“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was bigoted propaganda branded as a consideration, and the Lavender Scare was horrifically layered oppression. It was basically, “We’ve decided your sexuality is scandalous, forcing you to hide it, which makes you at risk of being blackmailed, so we’re charging you with a crime.” Fucking despicable.
These pardons are excellent. It’s such a shame thousands of veterans had to live so long with criminal records for who they are, not even what they did.
We’ve decided your sexuality is scandalous, forcing you to hide it, which makes you at risk of being blackmailed, so we’re charging you with a crime.” Fucking despicable.
While obviously not near the same level of criminalizing someone for part of their core identity, I’ve felt the same way about the US government’s treatment of pot smokers. Can’t get a security clearance if you’ve smoked pot within the past 7 years because it’s blackmail leverage ignoring the fact that it’s only blackmail material when the government considers it verboten
It’s not so much the blackmail with pot, it’s the fact you can’t “follow the rules”. They will give a bye for previous smoking events (before you need the clearance, took a position etc.), it’s smoking with a clearance or NOT telling them that will get you wrapped up.
You can 100% get a clearance if you’ve smoked within 7 years of applying for one. Hell, you can get a clearance if you smoked within the last year. You just have to a) disclose the fact, b) be able to show mitigations as to why smoking weed won’t be an issue while you have a clearance, and then c) not do it while you have a clearance. It ends up being not so much about the fact that you smoke weed as it is that you’re not following the law, and that’s the real clearance risk (from their POV). Getting a clearance is really about proving you’re trustworthy to the investigator.
There are agencies, iirc mostly law enforcement, that consider it a strict bar. It also depends on the level of clearance, and how much they need you. An Army private getting a secret clearance to present weather to the general on the daily isn’t getting nearly as much scrutiny as a nuclear physicist. But nuclear physicists willing to work for the government are a finite resource. It’s all clear as mud and the fear of losing your career over some stupid persecution is real.
You’re mixing some things up. Yes, some agencies will have some POLICIES about not wanting to hire personnel with a history of drug abuse/use, but that is separate from the clearance adjudication process.
A secret clearance is a secret clearance, and you’re correct that it’s much simpler to get a basic secret than it is a TS-SCI or to be read into certain programs. But there isn’t a “FBI” secret and an “Army” secret.
There’s no timeline for how long it’s been since you’ve smoked pot, or number of times, or anything. I think a poster said that it’s about whether the investigation finds you trustworthy enough for the level of eligibility they’re investigating you for, and that is correct - and there isn’t a hard and fast rule necessarily.
If you do an investigation and are asked if you’ve ever used any illegal drugs and you say no, but in your criminal record you have a possession charge, that’s bad. You’re obviously lying, and not even being smart about it. If you say you used to smoke trees every day and are blazed right now, that’s bad because you obviously don’t give af about laws and stuff (not my opinion, this is the opinion of the Fed that still thinks it’s illegal). If you say you used to smoke with your friend for a couple months in college a year ago but stopped and think that was probably a dumb decision, that’s not necessarily bad, it all depends on how the interview goes. They’ll ask for the names of who you smoked with and how you got the weed - so they can check if you were hanging out with known cartel members or just some other joe schmoe at UCWhatevs.
At the end of the day it’s all based on context and a ton of factors. They dig a lot deeper and have a much higher standard for more selective clearances or programs, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone? But it’s all about whether you’re trustworthy to keep certain sensitive information from unauthorized people.
I understand all of that, I was just keeping it simple for Lemmy. And there’s no functional difference between a pass from DCSA with a note of prior drug use in the last 3 years and a fail from DCSA for those agencies. It’s a distinction without a difference in their eyes. But there is also different pipelines for Military and Civilian clearances. If you come to the government with a military clearance they will want you to get an upgraded check and interview. It’s a lot easier than a new clearance for most people but it’s still a thing. This was per the State Department for FSO’s last time I checked out that process.
So we can dig into minutia all day long if you want.
Considering that Nixon’s cabinet has openly talked about how they made it a federal offense so that they had justification to arrest the leaders of the war protesters (and the same thing with cocaine and the black community), I’d say it’s of a similar level but a different kind of evil.
I thought the concept of don’t ask don’t tell was a way to let gay people serve without getting congress to change the laws. Kind of like federal pot laws. It’s technically illegal, they’re just not supposed to enforce it.
It was a way to not deal with the issue directly, and to give members of the LGBTQ+ community an option to hide who they are and not receive punishment. But it in no way protected them. It was sold as a “compromise”, but was actually a thinly veiled way to continue to suppress the community and enact harsh penalties and convictions for anyone who didn’t follow the protocol.
Yeah it was progressive at the time since it stopped the military from digging around and asking your family if you are gay, especially since there weren’t even civil unions in most states back then.
What i don’t understand is why Obama didn’t pardon them all since DADT was overtirned in 2010
It stopped official investigations before an accusation. It did not stop your chain of command from spying on their soldiers to find LGBTQ people. The function of the policy was that no matter how you got outed you were in violation of the policy. So they treated someone grabbing a letter from home and reading it aloud the same as you telling your commander you were going to a gay bar to look for a date.
I can’t speak for Bill Clinton’s thoughts but the military never engaged with it in good faith. They considered any discovery as “telling”. Some service members at the time even described unit members spying on their homes to see who they lived with. Even a letter from an old lover that someone took from your belongings would be considered telling. The function of the policy was that if they could “out” you, they would discharge you with bad papers.
Under this kind of atmosphere homophobia becomes ten times worse because the possibility of that guy being gay puts your career at risk too, in case you get too close and are swept up with them.
No, it was a step in the right direction. There may have been units and commanders that tried to seek out gays but there were also plenty of commanders that really didn’t want to know so never asked.
That’s the thing, the commander could be the nicest person in the world. Once you were outed, their hands were tied. So your platoon’s lieutenant might be alright, but the platoon sergeant from the next platoon over could be nosy as hell and out you. also it functioned as a second lavender scare. Even if you beat the official investigation after being “outed” because you aren’t gay and it’s impossible to actually out you, you’re forever tainted. Your career is over and your life is in danger from homophobes, that felt empowered by the function of the policy to go after anyone they thought was gay.
If they wanted this to be a step in the right direction instead of leadership taking a step back and letting the bigotry just do it’s thing they needed to come down hard on the bigots too and allow gay service members who did not actually tell anyone to stay. That would have sent the message the public was sold on DADT.
Hilariously, the thing that really spelled the end of DADT (along with changing morals in society) was the GWOT. It’s actually kind of hard to railroad the guy who’s been clearing rooms and getting blown up with you. And the people who did keep doing it in the combat units found themselves alienated finally because it’s nearly impossible to “other” someone you served with like that.
that’s how all of our progressive laws & rules take place; they seem progressive on the surface but if you look the tiniest bit closer it’s clear that it’s not.
