#Trump killed a million Americans | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eowyntheavenger · 3 months

Text

Palestine and the US election

I’m done with Twitter soundbite takes that voting blue = supporting genocide. I see a lot of people making an argument that goes like this: "Biden has sent arms to Israel, helping its government commit genocide against Palestine. Therefore, voting for him in the 2024 US election, if he is the Democratic nominee, is supporting genocide, and NOT voting for him helps Palestine." There's a lot wrong with this view, so let's break it down.

It's true that Biden has sent a lot of arms to Israel and bypassed Congress multiple times to do it, and it's indefensible. I'm ashamed that any US politician would help Israel wage its brutal, genocidal war against the Palestinian people. As one of Israel's closest partners, the US could actually be using its leverage right now to put pressure on Israel’s government—I’m thinking about how apartheid in South Africa fell, in part, because of international pressure. That's what should be happening, but instead the US government is literally just helping Israel kill Palestinians.

I wish there were a strong pro-Palestine candidate in the upcoming election. The best bet in that regard would probably be Bernie Sanders, since he's prominent enough, well-liked enough, and has good ideas, not just on this issue but on many things (and yeah, he's way too old, but so are the current frontrunners). But he's already ruled out another run. Unless an amazing candidate materializes and wins the Democratic nomination (please vote in the primaries where you live), it will probably be Biden running against Trump. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s likely.

Here's what people need to understand: the election will not be "genocide Joe" vs. "pro-Palestine candidate." It will most likely be a choice between these two candidates:

On the one hand, Biden, who has armed Israel, but can be pressured to change his policies because he can be pushed left; who is not a wannabe dictator; who will not destroy what's left of the country's democratic norms; who will not encourage coups, political assassinations, or jail his political opponents; who will not utterly stifle dissent.

Or on the other hand, Trump, who is beholden to a fanatical evangelical base that backs Israel no matter what, that actually wants more conflict because they are part of a death cult. Trump, who is not susceptible in any way to pressure from the left, but is susceptible to pressure from the right and the far right. Trump, who has been clear all along about his desire to be a dictator; who will destroy what's left of democratic norms; who has already encouraged a coup to overthrow a democratic election, encouraged the assassination of his own vice president, and is openly planning to jail his political opponents if he returns to the White House.

(This isn't even touching on Trump's positions on trans rights, gay rights, women's rights, the environment, policing, immigration, or his racism against every group he could be racist against, or his liability for sexual assault, or a whole bunch of other issues).

There's a very convincing argument that Netanyahu actually wants Biden to lose the US election and Trump to win. That's because Netanyahu knows that Biden has in the past responded to pressure from his own party and the public. If there are a lot of people criticizing his policies, it gives him pause. Trump doesn't operate like that. If millions of Americans criticize his policies as inhumane he just lashes out at them. In short, Biden views criticism from the left as a liability that he has to act on. Trump views criticism from the left as an incentive to be even worse.

Biden is not the candidate I want. But you need to understand that if Trump wins the election, he won't just arm Israel like Biden is doing now: he will do that and more. Not only will he help Israel escalate its war, your very freedom of speech to support Palestine will be under attack. Trump might even decide that financial support for Palestinians or charities that help Palestine = financially supporting terrorism, and use that as a pretext to arrest and jail people. You think he and his far right goons wouldn't go that far? If Trump wins this election, you shouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing happens, and much worse.

Do you want the US to accept Palestinian refugees? Because it won't accept them under a Trump presidency. A key Republican talking point in this election is "the US shouldn't take Palestinian refugees because they're probably all terrorists." This isn't just a Trump thing, it's something other Republicans are saying, but obviously you can imagine where Trump would fall on this issue given his infamous Muslim ban and conflating refugees with terrorists. These are just a few examples of how Trump would actually be even worse for Palestine than Biden—which is saying something.

In this upcoming election there is no neutral option. There is no morally pure option. There just isn't, I'm sorry. Refusing to vote will not help Palestine. Refusing to vote will only help Trump win, and will give every single person in the United States who is fighting for a better world a significantly harder battle to fight.

It goes without saying that there are things everyone should do to help Palestine besides voting in an election. But I'm writing this post that is about voting because I'm genuinely worried by how many so-called leftists want to give up their right to vote—a right that older generations had to fight tooth and nail for—because they think it won't achieve anything. If voting didn't achieve anything, Republicans wouldn't be trying so hard to suppress your vote.

I'll conclude by saying that nuance is not this site's specialty, but please try to understand what I'm actually saying here before attacking me in the notes. Finally, people being antisemitic or islamophobic on this post will be blocked. People denying that Israel is committing genocide against Palestine will be blocked. Trump supporters, tankies, and people who say that Biden and Trump are the same will be blocked. So will people who say "voting is pointless" or "but Biden did this bad thing—" Biden fucking sucks, I know that very well, so if you're going to try to make that argument to me then stop right now and read the post again.

#US politics #my post

2K notes · View notes

witchywitchy · 4 months

Text

I hate it when some Americans make something such as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians about their shitty politicians or themselves. "wELL iF pEoPle jUSt VOted fOr tRUMp-"

THEY ALL SUCK, MY DUDE! ALL. OF. THEM.

Not a single American president helped/was even willing to help any of the countries they DELIBERATELY destroyed and destabilized! Y'all are fools if you think the US is a democratic or a 'civilized' country. The US is just another fascist and imperialist country with glitter on top. No matter who's in power, that person actively participates in multiple genocides in the world! It's not about you, an American, most likely white citizen who's living in safety and doesn't have to worry about being bombed/killed any second. Stop making it about you and your shitty presidents that never do anything to actually help.

If the people in power's aim is not to decolonize Palestine and stop meddling in ANY Middle Eastern affairs, or any country's affairs actually, THEY'RE NOT GOOD! No one needs to be 'saved' by the US. Wanna know why? Because the US doesn't want to save anyone! They see a chance to exploit a country, and they take it and pretend they're 'saving' the 'oppressed'.

The US has the blood of millions of innocent men, women, and children on its hands!

Anyone who tries to defend the US government or any of the fascists they call presidents will simply be blocked. I stand by what I said.

