I don't care about Maduro, as far as I'm concerned, they can shoot him if they want. What matters to me is walking through the streets of my city and seeing the faces of fear on my neighbors. The military patrolling to prevent looting due to panic. It's a collective hangover, a horrible one.

It's 2016 all over again. It's seeing despair entering the circulatory system of all Venezuelans, only now it's more sudden, and we are painfully aware of it.

This is far from improving, and we know it.

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[–] 150 points 10 months ago (31 children)

I'm sorry. What we're doing is wrong. It shouldn't be happening.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (30 children)

    It's not "we". It's about 7 people.

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  • [–] 53 points 10 months ago

    It takes more than 7 people to produce a fighter jet.

    It takes more than 7 people to launch, fly, and navigate a fighter jet.

    It takes more than 7 people to kidnap an acting head of state.

    The US military is complicit. The US military infustrustrial complex is complicit.

    I'm not sure if I would consider US voters complicit, most of us are rendered powerless by the current electoral system, but we've sure got a lot of blood on our hands.

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  • [–] 122 points 10 months ago (16 children)

    It's we. It's our government. It's our country. Any action or inaction is on all US citizens.

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  • [–] 69 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago (11 children)

    Fuck that, I didn't vote for the people making these decisions.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (10 children)

    The State gets legitimised by more than just voting.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    Cool, spread that blame around on every country that legitimizes the US by recognizing its sovereignty and cooperating with its military and every citizen of those countries.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    EU, Russia, China, UN et al cannot legitimately make a constitution for the US. Hell, they even let West-Germany after freaking WW2 have their own constitution for a reason.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I can't make a legitimate constitution either, any amendment requires 38 of 50 states to agree! The entire system was built to disproportionately empower rural areas because we "needed" their economic support to break free from Great Britain. (And we had substantial foreign assistance in that endeavor)

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Think inside the box speedrun

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Forgive me if I'm not receptive of people thousands of miles away from me telling me I should go get shot by a fascist government or else it's my fault they're evil.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    I'm sorry, if I made you solely responsible for "your" country's government's actions, I didn't keep attention to the handle. As I see it, federal and federating states, the two US parties are co-enabling each other and as a result, no one can really vote about a political system change. AFAIK, peaceful change has happened before, where they had some sort of constitutional assembly. Sure, given the unequal political mobilisation status atm, it seems unlikely, but if such ideas are unthinkable in the rigorous definition of the word, long term or massive violence will be likely, because no system is forever. Again, not your fault or sole responsibility, beyond "your" country identity, read: you as part of 340,110,988 people ± your sociopolitical power. Don't get shot.

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  • [+] 2 points 10 months ago* (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    You are exactly as capable of flying to Washington DC and "storming the capital" as I am and the result would be identical.

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  • [+] 1 point 10 months ago* (2 children)
  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Come get your boy Rupert Murdoch and his spawn then since we're cleaning up our own messes, or is the architect of contemporary right-wing media control my responsibility as well?

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  • [–] 41 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    The us is a country of what? 400M people? Are you telling me 400M people can't just kick those 7 assholes? Nah mate, it's "you". Because if it's just 7 people, then it's still "you" who are letting them do this.

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago*

    Correct.

    I am an American, and I keep trying to explain to other Americans that nobody else is going to fucking care for 99% of our personal excuses, for all the details of why we are not right this very moment overthrowing our very obviously demented and evil, fascist dictatorship, which is in command of the most capable implement of devastation probably ever seen on the face of the planet.

    My personal excuse is that I'm literally crippled and broke and actually can't physically do much, and I spent the last decade + warning everyone that somewhere like this was where we were headed if we didn't collectively pull our heads out of assess...

    ...but I entirely do not expect any sympathy or special consideration from any other country or its residents.

    We had everything.

    And it wasn't enough, we threw it away in for greed, overconfidence, and frankly just a lot of racism, hatred and ignorance, wanting to just really truly feel superior to ... some other kind or group of people.

    We are a contemptible nation of idiot narcissist hypocrites.

    Pariahs, a single generation after largely being viewed as heros.

    Its truly pathetic.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Nope. I'm doing my part. The general public isn't personally hurting enough to take action. People are generally selfish when it comes to caring, if they have food, shelter, relative safety, etc. then they don't care about anything else. All of that is starting to go away, which is why we're seeing more and more actively protesting, but it's still not enough. It's growing though.

    Also it's not 7 people enforcing it, it's 7 people making the decision in the first place. The State has a monopoly on violence, and they use it to prevent the People from doing anything about their decisions. That's why democracy was such an amazing invention, since it allowed non-violent decision changes.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    400M people distributed over an insanely large landmass with low population density and sky-high levels of income inequality preventing ease of travel to DC. Also representation is incredibly distorted depending on state of residence and direct citizen influence at the national level is nonexistent.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    If you stand by and let bad things happen you are also a bad person

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    We should have thrown ourselves in front of the army to stop this I guess

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago

    We could've talked it out instead of bombing a country that didn't even deserve it. Without killing innocent people, destroying dozens of homes and taking a president and his wife from their country by force. Minimizing the effect and after-effect is a form of defence and your--my--and all American's part in this.

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