2024 US Presidential Election

[europeanatheist]

China: I have been there, I have many chinese colleagues resident in EU and I have one of my best friends from University that is married to a chinese wife, is an entrepreneur there and he is trying to move his company to Thailand or another country because he is starting to get asphyxiated by the level of control over there.
Yes indeed someone can say even in the west somebody is tracking our IP and know who is behind this screen while I post here, but if I write that my PM is an utter idiot and corrupted nothing happens to me, conversely you can wait some police to knock on your door in China asking you why you wrote such judgement, this is the difference among we and them

[Angrboda]

Ryan Burge, a scholar who studies religious trends in American life, recently observed that Southern Baptists were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats as recently as 2008. By 2022 the denomination was 75 percent Republican and only 21 percent Democratic. Voting data from 2020 indicates that other Protestant denominations are even more weighted toward the Republican Party.

I Don’t want to live in a monoculture, and neither do you: David french. New York: New York Times

[Fake Messiah]

Trump "works" at McDonald's for a photo op, but as a convicted felon, he can't work at McDonald's; as president, he blocked a $15 min wage that would've helped countless McDonald's employees, and as president, he weekend McDonald's employee's ability to Unionize.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Trump "works" at McDonald's for a photo op, but as a convicted felon, he can't work at McDonald's; as president, he blocked a $15 min wage that would've helped countless McDonald's employees, and as president, he weekend McDonald's employee's ability to Unionize.

I swear to Jebus I will laugh if he dies of a heart attack tomorrow. If only the Universe had a sense of irony.

[Pat Mustard]

Every day in cities around the world there are large anti-genocide rallies. Too bad she doesn't attend any of those.

Was there a point to this post?

Bel thinks women aren't people but things, things to be used up and disposed of as soon as posdible.

[Pat Mustard]

So if you are against genocide, you should vote for Trump? Is that what you're saying? The white supremacist? The guy who wants to jail or execute his political opponents? This guy has the moral high ground?  

What a bizarre thing to say. Being against genocide in no way implies being pro-Trump.

It looks as though if Trump wins, he'll be equally pro-genocide. $100,000,000 from Miriam Adelson buys quite a bit of loyalty. 

If Trump does win, however, it means that the genocide will no longer be Biden's genocide. It will be Trump's. And then we might finally have the Democrats speaking out against it.

Sorry to break it to you, chump, but being anti-abortion is pro-genocide.

[Pat Mustard]

Then again, we all know what happens when you corner a wild animal.

Israel perceives Hamas, Hezbollah, and the populations supporting them are an existential threat.  Given October 7, they have a point.  

Withdrawing support, besides cutting off any ability to use diplomacy to argue for different results, could itself make things worse.

Israel created Hamas and was its main funder up until 2019. It considers Hamas to be its pawn not a wild animal.

[Pat Mustard]

Who should be the cornered animal?
As I said, Putin is a kind of dictator that moved war and occupied Ukraine. Nethanyau is taking land in the west bank and building houses for Israelis hampering free movement to the palestinians and turning the supposed land they should own in a 2 state solution.
Radical Israelis settlers do real pogroms (pogrom is the word used by the Israeli army to describe what the settlers do to palestinians and they anyway arrive always "when it is too late") to the palestinians, but hey, Israel is west so their pogrom is acceptable to us whereas Putin invasion of DOnbass not.
Don't you see the double standard? That is why the developing world is leaning toward China and the autocratic states, because we look to them too double standard.
This is a real problem for us as part of the global west
What has been the influence over Israel so far of the US support? Just a slap on the wrist when they kill UN personnel and say "come on, please try not to do ita again thouygh even if you will do who cares"?
MOre than 140 journalist killed so far in Gaza, more than 40.000 persons. I know it is difficult to distinguish a civilian from a guerrilla fighters but they Israel lok like the king of Franxce during the Catari crusade "kill them all, God will know who is innocent and go ti heaven and who is guilty and go to hell", but that was 800 years ago...

You are aware that two parties who Netanyahu's coalition requires have threatened to abandon the coalition if Bibi settles.  You are also, I assume, aware, that Bibi is under threat of prosecution for corruption, a threat which has largely been mooted by the conflict.

Bibi Nathan being the new Hitler doesn't improve your argument.

[Pat Mustard]

I am pretty sure that if the US would say "ok Israel, we will not shhot down rockets or drones aimed at your territory and we will not send you weapons" then they will try at lightspeed to make a kind of peace deal.

The us enacted an arms embargo on israel in 1948 when five arab nations attacked and occupied the palestinian mandate.  Then, in 67, the us told israel to leave sinai and gaza and rejected israeli requests for aid.  

In both cases they "tried at lightspeed to make a kind of peace deal".  What we have now, is what that looks like.

There's no Soviet Union to play the US off any more. In 1947 Israel was a Soviet client state and still receiving arms from it in 1968.

[Belacqua]

China: I have been there, I have many chinese colleagues resident in EU and I have one of my best friends from University that is married to a chinese wife, is an entrepreneur there and he is trying to move his company to Thailand or another country because he is starting to get asphyxiated by the level of control over there.
Yes indeed someone can say even in the west somebody is tracking our IP and know who is behind this screen while I post here, but if I write that my PM is an utter idiot and corrupted nothing happens to me, conversely you can wait some police to knock on your door in China asking you why you wrote such judgement, this is the difference among we and them

If you say that's what you've experienced, then of course I believe you. It's just strange to me because my own visits were so different. 

I've been at conferences in Shandong, Nanking, and Beijing. The undergrads at Beijing U. were amazing -- truly world-class. Then I stayed on for a few days and wandered around Beijing, to the main spots but mostly just aimlessly walking. Another time a carload of us went to Qufu to see Confucius's house, and went up Mt. Tai. No security issues and certainly no one following me. 

The father of a good friend of mine was Taiwanese, and was making lots of money selling building supplies to the mainland. If he felt oppressed apparently the profits made it worthwhile. 

Maybe I was treated differently because I'm based in Japan...? Or maybe they just knew that I'm not important enough to worry about.