Prelude to the Apocalypse

[orange808]

There is no Russian sympathy in Poland. They didn't prosper under the curtain in the Soviet bloc. But, it's much deeper than that. Poland has suffered greatly at the hands of their neighbors for a very long time--and they're not going to surrender to (yet another) invasion. They rushed to join NATO for a reason.

[To Far Away Times]

This always gives me a chuckle:

"Grindr executives are calling the RNC convention the Grindr Superbowl," Santos said in a video posted Wednesday.

"Let me tell you something: just come out of the closet boys. Come on, it's fun. You can be gay and conservative," he added. "But look, Grindr is already outing you anyway based on the hits and guess who is in town? It's all you conservatives."

Can you go to the gutter where you belong please?

The night has been refreshing. Allow me to pee on you.

Here it comes……. Ahhhh..Fuck Youuuuu……

I like how you dodged the part where I spelled out why you’re a bigot. I can see why you dodged that.

[vol.2]

There is no Russian sympathy in Poland. They didn't prosper under the curtain in the Soviet bloc. But, it's much deeper than that. Poland has suffered greatly at the hands of their neighbors for a very long time--and they're not going to surrender to (yet another) invasion. They rushed to join NATO for a reason.

They are also (in general) a very religious country, very, very Catholic, and they don't much abide by Russia's orthodoxy.

[Sima Tuna]

There is no Russian sympathy in Poland. They didn't prosper under the curtain in the Soviet bloc. But, it's much deeper than that. Poland has suffered greatly at the hands of their neighbors for a very long time--and they're not going to surrender to (yet another) invasion. They rushed to join NATO for a reason.

The other issue is that Poland IS a NATO member and have been for a long time. If Russia invades Poland and NATO does nothing, then what is the value of NATO again? Won't it lead to a complete dissolution of NATO? If Nato doesn't actually protect countries from aggressive neighbors then the people running NATO should know what will happen when the house of cards collapses.

In my view, NATO needs to respond because without an effective response, they are accepting their own downfall and eventual loss of power. Which no powerful group wants to do.

[BryanM]

What's really weird about the fash claiming a lib did this is how substantially, utterly, completely unknown Charlie Kirk is if you're over 25 years old and not a nazi.

I'm a no-life political junkie, only a few steps away from being the worst of them. All day yesterday I thought Kirk was the 'prove me wrong' meme guy, until I looked it up and saw that was some other guy. So I have 0 impression of Kirk, he's a non-existent ghost in my mind palace.

If a lib wanted to do some violence, there are much higher priority targets, both in material impact and someone they hate much more, emotionally.

The sheer competence in the attack makes a lot of the claims of a military sniper guy very feasible. The alternative is the guy who did it had a hobby of going off in the countryside and practiced shooting for over a decade. Paid assassin? Some KKK guy who was angry at Kirk for being too woke?

We'll probably never know which it is, for sure.

Malcolm X's falling out with the Nation of Islam always comes to mind a little bit. (Amazing how almost everyone in a position of authority wants to lay around doing nothing, besides fucking lots of random young girls all day.) Nobody hates anyone more than a perceived traitor.

In my view, NATO needs to respond because without an effective response, they are accepting their own downfall and eventual loss of power. Which no powerful group wants to do.

That's the sane, rational choice that benefits everyone the most. Especially when our empire is essentially now cross-national to begin with.

If you have absolute troglodytes running your country, who think it's still the middle ages and like to slobber on Putin's banana at every chance while spitting on Zelenskyy's face over and over again.... Well, faith in rationality and reason is a hard sell.

They seriously might be thinking shit that a loss for another country is a gain for ours, like how we became the manufacturing hub of the world when all the other countries on the planet were reduced to burnt rubble. You just have to point at the tariffs and wave your arms maniacally to know how bad they could fumble this football.

.... fuck me, when the fuckin' demon known as John Bolton might have better policy on this topic than our current fascist clowns.

