Lurker > legendary_zell

Heineken14 posted...

Donnie: wants to fuck his daughter and is the embodiment of corruption
RFK Jr: has literal brain worms
Biden: is old

some voters: "I'm just having such a hard time deciding!"

These are all terrible options and an indictment of our whole system. The decision isn't usually about which of these to vote for (anyone undecided on that at this point probably is dumb), it's whether to vote at all considering the terminal decline of our options.

Access to the halls of power and the resources necessary to get there (money, name recognition) are not equally distributed. That's been the case since the founding of the country. The first 10 Presidents were basically just Virginia planter aristocrats and within the first 50 years, we already had the son of a President elected as President. That's just how power works.

With my whole heart and soul.

People who could get these jobs probably wouldn't and definitely shouldn't be applying to work for these judges anyway. If you can get a federal clerkship, you can get a lot of other things.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

I wonder how much shit she gets for her name

LMAO, the most unfortunate possible name for a Republican official, other than the mythical Irish guy named Obama.

Anyway, as a woke liberal antifa member, I would be soooo owned if Trump picked her as VP. I'd definitely have to retreat to my college safe space to protest.

They shouldn't be a party anymore. They are actually not valid and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. The party should be banned and their people deradicalized.

I've heard people say that Nixon wasn't actually doing anything that unusual at the time with his dirty tricks and coverups and that the CIA went after him because he was centralizing power outside of their hands. But even in that view, he's still guilty and the problems are that other guilty people are not held accountable and that the CIA has the power to destroy Presidents, not that Nixon was innocent.

FF7 Remake....not a chance in hell. She's never touched a controller in her life, no type of fast paced action game is possible.

Absolutely vicious. This stuff is probably the negative self talk Drake hears in his darker times.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


London was the safest feeling large city I've ever been to. I never at any point felt like I would be stabbed and it was nice feeling like I didn't have to worry about guns.

Wish this had happened during a certain election....and Democratic Kingmakers had to have known this is a possibility and yet they chose him over a person who is everything they allegedly stand for. That's why the Democrats are better than Republicans....but they are not your savior.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Isn't this admitting that Israel is a settler colonial state currently practicing ethnic cleansing? And your answer is that Palestinians should peacefully accept this because...reasons? Straight up disgusting. People like you and the Israeli government state their intentions out loud repeatedly, but then go apoplectic when people recognize what they're saying and give it a name.

Often the order itself is violent. It's not moral to uphold that type of "order". Having "peace" while these colleges and our government are complicit in and profit off genocide is not the type of "order" we should respect. That order is the problem and it's what the students are dissenting against.

It's straight up white moderate bullshit, the exact type of thing MLK was talking about and huge swaths of America have never at any point understood or agreed.

This is just protest. And disorder comes with terrible actions and always has. There's never been a now sanctified protest or social justice movement that didn't have a lot of this stuff.

I wouldn't expect different from him since he can't bless violence. But when he's spending 100 percent of his time chiding protesters, calling them violent and antisemitic, but not discussing the violence of the anti-prostesters and police and will likely sign a law making even peaceful protest on this issue illegal....it's not good.

We deny groups the right to self determination all the time. As the Kurds, ask the working class. The state of Israel as it currently exists IS a racist endeavor. And the easiest way to stop being compared to the Nazis is to stop doing apartheid, Lebensbraum, and putting people in mass graves.

We're essentially going to do Alien and Sedition Acts on behalf of another country. Absolutely wild, these people never actually learn anything, they have the same values that led to the old atrocities. So they'll condemn the Red Scare or the Alien and Sedition Acts, or Kent State, but when something makes current legislators uncomfortable or challenges their power/preferred policy in any way, they bring out the guns and the historically awful laws.

Biden better not sign that bill, but he surely will if it passes. And that'll bring him one step closer to a loss this November. It won't be possible to argue that any future repression is not with his blessing.

HHH_is_the_game posted...

Can you explain then, why people insist on chanting the phrase that is used this way by Hamas, and not any other slogan in the world? Like ok, sure, that is what it means, but if there is this confusion, why are they insisting on this phrase defiantly?

Have you ever been to one of these protests? Or even watched videos of one? They chant so many other slogans in addition to this one. Ceasefire now, Free Palestine, No Justice, No Peace, etc.

