Blackbeard

Blackbeard , 13 hours ago

If there's any silver lining to this whole "eLeCtIoN iNtEgRiTy1!!!!@" push by the right, it's that a LOT of Republicans are now going to jail and losing their voting privileges. Doesn't make up for the (hundreds of) thousands of voters who are being disenfranchised, but I guess pyrrhic victories are still victories.

Blackbeard , 2 days ago

Here's another truth for you: Like it or not, he's gonna be stuck with Trump again if Biden loses.

Maybe he just doesn't have as much to lose as the rest of us...

Blackbeard , 2 days ago

Make light of it all you will. You'll be strung up on the wall like the rest of us.

Blackbeard , 2 days ago

More like "Macklemore Rich"

Blackbeard , 1 day ago

I can hope a) the Biden camp sees the catastrophic toll of unconditional support for Israel and b) voters see the potentially catastrophic toll of a second Trump presidency at the same time.

Astonishing, I know.

Blackbeard , 1 day ago

Well then good for you that the latter is less of a threat to your health, job, and survival than the former. Must be nice.

Blackbeard , 1 day ago

You'll note that I didn't say he's wrong. Just that the Trump cabal will come after all of us. You should pay close attention to the words people choose in the future.

Blackbeard , 3 days ago

OP doesn't care. OP is here to push a narrative, nuance be damned.

Blackbeard , 8 days ago

Are Americans really that dense?

gestures at OP

Blackbeard , 9 days ago

Speaking of which, as you can see from the poll, “Israel/Palestine” and even climate change also ranked as issues of relatively low importance to young voters. The Middle East may be the exception that proves the rule — even if relatively few people care about it, those who do are obviously extremely passionate about it, and I don’t think people are bluffing when they say it could swing their votes. However, the reporting often treats protests on elite college campuses, or social media posts from articulate activists, as though they’re a proxy for the youth vote overall. Young voters do differ from older ones on some issues, including Israel-Palestine and free speech. But they do not care about these issues nearly as much as they care about more basic stuff like the economy and health care.

That distortion is absolutely magnified on social media, and especially sites like Lemmy and Reddit, which skew left, young, white, and educated. Meanwhile, the rest of the voting populace continues not to give a single shit about the things that rile up activists of any kind. People vote based on what's happening in their wallet and 401(k), full stop.

Blackbeard , 9 days ago

Anybody surprised, what with actual Russian propaganda being spouted in the halls of Congress? These fuckers are so accustomed to the smell of feces they've forgotten they're the ones who shit on the floor.

Blackbeard Mod , 9 days ago

Indeed, and while they might have been initially furious at the snub, this is going to wind up being VERY good for business. Now they have an incredible story to tell, complete with mystery and intrigue that consumers love. Their marketing department must be salivating right now.

Blackbeard Mod , 14 days ago

Yeah his whole tirade is ludicrous and he sounds like an absolute asshat, but someone reportedly vandalized his home, and that's crossing a very big line. He should shut the hell up about whatever he thinks "leftwing fascism" is, and they should stop vandalizing people's homes.

Blackbeard , 14 days ago

I mean, what does "defeat" even mean in the age of nuclear war?

Blackbeard Mod , 15 days ago

"Competition for THEE, not for ME."

Blackbeard , 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

I'd argue this makes him more dangerous. His bullshit isn't constantly broadcast, unfiltered, into the homes of undecided voters like it was when he was President. I think the reason people's memories are warping in real time is because he's only blasting his word vomit at the people who already gargle it like mouthwash. His campaign knows his best chance is for them to run a disciplined campaign where a media vacuum has to be filled with middling journalists collectively wetting themselves about this, that, or the other Biden problem. When shit goes silent, they start circlejerking about things like Biden's age while completely ignoring Trump's, and that kind of myopic obsessiveness actually works in Trump's favor.

