Random Rant Thread

[miscmisc]

I totally understand the (traditional) conservatives' reaction to the unionization, and even get the corporate shill liberal shitgeysers like Jay Carney's. I mean, he makes tons of money working for Amazon.

But the anti-union liberals who aren't anywhere near the real corporate/capitalist money? They sound like truly clueless children. I mean, most Europeans at least understand what labor and unions are. Those American liberals act like these are thoroughly alien concepts, somehow toxic to capitalism. If they moved to the Netherlands now, a VERY capitalist/free-market country, well, I don't even know how they would react. They would be shocked. Or maybe just confused.

That's really one of the horrible things about the US. It's not like America doesn't have a rich labor history, but there are so many upper-middle-class socially liberal morons who don't seem to have an iota of knowledge on how human beings developed the concept of "work".

[miscmisc]

From recent articles:

Germany's health minister pleaded with his compatriots Friday not to assume that the coronavirus pandemic is over as the country sees a steady rise in new cases, warning that it is still in a “critical" situation.

UK officials attributed their country's success with Omicron variant partly to the sheer volume of prior infections among Britons.

It's funny that both countries have lost around 15k lives in the Omicron waves over three months so far. One thinks it's "still in a critical situation", and the other congratulates itself for its "success". Remember Germany's population is substantially bigger than Britain's.

And 15k is more than half of the total Covid deaths in Japan so far.

You see there are no legitimate criteria for these things. If you say it's success it is, and if you say it is failure it is. It's all utterly subjective. Yet weirdly the media often accept them uncritically as facts. I've heard of Britain's "success" with Omicron more than several times. It's tiresome to have to tacitly add in my mind phrases like "relative to the US" or "relative to Hong Kong" or "relative to their Alpha wave" etc. every time.

[miscmisc]

I talked briefly about this before on the subject of Covid, but the biggest problem in Russia is that most Russians have been extremely, extremely, extremely apolitical. They lived as if politics had nothing to do with them, and it showed in their disastrous response to Covid too. There hasn't been a functional society for a long time, and that's why there has been no left-wing movement to speak of over there. It's been much worse than in the US, much worse. Everyone is indeed an island in Russia, a make-believe one at that.

No matter how hard you try to distance yourself from politics, it will grab you, and devour you eventually. They are facing that reality now, as mindless nationalism is the only thing left there, in that political ruin. I see the same danger in Japan, although the context is quite different.

[miscmisc]

Red counties in the US have been absolutely devastated by Covid. You only see on the mainstream media the defiant MAGA fools giving you the "Covid is just a flu!" middle finger from those redneck regions, but they are just attention-seeking clowns. They don't represent the reality.

And Dems failed to blame it on Republicans. Because culture war is bad, divisiveness is bad, I guess. Covid was the only issue where they could beat the GOP, and they utterly, utterly failed at it. Didn't even try.

So they fully deserve the massacre to come.

[miscmisc]

Making fun of a Dutch name - a Midwestern household brand name at that - in Michigan. Oh boy.

This man knows absolutely nothing about America outside New York, South Florida, parts of LA and Vegas. All the rest is just a huge blur for him. One key fact about Trumpism is that the Man doesn't know any of the places that his followers/fans are from.

[miscmisc]

Russia is turning into one gigantic InfoWars chat group, which is the first thing that I predicted IRL as soon as the war broke out. The easiest thing to predict, but I am pretty scared of the consequences of it down the road.

[miscmisc]

LOL, who the fuck would deploy troops the way Russia did if their "real" objective was to take the Donbas and Black Sea ports all along? Don't be fucking silly. It's obvious that Putin had bigger ambition. It's just that his military has screwed up big time so far.

Those Putin fanboys are hilarious. Can't even read the map, I guess.

[miscmisc]

To be honest it's hard for me to see how Russia will be able to avoid going textbook fascist after this. This war is becoming an awful quagmire. We'll see more civilian deaths, more atrocities.

It's a fucking disaster, for everyone.

[miscmisc]

Pakistan (in the middle of an ongoing non-coup coup) walking away from Russia.

What's happening in Pakistan now is really, really fascinating. Kind of reminds you indeed of Russia back in the Yeltsin days.

[miscmisc]

Meanwhile, Israel's non-condemnation condemnation:

[miscmisc]

Great thread, and I pretty much fully agree with his assessment.

[miscmisc]

Always demand/check the source of a story that's wild *and* specific. It's war, and the information space is one of the important fronts.

[miscmisc]

The thing that's absolutely crap about "going back to normal" is that they wouldn't even give you better sick day policies. "Going back to normal" means going back to 2019 normal, which sucked a huge donkey cock public-health-wise.

In both the US and Japan, sick day policies have always been absolutely ridiculous, and even the pandemic won't significantly change that? That's some first-class mega bullshit.

[miscmisc]

There are many ridiculous things in the world, "going back to normal" being one example, but it's hard to beat the likability and charm of this man. What a dude. It's impossible to dislike him.

[miscmisc]