I got “inciting violence” for Shermanposting. I disputed that I wasn’t inciting violence, more like praising the quality and effectiveness of historical work.

Alpha energy.

Seriously though, jfc, please stop heaping your insecurities on your four-legged friend. They were wolves once, and this makes them contemplate where their ancestors went wrong teaming up with the rock-chucking apes.

I haven’t lost hope for humanity, I have just accepted that my optimism will inevitably result in disappointment. That doesn’t mean give up the fight or wallow in sorrow, it’s just know your limitations and every once in a while push your limits and see if you were correct. You might succeed, you might die. India achieved independence but it also knew exactly when and where to push for it. The British Empire was in no position to keep an iron grip on its holdings after WWII, and the people of India knew it. They pressed their advantage and won their independence, but it didn’t change the attitude of the English at large towards their former colony. England is still a hotbed of nationalism, racism, and white supremacy dealing with their own legacy of imperialism and hate at home just the same as the US is with their version. India itself struggles with nationalism, religious bigotry, and the legacy of a caste system that predates western domination. Israel is the greatest example of a people who are the descendants of those who were once nearly ground out of existence by hate adopting the tactics of their victimizers and becoming something to rival that but justifying it through their ancestor’s victimization, religious validation, and “never again”. The US was founded with imperfections but built a system where imperfections could be addressed as times/public opinion changed, and slowly but surely it has made progress even if it was painful and still imperfect. But centuries of that progress have been rolled back and ignored in under a decade. It’s not hopeless, but it is the reality we live in.

Not exactly weird or baffling, but interesting. I’ve been in the punk scene for 30yrs. When I first started going at 15 the “all ages” venue was a dive bar the made the minors walk through a dog kennel that kept them out of the “bar”, but on the other side was the pit where everyone was drinking anyway and the cigarette smoke was so thick you couldn’t see the drummer. I’ve seen people shit on stage, get blowjobs on stage, had a fiddle player helicopter his wang over my head during a solo, saw a guy run through the pit with a live chainsaw, another dance with a meat cleaver & claw hammer, people bash each other with fluorescent light bulbs, a rusty scythe, a leather with broken glass glued to the sleeves, taken an empty bottle of Jack randomly chucked to my face, been knocked out with a spin kick, seen a drunk dude wander out of the pit with someone else’s tooth stuck in their cheek, and once molly-whopped a bonehead with a lock & chain. I’ve been fortunate to have lived and seen some crazy shit.

But last year I was at a punk show and for the first time realized truly how old a lot of us are getting. There’s folks in their 60s still moshing right next to 14yos. But for all I’ve seen, something that really sticks with me is the mom who walked her maybe 5yo daughter to the edge of the stage and, after a little hesitancy, the little gal crowd surfed. And the crowd responded. It was still a wild mix of humanity, a bunch of crusty strangers in hyper-aggressive clothing, tattoos, and eyeliner. But now we’ve got this precious little soul getting to join the fray, and while the band continued to rip, the pit continued to circle, and the cheap shots continued to be pounded, the human tempest made sure she got to enjoy her trip across the pit safely back to her dad. And you could see how thrilled she was.

Not a lot surprises me anymore, but casting your child into a sweaty sea of weirdos and trusting they’ll do the right thing, and a bunch of half-drunk, ritualistically violent strangers being the right people to make sure they do stay safe is… heartwarming? Still kinda weird.

Was this your dealer?

which I imagine they will settle down with the next presidency into a more so familiar behavior.

That’s putting a lot of faith in the idea our democracy is still even marginally functioning and Trump doesn’t illegally run and win a 3rd term which then gets validated by SCOTUS and Congress for [insert justification here], or a less bombastic but politically aligned successor takes his place. They’re going to have a hard time finding someone as uniquely obtuse as Trump, but he will die eventually and I have no doubt that’s why they’re speedrunning redistricting, deconstructing mail-in voting, overturning laws, normalizing executive orders as legislation, and embedding the surveillance/police state. They’re won’t always have a demagogue so they are making sure when they don’t their guy still gets in.

“The US/capitalism sucks so whoever the US says is an enemy must be good” is not a new phenomenon. I was raised by people who probably now support Trump and as a teenager began to reject their values.

