I will have you.

Excerpts from a short piece, called “Back to the Wall,” by a famous writer; abridged:

The individual soul is under attack…
Ten years ago it may have been inconceivable that the great sweet “cassaba melon” as it was called of “American Century” prosperity was really a great psychic hoax a mirage of electronic mass-hypnosis…
The choice given - or CHOSEN? by us between an oldfashioned politician…, which is to say conservative, and an outright Authoritarian rightwinger? We never had a choice between middle and left, we were always stuck between middle and right. Finally it becomes too much to fight. But the stakes are too great to lose…
To live in a country which supposedly dominates the entire planet and to be responsible for the outrages of ones Own country! Woe to the Germans silent under Hitler woe to the Americans silent now.
Not a matter of Policy, rational discourse etc.
Things no longer merely out of proportion, things are UNREAL. Manipulating the unreal from centers of power - how can the soul endure?
Movie blather, news broadcast blather … social blather of a totally maladjusted tribe engaged in struggle to retain power-dominance and control over an entire planet (nay an entire solar system!)

He also mentions a “synchronistic putch.” The writer is called Allen Ginsberg and this piece was published 1966.
Which is to say, the Overton window has been shifting for a long time and Nazism has never been truly defeated, only forced to hibernate. And certainly not just in the US. At least that’s my pessimistic conclusion at this point.

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Empower the White, Christian, Sexually Aggressive/Frustrated Misogynists.

Only as much and for as long as he deems necessary. Should they become a liability after getting him elected into power, they’d be dealt with swiftly. Remember Henry Hill in “GoodFellas”?

If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.

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From the other side of the pond, I find it very worrying and, indeed, disconnected from reality that Americans on Lemmy discuss the body odor or groping or even raping connected to one man that could and, given the chance, absolutely will completely unhinge their entire country at once.
You might think it smug, but many people all over the world have experienced a tyranny, or are currently experiencing it. There is no second warning, nor will there be a deadline; one day, the disappearings just start, and they will become increasingly random. You will not be in control of the process anymore.
Or, in the words of Andrew Mack, albeit about the failed Vietnam War: “The American experience [is] in no sense unique, except to Americans.”
I understand people need to vent, but what I would really hope to see would be discussions on how easy, or how difficult, it is to uproot one’s live and emigrate; how to go about getting a visa, or asylum, or a job in a different country; how long it takes to become fluent in a foreign language; or how long it would take Canada to close its borders once huge waves of refugees set in.
Today’s “too alarmist” is tomorrow’s “wasn’t alarmist enough.”
/offmychest

Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.

They are all over Europe. I have three or four within walking distance. And they can hold some amazingly large items, too.

There are many forums like that, especially if you’re not limited to one language. Most of the ones I frequent have been around for 10 or 20 years or more, but kind of fly under the radar. ilxor being a very good example. AFAIK, the latter also adds only one new user per day. I’d say that’s a good thing, even though I had to apply several times.

The next iteration of gaslighting is already here: That it’s no big deal anyway since you can just use an ad blocker. Riiight, let’s all just turn our eyes away to make the monster go away. Surely, it’ll get bored and stop listening and recording, and surely, it will not sell its collected data off to banks, insurance providers, the government, law enforcement… right?

Normative nihilism is going to get us all.

Is anyone else reminded of this?

What in the world is going on with Elsie’s hand in the “second of the five photographs?”

Credit: Sidney Harris

It’s all perfectly logical to you, isn’t it?

Keep absolutely still. Its vision is based on movement.

As the old and venerable neuromonkey once said:

Welp. Just let the nukes fly, then. First it’s “on accident,” and before long you’ve got meth addicted baby prostitute warlords running the local Walmart.

In the B2B world, there’s no escaping these banners. It’s as if GDPR never happened.