I am not well-informed about Chinese culture... having done nothing but enjoyed a few Chinese-made historical action flicks that are really about assorted historical "heroes"... and a year of taking Mandarin Chinese a few years ago, so I can count to 10 if I think about it, and can recognize 15 separate words by sound, maybe 5 phrases, and probably only 10 characters. MAYBE.
ANYWAYS.... that and being a newsy for a long time who will read anything with words that I see. So I have read the Epoch Times, and knew it was crazytown, but did not know its Falun Gong connections, just knew it was very American right-wing and semi-obsessed with taking down the CCP... and regularly referred to it as the CCP (rather than what Americans would say which is the "Community Party", or "Communist Party in China" or "The Chinese Party").. so I knew they had 'skin in the game' because they knew more than American outlets.
ANYWAYS... I had seen that Uncle Roger video about badly cooked rice.
Also, I watched the Tibet story die in America and had been to see a talk by the Dalai Lama... and know enough British/American/Chinese history to easily follow what has been happening in Hong Kong without having to be told much except "Chinese Crackdown in Hong Kong" to know what is actually unfolding. I've also studied marketing and manufacturing strategies and Chinese/American partner companies and how China, the US, and the WTO have changed the landscape and why you can now buy kitchen aid mixers in 20 different colors for the same price they were sold in stores 30 years ago when it was a very expensive made in America and Europe kitchen tool... FOR INSTANCE.
I guess,... this teeny tiny amount information makes me practically 'informed' as an American about China... which is CRAZY.
I am VERY excited to read that longer article you posted. Thank you.
For me... it's all about Chris Hedges questioning aloud what happens when American companies start becoming defacto individual censors. Not that he doesn't fucking hate That Guy, he just wonders why it's okay NOW for these giant media companies who have been profiting from his filth, now act all high and might and why Americans would accept censorship from corporate powers that be. NOBODY ELSE (on the left) is talking about this problem. Most lefties take the other side of the debate that it is 'corporate responsibility'.... (suddenly) and that its a new world of communication and they are just trying to do due diligence and we must stop hate AT ANY COST.
There is so much ideological battle that goes on inside the Chinese diaspora, it is difficult to grasp.
For example, if you say CCP, you are probably anti-CCP. The formal acronym is CPC, but usually only party operatives or expats use that acronym. I wouldn't be surprised if the choice of acronym was deliberate in partisan American press outlets, because CCP looks a bit like CCCP (Cyrillic for USSR), whereas CPC looks like Congressional Progressive Caucus.
People from China themselves tend to just use the term "government" and don't mention the party at all. This gives the impression that their government is just as legitimate or independent as any other government. In reality, the government is controlled by the party.
And God forbid anyone ever says "China does this" or "China does that", as a short-hand for the party or the government. Then you will get every Little Pink in the world jumping on your case about "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people". They already often use that argument even if you try very hard to always use "CCP" or "government" terminology.
Then you get weird conflicts about Taiwan. Like, in Taiwan, a lot of the left-wing parties are also aligned with the so-called "green" movement, which is to say the Taiwan-as-independent-state movement. Whereas right-wing parties are aligned with "blue" movement, which tends to favor a closer relationship with China. But then you get indigenous Taiwanese, which tend to align themselves with the blue movement, because some of them believe that the green movement favor Hoklo Taiwanese over indigenous people - never mind the fact that mainland China treats their indigenous population like trash! Now imagine left wing American or other expat pokes their head into this political battle, what are they supposed to think?
Of course CCP person would say "well actually China treats its minorities better than anyone, they get free school, affirmative action..." But Uighur activist would say "that isn't school, that is a concentration camp!" Or Tibet - CCP say they liberated the region from a right-wing theocracy, Dalai Lama say his people are experiencing cultural genocide!
Add Hong Kong in the mix, and the problem of Hong Kong being an ideal dream of libertarian and neoliberal globalists - of course they love the city, a place where if you are rich you can live the best life in the world! They make lots of money trading with mainland and do not care about politics. But working class Hongkongers, are they really the ones who resist CCP takeover? Maybe, they are true freedom fighters! The true proletariat that the so-called "Communist" party does not care about! But why then there is this anger about foreign domestic helpers? Is localism xenophobic? Now there is alt-right guys from America joining the march, Hongkongers waving Trump flags, are they really fascists?