Early on I found Marx and Che and adopted ML as my worldview. I looted the pin bins at the Army/Navy for old Soviet badges because it pissed off my parents. But the more I actually got involved in meaningful application of my changing worldview, the more I drifted towards anarchism-syndicalism with a willingness to compromise on social democracy because I agree with most that nations are not ready to abandon capitalism entirely and humanity isn’t ready to self-govern cooperatively. My role is to help transition to that, but I now strongly disagree that a top down, state driven approach is the right method. Soviet/Chinese style state reforms might thwart oligarchy and wealth hoarding, but it values the existence and welfare of the state over that of the people that live in the state. And I’ve gone rounds with people over anthropocentric environmental policies that accept present destruction of wild spaces and the depletion of natural resources in the present with the promise that they’ll be fixed “in the future”. There’s always an excuse each new year as to why “the future” hasn’t arrived and the practice needs to continue.

Trumpism is just the current face of American populism/nationalism/imperialism/evangelicalism and our unaddressed legacy of bigotry that finally managed to metastasize and expose the cancer a lot of people always knew was festering in this country. Even if he has been rigging the system, a substantial portion of our population is all in because he does accurately represent them. We’re in a three-way cold civil war between them, the folks who want to go back to “America as usual”, and the far left that keeps pointing out “America as usual” was not great, it was flawed enough to be gamed until we ended up with fascism, and instead of patching it up to get back to a half-broken system, why not use this moment to strip it down and build something fresh. The left then splits on the Chinese model versus a European democratic socialist model.

And neither can be a clean copy/paste. The US and China both have massive borders, substantial populations, world class militaries, access to natural resources, and industry/tech. The US does not have China’s thousands of years of culture, social order, or ethnic majority. Culturally and philosophically we share a lot with Europe, but all those factors that make us comparable to China make it difficult to scale the various forms of Euro dem-soc to the US. All we can do is see what is working positively in countries that have adopted socialist policies and attempt to replicate them in our own experiment with government, but actually analyze if they’re a positive change and adjust rather than cling to failing efforts because “that’s how we’ve always done it”.

Personally, I think a substantial amount of the pro-Soviet hype is coming from American leftists fed up with our country and hoping for a forcible change from their own populist leaders (whom they imagine will be benevolent), victims of American imperialism who rightfully want revenge and to see the nation decline, and Chinese mouthpieces capitalizing on both those opinions while amplifying the fight because the US at war with itself, Europe, and foreign nations China has little interest in keeps US and European influence (good or bad) occupied.

It’s not even about spreading democracy or communism, it’s about imperialism and influence abroad to outsource and mitigate the ugly expense of making life for the people ant home ideal. Europe enriched itself plundering Africa for its people and resources, the US built itself on the blood of those plundered people and eventually came for it’s resources, China’s coming for its resources. Europe justified their actions by claiming Africa was primitive, the US justified itself by claiming it was the natural order and later “spreading democracy”, China’s offering “development” but you guys are going to get the shit end of the deal.

4chan-esque edgelord before that existed. Almost exclusively wore a faded Rush t-shirt and black sweatpants and generic white sneakers, He had no tribe- in band but this was when American Pie was a new release and he constantly talked about “one time at band camp”, chess club but not skilled and a sore loser, kinda in to punk/metal/goth but he was the kind of guy that would call the cops if he showed up to party and there was weed/booze. And he wasn’t even some moral Xtian kid, just kind of a douche. I don’t remember what sparked the situation, but I remember him leaping onto a table during lunch and yelling at someone “I will destroy you” then laughing like Emperor Palpatine.

Second hand tale from a buddy who played D&D- he showed up wanting to roleplay as some 1000 year old elf girl whose brother had usurped her kingdom and had written a backstory that included him starting level 1 with some godtier magic katana, that looked like the katana he showed up strapped to his back with irl, and of course the character sketch looked like she was 13. I have no reason to doubt the validity of that.

Called in several bomb threats during our final week of senior year.

U.S. authorities are actively covering up the crimes

They’re not even covering them up. Like so much of Trump’s criminal past he’s flagrantly showcasing his criminality and the fact that our justice system is so corrupt people with his wealth and power can do what they want and get away with it. It’s his “shoot someone on 5th avenue” moment.

the current regime remains in office despite its obvious criminality and is not forced to resign through mass civil disobedience.

Mass civil disobedience is a failed effort in the US because the people in power have been striving make sure there’s never another movement like Civil Rights or Women’s Suffrage that can threaten their power. The wealth gap between the average citizen between the power holders and the is so vast 99% of us could spend a year not working and they’d still be some of the richest people in the world. Meanwhile, we’d destroy our lives. Add to that, around 30% of our population is all in on this. They’re not going to attempt to stymie the system. They’ll continue to purchase and invest, they’ll support their camp’s businesses and buy our foreclosing homes as an investment property while we peacefully practice “disobedience” and they’ll continue to occasionally drop by a protest to gun a few down or run a few over and see if they can’t get a pardon for it.

