Hey Jerome, you socialist faggot.

[qan]

Information coming directly from Mueller's indictment states that the defendants (Russian Nationals and their orgs here) have been posing as American activists since 2014. They stole the identities of real Americans as well to add a layer of deception. They operated social media pages and "over time became the means to reach a significant number of Americans".

I've heard "Russian national" used a lot in this situation. Very illustrative of the deceptive nature of these kinds of reports.

The reason the term "Russian national" is used in this context is that it sounds simultaneously more insidious and more official, while literally still just meaning "Russian citizen". "Russian citizen" lacks the punch needed to get people coming back to the infofeed and buying your advertiser's products, though, so you've gotta ramp it up with "Russian national." As far as I'm aware, those charged have not been linked to any government agency. Same goes for the term "Russian hackers." The implication, again, is "Russian hackers employed by the Russian state." Yet there is little evidence of that -- as far as I'm aware. Some of the so-called "hacks" are ... heh ... portscans. Portscans initiated from an IP inside the Russian Federation. Right now, I could start a VPN, get a Russian IP, and portscan the DNC. (It's not even illegal to do.) Look, Ma! I'm a Russian hacker! She'd be so proud.

The point is: Russian, Chinese, Israeli, American, French, German, Brazilian and Thai nationals are all posing as activitists in the US and elsewhere. This is not new information. Disinfo campaigns, whether financed by government agencies or NGOs, are a fact of life. The US also tries to actively influence Russian elections. The CIA is in loose, de facto control of many small governments by proxy. "Troll farms" exist and exert influence, and are probably a necessary component of any even moderately-sized political campaign in today's world. Does this mean "democracy is hacked!!!," and we will never be safe again? No. It means we've got to use our heads to analyze what we read and hear, form our own opinions, and not rely on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for our news. (Or any small set of sources, for that matter, particularly not non-print sources that are ideologically-aligned and are designed to be difficult to process while triggering emotional responses, such as MSNBC, Fox News, Infowars, CNN, /pol/, NPR, Russia Today, Voice of America, etc.)

I also have no problem with the re militarization of our country or for the religious like respect our military gets. I have no problem having military parades, or having flyovers at sporting events or any of that. I don't see why it bothers anyone to be honest.

Because it's an advertisement for a product, the stated intent of which is to kill people. You'd have to be pretty naive about the workings of the world, or a sociopath, for that stuff not to bother you.

[Leland]

" T H E G O V E R N M E N T "

[Jerome Scuggs]

lol this mueller shit reminds me that the same people who think hillary clinton is openly selling uranium to russia and killing people in benghazi, that think the FBI is wiretapping trump, that think a large majority of the government has formed an insidious cabal known as "the swamp" that is actively working with the deep state to depose our elected president...

these same people tell me we need the second amendment because if tyranny ever comes to america, they'll be there to stop it

fucking lol, pussies, if you were gonna do something you'da done it. so please hand over ur toys so children stop fucking dying, or fucking man up and overthrow this shitty inhumane tyrannical government

[Dierienow]

And it's exactly why DumbF tried to discredit the FBI and Mueller LONG before this. He knew what was coming and mentally prepped his base for the angle they need to take b/c the information that came out would be so damning, if of course Republicans actually gave a fuck. They just wanted blackie and Hillary out and didn't care how.

[Dierienow]

Information coming directly from Mueller's indictment states that the defendants (Russian Nationals and their orgs here) have been posing as American activists since 2014. They stole the identities of real Americans as well to add a layer of deception. They operated social media pages and "over time became the means to reach a significant number of Americans".

Is it over? Are we done yet? What more evidence is required to convince you that you were duped by very recent propaganda techniques? It's just sad. Russia has such an easy job because Americans like Kthx would sooner burn the country to the ground and start again than admit they were duped or had.

America was doing fine. Only Trump and his recently (since 2014 =DD we can now put a date on it) fervered base think the country is declining. Time for 49% (or whatever it was) of voters to admit that they were duped by the fake news they claim to hate so much.

This thread is so easy. Almost as easy as this 'super-gay-to-play-whilst-sober' spaceship game.

[Dierienow]

Paine believed that God doesn't interact with the world. As a result of his belief he was ostracized and only 6 people attended his funeral. Stay classy, America.

Anyway if you think T. Paine wouldn't come into the modern political debates swinging like Thor in a kindergarten then you don't undestand the man. His wikipedia page is a solid wall of him dunking on the pea-brains of his time, and as a pea-brain of this time you would suffer a similar fate.

Actually there's a good quote from wiki. A loyalist hated Paine because he thought without a monarchy, the country would "degenerate into democracy." He called Paine a political quack. Well, who did history side with on that one? And do you see any relation to the alt-right today? Let me explain it to you.

