this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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I would really rather that these were actual examples, and not conspiracy theories. We all have our own unsubstantiated ideas about what shadowy no-gooders are doing, but I'd rather hear about things that are actually happening.

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[–] [email protected] 269 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (19 children)

Anyone that says J6 was a "peaceful protest" that "got out of hand"

We all saw the footage of that day. There were gallows and calls to hang a sitting vice president.

It was an insurrection, fomented and encouraged by Donald Trump's speech and actions leading up to that day. Plain and simple.

The right-wingers who say it wasn't as serious as it was are gaslighting their base.

Edit: Victims of gaslighting in my replies

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[–] [email protected] 160 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink.

“I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up,” the CIA agent says.

“Thank you,” the KGB says. “We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them.”

The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. “Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America.”

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[–] breadsmasher 144 points 1 year ago (4 children)

“brexit will bring in more trade! brexit will provide 350 million to the NHS!”

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On a related note the whole notion extremely prevalent in the UK that all they have to do is decide they want to rejoin and it will happen. No matter which side of that a commentator is on, they almost never mention that they need to present something the EU27 actually want and convince them that the UK is not the 'break international agreements' kind of country any more. Overall the British still all seem to think that they are something better than everyone else and others have to do what they want and have no real agency.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

You could call it a colonial mindset. Wonder where that way have come from.

[–] captainlezbian 32 points 1 year ago

The thing I loved about that lie is even as a 20 something who’d never been to that hemisphere I knew it was a lie because weren’t these the people trying to kill the NHS

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[–] [email protected] 132 points 1 year ago (4 children)

“Democrats are liberal/progressive”

In reality, they’re pretty conservative.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

The Overton Window

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

A concept where political discourse is slowly shifted to one side or another over time. For example conservatism.

Politics are talked about the right who move even further right, the centralists are moved to old right and the leftists are moved to the center .... the old leftists are now seen as extreme and unacceptable while the far right are also unacceptable but gain some ground ... everyone shifts one step to the right and now everything is more conservative.

The right shift is what is happening now ... but it can happen and shift towards the left as well.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (6 children)

They are still liberal though but not progressives. Liberalism isn’t necessarily a left wing ideology.

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[–] dellish 128 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Vaccines will give you autism, microchips, actual diseases etc. It's one of the best medical breakthroughs in history and we have idiots ruining it.

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[–] notannpc 104 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The concept of trickle down economics. Anyone with a functioning brain can tell you that it would never work. But somehow people as a whole in the US still think giving corporations and rich cunts extra money, and tax breaks somehow lead to the 99% reaping a benefit.

It has never been true because the basic function of capitalism is to get as much money as possible, while spending the least amount of money to do it. There’s no room for passing on the extra profits to your employees, clients, or vendors.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Supply-side Jesus (short animation) is a brilliant take on trickle-down economics and circular arguments about why the successful are successful and the poor are poor.

"Tax cuts will double our revenues and ensure that the empire never declines or falls!"

"Should you feed the lepers, Supply side Jesus?"
"No Thomas, that would just make them lazy."
"Then shouldn't you at least heal them Supply Side Jesus?"
"No James, leprosy is a matter of personal responsibility. If people knew I was healing the lepers there would be no incentive to avoid leprosy"

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[–] Chainweasel 97 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My parents still think the 2020 election was stolen...

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago

Israel is defending itself against an antisemitic terrorist group which attacked it for no reason

[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (2 children)

America is the greatest country in the world. Only those who haven't travelled much would believe that.

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[–] qevlarr 81 points 1 year ago

* gestures broadly at US politics *

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Americans with their 'greatest nation on earth' charade.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It has a name: American exceptionalism. It's used both by people who know it's a lie and by people who believe it.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That you catch a cold because you're cold

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[–] AllonzeeLV 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

"Your socioeconomic status is a measure of work ethic, sacrifice, and ability to make good decisions. Poor people deserve to be poor, and suffer, for making bad decisions."

Birth lottery which includes not just wealth but family connections is the biggest metric. We are way down the list of developed nations in terms of upward mobility. Only the outliers that prove to be of the greatest service to entrenched capital are granted entry. Most Americans, religious or not, have internalized the dogma of the prosperity gospel, itself an absolute parody of the dogma of Christianity it claims to be part of.

