Linking this to just Biden is disingenuous and really buries the lede. This meme just divides us further in service of ignoring that the problem is the entire fucking system and not just one politician or one party.
I agree with you, but still think this is still an overly divisive take. This isn’t all directed at you or your comment - just some general observations that I want to share.
The fact is the damn near all federal politicians and their policies are in favor of their corporate and high-net-worth donors.
Democrats had the full trifecta after the 2020 election, executive branch and both houses of congress. The didn’t raise the minimum wage. Didn’t rollback trump-era tax cuts. At the end of the day, failed to take decisive action to reverse the wealth/income inequality plaguing the US.
The same during Obama administration - which set the stage for one of the biggest upward wealth transfers in history in the post-2008 economy.
Sure, both of these D leaders have made select changes that are against R policies (healthcare and student loan debt). But they aren’t our saviors. They’re undeniably shills for their big donors. Period.
This is why term limits and donor transparency (I.e., legislating against the Citizens United ruling) are necessary changes. We need actual fucking leadership. Ones who aren’t afraid of making moves that will piss off big donors. Ones who only want to be in politics for a few years to actually make the country better and improve lives for the masses. We simply do not have that option right now, outside a few rare examples.
It can happen. We just can’t be complacent with the current shit, no matter which uniform they’re in. We need real change led by real leaders.
Democrats had the full trifecta after the 2020 election, executive branch and both houses of congress.
I used to think this exact same thing. It's false & now a subversive #GOP talking point.
Let's clear that all up, shall we?
Starting January 2009, at the beginning of the 111th Congress, in the month that Barack Obama was inaugurated president, the House of Representatives was made up of 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. There is no question that Democrats had total control in the House from 2009-2011.
Even with numerous "blue-dog" (allegedly fiscally conservative) Democrats often voting with Republicans.....Speaker Pelosi had little difficulty passing legislation in the House. The House does not have the pernicious filibuster rule which the Senate uses. A majority vote in the House is all that's necessary to pass legislation, except in rare occurrences (treaty ratification, overriding a presidential veto).
Okay, that's the House during the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency. For a lie to prosper, as it were, there needs to be a shred of truth woven inside the lie. It is absolutely true that from 2009-2011, Democrats and President Obama had "total control" of the House of Representatives.
But legislation does not become law without the Senate.
The Senate operates with the 60-vote-requirement filibuster rule. There are 100 Senate seats, and it takes 60 Senate votes for "closure" on a piece of legislation....to bring that piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate for amendments and a final vote....that final vote is decided by a simple majority in most cases. But it takes 60 Senate votes to even have a chance of being voted upon.
"Total control", then, of the Senate requires 60 Democratic or Republican Senators.
On January 20th, 2009, 57 Senate seats were held by Democrats with 2 Independents (Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman) caucusing with the Democrats...which gave Democrats 59 mostly-reliable Democratic votes in the Senate, one shy of filibuster-proof "total control." Republicans held 41 seats.
The 59 number in January, 2009 included Ted Kennedy and Al Franken. Kennedy had a seizure during an Obama inaugural luncheon and never returned to vote in the Senate.....and Al Franken was not officially seated until July 7th, 2009 (hotly contested recount demanded by Norm Coleman.)
The real Democratic Senate seat number in January, 2009 was 55 Democrats plus 2 Independents equaling 57 Senate seats.
An aside....it was during this time that Obama's "stimulus" was passed. No Republicans in the House voted for the stimulus. However, in the Senate.....and because Democrats didn't have "total control" of that chamber.....three Republicans.....Snowe, Collins and Specter, voted to break a filibuster guaranteeing it's passage.
Then in April, 2009, Republican Senator Arlen Specter became a Democrat. Kennedy was still at home, dying, and Al Franken was still not seated. Score in April, 2009....Democratic votes 58.
In May, 2009, Robert Byrd got sick and did not return to the Senate until July 21, 2009. Even though Franken was finally seated July 7, 2009 and Byrd returned on July 21.....Democrats still only had 59 votes in the Senate because Kennedy never returned, dying on August 25, 2009.
Kennedy's empty seat was temporarily filled by Paul Kirk but not until September 24, 2009.
The swearing in of Kirk finally gave Democrats 60 votes (at least potentially) in the Senate. "Total control" of Congress by Democrats lasted all of 4 months. From September 24, 2009 through February 4, 2010...at which point Scott Brown, a Republican, was sworn in to replace Kennedy's Massachusetts seat.
The truth....then....is this: Democrats had "total control" of the House of Representatives from 2009-2011, 2 full years. Democrats, and therefore, Obama, had "total control" of the Senate from September 24, 2009 until February 4, 2010. A grand total of 4 months.
Did President Obama have "total control" of Congress? Yes, for 4 entire months. And it was during that very small time window that Obamacare was passed in the Senate with 60 all-Democratic votes.
Did President Obama have "total control' of Congress during his first two years as president? Absolutely not and any assertions to the contrary.....as you can plainly see in the above chronology....is a lie.
The technical details of that article are valid. A simple majority doesn’t mean you can pass any legislation you want.
But it does mean you hold what’s usually called the trifecta by most who are interested in this sort of thing, and it also means your party should be at basically the peak of its power. Minimizing this fact is looking at the trees and missing the forest.
And even then, this article admits that Obama actually DID have this for 4 months. They could have had bills ready to go and sent them through like wildfire. But they didn’t. To say “it’s not the democrats’ fault” is letting these leaders off way too easily.
The republicans after the 2016 election were able to pass a comprehensive tax bill which greatly benefited the wealthy in exchange for minuscule and temporary benefits to others. They also repealed countless Obama-admin executive actions and fucking STACKED the courts. How? By using their majority powers to put things to a vote and winning over the few opposing votes they needed through bribery.
All without the full 60 seats this article claims is necessary. The democrats when they hold the trifecta should be able to do the same thing.
The democrats are not pulling their weight when they have the chance to. 60 seats or not, having the simple majority and the executive power should be enough to get shit done. They let republicans do it, then fail to do so when they can. Don’t let someone convince you they just haven’t had the chance and they’re your saviors.
