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Am I the only one just tired of South Park? Cool, they shit on Trump. Like, I don't know what having him have sex with Satan does.
The dude is funding and facilitating death camps by diverting funds from disaster relief programs.
Our country is two years into directly funding and defending a genocidal state.
I can't bring myself to care enough to watch what fart and sex jokes the "enlightened centrist" at South Park have to make about it.
I'm just a bitter humourousless old man now I guess.
Edit: good comment in hindsight. I do like hearing the responses. If you still want to respond please understand I am a depressed far left dude that just had a family reunion of liberals talk more about South Park and zero about Palestine. Just some context to my frustration.
Don't watch it then.
They're assuming you've watched the South Park movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6prKZkSQUc
The point is Trump is the same as Saddam Hussein.
Hey, totally get it. On the other hand, can't you see that literally everyone else got their nose brown? It's climatic to see that at least some authors have an audacity to do such show. Not for long though.
Yeah. I am ecstatic South Park exists and is popular, even if I don’t watch it much.
…For now.
Somehow getting banned by the US government would be a crowning achievement.
See the great part of it, it bruises their tiny little egos
I think it does significantly more for the egos of the people that enjoy "pointing at the problem" but doing nothing about it.
What are you doing about the problem? I'm not a U.S. citizen, so I fold out my chair and make some popcorn.
Glad you asked. I'm a dues paying member of both PSL, SDA, and started working with a "Tech for Palestine" group I just joined after being fired from my job at Microsoft for working with the activist group "No Azure for Apartheid".
This week I have my first get together with the SRA (socialist rifle association).
Maybe I'm a loser. Maybe I'm just trying to fill a void personally. But I definitely don't wanna just sit back and watch.
If you're a non American I would tell you what I've warned my comrades in Europe, Canada or otherwise. The US empire doesn't fall without the rest of the west. You can grab your popcorn. But the interest of American Imperialism are aligned with your capitalist as well.
The working class (you) will be paying the cost of empire as it struggles to maintain itself. You are not simply an observer. They are coming for your social programs too. And they're already scapegoating immigrants and Muslims to prepare you for it.
Don't think that. I don't know you, so I can't pass judgement...but my initial thought is that if you really are active in what you wrote, then you're doing more to try to elicit change than 99% of your fellow citizens and should be commended for same.
Thanks mate.
I don't think they are making any strong statements. I think they are making liberals feel like "we are right" and I think they are making strong conservatives think "damn, South Park went woke". The people not with a strong opinion either way or the other will conclude "well I guess that's a debate right now". When this is the time we need a strong shift away from the failures of both parties that have failed the American people in order to serve the wealthy and imperial interest.
This is a time for artist to make strong statements of anti genocide, anti fascist, anti Imperialist, anti capitalist interest.
South Park makes a strong anti Trump statement in a time when the population needs to hear more than that. It is a failure of what art should push. Deciding more to fill that void with "shock" value of tired sex/Satan/small penis jokes instead.
It is an out of touch Gen X opinion that still thinks the dream of their parents wasn't a lie.
There is nothing that challenges the the structures. Only the individuals that power those structures. Only appealing to replace them.
It is art that avoids class conflict. Which is probably the point I've been trying to make this whole time.
Well said. It's just pithy insults that are about 10 years too late. We need more than that right now, and they're clearly not up to the task.
What exactly do you expect a few writers to do about Trump? Taking care of Trump is either the job of politicians, the military, or the workers, depending on how you want it done, and what kind of system you want afterwards.
I dunno. If only we had examples in history of writers causing massive political changes.
Oh well.
Do you really, seriously, expect comedy writers like Matt Stone and Tray Parker to be writers like Jean-Paul Marat? Or Marx? For reals?
Why not? Satire can be very powerful, and if you read the comments in this thread, you'd believe that they're two of the best satirical minds of our generation.
Is their someone else major in media than is giving any pushback!? We may need more but they are what we need for the moment. At least someone is pointing out the absolute absurdity this all is.
Lol yeah I don't think this is true. Top 25 or something maybe.
