Political Stuff
Dec. 11th, 2017 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
richardf8Last week was eventful. One day, the Senate passed an execrable tax bill designed to further consolidate wealth among the extremely wealthy at the expense of everyone else and increasing the deficit. It is a tax bill that is designed to bring back the gilded age, which is to say, the eve of the panic of 1893. Trump Department of the Interior also opened large swaths of Bears Ears national monument to logging and drilling. To prevent this sort of thing is the reason I voted for Hillary Clinton.
Then Trump announced that he's moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The fact that that would NEVER have happened on Hillary's watch is the reason that I had to hold my nose while voting for Hillary. I want everyone to think about just what this means . . .
That in a few years US Diplomats and Israeli Government officials won't have to sit on Highway 1 for an hour when they need to meet face to face. Yup. That's it.
So for everyone who thinks this is the dawning of the age of the Third Temple, or the Second Coming of Jesus, or the Disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people, get over it. Trump has merely shown a long overdue courtesy to another sovereign nation.
The fact that the Palestinians think this means it's a great excuse to initiatepogroms a day of rage surprises no one. It is equally unsurprising that Israel, and perhaps the US, will be alone in refusing to allow the Palestinians to hold policy hostage with the threat of violence.
So now, to the third point. Al Franken was basically compelled to resign on the basis of spurious, uninvestigated allegations of sexual impropriety. The lack of due process is disturbing, and it seems to me that the primary reason for the Democratic Caucus' demand that he step down was so that they could engage in virtue signalling, saying that if they made Franken step down for so much less than Roy Moore is accused of, Republicans should not abide Roy Moore as a Senator. African American Senator John Conyers was similarly ousted a few days earlier.
The Trump presidency should, in and of itself, be sufficient proof that virtue signalling is a failed political strategy.
As it stands, I feel quite betrayed by the Senate Democrat Caucus. It seems to me that, for all their talk of "deplorables" during the campaign, it is they who have managed to lynch a black man and crucify a Jew in a single week. I expect that when I need to vote for Franken's replacement on 2018, I will be writing Franken's name in.
Then Trump announced that he's moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The fact that that would NEVER have happened on Hillary's watch is the reason that I had to hold my nose while voting for Hillary. I want everyone to think about just what this means . . .
That in a few years US Diplomats and Israeli Government officials won't have to sit on Highway 1 for an hour when they need to meet face to face. Yup. That's it.
So for everyone who thinks this is the dawning of the age of the Third Temple, or the Second Coming of Jesus, or the Disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people, get over it. Trump has merely shown a long overdue courtesy to another sovereign nation.
The fact that the Palestinians think this means it's a great excuse to initiate
So now, to the third point. Al Franken was basically compelled to resign on the basis of spurious, uninvestigated allegations of sexual impropriety. The lack of due process is disturbing, and it seems to me that the primary reason for the Democratic Caucus' demand that he step down was so that they could engage in virtue signalling, saying that if they made Franken step down for so much less than Roy Moore is accused of, Republicans should not abide Roy Moore as a Senator. African American Senator John Conyers was similarly ousted a few days earlier.
The Trump presidency should, in and of itself, be sufficient proof that virtue signalling is a failed political strategy.
As it stands, I feel quite betrayed by the Senate Democrat Caucus. It seems to me that, for all their talk of "deplorables" during the campaign, it is they who have managed to lynch a black man and crucify a Jew in a single week. I expect that when I need to vote for Franken's replacement on 2018, I will be writing Franken's name in.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-12 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-21 04:12 am (UTC)What's *truly* outrageous is that the world court always thinks this is Israel's fault. No other country is routinely told to give bullies what they want in hopes that they'll stop bullying (when we all know that they'll just attack even more).
Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish life since long before Palestinians or Muslims existed. They love to claim that it's theirs because Jordan held it for 20 years, and conveniently forget the millennia before that. But regardless, Israel's government *does* operate in Jerusalem, and one can acknowledge that even while hoping for a different negotiated outcome later. (Well, it would require the other side to negotiate in good faith, but again, a problem for another day.)
This is one thing that Trump actually got right.