BeautifulMind

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

So basically his campaign promise is to violate the constitution, his strategy to get into office is to tell lies designed to divide Americans and it looks like the MAGAs are thirsty AF for it

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

On the face of it, it is manifestly reasonable to say that you’ll certify on the condition that the election is free and fair- that is, after all, always the condition of doing so. But that’s not what she’s saying here- she’s repeating claims that 2020 was invalid

In reality it’s extremely unlikely that the election in 2024 will be unfair or rigged against the GOP, and she deserves all the opprobrium she has coming her way for creating the impression (for her audience) that an unfair election is likely to occur or that 2020 was rigged or illegal. After all, that’s the rhetorical setup MAGA created in the run-up to 2020: if they lost, it was unfair (and therefore, time to do a treason/coup).

Her rhetoric here could simply be a prediction that 2024 will be an illegitimate election, or it could be a cue for her audience to prepare to accept or commit political violence in 2024- and as such, it is a textbook example of stochastic terrorism and should be understood as such. Also the media that declines to note this should be evaluated as enabling, vs. holding to account

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

good journalism should be impartial

Neutrality in situations of oppression amounts to aligning with the oppressor.

Neutrality in situations of straight-up violating norms and standards and telling lies… aligns with the liar.

Neutrality to a fault… is a fault.

At some point, if you’re neutral to the point that you’re unwilling to take a critical stance of anything, you could save yourself the effort as a journalist and just forward along everyone’s press releases and quit pretending that the role of the journalist in the 1st Amendment is to hold the powerful accountable and to tell truths they might not want told- and get on with that business of licking those delicious boots

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

ship of theseus arguments are their stock in trade.

Yes, if they couldn’t ship unpopular politics misleadingly as uncontroversial feel-good slam-dunks, they’d never get any support in politics. It’s a pity that sort of rhetoric works as well as it does

Also Innuendo’s work is fantastic

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

The best way to celebrate confederate generals is by melting down statues dedicated to them during the civil rights era and re-casting them into urinals

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

And none of this would be happening without Boothe.

It’s soo interesting that Kennedy’s assassination (which also elevated a VP from the south named Johnson) wasn’t ever talked about like it was more of the confederacy being ungovernable over desegregation and civil rights

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

Three arrows mostly gets it right.

fwiw, if your argument looks even a bit like [x is /this label/ and therefore it means y], it’s a huge red flag to anyone that’s tired of being told bullshit things using that formula. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard well universal health care is socialism and the russians were socialist so if we get health care like the Danes do we will get russian outcomes (never mind the Danes don’t) I could probably retire at this point

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

well after all lots of Russian oligarch yachts have already been seized, so… might as well melt them down for slag and heave them at the Russians

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

I’ve been watching the media and our politicians both-sides the issue in ways that seem contrived to ensure that the occupation and genocide will continue without interference by anyone in a position to do anything about it, especially my own elected representatives and officials.

Reading South Africa’s Application instituting proceedings in the World Court document myself reminded me how thirsty I’ve been to hear from anyone serious about the matter. It’s very human-readable, cogent even- well worth the read.

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

B/c if Israel just stops like it’s trendy to demand, then Hamas will regroup and go again

That’s an interesting prediction I’d like to see tested, honestly. What if, (hear me out here) the only thing keeping air in Hamas’s sails is the perceived need to resist the occupation? Hamas isn’t and never has been popular among Palestinians, in much the same way that Likud is really only politically relevant because someone needs to take a firm hand with Hamas.

Also, if Israel doesn’t stop, like it hasn’t for the last 70 years, then Hamas will regroup and go again, right?

Honestly this has all the same energy of the ‘defund the police/thin blue line’ rhetoric we’ve seen sail through our political spaces; if you listen to the law-and-order narrative the logic is that force must be escalated until those thugs learn their lesson, while that seems to drive up protest movements and that in turn gets the thin-blue-line crowd frothing for cops to use real bullets instead of rubber bullets and tear gas.

There was peace between Jews and Palestinians before the state of Israel began its occupation and settlements. The beef here isn’t religious or cultural, the issue is the occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians of their family homes. One thing Israel could try (that it hasn’t) is not doing that

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

mmm, salty https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1809ecee-98bc-4ad2-9926-c4c3d7122d17.png

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fe0d87ba-7dd8-42bd-919e-88e7834cbdb8.webm

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

Their continued refusal to acknowledge that it was a crime, and the normalization of criminal conspiracy and use of political violence to chill efforts to hold people accountable… all amounts to organized crime masquerading as legitimate politics

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

He famously had trouble walking down a wheelchair-accessible ramp.

