Feeling terribly sad and angry at this tremendous loss for our country. Say goodbye to (safe) abortions, say goodbye, most likely, to the ACA. And vote in November.
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The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Open Thread
@Diego : I think what you underestimate is what is happening in the USA.
I mean, sure, dying to a war, especially one super one sided, isn’t good time. And even if a revolution work, the odds of something similar to the french Terror is pretty high. It suck, I agree.
Dying in a concentration suck just as much, and it’s basically what is happening. In all seriousness, the actual WWII nazis didn’t need a war or a revolution to do exactly all you describe to internal opponents. It did not even take them that much time.
Really, the downside isn’t “more death”. It’s, at the very, very worst “dying sooner”. The upside is that two generations for now there might be a working government in the USA.
May her memory be a blessing.
I saw the news as it broke on Twitter but haven’t felt up to saying anything until now. I know her death doesn’t directly affect me, but my heart hurts for those in the US who will suffer if her replacement is a conservative, people who will lose rights and lives because of it.
@Crip Dyke
They wouldn’t even need to pass a new law changing the rules, during the Obama administration the Senate already changed it so that only a simple majority is needed to confirm justices.
@Lucy Montrose I really identified with a lot of what you are saying but unfortunately it is not only the US these days where you will come up against those challenges. I’m Irish and have worked in Japan, the UK, Italy and the US before coming home in 2016 and I’ll be honest and say that working life pretty much sucked everywhere. The best standard of living I had was in the US and the best quality of life I had was in Italy but the trade offs were that in the US it was haaard work. In Italy I had a lot of time off but the nepotism and low wages sort of cancelled out the free time and I was still unfulfilled and blocked from where I needed to be. Japan was far worse than the US in terms of the expectation to be chained to the desk. It is a very conforming society and you must submit to the authority of your bosses and work, work, work until you fall asleep at your desk (literally) and then maaybe you might get a promotion as you age but it would be better if you were male. The issue here in Ireland is the outrageous cost of property, lack of opportunities outside the capital, low wages, nepotism esp in public service and a society that is not set up for a generation of non-property owners so I’m sitting here in my mid 30s with no house, paying very high rent, stuck in a hyper competitive jobs market, have no pension and I am sorta terrified. I have been told many times it’s all my fault for not choosing the right degree when I was 17 and therefore I deserve whatever comes to me down the line – homelessness, poverty – all my fault and shut up and let the vulture funds buy up the city. The middle classes here would rather consider people like me failed capitalists rather than look at the system.
I am toying with Canada although it’s not very straighforward to move after 35. So my advice is to do a lot of research and try to talk to locals. Not well heeled ex-pats or any source that will make money for your move. You could end up going from the frying pan to the fire. Good luck.
RBG will be deeply missed- she was a true revolutionary, and she fought hard to make the US a fairer, better place.
Here’s my understanding on court packing (I welcome correction) congress can expand the size of the SCOTUS by a simple majority vote in both houses- but congress has simply decided not to do so since the 1860’s because they don’t want the other side doing the same thing- although I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a larger court- it might stop us from tearing ourselves apart every time a Justice dies or retires.
I think the last time anyone seriously floated the idea was FDR- he threated the Chief Justice (who was quite conservative) with packing if that worthy struck down the New Deal.
Of course, court packing can only happen if the Democrats win both houses of congress and the White House- every US citizen on this page needs to vote this year.
I have less than a year to live.
That sounds like hyperbole, but according to the math by experts, that’s how long it will be before Social Security Disability and Medicare run out of funds if Trump stays in office, at which point I will not be able to obtain dialysis. Dying of kidney failure is… not swift or painless.
I honestly don’t think that there will be an election at this point, or that it will matter. McConnell will rush through whoever Trump picks, which we know may be Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton or worse.
A Trumpist Supreme Court will simply rubber-stamp everything he wants, and we’ll have President-For-Life God-Emperor Caesar Trump, who will immediately order the arrest of his political opponents. All of this will happen before the end of January.
