One of my life long dreams is to document events around the world. It is dangerous to be caught up in the middle of a social unrest, but it would be a mad story to tell in the future if you survived!

Maybe Stanley Kubrick was on to something when he made Eyes Wide Shut. You know, it happen to be available on Netflix right now…

The animists are right along! Everything literal thing are alive!

I think somewhere, deep down, a small dot of intelligence is trying to come out of Trump’s fat, orange blob of a body.

I often read “Europe needs the US military to defend itself” online, but is it actually true?

For now at least. Europe doesn’t have the same size of military industrial complex that US has at the moment. Europe needs more time to gear up.

Europe is still too dependent on the US military to decouple and be more independent own, unfortunately. The EU agreed to a trade deal/not-trade deal (according Von der Leyen) with Trump in European investment in the US military. I know Europeans were angry at that, but in the near term the EU doesn’t have the capability to arm itself sufficiently, while simultaneously arming Ukraine. IMO that deal was buying time for the EU to remilitarise independently (I’m not a fan of remilitarisation as a Euro but what can we do).

I have been thinking US probably requires a hard reset. But then I realised, this will only benefit Russia and China. Well, more for China. Russia’s expensive war in Ukraine won’t make the country last long in the future. No one worth their salt could replace Putin. If US breaks up or goes on civil war, China will be the ultimate winner.

Musk and Napoleon aren’t nowhere near close enough for comparison. Napoleon had done more good.

People hate AI slop, but you know who’s going to make it acceptable? Children. They will grow up using AI generator apps and websites. So at some point, us adults will have to accept it. It reminds me of dating apps and websites when it was considered taboo and seen as sad to use them. Twenty years later, dating apps are now ubiquitous and normalise them because younger folks made it normal.

We’re better off not participating. We never had any competent acts to send and be proud of anyway ever since Ireland’s successful winning streak in the 1990s. Pulling out of Eurovision in protest of Gaza genocide is something we’ll be proud of instead.

while doing a bit of theater about it?

That’s what Democrats have always done-- throwing some breadcrumbs.

This isn’t to dismiss the Democrat effort to release the Epstein files by the way, but I’m saying that the Democratic party have always half assed things in general. I got downvoted for saying Dem effort to release the files is high school gossip drama and not focusing on more critical issues. Because they haven’t laid out their serious platform to address kitchen table issues that matter more to ordinary Americans.

Let’s say Trump and Republicans lose the house, senate and the executive, and then what? Are Dems going to address wealth inequality and oligarchy, the very same issues that led to fascism? It is the same story in Europe. Almost ten years ago people hailed the electoral defeat of far right movements. But fast forward now, and because mainstream parties failed to address the underlying issues that led to the rise of far right, the far right is still far from defeated and only grew stronger instead! They might even get into power in the next national European election. I don’t want to sound know it all, but most people lack optics and are short term minded. The rising far right is also something most people don’t want to think about until they gain power.

I mean taking pot shots at targeted killing of soldiers themselves. I’m okay with that, they are legitimate targets after all. Many freedom fighters consciously avoid civilian deaths. Although in the case of Hamas, they don’t care. Being under oppression is not an excuse. I can’t belabor the point further, many freedom fighters before consciously avoid civilian deaths. It is not like there was no precedence for Hamas not to follow.

I’m all for targeting military personnel but not civilians.

I think the answer is pretty simple: immigration and the cultures and behaviour that come with impoverished people.

Bingo. I wish more people would realise this instead of calling people stupid, hillbilly, racist, ignorant etc. The problem is not immigration itself, but pitting the poor against fellow poor who happen to be of foreign origin. With austerity going on since the financial crisis, there has been little to no public investment. Housing in particular has been put under private equity and NIMBYs kicking down the property ladder making it harder for nearly everyone to put roof over their heads. The nature of employment has changed, turning from traditional manual labour to either knowledge-based or automation, which not everyone has the knack for or that less people are needed.

So, less housing and less jobs are available. This puts family in poverty. As we speak, record number of children are in poverty and emergency accommodations. Guess what effect will this experience have on these children growing up in shaping their world view…

Bear in mind that the riot in Nepal only started after the peaceful student protests was shot at by the police first. The No Kings protest hasn’t been violently quelled to warrant a public riot, yet.

Pretty sure Jews outside of Israel are against what the Israeli state is doing to Palestine. But for Israeli Jews, unfortunately, last time I saw the survey, most of them approve of kicking the Palestinians out of Gaza and West Bank. They may not like Netanyahu and most know that he is prolonging the war to artificially extend the lifeline of his regime, but most approve of the overall right wing policies of Likud towards Palestinians.

“Bleeding heart” for me is someone-- sorry for the lack of a better word-- who has certain naïveté. All going on about decorum but doesn’t have what it takes to take the gloves off when needed. Because evil never sleeps.

Americans have been conditioned to think within a carefully curated thought and frame by the capitalistic media to make normal folks timid.

People could go on about two party system, but look at other countries, they also have two party system but they successfully elect third parties and unafraid to hold their politicians not doing their jobs accountable. What happened to Americans who got rid of monopolies in Gilded age and getting third parties electing into congress and senate? That’s my point. Now, Americans are inactive. It only took cutting Medicare and crashing the stock market for people to do something. Before? Nada. And that’s the thing, people only mobilise if their personal interests are affected. The solidarity of the past has been gone.

Now I see why the bleeding heart liberal is a pejorative.

Was not having enough numbers for the Republicans not stop them from filobustering every popular policies that had been proposed? Did Chuck Schumer and Dems do the same when he allowed the big beautiful bill that gutted Medicare and welfare? So much for vOtE bLuE nO mAtTeR wHo nonsense.

You Americans today are embarrassing your progressive ancestors that stopped the Gilded age and put the Roosevelts in the White House. Because back then, opposition parties were actually oppositions, and people held their politicians held accountable dearly. You mentioned you don’t know if Democrats will address what made fascism happen. They are suppose to be the good guys, right? You support them and they are the opposition. You should know what they are supposed to do.

People are not saying to vote third party, what people sane enough to see what’s wrong is to hold the Dems more accountable and actually for them to grow a spine instead of doing performative opposition all the time.

Because their constituents voted for the Democrats to do their jobs? And is not having enough power at any given time prevented the Republicans from holding hostage of the government multiple times through filibuster?

there aren’t enough Democrats in the House and Senate to accomplish all the things you’re asking for. All things I completely agree we need, but they require votes.

Do Republicans have the numbers when they filibuster every popular proposals and bills? Dems should do the same if they are serious and whether they are in opposition or not.