The buck doesn't start and stop inside the treasury. Most of this money was going somewhere, and people can fact check things like the actual terms of government contracts, past expenditures, congressional budgets, etc.

The real problem - as is always the case in this Age of Disinformation - is that the process of verifying facts takes time, while the process of producing lies is instant and constant.

They also intentionally frame a really bad thing as a "good" thing. The situation here is not that the "rich" run the economy - it's that everyone else is being priced out of the economy by wage stagnation and rising costs of living.

The alternate headline here is "wealth inequality surges, 90% of Americans now account for only 50% of consumer spending"

Or

"1 in 10 Americans spending as much as the other 9 combined, while 3 of them live paycheck to paycheck"

People earning 6 digits a year are still one bad accident or diagnosis away from losing their jobs and living in poverty. They're not the root problem or the solution to the economy, and this article is trying to paint them as both.

Instead we need to acknowledge that the people "earning" 8-10 digits per year are extracting and hoarding that money away from the 90% of Americans who would otherwise be spending it in ways that would actually improve the economy.

It's not clear to me who or what is directly responsible for this, but do you really think the American Agency for Making Sure Planes Don't Crash isn't involved when an American Plane Crashes... just because it happened somewhere else?

Has it all been futile? Have I wasted ten years fighting the same fascists my grandfather fought in WW2?

You didn't waste your time any more than he wasted his. Plenty of people died fighting without seeing victory on the horizon. If WW2 had ended differently, it still wouldn't have been a waste of time fighting Nazis. You can't always win, but you can always fight.

Martial law would be devastating but no matter how well-funded they are, the American defense industry is bloated, mismanaged, and full of flawed humans. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, even Ukraine - all prove that defeat is far from guaranteed against what appears to be an unstoppable force.

But to tell the truth, I am struggling to figure out how to fight at this stage. Messaging, communication, organization - these appear sparse and unreliable right now, drowned out in the sea of disinformation. What will bring us together? Do we need heros to rally around? Martyrs to avenge? Slogans to shout? Organizations to unite? Platforms to coordinate? All of the above?

Three things are true:

1. People seek attention, and often lie to get it.
2. Seeking attention is not unique to GenZ. People screamed for attention in Pompeii and Ancient Greece, leaving graffiti on the walls and yelling arguments at strangers
3. Many symptoms of neurodivergence appear at first glance to be typical to the human condition. This is not a coincidence - neurodivergents are human, and therefore face many of the same problems that neurotypical humans do.

_

The reason autism and other disorders are evaluated as a spectrum is because the human condition itself is a spectrum of experience. We are not simple creatures.

The reason people are diagnosed with a disorder is often because they have landed somewhere on the spectrum of human experience that involves an abnormal level of difficulty when faced with "normal" challenges.

Simple or routine tasks, time management, emotional regulation, conversation - humans universally face normal challenges in these areas at times, but neurodivergent individuals face greater challenges at higher frequencies, to the point where it can be classified as a "symptom" because it directly interferes with their life in a way that is not statistically normal - it produces unhealthy levels of stress or emotional instability, impairs social and professional engagements, interferes with their ability to reason or achieve their own desires, etc. etc.

These symptoms can often be managed or treated. Just as often, they can only be coped with.

In short, "invisible" symptoms, masking, misdiagnosis, and societal misunderstandings all contribute to this very common idea that the average neurodivergent is just an attention seeker.

Is it likely that you have come across someone who has incorrectly self-diagnosed? Absolutely. People will lie on the internet. People will lie to your face. People will lie to themselves.

But it is also incredibly likely that you have come across people with severe symptoms that you had absolutely no understanding of. People who have been driven to the brink of suicide because they couldn't manage their own mind, people who can convince you they are okay but can't convince themselves.

It's a goddamn spectrum, and people who can't function at all belong on it just as much as people who can mask, treat, or cope with their symptoms enough to blend in. You don't get to write off their existence just because their struggles aren't obvious to you.

Yet another unnecessary accelerationist in a world where the brakelines were cut years ago and the bus has been speeding up all on its own.

"I can fend for myself" is the extremely naive thought that cut those brakes. No human is an island, and everyone is connected to everyone, past and present.

And "good, they should suffer because they deserve it" is the extremely evil thought that placed the brick on the accelerator. It's the same thought that drives decisions like defunding healthcare.

So, congrats on being a part of the problem. Enjoy cheering for the suffering of humanity.

Since at least Reagan, we’ve gutted those services to those who need it. Just wish it wasn’t these assholes filling that void.

They're not filling that void. Their broad antagonism towards all things healthcare and science makes that painfully clear. A vague idea about "wellness" on a "farm" that is really just forced labor is not healthcare reform, it's a threat of violence.

I mean, being a manufacturing-based economy certainly didn’t keep oligarchs at bay in the early 1900’s US. On the flip side, a coder or a banker can strike just as well as a machinist.

It certainly did work against the oligarchs. Most of our labor laws, OSHA, etc were written in the blood of workers of the early 1900s. Blair mountain, steel workers, mass unionization... the oligarchs learned a lot of painful lessons that lead to massive quality of life improvements across the country.

