The US is really in a timeline in which policy decisions that affect millions of people are made according to the whims of a petulant, vindictive manchild.
It’s as if I just woke up one morning to discover that while I was asleep, the world went insane.
That that’s a “guiding principle” doesn’t even begin to imply that it’s something in which people actually engage.
Now that you mention it though, I’d say that it’s plainly obvious that tankies fail specifically by not engaging in criticism and instead engaging in apologetics. They stubbornly and often even angrily avoid even facing, much less analyzing, the inherent issues with state “communism” and instead dedicate their time and effort to making excuses for and distracting from any and all examples of those inherent issues.
I think it’s also in large part due to the human tendency to simplify reality. Reality is often complex, but we prefer to thing in categories, like black and white. And so you often see people thinking in or blindly accepting false binaries. Side A bad, so side B bad.
Agreed.
Nuance is difficult, and arguably more to the point, it’s sort of vague and insubstantial, not least because an awful lot of it necessariky boils down to “I don’t know.” People generally prefer something more solid to which to cling, so tend toward absolutes and unjustified certainties. And the most attractive ones are binaristic, because then you don’t even have to provide support for your claimed position - all you have to do is find fault with the (generally falsely dichotomous) alternative.
As a couple of poster here are already demonstrating, they discover that western nations have lied about communist nations, but they don’t learn the more fundamental lesson that they shouldn’t trust everything a nation says. So instead of adopting a nuanced view, they just counter believing everything a western nation says with rejecting everything a western nation says and instead believing everything a communist nation says.
The CIA deals in narcotics
Ah.
It’s been apparent from the start that we weren’t getting the full story about what’s really going on with Venezuela, but I had a few theories about it.
The CIA’s involvement makes it likely that the correct one is that this war against drug traffickers is actually a turf war - that the US is not attacking Venezuelans in an attempt to stop the flow of narcotics (which is a fool’s errand anyway) but in order to seize control.
Just as the CIA did in the past with heroin in southeast Asia and cocaine in central America…
They finance fascism either way.
So in effect they’re overtly stating that the actions of their agents are so foul and so loathsome that merely recording them will do so much harm to the government that it counts as terrorism.
Every time I think this administration can’t possibly get more insane they prove me wrong.
Just driving home the fact that the President of the United States is a deranged lunatic with the emotional development of a toddler and an ego that’s so grossly inflated ¡that it’s stretched as thin and fragile as tissue.
No “probe” is even necessary. We watched (though only some of us paid attention) as, for instance, the tech moguls all lined up to give Trump money for his inauguration, then were immediately rewarded with beneficial rulings from newly DOGEified agencies. Or as CBS agreed to a “settlement” on a Trump suit that legal experts widely predicted would be summarily dismissed if it ever went to trial, and were immediately rewarded with approval for their Skydance merger.
Trump isn’t merely corrupt - he’s overtly and brazenly corrupt. He’s corrupt right out in the open, for all to see.
And as with everything else about this deranged lunatic who’s weaseled his way into American politics, the real question is whether anyone is going to do anything about it.
There are wind turbines off the coast of Trump’s Scottish golf course. He claimed they were an eyesore and tried to have them removed and failed, and has hated wind energy ever since.
US policy is under the control of a dull-witted overgrown toddler.
History will record that the collapse of the US began in earnest when the Trump presidency reaulted in the rise to power of insane morons.
Surprising no one.
Yes. The partisan Republican justices are brazenly issuing not coincidentally generally unexplained rulings with little to no regard for established law, precedent or the Constitution, and by doing so, are clearly violating their oaths of office. That is an impeachable offense. They should be removed, and prosecuted.
I couldn’t say exactly why, but broadly it’s safe to assume that the answer could be found by the age-old method “follow the money.”
Cue the IDF targeting beehives in 5, 4, 3…
Cory Doctorow said in a recent essay that at this point, it would be cheaper to print something using Kentucky-Derby-winning stallion semen than HP ink.
Class war is already happening, and the ruling class is winning virtually unopposed.
Class war is happening right now, right before your eyes.
And wealthy and empowered psychopaths are winning and you and I and all the rest of us are losing.
This is class war.