Prelude to the Apocalypse

[orange808]

That speech would carry some weight if Biden had any accomplishments to hang his hat on.

*sigh* ...I literally listed a handful of them just a few posts up, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch more - heck, just the other day the IRS announced it was planning to expand its pilot program to allow taxpayers to directly file for free like most countries do, as opposed to trusting Intuit and H+R Block to voluntarily forego profits (spoiler: they didn't). Maybe none of these things qualifies as an "accomplishment" in your book, but every last one of them is a step in the right direction, and sorry, but not only will you never see anything close to this with the GOP in power, but if they retake it they will roll every last one of them back. Full stop.

Saying full stop doesn't make you right. Low income people have had access to low cost tax services for years--and there was already action from the Justice Dept for Intuit's deceptive advertising and web design.

Rather or not wealthy Americans have to pay a few dollars for tax services really doesn't matter to me. Poor people already have options. I know some people that file taxes for seniors for free though the local senior center as well. So, you're tackling a problem we can (and do) mitigate locally.

Am I impressed with your tax thing? No.

There weren't any notable accomplishments on your list. I remember you listed some things and a string of excuses about why they couldn't happen. I already explained why there's no legislature support. The excuses ring hollow.

As for the rest of your silly post, maybe you can learn to read and internalize. I said center right and far right. That's different. Bryan has said the same thing with different words.

So, you're not arguing honestly. Although, it's also possible you're too upset to pay attention.

Bryan doesn't mean to say they are just as bad, either. The point is, they are center right and they prefer losing over to moving to the left.

[BulletMagnet]

There weren't any notable accomplishments on your list.

So as I surmised, because the effects these initiatives are having isn't dramatic enough to personally impress you, you don't particularly care if they get taken away (let alone have an opportunity to be built on in the future), and the people who will no longer benefit from them will just have to suck it up.

Frankly, I'm curious how this makes you any different from the legislators who refuse to sign onto a bill unless they get to attach a whole bunch of pork to it.

[orange808]

There weren't any notable accomplishments on your list.

So as I surmised, because the effects these initiatives are having isn't dramatic enough to personally impress you, you don't particularly care if they get taken away (let alone have an opportunity to be built on in the future), and the people who will no longer benefit from them will just have to suck it up.

Frankly, I'm curious how this makes you any different from the legislators who refuse to sign onto a bill unless they get to attach a whole bunch of pork to it.

You just can't help yourself, can you? Putting words in my mouth. I care plenty. I'll vote, but it won't matter much. Same as always.

Stop making this all about me. The federal government exists to tackle big problems. I'm justified when I ask for bigger policies that matter. Your personal attacks ring hollow. You keep spinning, mate. Keep attacking me and pretending I'm in the minority and my standards are unfair.

I volunteer my time and I'm not going to doxx myself on the internet to impress you. No, I'm not an accountant, although helping with taxes is a valid way to give back. My favorite people in my circle that volunteer are doctors. It's funny how most of the smart and successful people I know care so much, but we can't get anything better than the center right Dems on the ticket.

You're fucking over the people you claim to care about, while the center right Dems continue to negotiate away the things they "depend on", because the Dems refuse to move left (even the slightest bit).

Anyhow, f*ck your comments on me. My mother taught me that quid pro quo isn't the same thing as giving. So, I guess my mum's got one up on Biden and Obama's parents.

[Sengoku Strider]

I will never forget this woman getting caught on camera wasted at a nazi jam, trying to woo her Aryan dream prince by offering up her "huge tits and an Ashkenazi IQ." Trying to mobilize every Trump voter to put themselves in jail to win the election somehow couldn't be any more on-brand.



She couldn't even come close to getting elected in Florida, so she doesn't have much chance of succeeding at this particular parcel of pied pipery. But I'm rooting for her and her IQ all the same.

Spoiler

She's really overselling the boobs though.

[Sima Tuna]

More exclamation points = more serious.

[BulletMagnet]

I'm justified when I ask for bigger policies that matter.

Dude, did you seriously even read the post you just quoted? The part where I said, in no uncertain terms, that you and I are in agreement that the Dems should push harder in a lot of ways? How the hell did you get the idea that I was somehow calling that very notion "unjustified"? And I'm the one putting words in your mouth? Do you know how, like, human communication works? I'm starting to understand why Mischief Maker just threw up his hands and left.

