not to mention the millions of man hours wasted responding to all these contradictory instructions across every federal office - having meetings, writing memos, discussing communication plans, notifying private partners and businesses, travel cancellations, etc etc etc…

in other words, tens of millions of taxpayers dollars in LOST PRODUCTIVITY… all because a petulant incompetent nazi oligarch thinks he knows better how the entire government should be run.

sorry but I think you’re dead wrong. also, we have more than 2 options. we can choose to support the progressives who the DNC has been actively suppressing. that’s a different conversation though.

supporting the DNC only happens when they start supporting The People. I’m old enough to have personally observed just how the national Democratic party operates and how corrupt, ineffectual, and apathetic they are when regular working class Americans need lasting structural changes. all the programs and progress they made has been undone with a half dozen supreme court nominations and a wave of a pen executive order.

they don’t take adequate action and don’t break rules to achieve goals, because they fundamentally misunderstand that sometimes obeying the rules (even in a democracy) is morally wrong. in a society rapidly spiraling towards fascism, they fail to recognize that “trust the system” actually means “just follow orders” and that’s a very bad very dangerous thing.

it’s not a group worthy of my support, not until they do better.

relevant links if you’re at all interested in understanding my perspective better (or just follow my comments):

The Alt Right Playbook: You Go High, We Go Low (InnuendoStudios, YouTube)

The Rules Serve Us, We Do Not Serve Them (Parkrose Permaculture, YouTube)

you’re right, unfortunately, we live in a time when people won’t take action until they either experience the consequences personally or they’re pushed beyond a breaking point.

perpetual gradual harm reduction and backsliding is imperceptible and slow enough to be normalized. but sudden changes cannot be ignored and often radicalizes people in response (or at least forces them to ‘take sides’ in a battle).

one of the major challenges of liberatory movements is not enough people join the cause and instead wait things out. these so-called centrists and moderates only have this option because they have socioeconomic privilege compared the most oppressed groups.

therefore we must then consider strategies to capture their support, including shocking their sensibilities with outrage, or even potentially stoking fears that they could be next. “what if they close my alma mater too or what if my kids’ college gets shutdown also?” etc etc

I have a different view. he had two bad choices available and he chose the worse one.

he and the establishment Dems (hehem, Biden) as well as turncoats like Lieberman/Sinema/Machin/Fetterman who were inexplicably allowed to caucus with the party) are precisely why we’re here today watching the rise of fascism and oligarchy. from failing to seat a supreme court justice under Obama, sabotaging Bernie (twice), fielding awful presidential candidate after candidate, allowing the military to expand endlessly, not codifying Roe (and doing nothing in response to it’s overturning), to censoring Al Motherfucking Green…

the entire “opposition party” looks weak and disorganized and incapable of fighting every time a crisis arises. the party needs more progressive leadership and they need to realize that sometimes it’s appropriate to break a few rules and take risks on big power plays. and forward popular plans that will actually energize the base.

these ‘play it safe’ supposedly harm reducing tactics are why we’re here today. they had 8 years since 2016 to come up with ways to combat trumpism and the best they could do, after flopping on the election and then peacefully handing over power to a sociopath and a nazi billionaire - was… write an op ed in the New York Times.

I’m done with this group of shit heads. there are better senators who should be in charge. we need people getting mad and breaking shit, not another patronizing speech about having patience until the next midterm.

supporting a cause in person shouldn’t be underestimated. freedom of assembly is our constitutional right, it is a powerful way to connect with others and sends a message that you won’t just hide in your house while our communities are being attacked by the ultra wealthy.

thank you for having the courage and determination to make the drive and participate by yourself. hope you’re able to convince some friends and family to come with you next time there’s a chance to stand up and exercise your rights.

when entire world economies and hundreds of millions of lives can be destroyed by the childish petty illogical whims of a single man, we need to start banding together to figure out how to stop that man.

multiple generations of people will lead immensely more brutal, unhappy lives because some fucktard is throwing a tantrum that there might not be enough slaves to toil in his factories and mines someday.

opposition party? these motherfuckers may as well be on the same goddamn team.

i think the commenter is just baffled at how drastically overvalued (over hyped) so many stocks are - a well known problem where speculative over investment can and does distort the whole economy and has power over the whole population. see for example, speculation bubbles like the dotcom overvaluation or subprime mortgages, or Theranos, or Bitcoin, or even how Tesla stock was being traded higher than the next 6-8 major car companies combined.

in other words, stock prices are a bunch of bullshit.

stocks arent exactly the same as “money” in the common sense so it confuses people when headlines say money was lost or wiped out. but stocks are similar to money in that they are placeholders for value, however much more susceptible to wild devaluations. because ultimately they’re just speculative bets on what something is worth and can fluctuate rapidly, as rapidly and suddenly as human emotions.

