Nothing personal to you, but posts like this one might be one reason why so many places on the internet are echo chambers.

No explanation, no analysis, no factual data or source. So, if a person unfamiliar with the context (like me) stumbles across this post, the conversation is already over. It just looks like a bunch of tribal finger-pointing (in the sense that this “tribe” is right and another “tribe” is wrong).

Strange that you didn’t repost your source(s) here in this thread…

“So you have Tik Tok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza”

Funny how that works. Smashing the brain with Gaza, and the Epstein files, and ICE and heretofore unseen levels of financial corruption and on and on.

If the bar gets any lower, we’ll need to start digging.

I respect whoever who took this picture.

Sacrificed an opportunity to skedaddle and is no doubt now a legend to these guys. “Holy fuck, can’t believe you got that shot!”

Having been raised in the Bible Belt by boomer parents, I wonder if younger non-religious folks can wrap their head around the danger of this type of Christian Nationalism.

There is a not insignificant number of boomers cheering Trump on, not because they think he’s a great president, but because they think we are in “end times”. And here’s the crazy part - these were once good, moral people. Or at least, they thought they were. They went to church and gave to charities and voted Republican. Pro-life, pro-America, how could they go wrong?

Christian conservative boomers ARE a death cult.

This is a generation that suffered through some of the most intense propaganda known to man. They used to have drills for nuclear attacks, the same way schools have active shooter drills in this day and age. Can you imagine how a child might feel, being told that they need to prepare to be vaporized? Practicing for it? That shit left a permanent mark, and boomers aren’t the type to work through their feelings in therapy. They carried that shit with them every day through the turn of a new millennia and the load got heavier every day.

Now it’s 70 years later and the world is still turning. Boomers are tired. They’ve seen a lot in their lifetimes, and it’s all turned to shit. In their minds, it’s time for a reset of humanity anyway. When they were 40 or 50, they still had a bit of hope left. They wanted to see the grandkids grow up, leave a better world.

All of that is gone now. They feel nothing but disgust for humanity. They don’t give a fuck if the button is pushed. It’s written in the Bible anyway. What a way to go out, right? And if Trump gets a terminal medical condition, it’s all over. He’ll make himself unforgettable in history. The first president to order a full-scale nuclear war. Armageddon. End times. He’ll be worshipped like Hitler and Jesus and Regan all rolled into one. Everyone’s hero.

I find it difficult to believe that all these concentration camps were built to hold immigrants. My guess is that political dissidents will be joining them soon. Midterms? 2028? Flip a coin, but count on it.

I think there’s room for both.

Assembling even a dozen like-minded people for a coordinated protest is out of reach for most folks. What usually ends up happening is that a huge protest happens and everyone goes and then most of them are finished. They did their part.

The big protest ends up being a performative event, for both the protesters and the administration/police. The big protests usually happen on a weekend, so that everyone can attend. Usually in an urban area, where office and government buildings are closed on that day. So you end up with a downtown area packed with police and protesters and nobody else.

And even if you end up with a consistent, long-running, well attended protest, the chances are slim that it impacts anything. We did this for a year in Portland in 2020, and it made no difference. Maybe 25-50 people during the day would hold vigil over the park, watch other people’s belongings and just be present. They’d chat with passers-by and make new signs, etc. But when evening came, things would ramp up as people got off their day jobs and came to join the crowd. The crowd would balloon to 5 or 10 thousand people sometimes, but even if it was only 500 or so people, they still had nightly clashes with police. At least two people died that summer.

It. Meant. Nothing. No meaningful change was affected. The police chief and the DA ended up resigning, and there were a few minor policy changes around how to better handle civil unrest.

I’m wondering, though, if we had been in a wealthy residential neighborhood, would things have been different? Probably. But could we get all those people to a suburb? Being in the city center provided all of the momentum. The foot traffic and downtown rush hour, drawing people’s attention, that sort of thing. I don’t know if that sort of excitement could be generated outside the city?

So…those a bunch of meandering thoughts, thanks for coming to my TED talk. :)

Yes, protests can be inconvenient. Freedom is messy.

The people who view protesting as “anti-social” aren’t ever going to join your cause. They don’t care about freedom, they care about safety and security.

Speaking of horses, did you know that house flies and horse flies can look almost identical, but are different species?

The possum is not the same species as the opossum. A rabbit and a hare are different species. A buzzard and vulture are different species.

It’s all about DNA. If two bugs (or any organism) can mate and produce viable, fertile offspring - that’s a species. If they can’t, then they are different species.

“Did you like that video I sent you?”

“Are you kidding me?! I LOVE that you sent me that video!”

I’d feel the same way. And yet…it’s still effective.

“Why were you late?”

“Protesters.”

“What were they protesting?”

And just like that, the conversation has started.

I think you don’t even have to bump. Just turn on your hazard lights and start slowing down in the middle lane. In medium to heavy traffic, this should cause a standstill.

Relevant gif.

As long as APAIC is funneling money into US politicians, everything Israel does is tangential to US politics.

In the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC spent roughly $27 million, a figure that more than tripled to over $100 million for the 2024 cycle.

The US provided about $4 billion in aid to Israel.

We are right now engaged in a war - sorry, armed conflict - with Israel leading the charge.

So, yeah, have fun in your echo chamber where US politics is entirely divorced from the rest of the world.

More info here, but I can’t speak to the veracity of this source.

https://www.trtworld.com/article/938b226c9f43

Strook is a mother of eleven and a grandmother of twelve. In 2007, a Palestinian boy was found severely beaten and bleeding after escaping an alleged torture session.

It was later revealed that Zviki Strook and his friends had entered a Palestinian neighbourhood, captured a 15-year-old boy, handcuffed and beat him, stripped him, and allegedly hit him with an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) before leaving him tied up in a field. The victim escaped hours later, suffering from severe injuries.