Im becoming unsettled. Maybe a few memes total on first two pages. How could things go so bad? Where are the yester beans gone?
Where’s my potash?
Beans? Look here youngin
I haven’t seen any egg pics. Something is wrong, I can feel it.
🥚
Bullying someone who’s country is at war with a dictator is bad, yes.
They were taking full advantage of English being a second language too. Pathetic children. What a fucking embarrassment.
How about claiming Gaza before the corpse is cold?
What a fucking country.
This one stings just because how much I wanted kamala so we didn’t have to learn what trump had in store.
She would have been so good
She would’ve been thoroughly mediocre, but that still would’ve been infinitely preferable to what we got.
Nah, her policy positions were good. She was on the right side of every issue with a reasonable plan to target it. There is no other president in recent history who is as progressive.
I find it werid that people will rate dems as if there is was a magical dem who would have been able to do everything.
We’re all just tired of being taken advantage of. Dems are weak with no spine/teeth, Republicans are selfish egotistical maniacs. Everyone out for themselves and will step on anyone they can to get what they want.
We just need people like Bernie who just wants to help pretty much everyone with healthcare, rights, etc. but the money from corruption is too good.
kamala was more biden. the same group of people that was around behind created the conditions for a kamala run to even be possible.
they had to pull some weird “democracy games” to even get her on the ballot. pretend like biden was gonna run so he automatically wins the primary and only then announce he’s gonna leave. really shows how far this democracy has fallen
as for kamala, biden’s immigration proposals were “compassionate approach” and “immigration reform”
if you went to her website and looked under immigration there was only “strong border” and “border security”
to be honest, i only wanted kamala to win because she was a woman and that woulda been cool. but the descent into fascism would not have been meaningfully slowed down, i think
Harris was 100% on the wrong side of the Gaza genocide and also not even a little bit economically progressive. That second part – the abject refusal to do meaningful things to help the working class – is how she lost to Trump. People were seduced by Trump’s dishonest and wrong, but easy, “scapegoat the minorities” answers to the question of how to restore prosperity.
Trueee she should have thrown her support behind hamas. Try and compete with trump for the anti Semitic vote.
Her platform of reducing the cost of even more prescription drugs, paid leave, more worker protections, more union protections, banning corporate price gouging, providing first home assistance and more would have absolutely wrecked the working class.
These are reasonable policies thay would get through. Compared to a guy who has already stripped all of those using illegal power.
she still would have supported genocide in gaza, and her term would have pushed people further towards fascism. there was really no real choice in that election, sadly. the usa was already too firmly controlled by the ruling class.
Accelerationism it is. It’s too terminal to save, conservatives need to feel the pain.
don’t get me wrong, i would have voted harris. (im not american) but she wouldn’t have been good. she wouldn’t have even been ok. but she was better than trump.
Bad but good content. It’s like watching a train derailment. It’s bad but I don’t want to look away
News should always take a higher seat than memes. I don’t know why this is considered abnormal. For ages, the front page of ALL newspapers paper have been news. Not the comics section.
This place ain’t the newspapers
It’s not a comedy forum either.
Lemmy is a link aggregator. News are linked. Memes are directly uploaded.
Reddit used to be mostly news.
Do you need a guide on how to block the shitposting community?
I blocked all of the news and political communities on my main account.
I keep an alt to keep track of local and national news of where I live. Improved my mental health substantially.
Edit: I live in Europe
I simply blocked Lemmy (and all my other time waster websites) from my phone.
I subscribed to a newspaper to keep track of news.I wish I could, but personally not knowing would be a greater mental load then having to process this run away train of fascism.
We should really stay on top of the news to know when Trump wants us to wear identifying armbands
If you can’t, it can be enough to say that’s enough for today and control how much you take in I found a YouTube channel belle of the fifth column is just enough to keep informed but it’s short and she put context to the news and just keeps it to the facts no click bait.
I’ll not denigrate your choices. I will just say that I’m reading and listening to a lot less, but that’s because I’m reading/listening/watching across the spectrum. Shutting out others’ voices seems to be what got us here.
