Comments

5

That North Carolina mailer looks like standard campaign literature telling people how to get their absentee ballots. I hope Democrats are doing the same thing.

9

The Poco Booze Pouch looks amazing. Can't wait to get some. They can come with ice, I'm sure. This is what America is all about.

12

@9, the Poco Booze Pouch looks disgusting. A cocktail-to-go is not made more appealing by serving it in a colostomy bag. Especially a cocktail that color. Just saying.

13

12: Presentation is everything!

16

@1 - Your first paragraph is spot on. If you are not coming into contact with people of risk, party like it's1999. Hospitalization for healthy youngsters is so rare .... look at the science. Despite all that, indoor parties would be irresponsible and it’s damn easy to stay a few feet away from each other while outdoors.

@Facts - Your social security comment highlights the asshole. Poor taste.

17

Imagine if Trump had handled the ebola patient.

18

Rioters now presume to think that violence against unions is acceptable if not in line with their demands.

19

People need to speak up against the Marxist anarchist BS that has stained the BLM movement, provides a narrative for Trump’s re-election, and destroyed the city. Time to arrest them all or send them back to live in mommy and daddy’s basement. These pathetic losers are the epitome of white privilege.

21

@18, well SPOG is more of a racist protection racket than a union, who's members can kill with impunity. Violent protest isn't justified, but you'll get no sympathy for SPOG from me.

23

@20: Holy F*king S*t! - Required viewing. You don't get to scream 'black lives matter' after you violently assault another human being.

How many times to we hear "will somebody please call 911!". Hope the guy survives.

26

@19 has no idea what Marxism or anarchist mean. Using those two together would be like saying a Republican communist or a Christian atheist. Now Republican fascist is appropriate as Republicans have adopted right wing fascist policies and are using fascist methods to implement those policies. Meanwhile the Democrats are called communists and socialists when the platforms of the Democratic party are far from communism or socialism.

27

@24: In politics and economics, yeah, but in health and science it's an entirely different thing. The collective health interest of society matches one-for-one the personal health interest of the individual.

If you don't agree, you'll feel differently next time you run a fever (which I hope you don't).

29

@24,

But you don't need to "sacrifice a few" in order to maintain ideological and intellectual consistency. You can simply impose a small tax to achieve the exact same end and avoid needless suffering and death.

30

Boy, the trolls really have nothing else going on today, do they? Gotta spam the morning Slog post until something sticks.

@9: How goes the hunt to find evidence of the cops murdered by BLM, you lying jackass?

31

Oh David. You're so East of Aurora Ave. Do you still burn your trash in a barrel?

I just got the numbers for new service connections last month. If Seattle is being "destroyed", it sure has a funny way of showing it. We're busier than ever. And they just announced that they are redeveloping 15 parcels next to Chez Vel-DuRay. One whole block of former orchard that has never been developed plus three single family homes biting the dust, thirty-six new townhouse units in all.

34

@31: My goodness. You have a 36 bundt cakes to bake.

37

Congradulations all you idiots!
Your garbage protests, riots, looting just dragged Biden down by 10%.
Hooray for yourselves, you achieved the impossible!

Now, go patronize a black owned business, then continue your protests, block some freeways at night, defund the police, establish your communist collectives.

That's why my and my friends' kids or grand kids all know, if they go protest, they get no inheritance.

38

"Increasing the payroll tax rate can significantly improve solvency. A one percentage point increase in the Social Security payroll tax rate—to 13.4 percent, paid half by workers and half by employers—phased in over 10 years beginning in 2016 would extend trust fund reserves by five years. Trust fund reserves would last an additional 10 years if the payroll tax were raised 2 percentage points and at least 53 years if it were raised by 3 percentage points. Payroll tax increases substantially improve solvency because they affect a lot of people and immediately boost trust fund assets that accrue interest over time."

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-can-we-make-social-security-solvent

39

If young and middle aged people can't party and drink alcohol, how will they spread Coronavirus to everyone so that all their classes are canceled?

