Alt Text:

This is a screenshot of a bluesky post from “The Tennessee Holler” posted 12 hours ago. The post reads: “If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?” The post includes a repost from Joe G posted 2 hours ago that says “Arresting people in wheelchairs protesting Medicaid cuts.” Below the text is a video thumbnail showing what appears to be law enforcement officers restraining an elderly person in a wheelchair in what looks like a government building or office setting.

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[–] 117 points 1 year ago (34 children)
  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (32 children)

    Yes, you guys are. Yet you’re still moralizing to countries across the planet.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago* (31 children)

    Turns out women should have rights. Even while we're rolling them back, we're still leagues above a lot of the world in that regard. I don't think we've done much moralizing, as you put it, to western Europe.

    My apologies if it offends you that we've been telling Afganis they shouldn't screw young boys and telling Saudis that maybe it's okay to let women drive.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (28 children)

    Your country is run by fascists but it’s easier to criticize a country across the planet than to fix your own mess. Americans need to shut the fuck up and stay out of global affairs for a long time. You’ve murdered and colonized enough of us that we don’t buy your moral bullshit

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (26 children)

    It's incredible how often people will directly blame the Americans here on lemmy as if those of us here dont lean progressive.

    Am I directly responsible for the trail of tears, banana republics, and the Middle East despite the fact I've only been able to vote in 3 elections?

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I'm not mad at my Iranian friends because of what their leaders do. I can't blame them for not starting a bloody uprising. It requires coordinated, collective action, and religious leaders and the uber rich work together to keep true change from happening. The same goes for the USA. Propaganda works, and it's keeping the people too divided to easily take serious action.

    We need to help make change possible, not only chastise people for being trapped in oppressive systems.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    People are pissed because even progressives in the US are pretty fucking weak half the time. Sometimes you get these grannies being awesome, and sometimes you get cowardly centrists who can’t stop being defensive.

    I don’t think you fully grasp just how much the rest of the world hates the US, nor how much damage the US has done despite having all these supposed “progressives” in it. Your Overton window is in a real fuckin’ bad place.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (15 children)

    I fully agree with you.

    Am I responsible for that despite advocating for a more progressive country by attending protests and canvassing for the candidates who are progressive?

    The logic applied here means 20-somethings in France are responsible for Haiti. Thats pretty fucking reductive.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Let's not sell out our entire country because someone is on a soapbox from a likely near or worse country.

    The number of countries that can rightfully speak down to the US isn't that large and is mostly in Western/Northern Europe. And half of those have held that distinction for a quite short time.

    Largely the problem is that we're following the world in the wrong direction rather than leading it in the right direction.

    We're failing to be a beacon of freedom and a role model for citizens in places like China and Russia and Iran and Saudi Arabia. Our failure to improve ourselves and the world doesn't make those other countries superior.

    We should all be trying to pull each other up instead of tearing each other down.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Well everyone in a representative democracy takes a small amount of responsibility for it.

    So the actual amount of responsibility for the past is mainly symbolic, and you should treat it as such. It takes on more meaning when you consider that what happens next is a much larger responsibility for individual citizens.

    I notice that many similar complaints are founded in individualism, which is the ideological reason you folks are in this mess.

    Start there.

    Organize, or bear judgment.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    You were literally defending a guy who was trying to deflect and act like the US is doesn’t deserve the criticism because women are treated poorly in some other countries(likely thinking about one of the places where he US helped install the very governments that oppress those women).

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    That most certainly is not the case. I am defending myself from accusations that I helped make the world the way it is today by being born in the wrong country decades after the path had been set.

    What country are you from? The logic applied means you're directly responsible for any atrocity committed by your government.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Friend, I live in a settler state too, and our genocide isn’t quite over yet either. I didn't start it, but as a part of the settler side of the equation, I benefit economically. I also benefit from the neocolonialism of the companies based in my country, indirectly, yes, and whether I ask for it or not.

    No matter what I do to

    • stop the last bit of the genocide
    • make redress and other justice happen
    • end foreign exploitation

    ...it won't be enough. Doesn't matter, take it on and acknowledge it.

    Funny how responsibility works. It's nuanced.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I'm not responsible for the actions of bloodthirsty politicians when I do everything I can short of murder to prevent these things from happening.

    I dont choose to benefit economically.

