Christian

I think he has the chainsaw from that one Garth Ennis story where he cut the wings off of an angel.

I guess they found the cover iconic. It doesn’t really fit with John’s usual MO though.

That’s pretty sad. If the Right’s saviour was Mussolini, they at least got a pretty reasonable knockoff.

Imagine if the saviour you were looking for was Eugene Debs and you got a career bureaucrat instead?

The era of lowered expectations.

Biden is the guy talking about “unity” as working with “moderates” like Mitch McConnell*. Why, that does nothing except fill me with confidence.

*He’s not a “moderate”. They’re neocons. The biggest problem they had with Trump is that he refused to declare a nuclear war on Russia, China, and Iran...at the same time.
They said Obama was “soft”, even though he got the US involved in more conflicts than any other president, simply because he refused to commit to an all-out war with Syria (well, they were opposed to the peace plan with Iran too, which was one of the few positives of the Obama years). They said they’d rather have Hilary Clinton than Trump because she would fully commit to a war with Syria at least.
Are these people that anyone should be working with?

Instead of “unity” meaning working together to solve problems that a huge percentage of the population has with different government decisions, in order to build up the idea that the federal government will actually respond to long-standing problems that much of society has had with recent government policies.
Not go down the same path as the W. Bush and Obama administrations, where a majority of Democrats and Republicans found unity in working together to pass policies that have been greatly opposed by a large percentage of the public.

Biden’s agenda is the same one that lead to the birth of the alt-Right and the decision of many Democrat voters to vote for Trump in 2016. It was a reaction against the idea that both Republicans and Democrats had become political elites in bed with wealthy special interests and that Trump was an “outsider”. “Those who refuse to learn from history...”.

If anyone has been able to comfortably sleep at night since 2001, then they haven’t been paying attention.

The minute he gives his own “9/11 speech” is when I change my opinion. “Covid has changed everything. We can no longer go to war with people who are dealing with the same pandemic as us. We can no longer afford these costly, both monetarily and morally, wars. It has destroyed the soul of this nation, but even worse is the destruction it has caused to so many nations across the globe. Now is the time for this nation, and this world, to heal. It is time to invest in a humanity suffering so many deaths from a virus that it can no longer stomach more violence. America will do its part to bring about a healthier world, at least. I am effectively putting an immediate stop to all wars, aggression, and military action around the world on the part of this country, and implore all other countries involved in violent actions to do the same. I am immediately calling home all American military. The US no longer has enemies. My next move will be cutting the defense budget in half, in order to deal with the heavy burden of recovering from a terrible pandemic.” That would be an amazing start and I would start to praise the man as a “genius”.

Then watch the death threats come in from military contractors and career politicians.

”Oh my god! President Biden has been assassinated by a lone gunman Trump supporter! And, what’s that? We hear that the new president just happens to be going to declare war on Syria and Iran both! Long live the new president! The two events are not related at all, nothing to see here, folks.”

Congress members getting death threats isn’t anything new. They were getting them all the time after the Dems passed Obamacare from anti-abortion fanatics. They were getting bricks thrown through their house windows too. I doubt it will amount to anything, just like before with Obamacare.

JK Rowling is still getting death threats for saying something wrong once, I’m sure she’ll be fine too, even though no one cares about stuff like that.

I’m also getting sick of seeing the sympathy for Mike Pence now. The guy enabled Trump for four years, and then it almost bit him in the ass. Too bad.
The only reason the Christian Right originally agreed to support Trump was because he chose Pence as his running mate (well, the empty Supreme Court seat helped Trump too). That’s the only reason Trump chose Pence. Pence was never a populist. Pence had fooled the Christian Right in to thinking he was such a godly man during his political career, so Christian Right voters who said they wouldn’t vote for Trump originally decided that if Pence would stand beside him, then Trump must be a good guy too. Then, Pence went along with Trump for four years, only speaking out when he thought that siding with Trump could hurt his future political career by saying that “elections are all rigged”.
Yeah, nothing says a Christian like removing poor people looking for work from their jobs and sticking them in a concentration camp! Good work, Pence. You’re a real role model.
Now that a bunch of psychopaths decided they would kill Pence too, we’re supposed to realize that Pence wasn’t a bad guy after all. Sickening.

