee or any of the confederate symbols, and I don't. But I celebrate the fact that they are allowed to be celebrated openly, and I will mourn the day that is no longer possible - should it ever come. The danger of seeing things driven by just emotion narrow one's view to see just what they want to see, and blinded to other values and views. Like I said, history has more value when it's presented and acknowledged in its entirely whether it's pretty or ugly.

[Vertigo 7]

The danger of seeing things driven by just emotion narrow one's view to see just what they want to see, and blinded to other values and views. Like I said, history has more value when it's presented and acknowledged in its entirely whether it's pretty or ugly.

K, lets see what context we can gather from some imagery.

https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/614/
Here's a statue of a nondescript confederate soldier. Basically just a random white dude with a rifle.
Erected in 1959 in front of the Alexander County Courthouse in Taylorsville, NC.
There are 3 inscriptions on the statue.

on the front, in bronze, it reads:

THE YOUNG MAN WHO ADORNS THIS PEDESTAL / WAS KILLED AT GETTYSBURG, JULY3, 1863. / PERHAPS HIS DYING LIPS WERE MURMURING: / “OH, FATE OF THE JUST, THOU GAVEST ME / THIS BITTER CUP, AND I BOW TO THY / BEHEST AND DRINK IT UP.” / HE WAS A LAD OF “THE OLD SOUTH” WHOSE / NAME IS KNOWN BUT TO ME. / “HOW BRAVELY HER SONS CAN SAY FAREWELL.”

Meaningless and romanticized glorification of serving in the confederate army.

on the front, in granite, it reads:

FROM 1861-1865 THE HEROIC SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF / THE OLD SOUTH UNDER THE GREATEST GENERALS OF ALL TIMES / ROBERT E. LEE AND STONEWALL JACKSON FOUGHT WITH / GALLANTRY UNEQUALED IN ALL THE ANNALS OF HISTORY. / NOT FOR THE PRESERVATION OF SLAVERY BUT FOR OUR / GREATEST HERITAGE STATES RIGHTS. THOUGH THEY FAILED / THE MEMORIES OF THEIR HEROIC DEEDS WILL LINGER IN THE / HEARTS AND MINDS OF MEN LONG AFTER THESE STONES / HAVE CRUMBLED INTO DUST. / V.O. BECKHAM 1958

More propaganda and romanticizing the confederacy. Not to mention the often used juxtaposition lie of states rights vs slavery.

on the front base, it reads:

LEE WAS OPPOSED TO SECESSION AND SLAVERY, HAVING FREED HIS / SLAVES 17 YEARS PRIOR TO THE WAR. JACKSON, BORN IN POVERTY, HAD / NO SLAVES, OPPOSED SLAVERY. AT TIME OF JOINING SOUTH WAS A / TEACHER OF A SQUALID NEGRO SUNDAY SCHOOL. GRANT OWNED SLAVES / WHICH WERE FREED BY EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. / “LET US MAKE TREASON ODIOUS BY HANGING THE CHIEFEST OF REBELS / ROBERT E. LEE,” TO WHICH GRANT NOTIFIED HIM THAT IF ONE HAIR IS / HARMED ON THE HEAD OF LEE HE WOULD TURN HIS VICTORIOUS ARMY / ON THE CITY OF WASHINGTON AND LEVEL IT TO THE EARTH.

The claims of Lee's views, and when he freed his slaves are verifiable lies. General Jackson did indeed operate a sunday school for blacks, but he also had slaves. Another lie. The "odious treason" quote, as far as I can tell was never uttered by anyone ever at any time and appears to be a bastardization of Andrew Johnson's oft pushed view of "Making Treason Odious". So we'll call that a lie too.


So we can clearly see there is no historically factual basis for this statue to exist. I'll leave it to you, tell me what context there is to explore for this statue. Tell me what history this statue teaches.

[matthewfarmery]

People had thought that Trump was joking when he said, "slow the testing down"

but https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... sites.html

That is no joke, as Trump wants to cease funding of 13 testing sites, seven of which are in Texas which is seeing a spike.

trump thinks this virus is going away? he is wrong, even in the UK, there is talk of a second wave at some point. Trump is going to shoot himself in the foot if he does this.