Now I'm certainly sensitive to the counter argument that broadcasting Trump in some ways legitimizes his nonsense, and that kind of uncritical naivety is exactly what fueled his campaign in 2016, but in this case him being more isolated and his campaign playing a relatively muted strategy is pretty fucking strongly correlated with his strangely rising popularity. There's something to be said for the fact that almost nobody in this entire country likes the way he behaves, even if they like the things he does for them, and so showing people how he behaves is likely to actually register with them come election day the way it did in 2020.

Blackbeard , 22 days ago

What the hell do you mean by "focusing on the left?" What would it mean to "focus on the right?"

Blackbeard , 23 days ago

They finally changed (or learned) after January 6th. I distinctly remember yelling at my radio that they were allowing Trump's lackeys to repeatedly spew lies, and for the sake of "balance" those lies went essentially unchecked, and they'd hand the interview off to a Democrat who was baited with a leading question about "what you think about the claim that Democrats are running a child prostitution ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant", or something else equally ludicrous. The first time they stopped presenting those lies with "you decide" ambivalence was the Big Lie, which is the first time they started fact-checking in real time.

So yeah, recently they've started figuring out how to push back against obvious bullshit, but during the Trump presidency their coverage was absolutely horrendous, and they were played like a fiddle by Republicans who knew damn well NPR journalists had to take every salacious claim they made at face value, which essentially rewarded them for being as insane as possible and consistently working the Overton window in their favor.

A side note here is that there's a VERY strong difference between American and British journalism, in that Americans put a premium on decorum, and Brits put a premium on counterpoints. Sometimes they can be so direct and probing that it comes off as quite rude, and we can be so polite and courteous that we lay out the red carpet for liars. NPR has traditionally specialized in the "politely ask more questions and eventually you will get to truth" style of journalism, and they're only now starting to lean into a slightly more confrontational style of "no, that's wrong" argumentation. They're not particularly good at it, mind you, but they're kinda getting there.

Blackbeard Mod , 24 days ago

This still allows bolt action for hunting, revolvers and shotguns for defense. That should be plenty. If you’re spraying a dozen+ rounds in your own home for defense you’re more of a danger than an intruder at that point.

I mean, it allows this kind of semi-automatic shotgun, but not this kind of semi-automatic shotgun. Those firearms are functionally indistinguishable, but somehow that little grip thing makes one more deadly than the other. As a lefty hunter and outdoorsman, this kind of bill is absolutely ridiculous security theater that doesn't meaningfully change the risk and/or damage from mass shootings but makes other people feel better, somehow.

Blackbeard Mod , 24 days ago

Yes, that lawful purpose. Self defense. It's not just "any" or "a" lawful purpose. Self defense goes to the very heart of the Heller ruling.

Blackbeard , 29 days ago

Crapo told NBC News on Tuesday that he still has problems with “a number” of provisions. He said he wants to eliminate a “look-back” policy that would let a taxpayer use a previous year’s income if it yielded a larger child tax credit, arguing that the current language weakens the work requirement. Saying the bill would “create entitlement spending that would generate significantly higher deficits,” he called for spending cuts to fund the child tax credit expansion.

Oh, you mean the same Senator Crapo who voted for the Trump tax bill? You know, the one that added $1.9 trillion to our national debt?

Go fuck yourself, Mike.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

And the award for the most depressing and paralyzing thing I've read all year goes to....

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

I'm with you. And anyone who seriously considers that hypothetical should think long and hard about how the rest of the region would respond if we suddenly stopped arming Israel. Imagine what Iran would do on day 1 if they woke up to a headline that said, "US cuts support for Israel."

I see that scenario ending catastrophically.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

I don't disagree, but you're not going to like how the other kids in the school yard handle the situation either.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

I mean, yeah you're absolutely right, but until he comes right out in the open and says "Vote for Democrats instead", it's all just a fucking shell game. The difference in moral fortitude required to say, "hey guys this is some messed up shit" versus "I'm leaving the room until you clean your mess up" is HUGE. He doesn't have to switch parties, but as long as he sits at their table and votes in lockstep with every stupid partisan game they play, he doesn't get my gratitude.

