U.S. Government shuts down.

[shoju]

I've tried to avoid this thread, but.

It wasn't Post Natal Specifically, or Solely. When they searched her home, they found Meds commonly prescribed for Schizophrenia. And here we are again, with Mental Health at the forefront of a tragedy in the US. But... They "officially" aren't linking it to mental illness yet.

Did they overreact? Possibly, probably, who knows. I'm unsure why they were firing on the car with no weapon or WMD visible. But, one officer had already been struck by the car, another cruiser was struck, and rendered disabled, the officer requiring transport to the hospital.

And you are at the center of the Government for the United States. Do you think this would have happened like this in my town? No Way. But, My town isn't the center of the government for the entire nation, and she approached a barricade near the white house, and then speed off when the secret service confronted her.

Personally, we have ourselves to blame. We allowed ourselves to be whipped into a frenzy by 9/11, and demanding the government to do something to make sure it didn't happen again.



This was us. But it wasn't our money we wanted them to take. It was our rights. We did that. And then we reaffirmed that's what we wanted. And now, the box is open, and this is what's going to happen.

To grossly overstate that 9/10 times a chase involves gunshots is absurd.
So is FIT's amusing edit of the facts in the story, to make this woman look like nothing but an innocent victim.

Is it tragic? Yes. Is she a victim? Yes. Is she innocent? hell no.

At the topic of a government shutdown, I'm beginning to think that this was the best things the republicans have ever done. They are turning on their InsaniTea Party members, and the way that it's looking, we'll have No Nuts Boehner and the rest of the house out voting them in short order anyway.

But, the writing was already on the wall.

Rand Paul, compared the "winning" that the Republicans are experiencing right now to Charlie Sheen's Drug Addled "Winning"

Then, you have this Mouth Breathing Booger Eater on TV saying that he will shut the government down until Obamacare is defunded, only to turn around the next day and BERATE SOMEONE for doing EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED HER TO DO and telling her that She should be ashamed.

No no, Mr. Mouth Breathing Booger Eater InsaniTea Party Member. You should be ashamed.

I put the blame for this on the GOP, and No Nuts Boehner. They should have seen that the craziness was getting out of hand. It shouldn't have had to get this far. It shouldn't have come to your own party members turning on each other like they already have.

But, that's the American Political system as it stands right now. Deeply divided Partisan Ideological Crusades, and



Fuck I want to move to Canada.

[eppie]

Is it tragic? Yes. Is she a victim? Yes. Is she innocent? hell no.

I understand what you mean and the way you are thinking but I have to reply a bit tough on this sentence.

So what are you suggesting?? Shall we shoot all the crazies?

And what do you mean with innocent or guilty? What are the charges? Well that doesn't matter too much anymore right because we already shot her.

Was she stupid? Probably yes (but of course she seemed to have psychological issues). Why do I ask this? Well because I want to compare this to the greenpeace activists that went to protest in Russia.
The Russians are the same kind of people as the yanks are. The think they should set an example. So don't do these things in one of these countries, just like you don't travel to Saudi Arabi if you are gay and you don't travel to indonesia when you may have some pot stuffed in a pair of jeans.

The only thing you show the world as a country is that you are not able to manage your society.
'funny thing' is of course that all the weirdos that are scared of the government (tea partiers and others) will probably think the police did a good thing......the government should not bother THEM too much in their everyday life but it is ok to shoot the poor fools.

[Jester]

And what do you mean with innocent or guilty? What are the charges? Well that doesn't matter too much anymore right because we already shot her.

This wasn't a criminal trial in which she was sentenced to death. It was an emergency situation where someone, who turned out to just be mentally ill (but this was not known at the time) tried to Dukes of Hazzard her way onto US government property, resisted arrest, sent a cop to the hospital, and nearly ran over a few more.

It would have been nice to have a trial, but as it stands, this was a reaction (overreaction, probably) to a perceived danger, not a carefully-weighed judgement about what was fair to her.

Of course, if they'd just have unarmed cops (my preferred solution) this wouldn't happen. But unarmed cops only make sense in a generally unarmed country.

Well because I want to compare this to the greenpeace activists that went to protest in Russia.

This is a ridiculous comparison. Unless the greenpeace protestors were trying to force their way into the Kremlin? Demonstrators are a known entity.

The key here is that the police had no idea who this woman was, or what she was doing. Maybe there was a bomb in that car. Maybe a rifle. Maybe she was trying to run some people over. Or maybe she just wanted to do donuts in front of the Congress. How would they have known? They had to play it by ear.

the government should not bother THEM too much in their everyday life but it is ok to shoot the poor fools.

