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I prefer the original artist’s work
Damn straight.
Ahem… US people? You there?
Just in case: none of this is normal.
That’s the thing - this is only barely not normal. It’s definitely more in your face, and a lot tackier, but the US has never been great, at least not for anyone straight, white, male, and relatively well off. Our history started with theft and genocide and continued on in that vein. While there have obviously been improvements over the last few hundred years, large portions of the population have had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward every bit of it. Even most of our best presidents have been responsible for atrocities, and then the pendulum always seems to swing back toward the worst of us for a while.
Now we have a population that has been systematically under- or uneducated and fed a steady diet of propaganda about how incredible this country is without any critical thought, and they blame anyone not just like them for any of their problems instead of ever paying attention to the wealthy ransacking the place. The vast majority of them cannot be reasoned with, because Republicans have spent decades making sure they don’t have the skills or desire to look at new evidence and change their minds.
It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that at least a third of my fellow Americans don’t think I should exist as a queer person, and another third don’t give enough of a fuck to bother taking any kind of stand. It’s hard to watch every institution we’ve been assured would provide some kind of checks and balances fail as soon as someone decides they’re no longer going to abide by any norms. Any meaningful action is likely to end up in a lot of death and if I thought this was a bizarre one off instead of something way too many people are rooting for, it would be a lot easier to think that sacrifice was worth it. It feels pretty hopeless at this point. My only real motivation is trying to use the little bit of privilege I have to try to help my community, but I know it’s not enough.
It’s just really hard to comprehend for me. See, we get a new cancelor who is right wing, but would still be considered mild, maybe even Dem in US terms. And even I am active every single day. Especially before the elections. There is protests everywhere. Just a day ago a nazi leader decided to step down because of the huge counter protests.
And you sit there, literally watching picture perfect facism rise, and be like: “Ayo, watcha gonna do about it?!”
You are the forefront of the literal world to deny “Hitler but with a massive arsenal of mass destruction armory,” but you resignate. It’s insane.
There are massive protests all over the US. AOC/Bernie drawing huge crowds. Republicans chanting “tax the rich”.
Corporate media won’t give it the coverage it deserves, and mainstream social media will bury it with their algorithms. Because they’re all owned by the billionaires bowing to Trump.
They want you to feel like nobody’s doing anything. Remember that.
There are massive protests all over the US.
Hmmm are there? massive? I mean I know we all use that word lightly but “massive” they are not
AOC/Bernie drawing huge crowds
Yes, Americans love rallies… that is not a protest
Corporate media won’t give it the coverage it deserves, and mainstream social media will bury it with their algorithms. Because they’re all owned by the billionaires bowing to Trump.
While I agree with this, we can see car crashes happening in China… there are plenty of uncensored outlets that at least half the people of Lemmy would know to get/repost, etc. I have been asking for evidence of these protests myself for the last few weeks and I have not seen anything more than a couple dozen people by the doors of a Gov building… not even big enough for Police to be around
They want you to feel like nobody’s doing anything. Remember that.
Agreed… and the people of the USA are making that exceedingly easy by doing barely anything
Hmmm are there? massive? I mean I know we all use that word lightly but “massive” they are not
34,000 people for Sanders in Denver. Tell me with a straight face that this is a small number of people. “But relatively speaking-” hush. Big number is big.
…but yeah, pretty small compared to the number of people at, say, the Women’s March in 2017. I guess a lot of people learned a thing or two about what peaceful demonstrations can meaningfully accomplish against a police state. Still, nothing to sneeze at.
Yes, Americans love rallies… that is not a protest
Absolutely valid point here. The thing is, both Sanders and AOC have built their entire political careers on grassroots organizing, which is happening quietly alongside all the big speeches. Cory Doctorow has a good overview of this.
Sure, I’d much prefer to see spontaneous uprisings, but we’ve been in this hell for nearly a decade at this point. People are fucking burnt out. If AOC/Sanders is what it takes to bring in fresh blood, then so be it.
have been asking for evidence of these protests myself for the last few weeks and I have not seen anything more than a couple dozen people by the doors of a Gov building… not even big enough for Police to be around
Consider that sharing footage of a protest can put attendees in danger. Lots of emboldened brownshirt types would love to rat you out to the cops or your boss. Lemmy users are probably aware of this, which might be why you the only pics you see are from corporate media - those are already out there and a little traffic on Lemmy won’t make it much worse. See my original point about corporate media not covering the protests.
