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lemmy.ml

GreatGrapeApe , to memes in sToP pOsTiNg pOliTicAl mEmEs!!!

Please post more political memes particularly about non-US politics.

iorale ,

deleted_by_author

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  • Barbarian ,
    @Barbarian@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Ce drăcie grăit-ai despre mine, mojicule? Țiu să-ți aduc întru știință căci fusei întîiul din Școala de Rezboiu de la Viana și fusei în multe misii neștiute la Înalta Poartă și pre mulți am prăpădit. Sînt școlit în rezboi de vicleșug și niminea nu mînuiește mai acătări ca mine archebusul în toată armia cea sfîntă. Mi-ești dară numai o șaibă. Te voi mătrăși cu atîta pricepere ce n-a văzut întreg Stambulul, ascultă voroavele mele. Îți închipui că vei rămîne slobod dupe ereziile ce mi le grăiești pre ceastă jalbă? Rogu-te a chibzui iară. Numai ce vorbim de am trimes soli către iscoadele mele din țările rumâne iară copita murgului tău e taman vegheată așa că proptește-te întru viforul ce-are să vină, mamelucule. Viforul ce-are să spîrcuiască nimicnicia ce tu găsești de cuviință a numi vieață. Ești pristăvit, mojicule. Poci ca să fiu orișiunde, fieștecînd și poci a te stropși în șapte sute de chipuri, iară asta doar în brînci. Iată că nu doar ce sînt înalt școlit în trîntă, dară poci umbla la armurăria dorobanților și am să mă slujesc de dînsa întru totul pentru a-ți nimici șezutul de pe fața gliei, zamparagiule. O, numai de-ai fi vezuit ce amărăciune vei fi ispitit asupra-ți cu ceastă şăgalnică cuvîntare, pasămite ai fi muțit. Dară nu-ți fu în putință, n-ai cadaticsit, iară acum vei da tribut, nărodule. Iată voi slobozi urgie asupra-ți și de îndată te vei năbuși într-însa. Ești pristăvit, mojicuțule.

    Grayox OP ,
    @Grayox@lemmy.ml avatar
    kamenlady ,
    @kamenlady@lemmy.world avatar

    ola small dickie?

    Facebones ,

    Reported

    betheydocrime ,

    I have no idea what this says but based on length and wall-of-text-ness, I’m willing to bet it’s the navy seal copypasta

    Barbarian ,
    @Barbarian@sh.itjust.works avatar

    That’s exactly what it is :))

    It’s an archaic Romanian navy seals copypasta featuring the christian vs Islamic wars and a bunch of weird shit from that period.

    Afrazzle ,

    Damn too bad there’s no countries other than the US that speak English.

    be_excellent_to_each_other ,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    Is someone stopping people from doing so?

    Grayox OP ,
    @Grayox@lemmy.ml avatar

    I’ll try to watch some world news and see if i can find anything meme worthy. America is just so easy to meme, its low hanging fruit really.

    JGrffn ,

    The internet IS very US-centric, so this is kinda true, but it’s also very easy to abuse and bore people out. I’m Honduran and I know more about US Politics than about my country’s own politics. I know more about US politics than I do about every other country. This is not a flex, it’s a fucking burden on my mind and mental health.

    I kinda liked how Lemmy wasn’t too US-centric at first, but I’m feeling similar levels of burnout from Lemmy as I did from Reddit, which was mostly due to how much US shit was posted there just about everywhere.

    coffeeaddict ,

    I know more about US politics than my own country politics and this is pretty blessing imo, it’s like so depressing and toxic

    dontcarebear ,

    EU memes about electricity are missing here, for sure.

    RaivoKulli ,

    I’m intrigued. What about electricity?

    dontcarebear ,

    Global electricity prices in Europe (short of France that is self reliant with nuclear reactors) have gone up dramatically since the gas stopped flowing from Russia.

    In 2022, the pricing of 1 kWh in residential areas in Germany are 0.6 USD. That’s 3 times the US if I’m not mistaken.

