frezik

They used to donate significantly to Democrats, as well:

https://www.governing.com/archive/tns-nra-campaign-contributions.html

An issue with only having two political parties is that a special interest group can split their donations to both election candidates and win either way. At some point, the NRA forgot that and only funded one side. That left them vulnerable when there was widespread financial fraud in the organization; only one side was willing to come to bat for them.

In 1992, LA had riots sparked by police brutality. Since then, the LAPD has striven to uphold the utmost standards in police work . . . lol, no, they made sure ACAB applies double to them.

I think your breakdown is spot on. It makes no sense for Russia to do this.

One of the less comfortable aspects of supporting Ukraine is that we are supporting the military-industrial complex as a necessary consequence. To be clear, helping a nation fight off an invader is one of the better things NATO has done. However, it can't be disentangled from all the money the MIL is getting.

Take it one step further, and US withdrawal from NATO (official or otherwise) necessitates the EU strengthening its own MIL. Which means that within a generation, they're likely to have the same overreaching MIL influence on their politics that the US does.

I think this statement should be seen in that context. The existing MIL in the EU sees a big opportunity, and is taking notes from their US counterpart.

I honestly don't know what to do about that. Withdrawal of support to Ukraine is not an option, and if the US is backing off, the EU needs to step up. But that gives strength to an industry that doesn't deserve a higher position at the table than they already have. Putin lost the war in many ways the day he invaded, but forcing the EU's actions might be one last big fuck you while he jumps into his grave.

Even before Zuckerberg, these groups often have a religious coating. US law enforcement lets religious groups do whatever they want until the problem becomes undeniable. Even then, they drag their feet, and Republican politicians look sad while talking about how religious liberty is being destroyed.

Honestly, people make more of this than it is. I say that as someone whoes reading level in the 8th grade was rated "post-High School" in tests. Though IIRC, that particular test wasn't considered accurate past a 10th grade reading level or so. Suffice it to say, though, I was always rated at least a few grade levels higher than my actual grade level when it comes to reading.

If you pick up examples of post-High School writing, you'll find it's hard to read. Basically, check any abstract on a paper for a technical field. It'll be full of field-specific jargon and long sentences. Copy and paste it into a writing assistant like Hemmingway, and it will scream at you to simplify the sentence structure.

Converting to terms of Lexile level, Fellowship of the Ring has a rating of 860L. By a conversion chart, we would expect 50% of students to be able to read it by the spring of 4th grade. Even the bottom 10% of students can read it by the beginning of 10th grade.

That's a relatively hard book; harder than what most fiction asks of you. Of Mice and Men, which is on plenty of High School reading lists, only has a Lexile level of 630L. Conversely, Romeo and Juliet can go up to 1260L (though this varies depending on the editing of different editions).

The Greatest Generation was horney. Really horney. Once they got that Hitler fella sorted, they went home and literally fucked Baby Boomers into existence.

Eh, it's a fun meme, but the whole thing was Palps playing both sides. Even Dooku was just a patsy in the end.

Now, Mon Mothma did go on to setup the New Republic in both canon and Legends. Neither version really worked out. Say what you will about Saw Gerrera, but he did recognize that the Republic wouldn't have fallen if it governed well in the first place, and going back to that was a mistake.

I read a bit of the book. There's some framing around it by the authors and popular press that I don't think quite matches up with the data. In the end, it is true that movements that are predominantly nonviolent tend to win more often, but there is often a violent element that plays a role.

(Apologies for any mistakes in my transcription from the book.)

To quote it:

Our central contention is that nonviolent campaigns have a participation advantage over violent insurgencies, which is an important factor in determining campaign outcomes. The moral, physical, informational, and commitment barriers to participation are much lower for nonviolent resistance than for violent insurgency. Higher levels of participation contribute to a number of mechanisms necessary for success, including enhanced resilience, higher probabilities of tactical innovation, expanded civic disruption (thereby raising the costs to the regime of maintaining the status quo), and loyalty shifts involving the opponent's erstwhile supporters, including members of security forces.

Which sounds like nonviolent campaigns win, right? Reading on shows it's not quite that simple.

It is appropriate here to briefly define the terms to which we will consistently refer in this book. First, we should distinguish violent and nonviolent tactics. As noted earlier, there are some difficulties with labeling one campaign as violent and another as nonviolent. In many cases, both nonviolent and violent campaigns exist simultaneously among competing groups. Often those who employ violence in mass movements are members of fringe groups who are acting independently, or in defiance of, the central leadership; or they are agents provocateurs used by the adversary to provoke the unarmed resistance to adopt violence (Zunes 1994). Alternative, often some groups use both nonviolent and violent methods of resistance over the course of their existence, as with the ANC in South Africa. Characterizing a campaign as violent or non-violent simplifies a complex constellation of resistance methods.

It is nevertheless possible to characterize a campaign as principally nonviolent based on the primacy of nonviolent resistance methods and the nature of the participation in that form of resistance.

Later in the chapter:

As one might expect, there are several good reasons why social scientists have avoided comparing the dynamics and outcomes of nonviolent and violent campaigns, including their relative effectiveness. First, the separation of campaigns into violent and nonviolent for analytical purposes is problematic. Few campaigns, historically, have been purely violent or nonviolent, and many resistance movements, particularly protracted ones, have had violent and nonviolent periods.

Classifying any given movement as strictly nonviolent would not have worked. The data is too messy for that.

Even the definition of success is tricky:

Success and failure are also complex outcomes, about which much has been written (Baldwin 2000). For our study, to be considered a "success" a campaign had to meet two conditions: the full achievement of its stated goals (regime change, antioccupation, or succession) within a year of the peak of activities and a discernible effect on the outcome, such that the outcome was a direct result of the campaign's activities (Pape 1997). The second qualification is important because in some cases the desired outcome occurred mainly because of other conditions. The Greek resistance against the Nazi occupation, for example, is not coded as a full success even though the Nazis ultimately withdrew from Greece. Although effective in many respects, the Greek resistance alone cannot be credited with the ultimate outcome of the end of Nazi influence over Greek resistance alone cannot be credited with the ultimate outcome of the end of Nazi influence over Greece since the Nazi withdrawal was the result of the Allied victory rather than solely Greek resistance.

In fact, they classify basically all resistance (nonviolent or violent) to the Nazi regime as a failure. There are a few exceptions, such as the Rosenstrasse Protest. However, the Nazis fell predominantly due to the actions of the armies of other nation states, not the local resistance groups (though they certainly played a role in helping, such as funneling intelligence to the Allies).

The current situation will tend to sweep away a lot of institutions. The Republican Party almost certainly won't survive Trump, and there's a chance Democrats won't either. Even if they do, it's not like they could hold on to being a singularly dominant party forever. Not when there are so many people voting for them only to make sure Republicans don't take power.

They'll have to adapt to that situation or perish. New political parties can spring up quickly. We're not used to that in the US, but it's happened here before, and happens around the world all the time.

Yup, black cats in bright sunlight bring out brown tones. People usually don't realize it unless they have had a black cat.

Then let me come from a different angle: we don't need Democrats. Not as a group, anyway. I'm fine with individual members, like AOC, but the party as a whole hasn't been on our side. That won't change.

Instead, we should be looking to build solidarity with unions and community. If Democrats exist at all at that point, they'll be forced to deal with a very different political reality.

Edit: fixed some wording.

What happened in the last six months that makes you think Democrats will do shit if they get power back? Or even the last decade?