@Samantha, OMG it looks like America exported its worst work attitudes all over the world. Poor Ireland! The insidious, every day psychological abuse of workers– “you brought this on yourself, you made bad choices and you deserve poverty and marginalization”- anything for the vulture capitalist class to avoid accountability, and avoid making amends to the people they hurt. That they chose to hurt, over and over again.
warning: long
For years I’ve read business books and blogs, wondering why the hell the profile of the “successful” business person looked the same in so many walks of life. Well, it’s because multinational capitalism has decided there’s one true pathway to the executive suite, and one best personality suited to it: emotionally well-regulated, skilled at telling comforting lies to people, no qualms about making decisions that are good for the company at people’s expense, and with the same polished, “confident” look of someone who has enough money to follow all the latest fashion and exercise trends. Naturally, children or pesky strong emotions are the potential biggest drags on this “perfect” self-presentation.
So many people have told me, in an attempt to be reassuring, that self-confidence comes from within and radiates out to your social and work world, where it attracts other people to you like a magnet. And all I needed to do is start feeling good about myself, absolutely free!
Except… no. Merely feeling good about myself has NOT been enough… not even to convince others I’m self-confident. Apparently, you have to both feel it inside AND perform it to others, in a way THEY find convincing. That means your basic good grooming and decent budget clothes don’t stand a chance against a person who can afford trendy fashion and regular professional grooming. That means a lot of pressure to sound certain and decisive, without giving your decisions the careful respect for uncertainty they need. That means a lot of smiling when you may be dying inside, and quite possibly scrutiny of your smile to see how bright and white it is… because part of your job is to relate to your wealthy clients, as they’re your bread-and-butter; and part of relating to the wealthy is looking like them.
I wonder how many of those worker-damaging decisions by executives were made only out of this need to perform confidence. I wonder how many beauty treatments/products are purchased only out of a need to keep relating to the wealthy. I wonder how many antidepressants are taken only because of a need to project a positive enough attitude at work.
The “look of confidence” is the look of wealth, because most “confident” people in the workplace look wealthy, and especially those with “executive presence”.
(shorter here)
Nobody has talked enough about one of the most insidious things the vulture capitalist class has done: made us feel inadequate if we’re not doing everything we can to emulate this portrait of the perfect executive. Narrowed the range of possible personalities who can succeed at work, and the narrow of professions where we can earn a comfortable lifestyle. Raising the cost of admission and narrowing our margin of error, and then having the gall to lie to our faces with a smile about how it all starts with a little self-esteem.
The red- and black-pilled are naive little boys, thinking romantic and sexual frustration is the worst in the world. They haven’t known blackest despair until they’ve worried if they have fatally flawed characters and personalities because of what has happened to them at work, until they’ve worried that, indeed, no one has any use for them despite the astronomical amount of investment in themselves.
You can live without romance and sex. You can live without bio-kids (and the planet and millions of unwanted kids would probably breathe easier if you did). You can’t live without work. Physically, or psychologically.
@Allandrel
Schumer did mention that if Biden won, he wouldn’t be averse to adding more justices to offset whatever Trump adds. Court-packing might be a risky endeavor, but it may be what’s needed to undo the damage. Of course, Biden has to win first.
@ cyborgette
if you’re going to get properly paranoid about opsec, there’s no point in using signal or similar apps. there may or may not be backdoors, but that’s kind of beside the point. they can just as well use a keylogger, listen to your microphone, and read your screen. just don’t say anything on or around a device that you’re not okay with intelligence services and advertisers knowing about.
@Naglfar
Um, I think you’re missing the point. It would never require passing a law. Passing a law is a different thing than changing rules of parliamentary procedure. Passing a law requires a proposal called a bill passing both the House & Senate and then it must receive the endorsement of the current POTUS. Changing a rule of parliamentary procedure in the Senate requires no involvement of the House or the executive branch in any way. Constitutionally, the Senate makes it’s own rules of procedure (and also certain other rules pertaining to its operation, like who can set foot inside the Senate chamber or when or why a Senator can be kicked out of office – which would be functionally similar to the impeachment of a judge or President, but constitutionally is completely different since the House has no say whatsoever).
