archive link

the long and short of this agenda (courtesy of a ResetERA post:

GROCERIES AND FOOD

• First-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries
• Set clear rules so that corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers with pricing to run up excessive corporate profits
• Empower the FTC and state attorney generals to investigate corporations for violating the rules
• Aggressively regulate mergers and proposed consolidation among food producers and grocers

HEALTHCARE

• Expand the $35 insulin cap for Medicare to all Americans, not just the elderly ones
• Cap all Americans annual out of pocket prescription drug spending at $2,000/year
• Ramp up Medicare negotiations with drug companies over their most expensive drugs
• Regulate pharmaceutical companies that block competitive and abusive practices by middlemen
• Cancel medical debt for millions of Americans

TAX CUTS

• Extend Inflation Reduction Act subsidies and lower premiums for ACA
• Expand Earned Income Tax Credit by up to $1,500
• Restore the $3,000 per child tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act
• Expand the Child Tax Credit so that even the poorest of families receive it (currently families need to make a high enough annual income to receive it)
• Increase the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 per child for first year newborns

HOUSING

• $25,000 down payment assistance for first time homebuyers who have paid rent on time for at least two years
• Tax credit incentives for home builders who build starter homes sold to first time homebuyers
• Build 3 million homes
• $40B to local state governments for building housing
• Pass the Stop Predatory Investing Act, legislation that would prohibit investors who acquire 50 or more new single-family rental homes from deducting interest or depreciation on the properties.
• Pass the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act, legislation that cracks down on companies that allow landlords to collude to set high housing prices via software and price-setting algorithms.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1950212

Archived link

On August 6, the US Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Kamala Harris finally chose her running mate: the 60-year-old governor of Minnesota, Timothy Walz. Subsequently, the media discovered that Walz had lived in China in his younger years. From September 1989 to July 1990, he worked as a foreign teacher at Foshan No. 1 Middle School in Guangdong province.

In the context of recent Sino-US competition, and given the shift in the most recent administrations between the fierce confrontation of Trump and the competitive risk control approach of Biden, the vice-presidential candidate’s China experience has become a focus of attention both inside and outside China.

How does Walz understand China? What is his position on Sino-US relations?

[...]

For more on Walz’s time teaching English in China, our reporter contacted Ms. Pang, a recently retired Chinese language teacher at Foshan No. 1 Middle School. Pang was a colleague of Walz’s, who she says was the school’s first foreign teacher.

At the time, Pang says, Walz was known to teachers and students as simply as “tīm” (添) — a Cantonese transliteration of his first name. Tīm was well-liked, according to Pang: “Everyone treated him like a celebrity,” she says. “He left a good impression on everyone. He was very young and had a bright smile… Even now when I see pictures of him I recognize that same wide, infectious smile pressing his cheeks up.”

[...]

In an interview at the time, Walz bemoaned the “unbearably hot” Guangdong weather but praised his students’ curiosity about all things American. At Christmas time, he said that students and friends decorated a pine tree and brought it to his room.

“His colleagues would often laugh at him because as soon as he got his pay he went to the school store to buy ice cream,” Pang recalls. Walz didn’t understand Cantonese or Mandarin when he first arrived, Pang says, but he gradually began to learn.

[...]

In terms of his political record, Waltz is far from a “dove” in his approach to China. He is a long-time supporter and advocate of political freedoms in China, and has criticized Beijing on issues ranging from Hong Kong to Tibet.

Both the 1989 student movement and the June 4 incident had a profound impact on Walz.

[...] As he and other volunteers watched the news from Hong Kong [where Walz worked as a teacher] on June 4, many decided to back out of the program. He had other ideas. “I felt it was more important than ever to go to China,” he said. He felt it was important, he recalled, for him to tell this story “so that the people of China knew that we stood with them.”

[...]

