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ballista11

@ballista11@mastodon.social

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wdlindsy , to random
@wdlindsy@toad.social avatar

"Call it anomie or call it airsickness—we find ourselves in a land of confusion. Trump pays off a porn star and yet is hailed as a champion of Christian values. He mocks prisoners of war and calls dead soldiers 'suckers,' and his MAGA base is thrilled by his patriotism."

~ Charlie Sykes


/1

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/05/the-trumpian-vertigo-of-american-politics/678473/

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@wdlindsy
If you mention that Puntin was in the KGB, they all have the same answer: "So?"

rbreich , to random
@rbreich@masto.ai avatar

The DOT regulated junk fees. Airlines are suing.

The CFPB capped credit card fees. Banks are suing.

Medicare is negotiating drug prices. Pharma is suing.

The FTC banned noncompetes. Business groups are suing.

Corporate America can't stand government working for the people.

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@rbreich
I think it is more of a matter of socialism. The GOP defined socialism as where the government picks the winners and losers in the economy.
Well, the GOP seems content to allow billionaires to keep winning at the expense of working people. The GOP gives the "successful" many tax breaks to increase their success. The GOP allows larger companies to buy smaller companies so the larger company can limit innovation. Republicans are actually socialist.

GeofCox , to ScienceFiction group
@GeofCox@climatejustice.social avatar

Prompted by a passing remark by @RustyBertrand I just reread Philip K Dick's novel 'Ubik'.

It has all the strangeness Dick's readers, or viewers of the famous films that have come from his work, like Total Recall and Bladerunner, will be familiar with. It follows a group of characters exercising psychic powers in corporate rivalries and espionage, in a future where people near death are frozen in 'half-life', always dreaming but visited from time to time and brought back to reality to talk with living friends and relatives. But this being Dick, both the characters and the reader soon come to question which is half-life, and which is really real...

But at first the most striking features of Ubik are the advertising parodies that appear at the head of every chapter, claiming amazing results for all kinds of commercial products, all called Ubik, and the fact that in the dystopian future it describes commercialism has invaded every aspect of life - the insides of people's homes and families are dominated by coin-operated smart appliances - even the doors to your own home demand payment before they let you in. In this respect Ubik is, in fact, hematically similar to other 60s American novels like Catch-22 and Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road - about the empty commercialisation and oppressive corporate culture of late capitalism. (Catch-22 is a multi-level satire, first on the absurdity of war, but through this the commercial labyrinth of modern American society.)

This is the world of capitalism just as Marx foresaw it: "uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."

Some readers have seen god in Ubik - influenced perhaps by Dick's later religious mysticism - but this makes no sense in the novel's own terms. Ubik is a commercial product that clearly alludes to the history of quack medicinal 'cure-alls' the very history that gave us the archetypal 'brand' Coca-Cola. It has all the appearances of a solution - it makes you feel better for a while, and it indeed seems sometimes to be omnipotent and omnipresent - 'ubiquitous'; but in the end, there is no salvation through commerce for the novel's characters - in the end, Ubik presents itself as all-powerful, but humanity is nevertheless still lost.


@sciencefiction
@bookstodon

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@RustyBertrand @jd @GeofCox @sciencefiction @bookstodon

I don't think Google is making us dumber. Back when the iPhone was introduced, I had a boss who thought he was smarter because of his iPhone. He would let that stupid thing interrupt meeting. Look up information instead of pay attention to his staff. Now I work with guy who thinks he can use Google to do everything.
What is really happening is arrogant people are using technology to pretend to be even more superior.

jeffowski , to random
@jeffowski@mastodon.world avatar

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@jeffowski

I love it! I would laugh but satire is not so funny when it actually happens and keeps happening.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

I'm scrolling through @atrupar's and Acyn's video clips of 's vile spew at CPAC, now in its 2nd hour..

Sorry to be redundant, but if Biden said even ONE thing in any of those clips, it would be over for him.

Yet Trump has duped The News & all too many voters into accepting him "as is."

I don't. At all. And I am not laughing at him. He's lethal. He's toxic. He's malignant.

And the GOP Fascist Party is right there with him.

We MUST do everything we can to end this nightmare.

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff @atrupar

I disagree. 45 has not conned the media. They feed off of his absurd BS. They keep hoping for more over the top crap from the orange mop head. That orange mop head makes ratings and ratings make revenue. Think of it as a collaboration.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

“Does U.S. want a "well-meaning elderly man," or one who means ill? Would rather have a POTUS who briefly confused Egypt for Mexico, or one who'd start a war on the border?

On the slow train wreck of democracy - it doesn't have to be this way.”

If @willbunch wrote it, you should read it.© & I 🧵 it. 1/… #Biden #Trump #media

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/biden-memory-trump-supreme-court-20240211.html

ballista11 ,
@ballista11@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

If Biden gets re-elected then I am NOT worried. Faulty memory or not, Vice President Harris is ready. I wanted her to get the nomination in 2020.
If the orange mop that thinks Obama is still president get elected then I am worried.

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