Todd Kincannon v Putin

[stickygirl]

I seriously thought this was a bad taste joke on Tumblr - you know hysterical stuff but what the fuck is this all about?

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/10/16/gop-politician-wants-concentration-camps-trans-people/

"If you spend any time on the internet at all (which I’m assuming you do, since you’re reading this article) you’re probably aware of Godwin’s law—if not by name, than by concept. The “law” states that any argument on the internet will eventually lead to someone being compared to Adolf Hitler. Most of the time, comparing a person to Adolf Hitler is immature at best, and scathingly insensitive at worst. But in this case, I think a comparison to Hitler is solidly justified. On Monday, Todd Kincannon, a former South Carolina GOP executive, unleashed a series of tweets saying that he’d like to “round up” transgender people and place them into concentration camps.

On Monday, Todd Kincannon tweeted, “There are people who respect transgender rights. And there are people who think you should all be put in a camp. That’s me.”

I somehow suspect that Mr. Kincannon isn’t referring to summer camps where we’ll get to toast marshmallows and sing “Kumbaya.” The camp he’s imagining probably looks more like Auschwitz than Camp Anawanna. But just in case transgender people and their allies aren’t too eager about being tortured and starved, there’s an alternative. Todd Kincannon later conceded that, if concentration camps aren’t going to work, “mental institutions will do just fine”

 

[haurni]

Ugh. Just... ugh. It never ceases to amaze me how some people can be so hateful.

 

[Missouribiguy]

You kind of sealed the deal when you wrote "GOP".

 

[njlauren]

The GOP has turned into the southern white people's party of hate. Basically, a bunch of people who believe the world should all look like their homogeneous town, full of white people who go to church to hear you should hate gays, atheists or anyone who doesn't believe as they do, and who are convinced that they are the ones who pay for everyone else and get nothing for themselves, etc. Within 10 years the GOP is basically going to be the old Dixiecrat party, everyone else currently part of it will become independent or form a new party, it can't go on like this. Most people in this country don't care about social issues, most of them don't think gay marriage and abortion are the only things of value.......(not to mention of course that these fools in the bible belt are some of the most dependent people on the government around..)

 

[stickygirl]

As an outsider and, I'd like to think, an impartial one I find a number of similarities between Putin's politics and the people in the GOP: they could be kissing cousins. We were all seriously worried in Europe when the McCain/Palin axis of evil become a voting option. How do you stop power & money from corrupting? *shrugs*

 

[njlauren]

The simplest answer is that political systems and systems of power tend to fall into similar patters. Putin has power because he basically put together a network of corrupt, powerful thugs in business (who used to be the corrupt, powerful thugs who ran the USSR) and when you have that, you stay in power. The loony right GOP is fueled by oligarchs like the Koch Brothers and Trevor Norquist, who believe that their wealth was given by God and therefore they have no responsibility to pay taxes. Both Putin and the GOP rely on semi or ill educated people not understanding the issues, and manipulating them with all kinds of propaganda that if they don't support them (i.e the people supporting Putin and the GOP), everything will fall into anarchy, the GOP tells the boobs in the bible belt that the reason they don't have jobs is because corporations and the well off are overtaxed, that the government is spending all this money on people who don't want to work, how they (the boobs) pay all these taxes but get nothing for it, that the government doesn't do anything useful but spend money on 'wasted things' (meanwhile ask these morons where the transister, integrated circuits, fiber optics, computer networking , carbon fiber, etc came from, and they will tell you "the marketplace", which of course is bullshit)....Putin and the GOP also play into the feats of modernity, they pander to the idea that the old days were so much better, and they both have an alliance with right wing, nasty versions of religion. Putin plays into the idea of Russia under siege from Muslims and the west, the GOP plays into the idea that 'they' (non white, non rural citizens) have 'taken over' and 'taken away their America (ya know, the KKK, burning crosses, gay bashing, Jim Crow, the good ole days).

