NmMar 29
Sheena, Joey & Eric
@NPR don't call the Iran war a "conflict." That is too broad a term. A conflict can be over what milk to put in your coffee. Conflicts don't even have to have negative results; ideally, a conflict based on a thesis and an antithesis can be worked out to reach a higher-truth synthesis. Conflicts are opportunities for growth, learning and win-win outcomes. You can call it the Iran war, or call it mass murder. "Conflict" deflects from the violence. After the war, there will still be conflict.
Mar 26 at 8:43pmWeb
Show threadPaul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Mar 26
@EricIndiana @NPR
Great comment.
Show threadNmMar 29
@EricIndiana @NPR I think voting for Trump was a protest. It's a result of the Democratic Party's failed economic policies. The idiotic balance between Bernie Sanders and the right-wing economic bias. Maybe the states need a third party. P.S. I'm not American.
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR Because we have a winner-take-all system and not a proportional representative system, it's virtually Impossible for 3rd parties to gain traction here.
Show threadNmMar 29
@EricIndiana @NPR Oh, I didn't know that. How do you see a victory for the left or the workers' party? Social Democrats? The development of "capitalism with a human face," like Scandinavia or Finland. I got the impression that in the States, everything to the left of Hitler is called communism. But Mamdani was a complete surprise.
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR We have some baked-in institutional blacks to representational democracy here. For one, we have this unique and antiquated electoral college, which means that Americans do not actually directly vote for our president; we vote for electors from each state and then, for the most part, the candidate who wins the plurality of the state's votes wins ALL of the electors for that state. Thus, recent Republicans have been elected president while being out-voted by their Democratic opponents.
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR Also, you may have heard of political gerrymandering in the US, where state legislatures, mostly controlled by the Republican party, divvy up the state's population in such a way as to contravene the votes of the state's population. A state that is about half Democratic can end up with 100% of its federal representatives Republican. This is how the US congress is controlled by the minority Republican party. And our Senate dictates 2 senators from every state, regardless of population.
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR The nearly 40 million people of California, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, have the exact same representation in the Senate as the 600,000 mostly Republicans in Wyoming. Having said all that, it's really only Trump people and their media spokespeople who call anyone left of Nazis "Communists." Democratic Socialism is gaining in popularity, but has to be channeled through the Dem. Party in our 2-party system. A couple of states allow ranked voting that could allow a 3rd party
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR I am sorry to go on for so long. You may already be familiar with all of these blockages we have to democracy. I just wanted to share some of the nuance and complexity we are dealing with here.
Show threadNmMar 29
@EricIndiana @NPR Yes, everything is fine. Thanks for the reply. I heard that the law limiting donations to political parties during elections was repealed. And in my head, I picture plutocrats and big business paying for the elections of their preferred candidates, and then the politicians earn their money. The picture looks even stranger when one country invades another, screaming, "They don't have democracy!." 
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR I don't think we even use that "They don't have democracy!" pretense anymore. If you don't want to be invaded, but a billion dollars in crypto Trump coin.
Show threadNmMar 29
@EricIndiana @NPR I'm also curious about what Trump's son-in-law is doing at government negotiations. What position is he in? Did he sign any non-disclosure agreements? It smells like feudalism.
The 8 million people at the protest inspire me. Are you counting on impeachment? Or that the next shooter won't miss? Sorry, but I like dark humor.
Show threadSheena, Joey & EricMar 29
@NmKq @NPR We already impeached Trump twice. But the Senate has to "convict" him after the House impeaches him, and that can't happen in this cult-like ultra partisan climate. So, no I am not banking on impeachment making a difference. But he is old and angry and he will die. I just hope he doesn't;t die before the next issue of my zine comes out, because I would have to scrap a lot of the jokes I worked so hard on.
Show threadNmMar 29
@EricIndiana @NPR Haha, I hope the jokes are golden or diamond, otherwise Trump will be offended.