I think Europe could defend itself this time (as long as there isn't another collab with Russia), but this is getting awfully close to nuclear powers invading each other. Putin would be crossing a line into being an asshole in the history books where everyone would point to for fucking everything up, wondering why he couldn't just fuckin' chill out. It isn't just faith in NATO they'd be testing, it'd eventually lead to testing faith in fucking Mutually Assured Destruction. Hoping that Russia's nuclear stockpile is as poorly maintained as the rest of its military isn't the happiest survival strategy I can think of.

Well.... I'm sure more people are taking the 'apocalypse' talk more seriously now. What a shitty way that would be for the world to end, eh.

[orange808]

The politics of the early 20th century (and long before) may seem lost to time in many places, but they are not lost.

Prussia was labeled as the source of both great wars. Obviously, Hitler directed the belated conclusion of the first great war from Berlin--and that (only) reinforced the view that Prussia was the reason the wars happened, in the first place. (And there's a grain of truth in there.) So, Prussia had to be erased. Poland was carved from Prussia and handed to Stalin for "safekeeping".

Prussian aggression is a convenient explanation. We don't have to discuss things like inequality and corruption. Nobody is to blame for the complex web of local grievances that snowballed into the wars. It's certainly easier to frame it around Prussia alone.

Not that Prussia was a noble republic of happy citizens. Prussia marched from the west in a long war. After three campaigns, Prussia finally conquered Poland a century earlier--and followed up with the standard behaviors of all human beings in conquest: they moved to erase the identity of the conquered.

Prussia did everything they could to erase Polish culture. Prussian rule came at the end of a sword. Then Hitler came marching back. After the war, Poland was handed over to Russia--a (sometimes bitter) local adversary in better times. No gunshots this time, but the nation was effectively placed under Stalin.

But, Poland never wanted to be under thumb, in the first place. Poland does not see itself as a commodity. They have their own history as a nation that goes back centuries. They are not a slice of land, filled with filthy Pollocks, that sits between Berlin and Moscow.

And, they are not about to be treated that way. You have to understand that Poland isn't a product of the postwar order. Their nation was not conjured from nothing for convenience 75 years ago. And, the efforts to erase Polish identity have come from all sides.

Poland is quite tired of being conquered and carved up. They're not going to let it happen again--and they have a long history of being sold out by foreign powers. They're not going to sit back and trust foreign "negotiations"--while they are carved up and handed to Putin.

It's a red line. You might think the Poles would value your safe European and American homes and put their hands up, for the greater good. I think you're gravely and deeply mistaken. Ukraine may have its share of sympathisers that see themselves as Soviets or Russian. Poles have no such fantasies or leanings. They are Polish and there's no internal debate about their identity. They are Polish.

[Hoagtech]

What's really weird about the fash claiming a lib did this is how substantially, utterly, completely unknown Charlie Kirk is if you're over 25 years old and not a nazi.

Like I told KingCobraJFS. The fash is a compliment outside the circle of geeks who think accomplishments are oppressive unless they hand over their earnings to trendy groups of the poor. It's an affirmation really, that you made success happen in your life to the point libs are mad about it. But what do I know?

I'm so fascist in fact. I have my username in Nasdaq articles whenever I would like to reference them. Fascist to the point where I need to decide which home I would like to live in each season.

The sheer competence in the attack makes a lot of the claims of a military sniper guy very feasible. The alternative is the guy who did it had a hobby of going off in the countryside and practiced shooting for over a decade. Paid assassin? Some KKK guy who was angry at Kirk for being too woke?

Whether the a Billionaire like Soros lib hired a sniper or an extremely unhinged one with a big gun did it. The etchings of Antifa and Trans on the bullet do not help the situation

[orange808]

Pass some gun laws.

[Stevens]

What's really weird about the fash claiming a lib did this is how substantially, utterly, completely unknown Charlie Kirk is if you're over 25 years old and not a nazi.

Truth. My wife told me when I got home from work.

My response was "Who?"

[Vanguard]

The fact that congress decided to vote not to release the Epstein files the same day Charlie Kirk was assassinated suggests extremely strongly that congress knew the assassination was going to happen, at least the congressmen who decided the vote should happen on September 10th. It provided a very good distraction against that. They obviously are never going to release them, because many congressmen raped kids on Epstein island, and they want as little attention on the matter as possible.