Loyalists had a lot to lose. The one in question was a large landowner in Maryland with slaves. It's in his immediate interest to support whatever view will put a dollar in his pocket. That's politics. You think politics is some philosophical utopia for the wisest participants only? No, it's a big soup of people who want something (money, power, status) and are willing to organize to mould the legal and political landscape to their desire, whatever the cost to others may be. And they say, if YOU wanted those rewards you'd organize and seek to change the political lanscape, too.

Yet overwhelmingly the people who seek out power and the ability to control others are 'evil'. Good people don't want to control others and thus, only fight back from a losing position. But politics has always been the same: those who make the effort get the power. Democrats are part of the mess but I generally see them as better. Do gay rights make anyone obscenely wealthy? I dont think so. And if the morals of it are so obscene, what can we say in turn about the morals of the GOP, who are willing to demonize you and control you based on a consensual act. Where exactly do you find the moral high ground in the Republican party?

Just like the Loyalists of the 1700's were defeated, and the Confederates of the 1800's, and any other collective moral failings since, so will the alt-right.

It's funny how this all ends up in a thread about socialism. Confederate soldiers weren't the worst people. Neither were German soldiers. Compared to their political orgs at least. Many were just looking to make a living or protect their existing livelihood. The real evil came from those with power who could disseminate their terrible ideas a) in a way that would outrage the common man so that he would support your cause and b) so that they would be the ultimate benefactor of the political change. Very basic stuff in Marxist lines of thonking. Of course the very basic and evident truth of this is exactly why it is so hated among anyone who desires power (and as stated earlier, those who seek power are often nefarious, or at least it isn't too uncommon). The regular folk are easily manipulated precisely because they lack power/means to power and, individually, are at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating for more power.

So, Marxist interpretations of both historical and modern events hold true depending on the initial axioms you wish to start with. Perhaps another theory explains social dynamics between the wealthy elite and 'downtrodden pawns' in a way that better encompasses the realities that others believe Marxism ignores, but I have yet to see it.

Also as a terrible thinker (everyone knows) it only just occurred to me that you basically proved Jerome's point. If you take your own reasoning seriously: that quoting (perhaps the original) Founding Father indicates support of some other idea he had, then we as a society should be more open to the idea of universal basic income. After all, the Founding Fathers likely quoted Paine and agreed with him, which means they must have thought UBI was a fantastic idea! (By your logic, anyway..)

There's my contribution to Team Jerome. You are a good guy I agree with that. Every time I come into this thread there's a new interesting topic to think about. Thomas Paine was lit and I think we could learn a lot from someone like him as well.

[kthx]

So if you are quoting Thomas Paine than you obviously agree that our constitution and way of governance is still to this day fantastic? I swear man, I love you but you need to lay off the drugs, you have 20 different personalities on your posts, I can literally tell when your fucked up and not based on your style of writing, and how you are trying to persuade me. You should really work on that if you want to change peoples minds about anything.

[Jerome Scuggs]

for what it's worth, unless you're about to call Thomas Paine a commie, here's what an o.g. american revolutionary has to say about government safety nets

https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html

edit: holy shit he calls for a universal basic income

edit 2: holy fucking shit seriously this is an amazing piece of writing.

"To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.

Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state."

"In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period."

"Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.

"In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings.

Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:"

[Jerome Scuggs]

if you haven't seen it already, you'll be seeing the screenshots of the various comments and posts made by yesterday's school shooter, and realize maybe the extreme right is more prominent than you think

and, bear with me here, i'm not calling you a nazi.

you know joseph mccarthy? like, joe "mccarthyism" mccarthy?

he wasn't accusing the democratic party of being communists

he was saying, that due to the ideological nature of the democratic party, it was easy for communists to hide in plain sight, to work within the democratic party in the name of advancing communism

do you understand this very basic fucking thing? that nazism - or should i say white nationalism - or should i say fascism - is a right-wing ideology? that they routinely commit mass shootings? that Timothy McVeigh was one of these extremists? and that if you display little to no regard for keeping your house in order, if you keep brushing this very real problem under the rug, you're not helping anyone, including yourself?

