"Saudi torturer listened to music on headphones as he dismembered Journalist Jamal Khashoggi"

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/saudi-tort...report-1666751


"CARVED UP ALIVE Saudi kill squad ‘cut off journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fingers one by one and dissolved body parts in acid’
It's also claimed The Saudi General Consul to Turkey was heard telling the alleged torturers to kill the journalist 'outside' because he didn't want to get into trouble"

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/751490...dy-parts-acid/

Identity Politics, as it's defined from within and being implemented, privileges one voice over another, fundamentally. It believes that for one group to speak, another must be silent. That's my lived experience of it, at the level of working in an institution that's adopted it as policy. We can argue about the theoretical underpinnings of it but as you say yourself, it's about praxis, not abstract ideas. But my experience isn't necessarily extendable to the situation as a whole.

Either way, I don't think Trump is a phenomenon reducible to Identity politics, or a backlash against it (I'm sure you don't either). My real interest in it is why so many people who would've traditionally called themselves Left wing appear to be turning away from traditionally (but in my view now only nominally) Left wing political parties. My perspective was always focused on Britain/Europe but the Trump election made me interested in the US, too. I read J.D. Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy, alongside, albeit more polemical stuff like Mick Hume's Revolting, which lead me to make real connections between what was going on in the US, with Trump, and what I saw happening here, with Brexit. As someone who considers themselves 'of the Left' who voted for Brexit against the EU, and (had I ben eligible) would've probably voted for Trump over Hillary (at least in hindsight) that interests me.

right. because it’s not. here for example some tribes said no oil pipeline through my water supply and the pipeline went through anyway.

black football players started protesting the killing of black people by police and the police keeps killing and the protestors get branded traitors

so, no, i don’t see this phenomenon in practice

here it’s always the same people that keep getting silenced


i do. i said so before. i see it primarily as an ethnic phenomenon.

sure it has other pieces but to me that’s the core.

this is the corollary of what the republican party has been doing since, oh... the 60s, 70s?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

why so many people are turning away, probably because with universal ideals disappearing people are going back to their tribal identities.

and yes the loss of the ideal is why i think a way forward is important. what was called “the vision thing” in the clinton era. where is the new enlightenment?

here 2 interesting bits of stuff to make us all worry:

1. prof. brian o’blivion (lol) on the return of tribalism
https://youtu.be/FvATW2nfYZg
(had he only lived to see social media...)
long live the new flesh...

2. this article that harks back to david hume
https://www.wired.com/story/why-pure...can-tribalism/

yep, it’s the fall of rome... and attila is coming

Trump is the end result of a society/culture that has placed financial achievement above anything else. This is purely a class/money issue. The racism, the sexism, the patriarchal shit, the willful neglect of people who need help, all this comes out of the greed of the sociopaths on top.

eventually, the only way for them to end up is totalitarian surveillance states.

Which makes Trumps cozying up to North Korea, Saudi, Russia, etc all the more telling.

i call it the corollary this person calls it the end, same difference—the monster is out

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...hern-strategy/

please note that the article correctly points out that for the majority of american history politics was OVERTLY racist.

in other words: the promise of the enlightenment was delivered only to one ethnic group

(because, as previously: passion enslaves reason, affect creates cognitive bias)

yes yes. we’re fucked as a species.

another chance thrown out the window

More Trumpjudges Ⓡ, this time, featuring NO HEARINGS!



Alison Jones Rushing, who graduated law school in 2007, is potentially one of the better selections in Trump’s cavalcade of mostly laughable judicial nominations. Beyond KKK lover Brett Talley, we’ve had Jeff “Satan Boy” Mateer, Matthew “the dog ate my homework” Petersen, and Ryan “what I meant when I said minorities were whiny ethnics was…” Bounds. At least she’s not in any danger of getting an ABA “not-qualified” tag like now confirmed Judge L. Steven Grasz and her appellate practice is certainly a better résumé line item than “anti-gay blogger” like confirmed Judge John Bush. When your expectations are so low, the little things matter.

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/08/trum...chool-in-2007/


in other judicial news: Manafort will have to wear his prison onesie to get sentenced

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Paul Manafort’s request to wear a professional suit during a hearing later this week about his sentence, noting the former Trump campaign chairman is now a felon who has lost the right to wear street clothing in all his court proceedings.

“This defendant should be treated no differently from other defendants who are in custody post conviction,” U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III wrote in a sharply worded order.

T.S. Ellis III : "I grow old, I grow old...."

@demonyo

on being left out of the enlightenment

https://youtu.be/l_LeJfn_qW0

haaa haaaa haaaa

still a classic

Julián Castro says he’s 'likely' to run in 2020

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...to-run-in-2020

wow!

Thank President Trump! He's at least trying to stop these organized peace invasions, now he needs to address the situation in Honduras, to the point of sending in troops and overwhelming surgical force to take out the gangs and domestic terrorists that force the citizens to flee. The country has just been slammed with 2 massive hurricanes. We have too much to deal with and the economy is just about to tip.

Identity Politics are not class based: the struggle is not for land, the struggle is to have an identity.

to have— or to keep—

and so, just like minorities now refuse to be erased from history any longer, the magas are trying to keep the old white supremacist national identity alive, way past its time

and instead of negotiating, everyone just shouts

I think where I'm wrong making links between Britain and the US (via Brexit and Trump) is that while race obviously plays a part in British politics, and an increasingly bigger part by the looks of things, i'd say it's still far less significant and divisive here than it seems to be in the USA.

Yes in terms of they're different, but class politics isn't about land either.

They could have killed him anywhere, but chose to do it where everyone knew he would be......inside the consulate, within earshot of so many.

Even if they invented a cover story: we were interrogating him, he had a heart attack and we panicked and carved up his body to hide what happened......his torturous death was a message to who?

They say it took him SEVEN minutes to die. Open up the stopwatch on your phone and see how long SEVEN minutes takes......

Saudi monarchy totalitarian, best bud of USA. We sell them arms, rich WMD manufacturers make millions, while they enforce the most brutal religious dictatorship they can. fucking assholes all of them.

i dont know comparisons

but consider how, when obama became president, his opponents questioned what above all else?

his identity, of course

i.e., they branded him the kenyan muslim socialist

meaning if you’re not white and christian you’re not american

(he was christian though at that point, and “half white”. lol blood quanta)

the socialism bit was just for decoration. he basically implemented nixoncare.

that’s very telling, no?

i mean half century ago there was the issue of kennedy’s catholicism, but it wasn’t as ferocious or demented because the man was white.

don't forget they are attacking one of the weakest countries in the world, using our arms and with air and fuel support by our planes:mad:

The United States relationship with the Saudi regime isn’t the most palatable, however, they are our ally......why?

Saudi Arabia hates Iran and are actively fighting them along w/ Jordan & Egypt.

Iran is a threat to the Middle East......especially Israel.

There is no doubt Saudi Arabia is doing terrible things, but they were the United States ally in the first Gulf War and World War 2 and the Saudis are helping us now by keeping Iran in check.

In the choice between bad (Saudi Arabia) and worse (Iran), a rational person/country will choose bad just to avoid worse.

Thanks for the laughs here.

America helped fund the coup that shifted Iran from a liberal country that it was to what it is now. All cos of oil. It's because of America that they're the totalitarian state it is now.

Along with that Saudi Arabia's human rights record is consistently considered one of the worst countries. They're no better than Iran and you're a fool if you think Saudi Arabia is just "bad". And don't forget their acceptance of jihadists and that the perpetrators of 9/11 were from there.