Walz also touched on other issues sensitive to China, such as Tibet and Hong Kong. He voiced support for Tibetan autonomy and met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet. He joined a visit by US lawmakers to Tibet in November 2015 led by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. [...] In a press release following the visit, the delegation “reiterated the imperative of respect for religious freedom and expression in Tibet; autonomy and democracy in Hong Kong; and respect for human and women’s rights across China. The delegation also expressed specific concerns related to the recent arrest and detention of human rights lawyers and activists.”On the issue of Hong Kong, he was an advocate early on in 2017 for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and in August of that year met with now-jailed Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), calling him “a true defender of democracy in China.” Pro-democracy activist Jeffrey Ngo Cheuk Hin (敖卓軒), a former member of Hong Kong’s Demosisto party, pointed out earlier this month that at the time of the anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong, Walz was an important advocate for the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

[...]

The same report [in the Time magazine] also said Walz is concerned about the gap in trade between the US and China, and wants to improve their trade deficit by demanding that China abide by environmental standards, fair trade, and human rights. At the same time, he has publicly criticized Trump’s trade war footing with China, pointing out that Minnesota’s agricultural sector has been hit hard by slumping exports of commodities like soybeans and pork to China.

Archived version

A Democratic-aligned political action committee filed a complaint with federal election regulators accusing Donald Trump, his campaign and the social media site X of violating federal election laws during Trump's interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Trump's lengthy interview with Musk on Monday "violated" federal rules banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates, and barring federal candidates from accepting such contributions, alleged the complaint filed Tuesday by the group End Citizens United.

The group said the interview "amounted to a virtual campaign event for Donald J. Trump financed by X."

"Such a brazen corporate contribution undermines the anti-corruption aims of the Act, and the [Federal Election] Commission should immediately investigate these violations and take appropriate remedial action," the complaint said.

Campaign Treasurer Bradley T. Crate was also named in the complaint.

[...]

The complaint alleges that a "contribution" — which corporations are banned from making to candidates — includes "'anything of value' provided to a federal candidate in connection with their election."

[...]

Tiffany Muller, president of the group, which is supporting Kamala Harris in the race, told The Washington Post in a statement that the interview could “set a dangerous precedent for unfettered, direct corporate engagement in campaigns.”

Archived version

The workers' union UAW has filed federal labor charges against disgraced billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk for their illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.

After significant technical delays on X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump and Musk had a rambling, disorganized conversation on Monday evening in front of over one million listeners in which they advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers.

“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, You want to quit? They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.”

Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.

“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”

As a venture capitalist, JD Vance repeatedly touted his guiding principles for investing in a company: A business should not only turn a profit, it should also help American communities.

That’s why, he said, he invested in AppHarvest, a startup that promised a high-tech future for farming and for the workers of Eastern Kentucky. Over a four-year span, Vance was an early investor, board member and public pitchman for the indoor-agriculture company.

[...]

Last year, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, AppHarvest declared bankruptcy.

The rise and fall of the company, and Vance’s role in it, cuts against his image as a champion for the working class — an image that helped catapult him to the top of the Republican ticket as Donald Trump’s running mate.

[...]

AppHarvest not only failed as a business after pursuing rapid growth, but also provided a grim job experience for many of the working-class Kentuckians Vance has vowed to help.

AppHarvest employees said they were forced to work in grueling conditions inside the company’s greenhouse, where temperatures often soared into the triple digits. Complaints filed with the US Department of Labor and a Kentucky regulator between 2020 and 2023 show that workers alleged they were given insufficient water breaks and weren’t provided adequate safety gear. Some workers said they suffered heat exhaustion or injuries, though state inspectors did not find violations.

Despite promising local jobs, the company eventually began contracting migrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, numerous former employees [said].

[...]

With the blockbuster success of his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance was riding high. He had learned how to invest in startups in Silicon Valley, where he worked at PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s firm. Thiel would later bankroll Vance’s own VC fund and Ohio senatorial run.

[...]

Things started out well [for AppHarvest, says ormer worker Anthony Morgan]. The hours were manageable, and the benefits were better than anything he could hope to get from other employers in the area. Then, a few months in, Morgan recounted a noticeable shift in the company’s culture.

