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U.S. and China to hold nuclear arms talks. - China wants to quadruple its nuclear stockpile and build 1,000 nukes by 2030. - The U.S. is already planning to cut down their warhead stockpile from 3,750 to 1,750 and wants China to slow their nuclear arsenal expansion in exchange for more cuts to the U.S. stockpile. - This is the first time China has agreed to talk about nuclear issues. - The U.S. also wants an agreement to halt new nuclear warhead dispersal technology outside of the nuclear triad. https://twitter.com/Dimi/status/1460672334239617024 quote:Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have agreed to hold talks aimed at reducing tensions, as US anxiety grows at China’s expanding nuclear arsenal and its recent test of a hypersonic weapon.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:16
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:U.S. and China to hold nuclear arms talks. I am really, really happy to see this type of diplomacy open up with China, specifically regarding nukes. I think it bodes very well, and it's a credit to Biden and Xi that they're coming to the table on it. Nobody wants a war between China and the US.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:23
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How are u posted:I am really, really happy to see this type of diplomacy open up with China, specifically regarding nukes. I think it bodes very well, and it's a credit to Biden and Xi that they're coming to the table on it. Countdown to the Rupert Murdoch party line "Biden giving China 1000 nukes from our stockpile" headlines
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Nov 16, 2021 20:26
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News out of the Blizzard/Activision Sexual Harassment fiaso: Its getting worse https://twitter.com/KirstenGrind/status/1460641844346298371?s=20 Their CEO went to bat for an exec accused of sexual harassment, threatening to have the accuser killed.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:42
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Abner Assington posted:It seems like the kind of burnout/mass resignation that will take a while for it to be felt by everyday dipshit Americans, too, so that'll be fun. Given the trajectory, isn't this merely an acceleration of an already known terminus? Healthcare in the broadest sense is primarily for the wealthy.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:51
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Dr. Red Ranger posted:Yeah, the real salient issue here being that the system isn't just in trouble, but broken and burning out at every possible level. The whole thing!. The industry that takes up 18% of the nation's GDP turning human lives into money for Aetna is on fire and teetering on nonfunctional. Good thing that the Build Back Better bill will build them back some even better government subsidies than they've been getting for the last decade, rather than changing anything systemically or punishing them for killing 80,000 people/year.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:51
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DandyLion posted:Given the trajectory, isn't this merely an acceleration of an already known terminus? Healthcare in the broadest sense is primarily for the wealthy. Medicaid would beg to disagree. It's for the poor, and it's saved my life.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:53
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Harold Fjord posted:I genuinely have no idea what this part is supposed to be responding to but the fact is that rich liberals with news shows will unite with conservatives to undermine leftism every time so it's not an easy ticket. But that's no excuse for politicians to not try to do the right thing. Yeah; I think it'd be far more useful for leftists to hold out on reflexively voting VBNMW until they're given tangible results & proof that alliances with liberals pay off policy-wise. VBNMW is incredibly toxic as a "principle"; you may as well tell someone that getting slapped around isn't as bad as getting beaten by their ex, so stick with the devil you know--and do so unconditionally & happily, lest you put yourself in the position of getting beaten again. There's a reason that VBNMW's increase in popularity has tracked with Dems' decrease in accomplishments over the past couple decades, just as there's always a The Most Important Election in Our Lifetimes around the corner.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:06
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DandyLion posted:Given the trajectory, isn't this merely an acceleration of an already known terminus? Healthcare in the broadest sense is primarily for the wealthy. Same as education, really. Another frustrating aspect is that it's hard not to notice what the sector means to communities. There's a definite hierarchy involved people can use to climb the social ladder. Pharmacy techs, dental hygienists and so on work a skilled , fairly accessible job that's a great step up from the usual retail fast food service hellshit jobs available to people with less education or opportunity. Different levels of nurse, physicians assistants, up through doctors and pharmacists are more involved, educationally intensive jobs that take a proportionally larger amount of your time and dedication to reach but afford a certain level of hope and stability. So, you can see that at every level of healthcare there are hard working people fighting to make what we all thought was the American Dream work, for decades, and the whole loving thing breaks down because profit motivated business types who have no idea how to provide care hollow out everything around them and call it progress. Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 21:24
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CommieGIR posted:News out of the Blizzard/Activision Sexual Harassment fiaso: Its getting worse https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1460695834677366794
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Nov 16, 2021 21:39
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Rebel Blob posted:To underline how psychopathic corporate America is, the immediate response of Activision Blizzard Board of Directors is that he still has their full support! Even after Kotick's been caught multiple times hiding bombshells from the board until they inevitably blow up in the company's face. They can't even admit concern, because that might reflect badly on the company's stock price. This also aligns with the firms they've courted to help manage this mess, they don't care about the mess they just want to hide it.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:42
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Rebel Blob posted:To underline how psychopathic corporate America is, the immediate response of Activision Blizzard Board of Directors is that he still has their full support! Even after Kotick's been caught multiple times hiding bombshells from the board until they inevitably blow up in the company's face. They can't even admit concern, because that might reflect badly on the company's stock price. They aren't cutting him loose because Bobby Kotick is the #2 person on the board. A lot of companies are requiring independent boards now, but Activision-Blizzard just has one independent board member. The rest are Kotick and other people who work for Kotick.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:44
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CommieGIR posted:This also aligns with the firms they've courted to help manage this mess, they don't care about the mess they just want to hide it.