And in the biggest category, that what Putin and the GOP are really doing, is of course they are doing all that to keep in power. The GOP long ago formed this strategy, not based on what is best for the country, but to stay in office, and that has been their MO for the last 40 years. 40 years ago, it was catering to the rednecks down south who were pissed off at the civil rights laws that ended Jim Crow, 30 years ago they went after white, urban and suburban blue collar workers, telling them their jobs disappeared because of affirmative action, and they also came up with the whole culture wars, the anti abortion, anti women, anti gay agenda to bring in the evangelical Christians and other religious freaks. The tea party is a continuation of that, with Obama being the bogeyman, a 'muslim', 'non american', you name it (before some blow hard claims that is crap, polls of tea party self identified people by a large majority believe Obama is a muslim , is not American and is a communist, in that order). The GOP has basically become the party of the white south, who see themselves 'losing', which is true in the sense that demographically, they are going to be in the minority. The GOP has clung to power catering to these people's fears, and thanks to gerrymandering of districts (what in the UK they used to call rotten boroughs, same concept), they have held onto enough house seats to cause problems...

the only good news is the GOP is losing some big demographics, they have lost places like where i live, that used to vote 80% GOP in elections, and in the last one, barely voted a majority for Romney, they have lost people under 40 (whom only about 30% identify as republican), they have lost independent voters, and they are also starting to lose big money people other than loons like the Koch brothers, because their antics are dangerous and stupid when it comes to the budget and such,letting some dumb ass rednecks and jerkwads from texas and the farm belt nearly bring the government to default scares the whole financial and industrial communities, and should scare the farmers and such but they are too stupid to understand the consequences (ironically, Arizona, a hotbed of the tea party morons, tried to sue to get the Grand Canyon, a nation park, opened during the shutdown, whining and complaining that it was killing the tourist business in Arizona...but hey, they get nothing from the government, right? National parks are paid for by national tax dollars, that bring tremendous benefits to Arizona through tourist revenue, but the 'government' does nothing for them *snort*). ..the GOP has been running through a powder magazine with a blow torch, and it is starting to blow up on them. They polled a sampling of people under 30, and among other things, asked them what came to mind when you said "republican", and they came up with terms like mean, stupid, angry, racist, hillbilly and the like...not exactly a good sign for the future.

 

[haurni]

Here are a couple of well-written articles on the evolution of the Republican party and how racism has contributed to it what it is today. And this narrowmindedness with regard to race is clearly associated in the GOP mindset with other forms thereof, such as LGBTQ-phobia, fundamentalism and anti-science thought.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/09/2730651/how-racism-caused-the-shutdown/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/20/race-central-fear-angst-us-right

 

[stickygirl]

Here are a couple of well-written articles on the evolution of the Republican party and how racism has contributed to it what it is today. And this narrowmindedness with regard to race is clearly associated in the GOP mindset with other forms thereof, such as LGBTQ-phobia, fundamentalism and anti-science thought.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/09/2730651/how-racism-caused-the-shutdown/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/20/race-central-fear-angst-us-right

Thanks H - those are a good read. US politics is still a mystery to most people over here, myself included... glad I'm not majoring in Politics ...

 

[haurni]

I'm sure most Republicans - and many others - would say those articles are grossly overstated and that "race has nothing to do with it - it's about values" or some such. Still, I think the fact that the GOP and its supporters are overwhelmingly white, rural, older and southern pretty much says it all.

I'm Canadian, so I don't pretend to understand them either!

 

[BiBunny]

Please don't judge the South by some of the assholes who live there. We're not all that way, I promise!

 

[stickygirl]

Please don't judge the South by some of the assholes who live there. We're not all that way, I promise!

No of course not and I think it's a shame that America still divides itself North / South. Civil war was a while ago huh? In the UK we have people that work in London and the rest of us scum that screw up elections by voting for the wrong people