American government told the whole world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. America used this as justification to invade Iraq and murder its people. It turns out there were no weapons of mass destruction after all.
This is why I don’t trust any government trying to justify any warlike behavior. It’s all a scam. There is no justification good enough for civilians and young men to suffer and die.
The politicians play chess and we die
This is slightly extreme. Go tell Europeans in the late 30s and early 40s that there’s no justification for going to war against Germany. There are always exceptions.
We didn’t go to germany, germany came to us.
Just like usa did many times.
And i don’t think it was so obvious at the time. Russia was massing weapons, middle east had problems, and tensions were everywhere.
You’re being obtuse about the definition of “go to war”. If they invade your country and you fight back you’re still going to war.
Fair enough. But in the context of usa it never had a defensive war, always the agressor. And the propaganda was “they have bio weapons of mass destruction and will use them”, and later “they terrorists”. None of which was true. Iran was far from innocent either.
Ok I concede there are exceptions but I think even in justified war the government is full of shit. The propaganda gets pumped out in full force during military actions.
Like how Japanese internment in America wasn’t justified, even if involvement in WW2 was.
Now there’s something that sounds like an insane conspiracy theory but actually happened.
There are people alive today who survived the Japanese internment. For example George Takei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Takei
Aside from literal defense from invaders
I still don’t trust the government. Obviously defending yourself is justified war. For example Ukraine fighting Russia. But there’s been many documented cases of Ukrainian propaganda outright lying. They are not unique so I am not trying to single them out - there are many many many examples in modern times and historical. One of the most famous examples in the Ukrainian war was the “Ghost of Kyiv”, early on into the war.
They came up with the idea of a legendary ace fighter pilot that was going around and shooting down a bunch of Russian planes. However that pilot never existed. The government even acknowledged a few months later, after this idea had become viral and spread around everywhere - effectively already accomplishing its purpose - that it was a fabrication.
This is sort of what I mean. During war, propaganda goes off the charts. There’s a fog of war and the government uses that as a tool to totally flood people with fake knowledge. And sure, you might argue that it’s justified because they are trying to raise their population’s morale and potentially lower the morale of the enemy - but I’m a guy who wants to know the truth. So I don’t trust governments when it involves any military action.
They may be telling the truth so I don’t discount it entirely but I’m immediately skeptical and will try to confirm using sources that aren’t directly from the government.
so like a psyop
And they knew it.
It’s worth going back to the 1980s to start pulling that thread though. The US and west have been messing around in Iraq since the Iran Iraq war. Probably Saddam’s greatest mistake was shaking hands with the devil.
Since giving waterboarding a go I’ve found myself disgusted by any government that allows the use of waterboarding on anybody - governments that encourage it are even worse, and the way the Americans handled Gitmo is fucking disgraceful.
Gitmo is still open, there’s no past tense involved
And our buddy DeSantis oversaw torture there and laughed about it.
Since giving waterboarding a go
…I feel like there’s some missing context here but I’m not sure I want to ask
Not just America unfortunately. The UK government did this too, their part should not be forgotten.
I’m not a big fan of Whoopie Goldberg, but her way of telling (starts at 7min 53sec) about Iraq and WMD has always stuck with me. It’s worth a watch. It’s the perfect amount of funny mixed with reality.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/csaYMydO1Hg?si=CySZF0rFr8AVpMcB
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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I always thought poppy production in Afghanistan had something to do with it. In 2001 the Afghan government sucessfully eradicated poppies, and again recently after the American occupation ended.
It was oil, not poppies.
P×dophiles are flocking to churches because they’re unregulated by the government. They’re becoming a safe haven for these sick fucks because they often attempt to handle conflict and scandals within their own walls. Also, due to a high need for childcare, often no background check is needed!
A “scandal” is bad for
businessattendance numbers, so they like to keep it quiet, if they can.My family has gone to so many churches throughout the years, and at least 5 or 6 have had the sexual abuse of a child come to light within church leadership.
I am dead serious about this: KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF CHURCHES!!!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that most clergy are not bound by laws that would make them mandated reporters for child abuse.
Even better, stop going to churches at all.
I mean, yeah, that’s how I deal with it.
But even some non-church-going folks with drop off their kids at “youth group” essentially for free childcare and debatable “moral development.”