And even then, this article admits that Obama actually DID have this for 4 months. They could have had bills ready to go and sent them through like wildfire. But they didn’t. To say “it’s not the democrats’ fault” is letting these leaders off way too easily.
Did President Obama have "total control" of Congress? Yes, for 4 entire months. And it was during that very small time window that Obamacare was passed in the Senate with 60 all-Democratic votes.
You: Why didn't the Democrats 14 years ago do the same thing the Fascists just did in Congress?
That you are thinking this makes me doubt you were even cognizant of politics in 2009.
Obamacare did very little to actually change the insurance or medical industries and is a perfect example of what I’m saying. If you think the democratic leaders are willing to piss off big donors, you’re wrong. It provided more insurance access and subsidized the existing industry. It did NOT tackle the inherent problems with the US healthcare industry in any meaningful way. Was it better than the alternative? Absolutely. Was it the change that’s actually needed? Not at all.
Me: Democrats have held the trifecta TWICE since 2008 and had the executive leadership for all but 4 years. That’s 11 fucking years as the President and 4 of those with majority of both houses on congress. They have had the power, full stop.
Republicans meanwhile held the presidency for 4 of those years, trifecta for 2. And got a massive tax cut, greatly increased control of the courts, and gutted multiple federal agencies and budgets with lasting consequences.
Your personal attacks are a little wild man. You have no idea how old I am or what experience I have. I’ll just leave it at I am extremely well educated, knowledgeable, and experienced in the political, legal, and economic spheres. Not armchair analysis bullshit. Real world understanding and experience of how this whole system works. With multiple degrees and the resume to back it up.
And the only thing I am saying is do not trust current federal leadership to do anything except keep their big donors happy. That’s the system we’re in. Is one party better than the other? Absolutely. Has that party actually made progress in the fight for the people? Fuck no.
If you’re won over by a “but they haven’t had 60 seats!” argument and don’t think we need change that’s more than the current leaders or system offers, that’s pretty short sighted. You should be furious that these leaders aren’t doing more to help.
And what I'm saying is quit fucking spreading #fascist#GOP talking points.
We already know the democrats are a big tent. We already know they should be three separate parties. We also understand math, game theory & how what you want doesn't fucking work at all with First Past the Post voting.
The #fascist#GOP is outlawing other voting methods for that reason.
Pick and support a fucking side, #fascists or everyone else.
You don’t think I can criticize my government? Because someone on the other team says the same thing?
I am absolutely pissed that democratic leaders have done jack shit when they have held so much power since 2008. And I’ll shout that from the top of any mountain.
Absolutely nowhere am I saying R leaders are better. I’m saying we can and should be pissed about this fact of D leaders. You are the one sewing discourse against someone that is calling for progress. Not me.
Pretending one party isn't much more behind that kind of economy than the other is disingenuous as well. Dems at least try to put in benefits to support workers who aren't paid a lot or in some cases have even tried to raise wages (which by itself is only a half step). Republicans are against benefits and against supporting wages.
So you can say one is misguided because they're trying to support both corporate and individual interests. But ignoring that half of the equation is not helpful.
You can't just say both are equally bad as that simply justifies not voting or equating voting for either is bad. Yes, both parties are not "good" but one would be much easier to "fix" than the other.
Furthermore, establishing that the economy is strong is a necessary counterpoint to inevitable GOP talking points of "Of COURSE the rich can't pay you more; the economy, she is vewwy sick right now".
Society is busted - but Biden trying to get the messaging out ahead of the GOP isn't the sinister plot the OP seems to think it is.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, it’s important to note that a centerpiece of Biden’s reelection campaign is “Bidenomics”. HE’S the one trying to link the current/future economic trajectory to his presidency here, not us.
That’s just one of the many reasons this message feels so tone-deaf. It reminds me of those ridiculous “I did that!” stickers that people were putting on gas pumps. Only now, it’s the Biden campaign that’s basically saying “yup, we really did do that” but for the entire economy.
Do you know what’s in the “Inflation Reduction Act” that Biden and the Democrats passed? This dude kicked pharma companies in the nuts and it sounds like you have no idea.
Did they now? When will the Pharma part take effect? Are court cases heading to the Supreme Court to overturn that function?
Personally, I don’t think the IRA means anything for Pharma companies. SCOTUS will get their backs and block anything that cuts their profits as unconstitutional. It’s 6-3 and they love love love Pharma companies.
But yeah, totally, us stupid ungrateful American workers who went a couple years without wage growth and are further squeezed out of the possibility of homeownership probably just haven’t read the IRA. Otherwise we’d join all you very well-read geniuses celebrating an inflation-locked price increase specifically for a portion of Medicare Part B and D biologics which lack generics and which doesn’t limit launch prices at all. Oh, and whose non-interference exceptions don’t take effect for another two years and are contingent on a good-faith agreement from a presidential cabinet position which has a very real chance of falling into Republican control. Specifically, the Republican who has already made overtures towards getting rid of drug rebates.
Crazy that some of us are not more excited about the economy. Probably just in our imagination, huh?
And to add to this it’s not only the strength of the economy, but also the effect that the strong economy is having on workers as a plank of his campaign is my biggest gripe. For a good number of people in my region gross wages rose over the last year or two, but nowhere near enough to meet inflation. The base rent alone on non-subsidized units have more than doubled since the pandemic with an anemic response in wages or public assistance. In fact, the wage increases a lot of service sector jobs are seeing has had an unintended consequence of driving people off of public assistance because they’re now over the federal guidelines despite below AMI.
I can’t speak to lemmy.ml but I can say despite having a lot of issues with China I also find it difficult to criticize because I never lived there or anywhere similar but criticizing and noting where the US can improve is something I’ve spent a lot of time to understand the nuances and challenges of.
It’s not that I want to defend China just that I feel like I never have a great picture of what’s happening there.
All this being said fuck them for their treatment of uighur muslims. That I do feel confident about.
It’s not that they don’t criticise, it’s that when something negative shows up, they defend it showing several biased sources, as if they meant anything, or jump into whataboutism.
Whenever someone posts something negative and promotes discussion or critique about it, lo and behold, see how this other country is also horrible and see the good things mine does. Like dude, cool, let us discuss this and you can create another post for those things. It’s pretty clear that they want to divert the conversation.
