There are always going to be monsters in the world, but they don’t have to be in power over us unless we never reform the systems that allowed them to come to power in the first place.
Dick Cheney is still alive, 17 years after people stopped waiting for him to keel over. Dude’s heart hasn’t beaten in 15 fucking years.
Henry Kissinger made it to age 100, and was continuing to contribute to foreign policy decisions even months before his death as he egged on the Gaza Genocide and denounced Muslim immigration into Germany using rhetoric that was…
It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that
Well… something perhaps similar to what he himself might have been reading out of Germany eighty years earlier.
These fuckers don’t die nearly fast enough unless someone forces the issue.
systemic problems don’t magically go away when a couple people die
Systemic problems that are being used as a foundation for the powers in charge can’t be changed until those people are gone. These people use this problems to stay in power.
It’s naive to think removing them isn’t the best first step to getting to a better place.
Aaaaaand if you have a better place to start. A better single action other than removing them please fucking share it so that we can also start looking into that as an option instead of keeping that secret information from doing any good.
It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than 3 bud.
Just waiting for mine
You need simultaneous 19 obituaries in the US.
Can you please DM me a list of 19 people. I understand why you wouldn’t want to l list it too directly.
I’m curious who is on this list. Thanks
Hypothetically, if an assassin were to do this, it’s the person leading the executive branch + the line of succession
(For legal reasons: I want to clarify that I do not condone violence)
yeah, but only one of those US ones would make the news if it happened at once.
Only 3?
Did you change servers, or were you always on pawb.social
I was originally on Yiffit.net but it shut down. Plus my LW account which only gets used when this one is inaccessible.
No one really believes that the vacancies from the deaths won’t be filled by yet another asshole, do they?
Wiles will be tough to fill. She’s been the only person successful in reigning in Trump’s abject stupidity.
No one really believes that the vacancies from the deaths
My brain flipped a circuit and misread that as “deaths from vaccinations”.
No, but nobody is out there making JD Vance their entire personality.
Can’t say the same about Pam Bondi, Joe Rogan, or Nick Fuentes. Hell, Vance’s position is entirely due to the cult of personality around Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. And then you’ve got Bari Weiss stuffing CBS full of her Free Press friends, for the singular purpose of making neoconservativism cool again.
You barely even need to be popular on those terms. You just need someone willing to churn out a mind-shattering level of media slop on the eve of some pivotal political moment (election, court decision, riot, coup, what-the-fuck-ever). JD Vance could be President in four years, purely on the grounds that a majority of states are replacing majority selection of the electoral college with appointment by state senators.
And then what are you going to do about it except move to Canada/Mexico (assuming we haven’t annexed them already) or pound sand?
The entire administration is riding on the political capital that Trump has seized early on by courting the nation’s most stupid.
That turned into political capital because while this is a minority segment, this segment is beyond devoted, they would literally support Trump without exception or hesitation, and they’re armed, and they are united in their orcish rampage across politics. Jan 6th was Trump “weapon testing” to show that he could wield this devotion and fanaticism.
So right now, there are dozens or hundreds of Republicans jockeying for pole position after Trump dies, each one thinking they can wield this same power. But they absolutely do not get it. They try. They say unhinged and bold nonsense hoping it lands, but then end up talking and ruining it. Watch JD try to act tough and then spend 30 minutes talking like a politician as the viewers tune out. MAGAts hate that shit. They are loyal to trump because he’s genuine. (Not honest, there’s a difference) and Trump’s hatred for even being there oozes from his pores and his base loves it. It’s a weird formula that will lead to absolute chaos when Trump dies, and much of the GOP power will go with him.
But that is not even remotely saying things are going to be “better” in any way. A lot of very wealthy people feel empowered to completely cheat and break the law and game the system. Unless very strong dem leadership rises immediately, Trump’s death may well be more ruinous than when he was alive because it will splinter the country’s power blocs and lead to a breakdown in government.
courting the nation’s most stupid
Who are the stupidest Americans? The Americans who selected Donald Trump? Or the Americans who selected the politicians he beat?
Like, fuck me, but I will go to my grave saying the Ted Cruz voter is the real Dumbest Man Alive. Cruz spent four years shitting all over California and New York, effectively handing these states to Trump in the 2016 primary. Legendary levels of political miscalculation. And people cheered him on for it!
At least Hillary had the sense to blow a few billion repairing her reputation in the Midwest after 2008. Absent that, it would have been a Bernie Sanders landslide in 2016 and two legit anti-establishment populists going heads up in the general election.
Cruz spent four years shitting all over California and New York, effectively handing these states to Trump in the 2016 primary.
But that’s also why he’s such an entrenched incumbent as a Senator. Texas chuds love it even if they hate him personally: shitting on coastal elites forgives all.
Everything about your response here is why Lemmy is my first click in the morning: sober, clear thinking. What I keep wondering is can the rich be held accountable for the damage that they have done? They participated in this fiasco-coronation… they funded it. My head still spins about the loss of integrity in our entire system.
Last night I started reading Against The Machine by Paul Kingsforth… I always wanted to read Decline and Fall of the West by Spengler but this guy actually did — and a lot of other great thinkers that are making this transition feel much less tragic for me and more natural… and reminding me that empires fall but individuals can thrive. Do thrive — with acts of decency.
