I don’t know if Civil War is meant to have a clear real-world corollary for the conflict. In the movie Texas and California are aligned against the president and Florida and most of the NW states (including Idaho and Ohio) are breakaway factions that seem aligned against the federal forces as well (the implication that Idaho and Ohio are in the communist state alliance is pretty fucking laughable)
All that to say: i’m pretty sure the producers intentionally avoided real-life groups to keep the movie focused on the topic of journalism and to avoid it being used in exactly this type of political fearmongering.
Edit: also this bit in that article you linked, which seems to allude to the president possibly starting out as a liberal and becoming fascist, which is chef’s kiss
Perhaps just as controversial as the decisions of which states seceded in “Civil War” are the choices as to which states stayed. Notably, the whole Northeast, including the protagonists’ main residence of New York, has stayed loyal to the fascist government, a plot point certain to raise questions about what happened to the former liberal stronghold. In an interview with The Atlantic, Alex Garland offered up the possibility that changes in political alignments occurred as a result of the President’s own politics changing between his first term and his third: “He may be a fascist at the point we meet him, but he presumably in his first term didn’t say [that] …”
I don’t know if Civil War is meant to have a clear real-world corollary for the conflict. In the movie Texas and California are aligned against the president and Florida and most of the NW states (including Idaho and Ohio) are breakaway factions that seem aligned against the federal forces as well (the implication that Idaho and Ohio are in the communist state alliance is pretty fucking laughable)
i almost didn’t watch the movie because all the reviews i read were stuck on this one point but …
… i’m pretty sure the producers intentionally avoided real-life groups to keep the movie focused on the topic of journalism and to avoid it being used in exactly this type of political fearmongering.
it was clear to me that this was true during the paramilitary soldier hostage scene; that was the closest the film ever got to contemporary political alignment and even then it was vague enough not to point fingers.
i’m so glad the movie i intended to see was sold out and i ended up watching civil war instead because it’s one of those movies that sticks with you and i’ve haven’t felt that way about a movie in a long time.
kirsten dunst was the reason why i went with this movie over the other options i had at that moment and i suspected that the movie would be at least decent from the start since i’ve liked every movie she’s ever been in; i would have seen this movie on opening day were it not for all the reviews i mentioned earlier.
Yup, I think a lot of people avoided the movie because there’s an obvious proximity to current events that’s just too stressful for casual viewing, but I think they did a pretty tasteful/artistic job making the politics of the narrative vague and even a little subversive. It ends up keeping you focused on the details because you’re looking for those clues, but ends up putting you in the shoes of the journalists, trying to piece together a political narrative that you can’t quite see in the moment while you’re being bombarded with the horrors of war and armed conflict. I love that part of the movie, because it presents that tension of what they’re there to do as journalists - taking pictures to catalogue a larger narrative as the soldiers they’re following lay dying in the fog of war and unable to clearly see the bigger outlines. The viewer ends up feeling a little resentful of the journalists, because they seem a bit uncaring about the horrors they’re witnessing in service of getting the chance of capturing history.
That’s also why I got a little worked up seeing it mentioned in this thread… op was doing the thing the movie was clearly going out of its way to prevent. Idk. The movie is great and I hate seeing it used as an inflammatory political statement.
I gotta say as a Californian, as much as we bag on Texas …
that interests me greatly.
when i moved from san francisco to austin i was surprised by how many “don’t california my texas” bumper stickers and flags shown everywhere. at first i attributed it to having to switch to driving for my commute and i thought it was odd that i had never sensed a such a reciprocated sentiment expressed while lived in all of california; much less be so ubiquitous every you go.
it’s still strange to hear (read) a californian say it since it always felt like a uniquely texan obsession comparing themselves to california and i felt it was lofty at best (and collective short-guy syndrome at worst) since california has around 33% to 50% more of everything than texas except land area.
because of that:
california + texas can steamroll the rest of the nation
california + new york can steamroll the rest of the nation
california + florida can steamroll the rest of the nation
no combination of the others can do the same, except maybe all three; meaning that california is an outlier so comparisons to it are mostly self defeating and comparisons to new york or florida seemed non-existent when i lived in texas.
His name was already about as white bread as it gets. This is a real and genuine problem when it comes to hiring, but it’s going to be a huge uphill battle for him to prove anything here.
It’s also extremely common in the white community. They’re saying that his real name isn’t one that would cause someone to assume you are nonwhite, like Will Dewitt, Ashley Jones, or Casey Smith.
It’s interesting, assuming he’s right (for the sake of this chain of thought), what would be the statistical relation to being black. In which part. Say, Dwight is not such a common name and how often do black Americans use it as compared to the rest. Or maybe there’s some rhythmic or melodic thing in names which people in different groups follow differently.
