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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 6, 2010 19:06:41 GMT
Just so our All-American boys and girls don't feel left out by the other thread, I find the current situation surrounding Obama fascinating. It looks like the Democrats are in for a 1994-esque spanking in November's congressional elections. Republicans are apparently polling higher than they have since 1942 or something.. It makes me think of how wildly divided America seems. George Bush was the most hated American president in living memory (well..if you don't count Nixon post Watergate).. from America's progressive left at least he was like a bogey man. Now you follow him up with Obama, who seems to be just as hated and distrusted, only by the other side. The whole massive paranoia that America as we know it is being DESTROYED FROM THE INSIDE coming from the Tea Party kids is really weird, but too prevalent a sentiment to to be totally dismissed. Really it's got to the stage now where America seems like two totally disparate countries awkwardly sellotaped together. The god fearing heartland traditionalists and the more progressive urban elements with their more European sensibility just seem to have no common ground at all, and yes left and right, north and south are divided here in England but it doesn't seem one bit as extreme. Do you think American can hang together?.. and if so how, I'd be interested to hear from the American wolfies about how they see the future of their country. Is it entirely stupid to imagine a second civil war?
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Post by lastgoodbye on Sept 6, 2010 20:04:48 GMT
This thead is well timed! I've never really been that into/aware of U.S politics up until just recently, what with the whole 'Mosque at Ground Zero' furore and Tea Party movement.. fiasco. I've got to say, America, I'm a little bit scared.
I'd be very interested to hear from our American posters about their politics (god knows we droned on about UK politics for long enough earlier this summer).
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 6, 2010 20:10:36 GMT
It's such a shame Obama wasn't born in the UK. He's consider dangerously left wing by certain American standards (well, clearly more left wing than America is ready for right now..) but by British standards he'd be a moderate... and probably one of the best prime minsters ever.
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Post by mimicry on Sept 6, 2010 21:57:38 GMT
Yeah, it's really weird that America doesn't have an actual "left" whatsoever. Like Josh was saying, Obama is pretty lefty, but that's like nothing. All we really have is Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont. The Tea Party and all that hullabaloo really sickens me. They're overtly racist while also denying it somehow. Glenn Beck had a rally at the Lincoln Memorial recently, trying to "reclaim" the Civil Right Movement? And his logic is always nonexistent? So he's trying to "reclaim" it for white people? Somehow? And everyone over the age of 45 is still stuck in 1956 so calling someone a communist definitely a valid insult... for some reason? Pretty much everything the Tea Party does has the most fucked up backwards reasoning. Like, immigrants are scary and you're only a real American if you're born here. Except that America is a country based on immigration and melting pots and that's why America is wonderful! The Statue of Liberty doesn't say "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ASTERISK OOPS ONLY WHITE PEOPLE SORRY" Or that, yes, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion... except it has to be Christianity! Because the founding fathers were Christian? (Except for the ones who were Deist?) It's like none of these people has actually read the Constitution. Or passed 9th grade history. Often I think that the politics in America aren't that complicated, but the discourse surrounding them just turns everything into a giant ball of noodles going every which way. Fox News is gross, of course, but CNN is just as sickening. Like, don't get met started on the "mosque at ground zero" thing. It's not any of those things! It is literally none of those things. All the talk even made them ditch the name Cordoba, and fuck it, Cordoba is one of the most beautiful places in the world so I would not mind having something named after it. I actually really want a mosque in my neighborhood. A friend of mine lives near one and they're always having things like Persian poetry readings and goddamn doesn't that sound great? re: the Islamic Cultural center counterpunch.org/leupp08192010.htmlwww.huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-rehab/tea-party-official-corres_b_693579.htmlre: Tea Party ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 6, 2010 22:17:57 GMT
Claire you'd like Bradford. One of Britian's biggest Muslim populated cities so there's hot mosque action a-plenty.
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Post by mimicry on Sept 7, 2010 0:08:04 GMT
yessss
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Post by irrelevant on Sept 7, 2010 5:34:47 GMT
Or that, yes, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion... except it has to be Christianity! Because the founding fathers were Christian? (Except for the ones who were Deist?) It's like none of these people has actually read the Constitution. Or passed 9th grade history. and if they passed, they were probably following texas' curriculum.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 7, 2010 9:36:53 GMT
Don't you think it's sad how they're dragging wolfboard's favourite beverage's name in the mud?
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Post by helwin tins on Sept 7, 2010 15:41:11 GMT
fuck the tea baggers. in fact, fuck so much of american politics. so much of it is just STEEPED (like tea) in racism, homophobia, sexism, bigotry, fear.... i think the thing that pisses me off the most is how few americans seem to even understand their own country/constitution/laws. just so fucking ignorant.
