Rottcodd @ Rottcodd @lemmy.world

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19

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297

Joined

2 yr. ago

We're really speedrunning this whole autocracy thing, aren't we?

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." - Frank Zappa

One would think they'd at least wait until the planned concentration camps are built.

A convicted felon gleefully plans to utterly destroy everything of any value in the US and not a single peep out of the press.

Then a mostly ineffectual lame duck president toys with the idea of doing something to hopefully head off ar least some of the convicted felon's most egregious planned abuses and the alarm sounds. "Oh my god! He might change presidential power!"

Fucking apologist pieces of shit.

It's not even just a "wildly unrealistic" promise - his proposed tariffs make it a literally impossible one.

Even with the depth of my cynicism, it astonishes me that so many people believe he can drive down prices in light of the fact that he's also proposing a thing whose specific purpose is to prop up prices.

This isn't analysis - it's craven blame-shifting.

Trump already has a blank check to issue pardons and already intends to abuse the power in ways never before seen, and it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference what Biden or anyone else does or doesn't do.

And just like that, the opening theme is playing in my head.

Whats the paradox of tolerance?

It's a fucking paradox.

It honestly amazes me that damned near everyone seems to miss that part, even though it's in the fucking name.

There a huge difference between what one thinks is misinformation, and what is proven to be misinformation though.

Epistemologically, yes. But for all practical purposes, at this point in time, there really isn't, since anyone can find sources that purportedly "prove" that whatever they want to believe is true and/or that whatever they don't want to believe is "misinformation." It makes absolutely no difference what the claim in question is - somebody somewhere online has "proven" that it's true, and somebody else somewhere online has "proven" that it's not.

So what that means is that to avoid the trap of endlessly dueling contradictory claims, somebody is going to have to simply decree what is or is not to be considered to be true - which sources and purported proofs are legitimate and which are not - and that's where it inevitably goes wrong.

And in fact, to go all the way back to the start of this thread, that's exactly how hexbear and ml work. They maintain their bubbles by essentially arbitrarily decreeing that [this] is true and [that] is misinformation. And if you press them on it, they're more than willing to post links to the "proof."

While I agree with your assessment, I'd note that pretty much everyone at this point declares that whatever views they disagree with are "misinformation," so proactively banning things solely because someone has declared that they're "misinformation" isn't a sound strategy.

And again, I agree with that assessment in this case. But that's really beside the point.

Oh look - the guy who thinks laws don't apply to him also thinks that traditional ethical practices don't apply to him

Who'da thunk it?

Again though it wasn't just a threat - it was a very specific if/then statement - "I've arranged it so that if he has me killed, he will be killed."

Granted that it's a bit unsettling, my immediate response, and IMO the likely immediate response of virtually anyone and everyone, would be "But I don't intend to have you killed."

Huh.

She didn't simply threaten to have him killed - she said that she had arranged to have him killed if he had her killed.

So it's only really a "threat" if he intends to have her killed.

So essentially, Bongbong is admitting that he intends to have her killed.

Why would you think ideology is even relevant?

Much though the world would be instantly improved if that vile, racist piece of shit Pauline Hanson was dead, she's under no real threat of being murdered by her political opponents - that's just not the way that Australians do things.

And she knows that.

Isn't accusing Marcos of corruption sort of like accusing the Pope of being Catholic?

I mean - he's a Marcos. Corruption is all he knows.

And really, specifically what she did was threatened to have those people killed if they had her killed.

That seems to me to be a reasonable precaution, all things considered.

Hmm...

I actually hadn't thought about it that way - to the degree that I thought about it at all, I guess I pretty much assumed that opportunistic sycophancy was just his nature.

But yeah - now that I am thinking about it, it is quite likely that to the degree that it's not his own nature, it's a role he has to play at the behest of and on the behalf of his patrons.

And the only other thing I've really noticed about Graham is that pretty much no matter what he's doing or saying, there's this ongoing low level sense of sleaze that just sort of emanates from him. He just seems like the sort of "conservative" with a sex dungeon in his basement and a bunch of highly specialized escort services on speed-dial.

Which ties in neatly.

Sorry - I edited that because I could just see some tight-assed mod getting all twisted up over it, and I wanted the underlying message to not get deleted, and only saw your response after the fact.

But now that you mention it...

Lindsey Graham can always be counted on to suck up to whichever Republican is currently getting the most headlines.

I sincerely have no idea.

The narrative that a leftist couldn't win is repeated so predictably and so often and by so many people that the whole idea has become sort of detached from reality, and there's no telling what would happen if it was actually a possibility.

And particularly since the one thing I'd pretty much guarantee is that the concerted efforts on the part of the ruling class to prevent a leftist from running would be as nothing compared to what they'd do and say in order to prevent one from winning.

Broadly, it's very simple.

Make a list of everyone, ranked in order of personal wealth from most to least.

That's also a ranking, in order, of winners to losers under Trump.

Though exceptions will of course be made for rich people who piss him off and poor people who suck up to him and can provide something he wants.

Not "now" - I have been for years. Ever since I figured out that the US has no future - that the ruling class is already preparing to put down any opposition (that's why we have a militarized police force and the largest prison system in the world, and that already, before Trump's proposed detainment camps that are supposedly going to be built to hold undocumented immigrants, except that the undocumented immigrants are going to be deported, so self-evidently they're going to hold someone else).

There is no way to make any lasting change in the US. The ruling class is too firmly entrenched and too out of touch, and frankly too fucking insane. They will, and already intend to, go to war to protect their grotesquely destructive privilege, and the nation will not survive that.

So the only hope is that our descendants will build something better out of the rubble we're going to leave behind.

And again - that was already the case. Trump is just accelerating the process.