Vilageidiotx

Can commercials be art?

They are art. I mean, art is just something that is produced by human creativity. But whether or not they are high art is sorta hard to determine. You aren't going to see ad-agency produced stuff in museums anytime soon, but do we consider something like Warhol's soup cans to be a commercial? If we do, then that is an example of a commercial becoming high art. But if that pop art type of thing isn't considered a commercial, then I think we'd be hard pressed to find commercials as high art.

But that's now. Maybe in 100 years our commercials will be exhibited in art exhibits in the same was that old penny-dreadfuls are sometimes considered literary now.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Vilageidiotx bulgaria is a european country and its Muslim population is 11%

Checkmate Liberal.

@Dynamo Frokane

Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire up into modern times, and is also 9 percent Turkish, so I think their situation is more complicated than "Immigrants".

To refer to the vetting issue, the concerns are different both in role and execution. You are correct that Europe faces a different and unavoidable aspect of the threat, but the United States is still severely lacking in terms of proactive fundamentals of foreign national circulation control. Terrorism, by its very function and in this case as a political and ideological effort, does not need mass numbers to gain effect; you cannot equate school shootings to acts of violence which have a specific target and effect under these criteria. Radical Islam employs terrorism as a means to cow, enfeeble and panic its targets, not to cause sizable injury or loss. It affects the morale of a populace to help gain compliance.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

I honestly don't think terrorist operations in the United States are common enough to meet those goals. Whatever terrorists would like to do here, they aren't succeeding, which would suggest to me that our process is adequate. I brought up school shootings because they show that random violence is surpassing terrorist violence here, both in scope and in effect.

To address the "Europe is a caliphate." comment, I explicitly and openly remarked that was not my belief or understanding. No less, I never once claimed forced Islamic conversion through means like those of coercion, duress or threats. What I said was, it is their goal to change the dynamics of the populace to be sympathetic to their cause while actively pursuing advancement of their extreme religious agenda. The "Fall of Europe" is not a literal action where these people are taking the countries by force or storm, but because they are actively subverting traditional European law and values. Radicals have no interest in integration into European, or even American, society.

Then I miss understood where your were going with that. Radicals have no interest in integration, naturally, that is almost tautological. The question is about whether or not they are succeeding at converting the west, which I don't think they are. I can't speak for the Sunni community, but among westerners I really really doubt radical islamification is happening. Aside from the occasionally goofy liberal who wears hijabs in solidarity or some shit, we aren't seeing westerners Islamify. I mean, we still like our alcohol and our gays, booty shorts are still out there, bacon is doing so well it has broken into the cheap t-shirt market.

With response to the perceived threat of nationalism, it isn't even on the metaphorical radar in terms of credible threats that pose catastrophic consequences for the United States and or foreign nations. In fact, some of the technologies you are alluding to are the very reason there is an environment of deterrence over that of aggression. I also need mention that these policies change with each administration, at least in the United States, but to date none of these policies since the 1960s have elevated the concern for those actually involved. In short, the danger of a World War does not lie in your superpowers like the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom or any of those who conscribe to nationalist policies in them. Your most likely conflicts to expand to a larger theatre are cliché at this point, to which I imagine you know the reference.

Not now, because the Alt-Right is a fringe movement. If they remain a fringe movement, global capitalism stays in the drivers seat. But if western countries get Alt-Right ideologues in power, the threat of general war becomes greater. At this point there really isn't an Alt-right ideologue in power. Trump is the closest we got, and he doesn't seem to be much of an ideologue.

But I digress, if you want a basic level assessment of the Alt-Right and the Trump movement, they are not considered a threat to security or safety. In fact, Antifa and its associates fulfill more of those criteria and are becoming increasingly more important in that scope and spectrum. What will come of this? Likely nothing. Both factions, even politically, are not extreme enough to gain enough power to severely leverage or alter the scale. Yes, even the Trump administration is not that powerful or successful despite the opinions of both sides, from those who believe he is Hitler to those who think he's the Messiah. The American pride movement is nothing that was not already present, the difference being it was mobilized by being spoken down to and socially oppressed by its peers; the pendulum now is swinging the other way.

