Cameraimage cinematography festival in the bin

[Clark Nikolai]

On 11/19/2024 at 2:05 AM, Ilkka Nissila said:

From a European point of view, I would say that on economic policies the US Democrats are center-right,

 

From a Canadian perspective as well. The US Democratic Party would be considered centre-right in Canada.

Having said that even Canadian politics is more right than it used to be, much like the world. This was predicted by historians.  When resources run out, people start fighting over their differences (which previously would have been ignored) then political opportunists see this and use it to gain power.  

[majoraxis]

3 hours ago, Snowfun said:

Isn’t that precisely the problem? What we “believe” to be true isn’t enough. We should endeavour to listen to the evidence so we know what is true.

(And, yes, we can argue about the evidence and its significance but that is all part of the epistemological  process - it doesn’t diminish the difference between what is true and what is not. Irrespective of what I, or anyone else, might believe).

Exactly - we are programmed to to believe what we believe for the benefits of the powers that be.

We are programed/incented to take sides so that the rich get richer.

We all have confirmation bias and confirm what we are programmed to confirm.

Trump, Biden, Harris, Obama, Bush, the Clintons all play for the same team. That's what they all laughed when Trump said I ran into Hillary and she said pardon me - they are not putting each other in jail - they know the joke is on the common person.

We need to get to the montage scene in our own personal movies where we realize what is closer to the true:

Programming equals profit for the powers that be and we are all programmed and pitted against each other and we actually have more in common than we are programmed to believe.

Jules in Pulp Fiction had his realization. I wish all of our personal story arcs would include a realization about how we are all programmed to some degree or another...

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

20 hours ago, majoraxis said:

We are programed/incented to take sides so that the rich get richer.

We can deprogram ourselves very easily, just by using character and ethics as a guide in politics.

Trump and his inner circle are unsavoury, unintelligent and many of them are convicted felons.

BUT - apparently this resonates with the American public which I'm sorry to say is just fucking embarrassing for your nation - it shows to the rest of the world that quality of character, being a public servant, and ethical behaviour is of no interest to over half of your population and that you'd willingly vote for crooks if you think it's good for the economy.

I have news for you, it won't be good for the economy. It'll be good for the 1% and the rest of you will be enjoying inflation in the region of 15% before too long.

The media in the US is appalling, it is the most biased in the world, be it CNN or Fox, they're both completely incapable of taking a balanced objective view of politics.

In the UK, the BBC has withered away, corrupted by the Tory party and hamstrung by the abuse of the BBC's impartiality rule. So we are in a bad situation here as well, and when you add Murdoch to the scene and his shitty tabloids which have somehow managed to cling onto relevance in the so-called enlightened age of the internet, it's no wonder people are distracted by all the arguing and less able to focus on quality of character and policy.

Too many aggressive interviewers whose only aim is to pick holes in everything, whether it's a good politician or not, or a good policy or not... nobody is immune to the constant shit stirring of the media.

It's not even real journalism a lot of it, and it brings the country down. It sometimes gets so depressing to see, that you start to think about emigrating to Russia to enjoy the more 'favourable' and 'patriotic' media 🙂

Yet in the end, what I am saying is...

You don't need the media.

The truth is out there for all to see about what kind of characters and ethics are on display with Trump and his inner circle.

We need better journalism, yes... But you can make up your own mind whether it's sensible to have a convicted crook as the leader of the free world.

There has to be a move away from the two main parties also - as they're both becoming corrupted in some form or another. The Democrats by vanity career politics and drab humourless political correctness, and the Republicans by a complete loss of sanity.

[Andrew Reid]

By the way, the world needs a strong United States.

Because the alternatives to our way of life are far worse.

[majoraxis]

I was hoping for something more like this:

7 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

We can deprogram ourselves very easily, just by using character and ethics as a guide in politics.

Trump and his inner circle are unsavoury, unintelligent and many of them are convicted felons.

BUT - apparently this resonates with the American public which I'm sorry to say is just fucking embarrassing for your nation - it shows to the rest of the world that quality of character, being a public servant, and ethical behaviour is of no interest to over half of your population and that you'd willingly vote for crooks if you think it's good for the economy.

Taking a position of moral superiority is blindly following the mainstream media programming.

