Carrolade @ Carrolade @lemmy.world

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1 yr. ago

On the arms shipments, we may try lawsuits via the Leahy Law if the ethnic cleansing ramps up. The way the law is written, it actually looks at arms shipments all the way down to the granular level of individual military units. It does not say arms cannot be exported to countries engaging in war crimes, it specifically says individual military units that commit war crimes cannot receive arms. If they choose to engage in a broader campaign of organized displacement out of Gaza or starvation in places where combat has largely died down, a larger number of military units could potentially become implicated, which could maybe make a lawsuit more feasible. We'll have to see.

Regarding AIPAC, since Citizen's United determined that monetary donations are a form of speech, this requires either an amendment or recapture of the Supreme Court. Otherwise Americans are allowed to lobby the government for whatever they wish, even if they are doing so at the behest of a foreign government. They have to disclose that, but so long as they do, they are simply exercising their Constitutional rights as perceived by the current Supreme Court. This isn't going away any time soon, the current law is very clear and pretty much ironclad, rooted in the Constitution itself via the Bill of Rights.

Some good answers already. To add, in the media sphere Pod Save America and their related branches is a liberal progressive media organization that tries to run counter to the conservative media ecosystem, trying to ride the line between policy wonkery and approachability.

No, not excuses, simply doubt. Manchin has a long record in the Senate as a moderate, Clinton-style dem. He's even voted against abortion rights. Rather than corruption, I think he's just semi-conservative, he even voted with Trump around 50% of the time during his first term. That is not typical for a democrat, it's quite unusual actually.

Ah, that's orchestration, which you just said was not happening. You are insinuating that most of them are neoliberals who simply put forward a chosen sacrificial scapegoat in some sort of planned scheme to deceive the American public. Strong claims require evidence, otherwise they are simply convenient ideas we can adopt to oversimplify a messy world and make ourselves feel better.

If that's true, then the bill failed by a slim margin. It almost passed, and had the support of the majority of the democratic party, including passing the House of Representatives. This is an important detail.

No, that is a false claim. It was not passed by the Senate and never became law. We can certainly criticize our neoliberal factions, but we should do it factually instead of weaving whatever narratives we find most convenient. Unless you're confusing it with the Infrastructure bill, which did pass. They were linked at one time, but were separated after both failing became likely.

https://ballotpedia.org/Build_Back_Better_Act

This sounds like conspiracy again, where this was all orchestrated. You can believe whatever you want, that's part of living in the free world. But to actually be something worth considering, there should be evidence of this orchestration that can be found among the thousands of people that would've had to have been involved. Has AOC or Bernie or any of their staffers spoken of any orchestration?

Funny how it still almost passed, then. Unless you're proposing a grand conspiracy where they all actually secretly were lying about their intentions. Such a conspiracy theory would be a strong claim, and those require evidence. Perhaps in the thousands of individual staffers and advisors to each member of congress you could find a whistleblower indicating such a conspiracy? Otherwise it'd have to be as airtight as Jewish Space Lasers.

Funny when it was the more neoliberal, pro-business dems that shot it down, shortly before leaving the democratic party. There's really not a whole lot of corporate profits to be found in here, though, despite the rampant misinformation floating around online. It actually raised corporate taxes, which is not a neoliberal policy position:

https://schakowsky.house.gov/build-back-better-act#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+Build+Back+Better+Act+invests+in+securing+universal+preschool%2Cand+the+universal+preschool+initiative.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/build-back-better/

Well put.

Keep the faith, Brits. Perhaps Brexit washed some of the insanity out early enough that the far right continues to struggle there.

Hopefully we're not slowly returning to the Napoleonic Era, I'm not sure you guys could withstand all of continental Europe a third time.

We tried. Biden's Build Back Better bill had a lot of pro-working class stuff in it. We just couldn't pass it with Manchin and Sinema resisting.

Details are important.

Agreed. Lemmy is still coming along nicely, we've got a good suite of apps to choose from now, and features are steadily being added. It's significantly more ready for primetime than it was a year ago. Still a WIP of course, but useability is decent.

So, if I authentically offer to kick his nuts up into his stomach that'll be enough for him to him to like me? He has literally zero opinions on what actually might be a good or bad idea for the country, just so long as I say it with gusto?

I do get it, but I find it pretty outlandish. If he was born in Mad Max Fury Road, would he just be perfectly happy being one of those pole guys? They seem very authentic, look like they're having a blast too. "Witness me!"? When I see drug cartels and their quest for money and power, they seem very authentic about it. Very authentically killing everyone who crosses them.

Not gonna lie, that's a problematic value system.

edit: Should also make him damn leery of Trump, if he has any sort of real instincts about people. Rich assholes are not bottomless wells of authenticity.

Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary and then voted libertarian

...wat?

Democrats don't really have a base. It's not progressives, if that's what you're thinking, we don't have the numbers for that kind of sway. You can see this clearly in how many House seats we hold.

If there is any base to dems, its white collar suburban soccer moms. But it's not actually that either, they're just one of the biggest segments.

I kind of understand Bush vs Kerry. Bush had a vision. It was a crazy neocon vision, but it was a vision and he used it to communicate effectively enough that we still occasionally meme about bombing people into freedom.

Obama had a clear vision, and communicated it well. Hope, prosperity for the middle class, international leadership. Biden had a vision, a less divisive America where we came together and worked on overdue problems. Hilary didn't really, nor did Kerry or Gore. They were more policy administrator types who focused on specific policies and administration, and the idea of incremental improvement just didn't resonate with people.

Trump, for all his failings, does have a vision he is capable of communicating to the American people. Harris did too, better than Hilary anyway, but it didn't really come online until fairly late into the campaign and stayed a little too nebulous. I do think she was hurt in this regard by getting such a short campaign with no real prep time, she was evolving in the right direction.

I think we need a Bernie or AOC, someone with a powerful vision and ability to clearly communicate it, to the point of literally cudgeling people over the head with it. And we need to vote them in during the primary, over any competent administrator types, despite the fact that we are fully aware of how effective and necessary those policy administrators can be. Our valuing of them is a place where we're out of touch with the broader American electorate though.

edit: MLK Jr was good at this. He had a dream, and it was a simple one that any person could visualize in their head. It didn't require any policy expertise to understand it. We need that.

I think you were really lucky, a pocket knife is a lot riskier than a can of mace or taser or something. Easy to take away. But if it's what you got, then it's what you got. Also should've aimed a little lower.

Yes, he took all our guns, too. Look, there's none to be found anywhere.

No, they've been getting progressively crazier since 2016.

2000 was fairly divisive, it went to the Supreme Court after all. But it wasn't even a fraction this dramatic, people mostly shrugged and figured GWB would be like his father, which was unfortunate, but sane at any rate. Nobody was really predicting 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

2004 was pretty dull. John Kerry challenged GWB but felt sort of like an empty suit.

2008 was nice, Obama was a strong and exciting candidate vs the very known quantity of McCain, who was a moderate repub known for bipartisanship. Sarah Palin provided for hours of entertaining impersonations by people like Tina Fey, but since she was the VP candidate nobody really cared.

2012 was dull. Romney was a strong candidate, another moderate repub. But Obama was fine, he hadn't broken the country or anything. Brought us out of a recession, even if people were upset about bank bailouts and stuff. Lot of people got health insurance.

Then it starts getting spicy.