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Nov 16, 2021 21:54
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FlamingLiberal posted:Yeah they initially hired a firm to deal with the Blizzard sexual harassment issues that advertises itself as anti-union Jesus Christ. "Trying to hide it", has a lot of emphasis on "trying". -Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 21:58
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When all this Blizzard poo poo first broke it was enough for me to renounce ever playing one of their games again, and boy howdy have they done a bang-up job of demonstrating that they've learned no lessons and have no intention of changing at all in the time since.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:01
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How are u posted:When all this Blizzard poo poo first broke it was enough for me to renounce ever playing one of their games again, and boy howdy have they done a bang-up job of demonstrating that they've learned no lessons and have no intention of changing at all in the time since. I, too, feebly resist Diablo II: Resurrected's siren song. I can't believe they've done this to me, personally.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:04
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Speaking of leftism, there's a largely unhelp NYT column by Fredrik DeBoer entitled "Democratic Socialists Need to Take a Hard Look in the Mirror" that probably doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know, but nonetheless:quote:What too many young socialists and progressive Democrats don’t seem to realize is that it’s perfectly possible that the Democratic Party is biased against our beliefs and that our beliefs simply aren’t very popular. It would be more compelling if it had more data and facts and analysis thereof (all it really talks about is Walton and Sanders losing), and especially addressing the difference between socialist policies and socialism (both the idea and the term), but there is your bog-standard leftist self-reflection that the only solution is to try harder, mainly at electoralism.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:04
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I think the most annoying political trend of the last 20 years is the right-wing and left-wing abuse of the word "Socialist." Right-wing people have been claiming that every center-left and beyond economic policy is socialism. Left-wing people who want a mixed economy state like Sweden (which is very much not a socialist country) also call themselves socialist. Now, socialist has been ascribed to everything left of center and has no meaning any more. Bernie Sanders and most other people who call themselves socialists probably don't actually want a government monopoly on car manufacturing, fast food, video games, computers, bicycles, or duct tape. But, now, Sweden, Canada, perfect Marxism, and Venezuela are all "socialist" despite being very different. It's impossible to talk about socialism without clarifying the specific things you define as socialism - which is the entire point of having an -ism! You're supposed to know exactly what it is referring to just by the word. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 22:10
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Why are you conflating government owned production with socialism, unless this is some kind of irony posting to prove the point
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Nov 16, 2021 22:18
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How are u posted:When all this Blizzard poo poo first broke it was enough for me to renounce ever playing one of their games again, and boy howdy have they done a bang-up job of demonstrating that they've learned no lessons and have no intention of changing at all in the time since. But how can you call yourself a gamer when you don't prestige in the latest Call of Duty (are prestige levels even still a thing)
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Nov 16, 2021 22:19
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Great op-ed by a physician and the editor in chief of Kaiser Health News about the chasm between voter sentiment on drug-price controls & the weaksauce clauses in the BBB bill:quote:Public opinion is unified on lowering prescription drug prices — why are Democrats settling for less? Is there any other issue more illustrative of the effect of regulatory capture on our government?
