Bernie endorsing and campaigning for Biden wasn't really a betrayal. It was a old man cynically understanding the nature of American politics, which is that the two party system is deeply baked in and will likely never again be broken as long as first past the post is the electoral system. The same applies to Chomsky. I don't think they deserve to be turned on and despised for just understanding how the US electoral system works. Like, you can fairly disagree with the strategy and argue otherwise, but I think its at the very least a fair take on politics to have. [To be clear, there are other much better criticisms of Sanders and Chomsky, I'm only talking about this specific issue].
I do think there's room to discuss if Biden was really a harm reduction candidate/lesser evil or if there just wasn't enough separating him and Trump to matter. Personally, I think the way he empowers white supremacists and says shit like "“stand back and stand by" (which was mentioned in another post in this thread) is enough of a separation on its own. The rollbacks on Obama era protections for queer folks is another thing that stands out to me, though it remains to be seen how many if any of those Biden will reinstate. Same with environmental regulations and shit.
To be clear, I voted for Howie (would have voted Gloria if she was on the ballot in my state), but I would have seriously considered voting Biden instead if I didn't live in a safely blue state. I get that that's unpopular here right now and I even sort of get why, but personally I share the Sanders/Chomsky logical cynicism about American politics. I see American politics as a machine with two levers, a red lever thats very bad, and a blue lever thats slightly less bad. There are a bunch of tiny switches as well but they aren't actually attached to anything. Thats my cynical pov on American politics and I've been through a shitton of debates about it and nothing thats been presented to me has changed my mind.
a red lever thats very bad, and a blue lever thats slightly less bad
Donald Trump's presidency was arguably "less bad" than Obama's. The US regime change operations were less successful because his department did not have ideological or tactical coherence. ICE deportations decreased because the agency was under more scrutiny. The US withdrew from the TPP. Uprisings against state-sanctioned murders were significantly more popular.
There are argument against Trump too. But anyone who says, as a matter of fact, "the conditions in America will be better in the US under a Democratic presidency," is talking out their ass.
Cynically supporting Democrats is still supporting Democrats. All it does is weaken our ability to brand ourselves as an alternative to the capitalism and the two-party bourgeois dictatorship. I know a shit-ton of people who supported Bernie in 2016, who now (rightfully!) think he is a Clintonite.
being better is when we murder iranian leadership unprovoked
Iran is still standing. Libya is an open-air slave market. You know how many Libyan generals were murdered by the Obama administration?
What is better is detaining more people indefinitely instead of even deporting them you are correct that this is less harmful
Sure. Do you want to debate whether detainment, or sending them back to US-backed death squads is better or worse? I'd say both are horrible.
Won’t argue there
Ding ding ding.
Nothing materially changed, more people have been murdered
Major cities have been shut down for months with general public support. Ferguson and Baltimore were crushed almost immediately. That is a material change.
Trump Is Less Evil Than Obama is so fucking horseshit lol
As horseshit as "Obama Is Less Evil Than Trump", that's my entire point.
Hmm yes it’s less evil that we murder people without discretion because are incompetent. It’s certainly not the same level of awful because the intention is there lol
Executing top generals and creating an open-air slave market is worse than just executing generals. I don't care about intentions, none of these people are honest about their intentions.
I don’t debate dumbfucks, it’s self evident that Not Being Able To Be A Human is pretty fuckin bad
Sure. Are you referring to the cententration camps, or the handling people over to US-backed death squads?
This reads as: “I am an an uneducated assclown who watches V*ush streams”
Vaush agrees with your perspective btw
lol what cities are shut down?
Right now, I think none? The biggest shut-down were in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis. The Portland protests were shutting down their downtown area for at least 100 days. In my city, which had a relatively smaller response, the main shopping district was still disrupted for about a week.
this take that Trump Is Less Evil Than Obama is so fucking horseshit lol
"Trump is less evil than X corporate Democrat" is consistently the worst take on here, followed closely by "write off all libs from the list of people who are persuadable."
All it does is weaken our ability to brand ourselves as an alternative to the capitalism
This is magical thinking. There is no reason why you can't cynically support a lesser evil why also advocating against capitalism. Its the same line of thinking behind the idea that voting somehow prevents you from doing direct action. No, it doesn't, you can do two things at the same time.
