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immutable @ immutable @lemmy.zip
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  • Politicians Will Not Save Us.

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  • I agree with you there.

    I think that’s part of the issue with neoliberalism, since it doesn’t care to reign in the abuses of the elites.

    It’s interesting how the frustrated masses though are so ready to pick someone that’s clearly on the side of the ruling class.

    I think that’s the part which might be more prominent in western culture right now. This paradox where people’s lives are made worse every day by businesses, businesses jacking up their rent, businesses gouging prices, businesses invading their privacy. And they finally have enough and go “we need someone to come in and run this country like a business.”

    It’s amazing to watch millions of people have legitimate complaints and be completely unable to identify the source of their misery, so much that they hand it even more power.

  • Grocery Chains Are Passing Trump Tariff Costs on to US Consumers With Higher Prices: Report

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  • Another fun thing about tariffs. Those domestic producers that are being protected by tariffs will increase their prices as high as they can.

    For example, let’s say an American company can sell a widget for $5 and a Chinese company can sell it for $4.

    You slap a 100% tariff on the Chinese widget, now it costs the consumer $8.

    The American company can now sell you the widget for the initial $5 and leave $2.99 on the table, or they can jack their price up to $7.99, be cheaper than the Chinese widget, and increase their profits while gesturing around vaguely at “market conditions”

    End result, you pay more for the widget, more than it the foreign producer used to sell it for and more than the domestic producers used to sell it for.

    Now imagine you make something that has dozens of inputs and that happens to every input.

    Truly a golden age

  • Politicians Will Not Save Us.

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  • It’s a good question.

    Here are some facts we have to accept about the world first

    • as long as authoritarians point their abuses inwards there’s no amount that causes the international community to put a stop to it, especially not against the United States.
    • those with authoritarian power rarely surrender it willingly
    • institutions do not historically stop fascism

    So we are already down the road, whether we collectively want to admit it or not.

    Here are some things you can do that might lessen some damage but are unlikely to stop the train

    • vote for neoliberals. Go for it, it’s better than the alternative. But if putting neoliberals into power stopped fascism, then electing Biden in 2020 wouldn’t have been followed with trump in 2024
    • protest, at least the peaceful do nothing protests that are allowed here. If your protest doesn’t make those with power worry then it’s almost really a protest but a state sanctioned pressure relief.

    I would consider myself further left than any party and I hear people that share my views say that you should organize and build community solidarity. These are nice things, we should care for our neighbors and through tough times community can be a major source of strength. Not super likely to topple fascism but could make living through it better.

    I see 3 scenarios where fascism fades into, well not really the background but the middle ground.

    1. Trump dies. He’s an old sick man, if he dies there will be plenty attempting to take the mantle up. Apple is still Apple without Steve Jobs but there not really a Steve Jobs replacement.
    2. Trump starts stupid wars. Stupid here being war with NATO, like trying to take Greenland by force. A war with Iran is also stupid but unlikely to turn people against him.
    3. Sustained general strike. This could actually work but the people of this country dont seem to have it in them.

    I think we should also understand that the ability to maintain an authoritarian state has improved since Hitler and Mussolini. Hungary, Turkey, the Russian Federation are all examples of effectively authoritarian dictatorships wearing the trappings of democracy to some degree.

    America has long been a nation bought by lobbyists to do the bidding of the wealthy. It’s not too crazy to think that we end up just zombie marching along with just enough trappings of democracy to say “it’s not too bad yet” for a long time. We have the national guard occupying US cities while a masked police force abducts people off the streets and illegally traffics them to other nations to be imprisoned without due process and disappeared. There are many red lines that have been crossed that could have been when people stood up, but everyone is waiting for something. That thing might never come.

  • Politicians Will Not Save Us.

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  • I wish people could really understand this.

    Neoliberalism leads to fascism. Not like in a cartoonish they sit around in some fortress of evil planning a Nazi takeover.

    Neoliberalism all over western society has shown itself ineffective at meeting people’s needs.

    Neoliberalism wants free markets and limited governments. This leads to capital gaining a huge amount of power because the government categorically doesn’t want to regulate them. That power eventually turns to exploitation of the citizens and capture of the government.

    Exploited citizens with an ineffective government get frustrated with a system that’s not meeting their needs. This is the dry tinder in which fascism catches fire, a charismatic person shows up and says “give me unlimited power and I can fix this quagmire you are in” and a lot of people go “fuck it, it can’t be worse than this” and you get a fascist dictator.

    Neoliberalism leads to fascism not because they are the same but because neoliberalism creates the perfect environment for fascism to sprout and grow.

