I was in NYC during a no king protest, it was the lamest public demonstration I ever experienced given how bad the circumstances are. On a weekend, everything was done after ~2-3h, then back to work as usual on Monday. If you miss that short period of time you wouldn’t even notice something happened.
If there is one thing you can all learn from Europe is how to do a protest that cannot be ignored by your administration
Christians aren't bad people, but it's undeniable that the one demographic that supports Trump more than any other are Christians. Trump is the face, heart and soul of American Christianity. Where else are Christians arguing that genocide on behalf of Israel is a moral imperative, or that empathy is a sin?
If so many Christians were so easily swayed by hateful propaganda then that's still a fault and failure of the religion, as is the utter failure of the "good" Christians to do anything about it. People aren't machines that blindly process inputs into outputs, at least not in any useful sense that takes morality and ethics into account. People have agency, they're responsible for their own decisions. And these people have a Bible probably at arms reach at all times and they know what it says.
>"Christians aren't bad people, but it's undeniable that the one demographic that supports Trump more than any other are Christians."
Christianity itself really has little to do with it. I think it's more so that "Christian" is just the default cultural identity and worldview of native born Americans who have zero self awareness, thoughtfulness, or perspective on the world. Almost none of them actually believe anything really when you start to ask questions about it. It's just the in-group that they latch on to because they've never had an independent thought in their lives.
Unfortunately, the Constitution (Article 1 Section 10) forbids states from entering into alliances and treaties with other countries, or with one another, without the explicit permission of Congress.
Law also prevents US military from being deployed against citizens, that isn't stopping Trump. In fact, Trump has asked for the constitution to be set aside, during his campaign.
The Posse Comitatus Act makes it a criminal statute that bars anyone from willfully using federal military forces — the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force — "to execute the laws" unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.
>The american left likes to pretend trump is the problem, and if he goes then everything is fine. That is wishful thinking; he is just the symptom.
The American left has been screaming from the rooftops about systemic racism, misogyny and rape culture, capitalism, imperialism, right-wing Christianity, fascism and all of the deeper issues that Trump is a symptom for almost a century, and that Trump is just a symptom of those issues since 2016. Once again, Americans were warned. But because the warning came from people who weren't straight, white, male and Christian, no one bothered to listen.
Screaming from the rooftop might feel good, but its ultimately not productive. Sometimes i think americans would rather let a problem run its course than fix it, just so they can say i told you so.
It was probably the one where Picard refused to play god for an alien race because religion was a primitive superstition.
Or the one where they recover cryogenically frozen people from the 20th century and Picard shits on a venture capitalist.
Or the one where an alien race is outcast because they don't conform to gender norms and this is a bad thing.
Or the one where an admiral starts a witch-hunt on board the Enterprise trying to weed out a conspiracy and Picard goes into an anti-fascist rant.
Or the episode of DS9 that takes place during the 1950s where Sisko experiences racial segregation, and Star Trek is a sci-fi story he can't sell about a future he wants to live in.
Or the one that establishes the Bell Riots, a widespread anti-capitalist revolt that takes place among the homeless and immigrant populations.
No. Honestly AI drives me to nerd out and tinker even more just to spite the homogenization and dehumanization of it all. If we're entering a world in which doing anything but blindly consuming whatever pablum the machine feeds us is seen as foolish then I guess I'll be a fool.
The article literally mentions that they have baristas, one of whom was making the old menu because they were "aesthetically inclined." This can also be confirmed by looking at the employment section of their website.
The owner was not personally either making or serving the coffee.
Every single small coffee shop owner I know has employees. They work alongside them and do every job in the shop along with them. They operate in shifts, sometimes the owner is there for both open and close.
What does hiring a barista have to do with not making coffee yourself?
Gonna go with the "hilariously out of touch" comment. These places rarely print money to the point an owner can be an absentee manager type.
You're pretending not to comprehend the simple concept of a barista.
I can see you're not interested in a good faith conversation here. I'm not going to waste any more of my time. Feel free to keep on berating me if it makes you feel better.
The most fitting description of an owner of a small coffee shop is "barista". Most barista's I know also handle far more than just making coffee and serving customers. They do everything short of being personally financially responsible for the business itself.
It's quite clear that if anyone was operating in bad faith here, it's not the commenters challenging your position. Small business ownership is almost always simply a riskier version of having the job you're also hiring for with a very small chance of upside. Usually at lower pay.
In this particular case the owner was simply doing a task other barista's like herself were doing as part of the regular job of a barista.
> The owner was not personally either making or serving the coffee.
This is the part I do not follow. Of course she is? What small coffee shop owner do you know does not personally make or serve the coffee on a regular basis? The only way not to take your original post in bad faith is to not understand your meaning.
I love Star Trek, I love Star Wars, and I love Doctor Who. I have very fond memories of watching Tom Baker's episodes on PBS back in the day.
But once you have nothing to draw on but nostalgia I think it's time to move on. I liked the Doctor better when they were just an outlaw Time Lord in a stolen car doing good and getting into adventures, and not the eldritch abomination they've become, whose mere name causes the galaxy to shiver in terror. I liked Star Trek better when the humans weren't the most powerful force in the galaxy, one-shotting Borg cubes, but they were an upstart species getting a foothold in a universe bigger, stranger and far more dangerous than they imagine. In both cases, nostalgia leads to a sort of narrative power creep.
Star Wars has the same problem. Everything has to be about the Palpatines versus the Skywalkers. It would have been such a better story if it turned out Rey really was a nobody, if the entire plot had the courage to examine its own mythology from the outside and establish that the universe really is bigger than these two players, but we don't dare subvert tropes when the viewer has the media literacy of a mollusk and can't accept a protagonist who isn't Space Goku.
There's no wonder left to any of it. No mystery, no awe. No sense that the universe is bigger than you can imagine. God forbid something take a risk with the fucking franchise. Maybe we should just let it all die.
> Everything has to be about the Palpatines versus the Skywalkers. It would have been such a better story if it turned out Rey really was a nobody, if the entire plot had the courage to examine its own mythology from the outside and establish that the universe really is bigger than these two players, but we don't dare subvert tropes when the viewer has the media literacy of a mollusk and can't accept a protagonist who isn't Space Goku.
This isn't anything to do with "media literacy" - that as a criticism is quite vague, I think. The actual reason is because the two directors were fighting to undo each others' work, and spend hundreds of millions to do so.
Main line Star Wars is a train wreck, unfortunately. I was one of the apparently few people who was looking forward to something new, even deconstructive, in the sequel trilogy. I'm so sick of Palpatine vs. Skywalker chosen bloodline nonsense you can't even imagine, and the last thing I want is to have my nostalgia pandered to.
The ancillary stuff is a lot better however. I hear good things about Star Wars Visions but I haven't seen it.
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