I feel like blaming this on the covid disinfo might be going too far. If the guy was this unhinged, it was just a matter of time before something triggered him.
I for one support imprisoning all radical fascist right wing conspiracist talk show hosts. They are literally a Clear And Oresent Danger and must have miltary action taken against them.
You must be referring to the peaceful tour in which people were bludgeoned, trespassed, and shot in an attempt to stop the certification of a democratic election. Please don’t exaggerate!! (:
All true, but where is the money for university research coming from?
I mean, some of those research grants come from the same private companies. There’s value to them in using that money to train the next generation of scientists, in addition to funding basic research they can use directly.
But, admittedly I don’t claim to know how the research dollars are split between private/government/other.
I worked at a US university for 12 years, I can’t speak to what happens in Canada, but here in the US it’s definitely a mix. Student tuition is not used for research at all, at least not in any research program I’ve ever heard of.
In fact, research grants are garnished (usually to the tune of 30% or more) to pay general university expenses, and student instruction is part of that budget.
Thanks for the info. I suspect the same thing happens with Canadian universities. Almost all levels of government help fund them and would probably deduct research grants and patent fees from funding.
Here in California the big research schools make a LOT of money by licensing to private industry. There are often a number of prominent law suits over research patents with the universities and private industry. The universities very much want to keep their patents and make money from them.
Looking at the news for CRISPR tells ya a lot about how modern research works and how universities make money.
Depends on the university., but schools with big flagship research departments like Stanford and the California UC systems make a shit load of money by licensing stuff to private industry. Which is why universities like UC Berkeley are fighting legal battles over CRISPR patents - licensing that stuff is going to make the UC system a fuck load of money.
I swear I read somewhere that even when companies were at their peak of investing money into research, more than 50% of it in the US was still coming from government funding.
That’s almost certainly the case. Here’s a breakdown of funding at UCLA that shows 25% of research funding coming from non-government sources. The rest is federal, state, or other government.
Some Republicans on the committee pushed back on Democratic criticism of pricing, arguing that pricing is what the market will bear. “In capitalism, if you’re running an enterprise where you have a fiduciary responsibility to your owners, you try and get as high a price as you can,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said. “That’s what you try and do. You try and make as much profit as you can. That’s how free enterprise works. You think Chevrolet sits back and says, ‘Gosh, how can we get the price of this Chevrolet down?’ No, it’s like, ‘How high a price can I get and maximize the profit for my shareholder?’” He went on to describe price controls as “socialism lite”.
Fuck anyone actually trying to live, I suppose. People dying due to not being able to afford healthcare is what the market has no trouble bearing. All to avoid a little “socialism”.
(Whoops I meant to reply to the post, not specifically your comment).
Thank goodness for the Hippocratic origins of healthcare. Wish I could throw his words back at him so he could hear how insane it sounds in the context of healthcare. Just imagine:
You think a doctor sits back and says, ‘Gosh, how can we get the price of saving this patient’s life down?’ No, it’s like, ‘How high a price can I get and maximize the profit for my shareholder?’"
Vulture capitalism, private equity and the like is the private sector with their priorities mixed up. For it to work properly, a company needs to have a charter and follow it ahead of a profit motive.
In San Diego, big pharma is now heavily investing into AI to do a lot of the chemical compound matching that was traditionally done by people like chemists and biotech employees too.
More money for the company, less paychecks to dispense.
I’ll say it again and again, before you call the cops for anything, you need to remember what you’re actually doing. You are willingly inviting an armed person, who will not lose a fight or back down, who is shielded from legal consequences, into your situation.
Grandpa isn’t answering his phone or the door and you’re worried? Call a locksmith, not the cops. Cops will just kick the door or call the locksmith anyway, now you have extra problems
That’s what defund the police is about. It’s about shifting the funding to other sources, social workers and such, that can handle calls like these. It relieves police of having to deal with stuff like this, too.
Defund was a horrible fucking name for the movement though. We’d need the conservatives to be on board and they’re not going for that shit cause they’ll stop listening as soon as they think you’re taking power away from their tastiest boots.
Even I agree with that. And I was one of those annoying guys screaming ACAB and shit. I really wish that didn’t end up becoming the main slogan, because I really agree with the idea behind it. It’s like if pro-choice people were framing their own position as pro-killing babies on their signs and stuff.
The idea was that if only 10% of cops are actually “bad” and will hurt you, if the other 90% aren’t reporting them and holding them accountable, you cant trust that ANY cop is part of that 90% because choosing wrong can end your life.
But then again you can’t explain all of that in one word lol
That’s not entirely true. Police departments demand conformity, following orders, and keeping a code of silence. Officers who tried to speak out about it in the past have been killed. While that’s the extreme end of things, it doesn’t take long to realize that being a good person and being a cop are mutually exclusive. Some departments make sure you receive morally dubious assignments during your year long probation. Assignments like arresting homeless people and destroying all of their possessions. Can you destroy someone’s life like that? If not then they flush you out and complain about an officer shortage for more money. That’s what ACAB is about. The guys who stood there and watched George Floyd get murdered are only the tip of the problem. The underwater iceberg is absolute lack of morality they show when interacting with the public.
