"This is the worst-case scenario for the U.S. ruling class, a scenario where the proletarian revolutionary organizations [...] wage an actual people’s war. Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington DC would be the most vulnerable" rainershea.com/f/the-illusion…
"In the country’s mountainous terrain, where it’s easy for guerrilla bands to hide, additional pieces of land would quickly become likely to be taken. The country would become a patchwork of strongholds for the revolutionaries"
"The government will do all it can to prevent this outcome from being realized - from carrying out mass pre-emptive arrests of revolutionaries, to trying to massacre the first Red bases [...]
[T]hese things are [...] what we need to prepare for to survive"
"Gather seeds and create homesteads in your area so that you won’t starve during a blockade. Attain radio-based communications equipment for a scenario where the government shuts off the internet in your area."
"Gather the materials you would need to camp in the wilderness for extended periods of time should you need to retreat to a place where the government can’t find you. Get all the weapons, armor, medical supplies, exercise, and martial arts training that you’ll need"
The People's Twitter.
And it would definitely not selectively censor unfashionable opinions if it were run by a government bureaucracy.
Because public sector bodies only ever maximise The Common Good.
Could even call it The International Common Good Association, just to make sure
"I don't like the fact that Twitter is so subservient to the woke elites. Let's create a massive state regulator, so that the woke elites, which have a stranglehold on most institutions... oh no, wait..."
(I mean, he's not entirely wrong. His solution may be rubbish, but there is an issue here. Twitter really does have a substantial amount of market power.
Still: There are people who I just will not ever side with, even when they have a point. And that includes Communitarians.)
"Virtue-signalling" is one of those terms we might struggle to define precisely, but we nonetheless know what it means, and we know it when we see it.
That includes those of us who intentionally misunderstand it, for performative reasons.
Put it that way: If somebody brags about how much money they give to charity, is that "virtue-signalling"?
No. Absolutely not. Because that would be disingenuous literalism. In practice, it never just meant the signalling of ANY virtuous activity. It has a more specific meaning.
Virtue-signalling really means signalling that you hold political opinions which guarantee easy applause, because they are in line with what the cultural establishment considers virtuous.
And since the cultural establishment = the woke Left, only the woke Left can virtue-signal.
Sweden has been doing relatively OK during Covid, and they've certainly outperformed expectations.
But it's also very far from a brilliant success story.
Their excess mortality rate has been a good deal higher than in the neighbour countries, and the economy is doing no better.
"Ah", say the Swedenistas, "but back in spring, they didn't just say it would be somewhat worse than in the neighbour countries! They said there would be a bloodbath! Mayhem!"
Well, so what? I don't care what "they" predicted. *I* did not predict that, did I?
I've just bought Squealer's book, and I already regret it.
It starts with an Ash Sarkar quote...
Doesn't get any better. The first few pages already contain a full set of leftie bingo. He also demonstrates that he still hasn't learned how to pass an Ideological Turing Test.
He doesn't get the Culture War at all. He thinks right-wingers are just people who suffer from neoliberalism, and who mistakenly blame their problems on Muslims.
Hard to believe now, but there really was a time when most right-wingers sort of liked Owen Jones.
Until 2015/16, I often heard people say "Sure, he's wrong about everything - but I can't help liking him! He seems like an honest, well-meaning bloke."
NOBODY says that today.
The reason they liked him was that he didn't have this typical leftie tendency to hyper-moralise everything, and assume that everyone outside of their tribe was literally Hitler.
That's very, very unusual for a leftie. And conservatives and liberals appreciated that.
The Corbo years then ruined him. He effectively became Corbo's propaganda minister, and in that role, he became incredibly dishonest, and hyper-tribal. He would say absolutely anything to defend Corbo, including for things he'd never ever let a political opponent get away with.