Anti-fa doesn't seem to be an existential threat. They ruin protests. Right now, that's about as much as they do. I don't see them fielding serious candidates, and their revolutionary abilities are pretty questionable.

I do agree the pendulum is in effect. The Alt-Right is probably a fad, like libertarianism was ten years ago. If I were a betting man I'd bet on centrist democrats becoming popular by 2020, so long as they don't do something stupid like run Hillary.

And this is why there is no such thing as Islamophobia.

This is the desired, intentional effect of a campaign of terrorism. By design, as I had mentioned earlier, acts of terror are committed to cause panic and fear. This belief and perception, as well as the propagation of the myth that people might consider this reasonable or that some large amount of the population finds it credible, is part of its finer mechanism. It is to create an "us versus them" environment where, in this case, some people sympathize with the radicals and aid them or conspire against them and become "the other extreme". This is more or less a textbook execution of that.

To answer on your closing, I agree from an economic and security angle the stagnation of any market is a danger, although a rebound and both a dip are coming in the relative future; the dip, or rather two dips I know of, are not as concerning as the past, but they do align at a bad time. The rebound I am more skeptical of because, as with others in our age group, a "promising future economy" is usually met with suspicion and rightfully so.

The division on racial lines and Right versus Left, at least in the United States, I believe to be a self-aggrandizing effort. It has been and still is being used to drive political points, of which have only become more exaggerated with time. The "Alt-Right", not to be confused with the actual Alt-Right, or those you see now making up the distinctive political right that helped get Donald Trump elected, in large do not care about the matters of race; they go so far to treat it as a joke now, which further polarizes their opposition in the Far Left that believe in the tenants of social justice.

Again, I cite my earlier concern that domestic terror, to include that political focused as in this case, is in fact likely. I legitimately fear that during some demonstration or incident there will be an attack. Based on what I know, the Far Left is the most likely attacker, which only brings ill omen from the regular right, "Alt-Right" and the Alt-Right. I say this because any such transaction will only prove them "right" and with a right-leaning government, potentially lead to a heavy handed albeit needed response, which will provoke more backlash.

My mindset and talent is in defense, so it is no surprise I see it form this lens. What worries me is that I can see it at all and said, "Maybe." with any amount of reliability in the impulse. That is what concerns me and that is why I believe these things.

There is Islamophobia. I mean, those guys who beat ups Sikhs are an example, in that they create a boogeyman version if Islam that ends up leading them to attack people who aren't even Islamic. If you are actively scared of random Muslims you meet in public, you would be Islamophobic.

Also, regarding attacks in every day politics, both sides have had violent extremists, and in both cases they have been isolated. I suppose the left is more likely to be active in the streets because they are currently locked out of the political system, but thus far all we have had are isolated incidents.

I will say that, for those few serious anarchist agitators among all the LARPers in the Anti-fa movement, the right-wing cracking down is exactly what they want. Marshal law would make the right wing pretty unpopular pretty quickly.

Guild Book Club Suggestions Wanted

I'm here whenever you folk wanna start something.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

There was a distinct shift in doctrine and execution of aspects vital to stability, security and reliability. The first factor is one of the most obvious, in which I mean I point to the neglect of the Korean Peninsula, the expansion of ISIS and its evolutions, the interactions with Iran, ignoring of Israel and of course the on going diplomatic problem which has become Turkey and greater Europe. I will reiterate that this is not leveled squarely on the Obama administration, but under that extended period territory gained all but vanished. They had many opportunities to improve these elements not on a prospect of globalism or "unity", but of national interests; they did not, as was their policy.