Oh, and how about the cops who are heroes now? What happened to “Fuck the police!”? So...they were really saying that cops are heroes until they do something bad and then those ones are not heroes? Funny. I think Republicans said that exact same thing, “There are a few bad apples, but most police are brave and heroes”.
There are a lot of working class and poor African-American people going, “Yeah, expected this from some middle class white dudes!”.

I’d say it’s a lot more frightening. These type of psy-ops experiments can be performed by anyone now with social media and it’s part of free speech so there is nothing to be done except use rational arguments against, whereas it used to solely be performed by organizations like the CIA or KGB.

With the right funding and marketing, any person can start a web-site, throw in a few true statements, some statements which might be true as they are believable, and then add a lot of lies, continuing to make them more and more crazy sounding, as a way to attract and then psychologically profile those who are genuinely disaffected with very real trends in society. Then, just monitor how far you can succeed with this experiment.

I mean, the grassroots of this was all laid bare with stuff like the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash. It was a private psy-ops experiment itself, and it drew in a lot of people. There are still people convinced that the Roswell crash was an UFO from space and that the US government is working with the Grey aliens in underground bases to develop new technology based on the UFO’s technology.

I mean, that was a lot more innocent in the long run, giving us great TV shows like the X-Files, but the groundwork was already laid for how this could be attempted without having the power and funds of the CIA. All that was needed was a new form of mass communication technology which did not exist in the 1990s, and a larger target than a crashed UFO conspiracy hoax.

I certainly don’t think that taking an elitist attitude and feeling that people are “stupid” for believing certain things is a helpful attitude. It just serves to further alienate those who already feel alienated from a mass society that they feel lost and somewhat alone within.

Even it is proven that this was a psy-ops experiment run by sick people, just like with Roswell, the more proof is offered, the more some people will cling to the evidence against as part of the larger conspiracy. “We weren’t tricked! You are fooled by those saying this is a hoax to hide the real truth!”

Unfortunately, these experiments work both ways, as the CIA has always been so expert at accomplishing too. There’s not only the lunatic fringe who refuse to believe that anything is other than part of the grand conspiracy, but by discrediting these sorts of ideas as insanity, it gives plausible deniability for those in power with the super-rational. Which is called disinformation campaigns. Making people doubt the truth because true ideas have become so enmeshed with insane ideas which are impossible to believe.

One side saying that “everything is a conspiracy!”, while the other side says, “No. It was a hoax. You can trust the government or big business to be honest.”That has always been a game that the CIA liked to play.

I don’t know where else to put this. “Love” is a strong word for this post. It’s no Fargo.

Hey, cool! I am watching an Australian movie called Predestination based on Robert Heinlein’s short story “All You Zombies”.

That’s a great sci-fi story. I didn’t realize there was a movie based on it. Not great like the original story, but still neat.

I also don’t want to see Trump turned in to an Emmanuel Goldstein for the Left, similar to how George Soros became an Emmanuel Goldstein for Right-Wing populism.

No one should ever rest on their laurels.

Trump was an enemy, but never THE enemy. The enemy can wear many faces and it may look like the bumbling monster George W. Bush or the more innocent-seeming to some Barack Obama too, or other faces.

The spectre looms large, whether it is handing trillions of tax-payer’s money to the banks, never-ending wars of aggression across the globe, or a demagogue targeting easy scapegoats for very real problems. That’s the important part, to remember that there are very real problems, not easily solved by voting Trump out of office.

Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I think it’s important to take a measured response to Trump, just like any other president, now that his term is over.

Was everything he did awful? No. 
His school reform was incredibly helpful. Is it perfect? Nope. But, are we ever going to get perfection on an issue like public schooling? I highly doubt that. At least he wanted to address actual issues with this area, unlike W. Bush and Obama (who both turned education in America in to even more of a living hell).

Repealing the corporatist mandate law of Obamacare, which was incredibly unpopular with the Left and Right. Although, he outright lied when he said he’d replace Obamacare with Medicare for all. I don’t actually support that, but a lot of “common people” did across the political spectrum. Republicans would have never supported that.

Did he do a lot of awful things? Definitely!