We’ve decided your sexuality is scandalous, forcing you to hide it, which makes you at risk of being blackmailed, so we’re charging you with a crime.” Fucking despicable.
part of me wants to forgive biden’s votes & support of those laws (eg dont ask dont tell; defense of marriage; executive order 10450); but seeing as how the everyone on social media (especially the lemmyverse) already refuse to believe he did those things makes me feel like i have a duty to remember since they fucked with my life and so many other’s lives’ so severely; along with the other fucked up things he did that social media has already chosen to forget about.
he also switched sides back then on that topic too when it was no longer politically popular.
he’s not a leader nor is it growth (he was proud of appeasing segregationists during his campaign and kamala had to put him in his place); he’s a politician that does whatever it takes to get votes.
Shh, let them have this. They need their team to be the saviors. Look how they trot out Jack Black like a clown. And now trickle out some good news a bit before the elections.
No one is calling Democrats saviors. They just enact more legislation that benefits people and planet while Republicans support corporations and Christianity. Feel free to pick whatever side is more compelling to you.
In NY, even if he’s sentenced to prison, it’s up to the judge’s discretion whether he has to report to prison while awaiting appeal…and we all know he’s going to appeal.
We’ll see on July 11th, but most likely it’s going to be some symbolic fine or gesture, but we’re not seeing this geriatric, senile old man who is also a former president, go to prison, where he would likely die as the country faces massive terrorist attacks and uprisings of dumbasses with deadly weapons, no judge in the country would do that no matter their political leaning if they at all took their job seriously and didn’t want to have entire chapters written about them in the coming history books.
House arrest may be an option but that would be seen as a political attack because it would stop him from campaigning and that would go straight to supreme court, which we know how that would turn out. Judges know all this, their hands are pretty much tied.
edit: I can’t understand this internet knee-jerk response system that plagued reddit as well as here where people will just downvote a comment to oblivion if they don’t like the possible reality it presents. You’re not exercising your critical thinking here, you’re making yourself dumber by not considering things you don’t like.
Sorry but if they have a spine, their hands are most definitely not tied. That’s the problem with the system as it relates to this piece of shit. Everyone makes excuses.
Fuck that. It’s time to show that the rule of law matters no matter who the fuck you are. Maybe if he’s made an example of, Presidents will think twice before breaking the law.
But, I agree that the GOP, probably this judge, the Supreme Court, and Congress — none of them have a spine.
Fuck that. It’s time to show that the rule of law matters no matter who the fuck you are. Maybe if he’s made an example of, Presidents will think twice before breaking the law.
Okay I’m not against this and never said I was, I’m simply saying that this outcome where Trump goes to prison isn’t going to happen and you’re going to have to deal with it. Everyone is. That’s all. You can’t make this happen, our collective voice will not make this happen. People are getting some weird sense of unrealistic entitlement about this verdict.
The world doesn’t work the way we want and if we could all just get that through our skulls we would make better political choices and actually start focusing on what matters which is community action and organization in your local communities and districts, the places that support, prop-up and create the political theater that we wish would go away.
The world is what we allow it to be made as. You are, of course, free to be as defeatist about this as you want. Doesn’t at all mean I can’t want or expect him to sit in prison.
And since when is expecting just consequences considered entitlement?
I, for one, will not abide Trump, Fox News, or any other propaganda machine to eat away at the rule of law just because they or others might think something is unrealistic or unfair. He is guilty of breaking laws — of this and most likely much much more, as the future and trials will ideally prove. It’s long past time he pays for it.
Our nation has a bad habit of crying and whinging about the unfair things without actually focusing on and addressing the ACTUAL shit that will stop this from happening in the future.
I am unreasonably irritated with my countrymen and women who are laser-focused on what happens in a case that is only happening because nobody cares about their communities and local elections. Then it’s going to be over and everyone is going to be distracted by next big consequence of our apathy.
Our emotions and righteous feelings have no bearing on this unless you can focus that emotion on getting better representation in power.
Why are we so sure that Trump supporters are going to start major terrorist attacks and riots etc? Sure there will be some stragglers here and there but in general they are too stupid and too lazy to even start organising. If January 6th would have been prepared correctly on side of the police force, ie actual riot police present instead of beat cops and doormen, it would have been over in 10 minutes. If they were truly able to start shit, yesterday’s conviction should have triggered them already. It really shouldn’t keep Trump out of jail when the fear is that a Walmart fat guy in camo might shoot up a Starbucks.
I’m saying that people in positions of leadership, from judges to attorneys are not going to want to take that chance and be the ones responsible on even the remote chance that there’s any kind of civil unrest. This is regardless of the actual chances of anything happening, it’s about liability not probability.
I don’t understand what you mean. They wouldn’t be liable or responsible if they just did their job.
They aren’t the ones who would instruct people to riot or do terrorism, which would make them liable.
To construct a liability or responsibility out of their duty is what the fascist side would try to do, so I have to assume you’re one of them?
So far I am not under the impression that the government would not do what needs to be done. I think it’s obvious that 99% of Trump supporters are just talk, and mainly talk in anonymity on the internet.
To construct a liability or responsibility out of their duty is what the fascist side would try to do, so I have to assume you’re one of them?
There is seriously something wrong with you and everyone right now that explaining how a thing works defaults someone to the view of “this person must be a fascist” and it’s so screamingly bad faith and performative that it reveals an actual lack of caring for the actual issues exactly like people on the right, you’re no different. It’s all disconnected from reality and losing oneself in emotional responses. Welcome to reactionary land. The only thing missing is the red hats.
Yes trump SHOULD go to jail, I’ve said this but I am also reminding people that this isn’t happening, it won’t happen, and I am explaining WHY it won’t happen. If I’m proved wrong, great… it’s fine, I would like to be proven wrong, but everyone is fucking delusional right now, and this is highly evident by the fact that if you aren’t also delusional, then dipshits on the internet call you a fascist.
I think you lost me. You said Trump will probably not go to jail because the judge has already been lenient with him regarding contempt, you claim more than any other person would be afforded - which might be true but is hard to prove. I pointed out that it doesn’t automatically follow that the sentencing will also be lenient. It’s not a question of prison, or not. Then you flew off the handle (imho) by claiming the judge will not give him a harsh sentence (again, not a question of prison or not) because it would make him liable and responsible for terrorist attacks and riots by Trump supporters And that’s exactly the point of the fascist, which they repeat time and again to intimidate the opponent; That if something happens, then the people who “wronged” Trump would be reponsible. The actual terrorists and rioters and the people therefore wouldn’t be 100% taking the blame, but just part of it or maybe none. You are agreeing with those people by casually throwing around this idea that attacks and retributions would not be an atrocious, absurd reaction to a criminal getting sentenced, but something that is to be expected. You’re supporting that viewpoint. That’s why I can’t tell if you are a trolling right-winger or a coward or maybe just a dipshit.
This is exactly why Judges have been so lenient on him. None of them want to go from country clubbing to having firsthand knowledge of the witness protection program.
I disagree with that. The judges need to be a bit lenient with him so nobody can say that the judge was biased against him. This was sort of frustrating to those of us who saw the judge as being too nice to Trump, but its now a lot harder to say he was gunning to get him convicted.