And no, its not "rightful" to think that Bernie is a "Clitonite" lol. That's garbage. Those people are dumb.
There is no reason why you can’t cynically support a lesser evil why also advocating against capitalism
You can. No one will take you seriously.
its not “rightful” to think that Bernie is a “Clitonite” lol
How else would you describe playing cover for the DNC leaks & working harder than any elected official in the country to get Clinton elected?
If you support Bernie, you might twist yourself into believing he's playing cynical politics. I don't blame anyone who sees him as controlled opposition for the Democratic machine.
The fact that people are too idealistic and naive to understand how American politics works isn't something anyone should kowtow too. We should insist on it actually, emphasize the point. Yes, I get the fact that some people are deeply resistant to seeing American politics for what it is is a reality that I'm aware of and constantly frustrated by. I'm not going to change my political stances because of it though. I'm going to continue to advocate for my political positions. For the same reason I'll support police abolition even though most people are too propagandized to understand what it means. And yes, I "believe in" lesser evilism in a similar way because lesser evilism has given me a home, food, and healthcare, basically. Anyone who takes me less seriously because of that position can 1. fuck off, because my life is literally on the line and 2. has been propagandized, I'm not going to bow to that. I'll explain it to them sure, but the fact that my idiot ex-roommate told me he "respects me less" because I voted for Hillary in 2016 instead of writing in Bernie (a literally useless action because he wasn't a qualified write in) isn't a reason to change my positions.
The one thing I'll criticize Bernie for here is not actually vocalizing that cynicism. But I sort of get that too, because people are like pathologically resistant to hearing cynical takes on American politics. They believe in **Democracy** religiously. I get why you wouldn't want to turn those people away. For whatever reason, "Vote for Biden because he's actually good" goes down easier than "vote for Biden because he's the only alternative" lol.
How else would you describe playing cover for the DNC leaks & working harder than any elected official in the country to get Clinton elected?
Not Clintonism. His political positions, like his actual policy positions, are decidedly not Clintonian. Anyone who thinks that is incredibly out of touch with reality. Supporting someone who you disagree with politically because they are better than someone you disagree with politically even moreso isn't actually bad lmao. And it doesn't mean you suddenly agree with their politics. Again, I'm not going to kowtow to dumb bullshit. I'm going to explain why its dumb bullshit.
If you support Bernie, you might twist yourself into believing he’s playing cynical politics. I don’t blame anyone who sees him as controlled opposition for the Democratic machine.
I'm not twisting myself lol. Its quiet obvious from Bernie's political positions that he doesn't passionately support neoliberalism. Like yeah, social democracy and neoliberalism are in fact distinct ideologies! Shocking, I know.
I don't necessarily blame those people, in that I won't attack them for it. But its a naïve, misguided position to hold and I will explain to them why its not true.
And yes, I “believe in” lesser evilism in a similar way because lesser evilism has given me a home, food, and healthcare
I'm glad to hear the Democrats are somehow providing you a house, food, and healthcare. That isn't the case for millions of people.
"Lesser evilism" gave my hometown NAFTA, which has turned it from a strong union town to a drug den with decent gentrified restaurants. It has over doubled my current city's prison population.
There were two factories right nearby that had plans to shut down after TPP. Trump is the lesser-evil to their workers.
This is why I reject lesssr-evilism. It allows the ruling class to pit the working class against each other.
Not Clintonism. His political positions, like his actual policy positions, are decidedly not Clintonian.
No one trusts politicians. His actions have been incredibly pro-Clinton.
Do you really think all that shit that you think came from "lesser evilism" wouldn't have happened just as bad or worse under Republicans though? If you do, and the workers in your city do, they are ignorant of reality. Lesser evilism doesn't have to pit workers against each other, because blaming the Democrats for things that the Republicans would have done the same or worse on is just ignorance, that can be educated away. The TPP is a really, really weird aberration, no other Republican president would have done what Trump did with that, but being single-issue about TPP is also ignorance. Also I'm like, 90% sure that any claims of Trump saving factory jobs have been proven to be absolute bullshit, so the workers who think he's the lesser evil for that are probably misinformed.
