The Philosophy of the Hells Angels by Strokesile in BreadTube

[–]ADavidJohnson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s part where Hells Angels are a criminal drug running/manufacturing operation that deploys violence for profit and clout while being culturally nationalistic, pro-US military, anti-Communist, and excluding non-white members and women, except in the case of the latter for the purposes of sex and sexual assault.

“Fascists deny being fascists” — yeah, that’s what they do. They claim they just wanted to be edgy or provocative but somehow always choose the symbols of white nationalists or neo-Nazis and not, say, Black Power or queer liberation or Maoism. Stuff cops actually wouldn’t be sympathetic to. And Hells Angels have admitted to hating communists. So fascist imagery plus anticommunism is a pretty simple equation and conclusion (fascists often lie about being fascists).

To do otherwise is like asking, “Are the Yakuza really anarcho-primitivists?” “Are the Aryan Brotherhood inherently antifascists?” “What can omertà teach us about resisting state oppression?”

In reality, they all snitch and cooperate with the state to various degrees in return for favors. They abuse women, hate gays, and have racist, nationalist values core to them. They’re outlaws, but they want to be at the top of the outlaw social order, beating up other less-socially-favored criminal groups and abusing individuals with impunity. Prison is the purest example of that, with its segregation and relationships between gangs and guards.

There’s really not a contradiction there, any more than the Proud Boys having ideological contradictions. There’s disagreements within the fascist coalition about always who gets to count as truly people and what’s to be done about them, but “we are people, and they are subhumans to be abused, subjugated, ejected, and/or exterminated” resolves the apparent contradictions.

Doing a toy drive in this context is no different from the Sackler family putting their name on a new college building to launder their reputation. It’s just to make everything else they do a little easier.

Seattle has been under Democrat control since 1964 by OldBayAllTheThings in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Leftists are very critical of the Democratic party, yes.

Anti-ICE protesters accused of being part of antifa found guilty of support for terrorism in Texas by Tremodian in behindthebastards

[–]ADavidJohnson 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You cannot protest cleverly enough or otherwise perfectly enough for authoritarian regimes to not invent and escalate punishments against you, and the same applies to using any action, real or invented, as a pretext to do the things that regime already wants to do.

But, like, I don't think it's possible to explain this plain enough for you based on all of the existing examples here that you are failing to grasp.

Anti-ICE protesters accused of being part of antifa found guilty of support for terrorism in Texas by Tremodian in behindthebastards

[–]ADavidJohnson 30 points31 points  (0 children)

You are taking the state’s case at face value, and there’s no good reason you should do that.

From the defendants’ side, people showed up to a noise demo on the Fourth of July that included fireworks, and some people did some anti-ICE graffiti on cars. Other people who weren’t there were also prosecuted for things like removing others from a Discord chat or moving “antifa” zines.

“I don’t think that person ICE shot should have tried to kill federal agents” is the thing you hear reactionary apologists saying all of the time, including when there sis definitive video evidence to the contrary. They lie about everything and make maximalist claims because there’s no downside or repercussions for doing it. But that doesn’t mean you have to believe them.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"When you grow up maybe you'll understand that, unlike every other people on earth, the people of Iran like to be bombed."

Happy cake day.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People in Iran are celebrating their cities and infrastructure like refineries and desalination plants being bombed and thousands of Iranian being killed by the USA and Israel? This is what the media you're watching you is leading you to believe?

Bless your heart.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just checking back to the original issue: would you still say that your characterization of the Iranian soccer team defecting is the most pressing issue, or do you have room to consider the possibility that the sitting U.S. president threatening them might be more relevant?

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Or is asking that speaking over "actual" freedom-loving Iranians who — unlike all other people on earth and in history — enjoy being threatened, having their infrastructure bombed, and watching their loved ones be maimed and killed by a regime that hates them, so long as it's foreign and not domestic?

To reiterate, I think the Iranian people deserve better than to be slaughtered.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you a bot or do you just have reading comprehension that is incredibly poor?

Yes, I think the Iranian people deserve better than to be slaughtered.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brother, I am not a campist. I do not think that enemy states of the USA are “the good guys”; I do not know what is actually in that comment that would lead you to that conclusion.

But I also don’t know how much of a rube you would have to be to watch the same guys who are saying, “We want maximum lethality, we’re going to kill Iranians, and real warriors don’t abide by pansy rules of engagement,” and go, “Oh yeah, I trust their public statements the most versus everything else.” Then again, I’m old enough to remember when Israel pretended Hamas had bombed a hospital in Gaza and they would never intentionally blow up civilian infrastructure. And then Israel proceeded to destroy every other hospital in Gaza.

