11·
11 hours agoAbsolutely fucking not.
It doesn’t matter if the food court is usually pretty good, all things considered, but the mall is currently on fire. Do not visit.
PhilipTheBucket
- 77 Posts
- 57 Comments
Joined 29 days ago
Cake day: July 4th, 2025
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It would be convenient to write them off as psyops
Fun, too.
, but the unfortunate truth is that there are people on our side of the political spectrum who have bad but sincerely-held beliefs too.
Completely agree. I actually think most people who say this are real people who believe it (whether or not they picked it up from Russia propaganda originally.) I’m just saying that I don’t think this blog in particular is some earnest person who just really feels strongly about NATO and BRICS, and also likes piping a very-sloppily-put-together script saying the same through an AI voice to create an overall vibe I would summarize as PREPARE TO RECEIVE MY POLITICAL VIEWS, FELLOW HUMAN.
OK, so Biden made things better across the board. he could have made some things even more better, but wasn’t able to. and he at least didn’t make anything worse.
is that an accurate summary of what you’re claiming?
Mostly. I wouldn’t agree with “he didn’t make anything worse,” because US immigration post-2001 is a terrifying hell run by horrible people, and it would be hard for anyone to lay hands on it in any way without making something worse in the process. But yes, aside from that, it’s accurate.
because if so, we need to get back to those details you claimed I don’t care about. the ones you’ve never actually responded to on their substance:
Because I’m not interested. I already laid out what I thought about this: Looking at the whole of his impact on immigration is a way better way to analyze his overall impact on immigration than extensive Lemmy bickering, and I think you’re focusing in on details as a way to distract from the idea of looking at the overall.
because if you actually read what I said, notice I phrased it as “you seem to be arguing”. that was intentional. I’m listening to what you’re saying, and trying to tell you “here’s what your argument is coming across as” because I do actually care whether I’m understanding you correctly or not.
Okay, fair enough. That previous paragraph is what I’m saying.
It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid
Now we stand outcast and starving 'midst the wonders we have made
But the union makes us strong
you seem to be arguing “Biden had good intentions, so even if he did some bad things, you should give him a pass because he had good intentions”
Not even slightly. I’m saying that he made the situation and outcomes better, and also tried to make it better than that, but failed at some of what actually should have been done.
(And yes, I can pretty much feel the talking-point response to that coming… whatever, I’m familiar with them at this point lol)
You seem very interested in telling me what I am saying, instead of just listening to what I’m saying.
My point is, I don’t think there are very many people at all who were fine when it was Joe doing it. I think there are people outraged and horrified that it’s happening in the first place, whoever’s in offce, and I think there are people who think it’s “antisemitism” and just some crazy protestors, and I don’t think there are too many people who are conditionally in one camp or another.
Like who are you thinking of, that’s suddenly speaking out against it when they were silent about it before? Who can you point to (a public figure or a person on Lemmy)?
Okey dokey. If I ever make a simulator that lets you step into a political organization (like Sim City) and try various theories about how to make changes and what’s going to happen as a result, I’ll be sure to include this scenario, and I’ll send you a link so you can give it a shot.
That’s actually one of the significant problems that came about during his admin: If you just let ICE “rot on the vine” (which was more or less what was happening, not even because of anything Biden did but just some additional factors in the world), then they keep arresting people but just keep them in increasingly overcrowded and shitty conditions. Which was precisely what happened. It was a fucking nightmare for anyone in detention, and some people died.
This just overall sounds like you have no idea how things work and are making sweeping proclamations about how easy things would be.
because now you don’t want to talk about details. you just want to talk in broad strokes. read the wikipedia summary. look at the whole picture of everything Biden did.
Yeah, pretty much. Put it in context, then talk about details and complain about them when they’re wrong. Doing it the other way around, picking individual details and then using the specific ones you picked as a reason to conclude things about the whole of what his intent was, seems wrong to me.
So you think the answer is that Biden should have torn up the constitution first, before Trump could do it?
I think we may have to agree to disagree. I think fixing a lot of the structural things that got us here (legalized bribery in government, massive corruption / dysfunction in media and education, a basic lack of real direct democracy, gilded age economic dysfunction, among other issues) would have been a better way. “I’ll seize control and fix it, trust me, look at the good things I’m doing” generally doesn’t work out real well even if the good things are on the side that you think they should be done for.
Okay, so now we’re talking about the reality again?
The reality is that changing ICE requires congress, and a lot of who’s in congress is reactionary idiots, and so “kneecapping” ICE would have just not passed and accomplished nothing. And, there were genuine emergencies (overcrowding in ICE facilities, deliberate racism and cruelty by ICE, and the massive backlog of people waiting to get in the country with nowhere to go) that needed to be dealt with, which a performative effort to kneecap it that actually accomplished nothing would have done nothing at all to solve.
Not to mention all those people separated from their families which the Biden administration was trying to find and reunite. It’s just not that simple in reality. Accomplishing good things (and failing to accomplish some other realistic things which are also good things) is just not the same as deliberately causing all the cruelty in the system on purpose because you’re a terrible person. It’s like the Alice in Wonderland thing about mountains and valleys.
