top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[+] 253 points 3 months ago (80 children)
  • [–] 99 points 3 months ago* (27 children)

    Because Americans are cowards. Not saying this to mock them but they have grown incredibly lazy over the decades, they are not ready to lose any comfort so they mostly keep quiet.

    Pair that with a surveillance state that they have been specifically and repeatedly warned about over last 2 decades - they are fucked.

    I wonder how are "I have nothing to hide" and "They are not going to spy on me" geniuses rationalizing it now.

    I used to be mocked and laughed at when I tried warning people about what awaits them in the future (never mind that it is also my area of expertise and those people knew it). I don't give a fuck anymore and they are screaming and posting angry messages on social media expecting someone else will fight for them.

    I suppose that's the end result of brain washing your population with super hero movies.

    But noone is coming to save them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 27 child comments
  • [–] 70 points 3 months ago (13 children)

    The system is set up to keep us busy and living hand to mouth.

    Not to mention Fox News and the right wing media exists entirely to lie straight to our faces and fill our brains with culture wars so the average person has no idea which way is up.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] 39 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Right. I actually completely ignored the fact you guys are literally forced to just think about survival (day to day survival, I suppose for lots of people), you don't get to plan a revolution 😕

    Yeah, it is incredible what has happened. I hope you all find strength.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

    A lot of people I see on here lambasting Americans for not acting really don't seem to grasp how hard it is to think about solving systemic problems when your every waking moment is consumed by worrying whether you'll be able to feed your family today or keep a roof over their head tomorrow. Much of the US lives one or two missed paychecks from destitution. The fact that the standard of living generally is higher than in many countries doesn't mean your kids are eating dinner tonight, and it certainly doesn't mean you have leisure time to think about complex ideas like systems of government or equitable tax policy, let alone educate yourself about them. We have few safety nets, our culture actively maligns those who use them, and those in power are actively trying to eliminate them.

    A revolution under these conditions will only happen when sufficient masses have lost all access to basic needs.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (8 replies)
  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago*

    I think something a lot of people miss is the actual scale of the US as a country. My state is pure blue. My local government is mostly tolerable although not as far left as I'd prefer. Rioting here accomplishes nothing because democrats aren't in control of the government so we're just trapped along for the ride.

    For me to join a protest with a meaningful impact I would need to travel to Washington D.C.. For a west-coast American to actually protest at the capitol of America it would be a similar travel scale to an Irishman traveling to Moscow to protest the EU. That trip alone would cost me ~450 euros before fees and before the cost of any food/shelter. It would require that I leave my job if I stayed for more than a week and because I have no job I can't pay rent so I must surrender my belongings and uproot my family.

    This just isn't achievable for the average person without your life already having entirely collapsed in the first place. The most any of us out here can realistically do is try to throw money and other forms of support at the problem and hope other states can get their shit together.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    How many assassination atte.pts have been made? Lol

    Not endorsing them but seriously.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    Not endorsing them but seriously.

    WE should be endorsing them. This pretending that violence isn't the answer to violence, is the problem. We keep giving our abusers a pass, because we don't want to be "violent". We keep pretending "two wrongs don't make a right" but that's been bullshit since it first came out of someone's mouth while any form of justice system exists, as violence is needed to apprehend criminals, which literally takes a series of wrongs(Kidnapping, imprisonment, seizure of assets(AKA theft)) to make things right.

    Trump needs to be assassinated, as does his minions. We need to stop pretending there are other solutions besides "violence".

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago

    Unfortunately the “comforts” are basic life things like medications to live and being able to live in your home.

    We aren’t talking about having Netflix. You protest, you miss work, you are fired, you lose your income, no safety net, no healthcare, loans and debts take your home car (very little public transport that works in much of the country) and life away, and you and your entire family are homeless on a street corner and possibly dying. Inside of 2 weeks for a majority of Americans. Even insulin is hard to acquire without “the system”.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 61 points 3 months ago*

    Shamelessness is a tactic I think they adopted in order to prevent scandals from causing irreparable damage. If they stay resolutely shameless, they develop the ability to outmaneuver scandal by inoculating everyone against it. Everyone expects there to be zero consequences, and so eventually there aren’t any. A slow steady trickle of scandals might even be beneficial to this end. It numbs people. Major scandals get rolled into the machinery of diminished expectations, and here you have a fizzled story of this size. Americans are hypnotized by this scandal machine. It’s just a hypothesis of mine.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 44 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    In the 1930s the US government bombed a US city and killed thousands of American civilians for the crime of being wealthy while black.

    In the 1890s the US government bombed and launched an all-out military offensive against American civilians for the crime of wanting to be paid for doing deadly mining work.

    In the 1950s the US government launched the largest and most wide spread secret police operation in world history resulting in hundreds of thousands of arrests, tens of thousands of convictions, and at least a three figure death count of American civilians for the crime of wanting the same rights as CEOs.

    American history is not a story of revolution, it is a story of wimpy capitulation to their owners.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 31 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    In the 1980s the government bombed Philadelphia, specifically the MOVE movement for the crime of being politically motivated while black.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 30 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Even if you want to stay informed, you only have a couple hours between working all day, commuting back and forth, helping the kids with homework, and household chores. They have maybe an hour or two of available time to fit in any sort of news and relaxation.

    Because even when corporate owned media does cover it, they bury the stories so you need to actively look for them instead of it being front page or headline news. Even local station media is increasingly owned by corporate interests that just don't show things or push small local fluff pieces instead.