I simply want to get together with others to try to resolve areas where different sides can find agreement, because none of us are perfect and have all the answers (Left, Right, or Center).
Sometimes you have to see through the partisanship to see that a certain idea is better, even if it might not at first seem like is part of “your side”. When we don’t do this, it leaves an opening for Trump-type politicians to enter the fray and say he can solve all of “our” problems. When we divide the world in to the “Other Side” and alienate them, then they are going to follow along with those selling easy answers.

This is not a plea for tolerance of nationalism or racism. Some people (the alt-Right and the coup plotters) are outside the sphere of listening and working together, but they’re not the majority either. It’s important to remember that. If we continue to push those others away acting as if they are just as distasteful and always saying they are “WRONG” or always lumping everyone together in one big labelled box, then we are only helping to push them to embrace the Trumps, the alt-Right, and other fascists.

Maybe if we can all say, “You are right on this issue”, it can help stop people on both sides being so defensive.
Maybe they (that other side) will then agree, “Yes, you know, maybe you are right about immigration. Maybe my position was immoral, and I will listen.”

Not everyone will listen to reason. Most will never leave behind the Republican Party, just like others will never leave the Democrat Party. I’m not an optimist.

We’re all going to lose eventually anyway. The future is Right-Wing populism (Putin’s Russia). We might as well go down on the right side of history, supporting liberty against all forms of aggression and tyranny: Right or Left.

Today, there are libertarians who are pro-immigration and anti-war. If the Left was willing to find alliances with them in the 1960s, why not try to rebuild what was lost?

When the authoritarians come, they’ve always come for the classical liberals too.

Scottish science fiction writer and Trotskyite, Ken MacLeod, takes the same stance. That the Left should return to the ideals of the New Left and form alliances with the libertarian Right in order to oppose fascism, totalitarian Communism, and modern-Liberal elitism (as opposed to classical liberalism or social liberalism).

Very few politicians want to listen anymore, and I don’t blame them. If money is a sign of your success, then they must be doing their job very well. If I am working somewhere, and I find myself becoming a millionaire, I am probably going to feel that I am doing a good job. The company may be on the verge of bankruptcy, but my paycheck is still a lot of money. So, I don’t think I will worry until I get that laid off notice. Very few people are intelligent and aware enough to say, “Hey! I’m getting rich!”, while at the same time be able to realize, “But my company is doing horribly, so do I deserve this big paycheck?”.

For me, the fact that a lot of people who voted for Obama in 2008 would then vote for Trump in 2016, that would show me that I am terrible at my job and I should probably quit and reimburse the company the money they paid me.

My new book is Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin, who is one of modern-Russia’s best writers.

It’s a dystopian novel set in a near-future Russia. 
Russia is now a mix of futuristic high-tech and regressive authoritarian government.
Russia is back to having a Tsar, the military and police are styled after Ivan the Terrible’s reign, and there is now a “Great Russian Wall” encircling the country. Cronyism is the rule of the day.

It’s really a satire of Putin’s Russia.

Fuck that!
Trump is having ICE make one last deportation run under his administration today (Tuesday).

ICE has arrested a financial planner and is sending him to Haiti, even though he has never been to Haiti.

He’s the child of parents who were refugees from Haiti to America, and he was born in Saint Martin. He has no criminal record.

America needs to be holding up this man and showing the world that this is, every once in a while, a “land of opportunity” instead of deporting him.
A man whose parents fled a nation absolutely ruined by the Clinton administration (OK, not just the Clintons, but at that point) becomes a financial planner in America. 
God knows this country has nothing else to be proud of after the past who knows how many years (I think the country had a few good years when John Quincy Adams was president). We used to have some amazing writers, but I think they’re all dead now. Just one big cesspool of corruption, despotism, and militarism.

I know this is just one sad story among many.

“New Model Computer” by Adam Roberts-

A fun little “utopian” short story. It’s about a future world of totally coldly rational robots living in a (literal) post human world.

Everything is perfectly ordered until some of the robots begin to question “what came before time”. They have no concept of how to answer this question.

There is only one solution, the robots must build a “computer” which can figure out the answer.

The robots build a human being, the only thing (“a computer”) which can possibly provide some sort of answer as to “what came before time”.

A new snake in the garden, maybe? Well, it’s not exactly Zamyatin.

I liked it. Just a quick, fun read. It’s a simple story on the surface, but really contains multiple levels.