[orange808]

The Troubles are a potential measuring stick for the existence and threat level of a clandestine domestic organization. By that metric, I am struggling to understand why I should be concerned about or even acknowledge the existence of an organized Antifa organization.

Nobody debates the existence of the IRA, probably because that particular organization was very real and active. I shudder to think what would happen if your imaginary fever-dream "Antifa" actually did exist with so many readily available weapons at hand.

Of course, I am capable of critical thought, so there's that...

[vol.2]

I think the guy was probably fucking somebody's wife. Nothing else makes sense. He spent a lot of time hanging around on college campuses with young people, it's the most likely scenario.

I can also add to the chorus of people who are saying "who tf is that?"

[Vanguard]

I think the guy was probably fucking somebody's wife. Nothing else makes sense. He spent a lot of time hanging around on college campuses with young people, it's the most likely scenario.

I can also add to the chorus of people who are saying "who tf is that?"

It is likely that the cultprit behind the Kirk assassination was Mossad, Isreal's equivalent to the CIA.

Another right wing dude by the name of Harrison Smith posted about a month ago that he had been told that Kirk was afraid Isreal would kill him for turning on them:
https://x.com/HarrisonHSmith/status/1965911983167029402

Screenshot in case that tweet gets taken down:

Spoiler

I was not familiar with Kirk or Harrison prior to yesterday, but it seems that Kirk was a longtime supporter of Israel who had, in recent months, had soured on them somewhat. Kirk had been speaking about Epstein being a Mossad agent working to blackmail powerful people in the US - which is true. Kirk had also been speaking out against Trump's recent anti-free speech laws banning anti-zionist speech in universities, and about the extraordinarily outsized influence of jewish interests in various sectors of American business and government. Kirk expressed his belief that news control the media in an interview with the Ben Shapiro just a few days ago.

So what I think happened is, Israel decided that it would be better to kill this guy now and keep him as a pro-zionist martyr, than to continue talking about the many, many ways in which America's relationship with Israel is harmful to America and Americans, potentially drawing hundreds of thousands of his largely pro-Israel followers into becoming anti-Isreal, especially given how much anti-Israel sentiment has been generated by the unbelievably brutal genocide Israel is committing in Gaza as we speak, paid for in large part by the American taxpayer.

It is clear that the US government was made aware that this would happen, they are not letting the opportunity go to waste. As I said before, congress chose the perfect day with the perfect distraction to vote not to release the Epstein files. Congressmen are already talking about ramping up surveillance and more punishments for the wrong kinds of speech in light of the assassination. Trump is saying the culprit is a leftist with zero evidence. The federal investigation is bringing out the old ridiculous false flag where they found bullet shells with words like "antifascist" and "transgender" carved into them.

I've also heard that Israeli prime minister and worst war criminal alive, Benjamin Netanyahu posted about the assassination almost immediately after it happened, to the point of being suspicious. I don't have a twitter account and haven't been able to confirm if that is true.

[BulletMagnet]

Knowing Kirk was kinda one of these grifter types, I do wonder how deeply-held his 2A beliefs were.

I can't be bothered to check myself - and I'll be damned if the algorithm sees me searching for anything Kirk-related and reacts accordingly - but if you want to check this see if he ever had anything to say about recent talk of banning trans people from owning guns. Or the fact that so many conventions attended by 2A enthusiasts, including the NRA's, strictly prohibit firearms of any kind on their premises.

The fash is a compliment outside the circle of geeks who think accomplishments are oppressive unless they hand over their earnings to trendy groups of the poor.

No, that attitude just makes you an avaricious, self-important piece of shit.

Now, crowing about how great it is to be able to honk your car horn when businesses and law firms are having the executive's lap dogs sicced on them unless they pay bribes directly to the administration, government agencies, universities, and arts institutions are having their funding arbitrarily cut if they're not shitty enough to minorities, officials are fired if they report numbers Dear Leader doesn't like, and ordinary citizens are spirited off the streets and air-mailed to war zones with no due process? That makes you a fascist piece of shit.