Go to any local fast food restaurant at rush hour, hell, go to any produce field at harvest, and tell me how much that studious hard work pays off. conversely, please regail me with tales of how hard it is to be a capital landlord, ~~making investments~~ gambling with insider information with capital gained from previous exploitations, and then merely expecting an endless steam of capital for NO labor into what generated it. It's like we were conquered by the traveling snake oil salesmen of old.

It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Also known as "prosperity gospel." The religious justification for obscene wealth. The basic idea is that if you are rich, it's because God has chosen you to BE rich because you are morally superior to everyone else. It's an absolute perversion of Jesus' teaching in the New Testament.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Communism=Authoritarianism

I was taught in school the characteristics of authoritarianism and a couple weeks later, when i was being taught about communism, the same characteristics were said

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[–] lhx 66 points 1 year ago (5 children)

If you cut taxes on the rich it will benefit everyone.

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[–] calypsopub 60 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Rising early and going to bed early is more virtuous than rising late and going to bed late.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That Israel is not a colonial state. All it's founders defined it as a European colonial project. It was and is allied with all the colonial powers and projects like Britain, the US, apartheid south Africa, and Rhodesia. Its funding association was called the Palestine Jewish colonization association. It's bank was called the Jewish colonial trust. The Jewish national fund and the Zionist project at large was from the beginning concerned with building segregated colonies.

First, lands were bought with foreign funding from feudal land lords, and their inhabitants were entirely dispossessed, kicked out. Then when awareness of the ultimate goals of the Zionist project crystalized and resistance against Palestinian dispossession mounted, the lands were ethnically cleansed by force and the people massacred. 700 to 800 thousand Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in one continuous military operation that spanned two years from 1947 to 1948.

Zionist leaders fully acknowledged that Palestinian demographics were a core issue to the Zionist project, that the Palestinian population had to be removed at any cost, which is exactly what Israel did. What lead to the Palestinians being defenseless in this situation? Colonial Britain abetted the formation of heavily armed Zionist militias with soldiers numbering in the tens of thousands. The arms of Britain's colonial military presence were inherited by the Zionist forces that it supported. All this while Britain summarily excecuted any Palestinian found in possession of a firearm.

This is not to mention the enthusiastic support of european antisemites for the Zionist project, or its strict early opposition by antifascist jews.

The idea that Israel has any right to exist on Palestinian land is a lie that has been so heavily proliferated, it has to be debunked when it should be paid no consideration at all.

[–] MTK 51 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Too many famous people are hailed as something they are not, and everyone believes it. For example Elon Musk is hailed as a genius when he seems to be showing lately that he is the dumbest person alive.

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[–] thirstyhyena 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jesus birthday is 25 December

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[–] kylie_kraft 41 points 1 year ago

Donald Trump claiming executive privilege for his various crimes. It seemed like everyone was laughing about it even a couple months ago, like how can it be executive privilege when this is about things he was doing before and after his presidency? Then there was a narrative shift and now the media is back to hand-wringing over whether or not you can prosecute a former president. I don't think anyone is expecting any of it to stick anymore.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (25 children)

"Owning a car gives you freedom" is a big one considering how expensive they are and that most people just use them to sit in traffic jams on their commute 90%+ of the time they are using them.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] DandomRude 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Trickle down economics lead to more wealth for all."

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

The entire conservative party

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (10 children)
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[–] Trigemeny 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That a guy has to spend three months salary on a diamond wedding ring. It was a very good marketing campaign from a jewlery company.

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[–] piyuv 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Free market is the most effective way of allocating resources

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Off the top of my head:

-Anything involving babies and incubators is immediately suspect. (Or babies and bayonets, for that matter).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

-And this one is pure conspiracy, and I know it's not what you asked for... but it's ridiculous and 'tis the season. My mother in law is convinced that the lyrics to "Oh Christmas Tree" (O Tannenbaum) were changed by people who wanted to erase the true and original lyrics. By who? Big Tree financiers? Communists who are stealing Christmas and replacing it with trees?

Anyway...

The original lyrics, according to this conspiracy, praise God and never mention trees at all. It's completely ridiculous and always ends with the whole family singing along with the "true lyrics" from a badly photocopied paper that she hands out. I hope this doesn't come up again this year because it really makes me want to fight. Which would make me the bad person, because who initiates fights on Christmas? The next couple of days are going to be tough.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (36 children)

communism has killed 100 million people

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[–] RIP_Cheems 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That coconuts falling on people's heads kills more people than shark attacks. It's was literally an experiment to see how far a lie could spread, and now it's used by many as an actual fact.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Iran has convinced a large portion of their population that the holocaust never happened.

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