    Being a participant in society is not just cause to blame someone for another's actions.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    This all-or-nothing lack of nuance combined with a lack of collective responsibility is a fairly typical example of the kind of complaints I hear or read about USA culture.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    My man's here talking about nuance while blaming every American for its current state.🙄

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Literally you weren’t personally part of the conversation until you made yourself part of it. You heard that people were pissed at the US and took it as an attack on yourself.

    You need to figure out why you did that.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    If I said everyone with the username soup needs to shut the fuck up about world politics would you take offense to that?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I really don’t think you’re grasping any of this, or any of how you came across, enough to continue this conversation.

    If you want to play that game, though, let’s do it this way: I’m a man, and I fully understand why women choose the bear and why, no matter how much I think I’m one of the good ones(even when I’m told so by the vast majority of the women in my life), I should stay out of their business unless prompted to contribute. You sound like you’ve said “not all men” before, and you should really work on why you give off that energy even if you haven’t.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Yeah man, I've read all of those words on social media too.

    I'm happy you can effectively copy and paste.

    Of course, anyone with half a brain chooses the bear. But now we have to deal with half-witted morons who use it as an insult to those who dont deserve it.

    It's funny how aggressive you took this when someone attacked your username.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Nobody here makes a distinction between Netanyahu and Israel as a whole, so I will make no distinction between you and Trump

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    You just made the correct distinction and then really fucked it up.

    Are you Israel? Because I am certainly not the US, im just a dude and not an entire country.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    And im an indigenous Central American who is sick of white kids moralizing to me about colonialism. Who is sick of hypocrites who destroyed my people, now acting like they own the planet. Americans are trash, im throwing out the whole country because you guys have done nothing but prove over and over that you’re Terrorists

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Individualism.

    Ideology is like halitosis, it's always someone else's problem.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, that's pretty much all we Americans do here on Lemmy. We're constantly bragging about the state of our country and we never criticize our dear leader.

    If there's one thing I've learned from Lemmy it's that America's problems are just not a big concern.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Try that again after the US (or Canada) has a women as the leader of the country. Many other, supposedly shittier countries, can at least manage that. Southern US has its own version of Taliban and religious zealots with plenty of female abuse and little boys being violated. There's a reason the nickname Y'All Qaeda was coined.

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  • [–] 88 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Why are they even ziptied? Are the cops afraid of being beat up by grandmas ?

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Why didn't they just zip tie the wheel on the rascal

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Or just take the key. Unplug the batteries?

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  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The answer is Yes. ALL cops are cowards to begin with, and are trained to embrace their cowardice by responding with extreme force to the slightest inconvenience.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    The cruelty is the point.

    Republicans see these people as undesirable leeches on society.

    I pay my fucking taxes and social security so Grandma there can have housing, healthcare, so give her the fucking money.

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    [–] 51 points 1 year ago

    RADICAL LEFTIST GRANDMA

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago

    Slap another black scale punisher sticker on the f-350 for being so badass

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  • [–] 63 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Everyone could have seen this coming years ago. I still remember the first images from the ICE facilities where small children were separated from their parents and held in steel cages. Google it, it was heartbreaking.

    That was the moment I realized where the US was headed.

    It didn't even cause much protest, people were just shrugging it off. These were not humans, but immigrants, after all. Being from Germany I had a good understanding of the depths of inhumanity ICE was already willing to entertain back then. US Americans not only let this happen, they wanted more of it. Now they're getting it.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago

    The outcry over HitlerPig's child separation policy was enormous. I personally called every one of my elected officials and literally HOLLERED at them over the phone, demanding they do something about it. I don't think I was ever outraged more about a government policy. He rescinded it after a few days because the pressure was so intense.

    The Biden administration tried hard to return those children, but to this day, there are almost 1000 children who have never been reunited with their parents, and likely never will. It is one of the worst modern atrocities of the American government iny lifetime, and it is entirely MAGA's fault.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Personally I think it started before that. It has its roots in the mass overturning of civil rights after 2001, the implementation of secret courts, disappearing people into black sites, extrajudicial killings, and breaking international human rights laws to hold people in indefinite detention without trial.

    No subsequent administration has ever walked that back because that kind of power is so convenient to them. But this framework is what has facilitated the slide towards fascism.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Everyone could have seen this coming years ago. I still remember the first images from the ICE facilities where small children were separated from their parents and held in steel cages. Google it, it was heartbreaking.

    "No no no, you see. It was fine when democrats did it under the radar. We're just angry an uncharismatic person won and bad things started to happen. Now we're losing respect and soft power all over the world by blatant disrespect of the law. And I have to pay more for the chinese shit? This is UNACCEPTABLE.

