I sorta agree with a lot of what you’re saying; not completely but I think you might have misconstrued some of what I was getting at here.

The US State Dept does a lot of good work

Agreed

There has been no “imperial” ambitions under the Biden administration; quite the opposite, really in countering imperial ambitions of Putin, while also coming down harder on Israel than quite literally any past Presidential administration in history

Agreed

Because the election is 62 days away. Withdrawing aid from Israel will immediately by framed by right-wing media, Republican opposition, AIPAC, Russian and Israeli troll farms as being “Antisemitic.”

Agreed

I’m not going to subscribe to this notion that they’re some inherently evil entity

I didn’t say they were evil. I said they’re not your friend; I think it’s weird for them to be showing up with a guitar like we’re gonna hang out.

Put it this way: If one of my neighbors regularly made phone calls ordering people to be killed, I wouldn’t hang out with them. Like if they showed up to a party with a guitar, I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head that they might wake up the next morning and decide that a bunch of Houthis need to die, and then make it happen in the course of their working day. That’s weird.

I mean it is fine. You’re not wrong. And I have the luxury of sitting here in my safe little bubble protected by these wide luxury oceans with dudes staying up all night watching the satellites, making sure nothing geopolitically bad happens to anything American anywhere in the world. I definitely think that the US empire is by far the most benevolent of the big empires available in the world today. That’s a pretty fuckin low bar, but sure, I accept it. I mean I’m sitting safe and happy inside it and not trying to put a stop to it or anything so I might as well.

But at the same time, there’s people waking up in hell on earth right now. Like coming awake not eating for two days, hungry with their kids crying, some of their kids just gone killed by the shelling, no food, no toilets, just a big dusty hellscape with more death and misery and emptiness all around them. I get it that at this point we gotta just let that happen, I guess? It just doesn’t seem like too much of a fuckin priority to make it stop. We’re sort of trying, but not on the same level as if it was happening in Philly or Austin or something (or in Tel Aviv.)

I definitely won’t disagree with you about what Trump will do or the electoral calculus of supporting Israel. I’m just saying, you can’t be helping make that happen (or whatever other “lesser evil” atrocity, including the intermittency of our support for Ukraine and our weird little pussyfooting rules about how they’re allowed to fight back) and then be friends and show up with a guitar like it’s all cool. Yeah, I’m glad we have professionals keeping things under control. It is fine. But it would take a lot more humanity from the State Dept before I would really like something like this.

Look, I love this country. Part of why I love it is that streak of anti-authoritarianism that keeps the empire stuff in check, which leads to a lot of the good behavior you’re talking about, and also a lot of the rock and roll we make. I’m just saying… play some other fuckin’ song. “Rockin’ in the Free World” is a song of desperation inside the inhuman system that is America. It’s the homeless guy who knows it’s getting colder with winter coming on and still doesn’t have a place to go. It’s trying to keep hope alive even when you’ve given up on anything you can see or interact with to ever be deserving of hopefulness. You can’t be part of the system and play it unless you are actively fuckin fixing things (I’m not saying Blinken is not, you have a point about that part, but… Gaza.)

If you’re in Ukraine, and you want to play a kind of dark Neil Young song you can still rock out to, play “Powderfinger” about the kid who’s too young to be using a rifle but has to pick one up, all scared, because someone’s coming for his family. Or just play RHCP and blow off some steam. You can bring some America stuff and everyone can have a good time. I just feel like maybe he’s playing it thinking like “fuck yeah rock and roll” and I don’t know whether it’s occurred to him that a lot of the dark horrors that the song talks about are still going on, and for some people in the world he’s the central symbol of the system that’s exporting them to other countries so they can experience them too.

at least he’s got the balls to go to Kyiv in the first place unlike his predecessors

Yeah. This part, I like. We need more of this.

Edit: I got curious and I watched this. JESUS CHRIST MAKE IT STOP. As with many things, George Carlin said it far more succinctly than I could.

I gotta say

1. Fuck imperialism; the US State Dept is not your friend and they’re not supposed to be
2. The idea of the US Secretary of State playing guitar in a nightclub in Kyiv while supporting them in a war against imperialism is actually kind of incongruously good, gives me some kind of hope WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SENDING WEAPONS TO ISRAEL STILL
3. From the short clip, that sounds like one of the least hip performances of an inherently pretty good song I have ever heard 😢
4. For the uninitiated

Don’t fuck with the paws

Almost all nuclear weapons require quite a bit of expertise to maintain over time. If they got sold off 30 years ago, chances are 99% that they’re mostly good for lighting off as a dirty bomb and not much else at this point.

Dude, you’re making yourself more important than you actually are. No one cares about you.

Seriously. The West keeps legit forgetting the whole thing is even going on, and then waking up and sending $50 billion and then getting distracted again.

The bravery of the Ukrainians and the 20:1 outmatchedness of the Russians in total industrial/technological capacity are responsible for the failure of the invasion. Not any kind of urgent priority or strong level of care on the Western side in any location west of Poland.

Everyone wants to belong

Everyone wants allies, close friends, brothers and sisters they can rely on and love and support

In the modern world we have pale imitations and crap. There is no village, there is only a dim landscape through which we shuffle, largely alone.

And so there is craving for some substitute, because the under structure is unfulfilled

Filled with self advocacy, more like

Shelter cats have limited avenues for expressing their disagreements, and it sounds like he’s being as measured and puncture-free in voicing his opinion as he feels like he needs to be

It is registered as a bot and shows for me as a bot. I prefer to keep it around and heckle it as opposed to “out of sight out of mind.”

The interfaces are relatively modern too, with VGA and a PS/2 keyboard.

