You're missing the point.
Why should I believe you? You've misrepresented something once already, and then tried to justify it as a means to change people's perspective. Well, you're not going to change anyone's perspective by posting blatantly inaccurate memes, and then getting caught with your pants down when someone calls you out in the comments.
That shit erodes your credibility, along with that of the rest of us who call out the US and profit-driven companies with actual evidence.
Thanks for actually reading the article. Pretty upsetting a mod of this community just posts shit without any factual basis. Especially a person who is "researching American crimes against humanity." Like, c'mon. If you're gonna do "research," you gotta read the article. There are plenty examples of American crimes against humanity that can be backed up by factual evidence. Posting BS just degrades any legitimacy your viewpoints have. Gotta be better.
I would recommend reading or listening to Noam Chomsky's Understanding Power. It is a compilation of several of his Q and As about his ideas about the US political and media systems. He has a whole book about the media called Manufacturing Consent, but Understanding Power will give you the lowdown.
Essentially, all mainstream US media is beholden to capitalistic (for advertising) or state (for funding) forces, so a person should always be aware that news sources are never going to print something that is against its own interest. Things like LGBTQ rights and right to abortion don't put news outlets sources of money at risk, so they're safe to print, but you'd be hard-pressed to find something that challenges, for example, the military industrial complex.
I'm not doing it much justice but that's a very very general and incomplete jist of why it's good to be skeptical of the mainstream media in general.
Yeah, unprecedented event after unprecedented event. Still you could've been vindicated if anything mildly unfortunate had happened before the DNC. Like if Harris picked a different VP, if Vance was actually in any way adept, etc. And hey, knock on wood, but you could still be right in the end -- we probably shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch.
Good on you though for being a good sport about your previous comments. I was on the "drop out" side (not that Biden would drop out, but I thought pretty much anyone else would have a better chance), but at the end of the day I kinda think we're all talking out of our asses to a certain degree, because political science isn't actually a science at all.
Hey, no need to be rude. I'm using the word colloquially, not in the technical sense. Besides, in another comment I admitted maybe dynasty wasn't the right word, at least for Obamas and Biden. It's more appropriate (though, you're right in that it is still not technically accurate) for people like the Clintons and Bushes.
In those cases, maybe dynasties isn't the right word -- although I do sort of see Michelle Obama as a bit of a politician, herself, even though she hasn't held office. She at least has more power than, say, you or me. Still, I'm more thinking about Obama and Biden in the sense that I am thinking of Biden and Kamala -- it was sort of Joe Biden's turn. Conservatives see that sorta stuff -- they rightly see these people as elites, and it gives them more reason to think the Democratic party is corrupt. The reality is it would be difficult to find a politician who isn't corrupt in a system that has legalized bribery and has necessitated the solicitation of those bribes by our "leaders."
I'm about to throw a word salad out here about how I can sympathize (never thought I would say that) with Trump supporters in a sense. Hopefully someone chimes in and can challenge a couple of my views here, because i think they could probably be honed a bit, or explained further, but...
It's very easy to blame his allure all on racism, all on stupidity, all on nationalism, because certainly Trump espouses all of that. But his populism is also due largely to working-class people seeing (rightly) the Democratic party as corrupt. They see people like Gates and Soros, Hollywood elites like Clooney hanging out with Pelosi and, understandably, get upset seeing all these ultra rich people walking in and out of the private/public sector. They see political dynasties like the Clintons and the Obamas and Bidens as antithetical to the idea that anyone can serve their country in politics, and rightly so. Even Harris -- it was essentially "her turn" for the nomination -- and they see that as undemocratic and bullshit, which -- can I blame them?
Now, where they go wrong (and, ironically, where hardcore Democrats also go wrong) is thinking that their party isn't also participating in the same bullshit. Trump isn't anti-establishment, he's literally a billionaire property magnate. He is part of the ruling class in America that consists of landlords, bankers, and company shareholders. Both parties would uphold our current system of rule by the few, and back up that rule with the monopolization of violence by the police.
This isn't to say the two parties are completely the same. In terms of willingness to uphold capitalism (ultimately the extraction of money from labor), the military-industrial complex (see, Palestinian genocide), and American hegemony internationally (again, genocide), and police violence, they are similar. But then you also have Republicans trying to ban books, surveil women's bodies, control what people do in the bedroom, or medical care they receive, espouse various forms of hate, etc. So I do see them as worse, but think you'd be hard pressed to find a person in the US, democrat or republican, who didn't agree with the statement that "all politicians are corrupt." It's just the nature of our political system, which has essentially legalized bribery.
Being able to say to my conservative-ass family, "Yeah, dude, Obama bombed Syria and bailed out the banks -- I feel what you're saying," gives us that little bit of common ground to start a conversation about the drastic change that needs to happen in the US.
Occupy Wall Street showed this issue pretty well. While many moderate liberals quickly latched on to the movement, they just as quickly abandoned it and lapped up the narrative that the police were compelled to tear down encampments and beat people due to "unsanitary" conditions (despite them having sanitation crews) of the camps or because some people nearby broke a couple windows.
But when the cops break a couple (hundred) bones? That's cool, I guess.
it's mostly political
Oh I gotcha. Interesting. I don't follow FSF or GNU or anything, do you know if they tend to be antagonistic toward nonfree devs who still try to be as free as possible? Honestly, I read the Stallman quote about FreeBSD in this thread, and a statement from GNU that acknowledges the impracticality of their philosophy, and I kinda agree with their ethical takes. Except, I also think people should be able to install nonfree software, because otherwise you have a pretty bad dilemma with the word "free."
Ultimately, if they are actively antagonistic toward those who don't share that philosophy, I think that's not great. Sure, free software according to the GNU project may be the only ethical one, but we live in a culture that promotes the exact opposite idea, so why would I be surprised and upset when an otherwise ethically acting person doesn't conform to my own ethical framework, and they go on and create nofree software. I'm still going to get a beer with that person because at the end of the day we probably have common values and how else am I going to sell them the idea free software
I'm afraid to ask this because I'm not a dev, but I have a fair amount of linux experience. Why is it that the ability to install Google Play Services on GrapheneOS makes it not FOSS/open source, while the ability to install Google Chrome (or any proprietary software, I guess) on Linux doesn't make is non-FOSS/open source?
I'm not articulating that question very well, and I'm assuming I'm missing some key component, but they seem comparable to me, as a regular user. Is it something like the level of access that GPServices has to the kernel?
Me too :/ not only that, but it scares people off even more than just the term communism, which in itself is taboo
Radical love, mutual aid, human solidarity, and nonviolent imagery and ideals are more powerful, since they have the ability to tap into a shared ethical ideal, one that can stretch across political and religious boundaries.
Yeah, wtf, I thought I was going crazy reading this post. Palestinian protesters aren't going to vote for Trump, and them protesting the DNC is not going to increase his chances of winning.
They should keep protesting and putting pressure on the Democratic party. They should vote for Harris, but keep up the pressure, and not listen to people like OP.
Also, imagine thinking that Palestinian protestors are doing it to feel superior. They're doing it because their tax dollars have gone toward a genocide that has thus far killed 40k people. They have no choice that their money goes toward this shit. They should not have to think about whether their protest will hurt an election campaign, nor should they care. They care that their country (even when there is a Democratic president) is arming a genocide and doesn't seem like it has much plans to stop.