Even when it does come out, church people often rush to support the perpetrators. They do the “I’ve had a beer with them and I like them so they couldn’t be a bad guy” thing that I do not understand at all about people.
This is true, they try to hide this type of activity, and if you fight it they’ll take you down too. Source: personal experience.
It’s true. There will be some volunteer that has inappropriate behavior with a minor that gets kicked out then just does the same at a different church. No one tells the police because of the intense sexual shaming and stigma. This is when you’re lucky enough to be somewhere where the church doesn’t outright protect the abuser and force the abused out.
The MOVE bombing. The fact that the Philadelphia police dropped not one but TWO explosive devices on the roof of their house via helicopter is still nuts to me. What made it even worse was the fact that the fire department showed up and let it continue to burn, destroying 61 evacuated neighboring homes and leaving 250 people homeless.
Any time I tell someone about it that hasn’t heard the story, they’re skeptical.
Another one is the time I learned that I was under local surveillance for being an activist that was part of a local non-violent black liberation org. The police would send a unit weekly to check my whereabouts and movements. I learned through a friend of a friend that didn’t even know who I was, but knew my name and that I was on a surveillance list. Pretty sure they were checking in on everyone involved.
Edit: if this comment has taught me anything, it’s that you’re better off not engaging with pointless nitpickers and police apologists. Fuck me for having an opinion.
I just looked up MOVE after reading this comment. Amazing power dynamics (from wikipedia):
In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters, as well as members of the MOVE organization. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and each received prison sentences of 30 to 100 years.[2] In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped two bombs onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse located at 6221 Osage Avenue.[3][4] The resulting fire killed six MOVE members and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood.[5]
The “city” was found to have used excessive force, and compensation in these cases comes from taxpayer money.
The Philadelphia police wanted MOVE gone because they bucked the system and were at odds with the police over the ongoing murder of their people. That’s why they went to such lengths to eradicate them at their main row house. I remember reading about how it was essentially a shooting gallery for the police. As people tried to escape the building, police fired upon them.
It was an insanely careless plan borne out of hubris, hatred towards black liberation groups in a time of high racial tensions, and the police (again) thinking that they were above the law. I’m actually shocked there was even a lawsuit that stuck. That alone shows how fucked their whole plan was. Even the city and a federal judge couldn’t overlook this one.
The fire department showed up and the move members started shooting at them, which is why the fire department moved back.
Police and MOVE were still exchanging gunfire, so the firefighters were ordered to back away.
Also, to add some intent, the police plan was to make a hole in the roof through which they could shoot year gas and force MOVE members to evacuate. Witnesses did see officers on the adjoining buildings ready to go. It was a stupid plan.
The conspiracy part comes in, though, because we really only have the word of the police on all of this, since all but two of the MOVE people died, and one was a child
Isn’t most tear gas flammable? What the fuck is wrong with our cops and why are they so stupid?
You said above “the fire department showed up and let it continue to burn” This is a completely inaccurate statement. The fire department was there from the beginning and were ordered to move back because of the gunfire. Your statement is saying that the fire department showed up at sometime during the event and just waited around and let it continue to burn, which is absolutely untrue .
It’s not inaccurate. That’s what happened because the police decided to corner MOVE members in their home and then fired at them as they tried to move outside. The goal from the start was to kill everyone there and in their rage, they devised easily one of the stupidest plans ever. The police forced people into a corner and they retaliated. The police also got hit with a lawsuit in federal court for use of excessive force and illegal search and seizure.
We can split hairs on phrasing, but the police are to blame for the entire thing and crafted a scenario where the fire department’s hands were tied.
The goal from the start was to kill everyone there
[citation needed]
It was well known that the police disliked MOVE as a collective. That’s why they got slapped with a lawsuit by a federal judge for excessive force, illegal search and illegal seizure. They killed women and children with their plan because of their carelessness, and fired upon anyone that ran from the building they set on fire with their bombs.
Your “citation” is cops and their interactions with black folk on the daily. I’m not gonna play this game where the opposition picks apart the irrelevant parts of a stance to try to weaken it.
Edit: here’s your citation
They killed women and children with their plan because of their carelessness
So, it wasn’t intentional.