I mean shifting responsibility over to social workers etc for some of their jobs rn will accomplish most of that, but yes, it’s fucking insane how many war weapons they get to use on the people who literally pay for them, accountability definitely needs to be addressed as well
He wasn’t saying it was a bad idea, but that it was a bad name. You want to get something done in a democracy, you gotta get people on board. You want people on board, you gotta sell it.
Optics and phrasing matter. For as much criticism as Democrats get about being inept at it, ACAB and Defund show that the critics aren’t a whole lot better.
Arguably, the way people perceive your project is more important than what it actually does. Probably a combination of both dems being shit at optics and repugs having the most well oiled propaganda machine in the world, cause it keeps fucking happening.
The left in general just seems terrible at this. I suspect it’s because we hold ourselves to morals.
I will say that Buttagieg had the perfect rebuttal to being called socialist – “they’re going to call us socialist anyway, that shouldn’t stop us from making socialist policies”, paraphrasing.
Or shunting off good candidates. Bernie has been talking truth for fucking 50 years but no nomination. There’s no central talking head, no real stated goal…
I vote blue but fuck me they suck at rallying voters to a cause
I think most of this was because of the successful propaganda campaign that made every BLM protest sound like a riot when it was some tiny percentage in truth
I know Pelosi is one of the magats’ favorite talking points, but last time I saw Pelosi’s market gains posted, she wasn’t even in the top 10 of Congressfucks rigging their investments, and it wasn’t close to being a one party issue.
So? You approve of the behavior? That sounds like “what aboutism”, ignoring the point. Unless you have a spare 500k to send to me showing how little you care because it’s insignificant.
What the right doesn’t get is that the left wants this corruption to stop, even when the corruption is from the same side. The GOP only wants the other side to be held accountable
Maybe the left like you and me do, on the ground, but I guarantee that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are just fine with how things are right now.
Yeah I was thinking more about left voters instead of pols. Almost everyone in congress is fine with the corruption. But right wing voters hardly ever criticize their own, let alone the maga cultists
I was talking about the voting base, and how dem voters are willing to criticize the dem electorate, while GOP voters (even leaving MAGA aside, bc they’re a lost cause to the cult) don’t hold their representatives accountable.
Dem voters are the Dem electorate. Did you mean Dem representatives?
And you’re still eliding the difference between the left and centre-right. Left and centre-left voters are willing to criticise Dem politicians. The centre is not. And, while hypocrisy absolutely is a characteristic of the right because they know how power works, it’s nonsense to suggest that the entirety of the Dem electoral coalition holds its representatives to account. It doesn’t, not least because a large proportion are in on the grift. And that’s why we’re having another global fascist spasm. Liberals refuse to challenge power, not least because they like its perks and also believe that those perks should exist.
I don’t think a large portion of the dem voter base benefits from the grift that the dem politicians are participating in. If they were rich and wanted to benefit, they’d just vote GOP. Don’t get me wrong, the rich who vote dem absolutely benefit from the corporate center of the party (which is most of it), but the wealthy class is a tiny proportion on both sides and I was talking about the majority.
And I think you’re giving too much credit to the GOP voters by saying they “know how power works”. The vast majority of them are useful idiots taken in by culture war nonsense continually voting against their self interest.
And there is barely any difference in the proportion of rich people voting GOP or Dem. 1-2% in the 2020 exit polls. In 2016, Clinton had swings in her favour amongst the very rich, and larger swings against amongst lower income and POC voters. Not because they switched to the GOP but because she gave them no reason to turn out.
You’re projecting your ideal onto a party which relies on the very wealthy to fund their politics. And they can do that because it is how power works and why they do not want to challenge power.
Stop confusing the left with the centre. The necessity of the electoral coalition is precisely a result of power, and its ability to silence the left while pandering to the right.
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” – Chuck Schumer, 2016
You’re projecting your ideal onto a party which relies on the very wealthy to fund their politics.
I’m not talking about the rich, because while they wield outsized clout in what their parties do, they’re a tiny percentage of the population and consequently voters. All I’m saying is the vast majority of dem voters (they’re not wealthy and they don’t benefit from the grifting that the majority that the dem pols do) are willing to criticize dems. The opposite is not true–most GOP voters, who also don’t benefit from anything the GOP elected does, will never speak a word against the people in office.
Yeah, sure. Wealthy people don’t have any power, even with all those newspapers and TV channels they own, or the politicians relying on them for donations and cushy jobs once they’re out of office.
I refer you back to the Schumer quote and beg you to wise the fuck up. You cannot understand anything about this world if you do not understand how power works.
Dude I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Poor people make up the majority of the country and poor dem voters criticize dem pols. Poor gop voters don’t criticize gop pols. That was the entire meaning of my original comment.
The last time I checked, the right disowned that musician for clarifying that he was criticizing the wealthy right as well as the wealthy left. He was disowned by conservatives as soon as they realized he was criticizing them too.
I think you are being weirdly aggressive in your approach to “debate”, if a debate is even what is happening here. This guy is not your enemy. You should focus that anger where it’s needed, at an actual enemy.
I said page 181. You will need to look at page 181.
And no, I am not going to pretend to have the skills of Raymond Williams, nor the time to rewrite his perfect words just for you. Sorry 'bout that but, do some reading, yeah?
