This guy’s a Chinese Wumao Russian Bot Republican Psy-Op Far-Right Double-Secret Fascist Oil Executive Who Wants to Murder Everything.
If you don’t blindly and uncritically support Jim Justice for President, you are the worst thing to happen to this country since Eugene V. Debs cost John W. Davis the election.
You can give up Harry Potter. It’s the right thing to do, it’s worth it, and it’s the adult decision.
It’s a children’s story. I don’t think you’re asking for people to leap over mountains by giving up childhood things as an adult.
At the same time, people seem to fixate on the consumerist aesthetics and ignore the material realities. If you’ve got transgender friends and family that you support with your time and care and money, and you want to flip through an old dog-eared copy of Philosopher’s Stone (or rewatch The Usual Suspects or throw on an episode of Fat Albert) because of nostalgia, I don’t think you’re committing any kind of grievous sin.
JK Rowling isn’t going to stop being a billionaire because you played a HP themed video game or watched an episode of her rebooted book show on HBO.
Meanwhile, abstaining from all things problematic, without doing anything materially positive for any of the LGBTQ folks in your life isn’t doing anyone any favors. Being a Consumerist Harpy who only knows how to scream at people for their mass media of choice, in the name of LGBTQ, is turning civil advocacy into some kind of branding exercise.
The really weird thing is how many LGBTQ folks latched onto HP in its early releases as what was recognized to be a kind-of pro-queer YA novel.
You had a young boy who was literally in the closet, disowned and disrespected by family, who is spirited away to a magical school where his differences are valued and cultivated. He’s got a bunch of friends who could easily sub in for queer icons. There are gender-bending magical spells, the bad guys are explicitly fascist, most books end with some kind of “The power of friendship and love will triumph!” rejoinder. FFS, Dumbledore is canonically gay.
It is far more a testament to the psychologically corrosive power of plutocracy that JK Rowling went off the rails. I don’t think it’s unfair for people to like the books and hate the author. Just remember not to pay for anything and you’re fine.
Combining French snobbery with Linux snobbery could set off some kind of chain reaction.
How soon until Quebec joins the Bloc de L’nux?
He’s just trying to find the shrine that lets him de-age seven years.
Melanie looks like she’s being held at gunpoint.
forced rewrite of the constitution
Military dictatorships, famous for their commitment to balance, fairness, and term limits
needless bothsiderism
The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.
~ Julius Nyerere, a Tanzanian politician, anti-colonial activist, political theorist, and Russian botfarm
Beep Beep
you need 2/3rds of the senate to remove him
Caeser was removed with far less
When will this idea die?
The same day “leftists never vote” does, presumably.
Stop wasting time on idiots and people happily guzzling propaganda.
Politicians chase the voters they want.
Start planning a campaign with SIMPLE SLOGANS
Wow, brilliant. Have you considered doing this for a living?
I only take issue with calling them anything other than something like crony capitalism
The fundamental difference between Chinese Socialism and American Capitalism can be summed up in their retirement rates.
In China, white collar men can retire at 63. Blue collar women are out at 55. That upwards of twelve years gap in retirement age is why China has billionaires and America has trillionaires.
If I died right now and was told I was going to be reincarnated but unfortunately I would be born poor and was given a choice of where to go, China would be near the bottom of my list of developed nations.
The real value of a civilization is its infrastructure. And you’re going to find it difficult to name a country more advanced and resilient - particularly to looming climate change.
But if you want to roll the dice on Starmer’s UK or Takaichi’s Japan or Milei’s Argentina? Good luck.
Slovenia - a Yugoslav state - was a major trading partner of the USSR. It’s economy was hollowed out, first after the decline of Russia, and then after a decade of looting, sanctions, and war.
That’s what my government tells me
It’s like when China every few years trots out some rich person or powerful politician and nails them for tax evasion or corruption in a show trial then goes back to pretending to be socialist
I think Chinese domestic economic planning goes a few steps beyond the semi-annual show trial.
Their green energy and ev markets illustrate as much
Or deep on the hook for the O&G industry.
Empty Head. No thoughts. Just here for the CSAM and frog memes.
Trump with more competency would be a different kind of disastrous. Better military leadership, a broader global alliance, and more effective (ie, not the AI slop) weaponry would just mean another Libya or Syria instead of an Iranian state that’s held firm.
Trump with more intelligence would have meant doing an Obama-style Stuxnet attack or a new and more pernicious sabotage/infiltration operation. One that would further destabilize society in Iran until it was ripe for collapse, a la Yugoslavia or modern day Cuba.
Trump with more wisdom would have meant not doing any of this shit to begin with. The wisest thing to do with a The Biggest Stick is to cast it into the fire. Destroy it. Trump’s not the first President to become seduced by the mad whispers of a dozen different Pentagon analysts and John Bolton minded strategists. Iran is ultimately just a repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea. Our imperialism is a cancer upon the planet and the source of our own social decay.
When anyone uses it, all it can do is degrade society and undermine long-term socio-economic goals. To war is to splatter yourself with the blood of your neighbors. You can never justify it, in the end. You can never war “correctly”.