The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Cliff Varnell]

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

We have to agree to disagree on this one. 

Although I suppose you could be right in a manner of speaking.

The billionaire class dominates both parties, and is, of course, "right-wing" on tax, regulatory and trade issues. That is, for the rich. 

It was Trump who gave the rich a 6% tax cut and everyone else 0.5%.

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

So Twitter has gone from being a tool of billionaires with the Donk label to being a tool of an unaligned billionaire or 'Phant billionaire, but they are all "right-wing." 

Twitter was never a Donk tool.

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

As for the 'Phant party, are you saying that they held sway in the the San Fran HQ of Twitter? That seems like a stretch. 

Ben, you have to understand how right wing outrage culture drives social media content.  

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But maybe so. You live there...was Twitter known as a hub for regional 'Phants?

Their sole watering hole in The City? Twitter employees openly wore "Trump" pins and eschewed rainbow flags? 

Tell us the truth, Cliff Varnell! Has the outside world be fooled? 

It’s not my fault you don’t want to process the information cited.

“In nearly all countries analysed, tweets by conservative politicians were amplified more than tweets by liberal politicians, Twitter has admitted.

Meanwhile, right-wing news outlets were also amplified for Twitter users more than left-wing news outlets.”

Edited December 5, 2022 by Cliff Varnell

[Benjamin Cole]

50 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

It was Trump who gave the rich a 6% tax cut and everyone else 0.5%.

Twitter was never a Donk tool.

Ben, you have to understand how right wing outrage culture drives social media content.  

It’s not my fault you don’t want to process the information cited.

“In nearly all countries analysed, tweets by conservative politicians were amplified more than tweets by liberal politicians, Twitter has admitted.

Meanwhile, right-wing news outlets were also amplified for Twitter users more than left-wing news outlets.”

Cliff:

You are "Our Man in San Francisco".

If you say Twitter was dominated in-house by Trumpers and they devised the algorithms, then that is what I will report back to HQ 

You have final say on this topic. 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

Just now, Benjamin Cole said:

Cliff:

You are "Our Man in San Francisco".

If you say Twitter was dominated in-house by Trumpers and they devised the algorithms

No Ben, that’s not what I said.  Did you bother to read the articles?

Just now, Benjamin Cole said:

 

, then that is what I will report back to HQ 

It’s in the nature of social media platforms to amplify the loudest voices, and there are no voices louder than snowflakes crying victim.

Right-wing misinformation on Facebook is more engaging than its left-wing counterpart, research finds

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/tech/facebook-right-wing-misinformation/index.html

[W. Niederhut]

John,

    As a fellow musician, (guitarist and violinist) I'm truly surprised to hear you endorsing Mathew Koch's disparaging nonsense about the highly original, creative guitar compositions of David Evans (aka the Edge.)  His guitar compositions during the past 40 years speak for themselves, including my original U2 favorite* (below.)  Where did you ever hear a guitar played like this before 1983?

    De gustibus non est disputandum.  🤥

     I'm responding in red to your other recent post (below.)  

William,

You haven’t identified any flaw in my reasoning. Rather have you exposed flaws in yours.

You, Bono and his U2 colleagues profess to be Christians. Yet you reject the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas and other Church Fathers on the question of wealth, and instead subscribe to the thinking of Adam Smith, which is based on greed, one of the seven deadly sins of Christianity.  

Not entirely accurate.  I was referencing Adam Smith only in the context of pointing out that commercial wealth isn't necessarily a zero sum game-- i.e., one man's earnings don't necessarily result in another's poverty.  At the same time I, certainly, agree with St. John Chrysostom and the Church Fathers on the subject of wealth and poverty.

Who doesn’t advocate peace? As I said, motherhood and apple pie. The sad reality is that the peace process in Northern Ireland, by definition, only happened as a result of the IRA’s anti-imperialist guerrilla warfare – which campaign, by the way, contrary to what you suggested, was not sectarian.

