Skip Navigation

User banner
InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)K
Posts
0
Comments
56
Joined
3 wk. ago

  • Totally agree about the USA and Democrats. Dr. Phil is that inhuman "Third Line", hating people in what Democrats and Republicans alike saw as the "right" ways. He's the worst type of monster, because he preys on the most vulnerable under the guise of "morality"; using his technically-valid title and the fame and money he has to exploit more kids for more fame and money.

    It didn't start in the "90s". This is the way the USA - hell, Western Catholic civilization - has always been. Dr. Phil embodies the head of a "crisis pregnancy" center that guilt-trips a young woman seeking abortion; the leader of the gay-erasure teen retreat; the priest that tells a young boy to keep quiet; the hospital doctor that holds an unwilling patient under a "protection" law; the Karen who requests a "wellness check" on their neighbors of color; the prison medic who sterilizes an unconscious indigenous woman; the suburban moms shrieking "For The Children"; the dentist signing their patients up for a "Care Credit" card while they're under anesthesia. Cruelty under the guise of kindness; wiping its hands clean on the letter of the law.

  • Dr. Phil is a really good example of the wider societal problem in the USA that created Trump. The fact that this man was allowed to have a prime-time TV show on mainstream network, instead of being universally shunned, was clear proof there was something deeply wrong with this country pre-2015.

    This man's initial wealth came from running a membership scheme at a Spa; he then surrendered his license because he refuses to follow "Continuing Education" courses and follow ethics guidelines, so he could focus on his show of humiliating and mocking traumatized and mentally disabled kids; then trafficking them to plantations, on which he was involved with a reality TV show. Dr. Phil is a sick monster of a man, and by all means deserves everything horrible that happens to him; if not for being an ICE Nazi, then for abusing more kids than states' loudest pro-Trump pastors.

  • I had actually researched both types of genital mutilation and "corrective" mutilation of intersex folks; and totally agree with what you're saying. I didn't mean to justify FGM in any capacity. I can't speak to the effects of MGM or FGM exactly, but I find the idea of mutilating the genitals of someone unable to consent for aesthetic or "religious" reasons absolutely vile. I wasn't trying to pick favorites here. I would not want FGM to be legal, even if MGM remained legal; or vise-versa.

  • I've felt this constant obnoxious condescending attitude from the "No Kings" posts that feels a lot like I'm being talked down to; coupled with adding words like PEACEFUL in ALL CAPS and pre-emptively broadcasting that they will not fight back no matter what.

    Statements like that are so confidently unaware (or willfully ignoring) of that actual danger that we are all in. They're screaming, publicly, that their movement will not fight back, which is just inviting police and federal agent abuse. The constant messaging to remain "PEACEFUL" and that "WE WILL NOT ENGAGE" (again - all caps) very much echos how liberal Democrats in Congress are downplaying this fascist takeover.

    These voices act like holding a No Kings protest will just force Trump to stop by their popularity, like it's a vote where 3% of the population showing up means MAGA gets de-facto stopped. They ignore that the 3% figure comes from movements that did not openly brand themselves "PEACEFUL" and tell members "WE WILL NOT ENGAGE". It feels like it's being led by people who learned about Martin Luther King Jr. but never the Black Panthers.

    That said, I've been to events and and will go to this month's event on October 18th, as a recruiting opportunity for a local group, but I don't deal with the actual march, and I'm not blindly following orders from some rando with a megaphone.

  • fully agreed. I think the link for the "law enforcement surveillance" is broken. It just takes to a removed Bluesky "hashtag" for "NoKings"

  • USAmerican here. When was Silicon Valley good? It certainly was not during my lifetime. Mark Zuckerberg was spying on us well before the Trump administration. I recall watching Zuckerberg being made to testify by a panel of representatives in 2018 for actions well before the 2016 election. Well before the Crypto bubble and modern AI bubble, there was the dot com bubble. And these other leaders mentioned in the piece -- Bill Gates, Elon Musk... they were in Silicon Valley well before the 21st century. Silicon Valley corporations were among the earliest working to strip product ownership with all-encompassing legal agreements and forced arbitration. It's not that Silicon Valley "lost its way"; it Got it's way.

