I agree their censorship is too high in China, though, but I think it’s a result of siege theory.

Buddy, fuck right the hell off. The USA is not the only country with free media. Small countries do it too. Al Jazeera is quartered in Qatar, and is critical of both the USA and China. China enacts the Great Firewall because they’re power-hungry, not because they want to fucking stay safe, and they are not in any regard a third world country.

Split semantics on exact wording if you’d like. A better word might be “solely”. The Nazi party collected anyone of a variety of demographics they didn’t like, including foreigners, LGBT, physically/mentally disabled, scholars, etc.

I’ve seen images and footage put out by journalists. I’m just not bothered to re-locate them for the sake of a tankie.

The US brings up its own horrible events all the time.

I learned about The Trail of Tears, the era of segregation, and of the KKK in my history class in America. We make conscious efforts to be aware of and criticize our own faults - as well as those of other nations.

There is currently LOTS of criticism of the US government for its participation in the massacre in Palestine. Claiming otherwise is lying. China is relatively unique in that it has committed atrocities, and refuses to allow anyone in its own country to acknowledge them. Both countries have done bad things. One country recognizes those facts and attempts to learn from them.

Since the steps for Palestinian genocide started before Oct 7, and the IDF has been okay with killing their own hostages in high-yield strikes, not likely.

This is the bit that I’ve had a hard time with. And, to put it in less snide allegorical terms: Israel is in many ways the “invader”. They took land, took homes, that weren’t theirs. That invasion has been justified through massive harm to their people, and the need for a “safe space” they can call their own. But while that’s the in-person justification by individuals, the backroom justification used to ship the weapons is achieving a “Western presence” in the middle east.

Something the Jewish community might not get is: They’re not the only group that’s been targeted for hate throughout history. The holocaust didn’t even specifically target jews. We don’t get to make a “Transgender state”, or a “Black American state”, and especially not displace others for that. In some ways the world needs to accept that, whether by 10 miles or 100, we’ll still be neighbors on this planet and not totally unreachable. Set that distance, and it means you only get boiling points like 9/11 rather than shots fired in a neighborhood.

how do i europe

I only have cursory knowledge of this incident, but: It’s possible that was the right outcome. A lot of middle managers do some heinous shit, and then report only positive news to upper management with a “Don’t worry about it” attitude.

We all know there’s also evil CEOs in the world as well, but maybe the investigation found this wasn’t one of them. 'Course, maybe they were just better at keeping plausible deniability.

Much as Bernie will definitely continue to be the face of the movement, I have doubts he has many years left for politics. We’re in need of new faces for that same initiative.

I’m confident AOC could raise an impressive amount of campaigning money as a single senator. But, impressive enough to account for an entire party, taking seats in thousands of positions across hundreds of local districts? Much as I’d like it, I don’t see how it can happen.

I’d also like it if campaign money wasn’t necessary, but 99% of America doesn’t actively follow politics; it’s needed to bring it to their doorstep. We’ve been covering the gap in things like Elon Musk’s campaign funds via a lot of volunteer work, but that can only go so far.

Some context:

• https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36e41dx425o
• https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/02/how-border-apprehensions-ice-arrests-and-deportations-have-changed-under-trump/
• https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/3266633/biden-did-not-abolish-ice-not-problem-democratic-party/

The basic idea is, while Trump aims for very visible rhetoric to inflame his racist base, ICE’s presence has still gone up regardless of which president is taking the chair. In fact, Biden beat Trump’s deportation numbers (and I’m sure given his ego, he aims to inflate that further, and finds due process one of his obstacles).

One thing that can be said is that when ICE has been in the news, it was never visibly aiming for cruelty under Democratic presidents. But that’s also only accounting for the cases that we know about. And, the last article points out how even through a full term, Biden not only failed to address the growing worries of cruel behavior within ICE, but built them a new quarter-billion-dollar headquarters.

I mean, you have to go where the evidence takes you, even if you don’t like the results. The best thing you could perhaps say about Biden or Obama, was simply that any of their direct participation in border patrol activities followed rule of law.

Generally, CBP/ICE has stayed above much direct scrutiny or supervision, and if an individual doesn’t have reporters, lawyers, or family asking after them (sometimes even then) a lot can be hidden even from administration.

It’s very likely Trump did not do much to “push” ICE’s behavior, he just enabled them, and they reward him by threatening his direct opponents.

What might be scary is if America’s Auschwitz moment is revealed to be completely independent of administration. We’ve already heard many stories about ICE during each presidency, just that many details were hidden or unconfirmed.

It was the same way at the end of WW2. Even many Germans were aghast at what they’d been doing at the camps.

I remember the game Bully extended this take. The main character has no beef with the nerds, and helps them, but they still extend their victim complex to him and antagonize him.

Basically, it’s a problem with using the generalized word “people” in statements like that.

I’m going to warn you: There’s a lot that ICE and the administration have gotten away with because of people claiming “No way. Their actions would be too ridiculous if that’s what it was. There must be more to it.”

What we knew already even before scarce details emerged:

• Judges are extremely slow to take deliberate actions, to affirm their position as a fair arbiter that gives all sides chances to respond
• ICE has scarcely ever provided sufficient evidence for many of their arrests, including most of the high-profile ones
• The immigrants involved in this crime showed no indications of being violent or dangerous (even though ICE claimed they were)

So no, I don’t think ICE can be given benefit of doubt in this case. Every officer involved with this one can be arrested - and they can provide their argument when they go on trial.

I’m imagining something like being able to go to a lawyer, or journalist’s office - somewhere they’d have established notaries, and show them a driver’s license or other notable documentation. They wouldn’t be granted rights to record that information permanently, but would grant a cryptographic signature sourced from their office to express that their office has seen them.

This would rely on professional trust - that the people you show your info to will not record it; and, that if they for some reason have to, they won’t turn it over to warrants. By the same token, they’d be trusted that they’re not inventing people from thin air.

You’re right that someone engaging online long enough could be exposed. That would then rely on any effective “Right to be forgotten” laws to erase unnecessary data.

This is the one thing I hoped for out of crypto/blockchain.

You, commenter, don’t need to know that I’m “Brian Brianson, a citizen living at 123 Abenue Avenue”. But, it’s good to know that the person commenting is a real person who has been seen and verified by someone, as a simple true/false flag. If there were good ways of verifying basic conditions of people you interact with online, without exposing personal details, then it could curb botnet opinionation as well as be useful for a lot of things.

Politics is a form of negotiation with other elements of leadership to make a nation’s major policy decisions.

Musk, you never DID get involved in politics. You hired a private army and got involved in criminal intimidation.

It’d be very curious if there was literally no country on the planet that permitted him entry. I was about to say Russia, but he’s only been useful as a pawn in the US to them.

I have heard that Obama supports breathing.