Politics - your views

[dr_st]

What do you guys mean, isn't that exactly the kind of statement you expect the president of the world's leading power to make?

I recently read someone's take on Trump and it sort of hit home for me:

One needs to learn to ignore what Trump says (to the public, that is), and focus only on what he does.

There is generally much more consistency (and often, reason) in the latter than the former.

This reminds very much of me of this parody account of a far-left politician in France, whose actual statements are often so ludicrous that people make quizzes in which you have tell apart the real account's tweets from the parody's. Surely, something like that must exist for Trump.

There's one like this in Israel, except it's not a parody account but an automatic post generator. You can enter a topic and it literally "bullsh!ts up" a post. The generator was written many years ago, before LLMs or anything, so it's very limited and repetitive, but it still hilarious for people who are familiar with that politician.

[Pirez]

One needs to learn to ignore what Trump says (to the public, that is), and focus only on what he does.

Solid advice! Would have been handy before the election but I guess it's the price to get away from gasoline (which you won't be able to afford to light yourself on fire to avoid WW3)

I hate being right

See you next year for the same general realization about Israël (which admittedly started to pop up already in recent weeks, albeit rather coy) EDIT : Whoops, spoke too soon, as Trump is apparently set to nuke Iran and therefore the world tonight. Good bye guys, I hope your life was worth it. Mine kinda wasn't. SECOND EDIT : Apparently the ultimatum is postponed till tomorrow.

[PluMGMK]

A bunch of drivers mobilized to block up all the major arterial routes on Tuesday, demanding that the government cap the price of petrol. Then they decided that one day wasn't enough, and have been at it since. Then on Wednesday they started blockading fuel depots and oil refineries, thus exacerbating the very crisis they claim to want the government to alleviate. One protester spoke on the radio claiming that the government wouldn't be out of pocket if they capped the price at €1.60/L, because they'd keep taking the same VAT they have been taking for years – which is "2 + 2 = 5" maths, since it completely neglects the actual subsidies required to keep the prices that low.

Given the total lack of logic on display here, it feels these people have been bamboozled into working on behalf of someone with a somewhat different agenda. But I don't know who

Anyway, the guards are apparently now taking action to un-blockade the oil refinery, after representatives of the protesters failed to get themselves admitted to a meeting with the government yesterday. (As I understand it, there was a meeting with official representative bodies, and the protesters were supposed to go in with one of those bodies, but then failed to agree their position with them before the meeting )
EDIT: literally just after I posted that, it's been confirmed that the guards managed to get the refinery open, and trucks are now moving in and out

[dr_st]

One protester spoke on the radio claiming that the government wouldn't be out of pocket if they capped the price at €1.60/L

Can I have some money now?

[Hunchman801]

Oh, the classic "we're angry at the government, so let's target people that have absolutely nothing to do with". Their special place in hell is reserved.

[Pirez]

A bunch of drivers mobilized to block up all the major arterial routes on Tuesday, demanding that the government cap the price of petrol. Then they decided that one day wasn't enough, and have been at it since. Then on Wednesday they started blockading fuel depots and oil refineries, thus exacerbating the very crisis they claim to want the government to alleviate. One protester spoke on the radio claiming that the government wouldn't be out of pocket if they capped the price at €1.60/L, because they'd keep taking the same VAT they have been taking for years – which is "2 + 2 = 5" maths, since it completely neglects the actual subsidies required to keep the prices that low.

Do they wear yellow jackets by any means?

[PluMGMK]

I believe some of them do! We all remember the gilets jaunes here for sure!

[FanzotheBanzo]

I have a huge feeling that anarchy may as well make a huge comeback and when I typed my question about it's return up on DuckDuckGo, its Search Assist feature had clarified that anarchism is indeed experiencing a resurgence and I partially expected it to happen, considering that more and more people have been buliding up distrust within government officials in both the west and the east parts of our world.

[Hugo]

The people are as much a problem as the governments.

Real, positive change in a nation, is something that comes from the birth of fresh ways at looking at things. It may be stimulated by art, or a group movement, a fusion of cultures and so on.

In times of peace it is actually somewhat difficult for this to happen, because nothing is changing. People might be poor, but if they have the minimum in order to get by without rebelling, the culture simply sits there and stagnates. Ideally you get some kind of friction or dissatisfaction that rouses such things, rather than the extremities of war.

It is not, for obvious reasons, something that can begin with a government. The government normally wants to keep things within safe bounds (Donald Trump is an exception to the rule, of course). The British government is the extreme opposite: it has turned into the fanatic mother that needs to watch your every move, and there are insidious people who want to exploit the technology that comes with that.

Ordinary people need to find meaning and inject that into their culture, it can only begin with them.