Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Feb 2022 @ 12:28am
Re: Re: Re: Re: AntiTrust Epiphany
"but leftists don't know what a free market is"
You realize that "Das Kapital", written by a certain Karl Marx, is still considered recommended and required reading in fiscal science education worldwide - including in the US?
Leftists tend to know more about what a free market is and how it works than right-wingers. That's why so many actual economists become leftists after studying economy. They don't like the end game they're seeing.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Feb 2022 @ 12:26am
Re:
"This just confirms that Congress has no idea what the hell a free market is or competition."
I posit a different viewpoint. Congress knows damn well what a free market isand are writing legislation opposing such a market because they're trying to appease the vested interests who both fund their campaign and stand to make a killing from biased legislation.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Feb 2022 @ 12:23am
Re: Re: AntiTrust Epiphany
"The overall Community here has always stromgly endorsed AntiTrust and opposed anybody pointing out the huge problems with such government interventions into voluntary free markets."
Because in the rest of the OECD antitrust action isn't a problem. When regulations are imposed equally across the board the market adapts wonderfully. The US alone is so unused to restricting market monopolization and cartellization that whenever they try to actually enforce basic market rules it all turns into a race to see who can produce the biggest pork barrel.
This is literally an Only In America problem.
"...most Americans have also been vigorously brainwashed to believe Federal Antitrust interventions are the only thing keeping big private companies from pillaging the American people."
It really is. Average americans today are worse off than their parents and grandparents. Not because of foreign interference. Not because the economy is busted - it's steadily been rising.
It's just that because the government since the days of Reagan hasn't bothered enforcing the rules conditions have been worsening to the current point, where 1 in 10 citizens of the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind are on emergency food stamps and 40% of households can't cope with an unexpected measly $400 expense.
If your intent was to pull some extreme-wing libertarian bullshit here then I'm afraid to say most attendees aren't the audience you're looking for, because they're neither blind nor stupid.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 2 Feb 2022 @ 12:40am
Re:
"Copyright really is brain damage."
Can't dismiss it that easily.
Copyright, like old heresy law, is just a means by which a small industry of gatekeeper middlemen retain market position by having the state apply the violence monopoly on their behalf.
The ones actually believing in it are the ones who are brain damaged.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 2 Feb 2022 @ 12:34am
Re: Re: There's indifference, there's evil, and then there's THI
No, no..."levity" has become appropriate.
I've been revisiting old George Carlin videos on Youtube and found that today they are, if anything, often more appropriate than ever. The man was a fscking prophet...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 1 Feb 2022 @ 2:24am
Re: Re: Re:
Sources;
Statista, Techjury and BusinessofApps.
Some give the number as 1,17 billion, others as 1,26.
The thing is that wechat in China isn't just a messenger app. It's your wallet, your digital keyring, your browser gateway, your actual phone service, etc.
Essentially it works a bit like how almost every android user has a google account.
I didn't believe the number at first either until after the third or fourth source I assigned passing credibility quote the same number.
Even if we assume every troll in china has about a hundred accounts that still leaves a very high proportion of the population genuinely using the service.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 3:46am
Re: Re:
Accurate as far as it goes.
Though I have to say that's taking the long way around rather than saying "The guy who builds and maintains the lock will always have the keys to that lock."
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 3:11am
Re:
"Wechat. Who's stupid enough to use a chat system 100% viewable and controllable by the chinese government, who can use the app to install anything they want remotely?"
Just about everyone in the PRC.
The chinese government isn't stupid. Unlike the old USSR they want to make sure the citizenry is convinced they truly live in a utopia - or at least the best possible "compromise" of freedom and authoritarianism possible.
So for 90% of the citizenry, Life Is Good. The current generation is growing up in a country of prosperity and opportunity. And the only thing they need to pay for that is to be sure never to offend the Emperor.
"its 99% "we love the government, 10000 people weren't murdered in Tiananmen Square" shills and bots."