[Vertigo 7]

beyond further damaging his political career, he's going to get a lot more people killed than he already has.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

Fact is American Civil War was a civil war only for its dictionary definition. It was a war against slavery, not just a unification war or a war for freedom (e.g. current Lybian civil war, probably? But that's a matter of money and foreign influence, so I really don't know).

...

Quotes from those statues make me puke.

To get back on topic, Trump is killing thousands of people with his choices. Corona isn't ended at all: just look at German cases rising (because a businessman didn't care about safety), or Rome outbreak (because right wing parties decided to plan a rally for Jun, 2nd - national holiday - and nobody weared a mask). New cases are still in the hundreds in Italy, so even in Europe it's far from the actual end.

[clakclak]

[...]

I have no reason to celebrate the Confederate flag, the statue of Robert E. Lee or any of the confederate symbols, and I don't. But I celebrate the fact that they are allowed to be celebrated openly, and I will mourn the day that is no longer possible - should it ever come. The danger of seeing things driven by just emotion narrow one's view to see just what they want to see, and blinded to other values and views. Like I said, history has more value when it's presented and acknowledged in its entirely whether it's pretty or ugly.

Your entire comment was 100% emotional. You talked about your childhood. You talked about why you like other people to have the freedom to put up statues of Lee. That is emotional. Your reasoning for keeping statues of Robert E. Lee is as emotional as the view of people who want to remove them. It has to be emotional, this is a topic that can not be approached with only facts. I read your comment. It is a very interesting comment. I see where your are coming from. You explained your position very well. That being said you called for people to be open to other views and values, so please take a moment to step back and do that. Think about why it may be hard for a black teenager to go to the Robert E. Lee school. Why it may be hard for a black person to see, a confederate flag, in some areas every single day, a flag that you said yourself represents the fight to continue to own slaves. This is a symbol that if you are black stands for a time when you were not seen as human and the affection many people show towards this symbol makes it seem as if they are nostalgic for said time.

[mr.WHO]

That is no joke, as Trump wants to cease funding of 13 testing sites, seven of which are in Texas which is seeing a spike.

The problem is that all the South-East Asia countries that are phraised by main stream media have miniscule testing numbers. They literally stopped testing, comparing to USA and Europe, yet they do nor collapse from COVID not are afraid about 2nd wave.

IMO the issue in USA/UK is that there is plenty of people with "other conditions" that make them vulnerable.
The problem is not testing, but overall health of population (both mental and physical).
When "safe space", "fat shaming is evil" is more important than actual health, then I wonder how USA/UK have not collapsed yet.

You think West is leading the world, while people are not even in control of their own fat ass.

[matthewfarmery]

Problem with the US is, you have a man in charge that has pretty much didn't give a damn attitude about either testing or the virus in general.

also if you look here

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

scroll down too where it shows Daily New Cases in the United States

you will see that the numbers are going up rather then down. So cease testing, and while the numbers will drop, but then there is a danger on how many people are still infected, how many will die from the virus?

This should be a big concern for those that live in the US, if Trump was more active, and did a better messages, encouraged to stay at home. also don't do these rallies which aren't helping, as 6 people were find to be infected for his first recvent rally, with 2 more testing positive afterwards. The US is already a laughing stock of the world, because of Trump. And now, basically he wants to slow down testing because he doesn't want the figures to continue to raise. What kind of message does that send out? both to the US in general, and the rest of the world? Even though, the US might be reopening it's doors, but the rest of the EU might not trade with America still, until their numbers are going down, and the US is safe to trade with once more.

Trump has and has been sending out all the wrong signals. This is the problem.

As for a second wave,

a history lesson on the "Spanish Flu" which also had a second wave, and was far more deadly then the first wave

https://www.history.com/news/spanish-fl ... resurgence

So its very likely, unless we prepare for a second wave, then there will be one, and like I said, what Trump is doing won't help matters at all, and will only encourage a second wave to hit those shores when they think, (Trump thinks) its safe, and nothing to fear.

