I misread the reply. Apologies, a lack of comprehension on my part. I agree with what they're saying.

Not what I meant, have another read.

Racism and a political miss step like the above, are not comparable.

One is a heinous immoral act that questions the very core of a persons ethical framework.

The other is at worst, stupidity or miscalculation.

Racism can never be an honest mistake.

I have not at any point justified Polanski's lie. Please don't put words in my mouth.

You want everyone to look at this article with zero overall context. To pretend that the media game isn't rigged and that its a level playing field.

I on the other hand encourage everyone to look at this for what it in all likelihood is. What the last 30 years of political history has shown us time and again. A stitch up of a pro workers rights candidate at a crucial voting moment. The manipulation is blatent to me because its happened so many times and will continue to happen well into tjr future.

Ask yourself, how many crises, how much rule breaking, how many illegal acts, how many scandals, did it take to break the Johnson government?

Contrastingly, Ed Miliband was character assassinated by a bacon sandwich.

I think it's possible you're not being entirely genuine, because you're obviously quite intelligent in the way you write. But your disregard of reasoned argument clashes with this fact.

I guess maybe that's where my naivety is; I struggle to imagine a person with such capability being so willfully blind to the obvious.

You've entirely missed my point.

Its all about proportion. The amount of criticism levied at different political entities is directly proportional to how right wing they are on end and how pro workers rights they are on the other. The more corporate they are the easier time they get.

And this makes sense. Why? Because corporations own most news and even public spaces like the BBC it has been stacked with cronies.

A rule for thee but not for me.

The media should be heavily regulated so that the news treats both sides equally. But it is not, we have subtle propagandist instruments that work through omission, distraction and rage bait.

Taken as a whole, corporate fascists get cake and blessings whilst anyone standing up for workers rights gets the stocks.

If you don't see this you're either naive and need to do a bit of reflecting on this, or you are not what you seem on first glance.

Which is it sir?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

Much like America's more usual approach, it's softer colonialism than what the Brits did.

The difference this time around though is the building of infrastructure. America didn't do as much of that during its rise or prime. That said, it's often just another way to get the nation indebted to China, it's not like they're building the projects for free and often enough the debt is more than the country in question's economy can handle.

Colonialism is colonialism afterall.

This method is built on political manoeuvring behind the scenes through intelligence assets and corruption with infrastructural incentives masking debt slavery out in the open.

Here's the list you asked for:

Angola, DRC, Zambia, Sudan, Mozambique, Gabon, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Pakistan Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Iraq and Iran.

Never encountered fake pot until Covid.

For some reason the increase in demand meant that the streets became filled with synthetic cannabinoid sprayed weed, pesticide sprayed weed and other adulterated products.

It definitely happened before, but it happens much more frequently now than it ever had in the past.

It happens for one reason and one reason only: to make more money. Whether thats to increase the grow weigh, the intensity of the high, the ability to spray it with synthetics after washing it for the real THC or the cheapness of spraying the plants with pesticides for bugs: all of it is to make more money without caring about the consumer.

Legalise it, regulate it, health and safety it.

That slight raise is arguably relatively normal-ish variation. It probably represents the problems with capitalist lack of social care and resources to some degree. But 99.99% of people are still eating.

It's still bad, it's still unacceptable, it's still ridiculous for a wealthy nation and shouldn't happen, but it's also not huge, it's a tiny fraction.

To parse the math, if it keeps rising that would be concerning. But look at the scale... that "3" That the USA reaches isn't percent. It represents circa 1 in 33,000 people which equates to about 10,000 people in the entire USA.

Whereas according to the same source, North Korea's famine produced at least 450 sufferers every 100,000. That, represented 1 in 222 people.

Weirdly this actually doesn't tally with a lot of other sources. So I'm left scratching my head about it somewhat. The above reference suggests only 100,000 people suffered from the famine in North Korea yet, the minimum other sources put as having died in said famine is 360,000 and the maximum of 2,000,000.

Am I missing something? This does not compute.

Edit: Ah the context I was missing was the famine occurred over multiple years. Each year was 420 per 100,000 or below out of 20 million.

I really would love Kurtzman to fuck the fuck off at this point.

He has never understood Star Trek at its core. The intricacies and nuances that never should have been messed with; and the superfluous excesses that could be. This is obvious in so many ways. But none more than how he has pushed the narrative in lazy directions repeatedly; yet consistently these were shown not to work. It took him the entire run of discovery to learn this lesson! And even then, never completely.

It has only been relatively recently, when the shows have embraced Trek's historical strengths in order to create a new vision, that shows have started to truly excel and grab both fans and public attention. But even then, there's a lack of bold vision and gut. These shows are timid when it comes to exploring ethics and philosophy in ways the 90s and 60s shows never were for their time.

For me, I think fundamentally it speaks to a dumbing down of story telling. It speaks to a lowest common denominator prioritisation by shown runners. It speaks to networks who never take chances.

With Kurtzman it has seemed that each iteration had a predictable path involving a big threat that must be extinguished by the end of season. High stakes with extreme predictability. Because of this prioritisation, so often it felt like the characters served the story, rather than the other way around. That's not how you get people to care for characters on a show.

Trek was never about this. Historical Trek was about exploring modern ethical dilemmas in a safe sci-fi environment first and foremost. Secondary to that it was about showing how human beings could exist in balance with each other and other species. We need this positive vision now more than ever and yet modern trek feels like a shadow of its former self. It feels too often like skin deep lip service. But, it is improving iteration to iteration.

So please Alex, fuck the fuck off and give some other splendid bastard a shot in the big chair. Unless Ellison intends to replace younwithba fascist. In which case I'm your biggest fan.

PS (and slight SFA spoilers): Did no one else briefly turn off starfleet academy after they tased Nus Braka, even though he was in court, unarmed and only mouthing off? I was outraged that SFA began in such a manner, it didn't serve the plot, and was wholly unnecessary and disporportionate. It made no sense in the context of the rest of the season.

SFA then ended with a slap and punch to Nus's face. The casual brutality bookended an otherwise great series. It was a baffling choice, unless it is viewed as being a means of desentising the audience to unnecessary violence from the state. Then it makes perfect sense. That, that is perhaps the thin end of the fascist wedge.

I dont mind the presence of these articles. I like to be in the know. I like the opportunity to engage in a constructive nuanced discussion that you can no longer find on Reddit, and can be found in abundance on Lemmy.

What effects me most is that, whether honest (human), not (bots) or covert (intelligence agencies), the defeatism, acceptance and obeyance in advance is the fundamental barrier to meaningful change. It catches, it spreads and it demoralises. It is the boot on our collective necks.

We need to be more mindful of spreading our nihilism to each other, unless we're happy being part of the problem. More solutions, more raising each other up, less wallowing.

How can any system of government be defined as democratic when that system concentrated power into a single party system? All the while suppressing dissent and suppressing civil liberties.

Democracy is defined as power ultimately residing with the people, either directly or through freely elected representatives. None of which the USSR had. It was a totalitarian dictatorship with power concentrated centrally through the politburo and a dictator sitting at the top of it all.

Did I also spot an apologist for the acts of the great purge elsewhere in this thread?

Also, your "meme" is based on the logical fallacy of false equivalency. Comparing a single aspect of two different systems of government, doesn't equate that either of them are better than the other. You've selectively chosen a single frame of reference that doesn't prove your argument in your "meme". It is a misleading and fallacious method of debate.