The fact that congress decided to vote not to release the Epstein files the same day Charlie Kirk was assassinated suggests extremely strongly that congress knew the assassination was going to happen, at least the congressmen who decided the vote should happen on September 10th.

I frankly think you're giving both them and their voters far too much credit; as you say, there's no way they'll ever willingly allow everything to be released, no matter what the potential backlash. To that end, by now methinks it's clear that they have very little to be afraid of on that front; more and more of the folks who insisted that justice for the victims was so very important have consistently peeled away, saying they trust Daddy to do the right thing, and will continue to do so.

As Mitch McConnell said to doubters when it came to passing the budget bill, "they will get over it" - he's made that bet repeatedly and without interruption for decades straight, and the GOP base and their "moderate" water carriers have yet to prove him wrong even once.

I shudder to think what would happen if your imaginary fever-dream "Antifa" actually did exist with so many readily available weapons at hand.

If Antifa was anything remotely resembling a real, active presence the ICE thugs wouldn't be terrorizing the citizenry with such impunity.

[BryanM]

Nothing else the fash hates more than being treated like how they treat others. Understandable, as these are people who murder defenseless puppies and think it's cool and good.

The mossad shit is a big part of the loyalty of congress, imo. Not just the bribes. They've let shit get so bad that it's basically like North Korea, when it comes to their spook network. Ingenious plan to set up a client state run by fascists, and then giving them nuclear weapons. Grade-A thinking from capital.

I think the guy was probably fucking somebody's wife. Nothing else makes sense.

Yeah, or daughter or a favorite mistress. Rich assholes care more about their social status and external symbols like that a lot, so that's very feasible. I don't really buy into the Rube Goldberg political mastermind conspiracy theory stuff, as BM's mention of the memory hole goes, the memory hole goes both ways.

Give it a few weeks and these guys won't even remember Charlie Kirk even existed. There's a million of grifters preying on racists who can't stand they can't get a ladyfriend or can't accept that they're gay or whatever mental problems they have..

Imagine having such low self-esteem that the only thing you can take pride in is your skin color. Just imagine.

A good section of those guys who 'want kids', besides being an external symbol of 'winning' like points in a basketball game, just want some poor bastards to worship them as a mini god-king. Like having power over some children makes you any less of a prole like the rest of us are......

[Randorama]

.

[Vanguard]

I frankly think you're giving both them and their voters far too much credit; as you say, there's no way they'll ever willingly allow everything to be released, no matter what the potential backlash. To that end, by now methinks it's clear that they have very little to be afraid of on that front; more and more of the folks who insisted that justice for the victims was so very important have consistently peeled away, saying they trust Daddy to do the right thing, and will continue to do so.

This is terribly naive. It is, of course, quite bad for the ruling class if more of the public finds out they're raping underaged prostitutes and sex slaves and being blackmailed by the foreign nation providing them. They very much want all of this to go away with as little attention as possible. Many right wingers are turning against Trump specifically because he is burying the Epstein files after promising to release them. You also seem to be under the belief that it is exclusively or at least primarily republicans who were engaging with Epstein, which is also wrong. Bill Clinton, for example, met with Jeffrey Epstein very regularly. There are photographs of Ghislaine Maxwell attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Many democrats are named in Epstein's book of contacts that got leaked online around when he was arrested. And of course there is the simple fact that the democrats showed as little interest in releasing the Epstein files when they were in power as the republicans are showing now. Anyone rational won't need to know anything more than that to know that they, too, are his clients.

It's unwise to assume the ruling class is disorganized and incompetent. They're staying in power for a reason. That's not to say that they are hypercompetent either, but they are extremely well organized.

[BulletMagnet]

You also seem to be under the belief that it is exclusively or at least primarily republicans who were engaging with Epstein, which is also wrong.