There are so many complex overlapping issues, it's very hard to pick a side. So the usual situation it seems in the diaspora and in left-centrist America is to be "apolitical", or pick no sides. But what that actually means is that anybody who tries to be peaceful or tries to find a middle way ends up self-censoring for CCP, since they are by far the richest, strongest and most powerful faction.
This, i think is the danger of deplatforming controversial figures or normalizing self-censorship in society. It might seem good to cancel the baddies, but if we create a culture where people feel afraid to speak up, because they are worried it might upset the orthodoxy, or because it might leave them ostracized or without a market to sell to, now we created our own little China. I feel like it is generally better to try allow everyone a place at the table, even if they are awful people (or this weird second-degree thing of merely associating with awful people).
I will perhaps have some more to say after i watch your video, but i need to go to store now.
I really appreciate getting your perspective of what you see as an outsider, with a lot of experience inside.
I assume the act of self-censorship across the board usually comes from this obvious pall of fear going around where they know they can be picked out for standing out.
Most of the year I put up a large NO WAR sign, that just lives in my screendoor window... printed by the Peace and Justice Action League who is a longtime activist group in the area who train people in non-violent dissent and non-violent protest strategies and hold free citizenship and civics classes for adults. I was surprised how that sign.. worked better than "NO SOLICITORS" for stopping door knockers (religious and commercial) as well as GREATLY ADDED to the trash people threw in my yard... especially bags of dog shit.
In a world where "No War" or non violence is APPARENTLY outspoken and controversial... what CAN you say, safely without harassment? O yeah.. that's the THING about America, right? You can SAY anything, but you will not be protected from what happens to you at other citizens hands for saying it. Hence our long and colorful history of lynching.
This is a really great video, and i agree with pretty much all of it. I especially like the honesty of Hedges in holding both the media and the Democrats accountable for failing to take Trump to task from the very beginning - they benefited just as much from Trump being an outrageous public figure as the Republicans did! They all milked him as long as they could for their own money and power. If Trump had been replaced with Pence early on, the Democratic nominee could've had a much harder job of winning in 2020. Politics is so cynical.
I tried to raise a few of these issues in my Very Fucking Left Wing circles outside of LiveJournal, and i was shocked at the response i got. Basically i got shouted down for being a apologist for fascism, that deplatforming works, that "Nazis" deserve to be eradicated, bla bla bla. It's actually made me withdraw from two other internet forums that i previously thought were reasonable places to talk about politics... Nope. They're just as blinded by their hatred of the other side as the right wing is. People are willing to abandon their values as soon as it's politically beneficial.
I don't think i am necessarily a free speech absolutist, but i definitely think that big tech shouldn't get to decide what speech is and isn't acceptable, and they shouldn't have such unchecked power to influence the public opinion. I'm not sure what the solution is, exactly. I don't want a big state censorship apparatus like China. On the other hand, as we've discovered in the Trump years, just letting conspiracy theorists run wild also results in a negative outcome for society. I do think we need to develop some kind of structure of fairness and accountability in social media. Right now that doesn't seem to exist at all.
" big tech shouldn't get to decide what speech is and isn't acceptable,"
I gotta ask this, since they ARE private companies, why do you think they can't decide what they want on their platforms? In some aspects, the decision to chop off Trump is a business decision, as they face other people pulling their money because they (the companies that buy advertising) do not wish to be associated with pricks like Trump n' Co.
It's not really about free speech to them, but about advertising money (in my opinion.)
Good question. This is sort of the libertarian argument - why shouldn't a company get to decide who they want to serve? A left-wing counterpoint might be: if a company's platform has gotten so big that it legitimately can be seen as a sort of public square, shouldn't speech on that square be protected?
I think there is a strong argument to be made that Facebook at least (although perhaps not Twitter) has reached the level of cultural saturation that banning someone from all their platforms is legitimately restricting their ability to communicate with their audience in a way that affects their basic human rights. It's not like a Facebook user can jump onto another platform and immediately reach all the same people they were reaching before. This isn't equivalent to being banned from one newspaper, so you go to another one, or being banned from one television network, so you go to another one.
