U.S. Politics- This Is Us, Basically Fascists

[Serious Callers Only]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/the-justice-department-is-keeping-secrets-about-its-new

 

Worms trying to make a SS to accompany their ICE and subverted Police Departments. This is going to end up in civil war now if it just doesn't end in a general coup, not like they're even trying to hide the disenfranchisement and election fixing. If by some miracle they're incompetent enough that they fail even with Russia help, Cambridge Analytica / Nazi jackboots / 'deregistering' disenfranchisement and 'voting machines' hacked though, a Repugthug judicial massacre of incredible proportions and a limitation of the presidential power of pardon is coming, which makes it only more certain that there is going to be election fraud wherever this scum can.

In all cases severe Actual-Nazi street violence will happen because of both police infiltration and the gun distribution and stockpiling of the Actual-Nazis. I wonder if Russia is arming them too, or just money is more than enough.

 

I recall reading Putin threatened to distribute suitcase nukes, I no longer wonder if that evil man is mad enough to use them on or before election night. He's probably got a deadline until he's killed by his own mobsters because of 'their' money being held up and not laundered.

[Darth Richard II]

4 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Que the complaints about free speech from people who don't understand free speech.

Haha you beat me to it.

[The Anti-Targ]

17 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Worst case scenario: Sea level rise and desertification causes the largest migration in human history at the same time the global food (and possibly water) supply is being squeezed.  Fun century indeed.

I'm guessing we might have our own Infinity Gauntlet event, only it won't be instantaneous and [mostly] painless and it won't be some dude with a fancy glove clicking his finger and thumb. But the outcome might be pretty close to the same.

[The Anti-Targ]

 

5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Boom.

https://www.cnet.com/news/youtube-bans-infowars-alex-jones-channel/

 

5 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

So have Facebook and Apple.  https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/06/technology/facebook-infowars-alex-jones/index.html

Oof! While I won't shed a tear over Alex Jones' voice being less prominent on the internet, I am worried about corporations getting to make decisions about what is "malicious harassment and bullying". I'm a bit leery about companies engaging in censorship of independent voices. They can self-censor all they like, but on platforms like Youtube where almost all content creators are independent entities it's a bit tricky. Corporations are making their own free speech "laws" which go well beyond the legal constraints on speech and apply to everyone, not just its own executives and employees.

The example cited (victims of the Florida Highschool shooting being accused of being crisis actors) for why his channel was pulled, there is a civil defense of an honestly held belief. I don't believe Jones truly believes they victims are crisis actors, bu there is a chance that he does, if he's as crazy and unhinged as he sometimes appears to be. Censoring an honestly held belief on the grounds of it being malicious harassment or bullying is kind of problematic.

If you honestly believe the lizard people are out to get you, isn't it your duty to vigorously pursue them and expose them for what they are? 

God forbid anyone get their hands on the reigns of Youtube who thinks much of the criticism of Trump is malicious harassment and starts banning his critics from the platform.

I can understand it, because it seems like completely open platforms pretty much always devolve into dens of hate speech which almost all civil people abandon. But I think there has to be some kind of check or oversight on corporate control of speech on quasi-open platforms.

1 hour ago, Serious Callers Only said:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/the-justice-department-is-keeping-secrets-about-its-new

 

Worms trying to make a SS to accompany their ICE and subverted Police Departments. This is going to end up in civil war now if it just doesn't end in a general coup, not like they're even trying to hide the disenfranchisement and election fixing. If by some miracle they're incompetent enough that they fail even with Russia help, Cambridge Analytica / Nazi jackboots / 'deregistering' disenfranchisement and 'voting machines' hacked though, a Repugthug judicial massacre of incredible proportions and a limitation of the presidential power of pardon is coming, which makes it only more certain that there is going to be election fraud wherever this scum can.

In all cases severe Actual-Nazi street violence will happen because of both police infiltration and the gun distribution and stockpiling of the Actual-Nazis. I wonder if Russia is arming them too, or just money is more than enough.

 

I recall reading Putin threatened to distribute suitcase nukes, I no longer wonder if that evil man is mad enough to use them on or before election night. He's probably got a deadline until he's killed by his own mobsters because of 'their' money being held up and not laundered.

Doesn't a coup require the military to be mainly leading it? Seems to me like the military is more likely to be with ICE and Police in propping up the regime. There would have to be a general mutiny in the military before it would even try to fight for the people. 

Civil war is off the table, because the civilians with all the best guns, and most of the guns, are the right wingers who are loving the current regime right now; or in the very least aren't too bothered by what's happening because it's not affecting them personally.

