Posts by msbellows@c.im
(DIR) Post #As2fQpi0xdzHrwbgFU by msbellows@c.im
2024-11-06T16:38:35Z
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Napoleon returned to power after being imprisoned on Elba.Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.Trump has returned after being voted out and then convicted of 34 felonies. Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?
(DIR) Post #As2njp6SEkBr7qbXhQ by msbellows@c.im
2025-03-14T02:26:07Z
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Hey, fedi? Chuck Schumer is old and sucks, but Bernie Sanders is even older and is fighting like hell. And AOC is great and young, but Lauren Boebert is young and awful.It's not the age, my friends. It's the policies. Don't like racism or sexism? Cool. Don't do ageism either.
(DIR) Post #As30lr84yOqROQfEZs by msbellows@c.im
2025-02-28T02:15:00Z
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"Democracy is a better idea than fascism, but the liberal international order does not exist because it is a better idea. It exists because the democratic powers built bigger and better guns, killed millions of fascists, overthrew fascist governments, tried and hanged fascist leaders, and liberated or coercively democratized former fascist countries.... The liberal international order rests on a founding act of violence, of which the Normandy campaign was a crucial part. It was justified, of course, because it was also an act of self-defense against the fascists’ attempts to found their preferred world order on the rest of us."https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/why-visit-normandy-reflections-on-a-birthplace-of-the-liberal-international-order/
(DIR) Post #As31YFImP3x4GMk8lE by msbellows@c.im
2025-02-28T01:07:09Z
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The scariest thing about what the fascists are doing is that they're showing zero hesitation or concern about backlash when Dems resume power. Does Musk seem worried about losing his government contracts, let alone going to jail? Nah.Because they are 100% invested in ensuring that power doesn't change back in their lifetime. They're all-in on totalitarianism.
(DIR) Post #As32X7m10ZmYZvRmIC by msbellows@c.im
2024-09-27T21:59:13Z
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Hey, you know those folks who periodically pop up claiming both parties are equally bad and even if voting third party helps Trump win it would just hasten the necessary collapse of neoliberalism?I have a new answer for them. It's a quote from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I'm currently reading:"The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. The Communists, at the behest of Moscow, were committed to the last to the silly idea of first destroying the Social Democrats, the Socialist trade unions and what middle-class democratic forces there were, on the dubious theory that although this would lead to a Nazi regime it would be only temporary and would bring inevitably the collapse of capitalism, after which the Communists would take over and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism, in the Bolshevik Marxist view, represented the last stage of a dying capitalism; after that, the Communist deluge!”That didn't work then, and it won't work now. Politics in a democracy IS compromise, and the lesser of two evils is less evil.
(DIR) Post #As5Mn4UdMJviRB7P4C by msbellows@c.im
2025-03-01T01:32:00Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
(DIR) Post #AsC0vU1RUKCr2vn1ay by msbellows@c.im
2025-03-18T14:13:33Z
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You: "Eh, it's just measles. No big deal."Science: "Essentially, when you're infected with measles, your immune system abruptly forgets every pathogen it's ever encountered before – every cold, every bout of flu, every exposure to bacteria or viruses in the environment, every vaccination. The loss is near-total and permanent. Once the measles infection is over, current evidence suggests that your body has to re-learn what's good and what's bad almost from scratch." https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia
(DIR) Post #AsUZjiGfDBUzDJX30i by msbellows@c.im
2025-03-27T21:02:17Z
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Dear #Canada: I'm so fucking sorry. Really. Your friend, Scott P.S.: Please boycott us massively, and also get your defenses buffed. We need you to win this thing no matter how much it hurts us along the way.
(DIR) Post #AsfHTOQeeedfbax160 by msbellows@c.im
2025-04-02T01:12:47Z
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Booker spoke for 25 hours on the Senate floor, and now is appearing on Maddow instead of being in bed. What commitment. What courage.
(DIR) Post #Atu2kWHNYn5Xv6x2zA by msbellows@c.im
2025-05-09T01:24:10Z
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I wonder if popes ever miss wearing blue jeans.
(DIR) Post #AuZcUdzdoX33myCa7U by msbellows@c.im
2025-05-28T18:12:58Z
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When you were a child, did you have a relative with a cuckoo clock? (Please also indicate your answer AND your age in the replies.)
(DIR) Post #AurPXguR5mxh89M2ee by msbellows@c.im
2025-06-06T05:00:16Z
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The next Democratic president is gonna fire every single ICE agent and start over, right?
(DIR) Post #AwVBYrT1XP6hp97LSi by msbellows@c.im
2025-07-25T18:29:43Z
1 likes, 5 repeats
Today is System Administrator Day. Yesterday was World BDSM Day. Coincidence? I think not.
(DIR) Post #AwiOpE69BJpl6bqfbs by msbellows@c.im
2025-08-01T04:39:39Z
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Diana Rigg.Grrrr.Sigh.
