Now do Jared Kushner.
This Kremlin propaganda outlet only cares about Jared Kushner when they’re criticizing Israel.
It would be amazing that they’ve covered private citizen Hunter Biden more than they covered Trump Admin official Jared Kushner if I were a credulous enough sucker to actually believe they were a good-faith progressive publication.
Insanely critical of Russia:
The Russian capitalist and managerial class was created out of a certain kind of people: the bureaucratically connected criminal vultures who fed on economic destruction.
Also:
https://jacobin.com/2018/12/tony-wood-russia-putin-cold-war
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/russia-azat-miftakhov-political-repression-putin
Literally the first thing on that list:
In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s evil genius matters less than pressures from the ultrarich, US foreign policy, and the ravages of the neoliberal Yeltsin years.
[Okay, Putin might be bad, but the real villain is the US and the more liberal regimes that preceded him]
This is what Kremlin propaganda aimed at the US left looks like, “sure Russia is bad, but the accusations against them are lies and it’s really NATO and the US that are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened involving Russia”
Ding ding! Articles like these are trying to get you to say, “Yeah, I agree that Hunter should be prosecuted. Yeah, there are two tiers of justice,” after which, they steer the narrative to the right.
Getting people to agree on basic facts or ideas that are weakly linked (or maybe not even at all) is a tactic of persuasion.
How is the left reasonably addressing what the right are happy to exaggerate leading people to the right? Doesn’t ignoring it and letting the right own the issue lead people to the right?
No. Because the right doesn’t traffic in facts. Reality is a nuisance. They want you to engage honestly, but they have no such need or compulsion. Engaging honestly tacitly implies their claims are worth honest engagement. It gives them credit, while they can discredit you with lies they can invent wholecloth.
What needs to be pointed out is this thinly veiled attempt to propagandize for the right.
They don’t want you to have a basic understanding of issues they are greatly exaggerating so you can explain to people what’s actually going on without propagandizing it? This kind of sounds insane that you think being able to explain right wing exaggerations in a grounded way helps the right. Tail between the legs sort of thinking there.
Putin is a tool of oligarchs yes and Russia’s economy is doing what America has done in the global south for the last 70+ years. That’s what imperialist capitalism is, it causes these conflicts with competing imperial actors.
Hunter Biden isn’t relevant to anything. He’s a nobody.
You don’t want your 1.4 million dollars back? I mean I care about tax evasion especially from the rich.
You don’t want your 1.4 million dollars back?
He has since paid his back taxes, so this isn’t a valid argument.
"In the year after he disclosed a federal investigation into his “tax affairs” in late 2020, President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, paid off a significant tax liability, even as a grand jury continued to gather evidence in a wide-ranging examination of his international business dealings, according to people familiar with the case.
Mr. Biden’s failure to pay all his taxes has been a focus of the ongoing Justice Department investigation. While wiping out his liability does not preclude criminal charges against him, the payment could make it harder for prosecutors to win a conviction or a long sentence for tax-related offenses, according to tax law experts, since juries and judges tend to be more sympathetic to defendants who have paid their bills."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html
Then let the IRS do their job…
This is Biden’s Justice Department bringing the indictments, it’s their function to do this.
That’s not even how taxes work dumbass.
Go yell at Willy Nelson.
The rich evading taxes is theft. Unfortunately you’ll probably see where these pathetic evasions end up in November… a complete inability to respond to these ridiculous issues the Repubicans are attracting people with, it’s like 2016 all over again. Good luck with winning the online debate wars while you lose everything else. After WW2 all the citizens of Germany shared blame, so it will be for Americans.
Holy shit you go from a rich dude avoiding taxes to Americans are no different from nazi shame.
Okay, good luck with that.
Holy shit you go from a rich dude avoiding taxes to Americans are no different from nazi shame.
Okay, good luck with that.
Hunter Biden, the president’s problematic son, has finally been indicted for his years of tax evasion. Only in an egregiously unequal society like ours do the children of the rich and powerful get away with corruption for as long as Hunter Biden has.
I guess my old coworker who made $35k a year and evaded their taxes for more than 30yrs was just lying.
Fuck off with this “OnLy ThE rIcH CaN eVaDe TaXeS.” Lots of people do it without getting audited. There’s plenty of reasons to be pissed off about the two tiers of justice, but this Hunter Biden angle is just ignorant and smacks of Republicans clutching their pearls as they try to build public momentum for their impeachment bullshit.
It’s going to be a major election issue for Republicans like it or not, do you give them that by pretending it’s not a thing?
No. I choose not to engage, because that’s what they want. They don’t care about acting in good faith, and they aren’t interested in sussing out the facts or nuance.
ETA: I wasn’t directing the “fuck off” at you, OP, but at the author of the article.
I choose not to engage, because that’s what they want.
They do want you to roll over and not have a response, having a simple reasoned reasoned response that’s actually describing what’s going on without the conspiracy is far better. It shows you understand more and aren’t angry or shy to address it.