Your “citation” is cops and their interactions with black folk on the daily
So, cruelty, indifference, but not an actual desire to murder all of them?
Edit: here’s your citation
I can’t read that because it requires a subscription, but I very much doubt it says “the police plan was to kill everyone, and here’s the evidence for that”.
He didn’t say that. It was a different person. Read the usernames.
None of it would’ve taken place if the police weren’t so fucking stupid with their plan. I get why the fire dept. held back, but the police created that entire scenario.
Also, my statement isn’t wrong.
Got cheap, no-name, unbranded LED bulbs off of eBay. Years later, not one of them had broken.
But Philips LED bulbs? Those things don’t last a year. In fact, none of the high-rated, “high quality,” top-ten-list, LED light bulbs have ever outlasted an incandescent in my experience.
If you want your LEDs to last, buy the no-name bulbs, guys. The Phoebus Cartel is still out there.
Boy do I have a video for you. It’s regarding the cartel and light bulb engineering if you’d be interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY
Monopolies are scary though, especially if they can make such collective actions without telling anyone.
Oi that’s my boy Technology Connections!
He’s on Mastodon, btw
Unsurprising tbh
Ha, I was about to dig out that video.
I will say in regards to LEDs, it’s a bit of a tricky thing. Philips in general are terrible, I don’t know what they do, but they’re also really pretty. Amazing for rarely-active mood lighting. For actual lighting, I use the white-tone-changeable Ikea bulbs, and they seem to last forever, hot as they get.
That’s the weirdest thing: The Ikeas run hotter than the Philips, yet still last longer. I really get the feel that Philips optimizes purely for color, smoothness and softness. They know what people use their overly expensive stuff for since in some areas they got little competition. It’s annoying, but for those purposes it also works really well.
I love that man, his brain and how he probes any subject matter which comes across his party.
The way my head absorbed what you said was: Phillips is the Apple of the LEDs. If you want something longer lasting, stick with the “ol reliable” brand such had to innovate to sell cheaper. I wonder if people have done experiments…
I will say that maybe Philips’ regular LED bulbs are bad, but I have Hue bulbs I’ve been using since 2015 without issues still. They’ve been extremely reliable.
Do not remember the video but isn’t that the whole problem: LEDs like to be cooler. Bright pretty LEDs get hoter. People buy smaller prettier bulbs. Things have a tradeoff independent of price. A small bright LED that is in an enclosed space will not last long. Recommend buying pretty LEDs and using them without enclosure or buying dimmable and setting them to 50% on default.
And not buying the integrated shit.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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Oh. Huh. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone who had good experience with those bulbs.
That… blows a hole in my theory.
I still don’t regret the cheap, foreign light bulbs I got off of eBay (best LEDs I’ve bought thus far)… but maybe my family and I have just been unlucky with name brand LEDs.
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I don’t think they were hue bulbs. I think they were just regular LED light fixture bulbs.
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I haven’t had any problem either, even in enclosed fixtures that the bulbs I have aren’t rated for. There are so many different models I don’t know if you can totally generalize by brand. And I don’t use anything higher than 60 watt equivalent. There is such a thing as too bright.
I have Philips hue leds in daily use that are actually 6 years old.
Gonna add on to your comment by suggesting ESP-based lights running WLED for any fans of smart lighting; having smart lights that run FOSS firmware, don’t need an external internet connection to work, and integrate well with reactive lighting solutions like HyperHDR and LedFX is pretty dang nifty!
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I was involved in the BLM protests of 2021. The cops were legitimately pulling people off the street into unmarked, black vans. Some of the people that were grabbed were not even involved in the protests, they were just outside past the citywide curfew.
I had heard about this happening in Oregon and Washington through the ever reliable internet, but I didn’t actually believe it until I saw it happen in my moderately sized Midwestern city.
And yet they let a bunch of reactionary fascists storm the capitol with minimal resistance.
Yeah, about that… let’s talk about a conspiracy theory. I remember reading, I think on Twitter, either just before, or maybe it was a retweet after the fact, someone local to DC saying that the security that had been established around town (or maybe around the capitol specifically) that day in preparation for the demonstrations was weaker than they had ever seen for any run of the mill event there. This would seem very strange because word was very much out that something was going to go down that day, so one would have expected a much higher level of security to have been established. Although I didn’t look very closely into what happened that day and the days surrounding it, it still seems strange that I’ve never heard this discussed since I read it.
