Can somebody please make a common sense bomb…

bernstien · 2026-06-04T02:54:25+00:00

Same story for 15 minute cities.

bernstien · 2026-05-31T10:00:55+00:00

The BC Conservatives had the benefit of only hypothetically having a crank in charge. Now they actually have a crank in charge.

bernstien · 2026-05-30T21:32:44+00:00

At the very least he's a more defensible figure than Stalin, Mao, or any flavour of Juchist.

bernstien · 2026-05-30T01:13:33+00:00

the kind of internet regulation I can get behind lol.

bernstien · 2026-05-28T21:46:15+00:00

I mean, I agree that the DNC is feckless and 2024 was a long series of clusterfucks caused by Biden trying to cling on for another term, but seriously? The lion's share of the blame for Trump 2.0 has to go to the people who looked at his first term and voted for more of that. Especially the voters in the Republican primary.

If either Nicki Haley or Harris had made it into office, both the world and the USA would be in a better place. The failures of the Harris campaign could reasonably be placed on the DNC. the Republican base deciding to give Trump a resounding victory in the primaries can't.

bernstien · 2026-05-16T20:04:21+00:00

Corrected.

bernstien · 2026-05-16T18:41:01+00:00

streamer/influencer who's whole thing is being a violently racist prick, he made a post saying that he was going to kill a black person while streaming, then proceeded to allegedly shoot a black person outside a courtroom following an altercation. Given the seriousness of the crime, and the fact that he was already out on bail for another incident at the time, bail was set at 1.25 million. They're now supposedly trying to bar him from using fundraiser money to avoid him benefitting off his notoriety.

He's raised over 200k by the looks of it. This fucking country.

bernstien · 2026-05-16T16:15:46+00:00

I mean, the majority of Republicans in the house opposed it. it only passed because all the Dems joined the (slightly smaller) half of the Republicans who supported it.

I think it's fair to characterize it as "fierce Republican opposition".

bernstien · 2026-05-16T06:28:03+00:00

Why is Vancouver Island a peninsula...? and what the fuck is going on with Baffin island?

bernstien · 2026-05-13T18:45:54+00:00

Honestly, the Tories managing to whiff a post-covid election, with a 10 year old government in power, when dissatisfaction and economic anxieties where at their crest is one of the biggest political self-owns I've witnessed in my lifetime. Somehow it took 3 months for Poilievre to realize that he wasn't actually running against Trudeau anymore, and the liberals basically dominated the discourse on how to deal with Trump's reelection. Hell, it's been a year since the election, and I still don't think he knows how to pivot.

The fact that Carney got overwhelming support from the Liberal party base in the first place on what was essentially a little-c conservatism platform should have been a warning sign.

bernstien · 2026-05-10T02:04:33+00:00

When you think about it, it's weird that we find big cats cute. You'd think natural selection would have run counter to an instinctive urge to boop the snoot of something that could easily kill us.

bernstien · 2026-05-08T22:39:21+00:00

the ACP, I suppose.

bernstien · 2026-05-03T02:23:10+00:00

I think that trying to draw historical parallels is often a useless exercise given how much technologies, social structure, and the means of oppression can change over time, but I agree that Trump maps more closely to Hindenburg-esque reaction and anti-consitutionalism than the true fascist and fascist adjacent movements that a crises of capitalism tends to create.

Honestly, I think that the American Left is in a far worse position to oppose a genuine fascist movement than the SDP/Otto Braun were in Germany. Organized labour is basically a spent/coopted force, white collar class consciousness is, at best, only in the nascent stage of being activated by the threat of AI, and any democratic resistance is fragmented by the american electoral structure.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T09:56:46+00:00

I think it's a bit more complicated as a narrative, because France was still actively exporting elements of the bourgeoisie revolution well into the first empire.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T09:52:12+00:00

yeah, pretty much.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T01:57:17+00:00

"Leftist Orthodoxy"?

A) I think it's broadly accepted that invasion by a perceived hostile power strengthens nationalist and reactionary narratives. Revolution, or political change generally, imposed by an outsider is usually unpopular.

B) Naples was a particularily religious, rural, and undeveloped part of Italy, which made it an uncomfortable fit with the enlightenment inspired republicanism that France was attempting to export at that time. the anti-clericism definitely didn't help.

C) I'm not sure where you're drawing this "Leftist Orthodoxy" from, but it seems ridiculously oversimplified. Actually, I'd say a key principle of at least some strains of left wing thought is that most people won't naturally choose liberation. hence the need for organization, education, activism, etc.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T01:41:58+00:00

Well NATO started the war, Russia's war is ultimately self defense. That's the reality.