If you search online, you'll see pro-Israel groups making the same arguments that each and every one of these phrases is identical to knowing calls for genocide and cannot be understood any other way. Even Free Palestine. Because it's not actually about any specific language, it's about the underlying political position. The most vehemently pro-Israel people are heavily invested in poising the well on ANY language used to express desire for Palestinian freedom. They want it to be impossible to express that idea without it being considered antisemitic. They generate the "confusion" then use the "confusion" to say the idea shouldn't be expressed. Some others end up doing the same thing out of fear and paranoia.

Right wingers do this all the time and this is no different. They themselves make something "controversial" and then say that controversial thing is radioactive and should be banned from public life/discussion. They did it with BLM, they do it with LGBT people, and this is another version of that.

LightningThief posted...

@NoMeLx22x
Your argument is basically demonstrating you don't know how to protest effectively to begin with. You are misconstrueding "Hey, how about not destroying property so the protest doesn't draw in the wrong attention like you know, the authorities. For you to then act surprised destroying of property tends to bring in the authorities to forcefully stop it" to....... "all protests are bad."

All they are doing by storming the building and breaking property is providing low hanging fruit for Newsmax, Fox and the likes to point at them every time Jan6ers are brought up.

What you are protesting becomes background noise, because to no surprise the new topic of discussion becomes about the obvious of the authorities being called to shut it down and violent protestors not cooperating.

The message of the protest gets lost and tends to resonate more with those who already supported it. Resonating with those who already support and getting bad attention by those who dont support your methods, is not winning over new people. You also may not like hearing this, it also hurt those who support your cause.

The police were already cracking skulls before any property was occupied. The message was already being maligned before then, including by nearly the entire "liberal" media.

This is not the first time that student protesters have occupied a building in order to protest a huge injustice that their government or school was complicit in and it doesn't make them any less right, except to people who value propriety and property over human life. And the vast majority of those people already hated these protesters or any student protesters.

This is the worst type of liberal, white moderate method policing. If this causes someone to lose the message of the protest and to stop caring about genocide, that's a problem with that person's values, not the protesters.

I don't see why we should be centering people's feelings rather than a genuine call for freedom for a people who have been oppressed for a full lifetime and are currently being killed and ethnically cleansed. Seems a weird way to prioritize things, imo.

I'm not denying that it must alarm some people, but perspective is important here. And a lot of these same people will not accept ANY form of pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel sentiment, they consider the very concept antisemitic. Spending effort on trying to appease them is largely wasted effort that could be better spent publicizing what's going on and taking action to stop it.

LeCh0nk posted...

You can have that without slinging childish insults. In fact you're not gonna get the representation you want from people who can't behave properly in public.

I agree that we don't need childish insults. But we don't need cooperation or to be buddy buddy with people who uniformly want to take away rights and destroy the working class. I'm not going to get the representation I want from people who don't recognize that and act accordingly.

Those hand shakes and agreements were terrible because they were always selling you out. Republicans have wanted bad things since at least Eisenhower. The things the parties can shake and agree on are more war, surveillance, incarceration, gutting the safety net, limiting unions, etc.

We need less handshakes and respect and more representing the interests of ordinary people.

I'm wearing tighter and shorter stuff the better shape I get in, I don't blame them. It's really comfortable.

Just go about your business, focus on the pump, not the rump.

We have a long history of college students occupying buildings to protest war and apartheid, and they've pretty much been right 100% of the time. This time is no different.

Rai_Jin posted...

it's more that he just trusts these things.

You're right, that's more accurate. It's not some conspiracy or like he's being blackmailed or manipulated, he believes these things. He has actual beliefs, unlike Trump who just has grievance and greed.

It was literally on purpose. The line where he "mixed up the name" was about how Kendrick didn't know who he was fighting since Drake has ghostwriters. He showed in literally the next line that he knows who Osment is by referencing the 6th Sense.

This is all already on Genius.

This is one of the consequences of the right being so terrible and the """"left"""" feeling that all they have to do is be a slightly better echo. There's always some group to throw under the bus to show "we're not like those crazy leftists you've heard about with their equal rights"

Vyrulisse posted...

That's not new. They are quite literally the Fox News of the extreme Left.
Though them actually becoming Fox News in this case is troubling.