Conspiracy fact. I watched on video as cops moved barricades to let rioters in, took selfies with rioters, then literally held the hands of rioters as they walked down the capitol stairs.
At the BLM protests in Buffalo a cop dropped his helmet. When a bystander tried to give it back to them, the cops gave him brain damage.
Conspiracy fact. I watched on video as cops moved barricades to let rioters in, took selfies with rioters, then literally held the hands of rioters as they walked down the capitol stairs.
Thanks, but that’s not what I meant though. What that person described was that an unusually low, insufficient level of security had been established before the event, in comparison to any other run of the mill event that had taken place in that area in the past. The exact opposite should have been done, since everyone expected there to be trouble.
In terms of conspiracy theory, there are two possibilities I can think of: a) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would succeed and become a coup, or b) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would not succeed but would be enough of a spectacle that it could then be used against the people who were involved with facilitating and encouraging it. However, this all hinges on that observer’s evaluation being accurate that the event had indeed been unusually under-secured.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777
So here’s the head of the DC national guard saying that they were purposely delayed in their response and that the people from the army who testified in front of the jan 6 committee were, his words, “absolute and unmitigated liars”.
Here are jan 6 rally organizers saying they knew before it happened that the rally was going to involve an unpermitted match in the Capitol. They say they called white house chief of staff Mark meadows about it and were ignored. The person who claimed to have made the call now says they didn’t and the white house was unaware of the plans to march on the capitol. Given the number of rioters who showed up in bespoke tshirts that said “storm the capitol” it’s fair to say that if the white house didn’t see this coming they were the only ones who didn’t. The article also establishes that Enrique tarrio, Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes were there and that organizers put up with their openly abhorrent beliefs because they can “push bodies where we point”. This is relevant because it means that people we’ve proven were in contact with the white house before 01/06 were there to cause a riot and knew it.
The above link also shows that capitol police knew what was coming. The released a memo on Jan 3 saying “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence, may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike." An internal email from 12/31 said that rally permit requests were “being used as proxies for Stop the Steal” and that those requesting permits “may also be involved with organizations that may be planning trouble” on Jan. 6.
Another thing of note from that source is that no march on the capitol was permitted, but plans among organizers including those known to have been in direct contact with the white house publicly talked about the rally ending in a march on the capitol. It wasn’t until after those plans were published that Trump tweeted that he would personally attend the rally.
It’s also important to know that the DC national guard is unique in that it’s deployment is managed by the white house directly, rather than by state governors as other national guard groups are. The above source says that capitol police requested national guard support 6 times, including after violence erupted, and were denied all 6 times. Muriel Bowser, mayor of DC at the time, had also requested NG support ahead of the rally and had been denied.
So the white house was aware in advance of the rally, including that it would involve an unpermitted march on the capitol. Some organizers were so concerned that violence would erupt that they reached out to white house chief of staff mark meadows about it. They knew violence was coming. After the more openly violent elements announced that they would illegally march on the capitol, Trump tweeted that people should attend the rally and that he would be there personally. They took steps to amplify the violence. Trump also had the power to deploy the DC national guard. The guard was requested both before the rally by the mayor of DC and during the violence 6 times by capitol police. These requests could have been granted by Trump, but were instead denied. The trump white house took steps to hamper the response to the violence.
What else would you need in order to believe that this was a planned assault on democracy, coordinated directly with the white house and designed to take advantage of a legitimate peaceful protest?
What else would you need in order to believe that this was a planned assault on democracy, coordinated directly with the white house and designed to take advantage of a legitimate peaceful protest?