I believe the following:

All politicians have character flaws and will ultimately chose what is best for those who got them in office and will keep them in office.

No politician is on your side. They only serve themselves. Pick the politician who serves your interests, when they are serving their own interests.

It is the people against the government not democrats vs republican. We are all programmed to take a side.

Deprogramming ourselves from believing that there is a morally superior side is difficult. I believe each party is just one of the two wings on the same elite bird.

I believe in the people, who, with the power of free speech, will free each other's minds so that we can suffer through this together as friends rather than enemies.

Of course this is just my opinion, as we will never have all of the true facts, ever, though it may feel like you absolute know what is right - you do not - because what is absolutely right is absolutely unknowable. Same goes for me and my opinion - it has no more value than yours or any other.

I could be completely wrong and that is fine, as long as it gets people thinking about what they believe to be true and that the facts that they live and die by are almost certainly based on some falsehoods.

That said, I love your reviews and believe they immensely benefit from your belief that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, which you point out so clearly.  You are a genius at making the technical details have value, meaning and consequences.

...in this case of politics, I believe the details are mostly exaggerated  and sometime fabricated to prey on our human tendencies of wanting to be right, which, in other situations would be our strength, but in the case of politics, pits us against each other making us "slaves" as Morpheus said to the elite ruling class.

Taking the red pill is not the easy road as Neo shows us, but it makes all the difference, if we believe the Matrix (programming for profit) is real.

[Andrew Reid]

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

I was hoping for something more like this:

Taking a position of moral superiority is blindly following the mainstream media programming.

Here we go... down the conspiracy rabbit hole. The one thing consistent in all of this I've noticed myself is that Trump voters are very distrustful of media, journalism, institutions... Yet some bloke on Facebook posting stuff = TRUTH!

You can't take a moral position on Trump?

Because thats blindly following the media?

I'm sorry I just can't agree.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

I believe the following:

All politicians have character flaws and will ultimately chose what is best for those who got them in office and will keep them in office.

Being a convicted fraudster and allegedly rapist is a pretty big character flaw for the leader of a country like the US.

It shouldn't disqualify someone from being a sales rep perhaps, but leader of the free world definitely.

It isn't my "mass media programming" that is convincing me of that by the way.

It's the justice system that is.

Which is why it is important to trust the experts and institutions because they do their jobs based on the FACTS, apolitically.

You may not think it, to listen to social media bubbles, echo chambers and much of the right-leaning media though... Because they want to destroy the truth and the evidence, any to discredit the checks or balances on power.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

No politician is on your side. They only serve themselves. Pick the politician who serves your interests, when they are serving their own interests.

Sorry but in what particular ways is Trump going to serve your interests when he hikes inflation and deports key workers using the military and concentration camps? Is he also going to serve your interests when he puts 50% tariffs on Chinese imports or Japanese cameras? What about when he stitches up the judicial system to pardon himself and a bunch of other convicts? Stitching up the legal system so that his pals can stay in power for a generation? Polluting the environment with his promise to "drill baby drill"... bringing large scale industrial manufacturing back to the USA... more pollution. More lung cancer. People only see the jobs and economic benefit... not the widespread problems that China's environment and air quality has from all of their manufacturing of our cheap Amazon electronics.

I think you have to be a bit careful what you wish for.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

we will never have all of the true facts

This isn't true at all.

There are facts and these are not a matter of opinion or "fake news".

That's because they're backed by documented evidence.

Like the fact that Trump had crate after crate of classified documents at home, with the intent to profit from it in some ways - most likely by selling the info, which could then find itself in the hands of hostile nations like Russia.

And yet there has been no accountability, no punishment, and before you say "But what about Biden" it isn't a sport.

It is about this specific fact of Trump with the documents and what his intent was in stealing so many from the secure enclaves of your fucking government.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

ever, though it may feel like you absolute know what is right - you do not - because what is absolutely right is absolutely unknowable.

Complete nonsense.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

Same goes for me and my opinion - it has no more value than yours or any other.

Some opinions DO have more value than others.

The quality of source material, the quality of research, the objectivity of the discourse, and a lot else besides.