I think the US government policy on mental illness is tragically poor, and I support vastly better support for mentally ill people, both medically and socially. But it is not "ok to shoot the poor folks." That's a caricature that misrepresents what happened. This woman was not shot for being mentally ill, since the police didn't even know she was mentally ill. She was shot for being a danger to others, an unknown entity apparently hell-bent on bashing down the gates of congress, and willing to run down cops if they got in her way. The vast (VAST) majority of mentally ill people do not do anything like this, and thus, are not shot.

-Jester

[shoju]

Absolutely not. I'm... not even really sure how you could derive an intention to shoot all the crazies from that sentence. I'm am a Gun Lover, and Advocate of the right to bear / own arms, but I'm not a frothing NRA Nut. I don't think we should shoot them. I don't think we should shoot a lot of people.

Let's break the line down:

Is it tragic?
It's tragic that her life was taken. It's Tragic that someone died. It's tragic that according to media reports today, she had become delusional. It's tragic that this woman's mind had deteriorated to this point. It's tragic that she was able to get in a car, with her 1 year old child, and attempt to do... whatever it was that she was going to do. She believed that the government was doing bad things to her. That's tragic too.

It's tragic that she was gunned down. It's tragic that she never had the chance to truly get the help that she needed.


2.) Is she a victim?
She is a victim of a HORRIBLE standard of Mental Health Care provided in this country. Don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way. The severely mentally ill people in this country are really receiving substandard care in every way, unless they can afford to pay for private practicing medical professionals. My wife worked 8 years at a Mental Health Center. I've seen, and debated, the level of care that some of them were receiving. It's abysmal.

She is also a victim, of the popular demands of the country. It's tragic that she was shot, and that her life was taken. But, we as a society, as citizens of the United States, really have no one to blame for that except ourselves. We wanted a "safer" country, where 9/11 type mass terror doesn't happen. In the process, some pretty fucking tragic things are going to happen in situations that they shouldn't have happened in. This is what we DEMANDED when we told the government we wanted a safer country.

When you train your protective force to treat everything as though it is a terrorist type situation (which is the deal in a place like D.C.), you are going to end up with a protective force that? Treats everything like a terrorist situation.

3.) Is She innocent?
Mentally Ill, or Not, she is guilty of multiple criminal offenses. Inciting Panic, Fleeing and Eluding, Assaulting a Police Officer, Hit/Skip, and if they wanted to get really serious, Attempted Unlawful Entry into a Protected Zone. Yes, that's a real charge in DC. It was a charge that a drunk Marine I know was charged with for trying to scale a fence to Piss on a government building.

Mental Illness, is a defense in this case. And as such, I don't think that (if she would have been able to go to trial), she should have been incarcerated in a prison, and left to rot. Just going off the few more in depth articles I found today, she needed In Patient Care, to at least get a handle on, and begin to manage a very tough Mental Health Diagnosis. Prescription Drugs used to treat Schizophrenia aren't handed out for "lesser" illnesses. For a comparison, you wouldn't give someone with the Flu Chemotherapy. Similar thing here. You wouldn't give someone with ADHD these meds. MAYBE BiPolar disorder. MAYBE. But then, most BiPolar Disorder sufferers, don't get manic to a point where you would go on this type of "thing".

[FireIceTalon]

I didn't edit anything, I posted the information as I got it. As for her trying to actually break into the Capitol Building, is this what really happened, or how news media is reporting it? No matter how you slice it, the cops fired on an unarmed person, and killed her even if she was crazy. Just because it happened to be in a government area doesn't justify this. It just further shows how we view the disabled and mentally ill in this country. But this whole ordeal shows a few other things also: firstly, that we continue to have the attitude that a suspect must always be armed until it is revealed they are not - its based on a shoot first ask questions later mentality. Second, while 9/10 out of times is a bit stretch, this IS in general, how police respond to these kind of situations. And third, it really shows the medias ignorance (or selective reporting) outside of gentrified areas unless it is a mass shooting or something.

As for the government shutdown, not sure how shutting the government down is turning against the Tea Party. That's what these crackpots have wanted all along, and they finally got it. Boehner isn't a Tea Partier but he certainly panders to them, as most of the GOP these days does.

