Politics

[FaultyMario]

This is probably not a good example, but imagine someone writing an article on Sept 13, 2001 starting with "I want to tell a quick story. The man who planned Sept 9 had a [minor ailment which is somehow linked to his extreme radicalisation]."

But that's exactly how extremism works, from the Nazis to the Khmer Rouge, systematized hate discourse makes common people believe their proverbial toothache is the product of the behavior of others, and that the only way to avoid such behavior is to eradicate a whole class of people.

In the same way that Al-qaeda brought attention to innovations in decentralized terrorist organizational practices, Qchan shines a light on decentralized supremacist propaganda.

[Tom Servo]

In happier news, the RWNJ government of Australia is goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone

Fucken YEETED out the door.

We will be governed by a proper left-wing government for the next three years, and hopefully for many years more.

Here's to the progressive movement!

Updates here for those who might like to follow along: https://www.abc.net.au/news/election...t=az&state=all

Nice!

[MR2 Fan]

In happier news, the RWNJ government of Australia is goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone

Fucken YEETED out the door.

We will be governed by a proper left-wing government for the next three years, and hopefully for many years more.

Here's to the progressive movement!

Updates here for those who might like to follow along: https://www.abc.net.au/news/election...t=az&state=all

[Yw-slayer]

But that's exactly how extremism works, from the Nazis to the Khmer Rouge, systematized hate discourse makes common people believe their proverbial toothache is the product of the behavior of others, and that the only way to avoid such behavior is to eradicate a whole class of people.

In the same way that Al-qaeda brought attention to innovations in decentralized terrorist organizational practices, Qchan shines a light on decentralized supremacist propaganda.

If that's the point supported by the analysis then so be it. The issue is with the manner in which it is written and presented, which comes across as being a cute and "quick story". Not an analysis.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I don't understand why Elon has to openly abandon the dems and join the GOP. Perhaps he just couldn't be like Billi and end up pissing both sides off because he has business interests to protect? I guess he has to try to work with the lessor devil somehow? Like with GOP in the US and the CCP in China?

Anyway, I think he's making a huge mistake there... He probably should've saved his Twitter money and buy himself a new political party?

But anyways, now that the left has been pissed off, the Elongate scandals began!

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/elon-mus...160000453.html

From trying to receive a happy ending on his plane from a flight attendant... to becoming a replacement theory believing white supremacist...

Yeah, let's hope Elon gets ruined and poor and canceled! Hope to see Tesla and SpaceX go bankrupt and wiped out! So that we can rely on the Chinese for EVs and Russians to get into space! Well, luckily Boeing got its starliner to work... so maybe we don't have to rely on the Russians.

Anyway, politics really really sucks. Really wish people could take off their politically colored lenses and just find ways to work together rather than trying to 'replace' each other.

[FaultyMario]

"A billionaire supporting a conservative party^1,2? Oh my god, that is such a big fucking surprise!"

¹

As Ribuffo (2011) notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism".[175] American conservatism is a broad system of political beliefs in the United States that is characterized by respect for American traditions, support for Judeo-Christian values, economic liberalism, anti-communism and a defense of Western culture. Liberty within the bounds of conformity to conservatism is a core value, with a particular emphasis on strengthening the free market, limiting the size and scope of government and opposition to high taxes and government or labor union encroachment on the entrepreneur.

²

I think it became more and more urgent in the 1970s because the capitalist class was losing power and the influence of wealth and I think they wanted to recover what they felt was rightfully theirs. They used the situation in the 1970s to launch a really conscious program. It wasn't a conspiracy in the sense of a few people underground - it was fairly upfront. It was funding of the think tanks like Manhattan Institute and all of the rest of it to produce a counter-narrative as to what the nature of the problems were--and those problems really focused on that the workers had too much power. They had to be somehow disciplined. And the big question was how to go about doing that. So there emerged then this political project to try to attack working class power. There had been attempts to do so by mobilizing immigration through the immigration reform in this country in 1965. But that didn't seem to work. So then if you couldn't bring in the workers you took capital out to where the labour was... and so you start to get this shift towards pushing towards globalization which was facilitated by some technological changes in transport.

A lot of the ideology was of course about free markets and competition and so on, and actually, of course a lot of the practice was about monopoly control and all of the rest of it. So there is the ideology. There is the notion you will find in some places which is that it was a set of public policies and public policy people decided to take things in a different direction. People got very upset about levels of debt and wanted to retire the debt and so you get the notion of austerity as a public policy.

Emphasis mine.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, it's fairly typical for rich people to favor the conservative party; however, Elon has not been the typical billionaire though. For one, his latest ventures are not favored by conservative 'people'. Most conservatives don't like EVs and thought Tesla was just sucking government funding. Fighting climate change, a cause they don't typically believe in. Similarly, conservatives don't really care about space exploration. SpaceX is also sucking up lots of government funding. Conservatives would rather money be spent on walls trapping themselves in it. (Unless they found lots of gold on the moon or mars...)

Lastly, most billionaires are into profits. Not saying Elon doesn't care about profit, but I think his focus is a bit different from other billionaires. His singular vision is to get his ass to mars! Most of his products and services are actually catered to liberals. Moving HQ to Texas for tax reasons is understandable, but to actually offend liberals this way is just not a very wise business strategy for him. It's not like he's selling oil and chicken filet...

Anyway, there'll always be a constant power struggle between the rich and the working class, similar to the power struggle between right and left. However, one thing people need to realize is that we cannot completely get rid of the other side. What'll happen to all the workers if the boss is canceled? What will happen to the bosses if there are no workers as we've experienced during the pandemic? The power struggle ought to help us find the right balance between the 2, not to 'replace' one another.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Fuck!

Another shooting.

This time a bunch of elementary school kids dead…

I guess Texas cops is not into safely apprehending the suspect. But then again, these shooters probably have a death wish anyways… sigh…

[Tom Servo]

14 children and one teacher dead in an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

[FaultyMario]

Elon has not been the typical billionaire though.

The guy who was born into blood emerald money? the guy whose seed capital came from welfare subsidies? the guy who exhibits typical slave-owner behavior on his companies employees?

That guy? Or are you talking about some other guy?