retrospectology

retrospectology, 9 days ago

Intentional waste of time and money. Complicity at its most craven. It’s unforgivable.

A coalition of countries needs to drive aid trucks with armed escort into Gaza. Dare Israel to fucking kill some of their “allies” soldiers instead of shooting children and women who are running away or sleeping.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

I bet you’re the kind of person who actually believes Biden has a “ReD LiNe”

retrospectology, 9 days ago

He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.

And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.

Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by…-checks notes-…giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

You’re never going to get these people to acknowledge any of this stuff.

They’ll still be defending whatever Biden 2.0 clone is in office a few cycles from now because “He only sent half the number of people to the gas chamber compared to [Identical GOP Incumbent]!”

retrospectology, 9 days ago

He was doing pretty bad up to that point, thus why his approval rating was dogshit. Gaza simply made him unelectable by those who might’ve been able to hold their nose to avoid Trump.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

Only voting for Trump is giving him your vote.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

Eh, the founders more or less ensured that a wealthy land-owning aristocracy would be able to overrule the will of the people if need be. That’s more or less what the SCOTUS is there for, to ensure things don’t get too democratic.

The US was an early modern democracy, but has never been a particularly good one.

retrospectology, 9 days ago

“Vote for my genocide supporting candidate or you’re not serious about change!”

retrospectology, 9 days ago

So should people who are not going to vote for a Trump or Biden actively cast their vote for Trump then? It’s the same thing, after all, right?

Is not casting a vote for Trump actually a vote for Biden?

retrospectology, 9 days ago

You’re kind of avoiding the question.

If I “fail to support Trump” then I am defacto supporting Biden, right?

retrospectology, 10 days ago

Yeah that was a disappointment from Jackson.

I guess the way to deal with that is literally for the other branches to just start ignoring the SC decisions. It’s not a good thing that it gets to that point, but if the SC is going to play that game then you simply exploit their biggest weakness as a branch; they have no enforcement mechanism of their own.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

There’s a light side?

retrospectology, 10 days ago

It’s really annoying to have called this out decades ago, to have been talked down to, only to watch your exact prediction come true.

The rise of AI feels really similar. People rushing ahead, fingers in their ears.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

What a bizzarre way to form a headline.

-U.S. executions rose from 18 to 24, keeping the U.S. among the world’s top five executioners in the world.

-The top five nations for the death penalty were China (“thousands”), Iran (853+), Saudi Arabia (172), Somalia (38), and the U.S. (24).—

It’s like even China’s astronomical execution rate is somehow the fault of the US…

If anything the acceptance by the global community of China as “just another country, same as any other, US just as bad” has helped normalize fascist policy like state killing.

retrospectology, 11 days ago

Dude they seriously tried to repeal it. There’s no pretending.

And yet it wasn’t repealed. Weird, huh.

I’m gonna say it again, you want progress? Vote. Give Dems overwhelming and consistent victories. Not 6 years (or 4 months) every 44 fucking years.

I vote plenty, just not for corporate conservatives who give lip service to progressive policy but then when the chips are down conveniently hide behind whichever Dem gets to be the rotating villain this time around.

Ask yourself this; how much do you think republicans could get done with a 4 month super majority?

Corporate democrats will drag their feet as slow as they need to no matter how much time you give them because they aren’t actually interested in change or progress. They’re happy to play grab ass with their GOP buddies as Republicans slide the whole circus closer and closer towards fascism.

Its not even that Democrats are slowing our descent, we’ve slid all the way to the bottom of the hill already and Democrats are just there miming pulling on ropes to get us back up.

retrospectology, 11 days ago

No one is “frothing at the mouth for violence”, violence is here, people are getting ready to face the consequences of your complicity.

Nobody fucking wants to have to confront fascists and protest and riot, people want a normal life, unfortunately that is not going to be possible given the situation you’ve put us all in with your politics. Neolibs have ignored the political fight they were charged with and instead tried to sweep it under the rug so they could keep cashing those lobby checks, and now the disease literally cannot be ignored and has metastasized into literal fascism.

Vote for Biden all you want, I’m trying to warn you that it’s too late whether he wins or not, and you need to wrap your head around the reality of what you’re dealing with. No amount of jelly-spined fascist lite democrats are going to get us out of this hole, and the longer you labor under that delusion the more the fascism takes root.

retrospectology, 11 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

It barely scrapped by surviving, so obviously it was all pretend, right?

You do understand that they already know how a vote will go when legislation is brought up, right? There is no “scraping by”, it either has the votes or it doesn’t.

Voting for or against something to virtue signal is not some crazy out there concept, it’s routine practice from both parties. The Democrats do the same thing.

If I’m a GOP politician, and I’ve been railing against healthcare reform and demonizing the concept, going on Fox News talking about Death Panels and other stupid shit, to the point where now even my spineless “moderate” opponents have conceded the entire debate about universal healthcare and are ready to settle for a forced private insurance schemethat I created, why would I vote for it if I’ve convinced the Democrats to do it for me?

There’s no downside to voting against, I get my forced private insurance bill and I get to go back on Fox and keep up my anti-healthcare reform schtick and dunk on the Democrats. There’s no political benefit to voting for ACA and then having my base of dimwits go “Hey, wait a minute! Durrrr you spent the last 6 months talking about how Obama and the ACA are communism!”

Progress takes actual effort, hard work, and time

Effort and hardwork? Yes. Time? No, not really. The lie about time is what has you so tripped up – change doesn’t necessitate generations and generations, that’s simply speech design to pre-defeat an effort. The only thing standing in the way of change are those who buy into Democratic bullshit excuses.

Remember when Biden implemented Sanders’ child tax credit and it instantaneously halved child poverty? Yeah, that is how quick change can be.

