Why Neil Young? He literally pulled his music off Spotify because he was so pissed at them platforming Rogan. Dude’s about as anti-Trump as you can get.

Also, basically same deal with Springsteen. Dude is very progressive and definitely not a Trump fan.

You’re think you’re disagreeing with me, but I want to be clear that you’re advocating for exactly the same things I am.

Polls don’t matter, but public opinion absolutely does. You can’t organize a mass movement of resistance without a mass of people to organize. The fact that Trump’s agenda is becoming increasingly unpopular is an opportunity for those organizing resistance to bring in more support.

But we’re not required to evaluate the facts of the case based on what “some people” think. We can objectively examine the content of people’s speech and ask whether it’s intent is to advocate against the basic rights of a group of people or not. Criticising Isreal does not meet that test, despite what the ADL might claim.

Yes, there are grey areas. Yes, there are hard calls that have to be made. But saying “This is hard” and then throwing up your hands and resorting to free speech absolutism because you can’t handle the difficult work of building a society is just childish.

This. Facebook is just an entry point.

This is exactly why organizing in small ways is so important. You need to get plugged in, get connected, get into the right people’s contact lists, get onto the signal group chats. That’s where you’re going to hear about the stuff that’s going down. Thats where you’re going to get the chance to stand up and say “I can help with that”

This is good. This is an opportunity to talk to people about the destructive effects of Trump’s agenda, and help them to really understand that he’s not looking out for their interests. The more people get upset about what Trump is doing, the more chance there is to potentially stop it.

Approval always matters, even without democracy.

Democracy is just a managed, fairly agreed upon process for a governed people to exercise their will. But a governed people always have the ability to exercise their will. Authoritarian tactics can make that more difficult, but they cannot ever prevent it.

Remember, if there was nothing people could do to stop them, their propaganda would not be necessary. The fact that they are engaged in information control demonstrates that they do very much care about approval - or, at least, acceptance.

Is Trump just out there firing the people that will stand up to him ?

How is this even a question? Yes, of course that’s what he’s doing. He’s literally following the playbook right wing think tanks wrote before the election. They’ve stated openly that this is all part of their plan. Purge the government of everyone but loyalists, and then act with impunity because the people whose job is to act as a check on executive power will rubber stamp everything.

God, Americans should be panicking right now and you’re all just sleepwalking into this.

It’s not a question of “extremist”. What is or isn’t “extreme” is largely a matter of how far an idea strays from the norm. Some extreme ideas are very good, some extreme ideas are terrible.

The question, rather, is of purpose, not character. Intolerant speech - that is, speech whose purpose is to limit the rights of specific groups of people to exist - is the only kind of speech that we must be prepared to limit, because without limits on intolerant speech, the intolerant will ultimately abuse their freedoms to strip away freedoms from others.

This draws a hard line. It clearly defines and delineates what is and is not acceptable. It is a simple and clear rule that any tolerant society must abide by if it is to continue to be a tolerant society.

For the proof of this, you only need to look at what is happening in the US right now.

They have simply have no way to wrap their heads around the idea of doing anything about it. The CIA was created as a weapon for the government to point at their enemies. They don’t know how to respond when that government is the enemy.

Take a good hard look at how rapidly Trump and his team are expanding the powers of the president. Those constitutional limits are close to breaking point already.

Trust me, I really, really hope you’re right. But please understand that these new fascists have spent a lot of time thinking about these problems and how they’re going to solve them.

Anyone believing there will be any more free and fair elections in the US isn’t paying attention.

It took less than 100 days for Hitler to consolidate power, and Trump is following the exact same playbook.

You can hold leaders to account, and you should - there’s plenty to hold them to account for - but that still doesn’t answer the question of what is to be done in this present moment right now.

You want a general strike, but you have no idea who is going to organize one, or how they’re going to do it, because you’d rather feel justified in your outrage over grudges of the past than actually see anything useful done.

You’re more interested in feeling righteous than you are in succeeding, and that’s going to get you exactly nowhere.

The right wing assholes whining about free speech don’t actually want free speech. You can see that in the campaigns to remove books from school libraries all across the country. All across the world the right are demonstrating time and again how little they actually support free speech.

What they want is the freedom to spew hate speech, which is the only kind of speech that a tolerant and free society should not tolerate. All other forms of speech they will gladly and eagerly suppress unless it agrees with them.

As someone doing the hiring, referral hires fucking suck. I want the best candidate, not the most connected candidate, and I don’t want to have to deal with the bullshit company politics when the referral hire doesn’t work out.

Again, where are your alternatives? If these leaders suck as badly as you say they do, then who should people be looking to instead?

No idea why you deleted that comment. You’re right.

The bank bailouts in 2008 didn’t cause the tiniest bit of inflation. Again, Mark Blyth calls this out specifically in his book and many of his lectures. The predominant question plaguing economists in the 2010s was “Where the fuck is the inflation?”

Japan has an incredibly high debt to GDP ratio, and their main economic constraint right now is too little inflation.

Once you start looking for the examples they’re there. This whole idea that government spending = inflation is a total myth.

You have the power to build up leaders rather than tearing them down.

And if nothing else, you have the power to say nothing. If you’re not going to offer better alternatives, at least make the positive choice not to attack the people taking action.

And, just to be absolutely clear, if you carefully read back through everything I’ve said here, you’ll see that I never said “don’t criticize.” Criticism can still build up, can still inspire others to join a common cause. But you’re not doing that. You’re just cutting down what’s there and planting nothing in its place.

If you read the article you’ll find the context, which is that Australia recently enacted a law restricting social media sites to ages 16+.

The point is that children are still routinely using social media despite the law being in force.

No, see, that’s just your excuse for why you’re tearing down this particular leader.

You didn’t come in here saying “I stand with Bernie, but I wish he’d call for stronger action like a general strike up front.” You came charging in with your laundry list of grievances to tell everyone why you think Bernie is a pathetic coward and no one should listen to him.

But, and this is key, you’re not offering any alternatives. Are you the leader organizing the general strike? If so, it might be time to share some info on that. If not, then who the fuck is it? Because if all you’re able to do is complain that none of the people stepping up are perfect enough for your personal standards, you’re just another part of the problem.