If you want to speak up then at least drop more than just a smarmy one liner with no content in it dude. He stopped the war in Afghanistan, and also made peace with North Korea.
And which propaganda do you think that is then? Exactly which propaganda do you think I have paid attention to ? I will give you a hint. None. I saw an ad from the Tories that was forced onto me by Facebook three times (even though I said hide all from the Conservative party) and realised I could do two birds with one stone. Which had you read my posts you would understand. 1. Bring Labour in, with their wasteful overspending over crowd the country with all of the world's problems ways and 2. Knob over the tories. That's it. It's a simple as that. Sorry to disappoint you but I am not currently sat here waving a George Cross with an England shirt on and a can of cider in my hand.
Quite simply by not continually poking them with a stick. Have you lived in the USA dude?. Do you have rellys or friends out there? Let me tell you what Biden has done for them. 1. Double the price of fuel of every sort. 2. Raised up the minimum wage in most states to over $15, and in some $17, failing to realise that to pay for this every aspect of life would increase in price to the same tune. So basically groceries now cost double what they did before he was elected, the cost of living has doubled, but that is OK because people who do crap jobs now earn $17 an hour, whilst a cup of coffee over there now costs half of that hourly wage, just as it did before. 3. Managed to divide the entire nation.
First things first, let's drop the insults - I'm being civil with you, so I'd expect you to do the same, please. Trump did a lot of bad things in office. First and foremost, he appointed three right-wing judges to the Supreme Court (these are lifetime appointments, by the way, and it's almost impossible to remove a Supreme Court justice once they're appointed, so the consequences are going to be felt long after Trump's term in office). This has tipped the balance of the Supreme Court waaaaay to the right, resulting in such great, non-harmful rulings such as striking down Roe vs Wade, resulting in millions of American women losing their right to an abortion, with some States even deciding that this should be the case even if carrying a pregnancy to term would result in the death of the mother. The Supreme Court are continuing to make decisions such as allowing "bump stocks" which convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons. He continually stirred up anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, leading to a rise in hate crime against these groups. He also enacted policies such as forcibly separating children of immigrants from their parents. He massively ****ed the response to Covid, because he didn't believe it was a big deal, despite his expert advisors telling him otherwise. This resulted in many, many more people dying than needed to have been the case. He blackmailed Ukraine because he wanted them to help him with his re-election campaign, and when they wouldn't cooperate, he withheld $400m in military aid that both political parties had previously agreed. He undermined the result of the 2020 election and declared it invalid, and ultimately incited an insurrection on Jan 6 2021 where he encouraged his gun-toting supporters to seize control of the Capitol building in open defiance of the democratic process, leading to armed mobs roaming the literal corridors of power looking for politicians to harm. There's plenty more, by the way, but there are a few things off the top of my head to be starting with.
I didn't insult you. Right let me cover your points. As someone who knows a lot of Americans (I would do, I called it home for 9 years) I can tell you now that life conditions were better under Trump. Or rather, they were better under Republican rule. No one I have spoken to has said that Biden has done anything whatsoever to improve their lives, and everything now costs twice what it did when Trump was the president. As such his actions, at least to me, mean little. Was it embarrassing when he was voted out? yes. Yes it was. However, it got him nowhere and he is no longer president. The immigration thing? again, having lived out there I can tell you now it is an enormous problem. It is. There is no dancing around it. However, as I am sure you will know it is now an even worse problem, with tons of Nigerians having had their lives ruined. They were invited over there to work, only they are not allowed to work, or drive, or much of anything else and are mostly now living homeless on the streets of New York because of it. I've said it before and I will say it again - countries like the UK and USA can not solve the world's problems. Unfortunately some are born less privileged than others, and countries like the UK and USA can not take in all of those people and give them better lives. At some point something is going to give. And it has. Like I said, I have been waiting over three years to have scans and possibly knee replacements, which I know is now a pipe dream. I have spoken with my doctors, and they have told me that there are just too many patients. So we are now becoming over populated. The entire world ****ed the response to Covid. That was nothing to do with Trump as governments worldwide made the same mistakes. We don't vote for presidents because of their responses to covid, or whether they do things we may or may not like. As I said, we do it for our own quality of life. I think more people need to realise that. It's not a popularity contest it is about results. And like I said, not one American I know has told me they are better off under Biden. And I know a lot of them, from many states and many walks of life. As for the Ukraine? well, as I said when the war kicked off I think we are to blame for that. IE - the west. I think we got a bit too close to Russia's doorstep and yeah. Maybe one day we will stop using countries as puppets, though we all know that is not going to happen. Trump didn't undermine the election he just acted like a total knob. As for him encouraging gun toting mobs? yeah see I don't agree with that. Thing is, had he done anything truly wrong he would have been arrested for it. However, again I will reiterate that none of what you have said has changed the living situation in the USA. None of it. Just because you don't like the guy (and believe me I don't I think he is a tosser) that doesn't mean that he made his country worse because he just didn't. In fact, if any one has done more damage to the country it is the democrats. Who legalised all drugs in Oregon, and now it is a dangerous hovel. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ata show Oregon,from opiate overdoses in 2022.