Production fell behind and workers got the message that they needed to pick up the pace, Morgan said. The company cut costs, including the employer-paid health care benefits, and managers were tasked with meeting far higher production quotas. That meant longer hours for workers and fewer breaks in the brutal heat of the greenhouse.

“I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees,” Morgan said. “A couple days a week, you’d have an ambulance show up and you seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.”

The conditions became intolerable, and employees began to leave the company in droves, several workers told CNN. Morgan helped organize an employee sit-in to demand fairer working conditions, and said that he was fired after he took time off for medical care for an injury he said he suffered on the job.

“It was a nightmare that should have never happened,” Morgan said of his experience overall.

alt-text for thumbnail: text saying "apolitical friends don't exist" next to the progress flag on a 2d digital art wooden background

Archived version

Broadcast news and several top newspapers ignored reporting on an investigation by the Department of Justice into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for allegedly receiving $10 million from Egypt in the days before the 2016 election, a move which would have violated a federal law that bans U.S. candidates from taking foreign funds. Since the initial report on August 2, there have only been 4 unique articles about the probe in 5 of the top national papers, and broadcast news networks have completely failed to cover it.

During his presidency, Donald Trump repeatedly complained that the Federal Reserve was doing things that he believed were bad for the economy—complaints the Fed ignored. If Trump wins a second term, he may work to make sure the Fed has to listen to him.

Both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, argue that the President should have more power over one of the Fed’s most powerful tools: setting interest rates.

“I feel that the President should have at least say in there, yeah, I feel that strongly,” Trump said last week at a news conference in Mar-a-Lago. “I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve, or the chairman.”

It's a move that would be a sea change for the United States, with ripple effects across the globe, as the Fed's independence from politics is widely viewed as central to its ability to effectively manage U.S. monetary policy. 

[...]

Multiple economists [...] raised concerns that Trump’s proposal would lead to sitting Presidents pushing the Fed to enact policies that may be advantageous during election years but could have dangerous consequences for the long-term health of the economy. “It sets the system up for abuse,” says Robert Barbara, the director of the Center for Financial Economics at Johns Hopkins University.

[...]

Economists say that politicizing the Federal Reserve would be harmful regardless of which party is in charge, because of the unique tradeoffs the Fed faces in meeting its dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and managing inflation.

[...]

Throughout most of the Biden era, the Federal Reserve has been battling the highest inflation in over 40 years [since Jimmy Carter who faught the oil crisis, ed]. Its main tool for trying to lower inflation has been increasing the Federal Funds Rate, the interest rate banks are required to charge each other for overnight loans. When the Federal Funds Rate increases, moving money between banks becomes more costly. This leads to fewer dollars circulating throughout the economy, which usually helps lower inflation but also increases the risk of a recession. 

[...]

Politicians typically operate under “short-term incentives” of preferring economic growth, especially just ahead of an election. That usually means advocating for keeping interest rates low [which] would often lead to an inflationary bias, which is a tendency for the central bank to allow too much [economic growth] in the short term and cause inflation to be higher.

[...]

Though Trump named [current Fed Chair Jerome] Powell to take over as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2017, the former President repeatedly criticized Powell and pressured him to lower interest rates during his presidency. “When Trump was in office and seeking re-election, he was upset that Jerome Powell kept interest rates too high, and when Trump is out of office, he's upset that Powell keeps interest rates too low,” says Ryan Chahrour [a professor of economics and international studies at Cornell University].

[...]

In other words, Trump advocated for a monetary policy that had a higher likelihood of increasing inflation while he was in power, but also could boost the economy in the short term, potentially improving his chances of winning an election. When he was out of power, he advocated for a tighter policy that would likely decrease inflation but also dampen the economy and make the Biden Administration appear worse in the short term.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent in the 2024 election, said she disagrees with his stance. "The Fed is an independent entity and as President I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes," Harris told reporters on Saturday in Phoenix, Arizona.