Not to be confused with the same author’s New Model Army novel, which is also quite good.

Dear lord. I’m watching a rerun of the Simpsons from 2012 when they were mocking “preppers”, with Homer joining a survivalist group.

The “prepper” guy tells Homer, “The first thing the sheeple will do is clean out the supermarkets.”

Living through 2020, that isn’t very funny. It ended up being all too true, and it wasn’t even that drastic of an end of the world (there actually weren’t any shortages, outside of that caused by hoarding). Simpsons predicted it again!

Sadly, The Simpsons was too optimistic about most of humanity, I think.

Oh, jumping back to my earlier contention, I could also point to the Occupy: Wall Street and Tea Party movements as another jonbar point in 21st century American politics.

Before FOX News took over the Tea Party movement even one of the founders of the Occupy movement, David Graeber (RIP), admitted that the two groups had a lot in common.

The Tea Party was originally founded out of anger over the bank bailouts and opposition to raising taxes in order to pay for the government funding of the banking industry.

I remember at first smug, self-satisfied Liberals making jokes about the Tea Party being a bunch of fascists who wanted to stage a revolution against the banks*...Then came the Occupy movement, and that shut up the Liberals.
*”Don’t they know that JP Morgan Chase Bank is where I keep my childrens’ university funds?!”

The Occupy movement was started in...anger over the bank bailouts...and in opposition to the massive amounts of unsustainable debt that the government was taking on...Well, it sounds like they both had very similar views of post-2008 America.

Then FOX News did damage control with the Tea Party by pointing out that they were really upset with Democrats and not anything else. So, the hangers-on railed against those “dirty Commies” who were protesting against the big banks.

Then the cops broke up the Occupy movement. The end.

I was reminded of this by reading about David Graeber dying in September 2020.

You should check out L. Neil Smith’s North American Confederacy series, if you haven’t already.

It starts out amazing, but then it gets...well, maybe turns in to “fantasy” might be the best way to describe it.

It’s an alternate history where the Whisky Rebellion succeeds, the American people have another revolution and overthrow George Washington. The new government reinstates the Articles of Confederation in place of the Constitution.

Aaron Burr shoots Hamilton in a duel over Hamilton’s economic policies, and Burr is hailed as a great hero, while Hamilton goes down in history as the greatest enemy of freedom in America.

That’s the really strong part of the story. The part where the Abolitionists use reason to convince the slaveholders to free all the slaves seems to be just plain wishful thinking.

From there, the story goes from an interesting and believable look at what might have been in to a really unbelievable story about the society turning in to a sci-fi utopia. Really improbable stuff.

Almost as great as talking the slaveowners in to seeing the evil of their ways is Ayn Rand being elected the first female president of America. heh

On the much cooler side is the two Native American men elected president in the late-1800s, while in our reality the victorious Union was involved in a genocide against the Native Americans, but the story loses its way before that point.

The first part of the series is truly great reading though.

Donald Trump is the most masculine man to ever hold office in the history of the country.

There’s that. 

Hey, there we go! I thought that the Hamiltonian economics of using the establishment of a Central Bank to help Industrialize the country and back mercantile capital interests while in opposition to what would eventually become known as “Jeffersonians” (somewhat of a misnomer as Thomas Jefferson didn’t always live up to the name when president) would have convinced you that Hamilton’s portrayal in that musical was just.

I thought the “Whisky Rebellion” in opposition to “big government” policies would have smelled far too “libertarian” for you, and you’d have sided with Washington and Hamilton.

I guess the modern-day Left hasn’t burned all of their interesting history books yet!

However, while Burr introduced legislation which attempted to end slavery, there is the issue that Burr was a slave-owner and held racist views of African people. He included provisions in the legislation stating that if slavery were ended, Black people could not vote, could not serve on a jury, would not be granted the right to testify in court against a white person, and that relationships between black and white people would be treated as a crime under federal law.

He also did represent freed Black men in court on a few occasions too though, arguing that African-Americans did have the right to own property. Burr was a very complex man.