The next element is security, which is one that can only be discussed to varying lengths, but the lacking of secured borders, extensive screening and vetting of foreign nationals, and a failure to fight a dynamic threat at its core has escalated the odds (as we have seen with the increased issues of detection for electronic devices). It is sad to comment on, but vehicle ramming type attacks, knife attacks and similarly cheap, expedient, efficient means will continue to rise to. More notably, to address the issue of "nuclear terrorism" that is an extremely unlikely scenario, what is more likely is an improvised radiological device that contaminates an area after detonation because of its psychological, not physical, potential; all of this stems from an eroded environment lacking a focus on physical national security.

They avoided boots on the ground policies, because that is more or less why they were elected to do. If Obama had doubled down on Bush's style of direct intervention, the Republicans would have maneuvered him out in 2012. We still vote for our leaders, and because of this, we cannot pull off the sort of permanent occupations that would be necessary for what you are talking about. Americans have always been reluctant Imperialists, and our unwillingness to fully occupy the middle east for several generations is part of that.

As for the vetting thing, this hasn't been a serious issue. We are not Europe, we do not have Europe's problems. If we were dealing with terrorism on the level of France it would be one thing, but we are not. Shit, in the last eight years school shootings have killed more than Islamic terrorism in the United States.

I'll even go so far as to say that part of Obama's problems is that he kept in place a lot of the security features that people are not comfortable with. The NSA and the drone programs are part of his legacy. The guy wasn't exactly a hippie

As a side note, the real threat of radical Islam is the conversion of the non-native populace and conditioning them to their customs or forcing them to abide laws foreign to their land. This is considered by some to be an "extreme" statement, but it is one I believe to be accurate because the radical Islamic leaders have realized, as a relative whole no matter their particular leaning on Wahhabism, that they cannot alter the strategic level without doing so. Looking at Europe as my point of reference, with its absolute and continued collapse between this factor and a broken economy, I believe it safe to say the mainland might be regrettably lost for the foreseeable future.

It's not so much an extreme statement as a bizarre one. Muslims don't break 10 percent in any European country. The "Europe is now a Caliphate" thing is a meme. Forced conversion to Islam on a large scale is insanely unlikely. Honestly, "The water is turning the freaking frogs gay" is more likely.

To transition to the current topics, the credible threat is not nationalism in any case, be it found in the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and so on. Political ideology is not the greatest external threat to anyone and the abstract demon of capitalist society is, in fact, its saving grace. Since the end of the Second World War, the booming defense industry has continued to display technologies and developments that are on the level of science fiction... all while pinching every pretty penny it can from the pockets of taxpayers. It is just the nature of the beast; it wants to be fed. Conflict and war feed it, with those times in between when it is most hungry. However, without it, I believe we would be worse off. I also need mention that it is not even linked with nationalism in the United States, to which I can only assume you are meaning in majority.

Yup, globalization was great in its earlier stages. If it was 1960 I'd be a rabid capitalist. But it isn't 1960. We have new problems. However, what you are describing isn't what I mean by rising nationalism at all. It's a tricky word because it's definition is so broad, but what I mean by rising Nationalism is an increased emphasis on the Nation as the driving force of society. It's been there for some time obviously, but the driving force of society since Breton Woods has been the expansion and globalization of capitalism. As democracy becomes associated with corruption and global capitalism with economic malaise, we are seeing a rebellion against this seventy year status quo. The problem with nationalism taking the wheel is that, whereas capitalism at the very least wants to keep markets as open as possible and therefore shuns wars between major centers of wealth, nationalism's driving forces are all tied to pride and honor and superiority over other nations, which exacerbates friction. We know this because the period where Nationalism was dominant, roughly 1848 to 1945, culminated in two of the worst wars in human history. I think it would have been much worse too if most western nations hadn't been able to feed Nationalism via colonialism, but since colonialism is more complicated than the world wars imma not count it as a direct cause of nationalism.

Anyway, basic point I'm making is that, now that global capitalism has shot its wad, we gotta figure out how we advance to whatever the next level is, and I'm against Nationalism as our starting point because I think it runs too much of a risk of World War, and we can't afford World Wars anymore what with technology the way it is.