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Nov 16, 2021 22:22
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:They aren't cutting him loose because Bobby Kotick is the #2 person on the board. A lot of companies are requiring independent boards now, but Activision-Blizzard just has one independent board member. The rest are Kotick and other people who work for Kotick. It doesn't seem that way from their board of directors page - there's a lot of people that aren't currently employed at ABK? https://www.activisionblizzard.com/content/atvi/activisionblizzard/ab-touchui/ab/web/en/board-of-directors.html
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Nov 16, 2021 22:25
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Willa Rogers posted:Yeah; I think it'd be far more useful for leftists to hold out on reflexively voting VBNMW until they're given tangible results & proof that alliances with liberals pay off policy-wise. There are many things that have happened over the past few decades so I think you're simply selecting the variable that suits your narrative. "Vote Blue No Matter Who" is much more likely a response to the absolute insanity that the Republican Party has become. In the past decade alone, Republicans have gerrymandered districts that look like snakes and camels, denied people the right to vote, obstructed Obama at every turn and went on an all-out racist campaign against him, literally stole a Supreme Court seat, put a rapist on the Supreme Court, stole federal judgeships, grossly mishandled the health crisis of our lifetimes and actively sought to kill people in blue states, coordinated an insurrection at the Capitol after screaming that the 2020 election was stolen, tried to overturn the 2020 election, steal from their own constituents, a bunch of other things that I can't think of, oh, and by the way, gave us Donald J. Trump, who they still worship to this day. "Vote Blue No Matter Who" means that if you give Republicans even more power, you may not be able to vote for anyone else in the future. The Democratic vote has been whittled away practically everywhere except in blue states, which means little for a Presidential election. With demographic changes and a built-in bias towards land vs people, we have seen the Senate become completely lopsided, with a 50/50 split Senate representing 10s of millions more votes for Democrats; pretty much all recent Republican Senates also had 10s of millions votes LESS cast for them. I never hear criticisms of the Democratic Party also acknowledge the structural electoral problems that Democrats face. Republicans can be crazy as all poo poo, do absolutely nothing, steal from their citizens, and it simply does not hurt them because of their electoral advantages. Democrats have to quite frankly be perfect and appeal to all of their constituents, from the "rational independents," to the poo poo libs, to the left, to the embarrassed Republicans. I hate Joe Manchin but we're loving lucky as poo poo that he keeps winning in West Virginia. When our electoral prospects hinge on a Democratic seat in WV, we're hosed electorally. We're hosed electorally, but only because of the dumb advantages that Republicans have. I like to put it this way: even with all the vote fuckery poo poo that Republicans have been up to, a Republican Presidential nominee has won the popular vote exactly twice since I was born and exactly once since I came to this country. When a Republican does win, the popular vote margin keeps getting larger for the losing Democrat. Barring some kind of radical shift, Republicans will likely never win the popular vote again.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:26
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rscott posted:Why are you conflating government owned production with socialism, unless this is some kind of irony posting to prove the point yeah this Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) introduced an inadequate-but-it's-a-start bill requiring worker presence on company boards Mandatory 51% corporate ownership and 51% board control for workers would absolutely be doing a socialism.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:26
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How important is the popular vote to politicians?
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Nov 16, 2021 22:30
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rscott posted:Why are you conflating government owned production with socialism, unless this is some kind of irony posting to prove the point Who is "you" in this context?
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Nov 16, 2021 22:31
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papa horny michael posted:How important is the popular vote to politicians? Small-d democracy itself is no longer important to today's Republican party, so...
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Nov 16, 2021 22:32
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CommieGIR posted:News out of the Blizzard/Activision Sexual Harassment fiaso: Its getting worse Good reminder that Kotick was in Epstein's black book. I guess we're all complicit in the system but I really can't give a poo poo about my small role and my neighbors small role in it when the people at the top with power that outsizes mine in a laughable way are a bunch of psychopathic pedophiles and rapists who protect each other.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:32
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rscott posted:Why are you conflating government owned production with socialism, unless this is some kind of irony posting to prove the point  Marx describes socialism as the necessary first step to communism, but it is supposed to be a transitory phase. Today, you have actual socialist political parties advocating for a revolutionary vanguard class. Everything from a mixed economy to full Marxism is described as socialist now. Even anarchists have adopted the socialist label to describe autarky. When the label covers so much, it starts to lose value as a label. It's the political science version of the word "curvy."
