If your goal is to copy an entire essay to the BBS, posting multiple screenshots of a Twitter feed does not seem like the most efficient way to do it.
I know I didn’t read the whole thing.
2 Likes
This is a reaction vid to Lowkey’s Obama Nation, done by “Dad and Daughter”. Daughter is eighteen, and the reason I’m posting it is because I found what she had to say about her generation’s perception of 9/11 interesting.
Cued to just before the relevant bit.
1 Like
4 Likes
Clarifying postmortem position on Russiagate:
Did the “Russian hack” happen? Well, that depends on what you mean by “Russian hack”.
It’s usually divided into three or four facets:
- Memes and Facebook ads.
This is absolute horseshit. The memes displayed to Congress were ludicrous, unfocused, distributed to a microscopic audience and often postdated the election. The company that produced the main report “proving” these was later exposed actively faking Russian involvement in the Alabama election.
What little substance there was to this appears to be just the data-collecting activities of a few spam farms.
- “Russian trolls”.
I’ve seen no substantial evidence that Russian troll farms (i.e. astroturf social media commentators) played a role. But even if they had, they would have had no chance of making a significant impact through the tidal wave of local astroturfing saturating the election.
It also needs to be recognised that (a) it is not actually illegal or unethical for non-Americans to express their opinions about American politics online, and (b) pretty much all nations now seek to manipulate social media discussion to their advantage. Saudi Arabia and Israel are particularly keen on the tactic.
Political discussion is global now; that’s just a fact that everyone is going to have to learn to accept.
- Vote-tampering.
No significant evidence that this happened, and if it did, the obvious suspects would be American.
- The Podesta/DNC hacks.
The only real and significant bit.
This, obviously, actually happened. Someone did leak the emails to Wikileaks, and their release did have a significant impact on the election.
US intelligence services have claimed that the emails made their way to Wikileaks via Russian intelligence. They have provided no public evidence to substantiate this claim.
So, yeah, that might’ve been the Russians. Possibly.
2 Likes
5 Likes
2 Likes
5 Likes
3 Likes
2 Likes
Tulsi beginning to stake out a domestic policy position:
1 Like
Meanwhile, in Australia:
3 Likes
What does that mean? Who is the Coalition, and what does it mean to preference the Greens?
1 Like
Greens = leftmost significant party in Australian politics. Who I support when I care about electoralism.
Coalition = permanent alliance between the Liberal and National parties. Major right-wing grouping. The current government.
Alan Jones = old and corrupt right-wing radio dirtbag. Rush Limbaugh-esque.
Preference = instructing your party’s supporters how to distribute their preferential votes in an Australian election.
Parties produce “how to vote” cards instructing their supporters as to how they should distribute their preferential vote. E.g.:
That’s a how-to-vote from the Labor Party, instructing their supporters to give their first preference to the ALP, second to The Greens, third to Family First, etc.
“Preference the Greens over One Nation” means “put The Greens earlier in the preference list than One Nation”.
The order is decided by a mix of ideological and tactical considerations. Party base supporters tend to prefer an ideologically-driven order of preference, but party strategists like to use preference swaps for backroom deals (i.e. “hey, other party; if you tell your voters to preference us, we’ll tell ours to preference you”) and general tactical fuckery (“we’re going to preference these ideologically-opposed extremist loonies just to make trouble for our mainstream opponents”).
The Coalition typically directs preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP or Greens, but after Christchurch and the NRA thing they’ve been temporarily shamed into not doing that.
The Oz right has since been responding to that decision by trying to equate The Greens with One Nation and demanding that all parties direct preferences away from The Greens.
7 Likes
Thanks, great explainer.
3 Likes
4 Likes
Minor kerfuffle around Christina Hoff Sommers in Australia:
Context in thread.
7 Likes
Some white fragility in the replies, but mostly good stuff.
2 Likes