I haven’t worked up the wherewithal to brave Breitbart, OANN etc yet. One, my mental health is so valuable to me, two, I want to continue to consume thoughtful pieces; but I think it’s critical to keep an eye on these outlets so we can address legitimate grievances and also be a calm, steady, not-shaming tone to offer a more grounded perspective. It will take time, patience, respect to bring USA back to some semblance of sanity and unity. I think we are on the event horizon of do-or-die together, in that regard ) and I mean globally).
I don’t think i understand your comment what does belle have to do with OANN or Breitbart I wouldn’t touch those with a 10 foot pole.
I’m not sure how to be more plain. People are radicalized because legitimate concerns aren’t heard, let alone addressed. Entertaining ideas doesn’t mean automatically accepting all of them. How are we to address legitimate grievances if we refuse to listen for them?
I understand where you’re coming from, but the legitimate grievances of conservatives are not covered by the far right media. They’re alchemically transmogrified into immigrant hate, queer hate, poor hate.
Their legitimate grievances are largely the same as everyone. Wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living is the most basic. But instead of looking at the top of the hierarchy for answers, these media sources redirect that grievance at the bottom of the hierarchy. And conservatives are obsessed with hierarchy.
It is good to study enemy propaganda, but it’s hard to stomach. I wish more people could understand in the way you have.
And when we’ve tempered ourselves (I’m so not there yet!), we can calmly, rationally refute with truth in non-inflammatory language. We can try to use simpler terms and explain those not understood. I understand it’s not going to be easy, that’s why I’m working on temperance in small bites, first. Our media has inflamed and made reactionary all of us, to varying extents, because that supports the monied interests. It supports everyone’s interests to dial it back, take deep breaths and respond rather than react. Don’t think the Neo Duopoly is going to do that; they will counter it with even more inflammatory rhetoric.
What more are you really going to do? You already know you’re going to vote Democrat in 2028.
You seem surprisingly certain you will be able to vote.
Well, sure. Even Russia still has elections.
True. It’s good to be in league with notable Democratic People’s Republics!
What makes you so certain? A lot of voters voted third party last election, across the political spectrum.
Blaze lives inside the sopuli.xyz server farm confirmed.
Initially I did as well - but we are fast approaching a point where simply ignoring this further will be unacceptable.
I feel that sometime soon we may be called to do more than be a voice of reason. Americans are being tested right now. Will you quietly look away because you fear discomfort as your freedoms are stripped away? As your neighbors are assailed?
I’m not fond of the sting of teargas and pepper spray… but it’s probably about time to develop a taste for it again. Find a group, know your community, and stop hiding.
Oh, and if you see a Nazi? Punch it.
All threats. Foreign and domestic.
You can’t pretend it isn’t happening.
I’d love to be able to tune it out, but that’s what they want.
Ignorance is compliance.
I find that keyword-based filtering seems to work better than blocking. We’re at a point here that if one is blocking all communities where people post news and politics to then there’s nothing left to browse because you’d need to block virtually every even slightly popular community.
My current record so far is refreshing the front page and seeing 4 posts with all the others being filtered out. That’s how bad the politics and news spam has gotten. And people wonder why normies aren’t coming here…
i don’t wonder that. let the normies have their Destiny 2 and PublicFreakout and fantasy sports communities elsewhere. seeing comment section after section on Reddit filled to the brim with “I’m so funny!” unserious one liners was obnoxious. people talking about GoThrones fandom and RC cars while inequality skyrockets or the rich dismantle every federal govt program that benefit 99% of the population is not a good thing to yearn for. the founders-effect dominance from a handful of narrow ideologically centrists is not something we need more of.
I combine it with blocking users. Political communities are blocked entirely, and then users who post irrelevant political crap in non-political communities are blocked individually.
Just the one alt?
Can you do me a favor and reply with your alts?
I’ve blocked at least 3 so far but it’s like playing fucking whack a mole
I have to admit I find some of this user’s takes annoying, while also finding some useful nuggets. I’m trying to learn to ignore inane or otherwise not useful to healing, while trying to respond to more thoughtful content.
Trump is using a technique called ‘The Gish Gallop.’
Obama wanted to pass the ACA and the GOP managed to block it for almost two years because Obama kept talking about that one thing.
Trump is breaking rules left and right; plus screaming about crazy ideas like buying Greenland.
There is so much stuff going on that normal minds just want to shut down to get some peace and quiet.
I believe they call it “flooding the zone (with shit)” when it’s this particular orange flavour
I like using firehose of bullshit, but using their words is probably better.