    The 24 hour news cycle desensitizes people to basically everything. And the current political climate is designed around a constant influx of misinformation and disinformation that takes much more time to fight than it does to spread. And modern propaganda is extremely effective, across the board. Especially across social media, designed to create echo chambers and feed you more of the same constantly.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago

    On top of that, your literal life depends on the machine. With no national healthcare, you need to keep your job to have the basic, astronomically priced insurance, and even if you have it, should anything go wrong, you could lose everything just staying alive. Not many people can afford the risk of fighting back. It’s toe the line or die.

    Struggle to stay informed. Struggle to keep your job. Struggle not to get sick or hurt. Struggle to keep your privacy. Struggle to get any other isolated, self-centred Americans to organise with you in any significant numbers to fight against the people with all the power, all the money, and a massive military they made a point of using against their own people to prove they would…

    It’s not impossible. But we will say it’s slightly daunting. For all their “freedom”, most Americans can’t even afford the time away from work to vote.

    That said, this administration has slammed the gas pedal and more and more people are starting to run out of what little they had. As their security erodes, they have less to lose. More and more are fighting back, and the Trump admin has proven they are not very good at pretty much anything. Rescuing the US won’t be easy, but it will be possible. They just have to future proof the place against the next Project 2025.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 23 points 3 months ago (27 children)

    I don’t know why Americans are okay with this now.

    That's like saying you don't know how a pig could fly...

    Americans aren't ok with it. It's just protesting won't work, it's armed rebellion or nothing and even on July fourth that's not a very palatable option.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 27 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 3 months ago (17 children)

    "Protesting doesn't work" is literally propaganda for the status quo, don't spread this crap, worse than just being defeatist and doomer it discourages others from protesting.

    Protest is a step in the process of rebellion... How many people are gonna rise up with an armed rebellion when they see the most of the population can't even be arsed to attend a march or rally?

    And it does work.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 17 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago* (9 children)

    As someone with lived experience going through occupy wall street, no it doesn't. All I saw that accomplish was funds being embezzled, my friends get shot in the face with rubber bullets, and some of them now have criminal records. What did we get? A dollar raise to the already unliveable minimum wage.

    Did anything change on wall street? Hell no. It got worse. Sanders says that the rich own 93% of all the wealth this country produces.

    Protesting didn't do jack shit.

    Protest now and you need to get a permit. What in the fuck is that? There's key note speakers and performers and shit. That's not a protest, that's a fucking festival for people who have enough money to cosplay protesting

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • load more comments (9 replies)
  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago* (6 children)

    And it does work.

    Lol...

    It worked in the civil right movement because it wasn't "Martin or nothing".

    If the status quo didn't go with Martin's nonviolent movement, Malcolm was marching Black Panthers with AR15s in California...

    That is what worked

    If a protest ain't a threat it's pointless, and if the protestors aren't openly armed with rifles, the police are going to escalate to violence.

    The only choice protesters get to make about violence, is if they do enough to discourage the state from starting it.

    Like, youre just too young to remember all the peaceful protests that failed, we've been doing this shit for generations and shit keeps getting worse

    Your funny fucking signs won't save us champ, and acting like it will makes people unwilling to do what would work

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (6 replies)
  • load more comments (9 replies)
  • load more comments (5 replies)
    [+] 99 points 3 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
    [removed by mod]
  • source
  • [–] 66 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    There go your checks and balances.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 41 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    If we come back from this, one of the first things needs to be the US Marshall service being moved under control of the Judiciary. So they have an actual enforcement arm for their decisions, instead of relying entirely on the Executive, which clearly will just ignore the decisions, and Congress will sit idly by.

    Congress has two ways to override the Executive, one is veto overrides. The other is impeachment, which also can override the Judicial, and the processes include the enforcement of those decisions.

    The Executive enforces laws as its primary function. As such, they can enforce those laws against the Legislative and Judicial as necessary.

    One of the two main purposes of the Judicial branch is to ensure the other two are writing the laws correctly, and that those laws follow the requirements of existing ones, like the Constitution. So they can rule on passed laws, but they do not have a mechanism to enforce those, they rely on the Executive to do that, even if the Executive is the issue. Or they rely on the Legislative to act on a lack of enforcement.

    The Judicial as it sits, is both one of the strongest and weakest links in the system. And until now, that weak part hasn't really been exposed since the Justice Department has historically been generally left to operate independently of the President, even though nothing actually prevents it from being abused like this.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago

    Congress also needs to re-establish it's own enforcement capabilities. The "guard rooms" in the capitol need to be fitted with modern prison cells and the Sergeants at Arms of the House and Senate need to have contingents of trained officers under their own command. It's high time that people refusing to answer to Congress or committing contempt of Congress be detained properly without having to wait on a corrupt Department of Justice to to their job.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • [–] 62 points 3 months ago (3 children)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 59 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Hold them in contempt you fucking cowards!

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 36 points 3 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    So the court needs to sack up and send marshalls to the DOJ to go get it,charge the relevant people with contempt of court, and let them sit in jail. These people dont have immunity from a judges order.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 35 points 3 months ago

    Amazing that they "accidentally exposed" hundreds of victims, but none of the culprits...

  • source
  • [–] 35 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Trump's Department of Justice refuses to release Epstein files to the public

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Don't worry, I'm sure that not enacting any type of consequence will surely get them to see the error of their ways.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 23 points 3 months ago*

    knew he would. now reel him in on contempt

  • source
  • [–] 22 points 3 months ago

    Here we are again and the question is if the judge is going to confront the constitutional disaster. Will they lock people up? Will they fine the US attorneys thousands of dollars per day until they comply? It really is that simple of a question.

  • source
  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Ugh, the Biden crime family at it again!

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 21 points 3 months ago

    At this point, I guess they burned them all.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago

    Take it to the top. It’ll be very difficult to argue a recent law of Congress not being fulfilled.

  • source
  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Who's going to do anything? It's a fascist country, and this will be our future.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    load more comments
    view more: next ›