In the News

[comrade_general]

John McCain is finally dead. The fact he was still a senator even during his declining health and up until his very last breath is evidence of our broken congressional system.

[Jubal]

Yeah - especially since under Arizona rules they now don't get a by-election to fill his seat until 2020, the governor just gets to pick a senator for a 2.5 year term (if McCain resigned before June 30, there'd have been a by-election this November, after that they put it off until the next even-numbered election year which to me seems kinda crazy).

[Pentagathus]

Potential maniac Bollsonaro has been elected president of Brazil. It's a bit early to say what this actually means for the country, he's been worryingly fond of the previous military junta and is pretty authoritarian to say the least, but he also apparently wants to liberalize the economy (which Brazil seriously needs) and tbf  his general stance on crime is also probably a good one for Brazil. Unfortunately he's legitimately homophobic and allegedly racist and misogynistic too (but then apparently so is pretty much everyone). Oh and he is also opposed to attempts to halt and reverse deforestation of the Amazon.

[Jubal]

The attitude of the few Brazilians I know is toward the 'armadillo, evacuate now' end of the spectrum, and seriously meaning it, not just the "I'm going to move to Canada" that you get from Democrats in the US every time the GOP gets in. I'm hopeful that Brazil's congress will keep something of a check on him as long as he doesn't go full military coup, they have some ridiculous number of small parties in there as of the most recent elections so he'll need to do a lot of negotiating to get anything done. I do not like his environmental and human rights tone at all.

I suspect it's a pity that Haddad got into the second round - I think someone not from the Workers' Party and from a more middle-ground opposition group would have had a good chance of beating Bolsonaro, the WP have just got super unpopular with all the corruption scandals. I'm really very sceptical that Bolsonaro will manage to clean the system up up rather than him just using such charges as an excuse to round up opponents, but we'll see.


Other news:

> Sri Lanka is having a major crisis after the president, who switched sides from the old ruling party to lead the opposition to victory, has now switched back to try and put his old ally in as Prime Minister and sack the current PM. This seems to be part of a power game between India and China - China preferred the old more authoritarian ruling party, and India prefers the opposition.
> Georgia just had the first round of its presidential election, no candidate got over 40% so the second round run-off may well be quite tight. The run-off candidates are an independent backed by the government plus the candidate of the main opposition party. Both parties are broadly centrist, the government is perhaps marginally more to the left and has a less strong anti-Russian and pro-EU stance than the opposition. The third party, the liberal-conservative European Georgia, will support the opposition in the second round, likely leading to a close race.
> Angela Merkel is quitting her job as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (but not necessarily as Chancellor of Germany) later this year. Germany has seen some boosts in support for the far right, and a much larger boost in support recently for the Green party who are taking votes off both her conservative CDU and the centre-left SPD and could even be on track to become the main second-place party after the CDU.

[Caradìlis]

Found something I have been screaming at for the last half hour and it was a bbc news article, so I'll put it here, feel free to move it, if it doesn't fit...

https://bbc.in/2QfUmbO

Can somebody please explain to me, why it's apparently funny to some people to joke about hounding any sort of people up and killing/torturing them or forcing them to go against their beliefs/principles? Just because being vegan or vegetarian is a choice shouldn't mean it's okay to just discriminate against them,  right? I'm sorry, maybe it's just because I grew up in central Europe post 1945, but to me any suggestion of killing of part of the demographic for their beliefs always has a certain undertone and never sounds like a joke...

[Pentagathus]

As a former vegan nothing seemed particularly offensive or funny about the joke to me - although tbf jokes related by news articles do tend to lose all of their humour anyway. I can't say why jokes about dark subjects are funny to me but they certainly can be. Note that simply making a joke about a dark subject matter is not usually funny on its own for me though, as is the case here. I think when it comes to making this kind of joke about vegans it's quite clearly a joke - there are very few people who would take it seriously.
As to him being fired or pushed to resign over this, it seems fair enough. He's not a comedian and responding to a sincere pitch with a dismissive joke is highly unprofessional regardless of whether the joke is offensive or not. Then when you do add in the potential offense it probably makes financial sense for Waitrose to replAce the guy.


Can I ask why this story bothered you so much? The dude apologised and resigned, it doesn't seem like much of a story to me at all.

[Caradìlis]

I don't know why I got so upset about it, I guess, I've heard "jokes" like this a billion times too many and I just don't understand how people can get so angry about other people choosing not to eat meat, I mean, a) more for them, and b) stop pretending non-meat-eaters are trying to convert everyone... I've never seen a vegan or a vegetarian forcing their morals down somebody elses throat, but I have myself been confronted with people who wanted to force me to give up my principles, so I'm just curious as to how these sorts of behaviour and comments come about...

[Pentagathus]

I've always assumed that was either a form of projection or based on the assumption that vegans\veggies must be making some claim to a moral high ground. It kind of makes sense, someone choosing to reject your lifestyle on moral grounds is a challenge to your own morality even if it's not meant to be. And people quite often react instinctively to such challenges. Actually people apparently react instinctively to such things the vast majority of the time. People are weird.

[Caradìlis]

They sure are...

[comrade_general]

RIP HW

"When the history books are written, they will say that George HW Bush was a great president of the United States - a diplomat of unmatched skill, a commander-in-chief of formidable accomplishment, and a gentleman who executed the duties of his office with dignity and honour."

[Jubal]

There was an amusing story going around about how he banned broccoli from Air Force One when he took office - basically saying that his mother had forced him to eat it for years and that now he was the president he felt he was finally capable of refusing the stuff.

[comrade_general]

Sounds like something my dad would do.

[comrade_general]

So France is rioting and apparently the media outlets aren't reporting the real story? Are they and our governments trying to keep us from getting any ideas?

https://www.wibc.com/blogs/tony-katz/morning-news/riots-france-reveal-greater-truth-about-governments-and-ideologues

[Jubal]

Tbh what I'm hearing from regular and "alt" media all tallies fairly well? The thing with the Gilets Jaunes is that reporting often seems very confusing but that's in no small part because they're not a coherent movement - some of them are vehemently anti-tax, some are protesting against reduction of state benefits/subsidies, some are generally trying to bring down "the system" but those then split into those who want to replace it with everything from fascism to communism to anarchism... Basically Macron has proven to be a pretty crappy managerial centre-right leader who doesn't have much ability to connect with people, and this plus the general volatility of French politics is the result. The actual demands of the protesters include both "less tax" and "more benefits/services" so I think it's hard to label where it all sits politically. I think it's a serious mistake for him to be trying to go all "law and order" and crack down on these guys with law enforcement though, which he seems to be now turning to - I think that'll just escalate things.

[Caradìlis]

I'm pretty sure things have already "escalated"...