Putin can stop this war today. He rather his people keep dying, his country invading territory as long as the money in coming in. Zelenskyy will own all of Ukraine at this pace. It's clear Putin is not looking for peace!

I disagree. And I don't mean to preach, but there is a power in words and using them (or not using them). The fight over the word and meaning of socialism is not what "the people" need right now, that can come later. This has been happening in the US closing in on a century. It's not those tolerant of material reality (as you say) you need to convince, it's those that would benefit from "the peoples" agenda that don't acknowledge material reality. Ride the wave of making billionaires pay.

Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.

Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.

Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.

What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.

• Harry Truman

Don't swim against this right now. These programs from the new deal and fair deal are not even called socialist by American standards anymore.

But we didn't start the fire!

"Learn a bit of your own history" posts links from 3 mo ago

You got em. The long and storied history of q1, 2024.

Ah, yes. The far away time when "Far Right" just meant ideologically conservative and not the wannabe brownshirts. So long ago, 2012.

A simpler time.

I have few teachers I can remember lessons from my high school days, 20+ years ago. The US was fresh post 9/11, patriot act era.

AP History teacher, a Vietnam vet, took his time to explain why only "tinpot dictators" need military parades to show power and US armed forces Generals would never go for it.

While teaching checks-and-balances, he firmly believed enough good men and women would remain in positions of power to never let a dictator override the constitution.

Another time, he pointed out that the presidential election is never actually called until the candidate concedes (when asked about gore v w) and that fore conceded because that is what is done. When we pressed him on it, he said "You are teenage boys, and you think like teenage boys. Adults know what's right, even if it means you lose."

All that is to say, I consistently see reminders that this current administration has the same mental thought process as a group of teenage boys, spoiled teenagers who started at third and think they hit a home run.

Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.

Oh man, I would browse while on the shitter at work. It used to be one of my OGs. A lot of tinfoil. And you'd get the deep dives that didn't feel politically motivated (compared to today).

Then, the Trumpeting.

Like everything else not stapled down circa 2016, it was an easy target for the Russian firehose of falsehood: an entire community of people wanting to believe some alternative bullshit.

Yaaa, let's blame the sentiments of observers for killing Ukrainians, not the genocidal kgb agent and the country where 88% of the voters reelected him...

There is also a Ukrainian Catholic "sect" (denomination? Not sure the proper terminology). They follow the heirarchy of the Pope, like other Catholics, but I believe there is more figures in there too (metropolitan's, archbishops). Their liturgy is more Orthodox than Roman cathlicism, (Byzantine rite) and some other differences - communion, baptism/confirmation, priests can marry.

"Ya know, the Nazi's had pieces of flair... They made the Jews wear them"

Not disagreeing with you, I think that is how it's going to be interpreted, but back in my day doxxing was revealing PII for an 'anonymous' online person.

My old man crank brain thinks organizing info made publicly available by the subject is not doxxing. To quote the zuck, "People just submitted it, I don't know why, they "trust me," dumb fucks."

Gene Parmesan

Always carry pocket sand

You just described acting.

Holy shit Tony Kornheiser getting labeled as George Carlin.jpeg is the funniest part

Couldn't the same be said for the proof of dark matter?

They were able to make some observations fit with their theory with dark matter yes, but not all of them

Swaygin, wu... Hang dai🤞