So if there is a second wave, and I suspect there will be, it will more likley hit during the winter months. on top of the standard Flus, colds, etc, Iit will hit us hard, if we aren't careful.

[CBJ]

We do have a separate thread for COVID-19 discussions and this thread is already very wide-ranging, so if you want to discuss that topic, I suggest you do so over there.

[Ketraar]

The "Spanish Flu" is often used as comparison but it really shouldn't, the times were MUCH different and there was a small thing called war going on. Also we have no clue how many actually died from flu since the only reporting about it came from Spain due to its neutral stance in that war (hence the not really accurate naming of the thing). Also its irrelevant to compare it tbh, we are here and now, with the issues and the setting of today and we need to act accordingly.

The main issue I find is this notion that intellect is a bad thing. People praising ignorance and shunning knowledge is just a weird thing that has been happening for a while now, only made more prominent during this crisis. And I'm not just talking about alternative facts, but a sense that educated people with expertise are by default "bad people with an agenda" that rises tin-hat level of paranoia over 9000 and that is the main issue I feel, since if you cant reason with people, there is no solution going to be available that serves most. This extends far wider then just Trump and his lunatics.

MFG

Ketraar

Bah... ninja'd by CBJ, but given my point is broader and only slightly related to covid I'll keep this here.

[mr.WHO]

Problem with the US is, you have a man in charge that has pretty much didn't give a damn attitude about either testing or the virus in general.

The problem is that the results still are bizzare whenever someone give a damn or not.
Last time I checked, US President is not God Emperor - you have state Governors, city Mayors and tons of other people that should do the job even if POTUS is not doing anything.

Or you seriously expect Trump to micro everything?

Lets put him in comparison to people "who give a damn" like NY Governor and NY Mayor - despite their efforts, NY is still US epicenter and will, with high propability, be the epicenter of 2nd wave.

I think everyone agree that Trump often say some stupid things...like every single president before him.
Having internet and social media listen to to him 24/7 doesn't help either.


The only way to keep sane these days is to drop social media altogether and limt main stream media to absolute minimum.
When I was younger people said that TV wash your brain. I didn't treat it seriously back then, but now I am.

It's all the same crap, from politics (R vs D, Biden MeToo, through games (e.g The Last of Us 2 drama, Angry Joe MeToo) to movies (Disney Star Wars, Jonny Depp MeToo) - you really do not loose anything of value not watching it and your wallet even increase when you do not pay for crappy games and movies.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

It's hard to split in a clear way Trump thread from Covid thread. It's a crossover people is fond of, by now.

Dr Who is right calling local politicians to do more, but can they do much? If Trump says "Covid doesn't exist", how many new yorkers are going to go out unmasked to lick manholes, which apparently is a very effective cure to covid. New York major can tell people to stay home, he can ask the police to check people isn't going to group-lick manholes, but then a manhole-licking contest appears on Instagram posted by a russian bot and everybody's out with their tongues ready.
On top of that, as Ketraar said, if a proper physician says "be careful because if an infected people already licked your manhole, you risk to be infected as well", there's a lot of people shouting hard for their constitutional right to "lick pre-licked manholes" and charging the physician to be paid by the ninja turtles conspirators, which don't want their entrance door full of pure-blooded white american saliva.

[fiksal]

@Mightysword

What happened in Vietnam is terrible.

Americans however are not Confederates and Northerners now, they are one people. Their descendants are not persecuted. And the ones who lived during the Civil War are all dead, they have no use in statues.

As I said, this is purely an image that we are taking about, not history.


We can also use Stalin as an example. Neither he nor his people were ever persecuted. Most of the crimes got declassified after their deaths. So when the cult of personality was over, the statues, to his supporters anger, no doubt, were down. In some places they were replaced by statues to his victims.

See now that's the right context and image.

[mr.WHO]

It's hard to split in a clear way Trump thread from Covid thread. It's a crossover people is fond of, by now.