I’ve got a friend from Shenzhen who thinks Xi is the worst thing since Mao. If I said that to a lemmy.ml user I’d be banned from the instance.
Hell, I got suspended for 4 days (and trolled to fuck) when I suggested someone was a tankie (literally a communist who believes in using tanks to kill people).
Silly thing is I’m a fucking socialist! I believe in all the key tenets of socialism. But heaven forbid you criticise DPRK or China. They’ll chew you apart.
There’s plenty of fucking countries where from socialism has worked and there’s plenty where some level of socialism currently works.
I mentioned the Nordic Model and instead of them agreeing it was a good step they spent their time ‘educating’ me on how it’s not true socialism and it’s just as bad as the US.
Fucking boggles the mind. They genuinely seem to think Stalin was a saint and Kim is a benevolent, democratically elected leader. If anyone thinks otherwise it’s due to Western propaganda.
I know people living in China - they ain’t fucking happy!
Hell, I got suspended for 4 days (and trolled to fuck) when I suggested someone was a tankie (literally a communist who believes in using tanks to kill people).
Silly thing is I’m a fucking socialist!
The ironic thing is the origin of the word “tankie” relates to the revolutions of Hungarian and Polish communists against Soviet-Russian imperialism that was crushed by Soviet tanks. They were the ones in Western countries who were rooting for the tanks.
Tankies are the enemies of actual communists. They don’t like the word because it reminds them of that, and the fact that communist revolutions were antagonized not just by the imperialistic US, but the imperialistic USSR as well.
This feels like one of those right wing memes that could go either way, but let’s break it down like this Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima are both domestic servants, do you think that’s an appropriate mascot for a company? Do you think black folks want them as some of their oldest icons?
Land of lakes also has a stereotypically dressed native woman who probably wouldn’t dress like that at all even back in the day.
I get that most people couldn’t give a shit either way but when you use your brain to think about how messed up presumably white owned companies are for using slaves and genocided people as their logos or mascots is pretty fucked.
But hey you’re not here for an insightful discussion, you’re here to get those hate clicks.
Well, the Sun-Maid girl is clearly working a job that’s mostly done by immigrants from the south these days, so using a white woman instead of a brown one denies them representation. But using a brown woman would also be racist because it would perpetuate harmful stereotypes… hm, what to do?
Little Debbie is clearly a child. Do you want children to be exploited for marketing purposes?
At least a Quakers are historically against war and slavery, so I guess he can stay.
As a European (we had slavery, made more wars than you can imagine and have probably the worst history you can’t even imagine) nice try locking people up in “black” vs “white”.
I hope you’re willing to learn because that is historically incorrect. The first nation to abolish slavery was Hati around a decade before the first European country (Denmark). That is if we are talking abolish and keep abolished in all territories controlled. Persia is possibly the first country recorded to have used slaves but they would have periods of “abolishment” which were probably good for causing slave revolts in new areas they were thinking of conquering. Arguably the first country to have and to abolish slavery.
I suppose that once again depends on definitions. There’s likely a reason people often use the term “wage slavery” these days even though on paper, salaried workers are by no means slaves, since they can quit whenever they want to, but that doesn’t mean that in practice, people don’t end up in situations that feel like slavery anyways.
Debt slavery is another one that gets thrown around, even though the possibility of declaring bankruptcy and thus getting off the hook for only a fraction of what you owe is technically available. It almost seems as if slavery is part of the human condition, and if not externally imposed, people will find a way to self-impose it in one way or another.
Either way, it seems silly to suggest that only the slavery imposed by one particular group of people on one particular group of other people is morally objectionable, and I’m also not entirely convinced that erasing any reminders of it does anything at all to right that wrong. At some point, it must be possible to look back at the past and say “well, that was awful, but at least we’re over it now”, but that isn’t possible if you erase any and all traces of it, is it?
No, I’m just pointing out that “they practiced slavery” isn’t an argument you can just throw at any race or nationality in particular without inflicting massive self-damage. Literally everyone is guilty of it.
haha no. such a huge claim requires substantial evidence - and you left yourself an easy out. Many cultures practiced slavery, true. Most cultures? Maybe an argument could be made. All?
ALL?
That requires substantial evidence there’s absolutely nothing supporting it.
Now I get it, the easiest way to debase your enemy’s righteousness is to drag them down to your level. But you don’t get this one shitbag. Slavery isn’t universal. You just want it to be so it makes you feel better about your premise.
Since you’re the one making the claim that not all cultures have a history of it, I’ll leave it to you to find me a single counterexample of a culture that never practiced it. But even if that should exist, I think there’s certainly overwhelming evidence that it was extremely widespread and common practice on every single continent at some point in history.
Why is it so important to you that “almost all cultures” practiced slavery? What does that do for you?
At the risk of repeating myself: “they practiced slavery” isn’t an argument you can just throw at any race or nationality in particular without inflicting massive self-damage.
It doesn’t absolve the inherent evil of the institution. No amount of “well billy and tommy did it too” makes it right, kiddo.
I never claimed that. But I’m still waiting for you to find me a single example of a culture that never practiced slavery.
So… Now that you have multiple examples, what then sport? Will you reevaluate your flawed premise and integrate new information that refutes your logic, or will you just piddle along with the flawed reasoning that got you here?
Yeah it’s hard to have a good faith debate about a post that wasn’t made in good faith. Anyone who’s being intellectually honest wouldn’t try to equate these company mascots.
Only the picture. There was an actual Uncle Ben who was a rice farmer. And an actual Aunt Jemima making pancake mix. Both were born into slavery, both had white corporations exploit them. Uncle and Aunt are also both titles used in the Antebellum South for older house slaves trusted by the family.
From 1946 to 2020, Uncle Ben’s products carried the image of an elderly African-American man dressed in a bow tie, which is said to have been based on a Chicago maître d’hôtel named Frank Brown with the name “Ben” being a possible reference to a shrewd rice farmer from Houston. In 2020, Mars told Ad Age, “We don’t know if a real ‘Ben’ ever existed.” According to Mars, Uncle Ben was an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name “Uncle Ben’s” as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public.
