I would honestly be surprised if America as we know it exists by that time. I hope whatever hell hole Elon runs off to has the foresight to just shoot him but I think even that is asking too much.
Considering that the downward enshittification and fascismization has been going on for more than thirty years, we're not that close to the bottom. Not by a long shot. It can get REALLY fucking shitty.
I for one don't believe any person with a significant amount of power and money will ever be prosecuted and convicted of anything significant ever again.
I'm of the opinion that they have complete control over the entire system, and nothing short of an armed revolution and public executions will change that
"Ever again" is a very long time to predict anything for tbh. Its not like powerful people in the past didn't often have control over the political systems they found themselves in, if this was enough to preclude it forever, why has any powerful person ever faced prosecution before?
...yeah but this time, a man-toddler is in charge of enough nukes to glass the world several times over, and as falls deeper into his geriatric years, he has increasingly little to lose. Previous poster may well be correct on account of humans being extinct in the near future.
Best case scenario, it isn't nuclear fire that cooks us - that just drags us out a bit longer for the climate to cook us instead.
Am I misunderstanding something? You think the monarchy had to follow laws? Didn't they make the laws? Or you think the monarchy didn't count as rich? Just because Elon is the richest? It took much less wealth to get away with egregious (by today's standards) crimes in the past.
Have you seen how the Climate Crisis is going? Humanity is basically toast in the next 30 years. Its onky accelersting, we are alreay in the "how much can we mitigate" and well beyond the "we can stop this" point. Its going to just get hotter and hotter and migration will start to snowball the food problems from the heat as everything inside the topic lines becomes an unlivable hellscape.
Most of Elons power is tied to Trump. If history is evidence, it's people like him who go down first, who choose a side. Most billionaires are detached enough from party politics that they technically can ask either side for cover, that's what makes them nearly invincible. But elon, despite being richest person on earth, is flying too close to the sun, and would be the first to burn when maga looses power.
I for one don't believe any person with a significant amount of power and money will ever be prosecuted and convicted of anything significant ever again.
Unless, of course, they have wronged someone even wealthier or a group of equally wealthy people.
I'm, Canadian, I only buy plane tickets that fly over that shit hole.
Also this is the internet, nothing can be proven on the internet. That might be one of the reasons Americans have given up, you think internet bullshit is real. Neutered by the internet.
Anyway I got my groceries today, none of it came from the US. I can't prove anything, but that's something I actually did. What did you do?
We're resisting your kleptocracy up here. You could be boycotting Trump friendly companies down there too, you could be voting for the democrats. There's a lot you could do to make things better. But you won't because some bullshit on websites owned by the oligarchs tell you democrats are bad and boycotts don't work. Y'all gave up because the oligarchs told you to give up.
Same reason I don't reach for a drill when my teeth start to hurt: I go to a specialist and pay them to do it for me. I'm under no illusion that the state of my tactical training (read: none) is somehow sufficient to accomplish a task like that. For someone like me to have any hope of pulling that off, we'd need some winning-the-lottery tier luck for the circumstances to align in a way that a crime of opportunity becomes feasible.
If only we had large number of people who are specialized with that kind of training and are both paid and oath-bound to use it on behalf of the rest of the citizenry.
I’m under no illusion that the state of my tactical training (read: none) is somehow sufficient to accomplish a task like that
Tactical training can be improved with some time and effort.
And I highly recommend doing it. Because in the coming turmoil, it will be useful for a lot more than just vigilante justice.
(And 'tactical' doesn't just mean 'gun'. Even if you can't currently own a gun for legal or mental health/safety reasons, you can still train. Figure out what self defense tools you are allowed/willing to use. Get them. Train on how to use them. Exercise -- weightlifting, cardio, agility. (At least be good at running away!) Take some first aid courses, then maybe even graduate to field medic courses if you can find them. Acquire and learn how to use methods of secure communication that don't depend on the internet and cell networks. Build a 'go bag' with all the essentials you need to survive for 2 weeks, which can be grabbed at a moment's notice without taking time to pack. Spend some time outdoors, familiarizing yourself with the local area and building up hiking/wilderness skills. Build a secret room in your house where you could hide persecuted people from the authorities. Learn how to build and fly drones. Learn the basics of cybersecurity and maybe even develop some hacking skills. Learn physical pen-testing skills; learn how to infiltrate enemy facilities. Familiarize yourself with likely threats -- learn to identify the enemy and their equipment, especially when they're trying to be covert; learn what you can about their strategy and tactics. If possible, identify weak points and plan ways to exploit them. All of those things can be done without ever even touching a gun.)
