WideEyedStupid

Yup, I’ve had my Kobo for quite a while now and I still love it. The push buttons are great, as pointed out by another poster, but also… I’ve just never had any issues with it. None whatsoever. I’m hoping this one will just never brick.

About a month after I got mine, I bought the exact same one for my husband and he says his is still working like a charm as well! Now to be fair, I had never owned any other e-readers so I can’t really compare it to anything, but quality-wise I’d say they’re really good.

We (or at least loads of us) understand that while your government is deplorable, a lot of ordinary Americans are not. I guess it would also depend on where you go and how. If you’re decked out in TRUMP/MAGA-clothes, then I suppose you might meet quite a few people who will instantly want nothing to do with you. But if you’re a normal person, you most likely won’t have any issues, aside from questions about U.S. issues.

Just come over. We won’t bite. Don’t put off your plans because of this. Enjoy yourself and walk around in a sane country for a while. ;)

This one is clever, I love it.

No, what I am trying to point out is that all the people who kept repeating the “both sides”-bullshit actually HELPED Trump win. Repeat something often enough and idiots will believe it. I have no actual statistics about this, but I wonder, how many people eventually stayed home because they thought both sides are the same and voting wouldn’t matter anyway? How many people just sorta protest-voted Trump because they believed it wouldn’t make a difference anyway? How many people actually switched to third party voting because they initially wanted to, and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway?

Perpetuating this idea that Kamala was the same helped Trump win. It was repeated by certain people ad nauseam how Trump and Kamala were the same. How you shouldn’t vote for democrats because it would be voting for genocide. If they were the same, you’d end up with genocide either way, so then vote for the one who’s better on every other topic, no? But no, that’s not what they said. It was an intentional campaign to make people not vote for Kamala, either by staying home or voting Trump. Every single thread was full of “both sides”-trolls and 99% of those have mysteriously disappeared since Trump won. I mean, it’s logical, their work was done, right?

It’s not a strawman, it’s the truth.

Trump is orders of magnitude worse regarding pretty much everything, so even if Kamala is ‘the same’ on Palestine, all the other stuff would still be better with her in stead of Trump. If you truly believe they are the same regarding Palestine, then they basically cancel each other out, right? Then you should look at everything else and it’s quite obvious they are not the same at all.

Look, I don’t want to be the person who needs to boil things down to simple math. But don’t you think that “Fuck Palestine” is better than “Fuck Palestine. And transgender people. And women. And the environment. And the Department of Education. And migrants, and and and”?

Tell me, how is one not worse than the other?

Well, but there is a pretty significant difference. For example, when the Nazis were planning to send all the German Jews to Madagascar, they were attempting an ethnic cleansing, meaning ‘just’ their removal - They didn’t care when Jews died, but it wasn’t their actual plan to slaughter them all. However, when the Madagascar Plan didn’t seem possible anymore, they switched to genocide in stead, meaning their extermination.

There is a incredibly huge difference between these two things. And please don’t get me wrong, they are both absolutely, unequivocally horrific. Unacceptable, period. But still this difference is important, especially for the victims. In hindsight, I’m sure many people would have wished the Nazis had been successful in their ethnic cleansing. Many more people would have survived.

What Israel has been doing is not ethnic cleansing. They’ve been systematically killing people for no other reason than “because we want to and we can.” I’d call that a genocide. What Trump is describing, however, is ethnic cleansing.

And just to reiterate, I’m not saying it’s not bad. It’s sickeningly bad. But quite different.

Yeah, I mean, such a thing has never happened before. How ridiculous. Transporting thousands or even millions of people into camps to let them work themselves to death or to just kill them. Nobody would ever do such a thing!

Alright. So let’s assume for the moment that you’re right, and both parties would do exactly the same thing regarding Palestine. Just for the sake of argument.

Then they’re still not the same.

Would Kamala have handed entire departments of the U.S. government over to Musk? Would Kamala have signed a bazillion EO’s, taking away people’s rights? Would Kamala send thousands of people to Guantanamo? Would she have allowed ICE to raid schools or hospitals? Would she be systematically erasing transgender people from public life? Would Kamala be scrubbing databases and removing information (CDC for example), or making people waste time to delete certain terms from every database and website because of “woke” or “DEI”? Would Kamala have taken the U.S. out of the WHO? Or the Paris Agreement? Would Kamala be threatening to annex Greenland? Or start trade wars with allies? Or do petty shit like removing the option for regular Americans to file taxes for free online? Or pardon 1500+ violent idiots, at least 4 of whom have already been commiting new (and running from old) crimes? Would she install an antivaxer, who also promotes raw milk, to Health and Human Services? Or abolish the Department of Education?

Would she, would she, would she?

They. are. not. the. same.

And you repeating the same tired bullshit over and over and over will not suddenly make it true. You can try to convince yourself that what you did was the morally right thing, but in your own words: put aside the rhetoric and intentions. The consequences are on you.

But anyway, we both know that Kamala would not be the same regarding Gaza. Never would she have said she wants to “take over Gaza” and “own it” and to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” to create “thousands of jobs.” She would never have proposed the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think she would have done anything to actually help Palestinians, aside from some symbolic stuff or vague threats she will never act on. Somehow Americans seem to just love Israel, whatever horrific shit they pull, they’ll always side with Israel.