I’m not making a statement about the post, but “it’s just shit posting” is a reeeeaaal good way to turn this place into a nazi bar. Not calling OP a nazi, just saying that this argument right here is chum in the water for them
Mia, the Land o Lakes butter maiden, is actually rather interesting, at least the modern version they got rid of. The artist was a member of the Red Lake Chippewa and the design included traditional Ojibwe floral motifs. Yeah, it needed to go, but it wasn’t the worst by a long shot.
I just love the idea of a native american being iconfied for… butter.
like, wow, that’s so very, very native and authentic - butter.
I get it, it’s the land-o-lakes, minnesota, and they take butter fucking serious folks, they make it, they eat it, they sculpt it, so yeah, they’re REALLY into butter… but why the stolen iconography? why associate the native americans, who didn’t domesticate cows, with butter of all things?
like what the actual fuck was the line of thought?
Your thoughts are interesting, but I always presumed it was just a simple tribute of sorts. Like you said, Land-O-Lakes, beautiful, natural scenery of America…accompanied by a beautiful Native American woman.
Now take the product itself, like you said, make it make sense. Ehh. Maybe you just can’t. They wanted a mascot & instead of a smiling cow or potato, they chose a woman. Sex sells!
cultural appropriation sells. it’s not just any woman kneeling serving up the dairy products, nah… keep telling yourself it didn’t mean anything, maybe one day you’ll believe yourself, but make no mistake, they wouldn’t have put a white woman kneeling there.
The native cultural influence is pretty strongly interwoven in the fabric of Minnesota. It’s very possible the thought process was just that the locals associated that image with their state, just like the brand name.
The Anishinaabe and Dakota have had major influence on the state and that’s been recognized more in recent history with the renaming of certain places back to their native name, like Bde Maka Ska.
Most of the naming in the metro(and the state name) comes from the Dakota peoples. The Anishinaabe were located more in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin so you’ll see the influence there. For example the town of Biwabik in the iron range which is the Anishinaabe word for iron.
Not saying the concept of police is bad, but the situation here is that some cops have been such assholes that all the good cops quit. Now only the worse individuals remain, and they protect each other so they fear nothing
To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
That might describe a good cop, but it doesn’t describe the system that makes good cops, let alone how that system might come about. All this allows us to do is sigh at every horrendously violated point.
You take all of the things that cops are currently doing that they shouldn't be doing, for example, dealing with landlord tenant disputes, dealing with mental health issues, dealing with drug problems, dealing with homeless people.
Then you create an agency that specializes in each of those issues. Create things like a housing support office for landlord tenant disputes, an office of mental healthcare, office of drug abuse support, and a homeless support and advocacy office. Give them the tools and recourses they need to actually accomplish those things. Don't let conservatives defund them so that a private company can replace it, reduce the service to nothing, and charge extra for it.
Then create a new police force that removed all of the 'veterans' and replace them with new agents that have been through a new type of "policing" training that doesn't focus on warrior training, and instead psychologically evaluates the agents for anti-social issues, history of bullying, or other types of violent crime and weed them out. Then incentivize agents with empathy and respect for life to stick around in the agency. Also make sure every single new crime and justice agency has a community justice review board that is not ever made up of members of the agency that has the power to actually punish and fire any agent that violates the terms of their employment. Make all of the above federal level requirements for continued funding for your agency.
Thankfully the budget to make all of this happen can be repurposed from the hilariously gigantic police budgets granted by their respective cities that are currently being exploited by their unions.
That would be a good start to a better future that includes a criminal justice system that actually helps instead of focusing on pure cruelty to compel compliance. You know, make it more carrot instead of all stick like it is now.
Much worse for who? Who does the police actually benefit today? and who is it harming? do you care about those people? The police are not even legally required to protect you, and don't in practice, why do you think they do anything to benefit society? Why are you so desperate to maintain the boot on your neck?
Thousands of people and organisations have answered your question in great depth over the years, all you have to do is be willing to set your obvious existing bias aside, and look.
My point is: if police were completely abolished, conservatives and the far right would feel very unsafe and immediately form militias that enforce their values. That would be much worse for everyone who doesn’t share their values, of course.
I get that in many countries, police is badly regulated and you might say that this wouldn’t actually change much, but I’d rather seek more accountability for police, compared to a complete abolishion, leaving a power vaccum that’ll be filled by right wing militias with zero accountability.
Divesting seems good to me though, much of the police is certainly overfunded (due to law and order populism) and does useless shit (like the war on drugs), while education, social workers and programs against poverty are severely underfunded. Changing this would surely help a lot with crime reduction and other issues.
Thanks for the links by the way, I will look more into them when I have more time to see if my concerns regarding abolishion are addressed.
Defunding them and diverting those resources into social services that have been shown to actually give back in meaningful ways to the communities and safety/effectively deescalate tense situations without committing atrocities while perpetuating systemic hate-based violence.
There does need to be someone with a gun I can call if someone is literally breaking into my home intent on murdering my family. But outside of those extreme and fringe outlier circumstances, society would be much better served by well-funded social workers and emergency first responders who are trained to resolve conflicts while actually helping those in need of it without threat of eminent deadly violence.
We have this many places in Europe. The police is not even allowed to wear guns in Norway (and frankly do not need them) unless there is some special intelligence or something making a reason for it. That does not absolve the need for state controlled monopoly on violence. It only means that is should be limited and wielded with the utmost care.
There does need to be someone with a gun I can call if someone is literally breaking into my home intent on murdering my family
well-funded social workers and emergency first responders who are trained to resolve conflicts while actually helping those in need of it without threat of eminent deadly violence.
If we do things properly, then no one should have a need to break in to your house (because everyone's material needs would be met), and if you've given someone reason to kill you, calling someone with a gun to kill them isn't going to solve anything. If they're mentally unwell, calling a person with a gun is even worse.
The second option you gave is more than enough 99.99% of the time.
Some degree of community defence might be imperative, but it should never be one person with one gun who is in charge of "enforcement", but everyone would be trained and everyone would have access, and in a time of real need (like an external and violent threat to the community) those ready and available can do what is needed, but again - killing someone isn't it 99.99% of the time.
Reality is and always should have been cops do cop things. Locally. Traffic shit should be department of transportation. etc. etc.