One more time, for those in the back: where we differ is that I do see progress (including, dare I say it, genuine if very gradual movement to the left), and real good being done for real people, in the areas where Dems have acted, and think the best course forward is to actively get behind those things and thus create a foundation to build on for the bigger initiatives that both of us want. You, on the other hand, seem to believe that if they're not going all the way right this second they must just be stringing not only idiots like me but the people their policies are directly benefiting along in order to somehow distract us from pushing them to go further.

Frustrating as it is to see so many areas where it would be nice to see a much more immediate and forceful effort for more lasting change, I daresay that history suggests accentuating the positive, imperfect as it is, does eventually yield results; heaven knows Lincoln and FDR had to make deals with the devil in order to abolish slavery and get the New Deal enacted that frankly make us wince in hindsight, but I'd like to hear you argue that they should have refused to do anything because some of the work was inevitably going to be left over for those who came after them.

[orange808]

I'm justified when I ask for bigger policies that matter.

Dude, did you seriously even read the post you just quoted? The part where I said, in no uncertain terms, that you and I are in agreement that the Dems should push harder in a lot of ways? How the hell did you get the idea that I was somehow calling that very notion "unjustified"? And I'm the one putting words in your mouth? Do you know how, like, human communication works? I'm starting to understand why Mischief Maker just threw up his hands and left.

One more time, for those in the back: where we differ is that I do see progress (including, dare I say it, genuine if very gradual movement to the left), and real good being done for real people, in the areas where Dems have acted, and think the best course forward is to actively get behind those things and thus create a foundation to build on for the bigger initiatives that both of us want. You, on the other hand, seem to believe that if they're not going all the way right this second they must just be stringing not only idiots like me but the people their policies are directly benefiting along in order to somehow distract us from pushing them to go further.

Frustrating as it is to see so many areas where it would be nice to see a much more immediate and forceful effort for more lasting change, I daresay that history suggests accentuating the positive, imperfect as it is, does eventually yield results; heaven knows Lincoln and FDR had to make deals with the devil in order to abolish slavery and get the New Deal enacted that frankly make us wince in hindsight, but I'd like to hear you argue that they should have refused to do anything because some of the work was inevitably going to be left over for those who came after them.

You put words in my mouth with every disingenuous reply. You specifically say small things are great. When I make a logical argument why I'm not impressed and "justify" my stance, you twist my words around into some more random bullshit. Just pick a word out of my post and run with it. Hey, why not?

FDR? He was the ultimate bait and swirch. The man didn't tell anyone what he was going to do until he got into office. His donors were absolutely floored--and angry. Granddaddy Bush wanted to kill him.

Everything is hyperbole with you on this. I suggest not playing along on key issues and you say I won't do anything. You keep building straw men everywhere--and I'm just... tired.

So tired...

Yeah. Center right is the way to go. Go team. Fuck. You win.

You said you were annoyed a couple times and promptly forgot about it. Here's a gold star. Great. Saying you wish something or other is all we need, right?

Hey, what's the big idea on the ticket? "Not Trump". Catchy. That's all you got? And, I'm the problem? Fuck. And, let me remind you that the swing voters are the difference. You already have my vote. More turnout will bring a larger sample of the entire electorate. But, you're convinced that only lefties stay home, because: reasons. You're not losing because of me or turnout. Wake up.

[BulletMagnet]

Yeah. Center right is the way to go. Go team. Fuck. You win.

Yup, I imagine that any reasonable person reading my posts will come to the conclusion that this is precisely the argument I'm making. Time for me to get back to my weekend, and you to get back on your meds.

[orange808]

Yeah. Center right is the way to go. Go team. Fuck. You win.

Yup, I imagine that any reasonable person reading my posts will come to the conclusion that this is precisely the argument I'm making. Time for me to get back to my weekend, and you to get back on your meds.

You also seem to think we're in the same party and we agree.

You're a centrist. We don't agree.