#free palestine #palestine #gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #signal boost #social justice #palestine resources #colonialism #imperialism #jerusalem #USA #US politics #united states #united nations #human rights #Yemen #tel aviv #the middle east

1K notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

Text

“Brand safety” killed Jezebel

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library this Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Progressives: if you want to lose to conservatives, all you need to do is reflexively praise and support everything conservatives turn into a culture-war issue, without considering whether they might be right. Because sometimes…they're right.

Remember early in the Trump presidency, when conservatives all woke up and discovered that America's spy agencies – excuse me, "the intelligence community" – were dirty-tricking psychos who run amok, lawlessly sabotaging democracy? Progressives have been shouting this ever since Hoover's FBI tried to blackmail MLK into killing himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter

But millions of progressives forgot about COINTELPRO, CIA dirty tricks and CIA mass spying when this "intelligence community" temporarily set out to wrong-foot Trump. Remember James Comey votive candles?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/james-comey-fbi-memo-leaks-trump-inspector-general-report-column/2157705001/

Anthropologists have a name for this phenomenon, in which one side reverses its positions because their sworn enemies have done so. It's called schizmogenesis, and it goes like this: "If they hate it, we love it":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Schizmogenesis is an equal-opportunity delusion. Within living memory, white evangelicals supported abortion, because their sworn enemies – Catholics – opposed it. Some of those white Boomer women who voted Trump because abortion was literally the only issue they cared about held the opposite position on abortion not so long ago – and completely forgot about it:

https://text.npr.org/734303135

The main purpose of the culture war isn't immiserating marginalized people – that's its effect, but its purpose is to distract low-information turkeys (working people) so they'll vote for Christmas (the ongoing seizure of power by American oligarchs). For the funders of conservative movement politics, the cruelty isn't the point, it's merely the tactic. The point is power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

Which brings me to "woke capitalism." Conservative string-pullers have whipped up their base about the threat of companies embracing social causes. They (erroneously) claim that corporations have progressive values, and that big business is thumbing the scales for causes they despise. The purpose here isn't to sow distrust of capitalism per se. Rather, it's to stampede talk-radio-addled supporters into backing the oligarchy's agenda. Remember when culture war leaders told their base to support being gouged on credit-card junk fees "to own the libs?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

That's schizmogenesis working against the conservative rank-and-file, tricking them into taking the side of a cartel of wildly profitable payment processors who are making billions by picking their pockets (credit card fees are up 40% since the covid lockdowns), because (checks notes), Target pays these profiteers a lot to process its payments, and Target sells Pride merch (no, really):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

It's easy to point and laugh at conservative dopes when they're tricked into shooting themselves in the balls to own the libs. This is not a hypothetical example:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#musketfuckers

But progressives do it, too, particularly when they embrace monopolies as a force for positive social change. Remember 2019, when people got excited about playing loud pop music at Nazi rallies in the hopes that the monopoly video platforms' copyright filters would make any video from that rally impossible to post?

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

I warned then that if this tactic worked, it would be used by cops to prevent you from recording them when they're macing you or splitting your skull with a billyclub, and yup, within a couple years, cops were blaring Taylor Swift music in hopes of preventing the public from posting videos of their illegal conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/07/moral-hazard-of-filternets/#dmas

Conservatives are (partially) right about woke capitalism. It is a threat to democracy. Concentrating the power to decide who gets to speak and what they get to say into the hands of five or six corporations, mostly run by mediocre billionaires, is bad for society. The moderation decisions of giant platforms are a form of (commercial) censorship, even these don't violate the First Amendment:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

(The progressive delusion that censorship only occurs when the First Amendment is violated is a wild own-goal, one that excuses, for example, the decision by school book-fair monopolist Scholastic to remove books about queers and Black and brown people from its offerings as a purely private matter without consequences for free speech):

https://www.themarysue.com/scholastic-response-to-authors-and-illustrators-on-diverse-books/

Conservatives are only partially right about woke capitalism, though. Here's what they're wrong about: corporations don't have values. Target isn't selling Pride tees because they support progressive causes, they're selling them because it seems like a good way to increase returns to their shareholders. Individuals – even top executives – at Target might endorse the cause, but the company will only durably support the cause if that endorsement is profitable, which means that when it stops being profitable, the company will stop supporting the cause:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/business/target-lgbtq-merchandise/index.html

The idea that corporations have values isn't merely stupid, it's very dangerous. The Hobby Lobby decision – which allows corporations to deny basic health-care expenses for women on the basis that a Bronze Age mystic wouldn't approve of an IUD – rests on the ideological foundation that corporate personhood includes corporate values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc.

Citizens United – the idea that corporations should be allowed to funnel unlimited funds to politicians who'll sell out the public good in favor of investor profits – also depends on a form of corporate personhood that includes values:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

There are undeniably instances in which corporate monopoly power benefits progressive causes, but these are side-effects of corporate power's main purpose, namely: taking money and power away from working people and giving it to rich people. That is what monopoly power is for.

Which brings me to ad-tech, "brand safety," and the demise of Jezebel, the 16 year old feminist website whose shuttering was just announced by its latest owner, G/O Media:

https://www.metafilter.com/201349/This-is-the-end-of-Jezebel-and-that-feels-really-really-bad

Jezebel's demise is the direct result of monopoly power. Jezebel writes about current affairs – sex, politics, abortion, and other important issues of great moment and significance. When we talk about journalism as a public good, necessary for a healthy civic life, this is what we mean. But unfortunately for Jezebel – and any other news outlet covering current events – there are vast, invisible forces that exist solely to starve this kind of coverage of advertising revenue.

Writing for the independent news site 404 Media, reporter Emanuel Maiberg and former Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler go deep on the "brand safety" industry, whose mission is to assist corporations in blocking their ads from showing up alongside real news:

https://www.404media.co/advertisers-dont-want-sites-like-jezebel-to-exist/

Maiberg and Koebler explain how industry associations like the World Federation of Marketers' Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) promulgate "frameworks" to help advertisers automatically detect and exclude real news from consideration when their ads are placed:

https://www.peer39.com/blog/garm-standards

This boycott makes use of scammy "AI" technology like "sentiment and emotional analysis" to determine whether an article is suitable for monetization. These parameters are then fed to the ad-tech duopoly's ad auction system, so Google and Meta (who control the vast majority of online advertising) can ensure that real news is starved of cash.