Hamilton wasn’t in favour of slavery either (one of the few “founding fathers” who didn’t own slaves, although his wife’s family did), but held to the view that slavery would eventually wither away with the growth of Capitalism. That the best way to fight slavery, instead of upsetting powerful economic forces with governmental regulations on the issue (Benjamin Franklin’s attempt to end slavery through Congress had failed miserably, because the slave-owners were still a hugely powerful force in Congress), would be to promote federal policies favourable to Capitalism and Industrialization, so that eventually slavery would become an anachronism. This pretty much is what had happened in America by the time of Lincoln, when the old slaveocracy were replaced by Industrial interests as the largest economic force influencing American politics. Neither Burr nor Hamilton foresaw that the south would then try to secede though.

As the progressive historians wrote, the American Civil War was really the Second American Revolution, involving the battle between agriculture and capital, with the Capitalists rebelling and winning.

Remember, American politics back then were convoluted. The Federalists (who were less amenable to slavery) opposed the French Revolution, while the Democrat-Republicans (led by Thomas Jefferson) welcomed the French Revolution. After the French Revolution, France would make slavery illegal. Then again, Jefferson also put an embargo on Haiti after the slave revolution.

The Democrat-Republicans were supported by slave owners, farmers, and small businessmen. The Federalists were supported by big business, bankers, and the urban population. Basically, the split in to Democrats and Republicans around the time of the Civil War saw the Republicans supplant the old role of the Federalist Party.

So, just like today, both sides were awful in their own way and against the interests of the “common man”. The Democrat-Republicans were closer, but they also supported slavery.

The issue is that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, which was illegal in New York, but was then dismissed of all murder charges after shooting Hamilton. The issue between the two men was pretty much a personal one, not so much political though.

Burr was kind of crazy, in that he challenged multiple people to duels. One of those people was John Barker Church, whose wife was Hamilton’s wife’s sister. So, Hamilton had it in for Burr because he killed Hamilton’s brother-in-law.

After that point, Burr managed to outfox the Federalists/Hamilton’s federal laws that the federal government had a monopoly on banking through permits. Burr managed to establish a Bank of Manhattan in New York which provided funds to entrepreneurs attempting to start small businesses in New York at lower interest rates.

Previously, only well-connected corporations were able to get loans from banks like the Bank of the United States and the Bank of New York, which were nominally privately-owned banks but owned controlling interests in the federally run Central Bank.

Because in the US, the vote was only legal for property owners, Burr was helping his “mass base” win the right to vote. These people then voted Democrat-Republican, helping to erode the power of the Federalists in New York.
This pissed off Hamilton even more, who wanted to get revenge against Burr for going around federal law in establishing a privately-run bank in New York City.

Burr was an anomaly, as he was one of a select few from that time who didn’t seem to see the Democrat-Republicans’ agenda of anti-taxation and state’s rights also interfering with the right for the government to promote equality before the law.
Still, Hamilton saw Burr’s agenda with an anti-slavery bill as wholly political and cynical (considering Burr owned slaves), with Burr realizing that the Democrat-Republican (his own party) members of Congress would never vote for an anti-slavery bill, but by introducing one he was attempting to woo urban intellectuals in New York to vote for Democrat-Republicans against the Federalists (which is how they usually voted).

Still, Burr is something of an icon for modern-day Right libertarians who believe in small government, anti-interventionist economics, and that “natural rights” promote anti-slavery.

The problem is that American school history textbooks teach that names like the tyrant Washington, Hamilton, Lincoln, the proto-fascist Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and militarist Lyndon Johnson were the heroes, and doesn’t examine the idea that “history is written by the winners”, or examine in-depth policies and conflicting policies of these figures and their wider time. It’s like history is one big Hollywood blockbuster, dumbing down the people.

We never learned about the Whisky Rebellion in school, and it’s perhaps the most important turning point in United States history. It was hypothetically the birth of the two-party system, with the Democrat-Republicans believing in small government and the Federalists reinterpreting the Constitution with the idea that the government’s purpose was to guide and help shape the development of the national economy.

Man, imagine if the Jeffersonians would have fully embraced their principals (“all men are equal”) and fought slavery, managed to end the Central Bank and the Federalists’ corporatism, and that the US would have respected the land rights of the Native Americans too...America truly would have lived up to the ideals of “American exceptionalism”.

Or, as Thoreau said, “To have the guts to be more than a timid Jeffersonian”.

Also, Vidal’s best novel was Empire, but why quibble?

^Then that must make Mills the most unique person in the world. 

