I was in the Rockies on Jul 4 like over 10 years ago. It was snowing at the higher elevations. Definitely a weird experience to go from snow and then like an hour later (driving back down to Denver/surrounding areas elevation) it’s 90F and you’re at a lake.

But anyway, let me crank up my AC running on fossil fuel-generated electricity and maybe later water my extra dry lawn…

This is the most annoying/frustrating thing about liberals. They think that just repeating a “definition” is the end all be all of the conversation. Call it whatever the fuck you want in any language you want. Placing someone under arrest, handcuffing them, holding them at gunpoint, putting them in a small room for a specific amount of time regardless of any legitimate or illegitimate reasons for doing so is violent.

First day as dictator I would enact the Hitchens Decree ™️ where everyone is polled with a simple yes/no “Is being arrested an inherently violent act?” all the yeses are “pardoned” and all the noes go on a list where any time in the next month they’ll be arrested by police in the most nonviolent way possible, given a night in jail, then re-polled right before release.

Folks. It’s called “re-education”, ok? And we’re gonna do it. We gotta do it. These people, I wouldn’t even call them people really, but these people… they’re sick, folks. Let me tell you. Sick like you wouldn’t believe. We have to help them. We have to, believe me. Believe me. We will help them.

I mean, yeah, eventually

If I’m totally honest, while obviously this shit shouldn’t be allowed, do you trust a corporation to remove Nazi content and not then “both sides” it by removing allllll the “plausibly communist” stuff they can find? Because I don’t trust them. They’d be nuking shit about Stalin or even Lenin.

If the UAW does this, I wonder what the insane overreaction will be from DC

Beyond forcing capitalists to share a few more crumbs of their stolen profits, unions and student led organizations have been the sort of the tip of the spear in past socialist revolutions. Surely this is not a secret to those in Washington and elsewhere. This has to be scaring the shit out of the more historically literate ones.

A lot of westerners, Americans especially, always ask “yeah but can I do?!” This is what you can do. Unionize your workplace or help unionize others. Push for (or be!) radical leadership that seeks to squeeze the owners for every cent they can get. Push the union to take up issues like divestment from Israel. This is how political change that actually matters happened in the past and it can happen again. Workers hold the power, ultimately. Capitalists and their subservient politicians want you to forget that or give up.

Jackson Hinkledink is not on “the left.” He’s the only dipshit along with just open white nationalists, fascists, Nazis etc. like Tucker who “support” Putin

Supporting immediate ceasefire and peace, even if it means redrawing lines on a map, is not “supporting” Putin no matter how many times the warmonger neolibs at MSNBC and CNN scream about it.

If your interests align with the military industrial complex, Fox News, CNN, and the status quo politicians who are all center right wing, you should either accept what you are (the fact you seem hostile to leftists/communists is a GIANT red flag on that front. Anti-communism is just Nazism) or, I dunno, analyze your thoughts and figure out why you think endless death and destruction is necessary to prevent lines from changing. Who told you those lines were important and why do they/you believe that?

If you want to use this tired and boring trope then at least set it up properly

One track is full of millions of people and the other is full of the same.

One track is painted with happy colors and rainbows and one track is painted with skulls and imperial eagles

You’re getting the exact same death and destruction no matter what, but one track is less openly an asshole about it.

If you saw what Biden and his cronies just did to college students for opposing 7 months of ongoing US-funded genocide in the last month or so and still somehow think he’s a lesser evil… I don’t think you understand words. Or you just don’t care. If you don’t value the lives of Palestinians, Yemenis, Iranians, Russians, Ukrainians, whoever, just say it, let everyone know you’re a POS, and move on. Stop coping. Accept what you support and stop hiding behind false thought experiments and shit

Stop yelling at those seeking to better things and yell at the people who told you to hate those who seek better things.

I don’t know how to not fedpost on this topic, but it’s very clear what the fascistic politicians and those too cowardly to stop them are doing.

Pointing out hypocrisy is good rhetorically, but its downside is those with power simply ignore it. They’re not going to stop unless…[insert fedposting]…

Can’t even really type further. [federal sad noises] Greenblat [more federal noises]

Something which never sinks in with liberals (because it might bust their brains, I dunno) is “terrorist” just means “doesn’t align with state interests.” I would also add “and usually non-state actors” but Bibi has been calling Iran a “terror state” so I guess we’re scrapping the state actor part and just going with “they do things opposed to us dominating everything- that’s terrorism!” 2003 all over again.