But reality is not brand-safe, and high quality, reputable journalistic outlets are concerned with reality, which means that the "brand safe" outlets that attract the most revenue are garbage websites that haven't yet been blacklisted by the ad-safety cartel, leading to major brands' ads showing up alongside notorious internet gross-out images like "goatse":

https://www.404media.co/sqword-game-dev-sneaks-goatse-onto-a-dozen-sites-that-stole-his-game/

More than a fifth of "brand safe" ad placements end up on "made for advertising" sites, which 404 Media describe as "trash websites that plagiarize content, are literally spam, pay for fake traffic, or are autogenerated websites that serve no other purpose than capturing ad dollars":

https://www.ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2023-06-ana-programmatic-transparency-first-look

Despite all this, many progressives have become cheerleaders for "brand safety," as a countervailing force to the drawdown of trust and safety at online platforms, which led to the re-platforming of Nazis, QAnon conspiratorialists, TERFs, and other overt elements of the reactionary movement's vanguard on Twitter and Facebook. Articles about ads for major brands showing up alongside Nazi content on Twitter are now a staple of progressive reporting, presented as evidence of Elon Musk's lack of business acumen. The message of these stories is "Musk is bad at business because he's allowing Nazis on his platform, which will send advertisers bolting for the exits to avoid brand-safety crises."

This isn't wrong. Musk is a bad businessman (he's a good scam artist, though). Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, notwithstanding the desperate (and easily debunked) stats-juking its "CEO," Linda Yaccarino, floats onstage at tech conferences:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/11/math-problem-for-linda-yaccarino-if-90-of-the-top-advertisers-have-come-back-but-are-only-spending-10-of-what-they-used-to-how-screwed-are-you/

But progressives are out of their minds if they think the primary effect of the brand safety industry is punishing Elon Musk for secretly loving Nazis. The primary effect of brand safety is killing reality-based coverage of the news of the day, and since reality has a well-known anti-conservative bias, anything that works against the reality-based community is ultimately good for oligarchy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community

We can't afford to let schizmogenesis stampede us into loving things just because conservative culture warriors have been momentarily tricked into hating them as part of oligarchs' turkeys-voting-for-Christmas project. "Swivel-eyed loons hate it, so it must be good," is a worse-than-useless heuristic for navigating complex issues:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

A much better rule of thumb is "If oligarchs love something, it's probably bad." Almost without exception, things that are good for oligarchs are bad for the rest of us. I mean, this whole shuttering of Jezebel starts with an oligarch imposing his will on millions of other people. Jezebel began life as a Gawker Media site, beloved of millions of readers, destroyed when FBI informant Peter Thiel secretly funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the publisher in a successful bid to put them out of business to retaliate for their unfavorable coverage of Thiel:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

This, in turn, put Jezebel under the ownership of G/O Media, who are unwilling to pay for a human salesforce that would – for example – sell advertising space on Jezebel to sex-toy companies or pro-abortion groups. G/O has been on a killing spree, shuttering beloved news outlets like Deadspin:

https://deadspin.com/this-is-how-things-work-now-at-g-o-media-1836908201

G/O's top exec, an oligarch named Jim Spanfeller who answers to the private equity looters at Great Hill Partners, is bent on ending reality-based coverage in favor of "letting robots shit out brand safe AI-assisted articles about generic topics":

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ai-articles-disinformation-future-g-o-media-rcna95944

Three quarters of a century ago, Orwell coined a term to describe this kind of news: duckspeak,

It was not the man’s brain that was speaking it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words but it was not speech in true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness like the quacking of a duck.

When investors and analysts speak of "content" (rather than, say, "journalism"), this is what they mean – a warm slurry of platitudes, purged of any jagged-edged fragments to render it a perfectly suitable carrier for commercial messages targeted based on surveillance data about the "consumer" whose eyeballs are upon it.

This aversion to reality has been present among corporate decisionmakers since the earliest days, but the consolidation of power among large firms – ad-tech firms, online platforms, and "brands" themselves – makes corporate realityphobia much easier to turn into, well, reality, giving advertisers the fine-grained power to put Jezebel and every site like it out of business.

As Koebler and Maiberg's headliine so aptly puts it, "Advertisers Don’t Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist."

The reason to deplore Nazis on Twitter is because they are Nazis, not because their content isn't brand-safe. The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting. Reality isn't brand safe. If you're in the reality based community, brand safety should be your sworn enemy, even if they help you temporarily get a couple of Nazis kicked off Twitter.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/#brand-safety

#pluralistic #jezebel #publishing #brand safety #adjacency #adtech #media theory #censorship #surveillance advertising #dynamic ad placement #quackspeak #Global Alliance for Responsible Media #garm #debated sensitive social issue #Third Party Safety and suitability #schizmogenesis #woke capitalism #duckspeak

2K notes · View notes

trickricksblog08 · 3 months

Text

The corporate media is freaking out about Tucker Carlson interviewing Vladimir Putin.

Yet, history shows that the media has interviewed controversial figures in the past, like CNN with Osama Bin Laden in 1997, CBS with Saddam Hussein in 2003, 60 Minutes with Putin in 2005, and NBC with Putin as recently as 2021.

The NSA reportedly even spied on Tucker to prevent a pre-war interview with Putin.

Why are they so afraid of Tucker talking to Putin?

The corporate media does not want the American people to hear both sides.

They are mouthpieces for the U.S. military-industrial complex and the Washington DC political establishment.

Their fear is rooted in Tucker's criticism of the military-industrial complex and government.

He's rightly upset about the last two decades of Middle East wars that displaced 35 million, killed over 4 million, and cost taxpayers $8 trillion.

Like Tucker, many Americans are tired of endless wars and propaganda.

Since Trump won the presidency and the RussiaGate hoax happened, many people woke up to the fact that the legacy media operates without morals, ethics, or integrity—just pure propaganda.

Now, as the Biden administration escalates global wars, what the corporate media fears most is real journalism.

