4 ms·

Nope. The right explicitly supports the policies that lead to the direct concentration of wealth and power and rise of fascism. If the right constantly sides wi

Nope. The right explicitly supports the policies that lead to the direct concentration of wealth and power and rise of fascism. If the right constantly sides with the oppressors, they are the oppressors. This should be trivial to see just by looking at voting records. It's all very public and you've got decades of history worth of it to review. Both sides are not the same. The right chooses to align with the top 0.01% making them firmly part of the problem.

AntiDyatlov 8mo ago
Well, dethroning the 0.01% seems more feasible than starting and winning a civil war against the right. I think the right is not so pro 0.01% as you think, the killing of the United Healthcare CEO had strong bipartisan support, at the level of ordinary people.
- Quarrelsome 8mo ago
  the 0.01% have access to both the left and the right. They can fund and lobby both, however electors have considerably less flexibility given the paucity of options and how either of those options are to some extent; in thrall to the 0.01%.
brutal_chaos_ 8mo ago
I believe it's a bit more nuanced than that. Both democrats and republicans have had enough power to make meaningful changes to prevent such a wealth gap and thus the wealthy play both parties. I do see democrats trying to help people have a better life (medicare for all, etc), but the wealth gap grew nometheless. Though I do agree with you that republicans don't seem to give a flying fuck about the people these days, which does make it worse IMHO. Regardless, both parties enabled the wealth gap and is why the fight is the 99.99% against the 0.01%. The US needs to kill citizens united and take money out of politics, I think that'd be a huge step forward...and yet, it is basically impossible because the 0.01% have the power.
- bryanlarsen 8mo ago
  Hard to blame the 99.99% when only 48% of voters voted for Hillary Clinton who had "undo Citizens United" explicitly on her platform.
- tstrimple 8mo ago
  Tell me you don't know how US legislation gets passed without telling me you have no idea how legislation is passed. I agree Democrats have been failures at what they've attempted to do. But it's a cop out or disingenuous to say both sides have had enough power to make meaningful changes. How often has either side had a filibuster-proof majority in the last 30 years? Once. Democrats had it in 2009-2010 for 72 working days. During that window they passed the ACA sans a public option thanks to Joe Lieberman. They have not had an opportunity like that since. And we live in a time when Republicans explicitly state they will do everything they can to oppose a Democratic president. Even filibustering their own bills. Now take a step back and consider what each party is actually trying to accomplish and the mechanisms available to them. Budget reconciliation only requires a simple majority, but it's limited to taxing and spending. Tax cuts, the core of the Republican agenda, fit neatly into reconciliation. They don't need 60 votes for their top priority. Democrats' goals... expanding healthcare, strengthening labor protections, voting rights, are substantive policy changes that don't fit reconciliation's rules. They need 60 votes they haven't had. So when you say "both parties enabled the wealth gap," what you're really describing is a system where one party can pass tax cuts for the wealthy with 51 votes while the other needs 60 to do almost anything about it.
replooda 8mo ago
Nope, it's 0.01% vs 99.9%. First, because they themselves are at the top — or, what, was Biden some sort of proletarian? Second, the left is okay with left-flavored dictatorships — just think, recently, of poor, poor Maduro. Third, from the outside, the drones kept coming whether red or blue happened to be in power.