Yeah, so the fact that he wasn’t proves my point. The Judge wasn’t showing signs of wanting to get Trump convicted. Compare that to if Trump is required to be in jail throughout the trail, because he was held in contempt. The right would be saying the judge, and this same verdict, were corrupt. That’s what they’re saying, now but there’s less evidence for them to use.
Its about convincing people still on the fence with Trump. The most vocal are saying that the jury was a sham. The ones in the middle are less vocal. By not giving vocal Republicans any ammo, it helps make a convincing case to those Republican voters that weren’t hardline republicans/MAGAs. They’re the ones we need along with the voters that switch from the 2016 to 2020 elections.
I really wonder if the judge will call out Trumps behavior, the multiple gag order violations, etc. and use all that to justify a harsher sentence. One can only hope…
I will be very sad when he goes. Regardless of his success or lack thereof during his presidency, I don’t know that a better person in general has been president. The man devoted his post-presidency to building houses for the poor (with his own two hands) and eradicating guinea worm… and never showed up to say something on the endless news cycle unless he had a specific point to make.
I wonder what kind of jobs these chuckleheads have that they can just skip work for a week-long LARP. No wonder they are afraid of immigrants, immigrants work harder than these losers.
I get the crazy trumper hate and stupidity 100% I wish everyone could see him for what he is and stop following blindly thinking he cares about anyone but himself.
But an 80yo shouldn’t have to work or have had to work for the last 8 years. He should be collecting SS, and should not have to live in absolute squalor. But we (as a whole in America) don’t care about mental health or old people, it’s not profitable.
The loving trump stuff can be tied to him not being mentally sound but it shouldn’t have anything to do with an 80yo getting money he likely paid into SS back out in retirement.
You are kind of owned, since these red states fucking up just means that more of your tax money will go to saving these idiots from themselves through federal aid
Red states are a luxury we can’t afford anymore. They need to pull themselves up by their freedom bootstraps and start turning a profit, or the spigot turns off.
while it’s true that the majority of the electricity generated in WA is hydroelectric, we also dont get much in the way of heat. I used my AC for about 4 weeks this year. if we had the same levels of heat as some parts of TX, our electricity would not be as cheap as it is now.
The problem hasn't been during the day. The supply and demand has a lag (sun comes out and its still cool and sun goes down and its still hot). The hottest part of the day has been about 6pm and then solar power starts declining before power use. That's been when the shortages have been.
Texas has plenty of power. Their problem is the delivery network. Their prices surge because power can’t be delivered to everybody, not because there isn’t enough for everybody.
I need you to explain this further? The price goes up because the demand on the grid goes up, and as the price goes up, typically additional generation comes online to take advantage of higher rates. I’m not saying it’s a good system by any means, but I don’t understand what you mean saying “power can’t be delivered to everybody”
I’m abreast of this specific grid situation, and there’re absolutely improvements that need to be made, and also no, it’s not “a shambles.” Yes, there was a bottleneck this time, but also everyone’s power stayed on just fine
Give it a few months when they start dying of exposure. At least once a year I see stories about Texas’ power grid shitting the bed and people dying as a result.
If you had the same amount of heat, you’d have more sunlight hours and thus better conditions for solar power. If you had more wind, wind power etc.
There’s no scenario anywhere in the world where the entire energy consumption and more can’t be supplied via renewable sources. All that’s missing is the political will to go against the fossil fuel industry.
Texas actually does better in the renewable energy front than you may expect.
A quarter of the state’s energy is produced through wind and solar. The biggest bottleneck preventing more wind adoption is the capacity of transmission lines up and the lack of energy storage.
The advantage of natural gas is that it can be dry up pretty much anywhere and isn’t dependent on weather.
The biggest problem Texas has right now regarding energy (and housing costs, and inflation, and municipal planning, and traffic, etc) is its extremely rapid population growth.
Yes, the heat wave is historic and ERCOT is awful, but even in perfect weather the grid is being stressed from the sheer number of people and businesses moving here
While a lot of shitty things happened regarding ERCOT and that freeze (and ESPECIALLY the lack of response to prevent the next 2 freeze emergencies), Snovid was a perfect storm. And again a lot of the issues were from transmission problems when lines iced over and tress took out transmission lines.
We’re lucky the 2023 freeze was as short as it was, because it’s impact on the grid was almost as severe even though it was shorter and not nearly as cold. It was an ice event instead of snow, and had a much larger impact on trees and therefore transmission lines. Some people were without power for 3-4 times as long as with the 2021 storm despite it being a much milder event.
As an engineer, critical infrastructure should very much be designed with redundancy and failsafes to prevent failure from any reasonable risk. Cold weather impacting natural gas supply is reasonable risk that can have a catastrophic impact on people’s ability to heat their homes and it’s mind blowing how those failures have happened more than once in recent years. Utilities should be held to much higher standards and immediate action taken after failures to prevent the same from happening again.
Completely agree. But Snovid was a case of multiple system failures. It wasn’t just gas lines freezing,. It was increased demand, frozen equipment, inoperable windmills and solar panels, trees on transmission lines, road inaccessibility for repair crews, and informational gaps.
I’m glad I live in Washington state with our cheap renewable energy.
Texas has more renewable energy production than you do. In Q1 of 2022 Washington State generated 25 Million Megawatt hours of renewal energy and Texas generated 34.
Heard a piece of NPR about how our green grid is actually having a lot of trouble keeping up because climate change is fucking up our rainfall, and hence our hydro electric. Even if you do it right, you end up paying for the greed of everyone else.
Reading the article it sounds like this woman unfortunately just spent too much time on social media reading all the doom and gloom of the media and people amplifying it in places like reddit, Twitter and Facebook.
wanted to live in a land disconnected from the world, which she viewed as chaotic and dangerous
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
had been “discouraged with the state of the world”
Rebecca Vance’s fears intensified during the pandemic
Consuming too much of this crap has really affected peoples mental health, from Trump, to BLM riots, racism, covid, it’s broken some people who spend too much time on social media.
So much so that they think the only way out is to hide away from society.
Reminder, friends, to take frequent and extensive breaks from social media for your own mental health.
she and her teenage son could be happy and safe away from the news, the viruses, the politics of modern-day America
Just close the apps. That’s literally all it takes to avoid like 90% of the crap that she’s talking about. But the viruses… did she think those don’t make it to the forest or something?
Please, I knew people who were exactly the same back in the 90s, there are always people who go down the paranoia rabbit hole and don’t come back out.
Lot of them were praying for the collapse because that’s when God would raise them above the wicked heathens and sodomites because they’re secretly special but everyone else is too evil to admit it.
The article said the poor kid was homeschooled, which is often a hallmark of religious fundamentalism. Not trusting the world and thinking it’s out to get you is also a hallmark of fundamentalism - but also of mental illness.