However, even if this isn't an issue of freedom of speech, at the very least it is an issue of leaving the power in the hands of tech company billionaires. We already know that tech companies are able to shape public opinion. We knew this from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. If a large tech company can completely censor a politician from one side and not the other, how is that a good thing for democracy? What's to say they won't do the same thing for other political issues to make sure that things turn out in their favor? Almost certainly that's exactly what happened in 2020 with Proposition 22 in California, where Uber, Lyft and other tech unicorns sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into convincing voters to pull the lever for the tech companies instead of the gig economy workers. It's not a fair playing field. It's antidemocratic. It's Citizens United decision except with even less visibility than a PAC.
I can respect there is some libertarian or pro-business perspective saying that businesses should never have to answer for the kind of influence they wield in politics and society... But from the left i think there's no real defense for letting these companies get so influential, at least without some sort of oversight. And, of course, the same goes for major entertainment companies (Disney etc).
Burn em all! Let us send smoke signals to each other or flashes of light via shards of mirrors!
I’d agree Facebook is so pervasive it’s destroyed common sense and critical thinking. BTW, did you know “libruls h8 America!” and that Dr. Fauci was appointed by the Deep STate who had a time machine to place Fauci while under another Republican POTUS just tosow doubt against the Orange God-Emperor?
The point the PEN America chief made about putting more transparency into these platforms is a good one. There would be less controversy if it was clear to everyone exactly how and why certain voices are boosted and other voices are deemphasized, and also exactly why one person will be removed for controversial speech while others are not.
On Hackernews there has been some deeper conversation about this too. One high tech "solution" that i heard was the idea that social media should be based on open standards, so if you get ejected from one social media site, you should be able to carry your "contacts" with you, and at least have some mechanism for getting back in touch with them again.
It's an interesting topic. I think it will be in the news quite a bit over the next year, especially since Google and Facebook are already facing monopoly cases in the courts.
You know that story I told about the teenager from the DRC who lived for 6 years in a refugee camp and was placed in the U.S.? He FOUND HIS PARENTS and family again through **FACEBOOK** once he got to the U.S.! That... is how fucking pervasive bookface is.
I think that when someone decides to run a company, in America.. touting American values... that is created specifically to BE a PUBLIC FORUM where EVERYONE can meet... well, then, what are you doing when you let someone who is RICH spew hatred and lies for 3 years, and then who is POWERFUL spew hatred and lies for another 5 years and THEN go, "Wait wait wait...... " when he steps over some random, undefined line that they JUST made up now that he is on the cusp of less power and they are trying to influence the amount of power he HAS?
It smells! It's... something **else** going on.
I feel very... lucky to walk in circles of very liberal people who are almost all very informed about radical politics of the left AND the right, who are almost all historians of some kind. We grew together over a free-speech platform that is openly progressive... but really does run the (liberal) spectrum and we get to be exposed to eachothers ideas in ways where we also KNOW the person and can also discuss the intricacies even if we don't like the other's point of view we can still like the person and respect that side of it. Its not.. backbiting. It's not so fearful. It's not TENSE.
Thinking about the Prop 22 thing... it was through Amy Goodman that I learned that California does not regulate truth in political commercials. That lies are LEGAL in California during the political season... if its about politics. Isn't that interesting? The connection between California state politics and their support of Hollywood and shielding their commercial film industry from libel and slander suits despite its effect on the state's whole future and legitimacy and relation to corruption and corruptive powers.
The issue with Facebook having so much power globally is another really interesting one. I do think they do a reasonable job at creating local "bubbles" of content moderation, but this is still a piece of communications technology that was built with Ivy League or Silicon Valley values that is now used worldwide. Would some of the decisions about how it works have been different if Europeans had designed it for Europe or Africans had designed it for Africa, or even just if people in another parts of America designed it for their own communities?
I really think America needs better laws around political campaigns. I don't know of any other country in the world where campaigns can stretch on for months or years, and where so much money gets pumped into it. In most other countries the length of campaigning is limited, the amount (and type) of advertizing is limited... And politics ends up being much less of a spectator sport as a result.
For years there has been a push to go back to a regulated form of political campaigns. Ie: that there is a minute tax that all Americans pay... and then that money raised is divided equally among the candidates running for major federal offices and so candidates don't have to spend time fundraising or be corrupted by the process. The two major parties HATE that idea. The minor parties... are all for it. FOR SOME REASON.
