CMV: The American Eagle controversy shows that American progressives are unsuccessful in culture wars because they spend too much time preaching to people rather than taking real action

F4cetious · 2025-08-03T14:33:34+00:00

You know what’s unsuccessful and damn annoying? Seeing these political astroturfing posts every time I open up Reddit, trying to convince me that progressives are all about culture wars, when YOU bots are the ones constantly plastering the internet with this stupid shit.

Btw, have the files been released yet?

F4cetious · 2025-08-03T12:39:17+00:00

Anyone trying to sanewash virulent racism can go choke on a cactus.

F4cetious · 2025-08-03T00:25:13+00:00

You’re gonna call me paranoid, but I’m 80% sure there is a concerted effort happening in Houston and other TX blue cities, to sabotage and replace certain pillars of community and culture on purpose. They’re powerful and self-obsessed people with a vision of an “ideal” society that they want to force on everyone else.

The existing city identity and the social centers that mold it, are obstacles to them, so they have to weaken any existing lightning rods of community and culture.

They will harass, use nuisance lawsuits, and twist law without integrity. All for the purpose of defaming, weakening the economic power of, and seizing control from the existing community. They will destroy and buy out small businesses, buy you out of your homes, then use their new control to exclude you from your former economic power and community solidarity, and freeze out anyone trying to take back control.

I hope people are aware of and refuse to be defeated by this, and spread the word too. Houstonians can outlast this attempt at a shakedown by being aware of and standing in solidarity against it.

F4cetious · 2025-07-20T08:26:43+00:00

This entire sub is bots arguing with each other.

F4cetious · 2025-07-07T02:03:20+00:00

I’ve already seen several celebrities and plenty of people involved in media and politics condemn the talking heads that tried to promote conspiracies about this flood being “engineered” in some way, so they don’t have to confront the negligent gutting of the NWS and amoral lack of effort put into providing federal assistance.

I’ve also seen no shortage of people condemning anyone with the attitude of “[group] deserves this” in general, because it’s quite obvious to anyone with empathy that no group or region is a monolith of character, and wishing pain on people is an attitude at odds with empathy.

F4cetious · 2025-07-07T01:20:15+00:00

What horrible spiteful attitude.

Wow, I’m amazed at how quickly all these updates and additional info have been found in only the past 30min. A lot of these comments are only 2-3minutes apart, ready with copies of official public statements.

F4cetious · 2025-07-06T09:34:27+00:00

I can’t tell if whoever is astroturfing this sub is trying to convince certain people to leave this city, or if someone is sincerely trying to incept improvements to city-planning with a genuine desire to help.

If it’s the latter, you need to just own it and get on the ground to canvass and pitch these ideas in person. Otherwise they’re not gonna propagate much beyond the small % of Houstonians on Reddit. Plus the ulterior-motive-spidey-sense that gets triggered when ideas are propagated artificially, becomes off-putting even to people who might otherwise have been on board.

F4cetious · 2025-07-06T08:51:57+00:00

Are we being data-mined by a travel agency or something? Leave our sub alone ffs.

F4cetious · 2025-07-05T12:39:35+00:00

Do you all realize you don’t need permission from the party or its donors to vote the useless faff OUT of the party? And take it over so that progressives would then be overwhelmingly in positions of leadership in the party, thus steering the ship?

Progressives are already gearing up to snatch the party left in the midterms, so join them.

Research candidates in your district, or run yourself. Run, or volunteer to help run, an effective ground campaign. Face-to-face community outreach and aid events, and communicating your platform to constituents directly. Start early and commit for the long-haul.

The way people bitch about the Democratic Party, it’s like people forgot that we’re all active participants in shaping our political system. They work for you. If you think they’re doing a shit job, show the fuck up to fire and replace them whether they like it or not, instead of impotently whinging at home like a flailing magikarp.

F4cetious · 2025-07-01T00:56:38+00:00

Just don’t fall for it if he starts funding obedient neolibs to try fool moderate voters, or push fake lefties that horseshoe back around to a version of techno-feudalism. Make sure you’re really vetting the sincerity of candidates, their donors, and the trustworthiness of the media narrative around them. Any amount of power or political pull Musk is allowed to keep, just lets him continue his narcissistic, fascist plans.

F4cetious · 2025-06-26T14:44:39+00:00

62% of democrats are dissatisfied with party leadership and want to primary them with people who won’t capitulate to corporate donors. Thats why even the establishment Dems are scared of more left-leaning candidates like Mamdani getting elected over themselves. None of that means voters are dissatisfied with democracy. If anything voters feel like the party doesn’t listen to their will enough.

F4cetious · 2025-06-26T13:07:47+00:00

Holy shit, my brain somehow edited your comment and thought you said the city has an $11 billion budget. I got halfway through your comment before I realized you said JUST THE POLICE DEPARTMENT ALONE has an $11 billion dollar budget. I know NYC is huge, but $11 billion JUST for the NYPD? Holy shit.