Blackbeard Mod , 1 month ago

They put together an entire report on human remains in their collection back in 2022 if you want to read their thoughts on the matter:

https://provost.harvard.edu/files/provost/files/harvard_university-_human_remains_report_fall_2022.pdf

Blackbeard Mod , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say their thoughts are one way or another after just skimming or Ctrl+Fing the document for less than 3 minutes. Furthermore, Gage's own family donated his skull to Harlow, and Harlow donated it to Harvard, so with the exception of Gage himself the transaction was consensual. Plus Gage gave the tamping iron to Harvard Medical School personally, so there's not as much ethical gray area with his case as there would be with someone who's remains were taken without anyone's permission. That doesn't seem inconsistent at all, especially since most of the recommendations in the report hinge on acknowledgement of humanity and historical context, rather than focusing on a binary conclusion about whether or not remains are ok to keep.

Blackbeard Mod , 1 month ago

If the immediate family of the person donated it, sure.

But even still, it's not about what my opinion is. They have a committee who reviews these things case by case, and they're making recommendations about their archives based on historical context, educational value, and the individual being studied.

edit to add: Gage himself engaged with Harvard, and he wasn't held against his will. He knew he was a subject of analysis, and his family willingly donated his remains to an educational end. The two are not comparable in any way, shape, or form.

Blackbeard Mod , 1 month ago

They conclude that "the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history". You'd really do much better engaging with the argument they've actually made, rather than the one you think they're making.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

Yeah that's a great way to get an immediate injunction from a judge. That's not how these things work.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

I seriously doubt people who say that kind of thing have thought this through for more than about 4 seconds. It's like having a conversation with a Michael Bay movie.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

What's so insidious about this unforced error is now that the NBC execs have inadvertently stepped in dogshit, they're left with two bad options:

1. Kowtow to fascists by keeping her and letting her gaslight the country on their dime.

2. Give her the boot and prove to fascists that they're actively being persecuted by "leftwing" media.

There's no way for them to save face at this point, and they're complete fucking morons for not seeing this coming from a hundred million miles away.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

I don't mean to be rude, but you use too many commas for me to figure out what exactly you're trying to say.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

That sounds like the easiest but absolutely worst option. I'd prefer that we not directly fund fascism.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

Because you have eyes.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

This is a pretty big shift for the US, and it means the pressure is finally starting to really register with Biden. If the "uncommited" results in the Michigan primary were enough to get his attention, recent polling that puts him 8 points behind Trump likely changed the debate for the foreseeable future.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

Not in Michigan.

Blackbeard , 1 month ago

No.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

Not only that, but the clickbait media-sphere has slowly eroded "news" outlets to the point where they no longer cover things like "healthcare", "taxation", or "education". Now they cover polls, donors, polls, primaries, rallies, polls, conventions, polls, elections, exit polls, approval polls, disapproval polls, etc, pretty much non-stop from election to election. The incessant drone of horse race journalism is drowning out any even remotely meaningful coverage of actual things that are happening in people's lives. Long form and investigative journalism has been displaced by low effort politics-as-sport commentary.

Is there any wonder, then, how one of the major political parties was completely overtaken by a man who's singularly obsessed with "winning" against "losers"? We've been fed a 20-year diet of who-beats-who monotony, and all the actual issues in the country are glossed over as boring and irrelevant. They fed people non-stop infotainment, and then people fell in line behind a vapid, loud-mouthed reality TV billionaire.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

The supreme court just ruled that either the 14th amendment somehow doesn’t apply to presidents, trump didn’t engage in insurrection, and/or Trump is just simply above the law.

That's quite literally not what they argued, even if you try to read it that way. You really should read the opinion before you tell people what it says.

edit: LOL! OP deleted the stupid argument and replaced it with one that sounds less stupid. My quote was lifted verbatim, and the stealth edit speaks volumes.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

It's also worth noting that the Court here is saying states cannot impede the ability of the federal government to exist and function (pages 8-10). Consider that if a state were empowered to disqualify federal officers, then it could interfere with the ability of Congress to do its job on a fundamental level either by a) forcing Congress to remove the disqualification before state-run primaries and elections even began, or b) controlling the outcome of a federal election by tilting the Electoral College in their favor. McCulloch v. Maryland made clear that “States have no power...to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress”.

