I disagree on such a wholehearted level.

‘He’s had serious pull in the democratic party for almost a decade’ - do you mean 8 years ago when the DNC yanked his spot and went full force behind Hillary, and then relegated him to a ‘radical leftist’ camp away from the core groups like Schumer and Pelosi?

He’s been on the fringe of the party for as long as he’s been in the party. Consistently standing up for issues that are later accepted. He’s CONSTANTLY fighting for human rights and taking stances too far left to be mainstream, making all of the pushes seemingly moot because he can’t get bills to the floor in a republican congress because SOCIALISM and he can’t get bills to the floor in a Democrat congress because we never get to have one, and when we do, they say they’re not ‘bi-partisan enough to pass across the aisle’.

Is he effective at getting laws passed, no. Is he a solitary and stalwart voice of reason almost every. single. time? Yes.

They changed the setting to Mexico (kept most of the set design choices) changed the names, and added guns.

I like Yojimbo and cowboys enough that I’ll watch both

Oh fantastic, no one else posted this concept yet

So, I think there’s an important connection there you’re touching on. Samurai and cowboys occupy the same space in media, and I’ll give you some examples.

Someone else mentioned the movie, but Seven Samurai, a HIGHLY influential and well received film from japan in the 50s, helped inspire The Magnificent Seven, a key cowboy film from the early 60s.

The film Yojimbo (please watch it if you haven’t, it’s just very well done, really funny, have to get over the ‘movies had NO real soundtrack back then’ problem if you’re not used to old films) is like watching The Matrix AFTER you’ve already seen the slow-mo and ‘i know Kung fu’ tropes in movies. The man rolls up into town, two sides opposed and neither really ‘good’ but innocents in the middle.

What were called ‘spaghetti westerns’ in the past due to the Italian directors at the time, a majority chunk of those movies utilized similar filmography techniques and plots. The kids who watched those westerns also watched samurai films (cheap movie is a cheap movie on a weekend night) and the concept sort of melded over time to where the Ronin of Japan and the Lone Ranger of America are two flavors of the same steel-wielding hero.

The way samurai in movies revere their swords, talking about the efficiency of a weapon, the artfulness or it, all VERY similar to how revolvers took/take a center stage for western fantasies. Add to that the individualism of the west, the rugged nature of a traveler with a weapon, the tie-in of ‘honor’ in both cultures, the ‘only lawmen can have a weapon in city limits’ laws that were featured in the America AND Japan at that time.

Super neat

I think therea a lot of little racism along the way that inadvertently affected whites as the middle class dwindled and the number of poor whites increased.

So, all rooted in racism, maintained by classism, I’d say.

This guy skips nose day

Those of us that know now remove as much of her equipment as possible before it happens. I like to think the girl now knows it’s coming too, or is deeply concerned about being asked to go into battle with her starting gear again

Dracula flow will never not be funny to me. The cadence is just perfect

Is that how airlines work where you are? It’d be wild for me to not pick my seat

A billion dollars is never “a bit greedy”. It is always a failure of the system to regulated exorbitant wealth through effective taxation and fair market economic policy.

They don’t have press conferences, raise the bridges to stop traffic out of the city, put out (this many) ground units to question and collect evidence for every murder in New York. Not by a long shot. The location of the murder and identity of the victim are playing a big factor in this. Because coverage happened, they’re responding. If there were 270 news articles written about Non-Descript-Murdered-Citizen #6hey might give it the same attention.

There were 808 murders in New York in 2020. Did you see this response from those deaths, do you recall?

Danny Trejo describes being on his films as a kind of family reunion for a lot of Latino actors and actresses

Endorsing a candidate or a party places an additional seal of approval on the actions and beliefs of that candidate/party. There’s a difference between saying “between ham or fish, I pick fish” and “I believe fish is the right choice for everyone, fish has qualities that I myself would like to emulate and believe in”.

She’s a pop singer who seemingly upset a lot of internet people (but not many real people) for saying “yeah, I’m voting for Kamala, but I won’t endorse her because the democratic party hasn’t done enough for the LGBTQ or minority groups and I’m not keen on the Israel support thing”

Wait hold on, Californian’s wouldn’t go for it, but splitting them up into two blue states and one red state grabs 4 new Democrat senators (maybe) and 2 republican ones, allows California Republicans the chance to build the state they say they dream about, and gives the rest of the rural US a NEW California to bitch about

I like this

https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=8R0GyAAypv_ZfJ7A

What now, smart guy?

No it’s a joke and a trend from a video on tiktok. Why do people, especially here lately, jump to hate on anything ‘TikTok’ or ‘new’ from the younger generations? We all had our stupidity, shit, people STILL staple bread on trees

That’s why they said ‘house poor’. They’re not poor, read the article they even talk about it. Being unwilling to pay “what the market demand” is a fun way of saying “were priced out of all reasonable choices”.

Cost of living is different everywhere. If they made 250k in Indiana or Ohio, they’d have money to spare and a McMansion to boot. But Indiana and Ohio don’t pay 250,000 for a lot of things, the salaries don’t reach that here for a VAST majority of upper level earners in the state. Take into account cost of living and average wages in a location before you get shitty

He’s not complaining about his income. He’s saying “I’ve reached a level of income that SHOULD entitle me to the American dream, but even at this amount I too am barred”

When we say ‘eat the rich’ we don’t mean ‘shit on what is effectively what’s left of the middle class’.

Continued spending, a drop of the ‘mask’ of civility. Zero calls for even the most minute investigation open endorsement of using larger munitions, detaining of Palestinian-Americans akin to the Japanese American camps, legislation/trade action against nations voicing support for Palestine to silence even MORE foreign dissent.

If you can’t imagine how it gets worse from here, pick up a history book, because we’ve DEFINITELY gone all-in on fascism before, and I’m firm in my belief that voting in ANY way that let’s the republican party as it currently stands back into power would result in a backslide to what I’ve described above. I don’t WANT to vote Democrat, in my eyes, I HAVE to because there’s no other party that will make things better, or at least not monumentally worse, right now. Abolish the two party system, introduce rank choice voting, advocate for more humanitarian policies and parties, all for it. But I can’t do all of that this November, I can just vote Blue, Red, or a third color no one’s really seen show up on the national stage, and Blue seems to be the only color that won’t ALSO curb stomp my gay and trans and pregnant-seeking-abortion friends and neighbors.

Also, for what it’s worth, my family was from the south. My reunions and funerals and weddings all take place somewhere in a holler with 1 Walmart about 40 minutes down the mountain.

My uncle once said, and my mother agreed, in relation to gay men “I wish they’d put em all on an island somewhere, they’d be happier that way”.

But I wasn’t lucky enough to know my grandpa as a man of wisdom. He’d said enough stupid shit, or abided it in his home when his children begged for '“Barack Houssein O’bummer’s” birth certificate. He had a dog named Blackie, that I called Blackie because I wouldn’t dare say it’s real name if someone asked.

What was good in them did all truly disappear in front of me day by day from that point. Hell, I actually believed the ‘states rights’ reason for the civil war until I was at least 14 or so. Crazy what stupid can breed