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It doesn't help that the government gets so heavily influenced by said shitty corporations either

Now, not to rain on your parade, but this list is one legislator's opinion on what the local "no more racism until we can all learn to behave" bill bans. It's not binding.

Still, several of these legitimately don't belong in schools. There's little merit to talking about difficult issues in the most inflammatory and head-assed ways available, you know.

I don't know half of the words written there and some of them seem iffy (some like obtuse meritocracy seem made up), but I'll like to point out that if 'White Supremacy' isn't allowed, how in the world can something like the KKK be covered? That topic was there even in my father's time.

We covered that in school, and that was before the 'culture war' became a dreaded thing. Also, how can finance be taught without equity? Or heuristics without notion of bias (not the political one, but the neurological one).

He has a point, what is this language policing? This isn't a reasonable list, and it stinks of the same censorship complaints that are often leveled to the left.

It's a fast route to removing all workers rights and no political leader says anything

Politicians are such corporate sellouts nowadays it sucks

Is it because he told congress that Gain of Function research wasn't being conducted at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, a claim recently contradicted by statements made by NIH itself?

Come to Virginia (specifically Northern Virginia), our government is a bit more sophisticated.

Also Tysons Corner has a metro line that connects to DC’s metro system, so if you want, you could decide to go there

It's based on claims circulated by some animal rights group known for spreading bullshit.

I will be honest, I am ok with guns being legal for civilians

Crime is a bitch and you gotta defend yourself somehow, not even shooting just the deterrent that you may have a gun helps

Especially in Honduras

It's way to easy to get rapid fire guns in the USA leading to school shootings and that should be fixed but outright banning all guns would only lead to an increase in crime rates maybe even police brutality

Probobly because he doesn't spew the narrative that covid was a bioweapon which is the only opinion that the right allows

I miss the 2000s

The State of Virginia has textbooks teaching children that black people 'owe a debt to the state of Virginia'.

I remember reading my history textbooks during high school (a little too much perhaps), but I don’t remember hearing THAT at all

Then again, my high school was in Fairfax County, so it could be that I was in a better school system

No, its (presumably) because you werent schooled in the 50s and 60s.

“The debt the Negro race owes to Virginia and the South has never been less recognized than it is today. Virginia took a backward race of savages …" etc. That's a sample of the uncritical race theory @Profepps was taught in school. Great piece.https://t.co/OBGXaGiMew

— Timothy Noah (@TimothyNoah1) October 25, 2021

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Epps

Something tells me Virginia has had at least one update of its curriculum since.

Senator Mo Brooks was apparently wearing body armor during the January 6th riot.

He also punted responsibility for planning with the rioters on his staffers, saying he had no idea.
Gee, I wonder why.

Mmhmm. And the proof for this, besides a claim by someone who calls himself "Hollywood's Ultimate Insider", is what exactly?

You should start linking actual articles for this stuff instead of random tweets.

Here.

Thinking back about it Nazi Germany were total losers

There is this idea they were evil but also all badass and stylish and I can see why but like…Hitler was an idiot, they wasted a lot of money and they lost unbelievably hard

Also they hated Jews because not only were they unbelievably racist but because Jews weren't losers and had achieve some amount of success so they wanted to knock them down out of envy in a horrifying way, overall they were pretty lame.

The future looks really grim, like I am not really counting on
things getting better at this point

Edit: I can't be the only one right?

No, you're not. A lot of people out there have a similar view.
It's hard to see things in an optimistic way when you are spoon fed fear-porn on a daily basis. It's hard to take things in an objective manner when there are literal forces out there that profit from your anxiety. And it is certainly true that we, as a world, are entering a stormy decade. I can list dozens of current national and international events that are unfolding that are causing massive seismic shifts.
I'm quite sure that a year into WW1 and consequent Great Depression Europeans couldn't possibly imagine things improving. Is it no wonder we had the birth of dystopian fiction that emerged in that time line that painted a grim society? And yet we are not there. The overwhelming majority of us are living comfortable lives. In fact…I'd argue that some of our existential anxieties and dread stem from that all too familiar comfort. What great struggle do we have today? Our inconvenienced are magnified, the slightest insults become calls for war. We are literally creating new struggles just to feel like t here is some purpose, some meaning, something to fight for.

