What about a thread for good news?

[Mongrel]

The National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that employers can no longer demand laid-off employees avoid publicly disparaging the company as part of their severance agreements.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7a7x/ ... nlrb-rules

[Thad]

All Foster Kids in California Can Now Attend Any State College for Free

College should be free for everybody. But this is an excellent start.

There are approximately 60,000 children in the state's foster care system and lawmakers say the vast majority of them, or 96%, want to receive higher education.

While 64% of foster youth graduate high school in California, only 4% currently obtain a four-year college degree, according to [the bill's author, Sen. Angelique] Ashby.

[Friday]

Yet another feather in my cap for how awesome California is.

[KingRoyal]

California used to have free tuition for everyone in the state, and I'll give you one guess as to which former Governor who later became President was the one to put an end to that

[Friday]

Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Mongrel]

Arnold Schwarzenegger

That ITT prompts an interesting (if theoretical) question.

While I quite like him these days for his increasingly anti-nazi outreach, would Arnold as President qualify as Good News?

IIRC, his tenure as Governor was mostly "let's spend 8 years doing nothing", but I'm sure you can correct me on that.

[Mongrel]

Incidentally, when Kissinger finally fucking dies, I am totally posting about it here and not in the obits thread.

[KingRoyal]

Arnold Schwarzenegger

That ITT prompts an interesting (if theoretical) question.

While I quite like him these days for his increasingly anti-nazi outreach, would Arnold as President qualify as Good News?

IIRC, his tenure as Governor was mostly "let's spend 8 years doing nothing", but I'm sure you can correct me on that.

Kind of? Mostly in that it would mean we got rid of our xenophobic requirement that only natural born citizens can be US president, otherwise he'd be a garden variety Republican from 20-years ago which is... eh

[Büge]

Maybe Taco Bell will finally win the Franchise Wars, too

[Upthorn]

Maybe Taco Bell will finally win the Franchise Wars, too

Nah, they stopped making consoles two decades ago.

[Mongrel]

Arnold Schwarzenegger

That ITT prompts an interesting (if theoretical) question.

While I quite like him these days for his increasingly anti-nazi outreach, would Arnold as President qualify as Good News?

IIRC, his tenure as Governor was mostly "let's spend 8 years doing nothing", but I'm sure you can correct me on that.

Kind of? Mostly in that it would mean we got rid of our xenophobic requirement that only natural born citizens can be US president, otherwise he'd be a garden variety Republican from 20-years ago which is... eh

Yeah like, he's trivially an improvement over nearly any other nationally-known Republican pol, I think that goes without saying... but so would an old tire from the shoulder of an interstate.

I was not thinking in the sense of "replaces Biden right this minute", merely as a vague generality. But if I bother to put a bit more thought in, it being good or bad news probably would depend very heavily on the exact circumstances it would happen - is he replacing a theoretical Republican, or a theoretical Democrat, a bunch of questions like that.

[Niku]

well once dwayne "The Rock" johnson announces his candidacy then we wil

[Upthorn]

Honestly, I don't think Schwarzenegger would be any worse a president than Biden is. And Biden winning as a Republican would be pretty fucking awesome news.

[atog]

Honestly, I don't think Schwarzenegger would be any worse a president than Biden is. And Biden winning as a Republican would be pretty fucking awesome news.

It still points to a larger question, "why are we tapping Hollywood and/or WWE for our future leaders? Aren't these basically incubators for narcissism?"

[Friday]

Back when Trump was President, I stated that I believed that any user of these boards would be an improvement. As is, no additional training or changes. And I stand by that statement. Obviously I'd prefer paco or whoever, but Guild and Sora are still upgrades over Trump.

As for now... yeah, I still think any current user would be an upgrade over Biden. There'd be a learning period for any of us, of course, but in the end I think all of us would push for progressive reform that basically Biden would never push for.

[Thad]

It still points to a larger question, "why are we tapping Hollywood and/or WWE for our future leaders? Aren't these basically incubators for narcissism?"

A depressingly large part of electoral politics comes down to name recognition. That's how we got Reagan, both Bushes, Trump, and Biden (and, for that matter, how Mondale, Gore, McCain, Romney, and Hillary Clinton all got nominated).

[Mongrel]

As for now... yeah, I still think any current user would be an upgrade over Biden. There'd be a learning period for any of us, of course, but in the end I think all of us would push for progressive reform that basically Biden would never push for.

