Ramin Honary

She had a history of horrible policies.

The idea that voters vote based on policy rather than loyalty is totally incomprehensible to the Democratic party.

If you get the government to simply declare everyone else “terrorists” then there is no need for rule of law anymore, you can do whatever you want! Because they are by definition worse than anything we do to them. How convenient for those states with plans for committing genocide, it doesn’t count as genocide if you are mass-murdering terrorists.

This strategy of the government calling every troublesome minority ethnic group anywhere “terrorists” got kicked into high gear when the US government started using 9/11 as an excuse to commit war crimes and remove restrictions from police forces (like the right of habeas corpus), and it has been a constant slippery slope since then. Nowadays the Biden administration officially considers the “Anti Fascist” movement in the US “terrorism,” although no one in government refers to fascist mass shooters as “terrorists.” Gee, I wonder why they would do that?

I know, this one is so plausibly something those psychos in the various school board across the fucked-up state of Florida would actually do, I honestly thought this was real for a moment.

They have already shut down entire school libraries, and censored several other public libraries, and are trying to make it illegal to speak freely about slavery or genocide or generally being critical of the US or the glorious military. And there is no shortage of 100% serious, 100% unironic talk (“protected free speech”) among ordinary Florida folk about how the slaves actually had it pretty good since they never had to worry about paying for rent or food, and anyone could have done the unskilled labor they did, “I mean, they never had human rights, but what would animals I mean black folk want with those.”

I mean, this Onion headline is really, really plausibly real, and might even become real pretty soon.

According to the story told by Schwarzenneger’s character in part 2, Skynet started out controlling only in US Air Force drones (hence the name), and was soon after connected to everything else. Eventually human decision making was removed from the control of the system.

It was also the plot of the Terminator series of films. Well, except for the detail that the AI controlling the aircraft (called “Skynet”) became “self aware” and that is what caused it to launch all the nukes to kill all the humans.

So how it differ from Terminator’s “Skynet” is that these real life AI are being controlled by genocidal maniacs (the largest concentration of whom seem to live in the US and Israel at present) and they are setting these things to “auto-kill” mode, like what happened in Gaza recently. And the genocidal maniacs gleefully ignore international law, saying “you want to stop me, you and what army?” So who is to keep them from turning the robots against you and me?

Came here to say this. I once cut open a 9-volt battery and discovered it was really just 6 AAAA batteries wired in series.

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Why are you trying to distract from that?

I am not trying to distract from that, I thought I made myself clear:

this particular report seems to be more concerned with anti-Trans and neo-Nazi propaganda which is indeed a real problem, and their research here would otherwise probably be very useful

But if Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL is defending the genocide of Palestinians, that is some pretty important context. If there happens anything in the report about pro-Palestine protests being equated with neo-Nazis, you need to take those parts with an extra few grains of salt.

Poisoning the well

Yeah, that seems to be the M.O. of the Anti-Defamation League with regard to anti-zionism: poison the well against anyone who might feel empathy with the Palestinian people before they have a chance to speak, by equating them with antisemitism and Nazis.

Ironically, the Palestinian people are technically Semitic people also, but their wells are being literally poisoned by white Phosphorus bombs “made with [white] pride in the USA,” and dropped by different Semitic people who have the privilege to do that.

This is why white supremacy is so evil, it is so arbitrary. Who gets counted as “white” and that dividing line between enjoying privilege and being a victim of mass murder changes from day to day, and place to place. Zionism just happens to include Jews in that definition of white (while also excluding Palestinians), where as antisimitism excludes Jews, but both are white supremacy.

Until the ADL gets rid of their pro-genocide leadership and spokespeople, I can’t take any of their reports seriously. Its a shame, since this particular report seems to be more concerned with anti-Trans and neo-Nazi propaganda which is indeed a real problem, and their research here would otherwise probably be very useful. They have really damaged their own reputation this past half year by equating support of Palestinian victims of genocide with antisemitism.

I am genuinely surprised that the US only abstained, not vetoed, this resolution. Something like the past 40 or 50 similar resolutions to help the Palestinian victims of war and occupation were all vetoed by the US over the past 30 or so years. I wonder if this might actually be the first such resolution not vetoed by the US in… I don’t even know how long.

It is just so typical of a fascist state like the US what they do at the UN, where they talk big about upholding and enforcing international law, but then at every opportunity the US simply excepts itself (and Israel) from the law. They take exception by vetoing every single UN resolution ever passed toward the peaceful coexistence of ethnic Jews and Palestinians, and so the US keeps this White Supremacist project that is Israel to commit crimes against humanity continuously for decades, to such a severe degree that it spirals into a full-on genocide.

Now, finally, the US does something to NOT overtly support White Supremacist genocide. That amazes me.

They don’t teach about Configuration Management in web-dev bootcamp

Ha! Bullshit like configuration management, memory management, optimizing compilers, all obsolete technology! We don’t need that anymore with modern web browsers now that every single computer ever is connected to the Internet, and now that we have AI to write code for us!!! JavaScript is the one true language!

(sarcasm)

Thanks for posting your transcript and putting in chapter markers, it is much easier for me to read than to listen to a 90-minute video.

And in this episode, I’m going to argue that replacing the word “equality” with the much more vague concept of “equity” is largely a way of taking ideas that promote economic inequality and disguising them in the language and style of social justice – and that it’s also a way of keeping people of all races, genders and ethnicities divided in conflict and competition with one another, so that we can’t pose an effective challenge to the people in power.

It is great that you have shone a light on this recent phenomenon in neoliberal politics, especially from the US Democratic party, of singing the praises of equity over equality, and showing how equity is just a bait-and-switch for right wing policies that focus on a narrow range of economic outcomes rather than the material conditions of peoples lives.

I might vote for Biden if he maintains any semblance of whatever little remains of “the rule of law” so that hopefully someone (perhaps in the UN) will press charges against him for aiding and abetting the genocide of the people of Gaza, along with the actual criminals committing crimes against humanity in the IDF. Without that, there is no rule of law and there is no justice in this world.

I also love the Green Day cover.