    RaivoKulli ,

    In Finland our prices jumped up for a while but have since gone back to normal. At least insofar as it’s not a news topic anymore.

    lemann ,

    Last year I could have bought a new PS5 every month for the cost of electricity. Things have settled now but it’s still expensive - I switched a lot of my personal infra to the cloud and Intel NUCs to cut down the cost 😭

    IMO If people want to post hard political material on a mainstream meme community, I wish they would make a minimum effort to make it relatable to those outside of the various originator echo chamber communities.

    The constant “US Bad” “China Bad” and adjacent topics targeting a specific political audience gets annoying with how repetitive it is - if it’s not politics related to my region OR suggesting ways I can improve things, I could not honestly give a bigger dump

    Viking_Hippie ,

    short of France that is self reliant with nuclear reactors

    I have some bad news on that front…

    dontcarebear ,

    Well, shit.

    Viking_Hippie ,

    Shit indeed. The thing that was going to supplement renewable energy to stave off climate change becoming less and less effective and safe because of climate change is one of the cruelest cases of tragic irony ever!

    dontcarebear ,

    Maybe desalination at the cost of reduced energy output should be considered, or desalination in general. Even if the weather stabilizes, having those around on low maintenance wouldn’t be a bad idea.

    Only problem is, it will take around 3-5 years to build, probably.

    drolex , to memes in appreciate it

    Hello Mrs. and Mr. Johnson. I use arch btw

    Ah fuck

    Rooty , to memes in Defediverse

    Defederating brigaders and trolls is necessary to maintain a healthy community. If your instance is defederated from all major instances, perhaps you should look examine what sort of company you keep.

    Ddhuud ,

    With that mentality we’ll all become beehaw. The cesspool of don’t look at me funny.

    natebluehooves ,

    What a telling perspective.

    Zuberi ,
    @Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Typical Lemmy.world take

    Nioxic , to memes in Touch grass

    Futurama writers.

    But yes

    ryry1985 ,

    I think they have a lot of the same writers

    Indicah ,

    Only like 3-4 writers were on both shows. Not really many.

    ryry1985 ,

    TIL Thanks

    MobileTechGuy OP ,

    Ah, I thought most of them were the same, my bad.

    drcabbage , to mildlyinfuriating in The Spotify Car Thing cost $100, but I can't use it anymore.

    I have a car thing, I use it at my desk for media controls. It is pretty great.

    But the product description was pretty clear that you needed premium to use it. The same goes for using any third party Spotify client. Shouldn’t have expected otherwise.

    MyUnclesSecret ,

    Buying any physical hardware that doesn’t function without a subscription should be a illegal, not something you should expect.

    _Mantissa , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

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  • krotti ,

    Just responding to the edit;

    Modems work with other providers. You don’t own the infrastructure that connects the internet -> subscriptions.

    Phones make it impossible to root or change batteries? I don’t own the device, byt at least it’s not e-waste yet.

    The car thing you don’t own since the software makes the hardware e-waste.

    _Mantissa ,

    deleted_by_author

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  • krotti ,

    Public companies obviously intentionally want to make everything as shitty as possible, just to extract money, but lets accept the hypothetical that subscriptions will actually be banned. Wouldn’t that be great?

    You would basically be treated the same as Tier 1-3 ISP’s, pay for the cost of the routing to the company. That phone plan that costs ?? €/$ a month becomes “Pay as you use it”. Flat fee per gigabyte / message etc. These plans were at least here in Finland, and I think my phone bills were around 4-5 EUR a month and a cap that you cannot exceed that month, though smartphones and data plans weren’t a thing. Now everything is a subscription.

    Now back to hardware vs software. You obviously pay for the software also when buying the hardware, but for whatever reason the user doesn’t own any kind of rights around it. This has obviously become much worse the past few years (TV’s have ads etc). I really don’t think that the issue is anything you listed, the issue is that greedy companies want to use the subscription model rather than play fair. Phones and modems are EOL at best in a year. I have a PFSense router that cost me less than a router from my ISP used and it’s EOL and security is something I don’t have to worry about.

