jwiggler

35mm film with picture negatives on it

Whew thank you. You’re the only person in this thread that has actually made good points about your opinion, instead of trying to be snarky or clever with one-liners. I’m in almost total agreement with you, although I still won’t condemn those types of protests. I think they are probably more harmful than useful, but I understand the place it comes from is one of frustration with the absolute ridiculousness of our world and the powers that run it. I sympathize with those types of protesters, and what I assume is their frustration with the ineffectiveness of bottom-up solutions (to me, preferred) in the face of mass contributors to the problem – heads of government, corporations, etc.

Once again thanks for the actual good-faith and thoughtful response.

Wow you’re so great! thanks to you, climate change is now a thing of the past! Oh, wait…

(obviously, in jest. that’s great you do that. You probably should’ve said something like that to begin with)

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I think the whole point of acts like you describe show how you (people) care more about a painting than the continual ravaging of life on this planet by those who seek wealth and power.

What does the Mona Lisa matter when more and more of the worlds population is scrapping to survive under constant threat of environmental and economic collapse and war brought on by the people who host and visit such works of art.

Teacher: “Slavery was bad.”

Republicans: “We need to end this indoctrination of our children.”

There are a lot of weird cringey exchanges in this show similar to this that end up being stylized writing to trick or subvert the viewer. You should continue watching

Yeah. I mean I guess if you want to get technical with it, I’m probably talking about something more akin to neo-fascisim. But I kinda think it’s splitting hairs at the end of the day.

Why do you think that? I think really the only big hallmark that is missing is a single dictator/autocracy.

Otherwise, you have a nationalist, privatized, militaristic country, in which national politicians and news organizations collect money from corporations and as such are so influenced, and a lack of political plurality where voters are consistently forced to choose between the lesser evil.

Idk, I mean you’re right Im no political science grad. But sounds pretty fascist to me.

I agree with you to an extent, but I also sympathize with the person above. I think it was Noam Chomsky who said this, but if each president after WW2 were brought before the Nuremberg Court, they’d be hanged for war crimes. I think when he said this he stopped at HW Bush, but Id be willing to bet it’s true up to now.

This doesn’t mean all sides are the same. I’m still going to vote Democrat in a general election, for the most part. But at the end of the day, they still push a globalist free-market ideology, they still promote war, and they still condone the surveillance of the American people, the imprisonment of dissidents and political threats, and the destruction of the environment in the name of profit.

Fascism is already here. It’s the corporations (the rich) who hold power, and both neoliberals and conservatives work to uphold that dynamic so they themselves can maintain power.

I agree with you to an extent, but I also sympathize with the person above. I think it was Noam Chomsky who said this, but if each president after WW2 were brought before the Nuremberg Court, they’d be hanged for war crimes. I think when he said this he stopped at HW Bush, but Id be willing to bet it’s true up to now.

This doesn’t mean all sides are the same. I’m still going to vote Democrat in a general election, for the most part. But at the end of the day, they still push a globalist free-market ideology, they still promote war, and they still condone the surveillance of the American people, the imprisonment of dissidents and political threats, and the destruction of the environment in the name of profit.

Fascism is already here. It’s the corporations (the rich) who hold power, and both neoliberals and conservatives work to uphold that dynamic so they themselves can maintain power.

I live in a small city about an hour away from a major city. I’m also an hour away from what I would call the boonies – rural, remote areas where owning guns and open carrying is normal. In fact, I’ve seen open carry around here, in the city, quite a bit. It’s pretty normal around here.

I heard a shooting happen in the suburbs near my house when I was a kid. It’s what’s considered the “nice” part of town. An old woman walking her dog was killed. I heard the shot through my bedroom window. Only til I moved into the inner part of the city did I witness guns being shot in the city more often. Most of the times you hear pops, it’s fireworks. A couple times, it’s been guns. Those couple times are pretty freaky.

Every once in awhile I’ll walk past a crime scene downtown, usually something happened like a stabbing the night before. One day I scrolled through reddit and saw a video – a point-blank execution had occured outside the club down the road. That one was disturbing. I think the kid is going to jail for a long time.