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1754985745838968965

@KanekoaTheGreat

#nothing can stop what is coming #when you know you know #no rest for the wicked #now we know #wwg1wga

301 notes · View notes

prismatic-bell · 6 months

Text

So I want to start this post with the understanding that it is based ONLY on my personal experiences as a 35-year-old American and what I saw as a teenager. It should not be taken as a prognostication of doom—it’s a call to keep your eyes open.

So right now, one of the biggest (and very justified) criticisms of what’s happening in Gaza is that the head of Hamas isn’t even in Gaza. He is in Qatar. This is a known and established fact. If the goal is to take out Hamas, then they’re shooting in the wrong place.

Now I want to take you back to 2003.

George W. Bush has just announced that Iraq has 48 hours to turn over Osama bin Laden, or the United States will invade. They did not turn him over. We invaded.

If you’re too young to remember this, then the anti-Iraq/Afghanistan-war number you’ve most likely heard is “over a million dead civilians.” That number is true, but as someone who lived through it, I want to add some stuff you may not know or have heard of.

There was constant fear of the draft, and enlisted soldiers were often “back door drafted,” meaning when their contract was over it was reupped without their consent and they had no recourse. This led to a lot of families being torn apart and living in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. THIS, in turn, led to radicalization of soldiers who came home with no more support network and no assistance to readjust to civilian life. You want to know where all the Millennial MAGA came from? I’d be willing to bet a nickel almost all of them either were soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan, or knew somebody who was. I knew someone who’d enlisted because his family had been enlisted men all the way back to the Civil War and he genuinely believed he was doing a good thing, and after what he saw on his first tour he re-enlisted twice, as fast as they’d take him, actively trying to get himself killed due to guilt and severe trauma. I guarantee he wasn’t the only one.

We had Blackwater. We had “enhanced interrogation.” (Translation: waterboarding and sleep deprivation, among other forms of torture.) There were photos and videos released of soldiers gone absolutely crazy with power doing stuff like peeing on prisoners and mocking them. One image that will haunt me forever is a copy of the Quran smeared with pork. There’s no need for that. It saves no lives, it produces nothing but pain, it occurred only to be cruel.

Iraq and Afghanistan caused over a million civilian deaths. It also caused the mass insanity of a country.

…..oh.

Did I mention Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan the whole time?

Yeah.

We invaded two countries, murdered over a million civilians, tortured thousands of people….and all of it was for nothing. Yeah, we got rid of Saddam Hussein and that’s a good thing, but it opened up a whole different can of worms in the region, and also led to the US being the first democracy in the world to invade another nation without being attacked first. You can imagine that looked just GREAT for our position on the world stage.

So, uh.

Israel’s bombing the shit out of Gaza. The heads of Hamas aren’t in Gaza. They’re in Qatar.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

So two things of importance here. One, keep an eye on Qatar, and if you hear a PEEP about any potential “military operations” there, remember Iraq and Afghanistan. And two….you’re not going to like this. But it has to be said.

Iraq and Afghanistan occurred under a Republican president and Trump is currently the Republican front runner. To remind you, Trump said multiple times he wanted to start a nuclear war, and his party is full of Christian dominionists who want Israel to take all of Palestine because they believe this will trigger the Second Coming. In other words what Biden is doing is extremely bad but he can be pressured to do what’s right (we’re seeing it happen right now, with his officials admitting he’s feeling the pressure for a ceasefire). Trump WANTS TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE PLANET ON PURPOSE, and has backing from his party. You have to vote against him. You have to. I do not condone what Biden is doing but I also enjoy living, and I’m pretty sure you also would prefer to be here rather than not.

Keep an eye on Qatar. Vote against Trump and keep the pressure on Biden. You really want to help and don’t mind playing dirty? Find some left-wing Israeli organizations you can donate to. The party responsible for what’s happening, Likud, is far-right (Netanyahu is buddies with Trump and that should tell you a lot), and there have been sustained protests against them for almost a year. The fastest way to Palestinian peace is to get the wannabe-dictator and his coalition out of power, topple Hamas (not the Palestinian people, explicitly HAMAS), and restart peace talks. We’ve been EXTREMELY CLOSE to peaceful solutions before, and by peaceful I do not mean “because one side is dead,” I mean “because the two sides were ready to work together.”

(No, I am not saying you shouldn’t donate to Palestinian charities—you can in fact do more than one thing at a time. Although I will tell you to do some double-checking on any Palestinian charities you donate to because apparently right now money is having a really hard time getting through. Make sure you’re working with a legitimate organization and not getting scammed by some asshole in Canada looking to capitalize on a tragedy.)

Peace can happen, and in our lifetimes. I would love to see a world where al-Aqsa and the Third Temple stand proudly side by side on the Mount as a reminder of what peace can do. But we have to keep an eye on all fronts. And that means learning from history.

342 notes · View notes

soberscientistlife · 2 months

Text

Don't forget Trump killed millions during the pandemic.

That's not the President I want.

Vote for Biden. He cares about Americans.

❤️🤍💙

#vote blue #vote democrat #vote biden

220 notes · View notes

hero-israel · 2 months

Text

Democrats and "progressives" who are turning into single-issue activists over Palestine, of all things, raising the very real chance of shifting the 2024 election, are fucking idiots. We are already several steps into "worst possible outcome"-s in I/P and there is so much further down that trail things may yet go.

The more it looks like Biden is going to go away, the less incentive Netanyahu has to listen to him. As is, I wish I could rule out that Netanyahu would prolong the war until Trump's inauguration in 10 months. I also wish I could rule out that Trump would turn "jokingly telling Israel to kill a million Palestinians" into his new mock-the-disabled-guy routine.

Fully recognizing that a lot of what Trump did in office really was "good" for Israel and, on some level, for Jewish Americans (including us under the Civil Rights Act, moving the embassy, killing Soleimani, the Abraham Accords), I wish every single fucking day that I could warp back to 2016 and vote for Hillary Clinton AGAIN and this time have her win, because none of the "good" was remotely worth it. Israel is best off with strong bipartisan support from a strong America, and now it has lopsided partisan support from a country that looks poised for a civil war. What possible excuse could there be for someone to go single-issue activist, now? Reproductive rights don't exist, LGBT rights don't exist, the environment doesn't exist, guns don't exist, school curricula don't exist.... This was really the worst possible time for Palestine to settler-colonize our politics, and it will denude and destroy the system as settler-colonists always do.

