UnderpantsWeevil
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
- Comment on The only one country 7 minutes ago:
I mean, he included Japan and South Korea
When you hit a saturation point of US military bases, they just start calling you part of the Western bloc.
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 1 hour ago:
So there’s no such thing as a despotic tyrant in your mind?
Of course not. It’s a very effective pejorative. Really good at polarizing people into camps. Because, if you still say you like the guy, then you’re enabling tyranny. And that justifies hating the defenders of the government just as much as hating the government itself. If you start off saying you agree, then its straight on to “Well then you must be glad we flattened that guy’s house and killed as many of his friends and family as possible.”
Once you tar someone with the label, you’ve justified their execution.
Pinning down what you’re about is exhausting given you love to play insincere.
I’m just tired of hearing people regurgitate ultra-nationalist propaganda. The reflexive need to point to Bad Country and dogmatically recite the prayer “At least we’re not in Bad Country”. Then to justify any horror inflicted abroad, by mouthing the apologia “At least we killed the Bad People. Now we’ll be greeted as liberators.”
Literally nobody the US can kill that some fascist fucks on here can’t massage their brains into justifying.
That or I can just block you.
I know you are here to block me. Block, coward, you are only going to block a man.
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 1 hour ago:
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party implement Marx-described socialism by force.
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party lead the proletariat in reasserting their control of domestic infrastructure. The funny thing is that Lenin’s biggest triumph wasn’t as a violent revolutionary, but a peace activist. His coup against the Mensheviks was in opposition to their continued prosecution of The Great War. It was, in effect, a soldier’s strike action.
So you have it totally ass backwards. First the Tsarists and then the Mensheviks implemented a policy of forced conscription and endless war. Then Lenin championed a radical response of mass desertion and refusal to fight. When the national leadership tried to force newly christened anti-war Communists back to the front lines - by threatening summary execution, corporal punishment, and indefinite detention in Tsarist gulags - they found themselves entirely outnumbers. And, as a result, their civil government collapsed on itself.
Afterwards, Lenin began issuing instructions on how to transform the Russian aristocratically managed economy into independently organized and managed worker’s soviets. Then he attempted to organize a bureaucracy that could knit the soviets together into an international economic network without relying on the traditional methods of market mechanics.
That second part - the actual functional implementation of the Marxist economic model - is what makes him a Communist in practice and not just another Tsar or President.
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 1 hour ago:
you make a reference to Whataboutism fallacies and then immediately invoke a kind of Slippery Slope Strawman
You always know a guy who is fresh out of Reddit when they sound like an LLM listing off Logical Fallacies.
No, saying despotic tyrannies are bad does not mean that one must embrace laisse-faire capitalist individualism
Exactly! And which countries are run by despotic tyrants? Always and forever the ones we don’t like.
Send me to the gulag next
American Gulags First!
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 3 hours ago:
read “Marxist-Leninism” where you see “Communism”
Marx and Lenin didn’t establish or implement economic models?
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 5 hours ago:
??? No.
Yeah. Evil Foreigners Are Always Worse. From the Coolidge Era to the modern day, the Exotic Asian and the Angry German and the Primitive African are always and forever doing something more scary and vile than the good hearted, well-bred, noble, chivalrious, handsome (white) American.
Any argument to the contrary is Whataboutism and can be automatically dismissed.
I can’t tell if you’re asserting I’m siding with Reagan
You’re echoing his talking points, practically word for word.
Reagan issued long winded diatribes about the existential threat of authoritarian government and the fundamental virtues of individualism, liberalism, and laisse-faire capitalism.
He was surrounded by economists and pundits saying the same.
Always and forever, we were the City on the Hill. The Beacon of Liberty and Justice for All.
Even when we were bombing Grenada or funding nun rape in Nicaragua and the Philippines. Perhaps, especially then.
- Comment on Anon is 23 5 hours ago:
You’d really like to think so.
