Afroman keeps trolling cops after winning “Lemon Pound Cake” defamation case

Cops asked the jury for millions after Afroman used raid footage in music videos.

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[DRJlaw]

That was kind of my point. Sometimes a C is enough. Very controversial for some. Normal life for others...

A Belgian teacher awarding themself a C in their analysis of U.S. policing, much less local policing in rural Ohio, is hardly "normal life."

You don't have the first idea of what sweeping generalizations you're making when you label this as mere "polarization".

 

[TechnicaGratiaArs]

Looks like we are getting aligned. Billionaires play a role in this, but it is easy to put the blame at some distant billionaire, in my opinion. We want things cheap, we pick the website that offers the same product at the cheapest price. If that means that the driver has to pee in a bottle we tend to ignore that. That is exploited of course, but we are all in it together. Maybe we need to be happy with a C and not jump on the barricades when something is not A+. In my opinion, this is what turned everything sour. It gave magas energy. Democrats kept feeding that by demanding A+. Et voila, here we are. Not sure how we get out of this loop. Definitely not by posting a paragraph about it on an internet forum. That would be nice.

I think we agree on some things, but I don't know why you're downplaying "some distant billionaire" and their role. People have weaknesses like prioritizing their convenience over others' dignity and even over their own freedom when their part in losing those is hidden from them enough. That is human nature and it's not changing that quickly if at all.

But specific billionaires, chiefly Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Thiel, as well as close associates like newly prominent Ellisons, Soon-Shiong (LA Times owner), Cambridge Analytica owners the Mercers, Andreeson and his VC ilk, along with a few hundred others, are actively orchestrating the degradation. They're not just bribing politicians while also blackmailing some of them, they're using their own businesses to orchestrate coordinated disinfo campaigns. They're working directly with foreign enemies of US democracy like Russia, China, Israel, Iran, N Korea, Turkey and others. This oligarchy is newly powerful, especially by dominating US and global media more concentrated than ever before, supported by AI and think tanks in a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

The oligarchy is smaller than human nature among the masses. Its means of exploiting the masses' nature is new, primarily tech. All of which is contrary to the democratic culture of the USA and most of our allies, and indeed contrary to laws and highly ramified processes - all of which this new and unprecedentedly powerful oligarchy is ripping apart on the daily.

So while you're right that human nature is to blame for people destroying their own freedom, and that's a valid complaint, it's not a tractable target for a solution. While undoing the oligarchy's power over us, starting with its power to exploit our human nature against us, is the tractable target. The masses of exploitable humans are just as "distant" or not as are the oligarchy's billionaires, or rather the billionaires are closer because there are fewer of them and their privilege is more vulnerable to change than is human nature.

And posting paragraphs to each other, aligning however much we can, is exactly how we get out of this. Along with the rest of our grassroots communications, which are the fabric of democracy. Aligning without total agreement, but aligning on the priorities for targeted change, is how broad grassroots coalitions work, and perhaps counterintuitively contain resilience through flexibility around disagreements that aren't showstoppers.

FWIW, I don't know why you're portraying Democrats as demanding perfection, rejecting anything less as unacceptable. Democrats rarely make the perfect into an enemy of the merely good, indeed are more at fault for accepting half a loaf where 3/4 could be taken by more aggressive action rather than precompromising as distinguished Obama and Biden, or by triangulating to be "Republican lite" as Clinton did so often. It's Republicans who are far more prone to overreach, which is often their undoing. Democrats overall are hardly "jumping on the barricades" today, especially Democratic officials and their management class, and thats while under the (often literal) gun of increasingly extreme abuses, an F not a C. It's that characterization where I think you and I are least in agreement, and I don't understand why you are portraying Democrats that way.

 

[DRJlaw]

At some point, standards are so high that people disconnect and give it all the finger. Too much focus on how everything should be, ignoring how it is.

We're not there. How about the U.S. merely tries to rise to European standards, and then we can begin discussing whether further raising the bar might be deleterious.

 

[semo]

Terrible cops aside, what is going on with so many black celebs going MAGA? I'm asking this as a serious question as a white guy who does not understand. Just raw power-seeking? A "fuck you" to liberals who carry their own brand of racism? Something else?

MAGA has managed to closely couple itself to the Pentecostal pipeline which is one of the faspest growing religions. Sarah Palin is pentecostal for example.

Living with someone who has self radicalised themselves on YouTube, I can tell you it is very confusing and scary to witness. AI is making the problem worse (a lot of slop online is of religious nature).

Once you start engaging in spiritual warfare and see cryptic messages from God in everyday life, you become very susceptible to whatever charlatans are peddling.

Edit: spelling

 

[SeeUnknown]

Oh, there was a little more to it than that. Franken did a bunch of unsavory shit, and I'm not necessarily against him getting booted.

But if Franken deserved to be booted, Gaetz and Trump should have been dunked into the Pacific with lead galoshes -- and not only were they elected as known pedophiles, they were RE-elected as known pedophiles. What SENATOR Franken did is not even on the same planet as a tenth of the horrific and gross shit that our now second-term PRESIDENT did and does.

Clearly you don't understand why they win and your side keeps losing...

The Dems must stop the purity tests. The Dems must stop harping on divisive issues. The Dems must embrace Clinton's triangularization.