That wouldn't be a lot more abusive than they already are in words.
On Medium they're actually organized; even stating an objective fact they don't like leads to a pile-on as they email their storm trooper army to all report the post and get the writer banned. I think there's similar repressive organization on the social networks, too.
That wouldn't be a lot more abusive than they already are in words.
On Medium they're actually organized; even stating an objective fact they don't like leads to a pile-on as they email their storm trooper army to all report the post and get the writer banned. I think there's similar repressive organization on the social networks, too.
And getting disgusted with them just validates their persecution mania.
They're no more "left" than the MAGAts are "conservative."
Sounds like i'm not missing much. Yes, I think that's overall what's going on. So far, Substack seems to be largely impervious. And my blog is a safe space for unpopular opinion, at least for now I guess. Not sure how easily Wix (my platform provider) or any other would cave if pressured by the wokenazis.
Scary times we live in. One wonders at what point they'll normalize violent behaviour. I'm guessing it will build on the current violence normalization transforming the right.
When one side stops playing by the rules e.g. honesty in debate then the other side can either disarm itself by remaining on the high road, and losing, or follow the first side into deceit and foul play and retain a chance at winning. Or, in our case, surviving.
The weakness of the Democrats is infuriating. Obama's cowardly centricity, Biden's milquetoast timidity, these are killing us. We need someone more like LBJ, willing to go as low as needed to triumph. LBJ would call in Manchin and engage in raw extortion and Manchin would bring up his lunch in terror of what would happen to him if he didn't give LBJ the vote he wanted.
LBJ would show a Republican senator a photograph of him in bed with his underage mistress and say "you give me that vote or this picture goes above the fold in every newspaper in America tomorrow morning."
That's how y'get Capone. That's the Chicaga way.
But no. Biden does nothing, Garland does nothing, Schumer does nothing, and we keep losing. Say goodbye to the animals, say goodbye to democracy, say goodbye to human kindness.
I don't think the LBJ/J Edgar Hoover way works so well anymore. The right can't be shamed. Look who they voted for - many of them, including the so-called Christians, voted for Trump because of their single-issue desire to rid America of abortion. If Trump can't shame them, no one can. How many of them have been busted fucking dudes while bitching about homosexuality and fighting gay rights? How many fought against gay marriage while disrespecting their own marriage with other men (or the occasional Christian weirdo who had an actual mistress). I share your fury against the Democrats, I've found them a bunch of pussies for years too. These motherfuckers are going to let the Republicans go free, and Trump, while prosecuting his foot soldiers (frankly, I'm surprised they have the balls and labia even for that) but shaming them is an utter waste of time. How about enforcing the fucking law and making sure EVERYONE who needs to goes to jail? Guessing that wouldn't go over well because then when the GOP comes back, they'll go after every Democrat who's pulled some shit of his/her own.
I'm sure that a big part of that timidity is the knowledge that their houses would be firebombed and their children abducted and murdered. No question.
But we can't abandon our principles out of fear of what the Republicans might do next time they gain power, because they will do it whether or not they have hurts to avenge. We need to get them out of power and keep them out of power.
Participation in the insurrection is documented enough to put a substantial portion of the Republican congress into prison or tied up legally trying to stay out of prison. And next time their base tries something the cops don't pull punches anymore.
And don't worry about starting a civil war. It's already started.
I know. I expect it's going to get a LOT more violent soon, like in November.
You're right that we can't abandon our principles out of fear of what the Republicans will do next. Our principles CAN'T be abandoning the rule of law like they have. That makes us no better than they. I agree we need to keep them out of power but I'm not going to vote against my own interests, and I find the Democrats as hostile to women's rights as Republicans are. Oh big deal, the Republicans finally got rid of Roe. They did it with the consent and assent of millions of women who didn't care enough to vote intelligently, or to vote at all (Five Thirty Eight speculates that progressives who didn't vote at all in 2016 might have stopped Trump's victory as they probably would have swung back some of his swing states).
Unfortunately, there's no easy quick answer to this. I suspect it's a little like early Nazi Germany, but for *genuine* progressives and egalitarians. Right now you *can* leave if you want. Perhaps later you'll be told to get out. And then one day you can't leave anymore and political prisoners are digging their own mass graves.
I don't think America's ready for rule of law. I don't know what the answer is, Chris, but if we start turning as lawless and terrorist as them then we'll be truly lost too.
"Which government would you rather have lived with, Hitler's or Stalin's?"
Read Wm. Shirer's "The Nightmare Years," about the period before the Third Reich. America isn't a little like early Nazi Germany, it's a *lot* like early Nazi Germany.
I remember 2016 without a trace of fondness. All the "Jill" people, all the "Bernie" people, all the "I'm not voting because they both suck" people. No question but that we could have dodged the Trump bullet and kept Kavanaugh and Twirly-Eyes Barrett and Gorsuch off the bench, And the people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for "Hillary" are probably the same people who want to make 2024 about gender identity
I keep remembering that Biden was the guy who told some gun nut who said Biden was going to take away his guns that he was "full of shit," and I had such hope that he would be a fighter.
It's not too late. An arrested Trump would be a study in crying tantrum and would do more to defuse Trumpism than his death would.
The abortion ruling guarantees the deaths of thousands of women. Digging our own graves to be machine-gunned into isn't very many steps from that.
I haven't read that one, but I've read a few others on the subject, one, can't remember the name at this point, was about the time leading up to the rise of Hitler and beyond, because Bush had just gotten re-elected and I was trying to understand why people were embracing such a brainless authoritarian (oooooohhhhh, I had no idea how great he was in retrospect).
'Hitler's Willing Executioners', which I read more recently (about 10-12 years go) go into it as well.