People can do shitty things with accessibility. I could use alt-text on images to figure out who I could call slurs when I might not be able to otherwise.

That is not an argument against accessibility. People can potentially use their access to society to do harm, but not having access is guaranteed harm. It is not just guaranteed harm though, it is specifically systematic harm against disabled people on the basis of being disabled. Doing hierarchy because some members of another group might potentially choose to do hierarchy themselves does not reduce hierarchy overall, it makes it much worse.

Anybody who blames the accessibility tools themselves is a reactionary. This includes what people do with stuff like AI. No matter how much you try you will never go back to some ideal past. The AI is not going away. Your choice is simply whether or not you do hierarchy.

Archived version

http://web.archive.org/web/20240812164201/https://www.rawstory.com/morning-joe-today-2668947801/

The former president and current Republican nominee claimed in a Truth Social post that Kamala Harris had shared a fake photo showing throngs of supporters greeting her at a Michigan airport, and the conservative attorney Conway expressed alarm to MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"As I've been yammering about for five or six years now, he's a deeply unwell man," Conway said. "He is a deeply psychologically disturbed individual. If he were a member of your family, you'd be taking him, staging an intervention and taking him into a psychiatric hospital.

"If Melania and Ivanka and Eric and Don Jr. care about their father, and I assume – their father and husband — and I assume they do, they'd be doing that if they could. He is, as I've been saying, a narcissistic sociopath, a pathological narcissist and sociopath as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. These are, historians will tell you, the traits of authoritarian dictators throughout history."

[...]

"This [...] the final implosion of Donald Trump. I mean, it's like Hitler when Hitler was moving around divisions that didn't exist in the last 10 days of the war in the führer bunker. He has completely lost it."

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on 34 felony convictions Sept. 18 and remains under indictment in the District of Columbia and Georgia on election interference charges, and Conway said he needs to win re-election to avoid consequences.

"He is running for his freedom," Conway said. "He's going to go to jail if he does not win the presidency, and he can see that now. That's why he's doubling down on the unreality. It is partly for self-soothing, partly he can't help it. He is a pathological liar, being a sociopath. What we are watching is ... actually very, very sad."

Archived version

While labor advocates seek to revitalize union membership and pressure governments to pass labor-friendly policies as a means to increase workers' bargaining strength, Republicans hoping to regain full control of government in 2024 have plans to "fix" the labor movement by targeting those unions, which they characterize as unaccountable and inefficient. Former President Donald Trump's first administration took measures that labor experts say are tantamount to union-busting, while Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill introduced the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act in 2022, which would repeal NLRA's Section 8(a)(2) and other rules meant to keep unions independent and capable of bargaining effectively. Section 8(a)(2), which lays out what constitutes unfair labor practice on both ends, expressly prohibits unions that have been "assisted or controlled" by the employer.

Archived version

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to tackle price gouging by corporations in her campaign, much to the enthusiasm of progressives who are counting on Harris to do more than Biden has done to combat food inflation.

Last week, Harris told a campaign rally in Atlanta that she would “take on price gouging and bring down costs” on “Day One” of her presidency.

That promise comes a few months after Biden called out so-called “shrinkflation” — the phenomenon of items shrinking in size, quantity, or, even, quality while their prices remain the same — during his annual State of the Union address to Congress. “Too many corporations raise prices to pad the profits, charging more and more for less and less,” the president said. He also joked about the candy bar Snickers, saying they are now smaller in size but available for the same price.

“The snack companies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer — same size bag — put fewer chips in it,” Biden added.

The president previously called out shrinkflation in anticipation of the Super Bowl and asked companies to “put a stop to this” in a game day commercial.

“I've had enough of what they call shrinkflation,” he said. “It's a rip-off.

Archived version

It’s a political science phenomenon called “elite polarization,” in which the divides among elected officials spread to their voters, and the public sorts itself into ideological and partisan tribes that mirror what is being signaled from above. That downward messaging then increases what political theorists call “affective polarization,” a measure of the level of antipathy people have for members of the opposite political party.