A perspective, although a super grim one.
We've literally shut down our civilization – set fire to our socio-political structure and way of life over a plague that claimed the lives of less than 0.002% of our entire population, most of whom were the elderly. That's how good we had it, and how good we will continue to have it.

A storm is coming, structures are changing, we may see upheaval, but we will get through it, and it's not going to be nearly as terrible as what is behind us.

That plague spreads quickly and can crush health care systems as a result. I don't quite think we're unreasonable about how we fight it. What I find unreasonable is trying to act like it doesn't exist because we feel suffocated by these restrictions.

No the example is people throwing a fit over being slightly inconveniaced by havign to wear a mask and be quartentined

Would that a feeling of sufforcation were the only consequence of restrictions.

Well the economy is on shambles I will give you that yeah

I'm still of the opinion that it is a large amount of death, but since it's those who are treating the situation so cavaliarly who are the main victims, what else can I say? More damaging than the deaths is that there's no coming together, and if anything there's more acrimony. This will kneecap nations, it will haunt us.

We'll get through "this", but in what forms and how many will differ. It can be the Great Depression (a temporary bad time) or a societal change or the Bronze Age Collapse, or a mass extinction event if we hit above the Wet Lightbulb Temperature.

In terms of excess death, Russia has lost the equivalent of Vladivostok, India may have lost Bangalore, Indonesia has hit 1 million (looks like the hot weather theory is bunk). The US? Seattle with current covid estimates, San Francisco to 1 million with excess deaths.

Isolation, unemployment and the media's fear porn. I would not be suprised if for every person the lockdown prevented from dying of covid another person was driven to suicide through stress.

I would. Excess deaths for developed nations which went for lock-down don't go above recorded deaths from Covid.

Those with excess deaths far above that which are stated by death tolls from Covid, like India may have issues from stress and suicides, but I would wager it's more from unrecorded covid deaths.

Although, I'm all for discussions on deaths due to poverty, unemployment and the stress of modern life and fearmongering media !

I only wish it was brought up for other reasons than as a cudgel against quarantines.

You know one thing that sucks about Latino America? Communism

The authoritarian dictatorial type of communism, very tankie-like.

And that is a very weird to say but it's true

Being left leaning is tricky because you often are like "how do I support the left in my country …without also supporting the communist party that is getting support and may or may not become a dictatorship if they ever get elected?" It's a constant dilema.

True. I've stopped being a member of the 'left' a while ago, since I can't call myself that in good conscience anymore, but the violence from Communist regimes does make some pause.

My justification is that the social-democracy I supported is more similar to other bog standard democratic parties then communism. To say otherwise is hysteria, and one may as well compare the right-wing to fascists and I find a lot of right wing hate that. Conversations where communist or fascist are thrown around break down.

Afraid of voting someone in who becomes a dictator? Always be wary. It's easy to call out political opponents for being authoritarian, it's much harder to do that for your own 'side'.

Yeah you gotta be careful about people in your own 'side' as it's easier to buy into their propaganda without thinking critically, and that can end badly

Yup. First step is to careful about preachy comments like mine, because I might have the opposite problem. I switched to the 'center' because I was tired of the 'left' being ineffectual, and would ally with anyone to counter the far-right. Same as much of the traditional left or right in the last French election.

Don't forget what your values are in politics, because only defining yourself against your opposition is also a losing proposition.

I'm not that suprised after decades of us government funded right wing dictatorships that left wing dictatorships become popular

Oh me neither if anything the rightwing dictatorships were more prevalent and probably harmful to the economy and in general

I just wanted to talk about communism to shake things up I guess. All the far right shit is getting so prevalent everywhere in the world that its starting to bore me.