Elonald Trusk: “Supplies!”
How dare you put Kuni’s lines in Elon’s mouth!
We thought things were bad before the experimental DoD teleporter accident that destroyed the bodies of Trump and Musk. Elonald Trusk and Donlon Mump rose from the ashes. Their greed multiplied. Their lust for power became insatiable, but nothing could trump their carnal, sensual desire for each other’s bodies. [Ok, stopping here, I don’t like where this is going.]
Me to the dingleberries once they finally realize: “STUPID! YOU SO STUPID!”
Damn, what a great movie.
Aka shock doctrine
Remember, ignorance is compliance.
Yes, and silence is complicity.
that’s the thing about the current situation… truth tellers get censored while discourse gets flood with shite polarized takes and they feed each other’s engagement.
In America freedom of speech to say anything you want except the truth about the owners then it is “call to violence”, “socialist/communism”, “antisemitism” , “class warefare” ect last is sure cute tho. why are you hitting yourself, slave?
Obama increased mass surveillance and US undercover operations significantly. Bush ultimately started it but Obama has a opportunity to stand on the side of freedom but didn’t take it. Like all recent presidents he was focused on extending the power of the executive branch. The real answer is checks and balances.
LOL!
Obama couldn’t get Gitmo closed. How many of those programs did he originate, and how many were passed by the Congress and he didn’t veto them?
He was hamstrung by the GOP and conservative Dems.
The answer is a veto proof progressive Dem majority, not more ‘checks and balances.’
The answer is a veto proof progressive Dem majority, not more ‘checks and balances.’
After what trump is doing they still won’t be able to get there because they are corporate bootlickers who don’t resonate with working people anymore… at all.
He said “progressive Dem majority,” not “Dem majority.”
Is the “progressive” in the room with us right now.
They can muster like 2 people an dthe rest are corpo drones.
Clearly somebody else decides who gets congret spots, and it ain’t the pedon vote.
Do you have an actual plan?
Because screaming ‘BotH sidES aRe The SAme’ has worked so well to prevent Trump from getting elected twice.
Screaming “vote for my preference or else” every election is what got trump elected twice.
The First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system has squashed competition in our elections, resulting in both major political parties being filled with weak individuals. Our people are unrepresented by FPTP voting, thus the large non voter block. Things don’t have to be this way.
States have control over their voting methods, meaning we don’t need to wait a federal miracle. We can change how we vote and make room for third parties without risking a spoiler effect.
Alaska has already taken this step. In fact, Alaska has recently held a referendum on whether to go switch from Ranked Choice Voting back to FPTP, and the referendum was rejected. Republicans were frustrated when Sarah Palin lost to a more moderate conservative under Ranked Choice Voting, but the people of Alaska made their choice—they don’t want FPTP any more. Meanwhile, states controlled by Republicans are passing laws to safeguard FPTP.
So why are Democratic states continuing to use the voting system that Republicans favor? And why are Democrats turning down the potential for more votes from increased voter participation?
Videos on Electoral Reform
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
Voting under two party regime got us here…
Do you have an actual plan?
Until you have a workable plan, just be quiet.
yas daddy🤡
Feels like it’s been that way since the election to be honest
Lemmy has always been a political outlet, but post election has been out of hands.
I mean, it makes sense. We’re witnessing the US becoming a fascist dictatorship in realtime. It’s a huge upset to the way the world has been for everyone living’s lifetimes.
Yeah, it’s like not being able to look away from a train wreck, but it’s a humongous fiery train wreck that has been advertised and teased in every form of online media for the past two years.
Fascist America warnings be like:
Beautiful. Thank you for reminding me of this.
US was always a fascist rogue nation, with or without Trump
…what situation? When?
It’s because political discussion (and in general most commentary) on Reddit / Meta / Xitter has become overtly censored, and there’s a real concern that it’s tracked - a bad thing in an authoritarian regime barreling towards facism. Those who wish to have real political discourse having been moving away, and lemmy is receiving a lot of that traffic.
As an example, referring to a list of CEO’s on Reddit as “Luigi’s List” will get you a ban warning for inciting violence.
