LukeZaz

joined 1 year ago
[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 12 points 1 day ago

And with any luck, he'll turn it into the formerly-largest police force.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It’s not because it was Joe doing it, though. They’re just fine with pretty much all of it, pretty much all of them.

Well, yes. But that was rather my point. It's not specific to Biden—the idea is that they're all fine with it so long as their personal political capital benefits from agreeing with it, which it did, so long as a Democrat was in the White House. It's two-faced. We agree on this.

I mention Joe specifically because he was in office when this particular era of the genocide started, and so there was a lot of people (not just politicians, either) who were perfectly comfortable backing his support of human rights violations for over a year. Does it need him to happen? No. But he was there, and he made things worse, so he is who gets called out.

On an optimistic note, however: I don't remember specifically what article it was, but I do distinctly remember support for Israel has been dropping slowly over the last couple years, even before Trump started taking shits on everything. So not all the change in sentiment is temporary, thankfully.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 12 points 2 days ago (29 children)

I can't help but feel we're in the "I have suddenly agreed this is bad now because it's a guy I don't like doing it" phase of politics.

I mean, sure, I like that resistance to the genocide is growing, but that's not enduring. The matter of the fact is there were a lot of people who were fine with this shit back when Joe did it, and who will likely pretend it suddenly stopped if a blue president makes office in the future. This is political convenience.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago

I am very glad we live in the universe where that didn't happen!

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago

Plenty of the ostensibly better alternatives are covered in the same documentary. I have no faith in them either.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)
[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Honestly, even if it hadn't been abused as a speculative investment, I don't think Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) would've worked basically at all as a decentralized payment alternative. Dan Olson's investigation of it is too damning for me to believe that.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Sure, but their base being fractured is still a good thing. Who they vote for was never going to change, and so it's never what we should hope for. Instead, enjoy the optimism of the fact that their infighting will make it easier for left-wing candidates to enact change without being attacked quite as hard—they won't be paying attention to socialists so much (real or imaginary) when they're too busy hating each other.

Besides, who knows? Cracking the loyalty even a little might be enough for a few to start doing some critical thinking here and there.

 

From the description:

The West Wing both reflected and shaped the Democratic Party in the early years of the 21st Century, as they abandoned its coalition of workers, women, and racial minorities in favor of suburban professionals. The show was dismissive of anything they viewed as trying to push them to The Left™, in favor of chasing wealthy, white voters in a movement known as Neoliberalism.

Today, many of our biggest crises are a result of the wealth inequality brought about by neoliberal policies, but the ideology has recently undergone a rebrand under the name "Abundance."

What can The West Wing teach us about the failures of neoliberalism and help us better understand a path forward for progressives?

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

Probably because it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to figure out how to manage payment processing without those processors. Visa and Mastercard are extremely large, and by-and-large the only way to pay online in the US. Add in Paypal and Stripe's limitations (which are also notoriously shitty) and you don't really have many options left, so it's really not worth it. I know the EU has better options, but Steam isn't based there and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't want to find a way to jump through those hoops.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 12 points 3 weeks ago

For anyone wondering if the article has anything new to say regarding whether or not the Trump admin will actually listen to this judge: No, it doesn't. This article is largely pointless.

In fact, I'd argue this article is worse than pointless, since it still calls this a "crackdown on illegal immigration," which is blatant lies that no reputable news organization has any business repeating. The last goddamn thing we need right now is the BBC spreading Trump's excuses for what is increasingly becoming literal murder.

[–] LukeZaz@beehaw.org 5 points 3 weeks ago

Probably worth mentioning that another alternative called TopAnswers.xyz exists as well—both Codidact and TopAnswers mention each other in their homepages, which I find pretty neat.

Definitely interested to see how both of these sites pan out. StackExchange has been a powerful force for good over the years, and it's been sad to hear it starting to slide down recently, not that I should be too surprised since they got bought four years back. I'm eager to see what a properly open-source and nonprofit community can do on the good template that SE once set.

I do wish either of these sites could host in a different country than the UK though; I've heard more than enough by now to feel that hosting a tech project in the UK is scarcely any better than doing so in the US, privacy-wise. (Though for that matter, TA uses Amazon for hosting, which is probably the worst of both worlds.)

 

SAN SALVADOR (AP) — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Thursday evening in El Salvador, coming face to face with the wrongly deported man after two days in the country pushing for his release.

The Democratic senator posted a photo of the meeting on X but did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S.

[...]

Van Hollen’s trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have seized on Abrego Garcia’s deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump’s disregard for the courts. A federal appeals court said Thursday in a blistering order that the Trump administration’s claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. “ should be shocking. "

Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending the prisoner and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House officials have said that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

[...]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials acknowledged in a court filing earlier this month that his deportation was an “ administrative error.” The government’s acknowledgment sparked immediate uproar from immigration advocates, but White House officials have dug in on the allegation that he’s a gang member and will not be returned to the United States.

[...]

The fight has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

[...]

Human rights groups have accused Bukele’s government of subjecting those jailed to “systematic use of torture and other mistreatment.” Officials there deny wrongdoing.

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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by LukeZaz@beehaw.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org
 
 

Archive.

Noting that the title of the article is not terribly good, as the funds in question have already been appropriated for the purpose of the wall and are not new, and are in fact part of a "compromise" bill that also includes funding for asylum lawyers. Not that I want a compromise bill, or don't think she shouldn't push for better, but it's hardly big news.

That said, the real problem lies at the end:

Zoom in: Beyond embracing the bipartisan bill, Harris' campaign has portrayed her as an immigration hardliner in ads.

The bottom line: Like the wall itself, Harris' changes on border policy reflect how Trump has shifted the political debate on immigration during the past decade.

I am getting very, very sick of the trend of Democrats spending more time trying to appeal to bigoted conservatives than trying to actually represent their own constituents or help the people they ostensibly care about.

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