 

[Jace, Extat]

9 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

 

Oof! While I won't shed a tear over Alex Jones' voice being less prominent on the internet, I am worried about corporations getting to make decisions about what is "malicious harassment and bullying". I'm a bit leery about companies engaging in censorship of independent voices. They can self-censor all they like, but on platforms like Youtube where almost all content creators are independent entities it's a bit tricky. Corporations are making their own free speech "laws" which go well beyond the legal constraints on speech and apply to everyone, not just its own executives and employees.

The example cited (victims of the Florida Highschool shooting being accused of being crisis actors) for why his channel was pulled, there is a civil defense of an honestly held belief. I don't believe Jones truly believes they victims are crisis actors, bu there is a chance that he does, if he's as crazy and unhinged as he sometimes appears to be. Censoring an honestly held belief on the grounds of it being malicious harassment or bullying is kind of problematic.

If you honestly believe the lizard people are out to get you, isn't it your duty to vigorously pursue them and expose them for what they are? 

God forbid anyone get their hands on the reigns of Youtube who thinks much of the criticism of Trump is malicious harassment and starts banning his critics from the platform.

I can understand it, because it seems like completely open platforms pretty much always devolve into dens of hate speech which almost all civil people abandon. But I think there has to be some kind of check or oversight on corporate control of speech on quasi-open platforms. .

 

If you sincerely believe there's a bomb in the movie theater with no evidence to support your delusion is the theater supposed to let you keep ruining screenings? 

And Alex Jones has told judges before in civil hearings that he is a performance artist, so by his own admittance he doesn't believe the madness.

[Serious Callers Only]

Civil wars happen because of general mutiny in the armed forces, generally. In the case of the united states i suppose a group of states could easily say 'enough' and force the issue of which America will the local army forces be loyal to, their states, or their kleptocracy fundamentalist christian sharia state organizing death camps and supporting Nazis on the street while bankrupting the nation and setting itself up as the perpetual administration, like a certain Russia.

For instance:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/6/17656700/kris-kobach-kansas-governor-trump-endorsement-primary

 

Hopefully all nuclear weapons on the country are locked out of orange caligula's hands.

[Zorral]

11 minutes ago, Serious Callers Only said:

 

Hopefully all nuclear weapons on the country are locked out of orange caligula's hands.

You seem to have forgotten everything about the roll up to the War of the Rebellion, including all the Southern slave power's figures in the administration grabbing, not only the federal treasury, but all the armaments they could  -- and the south had a LOT of them. What do you think Fort Sumter was anyway?

[The Anti-Targ]

15 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

If you sincerely believe there's a bomb in the movie theater with no evidence to support your delusion is the theater supposed to let you keep ruining screenings? 

And Alex Jones has told judges before in civil hearings that he is a performance artist, so by his own admittance he doesn't believe the madness.

I happen to agree with Youtube (and Facebook and whoever else) taking down Alex Jones, because he was engaging in malicious harassment, without any reasonably held belief defence. I'm just voicing a more general concern over the amount of power corporations have to control the speech of independent entities. It's not like Youtube has been making good decisions in all cases where it has shut down channels, removed videos and demonetised content. I would say on average Youtube has behaved more like a corporate bully when it comes to controlling content than a socially responsible citizen.

I ain't no free speech absolutist. But I'm probably as concerned about corporate power controlling our lives and our speech as I am about Alex Jones spewing his hate on the internet.

I also imagine it won't be long before the Alex Jones' army will start bombarding Youtube with complaints about Sam Seder or Micheal Brooks or Contrapoints and try to get them shut down because of malicious harassment and bullying. And then Trump will start tweet hating Youtube and Jones might just get his channel back or Youtube will have been effectively bullied into never taking action against another right wing Youtuber. But the hounding of left wing channels won't stop until the right wing cyber-lynch mob gets it pound of flesh to even things out. Though they will probably want 2 or 3 pounds to drive home their message.

James Gunn will become a verb pretty soon. X group/person is trying to James Gunn you. You've been James Gunned. etc.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm guessing we might have our own Infinity Gauntlet event, only it won't be instantaneous and [mostly] painless and it won't be some dude with a fancy glove clicking his finger and thumb. But the outcome might be pretty close to the same.

I know it's long but that is one of the few videos from the "pundit" class I'd recommend on climate change.  I'd even recommend it to skeptics and right wingers, if only to illustrate how serious the issue is and how out-of-step conservatives in North America have become on this.  I'd recommend listening to it until the end.