BTW I think you will all find that none of the current political parties offer the answers needed to anything or any one. All of them are now out of touch with the world and how it works, and none of them are helping.
So to get the Tories out and bring labour in you decided to vote reform after seeing a conservative advert. That's pretty much the definition of propaganda. No, but that thing most of us have called a job means I talk to a hell of a lot of Americans on a daily basis. 1. Nothing to do with Biden. 2. Exactly what's happened in nearly every other part of the world, costs have gone up. Biden isn't the president of the UK yet our prices are up, same for the rest of Europe. 3. You're having a laugh. Biden divided the nation? But trump didn't? You've lost your mind. To name a few Protected Marriage for LGBTQI+ and Interracial Couples Executive Orders Protecting Reproductive Rights Student debt relief pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession How does us buying oil and Gas from Russia make the west responsible for them invading Ukraine? Bin off everyone that doesn't work then, problem solved. Less burden on the NHS and more money in taxes to the gov. We'll swap people on benefits for foreigners willing to work. He's literally been found guilty. Based on the fact none of the Tories have been arrested I think we can all agree that doing something wrong doesn't immediately mean being arrested.
Nope, we are not over-populated, our public services are under-resourced. No thanks to the Tories and 14 years of austerity. Amazingly, if you don't continue to invest in public services then you end up with them not being fit for purpose.
I really didn't want to get into this in any more depth than I already had. I had originally written quite a bit about how I don’t actually care about who people vote for so long as they’re thinking for themselves and so on... But I closed the browser tab; I've had a long-ass day, and I was going to start catching up on a few games I've been neglecting. I knew that if I didn't just leave it alone I would end up doing exactly what I'm doing now: spend bloody ages writing and re-writing something until the point where I literally have to stop or I'll be here so late that I won't be able to switch off when I try to go to sleep and will be up until well past 2am. But I can't leave it alone, can I. I can't help myself. Honestly sometimes I don't even have the energy to fight it, and maybe today is one of those days. Some of the draft was auto-saved, so I’ll open with the most pertinent part. I can't - and won't - speak for anyone else, but as impassioned or sarcastic as I often am, it is never - ever - personal, no matter what thread I post it in. If people ever interpret something I've said as a personal insult then I apologise and edit my posts accordingly. But I will never apologise for having an opinion or making my case, no matter how provocative or emotive my choice of language might be. So which politician is like you? Rishi Sunak, married to the heiress of a very large and very wealthy technology company, who is so incalculably wealthy that generations of his descendants will never have to worry about money? Nigel Farage, a man who made his fortune as a city banker and has spent most of his life campaigning on a single issue? Keir Starmer, who spent decades as a criminal barrister, has a knighthood, and was formerly director of public prosecutions? None of those leaders are like “normal people”. There are a few in the Labour Party you could credibly call “normal people” - people who’ve come from very modest backgrounds and who have only got to where they are now through sheer hard graft. But no one like that is a contender for prime minister. I doubt that the politics of post-war Britain are in any way relevant nearly 80 years after the end of the war. You missed the point there. We were talking about being "rich", and my point was that both Sunak and Farage are and were already richer than Starmer will likely ever be. The fact that Farage was eligible for a Coutts bank account in the first place means that he's got some mattresses absolutely bulging with cash. Also, that account closure was perfectly lawful and handled in line with industry rules. Nothing to do with "cancel culture" or any other nonsense phrases like that. In fact the first person that went for the "cancel culture" angle was Farage himself. NatWest handled it bloody terribly though and should rightly face criticism and penalties for it. Details about his finances should have never been discussed publicly by anyone from the bank, let alone senior leadership. I worked for a bank for a long time; I started in the telephone banking call centre, and people from that department were fired for even gossiping with colleagues about customers and their finances. And these were your average regular people, not people who had enough money to be eligible for a Coutts bank account. The fact that Farage saw the term "politically exposed person" and went instantly to "they're cancelling me because they don't like my politics!" is a problem for Farage and Farage alone. "Politically exposed person" is a well-known and well-understood term in financial services, they're the kind of people that banks have to be extra careful with because of their position and their potential susceptibility/exposure to bribery. He's got a lovely highlight reel in his past. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/31/boris-johnson-nigel-farage-in-quotes: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uk...h-Powells-River-of-Blood-speech-is-right.html: https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/when-i-was-uncomfortable-condemned-says-farage/: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2014/dec/19/nigel-farage-ukip-defends-word-chinky-video: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...emn-nigel-farage-for-antisemitic-dog-whistles: And, by the way, most of the batshit things being talked about in this article are actually just a thin veneer for antisemitism. In the past few people ever said that quiet part out loud, but the rise in prominence of people like Farage means that they're less and less afraid to be quite so coy these days. Yeah, OK, fair enough, I've mined that one article enough. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ration-migrants-hiv-ban-from-uk-a7077716.html: https://metro.co.uk/2014/03/31/hes-...r-he-admires-the-most-vladimir-putin-4683624/: No, he's not going to say any of that stuff on I'm A Celeb because millions of eyeballs were on him when he was on that series, he needs those people to vote for him/his party. Now, hang on a sec here. You're extrapolating some pretty dire predictions of doom based on some quite unfounded assumptions. Let's dig up what I actually said - emphasis mine: Not once did I say I condoned or encouraged it. I said it was funny. If I watch a video of someone accidentally being hit in the balls by a football or something, I find it funny - that doesn't mean I encourage people to go round hitting each other in the balls because I find it funny. I've also watched "funny" videos where someone tripped, fell, etc, and injured themselves quite badly, and I did not find those funny at all. I've also seen videos where people have been hit in the balls quite severely, and I did not find those funny at all either. Your mate accidentally kicking a football at your balls is unlikely to result in serious damage - it'll hurt for a while, but you'll almost certainly be fine. That's funny. A skateboarder or a cyclist hitting their balls on a metal bar at quite high speed is potentially an extremely serious injury. That's not funny. There is absolutely no risk of injury from having milkshake thrown at you or water dumped over you. That was funny. It was funny not only because of the slapstick element of "man get hit with thing that's gross", but it was also funny because Prescott's reaction was not what you'd expect from a Deputy Prime Minister. His reaction was the same way a lot of "normal" people would react: punch the guy in the face. Buzz Aldrin was accosted by a crank who told him, to his face, that he never walked on the moon, and his response was to ask the person to leave him alone; when they didn't go away, Buzz punched him in the face. I thought that was pretty damn funny as well. I'm not going to apologise if other people don't find any of those incidents funny. Again, I'm not going to speak for anyone else but me, but I am not attacking or criticising you personally, only the arguments you put forth. I would do the same to others and I have done the same to others. Criticising an argument is debate; criticising the person making the argument is an ad-hominem. Since the turn of the 20th century, the UK has been under a Labour government for a total of 23 years. 23 out of 124 years, and 13 of those were the Blair/Brown days. Unless we get true proportional representation, no party other than the Conservatives or Labour will ever feasibly be in power throughout any of our lifetimes. Even if we did have true PR, it's unlikely to cause a major shift in this country's political dynamics within our lifetimes (well... except maybe @MLyons, he's got a bit longer to go than most of us crusty farts ). The Conservatives have been in power for the last 14 years and have, objectively, failed to improve the economy or living standards. By your own admission, there are at least some things that you would prefer under a Labour government. Shouldn't they at least be given the chance to to try before we condemn them as "not helping"? In this case I'm really not going to get drawn into this, because right now I can only just spare enough energy to worry about politics in our own country... But it is worth highlighting that Biden has actually achieved quite a lot, apparently. This is not my image and I'm afraid I can't cite a link for any of these, but it should at least be a good starting point if anyone is inclined to dig further into any of these: Those games are still neglected and now I really do have to stop, because I need a good hour or so to unwind before I try to sleep. I get up at 6am, I can't take any more nights of poor sleep this week. So if anyone needs me, I'm afraid I will not be here again until around 4pm-ish tomorrow .
Well we will see if that changes when Labour get in. Kinda betting it won’t but hey, we’ll see I guess.
<shrug> 's a free country, I'm not forcing you to read anything. Not engaging is a decision you're perfectly free to make.