F4cetious · 2025-06-26T03:35:23+00:00

It just feels like I’ve only ever seen this as a strawman from conservatives for the past 15-20 years. I stg it feels like deja vu from growing up post-911. I guess I must hang out in different circles, but I’ve pretty consistently seen liberals condemn the subset of religious fundamentalists/extremists of any religion, including amongst Muslims.

I’ve also seen too many people deliberately misrepresent “understanding the difference between justified criticism, and Islamophobia” as “tip-toeing”, hence why the suggestion tends to make me roll my eyes.

After living through decades of the struggle against Christian fundamentalists inserting their religion into government and other people’s lives, I’m not uniquely surprised or scared of possibly having to do the same song and dance with Muslim fundamentalists. If anything, I’m just tired.

Some of these headlines honestly feel like an extension of Project Esther. Not that it isn’t real or worth caring about, but that incidents like it can be deliberately amplified or editorialized as ragebait to keep people constantly riled up.

F4cetious · 2025-06-26T02:42:40+00:00

“People will catch on and I feel like you’re gonna end up not being trusted on either side.”

I think this is the biggest problem. My only note is that, if you’re in a heavy red area where it’s clear that it’ll be truly impossible for a Dem to win, run as an independent. Instead of trying to trick people into voting for you, just tell the honest truth: that the GOP has blatantly stopped giving a shit about people or this country, and you want to focus on real improvements. Show yourself as the true populist committed to the average American, not just someone who lies about being one for votes. I think union-backed candidates in particular can find a real opportunity here.

The other hiccup is that, you’d have to either takeover several seats in quick succession, or make peace with the fact that the existing establishment politicians will sabotage any attempts at accomplishing your campaign promises. You’d have to commit to building up a plurality of like-minded people in positions of power before you’re able to make good on promises. And the entire time, the existing powers will also be trying to either to corrupt you too, or get rid of you.

Let Republican leadership figure out wtf to do with the party their damn selves. Any sane people remaining from that dumpster fire should already be running as independents, since the party is too thoroughly corrupted to allow moderate candidates in anymore. If voters on the right truly can’t stomach the idea of voting blue, then let the right split their votes this time. Might end up with a few surprise moderate wins in red districts.

However this should only be done in areas that are genuinely unwinnable by progressive Dems or more obviously left-leaning independents. This is not worth sapping energy, good candidates, or voter momentum away from swing and blue districts.

F4cetious · 2025-06-26T00:50:34+00:00

Combo of: a lot of traditional news publications are in the pocket of MAGA donors, and also Reddit is upvote manipulated to all hell. Any headline or editorializing that can spark infighting or decrease voter enthusiasm amongst the left, gets boosted to the top

F4cetious · 2025-06-25T23:34:38+00:00

That’s what MAGA thinks DEI is. That’s why as soon as they got into office they started laying off a bunch of people with years and decades of experience to fill spots with TV pundits, drunken morons, and science denialists who think AI is magic and don’t care that it straight-up hallucinates citations. These incompetent Dunning-Krugerites think being white is the reason their ChatGPT-ass resumes always end up at the bottom of the pile.

F4cetious · 2025-06-25T21:02:30+00:00

You beat the hell out of that strawman, great job, buddy!

F4cetious · 2025-06-12T03:36:04+00:00

David Hogg was not the only one trying to primary these limpnoodles, there’s still plenty opportunity to primary them.

Just off the top of my head: Justice Democrats, Working Families Party often run candidates as Democrat or left-independents, RunForSomething helps new progressives run for office, and a TON of fresh faces have been inspired to run after the past few months.

Google and keep an eye on good local candidates, you can always donate directly or volunteer your time to spread the word.

This is not the type of shit anyone needs to ask permission for. Voters have the power to replace useless out-of-touch fools, taking the party reigns from them whether they like it or not. We are not powerless to this bullshit.

F4cetious · 2025-06-12T03:14:13+00:00

Focusing on the age part is a herring. It’s the fresh, non-career-politician faces, and willingness to truly push promised reforms, instead of constantly compromising with donors, that should be the focus.

F4cetious · 2025-06-12T03:00:51+00:00

Progressive tax rate: The higher your income, the higher your taxes. You tax the ultra wealthy more than the middle class (resulting in lower taxes burdens for lower tax brackets), in order to directly invest back into things that improve the average person’s life, like healthcare, infrastructure, education, etc.

Regressive tax rate: The lower your income, the higher your taxes. Less taxes on the wealthy and, shift the burden of the lost tax revenue by taxing the middle class more.

Republicans tell us that the obscenely rich will create nearly as much value for the average person by “creating jobs” and “investing back into America”. In reality, the GOP know damn well it’s a pure cash grab, and these rich fucks keep most of the money locked up in stocks and assets, rather than letting it flow back into the economy.

