Re: <nettime> A question in earnest

Hi hallo privyet.

Ok let’s go at it.

Premark: this is a central-eastern-european perspective.

I am not betting a single penny on Trump being hurt by his Coronastunt - I call it stunt coz it don’t matter if he really infected or just faking it - he sure is using it for the bestest propaganda he can come up with.

I am not going to say anything about Biden, as clearly a garden shed could be running against Trump and still anybody voting for the Donald would be nothing but an idiot, racist or asshole. Or all of it, of course.

I find it funny you might call Trump a coward. Coz he sure is not. I find it pretty naive to think him a coward.

Then, you have not been putting up with a gross uncle. Last time I checked gross uncles might pull disgusting jokes and touch someone inappropriately - but they don’t really enjoy kids getting forever separated from their parents or babies dying in concentration camps, kidnapping ppl off the streets and such.

To me, that’s rather 4 years with a serial killer.

Why isn’t Europe writing about it?

What you mean? Of course it is - but there is not a lot to write.

Corona politics in the USA are not to be written about, it is too stupid.

The election process is always ridiculous, I mean, what kinda country can’t organise a regular vote on a Sunday with plenty of voting spots so ppl don’t have to stand in line - or just have a regular mail-in system.

That is nothing you can write about. The USA is soooo far removed from any logic, we know, we cannot care anymore.

Sidenote: The constant whining of the American white citizen about the disaster happening is hollow. It only really started when it attacked the white (wo)man. As long as Iraqis and Afghanis and (insert other war-location) got killed, White America was still full of hope.

Well, I have not been even half full of hope for America since midnight of dec 31st 1999.

Thats when Hans and I and his dad talked about how the USA will collapse. If it will be outward or inward, and so on.

So - nobody is surprised, there is nothing to write.

Ok, on to your other questions…

What does Europe think about “your violent protests” — violent protests are a standard in any healthy democracy. People don’t always “behave properly”. That lil bit of demonstration that sometimes goes violent - well, one would hope so, given the circumstances in the USA. Everybody knows that American police is an uncontrolled war machine, so yeah, sure, why not arrest reporters and ignore any rules whatsoever. Nothing new.

But it is utterly boring to still hear the lamenting of White America on protests having to be peaceful. How can anybody be peaceful in a country that is itself nothing but aggression.

Because you asked - at least here in lil Austria and for the most part that’s also true for all neighbouring countries - Trump is not helping the far right here. Even the far right here find him unbearable. But I think that is also due to the fact that seeing the downfall of the USA is no good marketing for the right-wing agenda anyways.

I think most of Europe does not wait for him to be voted out, but rather prepares itself further for international politics without the USA. If he stays, that’s anyway the way to go, if he has to leave, it will not mean that it will be back to normal just like that. And if he would have to leave kinda but will not - again, nobody can help the USA with that rather grim scenario.

Basically, here in Austria, nobody talks about the USA. It stopped about 1 year after he took office. There is nothing to talk about any more. Exploding trees and forest cities killing Black Americans Muslim ban and forced sterilisation and highschool shootings and — FUCKING BLAMING RUSSIA for everything.

Jesus, when will Americans own up to the shit they are in? No, Murica, it was not Russia that brought you this, this is your own doing.

(And don’t think of discussing this, coz first you would have to discuss why freakin USA meddles with pretty much any election - like #ukraine - vErY gOoD jOb RiGht tHere).

So, no, nobody talks America no more. Nobody wants to go there, nobody is that interested in nothing anymore. The UK and the USA are 20th century dinosaurs it seems. They used to be impressive but now they just ooooold.

I don’t get what you meant with “you must be as eager for social change as I” — I mean there been stuffs happening in the last 20 years that were way to neoliberal, but also many good old socialists things got set into practice. I am waiting for climate action, social change as in less stupid men in power positions and new approaches to unpaid work - and of course the further strengthening of our neighbours, the African countries.

But Austria (any pretty much all of Europe) is in such a totally different place than the USA, I can’t relate to American stuff anymore.

