President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

“Sure, the slaves were dragged away in chains from their homeland, stuffed in cargo holds, given little food or water, died by the thousands, or committed suicide. And sure, the survivors were treated as property, whipped and beaten and worked to the bone. But hey, at least the trip across the Atlantic was free!”

 

Florida history standard.

 

Speaking of Ron DeSaster

 

They didn't say the magic words: “Me love you long time.”

 

Probably not Kubrick's finest social moment, but the fake kung fu between Joker and the camera thief kind of softened it.

The ensuing chopper scene where the gunner was yelling "Get some!" between bursts was an iconic moment as well.

 

So many of his early responses have been forgotten, some of which show he took Covid seriously and some show his political pandering and his cruelty towards others. In the very early days, he was quick to set up airport and I-95 checkpoints, trying to prevent the spread in Florida by people traveling from the northeast (he eventually added I-10 checkpoints). While there are issues with this idea, he obviously saw NY was then the center of the pandemic, saw its seriousness and wanted to prevent its community spread. Sticking it to NYers was just icing on the cake to him. When vaccines were first available and quantity quite limited, he made sure early supplies went to The Villages and more were distributed in pop up locations in other heavily R communities, to the exclusion of more D areas. These R counties had high vaccination rates. He protected his base. In contrast, he decided to do a test of distributing vaccines only through Publix, choosing Palm Beach County as the test location. Of course, there aren’t Publix locations in the largely Black communities of western PBC and even in the rest of the county would make accessibility much more difficult in poor areas, that is, heavily Black and Hispanic areas with limited Publix locations. So he protected old white republicans while intentionally devising a vaccine distribution method that would likely result in deaths of people of color. The distribution method did eventually change in PBC, making vaccines more widely available through the county, drug stores etc. I don’t know of any tracking of deaths and illnesses occurring during those early months one had to get to a Publix for vaccination. Anyway, he didn’t become a vaccine denier until he made sure old Rs got theirs.

 

Something less offensive from Kubrick ... at least in this particular context:

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
How tall are you, private?

Private Cowboy:
Sir, five-foot-nine, sir.

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
Five-foot-nine, I didn't know they stacked sh*t that high.

 

Yeah, at least those Confederate soldiers who got killed in the Civil War didn't have to live with Black people after the war. They sure were lucky they got kilt.

 

The line that I had in my head recently in light of all the “We can’t have a woke military” nonsense “There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on ******s, ****s, ***s or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps.”

 

Boot camp was so intense that I never could focus enough to finish the rest of Full Metal Jacket.

 

Amazing what happens when you look at Florida by county.
Those counties with < 40% overall vaccination rates suffered 603 deaths per 100,000 residents per 2019 population estimates.
Counties in which ≥ 60% of the total population got vaccinated suffered 336.51 deaths per 100,000.

 

I always think of this:

Major Tate : Sir, we're not prejudiced toward homosexuals.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace : You just don't want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?
Major Tate : No sir, I don't.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace : 'Cause they impose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.
Major Tate : Yes, sir.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace : That's what I think, too. I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change.
Major Tate : Yes, sir.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace : The problem with that is that's what they were saying about me 50 years ago - blacks shouldn't serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the U.S. Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff... Beat that with a stick.