I have noticed libs jumping over “unpatriotic” as was the claim in 2003ish towards anti war protesters and landing directly on calling them pro-Hamas and pro-terrorist which is just a zero-mask call for state violence on protestors (and they got their wish). I don’t think the more soft-hearted, mostly “well-meaning” liberals have let it sink in yet that if you call someone terrorist you aren’t only being hyperbolic and stupid, you are saying “this person is an enemy of the state and appropriate force must be used to eliminate them… immediately.” That’s just what it means, I’m sorry. They are quite literally saying “kill this guy!” Why? “For being an anti-genocide terrorist!”

DM me that shit

Ah I see they danced around the time Mao sent the volunteer army to fight the imperialist Americans and their fascist Korean puppets beating them back and eventually forcing the stalemate we know today.

Seems like for the Chinese, who had just emerged from a brutal civil war that lasted a long fucking time, forcing the world’s superpower with a military and industrial base fresh out of its WWII peak… would be a point of pride for them.

Well, it is. They made at least two films documenting the time they gave Americans an unimaginable L so big that these sensitive shitters are still coping about it in YouTube comments like 70 years later.

I thought this was all basically totally dropped once it was tied back to that guy in that “totally not the CIA” “totally not a cult” “religious group” Falun Gong shit. Pretty sure those weirdos were behind the “very organic” pro-Hong Kong (whatever that even means. Hong Kong is fine) protests becoming big in the US, helping spread anti-Chinese conspiracies around covid, bunch of shit from laughable to actually life threatening

Well I’m glad my interpretation of life there was accurate, lol. I still intend to visit Bosnia someday and force my buddy to be my translator + tour guide of all the old communist stuff. Gotta try some of the world famous cevapi too. I know there’s an accent on that, but fuck it.

I like how the Nazis always come out to defend the shit material conditions of people compared to the nation’s overall wealth. [putting aside the source of that wealth being exploitation of the third world, mainly]

I have friends in a Balkan country which I won’t name but I’ll say it’s not Croatia and it’s not Albania. Ok, it’s Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The situation there is far from perfect. No shit. But the things Americans have that C “make it better” are not nearly as much as the coping Nazis seem to believe. His family actually owns the apartment they live in, a remnant of Yugoslavian days I believe. How many Americans under like 40 will own a house in their lives if we project forward?

And look, I’m gonna sit here and pretend living outside Sarajevo is a dream location in 2024. It’s plainly not for many reasons most of which draw lines directly back to “the US/EU/NATO fucked some shit up here.” The things my friends struggle to obtain are only limited because of unequal trade, especially from EU countries towards non-EU. The taxes and such for sending things there is crazy. The price of commodities like graphics cards compared to nearby EU states is also crazy. There’s a massive markup for one thing. Like 20-50% in my experience. And additionally the wages, when converted, of an average Bosnian vs let’s say Croatian or German are much lower.

Some things are much cheaper there, compared to US market. It’s been a while since I looked, but pretty sure real estate was cheaper there and food was definitely affordable compared to their income. “Cheap” from a Western European or US outlook.

So really, the only major difference in living standards I could glean from discussions was basically the US has a huge amount more of cheap “treats.” Unfortunately, Americans just so happen to measure “how good” a country is by exactly that metric.

“Can i buy a PlayStation while slobbering my new iPhone in hot wing sauce? Yes? GOOD COUNTRY!”

“PlayStations cost a month’s wage but other basics are affordable to most people within reason? BAD COUNTRY!”

It’s just so infuriating thinking about the squandered and hoarded wealth… which was stolen to begin with. Americans are so cucked into defending the profiteers when the material benefit to normal people isn’t even that much. It’s all worth it to order some gummy bears off Amazon I guess

I call them liberals so much and so instinctively at this point that I legitimately get confused when they get all pissy. We should keep forcing it into common American understanding though.

The term “conservative” as it’s popularly used 1) kinda means nothing (which is perfect for them) so 2) is an ever changing term.

A conservative in 1970 US politics vs now are very different in their approach and thinking… obviously some stuff remains unchanged, but in the 1960s/70s you could still just be like a Strom Thurmond KKK guy openly denouncing integration and rights for black people while serving in the senate until you’re 100 goddamn years old… literally. Richard Nixon signed the EPA into law which today would be off the table even for Obama, I imagine. It would never get to his desk whatever his personal philosophy would be.

