d-RLY?

Thank you for a really good answer. I wasn’t aware of the Talmud or most of that stuff.

Pocket Casts isn’t on Android. I kept hearing it brought up when I was looking to replace DoggCatcher and went with Podcast Addict. Took Google so long to finally allow people to manually add feeds from URL. Which was why I never really used it unless just wanting to stream an old ep of a listed show randomly. So when they added that ability, I was happy to see they seemed to be kind of supporting it seriously. But I was already moved to PA and am glad to not gone with Google.

I liked their original Listen app for being ridiculously bare bones and no ads or anything that requires more data. But they killed that long ago. I am not sure if Google just loves to create trust issues with users. Or if they just really have self esteem issues and can only act in dramatic ways that don’t make sense.

Seems more like a lesson learned from all the people the US placed in Gitmo without even a secret trial. And at least China had the argument that they literally did have many spread out terrorist attacks from more radical believers in the Uyghur communities inside China. I think that both the US and China handled shit bad as fuck. But until the US fully shuts down Gitmo and returns it to Cuba, and ends all of our black sites. Then it isn’t exactly something that the US has any real right to talk any shit about just because it is China. We are beyond the level of tyrannical, we are just better at controlling the narrative and have somehow been allowed to just dictate what other nations are “good” and “evil”.

China is doing more to un-fuck their bad choices, as they have made sure that folks that shouldn’t have been mixed in were able to get jobs and technical/vocational training/school. The US never put any tiny amount of even PR level shit for helping Muslims we grabbed up and tortured while being held without any level of legal protections. There are some folks that might just be kept forever at this point as they are afraid that those people might become actual terrorists after being treated so badly while innocent.

Does that mean China gets a pass? No. But the US has done far more in the past 40 years to create the very extremists and terrorists that we keep seeing pop-up. We have done more to create suffering on a global scale since the end of the British Empire. We just hide it better and our gaslighting is top notch from media to trade. Just because we have “freedom of speech” doesn’t mean we aren’t tyrannical.

If they were to have tried to retroactively charge anyone. That shit would be immediate lawsuits from every dev. And I would hope that all of them would manage to not let it be turned into a simple class action situation. Make them go to court in every possible state and for each dev/studio. Bleed them completely dry and force them into bankruptcy bad enough for the source code to be acquired and open sourced. And after the company is done, then bleed the entire C-staff and anyone that approved this fucked up move. But not just financially bleed either. Got to set some real fucking examples about fucking around. Maybe even make it fun for the devs that would’ve ended up paying the most, and let them drive a knife in their backs for every charge that the devs would’ve been charged.

For real! Hell, they even openly tried to fucking join NATO at one point. They tried going capitalist as fuck really fast to get the west to back the fuck off of the whole “most evil nation that is always trying to end the world because communism”. But it wasn’t going to ever matter and were still always painted as being a KGB police dictatorship, even though the west was treating other nations with much more literal versions of that shit as being our best friends in “freedom”. NATO existing after the USSR and now even expanding to literally non-North Atlantic regions at this point should be so fucking obvious to it being anything other than a mob. Everything “aggressive” being done by Russia is the result of NATO members (especially the US and UK but not limited to them) never having any plans to let Russia be treated as equal.

And the idea that China is basically pulling an op on making Russia bow to them is beyond some of the dumbest lib (both conservative and progressive)/reactionary shit. They were both being treated in every bad-faith ways possible and constantly being loudly pushed as being “evil” no matter what. Both are treated as trying to push the world into another war anytime they do big military training exercises (both joint and just within their branches internally). While the US and NATO are constantly rolling up on their borders and making sure to do similar or larger exercises and always seen as somehow not aggressive/pushing for war.