It really isn't. 1,2 billion active chinese users aged 16-64 are using it. And it isn't hard to understand why given that social networking is culturally even more important among mainland chinese than among average americans. Corroborated, incidentally, by western statisticians.
It's easy to dismiss China as "yet another dictatorship doomed to fail" - but if you do you're the one ending up gravely underestimating the people who've managed to position themselves where they are now literally the Middle Kingdom of the business world again.
These are a people who have successfully retained cultural cohesion for two and a half millennia under the same exact playbook they're running now - a population governed by a bureaucracy of academic elites with a figurehead in the form of an emperor...or lately, a grumpy type of Pooh Bear. They aren't the USSR falling apart within 70 years over a failed ideology or other experimental juntas built ad hoc to cater to a single person at the top.
Wechat works just as well as it's western counterpart. From the pov of the chinese citizenry arguably better. Government intrusion, albeit ubiquitous, is featherlight and unobtrusive. The normal citizen, used to kowtowing towards Beijing, will never notice it.
And the same is true for everything in China. Western online companies were only allowed inside the Great Firewall until chinese engineers grokked how they were supposed to work, after which Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest were gradually forced out by government regulations gradually becoming just on the far side of unbearable...until those companies took the hint and left.
China made authoritarianism work. Except for brief periods when government completely loses it, there just isn't ever a disgruntled minority big enough and powerful enough to mount any sort of meaningful uprising.
This is not a method of governance we want to emulate in the west and fortunately I think we are culturally unable to run shit this way either. But for China, it works.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 2:41am
Re: Huh?
"But, the app and account itself are not restricted otherwise. There is something with this Australian story that doesn't make much sense."
It isn't but...I'm assuming you made those accounts yourself. Tencent's explanation on what the aussie PM managed to fsck up is just glorious;
βThe account in question was originally registered by a PRC individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company β and it will be handled in accordance with our platform rules.β
Now if you'd created your accounts by claiming that you were "Zhang San on flying lotus avenue no 6, Beijing" - and that one was a real person - rather than under your own identity it would have been different.
Essentially The aussie PM klutzed his way into renting an identity from a PRC citizen in order to build that account, and then that PRC citizen took it back as per stipulations in the EULA. πππ
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 2:31am
Re: Re: Re: Non Interference
"Yet it's not a rule violation, and certainly has never been enforced against left wing advocates from what I've seen."
<looks at the entire US history until the modern day>.
You are trying to - seriously - tell the people here that the left wing off or online aren't being biased against?
Koby, you have officially now become the shitposter standing in the US south of the 50's and crying loudly that the black folks are all being given free reign in the press while the poor old boys of the KKK are maligned and persecuted. It's that bad.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 2:24am
Re:
"That in which one wonders about lead exposure in copyright maximalists."
I wish that was the case, but no. This is deranged but not delusional. The analogy isn't the victim of lead poisoning too addled to recognize common sense and recent memory. The analogy is that of a spoiled pre-teen whose entire life has been spent realizing that as long as he's willing to scream, whine, cry, and shit on the floor in protest the grown-ups will always end up giving him that lollipop.
"Ask them why they have never considered using robots.txt, a simple tiny fix that would keep big evil tech from indexing them."
If you assume, from the start, that no one representing copyright has ever moved in anything other than pure and unadulterated grifting then many things become quite clear.
They have never considered existing technical solutions because in the end what they want is money for nothing and the advertising for free.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 12:53am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I will still stand on my soap box and point out, here be a false lord of freedom. One who supports only speech he agrees with. One who defends only what he likes."
At which point did you decide that other people's freedom to an audience overruled your right not to listen? Or to be more specific, overrules your personal right to draw a sigh of relief that people only invested ion grifting aren't given a platform by your local mall anymore?
Your opinion is literally that we should be ashamed over our opinion. Which is, in itself, fine.
But arguing from authority by invoking "freedom of speech" to undercut our freedom of speech is, I believe, what has a lot of commenters here up in arms. And rightly so.
