Wow, sorry, didn’t realize this was still going.

What is my feasible solution? General strike and/or total shift to third party to implement direct democracy. 100 million people can go out and waste their vote on a petty tyrant like Biden or Trump, or 100 million people can actually start making real changes. You’re all in a prison of your own making.

Good luck with your attempts at incremental change, that’ve been going on for a century while our society has completely devolved into fascism, a bipartisan police state and a genocidal global empire. You are clearly the brilliant visionary we need to guide us into the uncharted future.

Including Montana.

“Our democracy” has been dead for a century. You guys are like rats running around a maze with your moronic “lesser of two evils” between two parties all controlled by the same interests.

Both parties openly backing and arming the genocide in Palestine, the most well-documented genocide in world history, despite overwhelming public opposition, is not a binary system, it’s a one-party system. We are living in dystopia already, the Democrats shave 3% off of whatever the fascist Republican platform is and say “we’re the best option.” Stop being a fool and see the system for what it is.

What’s the specific claim you’re making? Israel did in fact start that war, with a “preemptive” air raid meant to cripple Egypt’s air force. And the political history of the region doesn’t abrogate the right of its long-established inhabitants to the land - this is an Israeli propaganda talking point.

They did, that’s why it’s illegal now.

It’s not unlawful to take land during a war. It’s just shitty, in most instances.

It is illegal to take land during a war. Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation

Hamas is running a government too, so I guess they’re not either. Problem solved everyone, Israel can go home now.

This is annoying.

How many beheadings have there been, versus the number of Muslim people who have ever lived?

Not sure I agree. I think many people who are “defeatist about voting” have observed that the surface-level differences between Democrats and Republicans (namely social issues and the more visible fascism from Republicans) just mask an underlying corporatist/fascist state that’s sacrosanct and immune from popular pressure and legislative change.

Re: “Obamacare” (which is just one tiny change mind you) - there were some marginal improvements like re: preexisting conditions, but mostly it seemed to increase compliance costs, my understanding is premiums have just continued rising and the fundamental issues causing healthcare scarcity and limiting competition have been made worse.

In effect, the bonds I mentioned are just inverted loans. The Treasury takes in $1k from payroll taxes for these programs, issues a bond to the trust fund saying “I owe you $1k plus interest”, spends the $1k on whatever (I guess primarily the discretionary budget) and eventually has to somehow generate money to pay it back with interest.

In terms of whether or not bonds were “borrowed” - this wouldn’t exactly matter in a meaningful sense, but I’m not clear this ever actually happened in the first place. There was some claim about, when the trust fund was mixed with the general fund 1968-1990, maybe the government took bonds out of the program, but you have to remember that inside the government, that’s not something of value, that’s just an obligation the government has to pay to itself, it’s a big nothing burger. The outstanding liabilities from Social Security to the actual beneficiaries (elderly people) exist regardless of how the government is doing their accounting internally.

Read any SS Trustees report. It doesn’t have “money”, it has debt instruments, which are essentially a document saying “the government (us) owes SS (us) money”.

Social Security doesn’t have assets, it has debt obligations, which to the government, are something you can conjure out of thin air. The only senses in which it can “run out” is if outlays exceed receipts, or if it runs out of debt instruments to cash out and has to ask for a pile of more debt instruments.

“Normal” and not a military empire would be a start.

I’m assuming you’re all talking about the Uyghur genocide. I wouldn’t downplay it for a second, but the simple reality is that they’re not being exterminated through a rapid act of carpet bombing by high-powered airstrikes, the degree and brutality of the killing going on in Gaza right now is unlike anything I’ve seen in my entire life. To cleave to the point here, which is, “do other ongoing genocides exceed this one in terms of killing of civilians”.

It may be the case that the long-term death toll is higher, considering how many years it’s been happening, though downplaying what’s happening in Gaza on that basis, I mean, let’s not wait for that comparison to flip.

Looks like that “live updates” link broke - here’s a persistent link https://turkiye.un.org/en/253313-gaza-unprecedented-and-unparalleled-civilian-death-toll-guterres

You referencing that MEMRI video? If so, do some serious source checking on it.

Well past time for one of those historical shifts to a third party.