Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
"oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood"
I understand what you're trying to say and I agree with that, but this is actually different. This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. It's the state literally disallowing people talking to each other. It's Orwellian: "we don't like what you're talking about, so we're going to make you completely unable to"
It's not the 80s or 90s anymore. The internet is rhe global backbone of how people communicate with each other. Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression.
I didn't miss that and I'm not sure what argument you're making. It sounds like you're trying to say that state censorship is conditional, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to make your case.
I still don't understand the justification. Not trying to be difficult, I just don't see where you're going with this. Can you explain your point of view in plain terms?
I'm not really interested in doing that. My question was asked firstly to give you an opportunity to explain your perspective around what I saw to be a not obvious claim and secondly to bring light to the fact that you can't explain it (if that happens to be the case as it seems here).
The opportunity for you to explain it is an opportunity to exonerate your point of view. You don't have to take it.
You are essentially saying “The enemies of a government seek to undermine it so let’s stop people from talking to each other.”
I mean how is that logic different from what Stalin did during the Soviet Union? “The capitalists want to overthrow us, let’s deploy the totalitarian surveillance state to control and monitor the people to stop them from rising up”.
And how is any of this logic compatible with democracy or human liberty?
The use of an external threat to justify internal suppression of basic human freedoms such as the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech naturally includes the ability to communicate with others. When the government blocks people from communicating with each other using an external threat as an excuse that is Orwellian.
It is Orwellian because in George Orwell’s novel 1984 the 3 governments remaining in the world are at war with each other and each government uses the threat of the others for total surveillance and suppression of their own populations.
US also censors information and also cancel and ban free speech. Of course US is a lot more subtle as it’s not the government directly controlling media but a group of very influential and wealthy people that usually have the interest of the capitalist class.
As person who was in blackout in Jan 2022 in Kazakhstan, I’ll say it’s very unpleasant situation when you known that some people go into protests. Some security service building was looted of arms. Police nowhere to be seen. No communications and you don’t know if should you do some limited self protection available in form of running or not. So even if government control what they say, it does not control your ability to find out what’s going on via other people. That’s big deal for your physical security and wellbeing
The US does this a bit, but even with that suppression of free speech, even with most mass media outlets being owned by oligarchs that are subservient to the President, the internet is still going. Europe has penalties for Nazi speech, yet the internet is still going there.
There's no comparison to what's going on in these countries to what's going on in Iran. Trying to "what about" with the US censorship of, say, the majority political opinion in a city by cutting off all federal funds that were previously flowing to the city is not very relevant. Yes, it's bad, but here we are talking about it on the Internet!
Every actor have it’s own means and tools, Iranian regime is weak and don’t have the capability to stop foreign influence effectively as US or China and other state so they use the crude methods at their disposal.
If US government was in weaker state it would take more radical measures.
> from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)
I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life
Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.
> even tech articles have become partisan
True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
If you're talking about Chavez, I'd disagree quite strongly. But even Maduro had his western-based supporters, at least in the early years; for example this op-ed in the Guardian:
"Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected government – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence."
> by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence."
Side note: The self contradiction in adjacent sentences is so funny to me! It says a lot about the lack of mental coherency of the author and of the intended audience.
But I'm not 100% sure I follow your point, this is an editorial from way back in 2014, from a UK site not a US site. Though this could be published in the Guardian, I don't think a supporter of Maduro's government would get any TV time.
Search long enough and you will find supporters and detractors of all governments in the US, and openly doing it, because that's what the US's principles are supposed to allow. I remember in SF a political group which is half-mainstream, the DSA, starting a Maoist reading group, which caused a local uproar. That's particularly notable in SF, a city that has a very large Chinese population, with many of the families in SF to flee Mao himself!
The original assertion was that the US had one voice, without any opposition, in its media. While the viewpoints that make it into the mainstream media are somewhat narrow, you can find nearly every viewpoint somewhere on the Internet in the US.