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Oof! While I won't shed a tear over Alex Jones' voice being less prominent on the internet, I am worried about corporations getting to make decisions about what is "malicious harassment and bullying". I'm a bit leery about companies engaging in censorship of independent voices. They can self-censor all they like, but on platforms like Youtube where almost all content creators are independent entities it's a bit tricky. Corporations are making their own free speech "laws" which go well beyond the legal constraints on speech and apply to everyone, not just its own executives and employees.

Yeah well, they do control those spaces.  No one is born with the right to a twitter account or a youtube page.  They have their "community standards" and they can enforce  them however they see fit.  If Alex Jones wants to complain about it, he is perfectly entitled, but he can do it with a platform that is either open to all (by definition), or one that is willing to host him.  Period.

The very board that you are commenting-on has that same relationship with its patrons and they boot people all the time.  People get out of line or get too personal with their posts or just trolling and they are gone.  The moderators are the final arbiters in that decision.

What's the alternative?  Nationalize twitter, YouTube, FB?  Good luck with that. I would love, loooove to see these same hysterical clowns yodel about nationalizing these platforms after years of ranting about "creeping socialism" and the like.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

47 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

And Alex Jones has told judges before in civil hearings that he is a performance artist, so by his own admittance he doesn't believe the madness.

This.  Except he's absolutely aware that the majority of his audience takes what he says seriously.  That's why he's a scumbag. 

One of his rivals back in the day clipped Jones' Y2K broadcast to expose what a sham artist he is.  There isn't even much commentary, just portions of the recording played in 10-20 minute blocks so he couldn't be accused of "taking things out of context".  Before hearing that I thought the same as most people; that he was a bit nutty but had a few worthwhile things to say.  For the record, this is largely pre-internet, so fact checking was harder and (I'm speaking in relative terms here) he seemed somewhat more sensible, or so I thought.

Hearing his Y2K broadcast, it was clear he is a total charlatan.  A person listening to his broadcast that night would have thought the world was ending.  There is no way he could have had real time sources for the garbage he was spewing.  There's no way he could have believed any of it.

This was almost 20 years ago and his audience has only gotten bigger since then.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, aceluby said:

Yep, with fewer protections.

Yeah well, maybe them old timers just need a bit more hustle.  I hear tell of a man who was loved by all who went bankrupt six times before going on to unify a great nation... and then the world.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Gods beneath us.

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1026157875452895234

[Zorral]

When o when can the nation's voters start using the t-word out loud and all the time ((Treason)? 

[LongRider]

5 hours ago, Morpheus said:

 

 

I am convinced Trump could find Russia on a Hogwarts map.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I also imagine it won't be long before the Alex Jones' army will start bombarding Youtube with complaints about Sam Seder or Micheal Brooks or Contrapoints and try to get them shut down because of malicious harassment and bullying. And then Trump will start tweet hating Youtube and Jones might just get his channel back or Youtube will have been effectively bullied into never taking action against another right wing Youtuber. But the hounding of left wing channels won't stop until the right wing cyber-lynch mob gets it pound of flesh to even things out. Though they will probably want 2 or 3 pounds to drive home their message.

I'd find it harder to believe they aren't doing it already.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I know it's long but that is one of the few videos from the "pundit" class I'd recommend on climate change.  I'd even recommend it to skeptics and right wingers, if only to illustrate how serious the issue is and how out-of-step conservatives in North America have become on this.  I'd recommend listening to it until the end.

Yeah well, they do control those spaces.  No one is born with the right to a twitter account or a youtube page.  They have their "community standards" and they can enforce  them however they see fit.  If Alex Jones wants to complain about it, he is perfectly entitled, but he can do it with a platform that is either open to all (by definition), or one that is willing to host him.  Period.

The very board that you are commenting-on has that same relationship with its patrons and they boot people all the time.  People get out of line or get too personal with their posts or just trolling and they are gone.  The moderators are the final arbiters in that decision.

What's the alternative?  Nationalize twitter, YouTube, FB?  Good luck with that. I would love, loooove to see these same hysterical clowns yodel about nationalizing these platforms after years of ranting about "creeping socialism" and the like.

And the board moderator model is not without its problems. But in small communities like ours, it's largely adequate. But on platforms with millions of content creators and billions of users something else is needed.