Not so much that, but I would definitely assert that the Dems have significantly more reason to actually be afraid of their voting base, and the effect that the release of the files would have, than the GOP does. As the saying goes, the former fall in love, the latter fall in line. If anyone hasn't already abandoned Trump and his defenders by now, they're simply never going to. You insist that a significant number of people are indeed leaving Trump over this; my response is to check back after the midterms, assuming they occur in any meaningful form.

[Vanguard]

Not so much that, but I would definitely assert that the Dems have significantly more reason to actually be afraid of their voting base, and the effect that the release of the files would have, than the GOP does. As the saying goes, the former fall in love, the latter fall in line. If anyone hasn't already abandoned Trump and his defenders by now, they're simply never going to. You assert that a significant number of people are abandoning Trump over this; my response is to check back after the midterms, assuming they occur in any meaningful form.

Wrong, both parties are packed to the brim with simps who lick the boot no matter how hard it kicks them. Biden's whole decades long career as a congressman was about destroying the working class as thoroughly as he could, to great success, he still got elected. "Oh but that was different, we had to stop the worst president of all time no matter what!" Yeah that's exactly what the Trumptards were saying. Every election is the most important election ever.

I don't really buy into the Rube Goldberg political mastermind conspiracy theory stuff, as BM's mention of the memory hole goes, the memory hole goes both ways.

Do you not believe in any of the many accounts of the CIA sabotaging foreign nations, installing puppets, and performing assassinations? Or do you baselessly believe that only America does it? It's really not that crazy to believe that two most murderous governments in the world, Israel and America, would decide to kill someone because he's starting to become a liability and his death could be useful. Both governments kill all kinds of people all the time, and lie about it all the time, and you know it. It certainly isn't hard to believe that the government would want the news talking about something else while the government does some votes which they know will be extremely unpopular with the public. Do you just think that deliberate distractions as a concept don't exist?

[BulletMagnet]

"Oh but that was different, we had to stop the worst president of all time no matter what!" Yeah that's exactly what the Trumptards were saying. Every election is the most important election ever.

Time will tell if the trend holds, but I'm tempted to guess that 2024 was at least some semblance of a turning point (no pun intended) on the Dem side; Trump didn't win because a bunch more people turned out for him than before, but because Harris's insistence to continue looking the other way on Israel's ethnic cleansing and kissing up to billionaires lost her tens of millions of Biden's voters.

Sure, it took decades too long for them to finally get fed up, and again, we'll have to wait and see if this was just a one-time thing, but I can guarantee you that on the GOP side it will remain a no-time thing.

[orange808]

Many right wingers are turning against Trump specifically because he is burying the Epstein files after promising to release them.

Unfortunately, that is impossible. Despite what may be said in passing, that cannot happen and will never happen.

They are all exactly like Hoagie. Every last one of them.

[Vanguard]

Time will tell if the trend holds, but I'm tempted to guess that 2024 was at least some semblance of a turning point (no pun intended) on the Dem side; Trump didn't win because a bunch more people turned out for him than before, but because Harris's insistence to continue looking the other way on Israel's ethnic cleansing and kissing up to billionaires lost her tens of millions of Biden's voters.

Sure, it took decades too long for them to finally get fed up, and again, we'll have to wait and see if this was just a one-time thing, but I can guarantee you that on the GOP side it will remain a no-time thing.

Whom did the left "fall in love" with, as you say? Obama, the war criminal responsible for millions of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who said he would fight big business while running, and immediately did a 180 after getting elected? The one who bailed out the bankers who crashed the economy and did nothing for everyone beneath them who was hurt by it? Who gave such miunscule concessions to the poorest 90% that it might as well have been a slap in the face? The left "fell in line" and elected him again. Sure the left fell in love with Bernie, and when the dems rigged the primary against him, they all fell in line anyway and voted Biden, who didn't even pretend at any point in his career that he wasn't a devoted puppet of big business.

It is exactly the same on the republican side. Lots of people liked Trump's promises, lots of people were upset by his failure to uphold many of his promises. They still vote for him because the dem candidate is Megasatan.

[Vanguard]

Unfortunately, that is impossible. Despite what may be said in passing, that cannot happen and will never happen.