And my comment was referring to the current Democrats in Congress, which this article is about, failing to even symbolically vote as a group to hold Israel accountable
Oh. Yeah, that I’ll 100% agree with you on. They garbage, for the most part.
I have a new addition for !bullshit_narratives@quokk.au, I have not time right now but later on.
Short answer: Reagan paused weapons shipments because Israel bombed our friend and ally Iraq. He didn’t give a shit about the Palestinians. Biden paused weapons shipments because they were killing Palestinians (the first US president to do so as far as I know, along with the first president to put sanctions on settlers, as well as he tried to directly have US forces involved in giving humanitarian aid instead of having them helping shoot Palestinians who are trying to get aid as Trump is currently doing, and so on.)
Was what Biden did good? Absolutely fucking not, if the systems of international law were functioning at all he’d be an accessory to crimes against humanity. I generally like Biden but his support for Israel is pretty much the one thing that there’s absolutely no excuse for. But, the whole narrative that he’s somehow worse than other US presidents is pure la-la land fantasy. Glad to have you with us, Chomsky’s been talking about this since the 80s and it’s never changed.
Just stick to reality, there are mountains of ways to criticize Biden over Gaza that are 100% accurate and objective.
my comment linked 6 different sources - contemporaneous news articles, from reputable outlets, and a 71-page report from Amnesty International about that “streamlined app” you think is so great.
and in response you tell me I should read a Wikipedia article. (which I’d already read, btw, while looking up actual sources for my original comment)
so again, tell me more about how the problem is other people not wanting to understand details.
My point is, it’s easy to spin up a big narrative by picking individual points.
Biden said, “Hey, this is horrifying, people are coming into the country trying for asylum and then being treated like criminals, if they get picked up before they can turn themselves in / if they fuck up the process / because they technically broke the law anyway because that’s what the process told them to do.” And so, he created a formal way for them to communicate with CBP before needing to enter the country or find someone physically.
Is that process perfect? Absolutely not. Does that mean that extensive nitpicking about privacy issues and whatnot about that process suddenly represents a really good argument about why it was horrifying for him to create the app? Is it relevant at all, honestly? No, it is not.
You can just always use this stuff as a way to attack any Democratic politician at any time. If Biden had made the whole signature effort of his campaign to reform immigration and get rid of all the horrifying inhumanity he inherited from his predecessor, then you would be giving him shit for failing to act on climate change or working people’s issues. Instead, he did the opposite: Went to bat in a huge way on those two things, and got some small but significant gains, and so we’re here talking about Gaza and immigration and everything he fucked up.
Honestly, I just don’t really want to go point-for-point back and forth through dueling essays. That’s why I just linked the Wikipedia page. Anyone reading this can go read the page, and then compare the picture it paints to the picture you just painted, and see why you’re spinning up some kind of determined effort to make him look bad on this issue.
If you want to complain about stuff he did wrong, sure! Let’s rap. If you want to spin it up into backwards-land and cherry pick some things to make it look like that’s all that happened, he fucked a bunch of stuff up on purpose, all these human rights organizations hate Biden overall instead of on those individual decisions, then I’m going to offer you the change to take a step back, read the article for the actual complete picture, instead of getting in this towering link-stuffed waste of time slap fight with you.
Of particular note
- Cory Booker (New Jersey)
- John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) (I mean, of course)
- Adam Schiff (California)
- Chuck Schumer (New York)
Honestly, as far as campaign fuckups, I feel like you and I are completely in agreement. Like I said I think the DNC should basically fire its consultants into the sun at this point, instead of giving them millions of dollars in exchange for all these dogshit strategies and lost elections. I was talking more about the reality.
Here, just read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policy_of_the_Joe_Biden_administration
Should he have just abolished ICE instead? Probably. Did he make things worse on purpose? Fuck no, he made them better. Is it some bad-faith bullshit that people keep attacking him pretending that he did? Yes it is, Cap, yes it is.
201·2 days agoHonestly I’m 100% on Team Steam as far as this screenshot, for the record. I just thought the story was interesting. Her shirt has a big hole for her boobs to come 80% of the way out through, and the game has sex bots in it, among other issues. I feel like this is a likely-successful attempt to garner more publicity for the game.
Biden tried to fix a lot of the problems with our immigration system, and when he couldn’t get it through congress, he offered some cruelty to the Republicans as a gesture of compromise. His bill still would have massively reduced the level of suffering. A lot of the things Trump has been shutting down were things he initiated (a streamlined app for requesting asylum, instead of crossing the border illegally and then showing up and turning yourself in being the officially recommended system, for example).
Why was that all presented to the public as “being tough on immigration just like Trump is”? I have no idea, although I suspect that severely mentally challenged campaign consultants who the Democrats should have fired into the sun were involved. But the reality was different, and the left as it often does is entirely happy just to pretend everything the blue man did was bad, just because we don’t like what’s happening and don’t want to understand details.
The US’s beginning levels of public education are probably some of the worst in the Western world, but its higher education at the high levels is some of the best in the Western world.
As is often true of the best things, the bestness is not because of the bestness of the thing, but because of what it connects with. The universities themselves honestly really aren’t great. But what happens in them is often extraordinary, because they’re able to attract the brightest people from across the world, and give them a place and let them shine.
Well, until now.