Today's Dirtbag Triscksters

Under the heading of Both Sides Don't:

I can't say Lefties never do this kinda shit - I mean I can't think of anything right now, but there has to be something.

That said, holy crap - why is it always the fucking Republicans?

A Reason Why

"... the further towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum people travel, the more likely they are to vote for a rightwing party."

To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer

US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican frontrunner

Many explanations are proposed for the continued rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there is one I have seen mentioned nowhere, which could, I believe, be the most important: Trump is king of the extrinsics.

Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.

People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.

Trump exemplifies extrinsic values. From the tower bearing his name in gold letters to his gross overstatements of his wealth; from his endless ranting about “winners” and “losers” to his reported habit of cheating at golf; from his extreme objectification of women, including his own daughter, to his obsession with the size of his hands; from his rejection of public service, human rights and environmental protection to his extreme dissatisfaction and fury, undiminished even when he was president of the United States, Trump, perhaps more than any other public figure in recent history, is a walking, talking monument to extrinsic values.

We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop.

If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.

Ever since Ronald Reagan came to power, on a platform that ensured society became sharply divided into “winners” and “losers”, and ever more people, lacking public provision, were allowed to fall through the cracks, US politics has become fertile soil for extrinsic values. As Democratic presidents, following Reagan, embraced most of the principles of neoliberalism, the ratchet was scarcely reversed. The appeal to extrinsic values by the Democrats, Labour and other once-progressive parties is always self-defeating. Research shows that the further towards the extrinsic end of the spectrum people travel, the more likely they are to vote for a rightwing party.

But the shift goes deeper than politics. For well over a century, the US, more than most nations, has worshipped extrinsic values: the American dream is a dream of acquiring wealth, spending it conspicuously and escaping the constraints of other people’s needs and demands. It is accompanied, in politics and in popular culture, by toxic myths about failure and success: wealth is the goal, regardless of how it is acquired. The ubiquity of advertising, the commercialisation of society and the rise of consumerism, alongside the media’s obsession with fame and fashion, reinforce this story. The marketing of insecurity, especially about physical appearance, and the manufacture of unfulfilled wants, dig holes in our psyches that we might try to fill with money, fame or power. For decades, the dominant cultural themes in the US – and in many other nations – have functioned as an almost perfect incubator of extrinsic values.

A classic sign of this shift is the individuation of blame. On both sides of the Atlantic, it now takes extreme forms. Under the criminal justice bill now passing through parliament, people caught rough sleeping can be imprisoned or fined up to £2,500 if they are deemed to constitute a “nuisance” or cause “damage”. According to article 61 of the bill, “damage” includes smelling bad. It’s hard to know where to begin with this. If someone had £2,500 to spare, they wouldn’t be on the streets. The government is proposing to provide prison cells for rough sleepers, but not homes. Perhaps most importantly, people are being blamed and criminalised for their own destitution, which in many cases will have been caused by government policy.

We talk about society’s rightward journey. We talk about polarisation and division. We talk about isolation and the mental health crisis. But what underlies these trends is a shift in values. This is the cause of many of our dysfunctions; the rest are symptoms.

When a society valorises status, money, power and dominance, it is bound to generate frustration. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to be number one. The more the economic elites grab, the more everyone else must lose. Someone must be blamed for the ensuing disappointment. In a culture that worships winners, it can’t be them. It must be those evil people pursuing a kinder world, in which wealth is distributed, no one is forgotten and communities and the living planet are protected. Those who have developed a strong set of extrinsic values will vote for the person who represents them, the person who has what they want. Trump. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.

Trump might well win again – God help us if he does. If so, his victory will be due not only to the racial resentment of ageing white men, or to his weaponisation of culture wars or to algorithms and echo chambers, important as these factors are. It will also be the result of values embedded so deeply that we forget they are there.

What Gives Capitalism A Bad Name

In the 30s and 40s, American companies (GM, Ford, Coke, IBM, etc) were doing a lot of business with the Nazis in Germany.

One example of the truly shitty things that some of these assholes did was GM lobbying hard in Washington against Lend Lease while supplying Germany the technology to help them invade and conquer their neighbors.

Elon Musk has entered the chat.

Russia Deploying Starlink in Ukraine—Reports

Ukrainian soldiers say Russia's military have begun using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite communications network in Ukraine, according to a journalist in the country.

"The military writes that the occupiers have Starlink with licensed accounts," Andriy Tsaplienko, a Ukrainian journalist, said on his Telegram channel, sharing a screenshot of two posts on X, formerly Twitter, that he says are from two Ukrainian soldiers.

"They began to deliver Starlink en masse, via Dubai, accounts are activated, they work in the occupied territories," one of the soldiers with the X handle @_Serhij_ wrote, referring to the four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by Russia in the fall of 2022—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Another X user, @cpt_mitchell, said Ukrainian soldiers "can already see their Starlinks," adding: "I honestly thought they would do it sooner."

Starlink is operated by Musk's aerospace company SpaceX.

Russian news outlets also report that Starlink satellite communications systems are now being sold via multiple Russian online stores, supplied via an intermediary in Dubai. The systems are being sold to the Russian volunteer units for use in the annexed regions of Ukraine, according to the local publications.

Newsweek has contacted SpaceX for comment by email. There is no evidence to suggest that Musk or SpaceX are aware of, or are responsible for, the reported issue.

Musk's SpaceX deployed its Starlink satellites to help provide Kyiv with internet service in the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Musk has said that the satellite-internet system provides Ukraine with a "major battlefield advantage."

In June 2023, Starlink obtained a Department of Defense contract to buy those satellite services for Ukraine. Musk's company has so far privately funded a network of nearly 4,000 satellites to be launched into low-Earth orbit. Kyiv's troops use it for battlefield communications in the war with Russia.

