Everywhere Maga has power they are trying to destroy the public education system. School shootings are useful to that end.
Everywhere Maga has power they are trying to destroy the public education system. School shootings are useful to that end.
Nonviolence is a lofty, and unattainable ideal. Unless you can create something that prevents violence in an absolute, physical sense or can successfully breed out the sadistic elements of humanity it will forever be subject to the whims of charismatic violent people. World history, at least from the perspective of governing authority, is nothing but physical and psychological violence.
The Buddhists would tell you that life is duhkah (suffering). Trying to force any order onto only increases suffering. The french existentialists would tell them that the only thing you can do about it is to laugh in the face of the absurdity of existence. Then they’d go to a bar and the buddhists would watch the existentialists drink themselves to oblivion respectfully and with a detached interest.
Anarchism, nonviolence, and philosophy in general, rarely align with your subjective lived experience. The best way to deal with Nazis is not to punch them, but to live your life the best you can and try to have as much fun with other humans as is possible. If you engage with them on their terms, those of violence and hate, they’ve already won. Hug a nazi, especially if you’re part of a demographic they hate. Treat them like you would a slow child. Education, empathy, and kindness beat the nazi next door. Unfortunately though once they establish their fourth Reich like it seems they are close to, you have to wield collective hard power (tanks, predator drones, and boots on the ground).
You, the human reading this, will accomplish nothing by punching a nazi, hug them or ignore them until it’s time to fight them collectively.
Or she wants something from him enough to ignore it. The leaders of maga are almost entirely cynical. Men like Trump, powerful and vain, attract predators that sometimes look like sycophants. “Oh sweetie you banged me like a man half your age, and they say you’re not virile.” “They probably think that because you are letting the libs walk all over everyone.” “Of course you are if they’re doing it and you’re God’s messenger on earth they succeed because you let them” “Oh silly, I don’t know anything about that, but steve was talking about something interesting the other day”
Pfft, apps have to earn notifications. Do you want any notifications from a grocery app? Unless it could check the stock of my local grocery store and let me know if an unpurchased item becomes out of stock or if I can share it with a roomate and they add things to it. But even then, how much does that really matter?
If you’re specific and pedantic enough you can be the best at anything
Sure and I would imagine most linux users, vegans, and crossfitters are like you. But those three all have notably annoying individuals in thier ranks and I was meaning that annoying people are annoying, not that there is anything wrong with veganism, open source, or physical health
Nothing, the point I was making is that annoying vegans and linux users would be annoying know-it-alls who never shut up about what they love and feel strongly about regardless of what activity they engage in. Crossfit also has zealots that are famously annoying, so it seemed like an easy way to illustrate my point without getting in the weeds like I have done now. Nothing to do with moral philosophy, annoying people are annoying.
I think there is just a portion of humans that love feeling morally superior, I imagine if annoying vegans or open source zealots tried crossfit they’d never shut up about that either.
A perfect example of the meme.
News headlines won’t change national culture or policy. The pro-policing subset of America is large and has a lot of dark money supporting. Private prisons and the handful of companies that support them, weapons companies who have seen record profits because we militarized our police after 9/11, and fascist sympathizers and supports all want things like that to happen.
Unless you, me, and everyone else who cares about the issue called our representatives daily to demand action, nothing will change. Even if every single person who wanted police reform in the US called their federal and local representatives demanding change, there is still a good chance the pro-police-brutality club would still have more influence.
It’s the perfect crime. Most people don’t realize it’s illegal and those that do either don’t have the resources to fight it or don’t want the exposure.
That’s why we have police in the first place. After the civil war the South, in order to covertly recapture as many recently freed slaves as possible, created vagrancy laws, sundown towns, and armed police. In Alabama, where the video is set, the state made it illegal for black people to leave a job, once they took it. The police in the south, especially in Alabama and Louisiana, arrested thousands of former slaves and leased them out to local businesses, in some cases victims of that system would be put to work at the same place, for the same people where they were enslaved prior to the emancipation declaration.
It’s one of the most fucked up and evil things America has done. It’s made even worse because the practice has been in use for over 200 years and no one, outside a small percentage of Americans even care.
Private prisons and work-release programs need to be ended now.
Oh, so that’s where the creator of ReiserFS got the idea.
The whole Abbott administration just seems so cynical. It’s clear there is some broader legal strategy at plan beyond just this filing. But even their violence doesn’t seem sincere. Shit like this reeks of some 4d chess bullshit and I don’t like it.
But we just have to watch and wait. Paxton and Abbott are the assholes we have until 2026. Even if Texas elects Kamala they’ll still have the house and senate in Austin and probably Washington too. Outlook: grim.
No sweetie, that’s fascism. Conservatism is dumb, but it’s not inherently authoritarian.
What would you have us do? Paxton isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and Texans do not have the power to recall officials. We can’t protest because in 2023 they passed a law making basically all protests illegal.
Even if Texas goes blue Abbott and Paxton are still in office because they’re not up for reelection this year. Plus the state is so gerrymandered, even if it did go blue nationally, locally the dems probably couldn’t retake the state government.
Hate to say it but even if Kamala wins any women or queer person in Texas who can leave, should.
I grew up in East Texas (and moved back two years ago). I promise you, most rural Texans will tell you the side Texas was on.
So the system successfully identified the kid as a threat, but was not able to prevent the shooting because the father bought the guy on behalf of the shooter.
How would you even prevent that? No way the 2a nuts would go for a temporary ban on firearm ownership (or at least new purchases) by family members. Besides something like that could be used maliciously very easily. You can’t take all the kids who post edgy shit online into custody, we just don’t have the budget and it’s probably not the right move anyway.
You could mandate therapy or some other mental health intervention, like a biweekly visit with the school’s counselor. But those nerds don’t need any qualifications so they might not be able to identify a credible threat or help talk a shooter out of their (likely unknown to the counsellor) plans.
There are a gajillion things we could try, if not for the blind ignorance of the 2a nuts.
Those of us ignorant enough to vote for Trump also vote for the Greg Abbott’s and Ron DeSantis’ of the country. It’s not a popular position these days but we, the little people, includes the poo-brained asshats voting for Trump and the fascist takeover of the American South. But they’re too stupid (or more accurately, willfully ignorant) to understand the scope of what voting for maga and maga-adjacent Republicans really means.
I guess through a kinder lens our maga neighbors don’t have the perspective required to understand the truth of the world they live in. Some might be wholly incapable, but most just don’t care enough to try. But the societal bubble the average maga voter lives it makes the ethos look pretty appealing. The rhetorical techniques used by maga media and personalities are like psyops level effective.
It would be irresponsible and incorrect to lay it all at the feet of voters or politicians of any political party. Every American is responsible for what’s going on in the country right now.
Mike gets it. This is only the next logical step in social media. Why risk losing the ad revenue of users who feel more isolated using social media if they stop using the platform? Solution: ai sycophants that tell you you’re pretty.