But not all elected officials are polarizing Americans — or at least, not all of them are doing it equally, according to new research by political scientists Marc Jacob of Stanford University, Yphtach Lelkes of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sean Westwood and Matthew Wetzel of Dartmouth College, which confirms what has long been suspected.

[...]

The researchers define conflict entrepreneurs as elected officials who “frequently insult and name-call political rivals.” They can be contrasted with “policy-focused representatives” — the kind of folks who just want to get things done. And political division is a whole brand for conflict entrepreneurs, not merely part of their public profile.

[...]

They tend to be Republicans, more ideologically extreme, and more likely to hold seats in the House of Representatives (as opposed to the Senate). And you can probably guess who some of these folks are: Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, is the second-largest producer of personal attacks, according to the tool. Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is the seventh.

[...]

Both major political parties have conflict entrepreneurs in their ranks. According to the researchers, though, there are more Republican conflict entrepreneurs than Democratic ones, and all conflict entrepreneurs aren’t perfectly alike.

[...]

And yet, being a conflict entrepreneur, the researchers found, doesn’t do much to help lawmakers achieve traditional legislative goals. It certainly doesn’t help one pass laws or advance to leadership positions. It does, however, help them get more media coverage: If your goal is to be on Fox News, then being nasty can help you reach that goal.

[...]

“Our results suggest that conflict entrepreneurs, relative to policy-focused representatives, do not convert media attention into success: they do not raise more campaign donations, they do not perform better in elections, they are assigned to less powerful committees, and they do not leverage media attention to introduce or co-sponsor legislation,” the researchers write.

In other words, conflict entrepreneurs actually lack legitimate power and influence over government processes. But by getting the most media attention, they can influence the way the public sees government work and experiences politics.

[...]

The overwhelming majority of federal lawmakers never make a personal attack or do so in a tiny fraction of all their communications in floor speeches, social media posts, and media appearances. Yet a small number of polarizing figures has helped worsen the public’s view of how divided our government and politics are.

[...]

Archived version

In 1980, white people accounted for about 80 percent of the U.S. population.

In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.

Trump appeals to white people gripped by demographic hysteria. Especially older white people who grew up when white people represented a much larger share of the population. They fear becoming a minority.

While the Census Bureau says there are still 195 million white people in America and that they are still the majority, the white population actually declined slightly in 2023, and experts believe that they will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050.

Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.

The Trump phenomenon and the surge of right-wing extremism in America was never about economic anxiety, as too many political reporters claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was, and still is, about race and racism.

Archived version

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) brushed off concerns about former President Trump’s praise for world leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing there is “nothing wrong” with such remarks.

Pointing to the former president’s comments about Xi and Putin at a Montana rally last Friday, CBS “Face the Nation” anchor Margaret Brennan pressed Vance on whether he agrees with the characterization that the two “were lovely individuals.”

“I think that President Trump gets along with world leaders,” Vance responded. “And there’s nothing wrong with him complimenting them as people, if it makes him more effective diplomatically.”

Brennan interjected, suggesting Trump’s comments are “different than walking in and laying down the law to Xi Jinping.”

“Oh no, it’s not actually, because you’re better able to lay down the law, like President Trump did, if you actually have a good relationship with people and they trust you to follow your word,” Vance said. “We have to remember that Democrats, including Kamala Harris, attacked Donald Trump for having a good relationship with Vladimir Putin”

Trump’s comments regarding Xi and other foreign leaders have been criticized at times by Democrats and even some Republicans as being too friendly toward authoritarian leadership.

Trump last year described Xi as “smart, brilliant, everything perfect,” and noted he runs China “with an iron first.”

Trump has spoken similarly about Putin and claimed last year he was the “apple of [Putin’s] eye” during his presidency.