America has very weird rules... about most things. Really... we are so infatuated with money and profit, almost anything have to do with it is legal. When I learned that in the EU that you cannot say, "find us on twitter and facebook"... but instead "find us on social media" it was a huge lightbulb moment because of COURSE mentioning the companies by name IS AN ADVERTISEMENT. Especially when a major news source or celebrity does it. Also.. where medications and medical treatments cannot be advertised. Its ludicrous its allowed.
Also thinking about how Glenn Greenwald had to leave The Intercept, (which he helped found) because they wouldn't print his Hunter Biden piece because they were not willing to damage the Democratic party.
The two party system is.... at least not a one-party system. That is... if you forget that the two-party system is actually a false dichotomy which work together to control American politics and ensure no other party can form or gain power.
I am not well-informed about Chinese culture... having done nothing but enjoyed a few Chinese-made historical action flicks that are really about assorted historical "heroes"... and a year of taking Mandarin Chinese a few years ago, so I can count to 10 if I think about it, and can recognize 15 separate words by sound, maybe 5 phrases, and probably only 10 characters. MAYBE.
ANYWAYS.... that and being a newsy for a long time who will read anything with words that I see. So I have read the Epoch Times, and knew it was crazytown, but did not know its Falun Gong connections, just knew it was very American right-wing and semi-obsessed with taking down the CCP... and regularly referred to it as the CCP (rather than what Americans would say which is the "Community Party", or "Communist Party in China" or "The Chinese Party").. so I knew they had 'skin in the game' because they knew more than American outlets.
ANYWAYS... I had seen that Uncle Roger video about badly cooked rice.
Also, I watched the Tibet story die in America and had been to see a talk by the Dalai Lama... and know enough British/American/Chinese history to easily follow what has been happening in Hong Kong without having to be told much except "Chinese Crackdown in Hong Kong" to know what is actually unfolding. I've also studied marketing and manufacturing strategies and Chinese/American partner companies and how China, the US, and the WTO have changed the landscape and why you can now buy kitchen aid mixers in 20 different colors for the same price they were sold in stores 30 years ago when it was a very expensive made in America and Europe kitchen tool... FOR INSTANCE.
I guess,... this teeny tiny amount information makes me practically 'informed' as an American about China... which is CRAZY.
I am VERY excited to read that longer article you posted. Thank you.
I just wanted to say that I read your post... and loved it. And I think you would appreciate this conversation I recently heard.... that made me think you might appreciate it.
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/11/big_tech_response_capitol_insurrection
For me... it's all about Chris Hedges questioning aloud what happens when American companies start becoming defacto individual censors. Not that he doesn't fucking hate That Guy, he just wonders why it's okay NOW for these giant media companies who have been profiting from his filth, now act all high and might and why Americans would accept censorship from corporate powers that be. NOBODY ELSE (on the left) is talking about this problem. Most lefties take the other side of the debate that it is 'corporate responsibility'.... (suddenly) and that its a new world of communication and they are just trying to do due diligence and we must stop hate AT ANY COST.
Thoughts?
Reply
For example, if you say CCP, you are probably anti-CCP. The formal acronym is CPC, but usually only party operatives or expats use that acronym. I wouldn't be surprised if the choice of acronym was deliberate in partisan American press outlets, because CCP looks a bit like CCCP (Cyrillic for USSR), whereas CPC looks like Congressional Progressive Caucus.
People from China themselves tend to just use the term "government" and don't mention the party at all. This gives the impression that their government is just as legitimate or independent as any other government. In reality, the government is controlled by the party.
And God forbid anyone ever says "China does this" or "China does that", as a short-hand for the party or the government. Then you will get every Little Pink in the world jumping on your case about "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people". They already often use that argument even if you try very hard to always use "CCP" or "government" terminology.
Then you get weird conflicts about Taiwan. Like, in Taiwan, a lot of the left-wing parties are also aligned with the so-called "green" movement, which is to say the Taiwan-as-independent-state movement. Whereas right-wing parties are aligned with "blue" movement, which tends to favor a closer relationship with China. But then you get indigenous Taiwanese, which tend to align themselves with the blue movement, because some of them believe that the green movement favor Hoklo Taiwanese over indigenous people - never mind the fact that mainland China treats their indigenous population like trash! Now imagine left wing American or other expat pokes their head into this political battle, what are they supposed to think?