A lot more than 2 years, and it really says a lot that you think those 2 are centrists.
These artist with a massive platform do everything in their power to avoid addressing class conflict and instead fill that "edge" with small penis and fart jokes. Yes. I would say that is literally the definition of "center".
Challenging the current president instead of addressing the structures that brought about fascism in America is absolutely a failure.
You can absolutely and should challenge the current president. But doing that in a time of fascist uprising WITHOUT pointing to the historical materialism that explains what brings these fascist to power. Yeah. It's insufficient and a failure.
It is making liberals feel as if the next election can still fix things. Keeping them complacent in the mean time. Do I think that is their intention? No. They exist with a platform like this BECAUSE they do not push past that edge. The same reason that successful talking heads are successful because they're world views align with ruling class narratives.
They make the edge feel like it's being pushed. While they sit in the right side of a fence that every thinks is far to the right of them.
The US was founded by the rich for the rich. We were always fascist. Everything else was an illusion used to convince you otherwise. Looks like it worked.
"Fascism" wasn't invented till 1910 or so, in a response to Marxism. The early USA could not have been fascist, at all.
Nice try. The elements of fascism have always been there.
That is like saying Diabetes was discovered in 1921 when it was first described by the Egyptians in 1550 BC.
Hey, I get it. It is hard to swallow the reality that the US has always been a fascist nation that uses propaganda and violence to manipulate their populace.
Lol. I ain't American, but the early American philosophy was anti authoritarian, and dipshits that talk like you are always advocating for authoritarianism while pretending you are not.
You really didn't study the American Revolution at all. Sounds like you fell for the propaganda though!
Fascism has an actual meaning. I think you're confusing a bourgeois dictatorship for Fascism. Fascism is an ideology it isn't an economic system or system of governance.
Saying something like "oh well technically we've always been fascist because the US was founded on genocide, slavery, etc" is not helpful in recognizing the change in ideology and the rise in fascist policies of our lifetimes.
We probably agree on a lot. But your comment was just snarky and unhelpful. Or maybe I just interpreted it poorly.
You probably haven't studied our founding fathers and history very much. Pretty much everything we are facing now was there from the start.
I get it that this offends your worldview and you think it is unhelpful. The truth is far uglier than you can imagine.
I guess you're just purposely ignoring the agreement I made with you to avoid my point. Seems like you don't want a conversation but just to repeat your conclusion.
Sure, whatever you need to say to not discuss this anymore.
You didn't say anything!
You already said it for me. You are not concerned with history, as you glaze over tired talking points trying to dismiss me because I dared be reductive.
I am not going to waste your or my time by explaining why things are in a discussion, because you don't care.
Your interpretation of fascism is fine and their is nothing wrong with it. I don't see it that way because I am not much of a political hack.
You could have expanded on what you meant and gave actual historical examples. I never said I wasn't concerned with history. I said declaring "America was always fascist" is unhelpful to combating the rise in fascist policies today. Specific historical materialist analysis of American history and it's different forms of fascism and class struggle would be helpful. But that's not what you're doing. Your talking to someone that agrees with you but are specifically avoiding talking about the subject of agreement in order to end every comment with an "iamsosmart" snarky one liner at the end.
Maybe you're just a doomer that doesn't want to actually learn. So you just point to a problem and then frustrate anyone that looks any further. Because that's what I'm getting from this discussion.
I already said what I had to say, not sure what more you are interested in. The US has always been a fascist nation from its inception. You think we are becoming fascist. I believe, based on historical accounts, that we have always been so.
One such example of this is the Sons of Liberty. They committed acts of terrorism on behalf of the wealthy who used their media at the time to control the narrative. The US was founded on violence and propaganda.
We see classic fascism in how the wealthy individuals rose to power in the US revolution. How they ruthlessly suppressed opposition through property destruction, acts of violence, and even murder.
They were crazed nationalists who used persuasion and violence to build a movement from an otherwise peaceful people. The first example of modern astroturfing which just boils down to pitting humans against each other for their selfish desires. There was no real revolt, just a bunch of rich business owners seizing control.