As for the whole Obamacare thing, I've come to the conclusion that it has two purposes. Firstly, it is basically useless w/o the public option, and how or why the GOP thinks it is even remotely "socialist" is beyond me since much of the bill was proposed by the insurance companies anyway. But it is a political tactic used by the far right not just to discredit the Obama Administration, but to further demonize and portray Socialism as something that it is not. Which is why half the brain dead populace thinks Obama is a Marxist and thinks we are already living under socialism. I'm not sure how many people I've encountered where I had to explain to them why Obama is not a Marxist or socialist, and why we are not living under socialism, but its been quite a few. The GOP and the ruling class in general knows capitalism is failing big time, and that their shoddy system is on the brink. The denouncement of Obamacare is a fear mongering tactic to try confuse people ideologically. Its just an extension of the same crappy Cold War and Mccarthy era politics, and the current GOP, especially the Tea Party is the current incarnation of that. Of course, I'm not defending Obamacare, because it became useless the minute the public option was gutted.

Secondly, as a more short-term political goal, it is simply to keep the healthcare industry in private hands, and the bill was butchered to the point that people will look back on this as a failure since it is really just a giveaway to the insurance companies and what is more, is that is mandated by law. As a result, it will become much more difficult if not impossible for America to ever get a universal healthcare system because of this whole fiasco. The GOP only wants rich people to have healthcare, not the average joe. It's that simple.

[shoju]

If you don't think your original post is a misrepresentation through editing, I don't know what to tell you.

They aren't turning on them by shutting down the government. They are turning on them now, after the fact, after they realized that the little hissy fit isn't changing things. Read some news. Every Day since Monday, you hear more and more GOPers who realize that they are part of the orchestra in Titanic, and they're scrambling for life boats.

[FireIceTalon]

I dont think, I know. But regardless, you have your interpretation of what went down and what the bottomline is, and I have mine. We are coming from two very different places, I'll just leave it at that.

So now they are just realizing how idiotic this is? Well gee, I could have told them that back in 2010 when they wanted to do it then. But honestly, I think a lot of them are getting off on this anyway - it is just another way for them to wage their class war on the poor.

[Jester]

I dont think, I know.

Succinctly put.

-Jester

[FireIceTalon]

I think you know what I meant....

Fuck I want to move to Canada

I wouldn't mind moving there except the climate.

Somewhere in Europe would be good for me, maybe I'll move to the Netherlands and pay eppie a visit. Buy him a drink and shoot some pool, and talk politics

But in all seriousness, that is one thing me and Shoju agree on - American politics is a complete theater, and while it may seem hilarious at first, its hilarious because its hilariously BAD. At least in Europe, they have a leftist culture there and I'd fit in much better. Unlike here in the US, where if you are a Leftist, you are treated like a 3-headed leper with AIDS.

[shoju]

Man, I hate agreeing with FIT about anything, but he's right. The Political climate in the US is dreadfully, comedic-ly, terrible. It's a running meme inducing, face palming, bad joke.

Honestly, if I could move anywhere, it'd be the Falkland Islands. Though... From reading about it, I'm not sure their internet standards would meet my needs. But everything else works.

I mean... Boehner just comes out and says: 'This isn't some Damn game!", and blaming the other side of the aisle, all the while looking like he's a pin drop away from tears, and then saying things like:

The American people don't want their government shut down and neither do I,
Are you sure you don't? I mean. All you have to do, is retrieve your nuts from the box on the Tea Party shelf, put them on, and call for a vote on a clean bill. With the backbiting and infighting within the party right now, everyone watching the situation knows that the votes to do it without the InsaniTea Party are there.

Personally? I hope all of the "popular funding" options fail. Those aren't done for any reason other than to save face. "oooooh can't have the Veterans mad at us!" "oooooh can't make it look like we don't want people to visit National Parks". Don't fund things to save face. Fund it all, without trying to hold the nation hostage because of a fight you lost 2 years ago, and can't give up on.

[Jester]

Don't fund things to save face. Fund it all, without trying to hold the nation hostage because of a fight you lost 2 years ago, and can't give up on.

Surrender, and the Tea Party swallows you whole.

Would this be a good time to plug shortest splitline, or some equally mathy solution to the gerrymandering problem? Because that's what's driving this, in the end. If the largest threat a politician faces is a primary, then they'll move towards their party's extreme wing. Compromise becomes surrender, and appeal to middle-of-the-road or swing voters becomes irrelevant.