Solid advice... although by 'tactical' I meant getting through the security forces in the service of evil people, and killing said evil people. And ideally, making it back out without being detected. For someone like me, the odds of success are zero.
My point though was that it should never come down to a person like me - we have a 1.3 million strong force of people who are obligated to engage people like Trump or Musk the same way engage any other enemy of the US. Don't get me wrong: that force isn't doing shit, so I guess it's on the peasants... It just shouldn't. Fucking maddening.
100%. And despite the evidence of their inaction, I can't and won't believe the literal entire force is just okay with their peers dying to defend the reputation of a pedophile - surely at least some of them signed up over some sense of patriotism and loyalty to the country, not just loyalty to some orange shitstain. And for those servicemembers, they've got to be much closer to a snapping point than the average Joe Dipshit running in that 9-5 hamster wheel. And to them, I'll continue to say: better late than never, DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!
I appreciate the sentiment, but just to paraphrase what you just appear to have said…
I am waiting for a group of people that I was never a part of and know nothing about to come save me.
This mentality is one reason nothing has happened yet. It’s not quite so bad that you (or I) or a critical mass of anyone else feels the need to put our lives on the line to respond.
I guess my point is, as bad as it is now, it’s nowhere near as bad as it needs to be to make happen what you appear to have already written off.
If you are going to rely on someone else’s oath to protect your rights, they were never your rights to begin with. You read that as an oath to an ideal. Those in power read that as an oath to them. The people that took that oath currently feed themselves and thier families by allegiance to power. The system is working as intended.
Yeah, silly me for expecting even a single person within group of over a million to do the job they signed up and are compensated for with a a solid third of my and every other tax paying US citizens' paychecks.
Kinda like how when I go to that dentist and pay them to drill and fill, and then they just send me home after an hour and a half of waiting in the lobby. Happens all the time, right?
But since we're pointing fingers at our fellow peasants, why haven't you stepped up? Even if you live in some other country, you're one plane ticket away from becoming a global hero, and this a global problem.
You are expecting them to do the job you think they singed up for. They are doing the job they think they singed up for. What makes you think they are on your side or share your world views?
You keep making a dentist analogy. The problem with it is when you pay the dentist they work for you. When you pay your taxes the military works for the government. You are at odds with your government. Not a party. The entire government. Liberal Zionists Are Evil Shitbags CAITLIN JOHNSTONE The current fucked up reality we are in is a capitalist/western government creation. It’s not the fault of a single political party in one government in that system.
So assuming you are really calling for a physical overthrow of the current political order… my reason for not actively engaging in violence is it’s not bad enough for me yet. The only people who have come close to stepping up are either dead or in jail. Personally I am responsible for to many others that cannot take care of themselves to entertain any hero fantasies. My trip wire is when their wellbeing requires action on my part.
So instead I do what many people suggested in response to your comment. I train, I learn useful skills, I pass those on to my family, friends, neighbors. I don’t assume that some other group of people are going to magically come to my rescue because I pay taxes to a government that has been operating this way for its entire existence.
You are expecting them to do the job you think they singed up for.
\1) I am expecting them to continue blindly following a domestic enemy, as they have been. Like I said in my very first post here, if it were going to happen, it would have by now. 2) This isn't some pedantic word game - what they sign up at the most basic level is established very plainly in their oath, and similar oaths for taking office or commissioning. I'm not projecting some ideal onto it, it just outright says it. And 3), "they" are not a hive mind. We don't need the entire military to turn and do what's right in unison - it'd be fucking amazing, but there is zero chance of that happening. "They" are 1.3 million individuals with their own world views, opinions, and threshold of bullshit they're willing to tolerate before finally taking their oath seriously. Even if what I'm saying only resonates with 0.01% of them, that's 13,000 candidates who have the training and moral/sworn/contractual obligation to do the deed. We need a single one of them to do their job.