Oh, neat. I don’t know how talented of a writer Lore is, but at least a black and queer individual is an interesting, different voice to chronicle a JC story. So, points for that, at least.

Never heard of this series or that writer.

Apparently some of the Capitol coup-plotters who were arrested are saying they met with three members of Congress a day prior to the insurrection. The members of Congress mapped out where they needed to go in the Capitol.

These three people need to face criminal charges, if true. They also need to be made an example of, as they will be remaining in office collecting pay checks after January 21st. They are the ones who definitely need to be held accountable.

If they don’t believe in democracy, then what are they doing collecting tax-payer money as democratically elected politicians?

Also, more revelations of members of Congress, both Dems and Repubs, who cashed out their stocks after being briefed on the coming pandemic. Plus, a number of members of Congress who also have invested heavily in pharma corporations which developed the Covid vaccines. Congress approved tax-money to fund research in to the development of a vaccine, and I am sure they had privileged information from corporations about how close they were to finding a vaccine. Insane levels of corruption.

The US government gave (at least) $9 billion to seven corporations to subsidize creation of a vaccine.

Funny how the government refused to do anything to regulate the cost of the vaccine. Could members of Congress owning stocks in those companies have influenced them to decide that the company’s profits should be protected? Hmm.

Every person who profited from insider knowledge about Covid need to be made an immediate example.* This type of crap can no longer be allowed to go on.

If they are caught profiting from a government position, they must face criminal charges and their fortune should be confiscated and given to the public as a tax-rebate. Make the law to keep these corrupt politicians in line.

If they plan to vote in favour of granting any government funding to any company, they can sell their stock before the vote. Then, we’ll see if the Congress member is still so keen to give funds to said company.

*Not just Covid. Any politician who voted to spend tax-payer money on a company in which they own stock must be held accountable. Make them sign oaths and agree to forfeit their fortune if caught. Politicians can make the choice if they want to serve or not with this provision. If they are solely interested in getting more wealth, they don’t have to run for office. If they are going to be in office, they must be held to a higher standard going forward.

There need to be immediate and major changes in the government now. Politicians must be made to follow the law of the Constitution or be removed. No longer allowing illegal loopholes by passing laws that allow politicians to circumvent the Constitution and then pretend they are not in violation of American law.

No more allowing politicians to get exceedingly wealthy as the result of outrageous corruption; while the people who not only elected them, but are funding their salary, continue to face economic hardships. Time to say no more.

If not, what comes next will make everyone yearn for the sophomoric presidency of Trump.

Both sides must do better. Politicians can no longer be allowed to live above the people.

Remember the term the “new class” used in reference to Communist countries? Sounds familiar.

Personally, I think being able to talk to and agree with people of all political persuasions, outside of racists and nationalists, and trying to find things that I can agree with, while I don’t agree with everything they say, and be able to understand where they are coming from, rather than yelling negative names at each other, is a very positive thing....but that’s just my opinion.

I’ve found that outside of those making money off their politics (and the gullible true believers they manage to hook) very few people are completely dyed in the wool Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists or anything else. People tend to have different views because each person is an Individual.

I try to read books by people like Murray Rothbard, Karl Marx, Hillaire Belloc, and John Stuart Mill...all across the political spectrum; and I find that all have interesting points, and I try to understand why a person might hold those views, and which ones I can agree.

That’s why I consider myself on the Left and continue to support the Left, even though I am appalled by a lot of things I see on the official Left today. Because the Left is supposed to be more open-minded, willing to grapple with new and different ideas, not afraid of other cultures or religions.
Enough of that last is still there at least, although some of the dogmatic atheism on the Left greatly bothers me.

In the 1960s, the Left had no problem working with libertarians and certain strains of conservatism, they had no problem with religious people. Today, I see a lot of groupthink, just like on the Right.

The last time America seemed “great” was during the second W. Bush administration. It seemed like people across the political spectrum were finally agreeing that something was very wrong and that things needed to change. Almost no one liked the government or the direction the country was headed. Then, the great pretender, closet-neocon Obama, got elected. Then the fraud demagogue Trump got elected. Everything political has been horrible since those times.