Make local cops walk local beats and only focus on the community safety and suddenly things get better. ‘Us vs Them’ is a pretty easy thing to spin when they only are a corrective force with a chip on their shoulder.
Proper training, education, and being held accountable for your actions will filter out the bad blood quickly enough.
Defund is frankly a word that was selected poorly. It implies punishment. It only amplifies the ‘Us vs Them’ narrative on both ‘sides.’
ACAB? No. Problem with corruption and a system that spits out at best tight lipped accomplices and at worst zealots brandishing ‘might makes right’ ideals? Yep.
I have many friends and family who have joined the Scottish Police and given years of their lives to serving their communities, risking their own lives and health. Should I say fuck them too?
I joined the police for six months before deciding it wasn’t the career for me and got back into charity work. Are you saying Fuck Me now or just for the six months I was in? Did my fuckery expire?
How can thousands, millions of people doing a job be reduced to such a binary sentiment.
You’re a fucking idiot. I live in a small town up in the mountains in Europe, and some absolute fucking dimwits like you have been going round spraying ACAB on stuff
Our two policemen and two policewomen are the genuinely nicest folk you’ll ever meet and do loads and loads of good for the community. When they’re not busy they volunteer to deliver free meals to the elderly and help out at the charity shop
Tarring everyone with the same brush is something simpletons do, which is probably why they didn’t accept you into the police 😂
While acab is probably too generalized a term to apply to ALL police forces in the world… Interpreting acab in absolutes is also kinda silly and needlessly pedantic.
If I were to say all Nazi are bastards… Would we be making the same arguments? Surely there were Nazi that were forced to join the party, surely there were Nazi giving years of their lives to serving their communities, risking their lives and health.
The point of ACAB is to highlight the inherent and institutional failures of policing actions native to the vast majority of western democracies. Where police are primarily utilized to protect property and institutional power, rather than protecting the most disadvantaged communities in our society.
Trouble with that theory is that I think regular people won’t hear something like ‘All Cops Are Bastards’ and immediately think ‘well they probably don’t mean all cops’. It literally says it there.
Maybe because I’m Scottish living in Scotland I’m separate from the US side of the movement/argument but knowing so many good people in the service who have probably done more for their communities than some people spray painting on walls it just sounds so blatant. If it was a different slogan then I doubt people would have an issue with it but not everyone hears all the details about what it apparently means online or whatnot, they just see the words.
No desire to be pedantic at all, just explaining why a lot of folk won’t get behind the message.
As a New Zealander, I feel the same way about ACAB as you. I definitely have issues with the Police and I definitely think they’re a racist institution (NZ stats back that up) but ACAB is a shitty slogan IMO
ACAISAETOSOOSBTNOTPI or All Cops Are Inherently Supporting And Enforcing The Opressive Systems Of Our Society By The Nature Of The Policing Institution doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though.
I mean I get it, “ACAB” sounds a bit like an over-reaction and I wouldn’t use that term to talk about Belgian cops, but within leftist circles like lemmy I think it’s an acceptable shorthand since 90+ percent of people already understand The Discourse™ on some level.
And I don’t think so, it’s just another word for progressive or any other number of synonymous words which equate to “we want to push society out of stale behaviors and encourage constant reevaluation and adjustment.
Some people just can’t handle that sort of thing for one reason or another
See, that expresses that it’s a systemic issue and that consequently some cops are bastards without damning everyone who is part of a large diverse group. It’s even a simpler acronym. Brilliant
I mean how about instead of hyperbolizing, we actually find a good acronym that does less to push people away from our world-view? If the problem is the system, find an acronym about the system. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but if we don’t genuinely think every single cop is bad, we should stop saying it, no?
Yeah I get it, I just don’t like when things are reduced to all x’s are y’s, think that kind of polarised thinking isn’t helpful when the world has a whole lot of grey in it. Equally if someone is happy to post a comment like that online I don’t think there is anything bad about chatting it through like reasonable humans.
How can thousands, millions of people doing a job be reduced to such a binary statement
The reason why most people (including myself) say ACAB is because of the system of policing, not the merits of any given police officer. Systems are inflexible and adverse to change. Individual good cops can exist, but once again, the system itself is the problem. A good cop can never fix the system, nor could a hundred, or a thousand. A million could, at best, give the illusion of a good system. People often say a rotten apple spoils the bunch, and I think that looking at policing from the perspective of individual rotten cops, or rotten cops “spoiling the bunch” is problematic when the system itself is rotten. And for participating in the system, yes, allcops are bastards.
Okay I agree with the idea of a rotten system as think that generally many legal or government institutions are rotten and self serving for the rich.
But the flaw in the argument from my perspective is that if all the decent people don’t go into the police, the ones with integrity, a moral compass who genuinely try to help people and do the right thing, then that leaves the bad apples.
So for going into a system and hoping to change it for the better, help/protect their community from criminals and the bad apples and make a real difference in lives, by that logic those people striving for better are still bastards and that just doesn’t feel right to me.
The counter is that the system can’t be changed due to its inherent flaws and foundations in racism and elitism. The system needs to be replaced wholesale, which as big of a proposal as that is is more realistic than changing the existing system.
I’m sorry, foundations in racism? Elitism I can see, sure. Like, doing the bidding of the upper class and stuff. And a few higher ups in the police force are really arrogant. But racism? I’ve genuinely never seen or heard of any cops being racist where I live. If anything, lots of cops here are kids of immigrants.
The actual system isn’t the problem, it almost never is. If anything what’s missing in some countries are checks and balances to keep people reigned in while they’re in positions of power.
You’re missing the forest for the trees here. And, it’s worth specifying that I’m talking the US here, I should have been clear about that before.
I’m not talking about cops, I’m talking about the system itself. Every institution in America has deep roots in racist ideology. Every single one. The constitution was written in a way that allowed for slavery. Police forces established and enforced red lining, something that is having knock on effects even today. If the policing system weren’t inherently racist, we wouldn’t have the disproportionate use of deadly force against BIPOC folks. Elitism itself in America was first for the wealthy that owned slaves, and much of our policing culture still has echoes of the force used to keep slaves in line.
