I'm hearing SKS

https://tallahasseereports.com/2022/03/16/no-charges-will-be-filled-in-kuczwanksi-road-rage-incident/

VERY strong candidate for "coolest human ever"

Holy shit

The neos just looks so cool to begin with

Carbs yummy

That's pretty fucking funny

Only found references to a reddit AMA from a WaPo article

Yeah, the actual "she's an antivaxxer" talking point spun out from something like "what do you think about people who don't trust the vaccines?" "You can't expect everyone to trust something developed by big business behind closed doors with minimal oversight" where a snippet was taken out of context and used to push that lie.

I'll see if I can find the actual interaction. This was purely from memory.

Abolitionist Charles Sumner, 1848 speech, UNION AMONG MEN OF ALL PARTIES AGAINST THE SLAVE POWER AND THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY.

I hear the old political saw, that "we must take the least of two evils." My friend from Ohio [Mr. Giddings] has already riddled this excuse, so that I might well leave it untouched; but I cannot forbear a brief observation. It is admitted, then, that Cass and Taylor both are evils. For myself, if two evils are presented to me, I will take neither. There are occasions of political difference, I admit, when it may become expedient to vote for a candidate who does not completely represent our sentiments. There are matters legitimately within the range of expediency and compromise. The Tariff and the Currency are of this character. If a candidate differs from me on these more or less, I may yet vote for him. But the question before the country is of another character. This will not admit of compromise. It is not within the domain of expediency. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is not merely expedient for us to defend Freedom, when assailed, but our duty so to do, unreservedly, and careless of consequences. Who in this assembly would help to fasten a fetter upon Oregon or Mexico? Who that would not oppose every effort to do this thing? Nobody. Who is there, then, that can vote for either Taylor or Cass?

But it is said that we shall throw away our votes, and that our opposition will fail. Fail, Sir! No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail. It may not be crowned with the applause of men; it may not seem to touch the goal of immediate worldly success, which is the end and aim of so much in life. But it is not lost. It helps to strengthen the weak with new virtue,—to arm the irresolute with proper energy,—to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end conquers all. Fail! Did the martyrs fail, when with precious blood they sowed the seed of the Church? Did the discomfited champions of Freedom fail, who have left those names in history that can never die? Did the three hundred Spartans fail, when, in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innumerable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun? Overborne by numbers, crushed to earth, they left an example greater far than any victory. And this is the least we can do. Our example will be the main-spring of triumph hereafter. It will not be the first time in history that the hosts of Slavery have outnumbered the champions of Freedom. But where is it written that Slavery finally prevailed?

Political cartoon, 1903

Always has been:

That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”

The argument was familiar, I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.

-Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

"In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience; the United States has none" -Kwame Ture

why yes I do have a large portfolio of stocks

Or 375 billion/month, given the month scale in the above image

USians spent 4.5 TRILLION dollars on healthcare in 2022.

Well, I'd like to see ol Donny Trump wriggle his way out of THIS jam!

Nice writing!

Oh yeah that was infuriating

Please no meat touching

True

This is bipolitical erasure

Some of my saved quotes & quotables

Letter to NYT decrying Zionism in 1948, signed by Albert Einstein

"In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience"

"A riot is the language of the unheard"
"I happen to be a pacifist, but if I had had to make a decision about fighting a war against Hitler, I may have temporarily given up my pacifism and taken up arms."
-MLK Jr, The Other America

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror —that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

-Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

- Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae's chapter "On Anger" is great and defends the morality of righteous anger.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

-Abraham Lincoln

Letter from a Birmingham Jail is so damn quotable.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

I just miss him so much

Ugh they were arguing about who should shoulder the blame for the shitty pullout from Afghanistan when George W. Bush is still alive and free. Deeply unserious political process

Well that's certainly not great

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.

That was my main point of anguish, both sides seemed like they were trying to sell the other to me.

Nah we all just got in a real twin towersy mood. Pure coincidence

Well they learned it today, so they have to post

And then i read your second paragraph and you're so spot on because that would 100% capture the average day in the life of any of us interacting with the brunch crowd.

I just watched the trailer and got "because you watched this you might be interested in The Minecraft Movie" and it made me sad

This is too good for badposting

Fully understanding the core of international geopolitics is incredibly painful and alienating in my current society.

Seriously, crystallized hatred. It happened.