I agree that you may need a violent revolution but it is on a case by case basis.

I'm referring more to being Machiavellian politically. Franklin Roosevelt is the one I think more, who is able to make significant and lasting changes while operating along the system. In fact, he reshaped the system!

That's good. The left and Democrats have been criticised for being "bleeding heart" and has constantly been up ended by the right. You can't always be on the high horse when the opponent is playing dirty and not following the rules. Sometimes, it's perfectly fine to dip your hands into the mud once in a while.

My scientific brain would think those other possibilities.

Or someone slapped their cock onto the pizza.

You're right. The Aussies lost to emus after all!

Not defending the person you replied to, but the VP still has behind-closed-doors influence on the sitting president. Pretty sure Biden influenced Obama to support gay marriage, when the latter was iffy because much of the public was still homophobic in the '00s to early '10s.

The person you replied to said "subsidized", which implies what you just explained. The US military provides support to movies and TVs. However, it would be naive to think that the military still doesn't try to influence the production. It's been a long time since I have listened to it but there was a podcast mentioning "Zero Dark Thirty" having influence from the CIA; and the movie is about justifying torture to get results for "the greater good". This is in spite of the report commissioned during the Obama era that torture never yielded any significant results.

John Adams is the first American president to make unpopular decision and did not let ego rule him, despite losing him the election. Americans were baying for blood to go to war against the French in 1799 but Adams refused, knowing that America will lose if he declared war. It cost him his re-election, but he did the right thing.

Edit: wrong year

Going against the grain is tough. As long as no one is hurt, you and I don't care for not conforming. But the reality is that others don't care what we care, and relish in putting down those who do not conform. But as Albert Camus said: "if you can't win, resist."

*60 hours a week

Laughs in European

Mate, stop with the coping and repeating the same drivel of "read theory" because communists can't think for themselves. The theory is nil when the empirical evidence is there. Communism fell. USSR fell when the constituent states seceded. The former Eastern European elected to form their own independence. China is communist in name only. Cuba is as you said-- subsisting-- as a result they cannot maintain their buildings and many historical buildings are deteriorating. Many Cubans earn more money as taxi drivers than doctors!

More people risked crossing the wall and borders being shot and crossing the sea to flee from communist countries, than people from capitalist countries to communist states.

You're trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US?

Oh the strawman, the refuge of those who are-- well-- grasping for straws. I never said anything about the US. But sure, do so and ignore the other capitalist countries whose citizens could easily buy more cars and in an instant, such as UK, France, Japan, South Korea and Italy. And those countries are known for car manufacturing.

But sure go ahead, keep coping with the drivel that scarcity economy in communist states is by design when it is just a cover that communist countries are, in fact, experiencing chronic food, consumer and commodity shortages because of voodoo economics they practice. Lol, "scarcity by design" is the funniest cope I have seen from tankies. Tell that to the people who died from Holodomor, famine in China, and from Lysenko's agricultural bonkers of a science. Even China abandoned communism wholesale and Cuba finally acknowledged that the "market is a fact of life" and allowed greater degree of economic liberalisation into their constitution.

Dream on bud. Communism will work any minute now despite contrary to empirical evidence that it is plain as day for the eyes to see. See with your eyes for yourself, instead of spouting what you call "theory" with your script like an non-thinking NPC.

Thank you for showing us that you've never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you're just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda.

The standard communist thought terminating response "you haven't the theory, so you don't know what you're talking about and shut up". That maybe the case, but that is irrelevant. Which system is still standing as we speak? Even China is communist in name only and is a state capitalist with rapid increasing number of billionaires than the United States in the past couple of years.

Rationing and breadlines still happened for more years as opposed to free market economy, man. It's not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are. It is well known how Soviets had to wait seven to ten years just to buy a car. There is scarcity economy because the system is not great, with prices of everything controlled by the state, which is contrary to the realities of market supply and demand. If communism is great, it wouldn't have fell. And the remaining "communist" countries are only as such in name only.

Sure, it's an effective system to develop patience waiting in line for hours and perfecting rationing.

There was zero employment at the expense of national budget. People are paid regardless of productivity. And even then, productivity is questionable given the restrictive period plans whereby workers and managers are under pressure to meet quotas, and resort to distorting statistics and figures to appease the party apparatchiks, or else they get punished in euphemistic term. Who knows if there was actual more abundance in certain goods and commodities in Soviet Union.