I’m not voting for people because I want a functioning healthcare system for my great great grandchildren, I’m voting for people who want to make it happen now, in my life time instead of making excuses to protect political failures like Biden and co.

retrospectology, 11 days ago

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, defends genocidal presidents like a duck…

retrospectology, 10 days ago

What are you babbling about? The person I’m talking to is pretty clearly neoliberal because he’s using all the same old neoliberal tropes and rhetoric to try and defend the democratic establishment, I don’t know why you’re bringing up some conversation you claim to have had with entirely different people.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

The court is locked in as right leaning for decades. The only mitigation here would be expanding the court, which Biden and establishment dems refuse to even entertain. Those are your “champions”. It’s literally the only way to fix the court on a reasonable timescale and they’ve shown no indication that they will ever do that because in their tiny little peanut brains we’re still back in the 90s where everyone is still pretending that the courts are “apolitical”.

Nothing you’re saying here is compelling.

You going to go out there and gun down the bastards?

Pre-emptively? No. But ask yourself this; how should citizens react to concentration camps in their country? How should people react when fascists start jailing and executing dissidents? How should moral people respond to genocide done in their name? Your mentality needs to evolve now to become that of resistance, because when the system finally gasps its last you’re not going to be able to keep cowering behind the lesser if two evils, you’re going to have to join the fascists or actually take a stand. You need to prepare for that eventuality.

The question is of when fascists get into power, not if. The goal is to make that stay in power as short as possible and do all the things we should’ve done at the end of the Civil War. Fascists prey and feed on the “moderate liberal” mindset, that’s what allows them to keep edging the line further and further and hiding behind “decorum” and other nonsense.

You have to understand that neoliberals have already fucked us over these last decades by doing what you’re doing right now (telling people vote lesser of two evils, shielding the spineless democratic establishment from political consequences, helping propagate neoliberal rhetoric etc.) We’re here because of neoliberal apologists and chronic political negilgence.

So when fascists get control there will be no other option to stop the momentum except direct confrontation. Which will include all manner of civil unrest. Yes, that is extreme and undesirable but that’s where we are at; an extreme inflection point at which fascists are actively taking over our institutions and establishment Dems are letting it happen. It has been in the works for decades.

The question then is will the American people be in a mindset to actually resist or will they be like the citizens in places like China – cowed, resigned and worn down into complacency by the slow, grinding creep of gradual fascism, any memory of what a free society actually looks like erased from their collective memories.

If fascists are to gain control it is better that their hand be forced quickly so perhaps the shock will wake people like you up and the fascists have less time to lay further groundwork. People who are in a comfortable bubble need to experience the consequences that, up until now, have been shouldered by the minorities and groups that those same middle-class neolibs claim to support. Fascism needs to be definitively banished and we cannot do that that in the political climate that neolib “moderates” create.

The alternative is fascism continues to creep into every nook and cranny of our society over the course of a generation and society acclimates to it. There will be ash clouds over our cities and idiots will still be babbling about “We just need to elect the lesser of two evils”. No, force the fascists into the open now, force people to experience it and confront it now, to choose a side definitively, not continue to bury their heads in the sand and elect do nothing dipshit genocidal establishment Democrats.

We cannot keep rewarding democrats who won’t fight, who keep maligning progressives and talking about finding middle ground with the fascists. Voting for those politicians is not useful, it’s counter-productive. Being fascist-lite isn’t cutting it and that needs to be demonstrated materially to the DNC before it’s too late because either they need to stop sabotaging and running from their progressive base or they’re useless.

retrospectology, 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

if the democrats aren’t the answer, who is?

I’ve made a clear distinction that I’m attacking establishment democrats and neoliberals. Stop trying to muddy the distinction, it’s dishonest.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

But yes it does take time to figure out exactly what you’re going to do

Which democrats gave had. There was 0 excuse when Obama had a super majority to not gave abortion legislation ready. In fact they did. Talk about not knowing about the details.

Stop making excuses for them, you’re not helping anyone by trying to deflect oressure, you’re only actively aiding in the false narrative about “it requires time”. If you continue to make excuses for the chronic, decades long failure to meet the mandate given to Democrats by the American people it can only be assumed you want to trend of abject failure to continue.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

You’re saying that people voting for Biden are defending genocidal presidents. I find it appalling that you would say this about people who actually have family suffering in Gaza.

Again, why would I temper my criticism based on some likely-imaginary conversation you had. You know what’s actually apalling? Supporting candidates who fund a genocide. You don’t get to pretend to be scandalized and appalled by anything given the party politics you’re supporting.

If your totally not made up person that you definitely talked to is going vote for Biden it is still a long-term mistake that makes Democratic support for genocide acceptable.

It’s not acceptable and we have three choices as voters 1) Support Biden’s full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 2) Support Trump’s full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 3) Vote Uncommitted to communicate that Dems need to change their party politics around genocide support if they want to win elections.

Those are the choices, there is no “Biden will maybe change his mind once you reward him with power again and suddenly become less genocidal” choice, that’s a fantasy.

retrospectology, 10 days ago (edited 10 days ago)

Your moral center is non-existent.

Unlike Biden I do have a red line. It’s support from genocide, from any candidate. Full stop, do not pass Go, do not collect the lesser of two evils.

retrospectology, 10 days ago

They are going to sieze power. The decision is whether you give them more time to massage the general public into the idea or not.

Trump will not step into office and start ruling like a king, Project 2025 or no. He’ll get four years and will trash the cpuntry and our institutions. Once that’s done Democrats will be faced with a choice; go to the primaries and vote for another milquetoast failure of a corporate dem, or vote for someone who is willing to fight.

If the lesson doesn’t sink in by that point, it never will and the country is doomed.

Voting lesser of two evils has failed, and it will continue to fail. Biden represents a slow death, nothing more.