• FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Why is Kim a good cop? I’m not familiar with the text Columbo is from so I’m not gonna comment on him, but Kim at least is just a very competent detective working for a neoliberal-ish imperialist bureaucratic coalition, and he enforces their rule. I guess he does participate in the vaguely populist uprising after the game is over, so a little kudos to him.

          • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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            1 year ago

            Detective Lieutenant Columbo (when people ask his first name, he tells them it’s Lieutenant) is from a tv show where he’s a little gremlin man who gets on people’s nerves and arrests a member of the bourgeoisie in almost every single episode. He refuses to carry a gun, and I can’t even remember a single time where we see him in a police department or doing cop stuff. He just solves crimes and then goes home to his invisible wife.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Yeah nearly every crime Columbo solves is some upper strata Los Angeles freak who killed someone using a diamond covered pool stick. Also Columbo likes chili and he may or may not have a glass eye. In one episode he caught Leonard Nimoy being an evil doctor.

              However, as a negative, it’s shown in several episodes that Columbo speaks fluent Italian and I can’t forgive that

          • CommunistCuddlefish [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I guess he does participate in the vaguely populist uprising after the game is over, so a little kudos to him.

            Wait how do you find that out? Do you have to wait through the credits to get an epilogue? I didn’t sit through the credits.

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              You need high Shivers and high Espirit de Corps. There’s an event after the events of the game called The Return, it’s supposed to be a political revolution of sorts but it’s not very explicit whether it’s meant to be a communist revolution again or if it’s some kind of fascist uprising either, all that the game really tells you is that some of the cops from the RCM participate in it after all is done.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Kim isn’t a good cop I’m sorry. If you play Harry as fascist he’s willing to let a lot of shit slide. Sure he might call you out on being racist, but he doesn’t ever stop you. If he were real he’d be

          CW: police violence

          the guy disapprovingly looking on as his partner chokes out George Floyd.

          Thats of course just one reading of one branch of a piece of fiction, presented in a provocative way. My honest opinion is that Kim is a saint and I cherished every moment Tequila Sunset got to share with him. But the other reading is also there.

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Yes but also no. There is no such thing as a cop that is good on the human scale but there are less bad cops which makes them the “good” on the scale of cops. Like a good visit with your mother in law or bad sex.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Yep, it’s just domestic counterinsurgency. This was plainly seen during the George Floyd uprising. The Republicans were the stick while the Democrats were the carrot.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        While pigs were cracking skulls (stick), Democrats were pulling that “we see you, we hear you” bullshit (carrot). The problem is that the “we see you, we hear you” bullshit actually worked. This is how you get “protest police” and people watering down “abolish the police” into “reform the police” in the futile attempt at trying to appease “sympathetic” Democrats who will only support you if you start thinking pragmaticallyTM. The split between the libs who fell for the carrot and radicals who didn’t allowed the pigs to more easily mop up the radicals because they’re isolated. This is COIN in action. If the entire federal government was just a one party state ruled by the GOP, the protest would’ve only intensified since the enemy is crystal clear without a backstabbing and sabotaging “friend.”

        • D3FNC [any]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          This is why if you want to abolish police you have to start with an even more extreme position of [redacted] police, but nobody in mayonnaise world has ever had to haggle over the price of anything so democrats fuck themselves over by moving their initial bargaining position to where they’re meeting Republicans half-way. Every time. Every fucking time.

          At this point even normal people are beginning to realize they’re a deeply unserious organization.

    • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The “good cop” is the one trying to smile and play nice as a manipulation tactic, presenting a “nice, reasonable option” that “just wants to help you” that’s contrasted with a bloodthirsty psychopath that’s threatening/actively torturing you.

      The “good cop” doesn’t actually do anything good, they’re just polite and suggest they might do something good if you just do what they want, and focus on how much better an option they are than the “bad cop” who’s openly antagonistic and trying to harm you. Both actors in the scenario are bad, their descriptor is just about the role they’re playing in the con.

      • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Sure I get that, I was just being cheeky in response to their “change my view” bit. Tho also the Dems really do suck at being “good cop”

  • porcupine
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    1 year ago

    The US “two party system” is a ratchet mechanism. A ratchet consists of a base, a gear, and a pawl. The base is the electoral system: “flawed” but unchangeable; “the best we have”. The gear is the Republican Party: its rotation broadly marks imperial progress. The pawl is the Democratic Party: it allows the gear to rotate freely while arresting counter rotation.

    While there is friction between the parts, they are not opposed. They all work together to produce a common end more efficiently than they could in isolation.

  • Kaplya@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Not really, there are substantial differences between the Democrats and the Republicans.

    For one, a fundamental difference between the ideologies of the parties is in the role of the state. Republicans want the state to not intervene in the free market, whereas Democrats want the state to enforce the free market.

    Billionaires who want the state to actively help them get even richer became Democratic donors, whereas billionaires who believe that the state should not interfere with the free market and how they make their money became the GOP donors.

    TL;DR: there’s no difference for your average American, but it’s an ideological split among the bourgeoisie

    • darkmode [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      red neo lib admin and blue neo lib admin both subsidize the same industries meaningful ideological differences ended in the 70s if u want to split hairs the Julius Nyerere quote

      Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!

      was probably from around that time too

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      my pet analogy is that the republican party is a fist punching you in the face, and the democratic party is the fist winding back up