She’s from Colorado Springs (massive conservative area) and she became concerned about the world and wanted to live off the grid in 2022 (when Trump lost). The writer of this article sure does beat around the bush and struggles not to say whether she was a right wing nut.
And remember that despite some unique large scale issues we have today, there were much, MUCH worse times to be alive. “Majority of Americans live a peaceful life and die at 70-80” is not reportable news but still largely true.
Things are far from perfect, there are major issues, but I’d choose to live today than almost the entirety of human existence previously.
There were definitely way more violent times in the US: there were pandemics, there were revolts, there were wars. We live in an amazing time but it takes a bit of grand perspective to realize that all the bad news is easy to see in a matter of minutes. You can have death and destruction delivered right into your home in a matter of milliseconds. It’s much much harder to see all the wonderful things happening in the world
100%. Some people exploited the riots to break into stores but they were the significant minority, and additionally some were outed as bad actors who actually didn’t support the movement.
You can’t lump in blm riots in there, those were protests stoked to violence by police officers, so what you should be saying it’s, corrupt police forces resulting in blm protests
Maybe I’m being too generous, but I was reading it as this person consumed too much media, including lies and exaggerations, and it warped their world view. I guess I read it as a topic like and not calling them riots themselves. Kinda like the “race riot” in Tusla, but idk.
Every time I see these I see these climate change related issues (which is now multiple times a day), I get the same sinking feeling in my stomach like I’m behind on work and don’t have enough time to do it and I’ll soon be in trouble for letting things get too far behind. That feeling keeps me up, causes me stress, and is generally not a comfortable way to live. This just fucking sucks.
I hate to say it, but I keep avoiding articles about climate change for this reason. I can’t do it every time, obviously, but it just gives me such stress. We’re all so powerless while corporations destroy our planet.
I largely tuned out of climate change news a long time ago. I still care about it. I vote for it and have donated relatively large amounts of money to environmental charities. But otherwise nothing I do makes a difference.
Have you tried separating your recycling out? It’ll help offset the cruise ships that each put out around 250,000 cars worth of straight up pollution a year, without factoring in other impacts.
And thats just the cruise ships imagine how much cargo ships output, admitedly cargo ships actually serve a purpose. Cruise ships are idols to our decadence and hubris.
Praise our cargo ship overlords for bringing clothes that rip after the third wash and electronics that malfunction after half a year to us!
Joke aside, they are integral to the global economy, but we could cut back a lot on wasteful production and consumption, reducing the transportation needed.
Absolutely, food is one thing but cheap shitty tech is another. Frankly speaking ive never encountered a situation where the cheap shitty stuff was any better than the older expensive stuff.
But im also into weird old tech so the fact that ill use a beat up old car radio instead of a 10 buck radio from big lots is not saying much.
The solution to that, the systemic impersonal solution, is going to be ending the production of single use plastics. While there’s little you can do about recycling, you can imagine if you’ll be complaining about that.
Also if we removed single use plastics, but didn’t dramatically cut back on everything we do that uses them, then we’d create more pollution with alternative methods trying to fill the gap. A global change is unavoidable, whether it is chosen or forced upon everyone by circumstance.
Yeah… we use single use plastics because they’re basically an industrial miracle production wise. Dirt cheap, super easy to use, innumerable applications… and all the drawbacks are post-production and someone else’s problem. A tough addiction to break.
It’s certainly incompatible with multi-national corporations with huge vertical integration. This is what happened with beer, soda and other stuff in many parts of the world.
I have lived in that World in my part of Eastern Europe, I lived plastic-free… it was the default.
Don’t be too harsh on yourself, big corporations are the main cause of climate change. Unless we all collectively decide to give these companies a wake up call, I’m afraid there’s very little you can do alone
Exactly, corporations are selling their products and services to other people. This is something people can do stuff about. If you are wondering what you can do try shifting to a plant based diet as much as you can as our meat sources are a huge contributor to the problem.
To quote The Goodies. "Why are you dumping oil and potatoes into the ocean?" "Well when the ocean is full of fish, potatoes and oil, I'll throw in a match. Flash! Fry! Frizzle... Fish and Chips! Loads and Loads of Fish and Chips."
We already massively overfish, is that really your solution? It’ll mean more intense factory farming of seafood, creating huge amounts of water based pollution.
Not all types of fish are overfished, some (like haddock) are sustainable. Just as some crops are farmed responsibly, and others (like California almonds) are not.
I see you noticed that mackerel had it’s “sustainable” status removed. Sad times. ^^’
I didn’t think Haddock had gotten back on the sustainable side either, most things can be done sustainably up to a certain volume. If the entire population turns its eye on it then demand far outstrips supply and goodbye sustainability.
There are more native English speakers in my country than yours. So I’ll continue to use the definition that they understand, which is also the definition used by Encyclopedia Britannica.
But if I ever visit your landlocked English-speaking country (assuming such a place exists), then I’ll try to keep in mind that local customs differ when eating at your restaurants.
There are more native English speakers in my country than yours
That’s for sure! My country’s native language is not English, so you’re again right that my landlocked country is not an English-speaking one.
Continue using whatever you want, don’t be surprised if your illogical words don’t make sense to someone else.
If you want to go by sheer numbers, I think in India there’s more native English speakers than in US and they use a variation of British English and as far as I know, seafood there means what any sane person would assume. Hell, you don’t have to go with English, my language’s version (literally translated to English as “fruits of the sea”) also means only fish/shellfish from the sea. And I guess most (if not all) countries use it the same way.
English words are neither logical nor illogical. The English language, more than most, depends heavily on context to confer meaning. Some English words can mean their own opposite, like “to dust”, “to sanction”, or “to cleave”.
Linguistics aside, even if your country is landlocked you will most likely find a variety of fish in your grocery store, including those from the sea. In fact, the fish in your grocery store most likely traveled less far than many of the fruits and vegetables.
“Big companies only do what they do when the governments that they paid with bribes or “lobby” money look the other way while they fuck the planet up left and right like it’s a race to the end”
Fixed it for you. Stop excusing the rich, and trying to place the blame on the consumers, friend. It’s disgusting.
The blame is on everyone. But if consumers… you know… stopped consuming so much garbage food, electronics, packaging for their shitty food and shitty electronics, cars, gasoline, etc, maybe the large companies wouldn’t produce so much of it.
My friend. The corporations have spent BILLIONS of dollars making sure all my options are as thin as possible.
Tell me, friend. Where can I get the GOOD and HEALTHY food, the GOOD electronics? WHERE can I get these things WITHOUT spending the arm and leg that I DO NOT HAVE to spend? Enlighten me as to why you choose to blame the consumers whose options are LIMITED by the corporations….?
You’re being downvoted, but why? Human greed also extends to consumers. We don’t have to buy a thing because it was paraded around in front of us. I hate the “consumers have no agency, they have to buy stuff!” mentality. It’s morally bankrupt and just results in more finger pointing and zero action. Stop buying crap.