Now here's the thing; An argument focused around observable fact - that's a debate.
An argument focused around assertions in defiance of facts - that's just people beating each other around the ears with their respective agendas.
Our assertion here is that OAN doesn't bring a point of view. They bring a false narrative and as such their absence from DirectTV isn't to be lamented anymore than the cancellation of a bad TV series.
Yours seems to be that they offer actual speech of worth to the public debate and as such their loss is lamentable, irrespective that their whole purpose is to derail debates.
This is the glaring difference of opinion we're seeing here.
And I have to point out that reality thus far backs our point of view. The Paradox Of Tolerance is very real and thus a society centered around reason should not show tolerance to those who advocate the abolition of reason.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 31 Jan 2022 @ 12:40am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stunning
"But a film about cannibal sex traffickers could actually be good if approached cautiously.
Especially if, like Cannibal Children or K3: Prison in Hell, the victims overcome the odds and take bloody revenge."
Call me old-fashioned but when it comes to horror I prefer old-fashioned cult classics/turkeys like The Lost Boys, The Prophecy, Hellraiser, and stuff like that. When I want scathing political satire these days I can always browse Youtube for the latest Trae Crowder, Bill Maher or similar. Though Beau of the Fifth Column occasionally does run some hilariously sarcastic videos.
Sadly a lot of satire written in days of yore are just descriptions of contemporary events today...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 28 Jan 2022 @ 3:06am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: millions will dump d
"My use of communism for the likes of Clinton is based not on the definition but there practice in reality. It creates a money king who dictates."
Every time I hear that I die a little inside. The term applicable for Clinton, Cheney, and most of the US body politic would be pure leftist-speak;
adjective: reactionary
opposing political or social progress or reform.
"reactionary attitudes toward women's rights"
noun: bourgeoisie
the capitalist class who own most of society's wealth and means of production.
Or in more modern american "Fat cats who know what side of their bread is buttered".
Also see "ratchet effect". The minority on the winning side ofd the rat race of which they have become an integral driving force and which they have no interest at all to dismantle.
Honestly, if americans are going to have a chance of ever organizing against the shit-show resulting in the current state of abject poverty much of the population is condemned to then you're going to have to drop the one-liners and pick up a dictionary so at the very least you're all speaking the same language.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic, of the people, nor a republic. It's just a sound byte meant to defleft from the fact that we're talking about an ultra-autocratic dictatorship.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was neither a union, socialist, or really a republic. It all deflected from a communist uprising having been turned into a loosely ideologically motivated oligarchy. Stalin was about as much a communist as Mussolini.
Nationalsocialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was neither representative of germans, the workers, nor socialist. But it did detract from their real agenda - ultra-nationalism and fascism.
And neither Clinton nor Cheney, nor most of the democrats are "leftist", even less so communist. That's just something their political opponents, both inside and outside of that party, like to call them because due to the Red Scare that word sounds a lot like a more diplomatic version of "terrorist" or "pedo".
The bulk of that party is, in fact, extreme right wing as they protect the status quo by any means. The only reason Bernie and AOC are part of it is because in a two-party system you can't win the
Essentially there are more or less two ways by which a country can complete a radical shift towards more socialist attitudes. Sweden used one way - unionization and a strong labor movement became a complete takeover as a new party dedicated to worker's rights muscled in and shaped all the politics thereafter. This usually means a peaceful integration between commerce and ideology leading to the social democracy we have today. Exemplified in a great many thriving nations around the globe.
The other is when the establishment has rendered any such peaceful approach impossible. And as JFK put it, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The french, american, cuban and russian revolutions all went down this road.
That...is a gamble. Every revolution opens doors for the most repulsive of sociopaths. Robespierre, Mussolini and Stalin have as much a chance of getting to the top as a Thomas Paine, Gandhi or Mandela.
I think the US is currently practicing brinksmanship of the most dangerous kind. One way or the other radical change is coming. And the one hope of that change coming out in a much needed leftwards direction would require democrats to stop it with the ratchet job. Abandon any hope of retaining the status quo and satisfying the whims of the lobby. And I think that window of opportunity will close right after the 2020 elections...oops.