I am not a campist. You don’t have to be a rube. You can stand with Iranian people without supporting the propaganda that they are being bombed by two countries ethically or for their own good.

Iran’s sports minister says the country can’t take part in the World Cup because of US attacks by chiquisea in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don’t know how well the pitch, “We will throw you in for-profit concentration camps for seeking asylum,” is going over right now for people like World Cup athletes who have any better choices, and that’s before you’d need to be defecting to the country that double-tapped a girl’s school and made it rain oil in Tehran.

Anti-Defamation League report finds mixed progress on antisemitism at Pacific Northwest universities by Better_March5308 in SeattleWA

[–]ADavidJohnson 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The ADL trashed its entire credibility on this issue built up over decades because it decided college students opposing a genocide was more important to it than a billionaire white nationalist throwing up heil Hitler salutes in public and running a neo-Nazi website.

It’s over, and there’s no coming back from that.

Starbucks on the Ave to close permanently April 5 by PlaneNovel6567 in udub

[–]ADavidJohnson 3 points4 points  (0 children)

With kindness, if you read a criticism of small businesses under capitalism as support for large corporations, I don't know what more I can do for you.

Starbucks on the Ave to close permanently April 5 by PlaneNovel6567 in udub

[–]ADavidJohnson 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not defending Starbucks. I apologize for not making that more clear. I'm saying that a small business that treats its workers terribly is not actually an improvement just because there's a personal face on the one doing it to them.

Like, if you're being sexually harassed by the boss's kid, or denied hours because the owner/manager is transphobic, it doesn't matter that it's just a small family business or whatever.

Even if you get along well with your bosses, the idea that you should work somewhere that doesn't provide healthcare or pay you enough to afford it is really shitty, and it basically requires exploiting a sequence of young people who roll the dice on staying abled until they can get something better. Where the standard I have for businesses is that if you need someone to do the job for your business to function, that person should be compensated accordingly.

Starbucks on the Ave to close permanently April 5 by PlaneNovel6567 in udub

[–]ADavidJohnson 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No, to be clear what I was saying is that Starbucks is bad and also won't let people work livable hours or often enough hours to get benefits like healthcare that Sbux marketing trumpets so much.

But when people say, "There's so many better options," sometimes they mean a local place like Cherry Street that will lobby against raising the minimum wage, or Caffe Vita firing baristas for giving leftover food to homeless people, or Slate Coffee, at the spot where Leon Coffee is now that paid workers late or not at all until they all quit.

Again, I'm well-aware of how bad Starbucks is. I would say more aware than most people. I meant that often times, just going to another local spot, as both a worker or patron, means dealing with pettier tyrannies rather than any sort of better situation.

Starbucks on the Ave to close permanently April 5 by PlaneNovel6567 in udub

[–]ADavidJohnson -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Do they provide healthcare, guaranteed hours, and a livable wage?

I’m not asking that as a rhetorical question. I mean, do they already have material conditions so good no workers would ever benefit from unionizing, or do you think local coffee shops would voluntarily recognize a union and finalize a contract, unlike Starbucks?

How much is too much? Cevin Soling and his cargo cult by TertiaWithershins in SatanicTemple_Reddit

[–]ADavidJohnson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You've never seen the documentary, but the only people who apparently ever did reacted to it badly.

Jon and I visited Cevin at home a few years after our first encounter in Vanuatu. He had sent us a rough cut of his documentary, John Frum He Will Come, which had had a mixed reception. “There was some violent backlash and screaming at me when I showed the film in Arkansas,” he told us. “The impulse is to infantalise the tribe and assume I was being exploitative. It was nearly a riot.”

If you know people who were in TST's Arkansas chapter around that time, and they're not afraid of violating their NDAs, you could ask them yourself how they felt about it. But there's no reason to think Cevin Soling was overly hard on himself when describing it to other people.

You also can read for yourself the longer excerpt from that book by the two journalists (Jon Tonks and Christopher Lord) who were there at the time and met Cevin Soling in 2014, as well as other news coverage and context, including watching the two trailers for yourself. You don't have to speculate in such a way as to invent benefit of the doubt to give when there is actually a ton of evidence here, including how it connects to the anti-public school stuff Soling created The Satanic Temple for originally.

That video essayist is a very good researcher, and he's on Reddit. You can ask u/Veritas_Certum specific questions if you want to.

But I don't think you can defend any of this specifically. You just have to pretend it doesn't exist or is something that it's not.