News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
I am so tired of the smear attempts and the bots and the purity test police trying to fuck up the best thing that's happened in my state in a decade. If you don't live here, and won't be voting in our elections, please fuck off. I understand that he is being elected to a national office, but reflect on how you would feel if a bunch of people from away deliberately tried to prevent a progressive from being elected in your home district. I doubt anyone anonymously detracting from Graham has had a chance to meet him, hear him speak, or shake his hand and look him in the eye. I have, and I think my bullshit filters are pretty up to date. Platner is a genuine guy actually pushing for change and the establishment is being pretty transparent in their attempts to stymie him.
I’m a Mainer and I worry that this guy is going to be the new Sinema. Say all the right things and then swing hard right after the election. I grew up in Piscataquis county and knew plenty of guys like him who seem ok until you start digging and find out they believe in some awful stuff.
Someone having Nazi tattoos isn’t someone I want as a senator even if those tattoos were accidentally acquired.
Also people from away can have an opinion because the senate is country wide. Having a disingenuous person in the senate affects everyone (cough Fetterman cough).
Well, you can now read his full reddit comment history if you wanna know what he's about.
What if it DOES matter if they did it deliberately or accidentally, and it DOES matter how they respond when confronted about it? What if they're humans who make mistakes, and are able to own them like an adult?
Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good, that's the left wing cat herding part that earned us this fascist takeover in the first place. If you have someone better to vote for, by all means. But you can always convince yourself that the progressive candidate is secretly a right wing extremist. Always. That's right there with QAnon rational.
You know lots of people from Piscataquis county who call themselves communists and are really vocal about medicare for all?
I know lots of people who seem nice and genuine and wanting to help people until you start asking them questions about their beliefs. And I'm not talking specifically Piscataquis. People in the county are like that too. And downeast too. That's why I'm extremely wary of someone who has had nazi tattoos on their body.
Are you saying there are people who might misrepresent their political beliefs and background, and be disingenuous for some kind of ulterior political motive? And we need to be wary of them and ask probing questions and think critically about what they're saying and what reasons they might have?
Personally, as a veteran of this comments thread, I actually think you might be onto something.
Backpedal harder
It's called motte and bailey. And yes, they do it constantly.
I'm not sure how my comment can be taken as a backpedal but whatever.
What I find funny is how much you downvote. I mean wow. Maybe if you dislike everything you should take a break from the internet for a bit.
https://lemvotes.org/user/joebigelow@lemmy.ca
Another profile creep. That's weird
It’s an open format software. There are no secrets and the downvote trolls like you are annoying. Like flies buzzing around every thread stirring up shit.
The difference with Fetterman is that his background was as a rich nepo-baby who got his start in politics getting elected mayor and having major government functions flow through his family's charity.
My understanding of why fetterman got such a good rap, was because of his social media strategy being run by an especially talented progressive campaign staffer who (I wish I had the citation sorry) I believe has since denounced him as an elected official
For Platner there really is nothing that smells insincere about him to me. Definitely questionable judgment, but scheduling a tattoo coverup basically the instant it became a campaign issue is a plus in my book. But I'm not from Maine so I'm not going to push too hard for any candidate
So you would rather risk Janet Mills doing exactly nothing positive than risk Graham turning right? Have you listened to what he has to say vs what Sinnema had? It's definitely different. It's sad to me that people are so desperate to paint him with his past. How many of us haven't made pretty awful choices? If we want an Everyman progressive we're going to have to accept some skeletons imo. If Mills wins the primary LePage is going to sweep the general.
When your past involves Nazi symbolism it isn’t a little mistake. When the skeletons in your closet are a totenkopf i think we can safely discard that person as a serious candidate.
Fake progressives aren’t any better than corporate progressives. In fact they're worse because you don’t actually know what they believe. At least with corporate shills you know that they’ll work to fill theirs and their benefactors pockets.
Does anything other than the style of the skull and crossbones of his ex-tattoo suggest that he is in any way a Nazi or fascist?
You mean other than the fact he was a guy interested in military symbology and kept a known nazi symbol on his body for 17 years?
