Blu

joined 1 year ago
[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You get downvoted for it, but it's absolutely true. She had a real opportunity to distinguish herself from Biden, and for a brief moment I thought she would. Then she shifted to the right to draw in centrists.

Users here can stick their heads in the sand all they want, but like with the Clinton campaign, it won't change the election outcome.

She's handing Trump the race by imitating Biden. I say this as someone who will likely vote for her anyway: this is becoming a disaster for her. She cannot afford to lose Muslim voters in Michigan, and the continued bleeding of Hispanic voters spells even longer-term problems for the party.

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

On this site? Users of Lemmy in denial of her alienation of voters. She started strong and then pissed all of that good will away by announcing she's just going to be a continuation of the Biden Israel policy.

And before anyone says "oh, the Biden administration is pushing for a ceasefire". Nobody takes that seriously. You can't push for a ceasefire and rhetorically and materially enable the annihilation of Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon. Any ceasefire proposals are performative.

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The other shenanigans was that the secretary of state allowed other petitioners with the same issues to proceed on the ballot, namely marijuana and gambling referendums. The organizers should have been on their best behavior because the state was always going to selectively enforce the rules here.

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they're quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.

I left for mailbox(.)org and haven't looked back. It's great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I kinda don't want to dip my toes in this, but here goes:

I agree that it's occasionally a breath of fresh air. The issue I've always had with Hexbear is they've more or less replaced one version of American (and to a lesser extent European) exceptionalism with another. Where American nationalists consider America to be exceptionally great, Hexbear considers it to be exceptionally evil. They routinely attribute domestic incidents in different countries to American meddling--regardless of evidence--even when those events either achieve nothing for American geostrategic goals or actively harm them. America as the "great Satan," etc.

Just an example because I remember it: Imran Khan lost an internal power struggle in Pakistan. He was probably the most west-friendly candidate left there, but Hexbear blamed a CIA coup https://hexbear.net/post/186331

In the same vein, they permit or even encourage Chinese aggression against the Philippines, within the Philippines' own exclusive economic zone. You can't substitute one form of imperialism for another. It's a trap I see a lot of leftists fall into.

I think most of 'em are alright. Just growing into leftist thought still and grappling with the moshpit that is international politics. Also they're funny lol

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 months ago

Thank you so much for this information. Your passion is contagious. I'm going to dive into all of these sources in the morning!

Have a wonderful day/evening/night!

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today's Internet is on its way to being alien too.

[–] Blu@sopuli.xyz 21 points 10 months ago

By virtue of having a disproportionately beneficial EU membership agreement, they actually caused friction with later EU members that received the standard agreements later on.

It's hard to overstate how catastrophic the UK fucked up by leaving the EU. They joined on the bottom floor, had the leverage to negotiate a deal that gave them more benefits, let them keep their currency instead of promising to one day adopt the Euro, and had access to all the immigration controls they needed to deal with the 'problem' Tories perceived.

It's incredible, really. Part of me still can't believe they tossed all of that away. It's got to be one of the biggest peacetime geopolitical fuckups ever.