zkikiz [comrade/them]

Kinda disingenuous to focus on what happened to the tank man specifically, when they're symbols of the whole event which is called a massacre for a reason. Protestors were killed en masse and information suppressed, it's not like the tanks were there for fun.

My wife and I have always held the door open for the potential of her dating a woman since she's bi, and the only hangup for me was if she wanted to date a man / make me feel replaced. Fast forward a bit and we have a number of nonmonogamous friends and we agree that's a possibility but don't really act on it. Fast forward more and she meets a guy who is very much like me lol but thinks he's amazing. We have a hard transitionary period with a lot of big feelings (anger, fear, sadness) but now we're in a pretty good place: we're communicating more and more honestly, when we spend time together it's because we're choosing to not because it's the only/default option, I'm going on dates and she's seeing this guy and they're super cute together. When someone's upset there's often more people around to help. Even before we opened up, we learned a lot about healthy relationships from our polyamorous friends. The monogamy sold to us by tv, movies, jewelry commercials, reality tv, religion, and our parents is not exactly a super healthy way to live.

Highly recommend for anyone looking into things, or even for monogamous people trying to improve their relationship are the Multiamory podcast and the PolySecure book. It sounds specific but it's really about communication and attachment styles.

Countdown to centrists demanding for-profit private school vouchers funded by tax dollars because "at least they have air conditioning" -- ignoring of course that everywhere could have air conditioning if it was funded, but "that's too expensive" (while massive handouts to people who buy mansions with the proceeds isn't?)

*shouldn't have summarily fired all the competent sv talent

"Please throw eggs here"

I'm relatively liberal for a chapo subscriber (DemSoc / Bernie, not so much accelerationist and certainly no tankie) so don't count this perspective out too quick. "Middle America" values hard honest work, and landlords ain't it unless maybe they're doing a lot of moonlighting as property maintenance and management, letting their family/friends live at-cost, etc.

Pretending that moderate liberals are radical revolutionary Communists is part of the GOP's playbook.

Hmmm. "Republicans will control House redistricting in Texas, Florida, Ohio and a bunch of red states" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Gonna rate this headline inflammatory.

Downvote for linking to Russian state media. No matter what the truth is, it can always be conveyed without Putin's fingerprints on it.

I agree, but counterpoint: the amount of accommodation that's been built into transactions now is probably great for people with physical disabilities or mental health issues. Like someone somewhere has been wishing to take care of everything from their laptop or without leaving their car for years and is now finally able to with nearly zero interaction. (Mcdonald's curbside app is weirdly one of the most advanced examples of this: I could probably be mute, blind, and paraplegic and still manage it. Add in driverless cars and you've got yourself a deal. Other places are pretty good, even my mom and ma'am local cafe, but not quite "push buttons, park, and wait" good.)

Advertising can always fuck off though. Very glad to not have TV ads in my life.

Yeah that didn't last long, and rightly so.

I don't think you can call something a failed idea when it's barely been tried. Parties shift all the time.

I think it'd only work if you manage to sneak in to an uncontested race nobody cares about, or AOC-style do the legwork of letting liberal voters know what you're up to directly without alerting conservatives.

And then it'd only work locally, and probably once, before the party machine crushes you and voters realize they've been had.

Much much more effective would be to campaign as whichever party seems most likely to get you in power and then just quietly do whatever you know to be moral and right, while talking out your ass when the press comes knocking. You know, like every other politician.

I grew up surrounded by cornfields and I disagree with most of what you're saying here. A bunch of people vote Republican because the Republicans have made it very clear in recent years that they'll deliver the goods on:

• Christianity and the free market
• no abortion
• freedom from government regulation and taxes
• "state's rights" (guns and segregation for all!)

Which is exactly what a bunch of these people want. Maybe not all of it, but the GOP coalition is based on single-issue voters who dogmatically believe in at least one of these things and see their representatives fighting tooth and nail to accomplish it.

I am probably never going to convince my GOP-voting aunt to vote Dem, because she truly believes abortion is baby-killing. And likewise with my uncle, because he is a lifelong NRA member and former customs agent (and not in a crazy way either, in a boy scout black powder riflery / keep drugs from sneaking inside car trunks kind of way.) They consider themselves moderate conservatives and don't get what all the fuss is about, just want to live their quiet white boomer lives in peace and vote their conscience. And the GOP delivers for them on their pet issues.

And the reason for not doing that as a Dem is...?

Even my good little old lady landlord whose dad passed down two properties to her which she rents out very affordably.

But fact of the matter is she pays her rent and groceries off my rent. She gets to live a privileged sheltered life for no other reason than the fact she was born into a landowning family.

Guess what, plenty of good, deserving people weren't so lucky. And it's a pyramid scheme, only so many people can own rental properties that then get leased out: if everyone did, there'd be nobody to rent. It's literally a case of the upper class mooching off the (very difficult, and during COVID, deadly) labor of the lower class.

What do you call someone who never has to work a hard day in their life because their parents passed investments down to them? A trust fund kid, spoiled rotten, etc. For a culture that supposedly values meritocracy and hard work, we sure have a weird way of showing it.

My completely unsustainable answer is to give peer-to-peer therapy and life coaching to each other until they no longer need a strong leader to protect them.

Universe brain: did Marx have a bank account?

yeah i always want wine or VMs to work but i personally have never been able to make it happen. consider it for your personal machine, maybe, or a fun project, but i don't think anyone judges Final Cut Pro professionals from using macs (aside from Adobe Premiere professionals...)

I use Audacity and Openshot for video editing. Obviously major A/V vendors often don't make their software for Linux, but that doesn't mean you can't use it for editing.