Yes. When you twisted my response to why I'm not impressed with that tax "accomplishment" and I explained why sensible people could expect more, it was completely reasonable for you to pick a word and quote it out of context. Everyone is golf clapping, I'm sure. First it was just me being unreasonable and then it was some other shit. Good job nailing yourself to the cross as a victim, too. Right after you said I was being unreasonable and belittling a valid accomplishment, I explained why it wasn't enough and you nailed yourself on the cross and said I called you "unreasonable". Bravo, "dude". (After you implied I was being unreasonable first--and I replied with an explanation of: why the federal government should offer bigger things than a break on tax fees that probably already existed.)

Trump serves his crowd red meat. You serve me a half-ass tax thing that already existed. I can't imagine why Biden isn't making swing voters happy. They are the issue, by the way. Not me.

[Sengoku Strider]

More exclamation points = more serious.

You know, I've never devised any kind of punctuation scoring system, but 20 exclamation points in one tweet does seem kinda hopped up on something. But if you've got game you don't need any of them; JFK senior has finally returned to Earth from the Pleiadian mothership and just disowned the Democratic party. That's super serious.

[orange808]

Ah! Boomers and their JFK shit. They barely managed to elect him and they have obviously drifted out into extreme right wing territory that even Nixon wouldn't recognize as Republican.

Looks like Gen X could be 50%/50% if everyone plays along with the duopoly again. Of course, there are very few of us and I don't expect the same urgency this time. I think the libertarians among us will drop back out and hurt the GOP. Other right wingers may go for the Kennedy person. It's fitting that we'll have zero impact. I'm sure we'll get blamed, though.

The graph only has one problem. The blue should be a dark purple. There's no blue in America.

[Sengoku Strider]

BREAKING: Timcast declares Apocalypse in full effect, Halo and pizza officially cancelled forever.

[Sengoku Strider]

Newsweek: One in Three Republicans Now Think Donald Trump Was Wrong Candidate Choice

However, according to a survey of 1,003 Americans by Canadian polling firm Leger, Trump does not command the full support of his base and 33 percent of this demographic would have preferred another politician. Meanwhile, this proportion is higher (47 percent) among Republican voters aged 18 to 34 years old.

The survey was conducted between May 24 and May 26. The margin of error is +/- 3.09 percent.

I'm sure the actual number is much higher. Whatever they say publicly, there's no way most of these people haven't been tired of being embarrassed by this guy for a long time, even if they cram those thoughts deep down for the sake of the tribe. But I also saw the list of invertebrates they had in the primary who wouldn't even say a negative world about Trump, when they say "another politician" I'm sure they mean fantasy character X, not anybody who was actually on the table.



Unless there's a grassroots Ramaswamy resurgence I'm not aware of.

[orange808]

I'm sure the actual number is much higher. Whatever they say publicly, there's no way most of these people haven't been tired of being embarrassed by this guy for a long time...

Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him.

[Sengoku Strider]

Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him.

I mean the followers, obvi. At least Fool in Charge is getting rich off them.

--------------

Europe's going apocalyptically fash these days.

Radical right parties are in power or support the government in seven of the EU’s 27 countries, including Italy, Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The Netherlands is about to join their ranks, with the anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders holding the reins. In Austria, the heirs to Haider’s Freedom Party are ahead in the polls with an election planned for later this year. If they take power in Vienna, a full third of the EU’s national governments will be reliant on the far right for their survival.

This is only going to gain momentum over the next decade, none of the issues they're getting voted in on are going anywhere. The ever increasing economic inequality their blue-collar and agrarian supporters are furious about is hard-baked into the structural way capitalism funnels wealth upward. The immigration they're reacting against might slow as a result of the influence of these parties, but that can't ever stop under capitalism either. The whole conceit of the system is that everyone who shows up and does their job right deserves a promotion and a raise, a shell game you can only maintain if you keep importing an underclass to extract excess labour value from. Otherwise peoples' children don't end up better than they were, and whoever's in power gets voted out.

LGBT issues may be less fashionable than they were a few years ago, but that cultural genie's not going back in the bottle. I don't even know why they want it to, hard right movements are a sweaty hotbed of closeted homoeroticism. The idea that ecological issues are a "distraction" or "folly" is so transparently silly I'm amazed they're still trying to pull that one, we've already passed the point where the apocalyptic climate predictions aren't predictions anymore. They're only going to become more pressingly relevant to voters over the next 15 years. The decline in church attendance and relevance of traditional organized religion are largely its own doing; too many obvious hypocrisies that they refused to acknowledge, too much resistance to the branches of science and philosophy which are able to articulate its value to technocratic 21st century societies.