Of course CCP person would say "well actually China treats its minorities better than anyone, they get free school, affirmative action..." But Uighur activist would say "that isn't school, that is a concentration camp!" Or Tibet - CCP say they liberated the region from a right-wing theocracy, Dalai Lama say his people are experiencing cultural genocide!
Add Hong Kong in the mix, and the problem of Hong Kong being an ideal dream of libertarian and neoliberal globalists - of course they love the city, a place where if you are rich you can live the best life in the world! They make lots of money trading with mainland and do not care about politics. But working class Hongkongers, are they really the ones who resist CCP takeover? Maybe, they are true freedom fighters! The true proletariat that the so-called "Communist" party does not care about! But why then there is this anger about foreign domestic helpers? Is localism xenophobic? Now there is alt-right guys from America joining the march, Hongkongers waving Trump flags, are they really fascists?
There are so many complex overlapping issues, it's very hard to pick a side. So the usual situation it seems in the diaspora and in left-centrist America is to be "apolitical", or pick no sides. But what that actually means is that anybody who tries to be peaceful or tries to find a middle way ends up self-censoring for CCP, since they are by far the richest, strongest and most powerful faction.
This, i think is the danger of deplatforming controversial figures or normalizing self-censorship in society. It might seem good to cancel the baddies, but if we create a culture where people feel afraid to speak up, because they are worried it might upset the orthodoxy, or because it might leave them ostracized or without a market to sell to, now we created our own little China. I feel like it is generally better to try allow everyone a place at the table, even if they are awful people (or this weird second-degree thing of merely associating with awful people).
I will perhaps have some more to say after i watch your video, but i need to go to store now.
Reply
I assume the act of self-censorship across the board usually comes from this obvious pall of fear going around where they know they can be picked out for standing out.
Most of the year I put up a large NO WAR sign, that just lives in my screendoor window... printed by the Peace and Justice Action League who is a longtime activist group in the area who train people in non-violent dissent and non-violent protest strategies and hold free citizenship and civics classes for adults. I was surprised how that sign.. worked better than "NO SOLICITORS" for stopping door knockers (religious and commercial) as well as GREATLY ADDED to the trash people threw in my yard... especially bags of dog shit.
In a world where "No War" or non violence is APPARENTLY outspoken and controversial... what CAN you say, safely without harassment? O yeah.. that's the THING about America, right? You can SAY anything, but you will not be protected from what happens to you at other citizens hands for saying it. Hence our long and colorful history of lynching.
Reply
Glenn Greenwald opened up one of his posts which talks about the Parler ban: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic
Matt Stoller wrote about big tech as well: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thing-biden-can-do-to-reset
I tried to raise a few of these issues in my Very Fucking Left Wing circles outside of LiveJournal, and i was shocked at the response i got. Basically i got shouted down for being a apologist for fascism, that deplatforming works, that "Nazis" deserve to be eradicated, bla bla bla. It's actually made me withdraw from two other internet forums that i previously thought were reasonable places to talk about politics... Nope. They're just as blinded by their hatred of the other side as the right wing is. People are willing to abandon their values as soon as it's politically beneficial.
I don't think i am necessarily a free speech absolutist, but i definitely think that big tech shouldn't get to decide what speech is and isn't acceptable, and they shouldn't have such unchecked power to influence the public opinion. I'm not sure what the solution is, exactly. I don't want a big state censorship apparatus like China. On the other hand, as we've discovered in the Trump years, just letting conspiracy theorists run wild also results in a negative outcome for society. I do think we need to develop some kind of structure of fairness and accountability in social media. Right now that doesn't seem to exist at all.
Reply
I gotta ask this, since they ARE private companies, why do you think they can't decide what they want on their platforms? In some aspects, the decision to chop off Trump is a business decision, as they face other people pulling their money because they (the companies that buy advertising) do not wish to be associated with pricks like Trump n' Co.
It's not really about free speech to them, but about advertising money (in my opinion.)
Reply
I think there is a strong argument to be made that Facebook at least (although perhaps not Twitter) has reached the level of cultural saturation that banning someone from all their platforms is legitimately restricting their ability to communicate with their audience in a way that affects their basic human rights. It's not like a Facebook user can jump onto another platform and immediately reach all the same people they were reaching before. This isn't equivalent to being banned from one newspaper, so you go to another one, or being banned from one television network, so you go to another one.