I don't think Biden is by any means optimal, but I will give him credit for having an instinctive sort of charisma that is very difficult to learn, one that he can even use on Republicans at times or to suborn them at others. Like it or not, that genuinely is a crucial skill for any masterful politician. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I don't know that I could ever learn that.

I think any determined, hard progressive in the White House would have a nearly impossible battle in the current climate and legal framework unless they basically went to war with the establishment. The only presidents previously able to do this and succeed were Lincoln, FDR, arguably the earlier Roosevelt, and possibly Grant; of the four, the first two were both Presidents during a time of literal existential crisis for the US. They were only allowed to finally do what had been undone for over a half-century, because the alternative would have been the death of the US. Historically, the US can only be forced to do what's right, at the point of death pain.

Mind you, this is not always at the literal barrel of a gun as it was for Lincoln, but the spectre of one was very present in FDR's case, something which is has been very much papered over in textbooks.

Grant gets a mulligan on this because he was tasked to finish Lincoln's work, and enjoyed similar strong powers over the most regressive elements of the country during his administration, but this was due to laws and statutes he did not personally enact and which predated his administration (though you certainly can't say he didn't enjoy their use before he was president!).

[Friday]

Good points, but I said current for a reason. Guild and Sora and eloH and whoever the fuck else that I'd put on the bottom of my "Bronto users who I want to see as President" tier list are not current users. They're upgrades over Trump, but they're not upgrades over Biden.

I don't dismiss Biden's skillset, and I admit he is doing better than I thought he would, but I counter your (correct) assertion that America only changes when over the fire by pointing out that we are on fire and most people on the left agree we are on fire. A progressive could get a lot more done right now than in the Clinton years, for example.

And yes, they would only be able to do this by going to war with the establishment, but that's how all progressive change has to happen. Biden is an old timer who, as Thad put it, always plants his flag right in the middle of wherever the Democratic party/zeitgeist/Overton Window is. He has a lot of experience and contacts, but he is not capable of going to war with the establishment, and that's what we are going to need going forward. He won't even label the enemy correctly, calling them "semi-fascists."

I mean, the problem is that everyone imagines that a President must work within the framework of legality. I do not imagine that. I know I would not. And if that scares you, consider the history of what Lawbreaking has accomplished for good in the United States (and elsewhere) and who advocated for it. Some pretty big names, turns out.

This is an endless can of worms and deserves its own thread, so I'll delete the seven paragraphs I just wrote about how legality and morality have never been friends or even related at all and just end my post here.

[Mongrel]

Well, when we're talking "legally" we're talking about people who have an actual mandate, i.e. they were voted in with a strong majority.

If you look at not only control of House and Senate, FDR had an across-the-board Dem majority from the '33 election through to '43, especially from the '35 midterms onward. Lincoln's Republicans had a wall-to-wall majority as well, but, uh, I hear there was a reason for that *snickering*

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I know morality is independent of legality, I don't think it's independent of legitimacy. Without real or at least perceived legitimacy you have massive problems trying to make you do anything stick in the long run, and you're also just running the risk of palace coup round robin. And then boom, you've got a failed state. This has happened in plenty of places - some of which even fell into it without the CIA's help!

Note that legitimacy in this case is separate from legality as well. Strikes for example are sometimes illegal but are basically always legitimate by definition*, even if they don't have majority support among the broader general public.

As for the US being at crisis point, I think that's true by the standards of most western countries and in any objective sense of a society being run properly, but not by the US's own bizarre internalized standards, which are the product of basically 500 years of abuse and exploitation by the sometimes-shifting wealthy minority who feel they own the country and everything and everyone in it. The US is a society that doesn't say "he beat me!" and kicks 'em out like a normal bunch, it's a society that says "Well, he didn't beat me today. So far." Getting closer to even that point though, yes.

*The right loves to talk about "fake" strikes, where people have been goaded by "agitators", but like fuck off you guys lmao, seriously how often does that *actually happen*? Pretty sure the answer is "Basically fucking NEVER."

[Mongrel]

*The right loves to talk about "fake" strikes, where people have been goaded by "agitators", but like fuck off you guys lmao, seriously how often does that *actually happen*? Pretty sure the answer is "Basically fucking NEVER."

It's absolutely hilarious though when a dozen dumpy middle-aged white guys guys with very obvious cop mustaches, identical protest outfits, and mirror shades show up in a group all like "Hey guys, let's smash some windows! Yeah, c'mon! You guys like fire?" and then get surrounded and chased off a bridge or w/e.