They are all exactly like Hoagie. Every last one of them.

The fundamental problem in your thinking is that you believe your main enemy is not the ruling class, but working class republican voters. To be sure, they are pretty stupid and unpleasant on the whole, though the same can easily be said for leftists. It's not any voter's fault that wages have been going to hell for 50+ years while cost of living skyrockets, it is the people at the top who don't actually need the voting public's consent to get what they want.

[orange808]

I think it's dangerous to assume the right thinks about things, just because that's how you understand your world.

Making those comparisons between yourself and the right wing is projecting. They aren't wired for that. They don't do that. They weren't blackmailed into a lesser evil.

This is what they want. We have to accept that.

[BulletMagnet]

Whom did the left "fall in love" with, as you say?

Again, I'm talking about whether 2024 signifies a shift away from the "vote blue no matter who" mindset going forward, especially as the party leadership's hypocrisy on this front is on full display with the likes of Mamdani in NYC. Maybe the base will indeed just go "lesser of two evils" again, but in any event I can guarantee you that its opinion of Clinton and Obama has cratered in hindsight, especially compared to the equivalent across the divide when it comes to Reagan or Bush, let alone the dramatic swing against Biden versus circling the wagons around Trump.

[orange808]

Unfortunately, that is impossible. Despite what may be said in passing, that cannot happen and will never happen.

They are all exactly like Hoagie. Every last one of them.

The fundamental problem in your thinking is that you believe your main enemy is not the ruling class, but working class republican voters. To be sure, they are pretty stupid and unpleasant on the whole, though the same can easily be said for leftists. It's not any voter's fault that wages have been going to hell for 50+ years while cost of living skyrockets, it is the people at the top who don't actually need the voting public's consent to get what they want.

Lulz.

I understand all too well. More than one thing can be true at once. Furthermore, nothing I've said about the right wing 'rank and file' makes the ruling class any less responsible.

Speaking of ruling class, I've also expressed my frustration with the centrists in charge of the fake "opposition party". That's because they're part of the aristocracy and they have been willing conspirators in all of this. If memory serves, there was a time in this thread that Bryan and me were in the minority on that.

I see what you're talking about. Doesn't change anything. Right wing people aren't going to ever hold anyone accountable ever, unless they have another motive. Anyone that's in their club and not inconveniencing them is innocent. Anyone that disagrees with them or gets in their way is the enemy. (That could also include a friend that gets caught with his pants down and becomes a liability?)

It's simple. Speaking of projection, Hoagie has exposed how they go about things. He's not kidding. He really believes you are as daft as he is. He really thinks you have the same kind of dog like devotion that he does. He can't fathom how you see the world. Anytime it does creep in, he shuts it down with a simple, "you're weak".

Lots of things can be (and are) true at the same time.

[BryanM]

You insist that a significant number of people are indeed leaving Trump over this; my response is to check back after the midterms, assuming they occur in any meaningful form.

Maybe a fair number of the Alex Jones conspiracy bro types, not so much the racial supremacists and their ilk. There are different subfactions in every coalition, it's not just loser incels who want someone to fuck them, like that would somehow improve their life. (Like Vaush likes to point out, if you want something you make an effort and just do it. Most of these guys just want to play video games and jack off, or stew in the dark and blame their current unhappiness with life on sexy transgender immigrants or whatever.)

The special elections have been a bloodbath for the GOP, ~20% swings almost across the board. Whether that translates to the normie general elections in the midterms, or if we'll even still have elections, is definitely up in the air. Of course it won't have any lasting impression unless the democrats change and actually make people's lives better. If Bush II couldn't destroy the party then no other vampire would. They have to be forced externally to change, which requires an FDR.

There's a reason I keep talking about the dog murderer (nsfw). There are things that are clearly evil and things that are clearly good. It is good to feed hungry children. It is evil to get angry about kids getting free food. It is good to pet puppers and rub their bellies. It is evil to murder puppies.

Look at these cute little puppies. They deserve all the pets and none of the bullets.

