retrospectology

retrospectology, 1 day ago

People already materially demonstrated that you’re incorrect though during the primaries in multiple states, that’s what the Uncommitted vote was, a message saying “I will only vote for you if you resist this genocide.” And they did this in numbers that are comparable to his win margins from 2020.

Now, it could be argued that Biden has wasted too much time and let too many people die since then, but there is no sign that not supporting the genocide would hurt him.

He’s not making up the ground with his push for fascist immigration policy either, he’s literally just alienating more voters the further he goes to the right because republicans are not ever going to vote for him, and anyone in the progressive center isn’t going to go for illegal asylum denial policies.

retrospectology, 1 day ago

You can weirdly argue Biden “let” people die all you want,

Sorry, U should correct that; he directly provides the funding and weapons to massacre children.

Ask Summer Lee and her constituents what she thinks if AIPAC wasting millions to try and unseat her, lol.

The era of AIPAC is coming to the end, people are becoming aware that they play both sides and they’re soon going the wat if the NRA.

retrospectology, 1 day ago

Watching these two old fucks sweat and strain to have a coherent debate while some corporate journalist moderator stammers in the background is probably the last thing I’d ever want to do.

retrospectology, 1 day ago

Come on man!

retrospectology, 2 days ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c42e4f80-988c-4f58-90e0-ff39bdb439c3.jpeg

retrospectology, 1 day ago

Isn’t this meme throwing their rhetoric back at them though? It highlights how absurd it looks when they make this crazy religious political rhetoric that makes a criminal out to be some “godly” man.

This cynical use of religion is a pretty good satirization of what right-wingers do.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

Can we all just agree now to leave the 4chan stuff on 4chan?

retrospectology, 4 days ago

4chan humor is mostly moldy af in my opinion, plus it links the fediverse to a toxic internet culture.

Reddit’s decline further and further into alt-right bullshit was facilitated in part by subs like greentext. The alt-right always tries to use “humor” as a gateway into normal spaces, corrupting them by slowly introducing fashy nonsense as “just jokes bro”.

They post this stuff on other social media because their incel kingdom is dying. I say let it die, no need to give them relevance.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

It’s also what the comment feature is for.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

I’d prefer to express why the downvote was given, since a lot of people aren’t fully aware of how the alt-right uses a specific brand of humor to insinuate themselves into communities and that 4chan humor has its basis largely in white supremacist/misogynist/pedophile shit.

The whole point of the humor is to make a bigoted meme, then layer over it again and again until people who aren’t “initiated” don’t understand that they’re basically propagating nazi symbols etc.

It’s kind of like how after a while of a community making “ironic” nazi jokes it gets more and more difficult to distinguish the irony from just straight up support for racism. Morons get caught up in that trap, it’s how the right recruits skinheads, incels, and proud boys and such, by massaging them into complacency.

Chantard humor and symbols should be rejected wholesale, no reason to allow the fediverse to become a breeding ground for right-wingers like Reddit became.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

How does one achieve the naivety to believe only a single political faction operates like this?

Because literally only one does. There is no bothsides here. 4chan is a cesspool that spawned some of the most awful hate seen on the Internet. Bannon saw the opportunity to there during Gamer Gate and 4chan was a willing springboard for the political disaster unfolding not just in the US but globally.

Fuck 4chan and fuck fascists, there is no giving them a “fair shake”, they are not entitled to get their foot in the door.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

Show me a left wing community on the Internet where they joke about rape and share videos of beheadings and pictures of dead kids to make jokes about. Where they relentlessly dox women who dare complain about being represented as sex objects in video games and media, harassing them in a coordinated, explicit purpose of driving them to misery or even suicide. Where their memes like “an hero” stem from a literal suicide posted to their community. Show me the left wing equivalent of that trash.

4chan is disgusting, and it’s disgusting because of the garbage human beings who hang out there.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

Does this one only call for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the hostages? If so that’s still a non-starter and Biden knows it, if Israel isn’t withdrawing permanently then it’s not really of any benefit to the people of Gaza and the genocide will continue immediately after Israel gets the hostages.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

I’ve got news, it’s not progressives standing in the way of fighting this. It’s the morons who cling to “bipartisanship” because they still think this is about protecting the corporate money hose with their GOP pals across the aisle.

Meanwhile every Republican will vote like an ideolouge whether they are ir not. Neoliberalism has failed, utterly and completely, to confront fascism. Instead they bury their heads in the sand, ignore their growing base of Millenials and GenZ, and think they can protect a status quo that’s dissolving beneath their feet.