Can you blame them though?
The institutions that people have been raised to trust have continually failed to provide accurate and truthful information since the beginning of this epidemic. This has been exacerbated by the politics of the 2020, the news media, hypocrisy and continual goal-pushing.
Take masks for example: since the beginning our institutions told us that masks are ineffective, then, suddenly urged all of us to wear them. And yes, the science is out, but if you read the actual science only certain, high quality, expensive, N95 masks are the ones that offer the best protection. The overwhelming majority of people who don a cloth face covering, that barely ever protects them, are being effectively told they are equivalent to the N95s, but in reality, according to the science that the CDC, the WHO, etc, are showing us, are virtually ineffective.
And then the local and federal governments, who make no distinction in this, are demanding we all wear masks to go to public spaces? Let's be honest here. The overwhelming majority of masks people are using are virtually ineffective, neither our local or federal governments are demanding effective masks to be used in public spaces. What has then the mask become if it serves no health purpose? Symbolism.
The mask, no matter what kind it is, is a symbol, a totem, it signals to those around you that "I do not intend to cause you harm or illness.". I recognize it for what it is. I do not make a fuss when I wear a mask to go shopping for food, or the inconvenience of wearing it when I work out (despite having breathing problems as it is). I recognize the importance of the totem. But here's the rub, in this day and age information has been so decentralized that those who recognize it for what is is, a totem, a symbol, are more than happy to highlight it's ineffectiveness as a means to control you. And, to be honest, they are not entirely wrong.
I actually agree with the "anti-maskers" in many ways as this is a mandate that makes no scientific sense, one that is, at worst an inconvenient affront to personal freedoms. But this is where I place the problem: an inconvenience.

But out governments have not learned from this. So they took the inconvenience one step further. They are demanding a medical treatment, against the will of the individual in the name for the greater good. I will make myself clear here. I am 100% pro-vaccination. I urge people to be vaccinated. From everything I've seen, the positives of the vaccine outweigh the negative side effects by miles. But for the state to demand the individual take a vaccine against their will is an affront to individual liberty. Period. After all the things the US government has been exposed as doing to it's own people, this is an issue I think that should be as bipartisan as possible. And it is shameful that it isn't.

The advantage the Europeans have over the US in it's implementation and effectiveness of social programs that make up the "social-democracy" is that, for the most part, the Europeans trust their governments far more than the Americans trust theirs. On top of that – at least in Scandinavia – there is a large sense of demanded trust from bureaucrats to make sure that the social programs are as effective as possible. And from what I understand there is far more public-private cooperation on making sure social benefits are felt as broadly as possible.
Unfortunately, I do no think this applies to the US who's local and federal governments have a long long history of mismanagement, bureaucratic bloat, corruption, and extreme distrust of government authorities. Not to mention that the historic underpinning of US society is to progress in spite of the government, as opposed with the blessings of the state – which is a historic norm for Europe.

On communists vs fascists, the fundamental difference between the two is that one is internationalist, the other is nationalist. Socialists who realized that internationalist Marxism was a dead end very rapidly turned out to be fascists in the 1920s and 30s. And when analyzing the self proclaimed communists of the 20th century they weren't that particularly different than the fascists.

You wouldn't have loved the Spanish Flu then.
We threw people into jail when they refused to take preventative measures to stop spreading the flu.

Fully in character for the mistake that was Wilson's admin.

Still I ain't complaining as I will rather deal with authoritarian Communists than Nazis in my country, or alt-right, or whatever other far right thing or similar groups…they are a lot

If only cause I am latino and you can at least somewhat reason with communists to an extent… not entirely but to an extent

No. I wouldn't. You say "we threw people into jail when they refused to take preventative measures to stop spreading the flu" with such glee it seems. Like … this is a good thing to you? Let's talk about the Spanish Flu and draw some important parallels.

I am going to use NCBI article on it:

The Spanish Flu struck during a time when the US – and the European continent – was engaged in WW1. Every country depended heavily on morale on the home front – because anyone who knows a thing or two about WW1 would know how absolutely brutal it was.

In 1917 California Senator Hiram Johnson made the since-famous observation that “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” The U.S. government passed a law that made it punishable by 20 years in jail to “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government of the United States.”

One could go to jail for cursing or criticizing the government, even if what one said was true. A Congressman was jailed. Simultaneously, the government mounted a massive propaganda effort.