You keep making a dentist analogy. The problem with it is when you pay the dentist they work for you. When you pay your taxes the military works for the government.
I mean, generally you don't pay the dentist, you pay a clerk at the front desk, who forwards your payment to their organization, who then gives the order to the dentist to work on your teeth. That dentist is under obligation by whatever their employment agreement establishes. Not unlike how my my taxes are filed and processed by some finance employee working for the govt, gets added to their own pool of cash, and entitles me as a tax paying citizen to the services funded by those taxes. To include military protection from all enemies foreign and domestic.
As it stands, I'm paying that clerk at the front desk, but have been abandoned in the lobby with a festering tooth ache. Where the fuck is my dentist?
You are at odds with your government. Not a party.
Yeah no shit. Actors like Trump and Musk are symptoms, not the root. Our issues won't magically disappear when they do. But the symptoms of this disease are severe enough that they urgently need to be addressed. An infection can be harder to treat than the fever it causes, but the fever can still kill you - when that's getting dangerously high, you need to prioritize the fever. Get that under control and then go back to fighting the infection. Or better, both simultaneously, but either way, we've got a hell of a fever right now.
So assuming you are really calling for a physical overthrow of the current political order
Depends on what you mean by that. I definitely do NOT want the military to start a coup and seize power for themselves. Their action needs to be like a surgical excision - get in, chop that fucker out, then hands off. Even if that means power transitioning to some other villainous shit like Vance or Johnson, that person will then act with the understanding that a severe enough abuse of their power will be a mortal liability. ...and really, that needs to happen to some extent at all levels of government. Not by military intervention or anything, like look at Salem's approach recently to their city representatives bending the knee to data centers: a crowd showed up with an actual fucking guillotine... that turned out to be a nonfunctional prop, but still, when those in power feared for their lives, they stopped the oppressive shit and got the fuck out of there. I think the message was lost when it came out that it was a prop though... there needs to be tangible consequences. I digress.
my reason for not actively engaging in violence | So instead I do what many people suggested in response to your comment
Right... same... so what exactly are you criticizing? Am I somehow in the wrong for doing that and calling out servicemembers' hypocrisy? You don't see those as mutually exclusive, do you?
I don’t assume that some other group of people are going to magically come to my rescue because I pay taxes to a government that has been operating this way for its entire existence.
Congrats! You're not an idiot. If you're implying that my own assumption is said magical rescue, then I invite you to reread my first post here. Or any post here, being that I never expressed such an assumption. If that's what you're worked up about, then I think we're running circles around a miscommunication.
Edit - I think I see where the disconnect is. I'm going to highlight the distinction between contractual expectations and expectations established by pattern recognition.
With regards to the oath, the expectations are clear and established. We as a citizenry have a reasonable expectation that the oath will be fulfilled.
We can also see plainly that it is not being fulfilled, and as of now, have no reason to expect that will change.
Those are not mutually exclusive. Even after two hours in that dentist's waiting room, I may have abandoned any expectation of actually receiving care; but there's still a contractual expectation established by the transaction.
This is one of those weird instances of two different contexts of a word popping up in the same setting, so I can definitely understand why there's a disconnect here.
He won’t. He’s just gonna go even worse until either he gets a terminal disease or just die.
He pays people billions every week (to boot lick him) and yet he’s still the most rich cunt. Literally no one is ever stronger than him to prosecute him.
Apart from people revolting, no chance this is happening. They’ve realised the mistakr from feudal ages. they’re purchasing their private protection from instead forcing people. Protection comes in form of both mercenaries bodyguards and lawyers
I'm sure they made plenty of loopholes after setting him free to go ham on government agencies with an axe, it will have ensured the people who could have punished him for it were either powerless or on the payroll.
Watching people still believe the system is going to work to make things right is like watching Jacob's Ladder and watching him convincing himself that he made it home from Vietnam.