But a 4.0 GPA will get you a job basically anywhere, because managers assume you’re a quick study. Sub-3.0 means they think you’re lazy or hard headed. When you’re skating near 2.0, you can have a degree in Rocket Science and recruiters will just assume you sucked at it.
- Comment on Anon is 23 5 hours ago:
The only 23 year olds who didn’t go through this phase… were the people who had family connections to get them a 100K job after graduation.
Idk about that. I knew plenty of people who got entry level jobs at Schlumberger or Dell or corporate equivalent, earning $70k+ walking in the door.
If you had top grades and interviewed well, it’s possible. But we’re talking college grads and maybe one in five or one in ten, depending on your school. It wasn’t the “normal” experience. But it wasn’t pure nepo shit either.
rest of us took 6-9 months to find work, often while doing part time stuff to pad or resumes. if you don’t have connections getting a job is difficult and takes a lot of work.
Spent six months volunteering at a literacy center, which gave me some glowing references and a genuinely good feeling about getting up in the morning in the intermediate time.
Also spent a bunch of time at the gym, which was great once I got back into the dating scene.
- Comment on Anon is 23 5 hours ago:
First job out of college was a tiny Medical IT company with maybe a dozen employees. Started at $15/hr while they billed me at $80. Spent seven years polishing my resume (should have been out the door at 3, but I was naive and they did up my pay to $35/hr before I’d finally left).
All that is to say, your starting salary isn’t forever. Five and ten years of experience counts for a lot.
But staying in the service sector is a dead end. The most dogshit small time IT job is better than carting boxes around, if you want to work in IT. The grungiest nursing job is better than flipping burgers if you want to work in medicine.
Put years on a resume and keep looking for new opportunities. But don’t get stuck in the quagmire of retail, unless you actually want to try and climb that career path into management or supply chain or whatever.
And absolutely, stay the fuck out of masters programs. That’s for people who have a job lined up, not people looking for work.
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 6 hours ago:
Capitalism and socialism are economic models. Democracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship, and communism are systems of government.
🙄 Communism isn’t an economic model?
- Comment on The Dangers of Socialism they warned us about... 6 hours ago:
In the US we’re not quite USSR/CCP-levels
We never are. The Foreigners are always worse.
I think this meme will be true soon.
I’ve been reading this since the Reagan Administration. It’s also Big Government. It’s always Authoritarianism. The remedy is always some flavor of Deregulation or States Rights or (Capitalist) Anarchism or A Return to The Constitutional Principles.
it’s authoritarianism that does this
Real Literal Reaganism
- Comment on 22 hours ago:
The only correct response
- Comment on PSBLACKOUT (boycott of PlayStation) 1 day ago:
In my region, PS5s were out of stock for a long time.
It’s very funny to see folks talk about a boycott against a product that keeps selling out faster than the parent company can manufacture it.
- Comment on PSBLACKOUT (boycott of PlayStation) 1 day ago:
How does it actually affect anything?
It gives certain social influencers a soapbox from which they can shout “Like, Subscribe, and Share!”
Modern day “boycotts” aren’t really economic actions. They’re media stunts advanced by affinity marketing groups intended to collect personal information and demonstrate their ability to mobilize large numbers of people.
- Comment on Shoutout To My Boy 1 day ago:
- Comment on We hate him no matter who he represents. 2 days ago:
The Democratic Party has its Gavin Newsoms and Joe Manchins and Michael Bloombergs and Anthony Weiners aplenty.
No shortage of Democrats on the Lolita Express. No shortage of liberal billionaires hungry for another war in the Middle East, another trillion dollar data center spend on public land, or another Bay of Pigs on Cuba.
None of Trump’s politics are unique to Trump. We’ve got shitty little fascists crawling all over the country, from the bluest cities of Washington and Minnesota to the reddest oil fields of Texas and Wyoming. If anything, the latest wave of Silicon Valley “Network State” fucks have been more concentrated in liberal districts. And their money has produced a wave of horrifyingly bad liberal politicians who are as much responsible for the Obama->Trump party slump as any QAnon club.