People like you need to wake up. You’re not going to get “slow progress” out of the lesser of two evils, you’re going to get a negligbly slower slide into fascism. There is no protecting your comfortable bubble at this point.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

Protest voting would be aimed at reforming a democratic party that’s unfit to confront fascism. It’s a legitimate strategy whether you agree with it or not.

Another Biden term will not do anything to mitigate Democratic complicity with fascism. Establishment dems are quite literally worse than useless.

retrospectology, 4 days ago

That’s why you vote uncommitted. There’s no way to ignore that message or use any of their usual excuses.

But the Democrats understand what they need to do in order to win election, they’re just so latched to the corporate tit that they won’t do it. Think they can get a few more gulps of that sweet lobby money before things get “serious”. The pigs are too busy feeding to give a fuck about our democracy collapsing.

retrospectology, 5 days ago

This is pretty much how narcissists think in a nutshell. It’s essentially a mental disability that makes them incapable of understanding why they would care about people, especially people who can’t adore or praise them (i.e. dead people). Emotional one-way street.

retrospectology, 6 days ago

I feel like if Lindsey Graham was to be struck in the face pudding would come out of his ears and nose. Just the impression I get from hearing him over the years and observing his big, sloppy pudding-head lolling around on his body.

How’s that for political commentary?

retrospectology, 4 days ago

Yup, I simply will not vote for a Dem who takes AIPAC/Jstreet money or if it’s found they’re taking money from AIPAC subsidiary groups. Primary, general, doesn’t matter it’s a hard pass and I’ll leave a blank ballot if I have to.

retrospectology, 6 days ago (edited 6 days ago)

Being confused about xenogenders and the claim that “gender is a social construct” stuff is not unusual since a lot of it is just that; socially fabricated stuff, a lot of which has nothing to do with gender identity or being trans. A lot of people confuse gender expression with gender identity. Expression is a social thing (ex. How you dress, words you use to describe yourself etc.), gender identity is innate and unchanging, it would exist regardless of society.

It’s easier to understand it this way; gender identity is based on how a person relates to their sex characteristics, most people are cis, meaning their sexual neurology is aligned with the rest of their body’s sex characteristics and thus feels “invisible”. Some people are born with neurological make-up that doesn’t match their bodily sex (believed to possibly be due to timing of hormone exposure in the womb).

This causes a deep sense of distress (i.e. dysphoria), the closer a trans person is able to get their body to match the sex that their neurological make-up is telling them they should be, the less dysphoria they experience.

If you want to understand how it feels to be trans, imagine you suddenly had large breasts tomorrow. Think about how uncomfortable that would be having to live like that as a man, how “foreign” and unnatural that would feel.

That’s dysphoria, for trans people it’s their entire body that feels out of place, and it underpins the entire trans experience, it’s why people are compelled to transition even in the face of extreme resistance. If you, as a man, had the breasts removed that would be gender affirming care that would help you live a more comfortable, honest life.

retrospectology, 7 days ago

Kind of wild given that they release updates every other day and break features like Shadowplay until you update. You’d think at least it’d be secure.

retrospectology, 7 days ago

Maybe it’s my specific card or something but it stops being able to record and none of my hotkeys work until I update. It’s happened at least half a dozen times for me, quite annoying.

retrospectology, 8 days ago

The “pause” bullshit basically just means the genocide will continue after the hostages are handed over.

Amazing that Israel hasn’t yet slaked their thirst for palestinian children’s blood yet. Absolute insanity.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

He could do that, sure.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

This is what I don’t understand about establishment dems playing chicken with our Democracy, their neck is on the line too.

I really don’t understand why they think making a show of being Republican Lite is ever going to start working. If someone wants a fascist they’re just going to vote for a full-on fascist, not a half-fascist.

retrospectology, 9 days ago (edited 9 days ago)

[…] or watch the USA and the bulwark of democracy it represents around the world be destroyed.

Ok…but I’m watching that occur right now under Biden anyway. Like, dems desperately need to stop moving to the right, the distinction that you’re trying to draw is becoming less and less meaningful with every lesser of two evils elected.

We need a party that allows fighters to lead the way, not fascists and corporate lapdogs. The party politics need to change yesterday, it’s difficult for many voters to see that happening if neoliberalism isn’t kicked to the curb.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

Maybe, but that argument is getting harder and harder for neoliberals to make as the DNC continues trying to court the far-right on things like immigration, genocide and corporate welfare. They’ve done such an incompetent job of protecting our most basic freedoms from fascists that it makes it hard to claim they aren’t complicit.

retrospectology, 12 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

Remember, not just Tiananmen anniversery but the yellow umbrella protests that led to the brutalization of HK by the CCP really took off on June 16th.

retrospectology, 13 days ago

It’s an issue with religion in general, any of the Abrahamic religions, by their nature, demand loyalty to the religion above all else, whether it’s country or even family.