Here’s some more reading for you. Excellent writing, if you can be bothered to apply yourself. If you do, you’ll discover that you (currently) have no clue what a liberal is, or why they’re very fucking bad.
Italian fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship that took over a European country, and all similar movements later found a sort of archetype in Mussolini’s regime. Italian fascism was the first to establish a military liturgy, a folklore, even a way of dressing — far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be. It was only in the Thirties that fascist movements appeared, with Mosley, in Great Britain, and in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal, Norway, and even in South America. It was Italian fascism that convinced many European liberal leaders that the new regime was carrying out interesting social reform, and that it was providing a mildly revolutionary alternative to the Communist threat.
While Umberto Eco is great reading, this passage does not offer your definition of “liberal” or why you think it is bad. We may agree on this, but you seem to be unable to articulate your definition for “liberal” or why you think it is bad. I am sincerely not trying to trick you. People have different definitions for the word, so I can neither agree with nor debate you on this without first knowing your preferred definition. But maybe debate is not necessary here.
In response to my question, you’ve cited passages of essays that offer no definitions or value assignments. For example, you referred me to a book of essays written almost 50 years ago by a talented Welsh author. I have read the page you cited (and several other pages), and found the essayist to make great points about various political connotations of the word “liberal” for that year (1975). The author is very clear in his refusal to define the word or even point to the connotation with which he agrees. Instead, he describes the various connotations of the word from different political perspectives. The most negative ones seemed to describe what most people in the U.S. now call “neoliberalism”. Again, great author. I really enjoyed what I’ve read so far and plan to read more. Thank you for that.
Being from the U.S. and very much alive in the 1970’s, I will give you my observations from that perspective. Until the 1980’s (after the essay you referenced), most political discourse in the U.S. used the word “liberal” as a term to describe a fiscal policy that could be applied to anyone in the right circumstances. During the Reagan administration, U.S. conservatives began using the word exclusively as a pejorative to mean “progressive” or even “socialist”. As you know, neither of those words are synonyms for “liberal” in any respect. This use of the word was a scare tactic intended to drive uneducated voters into conservative arms. This narrow use of “liberal” became the new label for progressives here, unfortunately. Today, that damage is slowly beginning to become undone as socialists, Marxists, communists and progressives begin to communicate more effectively with the rest of the world on forums such as Lemmy.
I’m not sure why you chose such a demeaning and insulting tone in your interactions here, but I don’t think it’s because the people you are communicating with truly disagree with your politics. The author you cited seems great to me and I agree with his observations. So, I suspect our politics may be more aligned than you realize. But, I find the way you communicated with the other person in this thread to be unreasonably hostile. I then stepped in to let you vent on me, thinking you might be a conservative. I love making conservatives look like the dumb-fucks they are. But, you don’t seem to be a conservative. So, I guess I’ll be nice to you despite your inexplicably condescending and angry tone. In any case, please feel free to respond or share more great authors. Or not. Either way, I wish you well.
OK, so I did read this in a bored moment, and what the actual fuck?
a book of essays written almost 50 years ago
Are you somehow under the impression that liberalism is a new concept that could not possibly have been understood by scholars 50 years ago? Do you know anything about its origins or the philosophical works it draws from? Or do you just believe that people should pull definitions straight out of their arse rather than use authoritative sources?
You do have a substantial disadvantage, being from the US where the word is so badly misused. But come the fuck on, do some reading. The link is another excellent esssay, by an actual liberal. Read it.
Why isn’t th federal government making a bigger deal out of the fact that an official political candidate was used in a deep fake ad saying non consensual words for political interference
Why haven’t these people been charged? Or at least found?? This was a litmus test for more deepfakes of joe during the main election…and they got the approval
Does this mean that liberals can do the same thing with DJT?
You’re not thinking deeper enough. Imagine a deep-faked Trump saying “Actually, I like Mexicans. It was all a joke. Borders open for everyone! And to all of you who gave me money, thank you haha suckers!! I endorse Joe Biden.”
Every time his mental stability or physical health is brought up, I go back to this. His supporters are so sycophantic that he could shit into his open palm and lob it into the crowd at a rally and they’d never question it.
You can also watch videos of Joe Biden and see his daily public schedule and see him getting shit done without much difficulty. He’s obviously not how Republicans describe him but why convincing people not the believe what they can see with their own eyes is part of the Republican strategy.
if both of these candidates defecated on the constitution then wiped with it afterwards the people from both camps would still be clambering to lick those sphincters clean afterwards
You’re not thinking serious enough. Imagine the shit Trump has said on the campaign trail, but now he can tell his cultists directly on their phones. Lighting the kindling and seeing if it blows up or not.
I’m not worried about liberals deepfaking Trump, I more worried about grifters deepfaking Trump to further take advantage of low intelligence/low cognitive function trump supporters. I already see it with freeze dried ration scams and such. I don’t want grifters to get ahold of my inheritance.
DJT’s base doesn’t care. If there was video of Trump saying he’d make abortion mandatory, repeal 2A, increase taxes, and change labor laws so that only gay blacks could apply for jobs, they’d still vote for him. At this point, it’s gone beyond politics, into religion. As long as liberals hate him, that’s enough.
