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[-] yesman@lemmy.world 114 points 2 months ago

What scares me is all the people who knew this was going on. Jefferey's friends were sophisticated and connected people. Even the ones who never got in a room with a little girl knew what he was about and did not give a fuck.

I don't see a grand conspiracy. I see a social network of powerful people who are entitled to the bodies of little girls the same way wealth entitles one to to all objects. He got away with so much for so long because it was accepted and allowed. Every heard of 'The Big Club'? We'll, he's in it.

[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 20 points 2 months ago

When these people get to a certain financial level, they come to understand that they can literally buy anything they want. What illustrates that better than being able to purchase young women for your own pleasure?

And I wonder if they don't really mind being part of The Club. We think they're being blackmailed, but what if they are all doing this stuff, knowing it puts them in an exclusive club, with exclusive people, who all have to trust each other with the worst secrets in the world. What better way to signal that you've "arrived."

[-] PeefJerky@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

Transgressing and keeping it a secret IS a tactic used to create cults. Sharing a great secret will make sure you lookout for each other.

[-] drcabbage@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

When you have riches and power, you still want what you can't have. That's what drives them.

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[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 65 points 2 months ago

Pull the studs out too. We have no choice but to make a new foundation.

[-] DoubleDongle@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Amerifat here. We could use some light restructuring. Some newer democracies have features I think are improvements that could benefit us if deployed here. But the fundamental structure isn't that bad, and I'm worried we'll just get something worse if we try a full rebuild.

[-] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 24 points 2 months ago

The foundations are settler colonialism and racism. Like you said, there are other democracies to look at we don't need this blueprint.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 8 points 2 months ago

Ive seen this kind of sentiment around (referring primarily to your initial comment on the OP about making a new foundation, but replying to this one because I wanted to have the context it adds with it). Its a sentiment that sounds appealing ("this thing is hurting us, therefore me must destroy it/replace it" is a fairly cathartic notion after all). The problem I have with it is: the analogy doesn't actually fit. Government and economic systems simply aren't buildings. They dont have foundations in that sense, and the things metaphorically referred to as "foundations" do not have the same function and consequences as the real thing.

Take your examples. If you were to remove racism from the country overnight, say you somehow both make individual bigoted people all understand that their perceived enemies are people just living their lives, and adjusted the outcomes of various systems to remove systemic racist outcomes that can exist even without personal malice- that wouldn't suddenly cause the government to collapse. It'd probably change who exactly gets elected and some of the laws for the better, but while racism has shaped the history of the United States, it doesn't logically require racism continue to shape it in order to prevent calamity of some kind.

Settler colonialism has a stronger claim to being "foundational" in that the concept describes the process by which the country came to be- but there we have a different problem when one contemplates the consequences of removing it: it simply can't be removed. Not because of some negative consequence, but simply became there is no way to undo what it results in. Numerous people were killed, and they and their would-have-been descendants cant be simply brought back. Hundreds of millions of people that have an entirely different culture to what would have been now exist, some of those cultures unique to the area despite not being indigenous to it, and it would be logistically impossible to send them anywhere else. The surviving indigenous people can be given some kind of reparation, and the poverty forced on them can be alleviated, but realistically it cant be nearly proportionate to what those groups lost. Unless one has a time machine somehow, whatever the US becomes, even if it was entirely destroyed and built anew, it can never be a society that doesn't owe it's existence to a settler colonial enterprise, any more than one can change who ones parents were.

This isn't an argument against radical change, and I know its rant-y and pedantic, but I see the sentiment of "tear it all down" so often, and think that's just too vague. It sounds dramatic and radical, but leaves the question of what it means too open. Does it mean "replace all the major government figures"? Probably not, that happens anyway given enough time, without radical changes necessarily occuring. Does it mean doing that, but also changing the mechanism by which those leaders are picked, and maybe also something like the economic model or ownership structure of various institutions? Maybe, though still, apart from the people at the top, a lot of what you'll get will still be the same. You're going to need bureaucrats and lawyers and teachers and auditors and soldiers and whatever, or some broadly equivalent roles, no matter how you organize your society, and since the people doing that now are the ones that know how, they'll probably end up doing the same things under the new order (which could make some cultural problems, like racism for instance, very hard to root out. A biased teacher isn't going to stop being biased just cause you changed their boss and the laws, for example). Maybe you conclude that that's not enough, and that one has to change all the laws and ownership structures and bar everyone that participated in administering the old system, even on a local level, from an equivalent role in the new. But that has a rather disastrous history; you end up with a huge number of new and not yet competent civil servants, and a class of people that cannot easily make a living because they are barred from using the skills they actually have, that can turn to crime or reactionary militant groups.

This probably comes off as ranting at you in particular, I'm sorry about that, I just can't reply to an entire general sentiment as that's not how the platform works, and I'm sure Im guilty of saying these things too. But I feel like too many calls to action don't really specify what specific action they call for, just analogies and notions of "there's something about our society that's hurting us, we must destroy", or "we need to do something about [monolithic problem], or "organize" (which sounds like a specific action, except half the time people say it they dont really specify who with or how to do it effectively or what the organization should do once formed, and it's not realistic to assume those things come naturally to the inexperienced), and I feel like they'd make for more effective tools of political discourse if they did advocate for unambiguous courses of action rather than just the vague result one wants that action to achieve.

[-] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago

The foundations are the laws in place and most importantly, the Constitution. That itself is a deeply flawed document that could use a rewrite.

