Today in Fascism

[Desert Hound]

The most insane part of the Trump catering cart story isn't that he hid in a food truck. It's that he used a plane full of reporters and staff as a decoy against a credible threat on his own life.

You should read up on Clinton and a trip to Pakistan where there was a threat and they put the journalists and everyone on the Presidential plane to land first. Clinton came in later on a smaller unmarked plane.

I know you like to get spoon fed your talking points....but what happened recently happens frequently.

You are either too ignorant to know that, or too partisan to admit it. Either way it isnt a good a look.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

You should read up on Clinton and a trip to Pakistan where there was a threat and they put the journalists and everyone on the Presidential plane to land first. Clinton came in later on a smaller unmarked plane.

I know you like to get spoon fed your talking points....but what happened recently happens frequently.

You are either too ignorant to know that, or too partisan to admit it. Either way it isnt a good a look.

That was wrong as well. You people are stuck in the mud.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

More evidence we need to move forward

Two thousand years ago, Rome's ruling class had a remarkably familiar way of talking about poor people.

The indebted were irresponsible. People demanding relief were dangerous. Politicians who appealed to ordinary citizens were demagogues. Redistributing land threatened property. Providing grain encouraged dependence.

And when the lower classes became angry enough to organize or protest, their anger wasn't treated as evidence that something might be structurally wrong.

Nope. They were a mob.

I've been reading Michael Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar, and one of the most fascinating parts isn't Caesar. It's how the Roman ruling class understood the people beneath them.

Cicero is particularly revealing. He didn't invent contempt for the poor, and I'm not claiming modern attitudes descended directly from him. What's fascinating is how little the argument has changed.

Rome had enormous wealth alongside enormous poverty, concentrated land ownership, chronic debt, and displaced farmers. Yet somehow the problem kept becoming the people demanding something.

Not concentrated wealth. Not exploitation. Not debt.

Apparently the real emergency was that poor people had become unpleasant about being poor.

And remember who wrote much of the history that survived.

Cicero left volumes.

The poor bastard hauling stones across Rome didn't.

Ruling classes don't merely possess disproportionate wealth. They possess a disproportionate ability to explain society to everyone else.

That language still sounds familiar.

Food assistance becomes "dependency." Debt relief becomes "rewarding irresponsibility." Workers are greedy. Tenants are entitled. Homeless people made bad choices.

But when wealth moves upward, everybody suddenly finds the thesaurus.

Corporate subsidies become "economic development." Tax breaks become "incentives." Bailouts become "stability."

The poor pursue their material interests and it's greed.

The wealthy pursue theirs and it's economics.

America isn't Rome. Two thousand years have changed a hell of a lot.

But societies with concentrated wealth keep producing remarkably similar explanations for why those with the least deserve their position and why interfering with those who have the most threatens "freedom."

Freedom for whom?

Empires disappear. Religions change. Humans split the atom and walk on the moon.

And somehow the guy with twelve houses is still explaining that the guy with none needs to learn personal responsibility.

 

[watfly]

That was wrong as well. You people are stuck in the mud.

What is wrong about it? Are you claiming that AF1 wasn't used as a decoy plane and that Clinton didn't fly on an unmarked plane? What's your source?

 

[Chelsea dad g09]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

 

[Hüsker Dü]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

You can cling to that if you wish but the reality doesn’t match what you are told. There’s a whole great big world out here full of great people wanting the best for America! Separation of corporate interests and state is on the agenda. Going back to a time before the corporate takeover and a more equitable system will make America great again.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Corporations should be once again a separate entity and not entwined in policy decisions. That and the government should NOT be taking stakes in companies like Trump is doing. You are being lied to by your sources. Branch out and look around. It’s an easy cop out to just say we can’t do that here. Don’t be lazy. Think! It’s the patriotic thing to do!