Anyways

i came here to post that i feel rather dumb because for all this talk about welfare, i've never really considered some very basic history around its creation, and this was interesting: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/onli...-welfare-state

Bismarck soon recognized that the anti-socialist law was not a wholly satisfactory solution of the socialist menace. The law was merely negative, repressive. Something positive must be done to make the industrial workers better off, and especially to make them feel that the German state was their friend and not their enemy. This was Bismarck’s main motive in pushing the social insurance legislation of the early 1880’s. . . . With less cause for anxiety and with the state as their friend, the workers, Bismarck hoped, would be more contented, and less likely to listen to socialist agitators. In this way, Bismarck hoped, the power of the Social Democratic Party would be undermined.

by all means, continue being an absolute dumbass, and see what getting rid of welfare does for the socialist movement in this country. the right has called welfare "socialism" for so long that y'all have forgotten that welfare isn't socialism. it's an alternative to socialism. i dont even know why i'm fighting the GOP effort to burn it to the ground, in doing so you will jumpstart the mass socialist movement i dream of.

[kthx]

Are you really of the mind that there is a large percentage of Nazi's in America and that by thinking that black history month and the NAACP or the National Black Caucus still around in 2018 is actually backwards fucking thinking and setting back unity in our country that I am a nazi? You have the wildest fucking mood swings man

[Jerome Scuggs]

wonder what could go wrong if we let ICE keep doing what they do tho

surely they couldnt be used against us, american citizens

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/...n-immigration/

[Jerome Scuggs]

Russian bots sociopaths and the 1% I'm dying irl. Jerome you see the kind of people who agree with your views right? Your friend irl, the people on these forums. Not a good look honestly.

Rather have dierienow and jessup on either side of me in the culture wars than literal fucking nazis

e: and no. im not calling you a nazi. im saying nazis also want immigrants gone. nazis want us to have white history month. nazis hate black president. if you dont understand how your own views make it easy for nazis to hide behind you, you're exactly the entitled, lazy person i was referring to in my post about welfare reform.

[kthx]

Russian bots sociopaths and the 1% I'm dying irl. Jerome you see the kind of people who agree with your views right? Your friend irl, the people on these forums. Not a good look honestly.

[Jerome Scuggs]

official statement from the offices of jerome q. scuggs, esq. regarding the oldest, largest entitlement program in this country and the lazy, snowflake welfare queens who rely on it:

It's time for welfare reform. This country is full of lazy, entitled americans who refuse to work hard to maintain our freedoms and liberties. Instead, these welfare queens rely on a safety net - the 2nd amendment. "Why actually pay attention", they say, "when I can just fall back on this safety net: the AR-15 in my closet that will magically stop tyranny".

These parasites claim they're staunch defenders of liberty and they couldn't even tell you the name of the people who represent their district in congress. These mooches glaze their eyes when children are murdered because they are addicted to their magic, tyranny stopping guns.

They let the government get away with more and more, and they don't give a shit because "if it ever gets too bad, at least we have our guns."

They don't understand the conditions that drive people to seek things out like SNAP welfare, and demand that we stand by and let the impoverished starve because they're so lazy they don't bother to grasp the cycles of poverty in this country.

And they say that other entitlement programs hurt people. Meanwhile, americans are routinely being murdered, and we could stop it, but these folks don't care as long as they have their magical, tyranny stopping guns.

It's time to put America back to work, actively defending ourselves from an overreaching government. Get rid of the 2nd amendment. Make people pay attention to the government. Make people refuse to compromise every time a PATRIOT ACT or FISA bill is proposed. It's high time these scumbags actually start doing work to preserve what little freedoms we have left, but until we dismantle the safety net that makes them so lazy, nothing will be done.

[Dierienow]

So where does Trump using his lawyer to pay off a pornstar fall on the conservative 'family values' spectrum? Or is 'family values' the go-to phrase for a bunch of hypocrites who want to control what other people do with their own bodies?

In a way Trump was the best thing to ever happen to the left in America. All the Trump 'supporters' (Russian bots, sociopaths, and the 1%) are forced to either go back on their support (unlikely, since people who are able to change their minds and progress their views would likely have done so already) or stick with a burning ship and look like a complete idiot.

Conservatives see a culture war being committed by the far-left and millenials. Don't you know there's only one perfect society and the baby boomers created it? Fucking morons. But they see it exactly like a war to be waged on every front. Make future generations pay so we can have more right now. Spit propaganda like it's 'HUMBLE.' so I only have to look at and interact with people exactly like me.

The thing is because the baby boomers have more invested and more to lose, they take the threat very seriously so you can expect people like Kthx to keep doubling-down on the crazy bullshit. ICE deporting real Americans, building walls as a defense measure in the second millenium, that's really the tip of the iceberg. Shit will really go downhill when conservatives start supporting authoritarianism as a last resort when it turns out the people (the MAJORITY of people, such as those who didn't vote for Trump) are perfectly happy with the culture in the US and wish 'fiscal conservatives' with their inter-generational economic warfare and backwards religious 'morals' that they can't even follow would just fuck off.