Blue collar workers have to show up or nothing gets done. Their work happens in a physical location that can be picketed, and they all need to live close enough to that location to show up for work. The money of their employers is literally in the hands of blue collar workers on the job. Materials and bodies need to move in and out every single day or no money can be made that day.

The information, service, and gig economy does not run on the same principles. An Ubereats driver has never even seen his "employer" and the only real qualification is a drivers license. Coders can be fired or replaced with H1B's or overseas contractors, and they often work remotely or in local satellite offices that the C-suite sees once a year. Physical bank locations are not headquarters or vaults - they're sales floors for offering loans and credit cards.

None of these people can physically stop their employer from making money, and so they have much less power in the employer-employee relationship than traditional labor forces had until now.

People managed

A lot of them died young...

You can still live your life

You can't live your life without healthcare if you die young. What are you even trying to say here?

Reveddit seems to be a useful workaround but of course you'll see all the removed content as well

You don't get to use your identity as a defense against being called an asshole. Anyone can be a bigot. You talk about people who you claim to identify with like they're deviant, lesser, and worthy of oppression. It's not about fucking pronouns and you know it. You openly admit you want these people to suffer.

You're a bigoted asshole and don't belong in any community that relies on inclusion. Goodbye.

I used to live in a city. Doesn’t matter where I live, the queer community is only accepting of a certain kind of queer. Which I’m not.

You do not get to paint the whole community like this. The community is only accepting of a certain kind of person: the kind of person that accepts and supports the community.

You're not doing that. You're stirring shit up, acting like some members of the community haven't earned their place, and throwing around some extremely inappropriate stereotypes like your alleged experience is indicative of the community as a whole.

You want to be homophobic and stereotype people like this, and you want to be transphobic and dismiss their struggles up to now as "having it too easy"?

And you fucking come around saying they deserve to be oppressed? They "have it coming" because they "wouldn't listen to their elders"? You want them to be oppressed?

Then you're absolutely right. You're not the kind of person the community accepts. Get the fuck out.

It seems more to me like the TQ wants to rid themselves of the LGB with their pronoun tirades and temper tantrums.

Woah, hey, what the fuck? Here I thought you were having a sincere overreaction but no, this is all just transphobia, and possibly homophobia. You're basically ranting about the whole community being non-monogamous? Sexually deviant?

"Terminally online whiny piss babies"? You want to reject the community? You think they've all just had it easy? You live a "lonely rural life" and think you can talk about how people have had it easy? Paint the whole community red like that but it's okay if you say "(at least by me)"?

Transgender people have had it easy?

Absolutely not with this shit, I do not give you any more benefits of the doubt or good faith. You are hitting all the bigot talking points regardless of what you identify as.

You do not get to divide the community at a time like this. Trying to stir shit up and turn LGB on TQ and vice versa, yeah, you need to GTFO.

Blaming any victim for their oppression is wrong.

I'm sorry but that is the end of this conversation. You want to blame people for their own oppression. You are not speaking as their ally, you are speaking as their enemy.

Great. So, you think your fellow community members have a behavioral problem, and you're blaming them for their impending oppression. Again, not the words of an ally. To them, or to anyone in the community.

Blaming any victim for their oppression is wrong. Especially if you know what it's like to be oppressed. It's not their fault, and how dare you suggest that it is.

You think they're disrespecting their elders and they don't know how good they have it? Do you genuinely not see a problem here? Have you ever heard someone say anything like that and thought "hmm, actually they have a point"? Especially when you don't actually know how good they've had it?

I’m saying that since they want to fake being oppressed so hard they should get a taste of what real oppression feels like.

This is your problem. You need to face it. Those are not the words of an ally. Saying that a member of your community deserves to feel the same oppression you did? Absolutely not. You are not speaking as their ally, you are speaking as their enemy.

You've got a lot of "kids these days don't know how good they have it!" energy, and it's really not helping you here or anywhere.

Seriously, you're complaining about these people fighting all the wrong battles, but here you are still fighting in that exact battle? In your eyes, they're wasting their time turning on each other... but here you are screaming at them and about them? Do you think the things you are saying in this thread will prevent discrimination and violence? Do you think you're changing minds?

I understand you're rightfully pissed off about a lot of things. But you really are drawing a line in your life and saying "I struggled. They didn't. They don't have the right to question me. Which isn't necessarily true and also isn't a very productive line of reasoning.

A lot of great answers here, but one issue stands out as the most important: time. There isn't enough time for anyone else to pick up the slack for the promises the US has already made. People across the world are depending on those supplies, and many of them won't survive long enough for another country to step in and provide them.

Even the ones that will survive will face long-term consequences. Malnutrition and lapses in medical care aren't just short-term or isolated problems. Suddenly pausing treatments for tuberculosis patients doesn't just mean the patient can suffer and die - it also means TB can repopulate in their bodies, develop resistance like any bacteria exposed to but not cured by antibiotics, and that patient can spread more drug-resistant strains of TB to others. (Credit to John Green). More drug-resistant TB anywhere in the world is going to be a problem for people everywhere.