Jesus is bi and non-binary. pic.twitter.com/U6oRtIqekN

— liz (they/she) (@TwoLemonades) May 27, 2021

I’ve changed it to:
WV-Is-Worried-About-The-OLINE.

A must-watch short doc: After families began speaking out against @LASDHQ, they were immediately harassed. After journalist @CeriseCastle published an expose on deputy gangs, she immediately began receiving death threats. #GoogleLASDgangs @GravelInstitute #VillanuevaMustGo https://t.co/Trcr50Maig

— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) August 20, 2021

Zooey wrote:

I know I’m a bad person, but I have no sympathy for anyone who gets this now if they are not vaccinated.

And for anyone who gets it and has led cheerleading against masks and/or vax…seriously…fuck them.

I’m sorry. I know I should be bigger than that, but I’m not.

========

Same.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

I think there’s a danger in “they’re all the same” thinking, and it’s the proverbial two-edged sword to boot. We can make a case, for instance, when it comes to environmental destruction, that super-progressive action, short of replacing capitalism outright, is the same as centrist action, in the long run. Both routes will still render the planet uninhabitable for most life-forms in the not too distant future. It will put us on different time-tables, and the numbers of preventable early deaths will differ, but the end result is the same.

As in, if there’s no discernible difference between a Biden and a Trump, eco-wise, then there’s no discernible difference between a Sanders and a Biden.

Yeah, I know, blasphemy! But when you zoom out far enough, all the world’s a blur.

(More in the next post)

====

I actually agree that there is a danger in “theyre all the same” thinking.

But I think there’s an equal danger in saying “Trump is significantly worse than Biden”

Which is why I go back and forth, and neither position feels quite right.

For me.

But of the two, I lean toward “they are ESSENTIALLY the same”. Because of the reason I already stated. On THE critical issue in the entire life of the
biosphere — both Biden and Trump have doomed us. The rest is just
trivial compared to that one issue. Just my opinion. Today.
I might change my mind tomorrow.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

Interesting dialogue between youze guys, regarding Biden vs. Trump.

IMO, Trump is significantly worse than any president since Andrew Jackson, and the most vile human being ever to sit in the White House. Biden is “meh.” He’s the centrist we basically expected, so he obviously falls way short of leftist dreams and hopes. But Trump was a fascist’s dream come true, and the worst president on the environment, perhaps ever. He seems to take pleasure in all of his destruction, and isn’t finished with his coup attempt(s) yet.

Let them drink bleach! he basically said. So he has the deaths of hundreds of thousands on his hands — above and beyond his escalation of wars/bombings in Yemen and elsewhere. To me, there’s never been such stark differences between past and present administrations, as far as damage to the earth, to society, to the future.

WV, could you elaborate on your comments regarding Biden’s “rebuilding” of the CIA and the police? I wasn’t aware that it was happening, and I didn’t see any indications that Trump reduced their powers one iota, or their budgets. In fact, compared with Obama’s budgeting, Trump increased them a great deal more. If I read the graph below correctly, the intel budget increased more than 12 billion under Trump, and fell a coupla billion under Obama.

https://fas.org/irp/budget/

Overall military spending also fell under Obama, and rose significantly under Trump.

(I’d add another link for that, but it likely won’t make it past the spam check.)

====

If both men, are promoting policies that are World-killers.
Biosphere-enders. How can we say, one is really worse than
the other? I dont get that argument, anymore.

The words ‘centrist’ and ‘fascist’ and racist etc,
just dont mean a lot IF — IF — you think they are both
world-killers.

Maybe the difference is, you and zn, just dont see
Biden/trump as biosphere-killers.

w
v

zn wrote:

I’m so far to the Doomer-Left these days, I
am having a hard time seeing how Biden is better than Trump.

I don’t like Biden one bit but he is clearly better than Trump. Your only argument is that he does not have progressive/leftist policies. Yeah well we knew that going in. But even this kind of died-in-the-wool deep committed Dem centrist is better than Trump. That doesn’t mean “good enough” but Trump is a very low bar and it’s easy to clear that bar. For example, he’s not encouraging and participating in racist discourse and he’s not encouraging and participating in dangerously untruthful discourse about covid and vaccination.

It’s a long list.

You add it all up and it’s nowhere near enough. We know that.

