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Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Is Secretly Funding Trump's Meme Machine (thedailybeast.com)
The founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, has backed a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America that is dedicated to "shitposting" and spreading inflammatory memes about Hillary Clinton. In 2014, Luckey's virtual-reality company, Oculus, was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. Forbes estimates his current net worth to be $700 million. The Daily Beast reports: "The 24-year-old told The Daily Beast that he had used the pseudonym "NimbleRichMan" on Reddit with a password given to him by the organization's founders. Nimble America says it's dedicated to providing that "shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real," according to the company's introductory statement, and has taken credit for a billboard its founders say was posted outside of Pittsburgh with a cartoonishly large image of Clinton's face alongside the words "Too Big to Jail." "We conquered Reddit and drive narrative on social media, conquered the [mainstream media], now it's time to get our most delicious memes in front of Americans whether they like it or not," a representative for the group wrote in an introductory post on Reddit. Potential donors from Donald Trump's biggest online community -- Reddit's r/The_Donald, where one of the rules is "no dissenters" -- turned on the organization this weekend, refusing to believe "NimbleRichMan" was the anonymous "near-billionaire" he claimed to be and causing a rift on one of the alt-right's most powerful organizational tools. Luckey insists he's just the group's money man -- a wealthy booster who thought the meddlesome idea was funny. But he is also listed as the vice-president of the group on its website. In another post written under Luckey's Reddit pseudonym, Luckey echoes Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who used his wealth to secretly bankroll Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker. The Daily Beast adds: "'The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals," NimbleRichMan wrote on Saturday. Luckey confirmed to The Daily Beast he penned the posts under his Reddit pseudonym. 'The same has been true of many movements for freedom in history. You can't fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means.'"
We complain about lobbyists... but this is so much worse
There are a LOT of good reasons to be against Hillary without being for Trump.
A big one is this - after what she and the DNC did to Sanders, you all plan to reward her by voting for Hillary? Do you think the DNC will become more, or less corrupt if Hillary wins.
In the end it will not make that vast a difference in Trump or Clinton wins, two arms springing from the same body politic. So don't vote to destroy whatever shred of goodness was left of the DNC by rewarding corruption and massive corporate backroom deals which will be rewarded lavishly during her time in office (just as they were while she was secretary of state).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Glad I gave up on Oculus the second Facebook bought them.
He's proven himself to be a duplicitous piece of shit since the acquisition. This is not shocking.
Hillary is also a piece of shit, but not one that would immediately alienate 90% of the rest of the planet, and likely plunge us into thermonuclear war within 6 months of taking office.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Trump may be the president America deserves.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
so what? It's his right and I'm all for it. (doesn't mean I "agree" w/ him on everything and that's just dandy) #everythingoutForCmdrTaco
I created a Facebook group where I take memes that are aimed at one candidate and edit them to say that they apply to both candidates. https://m.facebook.com/profile...
We complain about lobbyists... but this is so much worse
I'm curious why you think this is.
We've just had an article about lobbyists that prevent Tesla from selling in Michigan without going through dealerships (which are universally hated), another recent article where lobbyists caused a town to lose it's working gigibit fibre internet.
For contrast, note that the democrats put up a billboard of Trump kissing Cruz, and naked statues of Trump in several cities.
Question 1: Why is this worse than what Democrats do, and
Question 2: Why is this worse than lobbyists who actually screw us over and make our lives miserable?
Really. I honestly want to know. Why should this be of any concern to anyone?
"The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals,"
Um, yeah.. both sides.
The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals
On the one hand, the American Revolution was also lead by philosophers, scientists, judges, generals, etc. These guys had some ideas about how to create a better system than what they inherited.
On the other hand, you have Donald Trump. His philosophical concept of government is that "Only I can fix it" and "All you need to know is that I'll take care of it. Don't worry about." "There's going to be so much winning." etc. Luckey and Thiel should be so proud.
Play Command HQ online
refusing to believe "NimbleRichMan" was the anonymous "near-billionaire" he claimed to be and causing a rift
I see what you did there.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Critical thinking is a challenge for some. Clinton is far more likely to plunge us into another war (she's a well known hawk), she's also far more likely to fuck the poor (just look at who's bankrolling her campaign, if you think they're doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, you're beyond naive). The only thing Clinton has going for her is that she's far more likely to die early into her presidency, but then you get Kaine, who, according to her own words from a few years ago, is "a terrible choice".
outside of the USA, and if you think there was anti-Americanism before, if Trump is elected, it will be an all-out continuous, and well-deserved shitpost on America.
Gasp! The Germans are here!
Allooooo Americans! We love you
Welcome back, Americans!!!
Never liked her much, but I really can't understand the strong negative feelings unless you've been drinking a lot of Palmer's poisonous cool-aid. Exactly what "piece of shit" things has she done? Unless you're saying that all of the professional politicians are similar turds, in which case I basically agree, but that isn't very helpful or constructive and doesn't lead directly to any solution but Shakespeare's.
Hillary is a lawyer, and I don't like much like 'em. Actually, her primary personal identity is probably "corporate lawyer", and I like them even less. I think she has a number of personal identities that I like much better, but on her list "lawyer" is probably the top. In terms of stopping the Donald, the frightening aspect is that "politician" or even "skilled campaigner" don't seem to be in her top 10, even though I'm convinced Bill's #1 is "politician", and it's probably one of Obama's top 3. I would much prefer someone who has "philosopher" or even "statesman" near the top, but that's not how American politics works these years.
It's possible that Hillary will do some great stuff if she's elected, and pretty unlikely she will do anything terrible. In Trump's case, we really have no idea, but clearly some of his ideas are really terrible, and there is strong evidence he is even more easily manipulated than Dubya was. I'm increasingly convinced that the Donald's secret plan for quickly defeating Daesh involves nuclear weapons. Just a few little ones. "Un-liberally", I don't think a highly limited nuclear strike is such a terrible thing in the big picture, though it will certainly qualify as a war crime, but when have American war crimes ever mattered much to the USA? I think the largest risk is actually global warming, and on that topic Trump doesn't know enough to give "a piece of shit".
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
As long as Hillary wants to 'correct the record' Trump gets his online engine too. The DNC's youth (and staying power online) was mostly behind the Bernie campaign. Any attempt by Hillary to 'connect to the youth' has backfired terribly. Most recently in her Between Two Ferns interview.
After some 'incidents' the high schools around here let students know that their first amendment rights didn't go to football games. Some photo of a bunch of teens with a trump banner saluting. It went 'viral' in this region. If I had to guess knowing teens they're Trump because their parents are "Anyone but". A lot of the 4chan, "shit posting" youth of 2016 is behind Trump and it shows on Reddit (Where there's a strong correlation to "Red Pillers"). [And consequently a lot of Bernie teens because their parents are Trumpers].
It's 21st century political satire. If the memes were in the NY Times as a political cartoon it would be ignored.
I heard once that this is the classic dilemma in politics: do you vote for the knave, or vote for the fool?
The answer: vote for the knave, because the knave is competent. But watch the knave like a hawk.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is which in this discussion.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The headline implies that he's been funding people to write memes. In fact, within an hour of his post showing up on The_Donald (asking for fucking money, lol), everyone shut him down. The quoted part "we did X Y Z" is from the perspective of the subreddit- that's the "we". Nimble America hasn't (to my knowledge) done anything yet... except ask for money.
Palmer Luckey: "You can't fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means."
Gee, with a net worth of $700M, you yourself are in danger of being a member of the elite you profess to despise but secretly long to join.
It must truly suck to be a member of the 'nouveau nouveau riche', when the 'nouveau riche' won't even give you the time of day, let alone take you seriously, and I feel for you - NOT. The fact that you have to resort to shitposting to gain any audience at all probably has nothing to do with the newness of your wealth. I'm sure it has everything to do with the fact that you're an ignorant, whiny, petulant brat who can afford a seat at the 'grownup table' but who can't act or talk like an adult. (Come to think of it, that makes you the PERFECT Trump shill). If you ever grow up to the point where trolling, bitching, and crowing give way to reasoned, thoughtful discourse, (but I'm not holding my breath), then maybe you'll be taken seriously. Until then, STFU - adults are trying to have a conversation, and we don't need mini-Trump butting in when Big Trump is already making rude noises and sticking his tongue out at us.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Berlusconi didn't cause me to hear anything negative about Italy, so I wonder.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Trump may be the president America deserves.
Thank god Hillary isn't
Chelsea Clinton is on the board of directors of their parent company. Go look.
Slashdot, do better. Put a disclaimer in next time.
And maybe what both parties need to get out of the trench warfare that they currently have as well.
He's not really a good alternative, but neither is Hillary. The difference is that Trump don't have many followers from either party while Hillary has a lot of Democrat followers and a few Republican.
Both have a luggage of questionable actions throughout history but the stuff Hillary has seems to stink worst when you dig. Trump luggage is what you expect from a person in his position.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I played by the rules, it took me 6 years to get a green card, and another 5 to become a citizen. I'm a skilled immigrant, and I pay six figures in taxes each year, while _not_ being in management, just for my skill, that I have cultivated over the past 20 years with hard work.
Nevertheless I agree with Trump. You can't leave the border wide open. Especially not when you have more and more people in poverty. It's supply and demand, it is not even a question for anyone not blinded by liberal demagoguery that staggering influx of people from Mexico creates oversupply of low-skilled labor and drives down the wages. Same as H1-B (thanks to which I was able to immigrate and naturalize, BTW) creates an oversupply of skilled workers on the lower end of the market, and keeps the wages in check there.
Trump also suggests good things for H1-B as far as I'm concerned: raise the prevailing wage, and abolish restrictions on moving between employers. Currently H1-B is little more than an indentured servitude visa. While moving from one employer to another is allowed, it is fraught with danger and requires filing additional paperwork. If your employer lays off or fires you, you have to GTFO of the country in very short order. This means the employer has near complete control over you, and doesn't really have to pay you more to retain you: you're likely too chickenshit to move and risk losing the visa anyway. All of that shit needs to be nuked from the orbit, with extreme prejudice. Give H1-Bs freedom to change jobs, and give them _at least_ 6 months grace period to find a job if they leave their employer or if they get fired or laid off. That will massively cut down the appetite for H1-Bs. It's not a secret abuse is widespread.
Finally, Trump (with his typical foot-in-mouth eloquence) even suggests rational things for immigration from the middle east. It's IDIOTIC to willingly import military age males from the countries _we're at war with_. At the very least, not without extremely thorough vetting, which we currently don't do. And that's all Trump is suggesting. Stop the flow temporarily, figure out how to vet, open things up in a controlled way. How is this controversial? I don't get it.
Not an ardent Trump supporter and I think that governments currently have too much power, but I doubt that most of the world has as much interest in America as you do and Trump will be more focused on America and less on the rest of the world, so the world will likely lose interest in America.
If Hillary didn't had completely insane control freaks dictating her to hunt internet memes because they offend em.