But “both sides are the same” is a blatant fucking lie.

I found out that the best way to make (certain) people stop asking it is to just be entirely honest for a change.

Don’t say “I’m fine, thanks. And you?” Launch into a depressing tirade about everything that sucks in your life and the world. Trust me, they’ll never ask again.

Heavenly peace.

Yeah, we got a nice chuckle out of it too!

No. Not after all their rights and their citizenship were taken away.

See that’s the thing a lot of people don’t understand. Fascists often use the law and the system to LEGALLY implement all their horrific shit. Just because something is the law does not make it right. Laws can be changed, thus we shouldn’t use them as an argument for what is and isn’t right.

Let’s just imagine for a moment that tomorrow Trump and his little friends push through some law that allows them to strip every person with Swedish ancestry (for example) of their citizenship. Suddenly they could be deported, sure. And it would all be legal. Would you think it was right?

Your government is already talking about taking away birthright citizenship. And the GOP has shown us they are perfectly happy stripping at the very least some people of some of their rights already. Are you telling me you don’t think it could get any worse? Are you telling me that as long as it’s legal, it’s okay?

Do you know that the Jewish population in Germany were citizens? And then Hitler took their citizenship away. Just like they used to have rights, until they didn’t. Besides, just because something’s legal, doesn’t make it right. What’s legal and what’s not can change in the blink of an eye.

I see zero problems with that whatsoever.

Are you just here to showcase how and why fascist messaging is so effective?

Well, his idol annexed and invaded other countries, so obviously he should too!

I have only ever needed my birth certficate once. When I got married. I was living in a foreign (but still EU-) country at the time; I have no idea if I would have needed it to marry in my own country. It’s possible my mom might have needed it when I was little, to get me into elementary school or something, no idea about that. It’s definitely not needed for a driver’s license or a house. That’s ridiculous.

Bering Strait*

First time I’ve seen “Muskolini.” It’s so obvious, but I never would have thought of it myself.

It’s a bit difficult to really hear (for me, as a non-native speaker anyway) because he… kind of swallows some of his words, or parts of them. So… and correct me if I’m wrong, I think he says:

“Sag mir, wie lange wollt Ihr bei dem Scheisse bleiben hier?”

Translated to something like: Tell me, how long do you want to stay with this shit? - As in, how long do I have to sit here and listen to this moron?

Can’t really blame him, haha.

That’s funny. I’ve only ever known 2 of them personally and they have all of it. The whole damn package. Yeah, that wasn’t fun.

Data show that, unlike normative, healthy self-esteem, which is associated with positive outcomes (5–7), narcissistic self-esteem is fragile, because it is highly contingent on achievement-related successes and feedback from the social environment (13–15). Narcissistic self-esteem is thus conceptualized as precariously elevated. When an individual with NPD is faced with an ego threat (e.g., real or imagined criticism, failure, or reduced social regard), unrealistically high self-expectations crumple into perceived inferiority (16, 17). Individuals with NPD are, therefore, hypersensitive to ego threats, and when threatened, they respond with efforts to reduce concomitant distress and upregulate self-esteem (17–19). These regulation strategies include some of NPD’s most recognizable and maladaptive behaviors. Classic “grandiose” responses include being aggressive or devaluing toward others (20, 21), fixating on grandiose fantasies (22), or engaging in self-serving bias (23). Classic “vulnerable” responses include alienating and isolating themselves (24) by avoiding situations that may threaten self-esteem (25), relentlessly criticizing themselves (26–28), or engaging in suicidal behaviors and fantasies (29, 30). This vacillation between overly inflated and deflated self-appraisals, alongside efforts to regulate this unstable sense of self through grandiosity, flawlessness, and/or avoidance, are described in both early psychoanalytic theories of narcissism (31), the contemporary Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (8), and the personality disorder section of the ICD-11 (32–34). It is important to note that research is continually adding nuance to scientific perspectives on self-esteem in NPD (35). Various frameworks differently emphasize shifts between distinct states of grandiosity (i.e., elevated self-esteem, arrogance, and entitlement) and vulnerability (i.e., shame, insecurity, and neuroticism). Scholars are working to clarify whether and how grandiosity may function to conceal ever-present vulnerability and whether fragile self-esteem is a driving force or an outcome of this process (17, 18, 26, 36).

Source.

So. I guess it’s not actually clear yet which one of us is right (whether it’s ever-present or not).

All I can say is that in my (limited) experience they have extreme reactions to any sort of criticism, they take almost everything personal, and this just doesn’t happen with people who are actually really self-confident. I know plenty of confident people and they can handle criticism just fine without throwing huge fucking temper tantrums. It came to a point where I was walking on eggshells trying to never say anything that could be interpreted as criticism, because their fragile ego couldn’t handle it and they’d turn it around on me. Like… trying to make themselves feel better by putting me down. Anyway, I’ll stop dragging my personal issues in here, and just say: perhaps some day we’ll have a definitive answer.

Edit: typo.