juris 8mo ago
hard disagree when you couch it as a left vs right instead of a top vs down problem you will lock yourself (and your immediate circle) up in the hardline media items the people who lobby both sides will control. as disclosure: i am socially liberal and fiscally conservative except in matters relating to education, which i believe should be free (and tuition rate controlled). never voted for trump, never will. wanted to write in bernie for the first pass until he dropped, then threw for the queen of england. i didn't vote in the last election. i consider ice to be an illegal and fascist arm of too large a state. the most arresting argument i've heard a leftist say (which i agree with) is: there is a distribution of wealth at which a free market fails and we are long past that, especially given our failure to bust monopolies and enforce antitrust law. that enables entities who lobby both sides of the policy spectrum to position us against each other. epstein played this well: how else do you get neoconservatives bubbling out of 4chan as an answer to thundercat tumblr kids? it's all divide-and-conquer (and over the most inane issues). now, tell me: do you want to support eurasia or oceania? or do you want to put the puppeteers in jail?
- tstrimple 8mo ago
  This is such a fucking stupid argument because the "right" explicitly aligns itself with the 0.01%. If they are cheerleading it and voting for it and celebrating it, what the fuck makes you think they are on the side of the 99%. It's counterfactual. There is no evidence of it. Look at their support for Trump for fucks sake. He has made over $3B from his presidency ripping people off, and they fucking love him for it. They are on his side, not ours! Again. Look at how they consistently vote before pretending they are any sort of ally.
  - juris 8mo ago
    yeah, i hear you. you flip on the news and you see the fat red faced wal-mart alcoholics raving about the latest ice raid and iran bombing. it's a pretty disgusting thing, isn't it? but count that number of people you see on the news and compare it to the number represented by 49.81 percent of people who are duped into leaning right in a two party system. then what you see on the news is an insipid and vocal minority by comparison. they seem loud because they were born and raised in a 4chan cesspool, and relative to our ears (as we see them online), the 'enemies' are everywhere (ie overrepresented by our algorithms, since our outrage makes them money). meanwhile both parties (in various states and layers of government) have made ranked voting either illegal or impossible to implement. both parties (as well throughout the world) have pushed for greater government surveillance technologies and laws. both parties have gone to the island, shot kids in sarajevo, staged military coups throughout the world, destroyed democracies, left migrant children starving at night in detention centers, sleeping on mattresses thrown into the mud. you think biden was blameless in that? i've seen those kids. i hear you, and i am just as angry. but remember that there are a variety of reasons why people vote in the way that they do. they may come to regret those decisions when they send their kids to war, and perhaps that is some apt and just punishment. however, don't fall into the trap of mistaking those people in your relative socioeconomic group from having entirely different needs and wants as yourself and your family. if you vilify them, you will have aided and abetted in our dividing. the people needing to be put in jail are outliers in our system by far. they corrupt the islands, stage sarajevos, trade diamonds in war torn villages, and laugh their way to the bank while we squabble with ourselves as to 'whodunnit'. don't fall for it.