...or, as I see it, the likely outcome will be a hard turn due fascism as people pin their hopes on a Dear Leader to raise the land and the people. Something, I have to say, Dear Leaders aren't that good at. Especially not when the role models of the current most likely one are Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 28 Jan 2022 @ 2:14am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Every ill caused by runaway capitalism hinges on one single fact;
Look at Europe; No matter how entry-level your position as a burger flipper or janitor your employer provides a living wage, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity/paternity leave, strong union support, and pension contribution.
And companies accept this without complaint - and the local corporate culture in most major companies reflect this idea. Often respecting these ideals is incorporated in the Code Of conduct. The concept that enforced humanitarian ideals will cause the sky to fall and the sun to set on a nations economy is demonstrably wrong.
Every ill affecting the US workers - minimum wages too low to live on, no safety net, often no paid leave of any kind, often neither pension nor health plan...it's all because companies don't just want to do well. It's simply normal that if you earn a few dollars more by keeping ten thousand workers in feudal serfdom then that is what must be done.
And save for the few lonely actual left-wingers in the democrat party (Bernie, AOC, Salazar, etc) every member of the body politic - on both sides - essentially want that state of affairs to remain.
It's frustrating. I grok why more americans want to just take a torch to the current system and hang the consequences. Comditions for about half the citizenry are rapidly approaching USSR standards of living. And as it was with the old soviet union the commissars just keep braying about the "Worker's Utopia"..err..."Land of opportunity".
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 27 Jan 2022 @ 7:47am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Forget not the slope!
Nah, that'd be Restless94110.
Lostinlodos doesn't seem that much in favor of Trump as he's radically anti-establishment, and votes for anyone likely to see the current system burned to the ground.
Some of his arguments, in fact, fit those of an old 1970's classical Leninist arguing that incremental change isn't happening and by now the only meaningful change will come by torch and pitchfork.
I honestly can't say he's all that wrong. 1 in 10 americans are on food stamps. 40% of households would break from an unplanned $400 expense. A full-time 8 hour job on minimum wage isn't enough to supply housing, transportation, basic medical insurance and food. half the country is one bad turn away from homelessness.
And while the GOP has actively pushed for making shit worse, democrats have shown pretty well they're really unwilling to create meaningful change for the better. Something a few of Obama's policies made abundantly clear.
Even so...Trump isn't the answer any more than Hitler was the answer to the ailing Weimar. Yeah he'll dismantle a lot of things but not anything supported by money. Under his regime the lobby will be writing all the bills without even the flimsy pretense of politics taking place.
On the post: Can We At Least Make Sure Antitrust Isn't Deliberately Designed To Make Everyone Worse Off?
Re: Re: Re: Re: AntiTrust Epiphany
"but leftists don't know what a free market is"
You realize that "Das Kapital", written by a certain Karl Marx, is still considered recommended and required reading in fiscal science education worldwide - including in the US?
Leftists tend to know more about what a free market is and how it works than right-wingers. That's why so many actual economists become leftists after studying economy. They don't like the end game they're seeing.
On the post: Can We At Least Make Sure Antitrust Isn't Deliberately Designed To Make Everyone Worse Off?
Re:
"This just confirms that Congress has no idea what the hell a free market is or competition."
I posit a different viewpoint. Congress knows damn well what a free market isand are writing legislation opposing such a market because they're trying to appease the vested interests who both fund their campaign and stand to make a killing from biased legislation.
On the post: Can We At Least Make Sure Antitrust Isn't Deliberately Designed To Make Everyone Worse Off?
Re: Re: AntiTrust Epiphany
"The overall Community here has always stromgly endorsed AntiTrust and opposed anybody pointing out the huge problems with such government interventions into voluntary free markets."