Thank you for that. And nah, I don’t think we’ll ever get the satisfaction of seeing the world’s elite face consequence, not unless it’s some broad-scale, massive collapse that impacts everyone, and even then they will hold out for a while in their bunkers. One thing that does give me some measure of hope is that despite being wealthy, they are not smarter than anyone else, and have the same overconfidence, the same vulnerabilities, the same biases and inabilities to see outside of their little spheres. The same mortality. They will make mistakes, as they have done in the past. Those mistakes will cost them power and wealth, it just won’t be a fairy-tale ending all at once, it’s just entropy perpetually leveling the playing field.
And yeah, I think our species’ fixation on narratives is giving everyone a false idea that stories “end” at some point. That Trump dies and everyone celebrates and credits roll.
We don’t get ending credits. We don’t even get a silly post-credits scene to imply a sequel. One issue just blends right in with the next, perpetually. The only real end-game goal or satisfaction any of us should focus on is each other and our communities. Individuals are the real star of every story, and there’s no such thing as background characters in the real world.
So… I have been friends in a writing group with a guy who voted for Bush2… and I have conscientiously tried to be human and humane to him because we go on hikes and movies together and he shares some of that co service ugliness in ways that help me understand the “other” better.
We had a blow out 2016… and we came back from it 2019… and now we know how not to have blowouts.
Recently I shared with him Gloria Anzadua’s HOW TO TAME A WILD TONGUE.
To my amazement he read it. We just had a discussion on empathy. No one died.
That’s great. I have had amazing success in my interpersonal life connecting with and then influencing conservatives. For a while, I had the most cinematically diverse gaming group you could think of, we had cowboy rednecks, a polycule of trans girls, ex-military intelligence officers, furries, communists, everything you can think of, and we all got along.
The key though was it took a lot of shepherding and listening. By giving everyone time to vent, talk, explain their feelings I was able to get everyone on common ground and we did great things together, and those positive feelings then went on to create change.
I don’t read nearly enough books anymore but I will check out your recommendations so far.
Yeah… I always find it funny how when a cool group that’s to form… that extremely cool, everyone likes them, “ex” intelligence officer shows up… weird… isn’t it? I have seen this movie before.
sometimes you replace one asshole with two (less effective) assholes. not sure how this applies to politics, just talking medicine.
It is hard to get those labs just right.
Ah you don’t know about Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison.
If you’re on a plane with Trump, Putin, Xi, musk, and 30 other billionaires, and you have a gun with only one bullet, who do you shoot?
The pilot.
I would tell the billionaires if they look outside they’ll see an underage girl, then shoot the plane’s instruments and then help the pilot escape with me with the only two parachutes on board.
Nah, plenty of billionaires have pilot’s licences. The only way to be sure is to rip and tear until it is done.
heavy metal intensifies
Shoot the avionics then.
One of the windows would be better. There aren’t a ton of places where a single bullet will take down a plane, if you can get a window you can at least depressurize the cabin and force a really sketchy landing, but guaranteeing the plane crashes when it’s full of people capable of keeping it in the air is no small feat. Maybe if you have access to the maintenance cabins you can pop one of the hydraulic manifold blocks, I’m not sure if the main ones have redundant fail-safes if the whole manifold spontaneously opens a new outlet.
i mean i guess it all depends where that hole goes through (idk airplane hydraulic manifolds but i’m going off the following image)
Never played a video game? Shoot the red spots, those are the weak points.
lol. i’m mostly thinking those big circular bulges (one with what looks like a nut, one which is empty and shows threading) in the middle are valves or something idk, not in/output ports. pop it on the right side of a valve and all you gotta do is close the valve.
this assuming it’s not just one hollow piece covered in nipples or something. i’m not an airplane mechanic.
Is this what a modern jesus would do?
Yes. Also best solution to trolley problem.
Things never get back to normal. There never was a normal.
Things change and either you force your own change, or you allow your self to be changed.
Oppression is the norm, sadly
You might want to research their lines of succession
tl:dr bunch more assholes waiting in the wings
Always has been
Well shit
This is not down to a few persons - its a mentality and it will take generations of active work to change!
Probably a lot longer given that this mentality was supposedly already eradicated, and yet like polio, is somehow still pervasive today.
I’m only here for another 60 years at most.
it better fucking happen sooner than that
Reminds me of the Cuban man joke… while not directly appropriate… something something like:
During my travels in the 1970s, I met a Cuban man in some bar at night discussing politics and Castro with his friends. I noticed he had an unusually short and stubby index finger. I asked him about it but he was too drunk to give a proper response.
He did however let me crash at his house that night. I woke up to him returning from buying the morning newspaper, seems like daily routine. His wife had made breakfast and he sits down eagerly, looks at his wife and at me and then slaps the rolled newspaper on the table.
I approach him to take a look and he, presses his index finger on the newspaper’s date. He proclaims loudly… “I’m telling you now (without opening the page)… This is the day Castro dies!”
[I tried my best, if someone had the proper wording, let me know. My Google skills failed me]
I wonder what the digital equivalent is…
What?
The real punchline is that he came to America and voted for trump.
Same.
However, I wonder how many different 3-name lists people would come up with.
Edit: in my boring case, i would also probably be a TNP.
Trump will not last anyways so mine is just Putin and Netanyahu. Others will just easily be replaced like the guy in Iran.
TXP wouldn’t be too bad either
high five!
I know who two of those obituaries would be for but the third eludes me…
Netanyahu Putin
ahhhh yep okay.
i remembered trump and putin but forgot netanyahu.
…
it was nice forgetting about him for a while–
…but there are literally thousands of people who can’t,
thousands of families whose lives he destroyed…
okay. i regret it now ._.
