Can’t help but agree with both of you ‘(I am large, I contain multitudes.)’

To say nothing of all our other problems, anyone should be able to grasp the idea that the US health insurance industry is inherently evil. They provide and create nothing. It’s a whole sector of the economy that exists solely to extract profit by amplifying human suffering and death. It should and must be abolished.

Thanks for the perspective!

Can we rule out some kind of transporter accident? Has anyone checked to see if his beard comes off?

I listen to ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ pretty frequently, but am not familiar with most of his catalogue. I’ll check it out!

Thanks, your post reminded me of an old friend who would get unreasonably upset when someone used that phrase. “What the fuck else would it be‽” he’d say. Good times.

You’ll note that this comment is also devoid of content, so it’s on theme!

An excellent notion! In the spirit of compromise, I’d be willing to accept exiling them to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We could call 'em the Garbage Patch Kids!

I think a lot of folks are still out there downvotin’ as if the election were still up for grabs. It’s true that both sides supported genocide. The democrats utterly failed to even pretend to be willing to do the right thing, and we’ll all suffer for it.

Was really nbd. Gave me a local. Felt no pain at the time. Spent the next day in bed with ice on it. A little soreness, cleared up quickly. Way better than a kidneystone, fwiw.

I’ve literally never heard a single person refer to these 4 boxes, so I must take issue with your assertion that people are fond of doing it. You’re also seemingly discounting innumerable factors, like the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on distracting and deceiving people into both voting against their best interests, and not voting at all.

In short, your default response is a reductive and unhelpful platitude. Not trying to be a jerk (it just comes naturally). Best of luck.

Never occurred to me before, but a legally recognized opposite day would be like the purge.

Once it’s been declassified. Executive Order 13526 specifies the necessary procedures. Among other things, it states that the original classification authority must set an expiration date, after which the information should be declassified.

If an earlier date isn’t set, documents will be automatically slated for declassification after 10 years, or a maximum of 25 years(at the discretion of the classifying authority), barring certain exceptions.

That isn’t what NATO Restricted means, at least not in the US—I’m not going to attempt to delve into Hungarian law. It falls under the category of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) established by Executive Order 13556, and codified in DoD Instruction 5200.48

This information is not freely available to the public, and must be cleared for release according to the procedures detailed in the aforementioned documents, which specify that it should only be disseminated for official government purposes.

Downplaying 9/11 as one of ‘a handful of retaliatory strikes against US interests.’

The language is provocative, but factually accurate.

Not even vaguely what fucking happened.

Yeah, it seemed plausible, but I couldn’t find any evidence at all that this took place. Fair enough.

Fucking all of this.

Yeah, it’s some real tanky-tonk incendiary language. And the timeline’s all wrong. The US-backed regime started in 2001, and lasted until 2021. Seems like they just grabbed the first couple of years from the wikipedia article.

That we sold to both sides of the Iran-Iraq War is undeniable; the idea that the war itself was our fault and that 9/11 is just ‘blowback’ for that is fucking insane.

It does appear that the current historical consensus is that the Carter administration did not give Saddam the proverbial green light for the invasion. However, there are more than enough contemporaneous claims to the contrary to convince anyone who’d rather believe that they did.

Christ, I don’t even know where to begin.

I mean, fuck the house of saud. And the US does share responsibility for all their depredations, just as it shares fucking bibi’s.

We were involved in the violent overthrow of many democracies throughout the years, this I agree on. But funny enough, Egypt isn’t one of them. So this had potential to be a good point, but failed by being posted by someone utterly detached from reality.

Yeah, the CIA may have helped coordinate the 1952 coup against the Egyptian monarchy, but doesn’t appear to have precipitated the 2011 overthrow of Mubarak. Happily, this gets me out of diving into whether or not Mubarak’s government could plausibly be called a democracy. Plenty of truth there, otherwise; a misstep, as you say.

'Whatabout’ing 9/11 by implicitly arguing against it as a ‘violent act of terrorism’ as originally quoted, and then trying to justify it by the implicit comparison of 9/11 with the French fucking Revolution of the oppressed lower classes finally striking back against their oppressor.

Yeah, the French Revolution parallel is a real stretch.

Do you really not see any of these as objectionable.

Oh, of course I do. I just have really low expectations when it comes to the veracity of claims made by lemmy tankies in general, inclusive of underpantsweevil. I don’t disagree with you—I was just mildly surprised to see your response, given the average factual content of any of their posts.

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I hadn’t read about some of this stuff for a while, and wouldn’t have otherwise. Best of luck to you.

Old underpantsweevil’s hinges are certainly quite wobbly, but in this particular comment they’re simply providing some historical context for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t know how fair it is to describe the NA regime as brutal, relative to Afghanistan’s current and former governments, but that’s a pretty minor quibble.

They’ve stopped short of claiming that the attacks were justified, and the assertions made are broadly true. What in particular do you find objectionable, if I may ask?

Lots of NPR affiliate stations air great shows, but their nationally syndicated programming rigorously fellates the wealthy, and staunchly defends the status quo.

Sure there were Russian bots. Of course there was billionaire fuckery. That’s been the case every cycle for decades. Do you honestly believe that Democrats lost exclusively because of these things? And furthermore, that nobody should critique their performance or policies, because that constitutes sowing apathy? Weeks after the fucking election? That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard.

The election is over. Democrats failed spectacularly. Now is the time for criticism and accountability. If not now, when? We’re all just supposed to pretend that Harris ran a great campaign? Are you familiar with the concept of learning from failure? I was beating this drum myself before the election—you know, when it actually made sense. Now it just smacks of sticking your fingers in your ears.

Most SF guys I’ve known have been pretty chill. Some of the young guys are dumb assholes, but that’s hardly exclusive to the special forces community. They’re certainly given a lot more latitude than the rank and file, and that can go to their heads. Shitheels like this are not the norm, based on my limited perception and sample size (mainly us army SF).