Because in the rest of the OECD antitrust action isn't a problem. When regulations are imposed equally across the board the market adapts wonderfully. The US alone is so unused to restricting market monopolization and cartellization that whenever they try to actually enforce basic market rules it all turns into a race to see who can produce the biggest pork barrel.
This is literally an Only In America problem.
"...most Americans have also been vigorously brainwashed to believe Federal Antitrust interventions are the only thing keeping big private companies from pillaging the American people."
It really is. Average americans today are worse off than their parents and grandparents. Not because of foreign interference. Not because the economy is busted - it's steadily been rising.
It's just that because the government since the days of Reagan hasn't bothered enforcing the rules conditions have been worsening to the current point, where 1 in 10 citizens of the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind are on emergency food stamps and 40% of households can't cope with an unexpected measly $400 expense.
If your intent was to pull some extreme-wing libertarian bullshit here then I'm afraid to say most attendees aren't the audience you're looking for, because they're neither blind nor stupid.
On the post: YouTube Dusts Off Granular National Video Blocking To Assist YouTuber Feuding With Toei Animation
Re: 'Scorched earth', not the best for positive PR
"Bloody hell, you know something has gone completely nuts when YouTube is the good guy in the story..."
Does take moral relativity to the next level, doesn't it?
On the post: YouTube Dusts Off Granular National Video Blocking To Assist YouTuber Feuding With Toei Animation
Re:
"Copyright really is brain damage."
Can't dismiss it that easily.
Copyright, like old heresy law, is just a means by which a small industry of gatekeeper middlemen retain market position by having the state apply the violence monopoly on their behalf.
The ones actually believing in it are the ones who are brain damaged.
On the post: Suicide Hotline Collected, Monetized The Data Of Desperate People, Because Of Course It Did
Re: Re: There's indifference, there's evil, and then there's THI
No, no..."levity" has become appropriate.
I've been revisiting old George Carlin videos on Youtube and found that today they are, if anything, often more appropriate than ever. The man was a fscking prophet...
On the post: Australian Prime Minister, After Registering For A WeChat Account Using Unnamed Chinese Citizen, Finds His Account Sold To Someone Else
Re: Re: Re:
Sources;
Statista, Techjury and BusinessofApps.
Some give the number as 1,17 billion, others as 1,26.
The thing is that wechat in China isn't just a messenger app. It's your wallet, your digital keyring, your browser gateway, your actual phone service, etc.
Essentially it works a bit like how almost every android user has a google account.
I didn't believe the number at first either until after the third or fourth source I assigned passing credibility quote the same number.
Even if we assume every troll in china has about a hundred accounts that still leaves a very high proportion of the population genuinely using the service.
On the post: The Fed's Central Bank Digital Currency Report Falls Flat
Re: Re:
Accurate as far as it goes.
Though I have to say that's taking the long way around rather than saying "The guy who builds and maintains the lock will always have the keys to that lock."
On the post: Australian Prime Minister, After Registering For A WeChat Account Using Unnamed Chinese Citizen, Finds His Account Sold To Someone Else
Re:
"Wechat. Who's stupid enough to use a chat system 100% viewable and controllable by the chinese government, who can use the app to install anything they want remotely?"
Just about everyone in the PRC.
The chinese government isn't stupid. Unlike the old USSR they want to make sure the citizenry is convinced they truly live in a utopia - or at least the best possible "compromise" of freedom and authoritarianism possible.
So for 90% of the citizenry, Life Is Good. The current generation is growing up in a country of prosperity and opportunity. And the only thing they need to pay for that is to be sure never to offend the Emperor.
"its 99% "we love the government, 10000 people weren't murdered in Tiananmen Square" shills and bots."
It really isn't. 1,2 billion active chinese users aged 16-64 are using it. And it isn't hard to understand why given that social networking is culturally even more important among mainland chinese than among average americans. Corroborated, incidentally, by western statisticians.
It's easy to dismiss China as "yet another dictatorship doomed to fail" - but if you do you're the one ending up gravely underestimating the people who've managed to position themselves where they are now literally the Middle Kingdom of the business world again.