But if this keeps going, she will lose because people will think she is too busy fighting twitter to care for the actual problems america faces.
I can only assume by 'this' you mean the HUNDREDS of millions USD of union members uniontax being given to the Dems?
I dont support either side, as I can watch from a long long way away, but really, the Dems complaining about anyone at this point rather than desperately trying to clean up their own back yard is laughable.
Vote Cthulhu! but he is no longer the most evil (in fact, compared to the two clowns running to control the 'most powerful country in the world' he may be the least evil option).
Who really cares, your control was reduced to pure spin some time ago.. Can you not see that?
When posts on /. were intelligent and the users replied with equal intelligence. Now it's no better than comment sections on any other website on the internet.
You forgot narcissist!
"This funny, and/or inflammatory picture of Hillary Clinton has changed my mind. I was going to vote for HER, but now that I've seen enough of these 'memes,' I've decided to vote for Donald Trump instead..." SAID NO SANE PERSON EVER.
Obama chose his vice President carefully.
He didn't want Biden to be the next President.
He gave a man he liked a HUGE boost to the end of his career.
and your right. Trump is only in it to suck us dry!
we need no one to get 270 and then we will see some real shit like maybe an Hillary / Pence or an Trump / Kaine.
bernie sanders or ralph nader?
Vote C'thulhu. Why vote for the lesser evil?
How did he get so much time and Hillary get's off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Everyone who claims what Trump would do as a president is lying. Including Trump.
It doesn't work that way. The US's economy and actions are intrinsically tied to most of the world nowadays, we live in a global economy for better or worse. Whether it is his protectionist economic views or his stance on world politics or the withdrawal from that stage it will have a massive effect on the rest of the world. The Large economies of the world cannot do anything of significance at home or abroad without affecting others.
Hillary is not a Republican. She's Democrat. I don't know what you're thinking.
"I was under sniper fire in Bosnia."
"None of the emails on my server were classified."
"Americans were killed and dragged through the streets of Benghazi because of a youtube video."
Just a few off the top of my head, without googling. There are many, many more. But, of course, you already know this. Lying comes naturally to Hillary. Lucky for her, she's got delusional shills like you that are willing to play damage control.
sig: sauer
Well then it should never have been allowed to get that way and disentanglement should be the order of the day.
If you want to look like a free thinking intellect, the last thing you ought to do is adopt Hillary's stupid, spoon-fed colloquialisms.
BTW, ALT-RIGHT moves you FORWARD in your browser. Kinda funny, huh?
sig: sauer
Berlusconi didn't cause me to hear anything negative about Italy, so I wonder.
really? We certainly laughed about it... Honestly, it's things like that which makes it hard to take Italy serious... It makes you question if it's even a first world nation.
Are you serious? Trump has stated 1) he wouldn't necessarily honor NATO commitments and 2) he is a "big fan" of the leader of the country NATO was created to resist. You better believe the rest of the world is acutely interested in the results of this election.
Besides, it sounds like you are an American - and the typical American who makes broad assumptions about the rest of the world without actually ENGAGING with it. Pretty much every non-American friend I have is interested - sometimes literally fascinated - with what's going on right now in American politics.
by giving power to Trump. Words fail me.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Not really, what makes it hard to take Italy seriously are prosecutors who during a single trial advance motives ranging from normal sociopathy to crazy sex games to devil worship and do so completely seriously.
This is not a game. Slandering either side because you think it will be fun is not cool.
Having millions of dollars means you can afford to buy yourself out of whatever damage either side might actually impose.
But shitposting to sway the election affects a lot of people who can't afford to buy their way out of damage that either side can do.
If you want to spend your money showing why your guy is better for the economy or your girl is better for foreign diplomacy, have at it. The more information people have, the more informed their vote will be.
But junk like "too big to jail" or "wearing a white power tie" is just trash that makes everyone look bad, including you.
I agree that people have to be all that to be ardent Trump supporters. But as a foreigner that have seem what Hillary has been doing to Americans and to the world, as well as her threats against both Iran and Russia, I'll say you are partially wrong (on the anti-Americanism growth).
If Trump wins we will shitpost on how stupid Americans are, both because many of you are, and to shame you for having him as president.
But we'll be glad if you elect someone that doesn't finance terrorists and start proxy wars with Russia.
He is really embarrassing, but most people I know down here in Brazil think that if Trump wins it will be mostly on the "lesser of two evils" concept. We (the people I talk to) think most Americans voting on him are in a desperate attempt of doing something for your country, but don't really believe on his white supremacy speeches. Specially after the support that Sanders got and the way that the Democrats pushed Clinton. There are plenty of polls that show that most Americans (rightfully in my opinion) dislike both your candidates.
Foreigners opinions are based on discourse only right in the very beginning. Trump's speeches are not inspiring, but we won't become anti-Americans because of that (at least not for long), we'll be more anti-Americans next time you finance armed "rebels" or start a war. Just like we became more pro-Americans when you elected the constitutional lawyer against surveillance and pro-healthcare, but only for a very short time, as we quickly realized it was just another lie (and that he would spy on our entire populations in spite of international agreements and the notion that men are created equal).
Anyway, if you care about anti-Americanism, vote for who you think will actually murder less, it is in direct relation to that, not on how bigoted your presidents are.
The country NATO was created to resist hasn't existed for quite some time.
We all form our own echo chambers. People who think they are interacing with the rest of the world are still only intetacting with people who are interested in interacting with them. On Steam, I interact with a person in the Ukraine and a person in Iraq. Both are quite interested in what game keys I have and haven't expressed the slightest bit of interest in politics, American or otherwise.
Palmer Luckey is just another ignorant dweeb. Wealth doesn't make you wise, or even smart; it just gives you power. I hope Oculus fails, and that Luckey, one *lucky* SOB meets karma real soon!
Tell that to Georgia and Ukraine. You are delusional if you really think that.
But really what did the DNC do do Sanders (who was not a Democrat prior to trying to run for President as one)?
They said mean things in private? They stacked the deck for her prior to Bernie running? And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
Early this year, when Bernie raised $60 million and Clinton had raised only $20, the DNC moved $60 million in funds earmarked for local campaigns directly into Clinton's account.
Bernie and Clinton won popular votes by roughly the ratio of their campaign spending, so the extra $60 million made a huge difference.
Bernie had momentum at the time, and would have outspent Clinton 3-to-1 in political ads. The extra advertizing would have very likely won him many of the early state primaries, and would have likely won him the national primary as a result.
Moving the money as they did is almost certainly a violation of federal election law, likely a violation of money-laundering law, and goes completely against any sense of neutrality in the DNC towards candidates. (Additionally, they short-sheeted all the local campaigns, giving republicans an edge in many areas.)
Effectively, they took all the campaign contributions people gave to Bernie and wasted them.
And you think it is worth fucking-over America (the globe even!) so that she is not "rewarded"?
It's worth standing up and saying "no" to corruption.
The people who gave support to Bernie Sanders should not have had their efforts wasted due to cheating.
You're saying this is bad, right? Have ya *heard* of George Soros?
You're fighting against him, too, right?
I had a sucky sig.
HAH. Yes, an online game is totally the best forum for interacting with someone and discussing their politics. I guarantee that Ukranian has an interest in politics, the fact that you didn't ask him doesn't mean anything. I got in an Uber last month with a driver from Ukraine and talked about a bunch of random things. Eventually when I asked him what he thought of Putin, he said "Fuck Putin, and fuck Trump for supporting him!"
Daily at my workplace I "interact" with - in person - a person from Ukraine, 4 more persons from Russia, one from Latvia, two from Germany, two from UK, one from France, four from China, a half dozen from India, two from Japan, one from Jordan, one from Uganda, one from Egypt, one from Israel... ok, it's just getting tiring now, I could name 20 other countries. Sounds like a real echo chamber!
And you know what the weirdest thing is? Almost every one of them thinks Trump is utterly dangerous to the US and the rest of the world and doesn't understand how he got to where he is when there were a half dozen actually qualified Republicans running. Lucky for Trump the whole world doesn't vote on the US president, or he'd lose in an utter landslide.
No, my assumptions were almost as narrow as the parent's worldview.
I think most US citizens are going to get fucking upset when they suddenly find most of the items they use on a day to day basis become unavailable or cost 10 times more. I always find it amusing the ignorance of the people that push the protectionist or disentanglement view, when the reality of that view kicks in and they realise it means a lower standard of living for themselves they quickly change their mind. The people of the U.K. are only just now starting to realise the consequences of brexit and are pretty upset, many voted thinking it would just be about supporting their own economy and controlling their borders and would not listen to the people explaining what they would have to give up with imports, exports, visas, travel etc etc. now the reality is being explained to them they are pissed.
I like her as a candidate AND I dislike Trump.
Should have used checkboxes.
But I liked her more as a candidate than I disliked Trump. But if I didn't like her as a candidate, I can't imagine disliking any candidate more than trump short of a 3rd world dictator or a serial killer or a mafia don. So it's a toughy.
Clinton will be a moderate left wing candidate with experience as a u.s. senator and secretary of state.
Clinton will continue the ACA and even start fixing it.
Clinton will see that lower income families have less expensive college educations (which is good for the entire country).
Clinton will nominate moderate left wing candidates for the supreme court.
Clinton is respected by world leaders and disliked by Putin.
Clinton is a classic politician willing to work with the opposition for negotiated deals.
Clinton is a bit of a wonk.
Clinton is more cold and rational.
Clinton puts the good of the party and the good of the country ahead of her personal gain.
Clinton cares strongly about womens issues.
Clinton dislikes racists and neo-nazis.
Clinton is willing but not eager to pull the trigger.
Clinton listens to her advisors and often adjusts or changes her opinion based on their advice.
Clinton can make the tough calls when they are needed.
Clinton has shown genuine empathy for people thru her charity work and donations (which I had to dig into deeply due to repeated (4 times!) misrepresentations by conservatives here).
I could go on.
But.. Clinton for president. Trump for the Dump!
----
That said, if Trump is elected while he plunders the U.S for his personal fortune like a 3rd world dictator and tho I may disagree with him on many issues I will give him the respect the office of the president of he united states of america warrants for as long as he is president.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I have to say, your post was well constructed and cogent, with no insults.
You make good points which are lost within fairly large paragraphs. The reader has to slog through a lot of words and actually parse them out to see your meaning. Consider making your point with short sentences and edit for terseness, I think you'll find that gives your position much more power.
If I came across your post in a different thread I would mod it up. I hope you'll keep posting here, it's rare to find someone who can compose an insightful post.
This is exactly the sort of debate we should be having on this site.
That is the whole point. Neither would have happened would the USSR still exist. Besides, while what happens in the Ukraine is unquestionably Russia being a dick, Georgians only got what they deserved. In fact, their former president had to flee the country in fear of criminal persecution. What makes it even more funny is that he is currently the major of a major ukrainian city.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Hi, American and long-time European resident here.
