77 million / 155 million eligible voters.

this is what the ultra wealthy made them want. the lumpen’s desires are as manufactured as the hot cheeto dust caked upon their lips.

Now, say it all together class:

FUCK.

THE.

OLIGARCHY.

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Political parties won’t help us

Corporations won’t help us

Government won’t help us

We have to help each other.

I believe people who study public opinion about science have noted that confidence drops during outbreaks and epidemics… if that’s the case, Covid does stand out to me as the first time in my life when laypeople began misusing and misunderstanding science at scale, loudly and as part of their proclaimed identity.

makes sense that when a story of global 24/7 proportions eclipses all other news for 2+years straight, that it would become politicized and weaponized in the culture. our winner-takes-all first-past-the-post lesser-of-two-evils duopoly political system, combined with news as entertainment, and now we have folks that have made anti science their entire fucking identity.

Carl Sagan refered to it as The Demon Haunted World (good book btw). Goya criticized it in his paintings. the Catholics burned people at the stakes because of it.

History repeats; reactionary political/theological movements help ensure that it does.

most people aren’t aware that Air Traffic Controllers are forced to retire at 55. no old, slow reaction employees allowed.

when Reagan fired thousands of ATCs in the 80s, then hired and trained all new scabs, he inadvertently created an enormous cohort who would all be retiring at around the same time due to forced retirement.

fast forward to today,

• thousands of ATCs were aging out and being replaced with less experienced people (less of a prob now than 10ish yrs ago but still staffing is extremely lean due to Reagan)
• add to that the obsolete legacy tracking tech
• add to that cost saving (corner cutting) by aerospace corps like Boeing
• add to that major dysfunction in pilot training, screening out baddies, inexperienced pilots, and dissatisfied airline workers and unions
• add to that Trump administration purges and demoralization of federal workers
• add to that Musk getting his SpaceX cronies hands all over the system to make ‘upgrades’

data nerds can point to historical accident statistics from the past 20 years up to what, 2020? all you like. trend lines don’t often accurately predict the future, they merely describe the past.

I recommend thinking twice before placing all your loved ones on a plane over the next couple years. there’s going to be more of this.

collapse is almost definitely coming. I for one accept it though and believe there’s a low probability of a silver lining outcome for a small number of survivors to build something new after society as we know it comes crashing down.

post collapse Earth will be irrevocably different from the one we inhabit today, but it won’t be all bad. i suspect not everyone will suffer the same fate from war, famine, or catastrophes. humans inhabit every corner and valley of this immense planet and not every place will be made uninhabitable for everyone, simultaneously.

those who decouple from capitalism now and work towards a different kind of society, might fare better. it will be challenging, brutal, and at times exhausting for sure. but at least the orphan crushing machine we know today will finally come to a grinding stop.

bingo. to those accustomed to a lifetime of privilege, equality feels like oppression.

that’s an important (yet debatable) prediction. historically, in subsistence based economies where more farmhands=more food I think that’s been true. and holds true up to the point where costs of living don’t exceed net household wages (picture Dickens era chimney sweep kids laboring for a pittance).

what’s interesting is that it’s not true AT ALL for any other species in nature, only humans in the post ~1800s era have developed a seeming unlimited capability to secure more food for their young. wild deer populations naturally reduce themselves when food is scarce, but humans found a cheat code to growing forever.

hard to say. but it’s worth mentioning that although the doubling time for population has been contracting since 1800, it now appears to have flattened and is reversing direction.

maybe more accurate to compare say, fewer people choosing to have children vs fewer kids surviving to adulthood and what conditions contribute more to each

spineless cowards, all of them.

facts.

sadly though, even if they stop one thing, they will not stop em all. he’s setting a precedent every future President king of America will use to further the agenda of the ruling class (unless an FDR figure emerges to redirect that power at wealth redistribution).

the president may in fact now be a king and both parties (one party really - the ultra rich) has either actively enabled or done almost nothing to dismantle executive authority since at least Reagan.

the monarchists won control of the country, backed by corporatist billionaires. time will tell if it’s reversible or even salvageable. might be wise to begin building the figurative life rafts.

