HaveAnotherTacoPDX

Um, seems there's a good number of folks who've been trying to do something about that, actually. And the people who are starving Cuba right now are starving my neighbors too. I'm pretty opposed to starving people all around. And I want the people doing it tried for those crimes.

We could. And we could use cameras that will film their activities even if they shine a light right onto the camera. The problem is that our phones aren't made to do that on their own.

If I see shit like this I'm a lot less opposed to citizens using lights as weapons against these neo-nazi fucks. I go out of my way to oppose illegal and most forms of "legal" violence (reddit bots/employees seem to think otherwise) because down that road lies the US turning into another Somalia and … not only do I not wanna see that many people get dead, I mean, I'd really rather not die that way. (And I would be dead, no doubt, with my medical background…) But lights and sounds can go both ways, y'know?

People seem to love it. But it's highly proprietary and there seems to be planned obsolescence built into their model

If you're an American voter, you are. That's the thing about sea changes in politics. They come from people who have very little power. And we do have very little power. It happens when there's a damned lot of us, and not until then. The last time was when they kicked out the railroad barons and created anti-monopoly laws that are still on the books, mostly unused since the 70s. The time before that was pre-civil war. And before that was the revolutionary war itself.

These things don't always have to be done via war, but they do have to be done by an overwhelming majority of people. Fatalism doesn't help. Organizing does.

Let me put this as delicately as I can… ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND??

We had a civil war. It cost the United States 10% of its total population. If we have a repeat of that, kiss 35 MILLION of your friends and neighbors goodbye, because they're fucking dead.

But we don't have nice neat battle lines and territory back and forth like we did back then. It isn't gonna look like Gettysburg. It's gonna look like Somalia. Power and sometimes water, and certainly trucks and trains that deliver the stuff people like you and me need to live pass through red districts. They're gonna turn off the utilities. They're going to block the trucks and trains. We in turn are going to break the lines of communications. The We's and the They's are gonna all arm up in whatever tactical gear we can get our hands on like those ICE fuckers are wearing now, and we're gonna patrol our borders in our isolated little pockets for anyone trying to cross who don't belong. People will get through, saboteurs, raids…

I'd say we're lucky if we lose only 120 million or so people. It's gonna be a lot more of us than it will be of them, I promise you. But ultimately it's not going to matter because there's gonna be a lot of starving and dying and killing, if things go the way you want. And the two sides will probably wind up with roughly equal numbers fighting over the scraps of America for a decade or longer.

This by you is "good"? I hope you deposit a reality check and pretty damned quick, because we need to stop this shit before we get there, if we can. I don't know if we can, honestly, but we really need to fucking try.

The big reason why the electoral college has "rigged things" (aside from Jefferson fucking things up, but that's an argument for another time) is that the vote of so many has been so predictable. They only really worry about the places the outcome is likely to be volatile. Except in this election people are so pissed off that the outcome of the whole country is at least fuzzy, or can be if we work to make it that way. If they think they're gonna goround Texas, they need to send people down there to intimidate. But they don't. They might. In fact they're likely to.

Everything's in play if we make it all be in play. That's on us, so let's make it so sending goons to a few places won't suppress the nation's will. This isn't even a presidential election, so the electoral college isn't a factor. We can fix some of this shit right now.

Please help us do that! I'm treating this election like our lives depend on it, because they do.

While I agree about the "everything is rigged already" problem, the cold hard fact is that 80% of the election is considered to be decided before the first vote is ever cast, and I think Blackmist knows that, and discussing the electoral college suggests that … yeah, kinda. Which makes your otherwise helpful admonishment harmful too, because it doesn't dissuade them of that view. In fact, a cynical reading of what you said is, "we know that, but you're not supposed to say it out loud."

What I'd recommend instead is pointing out that the people who assume 80% of the vote is irrelevant are failing to account for political sea change events on a large scale. They're rare. Very rare, actually. But they happen and we're kinda in one. So while 80% of the vote is already a given in most elections, it's not a given in this one.

I upvoted Blackmist for his comment about ICE only needing to hit a minority of polling places to create fear, because that's true. And you as well because you're right that a message of hopelessness is harmful. I hope you both come away ready to defend the idea that this is an election that can actually erase and rewrite the status quo in America. The focus in the primary season needs to be getting strong candidates and flushing some weak-ass Dems, and then fighting like hell to get as many Dems elected as possible to avoid squandering people's sheer outrage at the violence, lawlessness, and nothing short of Nazi saluting fascism in this country.

It genuinely was the talking point for years on Fox "News". And what we heard was some Dem saying "there's no election fraud whatsoever!" Which is obviously bullshit on its face because of course there'd have to be some. I've genuinely seen it happen, red and blue alike, personally, and I'm legally blind! So the claim there was none was an "admission" that they were doing it, yup!

If you don't ever come out of that tank, you buy that bullshit. An excuse for everything, the favorite being "they always lie, and they always repeat this particular lie, against everyone." Y'know, and then we have e.g. the Epstein files coverup which still manages to prove that at least some of those "lies about everyone" absolutely were not lies. Congress has access to tons of classified info you and I don't get so … they knew.

As for the rest of us? Maybe one didn't see him for what he was in 2016. Propaganda is a terrible thing. Maybe somehow one voted for him in 2020. IDK how they ignored Jan 6th when he lost (I sure couldn't!) I really don't know how one might vote for him in 2024 either.

It's now 2026. If someone still can't see the problem with the concentration camps, the "100% above the law" enforcers who can gun down people just because threatening all our allies planning several invasions at once, tearing down the White House, stealing the Resolute Desk and Eisenhower's sword and whatever else, slapping his name on everything and breaking laws to do it, erasing pre-Trump history (including pesky parts of the Constitution), literally running Nazi slogans on social media and government websites, and talking about people "poisoning the blood of America" … If you don't see the problem yet, the only rational conclusion is that you don't want to see it. We're past the point of propaganda now.

So, who was talking to their handler, and was the handler Russian or Israeli this time?

"You're under arrest!" "What charge?" "Resisting arrest and saying fuck." FUCK THESE NAZI CUNTS!

Funny, he never gave me any orders. I used to take my orders from a chicken named Jack, but these days they come from the frogs. Because they are too strong when they're together, y'know.