How do I come to that conclusion? No one is under the illusion that these companies have any other objective other than to make money off of martial technology. There's not the honor and superiority of the warfighter in it, but the understanding that without their presence, the United States would be lacking some of its core military assets; air, space and cyber warfare advantages. This is not to ignore how well prepared and equipped the land or sea based elements are, but it is no secret that the future of conflict is moving smaller and larger at the same time. Realistically, the only issues I really have politically with the behemoth is that the government is terrible at making deals and prioritizing anything, especially with independent contractors or agencies, at all levels, local all the way up to federal.

I'm not worried about the military-industrial complex. Sure, it's ugly, but these large scale government projects were required to keep capitalism stable enough to use. We've mostly used it to stir up shit, which again is ugly, but it isn't apocalyptic. What I mean by rising nationalism is grassroots level, like the Trump movement and the Alt-Right and all that fun shit. Movements that attack parts of capitalism conservatism usually doesn't attack, and is filling in ideological gaps with old school Kippling style "Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori" nationalism.

The tension I mention is of a different brand and methodology, again which is why I cite it as more dangerous. The fact alone you turned to the prior references is why I use it. In this era you are seeing a portion of the American populace directly sympathize with the enemy, to the extent of supporting or defending them both in word and action. You have citizens of a country attempting to defend tenants of radical Islam, ignoring the aspects of Sharia Law alone, and welcoming fundamental elements of foreign indoctrination that make self-radicalization possible.

The left is mainly driven by a fear of pogroms in this case. Nobody wants sharia law, but not everybody sees sharia law hiding behind every fence post, so for many people this bloated threat-of-Islam rhetoric seems like the a request for another Final Solution type thing.

In closing, perspective is funny I suppose. To me, Radical Islam doesn't even make the top three of America's problems (Which would be, uh, 1: Economic stagnation 2: The Racial Divide 3: The Polarization of the Right and Left). Europe has a problem, sure, but in the passing sense, not in the existential sense. The only part of the world where radical Islam is an existential threat is, obviously, the middle east. But that has been true since at least the seventies. Personally, call me an optimist I guess, but I think this radical Islam shit is a growing pain the the Middle East's path the westernization. The systems proposed by Islamists are inherently Fascist, and as we saw from actually Fascists, their thesis is so wrong that a state like ISIS couldn't survive a generation without collapsing. But also like Fascists, they can only exist to oppose a society lurching to the left, which would mean westernization is happening in the middle east. [/quote]

All this talk of the radical Islamic threat is giving me a nice mid 2000's vibe. Broad swathes of the West are going to implement Sharia law any day now ect ect.

@Penny

Remember when they had that picture of Obama wearing that silly Mario looking costume and everyone was pointing at it like "See! He's gonna make us all Muslim in that mario costume."

Those were the days, man.

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>
Haha. I'm a determinist, which means I don't believe in free will. This the antithesis of libertarianism. : )

@Iuniper

I'd say having political opinions in general is the antithesis of determinism, but I suppose you have you couldn't chose not to have political opinions in the first place, wat since that is determined and all.

Oh and to answer your question LolCat, I identify as an Authoritarian Centrist, I'm right of center and left of center on a fairly equal amount of views.

@Dynamo Frokane

So you are Hillary Clinton, basically.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I have to disagree that the Obama administration years were "not really exciting by comparison", mostly because the decisions of that administration deeply eroded stability, reliability and security.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

What are we talking about specifically? Most of the things that happened in the Obama administration were following a pattern that has been going on for some time. That he failed to put out the fire is completely true, but the fire has been burning for a while now.

