Tankies: “We need to distribute the essential levers of power (economic) amongst the workers!”

Sane Leftists: “Excellent! How are we going to do that in this particular case, now that we’ve gained control of the country?”

Tankies: “Putting all economic authority into the hands of state-appointed bureaucrats in a non-representative government that operates purely according to the desires of a small party clique in which the workers have no say, and jailing workers who disagree. Oh, and you.”

Maybe that’s what the corporate media says but AoC is popular in her district.

Don’t worry - as many on here will tell you, AoC is a corporate puppet and a sellout.

The rowboat, with you at the front working your cult following ass off:

“You’re the only ones trying to do anything about imminent disaster” is not the flex you think it is, lmao.

Go ahead and reply again putting words in my mouth and then write a couple paragraphs about how great of a person you are and how you’d never do anything so low.

lmao. I’m not a great person. I’m just not simping for murdering civilians, unlike you.

Venezuela’s current leaders are denying the results of a landslide election which they lost, despite massive interference with the opposition’s campaign. The leaders of Venezuela are now trying to arrest all the opposition figures they can and has promised to send them to prison camps.

Maduro et co, the ones in charge of Venezuela, are fascists pretending to be socialists.

Is a US citizen protected by the US armed forces if they chose to enter an active warzone as a non-combatant without the consent of the US government?

Doesn’t fucking matter. The US doesn’t look at national government forces killing American civilians neutrally in any circumstance - except, it seems, in the case of Israel. This isn’t some paramilitary or rebel group that killed an American civilian. This is literally the security forces of an ‘ally’.

It’ll be interesting to see how Al-Sadr et co shakes out in the power vacuum by the US withdrawal. And by interesting I mean ‘may you live in interesting times’ style interesting, not ‘this is a nice thing’ interesting.

Thank you! I just try to spread a little of my interests where I can! 🙏

HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point

Yeah, you can always count on them to brigade.

My current psychiatrist doesn’t want to prescribe me any stimulants because of the potential for abuse. For the record, I have no, uh, record of drug use. I don’t even fucking drink. I get the caution, but it’s deeply frustrating.

Yeah, it’s like… y’know, even at its most cynical, this is very much a welcome entry of positive trans visibility in mass media. “It was just an excuse to go on vacation”, well, alright? Good for Will Ferrell, I guess? If it ends up being a good film, what does that matter?

It’s okay to celebrate the small victories. Sometimes it’s what helps you carry on to the big ones.

Well, I apologize. It’s not the first time my aggressive tone has been… more hostile than it’s meant. I like to hammer points hard to ensure there’s no ‘way out’ of the counter-argument that could be brushed off, like ambiguity or a lack of severity, but the bitterness and sarcasm employed sometimes makes it sound accusatory towards the arguer and not the point, though that’s not how it’s meant.

I mean, more hostile than it’s meant towards someone I’m not trying to be hostile towards. Obviously I cut the brakes when I want to be hostile because I’m dealing with a fascist or like cretin.

Red-Brown alliance.

God, I can’t wait. Hopefully, at least a few months of peace before the midterms start going.

They really just pulled an uno reverse on the Stasi lmao

But the second there isn’t agreement, boom, a feeling of instant enemies.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t regard you as an enemy, and I can show receipts on the kind of vitriol I shower on people whom I actively dislike - it’s not like this. This was just a heated argument over an issue two people feel strongly about. They happen.

Man, if you feel I’m being vitriolic towards you, I can assure you, I don’t feel like you’re a bad person for holding the view that you do. You aren’t coming from a position of “Fascism is good, so Snowden is good”, you’re just denying what I see as a fairly plain interpretation of the events. I don’t think you’re a dipshit or a fascist like I think of some other people who’ve put forth bad arguments. I think you just hold a bad viewpoint on this particular issue. We all do sometimes.

I think that the issue of Snowden is a relatively important one. I do hold plenty of vitriol for Snowden, but he’s not here, in this conversation, so his feelings are a nonissue here even if you think they’re important. He’s not likely to be on Lemmy browsing neck-deep in a comment thread. He’ll live.

Yeah, I’m not here to discuss politics from the point of “How does the other person feel about my criticism of a third party whose behavior influences more people than you or I will ever even speak to?” but “Is this correct or incorrect? Is this moral or immoral? Is this a valid argument, or invalid?”

You feel emptier after having read someone criticize someone you’ve never met for choosing to flee to a fascist regime, support that fascist regime’s talking points during an ongoing genocide, and still get hailed as a hero by some corners of the internet?

I think you’re taking this altogether too personally.

You would have zero way of knowing what his exact situation was and where he could go, he had literal minutes to make his plan,

Minutes to make his plan.

Are you going to keep to this? Because I can give you quite the outline of Snowden’s actions leading up to him fleeing the country, and ‘minutes to make a plan’ is not included in that.

and I have no fucking clue what point you think you’re making by comparing a country he literally has no choice but to stay in, that everyone “falls out of windows” in all the time, to a country he could definitely leave, maybe make better, and had an idea how to escape from.

“He did something that was beneficial. This does not make him a good person. It does not make him brave. It certainly doesn’t make him wise. He’s a cowardly dipshit who is now supporting a fascist regime.”

Also man, your tone is incredibly condescending. And since you’re a mod, I’m just waiting for you to ban me everywhere you can.

I don’t ban people for disagreeing with me. And certainly not in any place they hadn’t broken the rules in.

You’re so far only convinced me that A) you think a lot about how much you despise Snowden, someone I’ve considered a hero for a decade

Yep, I reconsidered the issue in-depth after the Ukrainian War began.

B) you don’t respect me at all.

It’s the internet, man. You’re words on a screen putting forth shitty arguments. Tomorrow you may be putting forward good arguments; tomorrow you may be putting forth bad arguments. I take things as they come.