[...]we get this hopelessly naïve version of centrism, of the idea that if we’re nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists’ “everyone’s feelings are valid” applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

Archived version

Democrats are giddy right now; the substantial lead that Donald Trump had held over President Biden for months has largely vanished as the matchup has changed to Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz [...] Trump is blustering in ways that indicate he thinks he’s losing (yesterday’s presser at his shabby golf motel was particularly pathetic), while J.D. Vance’s poll numbers are in the toilet—or the couch—and showing no indication of recovery any day soon.

[But] lessons from [...] recent past years should keep Democrats from easing up or becoming overconfident. The official beginning of the election season is still almost a month away, and the big money pledged by right-wing and neofascist billionaires hasn’t even shown up yet.

[...]

We saw this played out here in Portland just last month. Susheela Jayapal [...] was a well-thought-of and successful Oregon politician, on the board of the Metro government that oversees the three counties that make up the Portland metro area. She had a long list of great accomplishments and was a shoo-in to replace retiring Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer—until the America Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] came into our district and dropped millions into the race with a deeply dishonest smear campaign. [...] local radio and TV were saturated with ads that essentially portrayed her as either evil or incompetent or both. And right up until the election, nobody knew that AIPAC was funding the campaign; they’d set up a front group and carefully timed its incorporation so it didn’t have to disclose its funder until after the election was over.

[...]

AIPAC also reportedly spent more than $14 million to take down New York’s Jamaal Bowman and, just this week, knocked out Missouri congresswoman and Squad member Cori Bush with $8 million. As the pro-Israel PAC notes on its home page, big money dropped into a race in the last weeks works: “98% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general election races in 2022.”

But AIPAC is a piker compared to what’s going to be coming down the road as the tech, banking, insurance, and fossil fuel billionaires and their companies weigh in to the presidential race this fall.

[...]

In this post–Citizens United era, truth has become a casualty of big money. For example, according to Open Secrets, the Empower Parents PAC has contributed $82.5 million, Susquehanna International Group $69.7 million, Citadel LLC $59.9 million, and Uline Inc $59.6 million to Republican causes so far. And they’re just getting started.

Ever since Citizens United legalized literally unlimited contributions to the new category of political action committees it created (super PACs), just in the 15 months from January 2023 to April 2024, over $8.6 billion has been raised for this year’s federal campaigns with over 65 percent of that money—$5.6 billion—running through PACs. And, as noted, they’re just getting started.

Statement made on 23rd July 2024 (~20 days ago)

The only thing that makes an evil "lesser" is that there is less energy going towards supporting it. By putting it into power you make it the greater evil. "Lesser evil" shit is something everyone has to unlearn if they are ever going to help anyone. How far capitalists and the state are willing to go is as far as they think they can get away with. If any capitalist or politician is being held back by morals, they will be replaced by ones that aren’t. If there is a profit margin to squeeze, anyone willing to squeeze it gains that power. People can get away with a lot more with less scrutiny, so the lesser you think their evil is, the more of it they can get away with.

The “lesser” fascist is still a fascist, and fascists spend much more of their time attacking us than attacking each other, and on top of that even if they do attack each other it's through attacking us.

I see a lot of people reacting negatively to minorities and leftists breaking down on social media over something seemingly trivial. They will often say “wow they are making us look bad, we need to make sure to stop anyone near me from doing that”

The thing about that though is right wingers will push and push and push. They will spend all day every day harassing someone until they finally break down and have an outburst. It doesn't matter how much of a model minority you think you are, you have a breaking point. The straw that breaks the camels back doesn’t look significant on its own, that is the entire point. There is no way this will ever look good for us, and there is no way we can all tank it to the face forever. The mentality that these “make us look bad” is exactly the reactionary thought we are trying to fight.

In essence people are seeing reactionary action done in response to our open existence, and thinking preventing our existence to reduce reactionary action is the right way forward. Reactionaries are attacking because it is not what they want. I don’t want a world where reactionaries are content not to fight, that just means they’ve won.

They will get those clips one way or another. They will loot in riots themselves and record it if they have to. They will spew their shit regardless of what we do. The best thing we can do is accept it and actually get shit done.