The view from over here has been compared to that of a bird hypnotised by a snake, yes.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Really? Shows what you know about C'thulhu! Not only are his innards literally Hell, being eaten by him is a relief in comparison to experiencing him from the outside!
Brought to you by the campaign to elect C'thulhu. Why vote for the lesser evil? The more you know.
Maybe what they should do is just allow a few million Russian migrants to ease tensions.
You're behind the times. If my Swedish neighbours spoke Russian, they'd be shocked how useful that could be to them, right here on the streets of Stockholm...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Bernie Sanders is a social democrat, not a communist. There's a massive difference between the two; communists fucking hate social democrats.
You do realize that /r/hillaryclinton/ has the same rules, right?
And that the "safe space" meme came to be due to liberal arts college students demanding them and asking for "hate speech" to be censored, yes?
Of course you do.
I too work daily with an international crew. And you know what the weirdest thing is? Almost every one of them thinks Trump is utterly dangerous to the US and the rest of the world and doesn't understand how he got to where he is when there were a half dozen actually qualified Republicans running.
Sorry. Guess there's an echo in here today. ;-)
The non-echo part: My Russian colleagues don't seem to like Putin much, either, but they are very cagey about it when it comes to saying so online--even the ones who don't actually live in Russia. They're much less reticent about it in person. Gee, I wonder why.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Bom dia! How about you figure out how to fix your own broken government before offering advice on how to transform the US into a banana republic--which is exactly what you're doing--thanks!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Can you even point to Europe on a map?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
HAha.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Reddit's The_Donald has a late night thread where some are talking about this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_D...
"This" being the media trying to spin "NimbleRichMan" as a secret funder. He is not. He just begged for money.
The articles really go through a lot of effort to hide this fact, to give a false impression. One interesting thing: the mod that promoted NimbleAmerica was Milo, lol.
Never underestimate the power of C'thulhu's evilness! Not being a natural born citizen will not stop C'thulhu from claiming the presidency and everyone's souls! Now pray that you will be eaten first!
Brought to you by the C'thulhu candidacy initiative.
Well done. Can't understand why not +5 funny. Great post to shitpost on.
It's funny because conservatives will mock liberals for having "safe spaces," yet they have their own safe spaces themselves. They are completely unself-aware. They will even mock political correctness and people who get offended over jokes, yet their beloved trump has sued everyone and anyone who talks shit about him, and they themselves will try to shutdown conversations they don't like. I've even seen entire waves of people get angry at jokes made towards conservatives made by people who these same people criticize for getting angry at jokes make towards their own political leanings (ei: David Cross and Patton Oswalt). The whole problem from both sides stems from tribalism.
"Start proxy wars with Russia"? How about Russia not starting proxy wars with the West? Russia invades and seizes part of Ukraine just when they decide they want to be more pro EU. It even currently enjoys a "civil war" that wouldnt have lasted a week without Russian arms and soldiers. They control a tiny portion of the country but somehow are capable of withstanding the rest of the country's army not to mention performing large offensive pushed early in the war? Clearly all of those photos of Russian military equipment Ukraine never owned from within Ukraine show something is going on, right?
Or maybe Syria is the "proxy war" you speak of? Was all of the Arab spring started by the US or just the Syria part? Is our extensive campaign against ISIS, where ever they may be, a secret move against Russia?
Or maybe the proxy war was those evil Georgians that got invaded by Russia right when entering into NATO might have been a possibility?
Please. Tell me. What are these terrible evils the US visits on Russia?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Now this, I can completely agree with.
Almost makes me want to laugh, but then I remember these are the people in positions of power.
Those guys love free speech, as long as it agrees with them. Everyone else is an SJW who must be silenced, because free speech.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Almost all the money that Luckey/Oculus own came from Facebook, which has been in the news quite a bit for thinking about what they can do to help Trump lose the election. I imagine Zuck won't be very happy that the money he gave Oculus is being (indirectly) spent to go against his aims.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
How on earth would Trump have won the Republican primaries if he didn't have a lot of followers that were Republicans? That's a literal contradiction.
Not to be rude, but even without addressing the rest of your post, you clearly don't understand what you're talking about,
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Battling the entanglement is fighting windmills. And disentanglement is wishful thinking. All you can do is trying to get the entanglement into clear structures.
If Trump wins it will be confirmation that democracy is failing in the English speaking world. Brexit happened because the UK has post-factual politics, and it's looking like the US is the same.
The internet and social media were supposed to improve democracy, but they seem to have reduced it to the level of memes and feelings counting more than facts and ability.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No he's not and in the states where the polls actually matter he isn't either. What on earth have you been looking at?
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Clinton is a typical exaggerating and cherry picking politician. Trump's pants have achieved stable nuclear fission.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Tim S.
Trump may be the president America deserves.
Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to read it, did they?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Nimble America, didn't the peeps on the Trump subreddit flips tables and scream about how it was suspicious, and that the "endorsement" from Milo Yiannopolis seemed to be completely off, and the mods of dubious legitimacy (as in all but the entire mod team changed overnight) started deleting any and all dissent about it?
By attacking the person and not the message you are just being stupid, but since you implied that the current state of my country of origin makes me less qualified to talk about the subject, I'll answer.
Your government meddles with ours. Your country implanted a dictatorship some time ago when we were getting better, huge setback, but we got out. We had a pretty good run for 14 years (just go check anywhere), even between two world economic crises. But when our president complained (2013) that your country was violating our constitution and our human rights, your president appointed a coup specialist as ambassador. Three years later, our president was taken out of office in the same way Paraguay's one was taken when this American coup organizer was working there (through a flaw in the law that permitted legally removing the president as long as enough congressmen lied together).
So yeah, we were fixing our government but America keeps fucking us. So don't complain when people talk about it, and don't blame us for everything that happens here, we are pretty shit alone, but you help a lot. As you should know, fixing broken governments is really hard, I'm working on it too.
But if you read my previous post, that's not even the reason I care the most about your politics, personally I really dislike murder, as most people I know (including several Americans). Considering your poor options as candidates, something I relate to, I wrote "who you think", as not to give an absolute opinion on the person you should vote to, but on one issue I think you should consider to be top priority (not that employment doesn't matter). To make it clear I wasn't telling on who to vote, I also gave a very conditional advice:
If you care about anti-Americanism, vote for who you think will actually murder less
I babbled a lot in my comment, but in the end the advice that I gave was that one. Do you think it is a bad advice? Do you think the US will become a banana republic if voters think about that? If so, isn't it worth becoming one? And in the end it was a conditional advice, so if you don't care about anti-Americanism, or about murdering less, it's ok, you can do whatever you want. But I will not restrain from speaking.
Problem: The idiots are voting because they think they DO know that.
No sig today...
Countries like Ukraine don't come to NATO because of Western influence, they come to NATO because of 50 years of Russian hegemony.
And when has the US tried to put nukes in Ukraine? You're just making things up. No former Soviet states in NATO host US nuclear missiles.
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The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
George Washington Farewell Address
Pretty much every non-American friend I have is interested - sometimes literally fascinated - with what's going on right now in American politics.
Wouldn't you stop and look if a huge train wreck happened before your very eyes?
No sig today...
For starters, your links don't show that the government turnover didn't have to do with resentment over 50 years of Russian hegemony over Ukraine as opposed to Western influence. One would think that if the Ukrainian masses weren't pro-West then the civil war wouldn't be restricted to the small, ethnically Russian territories, clearly being fueled by Russia and that this small minority wouldn't be able to resist the military might of the overall country without Russian military supplies (like tanks) that Ukraine never owned and thus couldn't have been seized from them.
As for Syria, the US only started seriously supporting militant groups in Syria after the rise of ISIS. It's certainly possible limited aid was going into this country that had been directly antagonistic to the US for at least a half century prior to that but Russia has only gotten involved in that mess recently so I would most definitely not call that a proxy war as the aid was never about Russia
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Lookup unbiased analysis of what we know of their plans and particularly look at who has been more consistent over time. Like it or not with Hillary you know pretty well what your going to get. Four more years of pretty much the same.
Yes, I know what I would get with Hillary. Four more years of lies, federal overreach, and globalist dismantling of the U.S.
The stock market has almost doubled under Obama.
The stock market is not the same as the economy. The stock market started out low because of the crash in 2008 (possibly caused by George Soro's electioneering attempts). The stock market rose greatly not because of economic strength, but because the Federal Reserve pumped tuns of free money into Wall Street instead of Main Street.
Osama died under Obama (and Hillary).
The military killed Osama, not Obama and Hillary. You are being plainly deceptive making this statement unless you also bring up all the extrajudicial civilian drone deaths.
Jobs are recovering.
The manipulated unemployment numbers are recovering. A better measure would be to look at the labor participation rate. That tells a very different story.
Despite complaints crime, on average, continues to decrease.
The decrease in violent crimes is a trend that started long before Obama. And yet, Democrats take every opportunity to try to take guns away from law-abiding citizens by citing how horrible the crime incidents are.
Even wages are beginning to increase finally.
The government understates inflation by 1.5%-2%. Some experts say much more. Since wages have been growing by less for a number of years under Obama, it means people (other than Wall Street) have been doing much worse under Obama.
Do you really want to give that up? So far all the unbiased analysis of Trump's plan are anything but good, and no, "Make america great again" is not a plan. That is part of the job description.
Why do you assume that anything good would disappear under Trump, or that it would continue under Hillary? Globalists (both Republicans and Democrats) hate Trump because he isn't guaranteed to do their bidding. He has enough money that he can't be easily bought. Hillary has proven time and again that she *can* be bought, just not cheaply.
That might be because Trump is unapologetic in his avocation for prioritizing American interests over those of the world at large - in foreign trade, in overseas military action and in diplomacy. Naturally this will annoy denizens of European nations that've drastically under-spent on their armed forces for decades, preferring to freeload off the guaranteed protection of US/UK forces. Even former defense secretary Robert Gates - who's gotten snippy with Trump's foreign policy statements - himself said that NATO was becoming a "two-tier" alliance of fighters and freeloaders. It's taken repeated and persistent Russian aggression to finally reverse that trend, and it might already be too little, too late. Someone rattling Europe's cage to stimulate defense spending is exactly what they've needed - a little more rattling can only produce more spending.
Some Americans have a strange fascination with the opinions of foreigners on our politics - the American left wing holds them in particularly high regard - for reasons I cannot fathom. Said people often cite said opinions as if they're significant to our internal discourse as American citizens.
When these foreigners pay taxes to the American government, then I'll care about their opinion. Until then, they can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.
we'll be more anti-Americans next time you finance armed "rebels" or start a war.
Note how the man from South America - where covert American meddling has had serious consequences in the past - has a vastly different worldview than Europeans, who desperately want America to meddle more because Russia's pawing at the door again. The "alt-right" movement views foreign interventionism with great skepticism due to a keen knowledge of the former, but most media coverage only seems concerned with the European view - and the European complaints.