    Modems and routers have most of their features dedicated to home networking and are not usually made by the ISP. Them connecting to the internet is one of the smallest features they have. The other features are related to offline networking and tight security, you can actually just plug an ethernet cable to the wall and get connection from your ISP. Same as using a modem and putting it in “bridge mode”, which will completely bypass the features of the modem/router.

    The issue here is that the companies don’t want to provide value, they just want to extract as much money as possible, which is wrong. Laws and regulations are desperately needed and even something as radical as banning subscription services for user devices would be a net positive. Renting Tier 1-3 operator infrastructure for your router/modem to work is completely different than “You have the device and the software, but we block you from using it, since you don’t pay”, which in my opinion is ransomware, not subscriptions.

    For right to repair and owning these devices, I completely agree with you.

    barsoap ,

    So what use is a consumer modem without an internet service?

    You can still use it to network with other computers over the telephone network. Heck you don’t even need to do that via the actual telephone service you can just run some wire.

    But I think what was actually meant by OP is “tied to a specific subscription service” as well as “disables features that don’t need a subscription service when you aren’t subscribed”.

    Phones, arguably, don’t perform their primary function without cell services.

    You can use them as e.g. smart home remote. The cellular modem is going to go unused (at least apart from emergency services) but that’s only a small portion of the hardware, and modems were only ever locked to subscriptions (at least over here) if the phone is subsidised by that subscription. I don’t think they even do that any more, they replaced it with minimum contract durations. In any case even back in the days you could unlock it after some time or coughing up some money.

    that’s why I think it should be root-able, serviceable, and speak in standard open protocols

    Yep I wish rootability was included in the new EU regulations, it would solve so many issues at once. OTOH: It would solve the issue for people who are tech savvy enough to do such things, gotta be careful with our own elitism there. Enjoying consumer rights should not hinge on being a grease monkey.

    BeardedGingerWonder ,

    Every single modem and cell phone I’ve ever owned have worked without a subscription to anything. My internet and ability to make cell calls were limited after my subscription ended, but the devices themselves were easily repurposed to other uses.

    _Mantissa ,

    deleted_by_author

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  • zorlan ,
    @zorlan@aussie.zone avatar

    How about a law that if the service is no longer provided then the company needs to provide a means to unlock the device?

    That way companies can still have their subscription stuff, but once they inevitably stop supporting the product it doesn’t become useless.

    AndreTelevise ,

    In my country nobody (or at least, most people don’t) buy their own routers, it’s always a subscription on top of the existing internet service

    the_post_of_tom_joad ,

    I know this is a hard sell for many, but consider this: You aren’t nearly as smart as you think you are.

    _Mantissa ,

    deleted_by_author

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  • the_post_of_tom_joad ,

    You misunderstand. I have no knowledge about how smart you are. You could easily be smarter than me. What im saying is you need to reassess your tone and delivery, because it, and your edit only shows me and others that you are arrogant and therefore unable to properly assess other points of view.

    Address the possibility that i have a point on your own time, after your ego-required final comment to me. Whether you will address youself or remain as you are, it’s completely up to you.

    Goodbye

    IdleSheep ,

    But the point is that the description of the product clearly stated it needs a subscription to function. You literally buy it with that understanding. If you didn’t read the description then it’s 100% on you.

    Whether it should be legal or not, or whether it’s ethical or not, is a different discussion. But the product wasn’t disingenuous about how it works, so complaining about how it works exactly as advertised is a bit silly.

    yamanii ,
    @yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • the_post_of_tom_joad ,

    No, the life we’re all living is a neoliberal hellscape. The fediverse was started by people who consider liberals right wing. Read up my man

    pjhenry1216 ,

    A gas stove requires a subscription.

    fell ,
    @fell@ma.fellr.net avatar

    @pjhenry1216 @MyUnclesSecret Not quite. A gas stove requires gas. I can run it from canisters if I want to. In fact, I know someone who does.

    hglman ,

    It’s much more like a stove requiring a specific gas brand to work.

