Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

it's a bit long for a yard sign but

Apropos of nothing, here are some thoughts from Biden on austerity circa 2013: restore market confidence by subjecting your population to "tears and suffering" https://t.co/xYQrfqK54U pic.twitter.com/lIh03s5RWb

— Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) August 20, 2020

News at 11: Politicians Don't Give a Shit about the Populace, Just Serving the Wealthy and Keeping Their Power

To be fair, Biden was accurately describing the POV of "the markets." Tho it sounds from that like he was also endorsing it, so yeah.

Circling back to this: Left leaning social democratic reforms have often stifled more radical demands such as the ones presented by defund the police activists.

I think this is a real thing, but it's worth thinking about why. Basically, "left-leaning social democratic reforms" have broader support among more people than "more radical demands." This is almost tautological, since by definition anything actually radical is probably going to appeal to a relatively small number of people.

It's not that you can't successfully push ideas that don't have broad support, but the best way to do it is if you have a lot of money — the way super-rich Republicans successfully gutted the estate tax. If you don't have a lot of popular support OR a lot of money, then the road is pretty rough.

I know it can be hard for people to believe that there are actually a whole lot of people who don't share their specific priorities, and that it's not just a matter of dissent being tamped down by evil institutions like the DNC or whoever. But the reality is that there are a whole lot more people who are ready to think about "reimagining the police" or whatever than just abolishing police and prisons outright.

I thought the big rise in deportations under Obama was bc they changed the definition of deportation to include the people who got picked up just as they crossed the border and were immediately returned. My understanding was they rather naively thought that increasing the deportation numbers would give them more credit with the anti-immigration crowd without changing their policies much.

Biden to ABC's Robin Roberts: 'I don't want to defund' the police, but Trump does

Missed this the other day, but punching left at Trump is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that only fresh up-and-comers like Joe Biden can bring to a campaign against his re-election.

just following in the footsteps of fellow centrist hack jeremy corbyn here

i think this little detail, specific to this comment but also something he does very often, is what makes me the most angry about biden:

"President Trump says that you want to defund the police. Do you?" asked "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts in an interview conducted Friday in Wilmington, Delaware.

"No I don't," Biden said, laughing.

i don't even have to see the clip. you can see the shit-eating grin

get ready, because he'll deploy it a million times against trump (as he did against paul ryan. i don't remember what he did with sarah palin because i was too distracted by the john the baptist to trump's jesus)

the laughing thing reminds me of pelosi's dismissals of the green new deal and feinberg rolling her eyes at a bunch of adolescent climate activists

His shrewdly deployed laughs are his best weapon because the mockery is deeply felt, hence Paul Ryan's looking more and more rattled in 2012.

Once again, a Black man — Jacob Blake — was shot by the police. In front of his children. It makes me sick.

Is this the country we want to be?

Needless violence won’t heal us. We need to end the violence — and peacefully come together to demand justice. pic.twitter.com/WdNqrxA3PK

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 26, 2020

I can't tell this man apart from Donald J. Trump, perhaps I suffer from prosopagnosia.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b8/5a/33/b85a334a1ab0c0988fc0ad1c6f368195.jpg

GARBANDOZIA!

The back is pretty close to the legs, really.

That speech is a great example of how frustrating Biden so often is: he opens by acknowledging that the police shot Blake, and uses "murder" to describe the killing of George Floyd. But he never mentions police again, and within 90 seconds is saying that systemic racism can only be ended by protestors stopping their protests (and that racism will end immediately as soon as they do).

An address whose intent is, let's allow, in the right place. But shows him completely incapable of grasping how systems contribute to systemic things, and actively opposed to addressing them.

Systems -- Amtrak, the Senate -- have nourished Joe Biden's life since 1974.

I don’t think burning down cities is “protesting.” Biden otm.

Worth reading in full:

To sum up, if you’re trying to prevent a riot, you have to look at the actions of law enforcement as well as the protesters/rioters themselves. neither is isolated from the other, and the behavior of the former as a good amount of influence on that of the latter.

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) August 26, 2020

As far as I can tell, Biden's position is in tune with public opinion.

Otm. Police are escalating these situations—this is after they set them off through instances of violencr. And right wingers like this kid are using it as an opportunity to murder.

The whole thing is sickening. I really don’t grasp why the arson is necessary. I feel like that just escalates more.

*this kid in kenosha last night

I agree with the ship of trees

I don’t think burning down cities is “protesting.” Biden otm.