> I think they would machine gun them even with internet, it's more about stopping them from organising.
Yes, but cutting off internet access to the entire country typically makes machine gunning much more efficient (due to organizing being made much more difficult for the people) and much less costly in terms of the global outcry and reputation.
They did just after the protest started, and there is no evidence that's actually happening but it's kind of the point since we are not receiving information from Iran since the government blocked them out from the internet
There are alternative explanations. For example, foreign agents may have been using Starlink, and the security services may have used the shutdown to find the Starlink terminals.
Wow, are there actually people on here shilling for the Iranian government? Recent reports have as many as 12,000 Iranian civilians gunned down by their own government during this blackout.
FWIW, your comment is untrue, and against HN rules.
People are allowed to have different opinions here, such as not supporting genocide or not believing western propaganda regarding yet another government overthrow.
FWIW, your comment is untrue, and against HN rules.
People are allowed to have different opinions here, such as not supporting genocide or not believing western propaganda regarding yet another government overthrow.
They are attempting to find the Starlink terminals so they can machine gun protesters without accountability or documentation, not because they have a regulatory issue with SpaceX.
This is the third uprising. They have so far followed the same recipe. People raise up. Internet is turned off. People are arrested and killed by the authorities. They are using the death penalty to teach the Iranians that raising up will get you killed.
While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
I wouldn't know why they are burning things. I suppose they burn the religion of peace symbols of their oppressors.
I imagine that Israel supports a regime change in Iran, but I don't think that they can run this on their own. They probably support whatever goes on with covert agents.
Since little gets out of Iran let's not speculate any more. :)
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
Want to be more specific about your argument? I’d consider a government good if it is serves the people of that country. “Iran murders and tortures it citizens by the thousands, and impoverishes them by the millions through widespread corruption, but they sold some drones to Russia, so that’s nice.” Is that your argument?
People don't do politics anymore, they get their priorities the other way around (geopolitics before the politics of their own house, workplace or city), and the little they do is heavily misplaced (online instead of physically demonstrating).
On top of that add the huge boom of data in politics. No politician anymore has programs or language aiming at representing most of the voters, but it only focuses to get 50%+1, which in practice means that most politicians aim for the majority of the swing voters.
Is politics that thing where I vote every 2-4 years and maybe volunteer for the DNC or send some money to a presidential candidate, and spend thousands of hours passively consuming election and news content? That's what I learned growing up but it doesn't seem to be working. :shrug: /s
The problem with other freedom-loving nations, the EU, etc is that they're a bunch of cowards and I feel like America is the only place that can stand up to the regimes like Iran/China. Who else if not US?
That's probably quite unfair. The EU nations don't have huge militaries that allow them to project force around the world. And they used to. They didn't just become cowards after WWII. Europe was reshaped by wars, and by American policy, and then yes they sat on their laurels for too long after the cold war when it came to defense spending.
Nobody has stood up against China really. Nearly the whole world, including the US, went along with the one China policy for the sake of money.
I kind of agree with you but it's more complicated with the UK as Iran used to have a democratic government but in 1953 it was
>...overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6). A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran...(wikipedia)
> that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
If you think American news is weird, you should try reading Chinese news. English ones like China Daily or globaltimes.cn, I would read it a lot when I was in China since American news sources were blocked.
It has gotten better since 2002, but is still pretty bizarre in how they frame conflicts. Forget CNN-level bias, they have FoxNews-level bias in how they do the news.
Iran controls a string of proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and other places. Are you sure you're not forgetting that piece? When you write that we had 80 years of relatively peaceful times, you're glossing over that fact.
We haven't had a major conflict in 80 years. Little skirmishes all over the place, sure, but we've forgotten that significant wars between major powers used to be both terrible for everyone involved and also common. Our grandparents after WW2 decided to go a different path and created a largely rules- and trade- based international order that has largely kept the peace. We don't realize how good we've had it.
