Arotrios

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

No, it's not. I'm guessing a MAGA that works within the GA court system got hold of the names and published them specifically so they could be targeted and harassed.

EDIT: thanks to @solidgrue for the correction. I spoke too quickly, and didn't have a full understanding of GA law.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Most likely, but they're not in this article. I called out the operatives they did name in the tags on the post:

#anton_tsvetkov #natalia_burlinova #andrey_stepanenko #maxim_grigoriev

Arotrios , 10 months ago

You've got one on kbin too - @some_guy - a racist, bigoted fascist who likes to obsessively troll people and try to dox them.

It took me a moment to determine whether or not you were the same person, but unlike him, you can speak in complete sentences. As such, I thought I'd give you and @someguy3 a heads up that your good names are being dragged through the mud.

Arotrios , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Actually Kbin is great for tracking shitheads, which is why I'm able to call this guy out. Downvotes are visible on the activity tab of each post and comment, and this troll loves downvote spam - as you can see, he downvoted my comment above. He's the kind that will stalk your account and downvote everything to try and get your attention.

In general, 99.9% of the community here is awesome, and there's a lot of support between users here. It's actually the best experience I've had online in many years (and I've been online since the early 90s). One of my goals in calling out the trolls when they decide to target me is to keep the community enjoyable, as I'm quite certain I'm not their only intended victim.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Thank you to @lydiaconwell for the article.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Dafuq you talkin' about Willis?

The article doesn't say that at all. It's an analysis of the influence of corporate propaganda on the exercise of free speech, and how that influence is more powerful than censorship attempts, as it creates a narrative matrix in which true challenges to the status quo are drowned out by the weight of the propaganda.

There's no place where the author argues for censorship. Rather they argue that censorship holds little weight in comparison to corporate propaganda when it comes to constructing a political narrative. This is arguably true, and an interesting debate.

I think you need to go back and actually read the article instead of commenting on the headline.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

You missed the entire point of the article and put in your own interpretation. Don't read between the lines if you're not willing to make the effort to read the post.

The author is describing the large scale paradigms put in place by multiple corporate and governmental power structures. This isn't a mysterious cabal - this is something that media execs and political lobbyists will openly admit they're aiming for to increase engagement so that their political power and wealth increases.

It's not a new phenomena - look at the government sponsored propaganda films of the past, the war on drugs (but not Oxycotin, conveniently), the revival of racist rhetoric in the GOP, and the constant reinforcement of capitalist thought throughout the education system.

There's no implicit suggestion that I can find other than the author's hopelessness at this state of affairs. This is the most political statement (other than support for civil rights) within the work:

It’s been this way for generations, and it’s all people know. That everything is confined in this way starves the populace of all nourishment of mind and heart, and it narrows the scope among artists on their ideas of what is possible and what’s worthwhile. It has shrunk the confines of what artists have been willing to explore by orders of magnitude, and it’s resulted in a mainstream culture that is shallow, power-serving and uninspired from top to bottom.

Humanity would look much different and the world would be a much better place if this hadn’t been happening all these years. Capitalist culture is brain poison.

Someday the leaders of ecocidal corporations will be put on trial for their crimes against our planet, and their defense that they did it to generate profits for their shareholders will be treated the same as war criminals saying they were just following orders.

This isn't about the author's politics, she's decrying a state of affairs that makes the exercise of political speech feel fruitless, because the conversation is always the same. The conversation is always the same because the subjects we talk about are set by the propaganda we consume every day, to the point where, like in Brave New World, most of the population can't even be bothered enough to care enough read the whole article.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

If you won't let the government run, then you shouldn't be running government.

The time for negotiation with political terrorists long past, and all the Freedom Caucus is demonstrating is that it's worthless to negotiate with them on anything. They want the US economy to crater before the elections - they know it's the only thing that will take the political focus off of Roe v. Wade and their ongoing assault on civil rights and the middle class.

That recent Fitch downgrade of the US credit rating was a direct result of this, just as it was in 2011 when S&P did the same:

Both rating agencies cited rising political dysfunction as a primary cause for their downgrades following contentious debt ceiling standoffs.