And yet the alt-right candidate is the one labeled as a "white supremacist-" by the Brazilian making this observation! Riddle me THAT one, folks.
Or maybe Syria is the "proxy war" you speak of?
It already is. Russia's intervening directly to support their man - Assad's regime - and America is providing direct and indirect support to the rebellion against Assad, with money, training and airstrikes (though to a lesser extent than Russia.) This follows the pattern of the proxy wars that marked the "Cold" War to a tee. The poster you're responding to wasn't implying that America started this conflict, but that getting involved with it would move it from "Russian intervention" to actual "proxy war" status. The "alt-right" (such as Trump) are wary of said proxy wars, and for good reason - they tend to favor the nation that takes a hands-off approach and punishes the nation that gets directly involved (see America in Vietnam and Russia in Afghanistan.)
To be perfectly clear, I'm a "neocon" in the Bush mold - I'm 100% set against renewed Russian aggression and I think we need to be ready, willing and able to defeat them in open war, which is looking more and more liable to break out due to their actions, not ours. But the alt-right isn't wrong when they suggest that we should avoid these proxy wars if possible. Putin wants a return to the Cold War status quo - and anything that Putin wants is usually bad for the West by definition.
And when it comes to trade, that's ratified and codified by the Congress. You know, that Congress that has a leadership that has told Trump to suck it on more than one occasion?
So what do you think a President Trump can do about existing trade agreements again?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You really think that?
Or, rather, you really WANT that? You really want to pay more for your groceries, for your deliveries, for your repairs, for ... well, pretty much anything?
Before you cry "they took ur juuubs", ponder whether you'd WANT that job, or whether that job is done for you, and realize that if it's the latter, the price for this will go up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are leftists now in the US?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
so the world will likely lose interest in America.
True, unless Trump gets into a dick-measuring contest with Kim Jong Un and starts WW III.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
European here, from a country that had its share of different people from across the continent wandering in, out or through. You'll find quite a few houses in our capital with few "native" sounding names on the tenants' list, and none of them being immigrants in the strict sense because they have been here for centuries, dating from a time when it was their turn to move here.
You'd think that a place like this, where nearly everyone can trace their lineage (if they can) once across the continent and back, would have no problem with xenophobia. You have NO idea. The immigrants who have been here a while are now voting for our "kick 'em out" party.
No "entanglement" will solve this. The prevailing sentiment will always be "I have. I keep. You go fuck yourself."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Problem: The idiots are voting because they think they DO know that.
No, the real issue is this:
The vast majority of people are idiots. The problem is they're too stupid to realize it.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Europe here. There is a presidential election in one of our countries here, too. Austria. Actually, it should be over by now, but they are forced to repeat the election now because there have been errors in the first. They had to push the repetition date back 2 months again because they AGAIN managed to blunder it. You'd think that we're a wee bit more interested in a presidential election of a member state that somehow can't get its act together and where some already start pondering whether election fraud is afoot? The Austrian presidential election is more something you'll find in the comedy shows on TV, not the news. The news is reserved for Clinton and Trump.
Even in Austria some care more about the outcome of the US election than their own.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My history knowledge isn't the best, but I think this was the ballot paper for the Crimean vote, right?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They're used to someone listening in on every kind of conversation that's not strictly face to face. Old habits die hard.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's more one of disbelief. Like watching a train run full speed towards a cliff, knowing that it will not stop, knowing you can't do jack shit to keep it from happening, with a strange mix of utter horror and morbid fascination on our faces.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Pretty much this, yes.
And isn't it sad? I mean, imagine you told someone 10 years ago "Donald Trump is running for president. And he is the LESSER evil." Anyone you told that would have looked at you and asked "Who's he running against, Cthulhu?
And you would pause, ponder, and then very slowly, you would nod.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The internet is far too busy fighting microaggressions and creating safespaces. It took a while, but it seems politics has managed to keep those that could and would actually stage a protest against their bullshit occupied by convincing them that some other bullshit is oh-so-important.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, 'cause all the maps start with Newfoundland and end at Alaska.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That might be because Trump is unapologetic in his avocation for prioritizing American interests over those of the world at large - in foreign trade, in overseas military action and in diplomacy.
I, for one, am happy that we are reaching the end of candidates' formative years being the glorious 1950s. When we had the only major economic infrastructure not destroyed by WWII and post-war reconstruction let 80% of men and 30% of women get jobs. Before all that silly civil rights stuff, when the country was less than 8% foreign-born and the census bureau didn't even bother reporting stats on Asian and African descent. McCarthyism, Elvis, and Marylin Monroe.
It's time we let this anachronistic fantasy world die.
What trench warfare? Both agree on pretty much all subjects that could have any kind of impact on reality. They disagree on things that you can get people worked up over, but that don't really have any measurable impact on anyone.
Face it. You have one party. You may decide what flavor the Kool-Aid has, but you'll get to drink it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Simple, the way he might win the presidential election: He's the lesser evil.
Trump is, politically speaking, a lightweight. He has no backers in any political realm and hence easier to control or, if necessary, oust.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The U.S. navy for instance had their first big encounters in fighting piracy (those at sea, not the intellectual property one). And it wasn't just the Pirates of the Caribbean. Much more important was the fight against the piracy in the Mediterrean. Pirates there, mostly operating from the northern coast of Africa, would not just capture the ships and make booty. They would capture the people also and sell them into slavery. Even U.S. citizens were captured and sold into slavery in northern Africa, and through the whole of the Osman Empire. And how does a fleet operate in sea waters far away from their home coast without any agreements with the states and kingdoms bordering to said sea waters? And be it only for the fleet to be free to get into an harbour and replenish their water and food, repair their ships and buy spare parts. And this was just the first half of the 19th century we are talking about!
You seem to totally underestimate the amount of entanglement you need to get even basic trade routes working.
This country needs to return to the tax system in the mid 20th century. These rich kids have nothing more to do than use their money to buy elections. The ordinary citizen gets left out and as a result we have all the money going to the Imperial USA interfering in numerous countries, keeping up endless wars, getting blowback from all sorts of actors that we have generated. This kid is something else.
Oh realy? So what were you doing? Because from where I live, there was a constant shit flood reporting on his corrupted actions and affairs in the news.
I'm shocked.
There was a joke doing the rounds after the Brexit referendum...
USA and UK are competing to be the most stupid country. UK have just taken the lead but USA still have a trump card to play.
Let me help you...
GOP was given the House to stop Obama policies, like Obamacare for instance, and ended up supporting nearly every single Obama policy and said they need the Senate to stop him.
GOP was given the Senate while saying they would stop his executive actions on illegal immigration, which they chose to fully fund once they had the Senate. This ONE action ended the GOP, anyone tells you different they don't know or are lying. The GOP will not be able to return to what they were.
GOP had, I think, 19 people running, DNC had 3, Libertarians 1, Greens 1. Of those 23 people running for president only ONE said they would stop illegal immigration. It was that single issue that won the GOP the Senate and not one of their candidates had that stance, until well after Trump started winning on it.
When I heard in June 2015 Trump say "I'm going to build a wall along Mexico's border and stop illegal immigration once and for all" I said no one can beat him, he was polling about 14% at the time. Everyone thought I was off my rocker. I don't necessarily think Trump will be a good president, I just knew the backlash the GOP was going to get.
What I want to know, if he can win on a single issue, why none of the other candidate would have a similar stance. Illegal immigration causes a lot of problems in the US, and not a single person in DNC or GOP will do anything to stop it or even slow it down. Both parties hate the middle class / average citizen, and Trump has made that obvious. That is why he is supported by the people and every news story about him is about how horrible he is.
It has nothing to do with foreign policy. He is where he is based on a single issue that 19 people should have had the same view and refused to. I suspect the GOP as we know is done for at this point.
I've been reading online discussions for 34 years and that is one of the most amazing leaps of mis-logic I've ever seen.
Minor point: Sanders is a self-describe Socialist, not Communist. Bit of a difference.
Second point: Sanders' socialism is the good old fashioned 'democratic socialism' that rebuilt Europe from 1950-1970, not even close to the full-scale socialism proposed in the 1920s-30s (and at other times).
Third point: Sanders, although not a member of the Democratic Party, was a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. He was not a "serious contender" and had a very small chance of actually winning (probably less than 10%)
Finally, being a serious candidate for a party office does not mean that one's ideology thereby infects that party, much less retroactively infect previously elected officeholders. Barack Obama not only married into a South Side family he became a standard South Side conservative Democrat and is overall to the conservative side of the median USian. He'd be the successor to Eisenhower if the Republicans could bear to let him join the country club.
sPh
Do you think self-discrediting would help? It would involve a check before a reply, and if a reply will not be seen by the ostensible recipient, then the person (possibly a troll) would get a warning, and if the person insisted on replying anyway, then it would get marked with a prefix like: "Insincere post never seen by ostensible recipient."
I think that should be combine with easier ways to avoid seeing the time-wasting trollage. For example, I want a maturity filter to render young identities invisible. I wish I could see the exact stats for Slashdot, but I think that most sock puppets only live a few days, so a 3-month setting should keep most of them out of my sight.
(Then again, I think the entire moderation system should be simplified and made symmetric with karma.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If you hate women, vote Trump. If you love Citizens' United, vote Trump.
It really is that stark a choice.
Ukraine shouldn't have made independent in the first place. People there have the same nationality as in Moscow-Novgorod region, only a bit of cultural drift due to Polish/Lithuanian/Mongol occupation. Since those powers can't occupy Russia anymore there is no need to maintain cultural differences anymore.
amen.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
What's it like living such a scared, miserable life?
Money man for what? People have been posting memes on reddit for years, long before this election. It doesn't cost any money to post a silly picture on the internet. This guy didn't / doesn't do jackshit. They call themselves "nimble America" but memes like nimble, centipede, coats, were established a year ago. He is just trying jump on the hype train. Expect to see some merchandise or or PAC get spun out of this.
I hate Trump... but I love my Oculus Rift. Although initially bothered, this is just like the whole situation with Chick-Fil-A, private citizens doing their own thing is fine by me so long as their product are worth consuming.
Palmer, I don't care who you support. Keep doing what you're doing.
I don't think the politicians did any more than take advantage of it. It's just a natural outcome of how the internet is - everyone can put their banal crap on Facebook and get 5 billion likes. People think that their life is interesting and that their opinion is valuable, and the media started taking public opinion on everything too.
Search engines encourage it too. If you search for "vaccines cause autism" you will get sites confirming your belief. It seems to people like they did their own research and made an informed decision.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There's a difference between the republican party representatives and the voters. I was referring to the representatives and party leadership.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Here is a link to the live post, not the archived one. There was a huge backlash in the community because of this post, ultimately resulting in the resignation of several mods. You can clearly see that NimbleRichMan whose account has since been deleted is not funding anything. They are on their own.
Therefore, since no attempt at electing politicians who would do what the people wanted has worked, the decision was taken to elect someone who will just fuck things up royally. Trolling the oligarchy, as it were.