Bernie's actual like, votes and bills and shit as a Senator are not "pro-Clinton" though, you say "no one trusts politicians" like all he's done is talk. Like he doesnt have a many decade long political career of actual like actions. He unfortunately hasn't accomplished all that much because all his colleagues are neolibs, but he keeps on voting and putting bills out there anyway. And he keeps on speaking in favor of political positions well ahead of them becoming popular.
Do you really think all that shit that you think came from “lesser evilism” wouldn’t have happened just as bad or worse under Republicans though? If you do, and the workers in your city do, they are ignorant of reality.
Hillary endorsed TPP. I'm not reading the rest of this post if you are going to call workers ignorant for listening to exactly what Hillary said. Fuck off.
"Lesser evil" does not map one-to-one onto the Democratic Party. Often Democrats can do more fucked up shit under the guise of "liberal humanitarianism."
Your very, very specific example of Hillary/Trump and the TPP is true. I was referring to Democrats and Republicans in general, and their policies in general. You're the one who's fixated on one thing.
I was referring to Democrats and Republicans in general, and their policies in general. You’re the one who’s fixated on one thing.
NAFTA, 94 Crime Bill, Glass Steagal, Libyan invasion, Syrian invasion, Fracking, etc. You can be the one to convince victims of these policies that the Repiblicans would have been worse. That is impossible to prove.
OK I can be 100% confident than Republicans would have been worse on 94 Crime Bill and fracking, and anything else "law and order" and environment related. I don't care that it's technically impossible to prove, its very obviously true to anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to Republican rhetoric and votes.
NAFTA is the same as TPP. Trump was an aberration on being better about free trade shit, any other Republican president would have been as bad or worse. And the Republicans in congress are nearly all as bad or worse. If you think Trump is a lesser evil on the whole because of of free trade, you're incredibly single issue.
Forpo stuff is more like, they're both evil as hell and they'll do different individual actions than the other might not have done but you basically dont know what you're going to get with forpo so its barely even worth considering who's the lesser evil on that front. Like yeah technically you can't know if McCain would have invaded Libya but you also didn't know that Obama was going to do that in '08 so its just like, there's no point in trying to figure out who's going to be worse on that front. Technically I think its possible to claim that four years of Hillary would have been worse forpo wise than 4 years of Trump was, even though by your own logic its impossible to prove that, but that's like... entirely because of Trump being an incompetent which isn't actually a point in his favor. His incompetence, and his pettiness, and his entire personality could have easily lead to the opposite result. We just sorta lucked out that it didn't.
I don't really have much to say, both because the other guy responding to me has kinda worn me out (and I'm kinda worn out of having this debate in general), and because you started out by empathizing with me feeling this way rather than just going on the assault. I can return that by empathizing with your position as well, even though I strongly agree with some of it. In particular, the sticking point for me is always going to be that as someone on social security, food stamps, subsidized housing, medicare, semi-public disability services (which are going to lead to me getting the Covid vaccine in the first round), and will soon use public employment counseling to get employed again, I'm always going to see the party that doesn't openly want to dismantle these things and leave me to die as the lesser evil. Yes, even though these programs were gutted under Clinton as well, and even though Biden has always had a hardon for gutting social security, I still see Democrat control in general as less of a threat to my ability to be alive. Maybe that's self centered, but it is the foundational reason why I see things the way I do.
Sidebar about Chomsky though, while I haven't read the book the concept of manufactured consent is pretty rhetorically important. So I wouldn't discount him completely. Obviously, I disagree fairly strongly with hating him for supporting lesser evilism, but even if I accept that I think he's made some pretty noteable contributions that can't be handwaved.
