domain:kvetch.substack.com
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
22hr ago
One man's trash.
That is what initially attracted to me to this space and why I was very excited about it. I'm just sad to slowly watch it turn from a rat adjacent discussion forum into more of a bog standard Tucker Carlson talking point partisan space. Maybe not in all the comments (yet), but the votes are there to turn it into an echo chamber once all the non-conformists are driven off. A right wing "Shit post" even one that catches a mod ban, will get 30 upvotes while a well thought out slightly to the left posing will usually be in the negative. The writing is on the wall and I'm unsure as to why I'm fighting against it.
TowardsPanna
5hr ago
Openly launching multiple criminal trials against a political opponent leading up to an election is something even Putin hasn't done.
Wrong on both counts. Putin does worse things. And you say this like Trump is some innocent victim and not a complete lying scumbag who tried to end your democracy.
Well that is a pretty uncharitable way to put things. I'm to the right of most of my social circle but I'm to the left of whatever this place is turning into. People just get sick of getting downvoted and unable to post in real time, eventually they say something rude and get banned or they say "fuck it" and leave.
When the conversation turns to being worried about trump picking his VP based on possible assassination, putting guns in holes as a generational family gun stash in your back yard, "powers that be" conspiring to eliminate people like you, heavily downvoting someone pointing out having sex with blackout drunk people is probably wrong, being afraid to leave your red state for fear of being locked up for defending yourself, practicing religion harder being the only answer to societal ills, women only being truly happy barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen....I mean the parody starts to write itself at some point.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
18hr ago
Yeah I've been around this particular weird space since 2013ish so 2 years ain't a lot. The fact that I can see an admin amongst the posters from your example is not a point in the favor of this argument.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
20hr ago
I don't want left leaning posts. I want rational posts!!!! I want hot takes on current events from a reasonable and objective body of smart people. Not this partisan shit. It just makes me upset and mad at what it could have been, and what it has been when in full form. I occasionally have been able to come on here and the former sub for some of the smartest and most informative information available anywhere on the planet.
Maybe the news is too slow now and it is impacting the quality of the posts, maybe it is ideological drift or capture, all I know is I'm not getting the discourse I would expect from a forum that perhaps I saw as a more august body than it was.
Skibboleth
19hr ago
Because I don't really see "not talk about the ruling class" as an acceptable answer to that question
You could just be specific. I'm not suggesting you need a comprehensive list of every single person involved, but you should be able to provide some key identifiable institutions or people. It is extremely relevant who they are because you cannot possibly draw useful conclusions about them otherwise. A nebulous "they" has no interests.
These demands for specificity displace the object level debate into another debate about the true nature of the ruling class, in which dissidents usually disagree with each other, and thus serves the interests of the ruling class by keeping opponents divided. Since that rhetoric serves an interest, I find it suspect.
All rhetoric serves an interest. Vagueness makes it impossible to interrogate claims or simply obfuscate their absurdity. The motives of the "powers that be" to assassinate Trump are not something anyone can examine because there is no clear reference.
Of course, the real answer to all this is that the "ruling class" is a fiction - the people and organizations that wield power are fragmented and frequently at odds.
Well it is make believe to start. How would you react to being asked why the 3 little pigs were a not solution to societal ills?
Also the countries that have tried that are all total shitholes. Been to a theocracy lately? Not great.
2rafa
1hr ago
Could you not just manipulate vote totals so they go +20 when they fall too far below 0.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
1hr ago
Speaking of magical thinking. To quote Who's Line is it Anyway? "Everything's made up and the points don't matter". Debt is just a human construct. When you see people wax on about there being 200 trillion in ghost credit default swaps ready to doom the world economy when a butterfly in China's housing market flaps its wings it is hard not to just dismiss it all out of hand. MMT is, I think, a result of some institutions evolving to understand and use this concept. If we have the raw resources and the might to decide how they get divvied up, the rest is just semantics.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
19hr ago
Deleted post, what happened here?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
19hr ago
And the Deep South sucks ass. Alcoholism, teen pregnancy…
Correlation isn’t causation.
AhhhTheFrench
We will sell no wine before its time
19hr ago
I've never posted ironically. I stand behind every post I've made. Unlike those of you who hide their posting history.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21hr ago
Every other President post Nixon, you mean. Since the Presidential Records Act was passed specifically to keep him from holding on to stuff.
The best comparison is probably Biden or Pence. In both cases, they got ahead of the search warrants and basically bent over for NARA. No valet testimonies or partial handovers. I think that has a lot to do with it.
Reagan is another possibility. Apparently he was allowed to keep diaries, but I can’t find the relevant part in the Hur report.
Ditto6687
9hr ago
What makes it a gulag instead of a prison? How are American jails different?
If they locked up Trump, would you refer to American prisons as "gulag"?
Celestial-body-NOS
🟦 For more information please reread this post
12hr ago
Openly launching multiple criminal trials against a political opponent leading up to an election
What should a 'normal democratic leader' do if a political opponent appears to to have committed multiple crimes leading up to an election?
OvenToaster
15hr ago
I agree that this would be really, really bad.
But I dont see any reason to believe its true beyond wanting to believe its true.
Julie Kelly does not justify her assertion.
stav
18hr ago
A lot of powerful people are pro-Trump so it’s effectively meaningless. There’s also a lot of powerful people who may hate Trump but prefer him to any Democrat.
hydroacetylene
20hr ago
On the other hand, it’s iirc a tactic kagame has used to remain in power, and Orbán, erdogan, etc could very plausibly do something similar.
laxam
21hr ago
I'm more than happy to complain about Leftists and their 'liberal' fellow travelers and useful idiots, does that count?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21hr ago
Oh, another NY case. Is this the one where he was inflating penthouse sizes?
I don’t know anything about fraud judgments, but I’m willing to believe the judge based that penalty on Trump’s politics.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21hr ago
True. I was thinking of Thug Shaker Central guy: low level military.
A better natural comparison is Biden, who had 25-30 documents around his house and office. The report on him concluded with a Hillary-worthy lack of “why, how or whom.” Why didn’t Trump get that benefit of the doubt?
- They’re confident in the why, how, and whom.
- He’s being punished for non-cooperation with NARA.
- He’s being punished as a proxy for other unprovable crimes, like using RICO against mobsters.
- He’s being harassed for personal distaste.
- He’s being harassed to keep him out of office.
I’d say 2-5 could count as lawfare, but most people using that term mean something more like 4 or 5.
1 is almost certainly true. Look how much the warrant focuses on specific people. They were definitely more confident in who was actually handling the boxes and giving the orders.
Same for 2. I have to stress—NARA did have reason to believe Trump was holding out on them. Biden’s team bent over backwards to avoid that.
3 is implausible; it’s not like there’s a lack of other cases to use. Including actual RICO charges.
4 and 5 are more credible. I’d be very surprised if people on these teams didn’t dislike the man or even think he’s a danger to the country. Enough to fabricate their entire job (e.g. planting classified docs)? Probably not. Enough to push when they wouldn’t for anyone else? Much more likely.
In short, I think there are a lot of reasons. The ones which I find most likely are the least “lawfare” of the bunch.
Spicy stuff somedude! That Huxley line was gold, I just had a hearty chuckle re-reading it, -20 just proved my point. If I'm not wrong you've also just overstepped somewhat and there is a modpost incoming.
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