    If a democrat had won, we'd totally be fine with its continuation as long as it doesn't affect me.

    They'll totally fix it in the next election though. You see, It's only because of those darn republicans who are the only ones being bought by billionaires and foreign lobbyists dragging us down.

    I just want to return to a time when we could bomb civilians abroad and still get nobel peace prize for our president. Oh how many war crimes we committed and got away with it. Still gives me goosebumps. Is that too much to ask?"

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    Well, you're wrong. Or just another pathetic liar.

    It wasn't fine when democrats did it. In fact, when immigrant family separation was happening under the Obama administration we the people protested. (One of the images passed around of a crying kid in a cage is from those Obama era protests) And we took the administration to court and we got that shit stopped. The administration followed court orders and ended family separation.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is what an insurrection looks like to Republicans who have pardoned January 6th people.

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  • [–] 48 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    This is Tennessee. My sister in law just left there after working in rural areas the last few years. She spent time as an aid worker in Kabul and found Tennessee to be worse off.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That's why people in deep red states think the government is filled with waste, fraud, and abuse - they don't realize that crumbling infrastructure, a lack of social services and societal blight aren't the norm.

    They just see other poor people getting help from the government in blue states and wonder "well where's my handout?" Without realizing they are in fact voting against those measures every election.

    The cons keep telling those voters that the government is broken - so they re-elect them to prove it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    The perception, real or not, of uneven attention from the government is more than enough to keep the feedback loop going.

    Universal programs are typically the best shot at breaking through that stasis. And that's, well, acting in the public interest: the anathema of American politics.

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    [–] 19 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Someone should screen record this embedded video of an embedded video of an embedded video lol

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  • [–] 71 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    The US is beyond saving. Fuck this place. I don’t care what it takes, we need a revolution, and conservatives need to be annihilated. Tarred and fucking feathered.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Christians, through history, loved stoning anyone who did not agree with them or follow their beliefs. I think it would be ironic if they ended up on the other end of this.

    But truthfully, I think just permanently removing their ability to have any effect on the world we live in, by their speech, money, action, position, etc, as quickly as humanly possible is far more important than just carrying out old fashioned punishments for catharsis. We all just need them gone.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    That would just feed their persecution fetish

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Nothing matters in this country aside from how much wealth you generate or spend at the moment. Doesn't matter how good or bad you are. Ethics are frowned upon. How much money you can spend or generate for others is the only factor. We are an experiment in how far largely unrelated capitalism can be pushed. The only fix for this is an absolute societal collapse.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Annihilated is a little strong. When are you starting this civil war of yours?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    Was it too strong to annihilate the Nazis? Rather than assume they'll go die unilaterally, it might be more constructive to discuss how we can act as a group.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    You are calling for the mass slaughter of millions. Maybe ask yourself a few questions before going ahead with your plans.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    So you think it was too strong to annihilate the Nazis?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Are you saying all conservatives are nazis?

    You literally called for the same thing the Nazis did to jews and others in WW2 to be done to all conservatives.

    Maybe touch grass a little, I know I don't enough, so maybe I will today. Have a good life and try to respect it until it doesn't respect you.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You're kinda acting like someone who thinks it was too strong to annihilate the Nazis.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    being good guys isnt the point

    owning libs is the point. and they are bigly owned right now,

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago*

    Lookout, Jimbo, she's comin' right for us!

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's funny because the zipties literally won't stop them.

    But unfortunately it takes more than one braincell to understand that.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    We are the baddies, and it's long past the time when that was even in question.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Maybe - bear with me - some people don't want to be and just want to power trip?

    I think not acknowledging that is part of the issue.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    and that is not trump. neither cuffing nor cuffed.it is the average joe. and in the US average joe has become an asshole.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Odds they voted for trump?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I know it's really easy to assume boomer === bad.

    But to call them all Trump supporters is inaccurate.

    If you said "All white people are Trump supporters", that's slightly more correct than old.

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  • It’s not a boomer = bad comment, it’s a suggestion that the elderly age group tends to vote republican, as proven by the chart you supplied, they’re in red state, and republicans tend to vote for leopards to eat their faces.

    Not sure what you’re trying to say with that chart. 65+ were more likely to vote trump, but it doesn’t break down the difference between men and women in that age group.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    They were being treated equally as per the law, I see this as very progressive as they are not assuming any bias or pre conceptions related to age, mobility or even letting their own emotions dictate their behavior towards people.

    Fascinating

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