Make no mistake - they will burn the US to the ground before they relinquish power, and unless it's taken from them, they will use it to oppress and financially devastate any group they find distasteful.

If you are not white, male, and make less than $300,000 a year, the GOP views you as an enemy - and they don't care how many people they have to hurt to put you in your place.

Remember this at the polls.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

I completely agree with you.

I'm not entirely convinced the polling is properly representative of anything but Republican sentiment, as the last NYC poll I read claimed that, but it had been compiled before the indictment, with a significant oversampling of Republicans (can track it down if you'd like - it's back in my commentary someplace).

I think there's a narrative being pushed that inflates his popular support, as Biden would blowout any of the primary contenders in this political environment. This is a negative for media companies, that thrive on engagement, and rely on a down to the wire political circus to keep their engagement numbers up and ad revenue flowing. Inflating Trump has been good for them in the past, and I'm not surprised to see the trend continue. This isn't an argument for complacency, but I think that the political calculus in play is telling.

It's clear Trump is imploding and his big money supporters (all members of the GOP establishment crowd, not the Tea Party for the most part) have abandoned him - not because of the indictment, but because he blows through money like water, and has already cost Murdoch close to a billion. He needs that money and influence to protect him from within the government establishment, but he's burnt those bridges, especially in GA, where he cost them a Senate seat and dragged Raffensperger through the mud.... the same official who not only provided evidence against him for the indictment, but who will be deciding whether or not Trump is disqualified to be on the ballot under the 14th Amendment.

Thus far, Raffensperger has shown himself to have not only a spine, but integrity and a respect for the law. We'll see how strong that spine is when Trump tries to get on the ballot in GA.

I believe, as you do, Raffensperger has every reason to throw Trump under the bus, as does Kemp and the entire GA GOP good ole boy establishment, and the GOP establishment across the country knows that it would be good for the party and their financial interests. They know he won't win against Biden unless the economy tanks completely, and that's unlikely to happen before the election.

If the GOP establishment kneecaps Trump now, that gives time for the primary field to clear and for a real challenger to Biden to emerge. The longer they wait, the more likely they'll end up with another loss on their hands, one that will likely cost them the house as well.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

All together now... all together now!

Medical decisions should be made by doctors, not politicians.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Hearty upvote to that, and have a boost too. I invite anyone who disagrees to schedule their next surgery with Ted Cruz and see how far that gets you.

And for my two favorite trolls who chose to spam downvote my comment above:

Big congrats @some_guy and @cre0 - not only have you been outed as racists and idiots who literally downvote the text of the Constitution in my previous comments, you've now tagged yourselves as transphobes as well. Keep digging, it's good for everyone to know who the bigots are.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

When someone says they intended to destroy your government, believe them.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

I came here to post this - have an upvote.

But I have to ask - I experience an aesthetic injury every time I see a MAGA hat. Does this mean I have a case?

Arotrios , 10 months ago

@spaceghoti 's been posting about GOP bullshit like a machine. I think they deserve the room to rant on this one. It's at the carton villainy level of stupid, and they've gotta be suffering PTSD at this point after slogging through all that idiocy.

Besides, now I'm curious as to who ElliotRodgerFan48 is and whether or not they're trollable on the Fediverse.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Relevant text of the 14th Amendment, Section 3:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

I presented it as opinion because the article itself is an op-ed with a link back to the legal analysis. Just trying to follow the rules of the sub.

But I agree with you - it's not a real debate, as the other side has no argument other than "nuh uh!"

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Yep, and if Trump goes down, it sets a very strong legal precedent for barring them from the next election as well, which is why this particular indictment is so much more powerful than the previous ones. In practice, it probably would only affect the most egregious violators like Hawley, but nonetheless, the potential consequences shouldn't be underestimated, especially in the House elections.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Ain't that just the most delicious part of it? What's really fun is that in GA, the same officials who provided evidence for the indictment, including Raffensberger (who Trump dragged through the mud) are the ones who are going to be determining his eligibility for the GA ballot.