I'd sooner listen to a trained, professional New York judge who has prosecuted thousands of people based on cold hard evidence, than to some Fox news twat.

On 11/23/2024 at 9:09 PM, majoraxis said:

Taking the red pill is not the easy road as Neo shows us, but it makes all the difference, if we believe the Matrix (programming for profit) is real.

I hate the Matrix tbh, tired shite.

[majoraxis]

I think we both believe that Trump is a bad person who has intentionally has done illegal and immoral things.

We disagree on whether that disqualifies him from being president.

My position is that this election was a choice between two evils: one morally corrupt candidate and the other who was less qualified, which I believe is the greater evil. As I believe all politicians are morally corrupt, I believe Harris also has her moral failings - though the media does not like call flip flopping on the border a weakness, her willingness to flip flop for political expediency showed us her true colors, which was validated in her concession speech when she said it will be OK even through Trump was elected when she ran on Trump is a threat to democracy - it was just a political talking point - got it - should she still be fighting for democracy even though she did not get elected - like I said all politicians are morally corrupt - even the ineffective ones.

Most of my liberal friends remind me that Trump is a criminal and I agree with them and then say the average American does not care - they just want to afford food and gas.

The moral outrage is against the ruling party that could not control inflation rather than the results of the politically motivated prosecution of Trump.

My point is this - the media tried to programm people in to believe Trump should be disqualified from being president based on the moral superiority. I was wrong me me to say you were programmed. I'm sure that is how you feel based on your research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

I hope you can see how I think that Trump what is best for America based on how I feel based on my research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

Hopefully, everyone of us can identify some way we are programmed by the media so they we can we can help each other see the potential for manipulation and trying to divide the people into opposition parties.

They had us wrap around their little finger until they lied about Biden being mentally sound then they had to do the last minute switcheroo... that was some the of the sloppiest political maneuvering I have ever seen. Where is the moral outrage that Harris did not have to go though the normal nomination process - end the end it cost them, even against a morally inferior candidate.

[Ilkka Nissila]

All politicians have character flaws and will ultimately chose what is best for those who got them in office and will keep them in office.

In a representative democracy, it's the voters who got the politicians into office and it's the voters who decide who stays and who does not. However, in the US, because campaign funding seems virtually unlimited (even though there are legal limitations, it seems the rules do not apply to campaigns of some criminals and their donors), to get elected, you need a lot of campaign financing. This is a problem as it means only those candidates with a lot of money get a lot of visibility and can get elected. It seems some citizens feels that anything different would be limiting their freedom of speech, if rich people could not donate as much as they like. But this essentially gives people with money more votes than just one: they're influencing others to vote for their candidate. If campaign financing were limited to a total of a relatively moderate sum of money, people would be elected based on their merits as the voters see fit rather than how many rich people they are supported by.

No politician is on your side. They only serve themselves. Pick the politician who serves your interests, when they are serving their own interests.

That's not actually true, a lot of politicians are altruistic and are genuinely trying to improve society and the world, and how things are managed so that people who are not doing well, would be doing better. I'm sorry that you have such a cynical view of politics.

It is the people against the government not democrats vs republican.

In a representative democracy, the government consists of people who are either elected themselves or were appointed by those who were elected. The elected representatives make the laws which the government then implements. The government is basically serving the people.

We are all programmed to take a side.

I think we are all trying to solve the problems in our everyday lives. There is a broad media landscape which, in a democracy, consists of numerous free operators that try to inform the public as to what is going on in the world. The problem in the US is that there are only two major parties which leads to polarization of opinions. In my country (Finland), there is more than a dozen parties, none of which has more than about 25% of the representatives. The parties form coalition governments that compromise on issues to create their agenda and legislation based on these compromises. Because there are so many parties and a culture of making compromises there is no strong polarization of opinions. However, this is changing a little bit due to social media as algorithms direct people to see information that they viewed before, leading to information bubbles and that can eventually lead to polarization into camps. In my opinion, this is happening because invisible algorithms control what people get to see (in social media) instead of human beings making the decisions on what to publish and what not to publish, and what to put on front page. I think letting algorithms control what we see is a huge mistake and can lead to the decay of democracy and organized society, even wars.

Deprogramming ourselves from believing that there is a morally superior side is difficult. I believe each party is just one of the two wings on the same elite bird.