- Comment on We hate him no matter who he represents. 2 days ago:
Pennsylvania has a Democrat ogre
Two, really. Fetterman’s the one that keeps showing up on reactionary news media to talk shit. But Shapiro’s been taking his own turn as an avowed Zionist, a corporate sleaze, and a reactionary fearmonger whenever he’s had the opportunity.
- Comment on We hate him no matter who he represents. 2 days ago:
How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy
He only made it through the Republican primary because the Democrats helped him through it.
The punchline of the last decade has been how neoliberals and reactionaries within the liberal party laid the foundation for a Permanent Republican Majority. Even now, they’re more interested in beating back an insurgent progressive movement than ousting fascists in their own backyards.
- Comment on I'll watch any Muppets movie no questions asked 2 days ago:
Hearing the classic “Hi-ya!” as she jams Fozzyphemus’s walking stick into his face.
- Comment on Why is AOC a big deal? She just speaks common sense and calls out absurdity. Have we really gone that far off the rails where we don't do it ourselves? 2 days ago:
It definitely shows how bad the state of the national news media is. We’re watching The Trump Show 24/7/365. I doubt one American in twenty could even name a Dem contender for President who hasn’t run already. One reason why Kamala Harris remains a front-runner on paper. Hell, you’ll see people talk about Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama running again, purely because these are the only people whose names register.
But come primary season, that will change as contenders put more money and social pressure on boosting their own name recognition. This time next year, you’ll have a dozen different Dem contenders doing their warm-up laps around the field.
- Comment on Why is AOC a big deal? She just speaks common sense and calls out absurdity. Have we really gone that far off the rails where we don't do it ourselves? 3 days ago:
I just don’t think she deserved to get the kind of attention she’s getting.
A lot of it boils down to her fundraising numbers. Among all the members of The Squad, she outperforms to the point that the rest of the party needs to periodically come to her with hands out for a cup of money. That extends her influence within party leadership and allows her to effectively lobby for legislative amendments and rally support in her caucus to vote against certain other bills.
For example many people talk about presidency and I think she’s not even close to this level.
I think she’s better positioned to work on her bid in 2026 than Obama was twenty years earlier.
Of course, I also think she’d function better as a candidate for NY Governor. Building a hard base of DSA-aligned Democrats inside New York and advancing progressive policy at the state level sounds much more appealing than taking a stab at the White House, only to get the entire country’s problems dumped in your lap.
There’s simply no one else out there.
There’s Pritzker in Illinois and Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Mark Kelly of Arizona are also strong contenders. But, again, anyone taking the Presidency in 2028 is going to inherit an absolute shitshow. I wouldn’t want the job and I think you kinda have to be crazy if you do. I also don’t think AOC would do well under the degree of pressure the office will apply. You really need someone coming in there with a crowbar and an eye for kneecaps. That’s not her style of politics.
I could almost stomach four years of Gavin Newsom if I believed he’d spend his time running down Trump Admin hacks and bankrupting them. Where’s Elliot Spitzer when you need him? But I know Newsom would sell out twice as hard as Trump just to prove he’s better at it, so that’s a no-go.
I don’t think there are any good candidates for President in 2028, AOC included. But that’s more thanks to the deep endemic corruption of the office and the spinelessness of the Dem Party as a whole. If the only thing you care about is winning a popularity contest, though? AOC’s a top contender.
- Comment on Why is AOC a big deal? She just speaks common sense and calls out absurdity. Have we really gone that far off the rails where we don't do it ourselves? 3 days ago:
that worked on Hillary
Hillary shot herself in the foot by holding repellent policies and abhorrent views even within her own party. She was pro-war well into the 2010s. She was Tough On Crime in the middle of BLM protest waves. She was chintzy and hyper-bureaucratic on public health care and education while she freely opened her wallet to mass surveillance and corporate bailouts. She demonstrated naked hostility to the LGBTQ community time and time again. She flaunted her wealth, constantly lied about her own historical record, surrounded herself with sycophants and scammers, and was the worst kind of sore loser.