So they've already seen the evidence, and the GA GOP is mighty pissed off that Trump cost them a Senate seat. Those good ole boys know how to hold a grudge, and I wouldn't be surprised if they gave him the finger on this one.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Except that it's already been tested in court against Madison Crawford - spoiler warning, he lost:

Hailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 – including Donald Trump – from the consequences of their actions.”

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Except you're missing the point. The Supreme Court doesn't decide the qualifications to initially get on the ballot, the state does.

Whether or not he's qualified for the ballot is determined by the state officials, who don't need a conviction to disqualify him. This is awfully inconvenient for Trump, as instead of Cawthorn's case, where the Free Speech for People brought the case against the decision of the state officials, Trump would have to start the case and fight his way through appeals - while fighting 3 felony cases in different courtrooms at the same time.

This means that if state officials disqualify him, he has to file the case, and wait for it to either resolve or go through the appeals process, likely all the way to the Supreme Court just to get on the ballot. When you consider the timing, it's highly likely that the case wouldn't resolve or make it to the Supreme Court until after the election. The fact that Trump cost GA a senate seat, and dragged Raffensberger through the mud makes it more than a bit likely that GA election officials will disqualify him, as some of those same people are the ones who provided evidence for the indictment.

The other element comes down to the Supreme Court itself. It's loyal to Trump, but loyal enough to condone open rebellion at the cost of its own legitimacy? That's difficult political calculus for any institution of government, much less the Judical Branch, which has no enforcement arm and no legitimacy beside what Congress chooses to give it (the Constitution only states that a Supreme Court be established, and leaves it to Congress to establish it, which they did with the Judiciary Act of 1789 ). Roberts is already on the line, and a decision like this would prompt Congress to act on the ethics conflicts he's been desperately trying to sweep under the rug.

Right now, it's most convenient for almost every GOP official to have Trump go away. Yes, they were happy to ride his coattails into power, but now their power is directly threatened by his incompetence. On top of which, he's destroyed the party's finances. A lot of establishment Republicans are ready to throw him under the bus, and this may be their opportunity.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

I'm going to point you at my comments here because I already provided a response to this argument when it was posited by @madison_rogue.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Yep, originalists are idiots, but they're also the bedrock of conservative judicial thought. Having two of their most prominent voices argue for disqualification indicates that it's that rare time of day when the broken clock is right on the money.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

If Trump takes office without winning the popular vote, it will very likely lead to civil war. Not because the people will rise up to defend Biden, but because his policies are simultaneously cruel, poorly implemented, unjust, and most importantly to the wealthy who run the country, unprofitable. There were a lot of people in the business community who haven't forgotten the China trade war of 2020. And the fact of the matter is that with climate change beginning to have a real affect on the economy, an unsteady hand on the wheel is the last thing Wall Street wants.

Dictators that successfully put such policies in place do so after the fascist state is established to quell dissent. Trump can't even establish a state of denial.

Could he win? Possibly on a electoral vote basis - I think the popular vote is far out of reach for him. But I don't see the country lasting for long if he does - he doesn't have the skill to run a fascist state, much less build one, and he'd be completely out of his depth confronting a real uprising. DeSantis, on the other hand, could build such a state and has been somewhat successful in laying the groundwork in Florida. I don't think Trump will chose him as VP, but if he does, that's a match made in hell.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Dictators get elected all the time, Hitler being the one most historians refer to. It's the policies they implement after election that define them as dictators. Trump began the process while in office, but was horribly incompetent at it, as demonstrated by his flailing coup attempt. Moreover, he didn't have Hitler's popular support, effectively getting into office on a technicality.

Biden was elected by both the popular and electoral vote. His policies thus far, while centrist, have been built on bi-partisan cooperation where possible, and he's been as hands off as possible regarding the political elements of the court cases against Trump. He's also been supportive of civil rights, and has rolled back a number of Trump's crueler policies.

The same cannot be said of Trump, nor will it be. You can actually boil it down to one definitive action: Dictators lock children in cages.