Yeah that's all I've seen ever seen on this. There's nothing anything specific or substantial. Did he influence the Twitter algorithm to help Trump. Sure. And his offering to pay people to vote in general was likely illegal. But these aren't what people are alleging in these discussions.
But the allegation is always that he somehow interfered with the actual votes and vote counting. You'll see bizarre tech-illiterate suggestions that he somehow hacked voting machines with lasers from spacex satellites. "Jewish space lasers" level of idiocy.
This is a little different maybe? Still regarding the power supply's ability to wirelessly update.
Still scares the hell out of me, article is worth a read.
In March 2021, Leonard Leo—the judicial kingmaker behind the modern conservative legal machine—sold a quiet Chicago company by the name of Tripp Lite for $1.65 billion. The buyer: Eaton Corporation, a global power infrastructure conglomerate that just happened to have a partnership with Peter Thiel’s Palantir.
To most, Tripp Lite was just a hardware brand selling battery backups, surge protectors, power strips, nothing to be concerned about. But in America’s elections, Tripp Lite devices were something else entirely.
They are physically connected to ES&S central tabulators and Electionware servers, and Dominion tabulators and central servers across the country. And they aren’t dumb devices. They are smart UPS units—programmable, updatable, and capable of communicating directly with the election system via USB, serial port, or Ethernet.
Through investigations, we already know that some ES&S and Dominion systems are equipped with modems. Their hollow assurances that modems are “not connected during critical periods” are irrelevant as this doesn’t make their systems any less hackable.
Adding to this, ES&S systems—including central tabulators and Electionware servers—rely on Tripp Lite UPS devices. ES&S’s Electionware suite runs on Windows OS, which automatically trusts connected UPS hardware. Meaning if Eaton pushed an update to those UPS units, it could gain root-level access to the host tabulation environment without ever modifying certified election software.
The basic argument is that the voting boxes get audited but not the ups, the uninterrupted power supply, and that can get over the air updates from starlink.
That just sounds completely tech illiterate. A UPS is just a battery. There's no integration with the actual electronics of a computer. This is just technobabble.
I mean I don't think either of us actually know that for these particular voting machines. There absolutely plenty of UPS systems where the system is in constant communication with its UPS.
That would actually be easy to overlook in a large data center too. Those are not just batteries. There are at least some controls in it to report to monitoring and also to make all that abnoxious noise.
I mean, Starlink was the backend for some voting sites wasn't it? Plus several voting sites in swing states had bomb threats. Did someone stay behind to keep an eye on the machines?
People think he rigged the elections. The elections were rigged, but not sure he did it. There were bomb threats on election locations and mail-in votes burned by vandals in blue states. Now they gerrymander blatantly for sure, but not sure about the common belief that Elon hacked the machines or had them hacked.
Being optimistic is apparently considered uncool & unrealistic, but I do have hopes for the future!
OOP here saying "at some point in the next 5-7 years" can be read as "prosecution starting at some point in the next 5-7 years" - and that seems realistic to me. And not only Muskrat.
After all the Third Reich, which was supposed to last a thousand years, only lasted twelve.
I believe a sort of Nuremberg2.0 will happen at some point. Sadly, the Fuhrer himself probably won't be alive anymore for that.
I believe that they are ridiculously off the mark. If there's one thing I've learned about US politicians, it's that they adore billions of dollars. They take great delight in our two-party system, as it insures that even the side that loses is guaranteed substantially more income year after year. It's a sure thing.
I don't think our system will repair itself at this point, but would love to be wrong. In my opinion, Trump and Elon and every one else involved will make many billions of dollars, and never see a prison cell. They are the natural result of over a decade of Citizens United and "corporations are people!".
Either the prosecutors will not take the case or a judge will scold them for annoying his highness with their petty claims. Bonus points if the people who reported and investigated are then indicted themselves for made up crimes.
Or their self driving fully electric taxi will accidentally crash into a bridge stanchion at 90, buckling the doors and starting a lithium fire, which will corrupt any recordings of the interior prior to the crash.