I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic about this. His base has all the marks of sectarianism. The far left does, too, to a lesser degree; look at the behavior of Bernie Bros. I think the difference is that Bernie is sincere about what he works toward, whereas Trump does whatever benefits Trump, but hides it behind rhetoric that only coincidentally corresponds with his actions.
In any case, we on the precipice of a sectarian war in the US. We already see sectarian violence from the right, with several instances of conservative physical attacks on the non-believers. Sooner or later, there’ll be a liberal response; the far-left is certainly capable of it, c.f. the ELF in the 90’s, and although that targetted property and not people, the angry violence is there and it’s not a large step to targetting people.
I don’t care about the technology. I don’t even care if it’s funny. It’s in terrible taste.
If you have a funny standup set, do your routine yourself. If you want funny topical comedy, there are literally dozens of comedians alive today you can watch right now on multiple streaming services and YouTube.
There is no reason to do this other than to be tasteless.
I don’t believe in blasphemy, but if I did, putting words in the mouth of an incredibly insightful genius and presenting it as his words would be blasphemy.
They should have done this with the last Norm MacDonald special that he recorded during the pandemic. Use the same words, but put him in front of an audience.
I agree with you on that. I do wonder how you would feel if GC had written all the material himself and they used the ai to bring his last planned show to life?
Not OP but for me, I think it pivots on the permission of those who knew the comedian best and who might be hurt the most by not asking.
Whether AI writes the jokes, some 3rd party, or the comedian themself did, does the family want that out there, or would it be painful for Robin Williams’ family (remember that he killed himself) to watch a computer ape Williams’ comedy? If you’ve had a loved one pass away, would you want to be asked before someone made an AI of them performing jokes? And would it make it better or worse if the AI did an inferior job of replicating the original person?
Even if Carlin had planned a show, if the wishes of the family were that it be performed by Carlin himself or nobody, then I don’t think anyone had the right to turn an AI loose on the material to “give it a shot”.
Beyond that, I wonder if they have the legal right to use Carlin’s likeness, mannerisms, etc.
I’m certainly no legal expert, but I think it’s the rights of the family that are being infringed upon. I don’t know a thing about the Carlins specific situation, but I think it’s customary for a famous person to leave control of their “intellectual property”, use of their likeness and whatever else, to their next of kin or a trusted friend or someone. And it sounds like the family have those rights, because they’re looking into “what their rights are” (which sounds a lot like “legal options” to me).
I personally think it’s in bad taste specifically BECAUSE the person is deceased - they can’t make the call and go “yeah go ahead” or “I don’t like this, please stop”. Kind of like how someone can’t consent to sex if they’re unconscious (weird parallel, I know).
I feel like the YouTubers are assuming Carlin’s consent, when they don’t really have it. If they’d asked his family, they could have maybe had it. But instead they decided to just go ahead and hope that they can get away with it.
I think Carlin’s daughter has every right to be pissed about not getting asked for her permission, especially if she owns the rights to his material.
> I think it’s customary for a famous person to leave control of their “intellectual property”, use of their likeness and whatever else, to their next of kin or a trusted friend or someone.
No, but many still living people can and do consider the fact that a giant media corporation is puppeting a dead man to squeeze the last bit of profit out of him to be more than a little fucked up. Not an infringement of his rights specifically, but IMO an infringement of ethics and decency.
George Carlin was a dedicated wordsmith. After he dropped the Hippy Dippy Weatherman schtick, he realized if he was going to be a comedian he needed to find an angle and chose language; the way we manipulate language to influence and oppress people fascinated him and he dedicated the rest of his career to exploring it on his specials, standup and in his books. He went from using the same act every time, to intentionally starting from scratch for each new project - he forced himself to build new content instead of reusing stuff, and it made him a much better comedian.
George Carlin did write all the material, the ‘developer’ of this trained it on his standup shows.
GC was not a fan of technology for it’s own means, and he very much appreciated craft.
I think he’d start by giving this shit two big middle fingers.
Well they aren’t trying to pass this off as Carlin’s material. The video starts and ends with a disclaimer saying that it’s an AI generated impersonation.
What if this set was entirely written and performed by a human but in the style of George Carlin? Is that as tasteless?
A little, but not as much as if they were pretending to be George Carlin. I don’t think a disclaimer somehow doesn’t make it tasteless. Imagine it wasn’t Carlin or even a comedian. Imagine if it was, since his day is coming up, Martin Luther King, Jr.? An AI MLK that delivers a speech that is an original speech but similar to one of his, but with a disclaimer that it wasn’t a real MLK. Tasteless? I sure as hell think so.
That makes sense. I think what confuses me about this reaction more than anything is the fact that we’ve had all these different AI recreations of other dead artists that are being met with either a neutral or even positive reception.
I’ve seen a bunch of Kurt Cobain and Chester Bennington songs created by AI where the comments are all talking about how much they love/miss the artist, then this drops and everybody loses their shit.
All I can say is that both sides are wrong. Israel is an apartheid state. I was born Jewish but I do not have to side with Israel. I am far from an antisemite. Evil is evil.
So how can you so easily say both sides are wrong?
