Oh, he is a threat. He is a huge threat for the fascists.

He's a threat because he's not on their side. He's a (much needed) icon of disunity.

They're right to be afraid. They need to stop him and anyone like him at all costs. If there's just one county whose sheriff isn't wagging his tail to goons like ICE, that's unacceptable.

And this isn't about some sheriff election, it's the mayor of NYC. Y'know, the place where Rudy Giuliani became the greatest mayor in the entire history of the US (until he blew it by siding with Trump). Of course they're afraid.

If people can find shelter from ICE and the rest in just one county, that's bad for the fascists. Having it be a huge place like NYC would be a disaster in their eyes.

He won't affect global policy. But he will affect the populace of US places other than NYC. If he wins, some may look at NYC and think "Why can't we have this?". That's what's dangerous.

I ... suspect it might be more that they are scared of the racial component. Not even "scared".

Silicon Valley is a burgerhole of Curtis Yarvin, dreams of technofascism with its inhabitants on top, impunity with wages not quite mirroring quality, and a bit - American academic culture. And American academic culture is the fucking opposite of the European one, or so I've read.

That's the second Indochina war, and American bombing was mostly done against Vietnamese targets in the jungle in the neighboring countries, so mostly it was still Vietnam. But yes, they regularly hit civilian targets in the neighboring countries.

The first Indochina war was France testing its contemporary new and shiny western military doctrines in the wild and finding them lacking.

In general this seems to be a pattern, western nations indeed value lives of their soldiers very much. I doubt it's because of humanism (they don't value enemy civilian population's), rather because of inherent racism. But it shows in the doctrines, they are always looking for a way to create a situation where they can hit their enemy, but their enemy can't hit them, and where they are moving so much faster than their enemy, that their enemy could as well be a sitting duck. To create a baby beating disposition. That's harmful for military's experience and esprit de corps, but appeals to the western nations' feel of superiority. Long term harm, short term impressions.

So - it didn't work. They were using air logistics and supply depots in a system all over the place and small expert mobile forces and all that stuff the western public still considers proper way of fighting a war. In other words, they tried to cheat. And Viet Minh just did their work honestly, in many small steps, over long enough time.

Of course the French logistics were conditioned by fighting on the other side of the globe from metropoly, and Viet Minh fought at home. But honestly it seems to be a pattern in all wars for any European nation, ideas of superiority and quick spectacular solution are always replaced for more classical understanding once actually tried. It's a cliche that USSR's approach was mass assault with no regard for lives, but, ahem, Tukhachevsky is one of the creators of the ideas that became Wehrmacht's doctrine in the beginning.

While the USA in Vietnam decided to show another thing - that they are not France and can just burn all of the fucking jungle with their power. And they burned much of that, except their population wasn't ready even for the pretty moderate losses there (like 4x what USSR lost in Afghanistan).

While that truism might annoy lovers of !politicalcompassmemes@lemmy.world it isn’t invalid, historically-speaking.

::: spoiler Tell me more…
From their first use in 1789 (long-short: seating positions) the definitions for left and right were fluid, but generally referred to “change” versus “status quo.”

In Stalin’s era, left referred mostly to pro-worker policies, the economic change of the communist revolution. That convention was solidified in the US during the red scare, where left-wing came to mean “commie heresy.”

After that period, the definition was gradually blurred again, perhaps by conservatives carrying forth the McCarthyist tradition of lumping any non-conformist view into “commie heresy.” Regardless, the resulting confusion in public political discourse is the reason Wayne Brittenden made the Political Compass website in 2001.

By canonizing the economic-policy definition used by the Bolsheviks/McCarthyists as an actual X-axis spectrum, and the social-policy definitions of most other contexts as a Y-axis spectrum, one could easily map both dimensions as a cartesian coordinate. Quite handy.

Still, as elegant and illuminating as that solution is, it remains a convention.
:::

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_…

The ratchet effect is a concept in sociology and economics illustrating the difficulty with reversing a course of action once a specific thing has occurred, analogous with the mechanical ratchet that allows movement in one direction and seizes or tightens in the opposite.

Republicans push us in one direction, weak/complacent democrats don't fight back.

It's part of the two-pronged strategy, and why anyone who supports establishment democrats is tacitly supporting republican policies.

We really needed Bernie in 2016, but it shows where liberals' priorities lie. They become conservative as soon as their wealth is threatened.

Restrained ability of human process reversal

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

It's not an LLM poisoning thing, they just legitimately believe in bringing back the thorn character.

I agree, it's ineffective and annoying.

I like the idea, but I'm annoyed by the inconsistency.

The þ is the th sound in "both", but not the th sound in "the"; that's a ð.

Ðough, ðat, ðere

Þorough, boþ, þree

I agree; it's not þat þe West Coast is all rainbow-farting Unicorns. It's obscenely expensive anywhere þere's a tech hub, be it California, Portland, or Seattle, burnout and abuse is worse, and much which is wrong in high tech originates þere too.

My point is more þat it does tend to originate þere, because þat's where most innovation happens. Þe tech culture encourages it.

Massachusetts did it and it went well

nantucketcurrent.com/news/repo…

commondreams.org/news/state-we…

After Success in Massachusetts, Lawmakers in 10 States Push Wealth Tax

"If you want better roads, better schools, better healthcare, better public transit... or just a generally better life, then the best way of funding that is by taxing the ultrawealthy, not allowing them to exploit more tax loopholes."

^{jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)}

Good. Make them run. Nip at their heels. Give them no rest or any place to hide until we corner them and take back from them everything.

The rich are worthless. They bring nothing at all to the table. Their net value to humanity is negative. They only hoard.

Rich people always threaten this and never do it, because it's a John Galt problem. Rich people need poor people to trickle money to for services and goods. If they all move to "Rich Asshole Island" where there's no laws or taxes, they quickly discover there's also no workers.

Fuck all of them, I dare every millionaire to leave NYC. They almost certainly cannot. All their wealth is actually tied up in business and assets. In NYC. They could sell them, but to whom? All the rich are fleeing right? If the city or collectives of workers buy them, thats more socialism and proof the rich aren't necessary.

So no, they won't leave. They'll whine and cry and then fund police and paramilitaries and lobbiest to try and force their view. They'll spend millions propping up friendly candidates like Coumo and running smear campaigns.

In other words, they'll do what they've historically always done when threatened.