    SCB ,

    He can clearly turn on his Car Thing all he wants. Spotify is the gas company in this metaphor.

    schroedingershat ,

    You can buy gas from anyone. Even make your own in a digester.

    Your gas stove is not cryptographically locked to one gas company.

    SCB ,

    Gotta be an easier way to blow up your house.

    schroedingershat ,

    Yes, many much easier ways. A propane tank for one. Wet, high CO2 methane is really hard to make explode.

    Do get a CO detector though.

    SCB ,

    My furnace broke this summer (thank God it was summer) so we have CO monitors all over just in case something went fucky with the new install

    Gork ,

    Your gas stove is not cryptographically locked to one gas company.

    …yet.

    schroedingershat ,

    Look out! Communists are coming for your toothbrush. Better vote for harsher penalties for modifying stuff you bought. The DMCA still allows throwing away or disconnecting the computer locking you out of your heated seats.

    varjen , to memes in 2023-08-09.jpg

    ISO 8601 is always the correct way to format dates.

    Zeragamba ,
    @Zeragamba@lemmy.ca avatar

    ISO 8601 is the only correct way to format timestamps.

    ydieb ,

    The intersection of iso8601 and rfc3339.

    ijmacd.github.io/rfc3339-iso8601/

    LazyBane , to fediverse in Second largest Lemmy instance preemptively un-friends Facebook

    Ideologically, de-federating an instance just because you don’t like the guy running it would be a bad thing, but Facebook/Meta has been just so toxic to the internet as a whole it’s hard to really find fault with it.

    WiseassWolfOfYoitsu ,

    My concern is less Suckerburg as much as Meta’s corporate history. My expectation is that they’ll try to use this to conquer and destroy Lemmy.

    Lifter ,

    I thought the whole ideology of the fediverse was to get away from corporationl influence. So I’d say this is very much true to the ideology as well.

    paintbucketholder ,

    Yup.

    Facebook has been around for almost two decades.

    This is not some unknown guy - we know exactly what Facebook’s business strategy and ethical and moral conduct looks like.

    lagomorphlecture ,

    Ideologically, I find more fault in inviting meta to the playground than locking them out. They are the very definition of an evil corporation and no good can come of it.

    jaaval ,

    Pragmatically, twitter style system requires a large networked userbase to be useful for most of the population, otherwise people are tooting into the void in mastodon. So even if I have to work with some soulless corporations to get there I think it’s a net positive. For lemmy i don’t think threads matters much.

    Dinodicchellathicc ,
    @Dinodicchellathicc@lemmy.world avatar

    Exactly, there’s an exception to every rule.

    gornar ,
    @gornar@lemmy.world avatar

    I saw someone in another discussion say it perfectly: they put the meta back in metastatic!

    De_Narm , to reddit in ...

    That honestly says way more about mods than it does about Reddit. Of course you’re not gonna pay for a task people are lining up to do for free, no matter how much they themselves make.

    Corgana ,
    @Corgana@startrek.website avatar

    People do it for free on Lemmy, too. Reddit used to be much more moderator-friendly. I think a lot of remaining mods are just going on muscle memory at this point.

    De_Narm ,

    Yes, they do. And while I don’t get it on here either, at least they don’t line the pockets of some shitty company. Some moderation is necessary, and I guess I should be happy about other people doing it for free here.

    Corgana ,
    @Corgana@startrek.website avatar

    People do it because they care. I ran /r/StarTrek for over a decade because I wanted a specific type of community to exist that didn’t elsewhere, and reddit made it easy.

