Trumpism: Page 67 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Trumpism

est

This is quite good.

And at the same time- SAD!

flobaba

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/

Ta talks truth.

And America knows what it did. Knows what it's doing.

Qwiss

I mean he's mostly right but America has had presidents who were slave owners so he's far from the first white supremacist president.

Coombs

But that's sort of his point. They were operating in the assumed truth of white supremacy rather than the assertion of it, directly over a black predecessor no less. It's an excellent argument I think, but it also speaks to the progress we've had as well. There's hope yet.

flobaba

He's talking about the modern era.

The era where we all know what it is, where we all (mostly, publicly) agree it is wrong, and still have watched it happen.

Burnwinter

Brilliant article by Coates, I think that's the best thing of his I've read. To be honest I don't always like his writing.

I don't think it's contradictory to say that Trump's racism is both continuous and coextensive with that of the GOP since the Southern strategy, the Klan, the South and the whole of US white supremacism, and also something new and contemporary. He hasn't conjured racism into being, but he has administered it with unbelievably awful frankness.

This was an interesting critique of some earlier writing by Coates from a left wing / unionist perspective:

https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/05/17/the-birthmark-of-damnation-ta-nehisi-coates-and-the-black-body/

Qwiss

Theres a critique of that Coates article in viewpoint this week too.

Burnwinter

The US socialist left really has a few problems with Liberals of Colour, doesn't it …

Qwiss

I mean it has problems with with Liberals full stop but yeah, I'd say it has problems with all issues of identity TBH. Only fair to note the writer of that piece is a POC too.

Burnwinter

Not much wrong with the piece, it's more just that race is the issue the socialist left can't deal with—which is why we get reams of these fairly neurotic, critical articles about "identity politics" that still don't really address the issue.

There's bad ones and good ones, but god there's a lot of them.

Qwiss

I think the bad ones usually come from a sense of "but I'm one of the good guys" when people criticise whiteness, males, cishet, etc

flobaba

I enjoyed this reply:

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/09/ta-nehisi-coates-george-packer-white-president/539976/

Rex

So common now we don't even discuss the train attack in London. 🙁
These are sad times to live in. Feel sorry for the people injured and those affected. Feel sorry for the innocent people whose lives will be harder yet because of this.
And the orange idiot tweeting shit giving away classified info once again of course.

flobaba

Yeah, it's like I mentioned about a month ago or so. these things are becoming the new normal, unfortunately. We just keep calm and carry on while evil is being perpetrated against the innocent worldwide.

The Myanmar crisis is one I can't quite get my head around either. Why all this hate?

flobaba

Burnwinter

It's been going on for decades and people are only waking up now because of the attention it's receiving in the media now. It's based on cultural and physical difference in the face of a sustained nationalist impulse, as simple and unstable a principle as Nazi antisemitism or the Armenian genocide.

Western countries have played their own part in the brutality. Australia pays aid to Myanmar with the rider that border police make an effort to stop Rohingyas fleeing Rakhine State, ignores the plight of Rohingya on boats at sea, and pays no mind to the fact that tens of thousands of displaced Rohingya are locked in Malaysian detention.

What's happening in Rakhine State is genocide. Other countries need to restore the substantive right of asylum and immediately provide a safe haven for those in flight from it.

Mirth

flobaba wrote:
Yeah, it's like I mentioned about a month ago or so. these things are becoming the new normal, unfortunately. We just keep calm and carry on while evil is being perpetrated against the innocent worldwide.

I hate to make the loss of life a point of statistics but talk about this being the new normal is wrong. What's normalised is the disproportionate attention these attacks receive which ultimately feeds on the atmosphere of terror which ultimately leads to a noxious political and social environment.

By any metric, the current state of global affairs is unusually peaceful compared to even a few decades ago and while there's plenty of work to be done, it's wrong to imply that people have stood by and done nothing. A lot of effort has been put in and it's important to acknowledge those who have made contributions. Is it enough? No - it never will be but being caught up in this feeling of being trapped in a vicious cycle is a manufactured reality.

flobaba

Enlightening graphic Mirth, thanks.

It does feel like the frequency of occurrence of these events are a bit more than usual though, even accounting for end to end media coverage.

And I am not implying that people have stood by and done nothing. I'm just observing like Rex that these violent events that used to provoke widespread discussions and global condemnation seem to just be a part of the daily news cycle nowadays. Oversaturation.

arsedocmd

Obama used to say the same. But it leaves a bit of a dyspeptic feel trying to digest it.

For one, I wonder if there is any compounding factors to this. The era of connectivity, accessibility to educations, abilities for better distributions of wealth etc. We've passed through eras and values of gandhis, mandelas and MLKs. The graph should've been much steeper downwards.
I understand that link was only about events in the west, and I'm talking in general. Aside from the media hyperbole for business reasons of driving conflict, what I think is discomforting about the current manufactured reality as you put it is that the antagonist this time is Islam/it's acolytes and followers which are seemingly never ending compared to for example the terrorisms elewhere like the LTTE or the irish-which was finite in comparison in size and duration and most importantly, aspirations. Or even N. Korea for that instance.
Not disagreeing with anything Mirth said, feel the same most times, but other times I'm conflicted due to above.

On the subject of rohingyas, it is just become difficult to comprehend that in one part of the world we have fights for lgbtq rights, phones costing a grand, and in others there's skyscrapers one taller than the previous tallest etc and then there's villages burning- bizarre. The dehumanizing I believe is, sadly, complete. Go to any Indian news website and find articles on the burmese refugees and check the comments' section. Any.
One example is even Here where a hitherto popular indian 'leftist/sickular' journalist contributes. Or This her twitter post and replies on it.

arsedocmd

reverse ageing.

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