EDIT: And while a guy named Jackson can be anything, a guy named Jebrowski is most likely not black. Black people would usually get English\Irish\Welsh\Scottish\German\whatever names, because those were the names of their former, sorry, owners. There weren’t a lot of Poles, especially owning slaves, in the new world at the time this was happening.
EDIT2: So there is a difference along racial lines.
Are there a lot of white Jacksons though? Legitimately asking, I don’t know any Jacksons personally and basically only drum up the obvious as far as famous folk lol
He doesn’t need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a civil suit. Essentially, his face value evidence is strong enough to win unless the hotel can provide clear explanation of how it did what it did, for example if they had different people processing different stacks of papers. At the same time, the plaintiff will have a chance for discovery, so who knows what will happen on that front.
It could be racism, or it could be because the reviewers eyes fell on different words while they were skimming the CV, or it could be because the reviewer was slightly more tired for one of the CVs. This sort of thing is very hard for a human being to be consistent at.
What you’re missing is his actual job history, identical on both resumes, he was applying for a luxury hotel customer service position, and had many years of exactly that experience, unless three other people with more experience than him applied and one of more dropped out, it makes no sense he was looked over, and then interviewed. That’s what pushes this from a case of maybe racism to a lawyer accepting the case because of the very strong evidence of racism.
And even if it was a case of two three people having more experience on their resume, and then dropping out, why wouldn’t the hiring manager scheduling the interview tell him that, and why did he pick the newer resume over the older one with exactly the same experience, it doesn’t add up. Resumes are usually organized oldest to newest, relevant job history greatest to least.
You are making sense, logically. That’s how it should be: If you are a better candidate, you should get the interview.
But picture this nonsense scenario that I think is nevertheless illustrative of the problem: the hiring manager is overworked, at the end of their 12 hour shift filling in doing odds and ends because they’re understaffed and the guests need service, a kid threw up in the pool, there is a standards compliance issue regarding detergent and it might be illegal to wash the sheets with this, the breakfast delivery was cancelled and in six hours there will be hungry guests, and there are 30 CVs to read while they’re on hold talking with an emergency industrial bakery.
Those CVs are not getting the attention they deserve. The job won’t be going to the best candidate. The job will go to whoever seems most acceptable of the 5 CVs they managed to read before the croissants got ordered and they’re off to their next emergency.
And also a common white last name. It’s just a common last name. Alan Jackson, Andrew Jackson, Peter Jackson. It’s a surname with English origin. Lots of Jackson’s out there. It tells you pretty much nothing about what the person looks like. Couple that with your first name being DWIGHT, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a common name.
“Stand On Zanzibar” by John Brunner won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of 1969.
The story is set in the early 21st century; one of the problems caused by the rapid changes of the times is ‘muckers.’ A mucker is someone who has ‘run amok’ and is out to kill as many people as possible. In the book the preferred weapons were knives and swords.
Brunner based his novel on the works of sociologist Alvin Toffler, who coined the phrase ‘future shock’
The only shock from the future is how hard someone has to work to survive. Not thrive, not live, but just get by. The shock is learning that this hardship is caused by 4700 people on the planet who have more money than they can spend in their lifetime and want to ensure the system that grants them privilege at our expense. The shock is learning that the entire societal system is rigged against anyone and almost everyone.
The shock isn’t the future itself. It’s the state of the present.
That was basically Orwell’s 1984 though. The Proles worked hard all their lives just to scrape by and the Inner Party lived like kings and the Proles weren’t able to stop them even if they wanted to, which they didn’t because they were brainwashed into maintaining the status quo through control of the media.
In this case, ‘future shock’ meant that there would be people who couldn’t/wouldn’t adapt to the shift from the Industrial Age to the Digital Era. People who were fine with Tom Hanks wearing drag in his TV show lose their minds over drag forty years later. People who grew up getting vaccines in school suddenly decide that all vaccines are poison.
“Amok”, incidentally, is a Malay word referring to a seemingly random killing spree that would take young men sometimes. Americans occupying the Philippines would sometimes be attacked by Muslim swordsmen insurgents in a berserker state, which led to the concept of “stopping power” and the development of the Colt 45
Only need another to do it 13 more times and they can cover their own costs for the year. 812 more times and they can cover the defense budget for the year.
To play Devil’s advocate for a moment, I don’t know everything that everyone I used to work with is up to at all times. Just because they all worked for him doesn’t mean he was aware that they were the ones behind it.
To stop playing Devil’s advocate for a moment, Trump is incapable of telling the truth, so…
It also wouldn’t be okey if he wasn’t aware of what his top people were doing. Any respectable leader would at least be aware of their tasks.