There are plenty of cops that are good people, I’ve known some. But they’re still bastards because they uphold and perpetuate the system that currently exists. I always think of the line in Wreck it Ralph when thinking about this, ‘just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy. That’s the ‘good’ cops. They might be good people but they’re still the bad guys.
if all the decent people don’t go into the police, the ones with integrity… that leaves the bad apples
and
[good cops that] help/protect their people from … bad apples
I think this is flawed. The policing system is built in such a way that it protects the bad apples at all costs. From police unions making it difficult to get rid of the bad cops, to the laws, legal precedent, and cultural norms which make it impossible to prosecute them. In the US, police are allowed to lie to people, but they are often trusted in court, regardless if they regularly lie. The police often form a Blue wall of silence in order to protect other cops when literally perjuring themselves in the process. Qualified immunity makes it impossible for people to seek damages from individual cops when they violate their rights. While good cops might break the blue wall of silence (and they might get punished for it) and they don’t violate other’s rights and therefore are not protected in court by qualified immunity, the participation of these good cops doesnothingto address the system in the first place.
You and I both agree that there are many legal or governmental institutions that are rotten, but police fundamentally protect them and enforce their will. It is police who break strikes. It is the police that arrest protestors and activists. It is the police that hold the power to call legal protests illegal by declaring them riots. Fundamentally, the police protect the system that lets them be corrupt, and make it difficult to change it outside the impossible task of making change within electoral systems.
… protect their community from criminals …
Police are often an ineffective force at catching criminals. One of the best examples of this is sexual assault and rape. 70% of survivors do not involve the police. All the survivors I know did not call the police. They have good reason not to, 24% of them are arrested after doing so! If a person belongs to a group that is often oppressed by the police, such as gay and trans people, or a group that is criminalized, such as sex workers, there is nowhere for these people to turn in order to get justice.
In the event these people do call the police, odds are there will be no arrests. Only 5% of cases will result in arrest. Fewer will result in convictions and incarceration. (WATR Zine (this is a download link))
On a more ironic note, Policing increases crime. After NYC cops went on strike and reduced proactive policing, major crime reports fell.
So for [cops] going into a system and hoping to change it for the better … and make a real difference in lives …
While I wholeheartedly support trying to make a change for the better, and protecting and building community, I think police are a terrible way to do so. I think working outside the system is a much better way to materially help people’s lives. Organizations like Food Not Bombs helps people with food insecurity eat. Instead of joining the police which might make you destroy homeless encampments and make them worse off, you could instead volunteer at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Joining an antifascist organization can help protect communities from fascists, but joining the police might make you side with the fascists and protect people with demonstrably harmful rhetoric, or worse, oppressive and murderous, fascist, intent
by that logic [cops] striving for better are still bastards and that just doesn’t feel right to me.
I still think it is fair to call them bastards. While it sucks to call someone with good intentions a bastard, ACAB points out that police as a whole is a flawed institution, and participating in it does not change that, it reinforces the legitimacy of it, and brings erroneous hope to people that it can be fixed from within, when in reality it needs drastic change if not total abolition.
Again no hate here just a genuine conversation
I genuinely appreciate this, ngl. I live in a very conservative area and when speaking about this, I’m used to discussion quickly devolving into meaningless argument
Even though I agree with all of this, it seems like this speaks more to an american perspective than to any other given country, and all your citations are from an american perspective as well. Though I think you could maybe make an argument on how the police are conventionally leveraged to protect private property, and private property is bad, and how if you were to take away the “protecting private property” element of their job description, you’d basically be abolishing the police. You could make that argument, along more universal lines, but that’s kind of contingent on people agreeing that both private property is bad, and that police are exclusively the protectors of private property, and nothing else.
In any case, I wouldn’t really be willing to make so certain of a statement on the police departments of other countries. I’ve never really heard anyone say anything bad about, say, finnish police, for example. British cops, they wear funny hats, they go “oy”, and shit, I’ve not really heard anything good about them, but finnish cops? Never heard bad about them. I also think a lot of what makes the police in america bastards, is because the prison system here is so fucked up and so punitive, and so particularly bad, compared to a lot of other countries.
I also kind of like, as an aside point. What do we do about park rangers? They’re technically cops, but you wouldn’t really hear anyone thinking that we shouldn’t have them, or that they should be actively abolished. I say this to mean, you know, as with the first paragraph, what do we really mean by “police”? You’ve given a pretty good description of the fact that the police suck, but not really why, or how they could be fixed.
I think it’s disingenuous to have a slogan that targets individuals then claim you’re just commenting on the system when questioned. If it’s about the system say the system sucks.
The main thing is it is about the participation in the system that makes all cops bastards. In my opinion, the good thing about this slogan is it starts discussions and debates about the system itself and how even “good cops” contribute to it when cops do something bad.
Think about it this way. As a cop, your job isn’t to help the community or to keep people safe or any of that happy wholesome crap. Your job is to enforce the law. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if the law is unfair or unethical, it’s your job to enforce it. Sure, maybe some people become cops without fully understanding this, but on some level, they must know.
The laws are made by politicians, and I’m certain that no matter your political beliefs, you can agree that most of them are crooked. Ergo, everyone who signs up to enforce their laws is a bastard. If somebody truly wishes to serve the community and save people, they become firefighters instead. It’s almost the same skillset and if you’re willing to become a cop, you shouldn’t be afraid of the danger either.
By that logic, all people in armed forces are bastards. Given that a lot of poor people end up in the forces because it’s their only option, I’m not prepared to say all soldiers are bastards. Similar logic applies to Police officers. Also I’m a New Zealander and our Police force is nowhere as corrupt as in the US
I’m not gonna pick a side here as I don’t wanna fan the flames, but I will say that I have a good deal of bones to pick with police oversight systems (or lack thereof).
However, this got me thinking: would you say the same thing about restaurant servers? By becoming a server in the U.S., are you not perpetuating a tipping paradigm that has systematically denied the working class billions of dollars of wages that un-tipped employees are entitled to? It’s fairly clear that a “good server” cannot fix the system by participating in it, and given that a server makes the same amount of money as a cop—if not more—it isn’t really fair to say that one group “needs” the job while the other does not.