I think there are individuals who act morally and others who do not, but not necessarily parties.  Parties typically force their members to vote in a certain way to follow the party line and this deteriorates democracy.

I believe in the people, who, with the power of free speech, will free each other's minds so that we can suffer through this together as friends rather than enemies.

Unfortunately, speech that actually gets pubished in some format is not really "free" in the sense that there are always agents that control what we see, and the motivations of those agents can sometimes be obvious but other times they're hidden. Social media algorithms are known to highlight content which people share and often it brings up content that cause outrage because it's so ridiculous. People feed those algorithms with ridiculous claims that are not based on facts and this has polluted the media landscape. In the traditional press (in western democracies), editors had their own political views but generally content is fact checked often from multiple sources before it's published (this is true of high-quality publications but not necessarily all). The degree to which the political bias shows can be evaluated by comparing the different media. However, as the "free" content on the internet has put publishers of traditional media into financial difficulties, the concentration of ownership seems to be increasing and this risks the freedom of the press. In social media, generally content is not fact checked and so a lot of false claims are made on purpose, perhaps to cause outrage, or mislead readers. This is highly unfortunate. I am not even sure if having social media is worth it in the big picture, some degree of moderation would be needed to reduce the hate and intentional misleading of readers. Moderated forums can be useful for sharing specialist knowledge, but I'm not sure how commercially viable they are.

Of course this is just my opinion, as we will never have all of the true facts, ever, though it may feel like you absolute know what is right - you do not - because what is absolutely right is absolutely unknowable. Same goes for me and my opinion - it has no more value than yours or any other.

I agree that not all facts are known but there is a huge difference between the random social media post and professionally created journalism where the journalists are highly educated and spend a lot of time investigating the facts. A lot of political comments on social media seem to be generated by actors who are not what they pretend to be and are intentionally telling falsehoods. I personally think that professionally trained journalists working for high-quality publications, scientists, and historians are much more likely to get it right than typical people posting on social media. Adding information does not lead to the discovery of truth, but the scientific and journalistic processes often do. Everyone's opinion is not equal as some are factual because they did their research and found out how things really are, vs. others who are telling falsehoods out of either ignorance or because they want to intentionally mislead people. Unfortunately the latter has become mainstream in social media. Fact-checked journalism has never been so important to counter the wild west of social media.

I could be completely wrong and that is fine, as long as it gets people thinking about what they believe to be true and that the facts that they live and die by are almost certainly based on some falsehoods.

Discovering the truth is hard work but not impossible. Often truth is complicated and difficult to understand and populists try to give simplifications that some members of the public find appealing. However, the truth is still more valuable and seeking it should be encouraged. This is how society develops to be better.

[Ilkka Nissila]

1 hour ago, majoraxis said:

I think we both believe that Trump is a bad person who has intentionally has done illegal and immoral things.

We disagree on whether that disqualifies him from being president.

My position is that this election was a choice between two evils: one morally corrupt candidate and the other who was less qualified, which I believe is the greater evil. As I believe all politicians are morally corrupt, I believe Harris also has her moral failings - though the media does not like call flip flopping on the border a weakness, her willingness to flip flop for political expediency showed us her true colors, which was validated in her concession speech when she said it will be OK even through Trump was elected when she ran on Trump is a threat to democracy - it was just a political talking point - got it - should she still be fighting for democracy even though she did not get elected - like I said all politicians are morally corrupt - even the ineffective ones.

Most of my liberal friends remind me that Trump is a criminal and I agree with them and then say the average American does not care - they just want to afford food and gas.

The moral outrage is against the ruling party that could not control inflation rather than the results of the politically motivated prosecution of Trump.

My point is this - the media tried to programm people in to believe Trump should be disqualified from being president based on the moral superiority. I was wrong me me to say you were programmed. I'm sure that is how you feel based on your research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

I hope you can see how I think that Trump what is best for America based on how I feel based on my research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

Hopefully, everyone of us can identify some way we are programmed by the media so they we can we can help each other see the potential for manipulation and trying to divide the people into opposition parties.