In any case, yes, he is lying though.
No, what he is trying to say, playing devil’s advocate, is that he genuinely may not have known what his subordinates did, which is right. It is a possibility. What I said in my comment is arguing that even if that were the case, not knowing the underdoings of his closest people is not a sign of a strong leader. In any case, I personally believe that he is lying and that he knows very well on what his people were working.
I understand where you are coming from, but there is no reason to defend a twice impeached, 34 time felon, treasonous rapist. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Xi, Kim, and Pol Pot don’t deserve a devil’s advocate argument, and neither does Donald Trump. There is no grey area. Trump and his lackeys are the greatest threat to American democracy and world stability, and playing devil’s advocate validates them just enough to turn someone apathetic at best and into a Trump voter at worst.
If 140 of the people, including many I still work with, were up to this and I didn’t know about it, there would be no more proof necessary for my lack of fitness to lead.
I’m willing to bet that even if the two judges were removed tomorrow, the Democrats wouldn’t add any judges because they’d want to “play fair” and not assign someone right before an election.
You also want that juicy carrot at the end of that stick during an election year. Ensure your voters are going to vote for you or else risking losing your whole democracy.
They would. But Democrats don’t have a majority in the Senate, so confirmation won’t happen. Manchin and Sinema are the necessary independents likely to refuse to confirm.
They did in 2020 when they let Trump nominate a justice a month before the election. Obama was denied his appointment because the election was nearly a year away
That is true, but you also have to remember the Democrats BARELY put up a fight against their nonsense because they were SO certain they were going to win in 2016.
This “Put all our eggs in one basket, the people are too smart to fall for this” crap ALWAYS undoes the Democrats. Every single time.
Yep, the party actively destroying reproductive rights is indistinguishable from the party doing a suboptimal job of protecting them from the first party. This is clearly communicated by your clever, astute word replacement.
The only way that makes since is if you think AOC, Joe Manchin, Joe Biden, and every other politician that caucuses with the Dem party are on the same page and working for the same shit…
Biden was not helpful in keeping Clarence Thomas out of the Supreme Court
“Not helpful” is cutting him a lot of slack…
He was the chair for the Anita Hill hearings and refused to let other victims testify in addition to a whole bunch of other shit
When Biden talks about “good ole days” of being friends with Republicans, he’s talking about how much they liked him when he was helping get Clarence on the court for life.
You know that almost no one actually likes Biden as a choice right? And I absolutely don’t like Harris - I think she’ll pull us further to the right than Biden would. He’s just a better choice than the Evil Incarnate party. (and so is she) So when you folks come along to smear him like this, it falls a little flat.
I’m sorry for the multiple replies - I just keep remembering one more thing.
had half a century to codify Roe v. Wade
In this case I’m going to steal these comments from one I had saved a month ago, penned by @MegaUltraChicken :
Since 1981 Democrats have had control of the Presidency and Congress a whopping 4 years. One 2 year period under Clinton and one under Obama. That’s without factoring in the ability to fillibuster in the Senate. In over 40 years they’ve only had control 10% of the time.
and
That period of filibuster-proof control during Obama’s term is why we have the ACA. It was ~70 days and they passed the largest healthcare overhaul in generations.
The only way that makes since is if you think AOC, Joe Manchin, Joe Biden, and every other politician that caucuses with the Dem party are on the same page and working for the same shit…
Not at all, the lack of party unity is one of the reasons they have done a suboptimal job with this and other things. Nonetheless, the flowchart is true, and you can see it over and over when any major thing happens. 100% of the time? No. Is it very often relevant to folks removed about Dems? Yes, IMO it is. But with absolute sincerity, you are welcome to disagree.
You’re talking to someone who immediately switched from “don’t vote for Biden” to “don’t vote for Harris” the second they heard that Biden might let Harris run in his place. So yes, you’re exactly right with that flowchart.
I swear. Around a year before every major election period the idiots spend a few months relearning how to spell check and type. We then get the same poorly considered, and poorly worded, series of blatantly Republican drivel that attempts, and fails, to explain why they’re the better side.
Your side is evil. It wasn’t always, it is now. One side attempts to do good, the other tries like hell to destroy good things. One is walking a marathon, the other is driving in the wrong direction in a suped up and raised truck billowing black smoke while flying a confederate and maga flag, adding up points as they run over people, with the radio turned up to America, Fuck Yeah by the D.V.D.A., with a picture of their sister in a bikini taped to the dashboard.
My dude, I’m sitting here in Kansas, and I’ve watched our Democrat governor save our asses over and over from all kinds of insane bullshit that comes out of our Republican legislature. Certainly, the Dems could do more, but to say they’re exactly the same on the abortion issue, or on many other issues, is to deny reality.