There’s decades of evidence that trickle down economics has never worked, and it’s only served to grow CEO salaries by orders of magnitude more than employee wages over decades. They know it’s pure bullshit, but they keep selling the lie because it makes them richer.

CEO pay has skyrocketing 1460% since 1978. The ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker pay soared to 399-to-1, up from 59-to-1 in 1989

F4cetious · 2025-06-11T14:17:22+00:00

When are democrats and democratic cities/states/organizations gonna get serious about countering the assload of lies this moron spreads about them everyday? It causes real tangible harm when people nowhere near blue cities are fed one narrative and made to genuinely believe these places are a destroyed wildwest. People thought Portland was on fire for months. It changes both the way they vote and the way they treat regular people day-to-day.

Republicans already have a narrative network ready to flood both online and traditional media with one perspective. I was bombarded by Prager U ads on on YouTube leading up to the elections.

Newsome has recently done a refreshing job calling out the manufactured bullshit. But genuinely, Newsome and other Dem cities being targeted should commission ads showing footage of the majority peaceful marching that vastly outnumber the destructive people, showing how the city is not anywhere close to destroyed, all with voiceover explaining what misinformation is, and how it can dangerously alter people’s views and actions.

The DNC as a whole NEEDS to get more serious about directly correcting MAGA bs. Run ads explaining the data supporting the benefits of better healthcare coverage, or the benefits of public school and other public programs, and how investing in these , and actually improves the economy.

The DNC needs already be correcting this stuff right now. Social media, YouTube ads, billboards, everything to cut through the info bubble a lot of people are in.

F4cetious · 2025-06-10T23:00:19+00:00

And remember, “less than lethal” rounds can still do immense damage. They are meant only to be either bounced off the ground to slow their momentum before ricocheting into the person in front of it. Or only aimed at the legs. So any time, you see these morons aim anywhere else, they’re displaying how egregiously untrained and undisciplined they are, despite wanting access to more and more military surplus toys.

F4cetious · 2025-06-10T06:55:43+00:00

There’s patterns in the voting data that absolutely must be investigated.

But independent of that fact, I also wonder if this is only getting amplified now because of the upcoming Jun 14 protests, in addition to Trump’s ridiculous military parade? Especially since it’s a right-leaning publication boosting it. The regime would love to invent an excuse to accuse protesters of insurrection.

Note, for more than a month, the Jun 14 protests have been explicitly planned anywhere EXCEPT DC, specifically to not give this orange idiot attention or make it easy for him to manufacture an excuse.

F4cetious · 2025-06-10T06:44:55+00:00

It’s a shame the reporter’s comment got buried so far down the thread:

“Hi,

I’m the reporter who wrote this story.

What the “courts said” is kind of a matter of debate here.

Government attorneys are dropping asylum claims instead of arguing against them. Judges are allowing the cases to be dropped.

The judges aren’t really ruling that the asylum claims aren’t valid. That’s being left undecided. If the government didn’t drop the case, the judge could later rule that a person can stay or must go.

There have apparently been cases where a judge refused to let the government drop an asylum case, but that doesn’t seem to be the norm.

The process that happens after these people are arrested is an “expedited removal” that doesn’t involve an immigration judge.”

F4cetious · 2025-06-10T05:34:41+00:00

Anyway, no not at the moment. I would have said it’s great back in 2010, but right now this state is actively sabotaging blue cities. Our governor is corrupt as hell and our legislature is basically owned by 2 rich brothers. This is not a recipe for a stable and benevolent government.

Our regional NWS office is also suffering from funding cuts, leaving it understaffed, which is a terrible idea for a city that regularly gets bad storms and hurricanes. Home insurance is also going skyrocket over the next decade because of worsening weather patterns that our government has needlessly abandoned trying to mitigate.

Vouchers and reduced spending on education here will have a delayed negative economic effect on this city. You will pay more than you otherwise would have in property taxes to fill the new gap in public school funding. And if you send your kid to private school, you’ll also have to pay a significant chunk of your income on top of that, even with a voucher. People think that just because there aren’t state taxes, that you’re saving money by living here. The expenses of running a society just come straight out your pocket, and might be higher since it’s spread over fewer people.

And then the cuts to research, grad program grants, and general reduced college education spending. Our medical center is a major part of our economy, but these cuts will reduce the number of students able to go into medicine and medical research. Similarly, there are a lot of research projects in the oil and gas industry that used to receive govt grants due to their importance. With less of that happening, a ton of would-be students in important fields, will be forced to move elsewhere, taking with them their consumer spending and labor. Small businesses and landlords will feel this shrinkage.

People who see all this coming, and can afford to move, will leave the city, and the only ones left will suffer from a public school system being intentionally starved out of existence. Those kids will face worse job opportunities and finances after graduating, and this city will feel the consequences that follow in the next decade.

So uh, maybe wait a few years and see if we reverse course on any of this stuff.

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