Here, we are 1 week before city elections in Vienna, and as Vienna has always since ALWAYS been a red (aka socialist) city, which we are very proud of, we are waiting if the next city gov will be socialists only or socialists with greens again or maybe other coalition?

And wer are all waiting for when the fuck the EU will decide on a new approach re:Immigration and re:Asylum. Coz that is a fucking mess. To put it politely.

And then we are all just waiting for the USA to really collapse and we all hope that if it will be a disaster then only a disaster for the USA and not for everybody on this planet.

Bye/BussiBaba/

lizvlx

Ps: I am a bit blunt in my tone maybe, this is not aggression but autism

Pps: I used to hurt coz I loved my USA. But no more. Fuck the USA.

On 05.10.2020, at 08:59, Molly Hankwitz <mollyhankwitz@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello!

Now that DT has Covid-19, it is as if some kind of sense has descended upon this nation, a place recurrently gripped by sensations of flackery, fakery, and flack. It is all quiet on the White House lawn...Left candidates *have*retreated to the sidelines...sure. Biden wants us in the Paris accord...wow!

What has become evident after that first debate and now with Covid is how Trump didn’t want his job — and only as he got a taste for greater power - look wistfully into the distance and say, “...greater power”...did he start to like it.

He’s gone. His believers see that through his own personal irresponsibility he got the virus. Hes transparent. A ghost. A trouble making ghost. Historical facts and figures are now outweighing any tripe he comes up with. His model is old. It cannot sustain us.

More importantly these last few days have exposed his cowardice. He wasn’t going to say anything. I just hope Joe Biden doesn’t come down with Covid, then there would be more upheaval.

Biden is a “decent guy”. We need a decent guy for a while. We can’t take the bombastic and we don’t have anyone else right now - ironically - to beat DT. Honestly, I don’t care that Biden is the last husk of neoliberalism and the Clinton effect. He’s capable, at least of civil discourse and collaboration. He won’t shaft women. He is planning to rejoin the Paris Accord and fund education so that our schools have enough money to reopen. He doesn’t stomp around on his teeny tiny hobby horse screaming threats and sanctions. If we never have to hear that kind of civil abuse again, perhaps we can as a nation pull ourselves together to fight climate change because scientists (who know more than DT) are real.

We’ve been putting up with a gross uncle for the last 4 years. A deeply cynical unhappy boorish sort of man who knows so much, he lacks all curiosity which is the essence of the capacity to learn. Such a know it all and a no nothing.

Our election is teetering. Why isn’t Europe writing about it?

I wonder...lay it on...right-wing groups in Europe are emboldened by DT support for white nationalists?

Is Europe waiting to see him voted out? What does Europe think about our violent protests? Trumps use of Antifa...how backward he is?

Surely you must all be as eager as I for social change? The good that has arisen is all the young smart progressive politicians that have been voted in, the flipping of the Senate, Sanders and Warren working on committees...the life breathed into the Dem party, alongside #BlackLivesMatter and huge support for that movement. The times have changed in do many ways socially that the economy is going to have to change. Macroeconomics. Money is going to have to be put into new budgets. The whole place is a conversation that’s been trying to happen. What is the conversation in other countries?

Molly

On Oct 4, 2020, at 5:26 PM, Vincent Gaulin <gvincentgaulinjr@gmail.com> wrote:

The election is a sorry excuse for politics, let alone democracy.

There is no Left candidate. Biden is a human placeholder for the washed up hollow promises of neoliberal “normalcy”, and Trump is the cartoon version of a rich person with equally cartoonish ideas around governance (which isn’t to belittle the vast and very concrete destructiveness he has/is enacting).

There is very little room in “the election” and mainstream discourse to attend to the pressing issues bearing down on everyday life.

On Sun, Oct 4, 2020 at 5:16 AM Max Herman <maxnmherman@hotmail.com> wrote:

Why is there nothing appearing here about the US election?

I sound like a jerk to myself typing this but the silence is unexpected.

Are we all too afraid to say anything, or all just busy with other platforms?

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