However, even if this isn't an issue of freedom of speech, at the very least it is an issue of leaving the power in the hands of tech company billionaires. We already know that tech companies are able to shape public opinion. We knew this from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. If a large tech company can completely censor a politician from one side and not the other, how is that a good thing for democracy? What's to say they won't do the same thing for other political issues to make sure that things turn out in their favor? Almost certainly that's exactly what happened in 2020 with Proposition 22 in California, where Uber, Lyft and other tech unicorns sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into convincing voters to pull the lever for the tech companies instead of the gig economy workers. It's not a fair playing field. It's antidemocratic. It's Citizens United decision except with even less visibility than a PAC.
I can respect there is some libertarian or pro-business perspective saying that businesses should never have to answer for the kind of influence they wield in politics and society... But from the left i think there's no real defense for letting these companies get so influential, at least without some sort of oversight. And, of course, the same goes for major entertainment companies (Disney etc).
Reply
I’d agree Facebook is so pervasive it’s destroyed common sense and critical thinking. BTW, did you know “libruls h8 America!” and that Dr. Fauci was appointed by the Deep STate who had a time machine to place Fauci while under another Republican POTUS just tosow doubt against the Orange God-Emperor?
Reply
The point the PEN America chief made about putting more transparency into these platforms is a good one. There would be less controversy if it was clear to everyone exactly how and why certain voices are boosted and other voices are deemphasized, and also exactly why one person will be removed for controversial speech while others are not.
On Hackernews there has been some deeper conversation about this too. One high tech "solution" that i heard was the idea that social media should be based on open standards, so if you get ejected from one social media site, you should be able to carry your "contacts" with you, and at least have some mechanism for getting back in touch with them again.
It's an interesting topic. I think it will be in the news quite a bit over the next year, especially since Google and Facebook are already facing monopoly cases in the courts.
Reply
I think that when someone decides to run a company, in America.. touting American values... that is created specifically to BE a PUBLIC FORUM where EVERYONE can meet... well, then, what are you doing when you let someone who is RICH spew hatred and lies for 3 years, and then who is POWERFUL spew hatred and lies for another 5 years and THEN go, "Wait wait wait...... " when he steps over some random, undefined line that they JUST made up now that he is on the cusp of less power and they are trying to influence the amount of power he HAS?
It smells! It's... something **else** going on.
I feel very... lucky to walk in circles of very liberal people who are almost all very informed about radical politics of the left AND the right, who are almost all historians of some kind. We grew together over a free-speech platform that is openly progressive... but really does run the (liberal) spectrum and we get to be exposed to eachothers ideas in ways where we also KNOW the person and can also discuss the intricacies even if we don't like the other's point of view we can still like the person and respect that side of it. Its not.. backbiting. It's not so fearful. It's not TENSE.
Thinking about the Prop 22 thing... it was through Amy Goodman that I learned that California does not regulate truth in political commercials. That lies are LEGAL in California during the political season... if its about politics. Isn't that interesting? The connection between California state politics and their support of Hollywood and shielding their commercial film industry from libel and slander suits despite its effect on the state's whole future and legitimacy and relation to corruption and corruptive powers.
Reply
I really think America needs better laws around political campaigns. I don't know of any other country in the world where campaigns can stretch on for months or years, and where so much money gets pumped into it. In most other countries the length of campaigning is limited, the amount (and type) of advertizing is limited... And politics ends up being much less of a spectator sport as a result.
Reply
America has very weird rules... about most things. Really... we are so infatuated with money and profit, almost anything have to do with it is legal. When I learned that in the EU that you cannot say, "find us on twitter and facebook"... but instead "find us on social media" it was a huge lightbulb moment because of COURSE mentioning the companies by name IS AN ADVERTISEMENT. Especially when a major news source or celebrity does it. Also.. where medications and medical treatments cannot be advertised. Its ludicrous its allowed.
Reply
The two party system is.... at least not a one-party system. That is... if you forget that the two-party system is actually a false dichotomy which work together to control American politics and ensure no other party can form or gain power.
Reply
Leave a comment