... seriously

40

It's hilarious (delusional but hilarious) to think that there are enough anarchists and that they are well enough organized to pull off a summer of riots in nearly every major city in this country.

It couldn't just be that there are a lot of desperate, pissed off people who feel they have nothing left to lose in a country with soaring unemployment, unaffordable urban rent, no health care & lots of debt and where the cops keep killing people in the streets (and in their homes and in their cars). But no, it's got to be anarchists. That's it, thousands of anarchists, probably in sleeper cells, sure.

Anyway, as for time to arrest them all or this idea that the cops (or military or CBP or Trump or Biden) should be doing something more about it- we are in this situation. Is your response to just start gunning people down? Rounding them all up and building new prisons for them?

Not that the liberal solutions are any better. I'm sure it will all be fine when Biden wins and waves his magic "go back to normal" wand right?

Treacle was on here the other day going on about the historically inevitable economic position we find ourselves in right now, and that's something I've been going on about for years as well. How we respond to it will determine what sort of society we have in the future. Personally I've given up. Maybe nihilism is self-defense, but it's amusing to watch the train wreck.

41

"collective health interest of society matches one-for-one the personal health interest of the individual"

So wrong! Under the American model, which was expanded under Obama, the money needed to get the best care for the few individuals who can afford it depletes what can and should be spent on the low-tech, broadly accessible primary care and public health services that are needed to achieve optimum collective health. The Venn diagrams do not overlap but rather are at mainly odds with each other. For example, while U.S. is the cradle of health care new technology--which is good for a small number of privileged individuals--that technology is simultaneously the main driver of health care inflation, making basic care less and less accessible.

43

@41: My premise was about the science from the mindset of the virus, as I excluded your extrapolation in my first clause.

44

Imagine thinking people looting Targets are concerned about an inheritance. Or thinking they are the same folks trying to elect Biden. Or that they give a fuck what anyone says at the convention.

Honest question- how do you get average folks to see that they are living in a collapsing empire before it's in shambles around them? I vastly underestimated the extent to which Americans understand how much their lifestyle and functioning institutions were dependent on historical conditions which can never be reproduced. I don't know how long it's going to take people to realize there's no going back. It was a choice between having a functioning democracy with liberal institutions or maintaining US hegemony, the two have not been compatible since 08 crash but there was a choice until the current crisis. Now we are in new territory- our democratic system is gone, the public institutions are on their way out, the real economy (employment, income, etc) is not going to recover. The sooner people wrap their minds around this, the better. There is no way around the inevitable decline of the US. Its share of global wealth will continue to decline- it's only still floating today on the US's situation as the global fiat currency. It's not possible to maintain this status- we can't possibly keep up the military occupations and trade wars necessary. We'll eventually be in a multipolar world with trade in multiple currencies, sooner rather than later if we don't keep the oil flowing (the actual reason we required an opening of the economy). From here on out, it's just a matter of privatizing all public institutions and figuring out how to control/imprison the increasing number of people who will be left out of the new order who will continue to riot and loot. So you'll end up with the US looking like most every other country without functioning governments and giant wealth disparity- gated areas with fortification protected from the violence and failure out in the general public. It really doesn't matter what you think of this- it's the reality we are living in. All you can do is decide how we can organize ourselves in response.

It was a choice between liberal democratic institutions and maintaining the hegemony of the US in global capitalism. We made that choice already and as much as liberals can't see it, nothing is going back to normal even if Biden does win. Those possibilities do not exist any more. We've been one crisis away from this situation since 08 and that crisis has happened. People need to wake up and see the realignment of history in front of them.

@42 You can't see the forest for the trees. And it's hilarious that you think there's thousands of antifas across dozens of cities.This isnt' about public opinion. The social contract breaks down in societies when people stop feeling that there is any benefit to obeying laws. What people sitting around in their homes watching cable news or youtube videos think about it is irrelevant.

45

Shorter @42: "2/3 of America doesn't agree with me. They all need to change their view so that cops can beat up people in the streets again."

Don't hold your breath, buddy.