Something in the middle. An independent body (non-governmental) that reviews complaints (including copyright and fair use issues) about content across all social media platforms that sign up to it. Lots of media industries have independent complaint and content boards / authorities that are arms length from the corporations who produce the content. It's time for social media companies to create arms length complaint boards regarding the content they host. There's no problem with platforms having content standards, but enforcement of those standards should be in more independent hands.

[Altherion]

19 hours ago, DMC said:

This is farcical.  Yes, there are empirical facts that are objective and measurable.  Just as the 15 minutes to walk to work is an empirical fact, so too is, say, the empirical fact that both Sekulow and Trump himself have admitted that the administration has made numerous (I've lost count) false statements on the June 2016 Russia meeting.  The problem isn't that that there aren't any independent and verifiable empirical facts, it's that an ever-increasing number of people are willing to believe - whether it be through selective exposure or good ol' cognitive dissonance - that 2 + 2 = 5.

Sure, there are empirical facts of the sort that you describe, but the overwhelming majority of them simply aren't interesting or important. What fraction of the country do you think even knows who Sekulow is? There have been so many Trump flunkies accused of various things that it's hard to keep track. And then you have facts like Trump making false statements which are important, but not new -- there were numerous instances of the same before the election and people voted for him anyway.

19 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, first of all, they obviously don't get it exactly right.  That's why monthly numbers are double and triple checked (and revised accordingly) the subsequent two months.  But the BLS is as transparent as possible about their methodology.  If you have a substantive criticism of that I'm all ears, but you don't, and It's quite apparent neither do the vast majority of individuals that dogmatically don't trust government and institutions.

I deliberately chose unemployment because that's one of the few issues on which most people I know still agree (leaving aside issues of underemployment and labor force participation) and I don't have anything bad to say about them. My point was that even for something relatively simple, it is beyond the means and abilities of the average citizen to verify such a study (I don't just mean the methodology, but starting with collection of the raw data).

20 hours ago, DMC said:

Anyway, epistemologically I'd generously describe your position less as solipsism and closer to a Kuhnian response to Popper's falsifiability.  But either way, that's a pretty egghead academic - and dirty hippy - frame of argument you're taking.

Sort of, but not really: Kunh is concerned mainly with people who are working in good faith, but get trapped by a paradigm whereas the distrust for institutions is mainly due to suspicions that the latter are not working in good faith, but instead to further some agenda.

16 hours ago, felice said:

You mean confrontations between nazis and people who object to nazis openly parading in the streets? Objecting to nazis is about as mainstream as it's possible to get; are you seriously trying to call that "far left"?

It's true that almost everyone objects to Nazis, but there's a difference between doing so and getting into street fights with pro-Trump protesters who are marching in support of a would-be Republican Senate candidate.

[Serious Callers Only]

This pathetic apologia of actual Nazis is getting more than a bit indicative man. 'Trump supporters' right. 'Fine people on both sides' no doubt. Except that right wing terrorism has killed hundreds in the USA (many recently, from these 'fine people') and the left-wing hasn't got one murder yet.

 

Speaking of temporally embarrassed millionaires, Alex Jones is asking Trump for 'help' supporting his abhorrent verbal diarrhea now that he was banned from the main internet platforms.

Will we witness Trump tweeting and/or co-authoring Alex Jones videos every day? Will the president of the United States get banned from Twitter for hate speech? Maybe usage of state funds for gay frogs anti EPA videos while the EPA is being dismantled in real time by Captain Planet villains in the admin, while Cruella DeVille invests in private prisons and private schools while being the secretary of education, while the Vice President and other nutjobs are creating a 'religion liberty taskforce' for the department of fucking Justice and stamp rubbing heritage foundation judges to district courts while orphans this admin created are in concentration camps?

[The Anti-Targ]

10 minutes ago, Serious Callers Only said:

This pathetic apologia of actual Nazis is getting more than a bit indicative man. 'Trump supporters' right. 'Fine people on both sides' no doubt. Except that right wing terrorism has killed hundreds in the USA (many recently, from these 'fine people') and left-wing hasn't got one murder yet.

 

Speaking of temporally embarrassed millionaires, Alex Jones is asking Trump for 'help' supporting his abhorrent verbal diarrhea now that he was banned from the main internet platforms.

Will we witness Trump tweeting and/or co-authoring Alex Jones videos every day? Will the president of the United States get banned from Twitter for hate speech?

The last thing you want is to ban Trump from Twitter. That's the only platform where he's likely to admit to impeachable actions, without even realising it and before anyone with half a brain in his administration can stop him.

[Serious Callers Only]

Eh, he already encouraged his zombies to go shoot journalists, it isn't like he'd get banned.