In the veiled depths of cosmic night, beyond the grasp of mortal understanding, there lurks an abomination known as D’ohl-Nald’trump, Evader of Consequence, Weaver of Lies. Ancient as the first whispers of deceit, this blasphemous entity shambles through the mortal realm in garish splendor, clad in illusions spun of its own warped grandeur. Its voice, a booming incantation laced with half-truths and hollow promises, spills forth with the power to sway the minds of even the stout-hearted, plunging them into delirium where reason itself dissolves. Those who fall under its thrall are left in a fog of bewildered amnesia, helpless to recall its transgressions, let alone question its motives.

For D’ohl-Nald’trump wields a dreadful gift—an eldritch glamour that cloaks it in perpetual exoneration, a power so unnatural that no mortal cage may hold it, no law may bind it. Even those who glimpse its deceit find themselves ensnared in its web of forgetfulness, powerless to hold its ever-shifting form to account. And so, the Weaver of Lies drifts through aeons untouched, a nightmare that evades justice itself, as if consequence were but a faint myth of a distant, naïve cosmos.

Hmmmm what do you call it when you STAGnate the economy (like by shrinking it $5.1T) and cause inFLATION (by returning to fucking mercantilist economic policy)? Sounds so familiar…

I think the dems have been losing for decades in essentially every political arena because the repubs have cartoon villain mastermind Mitch McConnell pulling the strings and the dems have fucking Nancy Pelosi behind the curtain fixing races against Bernie, etc.

This was a thread about making the specific argument you’re mad at me for making

Steelman:

The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.

The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.

The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.

The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren’t met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.

The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.

Strawman:

It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I’d risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.

Reality:

You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you’d still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left’s fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates’ votes combined.

Thank you so much for the reply! That is extremely helpful.

What rifle and in what caliber do you most recommend for home defense and cheap, relatively plentiful ammo that is shortage-resistant?

I am considering a cheap Palmetto State Armory AR kit chambered for 5.56 NATO rounds so I could also fire .223s. Is brand particularly important, or are most ARs on the market good enough for practice and emergency use?

Thank you for your service

It really isn’t leftists’ fault, though. Trump easily won the popular vote and flipped georgia, pennsylvania, and wisconsin from their dem vote in 2020. Low voter turnout/voter suppression are the real culprits - along with dems failing to do almost any of the things that could’ve changed this outcome. Leftist memes did not lose dems the election. Voter apathy and the sheer popularity of fascism did.

Fascism is quite popular here. We have a lot of racists. We have a lot of uneducated people. We have a lot of self-interested petty-bourgeoise.

In part, sure. But it’s also a failure of the voting public - primarily by not showing up to vote. The historic trend of low voter turnout got us to where we are today since it has enabled a minoritarian party with interests contrary to the vast majority of their constituents to win elections and shape the political landscape in ways that favor them.

It’s also a systemic failure since the US makes voting about as difficult as they can - but, again, that is mainly the fault of Republicans who have crusaded for years to repress the votes of minorities, women, and basically anyone who isn’t old and white.

It’s easy to blame the dems because they should have defended better, backed more pro-worker policies, etc. But if all eligible voters voted, basically no Republicans would ever win elections in this country. Maybe then we could have some actual progress attacking dems from the left.

I don’t think it’s possible to abolish prisons for all crimes. But why does a thief or a drug dealer (or worse, just a drug user) need to be in prison? What about the nature of their crimes necessitates imprisonment as a reasonable method of corrections?

If the point is stopping people from reoffending, prisons don’t do that. Like objectively. Recidivism in the US is super high, and going to prison predicts increases in the severity of crimes people commit.

So, what reduces recidivism? Eliminating the factors that drove them to crime in the first place. So, you monitor them closely - house arrest, assigned social/case workers, etc. Like a more robust parole system for nonviolent offenders. With enough surveillance, you can reduce the likelihood of reoffence by making the chances of getting caught much higher. This enhanced monitoring would be temporary.

For violent offenders and more serious criminals, maybe prisons are still necessary. But they don’t have to be dehumanizing and can provide necessary health/psychiatric, educational, social, and job skills training.

You could make the corrections system more effective by making society easier for criminals to reintegrate into. If you’re a felon and you can’t find work because you’re a felon - how are you going to afford to live within the confines of the law? Step 1) jobs programs for felons with a path to eliminating non-violent offenses from your record as it relates to work with exceptions as necessary. Step 2) improve the education system to prevent people from turning to crime and to help give former criminals relevant job skills to earn an honest living. Step 3) provide healthcare to people - having access to healthcare for mental and addiction-related conditions is super important to reduce crime.

Basically - prison abolition isn’t about just letting rapists and murderers go free with no consequences. Instead, people in favor of prison abolition are typically in favor of reducing the societal pressures to commit crimes and preventing reoffense.

Having potentially thousands of years of embarassing moments of social awkwardness to think about. And, over the aeons, being relieved when the people you know and love die because they won’t remember the things you’re so ashamed of.

Weekend at Bernie’s for president

Many people have auras before and during migraines. These can be visual (seeing colors or black spots or colors/lights look brighter or dimmer), sensory (sensitivity to light/sound), speech-related (difficulty speaking or understanding speech), motor (impairment to movement), and brainstem (vertigo, tinnitus, ataxia, decreased consciousness, etc).

I get sensory, speech related, motor, and possibly some brainstem aura symptoms. You kind of just learn to recognize when a migraine is coming on and not a regular headache.

Ah yes, IPAs, the least manly of beers.

It’s fucking crazy to me that this is a hot take these days. I just want movies to be good. Throwing unnecessary sex scenes into a movie to drive ratings up usually does not achieve that.

Edit: And by unnecessary, I don’t even mean just not plot relevant. Only that they should add to, not detract from, the characterization, tone, or plot/story. Fucking loved Challengers (check it out, it’s great) and that had a sex scene like every 5 minutes. I just wanna watch some good fucking movies. If I wanted to watch good fucking-movies, I’d just find those online.

Oh yeah, and it makes total sense. The brigading, insofar as it happens, really shouldn’t. But also, as someone who espouses left wing views, I always want to give critical support to left spaces - even if they’re imperfect. And .ml and even hexbear have a lot of valuable discourse - I comment on hexbear threads regularly with less radical points of view than their users often have, and I get good responses and engagement usually because I’m good faith.

As someone on .ml I really don’t think it’s that bad. Definitely left, and generally pro-China, but not too extreme imo. Hexbear is pretty bad. I’m a socialist and I disagree with a lot of the stuff there. But .ml is very much not a true “tankie” instance, in my opinion.

WHAT IS LEFT OF THE PINK, PUNY HAM SANDWICH’S MIND HAS DECAYED DUE TO THE RAVAGES OF VENEREAL DISEASE AND OBESITY. HE IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THE STUPIDITY AND GENETIC INFERIORITY THAT CHARACTERIZE HIS WEAK AND DECADENT RACE.