There's nothing extreme left or even left about MSNBC. They're thoroughly establishment/centrist. They absolutely hate the left or any form of opposition to the status quo that's not channeled exclusively into voting for establishment democrats.

Even though this is an absolute win, the thing is that Drake is so disconnected from the core of the culture/has so much outside support that even a total L like he suffered from Pusha can't kill him. Because it's the core culture that's super concerned with authenticity, who wins a beef, ghostwriting etc, other people just wanna hear catchy rhymes and shake their ass.

I think the only thing that could take Drake out is a Diddy situation, combined with an L like this, so he'd have no support left.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Because the Republicans made it that way. That's literally been their strategy for decades.

1. Create wedge issue
2. Force everyone onto one side of wedge
3. Whichever side of the wedge the GOP is on, blame the other side of the wedge for all the worlds problems.

Integration, Civil Rights, Immigration, Abortion, Marriage Equality, Transgender Rights, Guns

every single one of those things used to not be a partisan opinion until the GOP decided to artificially make it a wedge issue

If you want things to change, the first step is to destroy the GOP and the only way to do that is to dismantle the two party system, and the only way to do THAT is to vote in Democrats because they're the only ones advocating for electoral reform. The only thing the GOP wants to change about our elections is they want less people voting.

What? Civil rights, immigration, LGBT rights etc have always been partisan/highly polarized issues. They've always been disputed. The Democrats have zero interest in destroying the two party system. They actively believe current Republicans should exist and prop them up in order to win elections more easily and to not have to do anything when they win. Voting for Democrats is not going to get us to some post political post partisan utopia. Because Democratic politicians and donors are not actually interested in doing that and are opposed to any of the things that would get us there.

Republicans are interested in killing unions, schools, journalism, democratic elections, rational courts anything that leads to liberalism. Democrats are actively opposed to doing the same, they think it's wrong to do so.

Yes, voting for Democrats is better than voting for Republicans, but the party you're imagining is not the one that actually exists.

See how easy it is to do it when you want to?

Just do it. Get his ass, by hook or by crook.

I wish he would pick one of these psychos, it'd help guarantee his loss. I really hope he doubles down on MAGA, and there's a high chance he will since he seems to think Pence was too moderate and he'd be dictator right now if he'd picked a real sicko in 2016.

We've completely forgotten the concept of a collective response, we're all just individual consumers now and the only response we can fathom is an individualized cultural one, making conspiracy theories, or doing ineffective consumer boycotts.

We know the corporations are not going to stop if this makes them even a single atom of profit. They're willing to pay the tobacco industry settlement on this in 30 years. We know the government won't help us because they believe in corporate domination, they're bought, and they don't want to stop the gravy train or remind people that they can do stuff.

The only thing we can actually do is the same as for all other problems. Organize and act together to solve our problems.

LoZguy709 posted...

If the "right thing" is what bears him the best chance of getting elected, he is already doing that. The problem is that the right thing to get him elected and the right thing in the mind of protestors aren't the same thing. If you think a harder stance on Israel would earn him political favor, you're out of touch with mainstream centrists in this country. He's a politician at the end of the day and will bend to the will of his voting base, at least on this issue where I don't think he's that personally invested. Blaming him for not doing something politically unfavorable is to help set Trump's only real opposition up for failure.

I think you're wrong on several fronts. Even purely in electoral terms, there's very significant risk to being seen as facilitating a genocide. The American people's views on this have been shifted by events, and there's a huge age based divide on this issue. It may have untold demobilizing effects on the youth this election and going forward. Those people are a rapidly increasing part of his base as well.

Second, he's been very clear for decades now that he's a Zionist and does care personally about supporting Israel through all of the awful things they've done.

Third, if we've reach a point where even on "our side" we can't expect politicians to do the right thing despite it being "unfavorable", then there's not much hope for democracy. Especially since they're constantly doing unpopular things when they feel it's necessary.

We'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not going to doubt your experiences. Let's hope all of this becomes moot and Biden wins by doing the right thing in general. Then we're all happy.

Because the liberal-left fights in the event of a Trump win....I'll have to stop using the Internet. Not just because of the flame wars, but also because I'll need to spend time looking for a new job or figuring out where to go into hiding to avoid the DHS roundups.