  • “ChatGPT killed my son”: Parents’ lawsuit describes suicide notes in chat logs

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  • Wait until you get denied healthcare because the AI review board decided you shouldn’t get it.

    Paper pushers can absolutely fuck your life over, and AI is primed to replace a lot of those people.

    It will be cold comfort to you if you’ve been wrongly classified by an AI in some way that harms you that the AI didn’t intend to harm you.

  • Trump: 'A Lot of People Are Saying Maybe We'd Like a Dictator'

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  • Anyone remember in 2020 when the people elected the Dems to hold the republicans accountable for their many crimes committed out in the open and they dragged their feet until “oh no, well it’s too late now”

    If the Democratic Party can’t deliver things that voters want then the voters stay at home and the democrats are shocked like pikachu.

  • Trump threatens to put ‘regular military’ in Chicago to ‘straighten it out’

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  • America was waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that one-third of our people will kill one-third of our people while one-third of our people watches.

    Harlan Coben, The Boy from the Woods (Wilde, #1)

  • Masked ICE Agents Smash Car, Beat and Arrest Local Father Without Warrant in Connecticut: 'Another day in dystopian hell'

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  • And beyond racism it is happening in blue cities.

    His supporters are primed to think that cities are dangerous places already, and that a city led by liberals is in shambles, and that all the people living there are lawless liberals that deserve punishment.

    They are cheering about this because they see it as sending their troops to go hurt others. Whether those people are other because of their race, their religion, their gender, their sexuality, or their political beliefs.

    And when these same people find out that something about them or a loved one makes them other they will act shocked. They will protest that they aren’t an other they are in the in-group.

    And then they will learn the true nature of fascism. The in-group is constantly shrinking, because there must always be an other to blame. And they will learn that lesson too late.

  • Trump’s tariffs replace diplomacy as other US tools of statecraft are discarded

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  • Dude imagine living here your entire life, advocating for improvements, voting for the best politicians you can in the primaries, voting for the uninspiring Dems in the general.

    I don’t have any faith in my fellow countrymen either. I just live here.

    The only thing I’d push back on is that this dumb fuck could have gotten into office and not squandered the soft power of the US. If he were a bombastic boorish idiot that kept the global order running as normal do people give as much of a shit in other countries.

    I hate that 75M Americans are cheering right now, and I also hate that almost 100M Americans are just sitting on the sideline in every election going “nah, doesn’t matter enough to vote”

  • Trump, 79, Sparks Health Concerns With ‘Heaven’ Declaration

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  • Boy it sure would be scary if there was some part of the Bible that told you that how you treated the least amongst us, the hungry, the immigrant, the homeless, was how you treated god.

    I’m sure trump has nothing to worry about, he’s always been real nice to the vulnerable among us right?

    Matthew 25:40-45 New International Version

    40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

    41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

    44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

    45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

  • Trump’s tariffs replace diplomacy as other US tools of statecraft are discarded

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  • It only took a century of work to build up all that trust and goodwill. We could spend it down in a few months, make a ton of money, certainly there will be no negative long term effects.

  • A Gen Xer sold his company for $1.6 billion. He kept less than $100 million and gave the rest away because he doesn't 'believe in billionaires'

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  • Better than most but at the end of the day it would have been nice to give that money to the people that built the company he sold for $1.6B.

    I would think there’s a lot of talented people that worked hard to build the value of that company such that he could sell it for a huge amount of money.

    Definitely better than buying a yacht, but he still got to decide what to do with the value created by others.

    AppNexus employs 1000 people across 5 continents. If the ceo has an extra $1.5B kicking around he could have given every person that helped build AppNexus $1.5M, which is a truly life changing amount of money for your average person.

  • Bernie Sanders accuses Harris of being 'influenced' by billionaires in 2024 race

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  • The Dems though paint this like it’s a “necessary evil” they just have to accept all these donations from the ultra wealthy because you can’t win any other way

    So the position starts off cynically pragmatic, and cynical pragmatism makes for a shitty rallying cry.

    But then it doesn’t even work. They sell out to get the big money donations and then lose.

    Ineffective cynical pragmatism is an even worse rallying cry.

    And any time you get a Sanders or a Mamdani that shows a different path to success they go “oh sure that worked for them but it wouldn’t work anywhere else, only our cynical pragmatism works everywhere as long as you ignore all these electoral defeats”

  • Bernie Sanders accuses Harris of being 'influenced' by billionaires in 2024 race

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  • The Dems though paint this like it’s a “necessary evil” they just have to accept all these donations from the ultra wealthy because you can’t win any other way

    So the position starts off cynically pragmatic, and cynical pragmatism makes for a shitty rallying cry.