These are a people who have successfully retained cultural cohesion for two and a half millennia under the same exact playbook they're running now - a population governed by a bureaucracy of academic elites with a figurehead in the form of an emperor...or lately, a grumpy type of Pooh Bear. They aren't the USSR falling apart within 70 years over a failed ideology or other experimental juntas built ad hoc to cater to a single person at the top.
Wechat works just as well as it's western counterpart. From the pov of the chinese citizenry arguably better. Government intrusion, albeit ubiquitous, is featherlight and unobtrusive. The normal citizen, used to kowtowing towards Beijing, will never notice it.
And the same is true for everything in China. Western online companies were only allowed inside the Great Firewall until chinese engineers grokked how they were supposed to work, after which Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest were gradually forced out by government regulations gradually becoming just on the far side of unbearable...until those companies took the hint and left.
China made authoritarianism work. Except for brief periods when government completely loses it, there just isn't ever a disgruntled minority big enough and powerful enough to mount any sort of meaningful uprising.
This is not a method of governance we want to emulate in the west and fortunately I think we are culturally unable to run shit this way either. But for China, it works.
On the post: Australian Prime Minister, After Registering For A WeChat Account Using Unnamed Chinese Citizen, Finds His Account Sold To Someone Else
Re: Huh?
"But, the app and account itself are not restricted otherwise. There is something with this Australian story that doesn't make much sense."
It isn't but...I'm assuming you made those accounts yourself. Tencent's explanation on what the aussie PM managed to fsck up is just glorious;
βThe account in question was originally registered by a PRC individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company β and it will be handled in accordance with our platform rules.β
Now if you'd created your accounts by claiming that you were "Zhang San on flying lotus avenue no 6, Beijing" - and that one was a real person - rather than under your own identity it would have been different.
Essentially The aussie PM klutzed his way into renting an identity from a PRC citizen in order to build that account, and then that PRC citizen took it back as per stipulations in the EULA. πππ
On the post: Georgia Sees Florida & Texas Social Media Laws Go Down In 1st Amendment Flames And Decides... 'Hey, We Should Do That Too'
Re: Re: Re: Non Interference
"Yet it's not a rule violation, and certainly has never been enforced against left wing advocates from what I've seen."
<looks at the entire US history until the modern day>.
You are trying to - seriously - tell the people here that the left wing off or online aren't being biased against?
Koby, you have officially now become the shitposter standing in the US south of the 50's and crying loudly that the black folks are all being given free reign in the press while the poor old boys of the KKK are maligned and persecuted. It's that bad.
On the post: Wherein The Copia Institute Tells The Copyright Office That Link Taxes Are A Good Idea Only If You Want To Kill Off Journalism
Re:
"That in which one wonders about lead exposure in copyright maximalists."
I wish that was the case, but no. This is deranged but not delusional. The analogy isn't the victim of lead poisoning too addled to recognize common sense and recent memory. The analogy is that of a spoiled pre-teen whose entire life has been spent realizing that as long as he's willing to scream, whine, cry, and shit on the floor in protest the grown-ups will always end up giving him that lollipop.
"Ask them why they have never considered using robots.txt, a simple tiny fix that would keep big evil tech from indexing them."
If you assume, from the start, that no one representing copyright has ever moved in anything other than pure and unadulterated grifting then many things become quite clear.
They have never considered existing technical solutions because in the end what they want is money for nothing and the advertising for free.
On the post: DirecTV Finally Dumps OAN, Limiting The Conspiracy And Propaganda Channel's Reach
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I will still stand on my soap box and point out, here be a false lord of freedom. One who supports only speech he agrees with. One who defends only what he likes."
At which point did you decide that other people's freedom to an audience overruled your right not to listen? Or to be more specific, overrules your personal right to draw a sigh of relief that people only invested ion grifting aren't given a platform by your local mall anymore?
Your opinion is literally that we should be ashamed over our opinion. Which is, in itself, fine.