Is there anything reasonable that we (those who have interest in living “like before” and won’t die of age within 30 years) can achieve? I feel like many things are very out of reach, and the population is just too heterogeneous to agree on something. Older folks where I live just do not give a fuck, and elected someone whose major interest is in removing rights from people they actively hate. At least one big city where I live has been without water nor electricity for several hours (days?) because the heat has messed out the infrastructure, and I feel like even in my country barely anybody is talking about it… It’s just very discouraging, I want to shift my perspective, but it’s not easy.
Yes, there are things you can and should be doing.
People blaming ‘corporations’ while not doing anything themselves are a huge part of the problem. Out of the 100 largest corporations contributing the most CO2, almost all of them are fuel and energy based.
So, number one - drives less, or don’t drive at all. This might change where or how you live.
Number 2, buy 100% green power or install your own PV.
These 2 things alone can be contributing up to 50% of your own greenhouse emissions. This isn’t ‘corporations’, it’s us buying power and driving around.
After that everyday consumption is huge. So don’t buy shit to just throw it away. Only buy what’s necessary. Spend more on fewer things, and things that will last.
And finally, do these things because you care. If enough people make some changes. It starts to seem normal. Then others do it too. And vote.
The number of smart, tech savvy people here who think some boats and random companies are the source of impending catastrophe are sadly mistaken. The actual information on what’s causing and contributing is well researched and easy to find. You’ll be able to find an online calculator for your country which will give an averaged breakdown of your own emissions. You can use that to keep drilling into what actions will have the biggest impacts.
Everyone needs to make changes to the way we live. Some need to go first for others to follow.
Big corporations…that we keep rewarding with our money, incentivizing them to not change what they’re doing. Human consumption is the largest driver of climate change.
I’ve just started to cut off feelings about it entirely - I can’t handle seeing this stuff everyday. I’m just resigned that it’s too late and live your life while you can.
I like to look on the bright side, in that climate change will either wipe humans off the map or send us back to the Stone Age so we no longer have any real impact.
Both scenarios will heal the planet, animals will re-populate, and homeostasis will again be restored. Checks and balances. We’ll just be another animal that that got out of control, which nature corrected, like it’s done thousands of times over with every animal that’s ever been out of control.
A healthy world. I like that outcome, with or without us.
I don’t think you realize how much even stone age humans fucked up the planet. Half of Australia’s forests were burned down and most of America’s megafauna was hunted to extinction and the people who did it had little more than stone tools.
Still, I suspect it’ll shift the balance of power away from us for long enough to allow nature to take back some control. As a species we’ve lost our way and we won’t stop until the planet is dead or it wipes us out. That’s the bottom line.
This could be the only planet within a million light years with complex, conscious life and we’re systematically destroying it for conveniences like single serve ketchup.
This could be the only planet in the universe with any kind of life, but humans have never been good at working together in large groups, we just can’t really deal with more than a few hundred people at most.
Hope in space industry being developed by the so hated corporations from the internet? Spear headed by capitalism? In a thread about climate change? On this site? You surely jest
Now I wonder if some future intelligent race could ever come across us through archaeological digs, and we become that “highly advanced race that died out” that’s so common in fiction.
You can only do so much. Life was set up this way for us by countless generations before us. You can reduce your energy requirements, reduce/reuse/recycle, but it will only help so much at the individual level. Never stop trying. Never stop trying to convince your friends and family to reduce their footprint. I bug my SO every time they put something recyclable in the trash or they buy something we don't need.
But the world is burning because of greed and we can't individually put an end to that. Live your life, do what you can, share love. It's the best we can do right now.
And the worst part is, average citizens like yourself aren’t a massive burden on the environment. It’s people like Elon Musk flying personal jets across the world for dinner, who are actively contributing to the death of the planet.
Sorry but this is not true at all. Your regular average citizen demands products whose production, transportation, and disposal is responsible for massive amounts of emissions.
If you buy cheap Chinese shit off Amazon, or Big Macs, a new phone every year, you’re part of the problem.
This is a kindergarten level understanding. Do you think evil megacorps overfish the ocean because they just feel like it? Or deforest millions of acres to graze cattle just because why the fuck not?
No, they do it to provide for the demands of an always so hungry population in the most efficient way possible at the highest benefit possible.
It’s not a big secret
I don’t know what people expect. Shut down everything? 3 days and we have about 95% of the population die, tops 3 months, even less if people go bananas
Feel free to skip step 6, there are no question marks. Every time someone blames consumers for the state of our planet, an oil magnate smiles while overlooking his fleet of luxury cars made out of silver.
The jets are bad but what is worse are the handle full of billionaires and csuite execs who have the money and power to decide company policies and bribe politicians and governments: lobbying, independent expenditures, gala dinners, super pacs, incentives, revolving doors, private fundraising, paid speeches; to look the other way so they can pollute however much they want.
Nothing is Ethical under Capitalism.
Social Democracy is better but still exports the suffering to the global south.
Workers of the world must unite to over come the absolute insanity of the capital class.
Unfortunately, everyone participates and it adds up. If you want to compare such personal consumption like jets, then the rich account for about 15% of the global emissions.
The share of total global emissions associated with the consumption of the richest 1% is set to continue to grow, from 13% in 1990, to 15% in 2015 and 16% in 2030.
If you want to include the rich’s capital, which you should, because that has to change:
the bottom 50% of the world population emitted 12% of global emissions in 2019, whereas the top 10% emitted 48% of the total. Since 1990, the bottom 50% of the world population has been responsible for only 16% of all emissions growth, whereas the top 1% has been responsible for 23% of the total. While per-capita emissions of the global top 1% increased since 1990, emissions from low- and middle-income groups within rich countries declined. Contrary to the situation in 1990, 63% of the global inequality in individual emissions is now due to a gap between low and high emitters within countries rather than between countries. Finally, the bulk of total emissions from the global top 1% of the world population comes from their investments rather than from their consumption.www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00955-z
But if you imagine that the petite bourgeois lifestyle of McMansion in suburbia, cars and driving around everywhere, eating boatloads of primary calories, and the rest of the consumption isn’t contributing, you should read more. Here’s a start: versobooks.com/…/3691-the-imperial-mode-of-living
Really? The feeling I get when I read articles like this is a resigned feeling of “No shit, we’ve only been hearing warnings of this for the past 30 years. People are fucking stupid”
There used to be plausible deniability. “Maybe it won’t really be that bad, even though we should be acting in case it is.”
Now it’s more of a “I wonder where the various lines are and how many we’ve already crossed, which one will be next, and how soon we’ll notice it.”
Have you noticed the number of insects is way down this year? Maybe I’m wrong. They do still gather in the lights (which might be another part of the fucking problem…) but there just doesn’t seem to be as many as there used to be this year.
The irony is that if we did act as if it would be that bad, it wouldn’t be that bad because we would have mitigated the worst of it, and it’d become a laughing-stock for non-critical thinkers.
See also: Y2K…or more recently, comparing COVID death rates for vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations.
This is the reason I finally pulled the plug on Reddit. Too much r/climate and others like that in my feed.
