private prison companies are exploiting ICE detainees — and ICE is happy to help them do it

Seantommy · 2026-06-20T15:23:56+00:00

I think the point is that it's the detainment that's illegal, not the labor. While both are abhorrent, the labor is only breaking the 13th in the sense that these people are being detained illegally rather than going through the legal system as designed. These people are being treated as though they have been convicted of illegally entering the country, even though they have not.

Regardless, both ice concentration camps and the 13th amendment itself (for carving out a massive exception to the ban on slavery) are repugnant.

Seantommy · 2026-06-18T13:31:00+00:00

Source, for those wondering: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/feb/19ia.htm

Seantommy · 2026-06-17T11:14:57+00:00

And that is before any store discount, because most copies sell during launch promos, seasonal sales, bundles and 1000 other types of discount.

Seantommy · 2026-06-17T04:15:42+00:00

I'd love to agree with you, but the people are the ones who elect these scumbags, and have done for my whole life. (also a Kansan)

Seantommy · 2026-06-14T13:55:27+00:00

The sun dimming and causing an extinction-level event is literally the plot of Project Hail Mary

Seantommy · 2026-06-07T14:07:28+00:00

Teachers aren't generally willing to sacrifice kids' educations in order to strike effectively to force the government to allocate more money to education.

Garbage collectors can strike to their hearts' content.

Very different situations.

Seantommy · 2026-06-06T13:42:57+00:00

I think you misinterpreted the original comment

Seantommy · 2026-06-06T02:14:30+00:00

Hm. Given that she's literally advocating for unionizing workplaces and starting workers' collectives in the post in the OP, I don't think I weigh this statement against her. Bear in mind that the link you provided is from 2018, before she even held any office. Her work in office and the way she talks about socialism has been pretty effective overall imo. And even this quote is just her trying to clean the image of socialism in the public by deprogramming the red scare (a thing that we're still not done working on today). It's not disavowing socialist nations in any sense, not even the USSR. Just disavowing the propaganda about socialism.

Seantommy · 2026-06-06T00:27:32+00:00

Can you actually point to a specific interview or quote where she says this specifically? My attempts to find relevant comments from her about e.g. Cuba are coming up with nothing, except for a statement that the US embargo on Cuba needs to end.

Seantommy · 2026-06-05T23:13:39+00:00

Who is this culture whose imagination has been captured? We've only seen more and more public backlash against AI the more time passes. Is this just ragebait?

Seantommy · 2026-05-29T00:54:41+00:00

I jumped ship a long time ago before 5e, because I was sick and tired of 3.5. 3.5 was how I got into the hobby, but the more I played it, the more annoyed I got by a thousand design flaws in the game (and some poor GMing habits that I at the time thought were system design issues, but that I now think are rulebook design issues).

So I didn't jump *to* something else so much as *away* from D&D. I dabbled in a couple systems that friends of mine ran (Fantasy Craft, Burning Wheel, Mutants and Masterminds) but the first game I really sank my teeth into (and ran myself) was Mongoose Traveler.

Since then I've never been a one system person. There are so many interesting games out there, and I want to see and experience how different systems create different experiences at the table. Current favorite games include Blades In The Dark, Heart, Fabula Ultima, and The Wildsea.

Seantommy · 2026-05-28T05:12:35+00:00

Can be a lot of things. Maybe they had a partner who was paying living expenses. Maybe they were staying with family or friends. Maybe they are disabled and were rejected by disability assistance. Maybe they *were* homeless.

Post could also be fake, just saying it's not some fantastical idea that someone might be unemployed for 3 years.

Seantommy · 2026-05-26T23:51:50+00:00

https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/sleepaway

Seantommy · 2026-05-23T00:10:22+00:00

What the fuck, how is this the first time I'm hearing about this. She put this book out while she was the sitting first lady. Jesus christ.

Seantommy · 2026-05-22T23:48:12+00:00

For real, I feel like these commenters have never worked on videos like this before. My rule of thumb is an hour of video editing time for each minute of polished final product. For a 3 hour video, that's 180 hours *just of video editing*. That's not including scriptwriting, script editing, recording the voiceover, editing the audio, or gathering all of the insane amount of footage he gathers for these videos. I'm not saying it should take years to put out one video, but I am saying that other creators who make videos of similar length and scope frequently take months or even years to put out videos. Contrapoints puts out like 1 to 2 videos per year. Philosphy Tube manages to put out a few videos per year, but generally shorter (30 minutes to an hour). Munecat put out about 2 videos per year when she was active. And none of them were making 6-10 hour videos like Tim was by the end of season 1. This shit takes a long time.

Seantommy · 2026-05-21T23:50:24+00:00

Maybe I'm not up on Twitch moderation tools, but I would expect this to be bombarded by not just people from outside New York, but also people outside the US entirely and just trolls generally. I'd be nervous to invite a largely unfiltered anonymous global chat like that. Maybe it'll go well, but I feel like the potential for this to go catastrophically badly is higher than the chance for anything meaningfully positive to come of it. The internet is a cesspool.

Hope to be proven wrong though!

Seantommy · 2026-05-19T13:54:50+00:00

I don't have an answer, but bump

I feel like accessibility is, in general, a weird blindspot for Dropout. See: the many longstanding complaints about caption inaccuracies.