Yes, but they don’t care what the answer is. They aren’t interested in being wrong or changing their paradigm. If they have no response, they’ll just wave the argument away like, “You’re just ignoring the gravity of the matter.”
They aren’t interested in engaging honestly. Reality is mundane. Conspiracy theories are exciting, which is why the right is so full of them.
Why should what the right is willing to engage in determine what facts and views you have around an issue? Don’t you agree elites shouldn’t be treated differently, that the right will force this as an election issue as much as they can, and that you’d rather it explained away reasonably so people are immune to the conspiracy disinformation?
Why should what the right is willing to engage in determine what facts and views you have around an issue?
They don’t. But choosing to engage with them only helps their credibility, and that implicit credibility can help them sway naive and gullible people.
Don’t you agree elites shouldn’t be treated differently, that the right will force this as an election issue as much as they can…
Yes, but since we’re in the context of this article, Hunter Biden specifically is irrelevant to that conversation. Running his name as a headline for this decades-old issue only gives credence to the efforts to link his personal conduct to his father.
…and that you’d rather it explained away reasonably so people are immune to the conspiracy disinformation?
Yes, but that presumes people are predisposed to reason, and that reason would immunize them. I simply don’t see evidence of that being the case for far too many people, and certainly not people on the right. Nobody is immune to propaganda, even skeptics.
Engaging on a personal level is a different matter, but on the public stage, engagement is the goal. I think there are exceptions, like where it puts people in danger (see anti-vaxx bullshit), but in general, the liar is not obligated to engage honestly.
Holy shit, I bailed on Jacobin Mag when the Ukraine War started and they cried “Both sides!” on every other piece, but this is a new low.
Hope you hate it <3 I love sharing Jacobin cause they generate a lot of interaction and agitate people’s status quo notions. Marxist view of Russia is like that, mistaken for “both sides” analysis (which breaks American’s brains) cause they don’t understand the materialist view of anything. Blame lack of education and their shitty news media for that. Anyway enjoy.
“It’s a Marxist analysis of Russia!”
No, it’s just apologism for imperialism while claiming anti-imperialism. Imagine being this brainrotted.
That makes no sense ^. Anti-imperialism requires criticizing America’s global actions and you interpret that as pro-Russia. Simple as that.
That makes no sense ^. Anti-imperialism requires criticizing America’s global actions and you interpret that as pro-Russia. Simple as that.
If you regard “Anti-imperialism” as “criticizing America’s global actions” and not “criticizing imperialist actions, including imperialist actions by America”, then you’re interpreting “Anti-imperialism” as “Anti-America”. A common mistake amongst brainrotted morons who turn international politics into a religion where they can embrace a big scawwy ‘Great Satan’ to oppose and claim Marxism instead of doing actual materialist analysis, but not in any way valid.
Exactly you can’t criticize imperialism as it’s relevant to the Russia Ukraine war without including America in that economic reality. This is what people freak out about, because a materialist analysis would look at what resources are present in Ukraine, Russian oligarchs pressuring their government to allow them access to them, Ukraine wanting it for them and appealing to their interests, America assisting in that and helping them because it’s in their economic interests as well. Then you have the public image of the war obfuscated from these conditions, and that’s what people get upset about because they are invested in Ukraine as an arm of America’s imperialism not as a truly independent state controlled by Ukrainians. If Ukrainians wanted to be in Russia they would drop them, and probably will because that’s what America often does to it’s allies in these conflicts. For now there’s still rational reasons to continue it from bOtH SidEs, but the Kurds know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of US military aid. Israel is willing to do the US’ dirty work required in the arrangement so they keep getting US aid.
This is what people freak out about, because a materialist analysis would look at what resources are present in Ukraine, Russian oligarchs pressuring their government to allow them access to them, Ukraine wanting it for them and appealing to their interests, America assisting in that and helping them because it’s in their economic interests as well.
… you… you do realize that materialist analysis extends far beyond conflicts over resources, right?
… right…?
Oh, who am I kidding, of course you don’t.
If Ukrainians wanted to be in Russia they would drop them
If Ukraine wanted to be in Russia there wouldn’t be a fucking war, so of course?
Oh sorry didn’t realize you wanted the entire materialist analysis of the world to consider it valid lol, it’s not like you disagreed with my summary though…
Exactly there would be no war, the fact there is one means we can analyze it like any other regional war between imperialist and independent/imperialist-backed nations. It’s that which people take to be pro-Russia because it’s not injected with pandering. American’s need pandering or they think it’s anti-American or pro-enemy.
deleted by creator
Someone make a meme about lemmy users believing they’re on the left.
There’s plenty of memes about Americans who think the Democrats are in any way left, or that Americans think they can be on the left in their current political arrangement. The left wing of neoliberalism is to be a centrist liberal. Most of them are uneducated and fed notions of what a good person is from celebrities and corporate branding.
Peal clutching over Hunter… to think a Marxist would say his name and reflect the issue back on the right?! Almost all the criticism I get over this is that it’s wrong to mention Hunter in a news article, what a joke these people are they can’t respond to the right’s insanity and have to hide the issue. Every day Trump victory seems more and more likely, this is just like 2016 but none of them learn.