If a twelve year old child and thirty-five year old MMA fighter had beef because of the thirty-five year old’s actions, would you say both of them are wrong? Power dynamics should easily change optics here
So in your silly addition what does the MMA fighter get? Because Hamas does not have anything Israel also doesn’t have but Israel has very very much more than Hamas.
Well, it’s a silly addition because it is a silly analogy.
Obviously, an unarmed 12-year old cannot harm an MMA fighter at all. Whereas, Hamas clearly has the ability to hurt Israel. So, in your analogy, you have to give the 12-ywar old something that can severely hurt the MMA fighter. So, okay, maybe give the 12-year old a big can of pepper spray. The assault rifle and rocket launcher were more of an allusion to the weapons Hamas actually has.
If a twelve year old child and thirty-five year old MMA fighter had beef because of the thirty-five year old’s actions, would you say both of them are wrong?
Yes. The child is punching up does not justify the act of punching. The optics of the power dynamic simply mean the thirty-five year old the worst of the two because they’re punching down.
The child is only doing anything because of the adult.
In no situation is the child to blame, you can explain why what they did was wrong but if you don’t acknowledge the circumstances of how we got here you’re being all sorts of disingenuous.
The fact is Israel is wrong here and there’s nothing else to be said. Hamas is a force of desperation, why are they desperate?
In no situation is the child to blame, you can explain why what they did was wrong but if you don’t acknowledge the circumstances of how we got here you’re being all sorts of disingenuous.
I can acknowledge the circumstances that have created this… thing, and still blame the child because none of it absolves them from their actions. Like you said, what they did was wrong. Are we just supposed to ignore the fact that they did was wrong simply because next to them is a bigger asshole who is also doing wrong things on a greater scale? I don’t think so.
The fact is Israel is wrong here and there’s nothing else to be said. Hamas is a force of desperation, why are they desperate?
Israel is wrong here, but it doesn’t mean Hamas isn’t also wrong. Hamas is not a force of desperation. Hamas is just a militant group that uses the desperation of others to further their goals. The ones being desperate are Palestinians, they’ve done nothing wrong and they shouldn’t be blamed. Hamas can fuck right off alongside Israeli government.
Well then you are a fool and your logic is the same reason why people hate zero tolerance policies, because they’re stupid and weak and do nothing but protect the school (state) and continue an abusive system. Good job at being terrible at understanding context or anything complex.
Hamas literally wouldn’t exist if Israel didn’t act this way for decades and also DIDN’T FUND THEM. Did you know that? Israel funded them? Crazy.
You’re clueless.
If you go to a zoo and taunt the chimpanzee and he bites your finger off. You’d blame the chimp.
If you chose to strip down to your undies and skinny dip in sub zero temp and then died of hypothermia. You’d blame the weather.
If you saw radioactive material beside your morning coffee, drank it and died. You’d blame the fabric of the universe for letting radiation exist.
None of that makes sense. Hamas shouldn’t and wouldn’t be in power if not for Israel.
This is 100% on Israel and saying anything else just exposes your misunderstanding of power dyanmics.
Bro, that’s some fucking unhinged shit. You need to take a step back and reevaluate your life if you get so worked up over someone not 100% agreeing with you. We both agree Israel is the main culprit here. I think we both agree that Palestinians are the victims here. The only thing we don’t agree on is whether Hamas is right or wrong. I’m happy to agree to disagree because quite frankly I don’t give a shit about Hamas. Hamas is just pawn. If Hamas didn’t exist it would be the Islamic Jihad and if they didn’t exist it’d be some other militant group from Gaza that gets funded to be the black sheep.
No I don’t need to at all. Your type of view on this situation is the problem.
For decades Israel has been called a “complex issue” and it just isn’t complex. Hamas wouldn’t exist without Israel literally. Israel is committing actual legit genocide and has been. There is nothing complex here. Israel is the only bad guy here. Hamas is nothing here but a pawn for Israel.
I know you aren’t stupid but read the conversations happening sometimes here. People pull this both sides shit and it just doesn’t help, doesn’t explain the situation better only gives Israel a way out to say “well it isn’t ONLY us being bad right?”
No both sides shit on this one. Israel is trash and if they don’t stop this shit / make it better they should be treated as an enemy to mankind just like the Nazis, just like the Turks for the Armenian genocide, just like China for the many genocide they push and just like America and France and Britain and Russia and the rest of the Imperial fucks. This shit seriously needs to be united against 100%.
What you’re doing is saying Native Americans scalped people so they’re evil but never questioning why was there conflict in the first place.
Seems to me as if they are the only ones lifting a finger against the white supremacist settler-colonialist state that is threatening Palestinians with extermination.
Neither side should be proud of their actions here
Oh, I don’t know about that… Hamas’ attack has led to the first large-scale failure of the pro-Israeli propaganda machine in the west in four decades - the hysterically fascist reaction of the US political establishment to this propaganda failure is pretty self-evident.
I’d say Hamas have managed to achieve something quite momentous.
sure, but if you look at literally ANYTHING ELSE about them you’ll see what we mean.
they’re a far right religious extremist organization that wants for Palestine what the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan. they don’t want to stop oppression, they just think it’s affecting the wrong people right now. that region well not get less shitty with them in power.