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[-] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 months ago

You can't fix a democracy back into being democratic. For example neither of the two parties would allow fixing the issues causing a two party system.

If you need some kind of revolution event to fix the smallest things, you're better off doing it in one go.
The careful consideration can be expressed by not going too far from the most modern successful democracies.

Changes loosely are:

  • multi-party system at all levels by never allowing winner takes all in any elections
  • removal of lobyism in favor of tech-enabled transparency for high officials (livestream of every meeting, publicky viewable bank accounts, ...)
  • Severe nerfing of the president, potentially full demotion to a publicity role
  • Additional checks and balances like a separate constitutional court for handling laws independent of the courts for people (i.e. break up the functions of the supreme court and move some power away from legislature)
    probably more I'm forgetting
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[-] PugJesus@piefed.social 8 points 2 months ago

But the fundamental structure isn’t that bad, and I’m worried we’ll just get something worse if we try a full rebuild.

The chance of making things worse is always a risk, but like the original American Revolutionaries, at some point, we have to bite the fucking bullet and make the gamble, because the status quo doesn't seem to be heading anywhere good.

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[-] beejboytyson@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Sorry but the fundamental of that nation were BUILT on yay for me nay for you.

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[-] how_we_burned@lemmy.zip 60 points 2 months ago

When I was growing up in Sydney, heavily involved in drugs, anarchy and living on the streets in squats it was common knowledge there were protected paedophile groups that operated out kids homes.

Worse when those kids ran away and ended up on the street they'd end up street walking, being preyed upon by predators of all sorts.

Most were using because of the horrific trauma they had been subjected to.

I remember being warned about avoiding certain places if a particular predator was our a about cruising. They loved to target young men.

In 2013 we had a royal commission into institutional response to child abuse and it became very clear that children had been raped on an industrial scale.

People like Pell and Clancy (who I was peripherally related to) were not just actively involved but also running protection for dozens and dozens of serial rapists.

With politicians and law enforcement also working to protect these people.

Pell denied numerous victims, even after the priests were found to be rapists and sentenced, compensation and forced countless people to kill themselves.

There is no fate worse then I can imagine for Pell and his ilk. They are a stain on this earth and as bad as the fascists and nazis.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 28 points 2 months ago

Wait. EAT? I heard about the rest but ... say it isn't so.

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago

The torture and eat parts made this last weekend difficult. My heart still speeds up when I think about those poor children. :(

[-] criss_cross@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

For real I’m hoping that’s just made up.

[-] Insekticus@aussie.zone 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean, listen to your gut. You hear about the horrific things that happen in the world or see online what happens to kids.

These people are the pinnacle psychopaths who manipulated, stole, and murdered their way to the tippy top.

You have stories about the wealthy paying for human-safaris in Bosnia.

You have stories about people like Albert Fish who would eat young girls.

[It's almost obvious that this is the exact kind of sick and depravity they would pay exorbitant money to experience.

Unfortunately, there's a reason Greed is one of the Cardinal sins. It always leads to this. Unfettered greed mean limitless power for deranged individuals.

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[-] apftwb@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago
[-] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 months ago

It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility, though there's no direct evidence. One possible reason there's no direct evidence is that, as deputy AG Todd Blanche recently said, they're withholding any images that contain violence, physical harm, or death.

[-] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We all know about Trump raping minors, so what do you think is so vile that he's fighting tooth and claw to avoid releasing the files?

The US abducted a sitting president, broke NATO, is murdering their own citizens in the streets, and IDK what's going to happen with Iran, but I'm sure glad not to be involved. Would Trump really do that to avoid having a pedo paper trail? I'm beginning to doubt it...

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[-] Wilco@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 months ago

There are only two options here.

  1. The pedos win and it becomes normalized.
  2. At least half of the sitting politicians go to prison for involvement and cover up.
[-] fishy@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago

Are mass executions already off the table?

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[-] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 months ago

It's probably a little more than half. Something about desiring to social climb to those levels just seems to draw a certain type

[-] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 months ago

Where does the eat part come from?

[-] CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago

Do you think that’s where they’d draw the line?

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[-] Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

10 million dollar plan. A bounty of 10 million is placed on each billionaire. Their assets are liquidated and put to literally any other use, burning the cash would help stem inflation.

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Take their assets and put $10M towards keeping the bounty program going. Take another $15M and put it towards a second (even bigger) bounty. Every day a billionaire’s name gets lottery’ed and killing them wins the big pot plus the original $10M bounty. So every single billionaire has a constant bounty on them, plus the chance of getting lotto’ed… At first that lotto may only be $25M. But as more and more die, that bigger pot continues to grow.

Their private security teams may not be willing to turn against their masters for only $10M… But for $25M? $40M? $55M? $70M? Everyone has a price, especially the billionaires’ mercenaries. Of course, the billionaires would probably start requiring bomb collars for their private security at that point, to ensure they remain loyal. But that means the teams would inevitably weigh the price of a bomb collar vs an easy $10M payout in the first place. And that $10M alone would be enough to have them gunning down the billionaires before they put the collars on.

The rest of their assets go towards a fund for reducing homelessness, bolstering food stamp programs, unemployment insurance funds, getting people back on their feet, forgiving debt, funding Social Security, expanding Medicare and Medicaid, maybe even UBI if the fund is large enough to be self-sustaining, etc…

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[-] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

The exact plot of L.A. Confidential

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this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
762 points (98.0% liked)

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