Now let’s see how long will Lemmy last. Ultimately I’ll just let myself die while playing Baldurs Gate 3 during a random heatwave in bliss ignorance of what’s going on in the ocean or Florida or Italy or wherever.
Jews around the word are less safe because of Israel when they were promised the opposite. Their faith has been used as a cover for a land grab and they put your holy symbol on a flag they go to war, and worse, under. It’s no wonder so many Jews at least in the US are critical of Israel. It probably feels a lot like being a regular Muslim watching groups commit violence with their religious iconography and warped interpretations used to create ‘justification’.
Edit: good old Lemmy, where saying it’s bad to hate on people just because of where they’re born will get you downvoted to oblivion. You all need to step back and re-examine your views.
You can’t read. Those are facts and written in a passive voice. Condoning the behavior reads something like: “The state of Israel has sown seeds of ill will nurtured by lies and here comes harvest time” or “Yeah fuckers, get dunked on world stage” or something similar and in-between.
How on earth is that passive voice? Their whole reply is devoted to criticising Israel, and not a single word to the effect of “it isn’t OK to treat people badly because of where they are from”. This sounds an awful lot like victim-blaming to me.
Edit: let’s try a little experiment. Imagine me replying this to an article about a Palestinian being banned from a hotel simply for being Palestinian.
Palestinians around the word are less safe because of Hamas when they were promised the opposite. Their faith has been used as a cover for terrorism and they put your holy symbol on a flag they go to war, and worse, under. It’s no wonder so many Muslims in the middle east are critical of Palestinians. It probably feels a lot like being a regular Christian watching Republicans commit violence with their religious iconography and warped interpretations used to create ‘justification’.
Incredible bigotry and hypocrisy on display here. You know nothing about this “Alex” fellow. Maybe he’s been out in the streets protesting against Likud and calling for an end to the war.
If that were the case, “Alex” would understand what’s happening, instead of making it a national case.
If my country, with a democratically elected leader decides to go do an ethnic cleanse to illegally occupy the land of a fellow country while not giving a single fuck about human rights and international laws, I’d understand if someone wouldn’t want me in their business.
It doesn’t say they’re excluding all Jewish people, it says they’re excluding Israelis. You know, people from the country where they all serve in the military, except the most extreme religious extremists (for now anyway), the country actively violating international law in the West Bank and actively committing genocide.
There are plenty of non-Israeli Jewish people. Non-Zionist Jews are lovely people and should not be excluded.
This is the same as refusing to do business with apartheid South Africans.
This is some random dude, not Benjamin Netanyahu. Would you support that hotel banning all Palestinians because they are governed by an internationally-recognized terrorist organisation?
Sounds like this is someone with significant ties to the IDF. Although since they force everyone except religious extremists to serve, maybe that doesn’t mean much.
If they’re able to conclusively prove that, then sure, I’m on board with the ban. I would question how some hotel clerk in Japan was able to make that determination, though. It could easily be a case of “most Israelis serve in the IDF and you are Israeli therefore GTFO”
Not sure you’re seriously asking but the answer is 2006. Add to that the fact that the median age in Gaza is 18 years and it’s clear that Hamas doesn’t have a legitimate governance mandate. They’re a mob outfit.
Because every Israeli voted for the government they now have? It’s stupid to exclude a whole nationality of people from traveling because of their government.
Because every Israeli voted for the government they now have?
Innocent people are being murdered by a government. Telling people represented by that government that they are not welcome is perfectly acceptable. It is in their hands to change their government more than it is mine.
That’s bullshit. The USA kills innocent people, but I wouldn’t ever say all Americans are not welcome. I wouldn’t even say all Russians aren’t welcome. Many people oppose their government and yet can’t do anything about what it does.
Innocent people being killed is important enough to harm people by telling them they’re not welcome to holiday with you, because you disagree with what their government is doing. Yes, that is a form of collective punishment. No, it is not as bad as being killed because you happened to be born Palestinian.
This is the same as refusing to do business with apartheid South Africans.
Reminds me of some of the tourism sanctions on Russians as well. I don’t like when the net’s cast too wide, I know for a fact there are Israeli and Russian peoples who would stop these conflicts if they could and it sucks they’re caught up in this, but I can understand the premise of barring by nationality. I just also know in the case of Israel, it’s likely going to be taken to far or used as a point to embolden bigots who may try to use this to cover their beliefs about all Jews and make them appear easier for normal folk to tolerate. Really a double edge sword because I do think Israel needs a dose of responsibility, hell if the world had the balls American could use one too.
Of course it hurts the average person similar to the way sanctions against a country hurt the average person. One of the goals is to get the average person upset against their government.
A tourism issue like that is a pretty small annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but it’s one that sends a pretty clear message that’s hard for the individual to ignore.
Yup, as an American I will be voting for Biden this year and hoping for the best, but I won’t be surprised if my passport no longer has any staying power if Trump dismantles our democracy, and I won’t blame the countries that deny tourism from the US knowing what half the population will be like at that point
Im not the one who made the claim, but punishing people over things they have no control over are exactly what sanctions are. Its commonplace and often done simply to protect national interests against foreign ones, no matter who’s right or wrong.
Well, like you said USA has punished and still to this day punishes many peoples of the World far far far FAR more severely than forbidding them to go on vacation for doing far less or even nothing at all. All I’m saying is as an American it would be a nice thought experiment for you to consider why you are or should be an exception.
Sure. But that’s a different issue. That doesn’t require punishing some random citizen; One who has nothing to do with, and no control over what the US, or Israel governments do.
You don’t have a right to travel abroad. Am i being punished for not being allowed to fly to Russia, Iran or North Korea? I’m not Muslim nor do i work in ONG, so am i being punished for not being able to travel to Saudi Arabia? What about Cuba? South Africans had serious visa restrictions during Apartheid, which was absolutely justified when they were an openly racist regime.
I regret to inform you that according to Lemmy you are personally responsible for the actions of every other American, and are by extension a terrible human being who should never be allowed past the borders of your country.
I don’t want to be held responsible for the appalling actions of my government, but as a voter I understand why people in other countries would. I have more control over it than they do, so them influencing me influences my government.
Punishing unknown people for the actions of their government?
Yes, I agree, killing innocent people because of the country they are in is terrible.
So terrible that the act of limiting the leisure options of the people who support those actions becomes morally acceptable, because shaming bad behaviour is actually a good thing to do.
The issue is the death of innocent people. Inconveniencing people such that they become motivated to stop their government from doing that seems acceptable, to me.
Well the people who don’t agree with their government and the consequences of its decisions should get out and vote instead of letting right wing extremists get their guy in power.
Denial of hospitality is not the same as a punishment. Speak to US soldiers stationed on Okinawa and you’ll hear similar sentiments from the locals towards them
Saying “I don’t want to offer room and board to a IDF soldier who may have been in Gaza” isn’t a big leap for Japanese society, they’ve apologized for and reckoned with their imperialist past and brutal ethnic cleansing, and generally as a nation actively pushed for peace and cooperation globally. Israel hasn’t done the same, and doesn’t work towards the same goal.