Absolutely, there's been no major conflict like this since WW2. The strategy shifted to proxy controlled damage in places not US, not Russia, not China, but the weaker states where there was some incentive for control (resources, geography, political alliance, etc). While not a big state (not since centuries), Iran was a proxy controller with the capacity to cause mayhem.
When thinking about an entire country, "good/bad" doesn't make sense as a category. In Iran, the people are protesting and holy hell are there a ton of people risking their lives for the chance for a better life with less oppression, without hyperinflation, with some sort of voice in their own governance. The ruling class can not be conflated with the populace. The populace can not be conflated with the populace for that matter, there's no "one" thing even under a shared culture. This is also true in the US, you can't conflate the ruling class with the people in the streets ringing bells and blowing horns and risking their lives and freedom against a tyrannical government seeking to arrest millions of people and deport some of them.
Nothing is completely free of politics, much less the existence of the Internet, and it's incredibly important to realize the impact that technology has on the fabric of society.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours,
This is not even remotely close to the meaning or impact of the site that's linked. It's about the dignity of life, the gunning down of thousands of people by their government, and the governments attempts to continue oppression by hiding their actions behind a veil. Your comment viewed in its most positive light is crass, more realistically is heartless and cruel.
My guess: you're commenting on the US from a Russified country, or from China? That's the only perspective on the world that I can imagine generating your statements, and if I'm wrong I'd love to know.
no, actually not, maybe a country that isnt very pro America given you're threatening to invade to take ownership of Greenland. But again in my post, the actual loss of life etc is very sad and shouldn't happen, but my point was more tech was one area where politics were left at the door and maybe I'm old but its sad I guess to see it here too.
Aha, that country also makes sense, and is an understandable response too. The US is in very deep trouble internationally. We in the US have been swimming against this madness for so long that it's almost refreshing to see somebody have an appropriate response. A good 1/3 of the country in the US is stark-raving mad and addicted to disinformation and forcing it on others.
I guess I've never seen tech as disconnected at all from politics, even on HN, and perhaps especially on HN, as the intersection of tech and politics has been a discussion point as long as I can remember.
Even classic programmer sci-fi, like Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon, is highly political, and largely about the political effects of technology on society.
>rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media...at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I'm not sure if you meant to imply that there was a uniform media response of "look how great we are" vis-a-vis the abduction of Maduro? If you did, I have to disagree. A significant amount of US media time was dedicated to how not-great this was.
The US media is full of propaganda. I am not disputing that. All I am saying is that the response to the Maduro abduction was not a uniform "This is great!"
Quite a lot of recent fighting is against that. Russia tried the might is right thing to take over Ukraine but is being fought back by an assortment of democracies. Maduro was looking like dictator for life backed by Russia and Cuba but got taken out partly due to years of protest by Venezuelans. Syria was also a Russian backed dictator overthrown by the locals. Iran looks similar - we'll have to see how it works out. Invading Greenland wouldn't be good.
One of the weaknesses of the post WW2 peace is there was limited support for democracy. I don't know if that could change a bit these days?
Iran's elections 75 years ago were about as democratic as North Korea's. They were just theater. Everyone was involved in rigging, candidates, the monarchy, foreign nations, etc., Mosaddegh included.
And peace and tranquility? Iran was in economic chaos before the PM was dismissed in 1953. They were printing money to pay salaries because the British refused to transport their oil, cutting off their main source of income.
When you look at it, you do notice how much of what is happening in that region was due to western (particularly British) intervention and colonialism, and continues to this day.
If you look at the history on Wikipedia there have been invasions and the like going back way before the Brits got in there. Eg.
>the clash between the kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar in 525 displayed a higher power struggle between Byzantium and Persia for control of the Red Sea trade. Territorial wars soon became common...
What is your point again? Why are you listing iranian domestic problems when we are talking about foreign policy. There are lots of failing countries all around the world and most of them don't hate America because the CIA didnt coup their popular leader.