…an IKEA warehouse? Really going after those soft targets I guess. I’m sure the loss of a building full of some-assembly-required cheap furniture would strike terror into the hearts of the Baltics.
This is the one that always gets me about “small government” people. They talk about inefficiencies and say, “the private sector can do it better,” which is debatable because comparing money and service is subjective (IMHO, they’re still wrong, but that’s besides the point). Yet most of them don’t want to properly fund tax administrators, when time and time again, they’ve shown they’re a money multiplier. If you want a more basic, striped down tax code, I once again disagree, but fine, that’s your opinion. However, in our current tax system enforcement is underfunded, and I think it just shows their true intent to enrich the wealthy.
I mean the small government types are not the ones who typically pay attention to what actually is shown to work or not work.
Their view is big govt needs big taxes for big spending and big IRS steals people’s hard earned money. No counterpoint or evidence will ever persuade them otherwise because it’s a core belief that is largely beyond questioning.
They talk about inefficiencies and say, “the private sector can do it better,”
The private sector generates profits, which can then be translated into passive incomes for lenders and dividend recipients. The public sector isn’t explicitly designed to provide steadily increasing passive incomes to American plutocrats. That’s the big difference.
However, in our current tax system enforcement is underfunded
Laws are for little people. The purpose of the IRS should be to make low-income tax credits and other poverty relief measures a political promise the smallest possible material benefit. It shouldn’t be to claw back profits from the plutocrat class. Government should exist to guarantee the collection of rents from the working class and defend the property of the landlord class by extracting additional rents from the working class.
All enforcement is underfunded except the armed law enforcement against citizens. The enforcement of laws and corporations should be beefed up. And the start from big to small. Now enforcement just focusses on small companies as they don’t have big legal teams and can be bullied into submission.
You can make a more basic stripped down tax code that’s still fair. What I’d like to see is instead of a stepped progressive tax rate, tax each dollar based on a function that approaches 100% somewhere around a million dollars. So maybe you can get another dollar by taking the next million, then one more by taking ten million, then the next one by taking a hundred million.
My first reaction was “Why wasn’t this done when the decision was first leaked? Why wait 2 years?”
The Reproductive Freedom for Women Act […] is just a few sentences long. It states that “protections for access to abortion rights and other reproductive health care” […] “should be supported.” It adds that “the protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade … should be restored and built upon, moving towards a future where there is reproductive freedom for all.”
That’s not the language of writing laws. It’s completely vague and unenforceable. It really is just a political stunt for an election year.
Why is it so hard to make a real law to actually do this!?
Furthermore, they also tried to pass a bill -,Women's%20Health%20Protection%20Act%20of%202021,and%20access%20to%2C%20abortion%20services.&text=immediately%20provide%20abortion%20services%20when,delay%20risks%20the%20patient's%20health.).
Yeah the history of this is long and complicated. This piece goes into a lot more detail about the various attempts on both sides to put abortion into federal legislation (both for and against), including a review of the political situations that led to and resulted from each effort. One of the more interesting threads is this one:
After [Joe] Biden joined the Senate in 1973, he voted for a failed constitutional amendment that would have allowed states to overturn the court’s Roe ruling. In a Washingtonian magazine interview at the time, he said of Roe: “I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” But times changed, and so did he. In a 2007 book, Biden said he had arrived at a “middle-of-the-road position on abortion.” In 2008, he described Roe as “close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours.” As Obama’s vice president, Biden said the government had no “right to tell other people that women, they can’t control their own body.”
The cultural center of gravity on this issue has changed dramatically since the 1970s. There were pro choice voices in both parties for many decades, but with very few exceptions those voices have migrated into the Democratic Party, which gives it a more unified and consistent stance on the issue.
That is because the Senate is like the UN or other groups of (nation) states where each member has the equivalent number of votes. There is no reason to have a second chamber of congress if both are based on population.
Nougat, I was replying to the comment that suggested that the number of votes should represent population. So I was replying that’s what the house of reps is for, not the Senate.
Rural people are a minority. If we went 100% “just do what the majority wants” that doesn’t ever work out for minorities. All minorities need protection, so there is sound intent in the design. It SHOULD work out that minority has a voice. But in practice it’s pretty crappy. It needs reworked. Starting with gerrymandering.
Proportional representation gives the minority a vioce. What we have now gives the minority absolute power and ‘tyrany of the minority’ is not better than ‘tyrany of the majority’. It was always about keeping landowners voices more powerful than other voices, and the side effect is less dense areas yield people who’s votes count more.
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