That's it in a nutshell.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
WWI, WWII, colonialism, the slave trade. Need we remind Europe of any more of their "start ups"?
No it doesn't. Go look for yourself.
Did you really think you could just put out a lie like that and nobody would check? Of course you did, didn't you?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hahaha hilarious!!!
I've always found that insulting people is the most effective strategy for changing their minds on important issues.
Brexit and Trump happen because of cunts like you.
You really want to pay more for your groceries, for your deliveries, for your repairs, for ... well, pretty much anything?
Aside from the moral issue of uprooting established illegals that have made a life for themselves over the last 10 year, to answer your question economically, YES YES and YES! When you import cheap labor, not only are you leaving Americans without an opportunity to earn a living, you now drive wages into the ground and force all those effected into taking more government assistance. That assistance is payed for by the tax payer. And who shoulders the cost? The broad numbers of the middle-class. As such, the disparity between the rich and poo/middle class is growing exponentially!
Pay now, or pay dearly later, but we all WILL PAY in the end.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yes, an online game is totally the best forum for interacting with someone and discussing their politics.
It's better than Slashdot.
What's it like living such a scared, miserable life?
Pretty much like Europe now. Yep, pretty much like Europe.
Right, they're huge fans of free speech on /r/HillaryClinton.
The candidate subs should be hugboxes for the candidates, but the "neutral" ground should be open. Otherwise the sub where you're trying to organize your people gets spammed, or distracted with "questions" like "Gosh I'd love to vote for Clinton but do you think she's too corrupt to be elected?" and "I'm really worried she's going to crap her pants on stage tell me she can make it through?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Feelings have always counted more than facts and ability. The left is just assmad a Republican finally figured that out and is horning in on their action.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
faceless electors can really mess stuff up.
No, my assumptions were almost as narrow as the parent's worldview.
Saying something doesn't make it so. And you can't just say what you wish were true. You have to review the facts and see if what you're saying is actually true or not... For example:
and the typical American who makes broad assumptions about the rest of the world without actually ENGAGING with it
You're making a pretty broad statement there. Assuming anything to be true about the "typical American" is, almost by definition, a broad assumption.
So, no, your assumptions were not narrow by any stretch of the imagination no matter how much you'd like to believe they were.
Oh, I do so enjoy engaging with the rest of the world.
They're both fucking idiots... why not have some fun and fund two opposing Meme Machines? You could literally become the Shitpost King
Well, you get the political system you deserve. If you don't like the fact the 95% (or whatever the last figure was) voters would never pick any of the two candidates that they ended up with, go ahead and change it.
Ezekiel 23:20
The rule was implemented back in the primaries because the sub kept getting brigaded by BernieBros, and no amount of bitching was going to get the admins to do something about it. There is a separate subreddit linked on the sidebar for people who want to debate or ask questions.
/r/The_Donald after seeing what the DNC did Bernie. Then double your irony when /r/news tried to suppress the Orlando Shootings as soon the media reported that the attacker was Muslim, leading lots of people who don't even like Trump signing up to /r/The_Donald just see news that get suppressed elsewhere on reddit.
The irony of course is that many of those same brigaders ended up joining
His opponents are all about violence. They openly advocate it. Trump's rally in Chicago had to be cancelled, because of the threats of violence. A US President better be ready to respond to violent threats with overwhelming violence of our own. The era of apologizing and paying off the little bullies is over.
Now, has Donald Trump used violence in personal matters? Evidently not...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Are you serious? Trump has stated 1) he wouldn't necessarily honor NATO commitments and 2) he is a "big fan" of the leader of the country NATO was created to resist. You better believe the rest of the world is acutely interested in the results of this election.
Besides, it sounds like you are an American - and the typical American who makes broad assumptions about the rest of the world without actually ENGAGING with it. Pretty much every non-American friend I have is interested - sometimes literally fascinated - with what's going on right now in American politics.
I can assure you that many Americans all believe this to be a giant prank perpetrated by MTV and Ashton Kutcher. We're expecting him to come out on election night and claim he just punked the entire world.
I've been doing it for free.
Dark Reflection
Try again if you found an example when we didn't have to pay for our own blunders dearly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the Good Old Days when America was built by... LEGAL immigrants.
FTFY
The original poster is correct. We shouldn't be using illegal labor to justify low prices. I don't have a problem with immigrants. I have a problem with illegal immigrants not paying their fare share in taxes. Most of the money they make gets sent back to Mexico anyhow.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
What the wast majority are is being uninformed. I.e. Uneducated.
Fortunately, Trump and his cohorts are providing so much education he is going to make McCain's 2008 numbers look like a distant impossible dream.
He has successfully and completely alienated and keeps alienating over a quarter of US population.
And that's not even counting the expected 40-50% that either party gets anyway.
Hell... he may make both Bush and Dole numbers against that other Clinton look like an impossible dream.
He might create a landslide for Hillary likes of which hasn't been seen since Nixon obliterated McGovern.
All the while making idiots come out of their holes to explain to the entire internet just how big idiots they are.
Mostly by being racist and by aligning themselves with racists.
Which is something I'm sure their grandkids will appreciate.
What with being related to a known racists being SO popular even know, let alone in a future world which will be far less white than this one.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yes, a lot of buggy makers had to go on govt assistance when the car came around. Too bad government didn't ban the car or we could have saved those workers' jobs and avoided all that welfare expenditure.
""shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real"
No, it's not. The vast, vast majority of people won't even see your "shitposting" or memes, and of those that do, virtually none will be swayed by them.
Do you really think that people change sides or form their political opinions because of memes or shitposts? If you do, get your head examined.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You must not be paying attention: https://www.newsweek.com/2015/... Just Google "Lolita express" and you'll find all kinds of hard references to Billy being on that plane that was stocked with underage girls. And to keep Bill out of trouble the owner of the plane got a sweet deal with the prosecutor. Now the victims are suing to get justice.
This is insane, please don't compare Trump to Hitler.
Hitler never EVER had a 40% chance of gaining control of a world-ending nuclear arsenal within the year
Why the "outside of the USA" qualifier?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
It's just factually incorrect to say brexit will necessarily raise the costs of UK's goods. The EU makes it easy to trade within Europe but it puts a layer between EU countries and non-EU countries who wish to trade. There is nothing preventing the UK from establishing far more advantageous trade agreements with non-EU countries. And aside from spite, there is nothing preventing the UK from entering into the exact same or similarly advantageous trade arrangement with the EU.
OMG! You mean most political memes spreading on social media is produced by well funded political action committees working with advertising firms to create astroturf? Noooooooooooooo!
There are hundreds of techie Hillary backers including the largest tech organizations on the planet.. such as Google and Facebook... One guy supports Trump and you make it seem there is something nefarious going on... Slashdot == biased;
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Saying something doesn't make it so. And you can't just say what you wish were true.
Strange. That seems to be Trump's entire world view.
If Trump wins it will be confirmation that democracy is failing in the English speaking world.
To use the ever popular car analogy and to refer to that old misquote about educated citizenry and democracy...
What you are seeing is not a failure of a car as a means of transport - it's the driver who doesn't know how to read signs and signals and who is trying to drive along the wrong side of the road, while his passengers are asleep.
I.e. Democracy is fine.
It's just that for it to work for the benefit of all, people need to vote, need to understand the political process (which is not about your side winning - it's about everyone winning) - and need to have a better (as in more accurate) informed understanding of the world in general.
And Brexit is a fantastic example of exactly that.
NOT a failure of democracy, but a failure of the public to properly inform themselves.
It's not the stars dear Brutus - it's that you are an uneducated idiot who reads horoscopes and celebrity gossip instead of the political section.
Fortunately, in this case Trump has been doing YUGE amounts of educating the populace just how YUGELY incompetent, racist, stupid, lying, cowardly, did I say incompetent? etc. he really is.
And unlike with Brexit, not only is it very clear TO EVERYONE that this will be a really real McRealFace vote - he is also actively campaigning against about 28% of US population.
And that's not counting the Asians. But there's still time for him to propose a wall to keep the Chinese away.
There's even a bonus of all those racists crawling up from their lairs outside in the sun for everyone to see them for what they really are.
And you know how they say... Build a hundred bridges, but fuck ONE goat...
All this education he's providing is not going away.
Tree of liberty might grow from blood, but its roots grow much deeper when certain "radical thinkers" decide to start taking a dump on it.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Maybe, but maybe not.
The parties only hear two language: votes and money. Whatever they're doing, appears to be working for them (contrary to what you suggest, that they change). You write that it's bad, but on election day I think they are going to hear that what they did was good.
You're giving a treat to the dog (and saying "bad dog") every time he barks, and kicking him (and saying "good dog") whenever he sits and cutely wags his tail. Guess what kind of dog you're going to have.
The only good news I'm seeing in this election, is that somewhere around 10-15% of voters have finally decided to stop actively supporting and approving them, compared to single digits in previous years. But a strong majority still approves, applauds, and rewards.
I think the election night numbers are going to show: Clinton and Trump were excellent choices, America's top two favorites. Prove me wrong, America. I don't care what you say to me; I'm watching to see what you say to them and everyone else.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Oversimplification of the 19th century pirate situation.
The pirates were allowed to continue to operate by the British navy in order to punish those not in a mutual defense treaty with them. The USA did the world a huge service by wiping out the Muslim pirates of north Africa and simultaneously hurt the bastards (Brits, other bastards) ongoing extortion efforts.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Brexit happened because the UK has post-factual politics, and it's looking like the US is the same.
There's a lot of butthurt over Brexit and it hasn't even happened yet!
The internet and social media were supposed to improve democracy, but they seem to have reduced it to the level of memes and feelings counting more than facts and ability.
But don't let that slow you down.
I'd pay 10x as much for my groceries if that means my wife has less chance of being raped, and my children have less chance of being groomed by drug dealers.
Blaming rape and drug dealing on illegal immigrants is a ridiculous scapegoat with absolutely no basis in fact. The reality is the opposite of this - illegal immigrants (not accounting for the crime of illegal immigration itself) commit a tiny fraction of the crime in America, and it's very much disproportionate to their population. Illegal immigrants are less likely than natives to commit violent crime or be incarcerated.
-Turkey
I'm almost out of Brazilian Rum I bought last time a leftist crashed your economy ($US.99/750ml).
Your idiots need to get back on the job. 'Fix' that economy.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So your saying your life is also an echo chamber?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
the Good Old Days when America was built by... LEGAL immigrants. FTFY
In those Good Old Days when America was built by legal immigrants were also the days when America had an open immigration policy. Our current policy is broken, and the situation reflects this. We're too mired by politics to even address the policy issue, let alone the issue that it has created (approximately 7M illegal immigrants). However, the GPP argument that these immigrants are essentially eating your lunch is old and tired. It's the same argument for racist policies against the Chinese, Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans, etc. Same as it ever was.
-Turkey
You take politicians at their word?