The inner part of this particular city is not as safe as the suburbs, but for the most part you should be okay, as long as you’re not looking to start trouble. When I’m walking around town, especially the immediate area I live, my eyes are open. At night, they’re wide open.

As it should be

Even if the group calls for violence, it should be legal to be a part of that group. If I am subscribed to a YouTuber who calls for violence on people, and those subscribers commit violence upon those people, and I am sitting at home eating Cheetos, it is not justice for me to be charged for being part of that group.

The caller of violence should be charged, the co-conspirators, inciters, and the actors – but not me, because I was eating Cheetos on my couch.

I’m not a free speech absolutist.

A free speech absolutist would say libel should be legal, and I’d disagree. There are certain things the government can do to ensure a person’s right to free speech doesn’t infringe upon anothers right to health, happiness, etc, and I think that’s okay, but that people really need to be wary of such things so that power doesn’t get too concentrated. But I wouldn’t say I’m an absolutist.

Im just saying you shouldn’t make it illegal to be a part of a particular group, because then the next party in power will have precedent to make it illegal to be a part of a different group.

It’s not about what groups you ban in the beginning. It’s about the groups they’ll ban when your particular party is out of power.

I mean, I hate white nationalism just as much as the next guy. But if you go around making it illegal to be anonymous or part of a particular group, whether they’re considered terrorist or otherwise, that’s bad. It gives the next party in power precedent to make being part of your group illegal. That’s why freedom of speech is so important.

I think associating with a group that believes in the creation of an ethnostate should remain legal so that associating with a group that believes in the dismantling of capitalism remains legal.

Sure, but who isn’t “against” China in the West? They commit atrocities left and right.

But I think it’d be more difficult to find many who’d support military conflict with China, proxy or otherwise.

Edit: honestly, scratch that. I think it would be pretty easy to get popular support for a conflict with China, in the same way it was easy to get popular and unwavering support for a conflict with Russia

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say I’m delusional about, or what you’re trying to claim is propaganda, but nice lil throw-in there. Good to see you’re not actually trying to have a conversation.

It seems you’ve entirely missed the point though. Of course Russia would rather Ukraine as their subject, and that they would rather they have a russia-friendly government (after all, a third of Ukraine speaks Russian).

There is no justification for Russia invading Ukraine.

But the US has actually done nothing to try to end this war, and has done much to provoke it, and I think that’s because we have a perpetual war economy. You said it yourself, it’s a good deal to weaken our rivals – we don’t actually need American troops on the ground, but we can still fight the evil Russians, hoo-rah! Fuck them communists! Talk about hawkish propaganda.

Edit: oh, and by the way, if you really want to argue that US should be in this proxy war because Russia is a big US “rival”: Russia’s GDP is ~2 trillion dollars compared to the US 26 trillion, so not exactly economic rivals, and comparing NATO vs Russia military prowess isnt much of a fairer balance. So how do you mean that Russia is a US rival? Historically, sure, but we shouldn’t go invading everyone considered a historical “rival,” should we?

We sent 76 billion dollars worth of aid to Ukraine in a year and a half. That is four times their own defense budget for 2023. We’re funding their defense. It’s a proxy war between US and Russia. I mean, we’ve already been intervening – in 2014 we were trying to influence the outcome of their government during their revolution, you can read some analysis here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957.amp

Edit: if you flipped it on it’s head, this war is like if Mexico had a revolution that overthrew their corrupt government, and while the protests were happening Russia was supporting key members of the ones overthrowing the government. US feels threatened that our neighbor is strengthening ties with our enemy, and so we invade Mexico. It’s obviously not right for the US to invade sovereign Mexico. It’s obviously not right that Russia is fucking around in Mexico’s revolution. But in this case, Russia doesn’t care if Mexico beats back the invading US, they just want to keep supplying them with weapons to prop up Russia’s own domestic “defense” industry, prop up the economy, claim moral necessity, unite the party against a common enemy, bobs your uncle, you’re elected again