You’re being down voted for espousing a false dichotomy, on par with “if you aren’t with us you’re against us”
That’s the boldest doublespeak I’ve seen in a long time. I’m not the one supporting a blanket ban of all citizens of an entire country. It doesn’t get much more “with us or against us” than that.
I think there’s a lot of nuance here, because “supporting Israel” can mean a lot of different things. Generally agreeing with the idea of being allies with a primarily Jewish state and wanting a good well-being for them is very different from endorsing Israel’s genocide against Gaza, but both could be considered as “supporting Israel”.
I notice similar things as well, in that my personal expirences with them, comapred to average US population, US Jews seem to be far more informed on whats happening and far more likely to have at least harsh critisizm for Isreal. Part of why I really hate people conflating the two in order to spread hate.
Not to rain on your experience, but aren’t a lot of Zionists in the illegal land settlements also Americans, and aren’t a lot of the Jewish people participating in “birthright trips” also American?
US Jewish populations are actually really polarized on this topic, they aren’t a monolith. There is definitely more of an age/generational divide regarding Zionism in Jewish communities than a nationality split.
I am very much in contact with the younger, far more left leaning crowd, so my experience is definitely skewed against basically anything modern Israel has done.
I do know a couple loud mouthed older generational Jewish folk who would like nothing more than for Israel to be the dominant power on the planet, and will have no issue telling you that you deserve torture and torment for literally infinite time (hell) for even vocally supporting Palestinians.
There’s a very logical filter at play here: if you didn’t think seeking beef with Arabs and participating in a colonialist project in the 50s/60s/70s was a good idea, you would have stayed in the US, and otherwise, you would have moved to Israel. This made it so that Jews in the US lean liberal and Jews in Israel lean ethno-nationalistic, in very broad terms.
The Star of David is not a Jewish holy symbol, having that would be sacrilege anyway, similar to idolatry. It’s not even the Star of David, to be honest.
At some point Jewish secularists in Europe wanted some symbol for the Jewish identity. They picked one very commonly used in the Middle East, by all peoples and religions.
By the way, crescent is not a Muslim holy symbol, too, and with the same implication of idolatry. Though they have in practice accepted it, just like Jews. It’s the symbol of Constantinople, which Ottomans used in line with their pretense to be heirs of Rome (I mean, if Germans can do that, why not them).
Many of the Jews around the world have a very idealized idea of Israel and simply can’t believe it’s bad. See, when you are a member of a demonized (even today) minority, but somewhere is a strong and successful state of your nation that has restored its presence in its cradle 2000 years after being partially wiped out, partially expelled from there, you tend to be irrational.
Also separation of religion and nation is a Western thing, Jewish religion is about a nation, and, by the way, Muslim religion too states that all Muslims are one nation.
EDIT: OK, why the downvotes here? Everything here is factual. And if that’s the paragraph about 2000 years triggering people - that’s a right, yes. The state of Israel sucks, but not the general idea. Same as Sebastia, Malatia, Sis, Sasun, Mush, Van are Armenian till the end of days in my book.
At least the Germans had the Holy Roman Empire. The Ottomans knocked over the Byzantines who actually were the old Eastern Roman Empire. The Ottomans had about as much claim to one of the crowns of Rome as the Netherlands has to the HRE crown.
No, they didn’t get any side eyes. Only maybe from western Europeans who considered themselves that. Even calling them Byzantines is anachronistic, they were called Romans.
Greeks literally mainly called themselves Romans since then till Kingdom of Greece became a thing, and they kinda still do.
Interesting. I never knew that. I still don’t think the Ottomans get to be the Romans any more than modern Italy or Germany but I’ll concede they conquered people who considered themselves Roman still.
Being Armenian, I don’t think they in any way get to be Roman, even less than Russians, but it’s a fact that they called themselves that officially.
Italy speaks Romance languages, except for the parts of its population which speak Greek and Albanian, so of course. And both Italy and Germany are (historically during formation of those nations) Christian.
They feel he tilted the trial? He handled Trump with kid gloves the whole trial while he was throwing constant diaper filled tantrums. If anything he went way too easy on the orange baboon.
The problem with that is, moderates then treat them with kids gloves, thinking that will stop them from saying it.
It never does.
To deal with fascists you throw the book at them, max legal punishment for every crime.
Because even if you just give them a slap on the wrist, their ideology requires them to say they were treated unfairly and are being persecuted.
It’s like how they’ll call the most conservative Dem in office a communist. So there’s no point in running a conservative Dem, they’ll fight them as hard as the most progressive.
There’s no rational reason to compromise before the fight starts.
Many judges grant the defense way more leeway than the prosecution. One reason is actually pretty brutal- it keeps them from having something to appeal.
Trump obviously wants to drag this out as long as possible, and keep re-rolling the dice until he wins. Preventing that is a worthy goal.
While there is some credence for that, it’s not like it only applies to fascists.
Yet they always get preferential treatment at trial.
Regardless of if that’s like Trump’s case where he appointed the judge, or this one where the other party appointed the judge.
In both situations, the judges are more lenient with fascists than literally any other demographic.
trump isnt the only example, look at all the 1/6 trials.
Our justice system has a bias towards fascists, and regardless of the reasoning of the person showing the bias, they all believe it’s justified for one reason or another.
And it’s always the wrong strategy when dealing with fascists.
This is particularly true for politicalized trials, because appeals courts are almost always more conservative than the lower courts. As you appeal higher, the courts tend to be more and more conservative, so a conservative’s chances of winning increase. So if you want to prevent a conservative from winning on appeal, the best way is to never give them anything to appeal in the first place.
Yeah, it’s the card says moops. They aren’t arguing what they think is true, they’re arguing what they think will get them what they want if they can convince people is true
He’s not going to give Trump a prison term. He said as much during Trump’s tenth contempt citation. This is Senators grandstanding so that they can go home and tell their constituents “I fought for your President and I won!” when the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Its all kabuki.
If only someone could have seen it coming that no matter how soft the judges would be, half the country would allege wrongdoing. Judge may as well have just given him the letter of the law treatment. Would probably have been better for the country too to see Donny in contempt of court, that way the eager ones burn themselves out soon instead of letting every racist in the country simmer in a pressure cooker awaiting a verdict.
A federal appeals court has shot down claims that there’s a First Amendment right not to wear face masks during the COVID-19 outbreak. A federal appeals court shot down claims Monday that New Jersey residents’ refusal to wear face masks at school board meetings during the COVID-19 outbreak constituted protected speech under the First Amendment. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in two related cases stemming from lawsuits against officials in Freehold and Cranford, New Jersey. The suits revolved around claims that the plaintiffs were retaliated against by school boards because they refused to wear masks during public meetings. In one of the suits, the court sent the case back to a lower court for consideration. In the other, it said the plaintiff failed to show she was retaliated against. Still, the court found that refusing to wear a mask during a public health emergency didn’t amount to free speech protected by the Constitution. - TV-MA, 59 mins
If it helps, they were both shot down by the District court and while their suits requested injunctive relief (which was moot shortly after filing as mandates ended), they also wanted compensation. So the only result potentially being delayed was them getting money.
