Schmoo @ Schmoo @slrpnk.net

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2 yr. ago

Judge argued it wasn't relevant to the case. Obviously I disagree, and so did the prosecutors. The prosecution mentioned it during the trial anyway and was scolded by the judge, which was later used by the defense to try calling a mistrial.

There was a video from 15 days before the incident where he fantasized out loud about shooting some people he believed to be shoplifters. The prosecution tried to admit the video to evidence in order to demonstrate his mental state but was denied.

Kyle Rittenhouse showed up to a protest armed with an AR-15 intending to defend property that was not even his with lethal force, having been encouraged to do so by other militant conservative groups on social media. He then proceeded to shoot and kill two unarmed people who were attempting to disarm him and injured another who was armed with a pistol and who was also attempting to disarm him.

I regret bringing politics into this joke thread, so I'm gonna go with your take on Star Wars being better under Disney than George Lucas.

Eh, I'd rather not dig up old comments and incite people to start attacking them. I was just making an offhanded comment because I've noticed them around a lot with some pretty uninformed takes that rubbed me the wrong way. Probably shouldn't have said anything.

You've been lucky enough not to see their political takes.

Yes, because it's not enough. It's possible to acknowledge good work while also criticizing the ways that it falls short, otherwise we risk cheering for the drop-in-the-bucket charity that doesn't challenge the status quo and credulously thinking our problems are being solved when more needs to be done.

Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric.     I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.    I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.    I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.

Her statement on the protests frames them as pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic, unpatriotic, and violent by focusing entirely on a few bad-faith actors. Spending the entire statement condemning the minority of protestors and saying nothing of the majority who were there simply to protest genocide is disingenuous.

To take a page out of her book,

You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you

The condemnation of Hamas and anti-Semitism isn't the issue, it's the context in which it is done, absent of support for the protest as a whole. The best we get is

I support the right to peacefully protest, but

As a qualifier at the end of the statement. If she were truly committed to justice for Palestinians she would have pushed back against the framing of those who defend them as anti-semitic and pro-Hamas.

It isn't so much what she said, but what she didn't.

While she is better than Biden, her condemnation of student protestors still rubbed lots of gen Z the wrong way, myself included. It won't stop me from voting, but it does dispel the delusion that Kamala is anything more than another corporate liberal.

I'm committed to posting this MLK quote as often as it is relevant:

First, I must confess that over the last 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 the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er 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 can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I'm at the point that I find this quote whenever I need it by opening my profile and sorting by controversial.

I believe the point they're making is that she alienated more voters condemning the protests than she would have by refusing to.

People definitely go overboard with their criticisms, but there are legitimate criticisms to be made. While his philanthropy is objectively good and makes a positive difference in people's lives, it does nothing to address the systemic causes of the problems he highlights.

His content is also completely apolitical, which rubs people the wrong way when he covers topics a lot of people see as inherently political like extreme poverty, homelessness, and healthcare.

They're leaving out that philanthropy is a big part of his videos. Sometimes it's game show style where the winner(s) get huge rewards and sometimes it's direct charity like the "I built 100 houses" video. People watch them because they're often feelgood stories.

It can be a bit controversial as well because people who are more politically engaged often get frustrated by charity when they believe the problem the charity purports to solve is systemic. Whenever he posts philanthropy videos it triggers a huge shitstorm on Twitter of people expressing that frustration and a bunch of people coming to his defense.

The Bolsheviks and the Communist Party were not the Intelligentsia. The Intelligentsia predated the USSR, and was a cultural term for engineers, mental leaders, and other "educated" classes. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was made up of various members, not exclusively Intelligentsia. In fact, the close-link to the bourgeoisie that pre-Revolution Intelligentsia had caused distrust towards the Intelligentsia.

I'll concede on this point, the communist party and intelligentsia aren't necessarily equivalent, though the intelligentsia did make up the largest organized bloc within the party.

This does not make the CPSU a class, nor does iy mean it was not democratic. The US functions in much the same way, outside of fringe areas where third parties win.