46

@44: It seems you are frustrated that your passion and alarm over what's going on is unmatched by what you see is the aggregate of Americans' (average folks) dispositions on the same things. People are not necessary less alarmed, they just handle it differently and you can't see their internal emotions.

As far as not going back to normal, I'm sure that's how they felt a hundred years ago. Isn't history a series of never normal?

49

No need to answer David. You’re definitely an East of Aurora Shorelinian. I put you just north of the Goodwill - or maybe you’re just a little too close to the substation?

53

@14 COVID is scary. From the NYT yesterday:

"Eduardo Rodriguez was poised to start as the No. 1 pitcher for the Boston Red Sox this season. But in July the 27-year-old tested positive for Covid-19. Feeling “100 years old,” he told reporters: “I’ve never been that sick in my life, and I don’t want to get that sick again.” His symptoms abated, but a few weeks later he felt so tired after throwing about 20 pitches during practice that his team told him to stop and rest.

Further investigation revealed that he had a condition many are still struggling to understand: Covid-19-associated myocarditis. Mr. Rodriguez won’t be playing baseball this season."

54

@26 - "Republican fascist" is not, as you correctly point out, incorrect. But it has become redundant the last few years.

55

@raindrop. Absolutely. And they had two massive world wars over it that cost millions of lives- nothing to do but get through it I suppose. But my frustrations are not unmatched- this is literally why there are people rioting and looting. What's annoying me is the way average folks who still believe in the current system are slurping up the media narratives explaining to them what's going down. They get their cause and effect mixed up. Look at @47 who sees all this and thinks it's the media narrative that creates the discontent rather than the material conditions of reality. The media narrative just gives him someone to blame. It's those dumb liberals watching lamestream media. The same happens in reverse, with all the liberals saying it's all because of the dumb cheeto. Meanwhile each of them call the other sheeple. Or look at @50. Either it's trolling or it's an analysis that really believes the American lifestyle of the mid 20th century was good because people felt the right things and not because of winning ww2, having 3/4 of the world's wealth, establishing the bretton woods system, etc. Nothing was thrown away- the destruction was baked into the pie.

The emotional reasons for / extent of our alarm doesn't matter- who cares what people feel, and what they say online on these boards isn't an indication of reality anyway. We all have our reasons to seek distraction and we all compartmentalize our alarm. It doesn't matter because I think this or that opinion is wrong or right. It matters because if people don't understand their history or economic system, they can't do anything about anything.

56

@47 It must really chap your hide that reality has a well-known liberal bias. Best invest in some soothing cream. It may help.

57

Oh now David, don't be bitter. Just trying to understand where you're coming from. I know you Shorelinians are an odd lot. If you had the sense God gave a goose, you would have just voted to become part of Seattle. But you know how racism is......

59

@57: I'm glad Shoreline isn't part of Seattle. I can get plastic bags instead of just paper at grocery stores and there isn't a soda tax - all just for a pleasant drive up Aurora Ave N. adorned with ladies of the evening giving motorists coy 'come hither' looks.

61

@32: "Don't have to look very far," huh? You had to get in your goddamn time machine and go back to 2016 to find that one. How about one example from the current wave of protests? In this year? I'd pick apart the passages from that item that undermine your argument, but I'm not going to waste the effort when you're not going to come back to this thread; there are too many new threads for you to be racist within!

Anyway, I was asking Swiftress to defend her(?) original assertion that "the legitimate protests against police wrongdoing were a cover for murder, property damage, and general mayhem by anarchists, thugs, and drug gang members." I don't care what you think justifies her assertion, I want to know - specifically - what news item she was citing when she made that argument.

You deplorables do sure watch each others' back though, wow. So many of you chiming in to jump on that outdated item to justify hatred of current BLM protests.

63

@62: Inconvenient, then, that I was specifically asking her to justify the murder part. Citing the NY Post isn't exactly helping her cause either, or yours; NY Post has a tendency to just make things up, just like other sources of "news" owned by Rupert Murdoch.


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