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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   24567 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

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In my personal opinion, I think that’s stupid. If you could wave some Polaroids around and coerce Congress, why would you bother spending all the money?

Better yet. Scott gave an example of AIPAC deploying its money to win an election. Can you give me one where they did the same with their magical kid-diddling blackmail?

But I think we’ve had this argument before.

In my personal opinion, I think that’s stupid. If you could wave some Polaroids around and coerce Congress, why would you bother spending all the money?

Regardless of anything else having to do with this conversation, there is absolutely no reason that anyone should have to explain to you that these options aren't mutually exclusive.

Of course not.

I still wanted to know how it worked in his model.

If you could wave some Polaroids around and coerce Congress, why would you bother spending all the money?

I would assume to create a narrative. Not every elite is an amoral monster, but enough of them are that internal and external pressure could convince the exceptions to vote their way. Why do you think that is stupid?.

Better yet. Scott gave an example of AIPAC deploying its money to win an election. Can you give me one where they did the same with their magical kid-diddling blackmail?

in my opinion, that they have blackmail and use it, wouldn't prevent them from also using money to create the aforementioned narratives. Why limit yourself to only one method or avenue of attack?

If money is doing most or all of the work, then it can be done without Epstein, can’t it?

wouldn't prevent them from also using money

Oh, so it’s unfalsifiable, too.

1.- I never said money is doing most of the work

2.- it's the logical thing to do, you just don't put all your eggs in one basket. And we won't know the truth of the matter because nobody that matters want it to be known.

EDIT.- Just so we are in the same page, my priors are:

a.- majority of politicians are amoral monsters, from Trump all the way to your local representative, passing through AOC and Bernie
b.- there is a VERY small minority of politicians that are upstanding that would be impossible to blackmail.
c.- The government of Israel employed Epstein to obtain blackmail material from politicians, so that it could coerce them for support or to get them to convince dissident politicians.
d.- c is logical for a nation state to do in the position Israel finds itself in, and were I in their shoes would do that and more.
e.- The state of Israel also employs groups as AIPAC to create external pressure on dissident politicians as another venue of attack.
f.- we will never know the truth about the Epstein affair because the people that could uncover it is also people involved in it or someone related to the is.

In my opinion, Congress is actually controlled by the adhesives industry. They create a lot of products that are presumably nasty, yet you never hear about an executive from Loctite or JB Weld being dragged in front of a congressional subcommittee. I have no evidence of this but it isn't implausible that this is why they keep such a low profile.

You can have my 243 and 638 when you apply the appropriate solvent and then pull them from my cancer-ridden hands.

Apparently Henkel (the Loctite owner) has been involved in some PFAS/forever chemical stuff.

I'm sure they were, but nobody knows who Henkel is, and the largest adhesives manufacturer, 3M, is known to most people for making office supplies and dust masks. They're part of the chemical industry, but they don't get the same bad rap as companies like DuPont and Monsanto.

my vote would be more for the Teflon industry, scary stuff that.

But what can you do? No one can make anything stick.

The parallel construction theory of political bribery. Seems potentially plausible.

and if you are a people that historically suffered a great deal at the hands of others, I don't see how morality or legality would play a role in your decisions to use measures to prevent it from happening again. Never again and all that.

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