Bernie is on record praising Castro and went to the USSR for his honeymoon (no doubt exchanging his money at the official rate).
He is a crypto commie. Face facts.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I really despise people who think they have a right to not pay for stuff that other people create and work for...I don't hope you get ass cancer, but I do hope you have to pay for your testing, because these things cost someone money, why not you?
International trade has existed since nations have. I think there's a reason for it.
Maybe it's a a scam to keep shipbuilders in business and it can be traced right back Og and Ug who founded the guild of log diggerouterers.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Oh give it up.
There are 930,097 subbreddits on Reddit. The other 930,096 (and almost the entirety of the Internet itself) is a safe space for the regressive left. Trump supporters have one subreddit, and that makes them "safe spacey alt-rights".
Liberal logic at it's finest, kiddos.
At least the Trump subreddit is forthcoming about their ban on dissent.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it's just as bad in the Hillary sections, but they lie and act like they don't censor. Lies and deception are somehow superior than truth to leftists.
I think most US citizens are going to get fucking upset when they suddenly find most of the items they use on a day to day basis become unavailable or cost 10 times more.
Nonsense.
Americans don't travel much. If they did, they would realize something. Americans already pay all the traffic will bear! Do you really think it costs some large fraction of $120 to make a pair of sneakers? Do you really think t-shirts cost $25 to make so they have to be sold for $30? Do you really think department stores take a loss when they puts jeans on clearance for $20? Have you seen pictures of the world lately? Everybody looks the same. All that ethnic tribalwear crap is gone. The whole world, from the Yukon to the Amazon, is wearing the same shirts, the same pants, the same shoes, made from American cotton in Chinese factories for far less money than you can possibly imagine.
The labor was exported to China and Malaysia for profit Vast, enormous, fantastically mind-boggling amounts of profit. That lingerie you buy for $80 from Victoria's Secret? Less than $1 in materials, less than $1 in labor. You are already paying prices that can support 100% American labor. It would just reduce the profit of the banksters. A lot. Which is why Trump's isolationism will remain a personal quirk, and not a policy, even if he does get elected.
If by some bizarre machination Trump actually managed to implement his isolationism, prices would spike only short term, and mostly speculatively. No one, not even Trump, is going to implement isolationist economic policies overnight. There would be time to bring the factories back and start manufacturing all the consumer crap in the US again, and it would indeed cause a boom in labor. Funny thing is, the quality would drop for a while. Americans don't know how to manufacture a toaster anymore. It hasn't been done in 40 years. The people who knew how it was done well have retired or died. Regaining manufacturing experience takes time, and until it returns, mistakes get made.
But it's moot. Isolationism will not be allowed to return. They'll kill him first.
I'm proposing only that Clinton is a horrid person to vote for, that many seem to be supporting only because she is a Democrat and a woman, otherwise they would demand vociferously and at length that she be jailed (were she a Republican).
That said Gary Johnson is an excellent choice to vote for if for either Democrat or Republican that does not like their own candidate. Or there's always the green party, but that's just silly (apologies to you Green supporters, but that's how I see it this year).
I vote for Johnson is not a vote for Trump or a vote for Clinton. It is a vote for sanity. The government you get depends on what you vote for, if you keep voting for less and less sane choices do not expect a sane ruling class to magically materialize.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But, he might not be the one we need right now.
Correctness matters. Mercy matters more.
Yeah, that's the sad part. People surround themselves with people that superficially seem diverse, but they are going to be more representative of the people in the group than they are the places they are from.
How about three hundred years of Russian hegemony, with ethnic connections going back another few hundred years? The capital of present day Ukraine is the birthplace of Rus, the country known as Russia nowadays.
But that's beside the point. NATO bases will simply not be tolerated next to North Caucasus. This was demonstrated in Georgia, and it will be demonstrated again and again until the West gets the point. Russia has paid too heavy a price for being complacent before, and it won't be fucked with again.
Trump has stated that he will not necessarily honor NATO commitments to nations that are inadequate in their own commitments to NATO. This has been discussed amongst the military a bit recently "Military times"
The US doesn't need anyone to host nuclear missiles. The US has enough undetectable nuclear armed subs around the globe to destroy pretty much all life in Russian on a whim with plenty left over for any other country in the world that would object. I'm not saying it is a good thing but land based missiles? That's so 20th century.
Great, my fingers aren't working today, typos out the yin-yang.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
VPs since Quayle have been assassination insurance.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No coincidence this is posted exactly the same time the New York Times puts up an article about Hillary's "Outrage Machine":
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09...
Slashdot needs to kick out editors with agendas.
Hillary will be as dangerous as Trump with the nuke codes. Which is to say, neither is going to use them.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
That's electably moderate in america.
If you want to vote for Stein please go ahead. But be aware it's a vote for trump if you are in a swing state. We got 8 years of bush, a 3 trillion dollar war, and several conservative justices out of the the last "protest" vote.
If you are in a reliable Clinton state- feel free to protest vote.
(If you are conservative and in a reliable Trump state- feel free to protest vote. Or better yet- vote for republican candidates but skip voting for Trump. Trump's not qualified to be president and a republican congress and senate will check Clinton).
Clinton agrees with Sanders on many positions. She has conservative stances but so does the entire democratic party.
If you want to slit yer own throat, I'm not going to be able to stop you tho.
But mainly- she will not nominate extremely conservative supreme court justices and might even nominate some liberal justices.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I've been saying "Trump is the president we deserve" for the last 10 months. He represents everything Americans stand for these days. Just look at the comments section on any public news site for the last 5 years. We are a fact-averse, hypocritical, writhing mass of bigotry and ignorance. We value fame for fame's sake. We value money for money's sake. We entertain ourselves with the suffering of others. We fail to take responsibility for our mistakes, and seek to blame others preemptively. We cloak our hatred of people who are not like us in the trappings of righteousness. We use pithy, short generalizations to allow us to rationalize ignoring anybody who disagrees with us.
Obama represented what we thought we wanted to become. Trump will represent us as we truly are. Whether that's a good thing or not, depends on your point of view.
This notion couldn't be more incorrect. Illegal immigrant supporters are like gamblers who only tell you about how much they won, not their losses. To be honest if a person has half a brain they could reason that the costs *have* to exceed what minimal sales tax and fake social security number taxes illegals pay. Pro immigrant people ignore the costs of immigrant children, both those born here as "citizens" as well as those who are not citizens. Here is a great paper that lays out the costs as well as the receipts. For California alone we're in the hole by $8.8 Billion (citation below). Texas lost around $10.8 Billion (citation below). Add in the other states and we're probably over $40 billion. Note that both papers show that some taxes were received but they were woefully short of the costs. This doesn't count the human toll as illegal immigrant drunk drivers kill more people than the 9/11 terrorists *every year* (citation below). 9/11 killed 2,996 but illegals kill around 3,000 a year with car drunk/careless driving and another 2,000 by crime. Citations: California costs: http://www.fairus.org/site/doc... Texas costs: http://www.fairus.org/DocServe... Illegal immigrant caused deaths: http://unlicensedtokill.org/
Really? Hmm, let's see if they changed it over night:
R6: Do not promote another candidate
R7: No negative campaigning
I never claimed they were word for word the same rules, but they mean exactly the same thing: Anyone who disagrees, get the fuck out.
I consider myself an exact opposite of a neocon, being fairly liberal, but I too have watched Russia's behavior under Putin with grave concern. The Frontline documentary, Putin's Way offers a glimps of the man and it isn't pretty. The former KGB agent is up to his eyeballs in corruption in a way mafia bosses could only dream of. What I find frightening is that Russia will basically run out of funds in the near future. His reaction to the resulting meltdown will not be pretty.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
If Trump wins it will be confirmation that democracy is failing in the English speaking world.
Perhaps you like the kind of Democracy that is in the PDRK, where the choices are made before the ballot box and people only affirm the one choice they actually have?
I guess to people like you, it doesn't matter that Trump defeated, at the Ballot box, against the machine of the GOP establishment, 15 (or so) other GOP opponents, securing his nomination via a democratic process, fair and square. I guess you'd rather have Hillary, who conspired with the DNC to anoint her with a crown, over Bernie Sanders.
Perhaps we just need to have the Political Elite's just appoint our leaders for us, since we are all a "basket of deplorables" and why isn't Hillary winning by 50% ??
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Most of the idiots vote either (D) or (R), the people who know better don't vote for the status quo, expecting change, they actually vote for the real change.
Gary Johnson.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Brexit isn't the horrible choice the anti Brexit people want you to believe. It also isn't the Panacea that the Pro-Brexit people say it is.
It will have good bits, and bad bits, and in the end will mostly be a wash. Which is bad for all the people who want globalism touting it to be the cure all for all of man's ills.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
In WWII when the Nazis reached Ukraine, they found a population willing to volunteer to kick out the Ruskies.
That is why the Ruskies depopulated Crimea after the war and put ethnic Russians there.
Ukrainians are to Russians as Irish are to Englishmen.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Exactly as Americans feel watching the EU.
Except we know we'll be expected to fix Europe, again.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The LIbertarians had at least four people running. They only put one on the ballot, because Libertarians do not believe the government should be a part of ANY political party's election. Libertarians don't have any problem with political parties putting their own candidate (singular) on the ballot, what they oppose is the Government sponsoring party politics via the "primary" process.
Can you give me one good reason why the government should sponsor (private) party elections?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
When you cross the age line where those tests are commonly given, your insurance rates jump by substantially more than the cost of the procedures.
How much would an oil change cost you if your car insurance covered it?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Rightist: "I have every RIGHT to be a complete asshole and have my private police force shoot you if you disagree."
Advanced Rightist: "Oh and that will make things better for everyone, as something something (the blood?) trickles down."
The problem with that as a political philosophy is that it's the default configuration of caveman human nature, implemented by bullies for millenia, if you substitute clubs for guns.
Other political philosophies are evolved social memes attempting to have a slight counterweight to that brutal individualist/autocratic default.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
So does Russia. Russian subs patrol Eastern Seaboard 24x7x365. But they can't really carry all that much armament, so land based launch capability remains important. And the only place you can shoot this shit down is during or shortly after takeoff, before it goes hypersonic and reduces its radar signature by shedding the stages.
Holy shit, Stalin.
Are you real?
Sorry it wouldn't be spite.
Access to the EU single market is a quid pro quo right granted to members in good standing who abide by commonly agreed standards and labour market freedom within the market zone.
It's a pretty straightforward bargain, and you can take it or leave it.
Perhaps the UK will be allowed to continue trading freely in that market just because their Wensleydale and cheddar cheese is so highly sought after in France, and the Germans can't get enough of British sausages.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
What the hell are you talking about, man? Hillary is very clearly ahead. .4 points in Trump's favor, FL: 2.2 points in Trump's favor, NC: 12 points in Trump's favor, OH: 15 points in Trump's favor. It's only a question of how bad he loses. It may end up being really damn close, but he's not taking any of her states away without a miracle.