AntiDyatlov 8mo ago

Well, dethroning the 0.01% seems more feasible than starting and winning a civil war against the right. I think the right is not so pro 0.01% as you think, the killing of the United Healthcare CEO had strong bipartisan support, at the level of ordinary people.

Quarrelsome 8mo ago
the 0.01% have access to both the left and the right. They can fund and lobby both, however electors have considerably less flexibility given the paucity of options and how either of those options are to some extent; in thrall to the 0.01%.

brutal_chaos_ 8mo ago

I believe it's a bit more nuanced than that. Both democrats and republicans have had enough power to make meaningful changes to prevent such a wealth gap and thus the wealthy play both parties. I do see democrats trying to help people have a better life (medicare for all, etc), but the wealth gap grew nometheless. Though I do agree with you that republicans don't seem to give a flying fuck about the people these days, which does make it worse IMHO. Regardless, both parties enabled the wealth gap and is why the fight is the 99.99% against the 0.01%. The US needs to kill citizens united and take money out of politics, I think that'd be a huge step forward...and yet, it is basically impossible because the 0.01% have the power.

bryanlarsen 8mo ago
Hard to blame the 99.99% when only 48% of voters voted for Hillary Clinton who had "undo Citizens United" explicitly on her platform.
tstrimple 8mo ago
Tell me you don't know how US legislation gets passed without telling me you have no idea how legislation is passed. I agree Democrats have been failures at what they've attempted to do. But it's a cop out or disingenuous to say both sides have had enough power to make meaningful changes. How often has either side had a filibuster-proof majority in the last 30 years? Once. Democrats had it in 2009-2010 for 72 working days. During that window they passed the ACA sans a public option thanks to Joe Lieberman. They have not had an opportunity like that since. And we live in a time when Republicans explicitly state they will do everything they can to oppose a Democratic president. Even filibustering their own bills. Now take a step back and consider what each party is actually trying to accomplish and the mechanisms available to them. Budget reconciliation only requires a simple majority, but it's limited to taxing and spending. Tax cuts, the core of the Republican agenda, fit neatly into reconciliation. They don't need 60 votes for their top priority. Democrats' goals... expanding healthcare, strengthening labor protections, voting rights, are substantive policy changes that don't fit reconciliation's rules. They need 60 votes they haven't had. So when you say "both parties enabled the wealth gap," what you're really describing is a system where one party can pass tax cuts for the wealthy with 51 votes while the other needs 60 to do almost anything about it.

replooda 8mo ago

Nope, it's 0.01% vs 99.9%. First, because they themselves are at the top — or, what, was Biden some sort of proletarian? Second, the left is okay with left-flavored dictatorships — just think, recently, of poor, poor Maduro. Third, from the outside, the drones kept coming whether red or blue happened to be in power.

juris 8mo ago

hard disagree when you couch it as a left vs right instead of a top vs down problem you will lock yourself (and your immediate circle) up in the hardline media items the people who lobby both sides will control. as disclosure: i am socially liberal and fiscally conservative except in matters relating to education, which i believe should be free (and tuition rate controlled). never voted for trump, never will. wanted to write in bernie for the first pass until he dropped, then threw for the queen of england. i didn't vote in the last election. i consider ice to be an illegal and fascist arm of too large a state. the most arresting argument i've heard a leftist say (which i agree with) is: there is a distribution of wealth at which a free market fails and we are long past that, especially given our failure to bust monopolies and enforce antitrust law. that enables entities who lobby both sides of the policy spectrum to position us against each other. epstein played this well: how else do you get neoconservatives bubbling out of 4chan as an answer to thundercat tumblr kids? it's all divide-and-conquer (and over the most inane issues). now, tell me: do you want to support eurasia or oceania? or do you want to put the puppeteers in jail?

tstrimple 8mo ago
This is such a fucking stupid argument because the "right" explicitly aligns itself with the 0.01%. If they are cheerleading it and voting for it and celebrating it, what the fuck makes you think they are on the side of the 99%. It's counterfactual. There is no evidence of it. Look at their support for Trump for fucks sake. He has made over $3B from his presidency ripping people off, and they fucking love him for it. They are on his side, not ours! Again. Look at how they consistently vote before pretending they are any sort of ally.
- juris 8mo ago
  yeah, i hear you. you flip on the news and you see the fat red faced wal-mart alcoholics raving about the latest ice raid and iran bombing. it's a pretty disgusting thing, isn't it? but count that number of people you see on the news and compare it to the number represented by 49.81 percent of people who are duped into leaning right in a two party system. then what you see on the news is an insipid and vocal minority by comparison. they seem loud because they were born and raised in a 4chan cesspool, and relative to our ears (as we see them online), the 'enemies' are everywhere (ie overrepresented by our algorithms, since our outrage makes them money). meanwhile both parties (in various states and layers of government) have made ranked voting either illegal or impossible to implement. both parties (as well throughout the world) have pushed for greater government surveillance technologies and laws. both parties have gone to the island, shot kids in sarajevo, staged military coups throughout the world, destroyed democracies, left migrant children starving at night in detention centers, sleeping on mattresses thrown into the mud. you think biden was blameless in that? i've seen those kids. i hear you, and i am just as angry. but remember that there are a variety of reasons why people vote in the way that they do. they may come to regret those decisions when they send their kids to war, and perhaps that is some apt and just punishment. however, don't fall into the trap of mistaking those people in your relative socioeconomic group from having entirely different needs and wants as yourself and your family. if you vilify them, you will have aided and abetted in our dividing. the people needing to be put in jail are outliers in our system by far. they corrupt the islands, stage sarajevos, trade diamonds in war torn villages, and laugh their way to the bank while we squabble with ourselves as to 'whodunnit'. don't fall for it.