So I don't see much ahead for these far right groups other than an increasing amount of social anger bottled up in these movements, facing a number of deep structural challenges they seem to be in no way equipped to deal with beyond spraying poop on stuff.

[orange808]

The idea that ecological issues are a "distraction" or "folly" is so transparently silly I'm amazed they're still trying to pull that one, we've already passed the point where the apocalyptic climate predictions aren't predictions anymore. They're only going to become more pressingly relevant to voters over the next 15 years.

How does that play out? Nobody is actually interested in making any kind of meaningful personal sacrifices to turn the tide.

No. Driving a different automobile the same way won't change the world. Doing what you're doing (and getting more and bigger) in some "more efficient" way won't save the world.

We also morally want the entire world to live a western lifestyle. That's a neat plan. One problem: we don't have the resources to do that and it would create even more climate damage--and there's no "magic technology" solutions.

So, I'm fascinated what the voter response will be. As it stands, we have a lot of tradeoffs (switching to batteries introduces new alternative environmental damage) and half measures that build around "magic technology optimism".

We are determined to ignore the inconvenient reality: the only real solution is an unthinkable and impossibly unpopular wave of shared sacrifice that could only be implemented at gun point. Can we really volunteer and vote our way to enough sacrifices? Proper global egalitarianism (or partial egalitarianism via massive immigration) and sustainable environmental policy are incompatible. Even if we agreed to stop worrying about poor nations and put them on mute, the current circumstances are still unsustainable and the level of shared sacrifice is still impossible.

I don't see how any of this can play out with voters. Any reasonably low hanging fruit and all the half measures must be applied. We can't quit. At the time, the realistic outlook is grim. There's no robot overlord to handle the problem--and I would fight back if there was. We're boned. Go technology, I suppose. Better go faster.

[Sima Tuna]

We are determined to ignore the inconvenient reality: the only real solution is an unthinkable and impossibly unpopular wave of shared sacrifice that could only be implemented at gun point. Can we really volunteer and vote our way to enough sacrifices? Proper global egalitarianism (or partial egalitarianism via massive immigration) and sustainable environmental policy are incompatible. Even if we agreed to stop worrying about poor nations and put them on mute, the current circumstances are still unsustainable and the level of shared sacrifice is still impossible.

Maybe you've hit upon the solution yourself, right there. The rise of fascist movements leads to an abolition of voting. When global warming becomes impossible for anyone to deny and waves of apocalyptic misery sweep through the world, fascist leaders will forcibly implement shared sacrifice upon the peasantry. A few nobles will maintain western standards of living but the rest of us will have all our toys taken away at gunpoint.

Reminds me, looks like the heat domes are back on the menu this year. Everyone getting ready to enjoy a breezy 110F heat dome with lightning storms around the edges? Damn, climate change is such a myth!

[Sengoku Strider]

Maybe you've hit upon the solution yourself, right there. The rise of fascist movements leads to an abolition of voting. When global warming becomes impossible for anyone to deny and waves of apocalyptic misery sweep through the world, fascist leaders will forcibly implement shared sacrifice upon the peasantry.

The fash already beat you to this one, Eco Fascism started to gain steam in Europe during the pandemic.



I do not know why this person put the happy stars in this image:



I guess they got Reptile to join somehow:

[orange808]

I think the COVID-19 lockdowns in China are a good example of where authoritarian governments will go to handle an environmental crisis. I suppose race plays into everything, but extreme authoritarian regimes won't be making any exceptions among plebs (regardless of appearance) when the chips are down.

[Sengoku Strider]

I don't think it's going to be that rough. You're already seeing the worm turn on this one, because a lot of conservative voting areas are the hardest hit.

Last week, it was reported that the state’s largest metropolitan area saw a more than 1,000% increase in heat-related deaths over the last 10 years — spiking from 61 in 2014 to 645 in 2023. The crisis has stretched the resources of Phoenix, America’s hottest city, which is relying on nearly $2 million in pandemic-related federal funds to build cooling centers.