Giving liberty a lip service while they controlled everything. Eventually centralizing their cult of control under a single figure the President of the United States.
Our first President was the very definition of corruption. His corruption was so legendary the government balked at the idea of giving him an expense account and instead opted for a salary to reign in his excessiveness.
Not to mention his rise to power through the military ranks. I think this exaltation of military conquest, by installing him as the central figure, really is a shinning example of fascism in its purest form.
We were always a democracy in name only, hell the very point of the Senate is to prevent the populace from trying to gain power. You can follow legislation from the start to modern time and see that nearly all represent monied interests.
You are staring down the most violently abusive racist misogynist country in the modern era and you believe we suddenly are making a wrong turn now!? Looks like all that propaganda worked liked a charm.
But hey, don't be a doomer because life really has gotten better for the majority of the world. Billions of people now have access to clean water and electricity. Even in violent places like the US crime has gone down. Fascism is not going to end the world, because it is everywhere thriving.
That'd be India or Afghanistan, not the USA
What in the literal fuck are you talking about? Since 9/11 alone the US has caused 4.5 million deaths in its war to create terror.
What about the genocide of Native Americans!? Another 8 million. Just Vietnam alone was 3 million on the high end.
How many countries has India and Afghanistan toppled combined!? The US has toppled 72 just during the Cold war alone. Countless millions starved and died from disease related to regime changes.
US citizens helped fund the Nazi empire (the US was pro-Nazi and the Nazi admired how we killed off all the Native Americans) and when Germany tried to find nations to take all the Jews in, the wealthy people lobbied the US and the rest of the world not to take them in.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and it is not just foreigners. The US has lost over a million people in the last two decades to gun violence alone. This is unheard of in any other nation.
Not to mention we lock up more people than anywhere else in the world with 20% of the world's prison population but only 4% of the world's population.
Lastly, our military budget is higher than the rest of the world combined. I am not sure what Kool aid you have been drinking.
Oh look, you got baited. Still ain't half as smart you think you are. Probably took you a hour to write that.
Sure, whatever you need to tell yourself to preserve your worldview. I have read first hand accounts of all of this. The US has always been a lie and here is the proof.
Don't even get me started on all the shit we did after this. From the wholesale slaughter of the Native Americans to supporting the rise of Nazi Germany. We are truly fucked up
Suspect you thought I was the guy baiting you, not the one pointing it out.
You don't actually watch the show, fuck off with your bullshit, probably the first episode you watched in years, someone told you to,
I look at it as absurdist political humor, just like when they were making fun of Al Gore with ManBearPig and Hilly Clinton with The Snuke. Then there was them roasting the shit out of Saddam Hussein in the movie.
Rehashing Saddam Hussein as Trump was a bit lazy. They could have done better, but it was still entirely unexpected.
Rehashing Hussein as Trump wasn’t lazy, it was to draw a parallel between the 2.
Well....it can be 2 things....It's not like the guy has Mel Blanc's range of voices though, makes do with what he has.
In South Park, people ignored Al Gore's warnings about ManBearPig because he sounded lame. Turned out ManBearPig was real.
In real life, people ignored Al Gore's warnings about Global Warming because he sounded lame. Turned out Global Warming was real.
They often put a message in there you just have to look for it.
In the latest episode there's a message about people doing horrible things because they're desperate for money. Or maybe it's just the system makes them feel like they need to make more money. Mackey is motivated to get a job at ICE because a social media influencer made him think making money mattered more than being a good person and the bank reinforced this. But in the end being a horrible person wasn't actually profitable, and he just was pushed into doing more and more horrible things.
Going after Trump is difficult because the real life Trump is completely ridiculous to the point where they could just put real things he's said on there and caption it with "These are things Trump has actually said" like they did in their episode on scientology. But that would get boring after few episodes.
Just portraying Trump like Saddam gets the message across that Trump is an authoritarian asshole that's at the top, but what's more interesting is going into the societal problems that enables the horrible things Trump and his minions can do. First episode goes into the corruption of religion, second episode goes into the capitalistic pressures on society.