I am obviously talking to far more leftists than you are. They're my friends, my community.

You and Humble Novice are getting a warped view of the left from online spaces, where you're getting fringe and performative hot takes from randos. You're not in community with them or talking to them IRL. It's like if I were to go on r/neoliberal or a pro-Biden page and collect the most unflattering takes and say "this is what liberals believe." You are seeing people venting and trying to show their leftist bona fides. Not any type of collective effort or campaign.

IRL and when talking to each other, we're having real and very uncomfortable conversations about what to do about the genocide and other issues. But I reiterate, I've heard people say they want to push Biden, that they're disgusted by him, and yes, even some say we should create a labor party eventually or challenge the Democrats in the future. The loudest voices are 1. Push Him without a statement of what comes afterwards if he doesn't move and 2. Push Him with a commitment to a harm reduction vote/voting your conscience.

There's been no attempt to organize people not to vote. There's been no attempt to get people to rely on a revolution post-Trump.

Humble_Novice posted...

Has it succeeded yet?

Has what succeeded yet?

emblem-man posted...

A lot of people take Zionism to just mean the right to a Jewish majority State.

First, let's assume that you're right and that definition is unproblematic. What would be a better term? What other language gets across that they're taking issue with a specific right wing political movement, not Jewish people or even the concept of a Jewish homeland in general?

Second, how are you going to have a Jewish majority state in that specific location without using all those tactics I mentioned in my prior post? There was already a population there that is not Jewish. The students are using the word Zionist in the context of that reality and the history of what has in fact happened with the Zionist movement. Zionism used to have a lot of meanings, some spiritual, some cultural, some leftist, other meanings that didn't mean ethnic cleansing and apartheid, but that's what it means now.

Humble_Novice posted...

Leftists online beg to differ on that. They firmly believe that revolution, not voting, is the only way to correct things. Right now, they seem very confident in that idea to the point that a second Trump presidency does not scare them in the very least.

Get of Twitter, man. You have no idea what leftists think or believe, you've never shown any understanding of it or engaged with them in anyway except to say "look at these idiots, vote Biden"

Shadow_Don posted...

Its more that giving up on electoralism only fast forwards us to this second part of your post

I'm not talking about pre-election, I'm talking about post an election loss. The right will kill elections at that point, and not recognizing that and trying to vote your way out afterwards is useless. We should do everything we can, including elections to stop it from getting to that point because afterwards, all that's left is direct action politics.

Fascists are bad and will dismantle democracy so therefore let democracy fall is fucking suicide

I don't agree with that. People always say they see leftists saying this, but I don't. I'm not on Twitter, that's where you and Humble Novice seem to be seeing it. I was just at a major leftist conference a few weeks ago, I'm talking communists, anarchists, socialists, DSA, labor radicals, you name it, thousands of people, and no one there was talking about abandoning electoral politics or abandoning democracy. They were of course incredibly disappointed with Biden and there was a lot of discussion about actions to take to pressure him. But no one advocated sitting out or letting Trump win.

DarthCommodus posted...

I must ask, what is it about Palestine in particular which makes it such a consistent issue for the Left? I have been to trade union marches, with nothing whatsoever to do with Middle Eastern politics, and people were flying that flag. Why the obsession?

It touches on settler colonialism, militarism, racism, islamophobia, anti-left sentiment, it's an international struggle, and these are people that believe in international solidarity with all oppressed people in opposition to militarized capitalist and state power. Methods of oppression used by colonial powers and corporations to enforce colonization are almost always brought back home and the first people they're used on are the leftists and unionists.

TLDR: they believe in solidarity, oppose oppression of vulnerable groups, and believe these tactics of control will eventually be used on them if not defeated.

Zionism refers to a right wing settler colonial political movement, not Jewish people in general. A lot of the people involved in these protests are themselves Jewish and have family in Israel, so they're saying this specifically TO indicate that they're not talking about all Israelis or all Jewish people. And yet you're taking it as the opposite.

What term would you prefer they use? Jewish? Israeli? What they're criticizing is Zionism specifically.

It's very scary to me that some of you are talking about "voting our way out" in a scenario where Republicans have gone full mask off fascist. There will be voting your way out of that because the voting laws will be changed, everything will be gerrymandered, the courts will be completely controlled, and voter intimidation will go back to post civil war levels.