Iran wasn't in era of peace and tranquility 75 years ago.
The PM was not popular in 1953 after his promise of prosperity after seizing British oil fields not only failed to materialize, but instead led to the oil industry grinding to a halt; his failed half-hearted land reforms pissed off pretty much everyone; he jailed his political enemies; and was ruling Iran as a dictator.
It's unfortunate that Iran's propaganda around Mossadegh has been so effective at rewriting history, but people just like simplistic stories about good vs. evil.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
You are not looking too hard at all. There are lots of dissenting opinions, in fact I'd wager that if you excluded official government mouthpieces, the lion's share of opinion (both private individuals as well as established media) is trending to open criticality of the US government's choices.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda
I almost feel bad for the established old school media companies. One side says they are spewing propaganda, the other side says they're ignoring it altogether. Both cannot be simultaneously true.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood
This is probably the most stupid thing I have ever read on hackernews.
Were you and family and friends and heighbors being gunned down by your own military during those days?
They cut communication systems for 3 reasons:
1 - So the world outside doesn't get to see the scale of their crimes against humanity.
2 - So the rest of Iranian nation doesn't get to see how "their government" [sic, actually a terrorist cult with deep Arab tendecies] is treating their fellow Iranians, lest they too pour into streets.
3 - So their deeply compromised cadres don't leave tracks for Israel to give them the Nasrullah treatment.
> the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life
You are sad. Nothing "sad" about the valiant Iranian Nation fighting for freedom. Now go play with your whatever ...
> but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece
Really? As a naturalized American I see diversity in the USA's media. Do you have an example?
From what I see, there are two big voices in the media politically.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
Again, we need an example. I see the official line from the current party in power, and the counter arguements from the mainstream media as a whole. The current party only has a media output from very few mainstream sources.
that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I mean... I guess it depends on what you consider "the media"? I certainly don't consume any media that reacted with anything but shock and horror. With CBS under attack I suppose that's fragile, but I think it's important to appreciate the freedoms we do still have. When people say "all the media in AUTHORITARIAN_STATE supports the federal government on IMPORTANT_THING", they don't mean "a plurality of popular TV networks" -- they mean all.
oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood
...I think you're coming from a good place, but you're failing to grasp the seriousness of a nation state shutting down telecommunications. Besides the immense power it shows, it also implies a level of desperation and/or severity-of-intent.
It's very, very different than a nation losing access to the internet because of technical issues (or, in your case, because it wasn't invented/popularized yet).
Have you been on the Internet as an adult ever? Have you been on X? What about Facebook? America is "one mouthpiece"? This is one of the most puzzling takes I've ever seen.
Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.
Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
>does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
Depending on your perspective, 'might is right' never changed. The US has forced its policies on other nations through quiet force for a long time. I think the only thing that's changed is that Trump wants to say the quiet part out loud now which makes it way easier to push back on. Combine that with the fact that Trump has 0 political ambitions outside of just being in power and it becomes very easy to just ignore what you hear coming from the top. Often it clearly has no thought put behind it, seems vindictive in nature, and is forgotten the next day, like a child's tantrum. To circle back a little, now that the US in such a passive state due to this, a lot of other countries feel safer to push their influence on the world because they see no repercussions for what others are doing.
WTF, it's like if you don't understand why internet was blocked there or what is happening right now in Iran. Or like if you are a propagandist for IRCG
Government cutting internet access to 90m ppl while killing protesters in the streets and “growing up without internet” is not even remotely comparable lmao.
You are on the wests side or you are not. If you live in the west I hope you appreciate it.
