I felt this feeling as we were finding out we invaded Iraq under false pretenses to make money for blackrock. We never did anything. I figured people would change but after voting in same clown after the shitshow he did last time……
The average American reads at an 8th grade level, with slightly more than half reading at a 6th grade level.
We have been cognitively neutered, by design.
Didn’t that actually happen (not the Blackrock part)? I thought it came out in a Congressional hearing that there was oil which motivated the whole thing. The U.S. went in to find WMDs but after many years could not find evidence of any.
I guess to call out Blackrock exclusivity is incorrect as they were just security in Iraq. My point was using private contractors and then allowing firms to profit. This government to private is now infecting everything.
2007, an internal Department of Defense census on the industry found almost 160,000 private contractors were employed in Iraq (roughly equal to the total U.S. troops at the time, even after the troop “surge”). Yet even this figure was a conservative estimate, since a number of the biggest companies, as well as any firms employed by the State Department or other agencies or NGOs, were not included in the census
I was 12 when the U.S. went into Iraq. I remember watching cable news the moment that began. I think I was too young to understand. Why was Blackrock there?
It was just because W wanted to finish what his dad started and remove Saddam. There was no exit plan or grand strategy.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Saddam wasn’t bad, but why not let the citizens of Iraq decide that?
As a dictator he weaponized his ethnic minority to violently oppress the majority. The people in Iraq had no say.
There is no use in getting overwhelmed. I am merely getting more practiced in drinking larger and larger amounts of whiskey and smoking larger and larger amounts of marijuana to deal with it.
We all have a process
And hopefully, at least most of us will survive.
If not, for all of you fascists: I have a plan to destroy all of you that involves an enormous amount of pee. Like, so much, you can’t fucking imagine. An absolute cavalcade of pee.
Don’t try me
The rest of us, in the civilised world, watch on from behind our fingers in horror and bewilderment
America is a classic case of the elephant chained to a small stake as a baby
The learnt helplessness of the population is nuts
Chained to a small stake, yes. But there’s also the greater threat of being shot and told it was your fault if the stake comes out.
Bold of you to assume this post is limited to American neo-fascism. It absolutely resonated with me here in Germany. This “civilized world” you speak of - is it here in the room with us right now?
Oh, Germany is a mess. Hungary is a disaster, Turkyie is fucked,
There are lots of problems
I’m grateful to live in Australia
Turkiye is fucked
Not quite - or at least they have the best chance at recovery if (and that’s a big if) they can oust Erdoğan and his cronies. If they manage that, Turkiye would soon be more democratic than most of the EU in its present state.
Yep
Erdoğan is poison, and has been for so damned long
It’s a beautiful country with such potential
I never got the insistence of people that “stop immigration” would be a far-right thought.
Being against immigration can have lots of reasons, primarily economical reasons. It objectively (I’d say) is a good thing that the birth rate is dropping, because that improves the socio-economic position of the people. I.e., it reduces the supply in workforce, which increases prices for labor (a.k.a. wages). And it also means that more resources are available per person, which reduces the cost of living.
Yet, many people (especially the “greens”) seem to argue that we need more workers to fulfill the demands of our economy, which, frankly, is just bullshit and plainly wrong. … and that assumed need for more workers is then used as a justification to import people, as if they were a shippable product. It’s disgusting, really. First we start a war in the middle east; then we move the people to a foreign country. It’s a double shame.
how about we fucking do neither.
Yeah, it seems to me, school is really just a process that mostly exists to teach you to adhere to nonsensical processes. At least that was largely how it was in my case.
People are told to sit and listen for the first 18 years of their life, and then they’re told to stand up and do something the rest of their lifes.
People are educated to not think for themselves, feel for themselves, and make life experiences. Everything is regulated. Parents have too much control. It takes a village to raise a child, yet we’ve normalized the “core-family”-household. What a perversion of nature.
School starts in 'Murica with the worship of the flag
It’s indoctrination at its finest
After the election, I gave myself permission to become an alcoholic if I wanted. I don’t see a great future ahead.
Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. It makes you bitter more often than numb. It’s better for your mental health to channel your frustrations into something useful. Get involved somehow, make yourself useful for others. Collaborate with some direct aid org. Start making content on the internet where you speak your mind and talk about how you see the world, you might end up turning a few people.
The thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the alienation we feel is because most paid work doesn’t really touch people. It’s either too abstract (office work that only helps your company make money by servicing other companies so that they can make money) or direct servicing of disgruntled customers in a hurry (most customer facing work, like barista, cashier, call center, etc.). Really there’s few jobs where you feel like you do something worthwhile, so try to get involved in something for your soul, something that contributes to directly building the world you want to build.
I appreciate it. Even though my drinking has increased, I’ve actually become a community organizer in my city and it’s been therapeutic for me to hear people thanking us for organizing events where we build community and give people an outlet for their frustrations with the administration.
I’m also living my life at this point with as much substance as I can have. I have health issues and when they roll back ACA protections, I’m really screwed. So I figured if I don’t have the luxury to grow old, I will do what I can for my community for the greater good.
You seem like a really good person. Have a great day.
The future is still not written. There’s no reason to give up in advance as we really don’t know how things will shake out, there’s so much stuff happening. Make sure to make connections you can fall back on for rainy days. Hang in there, friend.
Appreciate the kind words, you seem like a good person too.
Nice username
Ah thanks 😊
What’s for dessert?