Personally i learned about the totenkopf when i was in basic training (in 2001, he enlisted in ‘03 so same time frame) when they showed us tattoos that you can’t have in the military. He doesn’t really have any excuse.
Interesting, so how did the military not reprimand him for it? Do you think his ignorance is unlikely then, and that he actually made an effort to conceal it?
Fascinating. So presumably, he wasn't permitted to have this tattoo that you can't have in the military because it's a Nazi symbol? He got it in 2007, and then wasn't permitted to have it in the military when he reenlisted in 2010?
Tell me more about your personal experience with this particular topic, which enables you to speak with authority on it. What were some of the other symbols they showed you? It's lucky that we have some military people and some people from Maine showing up here to speak from a place of authority about why Graham Platner is officially bad and we can't vote for him.
The hill you've chosen to die on today is the fact that you don't think it's possible for US military personnel to get away with having Nazi or Ultra right wing nationalists tattoos? That's the hill you've chosen? That thing that we've seen dozens and dozens of times before? Your pal the Secretary of Defense has them from when he was in the military. But that's the thing you can't buy into? Okay.
I didn't say that. Mostly, I am saying that this guy is very very clearly not a Nazi, and so the broad-spectrum freakout about this particular tattoo is an establishment funded psyop which people on Lemmy should not be dutifully freaking out about when prompted to by the media.
What I said about the military personnel side was just that the specific details of how that one other user is claiming it works in the military are definitely false.
Oh he's very clearly not a Nazi is he? The guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest? The guy who's now very clearly lying about said tattoo? An ex marine? Sure very clear. What you mean to say is his current political campaign rhetoric doesn't appear to be openly Nazi based. Well thank God we would never fall for campaign rhetoric that goes against all previous records of a person cough Fetterman cough. Maybe the psyop you should be concerned about is another Democrat getting into the Senate and then immediately voting against what Democrat voters actually want.
Also I'm confused by your last paragraph there. If you're not saying that these kind of tattoos never get by the military sometimes then how is it definitely false what the other guys claiming? So which is it do they sometimes get through like he claims or they never get through like you were suggesting and now have suggested once again they are with that sentence? Can't be both.
You're becoming hoisted by your own control-the-conversation.
It is fine for a person with this tattoo to be in the military, because it's not a Nazi tattoo any more than the Iron Cross is a Nazi tattoo. That is an obvious conclusion that can be drawn just from the pure fact that this guy was in the military. It's only confusing if you are accepting the premise that it's an overtly and exclusively Nazi tattoo (to the same extent as having an SS lightning bolt or a swastika or something).
The objective fact of this guy being allowed to be in the military with this tattoo is a problem for the people who are pretending it's a Nazi tattoo, so one commenter tried to explain away that discrepancy by pretending that the US military is just lax and inconsistent about tattoo enforcement. I can actually believe that idea in some circumstances and depending on the details, but the person didn't know what they're talking about, so they doubled down about some weird aspects of what they were claiming in ways that revealed that they were definitely lying. They didn't know enough about the subject matter to make a well-constructed lie (which also betrays the fact that they were making up stuff they were talking about, which is it own whole type of interesting and important).
Hope that clears up your confusion.
Okay so you cleared my Confusion by doubling down and saying that the US military would never allow Nazi tattoos. Good to know. That is the hill you've decided to die on. Well seeing as how that silly statement goes against literal reality I think we know who really knows what they're talking about in this conversation don't we? Hint it's not the guy now apologizing for blatantly Nazi tattoos. Straight up downplaying nazi iconography. Wow.
Wooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
When did I say I was an authority or that you couldn't vote for him?
Yes people with nazi adjacent tattos exist in the army. The people who do the examinations can be nazi adjacent too and then those type of people fall through the cracks. Also you aren't really inspected on tattoos after your initial examination (at least when I was in the service). I mean, Hegseth has an iron cross and he's been in the military for a while too.
If you're trying to imply I'm not from Maine or didn't spend time in the military then you're mistaken. Not everyone online is a bot or shill.