On that note: the people who showed up in 2017 and 2020 probably learnt this too. Maybe they’re now taking part in less visible/public actions that would be too dangerous to share indiscriminately? Who knows.
34,000 people for Sanders in Denver. Tell me with a straight face that this is a small number of people
No, I agree with you this is a large number (not huge considering the population of the USA but it’s a good amount)… the problem is that they went to a rally… I mean, it might as well be a concert. This is NOT a protest! If 30K people show up in DC or march somewhere, I would agree with you but they are just attending a rally
I regularly read about those huge crowds but anytime I check, it’s never more than 30.000 people. My country has less than a third of the US population and there were over a million protestors on the streets in one weekend because the center right voted with the far right on the same bill. There were over 80.000 people just in my city alone and our situation is not even remotely comparable to the things that have been happening in the USA.
I’m not trying to shit on anyone going out there to do something, but considering the circumstances it should be so much more. This is not an issue of the media not reporting enough. There were no huge reports ahead of the demonstrations in my country either. It just happened through social media and networking. After all that happened Americans are still not fed up enough. And if it doesn’t happen now, I’m not sure it ever will.
Its only 30k? You realize 2k were at the J6 insurrection? You can do a lot with 30k people in the right place at the right time, and thats the issue.
Not really the best example IMO. The J6 insurrection was a riot and not a demonstration. And it failed even though it was backed by the President.
It was an insurrection not a riot and it helped paint Trump as a victim which lead to his reelection. I wouldnt dismiss it as a failure at all.
AOC/Bernie drawing huge crowds
you’re aware that the democrats have enabled nearly all of trump’s agenda and neither bernie nor aoc are advocating for the democratic leadership to change course, right?
I think the “with a massive arsenal” is a big part of the problem for a lot of people. I am absolutely certain Trump, and most of his administration, wouldn’t think twice about using that arsenal against Americans. He would love that shit, frankly, and the vast majority of Republicans would cheer it on. Shit, they’re threatening to send people to El Salvador for misdemeanors because it’s hurting Elon’s fee-fees. How do you get people motivated to fight what feels like a completely futile battle when the danger isn’t really hypothetical and the odds of success are far from guaranteed?
Plenty of countries in similar states don’t rise up for many years because it takes that long for desperation to kick in, or there’s an initial fight that’s brutally put down and then those that are left put their heads down and focus on survival. Our first civil war happened on relatively even ground. This one would be so one-sided that it’s not even funny.
I don’t say this to discourage people or suggest we shouldn’t at least try to make a difference. But it is the reality and it’s something I’m struggling with. I don’t know how willing I am to die for a country I’m only sometimes welcome in.
Oh don’t you worry, the Americans will be out in full force (about 3 dozen people) about this, and they will be carrying their most sarcastic and passive-aggressive signs, and will be standing around in the most unapproving ways.
Take a look at big chungus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Cheung_(political_advisor)
Oh I’m here… maybe not for long tho…
Hmm what’s that? A knock on the door? ICE Agents?
Oh yea, btw I’m not white, so I’m fucked… 🤷♂️
Wow, I guess this is peak 2025. I know I’m calling it to early, but it can’t get much worse than this.
Right?
Right???
the bird flu epidemic hasn’t ground the US to a halt yet.
You motherfuckers better keep it to yourselves.
This is old school propaganda imagery
Looking at this image, every child could easily point out who’s evil here. Do they not see it?
They see it and they like it.
They are evil. You don’t get horns and cool red eyes when you turn evil. Mostly you stay the same!
Fun thing I’ve noticed, evil people even seem to live longer. They don’t stress about it when others suffer, they laugh. And laughter… Is the best medicine.
Dunno man. There’s a reason why the best comedians are left leaning.
The best comedians have an excess of empathy. The best conservatives barely have any.
Also musicians and artists in general.
Yeah, because punching down isn’t funny
punching down is synonymous with bigotry
I’ve noticed that cancer seems to be really good at killing decent people, so my solution is that every time someone nice dies of cancer we should go out and round up five or six total shitheads, throw them into a volcano, and say they died of cancer.
The fascists don’t care. They will happily rub it into your face how much they can do something you cannot. It’s a feature of fascism, not a bug.
A Hungarian fascist told me how all gay people will be pedophiles in his eyes no matter what, while he himself groomed his wife from the age of 16.
I saved you a click. I didn’t believe this post was real and I went to find it on X. It’s real and I’m sad for all Americans.