I know it was a planned assault on democracy. I never said otherwise. I also know who had fomented and planned the assault: the people in the White House and all their die-hard followers. None of that is in question. What I was unsure about was who had fucked up and allowed it to happen that day. I had never looked very closely at the details of the events of that day, but I read the NPR and Politico stories you sent. The picture that those paint to me is that a lot of people primarily responsible for securing this event fucked up leading up to it. With all that intelligence that shit was going to go down, the local authorities should have had their shit together, ready for it. They could have asked the National Guard to be in place ahead of time, but didn’t think it was necessary despite having access to the intelligence and were worried about what had happened previously with the BLM protests. If they’re having to call the National Guard after people start rushing the capitol, it’s way too late. From the time that the crowd reaches the security lines at the capitol until the time that the protester is shot trying to enter the House chamber is less than 1 hour 45 minutes. And it sounds like the call goes out to the NG after the crowd reached the capitol.
I didn’t realize or recall that Michael Flynn’s brother was one of the generals involved in the decision to send in the National Guard. WTF, he was probably in no hurry to send in the troops. However, I still argue that the people who were intent on securing the event should not have given anyone the opportunity of a delayed response that could have been obscured by the chaos. Aside from that, what are the chances that the situation could have potentially been even worse had the NG been involved? Can you imagine the endless whining from the MAGAs if more of them had been mowed down by the NG?
they could have asked for NG support before the event
The mayor of DC did, and was denied.
I didn’t realize Michael Flynn’s brother was responsible for sending in the troops
Look up when he was appointed. Trump put him in place during the lame duck period after the election specifically so that he could sabotage security ahead. No one “screwed up” security, they all did exactly what they were there to do. Capitol cops put up a token resistance then waved rioters in, NG was held away from the event until it was well too late, the only people who screwed up were the gangs of terrorists embedded in the crowd who failed to capture any government officials who could potentially have been ransomed in exchange for Trump being appointed. I’m usually a big fan of Hanlon’s razor but in this particular situation that would require a lot of competent people to become very stupid for exactly one day in a way that just so happens to benefit themselves greatly.
Some of those who work forces.
I remember the livestreams. Did anyone ever find out what happened to those poor people?
They fucking shot people on their own porches. They fucking arrested a journalist just standing doing nothing live on the air.
The fact we all did not revolt and overthrow those assholes at that point is a moral failing on our part.
They went into people’s houses to arrest them for being out after curfew.
They fired tear gas into people’s houses because they were suspected of giving water to protestors.
In Minneapolis a group of cops went around off duty, out of uniform in an unmarked van and fired irritant paintballs at everyone they saw. When someone shot back they arrested him for assauting an officer, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, etc. He was eventually acquitted because he stopped shooting as soon as they ID’d themselves.
The police are fucking animals roaming the streets and inflicting violence anywhere they can get away with it.
Probably mostly just shaken up and released. I think it was the National Guard, but I wasn’t about to get close enough to ask.
Someone needs to go investigate. They could’ve been protest leaders disappeared somewhere for all we know
It happened in Pittsburgh too. Undercovers in unmarked vans were just snatching people up off the street. Cops were shooting at people who were on their knees with their hands in the air. Someone plowed their car through a crowd of protesters on video, with the license plate and cops said there was nothing they could do.
Theres a huge network of private surveillance cameras, microphones, and other sensors constantly collecting everyone’s information and selling it to whomever can pay, or just straight up giving the feds access to the data.
I like to refer to that corporation as “Little Brother”.
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I legitimately believe this.
Amazon’s Ring cameras do give this information over. Businesses use beacons whoch ping mobile devices to count foot traffic. If you look at your phones “key locations” setting you’ll find your phone has been logging all your for traffic for years, and your ISP will be doing the same. Even the Tim Hortons app was logging and selling user’s detailed location history. That’s something a lot of apps are definitely doing at smaller scale (or via SDKs where the app may not even know they’re sending that info – segment is almost definitely doing this type of thing).
I did the math once on the “my phone listens and sends ads for what I say” conspiracy and it’s squarely feasible to build even years ago.
Mobile OSes have gotten better permissions, but you could use low quality speech to text algorithms and a bloom filter to select ad categories without much memory or battery hit. You would be able to generate a list of “definitely haven’t used” terms and “maybe used” terms, which is good enough to target ads.
Phone have crazy good microphones too, and you can never know when they’re on or off.