That’s why Obama kicked the knees out from under her in 2008. And that’s why Donald Trump could casually outflank her on the left in 2016, by mouthing a few anti-war slogans, bullshitting about popular economic reforms, and hugging the Pride Flag. Hillary made the same stupid mistakes as Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 and Harris in 2024. She desperately pandered to the Republican Establishment while expecting everyone to the left of John McCain to reflexively bend the knee.
I’m glad Hillary lost. I’m just sad she had to lose in the general, rather than scrubbing out in the primary a second time.
- Comment on Why is AOC a big deal? She just speaks common sense and calls out absurdity. Have we really gone that far off the rails where we don't do it ourselves? 3 days ago:
She’s not a great speaker but she gets a lot of coverage from left-wing influencers because there’s no one else to promote.
She’s fine. There are definitely better orators. But she stays on message, advances popular policies, and is generally well-received by her constituents. There are plenty of other aspiring AOCs that don’t perform half as well. And you won’t be able to name them because they don’t win elected office - much less survive multiple hostile intra-party primary bids and smear campaigns - or fundraise effectively or get promoted via social media so aggressively.
There are definitely other people to promote. We just watched Graham Platner’s star rise largely on his personal charisma and ability to build a crowd. We’ve seen Al Franken and Anthony Weiner and John Edwards all come and go along similar trajectories. AOC might demonstrate better staying power simply because she’s not a giant sex pest.
So she’s everywhere even though she’s kind of bland in my opinion (compared with European left at least).
Compared to Corbyn or Mélenchon or Reichinnek? I’d say she’s par for the course.
- Comment on Why is AOC a big deal? She just speaks common sense and calls out absurdity. Have we really gone that far off the rails where we don't do it ourselves? 3 days ago:
Plenty of politicians exist who have sensible policies and speak truth to power and yadda yadda yadda. Most of them lose. The ones that one mostly get back-benched by party leadership or primaried out of office in subsequent elections.
AOC (and Sanders and Mamdani and a few others) tend to be notable because they advance popular policies in a manner that cut through corporate media white noise, while surviving a deluge of character attacks and faux-scandals intent on derailing their mission.
It’s not merely that you have some rando saying shit. It’s that you can hear that person, you can be represented by that person, and you can organize around that person to elect other politicians with a similar set of values and beliefs.
- Comment on Which is it Lemmy? 3 days ago:
That’s definitely a ragebait answer
- Comment on Modern Monetary Theory: Musk Edition 3 days ago:
how many people you know (directly or indirectly) go unfed?
Well, I know maybe 30 people who I talk to on a regular basis. And none of them are currently starving. So I guess my local food bank isn’t actually stretched to the limit. And the South Sudan famine is fake news.
- Comment on Which is it Lemmy? 3 days ago:
Ragebait answers only
I’m giving so many people Fs on this assignment because you failed to read all the instructions.
The correct answer is B due to the graphical conservation of speed lines.
- Comment on Pssst...by the way... 3 days ago:
Take another toke and it’ll make sense
- Comment on Pssst...by the way... 3 days ago:
Heresy
- Comment on Modern Monetary Theory: Musk Edition 4 days ago:
If someone has $100 it is technically worth more than $100.
If someone buys a house for $500k it’s worth $500k. But it’s also a place to live, which makes it invaluable to a person without a home.
If the value declines to $400k then the net value is -$100k. But, again, the house has value as a place to live that humans need. Being underwater on your home isn’t the same as being homeless. And owning a million homes that lose value is very different than being broke.
Use value and exchange value are different things. And saying you have $8.4T on paper means something very different than saying you control properties, equities, and IP that other people need, but can’t have, because you’re hoping to flip it for a profit.