Do you not believe in any of the many accounts of the CIA sabotaging foreign nations, installing puppets, and performing assassinations? Or do you baselessly believe that only America does it? It's really not that crazy to believe that two most murderous governments in the world, Israel and America, would decide to kill someone because he's starting to become a liability and his death could be useful. Both governments kill all kinds of people all the time, and lie about it all the time, and you know it. It certainly isn't hard to believe that the government would want the news talking about something else while the government does some votes which they know will be extremely unpopular with the public. Do you just think that deliberate distractions as a concept don't exist?

Yeah of course human life means nothing to them, but Kirk was a loyal soldier. Killing him would send the message that loyalty might not be rewarded.

They voted plenty of times to not release the files. Everyone already knows they're a bunch of kid fuckers. Everyone already knows we're committing a holocaust. What could they possibly do that's any more evil than this? Start nuking our own cities with nuclear bombs?

Establishing a pretense for a war could be worth doing. Offing some random grifter that only 3% of the population even knows exists is not the most 3d chess move.

Yeah, maybe Mossad really did do it, if this stuff about him backing away from supporting a war with Iran is true. U.S. congresspeople being involved in that scenario? Highly unlikely. It's clear they're the tail that wags the dog; why would they need permission when they're allowed to do anything?

Trump didn't win because a bunch more people turned out for him than before, but because Harris's insistence to continue looking the other way on Israel's ethnic cleansing and kissing up to billionaires lost her tens of millions of Biden's voters.

It's been painful reading a bunch of liberals still whining about racists existing being the reason she lost. Literally some jackass saying any white guy would have won.... When the data said Joe was losing by multiple more points than she did.

Josh Shapiro was one of her potential running mates, which I was 100% sure she'd pick because we're living in hell world. Tim Walz would have won if he had been the dem nominee. He's a good dude, you have to be an inhuman serial killer to not like Tim Walz.

Shapiro, would have lost just as badly.

As a heads up, Shapiro is currently having the flags of his state fly at half mast for Charlie Kirk.

Obama, the war criminal responsible for millions of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who said he would fight big business while running, and immediately did a 180 after getting elected? The one who bailed out the bankers who crashed the economy and did nothing for everyone beneath them who was hurt by it? Who gave such miunscule concessions to the poorest 90% that it might as well have been a slap in the face?

I'm glad you're still able to hold on to your anger for so long, I've burnt out. Guy supposedly called Mamdani 'the future of the party', when the last time he picked up a phone was to ensure he wasn't the present of the party five years ago.

The democrats hate us and chose for us to die. AGI nightmare, fascism nightmare, nuclear hellfire, global warming shithole, fuel exhaustion.... I think that's around five different apocalypses converging around the same time as the status quo is coming to an end? Am I missing any others?

If memory serves, there was a time in this thread that Bryan and me were in the minority on that.

Hm, you're a little bit of a late-comer so you're maybe not as familiar with the forum regulars as I am. People here were definitely above the normo ratio in recognizing that the democrats are a waste. Yeah, some of them are affluent and motivated to want to keep the stock market bubble going (love how it's easier to make money gambling on a sure bet than provide physical goods and services) and their taxes cut to the bone. And others just didn't want to accept that the world is as bleak as it is.

Just because others aren't as vocal about it as MM and I are doesn't mean they don't know, it just means they'd rather think and talk about other things.

Even as a little child I could see that the democrats are evil, so in my youth I just accepted that was the least bad we could do. Whole system runs on money, so how could you change that?

I didn't vote for Obama (I knew you can take two seconds to look at who someone is working for at OpenSecrets), but was mildly relieved when he beat Clinton. In hindsight, it's depressing to think how much better off we might have been if he never ran at all. But on reflection I think this is the best timeline we could have managed; no man rules alone and their generation isn't letting go of power until the generational shift.

Change is the only guarantee in life. And with time, all things will happen.

Speaking of projection, Hoagie has exposed how they go about things. He's not kidding. He really believes you are as daft as he is. He really thinks you have the same kind of dog like devotion that he does. He can't fathom how you see the world. Anytime it does creep in, he shuts it down with a simple, "you're weak".