Mostly I think people thinking this was happening were vastly underestimating how much Google and FB know about them – nearly every website sends your info to them. Even if you use a VPN your weather app can leak your IP, or any other app running in the background of your phone like your email client checking Gmail for new messages. All that data can be loaded into an identity graph, which correlates that data with known instances of your activity and assigns a probability of an action being you each hop out in the event*feature network. That’s how FB shadow profiles worked years ago.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist but practically anything you do online can and will be traced back to you. VPNs only protect you from your ISP. Always assume you’re being watched and what you do will be used against you in the future, even if it’s all legal.
Always remember Ken Bone who people loved but then the media ripped on over his commenting on a pregnancy porn subreddit.
I don’t doubt anything you said, except for the last paragraph.
Ken Bone did an AMA on the same account that he commented on porn subs with - that was not a result of surveillance programs.
Yes, I guess my point there is if there’s something people can use against you they will
Also think about all the other cameras that have their eyes on you. Every security camera in large stores feeds back to their corporate cloud storage which is used to build new models on shit like shopper habits, and they’re most definitely selling that data. New cars all have cameras and cellular modems in them now too.
There’s also these fucking things that have been popping up all over my area. They track every single car that passes them by. Color, make, model, and plate numbers. They insist they’re not doing facial recognition as well but it’s literally the same technology.
Trying to avoid all of this tracking, online and IRL, is fucking EXHAUSTING and probably futile in the end. On top of that everyone I tell about this shit either say “meh, i know im being tracked and I dont care” or just think I’m a paranoid schizophrenic.
Yeah it creeps me out. It’s the wanton collection of all data that’s worrying, an adversarial government could do a lot with it.
lol
I was driving with a friend on in Louisiana about 3am one night in the late 90s. I thought I saw something ahead in the right lane so I moved into the left lane just in case.
As we got closer there was a giant shadow of some kind with only tiny reflectors at the edges. It was a HUGE matte black boat filling the lane on a matte black trailer with no plates. Closest comparison I can come up with would be one of those river patrol boats from the Vietnam war.
We were on cruise so it took a few seconds to pass them. The boat was being towed by a matte black F-550 (?) MDT with no plates and no lights other than headlights.
I did not look up at the driver when we passed. I have no idea if this was a drug thing, an intel thing, or what.
It could be many things, but I’d guess it’s just someone who thinks it’s cool to have matte black everything. I had a neighbor (who was a cop) who really liked matte black vehicles. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything. (Although, being a cop, he very well may have been a drug dealer also, so who knows?)
And isn’t there some special paint that is the most light absorbing black possible?
I kind of imagine some Dale Gribble type driving it…
Vanta Black.
There is a huge amount of fake and bot accounts on social medias, probably as much as the population of many cities, made and used to manipulate the public opinion.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s been studied and shown true over and over.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-020-0340-4
https://medium.com/@robhat/an-analysis-of-propaganda-bots-on-twitter-7b7ec57256ae
https://headlineusa.com/china-bots-boost-propaganda/
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/computational-propaganda/
Yeah man that’s the point of this thread. The idea is it’s things that aren’t conspiracy theories. They just sound like them.
Right
Correct
So true
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Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.
Yeah, something I truly can’t believe it happened.
And it’s worse than that because about half the country MEANT to do that the first time…
Well significantly less than half because of voting percentages.
COINTELPRO. Since I learned about that the whole Ehrlichmann story about criminalizing drugs to oppress black communities and possibly even CIA involvement in the opoid and crack epidemics seem pretty plausible to me.
ITT: People who don’t understand the topic.
Yeah OP didn’t ask us “what’s the latest conspiracy theory you read about on Truth Social.”
The people in charge in the U.S. want to eliminate transgender people so that they can have men and women in neat, separate boxes and continue to oppress women as they have been for centuries.
I personally think it’s more about manufacturing an ‘other’ to blame everything on and unite people in hate.
There’s little benefit to targeting women for oppression in the modern economy - they’re just more undifferentiated labour to be exploited (though it remains possible to pay them less). I think this was meaningfully different when living off a single income was a realistic proposition.