Clinton's hold over her states is far firmer than Trump's.
Hillary can carry the win with all the states she currently has in her favor, the weakest of them being NH with a 35 point disparity in her favor.
Trump can't win without flipping at the least, her weakest state.
Now let's look at Trump's weakest states- NV:
You believe that's the same thing as "no dissent or SJWs"?
Even a cursory look at that reddit shows that there's plenty of dissent. You're just not welcome if you're job is to shill for another candidate.
In the "TheDonald" reddit, "no dissent" means exactly that. If you have any divergent views (for example, if you support Trump but you don't believe Donald Trump Jr is a good surrogate for his father) you are gone.
No, they do not mean the same thing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's odd that you use scare quotes when you talk about the citizenship of babies born in the US. The 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States is quite clear on this point:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
There's not a great deal of wiggle room there, unless you propose amending the constitution again.
Are you kidding me?
The USA started all of this with their illegal invasion of IRAQ.
Those dispossessed Baathists eventually became ISIS, with lots of funding from the Saudis and training from the CIA.
The USA are the thug arm of the financial elite.
46137
I'm not sure what to make of your first paragraph as it doesn't change the fact that Ukraine was a sovereign nation that spent 50 years of recent history under the thumb of Russia against their will.
As for what Russia will or won't tolerate, that's Russia's problem. My point above was that it's Russia that is heavily involved in proxy warfare, not the West or the US specifically.
When you forcibly occupy your neighbors for 50 years most of them are not going to like you anymore and Russia is just going to have to deal with that. Just look at the US in this context, the US / Canada boarder is the worlds largest undefended boarder on both sides because it's inconceivable to either side that any aggression across the boarder would take place. In the South, there are immigration controls and forces tasked with stopping drug shipments on the US side of the US / Mexican boarder but again virtually no military presence for either side. When you generally respect your neighbors they generally respect you back.
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It certainly wouldnt surprise me if the US was nudging things along a little in the Ukraine just before the Russian invasion. The CIA are not mind controllers though. If there wasn't wind-spread distaste for the prior governments aligning with Russia to tap into then there wouldn't have been anything to nudge. Just look at the "civil war" happening there. I would imagine if there was wide spread dissatisfaction with their new government's attempts to align itself to the West there would be a heck of a lot more people revolting then a few ethnic Russians who only hold out against the rest of the country because of heavy Russian support.
In regards to "missiles on their boarder", there are no nuclear missiles in former Soviet states so I don't see the Cuban missile crisis as a particularly apt comparison.
On to Syria
The report you post to seems to be just discussing the dangers of ISIS and assessing the situation in Syria and Iraq. It also talks a bit about what other countries are doing and who they're backing in Syria but not the US so I'm a bit puzzled as to the relevancy it has to our conversation. All the video is doing is taking the report and then some how making it about the US which from what I'm reading it is not. The fact is ISIS spawned from Al Qaeda in Iraq which given our past history is not a faction the US would likely knowingly support. Some of the Arab states might have a bit (in fact it wouldnt surprise me) but the idea that the US was actively aiding ISIS in a significant fashion is ridiculous given where they came from.
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Your reasoning is ridiculous. They speak their own language which makes them culturally distinct from Russia right there. Just because they share some distant bloodline with Russians isn't reason enough for Russian to just move in and annex them. If that's how the world worked most of the worlds boarders would have to be redrawn.
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I believe our aid into Syria was completed restricted to non military aid before ISIS came into the picture so the whole US using Syria as part of a proxy war against Russia doesnt really hold up. We only started bombing and sending in special forces teams when ISIS became a major issue.
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Let me see if I'm getting your narrative straight here.
So the US, after invading Iraq, went around and trained the very people resisting what the US was doing?
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You're making a pretty broad statement there. Assuming anything to be true about the "typical American" is, almost by definition, a broad assumption.
Do a bit or research and you'd be utterly astounded at what Americans believe. Not that I am knocking Americans (I am one) - plenty of other ignorant people worldwide.
ONE IN FOUR AMERICANS still think the Sun revolves around the Earth. Same number believes magic and witchcraft is real. One in THREE believes in ESP.
But to the specific point of "typical and "engaging with the rest of the world". Is it fair to define "typical" as over 50%? I think so. Using that, over half of Americans HAVE NEVER LEFT THE US. Compare to 8% in UK, with the average traveller having visited 10 other countries.
It's not an assumption, it's a statistical fucking FACT.
Yeah, and pretty much ALL of Eastern Europe was against being "Russian" since 1945.
Did Crimea overall want to be part of Ukraine? Not really. But they didn't really want to be part of Russia, either. What Crimea really wanted was independence. That may have been a reasonable goal, but no way Russia is going to give that to them now.
That might be because Trump is unapologetic in his avocation for prioritizing American interests over those of the world at large
What absolute bulltshit. Trump is saying what his base wants. Almost every one of his "opinions" is the polar opposite of what it was 10 years ago.
It's already known many of his creditors are international (including Russian) since most American banks have learned their lesson a while ago. A guy who kisses Putin's ass while putting down powerless refugees and immigrants is not prioritizing American interests, he's prioritizing his OWN INTERESTS.
No, really, it's not. Read this thread. While I don't agree with all of the posts, they are certainly better than a 13 year old yelling "U PNWED MF!"
Made me remember another reason Europe should be very interested in US politics: because given the disproportionate coverage of US media and culture to the rest of the world, it seems to be reinforcing beliefs of significant numbers of people in other countries (see: Brexit, crazy right wing Dutch politicians, surprising rise of German nationalism, etc) think that racism and isolationism are somehow acceptable.
Wait, you are comparing Clinton unfavorably to DONALD FUCKING J TRUMP by using capitalism!? Just wow.
Exactly my point. There's a lot of pretentious grandstanding here. Not a lot of communication. Game playing gets away from that.
We were not discussing getting AWAY from politics, but discussing IT intelligently. To be honest /. is in the 90th percentile in that compared to most other social media sites.
If you want to get AWAY from that, I totally agree to play a game, have fun, and stay off the big boy discussions. Two different things.
ONE IN FOUR AMERICANS still think the Sun revolves around the Earth. Same number believes magic and witchcraft is real. One in THREE believes in ESP.
And THREE IN FOUR believe whatever polls tell them. Polling results tell you nothing about whether the poll was accurate, games played with biased polling questions, issues with sample size, or the strength of any beliefs. And if ONE IN FOUR AMERICANS actually believed the Sun revolves around the Earth (for the particularly crackpot claim from your list, which would actually require a radically different viewpoint of the world), you'd think someone other than a pollster would have found them by now.
That's a lot of people who somehow can't be found. In comparison, I've had no problem finding people who would profess some vague and inconsequential belief in magic, ESP, or "something more out there".
We were not discussing getting AWAY from politics, but discussing IT intelligently. To be honest /. is in the 90th percentile in that compared to most other social media sites.
Sure, we were, Mr. "I listen to people who just so happen to agree with me". Out of curiosity, how many of those knowledgeable, international, coworking groupthinkers you like to brag about thought Obama was hot stuff in 2008 and not so hot today? There's a problem with listening to ignorant political opinion even when it's sincere. Maybe you could figure out what that problem is.
Also, we don't have the social status thing going on in game play which you do have in an office setting. What's going to happen to the sap who professes that Trump may not be entirely utter crap? How much respect is that coworker going to get from you or the rest of your office?
My view is that listening to the opinion of people who don't understand US politics and who don't share the interests of US citizens, is pretty iffy. When you throw in a groupthink situation like an office or online echo chamber, then it's pointless to try to get relevant opinion.
Obama was hot stuff in 2008 and not so hot today
Seriously, what is your financial situation today vs 2008? I'm really interested in the details here. I'll provide mine in the same way Trump WILL NOT. Provide details of how you were so oppressed over the last 8 years or shut the fuck up.
In 2008 my gross income was maybe ~130K. Last year it was 450K+. What possible fucking reason do I have to regret the last 8 years? I should love Trump's positions, but I have the extra personal burden of social MORALITY. Gotta admit, Obama was a reasonably socially liberal and pitifully financially conservative President. Based on his own statements Trump would be a horribly socially AND financially REGRESSIVE President.
I probably could have dropped the mike there, but can't... I realize I have been extremely fortunate compared to the average in the last 8 years (I am not in the 1%, but definitely the 2-3%) and have donated significantly to various charities. Have you? We know Trump hasn't, outside of his charity that paid for various lawsuits...
Seriously, what is your financial situation today vs 2008? I'm really interested in the details here. I'll provide mine in the same way Trump WILL NOT. Provide details of how you were so oppressed over the last 8 years or shut the fuck up.
Gotcha, didn't I? But to answer your question. Worse off than if Obama wasn't "helping". Weaker job market and higher health insurance costs. But sure, I'm doing better than I was in 2008. But I could be doing better.
In 2008 my gross income was maybe ~130K. Last year it was 450K+. What possible fucking reason do I have to regret the last 8 years? I should love Trump's positions, but I have the extra personal burden of social MORALITY. Gotta admit, Obama was a reasonably socially liberal and pitifully financially conservative President. Based on his own statements Trump would be a horribly socially AND financially REGRESSIVE President.
Ah, the awesome burdens of the virtue signaler. Well, if you ever learn what "social MORALITY" is, you please let us too!
As to your money, do whatever you like with it as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Donate it, hoard it, buy a shiny boat, same difference to me. I have yet to care. But what exactly did Obama do to get that money for you?
I probably could have dropped the mike there, but can't... I realize I have been extremely fortunate compared to the average in the last 8 years (I am not in the 1%, but definitely the 2-3%) and have donated significantly to various charities. Have you? We know Trump hasn't, outside of his charity that paid for various lawsuits...
Can't say I'm in the top 2-3%. And I'm not playing the charity game. I loathe this sort of grandstanding as I've indicated before.
I notice here that you are heavily implying that any economic progress, no matter how painfully slow is only due to Obama helping it along. This sort of reasoning ignores that the US could have done absolutely nothing about the latest recession and still see an economic recovery by now. I think it'd be better than present due to an absence of "help" from a certain president, but opportunity cost is invisible.
I'm fine with annexing it but my argument is that it shouldn't have made independent. There are other separate nationalities in other countries, like Occitan in France or Basque and Catalan in Spain and they're more distant from their countries than Ukrainian is from Russian. The fact that international community didn't object to Ukraine getting independent while maintained occupation of Aquitaine and others shows that it's not about nationality, but divide and conquer. And since Russians shouldn't let themselves get conquered they shouldn't let fake countries like Ukraine remain independent.
You can't be pro hillary without being anti trump and vice versa you can't be anti hillary and not being pro trump. The way the election are in the US, if you are anti-one you are automatically supporting the other. All you can do, is see which one you think is worst for the US, and vote for the other, thus supporting him/her. The only other solution is abstaining, which unfortunately nobody look at.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
What absolute bulltshit. Trump is saying what his base wants. Almost every one of his "opinions" is the polar opposite of what it was 10 years ago.