But I’m more concerned with the loyalty of evangelicals in this country than any other religious group, they are the group proving to be the most erosive to our democracy.

As with nearly everything the right says, every accusation is a confession.

retrospectology, 12 days ago

They’re easily brushed off until they start becoming a major demographic or unite with other fascistic groups. It’s like any religious group, they are harmless as a minority but when the ideology takes hold at a large scale it starts to become a problem.

The US has, unfortunately, been stuck with religious fundementalists since its inception. Not exclusively, but the element has always been here.

Over the last century our Republican party was quickly losing political relevance, so they switched their primary target demographic to southern religious groups and racists, building on those groups’ sense of aggrievement that fewer and fewer people believed in their ideas. It was called The Southern Strategy and it explains a lot about what’s happening in the US currently and how these fringe groups become mainstreamed.

The evangelicals in the US also concoted a kind of toxic mixture of capitalism and religion, they built massive mega churches that run like corporations, and they did so in areas where there wasn’t a whole lot going on economically or culturally. They run almost like company towns where everyone in the surrounding community is part of the cult.

Take it as a lesson, it can happen wherever you might be however far fetched it seems, be assurred that fascism is a global effort and the fascist fringe groups in your country are taking notes whenever there’s a fascist victory in some other country. They learn from eachother and will exploit whatever form of irrational fundementalism, latent racism or culture of tradition that exists in your country.

retrospectology, 13 days ago

China may start a war over Taiwan, but that would be the only thing really that would realistically lead in that direction, and the the West would probably do a Ukraine where they just supply aid, not actually get involved in the fighting. If we were ready to fight on behalf of Taiwan we’d be recognizing them as a country and sending high profile diplomatic visits regularly etc.

More or less all of the CCPs geopolitical and economic efforts would be undone by a war, the world already hates the CCP and it’s not going to make them more likable if they start a war. Plus there’s no real benefit to the west. It’s not like anyone is looking to occupy China, the CCP knows this they just use the idea as propaganda for their own people.

retrospectology, 15 days ago

If religion wasn’t behind some of the worst atrocities on the planet you might have a point, but the largest religions also are the ones that tend to be fundementally intolerant.

Once an irrational belief in magical spirits starts effecting other people and how our society is run that’s when it becomes something people actively need to be convinced not to believe. They need to cope with reality, not hide from it.

retrospectology, 14 days ago

The problem is, the Abrahamic religions will always seed new fundementalists because, regardless of how people with a modern mindset might interpret it as allegory etc. to make it more palletable, the texts were intended to be read and believed literally. They were written by people in the bronze age, based on made up stories that go who knows how far back.

It’s what makes them so toxic, the belief virus of fundementalism is always there in a latent state waiting to be activated by some new context (usually a particularly charismatic leader or radical change in society).

You see a great example with the current pope – people thought from his language of “acceptance” towards lgbt people that the church was becoming more progressive, but then recently you see him using slurs that pretty clearly contradict that sentiment, because he understands the text is unequivocally anti-lgbt. The Abrahamic religions will always betray people in this way.

retrospectology, 15 days ago

Netanyahu pretty obviously is not being held back by Joe “give them multiple billions in genocide aid” Biden.

Putin, yeah, probably.

retrospectology, 15 days ago

It’s wild to think he’s willing to potentially lose to a literal felon just to protect a genocidal right-wing zealot.

It would be the most final indictment of neoliberalism one could imagine.

retrospectology, 18 days ago

They used it for the Affordable Care Act. Nice attempt to reframe that.

It should be reframed because very few people undersrand that the ACA is literally a massive gift to private insurers. It’s why they were onboard. Not only was it great for them because it forced people into buying useless high deductible private insurance that covered nothing, it was a dead end that couldn’t possibly lead to further reforms.

Trump eliminating the mandate was the one good thing that came out of his term.

If the GOP liked ACA so much, then why have they spent the last 13 years trying to repeal it

The exact same reason they aren’t accepting Biden’s offer to help them fulfill their right-wing wishlist of border policies; it’s more politically beneficial to pretend to oppose it. It’s one of the oldest tactics in the book; stomp and scream and yell about the tiniest thing and your milquetoast “bipartisan” dipshit opponent won’t dare to pushback.

The right is always framing in the way that benefits them most, and you’re falling right into it.

retrospectology, 18 days ago

Dude they seriously tried to repeal it. There’s no pretending.

And yet it wasn’t repealed. Weird, huh.