I like how they paint China as “earning money on the conflict,” like the military industrial complex of the US and other NATO nations are actually just giving shit to Ukraine without strings attached to every single bit. The west are the ones that thought they would be made richer, and that putting so many restrictions on Russia would also bring China down completely. So far Ukraine has only won over the libs and moderate conservatives because they are anti-Russia no matter what (similar to the Dems “vote blue no matter who” headspace). They also were successful in getting Putin to okay the operation due to further and aggressively trying to join NATO.

It seems (to me) to be a soft demand outwardly as China is both trying to avoid the US and western nations being able to paint them as just being pro-Russia instead of neutral (and trying to find a way to maybe be the ones to bring peace). While also still not just letting it slide. Which if Ukraine does stupidly make worse in their reply, will only help move basically all of Asia away due to calling them all stupid because of race. Which also gives the de-Nazification argument for Russia starting the special operation a boost.

The truth is the truth with regards to them not caring about voters. Not at all. But I think that most people in the US don’t really understand how parties work. Like large amounts of people register to vote under a party and may think of themselves as being under that banner. But they never actually join the parties in any official manner outside of voter registration. To my knowledge both main parties did used to do their primaries based on actual membership beyond just simple voter registration, or at least only people that represented various locations as party members. So most regular people really only got to vote in the main elections.

I think the main misunderstanding comes from the two main options allowing for “open primaries” in order to at least seem like these primaries matter. At any time both of the parties can just throw out the public results and re-do them closed and in private with just real members. Of course along with managing to be super bipartisan in making random rules/laws that set very high bars for being a recognized party at all for any level of ballot access. The average Democratic or Republican voters haven’t ever signed a membership card or pays dues (and not simply random donations). Which might also be one of the many reasons that these parties are just able to do whatever they want. As it isn’t like most people will ever attend meetings and vote at said meetings. The only voting that people think matters is the major elections. Hell, I think that people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy did more actual shit for their local chapters. All because they actually joined at those levels. That should be massively embarrassing to anyone that vote shames third party voters, but never try to materially do anything about their claimed party.

If most people really cared about doing literally anything other than vote shame people for bothering to vote for shit they care about. Then they would first actually go out and officially join their registered party. Attend actual meetings and actively participate in that district’s/county/town level’s shit including speaking up with concerns, asking real questions, build up blocs/solidarity with others on specific demands (and be ready to withhold support of said local level party as a group), and voting at said meetings. We just let these bought and paid for elites that will never care about anything other than those that bought them if the actual base/members aren’t ever going to do anything. And why would they? They just get to rule from the top-down and keep doing everything but care about real fucking people.

If a revolution does take hold, I hope that the socialists/communists are the ones to bring it. I am really only against the current Iran government personally due to the religious stuff. Same goes for any theocracy due to how they end up oppressing those that aren’t believers (or “true believers” when they oppress fellow followers that don’t agree enough). Too many of the ultra religious folks turn to fascism in the same horrible ways that the capitalists do. The difference is the capital being used/seeked being delusional narcissistic purity of faith. There isn’t a way to work collectively with folks that see everything as a literal holy war. The US has been allowing the religious fascists to run more and more elements of its own government for decades. And now we see them actually seeing purity and holiness in people that unironically would fit the bill for being some versions of the Antichrist. To be clear, I am not speaking of all followers of all faiths. While I am an atheist, I very much respect beliefs that bring people hope and support followers. But the religious fascists and monarchs that wish to see regression in knowledge in order to keep the masses stupid can’t be allowed to reign. I fully support the non-religious parts of Iran’s stance against allowing the US to just fuck with every other nation. So I don’t wish to see the US or NATO roll in to prop-up a new puppet government. Given the support that the US keeps giving to Israel and Saudi Arabia, we know that they wouldn’t give any fucks about this situation if the current government of Iran were pro-USA. The masses of all faiths should be free to live their lives without morality police and without police that are there to protect the elites. The US needs to lose its hold on the rest of the world, and it isn’t the only oppressor that needs to be stopped (it is just the largest one impacting the most nations and peoples).