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Nov 16, 2021 22:34
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I think the most annoying political trend of the last 20 years is the right-wing and left-wing abuse of the word "Socialist." All of this. Jumping in after seeing some posts related to what I was saying. And thanks to those folks who did gather what I was going for, not that I was being a token white guy rear end in a top hat about the social politic stuff going on over the last few years. It was me observing what friends who are in the "allies" or in some of those groups that have been talking points, and how they're taking it and the general conversation. Again, a small sample size of less than twenty, of generally west Coast folks, but relevant to where folks who are online too much think that they may have a majority opinion when it is itself more fringe or "radical" than they think. Let's take the term Woke, or socialist. Socialist has been taken over by right wing and left wing abuse to not really mean anything. Sanders, in many other actual first world countries would just be a regular old leftest, from my understanding. Woke, which was originally from my understanding a word used by minorities to tell each other if they were aware of the society and historical reasons that life is the way it is today, was first co opted by white people to mean "smart allies" which the right realized was a great way of turning it into meaning the folks that are online too much and aren't fun at parties (aka the white college educated folks who are hypocrites I was referring to earlier). In both cases, the right did a great job of messaging and co opting the terms to mean something "negative". You can spend ten minutes explaining why the words aren't bad or don't mean what people in general think they mean, but at that point, you've already lost the battle of getting average folks to understand it. And again, I think this has to do with the tents/aka camps. Right wing folks are fine with the lovely ones in their camp. They either actively support it, or when there's a problem with one, they just ignore them and pretend nothing happened. Because they're on the same team. Left wing folks (and I'm just basically putting everyone who didn't vote for Trump in this camp) is made up of so many sub groups... and it seems like our biggest hobby is attacking each other more than actually trying to fix problems that both one party or one country can't fix, or have active members of that camp who have no intentions of fixing it because their entire griff is just to complain about how bad the other side is without actually doing anything. I mean, just look at something like gun control. Right wing opinion is universal. Guns guns guns. Left wing, all over the place. Some want very strict gun control. Some don't. Some will lose votes because they are (rightfully) horrified at school shootings and that we as a culture won't fix things, but will lose elections over it versus lying, getting into office and then doing things that could be positive steps forward. I think this goes back to some of the poisoning that has happened in colleges and school systems in general. Culturally, the big lie is that principles and "morals" matter more than results. The right realized the best way to actually win is to pretend all they care about is "values" but that what actually matters is results. So they'll say what they need to, do what they need to, to get those results.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:37
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small butter posted:We're hosed electorally, but only because of the dumb advantages that Republicans have. I like to put it this way: even with all the vote fuckery poo poo that Republicans have been up to, a Republican Presidential nominee has won the popular vote exactly twice since I was born and exactly once since I came to this country. When a Republican does win, the popular vote margin keeps getting larger for the losing Democrat. Barring some kind of radical shift, Republicans will likely never win the popular vote again. This is in part due to deliberate efforts by the Democratic Party machine. They decided that the rural poor weren't a valuable enough part of the electorate when they chose Truman as VP, then decided the same with racists about 20 years after, thus creating a base that can exist purely on 'gently caress Democrats' that also happens to be very, very powerful electorally.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:40
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Pamela Springstein posted:Bernie swept the first four primary states and only lost when the centrists rallied around their guy and the pandemic killed in-person campaigning. India Walton won the Democrat primary for a seat republicans usually don't run for, then lost the general to the guy she beat. The Green Party wasn't allowed on the ballot in many states because the Democrat party sued. Lee Carter was pushed out by his own party for doing things like repealing right-to-work and capping insulin prices in Virginia. Ilhan Omar gets called anti-Semitic by members of her own party for fighting for Palestinian rights. Katie Porter got redistricted into a more conservative area, threatening her chances for re-election. The left's not going to win elections by whining about weaksauce poo poo like losing to a write-in candidate, or getting called mean names by political rivals, or losing urban areas from their districts. In order for the left to ever be an actual political force, rather than just a tiny ever-discontent wing of the Democratic Party, it needs to be able to handle poo poo like this. This isn't about Democrats or Republicans. This isn't about loving party politics. It's about whether the left is ever going to be able to stand on its own, rather than petty hanger-ons clinging to the ankles of successful liberals. eXXon posted:Speaking of leftism, there's a largely unhelp NYT column by Fredrik DeBoer entitled "Democratic Socialists Need to Take a Hard Look in the Mirror" that probably doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know, but nonetheless: While the article does cast it in the sense of getting votes and winning elections, its basic point that the left is not mobilizing sufficient popular support seems fairly accurate. You can say "electoralism" with so much bile and venom that it sounds like you're spitting it, but I'd love to hear your path to leftist political power that doesn't involve winning actual public support for the leftist movement. Whether you want to send those supporters to the voting booths or something else, there's no substitute in leftist politics for winning the support of the people. Or at the very least, there's no substitute that's legal to talk about on a public forum.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:42