But STILL, even given that, to me, you honestly seem to be forgetting how exactly fucking bad Trump was.

…

==========

Well, nothing you said there was convincing, zn. Trump used racist language.
Biden doesnt. Ok. Biden is still mass-murdering people of color all over the globe and building up a militarized-police force and building up the CIA,
etc, etc.

Its not that I have forgotten how bad Trump was.

Biden just seems like a different ‘kind’ of racist to me.

w
v

Alex Vitale interviewed by two of the ‘Fred Hampton Leftists”
(who i listen to a lot)

Now #StraightOuttaPolitics: Live Special Stream w Alex Vitale @avitale
📣 Ineffectiveness of Implicit Bias Training to Resolve Police Violence@ComptonMadeMe @SocialistMMA #FHLnetworkhttps://t.co/0abZqErTGe

— Join/Start Mutual Aid Group 🇵🇸💙🏴✊🏻 (@QkrSocialist) August 4, 2021

New Zealand:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/new-zealand-rated-best-place-to-survive-global-societal-collapse
New Zealand rated best place to survive global societal collapse

Study citing ‘perilous state’ of industrial civilisation ranks temperate islands top for resilience

New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.

The researchers said human civilisation was “in a perilous state” due to the highly interconnected and energy-intensive society that had developed and the environmental damage this had caused.

A collapse could arise from shocks, such as a severe financial crisis, the impacts of the climate crisis, destruction of nature, an even worse pandemic than Covid-19 or a combination of these, the scientists said…

Well, I think the Rams will be ok, until Henderson
goes down.

I was impressed with Henderson last year.
But he aint gonna be a workhorse back.

I sure hope they can pick up a veteran back
at some point before the season.
I want a vet whos been ther-I dunno if one is out there.

Cullen Bryant, maybe. Willie Ellison. Cleveland Gary, perhaps.

I would not want Gurley, though,
not that they are ever gonna consider him.

w
v

“I don’t know how to help someone that far gone.”
—

That seems to be the theme of the decade.

w
v

I blame Stafford.

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

I think it’s important to pin down the lies they think they recognize. What exactly do they think they’ve been told that isn’t true? Are they the same lies we see? .

=================

Its a duopoly, right? Two corporate-capitalist parties.

The Rightwingers see the Lies from the Duplicats (CNN, MSNBC, NPR etc)

Do you think only half of the duopoly is doing the lying?

w
v

zn wrote:

I don’t agree with this idea that the Trump world sees the corruption and systemic problems we see and objects to them.

I think they are racists who believe the establishment sold them out for “PC values.”

In fact I think the entire “they see the real issues too” take on things is completely off track. They don’t see it at all.

…

====

Well, there’s definitely various shades of Racists on the Right.

I would agree that there is a faction of confederate-flag-loving
flat-out-neo-nazi trumpies. I dunno how big that one is though.
I have no idea. But its definitely part of the Rightwing-pie.

Then there’s the rightwing “I’m color-blind” type racists
who dont know they are racists, and who cant figure out
systemic racism. They make up a big slice of the rightwing-pie.

This-or-that form of racism may be the biggest single dynamic
in the Rightwing-brain. I’m not sure.

But the racism is just part of the kaleidoscope. It meshes
and morphs with other notions. And one of those other notions
is reflected in that article — a dawning-recognition by rightoids
that Hillary/Obama/Biden/MSNBC/NPR/PBS/CNN/CBS/ABC/NBC/CIA — LIE
to them constantly. They recognize it. They are being lied to.
They figured it out. And they vote accordingly.

Now, of course they FAILED to figure out that things are actually
MUCH worse than even they know. Because they failed to figure
out that FOX and Talk Radio, etc is lying to them too.

That makes them batshit-fascist-dangerous. 70 million of em.

w
v

“I use that word — “express themselves” — because I mean it. It’s a partnership. That’s why I love the NFL. You have to make sure that that guy has a big voice in how you do things, because he can help you. He can see a lot of things that are happening out there that can really help you. You can say, “Hey, we can do this one of two ways.” And then he makes the way that he wants work…”
——

I have always thought this is the best approach, with star/talented players.
It requires some wisdom from the coach to pull it off, though.

If Paulo Freire was a football coach, this is the approach he would use.

w
v