So their ideas and way of speaking changes since their only true ideology is something boiled down to “support ‘free markets’” or allow capitalists to exploit labor maximumly and use any wedge issues which are beneficial along the way such as racism, abortion, etc. Maintain US hegemonic dominance around the world through soft and hard power, as required, in service to capital.

On the other hand, ask a hardcore fascist/Nazi or even KKK guy their thoughts in 1960 or today and it’s “we want a separate nation only available for white people…” blah blah blah, all the shit. Their ideology remains the same as always. They believe in racial supremacy of white people, however they break that down, and they want a “pure land” for their chosen race. The more politically savvy ones will swap words around for plausible deniability, but the core ideology is basically the same in the end. They hate communists, they hate non-whites, especially being forced to live around and respect them as humans, they blame all societal ills on non-white minorities and/or non-cis, straight minorities. Same old tale.

On the left, if you filter out the liberals LARPing (gotta similarly filter the more libbed up conservatives from their Nazi compatriots as well), you’ll hear the same arguments that communist-types have had since the 1960s, since the 1920s, and further back. Because it’s rooted in an ideology, so specific arguments of the time period change maybe, wording might change, but fundamentals like labor being the source of all value and thus capitalists having no right to the value created by others… remains core and unchanged.

[this isn’t a “give it to the Nazis for ideological purity” argument, btw, to the liberals in my walls. It’s about political terminology and ties to strongly held ideology which American “liberals” and “conservatives” both share in common. Just about the only thing Nazis can ever coherently express is their hatred for non-white people. Beyond that, good fucking luck finding any sense in their statements and beliefs]

Correction:

One is a boring, sleepy genocidal geriatric

The other is an entertaining genocidal geriatric

Your move, America!

Also I like how libs spend their time downvoting memes here. You guys could just go read your hug box “Joe is good!” memes on the entirety of reddit, twitter, or lemmy minus basically two instances.

I’d be more ok with WWII and Roman history if it was taught with the context or explanation that Nazi Germany modeled its laws and general idea of conquering the east on what the United States had done in its west (and country as a whole). Or that many of the founding fathers were super into Rome and what that means beyond “Rome had a republic!” It was also a fully militarized colonization machine even in its republic time. I mean, Caesar took power after going on a campaign of pure conquest across the entirety of Europe

I guess my point is if they want to focus on those two topics in the US they should also focus on why the US is generally obsessed with them. If they want to teach about Rome, ok, but talk about more than its ideals and more about its martial nature and how it failed to live up to any sort of democratic ideals.

Also the amount of dipshit Americans who think the US was the le epic destroyer of the Nazis and winner of WWII when it was objectively the Soviets is too damn high. Maybe they should teach more WWII history and literally only talk about the eastern front. One because it would enrage the hogs and libs alike, but two because the western front has been talked about ad nauseam. I don’t want to downplay events there, but Jesus Christ, the hell that was unleashed in Eastern Europe by the Nazis is nearly erased from the American memory because it’s brushed over in the history and there’s few media depictions of it. Certainly no Band of Brothers style stuff for the Soviets. (I would love to see that, btw, if it already exists and I’m unaware.) Perhaps a show about the Chinese communists fighting and defeating warlords and fascists in their country. There’s so much media potential purely from a capitalist money making mindset and no one has bothered, to my knowledge. I don’t trust Westerners to do it justice, but it’s basically just ignored and thus forgotten to media obsessed Americans.

Right

I haven’t fully thought this out, but just off the top of my head here: I have to imagine the dual embarrassments of the US being forced into a stalemate against Korea and then Vietnam in part due to “unwillingness” by the public to be fully on board with like full scale wars of annihilation (MacArthur style shit like just nuking the enemies into oblivion) seems to have seriously irked the hawks and they spent all the decades since Vietnam instrumenting an even more robust genocide-friendly media class and politicians who were completely unable to respond to the demands of their constituents but rather the demands of the MIC and thus whatever the CIA or DoD demanded. So by the time the second Iraq War came the protests and demands (which were sizable) from citizens were fully ignored by the media and government. The media manipulation of narratives, downplaying protests, refusal to fairly cover the wars, etc. all allowed for this current environment where there is effectively zero pushback on anything the military types want to do.