106 notes · View notes

dosesofcommonsense · 4 months

Text

From BioClandestine on Telegram

If Trump wins 2024, he will halt all funding for Ukraine, negotiate an end to conflict with Putin, thus preventing WW3.

The reason Biden and the Deep State cannot negotiate with Putin, is because Putin wants their heads for crimes against humanity, namely for manufacturing C19.

This is not speculation on my part. Russian MIL literally listed Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros, as being the main ideologists behind the plot to manufacture coronavirus strains in Ukraine, with US DoD funding, and there is an open source paper trail to back it up. You can debate on whether or not you believe them, but the reality is, Putin wants the “Western Elites” and Xi agrees with him.

It’s not hyperbolic to say that this is life or death for the Deep State actors. If Trump wins and negotiates a settlement with Putin, Russian MIL have already been demanding for activation of Articles V and VI of the Biological Weapons Treaty, which would result in a Security Council investigation and international military tribunals. That’s what Russian MIL have been demanding at the UN for nearly 2 years now. And that’s just the biological stuff, not even accounting for the whole 2014 coup, shelling the Donbas, funding and supporting Ukraine in 2022, Nord Stream, etc.

What do you think Trump is going to say? No? Trump wants to prosecute the exact same people for crimes against humanity! Putin is literally demanding that all of Trump’s enemies trying to imprison him, must be prosecuted by military tribunal… How could Trump say no to that?! He’d be killing multiple birds with one stone. And Trump’s DOJ wouldn’t have to do the prosecuting. It would be a coalition of military judges from different countries around the world. It would be far more legitimate and no way could the Dems cry “partisanship”. It’s international law.

Y’all might think it’s crazy, but this is the trajectory we are headed on if Trump wins, which is why the Biden regime are going to do everything in their power to prevent Trump from winning. If they fail, they will be treated as international war criminals, and will face the ultimate penalty.

Extinction Level Event (for the deep state, for globalism, for all their synvophants in levels of government and the MSM).

Let’s say Russia and China are lying, and the US did not manufacture C19.

Then why would Fauci, Collins, and the US government, put so much effort into covering up the lab origins?

Why are the US and their allies the only ones NOT interested in who caused a global pandemic?

Why did government health agencies and Big Tech censor scientists and journalists who pointed out its lab origins? If someone else created this virus, why are the US government so invested in covering up who is responsible? Over a million Americans died, shouldn’t they be tirelessly trying to find out who killed all those people?

Who benefited from the pandemic? American Pharmaceutical companies, that began the vaccine development BEFORE the pandemic. Who funds the MSM and Deep State politicians? Big Pharma.

If Russia and China are lying, why is it that the US veto every request at the UN Security Council for a joint investigation into the origins of C19?

There are two options. Elements within the US are responsible, or, a different entity is responsible and the US government went out of their way to cover it up.

The paper trail confirms it’s the former, but either way, heads must roll.

#truth #common sense #msm is the enemy #globalist playbook #BioClandestine #donald trump #big pharma #putin #vaccine #deep state

114 notes · View notes

erik-even-wordier · 1 year

Text

I really don’t owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of Trump these last several years, and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, Trump wasn’t that bad…………..other than when:

1. he incited an insurrection against the government,

2. mismanaged a pandemic that killed a million Americans,

3. separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy,

4. tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church,

5. tried to block all Muslims from entering the country,

6. got impeached,

7. got impeached again,

8. had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history,

9. pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden,

10. fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia,

11. bragged about firing the FBI director on TV,

12. took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community,

13. diverted military funding to build his wall,

14. caused the longest government shutdown in US history,

15. called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,”

16. lied nearly 30,000 times,

17. banned transgender people from serving in the military,

18. ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions,

19. vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers,

20. refused to release his tax returns,

21. increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion,

22. had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history,

23. called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers,

24. coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist,

25. refused to concede the 2020 election,

26. hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House,

27. walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl,

28. called neo-Nazis “very fine people,”

29. suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID,

30. abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey,

31. pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans,

32. incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic,

33. withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords,

34. withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal,

35. withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances,

36. insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter,

37. pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op,

38. failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies,

39. called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries,

40. called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,”

41. claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere,

42. forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader,

43. believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,

44. berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe,

45. suggested the US should buy Greenland,

46. colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges,

47. repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,”

48. claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases,

49. violated the emoluments clause,

50. thought that Nambia was a country,

51. told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public,

52. called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution,

53. nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet,

54. nominated a corrupt head of the EPA,

55. nominated a corrupt head of HHS,

56. nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department,

57. nominated a corrupt head of the USDA,

58. praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies,

59. refused to allow the presidential transition to begin,

60. insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death,

61. spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president,

62. falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote,

63. called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,”

64. falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year,

65. considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions,

66. mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID,

67. locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones,

68. used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,”

69. hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser,

70. pardoned several of his shady associates,

71. gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressmen who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories,

72. got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!),

73. had a Secretary of State who called him a moron,

74. forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history,

75. botched the COVID vaccine rollout,

76. tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him,

77. charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties,

78. constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate,

79. claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear,

80. called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,”

81. used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise,

82. opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling,

83. got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers,

84. claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US,

85. ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings,

86. blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining,

87. redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle,

88. got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,”

89. threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution,

90. botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico,

91. threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them,

92. pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes,

93. thought that the Virgin islands had a President,

94. drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane,

95. allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing,

96. rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos,

97. pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID,

98. rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers,

99. held blatant campaign rallies at the White House,

100. tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man,

101. refused to attend his successors’ inauguration,

102. nominated the worst Education Secretary in history,

103. threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted,

104. attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci,

105. promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t),

106. allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues,

107. struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble,

108. called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,”

109. threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders,

110. went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic,

111. claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

112. seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution,

113. demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director,

114. praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles,

115. completely gutted the Voice of America,

116. placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service,

117. claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower,

118. suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country,

119. suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public,

120. overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported,

121. reduced the number of refugees the US accepts,

122. insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames,

123. gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address,

124. named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties,

125. eliminated the White House office of pandemic response,

126. used soldiers as campaign props,

127. fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him,

128. demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade,

129. hired a shit ton of white nationalists,

130. politicized the civil service,

131. did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government,

132. falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts,

133. claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won,

134. insulted reporters of color,

135. insulted women reporters,

136. insulted women reporters of color,

137. suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs,

138. attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him,

139. summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election,

140. spent countless hours every day watching Fox News,

141. refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas,

142. hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer,

143. tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him,

144. acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney,

145. attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a prominent lady who accused him of sexual assault,

146. held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present,

147. didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media,

148. stopped holding press briefings for months at a time,

149. “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power,

150. led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform,

151. claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers,

152. tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course,

153. suggested that the government nuke hurricanes,

154. suggested that wind turbines cause cancer,

155. said that he had a special aptitude for science,

156. fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure,

157. blurted out classified information to Russian officials,

158. tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida,

159. fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban,

160. hired notorious racist Stephen Miller,

161. openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them,

162. interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel,

163. abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war,

164. tried to get Russia back into the G7,

165. held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden,

166. seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive,

167. lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated,

168. falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t,

169. shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies,

170. still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan,

171. still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,”

172. forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID,

173. told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,”

174. fucked up the Census,

175. withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic,

176. did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,”

177. allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act,

178. seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican,

179. stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win,

180. constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump,

181. claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened,

182. said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake,

183. claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him,

184. claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President,

185. created a commission to whitewash American history,

186. retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain,

187. claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there,

188. hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims,

189. had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others,

190. bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties,

191. apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House,

192. stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians,

193. falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police,

194. said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about,

195. tried to rescind protection from DREAMers,

196. gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic,

197. tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax,

198. said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states,

199. deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented,

200. claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln,

201. touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all,

202. retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile,

203. forced through security clearances for his family,

204. suggested that police officers should rough up suspects,

205. suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs,

206. tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender,

207. suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher,

208. nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy,

209. retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden

210. had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event,

211. hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags,

212. accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address,

213. claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia,

214. mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault,

215. obsessed over low-flow toilets,

216. ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release,

217. called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek),

218. hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech,

219. took advice from the MyPillow guy,

220. claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists,

221. said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure,

222. never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign,

223. falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent,

224. announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest,

225. insulted the leader of Canada,

226. insulted the leader of France,

227. insulted the leader of Britain,

228. insulted the leader of Germany,

229. insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!),

230. falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues,

231. blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually,

232. continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

233. said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked,

234. left a NATO summit early in a huff,

235. stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that,

236. called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary,

237. refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise.

238. Don’t forget that he took many classified & top secret documents with him when he left the White House, many of which have not been recovered & may have been compromised.

I’m sure there are a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment.

Plz copy and paste. Whoever wrote this deserves credit but I don't know who it is.

#donald trump #popular #long post

896 notes · View notes

socialjusticeinamerica · 23 days

Text

Says the “person” who doesn’t belong to a church. What about that plague when Trump was “president” that killed over a million (mostly MAGA) Americans…

#republican assholes #Trump sycophant #maga moron #marjorie traitor greene

114 notes · View notes

starseedpatriot · 3 months

Text

Hhistory shows that the media has interviewed controversial figures in the past, like CNN with Osama Bin Laden in 1997, CBS with Saddam Hussein in 2003, 60 Minutes with Putin in 2005, and NBC with Putin as recently as 2021. (3 min, 27 sec)

The NSA reportedly even spied on Tucker to prevent a pre-war interview with Putin.

Why are they so afraid of Tucker talking to Putin?

The corporate media does not want the American people to hear both sides.

They are mouthpieces for the U.S. military-industrial complex and the Washington DC political establishment.

Their fear is rooted in Tucker's criticism of the military-industrial complex and government.

He's rightly upset about the last two decades of Middle East wars that displaced 35 million, killed over 4 million, and cost taxpayers $8 trillion.

Like Tucker, many Americans are tired of endless wars and propaganda.

Since Trump won the presidency and the RussiaGate hoax happened, many people woke up to the fact that the legacy media operates without morals, ethics, or integrity—just pure propaganda.

Now, as the Biden administration escalates global wars, what the corporate media fears most is real journalism.”

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1754985745838968965

68 notes · View notes

tittyinfinity · 6 months

Text

i can't shut up i'm sorry I'm ranting about Biden again

I'm starting to think Trump's presidency really wasn't any worse than what we have going on now, he was just targeting different people.

Bear with me.

The thing is, Biden has been the president for most of the pandemic and he hasn't been doing anything to stop the spread of it, so when people say "but Trump would kill US here!!" I wanna mention that Biden is already killing people of all parts of the political spectrum with his passiveness on covid

Biden is smarter than Trump. He's been in politics longer. He has had decades of learning how to maneuver politics. He has agreed with a lot of bad policies, many more than Trump even had the ability to do w his only 4 years of presidency. Trump is more interested in his image than anything else. Which is also dangerous! But it's much easier to convince people that Trump, a guy who is loud about his prejudices and caused a lot of damage because of that, is worse than a guy who pretends to agree with you on issues and then commits literal genocide.

Like I said, it just changes who is targeted instead. But is that really the case? We're already being targeted in different ways. A few good things have passed under Biden! But we also lost more bodily autonomy rights as far as abortion and trans rights go (not everywhere, but many states have become dangerous to live in). "That's not completely his fault" sure! Well then if the president doesn't have the power to change things truly for the better themselves, then worrying about who the president will be doesn't really matter. Also, presidents in the US have the ability to make executive orders.