Police forces in the Civil Rights era were brutal- fire hoses, batons, dogs, but modern cops and ICE are lethal and immune to repercussions. Their ranks are filled with fascist zealots who stormed our Capitol building and even after their coup failed they were rewarded for their effort.

Liberalism and Democrats shoulder some of the burden of this. For decades the Civil Rights movement has been framed as “if enough people remains peaceful in the face of violence, the state will eventually feel bad enough to change”. It’s conveniently covered up that all of our progressive movements weren’t above meeting violence with violence or occasionally threw the first punch. Now it’s much more difficult because our enemy didn’t forget and we live in a surveillance state that’s staffed with street executioners and a justice system that takes threats to capital and property very seriously.

Unless our rebuke is backed by people with access to power, like governors or even mayors of large cities, if we choose the more aggressive approach we’re marching out like John Brown. We’re lone wolves or a small cell that might take out a few of theirs but the people we get are as powerless as we are and easily replaceable. Even people like Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk were replaced in days and the system absorbed the loss.

This regime and its network of oligarchs behind it are the reason why the most serious crimes, including those committed by Epstein’s accomplices, go unpunished.

The French Revolution is one of the few historical moments where the have nots actually managed to get their hands on the haves with masses, determination, and a willingness for violence. Technology, police, and surveillance have made this something we can’t accomplish. Even for all of our guns, they have more. The Whiskey Rebellion happened just after the founding of the US, when both sides were using the same level of tech, and the Feds showed the 2A is just a feel good clause, no well regulated militia is going to pose a threat to the state and it’s benefactors. I’d also point out that what came after the French Revolution wasn’t as great as they’d hoped and it took a while for the nation to get to the democracy it is to day, one where protest and civil disobedience does have a voice and can get a bit violent at times but doesn’t result in mass casualties.

We gave up on Epstein not out of apathy or acceptance. We’ve known for a long time the truly powerful have a different justice system than the rest of us. We still do. Every week there’s another pro-MAGA politician, pastor, or supporter popped for less egregious sex crimes that doesn’t get a free pass because they’re not important enough to get a free pass. The fight for the files has itself almost become a distraction. Our system is broken by design, and the longer the people who think releasing them unredacted will change anything keep fighting for that, the more they’re not paying attention to the last vestiges of democracy being erased- districts being redrawn, executive orders as legislation, courts ruling by party principle Constitution be damned, daily acts of racial/orientation/gender violence that happen with no legal consequences, the plan to rig the elections to the point voting becomes a charade. They need to see justice, it’s that none of our systems will see to it and they’re flaunting that. Issue an arrest warrant for Trump and who’s going to execute it?

Even if someone was willing to try, could they actually physically remove him from office? His loyalists would swarm the jail like they did the Capitol to get him back if you managed too, but i suspect his deputized forces and military supporters would have the White House locked down before you could even get to him. At best it would be the line in the sand, the point we’re all forced to black and white anccept our democracy is dead and we have a fascist dictator. Democrats and their liberal/centrist supporters know this, they just don’t want to have to accept how we remove dictators when democracy fails.

Civil disobedience is great if you have a functioning democracy where elected officials fear public opinion and feel compelled to listen. When you have fascism and oligarchs it’s theater that keeps the masses peacefully occupied until you get around to grinding them out as well.

His supporters and his opponents both have zero doubt of what’s in those files even if we haven’t seen it all. They don’t care and will continue to fight for the regime’s goal because currently, they’re winning. It’s like slavery, the people who fought to preserve it weren’t so ignorant they actually believed the enslaved were inferior or sub-humans, they knew they were humans owning humans because it was convenient, everything else was excuses to normalize it. They fought to the death to maintain their privilege when told “your privilege is removed”, and the people who forced that change fought to the death to see it happen. A century and a half later and we’re up against the same mentality, except this time we have no leaders willing to call it and accept “shit, this is going to get messy”.

I expect reasonable honesty. It’s an anonymous confessional and people seem to like to confess to another human for the sake of putting the truth to words, just ask your local bartender what people will eventually say.

I can’t give an honest answer because my 20s and 30s were a series of non-stop hookups at bars and parties, plus the early years of CL and dating apps before they got overrun by bots and sellers. I’d say low triple digits, but idk. Got a friend my age who claims over 1000, and having known her for 30yrs, yeah, that’s honest.

