And remember how they made a big deal about Bernie’s age in 2020? They asked for medical records, and even after getting letters from two or three doctors, that wasn’t enough. It was like the birthers all over again: when they got what they asked for, they moved the goal posts and wanted the long-form documents.

Meanwhile, not a peep about Biden, who is Bernie’s junior by fourteen fucking months, as if that made all the difference.

And then, four years later, it wasn’t an issue anymore. Just run the guy again.

On top of that, the DNC would condescend to anyone left of center about electability.

Tankies: The word ‘tankie’ is meaningless because it gets overused by disingenuous people on the right.

Also tankies: Everyone who criticizes my position is right-wing.

It honestly reminds me of fascists saying that harsh criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It’s a dishonest rhetorical game.

And capitalist regimes. The Russian Federation was literally founded by a betrayal of a reformist movement in the USSR, and China consulted with Milton Goddamn Friedman on their economy, ending up with billionaires. I even saw .ml users crying about Russian *oligarchs" having their assets seized (“stolen,” as they said), and unironically citing Matt Taibbi. Not even “back in the day” Taibbi, but literally The Twitter Files. Using bought & paid for corporate propaganda to make their point.

They’re just campists. I don’t want to run afoul of a “No True Scotsman” situation, but fuck, for people who seem to think they’re the Only True Socialists, they’re willing to drop socialism in an instant if it means they can be edgy dickheads on the internet.

Yeah, pretty much. It ties into the “white genocide” and “great replacement” conspiracy theories, where the mere existence of nonwhites is taken as violence. It also often blames Jews for orchestrating it. It doesn’t make any sense, but it appeals to paranoia and supremacy, and provides a scapegoat for literally any actual systemic problem.

At least in the contexts I’m talking about, and I’ve never seen it used in another, it’s really not that. It’s coming from talking heads fearmongering about nonwhites, portraying nonwhite immigrants as criminals, ginning up a “border crisis” narrative, and even calling it an “invasion.”

When conservatives fearmonger about immigrants and brown people, one of the current favorite talking points is to say they’re “military-aged.” It’s vague and meaningless, but it implies something sinister, and plays into just about any conspiracy theory an audience member might be inclined to believe.

On top of that, they’re afraid from merely seeing these people. They’re just scared to death of brown and black kids and young adults.

Really reminds me of the “military-aged” thing. It’s just so pathetic.

Yeah. It can be simultaneously true that voting is a fundamentally broken system that will only allow for so much change, and that elections have life-or-death consequences. It can also be simultaneously true that both the parties are terrible, and that the Democrats are less bad.

I would give them more credit if they ever did any organizing, or even talked about organizing, but it’s just crabs in a bucket.

Oh, and in another thread, they were complaining about “theft.” It was the seizure of Russian assets to fund the defense of Ukraine. They were defending the foreign bank accounts of billionaires. Real clown shit.

Preach. Those people drive me up the fucking wall. And especially since their idea of praxis is being a dick on the internet and not voting, then claim to be the only true leftists.

I would put these in my D&D campaign.

Everyone. Everyone. The article is five SENTENCES long.

Two climate activists on Tuesday targeted Botticelli’s masterpiece “The Birth of Venus” hanging at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, attaching images of recent flood damage in the Tuscany region on the protective glass.

(Emphasis mine. I also wanted to pause to mention that this is likely a sentence you wouldn’t have to click through to read, because it’s in the preview on Lemmy.)

Authorities immediately cleared the room and the two protesters were brought by carabinieri for questioning. Under a new law, the protesters risk up to six months of jail time.

The protest materials were easily removed from the glass without leaving a trace, and the room where the painting hangs was reopened within 15 minutes.

The activists from the Last Generation climate movement said they were protesting the Italian government’s failure to address climate issues that result in more frequent floods and landslides, including severe flooding in Tuscany last year that left at least six people dead and caused widespread damage.

I’m sorry, but complaints about any damage done by this protest aren’t exactly serious arguments.

That REALLY depends.

Year One? Absolutely.

The Dark Knight Returns? Agree to disagree.

All-Star Batman and Robin? Christ no, it might be the worst.

I believe that’s Andy Ngo, so yes, absolutely a pro-fascist activist. He was caught on camera actively coordinating with Patriot Prayer, a far-right extremist group.

IIRC, that might be because their quality & reputation took a dip for a while. They were, after all, a Sears brand, and Sears got run into the ground by some blood-sucking leadership.

That said, they used to have a great reputation, and were sold to Black & Decker in 2017, who seem to be handling the line up much, much better.

I went hiking recently. State park, at least a mile from the campground, peaceful and quiet.

Then I noticed something scrawled on one of the trail markers. Some dipshit wrote “Fuck Joe Biden” on it.

Holy shit, how miserable do you have to be to do that? To carry a marker and tag a tree just to express how you can’t stop thinking about the guy, and make it other people’s problem, even in the middle of nowhere when you’re not even around.

Yeah, I used to use it to fix my RPG PDFs. (Seriously, it’s astounding how many publishers either omit or completely fuck up bookmarks.) I found out it went to shit when trying to help someone else do the same, and the newer free version was significantly cut down.

Absolutely. While I can be convinced on markets for some things (with regulation to protect consumers and prevent monopolies), it completely falls apart in others. Necessities absolutely should not rely on free markets because capital holders hold an extortionate amount of power, most people have little to none, and if it’s more profitable to let some people die, then the profit motive will let those people die.

In case you want the good faith counterargument (I know, I know, socialist wall of text):

I’d be willing to bet you have a different definition of “capitalism” compared to socialists. For most people, capitalism is just trade, markets, commerce, etc. None of that is incompatible with socialism (broadly speaking). When socialists talk about capitalism, they’re referring, specifically, to private ownership of capital. It’s not the buying and selling, it’s that ownership of companies is separate from labor.

We don’t owe technological development to capitalists, we owe it to engineers, scientists, and researchers. We owe art to artists, performance to performers. Socialists want those people to be the primary beneficiaries of their own work, not someone who may or may not even work at a company, but whose wealth means they can profit off of other people’s labor by virtue of owning the property those people need to do their jobs.

And you’ve probably been bothered by enshittification in one form or another. Some product or service you like has probably gotten worse over time. That’s not a decision made by the people who take pride in their creation, or the laborers who want long-term security. It comes from the capitalist class that doesn’t really give a shit about any of that, they just want quarterly profits, long-term survival be damned. That’s capitalism, as the meme was getting at.

My dad died recently.

He was definitely a flawed man, and there were tons of problems between the two of us over the years. But I also heard plenty of stories about how he grew up, and about his parents—both from my dad and from other family members. Without a doubt, he managed to be a better person than his parents, and a better parent to me than his parents were to him. They were straight-up cruel to him, whether physically or simply using him for the family’s gain.

That doesn’t absolve everything, and I’ve still got plenty of my own issues. But what I respect most of him, in hindsight, is that he played the hand he was dealt and managed to be a better man. Not perfect, but better. I want to do the same.

Sorry for being sappy, it’s only been a couple of weeks. I also know that this doesn’t apply to everyone, since some parents are indefensibly cruel and abusive. In general, though, I hope people can be easy on each other, easy on themselves, and stop letting “perfect” be the enemy of “good.”