I think it has to do with the fact that they can’t run on “make abortions illegal” anymore so now they have turned to “lgbt bad”
It’s really whatever gets people riled up that week
There’s no single unified group of “people in charge in the U.S.”. There are various people with varying amounts of power. Some of them are religious nutters who interpret their religion as saying that anything other than traditional gender roles is satanic. Some of them are opportunists who see religious nutters as useful idiots, they rile them up over transgender issues in order to get their support for other things (i.e. tax cuts / loopholes for special interests, etc.). Some of them are somewhat liberal, but are still uncomfortable with transgender people and see their political opponents using transgender issues to rile up their base while they do really destructive things (tax cuts / loopholes for special interests, etc.), so they focus their efforts not on defending transgender people, but in trying to attack what they see as the real issues. A small minority of “people in charge in the U.S.” are transgender, or very concerned with transgender issues, and are doing everything they can to fight for transgender rights.
Don’t forget that the majority of the “people in charge in the U.S.” are over 60 years old, and so even basic gay rights are a major departure from the world they were raised in.
It’s pointless to argue. Anyone who says “the people in charge” when talking about a government have no idea how the world really works.
And the people who think there are “people in charge” other than a government are deluded fools. Yes, rich people lobby and get special loopholes and exemptions from laws. But, they’re hardly a cartel that agrees about things, makes decisions collectively and then implements those decisions by simply passing laws or whatever. Rich people have more influence, but they’re not in charge, and they’re certainly not working together. If you know anything about the ultra-rich, it’s that they’re sociopaths. People like that don’t work together, they backstab each-other, have vendettas against each-other, etc. They’re not “in charge”, they’re just the loudest voices in the room.
And they’re doing startlingly well in their attempts…
sounds like a conspiracy theory
Remember that democracy is not something done to you. It is something you do.
The Green Party in my country is blocking the development of green alternatives to the industry that is one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gasses and various other pollutants (there’s a reason most of our rivers are no longer safe to swim in and the levels of certain cancer-causing compounds are 10-100x the EU safe limit in some areas’ water supplies), while private corporations and the main right-wing party are pushing for their legalisation.
A certain local indigenous group (which is technically a registered corporation) doesn’t really like people mentioning the fact that they’re currently driving an endangered native animal extinct by turning the only area they inhabit into dairy farms.
Also most of the politicians in this country are liars and/or sociopaths, but that kinda goes without saying lol
Might as well name your country?
New Zealand!
Until you said that I thought you might be talking about Canada.
But you’re not from lemmy.nz 🤔
I just kinda liked beehaw when I was first switching to lemmy - was one of the first few people to join the Te Wai Pounamu community when it initially got started a few months back though!
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Nah, New Zealand. Got plenty in common though - we still share a king and all that!
Celestial Seasonings tea and Shen Yun both have ties to cults. With Celestial Seasonings the cult that founded it no longer own or profit off it thankfully, but their tea is shit so I still don’t recommend buying it.
Shen Yun doesn’t hide it. Their show is all about Falun Gong. Although they don’t advertise it as such. Went to one of their shows with my wife and mother thinking it would just be about Chinese artistic culture and then BAM - Two hour long Falun Gong propaganda piece.
Isn’t that show expensive or am I thinking of something else?
Ticket prices are about mid-range relative to other live performance shows in the same category, $100-$200 depending on seating.
Wife and I saw Hamilton recently and tickets were $300 each, for example.
I mean they post posters up in every Chinese food restaurant within a major metropolitan area, I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near Hamilton or even regular theater pricing off that odd advertisement technique…
Oneida cutlery too. The cult died, the cutlery survived.
I’ve seen a UFO while I was truck driving. Most amazing thing I have seen to date.
Edit: On the night of the Dec 11th 2020 at 9:30ish I had stopped for the night to sleep whiledriving towards Colorado on I25 in New Mexico. I had stopped at a truck parking area maybe 10 miles away from Old Sunshine gas station and parking area. I was gazing at the stars and milkyway and enjoying the lack of light pollution when I witnessed it. Where the sky had previously been black and full of stars a blue light appeared for 10 or so seconds and then shot directly upward in an ice blue streak. At first I didn’t think anything of it until it moved incredibly fast straight up. It was instantaneous. I used to be ing the Air Force so I have seen all kinds of Arial vehicles. Never seen anything like this.
I couldn’t find a mile marker but the coordinates are “35.3965167, -105.4138241”.
Would you care to elaborate internet friend?
I added the event to my original post.
We all see unidentified objects all the time. Most of us don’t make a big deal about not being able to identify something though.