OK, I keep finding sticking points that I actually want to comment on, one other one. The thing about "caring about queer issues even on an aesthetic level" means you don't vote for "the Kasich party" (not that I think Kasich backing Biden makes Biden "the Kasich candidate" anymore than Bernie backing him means he's a Bernie candidate). I've talked to quiet a few trans people, some liberals yes but some very much leftists, who would strongly disagree with you there and very firmly see Biden as a lesser evil on queer issues. I myself am bi and questioning my gender identity. I see from your pronouns that you're enby, so I know you aren't just talking shit and assuming things from a place of privilege, and you are far from the only LGBTQ+ person to feel the way you do, but still, not everyone who cares about queer issues agrees with your take. Honestly, even if Biden doesn't reverse Trump's rollbacks of Obama era queer protections (which would be weird, because they were Obama era queer protections), the simple fact that he wouldn't be actively seeking to destroy even more would make him better than Trump on that issue, in my view. The fact that Obama established those things in the first place is is also a point in the "Democrats are lesser evils" as well.
Bernie endorsing and campaigning for Biden wasn't really a betrayal. It was a old man cynically understanding the nature of American politics, which is that the two party system is deeply baked in and will likely never again be broken as long as first past the post is the electoral system. The same applies to Chomsky. I don't think they deserve to be turned on and despised for just understanding how the US electoral system works. Like, you can fairly disagree with the strategy and argue otherwise, but I think its at the very least a fair take on politics to have. [To be clear, there are other much better criticisms of Sanders and Chomsky, I'm only talking about this specific issue].
I do think there's room to discuss if Biden was really a harm reduction candidate/lesser evil or if there just wasn't enough separating him and Trump to matter. Personally, I think the way he empowers white supremacists and says shit like "“stand back and stand by" (which was mentioned in another post in this thread) is enough of a separation on its own. The rollbacks on Obama era protections for queer folks is another thing that stands out to me, though it remains to be seen how many if any of those Biden will reinstate. Same with environmental regulations and shit.
To be clear, I voted for Howie (would have voted Gloria if she was on the ballot in my state), but I would have seriously considered voting Biden instead if I didn't live in a safely blue state. I get that that's unpopular here right now and I even sort of get why, but personally I share the Sanders/Chomsky logical cynicism about American politics. I see American politics as a machine with two levers, a red lever thats very bad, and a blue lever thats slightly less bad. There are a bunch of tiny switches as well but they aren't actually attached to anything. Thats my cynical pov on American politics and I've been through a shitton of debates about it and nothing thats been presented to me has changed my mind.
Donald Trump's presidency was arguably "less bad" than Obama's. The US regime change operations were less successful because his department did not have ideological or tactical coherence. ICE deportations decreased because the agency was under more scrutiny. The US withdrew from the TPP. Uprisings against state-sanctioned murders were significantly more popular.
There are argument against Trump too. But anyone who says, as a matter of fact, "the conditions in America will be better in the US under a Democratic presidency," is talking out their ass.
Cynically supporting Democrats is still supporting Democrats. All it does is weaken our ability to brand ourselves as an alternative to the capitalism and the two-party bourgeois dictatorship. I know a shit-ton of people who supported Bernie in 2016, who now (rightfully!) think he is a Clintonite.
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Iran is still standing. Libya is an open-air slave market. You know how many Libyan generals were murdered by the Obama administration?
Sure. Do you want to debate whether detainment, or sending them back to US-backed death squads is better or worse? I'd say both are horrible.
Ding ding ding.
Major cities have been shut down for months with general public support. Ferguson and Baltimore were crushed almost immediately. That is a material change.
As horseshit as "Obama Is Less Evil Than Trump", that's my entire point.
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Executing top generals and creating an open-air slave market is worse than just executing generals. I don't care about intentions, none of these people are honest about their intentions.
Sure. Are you referring to the cententration camps, or the handling people over to US-backed death squads?
Vaush agrees with your perspective btw
Right now, I think none? The biggest shut-down were in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis. The Portland protests were shutting down their downtown area for at least 100 days. In my city, which had a relatively smaller response, the main shopping district was still disrupted for about a week.
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Knowing that a popular streamer supports "lesser-evilism" makes me a Vaush watcher lmao
I'm sorry you have incredibly dumb takes. No reason to call me names.
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:virgil-bb:
I have agreed with every single thing you have said about Trump.
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You can reread the thread. The dispute is not over the facts .
The dispute of over whether "Trump was better than Obama" or "Obama was better than Trump" are valid statements.
My perspective is that there are arguments for both. And therefore, they are both meaningless. You disagree.
"Trump is less evil than X corporate Democrat" is consistently the worst take on here, followed closely by "write off all libs from the list of people who are persuadable."