But arguing from authority by invoking "freedom of speech" to undercut our freedom of speech is, I believe, what has a lot of commenters here up in arms. And rightly so.
Now here's the thing; An argument focused around observable fact - that's a debate.
An argument focused around assertions in defiance of facts - that's just people beating each other around the ears with their respective agendas.
Our assertion here is that OAN doesn't bring a point of view. They bring a false narrative and as such their absence from DirectTV isn't to be lamented anymore than the cancellation of a bad TV series.
Yours seems to be that they offer actual speech of worth to the public debate and as such their loss is lamentable, irrespective that their whole purpose is to derail debates.
This is the glaring difference of opinion we're seeing here.
And I have to point out that reality thus far backs our point of view. The Paradox Of Tolerance is very real and thus a society centered around reason should not show tolerance to those who advocate the abolition of reason.
On the post: DirecTV Finally Dumps OAN, Limiting The Conspiracy And Propaganda Channel's Reach
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stunning
"But a film about cannibal sex traffickers could actually be good if approached cautiously.
Especially if, like Cannibal Children or K3: Prison in Hell, the victims overcome the odds and take bloody revenge."
Call me old-fashioned but when it comes to horror I prefer old-fashioned cult classics/turkeys like The Lost Boys, The Prophecy, Hellraiser, and stuff like that. When I want scathing political satire these days I can always browse Youtube for the latest Trae Crowder, Bill Maher or similar. Though Beau of the Fifth Column occasionally does run some hilariously sarcastic videos.
Sadly a lot of satire written in days of yore are just descriptions of contemporary events today...
On the post: Cops' New Favorite Junk Science Is Pretending Being Anywhere Near Fentanyl Will Literally Cause Them To Die
Re: Re:
So, in other words, you'd have;
The loss of the ever-ready excuse and scapegoat for politicians all over as to why the people can't have nice things.
The loss of the highly profitable pseudo-slavery which is the US penal system.
I don't think that'll fly in US political circles. The things you mention are only drawbacks if you aren't a politician or prison shareholder.
On the post: DirecTV Finally Dumps OAN, Limiting The Conspiracy And Propaganda Channel's Reach
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: millions will du
[Edit]
"The only reason Bernie and AOC are part of it is because in a two-party system you can't win the..."
"...federal level positions you actually need to introduce real change.", that should have been.
Damn, I really need to review what I write better.
On the post: DirecTV Finally Dumps OAN, Limiting The Conspiracy And Propaganda Channel's Reach
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: millions will dump d
"My use of communism for the likes of Clinton is based not on the definition but there practice in reality. It creates a money king who dictates."
Every time I hear that I die a little inside. The term applicable for Clinton, Cheney, and most of the US body politic would be pure leftist-speak;
Or in more modern american "Fat cats who know what side of their bread is buttered".
Also see "ratchet effect". The minority on the winning side ofd the rat race of which they have become an integral driving force and which they have no interest at all to dismantle.
Honestly, if americans are going to have a chance of ever organizing against the shit-show resulting in the current state of abject poverty much of the population is condemned to then you're going to have to drop the one-liners and pick up a dictionary so at the very least you're all speaking the same language.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic, of the people, nor a republic. It's just a sound byte meant to defleft from the fact that we're talking about an ultra-autocratic dictatorship.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was neither a union, socialist, or really a republic. It all deflected from a communist uprising having been turned into a loosely ideologically motivated oligarchy. Stalin was about as much a communist as Mussolini.
Nationalsocialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was neither representative of germans, the workers, nor socialist. But it did detract from their real agenda - ultra-nationalism and fascism.
And neither Clinton nor Cheney, nor most of the democrats are "leftist", even less so communist. That's just something their political opponents, both inside and outside of that party, like to call them because due to the Red Scare that word sounds a lot like a more diplomatic version of "terrorist" or "pedo".