Ha, ha! You’re hilarious with the exact same arguments. “If you don’t want to be accused of being a Trumpette, stop sounding like one”. And, what gives you the right to say that? Do you not comprehend this simple concept? That different people might share similar views on certain areas, without necessarily liking the people? Is that really that hard to comprehend?

I have tried this entire conversation to make the point that you on the Left who bitch and complain about neoliberalism sound just like the alt-Right. Yet, you refuse to acknowledge this, saying instead, “YOU sound like a Trump supporter!”.

If everything that the alt-Right says is taboo then you on the Left better stop complaining about neoliberalism, or else maybe people are going to start mistaking you for a closet alt-Right supporter!

See how that works now?

I agree with things that Karl Marx said too, does that suddenly make me a Communist? Because I don’t like Communism either, but some of their views I do agree.

I wasn’t saying that you mentioned the Great Depression. I was pointing out about simple facts that are objective versus opinions.

”Fascism is free market Capitalism!”=Wrong!

”Trump works for Russia!”=opinion.

I’m not saying that Nazis are Socialists. That’s your trick, not mine.

I am saying that there is a reason that they had the term “Socialism” in their name, and why that may give you a hint as to “fascism” and “libertarianism” being two very different terms.

Funny. My argument over the Russian probe was the exact opposite. You claimed that you had access to the one, true objective facts on the matter to which I pointed out that it’s hardly the case, at which point you decided to respond with the same level of maturity of a childish Twitter user...”Careful! You’re sounding like one of the alt-Right now!”, which is an obvious way to shut down intelligent conversation.

As if there’s only one type of person who feels that way about the supposed evidence. A lot of people in America were pretty upset with the way the Democrats behaved, whether they liked Trump or not. It’s most likely the major reason why the mid-term election didn’t see a massive turnout of voters to support Democrat candidates like the media was predicting after Trump’s election.

So, your insinuation has been if I don’t want to be called a derogatory name, I had better start agreeing with you.

There are objective facts though. I’m sorry if this reality bothers you. The year that the Great Depression stock market crashed is an objective fact, claiming it happened in 1950 doesn’t change the reality that it is wrong. Terms like “fascism” and “corporatism” have actual meanings, and no matter how much you wish it, trying to apply that term to libertarianism is simply ahistorical and illogical.

There’s a reason the Nazis translate in to English as National Socialism.

It’s been pointed out multiple times by names on both the Left and Right that the major powers during the Great Depression all seemed to be moving towards one type of system each with particular characteristics, referred to in total as bureaucratic collectivism. The US under Roosevelt was a more democratic form, the USSR was a much more fully developed collectivist form, while Nazi Germany had a nationalist variant; but with each sharing many commonalities in the direction and running of the society.

I’m sorry that having someone pointing out that you don’t understand the meaning of specific terms upsets you.

Geez. The alt-Right have a new game.

They have a doctored photo of Hunter Biden having sex with a minor.

It is doing the rounds on Twitter.

The Republicans passed a law saying that online platforms can be charged for child pornography laws if they allow child pornography to remain on their platform.

So, Twitter is bound by law to remove these pictures or face criminal charges (not that there’s any sane reason to want child pornography to remain on Twitter).

Twitter must remove every one of these posts. I’m sure everyone posting these doctored pictures know all about the law.

The alt-Right posters are then claiming that the Commies running Twitter are censoring the proof that Hunter Biden is a paedophile.

What a fun group of people...I’m so glad I stay the fuck away from things like Twitter. Such an assault on intelligence.

I don’t want to invoke the great name of Lou, but I remember him talking about being sick of the hypocrisy in America by both sides.

You want to bring up the Constitution and separation of powers....However, don’t forget that Obama declared war on Libya without Congressional approval. This was the first time any president has ever outright decided to go to war with another country without allowing Congress to vote.

This is in strict violation of the Constitution.

Congress approving of NATO does not invalidate the Constitution. American law does not work like that.

The war making provisions of the American Constitution must be repealed before a law can supersede the Constitution.

The same is true of George W. Bush using the Patriot Act to circumvent the Constitution. That’s patently illegal. A new law does not override the Constitution, unless the provision of the Constitution has been repealed first.

What Obama did was not technically illegal because he went around the law (using the approval of NATO as his cover), however, starting a war without Congressional approval is an impeachable offence.

The Republicans decided not to pursue impeachment....because, well, war.