-Jester

[FireIceTalon]

Well, the "holding the nation hostage" thing is all part of their class war against poor and working people though. They know it is that demographic that will be most affected, and the same demographic that the Dems ostensibly represent (of course they really don't, but thats another topic). The GOP hates the working class and the poor - to them we are nothing but welfare queens and moochers, so they love this whole ordeal. And then they can try to blame it on the liberals so they look bad to their constituents and vote GOP in the next election, by confusing people ideologically (like calling Obama a Muslim Marxist, or fascist, or that universal healthcare is socialism). Of course in this case, it is probably going to backfire on them. Many people are disillusioned with both parties anyway, but the GOP has moved so far to the right even by American standards. Some of these guys make Reagan look like Marx. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still...

This video here is truly frightening:



I chuckled a little bit at the Czars part, but man.....the false consciousness here is uncanny.

Jesus doesn't exist. Class struggle however, most certainly does. Yet these folk would tell you the very opposite.

[kandrathe]

With the backbiting and infighting within the party right now, everyone watching the situation knows that the votes to do it without the InsaniTea Party are there.

It's about 30 house members which even Krauthammer calls the "suicide caucus"... But, then there is a bunch of Republicans who are afraid of breaking ranks for primary reasons, and then a group who are going along with them. At some point, though, I suspect the 30 in the "suicide caucus" will be out there on their own.

Reid might win if the Republican's blink here, but what if they don't? The democrats may not want to negotiate with terrorists, that is until the shutdown becomes akin to shooting the hostages, and then maybe not until they get to someone you really care about.

[DeeBye]

This video here is truly frightening:

I had to stop watching that when I saw the sign "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy". Is this really the Tea Party base that the republicans need to appease?

[FireIceTalon]

Yea. And what makes this even more scary, is that this particular crowd are actually lightweights compared to what you will see at some of their other rallies.

Here, more than anything they just demonstrated how ignorant and misinformed they are of politics and history. But in some other demonstrations they are downright angry, racist and bigoted.

However when I see videos like this, I become sort of torn. On one hand as a communist, I absolutely despise their politics and view of the world - because it is the complete opposite of everything any leftist believes in or stands for. On other hand, I feel bad for some them...because many are working class people that are just greatly misguided, frustrated, and ideologically confused. Capitalism is rough on all working people - whether they hold revolutionary views or reactionary views.

[kandrathe]

Is this really the Tea Party base that the republicans need to appease?

No more than this;



represents the extreme of the opposite side.

[DeeBye]

No more than this;



represents the extreme of the opposite side.

What am I looking at here? Am I supposed to be focusing on the guys in berets and saggy jackets, the pregnant lady drinking a milkshake, or the "Guild House West" sign?

[eppie]

Mental Illness, is a defense in this case. And as such, I don't think that (if she would have been able to go to trial), she should have been incarcerated in a prison, and left to rot. Just going off the few more in depth articles I found today, she needed In Patient Care, to at least get a handle on, and begin to manage a very tough Mental Health Diagnosis. Prescription Drugs used to treat Schizophrenia aren't handed out for "lesser" illnesses. For a comparison, you wouldn't give someone with the Flu Chemotherapy. Similar thing here. You wouldn't give someone with ADHD these meds. MAYBE BiPolar disorder. MAYBE. But then, most BiPolar Disorder sufferers, don't get manic to a point where you would go on this type of "thing".

@shoju and jester

Of course i understand what you are saying and I understand the hectics of the situation but what I am trying to say is that this is all caused by a whole series of bad organization in a country.
-overemphasis on fear of terrorism and on violence as the solution
-no organized help for people with psychological issues eventhough everyone knows that therapy works much better for a society as a whole than just waiting before one of the people hurts himself or others.
-too much power to relatively untrained police officers (you don't get into too much trouble if you kill someone in the line of duty compared to western europe for example).
etc.

For this reason the reaction of the congressmen FIT posted are indeed to get sick from.

[Jester]

No more than this [Pic of a couple Black Panthers hanging around outside of a shop]

Because you see Democratic congresspeople trembling in fear of being primaried by the Black Panthers?

-Jester

Afterthought: Want some fun times? Google the URL of that picture. Null points for guessing their affiliations...

[FireIceTalon]

For this reason the reaction of the congressmen FIT posted are indeed to get sick from.

I think that was what made the whole thing all the more disturbing. The fact they are so quick to celebrate the death of another human being is really eerie. But then again, they indirectly kill hundreds if not thousands everyday, so it is nothing to them.

Also the point you made on terrorism. The US has become so hell bent on stopping it, that they now ENGAGE in it on a regular basis. Though they have and still do engage in oppression against racial minorities, women, gays/lesbians, the poor, leftists, and others they see as a threat to American values can also be argued as being a form of terrorism which has been going on long before and after 9-11.