Funny coincidence - I remember when conservatives were the ones seeing wicked Russians behind every lamp and underneath every sofa cushion, and Democrats were the ones tut-tutting and saying "Red scare!" Oh, how times have changed.
Not quite. Concerted training efforts started quite early: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You really should inform yourself before writing bullshit.
Before and during the WW2 Crimea had nothing to do with the Ukraine since it was a part of the RSFSR. Crimea has been transferred to the Ukraine only in 1954 and FYI the second world war ended in 1945.
There were about as many collaborators in the Ukraine as in Poland. Most didn't, because we Germans behaved like barbarians there.
And your last sentence is the most stupid one. Ukrainians and Russians were same people speaking the same language and being basically the same kingdom before Poland annexed the ukrainian parts and forcefully polonised its population and the mongols conquered the russian parts at the same time.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Let me guess, you also will be first in line to say that more white people use welfare too right? On a per capita basis white people both use welfare far less as well as have far less drunk driving. In absolute numbers since white people as a group outnumber other groups they commit more incidents of these despite a lower per capita rate. Consider reading up on statistics. After you learn how to write your name of course.
Only since Reagan, that was the reason for the Amnesty back in the 1980s. And if you think Trump will reverse that, you should take a look at his employee rosters, Trump loves undocumented workers.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
outside of the USA, and if you think there was anti-Americanism before, if Trump is elected, it will be an all-out continuous, and well-deserved shitpost on America.
Gasp! The Germans are here!
Allooooo Americans! We love you
Welcome back, Americans!!!
Canadian Immigration is gearing up for new refugees. Americans mostly. Comparison with USA. No Trump, No guns, Medicare, Low low cost education, safety living, happy living, prosperous living, and divorce rates below 54 percent.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
A very trumping argument. Trump should win ,because he will win,because he's a winner.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
A virtual reality zillionaire backs a candidate who resembles max headroom for voters who live in a fantasy bubble of their own reality.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
And half the public apparently believe that the mass media are nothing but lies while simultaneously citing the latest poll results they saw in the news. Hard not to think we need serious improvement to our educational system.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
When you wish upon a Pumpkinhead Makes no difference something something blumpkinhead
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
No, it came out with the left-leaning candidate in the lead and the nationalist-populist didn't want to accept that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Uh... well, judging from how you "fixed" the rest of the world... could we, you know, decline? I mean, with friends like this, who needs foes?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This follows the pattern of the proxy wars that marked the "Cold" War to a tee.
It really doesn't. Those proxy wars pitted marxist/maoist groups against right wing dictators. The Syria situation is really about confronting Iranian theocratic expansionism across the iraq-syria-lebanon belt, with Russia jumping in on Iran's side to prop up a former Soviet client and America trying to blunt the Islamic State threat while Russia pretends to help and Turkey maneuvers to block the formation of a Kurdish state. Really, way different from the cold war. It's far more complex, involves more players with their own agendas, and Russia is much weaker this time round. Consider: Russia's GNP is roughly the same size as Canada's and only 50% bigger than Iran's. Not to say that Russia's meddling is irrelevant, far from it, but it is just that: meddling. Other than an ample supply of nukes that it can't realistically use, Russia is a superpower wannabe, not a superpower.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The USA started all of this with their illegal invasion of IRAQ.
No, that was just one more chapter in a long sorry saga. Surely you have not forgotten the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, the Iran-Iraq war or the rise of the Iranian theocracy?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I suspect that Hillary Clinton will whack Putin pretty hard when she gets in and be a whole lot firmer about America's global interests than Obama ever was, including putting to rest any doubts about America's resolve and ability to stand by its allies. That's why Russia is meddling in the election. Putin desperately wants his lapdog Trump in, or failing that, nearly anybody but Clinton.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Did you say Trump is a whiner?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I'll speak louder since you didn't get me the first time. THEY SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE.
They are a distinct people.
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He is really embarrassing, but most people I know down here in Brazil think that if Trump wins it will be mostly on the "lesser of two evils" concept.
No offence guy, maybe that's why Brazil is still an undeveloped country because of opinions like that? Those of us in the developed world, who know what skills and experience are required to maintain a developed economy think Trump is the biggest risk to our way of life. Like it or not the US is a pillar of the free world, and any change to that has a ripple effect on the rest of us.
As someone put so nicely, Hillary is the Knave and Trump is the fool. At least a knave is competent if untrustworthy, but a fool is always doomed to fail.
I know when I want serious political discourse I go to Steam to chat with other 13 year olds. Really?
Daily at my workplace I "interact" with - in person - a person from Ukraine, 4 more persons from Russia, one from Latvia, two from Germany, two from UK, one from France, four from China, a half dozen from India, two from Japan, one from Jordan, one from Uganda, one from Egypt, one from Israel... ok, it's just getting tiring now, I could name 20 other countries. Sounds like a real echo chamber!
Same here. Being in IT it's a regular United Nations, mostly Asians (Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Thai, Malaysian, Sri Lankan, Indian, Armenian, Ukraine, Russia Iran etc... It is universal disgust for Trump across the board. No-one is Hillary "supporter" either, but the general impression is that she is just another politician, so at least will know how to handle the role, more of the same etc. Trump really has the potential to burn the place to the ground. That is the risk potential on offer here.
Some Americans have a strange fascination with the opinions of foreigners on our politics - the American left wing holds them in particularly high regard - for reasons I cannot fathom.
Um, because peace requires that we get along with our neighbours, and peace is good for business. It's not too hard if you use a brain cell or two...
I've been saying it for a bit too. For the reasons you mentions. As well as illegal and unjust wars.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
According to the link, while the CIA was doing a bit earlier the major action in training rebels began as a means of containing ISIS
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You're running far, far off on a tangent here. Please try to stay on topic.
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Oops. so sorry. you werent replying to a post of mine.
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...secretly, apparently!
So what? It developed from language of Rus, and was forced to diverge from Russian by polish and mongol conquests. Now it's time for those languages to merge again. Also in India many separate languages are spoken that are derivative of Sanskrit. Does it mean India must be split too?
Consider her actions after the 2008 election. (That was a turning point in my opinion of her).
She fought VERY hard with tremendous grit.
Then she lined up behind her party's candidate and immediately went to work getting President Obama elected. Can you imagine trump doing that? He's incapable of that kind of behavior.
I started to follow her and look a little more critically at republican comments on her at that point. What I saw was someone who did remarkably well after 25 years of continuous attack by the RNC and multiple conservative billionaires.
She's spent a lifetime serving her constituents in various roles in government.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
XD - you don't have a single citation to refute my comment beyond wild conjecture. Try again, please.
-Turkey
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Russian culture grew from that of the East Slavs, with their pagan beliefs and specific way of life in the wooded areas of Eastern Europe. Early Russian culture was much influenced by neighbouring Finno-Ugric tribes and by nomadic, mainly Kipchak and Iranic peoples of the Pontic steppe. In the late 1st millennium AD the Varangians (supposedly Scandinavian Vikings), also took part in the forming of Russian identity and Kievan Rus' state. Kievan Rus' had accepted Orthodox Christianity from the Eastern Roman Empire in 988, and this largely defined the Russian culture of the next millennium as the synthesis of Slavic and Byzantine cultures.[7]
Your whole culture is based on those from East and South of you
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Cyrillic script /srlk/ is a writing system used for various alphabets across Eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School.[2][3][4] It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, in parts of Southeastern Europe and Northern Eurasia, especially those of Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian
Your alphabet too.
Even Russia's brief dabbling in communism was taking an idea from a Brit.
Really by your logic where you claim Ukraine should be part of Russia because of a common cultural history, Russia should be collectively annexed by Eastern Europe, not your backwards Russia annexing them.
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Correction: "East and South" should be "West and South"
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Language and culture of "Ukraine" directly descended from Rus, the one that was founded by king Rurik, same as the rest of Russia. In fact everyone there were considering themselves "people of Rus" until some scammers invented "Ukraine". While Bulgaria and Poland don't descend from Rus kingdom founded by Rurik.
...and just as i posted, current Russian culture, language, religion (actually i didn't post about that but it is) is based on Eastern and Southern European culture so after Russia annexes Ukraine we can divide the whole mass amoungst the Slavic countries since Russians would all be speaking Mongolian if they had not been exposed to the countries West of them.
Who do you think should get Moscow? Serbia?
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Actually, King Rurik was probably from somewhere in Sweden, he just carved out a kingdom in Novgorod and Kiev, and this resulted in this hybrid Norse/Slav culture called Russian. Everything that descends from this Norse/Slav hybrid is naturally Russian. And any state called Russia would by necessity include both Novgorod and Kiev, because otherwise it won't make sense for it to be called Russia.
"Actually"... wait, what the heck did you just refute?
Your hard-on for King Rurik is great and all but a single monarch does not establish eternal domain over any territory.
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He got a host of relatives and warriors with him too, a lot of them, and they all mixed with local population generating a hybrid culture. Name of Rus applies to that culture and that kingdom, and modern form of it is Russia. Kiev was capital of Rus and it doesn't make sense to have it outside Russia. If it's outside, then it's conquered, it's as simple as that. We do not scammer scholars to promote parts of Russia into separate nations like Ukrainian and Belorussian, it's a great example of DO NOT WANT.
If that obsurd criteria is what you're going with now (and you have not been consistant) then shouldnt Ukraine be annexing Russia? If the semi-mythological norseman that is Rurik set up his capital there then it seems they should be in charge.
Also, modern Russian culture has faaaar less to do with the era of Rurik and far more to do with later Slavic and Byzantine influnces. Not at all trying to be rude but "Russia" of that era was mostly a bunch of fur trappers and the associated merchants. Not much population density there to develope any kind of firm culture
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It doesn't matter Ukraine by Russia or the other way around. Having those as separate things just doesn't make sense. All people there KNOW they're people of Rus, don't need to invent new nationalities. I'm not making any argument here, I just state that I'm not convinced you could meaningfully build Ukraine as state with single nationality, it never was a nationality, just some scholar's pet project. Actual people simply don't fit in this model, for example most of the people in Crimea never had Ukrainian as native tongue, same applies to many other regions. And Western regions of Ukraine aren't too homogenous either. Pretty sure scholars could make even more separate nationalities from those regions if they care. There is no objective line between Russian and Ukrainian, so it'll be always ripe for abuse and contradictory interpretations. Better don't have notion of Ukraine altogether.
It seems to depend on who you ask:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Liberal news organizations all see Clinton leading, while conservative news orgs see Trump winning. The real story is likely that they are pretty well tied. What I find most amazing is the third party numbers. Anything over double digits is considered extremely rare, and Johnson has consistently been posting double digits. For someone who can't name any world leaders, and doesn't even know where Aleppo is, that is pretty amazing.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You forgot her blatant corruption and carelessness with classified information that would have gotten anyone else thrown in prison.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?