Trump qualifies under this definition, having been responsible for the detainment of over 500,000. Biden doesn't qualify under this definition, nor any other. At worst, he's a middling centrist who is most concerned with keeping the country running, as a President should be.

As to the legitimacy of America's electoral process, I absolutely agree that it needs to be reinforced, but I don't believe that there was any substantial fraud in the 2020 election.

I would ideally like to see all voting machines require paper trails, and have universal mail-in voting, as it's been a resounding success in OR and CA. I would also like to see a restructuring of the electoral college that more accurately reflects the popular vote while still allowing rural areas to have a significant voice - after all, urban needs can easily override rural ones to the detriment of all citizens. In a perfect world, that balance would also be properly reflected in Senate seats, to more properly represent the country as a whole.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Was Obama a dictator?

Clearly not from the context of the article you provided, as they describe how the cages were part of an expansion to a larger facility that corrected a worse detention situation at the border, where there was no air conditioning. Do I think this was a humane design choice? No, but it was an improvement. At the time they were built, family separation wasn't performed except in extreme circumstances. Nor do I think that Obama was personally involved in the design decisions.

Trump undid that policy, and filled the cages that Obama built. Family separation was the point. And again and again he bragged about it. He was personally involved in the decision, and lauded it.

The Biden administration is still detaining children, but they've drastically reduced the number (see the graph on the article provided), and no longer enforces family separation to my knowledge. More work needs to be done here, I agree, but ignoring the scope to say both he and Trump are the same is lazy thinking.

From a purely leftist standpoint (far left in the US), you're right - the electoral process and two party system as they currently exist will never allow a true progressive to set policy, and we're stuck in a cycle of choosing between bad and worse. It's my hope ranked choice voting starts getting some real traction as a counter, but I'm not holding my breath.

So why should you care?

Because in a choice between bad and worse, if you don't vote, you end up with worse.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

It matters as a gauge of popular support and perceived legitimacy of the President, which affects their ability to get legislation passed. You'll note I didn't argue for a pure majority vote, but rather an adjustment to the system to make it more representative.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Hmm... seems a bit late to bring this report forward.... makes me wonder if it was stored in the same place as the GOP replacement plan for Obamacare and their policy platform, which has been missing for the last 7 years.

Arotrios , 10 months ago

This is poetry:

Trump
is gonna own you libs
this time just
you wait

Our 4D chess GOD
has sat on this report
for years

He could have released it
right after the election
but you fools just don't
see the whole board
like
he
does!

This is the perfect
time for it
so he can watch you
dummies seethe in rage
and
take back the country

I'm so happy to be
one of the God Emperor's
Chosen, I've donated all
I can
to his fund

and you should
too

-Uncle Magafash

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Per the article, this is part of an organized effort on the part of formerly respected institutions on the right to actively push a racist agenda. Our star villain in this case is the Claremont Institute:

Last week, the New Republic published a lengthy and terrifying investigative article by Katherine Stewart about the Claremont Institute, once a vaguely respectable conservative think tank and now among the leading right-wing organizations pushing the anti-education and anti-democratic agenda below the surface of the Conroe incident. One of the many Claremont alumni Stewart profiles is Christopher Rufo, who spearheaded the recent hysteria over "critical race theory" in education. In reality, critical race theory was an approach used in law schools and other graduate-level academic spaces, and had basically nothing to do with public schools. Rufo's ingenious idea was to turn it into a catch-all scare term that could be used to demonize any and all forms of anti-racist education, even something as previously noncontroversial as a poster depicting interracial friendship.

Here's the more detailed article on Claremont from the New Republic. Excerpt below:

The saga of the Claremont Institute in the Trump years is readily told as one of moral collapse. Once upon a time, the men of the Claremont Institute (they are almost all men; more on that in a moment) idolized George Washington for his “prudence” and “civility.” From its founding up through the Obama years, the institute was certainly situated on the right, but it was not, or did not seem to be, conspicuous for its extremism. It was probably best known for publishing the Claremont Review of Books, which was sized and laid out to resemble The New York Review of Books, as if to suggest that it was in direct competition with its more established and exalted Manhattan counterpart.

