Yep. If money isn’t a problem, the answer is ‘never’.

Laws mean nothing without enforcement. There is no ‘trouble’, there’s no power in ‘should’.

Wait, did we all miss a memo?

Speak for yourself. Those who have been on the streets have been seeing police suppression for decades, over a century even. Protest laws have been encroaching all that time.

Never assume sincerity or consistency from politicians.

In fact, I’d go a step further and say Reagan, like most other liberalists, does not have a cohesive worldview based on material reality, but rather a syncretic, self-contradictory hodge-podge of ideals and ideas which sound good.

if he really said that

Ronald Reagan’s 1987 Speech on Project Economic Justice.

Judging by the two-party system and the past Democrat governments, I don’t think there’s a significant possibility of getting more than one those in the next decade. At least four of them run directly in contradiction to the groups with enough money to systematically sponsor and corrupt politicians (no matter which party), own mass media and control other relevant institutions.

These kind of things only happen when people have the power to pressure the government into supplying them.

Two things can be bad. These are not sports teams where one side wins and the other loses.

Yes. I completely agree. However, it’s important to dispel false equivalence. Every country spends money on military, that doesn’t imply they’re all bad or neglecting their citizens.

Why is the US spending so much on military? Why is China spending so much on military? Why does the US routinely invade countries in other regions? Why does China suppress Uyghur people in the Xinjiang conflict? Like you said, two things can be bad, but it’s also negligent to imply the two situations are comparable.

China is #2 in military spending after the USA.

I don’t believe they have another option, given the USA’s military and aggression.

It’s telling how limited their spending is - consider China’s disproportionate economy, size and population, and their borders. According to Wikipedia, they only spend 1.7% of their GDP on military - that’s alongside the Netherlands, Czechia, Italy and Spain.

China has one leader, who is leader for life.

Are you saying that as a general statement about leadership in the PRC? If so, then you can easily disprove it with the previous leaders:

• Jiang Zemin (died 2022) - paramount leader until 2002, retired in the run-up to the 16th National Congress where Jintao had massive support to become the new party General Secretary
• Hu Jintao (alive) - paramount leader until 2012, when Xi was elected General Secretary by the 18th National Congress

To remain the party leader, you have to retain the support of the party. It’s not like a monarchy where there’s a right to be leader for life.

No, they are not ideologically communist. A ruling party is by definition not communist. They are diometrically opposed.

To clarify, ‘ideologically communist’ means being part of a movement aiming to build a ‘communist society’ (communist mode of production, classless, moneyless, etc.). It makes sense for someone to call themselves a communist despite owning money, being in a social class, living under a state. In fact, a member of the bourgeoisie can be a communist, so long as they are actually helping to build the communist movement - it just means they’re a class traitor. A communist who is part of the ruling class is a paradox, not a contradiction.

The communist movement does not imply prefiguration, where the movement has to immediately begin reflecting their ideal society - anarchist tendencies tend to prefer prefiguration as a transitional method, while Leninist tendencies tend to see overemphasis on it as utopian and reckless, favoring vanguardism, that ruling party you mentioned.

I see no reason why vanguardism contradicts the communist movement. The ideologically-driven ruling party aims to build a surrounding environment which will gradually abolish itself (‘withering away of the state’). This is a paradox, but not a contradiction. Their ruling party aims to be temporary, seen as a necessary step to make it possible to build that communist society.

I appreciate the irony of the third one.

Just use real Reagan quotes:

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Maybe we can pitch a TV show and use the budget to build housing a realistic neighborhood set.

Absolutely. This regime has shown how fragile the relationship is, and how untrustworthy the USA is as a partner.

once the democrats are back in power

This little phrase reminded me: I find it interesting how this is just assumed by many people as an eventuality when we’ve already seen a failed coup attempt last time an election ousted the Republican regime. There is this underlying faith in the liberal democracy of the US, since despite its huge flaws, it hasn’t failed in over a century. Similar with all the people who call for impeachment, police arresting ICE and other legal mechanisms.

It’s silly to trust government institutions to save one from an openly, brazenly malicious government.

It depends what you mean by movement, and where you mean.

There are already some direct action movements on the ground, like Subvertisers International, Adbusters and historically B.U.G.A.U.P to name some famous Western ones.

Many years ago, I posted about how horribly written it was, and right on cue, a neo-Nazi pipes in asking which translation it was, because apparently all the faithful translations are a Jewish trick, or something…

No reply when I posted the introduction in original German, of course.

This might not be what you meant, but I’ve found 90+% of the ‘online left’ regardless of ideology to be far more ultra-left, alienated and toxic than most people on the ground, even including the drama kiddos on college campuses and split rival organizations. To everyone I highly recommend finding people in real life, if possible.

Bombs not Food

Sulfur and charcoal, delightful!

Subtitle: S◎RRY, we didn’t know it was intelligent.

I wouldn’t be surprised either if it’s guerilla marketing for the military and a captive audience for AI.