The people of Iran are protesting due to horrible economics and infrastructure of the country. They dont even have water anymore. Yes, some nations are better to live in than others.
your comment sounds alot like nationalist chest thumping, the reason they were unable to do much with their oil is much more related to the usa deciding they would sanction the country meaning basically worldwide they can't sell the oil
looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy.
still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
1400 years ? it was a creation of the second world war, but anyway regarding neighbors you mean other than bombing iran, syria, yemen, lebanon I believe in all these cases israel attacked first and thats in the past 12months. I think your point was meant to be more that Israel has a right to defend its self and I think most people and countries would back Israel in that right if the response had been proportionate. instead theyve killed record numbers of journalists(worst in history), 70% of the dead are women and children (tried adding links but doesnt seem to let me), more than a thousand are dead due to starvation directly caused by Israel, this isn't how wars are fought.
1400 years ? it was a creation of the second world war, but anyway regarding neighbors you mean other than bombing iran, syria, yemen, lebanon I believe in all these cases israel attacked first and thats in the past 12months. I think your point was meant to be more that Israel has a right to defend its self and I think most people and countries would back Israel in that right if the response had been proportionate. instead theyve killed record numbers of journalists(worst in history https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactiv...), 70% of the dead are women and children (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5wel11pgdo), more than a thousand are dead due to starvation directly caused by Israel, this isn't how wars are fought.
The modern state of Israel with its present borders were a creation of the Second World War. But if you go back in time to ~1000 BC, Jewish people occupied the entire region (much broader than just Israel), and they are the only surviving indigenous people of the region. This isn’t even controversial. Virtually all historians and scholars acknowledge this because there is literal physical evidence in the buildings at Temple Mount and elsewhere, which are all dated back to that time.
You will probably also like to know that the plans for a modern Israel started long before WW2 and Holocaust, and originally not because of persecution of Jews by Europeans in Europe but because of persecution of Jews by Arabs in the middle East.
think its a Europe thing, we have the same solution in Denmark. Chip and Pin has been in Europe forever I don't think the US has moved to this yet (although happy to be wrong) and also believe they still like those bouncy checks that has sort of died elsewhere.
UK Banks like Barclays also had the small electronic credit card sized device from around 2011 or so (and now use the Mobile app for that), but other UK banks like Halifax are still doing passwords (they even have a limit of 18 chars) and just ask you for random characters of memorable words, so there's a big inconsistency even within a single country.
The reality is that countries like spain have come out and said they need to move closer to China as USA is not a stable trading partner, within 24hrs of this Trump has back tracked, I'm sure MAGA will say this is all part of the mega master plan but at least to me its more the realisation this was turning into a car crash and he still has a window to somehow in trumps mind blame it all on the chinese
daily stories coming from the US are pretty crazy, FBI being used as a tool to try and revert something from under the previous administration. Feels like whatever balances and checks that should be in place to stop an autocracy are missing
Just because you are unhappy with how things are being governed doesn't mean democracy is failing, etc. We just had an election, and the current administration won. Midterms are just around the corner. This is exactly how things are supposed to work.
Congress voluntarily giving up its powers to the executive branch [0] (unfortunately not new, but worsening), isn't exactly Democracy failing, but it's certainly a breakdown of the system of checks and balances upon which our Federal government was conceived, and is most definitely not "how things are supposed to work".
Your particular article lays out exactly how Congress is approving (ie. balancing) the Executive branch's actions. Which means yes, working as intended. You just happen to disapprove.
Majority of the other things people are freaking out about were done via Executive Order, and therefore can be undone by Executive Order.
Smart people have been warning about that for nearly two decades. Now that some people happen to not like what's being undone, it's suddenly a crisis.
You can read the article - it literally lays out how Congress has approved these actions.
The story is written with a specific slant on purpose. "House Republicans Block..." then later admits Republicans control the House which means this is working exactly as intended. Again, you just aren't happy with the results.
Vote in the midterms if you're so upset. Otherwise, business as usual.
Ok, so this comment makes it seem that you think it is not possible for Congress to undermine the system of checks and balances, since anything congress does, is, by definition, something that Congress has approved, and therefore, it's the system working as intended. That is a truly baffling view.
