That doesn't help you understand his supporters though. You have to wade in the shit they call news. You have to hear what they say to begin to understand them.
You're in a media bubble. It feels like there's no way anyone could see it differently. The people who disagree with you are also in a media bubble and don't understand how you could believe what you do.
For everything you said they
- don't believe happened
- think it was a deep state plot
- believe it's good actually and believing anything else means you want to kill babies or destroy the economy
- have never heard of it
Reality may have a leftist bias but most people don't live in reality. Most people live in a reality constructed by corporate media. Social media is largely derivative of it.
"I don't even know you. You're not the man I married 5 years ago."
China's energy grid is about 80% fossil fuels. Assuming their energy mixture remains unchanged (a bad assumption as their coal usage is on the decline) it would take about 65,000 miles for an EV's carbon output to break even with an equivalent ICE vehicle.
The waste and suffering involved in carbon intensive fuels is ongoing instead of being single event. One benefit of renewable tech is the recyclability of it's components. Once we're made the battery it can be recycled and died not require ongoing extractive mining forever.
EVs have a place in a just future and can do some good at this time. Alternatives to cars are still a far more important and uncomplicated solution to our climate problems
Direct action gets the goods
Basically.
For example, tens of thousands of people die every year in the US because of inadequate access to health care. Universal payer would be cheaper and result in fewer preventable deaths. Centrists do not support the policy and thus are willing to let people die in order to support the parasitic insurance industry.
The genocide in Gaza, homelessness, prison industrial complex, climate change, etc. all get people killed in preventable ways. But we have to protect the owner class so we're not going to do any of the clear solutions. Letting people die needlessly is an acceptable result.
I think it has to do with complete distrust in western news and government (WNG). They can discount anything WNG says; especially when, it goes against their belief that the US is bad.
I believe we live in the most sophisticated propaganda machine ever developed but the folks who are a part of it mostly don't lie. They've got the same problem the tankies have but reversed. The folks who work in WNG believe the US is good. They naturally distrust and minimize any info that would conflict with their beliefs.
There's a lot of cognitive dissonance.
The only way I can navigate my belief in the fundamental inaccuracy of information is acknowledging it and accepting I don't have enough info to be certain a lot of the time.
I think all bigotry can be used as a wedge to divide working people from their own interests. I wouldn't be surprised if Romani bigotry was used to control Europeans in the past. However, I think immigration is the most important wedge in the European context
Bike poggies are worth looking into to keep your hands warm. Studded tires can help with slipping too
Frequently the databases are impossible to properly search because the data being added is not normalized
Trees can explode actually 😅 Eucalyptus and Aspen trees are know to explode during bush fires.
They don't explode unbidden like you might assume given Trump's comment. He seems to do this a lot; he talks about something real, in a way that demonstrates he's garbage at communicating anything even remotely technical.
The real solutions is of course tending our forests to ensure there's not enough combustible material to cause dangerous fires. More resources for the forest service is essential. It makes me wonder if these gaffs are far more effective at directing our attention away from the substance of the problem with Trump
Most taxes on asset sale is based on profit, subtracting the bought price from the sold price. Given the wording the tax would be on the sale price, not the profit.
Lower Decks was my first star trek show. I've been enjoying The Next Generation so far. The first season was pretty bad. The second season was pretty good. The third season has been real good
Hard cases make bad law. Make sure the Nazi's rights weren't infringed 😬
I'm a lot less likely to report a crime after the George Floyd murder. Granted violent crime, like murder, tends to get reported regardless of a person's personal feelings about police, and reported murders are down
Mexico is a bad example IMO. The Zapatistas are right there. That's a pretty significant bit of territory the Mexican State has very little control over.
I like eco-dent I have some jagged spots on my teeth that most floss snags on. This stuff doesn't snag and it uses wax instead of forever chemical
Basically what the title says. I tend to lean anarchist but I'm not opposed to reading some Soviet sympathetic literature since I like to expand my horizons.
Edit: to be more specific. Parenti describes life in the Soviet Union as largely comfortable, perhaps too comfortable. People's needs are largely met. They have economic security. Most folks are quite skeptical of the news, "I know of all these disasters happening around the world but I don't know anything that's happening in my own country" and a general disbelief in the true news about the problems in capitalist countries. This results in a disatisfaction, particularly among the intelligencia and beauracracy, that results in the top down disollution of the USSR. From there he describes shock therapy and the deprevation that resulted.
How good is his research? How good are his sources? I believe quite strongly that we live in the most sophisticated propoganda machine ever devised. That makes me skeptical of a lot of the common narratives about the USSR but more than just the US is capable of lying and I'm curious how willing Parenti is to believe in obvious falsehood.
It should be noted he does criticize the USSR but at the end of the day believes in the project of state communism.