But in 2015–16, the Claremont men threw their support behind the man who descended that golden escalator with a mouthful of hateful rhetoric. In an earlier time, they defended intellectual rigor against the alleged relativism of contemporary academic culture. But now they provide a platform for white nationalists, racist “replacement” theorists, and the Pizzagate man. Nate Hochman, the erstwhile DeSantis staffer who was fired after he reportedly created and distributed a campaign video featuring Nazi imagery in July, is a former Claremont Institute Publius Fellow (2021). ”Most haunting of all—they once hailed the United States as “the best regime in Western civilization.” But in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat in 2020, Claremont board member John Eastman was instrumental in the plot to recruit fake electors and overturn the election—and the men of Claremont rose to his defense. Eastman currently faces potential disbarment in California and appears to be a person of interest in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations. Yet Claremont board member and founder Christopher Flannery has called John Eastman a “hero” and has asked us instead to condemn “the Stalinist machine” (meaning U.S. federal law enforcement) for persecuting him. Eastman was the unidentified (and uncharged) co-conspirator 2 in the August 1 indictment of Trump over his January 6 actions. (Claremont did not respond to emails from The New Republic asking if the institution endorsed Eastman’s behavior on this matter, in addition to some other issues addressed in this piece.)

The Claremont Institute’s seeming embrace of political violence against the government of the United States is not limited to Eastman’s efforts to whip up the mob that gathered at the Ellipse in preparation for the assault on the Capitol, nor can it be excused as mere metaphorical excess in the war of ideas. “Given the promise of tyranny, conservative intellectuals must openly ally with the AR-15 crowd,” argues author Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale College, in a lengthy book excerpt published in Claremont’s online magazine, The American Mind. “Able-bodied men, no longer isolated, are returning to republican manliness in a culture of physical fitness and responsible weaponry. They are buying AR-15s and Glock 17s and training with their friends, not FBI-infiltrated militias or online strangers but trustworthy lifelong friends to build a community alongside.”

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Lmao - gotta say it's creative. There are trolls on my ban list that could use a multi-century sentence.

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Aaaaaand it's back as of 8:52 PST

Arotrios , 10 months ago

This is why when a social media site gets past a certain size, the admin team and the moderation need to be clearly defined, and siloed from each other's core responsibilities, so the admin team focuses on running the site and the mod team focuses on making it sing.

Looks like the people actually moderating clearly had a handle on the situation. The admin was clearly overworked and didn't agree with the direction the community was taking, and made a quick decision that was poorly thought out.

The reason admins are admins is because they're good at running machines. You can turn a machine off if it's broken, and change how it runs with the flip of a switch.

A community requires a much different approach, and never, no matter how wise the decision, reacts well to being told how to act. It takes a different skill set to properly moderate and run a community than it does to run a server - in fact most admins I know make notoriously bad moderators (myself included, although I'm no longer an admin).

To be honest, the admin here is acting exactly like your stereotypical libertarian tech-bro computer guy who pays lip service to the left while pocketing the more palatable pieces of the philosophy of the right. I've worked with a lot of them in tech. LGBTQ+ is hard stretch for these guys in general - they'll declare gays have rights but won't march in Pride, use slurs when in like company, and generally see LGBTQ+ as a lifestyle choice and not an inescapable biological state of being.

They don't understand that it's not a switch you can flick on and off.

Just glad I'm on the Fediverse where this particular admin's meltdown doesn't matter too much, but I have a feeling Squabblr's fate is going to be the same as Voat (which was cool for about two weeks before the alt-right overran it).

Arotrios OP , 10 months ago

Now you know how Ivanka feels...

Arotrios , 10 months ago

Serious question for the authors reading this - if there was a non-exclusive Fediverse e-commerce alternative to self-publishing on Amazon (including print on demand), would you use it?

Second question - what features would you like to see to make it fly? Dream big here - I'd love to hear all your ideas.

Third question - besides the topic of the article above, what does Amazon do wrong for authors? I've got a fair idea, but I really want to hear your thoughts and personal experiences.