No, I know perfectly what you mean - your pro-Israeli propaganda is failing rapidly, and your only other option is to resort to “both-sideism.”
As long as Hamas is the only organization willing to actively oppose the white supremacist settler-colonialist state, their ideology is actually irrelevant because Hamas is the lesser evil here - you understand “lesser evil-ism,” right?
We can talk all day long why Israel funded Hamas or why the existence of the Taliban can be blamed on the US, but that doesn’t change anything - Hamas is the lesser evil here.
I’m not saying they’re the same. one is clearly worse. I’m saying it’s probably a bad idea to fund and legitimize an extremist religious government like them. in fact, your point about the US being to blame for the taliban is EXACTLY the point. this is the lesson we need to learn from that. we funded and armed them against what we saw as a greater threat and so we looked past the ideologies of those we supported. if we support and legitimize hamas we’ll be doing the exact same thing again.
I’m definitely not saying we should support Israel, I’m not saying we shouldn’t help Palestine, I’m just saying we need to be careful.
What “we” saw as a greater threat? Middle-eastern nationalism? Exactly how did middle-eastern people not living under the yoke of exploitative white supremacist empires threaten you?
and so we looked past the ideologies of those we supported.
Doesn’t look like it to me. Looks to me like the US’s “leaders” looked at these far-right fundamentalists and decided they were the perfect tool to kill off Arab nationalism and make the middle-east a safe space for the capitalists to loot and plunder with impunity. After all… the overtly nazi-loving fascism of the regimes the US sicced on Latin America was exactly what the US political establishment liked about them. It didn’t exactly turn out in the middle-east as they had planned… but I sure don’t see the military-industrial complex complaining about the current situation much.
if we support and legitimize hamas we’ll be doing the exact same thing again.
Why? Because Hamas has made it perfectly clear that they won’t be the puppets of the very people that sicced this white supremacist settler-colonial state on the Palestinians? That’s a mark in their favor - not one against them.
The choice is between a white supremacist settler state, and an Islamic supremacy group that wants to force everyone else to live under Sharia law. There is nothing good here, it’s all shit all the way down. Israel sucks ass and I completely understand why Hamas is lashing out against them. It is absolutely deserved.
I just don’t understand how you could root for Hamas, unless you are a conservative Muslim who wants to force everyone else to obey Islam. Root for the Palestinian people, but fuck Hamas and its cultists. They aren’t helping their nation at all. They are making things even worse for their own people.
It is completely possible to condemn the actions of Israel and Hamas at the same time. You don’t have to pick a side here, it’s not helping or changing anything except your mental health. Support the innocent people who are caught up in this hellish war, and curse the people perpetuating it.
The choice is between a white supremacist settler state, and an Islamic supremacy group that wants to force everyone else to live under Sharia law.
So it’s a choice between a genocidal white supremacist settler colonialist state and the other far-right fundamentalists that was funded and enabled by the genocidal white supremacist settler colonialist state?
Do tell, Clyde… which one of these represent the closest threat of genocide for Palestinians, eh?
I just don’t understand how you could root for Hamas,
It’s really simple - they are the only ones handing out AKs and RPGs.
They aren’t helping their nation at all. They are making things even worse for their own people.
So what would you prefer the Palestinians do? Simply accept their extermination quietly?
You don’t have to pick a side here
The luxury of not having to pick a side is the most privileged thing there is, Clyde.
Support the innocent people
How does your handwringing about innocent people matter in any of this? It’s colonialist warfare, genius - the genocidal people with all the tanks, aircraft and funding does not recognize innocence, only an other that must be exterminated.
You can support the liberation of the Palestinians and the end of the Israeli apartheid without having to support a terroristic and ultra religious regime who’s only solution to the problem is to “kill every jew”. I mean at least you can say that Hamas are more honest about what they want, but that is not an acceptable thing to support. If you support either regime you are advocating for genocide one way or another.
Hamas would have much more support from the Western world if they didnt target innocent civilians. They are completely justified in fighting for their future, the problem is that their way of going about it is deeply flawed. If you can’t see that then I guess I will just agree to disagree.
I also know that you are going to say, “but Clyde! Israel targets civilians too. They are starving them to death.” Yea I know. Fuck them. I wish somebody with some real power would actually do something about it, but the world sucks. Hamas is accomplishing nothing but accelerating the Palestinians genocide, though. They aren’t helping their people, they are making their lives worse.
I also don’t see how constantly going to bat for Hamas on social media is helping their cause in anyway. It just sounds like it would be draining to be the constant contrarian, but idk maybe you are just a bot.
You can support the liberation of the Palestinians
How does your liberal handwringing “support” Palestinian liberation, Clyde? “Thoughts & Prayers” does not magically turn into AKs and RPGs last time I checked.
No… you’re still the one condemning people resisting a white supremacist settler-colonialist state, Clyde - it’s still not me. It doesn’t get more right-wing than that.
There are many Palestinian groups calling for peace through non-violence. They are doing plenty of stuff. Maybe it gives Hamas a good PR to look like they are the ones “doing something” while the rest of us Palestinians do what? stand there and hold their beers? Please.