They had us wrap around their little finger until they lied about Biden being mentally sound then they had to do the last minute switcheroo... that was some the of the sloppiest political maneuvering I have ever seen. Where is the moral outrage that Harris did not have to go though the normal nomination process - end the end it cost them, even against a morally inferior candidate.

As I believe all politicians are morally corrupt

 

I think you've fallen into a victim of Trump's lies. In Main Kampf, Hitler wrote (not a verbatim quote) that when a lie that is big enough repeated enough many times, regular people will believe it because they are used to telling little lies about small things but would be ashamed of telling big lies about important matters, so they don't believe a person in power would do that. Trump repeated his big lies thousands of times and so people started to believe that the opposition is equally corrupt. The people working in the traditional media spend their lives and careers on finding out and reporting the truth and go through a great deal of trouble to achieve this, even though there are sometimes mistakes made in the process. They don't like Trump because he waters down their efforts by telling big lies and repeating them thousands of times. If you spent a lifetime on telling the public the truth then it is understandable that Trump's success in the election causes a lot of anxiety.

 

they just want to afford food and gas

 

Unfortunately for them, Trump has said he will deport illegal aliens (and some that are legal) which will increase the price of food that the consumer pays.  Import tariffs will do the same for many products: people will end up paying more for them, or not getting them at all. He might make gas cheaper by drilling more oil which will destroy the environment and life for future generations will be more miserable. It would be great if people actually read the traditional media and listened to the 23 Nobel-winning economists who said that Trump's policies will increase the inflation and Harris's policies would be more egalitarian. Now they will learn it the hard way. It's a pity for the poor and lower middle class about whom Trump and the other billionaires he plans to put in government couldn't care less.

 

My point is this - the media tried to programm people in to believe Trump should be disqualified from being president based on the moral superiority.

 

Not really, he tried to cause an insurrection and illegitimate overthrow of the government (or the future government led by Biden), that according to the US constitution disqualifies him from holding public office. However, as Trump has installed  his cronies into the Supreme Court, they would of course return the favor and vote against the disqualification of Trump in the ballot. It's not a question of moral superiority but simply that Trump is an authoritarian who wants to continue in office even after his second term (he has said so several times, he admires Putin and his lifetime presidency and said that the US should try something like it). He was practicing overthrow of election results in 2021 and failed, but this time around he will try to pack the government with those who are loyal to him so that he can succeed eventually with the overthrow of democratic government. This is what the press is afraid of and why he should not have been allowed to run.

 

They had us wrap around their little finger until they lied about Biden being mentally sound then they had to do the last minute switcheroo... that was some the of the sloppiest political maneuvering I have ever seen. Where is the moral outrage that Harris did not have to go though the normal nomination process - end the end it cost them, even against a morally inferior candidate.

 

Why would there need to be a moral outrage? The parties nominate whom they want and voters decide whom to elect president. If America had a better functioning democracy, you'd have more parties who offer more candidates to choose from, but unfortunately the two-party system is a poorly functioning, declining democracy. I agree that Biden was too old to serve another four years as president, but Trump is almost as old and gets confused in his words and speaks nonsense all the time. You could elect someone younger so that this would not be a concern. In Finland our current prime minister is 55 years old and the president is 56. Our previous prime minister was in her thirties.

 

About 85% of Finns believe that the public broadcasting company's content is factual and trustworthy. Our press is ranked fifth in the freedom of the press rankings in the world (higher ranking = more free). The index was higher but a couple of incidents reduced it. The leading newspaper was publishing a series of articles about an intelligence center of the defense forces and this lead to lawsuits where reporters were deemed guilty of revealing state secrets, or having had the intention to do so, and so this was considered a violation of the freedom of press. (United States is 55th in the freedom of the press index, so it's not very free.)

[Emanuel]

Why couldn't U.S. be like Finland?

56 minutes ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

they just want to afford food and gas

 

Unfortunately for them, Trump has said he will deport illegal aliens (and some that are legal) which will increase the price of food that the consumer pays.  Import tariffs will do the same for many products: people will end up paying more for them, or not getting them at all. He might make gas cheaper by drilling more oil which will destroy the environment and life for future generations will be more miserable. It would be great if people actually read the traditional media and listened to the 23 Nobel-winning economists who said that Trump's policies will increase the inflation and Harris's policies would be more egalitarian. Now they will learn it the hard way. It's a pity for the poor and lower middle class about whom Trump and the other billionaires he plans to put in government couldn't care less.