While the Starlink network doesn't work in Russia, it is now able to be used in the four annexed regions and in Crimea, which Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian news outlet ComNews reported.

"Merchants do not hide the fact that Starlink kits are addressed to participants [of the war] and are bought up by them in large quantities," the publication reported.

The news outlet cited Russian volunteers in the war, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They said that there are many Starlink kits being used by the Moscow's troops on the battlefield in Ukraine.

"The reasons for use are convenience, mobility and security," one volunteer said.

A source in the satellite communications market, familiar with the situation, told ComNews that Starlink systems are being delivered in bulk to Russia, and named Dubai as the location for the wholesale purchase of the equipment.

"Before being imported into Russia, terminals are registered under various foreign companies (Cyprus is often included), after which an account is activated under any name, often a fictitious one," the source said.

The manager of one company supplying equipment for military needs emphasized that regular units under the Russian Armed Forces are banned from using Starlink equipment, and said they are used only by volunteer units.

"If this rumor is true, supplying Starlink via intermediary in Dubai should be considered a breach of sanctions against Russia. This also raises the question if Starlink is available for the Russians in the front?" asked Pekka Kallioniemi, a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland, in a post on X.

Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon for comment by email.

Musk previously refused to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch an attack on Crimea to avoid complicity in a "major act of war."

"There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol," he wrote in early September 2023 on X. "The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation."

Once or twice every few generations,

it becomes necessary for us

to save capitalism from the capitalists.

Today's Brando

• There's good reason blind loyalty is called blind loyalty
• A shrinking constituency will ramp up the passion while dimensioning its effectiveness
• ... but as long as there's a buck to be made, the grift will continue

Today's Wingnut

Love your neighbor, and welcome the stranger - until we find it politically useful to make you feel afraid of them.

There's no hate greater than Christian love.

A Parody Of A Parody

And god looked down upon his divine creation,

and realized he needed someone

to bring joy and hope and celebration

to a people suffering the depravities

of pseudo-Christians who wanted

to control, and stifle, and oppress

good and decent people.

So, on the 13th day of December, 1989,

he gave us Taylor Swift.

Recap

Why do old white people think they can rap? It's embarrassing.

Social Media Politics

It's a time-honored thing -

• "My pamphleteers will destroy you!"
• "I'll use my newspaper to destroy you!"
• "I'll use my radio broadcast to destroy you!"
• "I'll use my cable TV show to destroy you!"
• "I'll destroy you with my vast reach on TwiXter and Instagram and whatever!"

I don't know what it'll take to break this fever, but it's been broken in the past and it'll be broken again.

But we have to hang on, and we have to remember to behave like honorable people.

James Lankford Says 'Popular Commentator' Threatened Him Over Immigration Bill

The Oklahoma Republican has faced major right-wing backlash for seeking a bipartisan compromise on immigration.

WASHINGTON ― Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said Wednesday that an unnamed media personality promised to “destroy” him for seeking a bipartisan compromise on immigration.

Lankford said in a Senate floor speech that a “popular commentator” told him four weeks ago that he would face negative consequences if he pushed forward with drafting a bipartisan immigration bill.

“If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election,” Lankford said he was told.

The Oklahoma Republican spent months drafting a compromise immigration bill with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). The resulting legislation, unveiled Sunday, would limit asylum and parole while making it easier for authorities to deport migrants, including a requirement that the Department of Homeland Security deny all entries when daily border crossings reach certain thresholds.

The bill includes no pathways to citizenship for any undocumented immigrants, something Democrats usually push for in bipartisan immigration deals. Instead, Democrats asked for military assistance for Ukraine.

However, the deal blew up in Lankford’s face thanks to opposition from former president Donald Trump, who urged Republican senators to kill the legislation, as well as a lot of conservative commentators ― including the unnamed but presumably prominent right-wing media personality that allegedly threatened Lankford.

“By the way, they have been faithful to their promise and have done everything they can to destroy me in the past several weeks,” Lankford said in his floor remarks.

Lankford declined to name the commentator when HuffPost asked.

The package failed in a Senate vote on Wednesday afternoon, thanks mostly to Republican opposition.

A variety of prominent Republicans inside and outside Congress have falsely claimed the Lankford bill provides “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants. Lankford said he’s repeatedly told people that’s not true, but that it’s been hard to break through.

“For some reason, we still believe everything we read on the internet,” Lankford said.

Today's Reddit

The history is that it'll eventually wither and die, but not before lots and lots of people get hurt and killed. And there's always been a necessity for people to sacrifice themselves in the fight against this crap.

If there's a "positive" to any of this, it's the question of veracity. Trying not to be either cynical or naive, I still think the probability is fairly high that most of these idiots are pulling these stunts, and coming out with all this badass rhetoric because they know if they play to the idiot voters who say this is what they want, they can get a pretty decent government gig out of it.

They can pretend to be Ron Swanson for a while.

MAGA Nazi Karen burns LGBTQ books with a flamethrower in her campaign ad, running for GOP Secretary of State of Missouri
byu/GrizzlyBearAttack inPublicFreakout

Some Poetry

"The number one hardest thing we have to do as humans in this world is be subjected to the evil, and remain good despite the bullshit we go through."

For me this doesn't land as "Men's Rights Now!" or any of the other crapola coming from the toxic snowflakes who can't admit they've had it pretty fuckin' good for a long fuckin' time, and want us to believe that somehow men are being unfairly attacked (and "oppressed"- WTAF?) by those horrible feminists, and their evil woke incantations.

None of that. This guy is trying to tell us there are good reasons for all this hyper-macho bullshit, and we can address it early if we can figure out how to look honestly at each other - and ourselves - as men, as friends, as fathers, and as partners.

TSleeveless - "Teach a Boy to Cry"