PhilipTheBucket

I was intentionally being a little bit cryptic, but it's from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," from the November chapter. It is one of the absolutely crucial books to read if you want to know about the American political process, at least the 20th century form of it.

every single company and institution, especially the ones that the people rely on, will literally do whatever the government wants without even second guessing it all in an effort to save their own ass

In some authoritarian structures, this is true. At least in the short run. In Russia, if you play ball with the government, you'll be largely protected against hostile forces in the crooked and dangerous melee of existing day-to-day in business or media, because you're on the side of the boss.

In Trump's structure, there is absolutely no safety in any direction. And there is doubly none for establishment media. CBS is not going to get a goddamned thing in exchange for their obedience. They'll still be the enemy, and they're still going to get all fucked up (maybe physically in a real sense) any time it suits the mad king's urges. I think they're just doing it because (ironically enough) they don't really have a grasp of what is going on, or maybe are just petrified and don't know what to do and so they're just clinging to the hope that obeying will keep them safe. But it won't. It doesn't change the equation in the slightest. Actually, if you have big money and institutional backing, fighting back like Harvard or Chicago is probably safer, honestly.

Well, let’s include this, with the following message to whoever originally wrote it: We hope you’ll get in touch with Barbara Burgower at Straight Arrow Books in order that we may properly credit this piece of writing and carry the customary copyright of permissions and acknowledgments in future editions of this book.

senator mcgovern had hinged his l~~xxxx~~cxx whole campaign on oppostion to the vietnam war, ~~xxxxxxxxxxxx~~ hoping to pursuade americans of its immorality and awakenong in them a sense of outrage and shame, he tried to demonstrate that the continuing american presnece in vietnam, the bombing and the ~~xxxxxx~~ suport of what he denounced as a corrupt dictatorship was an indication of ~~xxx~~ a ~~xxxxx~~ moral collapse in the ~~x~~ united states. He did not balme the people but the nixon administration / but the people did not ~~xxxxx~~ respond to his appeals, ironically yesterday morning he voted here in support of a local ~~xxxxx~~ proposition to outlwa the killing of a small bird known as the @mourning dove@ last night, as the nixon landslide gathered momentum that is precisely what heorge mcgovern became—a mourning dove.

i ~~xxxxx~~ asked him if the worst happened whether he would run again and he said: @emphantically: no i will not. i shall stay in the senate but xxx someone else will have to carry on what I began.@

frewuently in the last two weeks, senator mcgovern had spoken of a young p black man who ~~xxxxxx~~ predicted that the election was going to break his heart because he was going to g find out that the american people were not as high minded as he thought they were/typically, mr. mcgovern challenged this view, ~~x~~ saying that he believed in the goodness and decency of the people and that they would respond to their own consciences.

but the election did break his heart after all. he thought he saw ~~xxx~~ faces glowing with hope xx that the country would aim for higher standards, yearing for peace and an edn to the domestic anguish. but the voters turned their backs on him.

https://clip.cafe/fletch-1985/you-know-its-a-shame-about-ed/

I think the purpose is to place anyone who's connected to him or his minions above the law when they travel internationally. The proles, he still won't give a fuck about.

One of the very few times recently I have felt proud of my country was reading stories about pickpockets at the Paris Olympics, encountering the new phenomenon of Americans who when they get pickpocketed would respond by physically assaulting the pickpockets and taking back their stuff.

"Le merde! This is forbidden! Unfair!" lol

He watches that stuff on TV, he's just not used to applying it against people who aren't thrown all off kilter by it. It's more or less all he's got.

Pretty much, yeah. She's doing the right thing. Push back. Make them work. No one has infinite time or resources. No matter how much danger it puts you in to make yourself a little outlier, it won't hold a candle to some poor bastard who's going to CECOT or whatever, and maybe the time they spend on you will be less attention they can spend on expanding some "detention center" somewhere.

My favorite part is Elizabeth Warren simply continuing to talk when he tries to interrupt her and talk over her.

Yeah, too right. It's a little surprising to hear someone in his position talking about it, it means they're waking up, which I guess is a good thing?

Oh, to the United States in the 1930s? Fuckin' what lol. The tariffs are hardly the most important things going on right now. Well, hopefully McConnell lives long enough to get "night of the long knives"ed.

Yeah. Broadly speaking, the idea of not funding Ukraine's defense might just be some anti-war populism brainrot, but stuff like "Nazis in Ukraine" and talking about Zelensky as a dictator but being super gung-ho about Assad, things like that, start to cast it in a little bit of a different light.

Full disclosure, I got randomly curious and looked up what she thinks about Maduro, and she's 100% opposed to the Russia point of view: https://www.usasocialite.com/marjorie-taylor-controversial-comments/ ... so who knows, maybe I am wrong.

I had a conversation with a particular Lemmy-instance admin after getting banned for having the wrong opinions, and you could feel through the screen how frustrated he was that he couldn't just mechanically prevent me from saying certain things, because of being accustomed to being in an environment where he could dictate what conversations were allowed, and everyone had to be nice to him. To the point that it was this wild out-of-pocket thing if someone could speak to him without having to "talk up" to him. It was kind of fun honestly lol.