But I don't see why that leads to we must become the enemy we fight.
That wouldn't be a lot more abusive than they already are in words.
On Medium they're actually organized; even stating an objective fact they don't like leads to a pile-on as they email their storm trooper army to all report the post and get the writer banned. I think there's similar repressive organization on the social networks, too.
And getting disgusted with them just validates their persecution mania.
They're no more "left" than the MAGAts are "conservative."
Sounds like i'm not missing much. Yes, I think that's overall what's going on. So far, Substack seems to be largely impervious. And my blog is a safe space for unpopular opinion, at least for now I guess. Not sure how easily Wix (my platform provider) or any other would cave if pressured by the wokenazis.
Scary times we live in. One wonders at what point they'll normalize violent behaviour. I'm guessing it will build on the current violence normalization transforming the right.
This invokes one of my most troubling thoughts.
When one side stops playing by the rules e.g. honesty in debate then the other side can either disarm itself by remaining on the high road, and losing, or follow the first side into deceit and foul play and retain a chance at winning. Or, in our case, surviving.
The weakness of the Democrats is infuriating. Obama's cowardly centricity, Biden's milquetoast timidity, these are killing us. We need someone more like LBJ, willing to go as low as needed to triumph. LBJ would call in Manchin and engage in raw extortion and Manchin would bring up his lunch in terror of what would happen to him if he didn't give LBJ the vote he wanted.
LBJ would show a Republican senator a photograph of him in bed with his underage mistress and say "you give me that vote or this picture goes above the fold in every newspaper in America tomorrow morning."
That's how y'get Capone. That's the Chicaga way.
But no. Biden does nothing, Garland does nothing, Schumer does nothing, and we keep losing. Say goodbye to the animals, say goodbye to democracy, say goodbye to human kindness.
I don't think the LBJ/J Edgar Hoover way works so well anymore. The right can't be shamed. Look who they voted for - many of them, including the so-called Christians, voted for Trump because of their single-issue desire to rid America of abortion. If Trump can't shame them, no one can. How many of them have been busted fucking dudes while bitching about homosexuality and fighting gay rights? How many fought against gay marriage while disrespecting their own marriage with other men (or the occasional Christian weirdo who had an actual mistress). I share your fury against the Democrats, I've found them a bunch of pussies for years too. These motherfuckers are going to let the Republicans go free, and Trump, while prosecuting his foot soldiers (frankly, I'm surprised they have the balls and labia even for that) but shaming them is an utter waste of time. How about enforcing the fucking law and making sure EVERYONE who needs to goes to jail? Guessing that wouldn't go over well because then when the GOP comes back, they'll go after every Democrat who's pulled some shit of his/her own.
I'm sure that a big part of that timidity is the knowledge that their houses would be firebombed and their children abducted and murdered. No question.
But we can't abandon our principles out of fear of what the Republicans might do next time they gain power, because they will do it whether or not they have hurts to avenge. We need to get them out of power and keep them out of power.
Participation in the insurrection is documented enough to put a substantial portion of the Republican congress into prison or tied up legally trying to stay out of prison. And next time their base tries something the cops don't pull punches anymore.
And don't worry about starting a civil war. It's already started.
I know. I expect it's going to get a LOT more violent soon, like in November.
You're right that we can't abandon our principles out of fear of what the Republicans will do next. Our principles CAN'T be abandoning the rule of law like they have. That makes us no better than they. I agree we need to keep them out of power but I'm not going to vote against my own interests, and I find the Democrats as hostile to women's rights as Republicans are. Oh big deal, the Republicans finally got rid of Roe. They did it with the consent and assent of millions of women who didn't care enough to vote intelligently, or to vote at all (Five Thirty Eight speculates that progressives who didn't vote at all in 2016 might have stopped Trump's victory as they probably would have swung back some of his swing states).
Unfortunately, there's no easy quick answer to this. I suspect it's a little like early Nazi Germany, but for *genuine* progressives and egalitarians. Right now you *can* leave if you want. Perhaps later you'll be told to get out. And then one day you can't leave anymore and political prisoners are digging their own mass graves.
I don't think America's ready for rule of law. I don't know what the answer is, Chris, but if we start turning as lawless and terrorist as them then we'll be truly lost too.
"Which government would you rather have lived with, Hitler's or Stalin's?"
Read Wm. Shirer's "The Nightmare Years," about the period before the Third Reich. America isn't a little like early Nazi Germany, it's a *lot* like early Nazi Germany.
I remember 2016 without a trace of fondness. All the "Jill" people, all the "Bernie" people, all the "I'm not voting because they both suck" people. No question but that we could have dodged the Trump bullet and kept Kavanaugh and Twirly-Eyes Barrett and Gorsuch off the bench, And the people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for "Hillary" are probably the same people who want to make 2024 about gender identity
I keep remembering that Biden was the guy who told some gun nut who said Biden was going to take away his guns that he was "full of shit," and I had such hope that he would be a fighter.
It's not too late. An arrested Trump would be a study in crying tantrum and would do more to defuse Trumpism than his death would.
The abortion ruling guarantees the deaths of thousands of women. Digging our own graves to be machine-gunned into isn't very many steps from that.
I haven't read that one, but I've read a few others on the subject, one, can't remember the name at this point, was about the time leading up to the rise of Hitler and beyond, because Bush had just gotten re-elected and I was trying to understand why people were embracing such a brainless authoritarian (oooooohhhhh, I had no idea how great he was in retrospect).
'Hitler's Willing Executioners', which I read more recently (about 10-12 years go) go into it as well.
But I don't see why that leads to we must become the enemy we fight.