Exactly! I also haven’t bought more than ten items from Walmart in the last fifteen years.

It can cost a little more, and requires patience, but I can think of very few times I’ve actually needed (versus wanted) some item before I could get it not via Amazon or Walmart. Even with the added expense for some individual items I’d wager I’ve spent less overall since it makes impulse purchases easier to avoid.

It’s probably not amounting to much in the way of resisting these mega corps, but it isn’t as difficult as some folks imagine.

Yeah, given that it’s around a hundred bucks (at best) a month for a pickup, and I can rent a pickup from a big box store for 20 bucks…the math works out to do that as often as weekly and still save money, considering registration/tag/maintenance. That’s considering that my wife and I have one car, and one motorcycle: the differential in going from a car to a truck isn’t as egregious as motorcycle or no second car, of course.

Also, it’s always fun to get a huge haul of materials with my motorcycle gear on, seeing folks clearly wonder if I’ve thought through my decisions.

We could also achieve universal peace if everyone just threw down their weapons, and no one would go hungry if everyone would stop being greedy. Unfortunately, people aren’t rational, and there’s cultural/social constructs that keep these things from happening.

If we want to change them for the better, we unfortunately have to operate within the constraints we’re faced with. We can change those constraints with hard work, but can’t just act as if those constraints don’t exist. It’s the same way folks pretend that being “color blind” re: racial issues will solve things. Would be great, but sadly plenty of folks are incapable of not being racist, and historical harms mean that we can’t just pretend that perception is the only problem.

I truly don’t understand your reasoning here. I’m not trying to be antagonistic, I just simply don’t get it. Even if the parties were functionally equivalent, wouldn’t a better treatment of folks domestically be a better option than changing nothing? It seems like functionally abstaining from voting is saying that some kind of protest vote is more important than the treatment of folks who are being demonized by the far right…or more important than people’s access to abortion and proper medical care…or even shitty attempts at combating climate change.

You claim that voting for the Democrats is inflicting genocide on Palestinians to save one’s own skin.

I’m going to say that not voting, or voting for a candidate that has absolutely no chance of winning, is inflicting genocide on Palestinians and folks domestically.

It absolutely pains my bleeding heart that the DNC is so deeply corrupt and shitty, and way too happy to bomb civilians abroad. Absolutely despicable.

The GOP is worse. The GOP is also worse on the domestic front.

Trump has literally said that Israel should “finish the job”. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-criticized-palestinian-insult-debate-with-biden-2024-06-28/

So yeah…it’s morally compromising to vote for the DNC candidates for any number of reasons, but until the way we vote changes in the USA, it’s the least worst option when it comes to voting. It also does not preclude us from trying to change the system outside of voting. It doesn’t stop protesting, or mutual aid or other actions.

TLDR: It’s just the trolley problem, and call me a maniac, but if I can press a button that saves even one life, even if it makes me feel slightly morally complicit in the deaths of others, then shit…I consider it the price of being human in the world we’re shackled to.

Yeah we’re in agreement, and apologies that my reply was a little meandering! It’s hard to reply without sounding contrarian sometimes.

Thanks for a good reply, and I hope you enjoy the weekend!

All of these things can be true at the same time.

Absolutely true: I’m also far-Left, and am a scientist working in the sustainability field.

I know I have complicated views on this (shaming her specifically), mostly because there’s not the same number of posts shaming CEOs and others making even worse choices.

The way I process it would be as if a major new corporation had a crime segment running nightly, but only showed young Black men who were arrested for violent crimes. Sure, it’s not technically incorrect - since they were each arrested - but it’s misleading in a way that should be examined, and people would rightly question why they’re not showing other folks doing the same things.

To be clear - I’m not equating the folks who share or make these memes with racists, but I am using it as an extreme example of ways in which outsized attention to certain celebrities/public figures can come across. I laughed at this and other memes, but I think it’s worth examining why we can name and shame Swift, but not CEOs and others who are more fundamentally responsible for inequities and climate destruction. I’m way-overanalyzing a meme here, since name recognition is doing most of the work (who would click on a meme with the name of some CEO they don’t recognize, versus Swift?), but I do think we could/should do more to drag some of the true ghouls out there into the light and start mocking them, in addition to the folks normally raked over the coals.

Also, I understand that part of that is the hypocrisy, but I’m reminded of what the great Norm MacDonald had to say about hypocrisy:

The comedian Patton Oswalt, he told me “I think the worst part of the Cosby thing was the hypocrisy.” And I disagree. I thought it was the raping. It’s my feeling most rapists are hypocrites. You don’t meet many that go “I like raping and I know it’s not politically correct but, by god” and people go “well, he’s not being a hypocrite and that’s the worst part!”

For my bills? I do have student debt, but have a job that pays well enough I don’t have to stress about it. I do worry about others that aren’t as fortunate.

And if we can’t afford either, why are you arguing it should be free? If you’re saying you want something that you’re also saying is impossible, why not champion two impossible things?

Good luck trying to articulate your thoughts and positions in the future, because you’ve failed to do so thus far, and I’ve exhausted my patience…so I’m gonna bounce

Making it free for everyone is excellent, specifically because it removes the potential of “the consequences for the choice” of taking out loans.

If you’re operating under the assumption that we can only do one or the other, sure: free going forward is better. I just think that we need to make it retroactively free, too.

You’re not explaining why you think that, beyond wanting to punish people for taking out loans.

Your position is inconsistent, because you’re arguing they shouldn’t have needed to take out those loans.

Again: you’re saying people made mistakes, but I don’t think that’s precisely the case. The majority of student debt isn’t because of people going to incredibly expensive schools for useless majors, you know.

So free University only for majors you deem worthy? Or only for profit minded disciplines? MBAs yes, but art history no?

Besides, economic desperation makes people make poor choices, and I’d wager that most people taking on debt for education don’t consider it a poor choice. Often higher education is key to economic success, but given tumultuous economic conditions in the past decades…things haven’t panned out for everyone, which makes those decisions look worse in hindsight.

You can’t claim everyone with student loan debt has it because they’re a worthless hippie art student. The increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees made it more competitive to get jobs requiring those degrees, meaning people need to get them just to compete…so people wind up shackled with debt.

It’s free to be sympathetic to people who are in a tough situation, even if they bear some responsibility for it. We all do.

But…if you think free public university is a good thing…isn’t not giving loan forgiveness analogous to saying “folks should stay in jail for trumped up marijuana charges until it’s legal Federally”? IMHO people shouldn’t have these loans in the first place.

If we can’t afford loan forgiveness, we can’t afford free public university. We can simultaneously fix the problems of the past while trying to improve things for the future.

Yep: we already saw how his placation of Putin likely led to the invasion of Ukraine, and his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel for sure pumped up Netanyahu and his coalition.

Note what kind of car the bell is on

Yeah: gotta be crisis actors, if Alex Jones taught us anything, right?