The only way out at that point will be mass civil disobedience, protests, and strikes, mixed with some violence, or outright war and revolution.

I think there's too many institutionalists and too much anti-left sentiment, plus likely too much material comfort for people to join in a revolution. I think the most likely outcome is a ton of protests, some violence that is swiftly put down and condemned, and then a long period of repression to permanently destroy the left. The only way that doesn't happen is if Trump's election occurs through blatant theft that triggers an immediate economic crisis.

The elites on both sides are the ones pushing all this. The people could find a way to get along and coexist in the long term if given the opportunity. But the elites and far right in Israel want their ethnostate and the total destruction of the Palestinian people. And the elites/far right in Palestine want to target civilians and foreclose the possibility of peace that doesn't result in genocide.

They BOTH must be taken out, but the West is propping up one side and seems to accept a slow motion eradication of the other.

They both feel that any "peace" is just a trick to get them to slowly submit to their destruction. While that's understandable for the people of Israel to feel, it's even more understandable and actually true for the people of Palestine because it's currently happening and it's been openly stated as the plan.

GranTurismo posted...

oh, interesting. you are sure of your assessment of him being like a neoliberal? what category do you place trump in, in that regard though?

Yes, I'm sure. Every President since Carter has been a neoliberal. Trump likely doesn't have an actual ideology beyond personal self interest and general bigotry. But in terms of how he actually ruled, he was a neoliberal.

There's two dynamics when it comes to neoliberalism with our presidents. Republican Presidents push it to its limits. Democrats reign it back in a little in some ways, but further cement that it's the only option and neutralize any attempts to find an alternative.

GranTurismo posted...

his ideology, limited? what do you mean though?

He's a neoliberal through and through. That means he owes allegiance to the market and market structures and the institutions that uphold them (courts, banks, legislative norms etc) before and to the exclusion of anything that would help ordinary people, but would interfere with the market.

So he'd never suggest a Great Society, much less a New Deal or more democratic control of the economy/workplace. That limits him to tax cuts and credits, business loans, and technocratic solutions.

I think he cares, yeah, he seems like an above average guy for a politician. But I think his care is a lot more present for the rich and middle class. And his ability to conceive of options for what to do with that care are extremely limited due to his ideology.

It's a holdover from old school exclusive "gaming as an identity and refuge" culture. Gaming as these gamers thought of it used to be a maligned but safe space where they could show their skill and devotion without interference from outsiders. But gaming got so popular that countless others joined and they feel they've been made a minority in their own land. That has bred resentment because the new people are being catered to despite not understanding "the rules", they don't exhibit the skillz, their interests and values are often different.

We see the same dynamic for anything that used to be a closed boys club for middle class, socially marginal nerds. PC Building, Anime, Tabletop Gaming, etc.

The prices aren't gonna go down because housing is being used as an investment and it's also the only way for ordinary people to build wealth at this point. The price continuing to go up is a disaster and the price going down substantially would also be a disaster for the middle class because their home ownership and equity is a big part of what makes people middle class in the first place.

There's not really an easy solution unless there's some way to crater the price for new homes while not touching the value of existing homes. There's no way to do that because houses are compared to each other.

It was a mistake to make housing not just an asset, but THE asset.

hockeybabe89 posted...

I'm gonna fucking die if the GOP wins, so I don't give a shit if that sends the wrong message to the Democrats. Fuck this fucking country for forcing me into this position.

It's so insane that people can get jaded enough by the political process that they'd rather give up and die than continue treading water. Apparently politics overrides our natural human instincts of survival.

That's reality though. We're both in very real danger in the short term if Trump wins. Life and death for you and career for sure and possibly life and death for me as well if things really go off the rails. But the status quo and pledging votes also presents serious short term risks as well and has huge long term ones too. That's why the only rational thing to do is to get off this course! That's what I've been saying this whole time.

A Biden win on the current course is not at all guaranteed and sets us up for an even worse situation and increased apathy next time. And the Republican Party will be even worse at that time if history is any guide. So it'll be a genocide stained Democratic Party vs an even more fascist Republican Party, with even more of the population blackpilled despite the stakes. That's what we're looking at right now, we should do anything to get off that course without shooting ourselves in the foot.