No, I don’t think that participation in tipping culture is a good comparison to participating in the policing system.
The only accurate comparisons are: The system is harmful, a good server cannot fix it by participating in it, and servers materially benefit from it.
First, as shitty as it is to not participate in as a customer, tipping culture is, for the most part, optional. When a server indirectly asks me to tip as a customer, I could easily hit the custom tip button and enter 0.00$. That would be shitty on my part as I would be reducing the income of waitstaff who rely on tips. If I tip, I now have a few dollars less, and the waitstaff have a more livable wage. If a police officer asks me to get on the ground with my hands on the back of my head, I don’t have much of a choice. If I do, the police officer will likely arrest me, and this compliance is only coming at the threat of what happens if I don’t. If I refuse, then the police officer could shoot me (if he deems me a sufficient threat), taze me, pepper spray me, or otherwise physically force me to the ground and possibly injure me. Further, I could get in significant legal trouble for not following the orders, most often in the form of resisting arrest, or possibly getting charged with assaulting a police officer if I act in self defense, regardless if I act within the law. This problem here lies in the fact that there is hierarchic authority that a police officer has which waitstaff lack.
Second, there is something that servers can do to make the system better outside of participating in the system laid out by their boss. While not easy, and with some risks attached, waitstaff can unionize and demand better pay, such that no tips are needed. Obviously, it isn’t super likely that the union would remove tips because waitstaff like their tips, but this act will fix one part of the system, being the part that they are not paid living wages before tips. While unlikely, widespread unionization could cause people to want to tip less knowing that waitstaff are able to subsist on wages alone and therefore impact tipping culture.
Cops don’t have this ability. I’d argue that police unions are not the same as a typical labor union. Like a normal union, they provide the workers protection from being fired, and have a positive impact on wages. Unlike a police union, police officers are called to break up the strikes of labor unions. If the police union went on strike, the only theoretical way for their employer, the state, to break it up would be using another militaristic arm of the state, be it the state reserve militia, if it exists in that state, or the military in other cases. Unlike calling the police, there is significant political capital being expended when doing this.
Another point to consider with that is which cops are fired, what leads to that happening, the impact of it, and how they are protected. Often, it’s “bad cops” rather than good cops, though both is possible. The union often steps in to protect even the worst cops from being fired. The impact of a bad cop is significantly more harmful than a bad server. A bad cop is violent, often kills or maims people, and terrorizes communities. A bad server might spit in my food, let it get cold/warm, or not deliver it at all. Short of physically hitting me (which a union will not protect them for), the most harmful thing they could do is steal my credit card details. Bad cops are fully and legally able to do much worse through civil asset forfeiture.
Lastly, and most importantly, the context of the system is vastly different. I’d argue the most harmful system that is held up by a server working a job isn’t tipping culture, but wage labor (and capitalism) itself. Just like police, anyone participating in this system cannot fix it by participating in it. Unlike police, those participating in wage labor lack the power to directly reinforce it through violent action because they lack the state’s monopoly on violence that the police lovingly wield. Any harm done by a person reinforcing this system can be offset by various acts, such as creating and participating in labor unions, creating co-ops, protesting and agitating for socialism, etc.
Police, on the other hand, not only indirectly reinforce this system by being payed wages, but they also directly reinforce this system by making it difficult to combat wage labor by breaking up strikes, protecting private property, terrorizing and killing protesters, killing organizers, etc.
Worse yet, police also directly support the hierarchic structure of the state, an unjust hierarchy, and the unjust hierarchies of white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism and cisheteronormativity. Police have always been the arm of the state that has had their literal boot on the neck of black people, suffocating their communities. When the police are not the ones to harm these communities, they often don’t do that much to prevent it from happening, or prevent it from happening in the future. Let’s not forget that about 50% of those killed by cops have some sort of disability, or their historic violence against LGBTQ people, and how LGBTQ rights were only taken by clashing with the cops at Stonewall and demanding rights. While police aren’t the sole people upholding these hierarchies, they are one of the most arms of the state doing it.
The economy is doing well. Hand-wringing over issues that Democrats were not able to address as they did not have enough power in Washington is going to make things worse for everyone.
Anybody with a shred of knowledge about the child tax credit knows exactly this. Biden’s economy is doing fine. It’s republicans repealing democratic policies that make the economy worse.
It’s easy to say the owners are shit, but if they are willing to adopt another dog, maybe this dog has a particularity they are not prepared to handle.
Sometimes it is better for the dog to go with people that can deal with their needs.
I think people are angry less because of the desire to adopt to fit their personalities and lifestyle and more the whole go back to the same place their dog is at, say hi, and then wander off with Rufus v2.
Probably strikes right in the center of the Homeward Bound in all of us.
This is funny, but also fake - unless this person was truly pissing off the cooks! Their actual salads come in little wooden bowls and look like salads. You can image search it. They give you packets of dressing and everything. I’ve never ordered one, but eaten with friends who had dietary restrictions. They never got a plate this hateful, lol.
I took your advice and found some pictures of actual customer reviews, and it appears that you are indeed correct. While they might not all be the most glorious examples of salad craft in the world, they definitely look edible and miles better than what the Facebook OP would have us believe.
I’d say average to decent looking salads. But the answer is, because Facebook OP apparently is either a bundle of sticks as usual, or perhaps, as others have suggested, did something to seriously piss off the cook.
Or maybe they tried ordering it during the post bar closing time drunk rush and this is all they had left in the fridge.
Where do you live in the States? Because we’ve got red wine vinaigrette, strawberry vinaigrette, raspberry vinaigrette, and cider vinaigrette at some of the different restaurants around here.
Not at Waffle House though. I thought they only had ranch and Caesar. Maybe light ranch at the fancy ones.
Well in that case, two out of those for are definitely not brown but more reddish in color, and the cider one is probably pale yellowish I would guess. But there’s also such as thing as white vinaigrette, which can be made either with white balsamico or champagne if it’s fancy, or just regular white vinegar if it’s cheap. I’ve rarely seen those in any restaurant, however, but to be fair I don’t really eat out all that much. Don’t think they come prepackaged as often as those other types do.