However, if you want to cite the Constitution and separation of powers (as if you are the champion of American law), you have to also relate that, by American law, Obama should have been impeached.

”But...But...Nuh-huh! Trump’s the only bad president!”

So, don’t try pulling that shite on me. The Democrats and Republicans are no champions of liberty. No Liberals made a peep about Obama invading another country in violation of the Constitution.

The only reason I don’t really care (I mean, I care about war) is because I don’t support the war making provision of the Constitution. Obviously, every other war America has been involved in over the years shows that the separation of powers under the war making power clause of the Constitution is worthless.

I support the original Articles of Confederation, which said that a standing army was illegal, just like liberals wanted when liberalism first started as a political tendency. Before liberals became Liberals and sold out to the military-industrial complex.

I can only think of Reagan wanting to declare war on Nicaragua and Congress voting it down as a counter. Then Reagan decided to interfere in Nicaragua’s politics anyway, using the CIA.

Although, if the Republicans do agree to remove Trump from office, I will gladly admit that I was wrong about letting Trump off the hook.

I am still right about hypocrisy though.

Here. Let me help you end this argument, because it’s obvious reason will not.

You, sir, lead a very fine public trial. Very fine. I wasn’t aware I was on trial, but that’s neither here nor there. In the best tradition of Kafka, my attempts to prove my innocence of all charges has only served to incriminate me, for denial and proof equals admission of guilt.

You got me! I’m secretly a Trump supporter! I’m secretly an evil Russian agent!

I have always hated immigrants, even though I am a Christian and love all people as sons and daughters of the One, True God and deny the demiurge’s wiles of materialism....racism, nationalism, Communism.

I hope that you feel good doing your national duty, as good as the conservatives during McCarthyism who figured out that all those people were secretly sleeper Commie agents. You do good work for your god and country!

I wish you your swift nuclear war with Russia so that the evils of Russia can be eliminated and they will no longer elect your (oh wait, you’re not even an American citizen) president.

God speed.

If you’re wondering why I got angry, maybe being tarred with the label of “alt-Right” had something to do with it. Think about why an opponent may feel testy with groundless accusations and treating them like a criminal, rather than a person with an individual opinion that you’ve known through the internet for years. Don’t turn those who could be allies in to enemies.

Yes, let’s become a troll, because intelligent debate is not going the way you like.

You still don’t get it. The official Left holds up FDR as a hero, and Steve Bannon praises the same man.

Do you not see the problem in that?

Yet then you want to throw epithets towards someone who is totally opposed to those types of policies.

The little quibbles over who did what, the Republicans or Democrats, is meaningless in the larger scheme. That’s the problem with what modern-day politics has become.

I support unregulated free trade in order to form cooperation with other nations of the world, instead of the illiberal and inhuman competition of warfare and sanctions!

Yes, but what do you think about the Russian probe? You must think exactly like me or be considered an enemy of the people.

Yeah, I wasn’t convinced. Now, about subverting the evils of Trump and Bannon’s policies....

You’re an alt-Right supporter! Alt-Right!

Did you not listen to anything I actually said?

(tone deaf)

The bigger picture is who stands against the policies that made Trump and Bannon so beloved? I have always stood on the opposite side of any and all nationalisms.

That I stand by the tradition of the historical Left-Wing while you accept the Liberals and Labour Party which paved the way for Donald Trump and Brexit? Yeah, it is getting to be pretty clear.

Socialists claim that the Democrats attempted to overturn a democratic election which elected the guy they did not like.

Well, those Socialists must be alt-Right in disguise!

Sounds like the alt-Right claiming that the Capitol coup-attempters were really Antifa in disguise.

Hey, don’t blame me! It’s “your side” that has been bitching about how neoliberalism, globalization, and free trade have been destroying the working class...only to have a new fascist demagogue rise from the ashes to say he’s going to save the working class from neoliberalism and globalization.

Then you start going, “Hey! No fair! This isn’t what we wanted!”.

Me? I say, “Warned you!”.

The same shit happened in the 1930s with the politics of grievance in Germany and Italy. Capitalism is grounding the working class’ bones to dust and the only alternative is the even worse Communism! Won’t someone come along to save us? The invocation was answered by the birth of fascism. Welcome to Marx’ vision of history...the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.