I’m going to assume you’ll have no problem showing me how this vaunted “non-violence” has worked against genocidal imperialism in the past. Should be plenty of examples around, shouldn’t there?
It doesn’t work so well, but I don’t mean not using weapons… Just not having to force the civilian population to arm themselves. The UN needs peacekeeping forces to protect Palestinians, and I’m not opposed to any army taking on the IDF.
About half of Israeli Jews are of north African or middle eastern descent. That’s not a “one drop” thing; literally 25% of Israeli Jews were either born or have a father who was born in Asia (outside of Israel) or Africa. The second largest group of first or second generation immigrants are Moroccan Jews.
But in the US context, North Africans and Middle Easterners are considered white, at least as far as the census goes.
Edit: actually, doing a reverse image search, that’s a picture of the Israeli Supreme Court. I think the woman on the right might be Gila Canfy Steinitz, the “first female Mizrahi justice”. News articles aren’t more specific than that for where her family is from, but yeah - somewhere in the middle east or north africa.
No no no, not “pretends”. Is more liberal and modern.
I’m sorry for what must be a soulcrushing amount of cognitive dissonance if you think Israel is not liberal and modern compared to Palestine. It’s so blindingly obvious.
TIL… liberals will enthusiastically support a genocidal white supremacist settler-colonialist state as long as it pretends to be “liberal” and “modern.”
It’s either foolish or malicious to deliberately misrepresent the actions or motivations of these ass-hats just because they’re ass-hats.
The DOJ already has unredacted footage and the blurring of faces is meant to avoid retaliation by “non-governmental actors”, i.e. vigilantes, not to save anyone from arrest.
I disagree. These people broke the law in a serious way. There is no “light treason” when it comes to attempting to obstruct the public vote. We all should know who they are.
There have already been well over 1,000 arrests, a few hundred sentenced, etc. (www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases) and you can look up names/details of those who’ve gone through due process. That’s the system at work, like it or not. I don’t think it’s up to you or me to convict, or harass, or whatever else. You can maybe ID folks whose images are posted by the FBI requesting information from the public. I just hate to see crappy headlines and social media posts distorting what’s happening when it seems pretty simple to verify through non-extreme media outlets.
I say this all with respect.
I hope everyone who gleefully rampaged around the capital gets what is legitimately coming to them.
I understand your point, and appreciate your respect too. If this were petty crime, e.g. shoplifting by some individuals, then I’d agree on keeping the video sealed until due process has, well, processed.
What do we do with several thousand people attacking the core of our democratic process? How do we keep historical accuracy for the future as well, we need to teach people what happened.
I’m conflicted, personally, because I’m glad our representatives see that they’re not untouchable. Maybe it’ll keep them interested in serving those ordinary citizens outside the vaunted halls of the capitol. On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the reasoning behind the traitors’ attempt, and find both the timing and the method suspiciously well planned, by someone who I generally find despicable on multiple levels.
I don’t think you have, unless you want to share what you think I’ve said and refresh my memory. The only political topic I’ve engaged on Lemmy had to do with landlords, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from.
Is this the part where we start up the rumours again that Mike Johnson is anti-MAGA by trying to protect the FBI from Trump vigilantes by only blurring out the faces of informants, and just seeing what happens? Chaos for the sake of chaos?
We should immediately edit the footage with AI to “unblur” the faces with the correct suspects. Then, tag Johnson in every repaired clip we post online.
“nothing to hide” is a common quip espoused by cops and right wingers. The fact that it doesn’t make any sense is irrelevant to it being a) the view that they hold and b) something that they are hypocritical about
I may be confused about your point. It seems like you’re acknowledging that it’s a bad argument, but supporting using it against those whom you despise, no?
It’s not a good argument (nothing to hide), and I think it gets deployed by whomever is trying to lean on someone else. It’s not great to be a hypocrite, but hypocracy doesn’t invalidate an argument.
This is all aside from what I meant to be my main point though, which is that this original post is, in my view, meant to gin up more outrage by misstating what the speaker said. Turning discourse into an exchange of inflammatory bumper stickers is social media’s most toxic influence.
Talking through “nothing to hide” and its ramifications is worthwhile and on point though. Kudos!
Yeah I see the confusion, that was all just hyperbole meant to poke fun at them for being hypocrits. My main point was the word “deterrence”.
If the faces were shown unblurred, it would be a deterrent to others who might think about engaging in insurrection in the future as they wouldn’t be able to hide behind privacy measures … [And back to the poking fun] the very same measures that they disavow when others are subject to them because “if they have nothing to hide …”
They are related, which is why I said both rather than one or the other
Yeah, my fault. I read about this in an Axios article that I linked above. That only makes the rep’s comment more absurd when, again, we know the DOJ has the unedited footage, which is also acknowledged in the Rolling Stone article.
I think everyone involved in Jan 6 should be in jail, but after reading your comment I think blurring faces makes sense. Remember when Reddit caught the Boston bomber?
Yes, although someone else here pointed out to me that the Speaker actually did say he wanted faces blurred to protect those folks from DOJ, which is absurd 1) because I agree that those clowns need to face consequences, and 2) it makes no sense given that DOJ already has the raw footage.