This increase in sensitivity to the potential implications of real political speech, coupled with increasingly stringent rules on the parts of the mods and accelerated by the auto-mod bots and AI chat bots, has led to a very restrictive discussion environment on the big social media networks. Even Bluesky, which is left-leaning and possesses the architecture for multiple servers to avoid centralization, is following this pattern.
Lemmy / Mastodon are attractive because they’re not as restrictive, when you’re posting you’re interacting with real people, and because the mods and admins are humans dealing with a manageable population. And if someone censors you on the server you’re on, you just move to another. More and more folks are realizing this as the enshitification of the big 3 continues.
Fear not, the memes will live on, but I think that in a very real way, Lemmy’s (and the Fediverse’s) time is upon us, and this is the result. People are using it for real shit because the real shit is upon us, and we need a place where we can freely discuss how to get clear of the incoming shitstorm.
Read up on the Cronkite Era and the Fairness Doctrine.
Companies could only own one TV/radio [AM and FM] station in each town, plus you had a couple of newspapers in even small places. When Reagan came in he started the trend to ‘deregulate’ the media.
May Ronald Reagan rest in piss
Along with his many other great accomplishments, he created homelessness in America.
Before he became California Governor, the state had a great mental health system. Plenty of beds for those who were unable to self care. Ronnie cut those beds and suddenly there were undomiciled folks wandering the streets. That meant the cops and prisons had to get more money to deal with the problem.
It worked so well that as soon as he was President he did it again.
Posting a kill list seems pretty questionable to me. I get how there can be some dark humor in that but I can totally see how that’s calling for violence.
The issue is the rich are committing organized violence against all of us every day, but just theorizing on how we can organize and retaliate is a crime.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives, and the rich understand that too.
coming from a guy who said this up stream:
What annoys me is when people gibe attention to people who have either done questionable things or don’t deserve to be publicized.
I guess some what of a bootlicker… then
If you want to do something do something. Others have shown how easy actually is if you are really willing to.
If not, saturating everyone head with bad news is not healthy for anyone.
Real political discourse is too heavily censored in corporate spaces
What annoys me is when people gibe attention to people who have either done questionable things or don’t deserve to be publicized.
Bad press is often better than no press. When you start putting the light on a CEO you are often turning them into a celebrity. Better to not focus on specific people unless they have done serious wrong on there own.
Bad press would work if there were consequences like forcing the CEO to step down
Unfortunately in today’s world corporations and their ceos can get away with almost everything
I think we should instead blame companies not CEOs. If the companies get enough bad PR the board will act.
We should blame the long sequence of court decisions that allowed corporations to accumulate so much unchecked power.
https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
Edit: why the downvote? I have no idea what the objection is.
I think we should instead blame consumers and voters. It is our job to hold CEOs and other bad public figures accountable, but we never do
Just remember, this is the worst things have been so far. The Trump admin still has shovels in hand, it can get much, much, worse.
Yes I always think of that Simpsons line, this is the worse day so far. It doesn’t help any anxiety about the geopolitical situation even backdropped by an amusing sitcom. I do hope people learn better, but maybe we’ll see the way of nuking ourselves and wonder what happened while still being intolerant (as a whole, I know many individuals are cool but those are never in position of power it seems).
I limit my political stories these days after Trump’s first term I can’t handle the same input, not American but that doesn’t matter to the world’s outcome.
OP is onto something.
maybe people are getting sad out there. maybe news is coming at us fast… because change (unprecedented bad bad change) is happening faster than ever before?
it’s a sign of the times. people blaming news junkies or whining about blocking comms don’t get it. we’re no longer living in a time when we can afford to ignore what’s happening around us.
ps, I’m not arguing against memes. in fact go check [email protected] it’s been turned into a satire comm under new mods and it’s wonderful!
Yeah that’s unfortunate. I joined that community to listen to concerns of my compatriots.
The amount of polarization right now is pretty concerning. People can’t imagine how someone could possibly have a different view. Conservatives and progressives both see the other as dumb and extreme. I don’t need to agree with someone to understand where there beliefs come from.
Whoop! There it is. I’ve definitely been guilty, up until very recently. It’s time to wake up, now. I’d wager we’ve all been asleep at the wheel, for decades, now.
Go create another on another instance
No, I will stay and hope our conservative brothers and sisters return and we can welcome them with healthy dialogue. It’s a multilane two-way information superhighway. We can visit each others ’ spaces and stay in our lanes, unless we use turn signals, like responsible, respectable drivers.
