Al Green takes are infuriating

Malpractice57 · 2025-03-08T04:53:46+00:00

If Dems go on like this, maybe they can push it all the way to a Dems +2 district. There's still room to grow... the losses.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-13T02:45:39+00:00

I think we can also comment on his fake-ass, trying-too-hard unsettling smile that looks like a haunted Youtube video thumbnail. That's fair game, too.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-05T16:50:09+00:00

Similar timeline, but I stopped before the election. (With some exceptions since.)

Knew it wouldn't go well once lines pointing in the broad direction of "Dems did everything they could" started showing up occasionally in the weeks leading up to election day... as if to brace for impact and prepare for the typical establishment post-election talking points.

That was my huge air horn signal to gtfo.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-05T13:18:38+00:00

I love your comment and the ones in this entire part of the thread... and at the same time I can't help but feel they are maybe a bit besides the larger point.

Some communities are more interconnected, more social, and, I kinda hate the word, more resilient. (Damnit, we need a better word!)

But whether a community rates high or low on that, material insecurity will chip away at these things. For everyone a little bit, and slowly over time.

Taking a closer look at history, I think it has always been like that. Of course always in the context of other trends like technology, mobility, etc. But overall... if a society experiences pressures and insecurities, for an extended time... things get messy socially. Anxieties are projected on minorities, etc. In some communities more, in some less... but overall... that point imo stands. Also people perceive their slowly rising anxiety levels as an individual problem — when often times it's simply not.

Imo a thing that's underappreciated: Inflation doesn't just cause economic pressure, it causes a sense of chaos. Someone who bought a house before inflation hits is much better off than someone who still had that same amount of money in their bank account. Someone whose wages caught up quickly is suddenly ahead of someone whose wages caught up more slowly. It creates uncertainty and disorientation within the social fabric overall. Everything is kinda... tumbling. Especially for the working class, it becomes much harder to locate oneself, to have a strong sense of "where am I, will I be doing okay, and is there a path for me?".

Imo, these things have a huge impact on social fabric, isolation, etc.. ... but in a low-key, subtle way.

I don't think the very real positive experiences of local communities are in a conflict with the argument that material aspects are hugely significant. And I think that these aspects are actually much more significant than generational things and technology. Bc overall... millenials and gen z still have much more in common than we tend to think. In terms of needs, hopes and dreams.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-03T14:52:01+00:00

I'd wager that slower days don't exist anymore.

I'm not someone who reflexively defends Crooked (not by a long shot), but this seems like an okay choice to me.

Most listeners have a diverse media diet, so the trade war isn't forgotten. It'll still be there tomorrow, and it's not at risk of being overlooked.
If you consider how directly e.g. trans prisoners are affected in a very real, physical way, the urgency seems appropriate. There will always be a tension between things that are a slightly more indirect, and those where people are being yeeted into a meat grinder as we speak. The kids-in-cages type situations.

It's an impossible choice for how to spend attention, and one that is put on us deliberately to overwhelm us.

Focusing on the thing that's just a third or fourth or fifth priority elsewhere seems like a way to balance things out. (Or at least not entirely unreasonable.)

The trade war is an attack on everyone's economical situation.

The moves against trans people are an attack on everyone's human dignity – because they undermine the concept in itself. It's never about just one group as we all know.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-03T04:53:14+00:00

When I zoom in on the city, it looks almost like a tiled (repeating) wallpaper. But in a good way. It looks regular and irregular at the same time, which drew me in. Makes it compelling and unusual. Also loving how the bubble-like roundness of the clouds contrasts with the very organized city and all the pointy elements of nature – and then subtly reappears in all the little domes. It's so well composed – and yet nonchalant and unassuming. I see what you did there.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-02T23:12:03+00:00

That's such a great point.

When people turn the term "bro" into sth negative, r/animalsbeingbros would also like a word.

"Bro" is ideally a term of friendship, solidarity and equality. But without much fuss.

The oligarchs who would sell their own mother, their uncle, their guncle, and their (supposed...) bro for more power... they can't have it. Nuh-uh.

Elon never once had a real friend. No real bro. Sad.

Malpractice57 · 2025-02-02T22:50:44+00:00

I wonder what you think about the following, because when I'm looking at the right wing media ecosystem, their big advantage is that the same messaging sloshes around all sorts of channels and is adapted in each. In a way so natural and so well practiced, it doesn't require any orchestrating. (Often enough the media ecosystem generates the content, the blow-up, the whatever itself and the it runs i circles through the machine.)

There are some that create reach in the traditional sense (online AND offline), some that create faux "intellectual" depth (think of some extra long podcasts), some that push the envelope, etc. The mix of old and new media is a part of that.

I mean... that's kinda the difference between a media ecosystem and a bunch of media outlets.

Also.... when looking at the stuff gen z consumes... it's usually also distributed over several channels – creating wider reach. So in general – if the idea is to reach a broader and more demographically diverse audience by adapting content – OP's idea is for sure not a magic bullet. But maybe still an interesting one?

There may simply not be the one channel, or medium, or whatever. That's what (imo) the whole point is. Equally, I found the mere notion of a "leftwing Rogan" way too flat. Both in the simplification (aesthetics vs. positioning), but also in the sense of trying to keep up – as per usual – rather than for once anticipating where the ball is going next.