The bulk of that party is, in fact, extreme right wing as they protect the status quo by any means. The only reason Bernie and AOC are part of it is because in a two-party system you can't win the
Essentially there are more or less two ways by which a country can complete a radical shift towards more socialist attitudes. Sweden used one way - unionization and a strong labor movement became a complete takeover as a new party dedicated to worker's rights muscled in and shaped all the politics thereafter. This usually means a peaceful integration between commerce and ideology leading to the social democracy we have today. Exemplified in a great many thriving nations around the globe.
The other is when the establishment has rendered any such peaceful approach impossible. And as JFK put it, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The french, american, cuban and russian revolutions all went down this road.
That...is a gamble. Every revolution opens doors for the most repulsive of sociopaths. Robespierre, Mussolini and Stalin have as much a chance of getting to the top as a Thomas Paine, Gandhi or Mandela.
I think the US is currently practicing brinksmanship of the most dangerous kind. One way or the other radical change is coming. And the one hope of that change coming out in a much needed leftwards direction would require democrats to stop it with the ratchet job. Abandon any hope of retaining the status quo and satisfying the whims of the lobby. And I think that window of opportunity will close right after the 2020 elections...oops.
...or, as I see it, the likely outcome will be a hard turn due fascism as people pin their hopes on a Dear Leader to raise the land and the people. Something, I have to say, Dear Leaders aren't that good at. Especially not when the role models of the current most likely one are Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
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Every ill caused by runaway capitalism hinges on one single fact;
Look at Europe; No matter how entry-level your position as a burger flipper or janitor your employer provides a living wage, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity/paternity leave, strong union support, and pension contribution.
And companies accept this without complaint - and the local corporate culture in most major companies reflect this idea. Often respecting these ideals is incorporated in the Code Of conduct. The concept that enforced humanitarian ideals will cause the sky to fall and the sun to set on a nations economy is demonstrably wrong.
Every ill affecting the US workers - minimum wages too low to live on, no safety net, often no paid leave of any kind, often neither pension nor health plan...it's all because companies don't just want to do well. It's simply normal that if you earn a few dollars more by keeping ten thousand workers in feudal serfdom then that is what must be done.
And save for the few lonely actual left-wingers in the democrat party (Bernie, AOC, Salazar, etc) every member of the body politic - on both sides - essentially want that state of affairs to remain.
It's frustrating. I grok why more americans want to just take a torch to the current system and hang the consequences. Comditions for about half the citizenry are rapidly approaching USSR standards of living. And as it was with the old soviet union the commissars just keep braying about the "Worker's Utopia"..err..."Land of opportunity".
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Uh...are they even trying anymore?
Body Politic: "Kindly hand over all your no doubt painstakingly collected records of every time you dun goofed bad"
Shady Cops: "Here you go, sir. This is all we have about that."
Body Politic: "...aside from That One Guy who lynched black people wearing sheets in the 50's you guys seem to be doing pretty well then? Carry on."
Shady Cops: "π!"
General Public: "(β―Β°β‘Β°οΌβ―οΈ΅ β»ββ»"
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Nah, that'd be Restless94110.
Lostinlodos doesn't seem that much in favor of Trump as he's radically anti-establishment, and votes for anyone likely to see the current system burned to the ground.
Some of his arguments, in fact, fit those of an old 1970's classical Leninist arguing that incremental change isn't happening and by now the only meaningful change will come by torch and pitchfork.
I honestly can't say he's all that wrong. 1 in 10 americans are on food stamps. 40% of households would break from an unplanned $400 expense. A full-time 8 hour job on minimum wage isn't enough to supply housing, transportation, basic medical insurance and food. half the country is one bad turn away from homelessness.
And while the GOP has actively pushed for making shit worse, democrats have shown pretty well they're really unwilling to create meaningful change for the better. Something a few of Obama's policies made abundantly clear.
Even so...Trump isn't the answer any more than Hitler was the answer to the ailing Weimar. Yeah he'll dismantle a lot of things but not anything supported by money. Under his regime the lobby will be writing all the bills without even the flimsy pretense of politics taking place.
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