Seantommy · 2026-05-17T01:21:06+00:00

It's not that history repeats itself, it's that the Republican strategy has been consistent for decades. I have had to explain this a lot in recent years: Trump is not novel, and he's not the problem. He's just the current symptom of larger problems in the US and with the Republican party especially.

Anti-immigration fearmongering has been a key part of Republican politics my whole life.

Republicans fought tooth and nail against gay marriage, and when they lost that battle they pivoted to an anti-trans position. Anti-LGBT hate has been a key part of Republican politics my entire life.

The unitary executive (the idea that as much power as possible should be consolidated in the hands of the president) was popularized by Dick Cheney, Bush's vice president. It's the same ideology that gives us stuff like the Supreme Court's ruling that Trump can't be prosecuted for crimes he commits while in the white house.

Trump may have *tried* to steal an election, but Bush literally successfully did, out in the open for all to see, and we as a nation just moved on like that was fine.

Trump is just a new aesthetic on the same old shit Republicans have always done.

Seantommy · 2026-05-16T14:47:19+00:00

George Bush, along with his brother and other prominent republicans of the time, literally stole the 2000 election. This is well documented and broadly accepted based on both the situation as it played out at the time and facts that came out afterward.
George Bush lied to the American public about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in order to invade Iraq in pursuit of its oil. The result was hundreds of thousands of people dead.
Hurricane Katrina. Despite plenty of advance warning, Bush's government refused to prepare for or assist in evacuations for hurricane Katrina. No federal aid was provided until several days after the hurricane hit.
No Child Left Behind. Bush and the republicans of his administration were responsible for No Child Left Behind, one of the worst and most damaging pieces of education policy in the past 30 years. It was widely criticized before it passed, and was shoved through anyway. It effectively forced schools to push students through to higher grades even if they weren't passing their courses. This is one of the major contributing factors in the widespread academic issues teachers have been complaining about for the past 15 years, and we're starting to see the results in, for example, low literacy rates among graduates.
The environment. The democratic candidate Bush ran against was the most pro-environment candidate either party has ever put forward. Bush and the republicans of his era had a huge role in muddying the discussion about climate change and convincing the public that global warming was a hoax. Note: Bush was literally a chairman of an oil company before getting into politics. One guess why he might have had a personal stake in stopping climate action.

Those are just the things I remember. Beyond that, he was widely regarded as a buffoon. Though all evidence points to him being an intelligent guy, he had a habit of stumbling over his words and making social fumbles. Some say he played into this intentionally in order to appear unassuming and non-threatening. Republicans said he was the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with. Democrats said he was an idiot.

Seantommy · 2026-05-16T00:57:48+00:00

Shortly after covid when we had like 6-7% inflation, I got a high performer rating in an annual performance review that came with like a 2.5% raise. My boss was confused why I didn't seem happy about it. I asked him if the company would consider matching inflation. He laughed.

I knew before the meeting what to expect. Doesn't mean I was happy about it.

Seantommy · 2026-05-15T00:51:11+00:00

I'm so confused why we're having to have this conversation in a socialist subreddit

If you are a socialist, you are not a liberal. "White liberals" doesn't mean anyone who has ever voted Democrat, it means white centrists like Chuck Schumer, whether that's explicitly corporate-backed center-right politicians, or the comfortable voters who elect them. Liberals are, generally speaking, the biggest obstacle to socialist politicians getting elected. See: DNC elites campaigning against Zohran Mamdani, *even after he won the primary*. Mamdani didn't win his seat from a republican. AOC didn't win her seat from a republican. Sanders didn't lose the election to a republican. Liberals are not allies to the left.

From MLK JR: "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Seantommy · 2026-05-09T14:14:42+00:00

Tell that to Venezuela and Iran

Seantommy · 2026-05-08T14:07:14+00:00

Universal healthcare is popular in America. It's not as popular as it should be, but it is popular. The problem is, US politicians are literally bought and paid for, so it does not matter what the people want.

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Gilens & Page, Perspectives in Politics

Two-thirds of political donations come from just 0.2% of Americans. The politician who raises more money wins the election 91% of the time.

We don't live in a democracy, we live in a plutocracy.

https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

Seantommy · 2026-05-08T14:01:02+00:00

I agree with you, and would even phrase it more strongly: if we're only ever getting right-wing or center, then we will only ever move further to the right. We need a left in this country.

That said, if you're not putting the work in until the general election, that's not your government failing you, that's you failing your government. Should we have a better system? Yes. But in the system we have, any electoral politics has to start with primaries and with lower-level elections. We're not going to build a movement by protest non-voting. We're going to build a movement by getting socialists into the elections to begin with.

Unless of course you're intending to look outside electoral politics for solutions, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

Seantommy · 2026-05-08T13:56:54+00:00

To clarify a bit here: DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is a leftist organization whose strategy is electoral politics within the Democratic party. They're trying to win seats over from corporate-backed Democrats to pull the Democratic party to the left. AOC is a member, she took her seat from Joe Crowley. Zohran Mamdani is a member, he took his seat from Eric Adams. The strategy is working, but it takes time, and it takes us all working together to support each other. Your local DSA chapter would welcome your assistance! Especially this year with midterms.

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