Now the cavalcade of catastrophic climate consequences is stirring concerns among voters. About 56% of Arizonans said that climate change is an “extremely serious” or “very serious” problem and 88% supported requiring oil and gas companies to pay for cleanup and land restoration costs after a well’s life has ended, per the 14th annual Conservation in the West poll conducted by Colorado College. “This year, we’ve seen the widest margin in favor of conservation,” pollster Dave Metz told Axios.

It's really just a question of how long they can keep fooling people in coastal areas that the annual hurricanes that are destroying their homes and sending insurance costs through the roof have nothing to do with weather somehow. The proportion of major hurricanes in the Atlantic has doubled over the past 40 years.

Nearly 6 million people in Texas live on a flood plain, they finally had to introduce their first ever state flood plan last week after so much flooding the past few years. Nevada is in constant drought, plenty of red areas in California too. You can only distract people from the measurable increases in climate havoc in their lives by saying it's just God mad about gay people or blame Jewish space lasers so many times before people just say fuck this and demand real change.

Over the next decade I'm quite sure you're going to see the rural base of right wing movements remember that they're the ones who have the most reason to care about nature, and always have been. You'll see churches remember they're supposed to be stewards of God's creation, and get out front on these issues because they're an easy winner with the public.

It's never made any sense that conservative movements are anti-conservation. It's always just been industrial money buying messaging.

[orange808]

Look at the American health care system. You really think these people can be rational or come to logical conclusions?

I don't buy it. If they need more resources to find comfort in extreme temperatures, they'll simply take them--or fight and demand them. If they need insurance, they'll demand more disaster money from the government. Then, they'll go right back to what they normally do and believe.

Right wing assholes and libertarians don't need to change anything they believe to demand government money or go to court to fight for more water. They don't give a shit about cognitive dissonance or hypocrisy. Their beliefs only apply to other people.

If things go south, they'll blame the "libs". They don't even know what a liberal is--and they have no idea how complex the political landscape is. They don't know how complex anything is--and they don't care. If you try to explain, it's just Idiocracy "fag talk". (And, they'll use the term without hesitation.) Smoke em if you got em.

[Sima Tuna]

Nah man, I gotta go with Sengoku on this one. Conservatives haven't always been the party of "fuck nature." Conservatives used to be the ones who hunted, not for sport but for food. You killed your own deer or gut your own fish, and then you serve it to the family and everyone eats it. I still remember going to my great-grandparents house out in the country and having fried deer sausage that my uncle had shot himself. I remember the men going fishing in the mornings and coming back with fish. We're talking about people who had wood stoves and wood sheds to go along with 'em. My great-grandparents wood shed was across the gravel road from their house, and so they'd cart that wood across when they needed some. I'm not saying they didn't have any comforts because they did. They enjoyed their tv. They had a big house and an outdoor covered patio with a nice view of the lake. But those folks were conservative and they were christian. They believed that if you harvested then you should replant, and if you hunted an animal you should eat it.

The conservative party has fallen a long way from people like that, to our present day "fuck everyone who isn't me." I don't think the cause is anything other than pure corruption. In a capitalist society, money is power and power corrupts. Decades of corporate interests and flimflam men bribing to get what they want means that our present-day conservatives have been taught to not care about the environment they live in. Well, they'll start to care real fucking fast if they want to keep hunting, fishing, riding horses, ranching or doing any of the other shit that relies on the outdoors not being a hellscape.

I wouldn't be surprised if the heat domes change some peoples' minds about whether or not climate change is real. Because I sure as shit don't remember 116F in the shade in the Pacific Northwest happening at any point in my life prior to a couple years ago. Now we're getting a repeat in many parts of the United States. I've been lucky so far and this current heat dome seems targeted to just barely miss us.

[orange808]

I wouldn't be surprised if the heat domes change some peoples' minds abo whether or not climate change is real.

I agree 100%. They'll eventually accept that. No problem.

What comes next is where I think you're falling back into an unshakable belief in human beings that I can't understand.

Their immediate reaction to the threat will be "fuck everyone but me". Same song, different verse.

And, how are you going to get buy in? Greenhouse gas in the atmosphere doesn't turn on the edge of a coin. It will get significantly worse before it gets better--and that time frame extends beyond our lifetimes. Shutting everything off right now wouldn't fix it.

[Sima Tuna]

I wouldn't be surprised if the heat domes change some peoples' minds abo whether or not climate change is real.