Dr Who is right calling local politicians to do more, but can they do much? If Trump says "Covid doesn't exist", how many new yorkers are going to go out unmasked to lick manholes, which apparently is a very effective cure to covid. New York major can tell people to stay home, he can ask the police to check people isn't going to group-lick manholes, but then a manhole-licking contest appears on Instagram posted by a russian bot and everybody's out with their tongues ready.
On top of that, as Ketraar said, if a proper physician says "be careful because if an infected people already licked your manhole, you risk to be infected as well", there's a lot of people shouting hard for their constitutional right to "lick pre-licked manholes" and charging the physician to be paid by the ninja turtles conspirators, which don't want their entrance door full of pure-blooded white american saliva.

It's not Dr. its Mr.

Additional issue from recent stupidities:
- in NY city - police weld Jewish community gate playground, yet they do nothing to hundreds of rioters, and tens of thosand protesters (we suppose to have an epidemy, right?)
- Oregon County said only white people should wear mask as people of color might "feel stigmatized" - again, I though we have an epidemy, but one group has to wear protection while other don't?
- Seattle - lets make no-police zone, then call police when shooting start, but block police from entering and then blame police for slow reaction.
- lets jail single mother hairdresser who went to work agains lockdown to feed her family, but in the same time lets let out criminals from prison because of COVID.

I remember some psyhologist who said that dense human population can endure lockdown for 1.5 month before mental breakdown. I'm suprised that USA held for 3 months.

There are dozens or hundred of such stupidities across US and Europe - they stack up every day, undermining society as a whole, so I don't blame Trump for saying "F*** it! Lets announce that COVID is finished and end lockdown".


I totally blame modern media (and social media at the top), they went from 0 to 100 to 0 - first they claim this is nothing but flu, then that this is literally "The Last of Us" in real live, then compeletely forget what they preached and switched to BLM.

COVID was final nail in the coffin for mass media to me - they are noting but fear porn, clickbait, pitchfork mob and Journalist have been literally replaced by IT bots (Google and several other companies presented a news making bot that can make articles, translate them and put fitting image from Google images - bot is much cheaper than actual journalist work).

Trump really has a point calling them fake news, but this is not US-specific issues - you can see the same fall of journalism across the globe. Cost optimization killed Journalism.

[Vertigo 7]

I totally blame modern media (and social media at the top), they went from 0 to 100 to 0 - first they claim this is nothing but flu, then that this is literally "The Last of Us" in real live, then compeletely forget what they preached and switched to BLM.

That's not at all accurate. CNN first reported on the coronoavirus on Jan 6 and ran multiple stories and started sounding alarms way back then. Faux News, conversely, completely dismissed and downplayed it, even as the first American deaths started being recorded from it with them and Trump parroting each other. It wasn't until mid-late March before either of them started taking it somewhat seriously.

Here's a list of all of CNN's coverage on it from January on:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/world/cn ... index.html

And yes, BLM has taken a bit of center stage at the moment. But the media is still covering COVID and they are still advising caution and social distancing.

[Ketraar]

Trump really has a point calling them fake news

No he doesnt and dont even try to make some sort of false equivalency between the need for Trump to use that term whenever "News" Media is striking his ego and when its to criticize him. Yes media has issues, most of them are related to how people WANT sensationalism and how it pays far more, so yes they tend to make a fuss, but MOST of time they do report things that happen, thus qualify as news. Its YOUR job to then go and make up your own mind.

- in NY city - police weld Jewish community gate playground, yet they do nothing to hundreds of rioters, and tens of thosand protesters (we suppose to have an epidemy, right?)

Weren't you just complaining about media twisting things? Or does it just not apply to you?

lets jail single mother hairdresser who went to work agains lockdown to feed her family, but in the same time lets let out criminals from prison because of COVID.

Again you make odd comparisons. What has the need to release people from jail to increase inmates safety with people breaking the law? Also she got 7 days and served 2, but I guess that didnt serve your point.

Your posts reads just like a twitter/Facebook feed, the same thing you were just criticizing.

MFG

Ketraar