Our government has made us a fucking embarrassment on a global scale. I'm literally ashamed to be an American.
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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I’m literally ashamed to be an American. Is that what it took for you? Not the rest of USA history?
If it wasn't apparent, they would mock the trains leading to Auschwitz. How far will the media let this go? Evidence so far seems to show that the billionaires who run it all view this as a great distraction for their get rich quick scheme. Capitalism is a disease.
How far will the media let this go?
However long they keep getting the next paycheck. The American propaganda mill needs billionaire sponsors to grind onwards. Once the Mercers and Adelsons and Kochs stop shoving money into the Wingnut Wurlitzer, it'll shut down. But not a minute beforehand.
Capitalism is a disease.
Sure. But this is tangential to capitalism. Rainbow Capitalism worked just fine for US businesses for decades. DEI/Tokenism/Identity Politics as a deflection from class conflict worked just fine. Homogenization of culture under a neutral Brad Paisley-and-LL Cooljay-singing-Accidental-Racist motif worked just fine.
It worked because advertisers recognized a profit motive in pandering to a broad international audience and saw a ROI predicated on maximizing distribution.
What we have now is a shrinking demographic of buyers and a SaaS B2B corporate aristocracy deciding what generates revenue. We're not trying to sell Captain America movies in China and iPads to Brazil anymore. We're trying to sell Groypers to Elon Musk so he can make Groyper Swag a requirement for joining his constellation of companies.
One Trillionaire's politics is worth a million millionaire's. If Musk was a fruity girl boss lib instead of an Apartheidist Refugee, things would be different.
What I don't get is what do the rich plan to do when Trump destroys the economy? If the USD is worthless, they aren't rich anymore.
No? They don't hoard dollars, they hoard deeds if anything. Should the bottom fall out of the American Market, they'll just pack it up and go to China or Russia or Europe. Their holdings won't lose value over time, and anything short of super steep taxes on unrealized gains or nationalization won't really affect them.
Those won't happen because it'll catch up the petty bourgeoise in the thresher, and common Americans won't stand for that.
They can convert that money into control/ownership over land and people.
If the economy is broken for everyone else, but you control the survival of people (through destroying or blocking labor laws, wage protections, public insurance, and eventually distribution of food and water, etc) and the space around those people (land, property), that control will outlast the economy and potentially the government. That's because they can afford their own monopoly on violence in a given domain, if the state's monopoly falls apart.
We're not quite there yet, but fiefdoms could yet come back in style.
Except they don't have money they have stocks. And if the market crashes what do they have.
What's the cure?
Guillotines.
Also read this cool blog post i just read which talks about the endless cycle of wealth hoarding followed by collapse that is inherent to capitalism in its current state https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pikettys-productivity/
That is a very good article outlining why we are where we are and what Europe can do to avoid this same fate.
TL;DR: Because investing drives more growth than labor, the rich get richer until we end up with wars and fighting. Without fixing that investment vs labor growth gap, this cycle continues.
Cory Doctorows blog (the one i linked to) is a gem that i can wholeheartedly recommend :)
Solidarity. Organizing nonviolent protests, sit-ins, strikes. Putting our bodies on the line; risking arrest. Eventually, property violence and…
Fascism won’t respond to logic and reason. It has to see that these actions aren’t palatable to the general public. Use the Civil Rights movement as a guide.
What do you expect the media to do? Their job is to report on the news.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she
With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
This is peak neo-fascist dystopia and it reveals the true nature of anti-immigration policy of humiliation and alienation.
The human rights and dignity violations, be it done with chains and cameras or with campaigns and administrative hearings - share the same hateful roots.
Don't let this shift the overton window such that "civil immigration measures" become acceptable - push back on it now before it becomes the new normal.
American freedom is so pure and abundant we could share it. But, The rich are so greedy and powerful they have decided we shouldn’t.
Nice try. The Uk did that like a week ago.
Video (not that I watched) https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1891922058415603980
Don't feed the beast.