• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I can assure you that in the US a presidential paramilitary invading cities that are overwhelmingly white and shooting citizens in the face live on social media is indeed a new phenomenon.

    • Marquesas@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Sort of. Miller has been involved in developing and test running the concept on years, see Hungary (field test of the fearmongering populism + the “Mike Johnson” special - we had “don’t know, wasn’t there, didn’t hear about it, ask someone else” press conference memes like 12 years ago) and other examples. Definitely involved to some degree with Fico and Putin, and to a lesser extent, Babis, Meloni and Simion. They weren’t sure they could get away with it last time Trump was up there, although if my memory serves, national guard was deployed due to maybe BLM?

      I mean really, it’s shocking how fast it ramped up but I cannot say that I’m truly surprised it did happen, and if I look back at the people involved in it, it seems more like a gentle increase of the knob than a sudden twist. It’s also just that the higher you are on the dial, the closer together are the red lines.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        I mean really, it’s shocking how fast it ramped up but I cannot say that I’m truly surprised it did happen, and if I look back at the people involved in it, it seems more like a gentle increase of the knob than a sudden twist. It’s also just that the higher you are on the dial, the closer together are the red lines.

        Yeah I wouldn’t say I’m surprised, and I wouldn’t say it’s entirely “UnPReCEDenTeD” or anything, but it is new and different in terms of scope, brazenness, and certainly technology. We’ve struggled with periods of waxing and waning fascism and fascist-like governance for practically the entire history of the country. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed into law when the country was less than two decades old. But this is still shocking, smothering, abhorrent and a departure from even ten years ago.

        The argument that the US is or was always like this and could only be like this is, in my view, made intentionally to paralyze and further demoralize those of us in the US who wake to a fresh, new hell on a daily basis.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      They’re a .ml user, you’re not going to get much in the way of a nuanced and intelligent reply focused on solutions.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Yeah I get it, but I just grow tired of the argument – and it doesn’t solely come from .ml users but is broadly-speaking a tiring recurrent Internet argument – that nothing ever changes and that everything has always been like this even when it obviously and provably has not.

        • 7101334@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I mean the government was hiring Pinkertons to do drive-bys on the camps of mostly-white miners. White privilege is important in America, but if it’s a showdown between that and the interests of capital, capital will win every time.

          Trump also ordered the extrajudicial execution of a white man, Michael Reinoehl, in his first term. I have no idea why no one ever talks about that.

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Trump also ordered the extrajudicial execution of a white man, Michael Reinoehl, in his first term. I have no idea why no one ever talks about that.

            Because we continue to pretend that the police and military always act lawfully, unless there’s incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

            Even with that the news media continues to couch the video of the murders of Good and Pretti as “appearing to show” things and provides ample room on their platforms for people to lie and copagandize the American public.

            • 7101334@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              I mean yeah, agreed of course, but I don’t even see if frequently mentioned by people who are aware of what’s really going on.

              Guess there have been a lot of corpses produced by America in recent decades and… for its entire existence before then too. Too much trauma to keep up with all of it I guess. Remember when Boeing melted a guy’s lungs and nothing happened? Land of the free, rock flag and eagle.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Oh absolutely, the “nothing ever happens” pool of nihilistic, cynical young turds are a huge non-movement-movement. I am not sure what satisfaction people get from discouraging change to systems that they hate, the only thing I can imagine is it’s some form of self-hatred being projected outward.

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            What is interesting is at its root, it’s basically a reactionary argument.

            (From Hirschman’s “The Rhetoric of Reaction” pg. 167) http://pombo.free.fr/hirschman91.pdf

            Reactionary: The contemplated action attempts to change permanent structural characteristics (“laws”) of the social order; it is therefore bound to be wholly ineffective, futile.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              I’ll tuck this away to read before bed, I absolutely believe most of our societal problems come from a segment of the population who have a different mental state for dealing with feelings, IE: reactionary feelings dictating what is going on in their head-narratives, and the people who exploit this by supplying these people a narrative to explain their reactions.

    • pucker4676@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      It’s only fine when the US is terrorizing other countries, right?

      Bring the garbage to our streets and I’ll be forced to make a sign to convey my feelings outrage.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Never said anything like that pal o’ friend of mine. But you are forced to be ever the contrarian like a good 'lil .ml guy, so I understand.