(DIR) Post #Ax8fM3Wu96VDGEzxxI by msbellows@c.im
2025-08-13T01:20:20Z
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today released a new ICE recruiting poster, under the stilted and sexist tagline, "Which way, American man?"Why did they use that weird language? Because it's a dog whistle, something ordinary humans won't notice but that those attuned to it will respond to. And it's literally a Nazi dog whistle. William Gayley Simpson was a Presbyterian pastor who decided Christianity wasn't workable and consciously decided to become a racist instead. In 1978 he published a book, "Which Way, Western Man?" – a manifesto calling on white men to defeat all other races. Some nuggets include:"Let me preface what I am about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews’ hold on our throat is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip. Hitler felt that he had to take to the streets. All normal approach to his people was barred. Today, we are confronted with much the same situation here.""The point is to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the White man’s world...."You might think that 1978 is too long ago for anyone to remember, but this book was republished in 2003 by a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance, and is a bestseller among neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.In other words, the federal government is recruiting Nazis and other racists to join ICE, which is being deployed in cities across the country and arresting both citizens and non-citizens alike. Folks, this literally is fascism. You think I enjoy posting this stuff here all the time? I don't. But this literally is fascism. They're literally following the Nazi playbook. And they'll follow it to the very end.Unless we stop them.Sources: https://share.google/nT0dJ8jYEQYeVoLgA https://share.google/TTsKfI8dw9ZZAwCo3^ @jaykuo https://universeodon.com/@jaykuo/115017214198700669
(DIR) Post #AyBPQJIKVMMjJzaDHU by msbellows@c.im
2025-09-13T22:14:11Z
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This is a helpful and frightening perspective on why Americans have such different views of who Charlie Kirk was. Screenshot from FB; original poster's name is in the screenshot but I'm not typing it because she might not want it searchable outside FB:"One thing that has become really clear since yesterday is that we live in at least two different realities. Talking to a friend who only knew Charlie as a Christian motivational speaker because that's all that ever came across her feed. Showed me videos I've never seen before of him saying perfectly reasonable and empowering things. "I showed her videos she'd never seen before of his racism, misogyny, homophobia, advocating for violence against specific groups of people. She was horrified by his remarks about Pelosi's husband's attacker being bailed out and celebrated for his violent act. She was horrified by a number of things that he said, but she had never seen or heard them before, the same as I had never seen or heard the generalized clips of him sounding like a perfectly nice loving man and father."Neither of us had a whole picture of this man. I mentioned he was a known white supremacist and she thought I was joking. She talked about him giving a speech about finding your purpose and doing good in the world and I thought she was joking."I saw why this friend was mourning the loss of a person she thought was a good person. My friend, bless her, saw why I feel the way I do about him. We understood each other better. In spite of a multi-billion dollar internet machine specifically focused on keeping us apart. Because we talked to each other with the desire to listen and to learn rather than the desire to change someone else's mind or to be 'right'."None of those motivational things he said change my opinion about him because they don't erase the negativity, the subtle calls for violence, the belittling and denigrating of other races religions genders etc. His negative and blaming comments about homeless people, the poor, and victims of domestic violence. His comments about rounding up people who didn't think like him and putting them in camps where their behavior could be corrected. That time he said empathy was a made-up word he didn't believe in. That other time he said the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. The time he said most people are afraid when they get on a plane and see that there's a black pilot. His anti-vaccination rhetoric and his active campaigning against people being allowed to wear masks for their own health. His open support of fascism and white supremacy. To me, all of those are fully unchristian sentiments. Those are undeniable and just one of them would be a deal-breaker for me. All of them together are a picture of a man who was polarizing, enraged a lot of people and rightly so, but even with all of that I would never wish upon him or especially his children the end that he got."Oh, and my friend had never heard, and God help me I don't know how she escaped the news, but she had never heard of the Minnesota legislators who were shot in June. The husband and wife and dog who were killed, one after throwing themselves over their child to protect the child. The other couple who somehow survived. Politically motivated attacks specifically because they were democrats. She learned about those shootings that happened months ago because I showed her Charlie Kirk's comments about them. The kidnapping plot against a female Midwestern Democratic governor. The assassination attempt against Pennsylvania's democratic governor. All things Charlie had plenty to say about while supporting the Second Amendment and bashing the Democratic party. She didn't know about any of it because we're all living in two different worlds and none of us have the whole story."
(DIR) Post #AygKYBpob8qsHDQEIC by msbellows@c.im
2025-09-28T22:28:16Z
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Yesterday Lyricdancer and I engaged in a Swiftboat-style river patrol just outside Portland with our Antifa unit (the "Manbun Kerrys"). How are *you" contributing to the war effort?
(DIR) Post #AzFmU6IaptRlCMJoe0 by msbellows@c.im
2025-10-16T00:40:47Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Stolen from Pastor Brandon on (sigh) FB:
(DIR) Post #AzQ6rcO7dWD02szmV6 by msbellows@c.im
2025-10-20T23:13:16Z
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Excellent. Post-#NoKings, Democratic senators fear getting ‘hammered’ if they cave to the GOP and end the shutdown.We're making our own supposed representatives more afraid of us than they are of them, which is good.https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5561362-liberal-base-backlash-democrats/
(DIR) Post #B2XAjMNC21NKWhX5uq by msbellows@c.im
2026-01-21T20:51:18Z
1 likes, 2 repeats
Heads up: eBay just sent an email updating their terms of service to add mandatory arbitration of any disputes. To opt OUT of arbitration, you need to send an opt-out notice, on paper, by mail, within 30 days. Here's the link to the notice form: https://pages.ebay.com/policies/arbitrate-optout.htmlNote: I'm a lawyer and an arbitrator, and I opted out. #enshittification #ebayADDENDUM: Some people have asked why arbitration is bad and what opting out does. This is not (NOT!!!) legal advice, but in general terms: binding arbitration means you lose your ability to seek relief from real courts. That doesn't mean all arbitration is bad; it can be a speedy, affordable process when it is voluntarily chosen by the parties after a dispute has arisen and they can negotiate what forum will be used, who pays the costs, etc. Binding arbitration agreements in TOS and other contracts, on the other hand, lock in which arbitration company ("forum") will be used (often one that gets a lot of business from the big corporation and so may not want to rule against them too often) and who pays, and they also eliminate any possibility of participating in a class action (since class actions are done in courts instead of in arbitration forums). That's why I opt out of binding arbitration whenever I can, although I absolutely am open to discussing it again as a dispute resolution option if a problem arises.Again, not legal advice, but I hope it helps.