Doc Avid Mornington

That’s how you talk?

What? Your colleague sounds like they may be struggling with some serious cognitive issues, they may want to see a doctor about that. As for me, I’ve been living with my brain my entire life, and have kept several different sleep schedules in that time, for one reason or another, including rigid adherence to a schedule you would certainly approve of, and at no time has the basic fact that my brain works better later in the day ever changed. Some people never learn that their own circumstances and experience are not universal. Maybe try not to be one of those people.

I am definitely not at my most productive at the start of the day.

Or gets promoted, and keeps moving on to new and bigger projects, leaving a trail of destruction, because all management sees is they close tickets faster than the people who are busy picking up the pieces behind them.

Emacs Magit is so much better than the CLI, and I don’t say that lightly. And it’s available on Linux.

Yes, I completely agree, so far as I can without looking up your post and comment history to confirm that you do what you are saying here you do, but taking your word for that. Good faith criticism isn’t what Pan_Ziemniak seemed to be describing.

Two things can be happening. People with a legitimate moral concern, such as myself, don’t actively act against that concern by helping elect a candidate who would make that concern even worse. There are ways to express our anger and sorrow about Biden’s handling of this without supporting Trump.

I would prefer to say “all publicly traded corporations are effectively amoral, and capable of any imaginable evil, if it is in their interests. It’s just a question of when their interests will align with an evil action.”

Private ownership of capital is antisocial and antidemocratic. Owner-operated private businesses, the classic “Mom and Pop” store, are still antidemocratic, but much more distinctive in character, and may be more pro-social. Worker-owned cooperatives are significantly better altogether.

Honestly, people are so bad at challenging their ideas that mostly we just cause a backlash effect. Being in their own safe little bubble might help some of them have the “are we the baddies” moment.

Something something Procrustes?

I do rather like science.

So many people consider any kind of nuance to be weakness and failure.

No, you absolutely transparent troll, the people talking about the impact of the primaries and the steps the Democratic leadership need to take before the general to win and stop Republicans are not Republicans. Just stop. We all know what you are doing.

Party leadership on both sides play all kinds of games to keep the balance of power, to keep voters scared of the other guys, in order to maintain control of their own parties, but that system isn’t infallible. Bernie almost won the primary, twice, and Trump actually did. If he weren’t so abysmally bad at placating centrists liberals, he’d still be in the Whitehouse. I think that’s a terrifying prospect, but also, both hopeful, and instructive. A true left-populist candidate, who respects the rule of law and democratic consent of the governed, once in office, would be almost impossible to remove.

Overall, your assessment of the current system isn’t bad, but you are very wrong to describe that as fascist. It just isn’t, definitionally, what “fascism” means. Not yet. Certainly, significant aspects of fascism have been put into place, or have been there since the beginning, but our current system is not, overall, at the bar of fascism, and saying it is cheapens the critique of, and warnings against, actual fascism. In the big picture, our current system is actually much more democratic, and further from fascism, than it was not that long ago, even though there have been some specific, and worrying, steps backwards.

Being vigilant against fascism is good. Being defeatist about it is not.

Yes, you are correct, our democracy is severely flawed and limited, and we should fix that. I haven’t seen anybody say otherwise. Becoming fascist isn’t going to help fix it.

I am being realistic. Are you? Putting forward bills and forcing the corrupt and right-wing legislators to vote against them on the record is literally one of the biggest things that leftists have been calling for, for decades, that capitalist Democratic leaders have been suppressing, because it hurts their control of the party. Not doing this is exactly what right-wing Democrats want. Doing nothing is not a realistic solution to anything.

Oh, hah, woosh right over my head, thank you for explaining.

Honestly? Pretty well, relative to the “cry about it and do nothing” strategy.

The article describes it as

a visit that is believed to be the first stop by a president or vice president to an abortion clinic.

Can you name a prior instance? I’d really be surprised, to be honest. And hey, I am no Harris fan, but this is still a striking action.

On the one hand, candidates should not, under any circumstances, have a choice. Eligibility for office should be predicated on participation in public debates, structured and moderated under direct democratic control. On the other hand, stopping Trump is essential, and in the system we have, not the system I wish we had, this is a good strategy. Biden is assuming the role of adult in the room, and making Trump come to him, setting vague terms he never actually has to deliver on. He’s setting up the conclusion that if there isn’t a debate, it’s because Trump was an ill-behaved child, but if there is, it will be on Biden’s terms. Very well played.