  • I find these articles so irritating. They sound so tone-deaf, throwing around clinical terms to say people are sad, while refusing to even consider any solutions.

    I wish they'd stop all this "mental health" fluff that is just toxic positivity or a call for it; but if the people were talking amongst themselves instead of getting shepherded into 1-on-1 counseling, they people might go from "I'm feeling sad" to "this world makes us sad" and change things!! oohohooooo so scary!! :O

  • fully agreed, but I will note that "corrective" genital mutilation on intersex folks is still very much a thing.

  • female genital mutilation was practiced in the USA, and thankfully banned, for the same reasons male genital mutilation should be.

  • I've been trying to do what I can in this time, online and IRL. It is really disorienting living in this nation, not knowing what's working or what's not; or what the situation is going to look like in a week or two. So many assumptions that I had of basic protections and securities are just Gone. I genuinely do not recognize or understand the people or systems around me anymore.

    At least if we're doing something it's changing the scenario. It's not like things could get much worse. "rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep" ~Tipu Sultan

  • Absolutely agree on refusing to stay ignorant. I do not ever want to forget this time or let myself slip into that willful naivety.

    For me one moment that shocked me was the overturning of Roe v. Wade (USA abortion protections) by Dobbs. When that decision leaked early, I was nauseous, and kept checking the internet to see it debunked, only to see more proofs of authenticity. Then, watching as the protests stopped, energy trickled down, and life just.. continued. Afterwards, I retreated into being a hikikomori for several years. That core right had been given, then taken away, and the people around me just moved on.

  • I'm just praying the anti-circumcision guys are gonna get their win. I'd be so happy for them... Marc, Steve, Matt... y'all always brighten my day when I see you on the street corner. (Seriously I'd like to see the USA stop its ritual genital mutilation though..)

  • oh, yeah, of course Musk's companies go on there.. and I saw a few things about Oracle's surveillance efforts.

  • I'll confess this was me and now is me. Trump got elected when I was middle school-aged. I really, really believed that was the low point, and for the rest of my life, the USA would get better. I believed the USA population was just ill-informed, and I did not expect this global rise of fascism and digital surveillance. I assumed people would never vote to strip away freedoms if they knew that was going to happen. I assumed the internet would always stay anonymous, and always be a free space.

    Obviously there was an immense amount I did not know about. I had heard of the Trail of Tears and Slavery and the Civil War, but I didn't grasp institutionalized racism beyond police brutality; didn't realize the Left was losing the internet, didn't recognize the danger of the manosphere; didn't understand how wide-spread the propaganda campaigns were, didn't grasp that billionaires and centi-millionaires would want fascism, and would enact it across the Western world.

    When Kamala announced her campaign, I deemed her president. Every step of that campaign, as the Republicans careened more extremist-right I became more certain that even their party members would deem them insane. I knew people were struggling financially under Biden, but, that guy's holding signs reading "MASS DEPORTATIONS", has two moronic side-kicks (Musk and Vance), and his term was filled with economic hardship. Also, Jan 6th, 2021.

    In hindsight I'm ashamed of my naive optimism. I'd beat myself up for it more, if I wasn't living in the middle of my personalized hell.

  • Benny Johnson is a serious prolific MAGA influencer that has been invited out by the administration to cover Alligator Auschwitz in Florida. Benny's podcast was also why Jimmy Kimmel's show got suspended - a member of this Republican administration made a veiled threat about Kimmel on Benny's podcast and that is why Disney took the show down.

  • What happened to "Don't share your real identity online"? Oh.. Social Media.

  • Well before the UK online ID laws, I saw some memes about people getting asked for ID as proof of age for NSFW servers, just to send to server admins. I figured it was a ID fraud scheme of some sort, but now I'd chalk it up to manic "protect the children" believers.