These people need to be sent to work on the farm

Every photo of this man looks like a wax sculpture parody

You know I tried something like that recently, but the people who need a disengage aren’t the ones to take a hint. It’s a command because the people who’s hobby that day is to argue with you aren’t going to respect polite boundaries.

Even just saying that is more useful than immediate belittlement and toxicity. Put this as a response to the top level comment. This thread got real stupid real fast so I’d like the next general to be posted and everyone to be more helpful and less dickish to one another.

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I don’t want this to be more than it is, please don’t see this as damning your entire involvement here. Sometimes touching grass is healthy and fine, don’t let me stop you from doing that if that’s what you need, but don’t let my bristling push you out either. I think my direct response to your other comment captures more the spirit of my critique, but I assure you it’s a friendly one. We all have habits or traits that sometimes rub people the wrong way, and at the end of the day part of why I’ve become reactive this one is just a numbers game. Like I said, I appreciate 99% of your contributions, but due to visibility by volume alone that means I see a good amount of the 1% too.

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No. But vague and venemous comments alone don’t get the job done. I agree, linkless news is just gossip, Nazi news is only useful in so far as we learn what the fascists are spinning. However, your formating critiques, like capitalizing names, comes across as pedantic and ceremonial and not in a good way. People engage in information in different ways, and demanding we all show respect in a niche Internet forum where the actors being discussed will never see it is a little ridiculous.

I think your worthy point is that linkless news isn’t worth the electricity it takes to type the comment. Rather than letting your indignation at tone and substantive criticism get conflated into a single line of criticism, simply stating “link or remove” and then adding to that any additional criticism would be better. At the very least someone who, presumably, shared something in good faith, could attempt to then modify it in a way that better pleased the audience. As it went at first, all you did was launch a barb that seems alienating to anyone who didn’t immediately share your attitudes and make the same connection, and almost certainly the poster themselves. I think that’s a shame if we want the News Thread to be more than a hobby forum for a couple dozen power posters.

Pattern of behavior over years of reading the News Mega as far as I’m concerned. In this particular context, someone posted (linkless, shame on them) news. If she had a real problem with it’s presentation or tone she could have stated clearly what that was and invited the OP to reformat it. Instead, we get unspecific accusations of “disdain for the people.” Rather than critique the presentation in an informative way that let’s the OP know and grow, she simply besmirches their character and assumes the wagons will circle on her side for a good ole ratio.

I know she can offer useful criticism too because she does as a response to the same comment! And good. But the venom is still present and unnecessary in my opinion. Being so quick to side swipe a comrade at minor offenses isn’t a good way to go about life.

I appreciate our comrad’s input and contributions 99% of the time, but if they are even a smidge offended, legitimately or not, they become the most sanctimonious ass I’ve ever seen. So no, not always, but often enough that it’s weird.

“Our citizens are coddled children. Many can’t read, but those who do can’t practice basic skepticism and credulously believe whatever slop is laid before their eyes. We must carefully protect them from any narratives contrary to the state’s interests lest they get ideas of their own about our actions.”

Wind. I like my power plants like I like my men: clean, petite, and it takes dozens to get the job done

Why does God give his wettest boys the driest of air?

In Bad Country™, the state security forces are unaccountable to local political officials and maintain their control via direct violence if challenged. Regional authorities have intervened in the matter, but time will tell if they can wrestle control of the situation away from the entrenched corrupt security forces.

It really depends on how much you make. I lived in a shitty red state for a year on one of the plans, but because I was only making like $20,000 a year, it wasn’t bankruptcy levels of expensive, and I actually needed some serious medical care that year. I think the problem gets worse the more you make ironically, because they determine all of your discretionary income should actually go to insurance companies. That of course can’t happen if you don’t have any discretionary income to begin with I guess. Say thank you and go back to work, serf.

Yeah, I don’t deny that. But feeding into the misconception that socialism necessarily results in a lower quality of life for those in the imperial core is just reinforcing capitalist propaganda. No reason for us to be repeating capitalist myths for them.

I think you’ve shifted the goalposts in this discussion. You started with a question of “how many americans just want the plunders of imperialism shared more evenly with the working class” while predicting substantial reduction in quality of life for Americans post imperialism. I contend that most Americans do not have an improved quality of life even with the imperialism: that value and wealth is retained by the PMC and bourgeoisie. Sure, “the Global North” is taking a massively disproportionate share of global GDP via ownership, financialization, and rent seeking in general, but the vast majority of that is captured and retained by the top income earners in the US. Lumping in your median global North worker with his/her boss is absurd.

“About 50.7 percent of the household income of private households in the U.S. were earned by the highest quintile in 2022, which are the upper 20 percent of the workers.”

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of-household-income-of-quintiles-in-the-us/#:~:text=About 50.7 percent of the,earned by the lowest quintile.

The top two quintiles account for nearly 75% of total US income. If we got more granular, I think we’d easily find income drops off very quickly as you move down the second quintile too. No matter how you cut the numbers presented, though, my point I think stands. You may disagree for other reasons, but for the sake of argument if you were to grant that most Americans don’t benefit from imperialism, then it doesn’t seem to follow that their quality of life will go down when it ends. I think you’re creating false division between workers in the imperial core and periphery. It was more true even just 20 years ago than today, but neoliberalization has been eating away at earlier concessions to the working class for decades now.

But you’ve switched gears and are talking about post revolutionary war and degrading of industrial capacity from conflict. That’s just an entirely separate can of worms. I genuinely contend that the US and world in general would be substantially more productive if you ended things like intellectual property, redundant labor due to inefficient competition instead of collaboration, and squandering of productive capacity on non-socially useful endeavors like the MIC and conspicuous consumption. Those are good organizing points for bringing more people around to an anti-imperialist mindset. Plenty of Western leftists can and do accept socialism on anti-imperialist grounds precisely because we recognize we’re in the same class as workers elsewhere in the world. If you’re asking how many American “Socialists” are actually just Vaushites/dem-sucs, I guess I’d answer most of them? But like, they’re not actually educated on political matters. They think the Nordic model is socialism. But that’s not really related to the rest of your claims that I think are out of line with the reality of quality of living and distribution of income.