    Of course, reddit eventually screwed me (and all of us) with their greed and there was no way to move what we’d built. If a nonprofit reddit-like site existed back then I would hopefully have had the foresight to use it instead.

    brbposting ,

    🫡

    neatchee ,

    Oh hey, I recognize you. Genuinely and truly, thank you for your years of service. I run a mastodon community these days for the same reasons, and I can only imagine how frustrating and eventually heartbreaking it must have been for long-time reddit mods to slowly get screwed out of the homes they’d built for themselves and others.

    PotatoesFall ,

    Those mods volunteered for the community, not for the company and certainly not for spez. However by turning reddit into a profit machine, spez is exploiting the volunteer work they did, and in the process, destroying it. reddit as an IT product is worthless, the communities are the value.

    Take Open Streetmap. It’s been built by the community for the community. So many contributors who volunteer. Imagine it was a proprietary product and one day they start charging for it. Is that not theft from the people who actually built OSM for free?

    fine_sandy_bottom ,

    Sure there are some mods on reddit who are doing it for their community.

    Let’s be real though… the vast majority of mods in any online community are fief lords. They do it because having power over other people feels good.

    rcbrk OP , to memes in South Africa is the Legal Arm of _____.

    “South Africa, which is functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organization […]”

    twitter.com/LiorHaiat/status/1745427037039280207 (archive.md/L7AwX)

    fastandcurious ,
    @fastandcurious@lemmy.world avatar

    I just can’t fathom how monstrous and dumb people are who support what Israel is doing

    JustZ ,
    @JustZ@lemmy.world avatar

    Can you understand Israel’s position without supporting it? I do.

    HikingVet ,

    Whats their position? We want your land so we are going to kill you for it?

    deegeese ,

    That plus “we’re God’s chosen people” so killing civilians is A-OK.

    PlasterAnalyst ,

    The prime minister has an axe to grind with Palestine because his own brother was killed in an operation ~50 years ago. He's stated many times that he has no intention of any kind of peace and he's only using a tragedy to take revenge. It's no different than the u.s. going into Afghanistan after 9/11 and then using that as a foothold when they invaded Iraq under dubious circumstances. It's completely indefensible.

    WaxedWookie ,

    Ah - wonderful!

    I’ve not heard a remotely defensible explanation for the ongoing genocidal land grab, but I do wonder what could conceivably justify it.

    Ferrous ,

    I’ve known plenty of “dumb” people who weren’t genocidal. It’s less an indication of intelligence and more an indication of an evil soul.

    TheAnonymouseJoker ,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    They are not dumb. Anyone who supports Israel is a fascist terrorist that should go get Tbag’d on frontlines against Hamas, or if they did not forget Ukraine, go there and get killed by Russian peacemakers.

    SLfgb ,

    “They started it.” “We are the real victims here.” “Antisemitic terrorists”

    Bassman27 ,

    Isreal deserve an Olympic gold medal for mental gymnastics

    DmMacniel ,

    That’s hilarious… and the blue-pills are even more hilarious. Actually, it’s quite sad.

    KpntAutismus , to memes in sErVe aNd pRoFeCt

    i’ve always been fascinated how american cops just erupt into chaos whenever something did’t go how they wanted it to, despite not telling the person what they wanted them to do.

    and then be confused why people anre’t following orders when shouting conflicting commands from 3 different officers with a dog barking uncontrollably in the background.

    thank god the police takes itself more seriously where i live.

    Stoneykins ,

    Whether it was intentionally designed this way or just something that stuck because it benefitted them, the way they are trained teaches them to behave in that confusing way, and results in them being more often able to justify the use of force (just justify it, they use force whenever they want) because “the suspect wasn’t following orders”.

    deo ,

    My mother is a sweet law-abiding citizen, always follows the rules. But cops make her supremely nervous, and she’s terrified of going to jail (even though, like I said, she’s done nothing wrong, but that doesn’t always matter). I’m afraid she’s gonna get pulled over for a broken tail light or something and end up getting hassled because she’s “acting suspicious”.