I’m gonna say it again, you want progress? Vote. Give Dems overwhelming and consistent victories. Not 6 years (or 4 months) every 44 fucking years.

I vote plenty, just not for corporate conservatives who give lip service to progressive policy but then when the chips are down conveniently hide behind whichever Dem gets to be the rotating villain this time around.

Ask yourself this; how much do you think republicans could get done with a 4 month super majority?

Corporate democrats will drag their feet as slow as they need to no matter how much time you give them because they aren’t actually interested in change or progress. They’re happy to play grab ass with their GOP buddies as Republicans slide the whole circus closer and closer towards fascism.

Its not even that Democrats are slowing our descent, we’ve slid all the way to the bottom of the hill already and Democrats are just there miming pulling on ropes to get us back up.

retrospectology, 18 days ago

No one is “frothing at the mouth for violence”, violence is here, people are getting ready to face the consequences of your complicity.

Nobody fucking wants to have to confront fascists and protest and riot, people want a normal life, unfortunately that is not going to be possible given the situation you’ve put us all in with your politics. Neolibs have ignored the political fight they were charged with and instead tried to sweep it under the rug so they could keep cashing those lobby checks, and now the disease literally cannot be ignored and has metastasized into literal fascism.

Vote for Biden all you want, I’m trying to warn you that it’s too late whether he wins or not, and you need to wrap your head around the reality of what you’re dealing with. No amount of jelly-spined fascist lite democrats are going to get us out of this hole, and the longer you labor under that delusion the more the fascism takes root.

retrospectology, 18 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

It barely scrapped by surviving, so obviously it was all pretend, right?

You do understand that they already know how a vote will go when legislation is brought up, right? There is no “scraping by”, it either has the votes or it doesn’t.

Voting for or against something to virtue signal is not some crazy out there concept, it’s routine practice from both parties. The Democrats do the same thing.

If I’m a GOP politician, and I’ve been railing against healthcare reform and demonizing the concept, going on Fox News talking about Death Panels and other stupid shit, to the point where now even my spineless “moderate” opponents have conceded the entire debate about universal healthcare and are ready to settle for a forced private insurance schemethat I created, why would I vote for it if I’ve convinced the Democrats to do it for me?

There’s no downside to voting against, I get my forced private insurance bill and I get to go back on Fox and keep up my anti-healthcare reform schtick and dunk on the Democrats. There’s no political benefit to voting for ACA and then having my base of dimwits go “Hey, wait a minute! Durrrr you spent the last 6 months talking about how Obama and the ACA are communism!”

Progress takes actual effort, hard work, and time

Effort and hardwork? Yes. Time? No, not really. The lie about time is what has you so tripped up – change doesn’t necessitate generations and generations, that’s simply speech design to pre-defeat an effort. The only thing standing in the way of change are those who buy into Democratic bullshit excuses.

Remember when Biden implemented Sanders’ child tax credit and it instantaneously halved child poverty? Yeah, that is how quick change can be.

I’m not voting for people because I want a functioning healthcare system for my great great grandchildren, I’m voting for people who want to make it happen now, in my life time instead of making excuses to protect political failures like Biden and co.

retrospectology, 18 days ago

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, defends genocidal presidents like a duck…

retrospectology, 18 days ago

What are you babbling about? The person I’m talking to is pretty clearly neoliberal because he’s using all the same old neoliberal tropes and rhetoric to try and defend the democratic establishment, I don’t know why you’re bringing up some conversation you claim to have had with entirely different people.

retrospectology, 17 days ago

The court is locked in as right leaning for decades. The only mitigation here would be expanding the court, which Biden and establishment dems refuse to even entertain. Those are your “champions”. It’s literally the only way to fix the court on a reasonable timescale and they’ve shown no indication that they will ever do that because in their tiny little peanut brains we’re still back in the 90s where everyone is still pretending that the courts are “apolitical”.

Nothing you’re saying here is compelling.

You going to go out there and gun down the bastards?

Pre-emptively? No. But ask yourself this; how should citizens react to concentration camps in their country? How should people react when fascists start jailing and executing dissidents? How should moral people respond to genocide done in their name? Your mentality needs to evolve now to become that of resistance, because when the system finally gasps its last you’re not going to be able to keep cowering behind the lesser if two evils, you’re going to have to join the fascists or actually take a stand. You need to prepare for that eventuality.

The question is of when fascists get into power, not if. The goal is to make that stay in power as short as possible and do all the things we should’ve done at the end of the Civil War. Fascists prey and feed on the “moderate liberal” mindset, that’s what allows them to keep edging the line further and further and hiding behind “decorum” and other nonsense.