He also famously attacked his political enemies over matters of their health and fitness, has lied consistently about verifiable and obvious health matters like his own weight and height, and famously passed off an unscheduled trip to the hospital as a ‘routine physical’ despite it not being on his schedule.

He deserves every bit of shade thrown his way he gets for being an unfit sack of shit on top of being an asshole about it

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

It’s good to see that people are putting pressure on Biden to do the right thing vis-a-vis Israel and Gaza. I think it’s the right thing to do and I’ve been so disillusioned to see American democracy reduced to a booster contest between soulless ghouls that must never be challenged or questioned™.

It’s not at all surprising to see toxic, bad-faith rhetoric deployed in his defense, tho. If there’s one thing I can count on from the Dem establishment is that when faced with unsolicited input from young people, out comes the reductionist rhetoric about how anything that isn’t ball-slobbering of their candidate and whatever the party has handed down as its agenda is a vote for fascism.

As it did in 2016, the Democrats are going through energetic disagreements over their future direction as a party- and as it did in 2016, the establishment is going to have to decide whether it can afford to alienate its younger/leftier constituency in order to chase votes to the center

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

Let’s call this what it is: erecting a humiliating barrier in front of someone to prevent them from running for office

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

So much for the Emoluments clause

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b9235a97-95f5-4b56-8e99-1853da3d2cd2.png

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

No insurrectionists in any elected office.

TBH in hindsight, this was only ever a milquetoast alternative to the gallows.

Imagine the alternative timeline in which confederate leaders didn’t get to go back to their states and become governors, senators, KKK members, in which the confederacy didn’t get to install one of their own by putting a bullet in Lincoln’s brain, who would then subsequently veto legislation from congress that sought to prevent southern states from re-establishing with the same leadership that led up to the confederacy.

For that matter, Andrew Johnson as Lincoln’s VP had every appearance of signaling a unity ticket (see? we will give concessions if you participate in good faith!) but in retrospect he was effectively the confederacy’s deepest mole and most powerful enabler.

Imagine, if you will, the timeline in which confederate leaders were hanged and the confederacy was in fact dismantled vs. being protected from consequence

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

Giving them concessions because you’re afraid they’ll act badly tells them to act badly when they want concessions.

The right course of action is to make acting badly (like participating in a coup, or engaging in political violence or threats of it) have painful consequences.

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

I’m encouraged to hear that he’s talking with historians on the current moment; there’s a lot going on right now that if he just follows politics-as-usual may result in a failure of democracy in the United States.

The deficits in trust the Democratic party are experiencing today might be unprecedented in modern US politics, but the pattern on display bears striking similarity to the politics of the Antebellum period in the United States, and there are also stark parallels to be drawn between US politics today and that of Weimar Germany in the 1920s.

The last thing Biden can afford to do is double down on the status quo. Although his admin has been doing yeoman’s work in bringing back progressive policy, I worry that his political instincts on Gaza will have him rush to the “middle ground” to appease the right, when really that isn’t a middle ground at all- and in doing that he risks squandering whatever goodwill he’s accumulated among likely democratic voters.

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

It will be difficult to do, though, without alienating the people in the country who have incorporated Trump into their political identity

They’re already alienated, there’s likely nothing Biden could possibly do that would earn him their votes.

The question is- can Biden afford to alienate the folks who are against US support of Israeli occupation and genocide? If they stay home, the GOP wrecking crew may get another 4 years of opportunity to dismantle American democracy. Is it safe to bet that they’ll hold their nose and vote against the greater evil?

I’m not 100% sure how much of the Democratic party (or independents) would find it to be a deal-breaker if Biden were to take a critical stance of Israeli occupation and genocide, nor am I certain of how many likely-democratic voters find it a deal-breaker if Biden continues to give Israel military support without conditions. It seems likely to me that if Biden doesn’t address this issue directly and clearly, he will lose one or the other of these groups and I worry he can’t afford that in 2024

BeautifulMind, 4 months ago

Corollary data for cyclist fatalities shows a similar increase over the same timeframe bikeleague.org/new-fatality-data-for-2021-shows-i…

Of the 1,230 bicyclist deaths in 2021, 853 died in motor-vehicle crashes and 377 in other incidents, according to National Center for Health Statistics mortality data. injuryfacts.nsc.org/…/bicycle-deaths