    I would assume cops get training for dealing with people in stressful situations, but from all the instances of things going downhill so fast for little to no reason, it doesn’t seem like the training is sufficient (or like you suggested, maybe they are taught the wrong things altogether). Their mere presence can make people anxious, and stress alone can cause people to have difficulty processing the situation (not to mention the conflicting orders, the dogs, the yelling, the flashing lights, etc). I know that, for the things I’ve been trained to do, it’s a constant struggle to remember that others don’t know even the basics of my field, and assuming that they do is a recipe for miscommunication. But when i communicate poorly, it doesn’t end with people getting shot.

    Pat_Riot ,
    @Pat_Riot@lemmy.today avatar

    American police are just professional schoolyard bullies. They will beat you up, take what money you have on you. If you’re a woman or girl it’s not unlikely that they will rape you. They will shoot your dog and are hoping with every fiber of their being that you will give them half an excuse to shoot you. Every bit of that can happen with no provocation at all.

    ReCursing ,
    @ReCursing@kbin.social avatar

    British cops are the same but with less guns

    jacktherippah , to mildlyinfuriating in Protecting me by limiting my actions is insulting

    While it is annoying to people like you and me, this is a good thing for the average user. Your average downloads folder probably contains sensitive information that shouldn’t be visible to apps. Same with Android/data. Locking it down is annoying for sure, but it’s admittedly a good privacy&security measure.

    TheMadnessKing ,

    Exactly.

    I have often found malware apps with all sorts of permission on my relatives phones which suddenly started to lag alot. These folders can be easily exploited by malware apps, so its kinda good.

    lightnsfw ,

    If the average user was more occupied dealing with identity theft they’d have less time to spread misinformation on Facebook and Twitter.

    justJanne ,

    Even if it’s blocked for the average user, it’d still be awesome if we could circumvent it with adb. I’ve used KDE Connect to access my phone remotely for a long time, and now that feature is useless.

    SomeoneElse , to cat in Get well soon, kitty!

    My girl did this! Years ago my cat came in hopping, completely unable to put weight on her foreleg. I was so worried I took her to the emergency vet, fearing she’d been hit by a car or something. I got there and placed her carrier on the counter and explained the problem almost through tears… only to open the door and for her to trot out on all four legs and jump down with no hesitation! That little idiot cost me £85 for absolutely nothing. The vet said she might have got in a fight too and was feeling a bit sorry for herself, but there was no evidence of a fight and she had no injury at all. I think she was just bored and messing with me.

    EDIT: I found the photo I took at the time! April 2018, I’m still not sure I’ve forgiven her 😅 https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/34b94ae3-e593-48c2-91a4-d042095d3b96.jpeg

    radix ,
    @radix@lemm.ee avatar

    That unrepentant look on her face. I love it.

    SomeoneElse ,

    Yup! That was after we got back from the vet when she was magically “injured”again. She stopped doing it when I made it clear I wasn’t buying it. But when my partner got home from work the limp returned… only on the other leg! 😂 I love that little idiot!

    radix ,
    @radix@lemm.ee avatar

    Dios mío 😂

    echodot ,

    My cat did that for five times before we stopped taking it to the vets. I think she thought that if she did that would give a tuna fish because we’d feel sorry for her.

    SomeoneElse ,

    Omg 5 times?! I’m still sore about her doing it once!

    hstde , to memes in O.O

    Real friends may find it weird but will accept it.

    genoxidedev1 ,
    @genoxidedev1@kbin.social avatar

    I would go as far as to encourage it >:3

    i_am_hiding ,
    Franzia ,

    I saw this on discord yesterday. We’re not… In the same discord… Are we?

    i_am_hiding ,

    Maybe …

    Gabu ,

    uwu touches fingers ?

