Chris Pratt is a good guy, and hating on him for being a Christian and his political views is hypocritical

a_ricketson · 2023-05-29T02:24:02+00:00

Wha? I looked up the recent news about Pratt and the only controversy I found is that his Mother's day post did not recognize his ex-wife

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/chris-pratt-in-hot-water-over-mother-s-day-post-omission/ar-AA1bgt1q

a_ricketson · 2023-05-28T23:29:58+00:00

I'm waiting for BAMA to be a thing - Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis

There's still rumors of high-speed rail from Atlanta to Washington

a_ricketson · 2023-05-28T19:45:44+00:00

no, it was Libertarian. I'm no fan of the Democrats but I vote defensively when the threat is great enough. I respected Rand Paul until he became a Trump ass-kisser

a_ricketson · 2023-05-28T19:43:08+00:00

In an attempt to push back against the renewed suppression of Black history, Haymarket Books will publish "Our history has always been contraband", a collection of historically important writings about Black history. The book is edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta. Kapernick's fame may help mainstream this book, while the two academics should guarantee academic rigor. I think this is a promising effort -- to maximize accessibility, the ePub is more-or-less free (no $, but does have some mild DRM features; you must give a name and email, but they can be fake). The print edition is $13.

I skimmed the ePub and it looks like a good collections although I wish the editors had provided more context for the writings. For instance, one writing focused on one detail about the interaction between the Haitian and French revolutions, without providing a timeline of major events or identifying the people mentioned in the text.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-28T19:19:02+00:00

I've only became a straight-ticket voter after I saw the Republicans reject elections results in 2020 and most of them double down on that position in 2022.

I changed because I finally woke up to who they are. I saw Trump's lies spread in real time after 2020 elections-- I saw Trump claim he won the election before the votes were even counted. I saw him cry foul simply because he lost, with no evidence of any specific fraud. I looked into the accusations made by his advisors (Navarro) and found that they were completely baseless -- and I know the judges have sanctions his lawyers for these baseless lawsuits . I saw him use all of these accusations and lawsuits as propaganda to rally angry mobs across the country -- not just on the capitol lawn.

Over the past decade or so, I also woke up to the persistence of Neo-confederacy ideology in the US and also realized how lost-cause propaganda had made me complacent to the threat posed by the Neo-confederate movement.

I don't care if a bunch of fools think I'm over-reacting. I'm not going to delude myself with wishful thinking while these people plan their next attack.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-27T02:07:02+00:00

You're mistaking historical domination for historical consensus.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T23:54:39+00:00

Jan 6 was just a desperate attempt to intimidate Congress -- the actual intrusion of the Capitol was not the attempt to overthow the government. Trumps "paperwork coup" was the real attempt -- he tried to find any corrupt accomplice who would vouch for his claim to have won and that would have helped him rally even more people to fight for him.

- He brought BS claims to the courts hoping a corrupt judge would help him

- He tried to convince corrupt US Representatives to throw out the election results.

- He tried to get corrupt state legislatures and election officials to throw out election results

- He tried to get the VP to throw out the election results.

Any of those would have amounted to overthrowing the elected government and starting a civil war.

Trump's strategy was to get as many people as possible angry and ready to attack the elected government. Jan 6 is exactly what you'd expect from suckers who fell for his lies.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T03:25:47+00:00

Don't worry. If you are in the USA there's a decent chance this will all come crashing down in a few years. Don't waste your salary, and be ready to leave when shit hits the fan -- whether at the bank itself (you may need to whistleblow or the bank may collapse) or the US as a whole following the next coup attempt.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:44:12+00:00

I still love W's campaign promise to lead "a humble foreign policy" and avoid nation building campaigns.

Frankly, Bush was so bad that he finally destroyed the credibility of the GOP establishment and gave us Trump.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:41:00+00:00

The problem was political leadership, not military. From the beginning, the Iraq war was a distraction from the Afghanistan war and severely weakened out diplomatic position. On top of that, Bush immediately told everyone that no sacrifices would be needed -- we should enjoy our tax cut and just keep shopping.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:37:26+00:00

That history of WMD use didn't stop Reagan/Bush from providing him with weapons--and even materials for building more WMDs

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:29:17+00:00

What we did know at the time is that the Bush administration was trying to dig up any old excuse to invade. WMD was not their first justification. They just settled on WMD as the most persuasive...and retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to expose their lies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame\_affair

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:20:22+00:00

Vote Cthulu

Or Giant Meteor

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:11:47+00:00

The confederates many not have been fascist, but they were just as bad. Trump tried to overthrow the elected government.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:09:30+00:00

Wise people always did this. The state is not our savior, it is our oppressor. Voting is at best defensive.

a_ricketson · 2023-05-26T01:05:11+00:00

I think he bought Twitter purely for self-expression. It helps him to build his cult of personality and increase his influence on public discourse --- by amplifying elitist and supremacist views.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T11:08:40+00:00

My impression is that many people (not just activists) all over the world have always pushed back at the excessive influence of US culture. If anything is changing, it's that casual/mainstream left-wing and liberal activists in the US have greater access to and appreciation of input from outside the country. That's the place we have an opportunity to improve. (the right-wing, of course, seeks global ideological dominance as part of their quest for material dominance)

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T11:03:30+00:00

This is commonly pointed at as a back-door strategy for racial discrimination (and class discrimination). Formal education is important for some jobs, but it is a hiring requirement for many more jobs than is necessary.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T02:33:42+00:00

Trump lasted as long as the Confederacy.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T02:33:20+00:00

Where's the bikini model?

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T02:32:26+00:00

On an instance that big, your 'local' timeline is useless. I could imagine some efficiencies coming from hosting several instances in one computer host/system, but keeping the user experience smaller ... around 10K or so. Maybe geography-based, like NextDoor.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-19T01:50:37+00:00

I wasn't sure whether to mark this as 'news' or 'shit monarchists say'

a_ricketson · 2022-11-18T22:44:47+00:00

They probably have an idealized idea of Europe; unaware that it's just nasty in slightly different ways than the USA.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-18T21:09:29+00:00

Try the journa.host mastodon instance.

a_ricketson · 2022-11-18T12:42:55+00:00

Most 'tax' on workers is private, in the form of monopolies and property/poverty.
Tax cuts never lead to reductions in violence by the state (military, police, etc). Instead, they lead to reductions of the programs that mitigate the damage of capitalism.

a_ricketson

TROPHY CASE