BidensGranddaughter

joined 4 years ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm still "nothing will happen" gang, but it would be fucking hilarious if the thing that ends up torpedoing the DNC's credibility (I mean among normies/mainstream) was them blatantly fixing their primary again, but this time to block their own sitting president (who was previously pushed through to block Bernie) from the nomination because his brain has melted so much that capital can't ignore it.

With Bernie, they were able to put the fix in before the primary elections, so it at least had some facade of "democracy" that gave liberals plausible deniability or whatever. But the votes are in for Biden, so the only way to have an alternate candidate is 1) Hillary pushes Biden down the stairs or 2) they just straight up decide to throw away their own primary results at the convention. At least we can all draw pleasure from the hilariously impossible situation they very predictably put themselves in.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Between this and the fake news comm, I'm rethinking trying to get comrades more involved on this site. Like, it's just embarrassing and too much trouble to have to explain "oh yeah those really active comms that appear completely indistinguishable from reactionary trash are actually just ironic."

The fact that all of these "jokes" could be posted on reddit-logo with complete sincerity makes me suspect a lot of this content isn't even ironic. I mean, if I was a reactionary trying to cause trouble for a leftist community, creating and participating in these kinds of comms is exactly how I would go about it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

This article was posted in the megathread this week and provided a lot of background context on the situation

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, it was such an odd film. I really wanted to like it because it looked good and it explicitly called out the West as the unmistakable bad guys, but there was just so much that needed to be completely rewritten to work.

I'll add to your list of bad,

about the main characterPretty much the entire plot is set into motion thanks to the protagonist being a traitor to the robots, his partner (who is having his baby!), and the village that sheltered him. And he's still a piece of shit for pretty much the entire movie, until the very end.

I was also very bothered by how the primary motive for the protagonist was getting back Maya: the woman he lied to, betrayed, and directly caused the death of. Yet, it very much seemed to be written in a way that was intended for the audience to sympathize with???

Oh yeah, after all that, for his self-sacrifice at the very end, he gets a robot copy of Maya as his "reward." Ugh.

[–] [email protected] 102 points 8 months ago (8 children)

His reply is somehow even more ridiculous:

I'm honestly just embarrassed for how profoundly naive this grown adult man is.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

I'm going to tell the next zionist I argue with to stop being such a "stick in the mud"

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Fauda? More like "Found out" michael-laugh

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That's a fair point, it's just hard to not be pessimistic when the same city is still spending $2 billion on their police budget and $29 mil to a private company for tents to house migrants (instead of just expropriating some unoccupied office buildings).

I'm not against spending large amounts of time, effort, and money on planning and executing reparations, I just have very little confidence that it can be done under liberal democracy without it turning into some market-based, means-tested program that is most certainly not reparations, all while other systems of harm are still being funded by several higher orders of magnitude. I will word my criticisms better in the future so as not to come off like I'm criticizing the very idea of planning and distributing reparations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I apologize for not being more careful with my words. I do believe in race-based, direct cash-payment reparations, I was just being flippant at the idea of liberal democracy spending $500k + a year of deliberation just to likely end up with a means-tested program, and then I was taking the position that such amount of money would be put to better use literally just being given away rather than being burned on consultant fees or w/e (but I recognize that such a giveaway would still not be reparations).

But even that was ignorant of me, because:

But on Monday, the [Evanston] City Council passed — without any opposition — an expansion of the program to provide $25,000 in no-strings-attached direct cash payments for those eligible. Black residents who lived in Evanston during a 50-year period of discriminatory zoning laws and their direct descendants receive priority for eligibility.

So maybe there's hope for this Chicago program, as well. Again, apologies for my flippant comment, I meant to direct my criticism solely at liberal democracy historically doing poorly-implemented, means-tested "assistance programs," not the idea of doing reparations itself.

 

Half a mil to put their thumbs up their asses instead of just literally giving that money directly as reparations jokerfied

Edit: I want to clarify, I fully support reparations, I'm just extremely frustrated knowing that, under liberal/bourgeoisie democracy, these types of efforts tend to get bogged down with means testing, and sometimes outright turn into thinly-veiled handouts to private corporations. All while the police budget is still increasing YOY.

That said, Evanston (city on Chicago's northern border) did actually manage to distribute "...$25,000 in no-strings-attached direct cash payments for those eligible. Black residents who lived in Evanston during a 50-year period of discriminatory zoning laws and their direct descendants receive priority for eligibility." So I don't want to encourage further reactionary criticisms such as mine towards this specific subcommittee if they are able to achieve at least some form of direct payments similar to Evanston's program.

 
 

TL;DW: aluminum foil hidden in protest signs is probably the easiest and stealthiest defense, just be careful where you're potentially reflecting those waves. Soaking rags in water is another option (could throw water on your mask in a pinch) if you didn't expect to face one of these things.

A steel sheet would work even better, but I think that's a bad idea due to the sharp edges plus the extra attention I'm sure that'd instantly draw on anyone holding a big reflective surface at one of these things. Maybe if you can paint it to look like cardboard and curl or round off the edges.

Not sure if these weapons have actually been deployed yet in the US, but they sure have tried.

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