I hear you. I think the difference is that France has way more worker protections, strong and influential unions, a solid social safety net, and frankly a less ruthless government, so there's less fear of financial ruin for work stoppages.

Meanwhile, corporations in America keep the working poor as close to bonded slavery as they can get away with without pushing them over the edge to violence, though even that equilibrium is starting to shift based on worker attitudes I hear. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the federal government as well as state governments regularly sided with corporations over workers and murdered hundreds of them, and workers mostly lost or had their lives destroyed. The frequency of conflict finally resulted in union protections... like 50 years later. Now most of those protections have been unraveled, and many low-income workers are a few months of missed rent payments away from homelessness. If they lose their job, there will be a dozen people waiting to take that job right after. So asking for a general strike is asking people to face certain financial ruin for themselves and their families.

That said, to be honest, it's a wonder to me that there hasn't been more violence between workers and corporations. As they keep taking things away from the working poor, though, I think it's coming. The problem is that propaganda is so strong that the violence may be misdirected. Either way, worker retaliation leading to a wider conflict is one of the only avenues I can see for systemic change.

That or secession.

Look, I think we're basically on the same side of this. My point is that England is not the US, a cousin in Texas does not give you a complete picture, heck even Americans who grew up on the East Coast don't understand the Midwest and vice versa. I've spent a month in a country in north Africa, a month in one in east Africa, I've made friends in those places and had long conversations with them about their countries, and I wouldn't dream of assuming I understand those countries because I don't. Since you have family in the US you of all people should be rooting for us to get our house in order. Posting defeatist or judgmental comments about the people who are against this, about people who are against fascism, against Israeli influence in our politics, may make you feel better in the short term, but it might be the comment that someone who was on the fence about taking action sees and pushes them into thinking "Why bother?"

Anyway, I've said my piece, I'll stop there.

Liberals say this all the time. We can't say or do X because it will just embolden MAGA! That's how you end up with feckless nothings like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Fascists need to be challenged at every opportunity.

He looks great for his age. 43 is quite old in Shar-Pei years

You judge a diverse country the size of all of Europe while evidently knowing very little about it. And the fact that you blame another country for your own country's problems means you are pretending to be other than you are. We know our problems come from within.

Oh? How's Lebanon doing right now? Rule of law? Corruption? Press freedoms? Economy and unemployment? It must be all good there given how frequently you post about America.

Besides the fact that this guy is a fascist, I'm tired of judicial nominees refusing to answer any questions whatsoever by saying how inappropriate it would be to answer. It's gotten to the point where every nominee responds to every question like this:

Multiple Democratic senators pressed Bove in their questionnaire to clarify if Bove believes the Constitution permits Mr. Trump to run for a third term, despite the restrictions of the 22nd Amendment, which states that "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

"As a nominee to the Third Circuit, it would not be appropriate for me to address how this Amendment would apply in an abstract hypothetical scenario," Bove responded on multiple occasions. "To the extent this question seeks to elicit an answer that could be taken as opining on the broader political or policy debate regarding term limits, or on statements by any political figure, my response, consistent with the positions of prior judicial nominees, is that it would be improper to offer any such comment as a judicial nominee."

Of course, apparently it doesn't actually matter if they lie directly, since multiple Supreme Court nominees have without consequence.

He's already made statements well before this that he basically hates his job. This allows him to go out self-righteously

Jump Bug (late 1981) is the earliest. It has an entirely underwater level, and the car moves more slowly in it. It was also one of the earliest platformers, beaten only by Donkey Kong (mid 1981) and a couple others.

Super Mario Bros. (1985) introduced a significantly different mechanic for its water levels from the rest of the game, specifically swimming, and it was about a bajillion times more popular than Jump Bug. But it wasn't the first.

Maybe it can be a Murder on the Orient Express situation

I've worked in startups most of my career and co-founded two companies. This is dumb. Most startups fail and it ain't because people aren't working hard enough.

To echo another commenter, this article is a harrowing read—particularly the litany of reasons for declaring independence:

The Declaration pronounces these rights to be so important that it’s worth overthrowing a government over them. But one should not undertake revolution against a tyrannical government lightly, the Declaration says, going on to provide a massive litany of complaints as justification. In modern times, the full list was considered to be the boring part of this document, lacking the vim and vigor of “we hold these truths to be self-evident” and other such bars from the preamble. But this year, it’s become a… bracing read.

Listed among the reasons to boot the British monarch are:

• “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”
• “Obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”
• “erect[ing] a multitude of New Offices, and sen[ding] hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people”
• keeping “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures”
• attempting “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
• “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”
• “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”
• “excit[ing] domestic insurrections amongst us”

This was visceral:

As Donald Trump’s imperial presidency rolls forward across the wreckage of Congress on tank treads greased by the Supreme Court...

And it ends with this:

The Declaration of Independence has some notes about “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” its existing government “and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

But that was another time, right? Surely nobody wants to take the Founding Fathers’ original words literally. Their original meaning and original intent can’t just be superimposed on American life today, not when American values are very different from the values of 1776. In Trump’s America, the national ethos is simply a boot on your neck, forever.