The New York Post couldn’t exist without ignorance.

Just a little bit of Der Sturmer, as a treat.

I mean it isn’t like they named the rocket line Great Leap Forward.

Referencing a brutal tactical retreat through a line of expendable rockets is a bit of an odd homage, but it is a particular origin story of sorts. Though not knowing Mandarin myself, I suspect there’s probably a LOT lost in a direct translation.

The one true scotsman would never!

Most humans are priced out of their dignity at even risking a $2000/hr expense.

Advertising is a racket. Always has been.

The base they eschewed was not the political base that aligned with their donors’ interests.

The donor class won huge in 2024 demonstrating control of both party platforms. The huge sums of money the Harris campaign recieved was specifically to eschew the working class and push right wing policy.

There was no conflict there: the result was the goal. The sooner people realize this the more healthcare reform we might see in our lifetime.

Most common pairing for that is moderate centrist and a radical liberal, I find.

It is very easy for people without a credible shred of leftist thought to claim to be a leftist.

Challenging those people winds up being an example of ‘leftist infighting’.

More evidence Elden Ring is Dark Souls 2: 2.

I’ll be honest ‘libbity lib lib’ has now made me laugh multiple times while scrolling.

I like any political map that triangulates liberals from the left and right.

And I love any one that properly omits libertarians.

The community is based on fandom of a podcast that champions antagonizing liberals.

They encourage vocally expressing disagreement and disapproval and don’t have downvotes to facilitate that.

This runs counter to most instances that tend to prefer disagreement and disapproval be expressed quietly through downvotes.

So they tend to culture clash.

In the one example with the grocery co-op: I can assure you, few if any, of the people involved with the co-op were Marxist-Leninists, let alone comfortable with Marxism or the ‘S’ word. So that was kind of a critical flaw in any Marxist-Leninist theory in practice.

A lot of people practice forms of community action without having any sort of class consciousness. A wealthy philanthropist can offer a bunch of money with strings attached and people will jump at the promises without second thought and rarely keep up with the follow-through.

Point I was making nonetheless was these operations tend to exist under seige from competing and profiteering interests. If I remember correctly the grocery co-op was having issues making the skyrocketing rent payments for the commercial lot. That was the problem the money solved: the one created by the landlord.

So in a sense I was saying ‘the pressures of capital tend to be too great’ than money being tempting or greed from the community.

There are a few around me that survived covid but they’re much more expensive now. I do miss being able to frequent them.

But mind you some items were always silly priced. Sometimes it’ll be juice at $4.99 for like 8oz, sometimes the side of bacon was $6.99 and you’d only get 3 pieces. Even 10 years ago.

They are run out of business, most simply.

The operation that does not focus their profits on building further capital and establishing monopoly will fail in the arms race of those that do.

For example: there are countless community and public efforts establishing childcare and pre-k through pooled resources. They are in direct competition with things like Bezos’ childcare academies. (Personal anecdote: they bought out my kids’ building for public pre-k and evicted them.)

And a successful co-op will get pressure to be bought out like a start-up. (Often starts as a great way to expand! Then the expansion changes the culture, the new location feels corporate and the original location is later shut down and left vacant. -Also personal anecdotes for a grocery co-op and an employee owned operation I once worked at.)

No Child Were Left Behind.

Dude seems pretty sanguine about being put in this position in panel 1.

Fire is a car. Coffins are elevators. -saintriot

The proof of what empires will do came through very clearly in World War 1 and it sparked revolutionary thought globally.

Most were violently suppressed as the empires did not all fall.