I just don’t want to get sick. I get sick from catching other peoples airborne illnesses in public. I wear a mask in public to reduce that risk. It’s not that complicated.
There were actual studies done and that kind of mask (aka “hospital masks”) are more effective at reducing transmission when worn by the person who is sick than by when worn by other people, with the best protection (naturally) achieved when both wear a mask.
(Note that doctors also use masks during surgery and when seeing immuno-compromised patients, so that theory of yours immediatly jumps out as at best incomplete even without knowing about these studies)
There are masks with a much higher protection level which are much better at personal protection (not really meant to protect others from you), such as the PF1, PF2 and so on, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
So the previous poster was entirelly right.
Looking at the upvotes/downvotes here it’s surprising how fast people seem to have forgotten this kind of information that was circulating widelly during peak COVID pandemic times.
Really makes you wonder what money is getting passed around on the back end to make these sniveling traitors kiss the ring of America’s biggest enemy since WWII.
I sure as fuck wouldn’t ask any unplanned hard hitting questions if I was an American reporter interviewing Putin in Russia. That interview is gonna be scripted as hell.
Fucker Carlson has never asked a hard question a day in his life. He’s there to get propaganda talking points directly from his boss since he can’t get them filtered through Fox anymore.
That’s also why nobody defended him. He’s a nazi PsyOps operative; not a journalist. Anything he asks is performative and only to serves his agenda. He doesn’t deserve defence. He deserves ridicule.
Defended him from what exactly? He’s the only one claiming that the supposed interview was blocked.
It’s no different than me claiming that I was supposed to be the next president of Russia, but was blocked by the US government, and nobody defended me!
Nah, Putin’s too smart to script interviews. He knows that he can lie, straightfaced, and absolutely nothing will come of it. They’re already sanctioned to hell by basically every major country on Earth, he’s shipping thousands of Russian men to the Ukrainian front just to feed them into a meatgrinder that’s barely holding any ground at all, and still the Russian people do nothing because there’s nothing to do. Everyone who really, actually gave a shit about making a change is either jailed in some fortified cement block in Siberia, abroad and too scared of getting assassinated to come back, or has already been assassinated. So they rise up, so what? There’s a tide of oligarchs who will rush in to replace Putin at the head of the table, and most of them have their own military forces on speed dial.
damn i didnt even notice until it was pointed out. they really call it that??? why not just call it “zero empathy”? they could stretch that to mean the same thing
Bullies rarely get in trouble. Because if they do, their bully parents show up at the school up bully the faculty and drive them crazy for daring to discipline their little shit stain. That’s why it’s always the victim who gets in trouble.
That or the bully isn’t impacted because they don’t give a shit about school to begin with. A suspension is just get out of school pass. Meanwhile the kid who cares about school is actually put behind on their schooling.
As a big kid the short bullies wanted to start a fight with, my trick was to go bigger, louder, and be aggressively non-violent to a point. Get the attention of everyone in the room and make it clear what is going down. Psycho analyze the little shit and be loudly empathetic to their shitty home life. Make it clear that I have no ill will towards said bully despite the bullying because I pity them. Make it clear that I have no shame to use against me. Do all of this as loudly as possible. Speak from the belly to project without screeching. I never got reprimanded for being loud and weird.
This worked for the type of bullies I got, results may vary. I watched a lot of MacGuyver, Dr. Who, Star Trek, and animal documentaries as a kids. The through line of all of those was finding less violent solutions to your problems, especially avoiding guns and weapons. If you watch animal documentaries, there are two basic types of violent encounters between animals: predator/prey and same species mating/territorial stand offs. The thing to realize is that the same species disputes rarely do much damage. They’re all about making a show. Bullies aren’t predators, they’re hormonal teenagers. Give them a confusing show and they’re more likely to loose interest. Again, situations vary and different tactics may be required, but the main thing is to be get creatively non-violent.
Also because schools like to claim that they are bully free. Actually addressing bullying problems is hard, but sweeping incidents under the rug is extremely easy.
When my oldest son was in the third grade, a kid jumped in front of him in line (ironically going to an anti-bullying assembly). My son put his hands up to his face since the kid was so close to him. The kid then kicked my son in the side so hard that he left a shoe print on my son’s side.
The next day I had a meeting with the teacher, assistant teacher, and the principal about the incident. First, they told me that nobody saw what happened. Then, they told me that my son started it by putting his hands up to protect his face. Finally, the principal told me that my son “isn’t the type of kid to be bullied.”
At that point, I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with them. They were trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug so they wouldn’t need to deal with it. I left the meeting and my wife and I pulled our child from that school. We contacted the superintendent and raised a fuss until they agreed to put our son in another school. (He did a lot better there and now is thriving in college.)
I’m having trouble because my kids are huge. Someone punches or shoves them, they don’t move. We’ve managed to stop the reaction, but when they push back the other kid goes flying. Almost all instances corroborated by staff. My kids get punished.
My daughter was bullied so badly by so many kids in her middle school that she woke up one day, broke down and told us she just couldn’t face going there anymore. We took her out that day and put her in online school. This was after begging and pleading with the administration to do something about the bullying. The best they did was lecture both the worst bully and her to not fight. This was the day after this bully doxxed her- and therefore our family- and started prank calling her. We don’t even know how she got that information. The school didn’t care.
Online school is going to be hard. I had to quit my job to help her. But we would rather go down to a single income than have her deal with one more day of that.
I’m happy for your son, but the fact that these people who are supposed to look after children are so systematically cruel makes my blood boil. Not only for the lack of justice, but because most likely there are children who were in your son’s situation in that school who have been suffering much worse.
Yep. Bully parents show up with their bully attorneys to bully the district in court. Zero Tolerance exists to protect the school, not the students. That way, in court their lawyers can point to it and say, “Our hands are clean! We have a Zero Tolerance policy! Per district policy, we cannot take sides!”
While it’s not all the way there, the “depraved heart” rule does exist.
It allows the court to consider extreme indifference to the safety of others as being so depraved that it can be considered intent to kill - elevating wrongful death to 2nd degree homicide.
An example would be a drug or auto manufacturer executive choosing not to issue a safety recall for financial reasons. The idea is there’s clear knowledge that great harm is likely from their inaction, and they’re actively choosing to inflict that harm.
That’s not what they did tho. They did this instead … and lower courts said no.
J&J is among four major companies that have filed so-called Texas two-step bankruptcies to avoid potentially massive lawsuit exposure. The tactic involves creating a subsidiary to absorb the liabilities and to immediately file for Chapter 11.
Look up MNK/Mallinkrodt aka SpecGX. Just filed for bankruptcy right after emerging from bankruptcy in order to shed the original agreement of future products in lieu of fines or some such shit. Opioid manufacturer double bankruptcy.
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