I'm honestly not sure how you can read that article and see it as Congress balancing the executive branch. Blocking future ability to do something is not the same thing as "approving" or "balancing" executive power. The fact that Republicans are claiming that this is a good balance of power doesn't mean it is. This was a vote by congress, to restrict congress's ability to act in the future. That is not the way the system is designed to work.
As my very first comment pointed out, no this isn't new. And it's bad every time. It's always been bad, it continues to be bad. This is just one of the more naked and egregious cases. But no, not new.
He's literally dissolving, dismantling, and undermining the systems that you're claiming are "working". And federal judges are deciding cases along strict party lines, which is a pretty clear demonstration that they're utterly ignoring the actual written words of the law. And Congress has completely given away their intended control of federal spending. So let's cut the shit. You like Trump and you want this to continue. Don't lie to me and tell me you believe one single word of the mental diarrhea that you just wrote.
It's like we're standing on the street watching a building burn down and you're saying "look the sprinklers are on, this is how it's supposed to happen". No one is stupid enough to say what you're saying and actually believe it. So clearly you're just lying.
> The check and balances in the country won’t work if half the population wants to replace democracy with theocracy.
It looks like this entire nonsense is heavily going to hurt the wallets of more than half of the population. So why would they be so keen to vote for a theocracy?
Although at this stage I also wouldn't put it past the clowns in power to actively tamper with elections to get the results they want.
Republicans are the right wing party, Democrats are the conservative. That's why their response is to uphold the status quo and existing power structures while they do ineffective, ceremonial, wonky frittering around the edges.
Their progressive policies were adopted after Fortune 500 and major institutions had changed theirs.
Whether it be climate change or gay marriage, established companies like Goldman Sachs and Amazon were there first and the Democrats followed because they desperately align themselves with the status-quo regardless of where it is.
Just scroll through the Google News result for "Democrats". People scratch their heads because they assume they're supposed to be oppositional as opposed to institutional.
Once you understand they're the party of establishment, status quo and hegemony, there's literally no more confusion on their motivations or lack of action.
A president can revert an executive order from the previous administration. But the Inflation Reduction Act is a law, not an executive order. If Trump doesn't like it, he can get Congress to repeal it. But he isn't the king. The constitution requires that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". It isn't fraud when funds that were allocated by the act were distributed according to the act. If someone cheated then by all means they can bring charges if they have any evidence, which they apparently do not.
the problem is there has to be credible enforcement. Either a credible threat of impeachment, or a separate branch of Us Marshals that works directly for the judiciary or something.
Em. Deportations increased substantially under Biden.
That said, laws generally permit some leeway to the executive to set spending priorities/focus. It can be pretty limited since Congress tends to specify what department and sometimes program money must be spent on, but it still it allows for things like deciding you're going to prosecute more drug dealers even though they're long shot cases rather than easier to win fraud causes. This is done at all levels of government.
Shifting spending priorities as the law allows, though, is rather different from actively breaking the law.
Didn’t you hear from Fox News that all CBP officers were instructed to stand back and stand by while illegals waltzed into our country to commit crime?? They literally played solitaire on their phones for 4 years straight. /s
Back the Blue apparently includes demonizing their daily effort to process asylees, rescue families in danger, and arrest gang-affiliated criminals, all while forgetting that crossing the border illegally is a civil offense akin to a speeding ticket. But now that we are a physical threat to their safety, we supposedly have a secure border.
> to try and revert something from under the previous administration
More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President.
Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress, which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse".
Same legal-vibes as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes.
I hate that I know this, but he probably half remembered this conservative brainworm[1], the reality of which is “recently founded weirdo groups claiming nonprofit status are sketchy, get audited more, and the right has more of them”
genuinely surprised that kafka is something unknown, thought it had gained ubiquitous status similar to k8s but maybe that's me walking into a Baader–Meinhof effect
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
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