Cheese souffle
All of the cake… are you gonna share your vanilla pudding with me?
We aren’t, we are simply adapting and continuing on with our human existence. It’s not normal but humans will always adapt. We invented air conditioners and populate a literal desert in opulence. We literally created flying machines to get from one side of the world to the other in 24 hours. None of that stuff was normal either. We are inventive and adaptive.
When has it ever been any better? There’s plenty we can say about class exploitation, racism, lack of healthcare for the poor, low wages, war… but was any part of that better in any other era of history? You could make a tenuous argument that some of these were marginally better a decade or three ago, but in the grand schemes of things, the only thing that’s gotten worse during our history is environmental devastation. And even on that score, we are rookies. The cyanobacteria fucked this ball of slime UP long before it was cool.
I’m not saying everything’s great. I’m saying it’s only been worse as you look back.
The nineties were good. Less racism, less pandemics, no social media to make the world collectively dumber. Just silly clothes and hair we had to deal with.
Way worse homophobia, though.
The word hypernormalisation was coined by Alexei Yurchak a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad. He introduced the word which describes paradoxes of life during the 1970s and 1980s in the USSR. He says everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, the mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy with everyone accepting it as the new norm rather than pretend.
Bro, I have just seen so much bad shit happen for months and all my girlfriend will say is, “Something’s gonna happen, something is coming, I’m believing and praying and everything is gonna work out and be okay” and inside, I’m screaming like Atreus from God of War (2016), “HOW DO YOU KNOW?!”
Watch she doesn’t fall victim to a cult or something with that mindset.
I used to read through history and so frequently I would wonder things like “how did these serfs just put up with this for so long?”
I no longer wonder these things.
there’s also the matter that most of the time, you didn’t have to deal with noble strangers with horses expecting your loyalty (often, not the same nobles and horses as the last ones to come around). There may be the local lord but he had good cause to keep things consistent and open up the grain reserves whenever the winter was bad and crops failed.
But the keen thing that changed in the 20th century is we went from a desperate labor shortage to a labor surplus. There was just tons to do and no giant machines with which to do them. Death was right around the corner: A boar attack here, a bad influenza there, any kind of infection (no antibiotics), so people were dropping dead often enough that every last idiot, hunchback and bastard daughter were celebrated as a strong back that could churn butter or assemble barrels or pitch hay.
In fact, society was so fraught that clergy who knew the deal would look the other way when peasants were rutting like bunnies out of wedlock in springtime. (Stories are told and songs are sung of parish priests who were a bit strict on the sins, and how they had a tendency toward morbid mishap.)
We have crusades and territorial disbutes to thank for higher ranks getting into common business. The Third Crusade (King Richard v. Salah ad-Din) squeezed the peasants hard in England. Then Richard went cooky, disguised himself as a merchant, and was seized for ransom, and a king’s ransom was a lot. So the peasants were squeezed so hard it hurt the earls, and John of England (last of his name to this very day) was already a Trumpian / Neroesque asshole, and the economy was already tanked when Richard died in 1199, and at that point enough people were pissed off at unilateral monarchy they made John sign the Magna Carta at swordpoint. Several times.
And that was the beginning of the end of monarchy.
I was thinking something similar in regards to the amount of time it takes. If dystopia and dictatorship is coming to the “free world” the dictators have learned to land that plane gently. It’s nuts that things haven’t properly broken completely. We just keep putting up with small adjustments. I don’t think the serfs would have gone from, say, 2008 to 2025 without some sort of uproar or downright rebellion. Then again. Not my area of expertise.
“We should boycott Amazon for firing all their workers in my province.”
“Why bother, boycotts do nothing.”
How is that the default response and not “FUCK THIS COMPANY”
…and instead of joining the boycott, proceeds to do nothing.
SO much learned helplessness in the “geeks” around me. They’ve given up on privacy, ownership, seemingly democracy, certainly peace for Palestine. Never been to a protest, or even considered boycotting. I’m surprised they even bother voting (centrist ofc).
Do you ever statement framed as a question?
And pay the overwhelmed fee, no thanks.
The real question is what can we do about it
But Momma, that’s where the fun is
All day everyday
Even when things aren’t all fascist, we’re still disposable wage slaves for the elite. And somehow that’s what we’re supposed to be working to maintain.
It’s that or go full on regular slave. Even if we maintain the old status quo, we’re still losing.
I think we have to start respecting ourselves, respecting others, and teaching those concepts to people who are receptive. To me, it seems like the only way to break the cycle called slavery.
They can dress slavery up with benefits all they want, but they don’t even care to anymore. Everybody knows it’s a raw deal and they are trying to scare us into thinking we have no power.
Let’s not be stuck in fear and hate, in subservience and denigration, and be sovereign and resolute in the change we want to see in the world.
I don’t need an external authority to tell me what I should believe and hope for. I don’t need somebody to curb my expectations and tell me change is impossible, that we actually need to compromise for no real reason, that it is too “costly”, or that it will take an extremely long time. I don’t want to be told ANY of that when change is possible — these people simply gave up before they even started. No more am I going to be gaslit, and I hope others feel similarly.
If you can’t imagine a world where comprehensive solutions manifest imminently to ease suffering, you probably aren’t fit for leadership. We need change now, this is absolute insanity. FUCK the perceived costs — it’s infinitely more costly to continue the current state of affairs while many, many countless individuals suffer and our precious and irreplaceable planet goes up in flames.