 

When this will happen, people will understand how stupid the human race can be...

[Andrew Reid]

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

I think we both believe that Trump is a bad person who has intentionally has done illegal and immoral things.

We disagree on whether that disqualifies him from being president.

From my point of view I just think the "lesser of the two evils" stuff is an excuse.

It excuses his abject lack of character and ethics, and downplays the danger of the people around him like Bannon and Musk, who was literally stoking racist riots in the UK on social media a few months back.

These racists debase the highest office.

Makes Nixon look like Mother Theresa.

Then there's the really problematic Project 25 stuff as well and the unusually cozy relationship with anyone who happens to be a far right totalitarian mafia fallen ass-backwards into government.

These - Putin and a certain Isreali leader have an international arrest warrant out for them.

They are war criminals.

Listen to what Robert De Niro has been saying. How angry he is... Why is it that so many people in the arts and film industry Democrats? It isn't because they're elites, it's because they have a fucking brain.

Now I don't believe you lack a brain, but something has clearly gone wrong with it.

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

As I believe all politicians are morally corrupt

So then you decide to vote for the MOST extremely morally corrupt set of them in US history.

Makes sense to me!

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

Most of my liberal friends remind me that Trump is a criminal and I agree with them and then say the average American does not care - they just want to afford food and gas.

You know there's been a pandemic, right?

Part of the reason Trump lost in 2020 was his handling of the early stages of the pandemic.

Convincing people to drink bleach, etc.

Fast forward into 21/22, the pandemic and lock downs rumble on and there's global inflation in every country, not only the US. All governments, whether liberal or right-wing had to pump trillions into the economy to prevent disaster, such as with furlough schemes (Trump-policy btw), and then there were supply shortages and cost of shipping and fuels went massively up especially as Russia withdrew from Western energy markets with the advent of their war in 2022-2023.

This is not the fault of a politician or president, it is a global issue.

You say your friends just want to afford food and gas, so do I.

But let's correctly apportion the blame for the high prices, and the solution to lowering them.

The solution to lowering them is to get inflation under control which the Biden administration has already done so, and then to increase supply and competition in the market so that these big companies cut prices.

You know what won't help...

Tariffs on imports, cost passed onto stores and consumers.

Mass deportation especially in agricultural industries, cost passed onto stores and consumers.

Economic policy that looks after the 1% and corporations and AI / tech companies = inflation in property / house prices, inflation in large cities, inflation in wages and further increases in interest rates.

You want a fair economy and fair prices, but can't square the Trump policies with the economic consequences.

You're also incorrectly associating the lower prices of 2016-2020 & lower interest rates with the fact that there was a Trump presidency. The prices were lower then and interest rates were lower then because A) it was a long time ago and B) it wasn't post-pandemic.

You don't need the media to program you into believing this... You just have to be into facts.

It isn't a case of "Andrew's opinion". It's what's actually happened.

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

The moral outrage is against the ruling party that could not control inflation rather than the results of the politically motivated prosecution of Trump.

My point is this - the media tried to programm people in to believe Trump should be disqualified from being president based on the moral superiority. I was wrong me me to say you were programmed. I'm sure that is how you feel based on your research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

Silly media... trying to convince people a morally corrupt convict felon should be disqualified from running the US government.

Batshit crazy if you ask me!

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

I hope you can see how I think that Trump what is best for America based on how I feel based on my research and understanding of the facts of the situation.

Hopefully, everyone of us can identify some way we are programmed by the media so they we can we can help each other see the potential for manipulation and trying to divide the people into opposition parties.

I don't understand this obsession with the media.

You can make your own mind up based on what Trump does and what he says.... direct from the horse's mouth.

When he says he will get mass deportations going and concentrate women and children in concentration camps, does it not give you any pause for thought based on what we know about the history of fascism, at all?

4 hours ago, majoraxis said:

They had us wrap around their little finger until they lied about Biden being mentally sound then they had to do the last minute switcheroo... that was some the of the sloppiest political maneuvering I have ever seen. Where is the moral outrage that Harris did not have to go though the normal nomination process - end the end it cost them, even against a morally inferior candidate.