There’s also a lot of commenters admitting to zero or less than ten. Religious views can push people to downplay their numbers, but I doubt anybody is admitting to being a 30+ year old virgin for Heaven points. I think that’s honesty and reflects what we know about the loneliness and disconnection epidemic that’s been occurring for the past decade and a half.

As a 44yo who’s never been married, has no kids, and only had two significant dating relationships that lasted less than two years each (both of which had at least one threesome), I find your claim entirely plausible.

The concept of harm reduction when you’re trapped by the reality of the system you’re trapped in is lost on a lot of people and “all or nothing” is a virtue that can be spewed on the internet without actually living the consequences in real life. I know where I live that we’re going to end up with conservative leadership, which one is the least worst option? For all the calls for radical revolution and breaking the system we live under, nobody seems inclined to do what breaking that would take. So we limp along, reducing harm as best we can when we can.

If they think making printers incapable of printing dicks, they’re going to be sorely disappointed when I show them what you can do with a photocopier.

“Oh no, you want me to die? Are you going to make that happen?”

“No, but I’ll wish it.”

“Eh, well, best of luck.”

If I die painfully from cancer it’s because I’ve been smoking a pack a day for 26 years fully aware that it can cause cancer, not because some rando hoped I would. If you want to kill me, put some effort into it.

Hiking, gardening, baking, painting, writing.

I mean, if my kid was a wealth hoarding, kid diddling, entitled, exploitative little shit, I’d wish some cancer on them.

Your error is that you’re punching down. If you can find a 12yo billionaire with a rap sheet like Donald Trump, fuck it, that’s a pretty terrible human being and it’s got a lot of years ahead of it. But most kids aren’t that vile. They’re not even in control of their own day to day lives, much less running governments and industry. Killing them solves nothing. Besides, they’re already getting cancer from the waste of the capitalist system, so you don’t even have to wish it; they’ve got it.

Wild that you went from suggesting scalping to accusing others of incapacity for violence. When’s the last time you scalped someone, or were at least present when someone was scalped?

But seriously, don’t answer that. Admissions of arson and interpersonal violence don’t mean much anonymously online unless you bring receipts, but as anonymity isn’t actually anonymous, so dropping a Greatest Hits of crimes the state couldn’t prove at the time for clout is ill advised.

Well it sounds like they just made Santa’s naughty list, so they’ll all be getting lumps of coal this Christmas.

Seriously though, and this applies not just to Israel but to people/movements like Putin, Trump, MAGA, the rising far right movements in Europe; words without consequences are just opinions and will be ignored.

But that would break the system that keeps the rich free and the poor incarcerated and even more impoverished. The rich suffer enough as it is when they commit a crime, judges consider how much their lawyers and crisis management PR firms bill and deduct that from the final fine. The poor get a free ride on public defenders. Won’t someone think of the rich’s feelings?!?

Myles is a real sack of shit that seeks high profile cases. Everyone, regardless of how heinous their crime, deserves good representation and due process. But the purpose of defense is not to get guilty clients off on technicalities or public sympathy, it’s to make sure they receive a fair trial and that the legal consequences fit the crime. Getting you ass-whipped by a crowd stopping you in the act and the public being disgusted with you as a human being are extra legal consequences that inevitably occur when you commit a crime and have no bearing on your defense or eventual sentence.

Myles also takes on cases of Proud Boys and crooked cops/prosecutors, so he’s got a type.

“Honolulu-based defense attorney Myles Briener has gained recognition in Hawaii for taking on high-profile clients and cases in recent years. In 2021, Breiner represented Nicholas Ochs, the founder of Hawaii’s Proud Boys chapter who landed in court in 2021 after his participation in the violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Breiner also represented Louis and Katherine Kealoha, a former police chief and deputy prosecutor in Honolulu who were indicted for bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and drug charges in 2017.”

https://www.theinertia.com/environment/igor-lytvynchuks-lawyer-says-he-threw-rock-at-seal-to-save-turtles/

Also, Lytvynchuk has hired crisis management firm Red Banyan to try and suppress stories and push the narrative he was “saving turtles”.

https://redbanyan.com/about-red-banyan/

I have a volunteer at my dog rescue who got her MBA but focused specifically on non-profit administration. She’s amazing, one of the most amazing we have because she handles grant writing and all the paperwork that keeps us in line. Her income job is with an np that helps refugees get their new life established.

It’s like lawyers that actually use their training for good, few and far between but there are some out there.