Imagine what Greg Abbott would do if we gave Texas the ability to dictate the outcome of federal elections. It would be absolute chaos.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

He's a fighter. He fights everyone, about everything. I think that's the crux of it.

Over the 1990s and 2000s these people were completely and utterly forgotten. Textiles, mines, manufacturing plants, they shuttered over and over and over and over again, and their children moved to big cities en masse. Their small cities and rural towns went from being on a growth trajectory (everything was on that trajectory between WWII and NAFTA) to being on a path to contraction and decay. Over that time they got madder, and madder, and madder, and madder, and they watched the Republican party (the one who at least paid lip service to "small government" and "traditional values") lean harder and harder into corporatism. They were promised good things over and over and over again, and they were constantly pandered to, then lied to, and then ignored. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Well, Trump was the first one who didn't talk, act, and think like the other guys. He wasn't a politician, and that's a great thing because (as they'd all come to agree) politicians are lying scum. So then not only was he willing to fight ferociously for them (and only them), he was willing to spit in the face of the people who lied to them all those years. And those political figures started to look like whiny little children when they stepped up and started saying, "hey, he's lying to you!" The voters' response was, "yeah? so the fuck what! you did too!"

He flips the system on its head, and he exposes politicians for what they are, because he's exactly like them but he doesn't give a fuck about playing the political game. To them, this is a godsend (literally). It's the first crack in the political system that gave them any kind of sustained, meaningful authority to push back both politically and culturally, and he delivered a court system that'll now push the entire country to the right over the next few decades. They simply don't care about the democratic institutions he's destroying, because they never helped the rural folk anyway.

Note: I don't personally agree with much of this nonsense, and I think it's a lot like shooting yourself in the face to cure a hangnail, but I'm just giving you a sense of how they look at it, and why he's so weirdly transcendent to them. He's a rich, connected insider, who decided to burn the system down from the inside.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

I mean, you're not wrong. I think Trump's ascendancy represents the collapse of the neoliberal consensus of the late 20th century. Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but the fact that both the left and right are screaming about the evils of neoliberalism means that there's now a bipartisan coalition willing to dismantle the institutions that arose out of that consensus. It's a loose coalition, to be sure, and each wing is arguing for fundamentally different futures, but they're still targeting the same players, and new economic models are now en vogue and within the realm of possibility. Just sucks that one of them is outright fascism.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

True, but at the same time we have to remind ourselves that blindly following Trump hasn't really hurt them yet. Not in any real, tangible sense, that is. As far as they can tell, the economy felt pretty good while he was in office, lots of the democratic norms he trashed had no impact on their lives, and most of the negative consequences the left has warned about haven't yet materialized.

Covid "wasn't his fault", and all his crimes mostly amount to more political theater to them. Then when Biden took office two wars started, and illegal immigration skyrocketed. Even if none of that were his fault, he's easy to blame for it.

Even supporters of the Third Reich followed blindly for a while because it put them on a cultural pedestal and stabilized their economy (kinda). Even when they watched trains carry millions of Jews to their deaths, they still shrugged and kept believing things were at least on the right track. It wasn't until the fascist noose started closing around the necks of non-traditional enemies of the right, and until the hell of war showed up at their doorsteps, that they were shaken out of their slumber.

Trump simply hasn't backfired on them yet, and until he does, they'll continue to push the envelope into oblivion. I'm afraid he'll have to burn the whole thing to the ground before his supporters will realize what a terrible mistake they made. And by then, it will be too late to recover.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

It is time to reopen the mental institutions and throw them back in, along with the ACLU clowns who let them out to begin with.

My gods y'all say some legitimately evil shit sometimes.

Blackbeard , 2 months ago

If we had a democracy in this country we wouldn’t have to give a shit what rich weirdos who live vastly different lives than most of us think.

You keep using that word. I do not think you know what that word means.