Seriously what kind of soulless creep goes for this shit, not to mention thinks it’s fun to post? Oh right, MAGA.
It makes a white dude that’s a real drain on society and his family feel superior, like he’s winning. Don’t make me whip out the Johnson.
This photo breaks my heart. Like what the actual fuck???
If it makes you feel better, that hand has 7 fingers so it’s probably AI.
At least a human didn’t draw it
It’s AI. The trend du jour is uploading a picture to ChatGPT and asking it to recreate it in Studio Ghibli style.
it does not
6 fingers and 1 thumb
Hey, chill. It’s just a cartoon.
/s
So maybe to unbreak it just a little, the picture is some AI drawing of an actual woman, a convicted fentanyl trafficker. I just don’t understand why the cartoon.
They memeing.
I don’t understand the downvotes. There’s plenty to criticize the USA government for. This just isn’t one of those moments.
It’s even a bad image for their intended purpose, because it evokes empathy for the person crying in handcuffs.
I guess since the person making it and the philistine machine that produced it both have no understanding of empathy nor art, that was lost on the generators of this image.
It does for you. For the intended audience, it makes them cheer and jeer at the ‘stupid brown woman’ ‘finally getting her comeuppance’ for ‘daring to disrespect the flag by being an illegal’.
They have no sympathy or empathy. They want to see PoC crying in chains as they are led off by white officers. To them, that means the system is working.
Seems like a bad art style to convey that message to anyone except the most hardened of fascists – which is almost a more succinct wording of my original point.
You’ve missed out on the last several decades of Republican rhetoric, tears of “their enemies” is exactly what they want. They know they’re the bad guys and revel in it.
This isn’t like tears of their enemies though, it just evokes empathy. I haven’t cried in a long time, don’t cry often, and didn’t cry about this image. It’s just a sad image.
It’s close to actual reality, where a lady probably previously working in a kitchen in a hairnet is sad that she’s being deported, and some villainous, stone-faced everyman tries to look tough while standing in front of a flag.
Usually they add in some fascist elements that make it look more glorious to be a sack of shit, but they didn’t even do that with this image.
They don’t have empathy. The crying lady is brown, they’re ecstatic.
Yeah. It’s white, military authority literally standing on the side of the flag. They’re crying because they’re being handcuffed “probably because they’re gonna be sent back to their shithole country cuz they came here illegal.”
Perhaps you think this is more empathetic because of the art style but this is rote, flag-hugger imagery. Except this was probably produced by bot and the poster was too lazy to run the gen more than twice.
Not many people with empathy are left on Xitter, I suppose.
If you hate your mental health, you can use Nitter to read the replies to that post. Just the most sickening shit imaginable.
Nah I’m good, I bailed on that site as soon as it was sold.
For them, crying is a mark of their weakness and hypocrisy. It’s laughable to them and adds to their sadistic joy.
The only war is class war! Immigrants are hard working people who deserve a path to citizenship. The parasite class is the tech bro oligarchs!
We need to take the class war to the streets. This shit isn’t going to stop. Look how quickly they panicked about a couple of Teslas self immolating. Direct action works, the time for peaceful noncompliance is over.
Bro take me back to my timeline i don’t like it here
Hayao Miyazaki: I don’t think there’s anything that could make me despise the US more than I already do.
The US:
Jesus, they really do ruin absolutely everything they touch. It’s like Midas but even worse.
Mierdas
El Rey Mierdas…
Toque de Merda in portuguese (Touch of Mierda)
Yeah I was going for “shit king” in spanish. But it checks 😆
🥇
I don’t understand what they thought this image would do? Except make people more upset.
When people say the cruelty is the point they really mean it. MAGA fascists consider this satisfying. If it makes people upset that’s even better. Imagine these people as highschool bullies. That’s really all there is to it.
MAGA and fascism are not simple bullying. They are not “politics”. They are a mental illness epidemic.
These people have had their logic corrupted, like a neurological virus. They can’t explain Trumps policies or what he’s done to benefit them. They don’t even care. They just have “faith” in the closest thing to Satan they’ll ever see, for absolutely no reason they can logically explain. They are insane, and a danger to society.
They want to show how tuff white cops are when they attack somebody’s mom.
Why would they arrest the lunch lady?
Probably because she was a drugs dealer, and illegal in the USA. That tends to be an arrestable offense.
On top of all the actual fascist shit happening and yet to happen but about to, cherry on top, can you imagine?
Miyazaki is alive to see this happen.
Fucking. Imagine.