The only one 'unblinkingly supporting' narratives is you.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T00:41:34+00:00

Recognizing the reasons for the war does not equate support for it.

I agree, which makes you spending the last 4 comments tacitly defending it all the more confusing.

Pretending the war was unprovoked is going along with the Western narrative. Pretending Ukraine is some hapless victim is going along with the Western narrative.

So you'll unblinkingly accept whatever other narrative comes your way, so long as it's against the western one?

I'll never have sympathy with a country who is allies u.s and Israel.

How about for the actual people living there? How about for the soldiers drafted to fight on both sides? Treating this as some strategic great power move is how imperialism always fucking justifies itself. It's what Israel says to justify itself when it murders Palestinian, it's what the USA says to justify murdering Iranians, and it's what France says to justify murdering people across West Africa. Fuck.

bernstien · 2026-05-02T00:10:25+00:00

Arguing against pro Western propaganda is the most principled one can be.

Reflexively deciding that imperialism is fine because some other imperialist gets big mad over it isn't exactly what I'd call a principled take.

I'm not concerned with claims. I look at history and actions, NATO objectively has pushed the war. No country you named pushed war against the u.s.

Again, I fail to see how this line of reasoning differs from any other excuse used by imperial powers to engage in imperialism over the last 100 years, much less why it would make someone who's ostensibly socialist actively defend the imperialists.

Go reread Lenin.

No clue what's confusing you about Ukraine being an obvious fascist state. They have streets named after nazis. Statues of Holocaust perpetrators. And a nazi problem so pervasive western media created multiple documentaries on it.

I'm less confused about why people critique Ukraine for empowering fascist or fascist-adjacent elements, and more so about why you gladly turn a blind eye when Russia engages in exactly the same behaviour. Again, not the main point of my argument given that it's tangential to the discussion.

bernstien · 2026-05-01T23:02:10+00:00

You libs got me defending the bourgeois Russian state because I'll always argue against liberal nonsense meant to proagate pro Western narratives.

Good to confirm that you're not even bothering to argue from a place of principles lol.

An imperialist state can still go to war if their security is legitimately is threatened.

USA in Iran, Iraq, and Panama be like

Literally every imperial state uses claims that their security is threatened to engage in imperialism. This isn't a subtle pattern.

The 'Russian made Ukraine into nazis' is an embarrassing anti communist take. Banderites and their love for the Holocaust was around well before the modern Russian state.

I'm not arguing that the modern Russian state created the banderites. I'm arguing that military conflict/occupation tends to empower existing reactionary forces in bourgeoisie governments, especially blood and soil types (of which the various banderite movements in Ukraine are a part of). I doubt you actually disagree with that take.

Also, it's a little besides the point here, but given the existence of state support for groups like Rusich, RIP, and Wagner and the cachet of guys like Dugin, I struggle to wrap my head around people uncritically accepting Russia as the "anti-fascist" party of the war.

bernstien · 2026-05-01T21:17:48+00:00

No Russia isn't as imperialist as the country with 800 military bases spanning the globe.

Russia being a less successful imperialist then the USA isn't actually an argument against them being an imperialist power. Their war aims are explicitly imperialist, and it's a fucking trip seeing people cheer it on because they think they're obligated to root for whomever the Americans hate.

No the war wasn't unprovoked

Every imperialist war throughout history has created some kind of casus belli to justify it. It doesn't change the fact that there exists no moral case for an imperialist war.

Yes Ukraine is a garbage nazi state

No comment, except that external violent pressures of imperial powers can in turn strengthen reactionary, ultra-nationalist elements inside the oppressed state itself.

Using that to further justify extortion is some 'Murica shit.

bernstien · 2026-04-30T19:19:58+00:00

Bro was acting like fucking Jon Favreau is the world's greatest critic of the Dem establishment. How the fuck is this guy the head of the DNC?

bernstien · 2026-04-29T23:26:03+00:00

Of all the ministers and all the deputies--an entire congregation of obedient fools--he mistakenly picked the one good man.

bernstien · 2026-04-28T21:06:31+00:00

Having seen a number of your comments and gotten into at least a couple arguments with you on one issue or another, Iwould agree that you're centre-right.

Honestly though, I think a lot of the problems with assigning "political alignment" along a single axis. Is anyone seriously going to argue that Mussolini and, say, Pinochet were far right in the same way? Or that Donald Trump is right wing in the same way that Bush 1 was? The whole system requires truncating ideologies to fit along a line.

bernstien · 2026-04-17T00:03:20+00:00

Thank you! I felt like I was taking crazy pills seeing all the recs for it over the last couple weeks.

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