Still, I’d hate to encourage reddit-style vigilantes even if that seems at odds with the fact that the FBI posts images explicitly looking for help in identifying certain suspects.
Well, no, I don’t think that’s obstruction. He’s not hiding them from DOJ, since they already have the footage. Choosing to not publicize faces for John Q Public won’t get in the way of their prosecutions.
The real mystery is how did they get Kevin Sorbo to play Hercules, I mean surely a religious fanatic like him is horrified knowing that he played a pagan God
Because christians never really stopped worshipping that golden calf. They all went along with Moses because he got super pissed, but behind his back they were all “that golden calf though…”
Indeed, I’m not a Christian but I have a close Catholic friend of mine, and although I no longer believe in supernatural, I wish I did but can only Chase rainbows so long until you realize there’s no gold, but one thing we definitely see eye to eye on is that we want to kick anyone who preaches Prosperity Gospel in the goddamn teeth, and then the dick, and then the teeth again, and then kick their ass until their head falls off then kick the head and then kick the ass again because I don’t think it’s learned it’s lesson
And the same is likely true with virtually every other large denomination and probably a lot of small ones too, because those who preach morality the loudest are often the most hypocritical.
The point of any church is to centralize wealth and power. Otherwise why bother with the bureaucracy, the buildings, and the mandatory meetings?
The problem with centralizing wealth and power is that it attracts people who prioritize wealth and power. The problem compounds itself by making it ridiculously easy for basically any man (men, usually and specifically) to become leaders with basically no qualifications necessary other than claims of faith and a little bit of charisma.
People who wish to abuse power (e.g. for personal sexual satisfaction) will seek institutions that already have power that readily and easily allow it to be abused. Churches have always been their perfect home, always ready and willing to accept new abusers into their flock.
Religion and piety are the easiest things to lie about. No qualifications necessary! In fact, you can work your way all the way to the top of any religion and count on it to protect your abuse at every step of the way because publicly acknowledging that abuse happens is really bad for any religion or religious institution.
Once you get higher into the organization you’ll learn about other bad things the church and its people have done and be able to use that knowledge to blackmail others and maybe even hold the entire institution hostage! It’s how big, rich church leaders are made!
I don’t know what the solution is but I can say that so far the best defense against sexual abuse in general is to avoid church and religious institutions.
Although framed as if religion (and a certain one in particular) were a central part of this case, the perpetrator abused his own daughter. Being at one point a bishop in the Church offered no additional power or opportunities that being a parent didn't already afford him. The problem is the state of Idaho has a clergy-penitent privilege law. If that law didn't exist, there would have been no problem with a Latter-day Saint bishop testifying against the abuser.
Go ride supply side Jesus a little harder, and evaporate your critical thinking skills in favor of authoritarian fairtales. Talk about being an idiot, as if those same religious institutions did not lobby for the privilege to not disclose, but sure this isn’t because of religions being able to lobby for laws and buy politicians, sure bud.
The problem is the state of Idaho has a clergy-penitent privilege law.
…Which Mormon leadership strongly pushes to keep. Mormons represent a significant bloc of power in Utah (duh), Idaho, and Arizona. State lawmakers haven’t exempted sexual abuse from priest-penitent privilege in part because the Mormon profphiet has such a strong interest in keep it. They know that the church as a whole would be liable if the privilege didn’t exist, because the policy is to generally cover up sexual crimes because knowledge of those crimes hurts the reputation of the Mormon church. It’s all a PR move; they want to keep the image clean, and that means covering up all the dirty, nasty bits instead of exposing them.
These laws exist in nearly every state. Even California has a similar law, and you could hardly say that the Church has a significant influence on politics there.
Most states have religious interests that have lobbied hard to prevent their clergy from having to report sexual abuse to cops, yes. Most state legislatures bow to those interests, rather than really trying to protect people from sexual abuse.
These laws are mostly from the early 19th century. It wasn't necessary for religious interests to lobby back then because religion was ubiquitous at the time. And even if the laws were more recent, there is nothing inherently immoral or unethical about lobbying for legislation.
There everything immoral and unethical in lobbying for legislation that protects abusers or shields them from consequences. Churches should stay the fuck out of lawmaking.
With that logic, we would have to have a "guilty until proven innocent" judicial system with vigilante justice against people accused of child abuse because our whole system is designed to be (relatively) fair to people accused of committing crimes.
Based on your other comments in this thread, it’s mighty bold of you to be using the word ‘logic’. Why do you insist on putting words in people’s mouths - I’m definitely not advocating for vigilante justice, or ‘guilty until proven innocent’. I just want to reduce the protections offered to people who rape children. I can’t imagine why anyine would be against that, like you clearly are. You’re a bad-faith troll, or a child rapist yourself.
The problem is these protections are designed to protect all of us, no matter what crimes we are accused of committing. They include the right to no incriminate yourself (5th Amendment), the right to due process of law (5th and 14th Amendments), and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Calling me a bad-faith troll and accusing me of raping children doesn't advance your argument, champ.
“It’s also created the paradox that under Iowa law, a 16-year-old student is old enough to consent to sex but not old enough to read about it in school,” Novack said.
I’ll be interested in finding out how Iowa’s lawyers try to pretzel themselves out of that one.
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