I’ve always had a cynical view of the effect of protests on ending US involvement in Vietnam, but I will admit it certainly had an effect of some kind. The antiwar protests for Iraq literally had no effect at all. The antiwar/anti fueling of genocide by Israel protests had basically zero effect for a while (possibly in the last couple months there is some change happening insanely slowly).

Again, haven’t thought all this out, but just thinking back on wars the US has done or facilitated, these hawks have gotten their wishes over time. Maybe that’s why the magazine doesn’t need to exist anymore because I mean… this is literally the uniparty thinking at this point. There aren’t any (or incredibly few) legitimately antiwar liberals left. The argument is never “do not do the war” it’s “how to lessen impact on civilians.” And I don’t know how much that was a legitimate position in the past either, but it did seem to exist in part due to public pressure which the media now and for decades ensures will not happen now or again. Their grasp is only slipping now due to a lot of things but in part more open access to information and a general distrust of all institutions including the media as a whole.

On the surface it sells a false promise

Below the surface it’s telling you “just be a rentseeker. Look down upon those who work for a living.”

Like literally one of the grossest themes is the condescending tone of the rich dad towards workers like the poor dad. He literally considers being a teacher a wasted life because he’s so blinded by greed and pursuit of money (which is freedom and power).

It’s a gross hyper capitalist outlook on the world.

The only things of “educational value” in it are his discussion on assets vs liabilities which, considering likely everyone here lives under capitalism, is worth knowing and understanding, although you absolutely don’t need this book to learn that stuff.

The rest is a mixture of hopium, lies, disgusting myths about capitalism and other shit.

That seems like the most honest assessment of things. I know I tend towards a Soviet/Cuba bias, but the only possible way to see this as anything other than the US just being gigantic assholes and bullies (which is still an understatement) is if you adopt fully xenophobic, racist, whatever else views of the non-US world. That’s why there’s sort of two contradictory (but also not really) paths of domestic US propaganda.

One side focuses on like “we must secure every resource we can and kill everyone who opposes it! ‘Might makes right’, so let’s be mighty!” Hoorah, brother 😎

And the other path is “we don’t like killing people. And yeah, sure, the US has made mistakes. Maybe a lot of mistakes! But we have the right intentions and we must continue to strive towards our stated goals. Anyone who opposes us supports [list of every bad thing that the US probably also does]”

You let people take the koolaid that tastes better to them, just as long as they support the military when, say, concentration camp victims get sick of the shit and do something about it.

I guess time will tell, but I do think the amount of people in both groups is dwindling. People are moving further from “hell yeah, fuck around and find out brother” dipshit thinking to “well, we’ve made mistakes…” and some of those people are moving towards “ok, those weren’t mistakes. I was told a lie and willingly believed that my entire life. And now I’m fucking pissed because my government is actually the evil one.” I don’t want to pretend the furthest group is large, because it’s not, but I can see it growing as people are exposed to constant coverage of Palestine. It becomes harder and nearly impossible to think “this is our best ally? We support this without limitation?”

The issue with a movement towards anti-imperialism, anti-war, anti-supporting wars, etc. is it’s very en vogue right now. It’s been 23 years since that beautiful September day ( ✈️ 🏙️ ). If there’s ever another 9/11 style event, and if one doesn’t organically happen I can bet infinite money the CIA is working on something for decades now, Americans are gonna do exactly what “liberal Zionists” in Israel did on 10/7. Like a light switch go from “we can work together!” to “I am so sorry, friend. I must nuke you.”

But anyway, all that to say, people believe the story they want to make themselves feel good. They never ask why Cuba would want missiles or why the Soviets were involved or even what the Soviet Union was. They don’t ask any questions at all.

That’s probably the hardest part for me to deal with if I ever discuss these things irl. It’s like I can give them an hour long history lesson, and if I’m bothering to do so the person is probably receptive to it, so they go “oh ok.” But the next time something happens, perhaps a pipeline is blown up in Europe, “the fucking Russians!” is the immediate response. It’s as if all the bad things and lies are in the past and can be seen and acknowledged. The future is just truth and justice and everything good. And the present doesn’t exist at all. You close your eyes, and when you open them the future is still bright, and the past of death and lies is longer than ever.