I agree 100%. They'll eventually accept that. No problem.

What comes next is where I think you're falling back into an unshakable belief in human beings that I can't understand.

Their immediate reaction to the threat will be "fuck everyone but me". Same song, different verse.

And, how are you going to get buy in? Greenhouse gas in the atmosphere doesn't turn on the edge of a coin. It will get significantly worse before it gets better--and that time frame extends beyond our lifetimes. Shutting everything off right now wouldn't fix it.

Oh, we're already beyond the point of no return according to some. The reality of climate change is doing what we can to lessen the impact it has on animal life here (including us.) We can't shut everything off because, as you say, that won't fix it. All we can do is forge ahead in new scientific research and hope to find solutions that will begin to slow, halt and later to reverse the effects. But that can't happen if people are still arguing about whether or not climate change is real, even as their homes are burning down around them.

My "unshakeable" human belief is simply this: We are at a crisis point for our species. We either overcome this problem or it could lead to the eventual demise of most terrestrial life. Given those stakes, and given that the casualties will not be limited merely to culpable parties, it seems reasonable to hold out hope that intelligent people with a vested interest in our species' survival may find workable solutions. This is a problem affecting every human on planet Earth. We may or may not succeed but the attempt has merit, whatever the result. All of us will die someday, but none of us want to be the last generation of our species.

[Sengoku Strider]

Texas officials are urging residents in some areas to use different modes of transportation other than their cars on Friday as ozone pollution in the state reach concerning levels.

I wonder how many people will have a freakout that the government is coming to take their F-150s.

[BulletMagnet]

All of us will die someday, but none of us want to be the last generation of our species.

You neglect to factor in the rapture fetishists, who want to summon Jesus to nuke the planet ASAP, not even so much because they want to get called to heaven, but because they're so, so very eager to have a front row seat when those of us in the "reality-based community" (their words, not mine) violently perish and are condemned to an eternity of unspeakable suffering because we said mean things about them.

Mind you, this isn't even to say that this bunch constitutes the majority of the modern right (though their willful credulousness certainly makes them overly prominent targets for secular grifters like Trump), but as I've said so many times before if the supposedly multitudinous "reasonable adults" towards that end of the spectrum remain unwilling to tell them, in no uncertain terms, to sit down, be quiet and feel bad it doesn't much matter when we've got Supreme Court justices openly flying "Appeal to Heaven" flags without consequence.

[Sengoku Strider]

I know this guy is just kind of a lonely empty shell of a human being who's always trolling for attention. But pretending he has no idea why people get edgy about a party led by a literal nazi who thinks citizenship should be based on German blood and brown citizens should be deported is a little concerning. Because if you just wanted to trigger the libs on a Sunday afternoon, there's a million other not-literal-nazi things you could choose to "I don't see what the big deal is" with.

[orange808]

I'm puzzled by the amount of hispanic supporters Trump has and the way he can recruit them.

Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving.

Providing a lengthy explanation would be deeply inflammatory and trigger people, but I can offer a brief explanation. Racial purity litmus tests are unlikely to ignore appearance. MAGA will eventually want to narrow the definition from "get to be white" down to "white". That's how racial purity tests work.

Of course, they let you hang around when they need you. How long will that be?

[Sengoku Strider]

There's a huge number of latino Catholics who are deeply culturally conservative. As long as Trump looks like the defender of traditional Christianity, many if them will look the other way on his character and political just like the evangelicals do. They see those as temporary minor details in a larger historical picture.

The deep irony of contemporary conservatism is that it has to thread all these needles and rig the game to maintain political relevance, but if they dropped the white supremacy they'd run away with every election. It's what the republicans were trying to do in 2016 before Trump tapped into how deeply that approach alienated a significant portion of white voters and his campaign overtook the primary.

[Sima Tuna]

There's a huge number of latino Catholics who are deeply culturally conservative.

Yep. This is the crux. Many hispanics have conservative religious beliefs. They will vote red over blue because their values are closer aligned to the red than the blue. Any element of white supremacy one sees in the red party is nothing compared to the overwhelming power of the church vote.

What, does anyone really expect a pro-life, anti-gay, pro-Religious Rule, pro-gun hispanic person to vote Democrat? Dems don't offer any of that shit.