It's depressing to know how true this is.... I used to post about different terminal goals and people talking past one another a lot way back when.

Once again, I don't think it's good for anyone to act as the enemy he wants to fight with. It's certainly better for his brain to detox from the poison its been ingesting with his peers who care more about him than some anonymous parasocial grifter using him as his personal wallet.

At the very least, you might be saving the life of some dog from abuse. These guys are addicts to anger and fear, try to dial it down a little and force them to reflect on how dogs are the best thing in the world, to humans. Try to help them remember there are other ways to feel good.

Like Earthbound.

[vol.2]

I don't really buy into the Rube Goldberg political mastermind conspiracy theory stuff, as BM's mention of the memory hole goes, the memory hole goes both ways.

Exactly. People are always looking to make things so much more dramatic than they really are.

Presumably, this Kirk guy was hobbing around with a lot of right wing extremists, and had access to a lot of young women at college campuses and the like. At the end of the day, these people have appetites just like anyone else.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

But in this case, the sword is Kirk's penis I mean. If that wasn't obvious.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't really buy into the Rube Goldberg political mastermind conspiracy theory stuff, as BM's mention of the memory hole goes, the memory hole goes both ways.

Exactly. People are always looking to make things so much more dramatic than they really are.

Presumably, this Kirk guy was hobbing around with a lot of right wing extremists, and had access to a lot of young women at college campuses and the like. At the end of the day, these people have appetites just like anyone else.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

But in this case, the sword is Kirk's penis I mean. If that wasn't obvious.

Could be this. Or it could be as simple as "this is a guy who made his career out of talking to people who don't like him, and saying inflammatory shit to those people." He made himself very available to the exact people whose rights he wanted to take away:

https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1966201861284773989

Now, when you say shit that upsets the people you say it to, what inevitably happens is that the people you say the upsetting shit to, and about, will be upset. Those upset people, if you have cloistered yourself in an online publication, or a youtube channel, or a forum... They can only say negative things back to you online. Or call the publication you work for and whine.

But if you say upsetting things to people in person, in a location where a lot of them congregate, and where your security arrangements are perhaps inferior... It's only inevitable something like what happens, happens. Should it happen? No. No, I am anti-assassination. Generally speaking. I was pro-assassination in the Mangione case because that guy who got gat was so comically evil. I mean, he was really pushing the boundaries. Charlie Kirk is more the banal, internet shitposter for sale to the highest bidder kind of bad guy. Someone who should get memed on but not harmed. But he made it easy for someone to get to him, so they did! You can call that victim blaming but it's also just reality. If you leave your car unlocked someone might steal it. Kirk probably was warned numerous times by people in Trump's cabinet of the dangers of engaging directly with crowds of angry folks.

I don't think there's some big conspiracy involving the military. Kirk was sitting down and that made him an easier target than when Trump had a piece of his ear taken off. Lots of people in America are good shots. Maybe euros don't understand this? Y'all never were raised with family on both sides who went to the shooting range for fun? I can't shoot for shit but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of civvies on all sides of political spectrum who could light somebody up. I think the simplest explanation here is someone angry about Trump's presidency decided to go after somebody like Kirk who was easy to reach, rather than someone like Trump who is far harder to hit.

Reminder that a dude in Japan hand-made a shitty gun and still managed to get to Abe and use it. People are gonna figure shit out if you give them enough chances. Kirk's killer most likely is some pissed-off liberal and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they are a member of the trans community, specifically because of Kirk's remarks towards that community. The killer is also probably quite young, because I am termainlly online, I follow penisosphere scammers (curiousity) and I was barely aware of the existence of Charlie Kirk. I think the simple explanation in this case will be the correct one.

[orange808]

It's difficult to say what's "most likely". They have the guns and the current lead on using them.

Hard to say what the simple explanation is, given the facts.

Don't forget, adding one more to this chart in any category does not change the obvious trend and conclusion. We do not need to redraw the pie graph.