Reddit and even Lemmy is notorious for this.

Trump this, Trump that. Trump is a pedophile. Trump has 34 felonies. Trump had sex with a pornstar. Trump called veterans losers.

Does that all matter when Trump is still polling among the American working class who felt left out from globalisation and had to compete for underfunded and limited infrastructures and resources with immigrants, who themselves are also trying to get better lives as the American working class?

Not one from these articles mention why Trump still has support: it's because those from the Rust Belt, whose jobs were outsourced, literally have nothing left to lose. They are pinning their hopes to a conman who says things that disenfranchised salt-of-the-earth wants to hear. But most of the media do not mention this. Instead, they paint these disenfranchised people as racists and ignorant. Sure, some of them are, but people who feel insecure become desperate cling to any lifeline-- even coming from a devil. So the people are tricked to vote against their own interests. But the media never mentions this. Why? Because they themselves are part of the elites who have their own economic stake. They have houses now worth ten times than what they initially bought them for, and they don't want someone further left to be elected to alleviate the housing crisis. That's why Bernie Sanders was never given a chance by the liberal Democratic Party.

And imo, and this is a hard to swallow pill, is that even normal middle class is complicit to growing right wing movement for not acknowledging the economic anxiety and disenfranchisement of the working class with constant and endemic NIMBY-ism. "Oh those poor homeless people. I want affordable housing for them but I don't want them built close to my neighbourhood because it will depreciate the value of my property." I admit, I am guilty of it. I should join protests and show solidarity with the working class but I haven't joined any in my life.

Excuse me for the rant but the corporate media is definitely trying to hoodwink the public by not mentioning the actual cause of rise of racism and bigotry, and the public is none the wiser because their only source of information is from the same corporate media who do not tell them that housing and job insecurity is what made Trump and far-right in Europe gaining votes. Here in Europe, the media and politicians acknowledge the issue of immigration and stating it's important to separate the genuine racists from those with "genuine concerns". Jeez, what might those be genuine concerns, I wonder? Is it lack of jobs and housing? How come the media and politicians never say what those actual genuine concerns are?

You can call Trump, Le Pen, Sweden Democrats, Orban, PiS, Meloni etc. racists and fascists, but if people don't have jobs and housing, does the name-calling ever matters? Gee, how come people from Rust Belt, the de-indutrialised Northern France, England and Western Sweden voted for the far-right? And here comes the Principal Skinner meme moment: nah, they're ignorant and racists. Totally not because of decades long neoliberalism and austerity, despite UN report warning that lack of public investment fuels the far-right.

Does the proposed bill ensure American police get like three years training to become community-oriented and not a power tripping police officers?

Ironic isn't? The victims of fascism are now the fascists.

It's anecdotal but I was told that Americans (and Europeans) obsess on the happenings and circus at the federal level but much of it doesn't really affect the average Americans on the state level. Not sure how but my guess it's because states have their own laws and cultures which offsets some of the federal level shenanigans.

Chiang had to work with various warlords and bore most of the fight against the Japanese, while Mao gathered strength and let ROC to bleed itself. Even if ROC won and the CCP got destroyed, we don't know if factionalism and warlord-ism will emerge since ROC had been weakened severely. Or, in another alternative time, Chiang and KMT had somehow pulled a miracle, and somehow made the entirety of China industrialised as quickly as post-war Japan and never had to resort to dictatorship and hence had always been democratic after World War 2.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I am aware that some cultures are homophobic in spite of having little influence from Abrahamic religions; such as the case with East Asia. I omitted the latter because i couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I guess patriarchy is largely the major factor for homophobia. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I noticed that cultures that are less patriarchal and egalitarian are more tolerant to lgbt. These cultures are noticeably less sedentary. For example, Philippines recognise the gender "bakla" and Native Americans also recognise "two spirits", before European colonisation came.

The only reason Clarkson is still well liked is because he is funny and charismatic. But over all he is still an arch-conservative Tory jerk.

It's quite interesting that academics back then knew homosexuality and transgenderism are completely normal and not aberrations. Even Sigmund Freud also agreed.

It's just that society as a whole has been completely anti-lgbt. I always say it is the relic of homophobic teachings from Abrahamic religions. Ancient Greeks and Romans were completely fine with homosexuality until Christianity became enforced in Europe and elsewhere; then later Islam came along and did the same.