You have to understand that neoliberals have already fucked us over these last decades by doing what you’re doing right now (telling people vote lesser of two evils, shielding the spineless democratic establishment from political consequences, helping propagate neoliberal rhetoric etc.) We’re here because of neoliberal apologists and chronic political negilgence.

So when fascists get control there will be no other option to stop the momentum except direct confrontation. Which will include all manner of civil unrest. Yes, that is extreme and undesirable but that’s where we are at; an extreme inflection point at which fascists are actively taking over our institutions and establishment Dems are letting it happen. It has been in the works for decades.

The question then is will the American people be in a mindset to actually resist or will they be like the citizens in places like China – cowed, resigned and worn down into complacency by the slow, grinding creep of gradual fascism, any memory of what a free society actually looks like erased from their collective memories.

If fascists are to gain control it is better that their hand be forced quickly so perhaps the shock will wake people like you up and the fascists have less time to lay further groundwork. People who are in a comfortable bubble need to experience the consequences that, up until now, have been shouldered by the minorities and groups that those same middle-class neolibs claim to support. Fascism needs to be definitively banished and we cannot do that that in the political climate that neolib “moderates” create.

The alternative is fascism continues to creep into every nook and cranny of our society over the course of a generation and society acclimates to it. There will be ash clouds over our cities and idiots will still be babbling about “We just need to elect the lesser of two evils”. No, force the fascists into the open now, force people to experience it and confront it now, to choose a side definitively, not continue to bury their heads in the sand and elect do nothing dipshit genocidal establishment Democrats.

We cannot keep rewarding democrats who won’t fight, who keep maligning progressives and talking about finding middle ground with the fascists. Voting for those politicians is not useful, it’s counter-productive. Being fascist-lite isn’t cutting it and that needs to be demonstrated materially to the DNC before it’s too late because either they need to stop sabotaging and running from their progressive base or they’re useless.

retrospectology, 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

if the democrats aren’t the answer, who is?

I’ve made a clear distinction that I’m attacking establishment democrats and neoliberals. Stop trying to muddy the distinction, it’s dishonest.

retrospectology, 17 days ago

But yes it does take time to figure out exactly what you’re going to do

Which democrats gave had. There was 0 excuse when Obama had a super majority to not gave abortion legislation ready. In fact they did. Talk about not knowing about the details.

Stop making excuses for them, you’re not helping anyone by trying to deflect oressure, you’re only actively aiding in the false narrative about “it requires time”. If you continue to make excuses for the chronic, decades long failure to meet the mandate given to Democrats by the American people it can only be assumed you want to trend of abject failure to continue.

retrospectology, 17 days ago

You’re saying that people voting for Biden are defending genocidal presidents. I find it appalling that you would say this about people who actually have family suffering in Gaza.

Again, why would I temper my criticism based on some likely-imaginary conversation you had. You know what’s actually apalling? Supporting candidates who fund a genocide. You don’t get to pretend to be scandalized and appalled by anything given the party politics you’re supporting.

If your totally not made up person that you definitely talked to is going vote for Biden it is still a long-term mistake that makes Democratic support for genocide acceptable.

It’s not acceptable and we have three choices as voters 1) Support Biden’s full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 2) Support Trump’s full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 3) Vote Uncommitted to communicate that Dems need to change their party politics around genocide support if they want to win elections.

Those are the choices, there is no “Biden will maybe change his mind once you reward him with power again and suddenly become less genocidal” choice, that’s a fantasy.

retrospectology, 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago)

Your moral center is non-existent.

Unlike Biden I do have a red line. It’s support from genocide, from any candidate. Full stop, do not pass Go, do not collect the lesser of two evils.

retrospectology, 17 days ago

They are going to sieze power. The decision is whether you give them more time to massage the general public into the idea or not.

Trump will not step into office and start ruling like a king, Project 2025 or no. He’ll get four years and will trash the cpuntry and our institutions. Once that’s done Democrats will be faced with a choice; go to the primaries and vote for another milquetoast failure of a corporate dem, or vote for someone who is willing to fight.

If the lesson doesn’t sink in by that point, it never will and the country is doomed.

Voting lesser of two evils has failed, and it will continue to fail. Biden represents a slow death, nothing more.

retrospectology, 16 days ago

Yes. Supporting or not supporting genocide is about morality.

No. I won’t be convinced to vote for any candidate who supports genocide. Ever. For moral reasons, and because voting for that candidate would mean I’m communicating that support for genocide is politically viable for me. I disagree that genocide support should be politically viable.

You may be ok with Democrats supporting genocide, that’s your call. You can call it pragmatism if you want. It’s still genocide, and you still support it by going out and voting for a politician who supports it.