Thought this would generate spicy comments. Unfortunately this will me a major election issue propped up by the right, but Democrats are unwilling to recognize it even happening and saying it doesn’t matter which is going to do far more harm than good. Most don’t even know Biden’s own Justice Department is the one who brought these charges. Explaining away tax evasion for Hunter but not Trump is exactly the hypocrisy the GOP needs to point to… don’t give them that.
Explaining away tax evasion for Hunter but not Trump is exactly the hypocrisy the GOP needs to point to… don’t give them that.
I haven’t heard anyone do this, honestly. Most people I’ve encountered say, “Then prosecute him.” People on the left don’t care, though, because it’s tax evasion, not a human rights violation. This doesn’t need to be plastered on news outlets like something novel. In the grand scheme, everybody should pay their fair share of taxes, but Hunter isn’t some canary in the coal mine. We’ve known the canary has been dead for decades.
Republicans will glom onto anything they can pretend is red meat for their base. It doesn’t matter what facts we bring to the table, because they’ve reinvented what “facts” and “reality” are for their supporters. Engagement is their currency, because it implies legitimacy, and we shouldn’t give them that.
People on the “left” (ie liberals mostly) don’t care because they desperately don’t want the Republicans to run with this as an election issue, however that isn’t a choice that’s on the table this will be an election issue. These people care very much about tax evasion when it’s Republicans or not electorally relevant. Unfortunately the treatment to bury this issue from Democrat supporters will only help the GOP glom it up further and give them a perfect example of hypocrisy. The actual left in this case here, providing a reasoned response, that hey the kids of political elites are granted what normal people aren’t, Democrats hate that because they don’t want this to exist, but head in sand only does more harm because the GOP will happily use this to their advantage.
People on the “left” (ie liberals mostly) don’t care because they desperately don’t want the Republicans to run with this as an election issue, however that isn’t a choice that’s on the table this will be an election issue.
Not for people on the left, who are usually like, “Let the IRS do their job and move on.” This is only an issue for people on the right, and you can’t “facts and reason” them out of it, because the facts literally don’t matter. Creating grievance where there is none is straight out of their playbook.
This is a hit piece crafted to persuade people to move their views to the right, not some socialist alarm bell.
Isn’t letting the right own it leading people to the right? How is a reasonable explanation from the left that doesn’t exaggerate into conspiracy leading people to the right? Do you think you have a choice over this being a major election issue exaggerated from the right?
Isn’t letting the right own it leading people to the right?
Maybe. But you can’t effectively counter the lies by presenting facts, because the facts aren’t what they’re after, and they have no imperative to seek them out for their own position.
How is a reasonable explanation from the left that doesn’t exaggerate into conspiracy leading people to the right?
It doesn’t. But notice that’s not what I said. I said it’s not worth engaging, because by engaging honestly, you are legitimizing the lies. You are implying that the interlocutor is making statements in good faith.
I think you can make commentary on the lies, but in this day, the liars are practiced at controlling the narrative. They want you to engage, knowing they can easily outdo your facts with the number of lies they can invent.
Do you think you have a choice over this being a major election issue exaggerated from the right?
No, and that’s my point. You could demonstrate to the highest level of reason and logic how this issue is a nothingburger, and they would still run with it, “demonstrating” that it can “withstand” scrutiny. And now, since you engaged honestly, they have implicit credibility that it’s not just able to withstand scrutiny, it’s also able to withstand scrutiny from honest people.
The opposite of engaging is disengaging and that gives full reign for the conspiracy to flourish. The issue isn’t to convince it’s to inoculate against the right’s disinformation before the hyperexaggerations happen on a broader scale during the election campaign. The idea that this helps the right or is a bad thing is insanely disconnected from the actual issues that will determine the election, thus handing more ground to the GOP both in issues they can own and people who they can convince.
And I’m saying I don’t think you can innoculate. Facts are expensive. Lies are cheap. Look at how successful the right wing grift mill is. The facts on various matters aren’t hard to find, but it’s so lucrative that people keep it growing in spite of reality and the facts. People don’t want to leave, because reality isn’t exciting; it has few binaries, whereas they have clear villains, a simplified(-ish) paradigm, and a promise of being special and “being in the know” about life’s secrets.
And I know this is the case, because I am an ex-Christian. There is no shortage of people willing to justify their beliefs based on little to no objective evidence. The backfire effect is a real phenomenon, and people who aren’t open to being wrong are the most likely to be affected by it.
In what way is this an election issue? Hunter Biden isn’t running for office. He has absolutely nothing to do with anything related to the Presidency. Joe Biden isn’t pulling a Trump and going full nepotism by filling his cabinet with friends and relatives. Unless you can point to a single shred of evidence that Joe Biden was somehow involved in Hunter Biden’s crimes then it doesn’t matter if it was tax evasion or mass murder it’s utterly irrelevant for the election.