    H3wastooshort ,

    you can easily find out by rightclicking the image and showing it in a new tab and copypasting the url into a texteditor, then rightclicking the image in the discord, copying the url, and pasting that too, and comparing both up to the ? (ignore everything afterwards)

    Kernal64 ,

    “easily.”

    aBundleOfFerrets ,

    Two copy-pastes is not difficult.

    genoxidedev1 ,
    @genoxidedev1@kbin.social avatar

    Yay the good ending thank u! :3

    bappity ,
    @bappity@lemmy.world avatar

    YESSS

    hstde ,

    Kinky.

    Prunebutt , (edited ) to memes in Not sure how the girl's skin tone is relevant, but apart from that...

    Considering that the USSR only claimed to be socialist and used propaganda (in accord with the US) to convince the people that state control is the same as worker’s control over the means of production (it isn’t), the girl is probably correct.

    dansity ,

    Sir we are not doing reasons here, this is a meme sub.

    Prunebutt ,

    Memes can still be incoherent.

    muad_dibber ,
    @muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    An Excerpt from Parenti - Blackshirts and reds:


    The upheavals in Eastern Europe did not constitute a defeat for socialism because socialism never existed in those countries, according to some U.S. leftists. They say that the communist states offered nothing more than bureaucratic, one-party “state capitalism” or some such thing. Whether we call the former communist countries “socialist” is a matter of definition. Suffice it to say, they constituted something different from what existed in the profit-driven capitalist world–as the capitalists themselves were not slow to recognize.

    First, in communist countries there was less economic inequality than under capitalism. The perks enjoyed by party and government elites were modest by corporate CEO standards in the West [even more so when compared with today’s grotesque compensation packages to the executive and financial elites.—Eds], as were their personal incomes and lifestyles. Soviet leaders like Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev lived not in lavishly appointed mansions like the White House, but in relatively large apartments in a housing project near the Kremlin set aside for government leaders. They had limousines at their disposal (like most other heads of state) and access to large dachas where they entertained visiting dignitaries. But they had none of the immense personal wealth that most U.S. leaders possess. {Nor could they transfer such “wealth” by inheritance or gift to friends and kin, as is often the case with Western magnates and enriched political leaders. Just vide Tony Blair.—Eds]

    The “lavish life” enjoyed by East Germany’s party leaders, as widely publicized in the U.S. press, included a $725 yearly allowance in hard currency, and housing in an exclusive settlement on the outskirts of Berlin that sported a sauna, an indoor pool, and a fitness center shared by all the residents. They also could shop in stores that carried Western goods such as bananas, jeans, and Japanese electronics. The U.S. press never pointed out that ordinary East Germans had access to public pools and gyms and could buy jeans and electronics (though usually not of the imported variety). Nor was the “lavish” consumption enjoyed by East German leaders contrasted to the truly opulent life style enjoyed by the Western plutocracy.

    Second, in communist countries, productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. Individuals could not hire other people and accumulate great personal wealth from their labor. Again, compared to Western standards, differences in earnings and savings among the populace were generally modest. The income spread between highest and lowest earners in the Soviet Union was about five to one. In the United States, the spread in yearly income between the top multibillionaires and the working poor is more like 10,000 to 1.

    Third, priority was placed on human services. Though life under communism left a lot to be desired and the services themselves were rarely the best, communist countries did guarantee their citizens some minimal standard of economic survival and security, including guaranteed education, employment, housing, and medical assistance.

    Fourth, communist countries did not pursue the capital penetration of other countries. Lacking a profit motive as their motor force and therefore having no need to constantly find new investment opportunities, they did not expropriate the lands, labor, markets, and natural resources of weaker nations, that is, they did not practice economic imperialism. The Soviet Union conducted trade and aid relations on terms that generally were favorable to the Eastern European nations and Mongolia, Cuba, and India.

    All of the above were organizing principles for every communist system to one degree or another. None of the above apply to free market countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Thailand, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia, Zaire, Germany, or the United States.

    But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

    The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

    Mothra , to memes in How about that?
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    Am I the only one out of the loop? I don’t recognise anybody in this picture, and I don’t know what happened. All I can see is some guy waving a hand in front of someone with a very nice cleavage.

    recapitated ,

    Boebert and her guy got kicked out of a theater for heavy petting.