I agree there should have been a proper nomination process and earlier...

The moral equivalency is not in the same league though.

This is the problem with being a good person in today's world... you are judged on a totally different social contract to somebody like Trump. Look at Hilary in 2016 - emails! Yes emails. Not rape, not fraud, an email server was her downfall.

Trump is somebody who sets the bar so low for ethics you don't expect any better from him...

You have admitted this yourself.

As well as that, he is authentic. Not fake or an upper-middle class hypocrite like Harris... Trump is an authentic disrupter crook, everyone knows it, everyone sees it, they want him to wreak the establishment of government which they no longer have any trust in, they're no longer surprised when he says something outrageous, he's normalised it, if any career politician had half the trouble he's had, they'd have been out long ago, same with any worker, any employee, any NORMAL PERSON on a fraud charge, out on your ear from the office the moment the guilty verdict comes in, difference is - YOU GO TO PRISON - HE DOESN'T. Why? Presidentially immune, you're not.

Man of the people huh??

[eatstoomuchjam]

"I vOteD for tRUMp bEcauSe i wAnTeD to REduCe INflAtIoN!"

https://www.wdbj7.com/2024/11/20/walmart-lowes-may-raise-prices-if-trumps-tariff-plans-take-effect-cfos-say/

[Emanuel]

Doesn't everything sound so absurd with all about those promises of this new administration to come?

Despite the danger itself from such terrifying basis TBH. Insane.

Politics 101 for dummies is peanuts.

The January 6 insurrection looks like never happened, at least for those more than 76 million of people who voted on all this making it happen after all.

Seems unreal.

The weird is that's not.

So many gave so much for so little in the end.

- EAG

[Andrew Reid]

10 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

The January 6 insurrection looks like never happened, at least for those more than 76 million of people who voted on all this making it happen after all.

Indeed! And the reason they gave for voting... "To save democracy"

 

[Andrew Reid]

A bit of Aubrey to lighten the mood

 

[Andrew Reid]

Back to the Trump bashing...

https://news.sky.com/story/prosecutors-file-to-drop-2020-presidential-election-interference-charges-against-trump-13260598

One rule for him, another for the ordinary guy of course!

[majoraxis]

Every empire has a dark side, especially the military industrial complex and the wars that are encouraged to fund the weapons manufacturers who lobby for trading lives for dollars... as you know I am against war and machine that feeds off of it. It seems at least one Dem feels the same way about corruption that pays off for those who sponsor and promote war...

 

[Ilkka Nissila]

Unfortunately, there are countries whose leaders feel any valuable land or property that they can take by force and/or threats is their right to take, and to prevent that, other countries need to accessorize also, to defend themselves and their allies. Otherwise there will be complete anarchy and oppression of people who fall as victims. Right now, it is probably necessary to increase arms production in the West (Europe in particular). As horrible as war is, there is no way to stop it except by showing the willingness to use (equal or greater) force. Europeans don't want to live under tyranny and yet we don't have the capacity to stop it without the US because most European countries scaled down their weapons industries. Once Europe is lost, the war will spread to America soon enough and with greater capacity. For someone who has the mind for conquering land and ruling over other people, nothing is ever enough.

[majoraxis]

I don't trust politicians for good reason - they all lie and in the end serve their own interests' and the interests' of their family members... if Hunter's convictions were politically motivated as Biden said, I imagine we can draw a moral equivalency regarding Trump's convictions.  Politicians are all dislikeable for manys reasons so the best I can do is hope I have picked the candidate who's self-interests' most closely align with my own self-interests'... which we will have to disagree on the validity of.

 

[eatstoomuchjam]

Biden pardoning his son was wrong, obviously, but stop with the idiotic fucking false equivalency bullshit.

Biden makes one obviously selfish pardon and you dumbshits are all clutching your pearls and acting shocked as though this shit never happened before - yet the other guy pardoned, among other things, his political advisor/strategist, his campaign chairman, the father of his son-in-law, his propagandist, and other allies - many of whom were prosecuted by his own department of justice, not the other team.

https://www.newsweek.com/list-who-donald-trump-has-pardoned-1993998