Party membership in the US is open to all US citizens with some exceptions. Some states even have open primaries allowing non-party members to vote. This system is flawed and is in some ways a facade since the parties are not legally required to hold primaries, but this particular element of the US political system is more democratic than the Soviet system.

CPSU members make up a privileged class because they occupy a higher position in a state sanctioned social hierarchy. It represents a controlled social stratification, enacted ostensibly for the common good. I see this as a sort of paternalistic distrust of the proletariat as a whole by a subset of it.

Yes, Marxism has never stated that people cannot have it better or worse. Anarchists seek full-horizontalism, while Marxists seek Central Planning.

I'll note here that Anarchism doesn't necessarily state that people cannot have it better or worse either. Anarchism primarily positions itself as opposition to the centralization of power which can lead to social stratification, but differences in standard of living are allowable insofar as it is not a condition imposed upon one by another.

Even at the peak of disparity in the USSR, the top wages were far, far closer than under the Tsars or under the current Russian Federation, and the Workers enjoyed higher democratic participation with more generous social safety nets, like totally free healthcare and education.

The USSR was by no means perfect, but it was absolutely progressive for its time, and would even be considered progressive today, despite the issues they faced internally and externally.

I am in full agreement here, though I would argue that this was achieved at a cost to personal freedoms (i.e. censorship and political persecution). Innocents were harmed in order to preserve the centralization of power in the hands of the communist party. I won't go so far as to say the evils outweighed the good that was done, only that they were not necessary and ultimately led to contradiction and collapse.

The above commenter is wrong about it being capitalist, but they're right about there being a ruling class in the USSR. The ruling class was the communist party, the "intelligentsia." Communist party members pre-selected candidates for all political appointments, and becoming a member of the communist party involved passing through multiple stages of party-administered education and then having your past scrutinized and approved by committees of existing communist party members.

At its' highest level of membership it never surpassed roughly 3% of the population. That is a politically privileged class that enjoyed better wages, benefits, general living conditions, and political influence than the general population.

I think this is an instance of people failing to think from a systems perspective rather than an individual perspective. Kamala Harris was a functionary of an oppressive system and chose the easy path of not challenging it from within. That in itself may not inspire confidence in her potential presidency, but it does not discount her completely. She is still an individual who has changed her views over the years in a way that suggests hope for her being a better president than she was an Attorney General.

Would you rather appease them and win, or not appease them and lose?

Sacrificing your values to win is no true victory.

Here's the way I see it:

If you're right and there are too many closet racists/sexists for a black woman to win, and we run her anyway, then we lose. If we don't run her in order to appease the racists and we "win" we've actually still lost because we sacrificed a core value. That sacrifice will haunt the Democrats as the decay that was already happening will accelerate.

It's the same cowardice that has plagued the Democrats for decades. Choosing appeasement for political convenience over and over, each time removing a section of their spines until there's none of it left. Do not let fear control you.

While I don't care what sex they are or color or whatever, a fuckload of garbage twats in this country sure as fuck do

This is my least favorite argument I keep seeing for why Biden shouldn't drop out. The racist shit-heels you're referring to were always going to vote for Trump regardless of who the Democratic candidate is. There is no reason for Democrats to try and appeal to racists, and even if there were it would be immoral to do so. Sacrificing your values to win is no true victory.

You're losing your nerve, and while that's understandable, it's self-sabotage.

Kamala is going to be able to put a bullseye on Trump

I agree with you but this is an interesting choice of words given other recent events lol.

You mean you've never stopped at a convenience store while traveling through the infinite dark void?

To be clear, the Bolsheviks were definitely Communists and Socialists, and implemented a more democratic and Worker-focused society than Tsarist Russia

I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the "end goal" to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.

US and Western Powers deliberately attempted to shove a wedge in the Leftist movement by trying to paint the USSR as "not true Communism."

While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as "not true Communism," see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.

Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn't socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person's values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it's a dealbreaker for them.