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Post by Rhiflect on Sept 7, 2010 15:41:15 GMT
Could someone give me a crash course in American politics? I really don't get them at all, apart from there being Democrats and Republicans and some general knowledge. In other words, HELP!
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Post by Lawrence on Sept 7, 2010 16:34:35 GMT
More 4 weekdays at 8.30pm. Very informative
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Post by lastgoodbye on Sept 7, 2010 16:53:18 GMT
Don't you think it's sad how they're dragging wolfboard's favourite beverage's name in the mud? I am worried about this! "I certainly can see and have seen some confusion with regard to the name they've chosen for their movement," said Dan Robertson, owner of The Tea House in Naperville, a major tea distributor. "When I first heard about it, I thought, 'Oh, maybe I can sell them some tea.' Then I realized that probably wasn't going to happen."
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Post by lastgoodbye on Sept 7, 2010 17:03:34 GMT
Also, I posted these videos by Sam Seder (who our Americans might be familiar with, but I wasn't) on my tumblr yesterday, several hours before this thread was made. Coincidence? ...Yes, actually. But brilliantly on-topic nonetheless.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 7, 2010 17:04:31 GMT
Could someone give me a crash course in American politics? I really don't get them at all, apart from there being Democrats and Republicans and some general knowledge. In other words, HELP! Oh... well this post is going to feature LOADS of generalisations and simplifications but I'll field this one. America has a two party political system (there's other parties like the Greens, Libertarians etc but they're marginal even compared to small British parties) The Republicans are on the right and a little bit like our Conservative party, The Democrats are on the left and a bit like.. well I was going to say Labour.. but probably more like our Liberal Democrats really. The US is on-average a more right wing country than the UK. This is evident in the fact they don't have free healthcare and as much in the way of a welfare/benefits safety net as we do here in Blightly. A distrust of big government and government intervention (via regulation of business/markets, taxes, welfare etc) seems built into the American cultural psyche and there's a big movement of Americans who believe Obama is taking the country too far left (the Tea Party) with measures such as his healthcare reforms. I'm sure the actual Americans here will have more of an insight into why this is but my interpretation of this is based in the fact the greatest threat America has faced came from the far-left in the form of the old Soviet Union. Americans grew up with Soviet nuclear missiles pointing at their country in Cuba, twinned with the America government and media plowing anti-communism propaganda communism and socialism became something of a dirty word in America compared to England where the class struggle has been a core dialogue of our history. I think being rich is generally perceived more positively in America where average British people tend to dislike and distrust the super rich (a remnant of a society that was once openly aristocratic and deeply divided along class lines). Just look at the most popular British TV shows (Eastenders, Coronation Street etc) they're all about the working class, where as Americas most popular shows tend to be about the wealthy (think Desperate Housewives, Friends, Sex and The City, American soap operas etc) I think that says something. Also "middle class" has a different meaning in the US than it does here. In Britain if a someone wants to invoke "ordinary people" they'll tend to use the term "working class", with middle class meaning moderately well off; in America middle class is the term used to invoke the working majority. Also America is a lot more religious that the UK, therefore religious groups and attitudes hold more power. This has lead to what is often pithily referred to as a "culture war" on issues like homosexuality, abortion and what not between the Republican southern rural Bible-belt states and the more modern and urban population centres like New York and California. America of course had a civil war between the north and south so this divide is again fairly historically ingrained.
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 7, 2010 17:12:21 GMT
I'm worried my post painted too negative a picture of America... I do appreciate how freedom seems to mean more as an idea than it does here in England were both the right and left elite trample on civil rights and the freedom of the individual without much protest.. Freedom and individualism are probably my favourite words so I could never really hate America!
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Post by Rhiflect on Sept 7, 2010 17:27:54 GMT
Thank you! Some of that was what i've learnt in History, but ta for the general low-down.
Also, those videos were VERY IMFORMATIVE and funny and true, Florence.
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Post by mimicry on Sept 7, 2010 19:46:13 GMT
Josh that sounds pretty straight on. I'd also add that a core "belief" behind a lot of politics is a sort of rugged individualism. Since America was founded on a lack of aristocracy and/or a (supposedly) more equal class system, there's a narrative of the self-made person, someone who started with nothing and then made something of themselves, became a pillar of the community somehow. I just heard s commentator on the news offhandedly say, "My people came over here on a boat, and see what they've done with themselves" (I think she was referring to Sicilians specifically) but anyway that's just an example. This sentiment often rears its ugly head in discussions of government aid, and if often used to demonize the poor. Reagan-era "welfare queens" are an example. If they're poor they must be lazy and they just want to take advantage of the government just handing out money to people like them. It's usually a false generalization.
