They were useful idiots
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
839 points (95.8% liked)
Showerthoughts
32553 readers
1056 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I for one ascribe the blame to at least 40 years of pseudoscience -- neoclassical economic theory [1] -- pushed by neoliberal economists. These same neoliberal economists are often backed by the rich (fuck you "Chicago School of Economics" [2]) . For decades they have pushed this narrative of "government bad" and "private sector" good. Taxing the rich only means you punish the people you want to help (middle and lower socioeconomic classes). This pseudoscience gave birth to the godawful economic policy of "trickle down economics".
Decades of:
- defunding public services (by both parties, by the way) to make way for tax cuts for the wealthy
- middle class wage stagnation (ie, take for example the minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for tipped employees)
- decimation of union participation and subsequently power to labor
- cheap money backed by the faith of the US govt and given to the ultra wealthy as a means of extracting wealth from the people -- see private equity
Want to know why many people are easily manipulated? They can't afford the same lifestyle as their parents. Drowning in debt to greedy capitalist pigs. Years of this cycle and once the algorithms detect this, you can be easily turned into cannon fodder for the ultra wealthy.
"hey bro, your life is shit because immigrants took yer job!! Govt trying to inject microchips into you! Join the FrEEdOm CoNvOy!"
Get us into fighting a culture war against each other, when we should be banding together and fighting a class war.
Fuck the billionaire class.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics
Look no further than Dr Ian Lee from the Sprott school of business at Carleton. That guy is a massive apologist for big business and sees everything through the eyes of profit. He's on every week making excuses for stores and wanting to negotiate with Trump, the guy who wants to take over our country.
*three years ago. I live downtown Ottawa and remember the convoy distinctly (unfortunately) but you made me feel like time was passing even quicker than it already is lol
And they drove a bunch of cool trucks and everyone was happy to see them. /s
I didn't find the video of the guy yelling at them to fuck off and go away from his balcony, but if anyone has a link, it was pretty good.
It formed because of a group of people manipulated into a protest for "our rights".
Neither the people participating or the ones driving the propaganda ever gave two shits about anyone else's rights.
They'd support a law requiring everyone be a fan of their favorite sports all team, because it doesn't negatively effect them and since it aligns with their established beliefs it's the "right" decision for everyone else anyways.
This is how "for the greater good" can do great evil and why writing off people who commit monsterous acts as monsters is fucking stupid.
We need to understand why they do this shit so we can explain to them why they shouldn't.
What fucked us over is the only other option we're neoliberals. They can't talk about fixing real problems because they're paid to ignore those very problems. So instead they try to make Dem voters think of it like sportsball too.
The problem is at best Dem voters aren't maniac fans like Republicans. We're the home team fans who hate our own team and wish anyone else was calling the shots. It's like we were cursed to be born in Cleveland and LeBron James already moved away
As a Clevelander, who's used some of those same talking points.......are you making a padody of me? You following me around?
You have no idea how much I want to have this conversation.
I was told our rights to travel or go outside won’t return.
I was told that I would be immune compromised for taking an experimental vaccine.
Can we now get everyone to admit some people were very wrong during COVID?
load more comments
(10 replies)
A right wing group that profits from the rights of others being taken away. The only "rights" they were fighting for is WASPs
Freedom convoy grew into something much bigger than Truckers protesting about vaccine mandates to cross the border. They had a point that they work in very isolated conditions, but covid freaks were opportunistic, and US/right wing funding to make it blow up was plenty.
Republicans actually think they are being set free with the removal of government employees.
Yes. Clinton also gutted government departments.... Over the span of seven years. Trump is doing that within less than a month and is doing so much more damage. It's like watching someone with a gambling addiction budget their monthly income.
People ARE protesting though. And they are protesting all over the world. I think trump is the first, most hated dictator in the world right after Hitler.
Clinton's reductions in government was like dieting and exercising for 7 years to lose weight.
The current administration is using a chainsaw to cut off the legs to lose weight instantly.
Because those groups were right wing and funded by political agitators, multiplied by manipulated media. The people on the ground did believe in the issues, but it was a concerted effort of political theater as a show of force.
Everyone else is now debilitated by wage theft that they can only care about the economy. When the market crashes harder and full recession hits, that’s when people will take to the streets because they’ll have lost jobs and freedoms. That’s when the martial law will start.
🥱
Genuinely asking. What is this post about? I've seen 3-4 posts with the same vague description of what is actually going on. Sorry, I checked out of politics for yhe past 2 weeks and am genuinely asking, what.
I was generally just thinking how the general public 3-5 years back were protesting about loss of rights (ie. stay at home "orders") imposed by their government, albeit the protest back then may have been a little flawed and morphed into a Anti-vaccine movement.
Now, 5 years later people are seemingly loosing their rights for real (within the USA) and its almost as if no one notices. ie. Judges being threatened, public services bring dismantled, basic foods increasing in price.
I know its not a perfect 1:1 correlation. The lockdowns effected everyone at the same time in roughly the same way no matter social status. The current situation is more along the lines of "it does not effect me".
Ah! Thank you both for you replies! I see what you are talking about now.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Ah I remember that. Forever burned into my brain: “Eighteen naked cowboys in the showers at Ram Ranch…”
Is that what it was about? Because there was no clear message, and there were some Nazi flags, people complaining about sex ed curriculum, something about farmers .. It was pretty much an incoherent mess that messed up the daily lives of Ottawa citizens, for what?
Because the same people organized both, for broadly speaking the same reasons
Children. They have the minds of children.
Is there a way to hide all comments from folks who werent in Ottawa at the time?