As for the current state of the filibuster rules relating to SCOTUS appointments, I have to admit that I’m not sure. I know that they weren’t changed under Obama. I had heard that they were “suspended” during the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. Such a suspension would ordinarily last until a new Senate is convened, and that happens every 2 years after each federal election. This means that if the account I heard was correct, the “suspension” would have still been in place for the confirmation of Kavanaugh since he was confirmed during 2018.
In the case of a “suspension” the old rule would have come back in 2019, when the new, post-2018 election Senate first convened.
That said, just because I was told the rule was “suspended” doesn’t meant that the old rule was brought back in 2019. There’s a (usually) pro-forma vote at the beginning of a new session to adopt the rules of the last Senate, but the new Senate doesn’t have to do that. I can adopt any rules it likes, including adopting the rules as they existed at any point in the past, such as when the filibuster suspension was still operant.
And, of course, that all presumes that I was told correctly that it was a suspension – and, I suppose, that I’m correctly remembering the news reports I read. I could definitely be wrong about whether the filibuster was “suspended” or “ended”. In fact, I’m perfectly willing to say that you’re probably right here about the current state of the filibuster rules as applied to SCOTUS nominations. (My info is only a memory of a couple discussions during the Kavanaugh hearing that said that the “suspension” of the filibuster during Gorsuch’s nomination would still apply.) At best my information, then, is two years old. If you’ve read anything more recent then you’re right here.
But whatever the nature of the change to the filibuster rules, the really, really important takeaway is that the filibuster rules have nothing to do with laws, and the requirements for passing a law have nothing to do with the requirements for changing rules of parliamentary procedure.
@Ohlmann
Oh I am by no means underestimating what is going on in the US. I’ve been playing close attention. The problem is that, unlike with Nazi Germany, plenty of countries are aligned with the US and fascism is on the rise on a global scale. Worse yet, you have three of the biggest potencies out there being ruled by fascists: the US, Russia and China (Brazil and India might be included if they were potencies).
It’s just not the same scenario as WWII where Hitler overextended himself and caused the biggest potencies to declare war on him. How do you fight back the American military, the police and well armed conservatives? Not without outside help, I’m telling you.
@Crip Dyke
My apologies for using the wrong terminology, I meant to refer to procedural rules.
@Diego Duarte
One possible way around this is that the military doesn’t like Trump much. High ranking officials have stated their disdain for him, and it appears many troops are fed up as well. If he tries to invoke the military the generals may not comply.
@ samantha
One of my friends got a job with Nomura; the Japanese bank.
There was a big thing there that it was seen as really bad to be the first person to leave work at the end of the day.
It was all totally performative though. They weren’t actually getting any additional work done; it was just twiddling their thumbs waiting to see who would be first to crack.
So his colleagues were particularly grateful to have someone join with the attitude of “Fuck this; I’m paid til five o’clock”. Just so they could give it another fifteen minutes and then scarper too.
For the Supreme Court, no. Harry Reid did it in 2013 for federal judicial appointments (NOT including the Supreme Court). Big fuss about him “invoking the nuclear option” at the time, and it wasn’t a suspension, it were a permanent change.
Which … set a precedent. Republicans LOVE having precedents. Historically, republican politicians have not been quite brave enough to pull much shit on their own (spineless is a common phrase used by their own constituents about them), but more than happy to extend and abuse any precedent set by “the other side.”
Edited to add the missing thought at the end. And multiple further edits cause I can’t English today.
@Diego : plenty of country were aligned with Germany. Plenty other discovered they were almost instantly, like France. Most importantly, there weren’t even a revolution attempt, because an horrible dictatorship don’t alway align with wanting to do a revolution, especially not once USRR was breathing on their neck.