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Main Paineframe posted:The left's not going to win elections by whining about weaksauce poo poo like losing to a write-in candidate, or getting called mean names by political rivals, or losing urban areas from their districts. Liberals are like a 1000T weight around the ankles of the left, constantly co-opting and dragging down even the smallest success. I agree that the left does need to remove itself from the Democratic Party, but the left are not the parasites in this scenario
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Nov 16, 2021 22:47
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Gumball Gumption posted:Most of us are not part of the system, just trapped by it. We have no hands on the levers. I know this is from pages back, but here's the thing: Everyone is part of the system. You're part of the system. I'm part of the system. The system is people, that's what it's always been and will always continue to be. The idea behind "examining your bias" isn't "You are personally responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world and it's up to you specifically to make all the racism stop" it's "it's important to examine your beliefs and where those beliefs come from because it's possible to internalize harmful thought patterns without even realizing it, also it's important to keep in mind that everyone's beliefs are shaped by their personal experiences and those personal experiences vary radically among individuals." Having this level of self awareness and encouraging this kind of awareness in others is the bare minimum of what is needed for systematic change to happen. Yes, there's a fuckton of other poo poo that needs to happen too, but before all that it's important for everyone to take the little baby step of "becoming aware of their thoughts and behaviors and where the drive behind them comes from." The fact that so many people respond to the bare minimum with "OH SO YOU THINK I'M HITLER AND THAT MY KIDS SHOULD HAVE TO PERSONALLY APOLOGIZE TO EVEVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY?!" isn't proof that we need to find some way to make the bare minimum even lower, it's an example of how difficult it is for people to accept the idea of change even when that change is positive and beneficial. Sidenote: What the gently caress does any of this have to do with universal Healthcare? Or raising the minimum raise? Seems like we can fight for these things while also fighting against racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia and pretending that we can't is just a false narrative with no bias in reality. Space Cadet Omoly fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 22:50
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Yinlock posted:Liberals are like a 1000T weight around the ankles of the left, constantly co-opting and dragging down even the smallest success. Cut the liberals free. Go, swim on your own. Blaze your own trail. I see the DSA kind of trying to do it a little bit, though they still work within the system. I see so much leftist griping, but where are the leftists putting words into action?
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Nov 16, 2021 22:50
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Shot by the CIA. I really need to finish The Jakarta Method
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Nov 16, 2021 22:51
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I wonder what happened to that whole occupy movement. They sure we're a bunch of leftists who were making charges in the discourse and were getting people to listen to them and pay more attention to what's going on. Honestly you really can point to them as the start of a lot of the public awareness in how influenced things are. Oh right they were tracked and followed by the FBI before they even started protesting and were treated as a terrorist threat.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:54
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Gumball Gumption posted:I wonder what happened to that whole occupy movement. Right-wing influencers (Tim Pool)
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Nov 16, 2021 22:57
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https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1460649487114948620?s=20 Heres the 'Strategists': 1. Jim Manley, aide of Harry Reid 2. Jesse Ferguson 3. Chris Taylor, DCCC spokesman 4. Josh Manley 5. Sean Maloney, DCCC Chair 6. Celinda Lake These are the people screaming "We just didn't call the angry parents foolish racists hard enough" as a strategy. They must be discredited if we are to keep seats.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:57
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Grouchio posted:https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1460649487114948620?s=20 They are going to pay lip service to racial issues while doing nothing about them at all that would intefere with capitalism, until the heat death of the universe
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Nov 16, 2021 23:05
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