Obviously sectarian atrocities were committed by both sides during “The Troubles”, but those atrocities were not approved by the IRA leadership and had nothing to do with the IRA’s anti-imperialist campaign.

Just like freedom for southern Ireland came only after the blood sacrifice by a brave minority in 1916. The majority of the Irish – like the majority in any society – were (and are) authoritarian lickspittles who kowtow to their overlords whoever they are. It was only after the British executed the 1916 leaders that the Irish War of Independence began, and it was only after that that Ireland won some degree of independence (now being frittered away, thanks to the likes of Bono).

I'll defer to your knowledge on the subject of Irish history.  My understanding is that Bono and U2 were mainly opposed to violence against civilians in Ireland.

Unfortunately, imperialists understand only one language, the language of physical force. How did the USA win its independence from Britain? That’s why John Lennon was right and Bono was wrong.

Not entirely in agreement.  The United States was rooted in rebellion against authority from the beginning.  That phenomenon was always a mixed bag-- even linked to "anti-intellectualism" in American history, as described by historian Richard Hofstadter.  It's one reason Canadians are more civilized than Americans, and not plagued by America's epidemic of gun homicides.  American cowboys insist on "independence" and associated gun-slinging.

As for John Lennon, he has been lionized by atheists, but was always a disturbed character, IMO-- the kind of sacrilegious guy who used to piss on nuns' hats from his balcony in Hamburg.

Bono’s ostentatious “standing with” Ukraine in its purported armed resistance to Russian imperialism contrasts starkly with his condemnation of the IRA in its armed resistance to British imperialism.

It's one thing to fight the Brits for independence.  It's another thing to bomb Irish (or British) civilians, isn't it?

In any case, I prefer Gandhi and Martin Luther King's non-violent approach to freedom. 

What he’s really standing with (at a safe distance of course – like a succession of Hollywood celebrity clowns such as Sean Penn) is the current unipolar world order – the establishment that has made him rich, the establishment that’s maintained by violence, the violence of Anglo-American/Nato militarism. So much for peace.

U2 has long been implicitly critical of American imperialism and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

They have also been critical of militant Russian imperialism.

I see no contradiction in that.

As for economic inequality, as I’ve said repeatedly, there is only one logical and fair solution – economic equality or as close to it as possible. Philanthropy and charity only mask and reinforce the fundamental problem of inequality. As the African saying goes, the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives.

IMO, the ideal political system is social democracy with free market economies that are properly regulated in the public interest-- Denmark and the Scandinavian countries are the model.

That's why I support Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the progressive Democrats.

Republicans in the U.S. want nothing of the kind.  They have systematically fought against progressive policies in the U.S. that would regulate plutocratic profiteering, and reduce wealth inequality-- the graduated income tax, government subsidized healthcare, education, and housing for the poor.

In the U.S., Republicans are the party of plutocracy and wealth inequality.

*

 

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

15 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

No Ben, that’s not what I said.  Did you bother to read the articles?

It’s in the nature of social media platforms to amplify the loudest voices, and there are no voices louder than snowflakes crying victim.

Right-wing misinformation on Facebook is more engaging than its left-wing counterpart, research finds

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/tech/facebook-right-wing-misinformation/index.html

Cliff V-

I trust you more on what happens inside Twitter than some M$M news reports. 

You are our man in SF.

If you say Twitter algo-makers wore Trump pins and not rainbow flags, then so be it. 

 

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

It was Trump who gave the rich a 6% tax cut and everyone else 0.5%.

Says it all.

The wealthy of America protecting and even enhancing their wealth. 

The lower 75% can fight over the crumbs.

[Cliff Varnell]

7 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Cliff V-

I trust you more on what happens inside Twitter than some M$M news reports. 

You are our man in SF.

If you say Twitter algo-makers wore Trump pins and not rainbow flags, then so be it. 

 

I never said that.  Why are you making up this fiction?

Allergic to research?

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Cliff Varnell

[Matthew Koch]

2 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

What’s not to love about a guy who doesn’t know who was President in 2020?