The dumbest takes here are, in order:
1: “Trump is less evil than X corporate Democrat”
1 (tie): “X corporate Democrat is less evil than Trump”
This is magical thinking. There is no reason why you can't cynically support a lesser evil why also advocating against capitalism. Its the same line of thinking behind the idea that voting somehow prevents you from doing direct action. No, it doesn't, you can do two things at the same time.
And no, its not "rightful" to think that Bernie is a "Clitonite" lol. That's garbage. Those people are dumb.
You can. No one will take you seriously.
How else would you describe playing cover for the DNC leaks & working harder than any elected official in the country to get Clinton elected?
If you support Bernie, you might twist yourself into believing he's playing cynical politics. I don't blame anyone who sees him as controlled opposition for the Democratic machine.
The fact that people are too idealistic and naive to understand how American politics works isn't something anyone should kowtow too. We should insist on it actually, emphasize the point. Yes, I get the fact that some people are deeply resistant to seeing American politics for what it is is a reality that I'm aware of and constantly frustrated by. I'm not going to change my political stances because of it though. I'm going to continue to advocate for my political positions. For the same reason I'll support police abolition even though most people are too propagandized to understand what it means. And yes, I "believe in" lesser evilism in a similar way because lesser evilism has given me a home, food, and healthcare, basically. Anyone who takes me less seriously because of that position can 1. fuck off, because my life is literally on the line and 2. has been propagandized, I'm not going to bow to that. I'll explain it to them sure, but the fact that my idiot ex-roommate told me he "respects me less" because I voted for Hillary in 2016 instead of writing in Bernie (a literally useless action because he wasn't a qualified write in) isn't a reason to change my positions.
The one thing I'll criticize Bernie for here is not actually vocalizing that cynicism. But I sort of get that too, because people are like pathologically resistant to hearing cynical takes on American politics. They believe in **Democracy** religiously. I get why you wouldn't want to turn those people away. For whatever reason, "Vote for Biden because he's actually good" goes down easier than "vote for Biden because he's the only alternative" lol.
Not Clintonism. His political positions, like his actual policy positions, are decidedly not Clintonian. Anyone who thinks that is incredibly out of touch with reality. Supporting someone who you disagree with politically because they are better than someone you disagree with politically even moreso isn't actually bad lmao. And it doesn't mean you suddenly agree with their politics. Again, I'm not going to kowtow to dumb bullshit. I'm going to explain why its dumb bullshit.
I'm not twisting myself lol. Its quiet obvious from Bernie's political positions that he doesn't passionately support neoliberalism. Like yeah, social democracy and neoliberalism are in fact distinct ideologies! Shocking, I know.
I don't necessarily blame those people, in that I won't attack them for it. But its a naïve, misguided position to hold and I will explain to them why its not true.
I'm glad to hear the Democrats are somehow providing you a house, food, and healthcare. That isn't the case for millions of people.
"Lesser evilism" gave my hometown NAFTA, which has turned it from a strong union town to a drug den with decent gentrified restaurants. It has over doubled my current city's prison population.
There were two factories right nearby that had plans to shut down after TPP. Trump is the lesser-evil to their workers.
This is why I reject lesssr-evilism. It allows the ruling class to pit the working class against each other.
No one trusts politicians. His actions have been incredibly pro-Clinton.
Do you really think all that shit that you think came from "lesser evilism" wouldn't have happened just as bad or worse under Republicans though? If you do, and the workers in your city do, they are ignorant of reality. Lesser evilism doesn't have to pit workers against each other, because blaming the Democrats for things that the Republicans would have done the same or worse on is just ignorance, that can be educated away. The TPP is a really, really weird aberration, no other Republican president would have done what Trump did with that, but being single-issue about TPP is also ignorance. Also I'm like, 90% sure that any claims of Trump saving factory jobs have been proven to be absolute bullshit, so the workers who think he's the lesser evil for that are probably misinformed.
Bernie's actual like, votes and bills and shit as a Senator are not "pro-Clinton" though, you say "no one trusts politicians" like all he's done is talk. Like he doesnt have a many decade long political career of actual like actions. He unfortunately hasn't accomplished all that much because all his colleagues are neolibs, but he keeps on voting and putting bills out there anyway. And he keeps on speaking in favor of political positions well ahead of them becoming popular.