Yes, that sure is how it works in the army. Everyone who's tasked with some responsibility just kind of lets things slide based on their personal feelings or allegiances, and no one notices later "hey this guy has a Nazi tattoo even though Frank was supposed to inspect him" or asks "so what the fuck is up with THAT" or follows up on it.
Yes, you're definitely not inspected yearly for tattoos on any particular system. They're generally pretty lax about that stuff, as is well known, it's just kind of a free-for-all.
My apologies Corporal
In the time frame we are talking about (early 2000s) he wouldn't have been inspected yearly. I had nipple rings for fucks sake. You think someone would have said something about them if I was inspected yearly? Absolutely. But I wasn't inspected except for the initial exam.
You sound like someone who is mad that they don't know anything so they spout sarcastic comments to try and feel good about themselves.
Be better.
You had nipple rings the whole time you were in, and they were prohibited in your branch of service, and you just got away with it because... just no one in authority noticed or something?
I've never been in the military but I've known a bunch of people who were, and you are one thousand per cent full of shit.
Ok I'm done with this conversation. I feel like even if I told you my MOS and deployment schedules you'd still ask for more info so kindly piss off.
Go find someone else to question their life experience.
collapsed inline media
PTB always has the worst take , and is probably whataboutism type of account.
Do you think Janet Mills stands a chance in the general against LePage?
That’s not the issue and I’m not sure why you think it is. She was elected state wide twice (2022 by quite a large margin in fact) so she has just as much of a chance as LePage.
You know if you were trying to convince us of how benign the symbol is maybe you shouldn't be trying to whitewash the name of it? Why don't you just say Totenkopf? That's what it's called. That's what he's called it.
Maybe because most people have never even heard of a Totenkopf until now and wouldn't know what one looks like. The dailykos story about it called it the 2nd or 3rd most recognizable symbol of Nazis, but I've never seen the symbol before and had never heard that term before today. Is it really that well known?
It is not. It does appear on the list of a lot of symbols illegal in Germany today because of their association with Naziism or extremism, but it's obviously not the third most recognizable on that list (as well as having an obvious overlap with a general "yeah that's badass I want skull and crossbones" meaning, which seems obviously more plausible as the reason why this person who very very obviously is not a Nazi wanted to get this particular tattoo).
The fact that people are pretending so hard that this is a big deal and trying to force the connection between the tattoo and this person being a Nazi when there is literally no other reason known in the world for thinking he is a Nazi and quite a few to think he is not, tells you much more about them than it does about Graham Platner.
at least now you got a year to figure out of hes going to do the opposite he says. but the alternative it Chuck shcumers endorsed candidate.
Sinema told all of AZ she was a progressive too. Right until she got into office. Im sure her handshakes were also nice. Don't see how that's relevant.
Yeah you've got the right idea there. I too never vote for the candidate that markets themselves as progressive ever since Sinema. I'm playing the 4D chess route, always voting for the fascist just in case they're secretly a closet progressive.
I don't know if this is news to you or not, but you are allowed to be both skeptical and critical of a candidate without voting for the exact opposition party, especially when the primary is so far away you can't even register as a candidate for it yet. Hope this helps.
You should always be skeptical and critical of all candidates. So for you to whip it out like a novel argument for why you don't think anyone should vote for the most progressive option is absurd.
If there is a better candidate to vote for, absolutely do it. If this convinces YOU to run against him, that's great! But every candidate is going to have flaws, and as we hold out for the perfect person, fascism will continue to roll us over. It's a strategy that clearly doesn't help.
I didn't find out about this guy until yesterday, man.
It's a damn shame if he really is the genuine guy you think he is. A damn shame.
Because there's really no recovering from that big of a blunder and that's just reality. I would be devastated if I were you, and try to think of next steps because the ship has sailed on this guy. I'm sorry for that.
Agreed, but folks up here are seriously rallying around him right now. It doesn't seem as hopeless as it really should. Anybody that has met the man, and he is making a GIANT effort to meet anyone that cares, knows that his checkered past has no bearing on his desire for a better future. He is a shining example of human growth and what we should be defining Manliness by, ability to adapt, change and grow from a place of ignorance.
He sounds like a real one. All I know is Susan Collins fucked up bad and I look forward to her replacement.