And maybe he has spoken up on these things more and I just haven't heard about them - but Biden does not take the time to speak out about the anti-abortion, anti-trans, or healthcare related issues, except for the occasional quip here and there before he goes right back to not giving a shit. And I'm only using those as an example because a lot of "vote blue no matter who" people apparently only care about what happens to people here instead of in other countries.

And it's just really shitty to say "well what about the people who COULD die under a republican presidency instead of the real people dying from Biden's incitement of genocide right now!"

Trump incited a LOT of hatred in our country, yes. It pushed people to be more loud and open about their prejudices. But the deaths caused by hate crimes and COVID here in America were not on near of a large and deadly scale as what Biden is doing right now. We didn't watch our entire cities get destroyed and have our entire families wiped out.

So it seems, again, like the "vote blue no matter who" crowd only cares about politics when it comes to how THEY will (or MIGHT) be affected.

Am I saying vote for Trump or DeSantis? Fuck no. I'm saying prevent the next election from happening and burn this imperialistic genocidal government to the ground. The US has caused enough death, well into the millions, ever since it was created, and hasn't ever stopped committing genocide. But it only seems to matter when it (COULD) happen to white Americans.

Mexican people are still being put in cages and having their children stolen, too.

Indigenous people are still being murdered.

Disabled people are still dying from lack of accessible healthcare.

And the prices of everything have SKYROCKETED since Biden became president.

People are already suffering under a democratic president. You just won't care until it happens to you.

#.bdo

89 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

Text

Biden wants to ban ripoff “financial advisors”

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Once, American workers had "defined benefits pensions," where their employers promised to pay them a certain amount every year from their retirement to their death. Jimmy Carter swapped that out for 401(k)s, "market" pensions where you have to guess which stocks will be valuable or starve in your old age:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.

Neoliberalism is many things, but most of all it is a cult of individualism. The fact that three generations of workers are nows facing down retirement without pensions that will provide them with secure housing and food – let alone money to see the odd movie, buy birthday gifts for their grandkids, or enjoy a meal out now and then – is framed as millions of individual failures, not a systemic one.

In other words, if you are facing food insecurity and homelessness after a lifetime of hard work, it's because you saved wrong. Perhaps you didn't save enough (through a 40-year run of wage stagnation and skyrocketing housing, health and education costs). Or perhaps you saved wrong, making the wrong bets on the stock market. If you can't afford to run your air conditioner during a heat dome, that's on you: you should have been better at stocks.

Apologists for this system will say that you don't have to be good at stocks – you just have to pay an Independent Financial Advisor to pick the stocks for you and you'll be fine. But IFAs don't work for free! What if you can't afford one?

Enter "predatory inclusion" – the practice of offering scammy, overpriced and substandard products to poor people and declaring it to be a good deed, because otherwise, those poor people would have to do without. The crypto bubble relied heavily on this: think of Spike Lee and others shilling for pump-and-dump scams as a way of "building Black wealth":

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

More recently, Intuit and other scammy tax-prep services have argued against the IRS's plan to offer free tax preparation as bad for Black and brown people, because it will deny them the chance to be deceived and ripped off with TurboTax:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

Back in 2018, Trump won the predatory inclusion Olympics, when his Department of Labor let the Fifth Circuit abolish the "Fiduciary Rule" for Independent Financial Advisors:

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

What was the Fiduciary Rule? It said that your IFN had to put your interests ahead of their own. Like, if there were two different funds you could bet on, and one would pay your IFN a big commission, while the other would be a better bet for you, the IFN couldn't put your retirement savings into the fund that offered them a bribe.

When Trump killed the Fiduciary Rule, he proclaimed it a victory for poor people, especially Black and brown people. After all, if IFNs weren't allowed to accept bribes for giving you bad financial advice, then they would have to make up the difference by charging you for good advice. If you couldn't afford that advice, well, you'd have to make bad retirement investments on your own, without the benefit of their sleazy self-dealing.

The Biden Administration wants to change that. Biden's Acting Labor Secretary is Julie Su, and she's very good at her job. Last spring, she forced west coast dockworkers' bosses to cough up the contract they'd stalled on for a year, with 8-10% raises for every worker, owed retroactively:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

Su has proposed a way to reinstate the Fiduciary Rule, as part of the Biden Administration's war on junk fees, estimating that this will increase retirees' net savings by 20%:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-07-julie-su-labor-retirement-savers/

The new rule will force advisors who cheat their clients to pay restitution, and will require them to deliver all their advice in writing so that this cheating can be detected and punished.

The industry is furious, of course. They claim that "The Market (TM)" will solve this: if you get bad retirement savings advice and end up homeless and starving, then you will choose a different advisor in your next life, after you are reincarnated (I guess?).

And of course, they're also claiming that forcing IFNs to stop cheating their clients will deny poor people access to expert (bad) advice. As the Financial Services Institute's Dale Brown says, this will have a "negative impact on Main Street Americans’ access to financial advice":

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/legal-challenge-predicted-for-new-dol-fiduciary-proposal-75257.html

Here's that rule – read it for yourself, then submit a comment expressing your views on it. The government wants to hear from you, and administrative law requires them to act on the comments they receive:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/03/2023-23782/proposed-amendment-to-prohibited-transaction-exemptions-75-1-77-4-80-83-83-1-and-86-128

Su is part of a wave of progressive, technically skilled regulators in the Biden administration that resulted from a horse-trading exercise called the Unity Task Force, which divvied up access to top appointments among the progressive wing and the finance wing of the Democratic Party. The progressive appointments are nothing short of incredible – the most competent and principled agency leaders America has seen in half a century:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

But then there's the finance wing's appointments, like Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who ruled against Lina Khan's attempt to block the rotten Microsoft/Activision merger (don't worry, Khan's appealing):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

Perhaps the worst, though, is Biden's Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a private equity ghoul who did a stint for the notorious wreckers Bain Capital before founding her own firm. Raimondo has stuffed her department full of Goldman Sachs alums, and has sidelined labor and civil society groups as she sets out to administer everything from the CHIPS Act to regulating ChatGPT.