Consequently, national and local government and public health authorities badly mishandled the epidemic. The combination of rigid control and disregard for truth had dangerous consequences. Focusing on the shortest term, local officials almost universally told half-truths or outright lies to avoid damaging morale and the war effort.

Routinely, as influenza approached a city or town local officials initially told everyone not to worry, that public health officials would prevent the disease from striking them. When influenza first appeared, officials routinely insisted at first it was only ordinary influenza, not the Spanish flu. As the epidemic exploded, officials almost daily assured the public that the worst was over. Sounds awfully familiar huh? It's almost like we've learned absolutely nothing.

In Philadelphia, when the public health commissioner closed all schools, houses of worship, theaters, and other public gathering places, one newspaper went so far as to say that this order was “not a public health measure” and reiterated that “there is no cause for panic or alarm.”
But when you see your loved ones, your family, your friends literally dying horrible deaths, and neighbors lying in the streets dead, it's damn difficult to believe the governments. And it absolutely annihilated the credibility of local and federal government. People felt they had no one to turn to, trust broke down not just between people and it's government, but people and other people. The false reassurances given by the authorities and the media systematically destroyed trust. That magnified the fear and turned it into panic and terror.

Ultimately society depends on trust. Without it, society began to come apart. Normally in 1918 America, when someone was ill, neighbors helped. That did not happen during the pandemic. Typically, the head of one city's volunteer effort, frustrated after repeated pleas for help yielded nothing, turned bitter and contemptuous:

"Hundreds of women who are content to sit back had delightful dreams of themselves in the roles of angels of mercy, had the unfathomable vanity to imagine that they were capable of great sacrifice. Nothing seems to rouse them now. They have been told that there are families in which every member is ill, in which the children are actually starving because there is no one to give them food. The death rate is so high and they still hold back."

That attitude persisted outside of cities as well. In rural Kentucky, the Red Cross reported “people starving to death not from lack of food but because the well were panic stricken and would not go near the sick”.

Of course, the disease generated fear independent of anything officials did or did not do, but the false reassurances given by the authorities and the media systematically destroyed trust. That magnified the fear and turned it into panic and terror.

It is worth noting that this terror, at least in paralyzing form, did not seem to materialize in the few places where authorities told the truth.

One lesson is clear from this experience: In handling any crisis, it is absolutely crucial to retain credibility. Giving false reassurance is the worst thing one can do.

Furthermore, cities didn't have the kind of general lockdowns that we see today. Most cities closed saloons, theaters, places of public gathering, but no general closing. However, fear was pretty effective in keeping people home. There was tremendous absenteeism from work, whether out of fear or because workers were taking care of sick people. To quote the nature article I just linked:

"Absenteeism reached extraordinary levels. Shipyard workers were told that their duties were as important as a soldier's; they were paid only if they worked; and, unlike elsewhere, physicians were available to them on site. Yet absentee rates in the shipyards -- one of the few industries for which there are good data -- still ranged from 45% to 58%. Absenteeism crippled the railroad system, which transported nearly all freight, bringing it to the point of collapse. It shut down telephone exchanges, closing off communication, and further isolating and alienating people. Grocers refused to open. Coal sellers closed. In cities and rural communities, the Red Cross reported that people “were starving to death not for lack of food but because the well were too panic stricken to bring food to the sick”."

The article also stresses how important it is to be honest and truthful with the public. We sorely lacked that in 2020, and in 2021.

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither.

Those who give up the lives of humanity for their own comfort are parasites

My personal freedom means more to me than your health.

I choose to take the vaccine, and to take precautions in the pandemic, not just for my sake, but for the sake of people I care about. I choose to be a decent human being.

And I trust you to make a similar choice.

But if you cannot trust me, just as if I couldn't trust you, and you or I am at risk of getting severely hurt or dead, I'd stay home, and I'd recommend you should too.

History is littered with the authoritarians telling it's people that it needs to give up any of it's liberties and freedoms for the sake of some sort of safety – that is often short lived, and transitory. We are seeing, in real time, what the absolute fear and panic the pandemic is doing to a Western Democracy like Australia.

Blue corporate or red corporate it's all lies and shilling