    But then it doesn’t even work. They sell out to get the big money donations and then lose.

    Ineffective cynical pragmatism is an even worse rallying cry.

    And any time you get a Sanders or a Mamdani that shows a different path to success they go “oh sure that worked for them but it wouldn’t work anywhere else, only our cynical pragmatism works everywhere as long as you ignore all these donations from electoral defeats”

  • Democrats can win in 2028. But we need to oust corporate candidates first

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  • But maybe this time if we cozy up to the wealthy and get a shit ton of money like 11 gojillion dollars the voters won’t mind that we aren’t advancing policies they like.

    Harris only got over a billion but I think if we sell out a little bit harder, shift a little further to the right to make our positions more attractive to the uber wealthy, this time it’ll work.

  • Trump is in the Epstein Files

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  • I share this fear. I had hoped at some point the people would have had enough.

    I think at first I considered it some great failing in my fellow countrymen. While that may play some part, I’ve found it more instructive to understand this moment as a result of a very intentional project.

    It’s the kind of project that wealth allows you to pursue. Institutions like the heritage foundation and fix news cost money, but the return on that investment can’t be beat. It took a couple decades to bend the world to their will but the results are astounding.

    You have the exploited championing their own exploitation. Extolling the virtues of those that take from them. They protect the very systems that harm them, and at this point are so indoctrinated that they can not fathom any other way of arranging things.

    At every step down this road there was someone whose duty was to stop it but found it more profitable to stand aside. And now I fear we are too late to stop it

  • Trump is in the Epstein Files

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  • This is not true.

    • 75,019,230 (48.34% of the electorate) voted Harris
    • 77,303,568 (49.81% of the electorate) voted Trump
    • 2,878,359 (1.85% of the electorate) voted for a third party candidate

    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024

    A plurality of the electorate voted for this administration, not a majority.

    In the 2024 presidential election, 73.6% (or 174 million people) of the citizen voting-age population was registered to vote and 65.3% (or 154 million people) voted according to new voting and registration tables released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

    https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-presidential-election-voting-registration-tables.html

    So of the 238 million voting age citizens, 77 million (32% of the voting age citizens) voted for this administration

  • Trump is in the Epstein Files

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  • We are at the end of half a century of destroying the working class and militarizing our police.

    With no social safety net, healthcare tied to employment, and at-will employment, there’s no working people able to afford a sustained non violent protest.

    Capitalist controlled media has eroded any sense of class consciousness amongst the common people, who are more inclined to be angry about the “theft” of a billionaires pile of gold through taxation, than the everyday theft of the value their labor produces.

    There have been many one day protests, large ones, but society has been reshaped to make sustained protests virtually impossible. A captured media landscape and election system insulate politicians from consequences. Together these depress the incentive for non violent protest.

    Violent insurrection would be met with a ton of state violence.

    People, pretty reasonably, aren’t excited to be beaten, sent off to CECOT, or killed.

    And of course, I’ll note the many logistic issues. America is fucking huge, most Americans don’t have $500 to cover an emergency, no one has an extra $500+ to fly across country for a do nothing protest in DC. Protest coverage is met with derision by centrist as “too disruptive” while the right wing n enjoys the snippets of our police state bashing protesters with state sanctioned violence.

    So a lot of people do the calculus, spend time, money, and energy to go out into the street to be beaten and maybe disappeared so that nothing will change, and they sit it out.

  • This is fine

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  • Capitalists love to conflate things like free market economies and capitalism.

    There is only one good hack that free market capitalism figured out. If you make it profitable for people to satisfy others needs you can create a system where needs get satisfied and without explicit planning.

    That’s the good bit about free markets. You want a hamburger, well if enough people want it then there will be a profit motive for someone to supply it.

    There that’s literally it. That’s the good thing. It causes people to not sit idle but to go find ways to make profit and in the best most ideal version the ways they find to do that are a net benefit to society at large, people get hamburgers.

    It doesn’t do anything to control for the psychopaths who would rather gather another bag of money they can never hope to spend by exploiting people. It doesn’t supply things that have low demand (like cures for rare diseases). It doesn’t have any short circuit for the profit motive in case it makes us do something stupid like destroy the ecosystem.

    I wish we could look at it objectively. If you make it so people have to do things to make profit to survive they won’t sit idle. That’s the upside. The downside is pretty down though and one can acknowledge the upside and still think “yea this system still kinda blows, it’s predicated on people not being allowed to exist unless they are generating profit”