As Henry Burke writes for the Revolving Door Project and The American Prospect, Raimondo's history as a corporate raider, her deference to the finance sector, and she and her husband's conflicts of interest from their massive stakes in companies she's regulating all serve to undermine Biden's agenda:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-11-08-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-undercutting-bidenomics/

When the administration inevitably complains that its popular economic programs aren’t breaking through the media coverage, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

The Unity Task Force gave us generationally important policymakers, but ultimately, it's a classic "pizzaburger." If half your family wants pizza, and the other half wants burgers, and you serve them something halfway in between that makes none of them happy, you haven't made a wise compromise – you've just made an inedible mess:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs

#pluralistic #julie su #fiduciary rule #intergenerational warfare #aging #retirement #401ks #old age #pensions #finance #pizzaburgers #Gina Raimondo

261 notes · View notes

nappingpaperclip · 1 month

Text

“People who tell you not to vote Biden are psyops trying to steal left votes” type posts are pro-government propoganda.

Last time y’all spread that bullshit around the blogs getting deleted for being “Russian spies” were black leftists.

NOT EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH YOU IS A PSYOP. Get real!!

Not everyone who criticizes Biden or says they won’t be voting for a genocider and that you shouldn’t either wants you to vote for Trump or not vote!! Third party candidates exist!!! Write ins exist!!! If we actually organized instead of y’all pulling the “lesser evil” bs about a GENOCIDAL RACIST RAPIST OLD MAN we might actually see some fuckin progress!!

Did y’all forget Biden is a rapist?????

Btw is the “left” in the room with us? Where is the left? Where is the progress y’all keep claiming Biden is making?

Last time I checked Biden has not let those kids out of cages, has personally approved more huge pipelines that run through Indigenous lands and speed up climate change, has ex-BlackRock leaders (yknow, the top 10 climate change villains company who also funds most American private prisons as well as funding arms manufacturing companies, who spend millions lobbying politicians on environmental regulations, immigration and drug policy) in his cabinet, increased police and military budget, didn’t codify Roe v Wade, in fact he held it hostage for votes, hasn’t codified gay marriage or trans rights, hasn’t legalized marijuana, hasn’t raised the federal minimum wage, oh and also is DOING GENOCIDE in case y’all forgot or wanna tiptoe around the “some bad policies” y’all always talk about

Did y’all forget about his “nothing will fundamentally change” policy?

Y’all heard that and thought “left”?? Babes he’s a right leaning centrist AT BEST.

There are actually left candidates btw! Ones who care about things like Landback and reparations and free healthcare and education and sustainability! The ones y’all are telling people are throwaway votes/votes for Trump!! (Which isn’t even how the electoral college works btw)

So us telling y’all not to vote for a genocider makes us Russian psyop spies but y’all telling us not to vote for leftist third party candidates doesn’t? K.

Vote for who you want, I don’t give a fuck anymore, BUT DONT TELL HIM HE STILL HAS YOUR UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT WHILE HES COMMITTING GENOCIDE IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT HIM TO STOP

The only way to get a politician to stop doing WAR CRIMES is to tell them you won’t vote for them or give them money or otherwise support them until they stop!

You can fucking lie if you want!!! All we’re asking is for y’all not to publicly announce Genocide Joe still has your unconditional support WHILE HES DOING GENOCIDE

His approval ratings are literally less than Trumps!

He has no one to blame but himself.

If he loses in November, I don’t want to hear y’all bitch and moan and blame black people or disillusioned voters or third party voters or “Russian spies” again like y’all did in 2016, I don’t want to see y’all blame anyone but him, BLAME BIDEN FOR HIS OWN ACTIONS. HE IS A GROWN MAN AND HAS THE MONEY AND POWER TO STOP IT IF HE ACTUALLY WANTED TO.

Y’all keep saying he’s doing his best to stop it, that he’s working behind the scenes, that he’s trying, IF HES TRYING WHY ARE WE STILL SENDING ISRAEL MONEY?

IF HE IS TRYING, WHY DID HE SEND ISRAEL MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SMALL PAYMENTS TO AVOID NOTIFYING CONGRESS?

IF HES TRYING WHY HAVE WE NOT SANCTIONED ISRAEL?

IF HES TRYING, WHY HAVE US SOLDIERS BEEN SEEN FIGHTING ALONGSIDE THE IDF?

IF HES TRYING WHY ARE WE SENDING EXPIRED MREs AS AID? EXPIRED FOOD DROPS THAT ARE NOT ENOUGH TO FEED MILLIONS OF STARVING PEOPLE, WITH FAULTY PARACHUTES THAT KILL CHILDREN?

IF HES TRYING, WHY DID WE BUILD A PORT CUTTING THE GAZA STRIP IN HALF, A PORT THAT NETANYAHU SAID WOULD BE USED TO DEPORT PALESTINIANS?

IF HES TRYING WHY DID HE SIGN OFF $14 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS ON TOP OF THE ANNUAL CONTRACT AND SMALL SECRET PAYMENTS TO GO TOWARDS ISRAELS BOMBS AND GUNS AND FREE HEALTHCARE WHILE IGNORING THE PEOPLE HERE WHO NEED FOOD, HOUSES, AND HEALTHCARE???

DONT MAKE UP RUSSIAN SPIES TO POINT FINGERS AT! IF HE DOESNT WANT TO LOSE HE SHOULDNT DO GENOCIDE

IF GENOCIDE JOE LOSES THE ELECTION FUCKING BLAME HIM FOR DOING A GENOCIDE!!

#FUCK YALL FR #racist white liberals are no fucking better than the alt right. YALL WOULDNT PISS ON ME IF I WAS ON FIRE!!!#‘what about trans people’ WHAT ABOUT MY TRANS SISTER WHOS HOMELESS? WHAT ABOUT MY TRANS FRIENDS IN FLORIDA LOSING THEIR RIGHTS???#YEA CAUSE THINGS HAVE BEEN GOING SOOO WELL FOR TRANS PEOPLE! tell me you live in fucking California or New York without telling me!!!#ATP JUST SAY YOU DONT FUCKING CARE ABOUT THE GENOCIDE CAUSE IT DOESNT EFFECT YOU CAUSE WE ALL KNOW THATS WHAT YALL MEAN!!!!#.txt #Joe Biden #us politics #genocide Joe #Palestine #free Palestine #vote blue #vote blue no matter who

39 notes · View notes