As far as economic policy goes, there's a lot of talk about what the government can do to help the middle class, because they think if the middle class is strong then the rest of the country is strong. America holds tight onto its capitalism and hates government regulation, because it's like the corporations are also these rugged individuals, and if the government regulates something then those corporations aren't going to growww, whine whine.
Most major policy discussions or decisions can boil down to fetishization of the individual + fear of communism. I'm not against being an individual (because who really is?) but you can be an individual but also help out your neighbors, you know?
OH I almost forgot! Another big thing is states rights vs. federal government. It's something that comes up when discussing same-sex marriage. The federal government's laws overrule state laws, and it's why, for example, we have one currency but different states have different sales tax rates. So right now different states are making different laws regarding same-sex marriage, which means a gay couple can get married in Massachusetts, and it will be recognized in Maryland but not recognized in Alabama. Weird, right? It's important historically, too, since state's rights were the reason the Civil War started. Specifically it was over laws regarding slave ownership. I don't want to go into an in-depth history lesson, but these days the phrase "state's rights" also kind of means "but we want to discriminate against people legally!" So. yeah.
edited because I accidentally a word there
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Post by Lemon Bloody Cola on Sept 7, 2010 20:20:42 GMT
Josh that sounds pretty straight on. I'd also add that a core "belief" behind a lot of politics is a sort of rugged individualism. Since America was founded on a lack of aristocracy and/or a (supposedly) more equal class system, there's a narrative of the self-made person, someone who started with nothing and then made something of themselves, became a pillar of the community somehow. I just heard s commentator on the news offhandedly say, "My people came over here on a boat, and see what they've done with themselves" (I think she was referring to Sicilians specifically) but anyway that's just an example. This sentiment often rears its ugly head in discussions of government aid, and if often used to demonize the poor. Reagan-era "welfare queens" are an example. If they're poor they must be lazy and they just want to take advantage of the government just handing out money to people like them. It's usually a false generalization. I was going to say something like that to compliment my "fear of communism" theorising but didn't trust myself with the wordifying skills and grasp of historical context, so thank you for that Clare Attiudes toward the poor here in the UK are sadly becoming more Amercianised partly because of a concentrated campagain to demonise "welfare scroungers" from the Murdoch-ised right wing press and because working class socialism has greatly decline thanks to the Labour party abandoning/losing touch with its working class base thanks to Tony Blair's nineties modernising campagin to make the party electable among the middle class and in the busienss world. It's scary to think that formly socialist working class people and communties are now the base for far-right parties like the BNP and UKIP. Britian is right wing compared to the rest of Western Europe really anyway.. we're like a halfway house between American and European attitudes. What I find interesting about the USA vs Soviet Union/communism situation is that both were founded on opposite beautiful idealistic dreams, that eventually became corrupted. Like a mirror of each other. I guess the UK has just gradually evolved into what it is, nothing as dramatic as those revolutionary societies. Freedom and individualism AND collectism and equality are both pretty dandy things to basis your society on, where does it all go wrong? Oh yeah power+human nature= BOOM!
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Post by Tellurium on Sept 7, 2010 21:39:47 GMT
Sarah Palin is for sure going to announce her run for presidency on the 11th. Whether Glen Beck is going to run as her VP is up for speculation, but she's surely going to announce her candidacy.
I can't wait. American Politics are the best reality show ever.
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Post by allison on Sept 8, 2010 4:04:48 GMT
another american ideal which i don't feel has been mentioned is scepticism of the elite. i'm not sure if this is a worldwide phenomenon, but many americans seem to put more importance on what they themselves observe, than what 'the experts' claim. glenn beck is always on about 'ask questions! ask questions!' and yet, his followers don't themselves, they just rely on him to ask the questions for them & accept what he says. but yeah, in the US, academia is like a dirty word; everyday americans are more likely to vote for a candatate who is more in line with the rich (or himself has loads of riches) than one who is more in line with academics (or has himself attended top schools). which i think is kind of unfortunate.
there are two points which really frustrate me about american politics these days: 1. misinformation. politicians & "the media" both lie out their asses, and no one seems to care. no one seems to call them out on their hypocracy. 2. party politics, and being about being re-elected. polititians spend an absurd amount of time raising funds for their next campaign, rather than making policies. the amount of money the accept from lobyists is also absurd.
anyway, i've lived in a very progressive town in a very progressive area of a very progressive state all my life. i live in a bubble. my impression of the rest of america is what i hear from the liberal media (new york times, the new yorker, the daily show lol) and from my bigoted relatives who live in the central valley and eastern idaho (every time i read their facebook updates its just facepalm. frowny face. despair).
today my father asked us, as we all sat round the dinner table, how we were planning on voting on the upcoming "legalize pot" proposition. my mother said, "vote yes, of course. there is no coherent argument - other than a moral & biased one - that goes against it" and that was pretty much the end of the discussion.
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