To clarify what I meant earlier, whereas the negatives of global capitalism are notable enough, there has been one major positive outcome for the world since the system was put in place after the second world war, in that it has kept the west from erupting into another nationalistic freak-show type war. There are other problems with nationalism as a central philosophy, but the biggest is that its focus on honor and superiority tends to get wars started. Now, if this were the early twentieth century still we could make the argument (as many did) that wars are necessary and they cleanse the spirit of the nation or whatever, because those wars just claimed millions of lives in concentrated areas. But with technology where it is now, another World War would be apocalyptic. Capitalism, if it does nothing else, replaces the honor and superiority motives of nationalism with corruption and profit-making, which might love itself a small war, but wants no business with a generalized World War. As for radical Islam, it's certainly been the stick that whacked the hornets nest, but thus far it hasn't show itself to have apocalyptic capabilities. The worse they have going for them is the potential that somebody gets a hold of nukes and unleashes unprecedented terroristic destruction. But, though that is absolutely horrifying, it's not quite end of the world stuff. If we do end up backtracking completely into old-school turn of the century Nationalism, I'm afraid radical Islam, as horrible as it is, would only be the intro-chapter to the real great big shit show that would follow.

The tension you mentioned is interesting, but it isn't new. We've had plenty worse is the past. The protests going on right now wouldn't make it in the top five most divisive in American history (The list is probably something like Bleeding Kansas, Shay's Rebellion, The early Labor Movement, The Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam protests.). Not to say I don't see danger possibly happening in the future. Things go from interesting to really interesting when we get our next financial crisis. I admit, I am nervous that our system might not be able to survive another financial disaster so soon after the last one. But again, as a member of the cohort that was so royally fucked back in 2008, I have something of a phobia for financial meltdowns.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

The parallels here are uncanny. I became political during the Bush years as well and also came from a conservative background. But I became your typical 'college liberal' though that meant something different back in those days. There was a lot less blue hair and Tumblr didn't even exist. I was strongly opposed to the religious right, which had just swept Bush to power a second time. Most of my political activities during that time was largely oriented around fighting for gay marriage. (Victory!)

I can't say that I even moved right. I still support all the things I supported when I was young. I just happen to believe in a number of conservative moral and economical principles as well. Somewhere during all of this I encountered a libertarian who became a mentor of mine and convinced me of the truth of a number of the libertarian positions. The recession had a tremendous effect on me and I re-thought a number of my positions and took a much closer look at both globalization and immigration (which I had previously seen as purely a force for good) as well as automation. In some ways I became more liberal (for example I support universal basic income) but in others I abandoned the purely libertarian position and begin to oppose open borders and free trade agreements (though I don't oppose every open border or every trade agreement).

In the end I became the Frankenstein monster of politics, both far left and far right simultaneously lol.

Anyway, I shall cut this wall of text short but the parallels were interesting.

@Kratesis

I suppose it'd just be normal for our cohort to be effected primarily by the Bush years. A lot of watershed shit happened then. The Obama years were really not that exciting by comparison.

I'm glad to see a general rebellion against global capitalism. I've very concerned this rebellion is nationalistic in nature. It inspires that emotion you get watching a horror movie, where the victim finally smarts up and realizes something is wrong so they start running, and you get all excited for them until they lock themselves in a bedroom with no exit. Or in this case, they lock themselves in the first chapter on a book about what causes World Wars.

I need to practice saying "nuclear fire" in a dramatic way. Might just become the Homer of the next civilization.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I was in that generation of people who started paying attention to politics in the Bush years. Like a lot of people from conservative backgrounds at that time, I identified as a libertarian for a while, and voted libertarian in 2008.

My process of moving to the left was driven by my experience, and the experiences of those I grew up around, in the aftermath of the recession, so I would consider that to be the formative factor in my political opinions. The social stuff seems secondary imho, though I'm sure that's largely because as a white straight dude I didn't have much invested in the social justice movement to get into it, and I'm not nearly autistic enough for white nationalism.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

If you can point out another small-government, anti-corruption, pro-US, conservative forum which celebrates racial differences and LGBT and fights media bullshit, you know.... Obviously I'm into that stuff. Link me, plz. I'll totally go there too. Maybe one that's a teensie bit less islamophobic.

@mdk

Yahoo comments section.

Nix the LGBT and Islamophobia part, then /pol/.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

stay woke

Comedy On A Thread (Revive of the Revive)