Greenwald:

Go look and you'll see the whole mindless liberal pack making this point: "LOL, Elon claimed there was government involvement when Taibbi admitted in tweet 22 there's none." Now, look at Taibbi's tweet: he's saying there's no evidence of *foreign government* involvement, not US...

Cliff, I think you are forgetting that there is a back story

 

[Cliff Varnell]

7 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

Cliff, I think you are forgetting that there is a back story

 

And your proof that the FBI told Twitter not to run the Hunter Biden non-story is what?

Kind of ironic the FBI warning about disinformation when James Comey lied about Hillary’s e-mails 11 days out in ‘16.

The Fascists are just pissed off the FBI didn’t do it again with Biden.

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald, two of the best and independent political reporters of our era, likely know what they are talking about. 

They aren't independent, Ben. If they were, then people would consider them real journalists rather than mouthpieces for the right-wing.

Friday was a PR disaster for those two, and they will likely never get anyone but MAGA-world to ever read their opinions on anything ever again. They volunteered be to used in Musk's RW propaganda stunt, and they won't ever live it down.

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The Twitter story is what it is: Twitter was a Donk ally in the social media world. Run by the billionaire Jack Dorsey. 

Dorsey is no Dem ally (is any billionaire? lol). Are you familiar with the "PayPal Mafia"? Look into it

[Matthew Koch]

37 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

And your proof that the FBI told Twitter not to run the Hunter Biden non-story is what?

Kind of ironic the FBI warning about disinformation when James Comey lied about Hillary’s e-mails 11 days out in ‘16.

The Fascists are just pissed off the FBI didn’t do it again with Biden.

 

First question: the FBI met regularly with the FBI and the FBI prebunked the Lap Top story. 

https://thepostmillennial.com/revealed-twitter-censor-had-regular-meetings-with-intelligence-community-ahead-of-hunter-biden-censorship?utm_campaign=64483

As to your second part:  I'm going to use your logic from your last post Cliff

Who was the President of the United States when that happened? 😝💯

[Cliff Varnell]

9 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

 

First question: the FBI met regularly with the FBI and the FBI prebunked the Lap Top story. 

That’s not what it says.

9 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

https://thepostmillennial.com/revealed-twitter-censor-had-regular-meetings-with-intelligence-community-ahead-of-hunter-biden-censorship?utm_campaign=64483

 

“Former head of Twitter Trust and Safety Yoel Roth submitted a disclosure to the FEC saying that the company had been warned by the FBI of a forthcoming Russian disinformation dump, and they assumed the New York Post's reporting was it. Federal law enforcement planted the seed in Twitter's collective mind, and Twitter used that intelligence to suppress the Post's report.”

So Twitter *assumed* the Post story was Russian disinfo after the FBI *planted a seed* — and that’s your idea of a fascist operation?

9 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

As to your second part:  I'm going to use your logic from your last post Cliff

Who was the President of the United States when that happened? 😝💯

Since when did Obama dictate to the FBI?  The US Gov’t didn’t put out a phony story about Hillary’s e-mails — James Comey and the NYC FBI office did that.

[Matt Allison]

I imagine if the Russians hadn't meddled so much in the 2016 election, then the intelligence agencies wouldn't have expected them to do the same in 2020, and thus, Hunter Biden's laptop would not have been suspected of being part of an op.

Whoops.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Matt Allison]

In case anyone forgot:

 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

They aren't independent, Ben. If they were, then people would consider them real journalists rather than mouthpieces for the right-wing.

Friday was a PR disaster for those two, and they will likely never get anyone but MAGA-world to ever read their opinions on anything ever again. They volunteered be to used in Musk's RW propaganda stunt, and they won't ever live it down.

Dorsey is no Dem ally (is any billionaire? lol). Are you familiar with the "PayPal Mafia"? Look into it

Matt:

We have to agree to disagree on the merits of Greenwald and Taibbi. 

I will look into Dorsey's PayPal mafia.