With the mod team driving the current environment you’re very likely better off building somewhere new. It’s the main benefit of the fediverse after all
Easier isn’t necessity better. Let’s wait and see if “left” can stop behaving like ultraright*.
Can’t ignore it.
Can’t change it.
Only heartburn.
Don’t ever think you can’t change it.
Audrey Hepburn was a teenager when the Nazis invaded.
She could only dance, but that’s what she did.
There’s always a way to fight.
I think we can change it. We just have to say, “Mountain, be thou removed” and get busy with our shovels to help remove it. It won’t be easy, but it is doable.
What happened?
People pay attention to memes more than news…
I blocked all the stupid meme communities as soon as I started using Lemmy, glad to see actual discussion is replacing brain rot tho.
It’s a good thing.
God forbid we have any space without the constant never ending same arguments right?
You can.
You can subscribe to every stupid brain rot meme sub you want, and when you’re ready to turn your brain off just switch to only viewing subscribed communities.
No one is saying not to do that, burnout is real and what fascists hope for.
So by all means, take your breaks. Check out and don’t think about it for a day or two. But come back and care about the important shit again.
But when viewing /all and seeing the top post be actual discussions on serious topics it’s a good thing.
It means right now more people are choosing that over the brain rot. Hopefully it becomes the norm, but we still need to rotate off for a break, it’s not gonna be a short fight against fascism. No one is going to make it to the end without some breaks.
I see your point but think it’s also valid to use Lemmy or other social media to engage only with memes or whatever else people enjoy. Absolutely, everybody should stay informed and passionate about the rapidly crumbling world, but there’s no rule that they specifically must do that via Lemmy. If someone chooses to use their social media as a haven from the real-world issues they encounter everywhere else, then unless Lemmy is their entire life, I don’t see that as a problem.
If someone chooses to use their social media as a haven from the real-world issues they encounter everywhere else, then
I would advise them to curate a specific feed for that explicit purpose rather than browse /all and complain other people are paying attention to real shit
Imagine that a pedon using agency to get a desired result instead of bitching about something that has a reasonable solution already available
hmm
I’m trying to temper my passion so I can listen for legitimate concerns from all my compatriots. We have deep rifts and wounds that, if not healed properly, are going to cause so much more damage to everyone on the planet, let alone in the USA. That doesn’t mean I can’t have passion; it means I can try to set them aside and seek solutions that work for the most people while causing the least harm to each other and our environment.
just switch to only viewing subscribed communities.
While I agree with your overall sentiment of taking breaks but staying informed with with discussions, my issue is that politics still leaks there.
Even if you subscribe to only memes and fun stuff, politics can still overrun it.
Imo during the Biden years there was good balance.
yep. we all definitely need breaks. i take long breaks every few months or in the winter when seasonal depression kicks in.
but this is a critical junction for global history. class warfare has escalated and accelerated, and the vast vast majority of us are being actively oppressed through the dismantling of economic and social welfare programs.
my family stands to lose too much for me to be burying my head in the sand right now.
some aren’t ready or able or willing to do the work of preparing a response. others have no choice but to pay attention because their family’s future literally depend on knowing whether today is the day they “come for you” and all this (bwamp bwamp) news actually reaches your doorstep.
so while people are arguing anime fandoms and who wins The Big Game, I’ll be trying to understand my enemy, encourage my allies, and decide what an appropriate response looks like (in real life) using the latest information i have available.
Trump and Elon took office. Now all I see is Trump posts.
political memes often are news though. they aren’t like, mutually exclusive.
In a very broad sense that it tells you something happened on this topic.
memes themselves are propaganda and effective one at that since the most regarded of us can consume it easily and spread it like COVID.
Sure i like me some shit memes from libs and cringe at the right’s memes but that literally waste of time IMHO
Memes are effective tool to gauge what the regime is jerking and who shilling what angle.
Good example of “conservative” Zelensky memes today. Literally if you don’t watch the interaction you won’t know how it went down and memes paint an “interesting” picture. People who see the video will make up their own minds and even if you hate Ukraine, seeing that would only be enjoyable if you are sheltered nepo baby or “alpha” male.
That shit was bad optics for US and that’s bad business.