I honestly forgot that the fruity stuff even existed because like I said, I don’t eat out much. And when I do, I tend to avoid restaurants that would have it, because more often enough it’s just a cheap gimmick for the ladies (and probably factory made, loaded with corn syrup and sweeter than candy).
Basically, I have so little respect for these two variations that I refuse to acknowledge their mere existence and would not even think about ordering them unless they’re guaranteed to be fresh and homemade.
I think those are diced tomatoes, but jokes aside, adding some color other than white or green actually IS quite a good (and therefore common) way to make it look more appealing.
Fun fact: IDK about like a backyard vegetable garden, but small family-sized farms are actually more productive per unit of land than big industrial agriculture.
The farming conglomerates like to enforce big farming operations because they make things easier for the managerial class, and let them be in charge of everything. But if your goal is just to produce food and have the farmers make a living, small farms are actually better even economically (and not just for like 10 other reasons).
Aragón conducted a study on farm productivity of more than 4,000 farming households in Uganda over a five-year period. The study considered farm productivity based on land, labour and tools as well as yields per unit area of cultivated land. His findings suggested that even though yields were higher for smaller farms, farm productivity was actually higher for larger farms. Similar research in Peru, Tanzania and Bangladesh supported these findings.
What explains these divergent findings? Answering this question is important given its consequential policy implications. If small farms are indeed more productive, then policies that encourage small landholdings (such as land redistribution) could increase aggregate productivity (see the discussion in Collier and Dercon, 2014).
We argue that these divergent results reflect the limitation of using yields as a measure of productivity. Our contribution is to show that, in many empirical applications, yields are not informative of the size-productivity relationship, and can lead to qualitatively different insights. Our findings cast doubts on the interpretation of the inverse yield-size relationship as evidence that small farms are more productive, and stress the need to revisit the existing empirical evidence.
Meaning the author is advocating for more scrutiny against the claim and against land redistribution as a policy stance with the intention of increasing productivity.
First, farmers have small scale operations (the average cultivated area is 2.3 hectares).
The definition of “small family farms” in this case is on average more than 5 acres, which would absolutely be under the umbrella of subsidized industrial agriculture in developed nations.
My god it’s like they’re deliberately trying to make their paper unintelligible to other humans. If I am reading this paper correctly, it is in line with other research on the topic, by indicating that smaller farms tend to have higher yields due to greater labor inputs. While I’m sure an economist would think this puts the issue to rest, being able to feed more people on a smaller land area might still be beneficial even if it requires more labor. Economists often assume that the economy represents the ideal allocation of resources, but I reject this assumption.
By the way, 5 acres is minuscule compared to conventional agriculture, at least in the US. So these aren’t backyard gardens but they are likely quite different from agribusiness as well.
If you think 5 acres on average isn’t subsidized or industrialized then I challenge you to try it out of your own pocket: fertilize with shovels, till with a hoe, water and pest control without anything but hand pumps or windmills, reap the harvest with a scythe.
We do all by hand on a 1/2 acre of mixed veg. We feed our family of five and sell our extras. All the work is done by two adults. 5 acres would be insane and we are hard workers. I can’t imagine that size without a tractor.
Wait, 5 acres wouldn’t be all vegetables! Fruit trees, grains, grassland all spread in time so you can work on them when your vegetables don’t need attention.
Two people. No mechanical equipment. Even with using animals in order to maintain all that space. Then add harvesting and threshing grains by hand along with those animals. Good luck. Our entire working space is an acre with fruit and nut trees and chickens for meat and eggs. The workload is immense and if our lifestyle was similar to most (day jobs) there is no earthly way we could manage what we have let alone 5 acres. We have been doing this for decades and have systems in place to help us as much as possible and it just would not be physically possible. Just garden prep for us alone takes months at a half acre and simple maintenance and picking is a daily chore all season long. We start planting in February and grow until Oct/Nov. We don’t vacation in those months at all and we have seasonal jobs so we can put as much time as possible into food. Oh and we don’t get paid to grow food because we consume the vast majority of it ourselves so we need those real jobs too. Where are you finding all the time and money?
I don’t know why you’re assuming small farms need to be worked with medieval technology—that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is that 5 acre farms are far smaller than typical for modern agribusiness, and the differences in management are enormous. And I’ve actually worked on a farm that was 8 acres and we did much (though not all) of the labor by hand.
The average US farm is just under 500 acres. It’s totally different to grow food on that scale.
Yeah, that's why I included "per unit of land." It is in practice a little more complex, and a lot of times the smaller farms are more labor-intensive.
My opinion is that modern farming is efficient enough that we can very obviously sustain the farmer, and sell the food at a reasonable price, and it all works -- the only reason this is even complicated at all and we have to talk about optimizing for labor (certainly in 1st-world farms) is that we're trying to support a bloodsucking managerial class that demands six-figure salaries for doing fuck-all, and subsistence wages for the farmers and less than that for farmworkers, and stockholder dividends, and people making fortunes from international trade; and if we just fixed all that bullshit then the issue would be land productivity and everything would be fine.
But yes, in terms of labor productivity it's a little more complex, and none of the above system I listed is likely to change anytime soon, so that's fair.
Also, you can’t just look at the amount of food produced, but the amount produced vs waste, storage and transportation costs. Most things in the garden can stay ripe on the plant for a while and can be picked as needed.
Anecdotally, we were supplying about 80% of our fruit and veg needs on our own garden plot on our standard city residential lot with a family of 7. And we were literally giving tomatoes, citrus and zucchini away as fast as we could.
Thanks to Lemmy, I’m finding out people think socialism is a political agenda and do not understand that any political alignment, whether capitalist ,ommunist, and (in this case) ultra nationalist can have socialist values. I don’t think any country in WW2 managed to participate without socialism. At least not any that managed to fight long enough.
Participation of tribalism here gets Facebook levels of cringe at times.
They aren’t your opponents. They’re just unruly. They’re fighting for your rights just as much as their own.
I don’t mind the bearz. We have different temperaments, but I believe they strive for justice.
And a book recommendation fits here: Reading an excellent one about the six months leading up to Hitler’s chancellorship called Takeover. Check it out!
They absolutely have picked plenty of fights with me. They’re not fighting for rights, most of them want to be sexually dominated by dictator Xi Jinping.
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