Hmmm

This is a weird framing. The story’s not wrong, I am sure, but it’s just sort of askew.

I will make a maybe unwarranted prediction that I will find some other curious opinions being voiced by the specific journalist who wrote this story.

Brb

Edit: I am wrong. They’re just reporting from inside Ukraine stuff that is happening and so this is a relevant story.

Go fuck yourself

OH LOOK

Here are the main points covered in the transcript:

• Elliott County, Kentucky has unusual voting patterns, having voted for Democrats in every presidential election for 144 years straight until 2016.
• In 2016, Elliott County had the largest swing from Obama to Trump of any county in the US.
• Despite voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020, Elliott County voted for Democratic Governor Andy Beshear in recent elections.
• The county is rural, 99% white, with limited economic opportunities and a median household income that has barely changed in over 30 years.
• Historically, Democrats were seen as the party for working class and poor people, associated with unions and FDR’s New Deal programs.
• Over time, the Democratic Party shifted focus away from rural blue-collar voters towards white-collar suburban voters.
• Many residents express frustration with both parties and feel abandoned by politicians.
• Economic concerns, including stagnant wages and lack of local opportunities, are major issues for residents.
• Immigration and border security have become top concerns for some voters, despite the county’s distance from the southern border.
• Governor Andy Beshear won in Elliott County by focusing on local economic issues and distancing himself from the national Democratic brand.
• Some residents recognize they have more in common with working-class immigrants than with wealthy politicians.
• There’s a desire for working-class unity across political lines, but also a sense of grasping at any potential solution to local economic struggles.
• The influence of money in politics and the growing wealth of billionaires are seen as problems by some residents.
• Trump’s outsider status and promise to “drain the swamp” appealed to voters frustrated with traditional politicians.

This summary captures the key points about Elliott County’s unique political situation, the economic challenges facing its residents, and the complex factors influencing their voting patterns.

Emphasis is mine

I actually think the forgotten-ness of rural voters and their jobs and ability to make a living, by both sides of the aisle, is a hugely important story that almost no one in Washington understands, and specifically vis-a-vis why Trump got so much support. I don’t fully disagree with the thesis of the video and especially as it applied to Washington 8 years ago.

However

I like to talk about this explosive growth of working class wages over the last 4 years (nowhere near enough but also something worth giving credit to Biden for). I wondered if that applied also to Elliot County – I still don’t really know the answer, but I found this, and if you click back to 2020 the bars only go up to $60k and in 2022 they were going up to $95k so that tells you some level of something.

It’s also notable that I was able to predict what the piece would say without anything to go on other than educated guessing about what it might cover.

I would be curious to see something actually diving into how things have worked out (specifically taking Elliot County as an example) for the last few years, where that $95k actually came from, how common it is, how things worked out in 2023 and why, etc etc. Basically a real unbiased version of what this video is a somewhat blinkered form of, would be fuckin fascinating.

This isn’t it though

Here’s my prediction about “More Perfect Union”, just based on the channel name and the downvotes:

• Weirdly high production values
• Reasons why people don’t support Harris / Democrats and you shouldn’t either
• General leftist vibe but no particular leftist plans other than DEFINITELY NOT VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS
• No particular affiliation with any existing leftist organization or personality, just arrived from nowhere

I could be totally off base. That’s just my guessing prediction based on a learned level of suspicion that at this point verges on furious unfair cynical prejudice

Brb

You are posting propaganda bullshit

Pretending not to know what I am saying! Good strategy. You can Google “tan suit” if you actually do need help with it.

Good to see the tan suit bullshit things-to-get-upset-about machine is updated for the modern era and dialed in to its specific audience

There is a particular type of emotion which “The VVitch” and “Hereditary” get absolutely perfect. It’s actually not really my favorite type of movie; it’s not particular scary, per se, but it is just some stuff that is really awful that you don’t want to see. If you don’t want that, they may not be good, but if you vibe with that particular emotion they are hard to beat for it.

The HBO “Chernobyl” miniseries is absolutely straight-up horror. It has pretty much all the elements of a perfect horror movie, except it’s (with tiny exceptions and artistic licenses) all 100% true.

“As Above, So Below” is fairly good “normal” horror of a fairly unspicy flavor.

That’s honestly all I can think of that really does it well. Horror books in my experience are far better. “The Shining,” “Pet Semetary,” “Night Shift,” and “Skeleton Crew.” Also lots and lots of HP Lovecraft; the “Dunwich Horror” collection is wonderful.

Hope this helps.

Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if some of these executives who’ve been so aggressive about the importance of maintaining a good public image had their spouses or children die in a totally preventable inferno, or suffocate to death. Or have a long uncontrolled descent back to hit the ocean, dying on impact, knowing the whole way down what was about to happen. Like the Challenger crew. Or, if one of these Boeing executives had had their child on one of the 737MAXes that flew itself inexorably towards the ground and no survivors because of a minor sensor failure.

Super embarrassing, it would have been. Fuck em, the lot. Hope they have trouble with their careers.

He was a weird motherfucker in several different ways

He had money though. That’s the great thing about money; you can just kind of motor around with whatever priorities you want and for the most part no one intervenes or tells you to stop

Weird angel investor took us all out to a fancy dinner and made a weird extensive speech about the importance of the future; kind of “Godspeed my young protégés I know you’ll do wonderful things.” Kind of sounded like he finally believed in us and wanted to let us know with a nice gesture. Idk. No one could make any sense of it.

The next day his lackey informed us we were all fired. Oooh, that’s what that was about; makes sense, oh well, we have to get real jobs now apparently.