it’s so much more than stocks. stocks are mostly vibes and short term get rich schemes for already wealthy people. they’re Pokemon cards for the finance class, creating almost nothing tangibly beneficial to society. hype and FUD in an endless cycle.

you can’t eat stocks. you can’t warm your house with stocks. you can’t manufacture solar panels with stocks.

real wealth, the serious fuck you Big Money, depends on the ownership and distribution of real resources: real estate, agricultural land, factories, pipelines, commerical buildings, capital infrastructure. these are what the ultra wealthy buy up during recessions and then charge rents and leases for everyone else to pay, forever. forget about owning land or a home, your kids can’t compete with someone paying cash on a 600k house or snatching up entire portfolios of hundreds of rentals in a single purchase.

bailouts and blank checks given out as PPP loans to “business owners” during Covid redistributed wealth from the taxpayers (government) into the hands of the wealthiest people in the world. they can then convert their Pokemon collections into real wealth generating resources. government bailouts to corporations become an engine for not just making the rich richer but the types of assets they then acquire using that money cements them at the top of the wealth generation food chain forever.

Trump 2.0 is engineering another massive redistribution, even bigger and more focused on real estate than before. he made his fake reputation on real estate. loyalist oligarchs who bank rolled dark maga will be handsomely rewarded with the newly emptied government office buildings and public lands.

and your kids and grandkids will be homeless.

seconded. big fan of pro publica right now. actually digging into the roots of corruption and abuse of power.

Rich people outbid regular folks for real resources (homes), taking away any chance at intergenerational wealth building. the only (legal) answer at the moment is taxation of the rich.

Gary Stevenson has some worthwhile insights on what we can do and how to convince working class people that the rich must be stopped or else your kids and grandkids will all be homeless renters.

inequality is sharply risinh all around the world. and it’s getting worse. this is arguably the most important issue of our time.

instead of subsidized the rich, we should be taxing the fuck out of them. they either comply with wealth redistribution by taxation or we seize their assets.

this is a well written article, worth the time to read imo.

if anyone reading this has even a passing interest in Graeber, debt theory, and the effects of wealth distribution on societies, I highly recommend Gary Stevenson.

Gary came from a working class family and essentially got rich betting on collapse and inequality getting worse. now he spends his entire waking life fighting inequality and advocating for increase taxes on the ultra rich.

agree completely. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why this simple defiance is so difficult for some people. I figure it’s because they fear social consequences (what will people think of me as a rule breaker?!) or they fear economic consequences (I could lose my job and ability to support my family!).

what’s interesting is that the solution to both reasons/excuses is having a strong social support network and solidarity with others who would help you when you stumble. modern individualism and desperation has made people so isolated and fearful of being mis-perceived and has made us less powerful to stand up for what we (collectively) know is the right thing to do.

if someone in my circle gets fired or shamed because they said “No” to a fascist, theyre going to get a lot of help if they need it. and i make sure to tell them that.

those Vance eyes 👀

welcome! it ain’t perfect here, but at least it’s decentralized and harder to manipulate in favor of the oligarchs.

first time hearing about this, any more details you can provide or link to a news release? is this Ubiik?

their suggestions on how to actually make cities safer were all wonderful. but nowhere did they say the one thing that matters the most. REDUCE INEQUALITY BY TAXING THE ULTRA RICH.

seriously, how else do we fund the suggestions they just made? tax them bitches.

this is a brilliant observation honestly. every accusation or criticism levied against the fascists gets reversed in a “I know you are but what am?” sneer. it works for many reasons, and it’s part of the right wing playbook.

• accused of nepotism? flip it around and prosecute Hunter.
• accused of Jan 6 violence? bring up the George Floyd riots or antifa.
• accused of sexual scandal? point out Bill Clinton’s many accusers and Bidens hair sniffing.
• greed? bring up Pelosi’s insider trading.
• coercing abortion? they point to vaccines/mask mandates.

obviously none are equivalent in scale or scope, but they have truthiness to them at first glance. and just as importantly, like in your purse thief example, they redirect attention and create doubt… just long enough to avoid getting caught or face the wrath of the crowd.

it also works, esp in America, partly because the so-called opposition party is actually kind of a piece of shit and has been for generations. Dems profess to hate the extreme consequences of capitalism, but love capitalism itself and benefit from it. so they ultimately can’t condemn it or offer long term solutions to the problems it creates. conservatives at least offer simpler solutions which all boil down to “hate who you’re told” and “obey your God King and you’ll someday be rewarded”.

saving this for later, thanks