our only hope at this point is probably

1. people globally deciding to have fewer and fewer children due to rapidly deteriorating standards of living paired with rising inequality (no one will be able to afford kids let alone a home or healthcare)

2. perpetual multi-crises and climate catastrophes disrupting supply chains and halting economic growth/consumption

3. global economic collapse due to war, mass refugee migration, reshaping of national borders in a race to extract dwindling reserves of precious minerals and ore, also resulting in plummeting per capita consumption and/or birthrate

4. all of the above in a self-reinforcing feedback loop

… fuck, this was supposed to be the hopeful scenario. smh, we live in interesting times.

no, i do not mean Hollywood… that’s weird… why would anyone think corporate media means what, marvel movies?

I’m talking about Time Warner, Sinclair, CNN, Netflix, Comcast, Amazon, NBC, Fox, every single source of online professionally written articles, video segments, the evening news, and mainstream platform owned by someone with a net worth exceeding $1 billion dollars. the corporate media, ya know, the ones who manufacture the consent as described in “Manufacturing Consent” or a dozen different media criticism books available at your local library or on youtube (if you prefer).

I’m hoping that too. either way, I’m not advocating hopelessness or doomerism. I’ll be working harder than ever this year to decouple my life from corporations and govt reliance. community building, strengthening friendships, helping others when I can. it’s going to be a long road ahead and we won’t survive as isolated individuals.

I don’t think you realize just how long it takes to hire federal employees, or reconstitute entire agencies (like CFPB).

tens of thousands of people forced out, thousands of research grants and projects canceled, hundreds of programs stifled…

this is the end of the federal government as we know it, and it will take a generation (20+ yrs) of back to back Democrat administrations to rebuild it. that’s not going to happen.

the oligarchs won dude. kids growing up today will never know how much has been lost. the corporate media will make sure all they know is ‘we’ve always been at war with eastasia’’

Rest In Piss

(not a financial advisor) unless you’re making orders of magnitude more money than the rest of us plebs on Lemmy, you don’t get taken to jail for minor tax evasion. you just get a bill at most a couple grand. at this point I’m starting to think millions of Americans should consider the option, even as as form of protest against an injust tyrannical government.

As much as I agree, it will take things getting a lot worse before people do anything like that.

agree completely. we are as a nation and as a community too desperate or complacent to ‘take to the streets’ at this point. until fascism and austerity reaches one’s own doorsteps, most will wait and see and carry on with their boring daily routines.

that said, it will gradually change though, already has. it’s reached the doorstep of more people today than it did 10 years ago. what will be your personal breaking point? what is your neighbors breaking point? no one knows. I for one won’t be sitting back doing nothing until then. it’s time to talk to the neighbors friends and family and decide in advance as a community what we’re going to do before they drain us dry or drag off grandpa for re-education at Guantanamo.

A lot of the most heavily armed

sounds to me like we shouldn’t wait around for those guys to wake up. maybe some of us on the left should arm ourselves instead?

if 10,000 people in a stadium are shouting “Fuck Shit Up! Fuck Shit Up!” it gives that 1/10000th person in the crowd -courage- perhaps even a primal ‘permission’ to ya know, Fuck Shit Up.

if an old lady is standing outside a burning building on the sidewalk and pointing up at a window says “someone should do something”, you wouldn’t start yelling at her to shut up and intellectualizing how she has no right to tell others what to do. in fact, you telling her that makes you worse than her. she’s at least encouraging action while you advocate…what? silence?

scolding others who SAY the right thing, because you’re unhappy they should DO the right thing (themselves) is peak hypocrisy/braindead logic and misapprehends basic group psychology and the nature of humans as social mammals that yes, god forbid, do need some encouragement from the crowd sometimes before taking action.

no one is volunteering anyone else… we’re telegraphing to the person who finally does take action that we approve of their decision to act.

Crooks happened July 13. Vance was announced running mate July 15. No candidate = no running mate announced.

Also, when the presidential candidate is removed from a race, it does not automatically fall to the their running mate. there is no 25th amendment for election campaigns 🤦