    Afghaniscran ,

    If you’re not a yank then you probably won’t know but basically one of their republican morons who shouts about trans people being a sexual danger to children and calling them rapists etc was caught having her very nice cleavage fondled in a theatre full of children.

    clanginator ,

    And giving the guy a little hand action

    Finite ,

    Oh, and she’s a grandma. That’s not super important information, but you should know

    Mothra ,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    Wow. If these replies are correct, I’m speechless

    JTheDoc ,

    They are sadly.

    The man she gave a jobby to also happens to own a pro LGBT club too despite her cries in public about it…

    MaxHardwood ,

    She’s not divorced yet, so an adulterer as well.

    Honytawk ,

    Bet she had sex before marriage with this guy as well

    MartinXYZ ,

    Really? Did she have a kid when she was very young? She doesn’t look that old…

    Edit: Okay, yeah she had her first child when she was 18. She’s 36 now and has 4 children.

    Rootiest ,
    @Rootiest@lemmy.world avatar

    Imagine going to school the next week and all the other kids have heard about what your grandma did this time.

    Somebody should really think about what this is doing to the children!

    Titan ,

    While tugging on the guy who was fondling her.

    Everything these conservatives accuse others of is just projection

    HiddenLayer5 , (edited )

    So I trust that she’s been arrested, fired from her position in government and barred from returning, jailed, and put on the sex offender list for life right?

    …right?

    doubletwist ,

    fondled in a theatre full of children.

    Let’s not stoop to their (the right/GOP) level with the misinformation. While there may have been children present in the theater, most of the people there were adults.

    There’s plenty enough wrong with what they were doing without trying to demonize them with additional lies.

    Honytawk ,

    “Full of kids” doesn’t mean all of them need to be kids.

    Even 1 kid in the theatre is enough to not do sexual acts around. But even according to you there were a tons since only “most of the people were adults”.

    Especially if she thinks people in drag are sexualising kids. Since that makes her a hypocrite.

    root_beer ,

    Man, even if there were no kids there, that’s still not the place to do it. I’d have been there to see Beetlejuice, not to see the “beetle” get juiced.

    UsernameIsTooLon ,

    Do the semantics matter? It’s a public theater regardless.

    You can’t demonize more if the situation is already bad. If you want a full sentence, then “fondled in a theater full of children and adults” which is equally as bad.

    ConspiracySeries ,

    Exactly end of story.

    MrLuemasG ,

    The truth does matter, yes. We can’t sit around and complain about liars while also spreading misinformation.

    UnverifiedAPK ,

    Also it was Beetlejuice? That’s not exactly a clean show

    I hate the “think about the children” line being applied to everything, even places where children aren’t expected. It’s such a pearl clutching tactic.

    alcoholicorn ,

    Also gave her bf a handjob through the pants and being disruptive.

    Which like it’s a dark movie theater. Other than the talking during the movie, if it were any regular person I wouldn’t say shit.

    ConspiracySeries ,

    It’s like when will good smart people learn there is no good/right side only common people with supportive good communities where we uplift positive attitudes and as long as no one is causing damage as in actual harm; mentally or physically to others then live and let live. Currently we are all part of an existential blob of shit. There shouldnt be sides.

    BurgerPunk ,
    @BurgerPunk@hexbear.net avatar

    When will good people learn there is no good side?

    AssholeDestroyer ,

    The guy she’s with is a democrat who owns a bar. The bar is lgbtq+ friendly and has hosted a drag show.

    MaxPower ,
    @MaxPower@feddit.de avatar

    If you do not know who she is – do yourself a favor and do not research it. Unless you are a voter in her district or you are a US citizen, then by all means, do it and make her go away.

    Mothra ,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    Sorry, I wish I could help you with a vote. Don’t worry the comments here told me everything I needed to know…

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