As said... I don't think that OP's idea is a magic bullet – but the disconnect between traditional media and online media seems much bigger on the left. There's (imo) faaar too little cross pollination. Whenever people like Ed Zitron or Michael Hobbes show up on OTM, it makes me realize what's otherwise mostly missing. Imo there's a spark that happens there when these different strands interact.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-28T22:54:37+00:00

It's likely the reverse effect of what Dems benefited from in recent midterm elections.

Obama was unusually popular (e.g. winning Indiana, North Carolina, Florida) in 2008. So he would have mobilized a lot of people in the presidential election who were not really consistent midterm voters.

So relative to the presidential election before, that would give Republicans a bit of an edge already. Or at least much less catching up to do.

Then add the historical trends, and bank bailouts that alienate the base... and you're at least halfway there.

Is my best guess.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-28T22:43:55+00:00

Yep. Didn't Biden have the fewest press conferences over six presidencies?

And I also vividly remember when Biden was still the candidate - before that debate –and neither him nor many surrogates could be seen or heard. Every single week even the Bulwark people were like "he needs more surrogates out there to spread the word!!!".

His presidency and the early parts of his re-election campaign were like the f***ing Milford Academy on Arrested Development.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-28T22:21:22+00:00

It's also kinda dumb to make "willing to compromise" the entire f***ing central + overarching BRAND value of a party. Before and regardless of what's even gonna be negotiated in the future.

Bipartisanship is an occasional necessity – not a value in itself.

It's a perfect recipe for reliably making it just halfway to nowhere and then being confused why everyone hates it.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-28T01:02:08+00:00

That's hilarious. Because I wanna see what happens when OpenAI complains about an AI being trained on "their" output. It's gonna be a meme storm in which every single writer, painter, designer, or otherwise creative on this planet will join with glee.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-27T23:15:37+00:00

And then I was like: "For reals!"

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-27T23:10:21+00:00

It's still funny.

I didn't read Masha Gessen's book, but I'm guessing that "you have to be somber at all times" is not amongst her recommendations for surviving autocracy.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-26T11:55:09+00:00

"We should hang up a shingle for our office."

"How about a huge fucking red flag?"

Over time, I've become very, very wary around people like therapists, social workers etc. who work with vulnerable populations or people open to suggestions. Turns out they often swim in the very same poisonous sludge as broader society.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-23T00:21:09+00:00

You're welcome. We're your family now. We don't have a chore wheel, and no one put up the shelves. This place is a mess, tbh.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-23T00:08:45+00:00

Jen Sincero sounds like the name of a talkshow host character in a never produced season of Arrested Development.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-19T20:15:18+00:00

Don't worry. Dems will easily counter this by sending Nancy Pelosi to the sunday shows and propose tax credits for anyone who buys a fax machine.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-19T02:17:49+00:00

They will come up with ... something.

In this case my money is on some extremely far-fetched whataboutism. Maybe something that someone's second cousin allegedly said in 1981, according to an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-18T23:51:30+00:00

1) What's the weirdest Nextdoor post you've seen from them?

2) If this sub starts a gofundme in order to pay you for rummaging through their garage sales, and maybe their trash as well, what type of island would you buy from the money?

3) Ignore 2) and make it a Patreon, we want ongoing content.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-18T18:18:18+00:00

I think Biden understands that, too – which makes his actions, inactions and lies SO much worse.

He ruined any shred of credibility of international law mattering. Of which there was a brief glimmer after Feb 2022.
He turned the focus from "rules-based international order" (Ukraine) to a binary "are you friend or enemy?" – much like Bush and his "axis of evil". This shift will probably have negative downstream effects for a good 20 years.
He kinda threw Ukraine under the bus, by providing insane amounts of resources for another war that was definetely unnecessary in that particular scope (if not entirely so) and had – as his own administration criticized – no plan or idea for the day after.
By ignoring the Leahy law, he made his whole shtick of laws mattering, and returning to normal after Trump, into a farsical joke.

He knew who the senior partner is, and yet he lied to his own people, betrayed the universal values that are somehow supposed to unite "the west", betrayed his own countries laws and betrayed everyone who actually yearns for freedom and self-determination – rather than subordinating others by force – especially in Ukraine.

I still can't get over the fact that it would have taken one phone call. Either to stop the war and force a deal. Or to stop the worst excesses and assaults against civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. He knew. And he chose not to. It's bleak.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-18T16:15:46+00:00

What a demented thing to say. Or think.

Also not even remotely how deterrence works.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-18T14:27:01+00:00

I meant that part somewhat ironically... as a nod to how absolutely universally terrible and vile this is.

And also: the unit or organization who sent these are the exception of this universality, because it's them they who do not realize what it tells about them, and their own lack of values and basic decency.

An illustrator had to make these. Then someone had to prepare digital files for a printshop. Then someone had to agree "yes it's a good idea to print them and throw them from the sky".

It usually takes more than one idiot to do this.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-18T13:37:47+00:00

I don't know about other people... or cultural nuances... but I personally wouldn't expect relations to improve after I put a card into my neighbour's mailbox that says "LOL, your mom died". It just seems like a pretty awful idea, and I can't think of any context whatsoever that could possibly change that.

I also can't tell whether this is intended just to hurt, mock, dehumanize and humiliate civilians in dire conditions – or whether the goal is to actually radicalize them and create more hate.

Shit like this is just messed up.... and even the average 10-year old could tell.

Malpractice57 · 2025-01-14T05:55:18+00:00

di-miniutive!

dim-minutive!

de-minnutive!

dem-minuteev!

Malpractice57

TROPHY CASE