I don't think one outbreak of arson in one big town of 99,000 people's rage-filled response to murderous police brutality is "burning down cities."

In three months of protests in Seattle, every riot or assault I've seen has been intiated by police. The only incident of "property damage" I've seen was when a bunch of aggro dudes in armour joined a march that went past two blocks of dining establishments, and broke some windows and fucked up the inside of a Starbucks, then split. (There have been some other incidences of windows being broken, but mostly BezosGo staffless groceries opened a block away from bodegas.)


If one or three people light one piece of wood on fire on one day in a city, that does not represent 60,000 people marching peacefully on a weekend and tens of thousands marching or rallying throughout the week.

Y’all should tell these systematically oppressed people with no community investment to protest better.

Play the Biden clip and remind them to vote blue no matter who.

The teenaged white "militia" chump who travelled from out of state to murder people with an assault rifle in Kenosha last night is on video coordinating with, and receiving water and verbal encouragement from, the police. He gave statements that "his job" was shooting people in order to protect concrete and metal.

The system is not the protestors.

tbh if Biden campaigned solely on dismantling the systems that have starved public transport networks, and fully funding the expansion of Amtrak, I'd give him a pass on his call for me to be shot in an artery

I went to Richmond not long after George Floyd. there were many fires there, and yeah, you could tell rioting had occurred, but that city was by no means 'burnt down', and in fact looked like a city transformed in solidarity afterwards. it was fairly incredible to see what they'd done to the monuments, turning them into memorials.

and as we all know, the fires weren't always started by protesters (or its starters were unknown). how many times did we see a white person arrested for the arsons?

Bears reposting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZPeD2miyF8

wrt to protesting vs. "burning down their own neighborhoods" it's worth noting that many of the people charged with arson in minneapolis are not from the neighborhoods and not african americans

like these two - one from a small town (monticello mn) of 12,000 an hour away from minneapolis, another from wayzata, i would guess the single most affluent (or at least top 5) suburb in the state

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/crime/wayzata-man-charged-with-arson-during-minneapolis-unrest/89-b5142929-8aa9-4b0f-ae41-42c8b23d312f

I know, I know, this is Bad, Actually, because she is a Bad Person (she worked for Trump! she says she's a Christian! and a Mom!) so this just means that Bad People from the Bad Side are supporting Joe Biden, which means that Joe Biden is also Bad.

Still...

NEW AD: Elizabeth Neumann – the former Assistant Secretary for Threat Prevention in Trump's DHS – says that the U.S. is "less safe today" because of Trump's actions.

In 2016 she supported Trump but based on what she saw inside his administration, she's voting for Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/ZjoDpVJBCR

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) August 26, 2020

"Joe Biden will be more efficient at entrapping Muslim teenagers!"

wrt to protesting vs. "burning down their own neighborhoods" it's worth noting that many of the people charged with arson in minneapolis are not from the neighborhoods and not african americans

Exactly

I think the RVAT ads are all pretty good. effective, dunno, but they are good.

Bad People from the Bad Side are supporting Joe Biden, which means that Joe Biden is also Bad

Indeed, indeed:

https://www.newsweek.com/richard-spencer-joe-biden-trump-maga-1527141

QED, amirite.

Lol at all the people in this thread siding with the most violent police force and country in the world over the people that have been systematically disposessed so that the country could make profits for white folks.

Shame on y'all.

jesus christ

I didn’t see anyone do that. I don’t think it makes sense to see the arsonists as representative of the “authentic voice” of the movement though—I think that kind of romanticization of violence is gross.

Welcome to Strawman Fest 2020

I got ya bud lights heeere

It's not about "authentic voices of the movement." It's about a permanent underclass that doesn't have any real reason not to burn shit. If you never have any hope of joining the property-owning class, what's the argument tying you into polite society?

If you never have any hope of joining the property-owning class and receive no support or reciprocal interest from that class*

People burn shit because they have nothing to lose and perhaps you haven't looked around much but we're sitting at peak nothing to lose for a lot of people.

thread over tbh

🙄

I just will never agree that chaos and destruction are necessary steps in building a more just world. I have not seem that strategy work before, and I am skeptical that it is effective at all.

So, you know, have a good time I guess. Adios

concern-trolling about some arson when people were just murdered by a teen gunman who was palling around with the cops. must be treeship

xp
It's not a strategy you ninny.

I have not seem that strategy work before

France would like a word with you.

that didn't work out well