Hillary endorsed TPP. I'm not reading the rest of this post if you are going to call workers ignorant for listening to exactly what Hillary said. Fuck off.
"Lesser evil" does not map one-to-one onto the Democratic Party. Often Democrats can do more fucked up shit under the guise of "liberal humanitarianism."
Your very, very specific example of Hillary/Trump and the TPP is true. I was referring to Democrats and Republicans in general, and their policies in general. You're the one who's fixated on one thing.
NAFTA, 94 Crime Bill, Glass Steagal, Libyan invasion, Syrian invasion, Fracking, etc. You can be the one to convince victims of these policies that the Repiblicans would have been worse. That is impossible to prove.
OK I can be 100% confident than Republicans would have been worse on 94 Crime Bill and fracking, and anything else "law and order" and environment related. I don't care that it's technically impossible to prove, its very obviously true to anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to Republican rhetoric and votes.
NAFTA is the same as TPP. Trump was an aberration on being better about free trade shit, any other Republican president would have been as bad or worse. And the Republicans in congress are nearly all as bad or worse. If you think Trump is a lesser evil on the whole because of of free trade, you're incredibly single issue.
Forpo stuff is more like, they're both evil as hell and they'll do different individual actions than the other might not have done but you basically dont know what you're going to get with forpo so its barely even worth considering who's the lesser evil on that front. Like yeah technically you can't know if McCain would have invaded Libya but you also didn't know that Obama was going to do that in '08 so its just like, there's no point in trying to figure out who's going to be worse on that front. Technically I think its possible to claim that four years of Hillary would have been worse forpo wise than 4 years of Trump was, even though by your own logic its impossible to prove that, but that's like... entirely because of Trump being an incompetent which isn't actually a point in his favor. His incompetence, and his pettiness, and his entire personality could have easily lead to the opposite result. We just sorta lucked out that it didn't.
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I don't really have much to say, both because the other guy responding to me has kinda worn me out (and I'm kinda worn out of having this debate in general), and because you started out by empathizing with me feeling this way rather than just going on the assault. I can return that by empathizing with your position as well, even though I strongly agree with some of it. In particular, the sticking point for me is always going to be that as someone on social security, food stamps, subsidized housing, medicare, semi-public disability services (which are going to lead to me getting the Covid vaccine in the first round), and will soon use public employment counseling to get employed again, I'm always going to see the party that doesn't openly want to dismantle these things and leave me to die as the lesser evil. Yes, even though these programs were gutted under Clinton as well, and even though Biden has always had a hardon for gutting social security, I still see Democrat control in general as less of a threat to my ability to be alive. Maybe that's self centered, but it is the foundational reason why I see things the way I do.
Sidebar about Chomsky though, while I haven't read the book the concept of manufactured consent is pretty rhetorically important. So I wouldn't discount him completely. Obviously, I disagree fairly strongly with hating him for supporting lesser evilism, but even if I accept that I think he's made some pretty noteable contributions that can't be handwaved.
OK, I keep finding sticking points that I actually want to comment on, one other one. The thing about "caring about queer issues even on an aesthetic level" means you don't vote for "the Kasich party" (not that I think Kasich backing Biden makes Biden "the Kasich candidate" anymore than Bernie backing him means he's a Bernie candidate). I've talked to quiet a few trans people, some liberals yes but some very much leftists, who would strongly disagree with you there and very firmly see Biden as a lesser evil on queer issues. I myself am bi and questioning my gender identity. I see from your pronouns that you're enby, so I know you aren't just talking shit and assuming things from a place of privilege, and you are far from the only LGBTQ+ person to feel the way you do, but still, not everyone who cares about queer issues agrees with your take. Honestly, even if Biden doesn't reverse Trump's rollbacks of Obama era queer protections (which would be weird, because they were Obama era queer protections), the simple fact that he wouldn't be actively seeking to destroy even more would make him better than Trump on that issue, in my view. The fact that Obama established those things in the first place is is also a point in the "Democrats are lesser evils" as well.
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