As for fighting the military, go ask the Iraki or Afghan. Or even how much good it did to Louis XVI then Napoleon to have entire armies with cannons and guns against civilians. Revolutions succeed or fail based on their leader, the conviction of the base, and the moral of their foes. Technological advance does not factor at all.
Armed goons are even less of a factor – if they are even lightly opposed they will fold. The real question is how much time between starting to ask the army to fire live round into a mob and the moment where the army align with revolutionaries.
There’s no need for an external savior. In fact, if there is a lesson to take from the last 30 years of America policy, it’s that an exterior intervention would not help at all.
@Alan Robertshaw
I recall seeing a documentary a few years ago about birth rates decreasing in Japan, and one of the reasons given was the work culture. It is very difficult to be a working mother in Japan because of this culture and so many women have to choose between careers and children.
That reminds me of my high school a bit. We got extra credit for geometry class if we stayed after long enough (70 minutes IIRC), but there was no stipulation to do actual work so we all just chatted with the teacher and amongst each other until time was up.
@Allandrel
offers hugs if wanted
I’m sorry. Really hoping we can get our shit together and pool our collective resources to mitigate the worst of it. I don’t want you to die, damnit. 🙁
@Allandrel
This may or may not help your situation, but have you tried to put together a crowdfund for your medical and living expenses? I’m sure some of us could chip in if that would help you.
@Alan Robertshaw, Naglfar:
As I understand it, many Japanese companies find it useful to have one American employee who can tell the boss when an idea is bad, and get away with it because they’re the foreigner and supposedly don’t know the etiquette.
@Nagflar : I can’t speak for Allandrel, but personally the shame of asking strangers for rather big amount of money to survive would be too much to bear.
I don’t mean that people should not be that, just that I wouldn’t. Asking for help is reasonable, asking people to foot the entire bill because the system is fucked and we have to do a social security ourselves isn’t.
It’s apparently one of the big reason for which french poor people don’t do the paperworks to apply for state helps. Unlike your proposal, however, thoses papers are made to provoke shame and force to show why you’re in a bad position.
@Ohlmann
I know, and I’m not trying to shame Allandrel at all. I know the system is fucked, but sometimes there aren’t many other immediate options so I was just suggesting one that might work.
@allendrel
Pls. Get your caseworker to contact the national kidney foundation. They are 10 kinds of shady, but they make their money exploiting loopholes to get people dialysis. You are worth at least a mil a year to keep alive. (I mean, you are priceless, but also worth big bucks to nkf)
Dialysis centers give money to nkf, nkf pays for the private insurance of dialysis patients, dialysis centers overcharge private ins. to the tune of billions.
@dust bunny
Profoundly disagree on “no point”, a lot of infosec is about risk management. Planning criminal behavior over encrypted chat is risky, but it’s a lot less risky than doing so publicly on a blog. And client security is always going to be a bugbear, but client devices can be more or less secure, and outside threats can have more or less ability to compromise them.
(Note: I’m a former sysadmin, not really infosec specialist, so like YMMV and I don’t know what level of knowledge you’re speaking from. Your POV is def one I’ve seen from infosec experts, but IRL I think it has to be weighed against what provides the most safety and capabilities to the most people.)
@Diego
As I mentioned in the other thread, I already am being targeted by those groups, as are a whole lot of other people.
Thank you all for the support.
Right now my situation is stable – I have Social Security Disability, and Medicare and Medicaid dual coverage meets almost all of my medical costs. The fear is what will happen when Trump eliminates the payroll tax, which is the primary funding for Social Security and Medicare. Lose those, and I lose dialysis. (And psychiatric treatment.)
I’m really afraid that even if the election happens, it won’t matter. A third of the country WANTS a fascist dictatorship, and they now have the combination of branches that they need to do whatever they want. The House doesn’t matter when the SCOTUS can just rubber-stamp anything Trump wants while the Senate runs interference.