79 Comments
Davel23@fedia.io · 111 pts · 1d
I believe it, except for the "indicted and prosecuted" part.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 1d
I giggled at the naive hope. Wish I could feel that
Malica@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 1d
It'll be fine if we vote harder! /s
Edit: please vote everyone needs to vote
7101334@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Vote blue no matter who, the best we can hope for is "we're sorry we did genocide :(" instead of "fuck yeah we did genocide!"
OnyxRex@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 1d
I would honestly be surprised if America as we know it exists by that time. I hope whatever hell hole Elon runs off to has the foresight to just shoot him but I think even that is asking too much.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
Considering that the downward enshittification and fascismization has been going on for more than thirty years, we're not that close to the bottom. Not by a long shot. It can get REALLY fucking shitty.
OnyxRex@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 1d
It does seem like the tech bros in power now saw those 80s dystopia movies and went, "yes. that."
daychilde@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I think it's more that that tech bros think more like and aspire to be oligarchs/billionaires, but… I've no disagreement with you at all. heh
7101334@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Argentina. It's where Nazi scum always run off to.
nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1d
Thiel just moved there. For real.
DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world · 47 pts · 1d
I for one don't believe any person with a significant amount of power and money will ever be prosecuted and convicted of anything significant ever again.
I'm of the opinion that they have complete control over the entire system, and nothing short of an armed revolution and public executions will change that
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social · 13 pts · 1d
"Ever again" is a very long time to predict anything for tbh. Its not like powerful people in the past didn't often have control over the political systems they found themselves in, if this was enough to preclude it forever, why has any powerful person ever faced prosecution before?
Murse@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 1d
...yeah but this time, a man-toddler is in charge of enough nukes to glass the world several times over, and as falls deeper into his geriatric years, he has increasingly little to lose. Previous poster may well be correct on account of humans being extinct in the near future.
Best case scenario, it isn't nuclear fire that cooks us - that just drags us out a bit longer for the climate to cook us instead.
the_q@piefed.social · 4 pts · 1d
Baby girl... There has never been this level of wealth intertwined with foundational systems in human history.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Or the world most advanced military...
Or the nukes
ChexMax@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15h
Am I misunderstanding something? You think the monarchy had to follow laws? Didn't they make the laws? Or you think the monarchy didn't count as rich? Just because Elon is the richest? It took much less wealth to get away with egregious (by today's standards) crimes in the past.
the_q@piefed.social · 0 pts · 11h
Yes you are intentionally misunderstanding in order to argue a non point to someone who doesn't care about that non point.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 3 pts · 1d
Have you seen how the Climate Crisis is going? Humanity is basically toast in the next 30 years. Its onky accelersting, we are alreay in the "how much can we mitigate" and well beyond the "we can stop this" point. Its going to just get hotter and hotter and migration will start to snowball the food problems from the heat as everything inside the topic lines becomes an unlivable hellscape.
"Ever again", is a very short period of time.
cinoreus@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Most of Elons power is tied to Trump. If history is evidence, it's people like him who go down first, who choose a side. Most billionaires are detached enough from party politics that they technically can ask either side for cover, that's what makes them nearly invincible. But elon, despite being richest person on earth, is flying too close to the sun, and would be the first to burn when maga looses power.
logi@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Unless, of course, they have wronged someone even wealthier or a group of equally wealthy people.
the_q@piefed.social · 41 pts · 1d
How are people still delusional that any of these people will pay for their crimes?
fodor@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 1d
Usually they won't pay. History tells us that. But sometimes, rarely, they actually are punished, and that's a lot better than nothing.
In other words, I expect little bit hope for everything. And I hope you do, too.
gogonan@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Copium
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
You are probably correct, but the reason for it is Americans have just given up.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
Americans?
You can buy a plane ticket, right?
... but I bet you've given up. Prove me wrong.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 15h
I'm, Canadian, I only buy plane tickets that fly over that shit hole.
Also this is the internet, nothing can be proven on the internet. That might be one of the reasons Americans have given up, you think internet bullshit is real. Neutered by the internet.
Anyway I got my groceries today, none of it came from the US. I can't prove anything, but that's something I actually did. What did you do?
We're resisting your kleptocracy up here. You could be boycotting Trump friendly companies down there too, you could be voting for the democrats. There's a lot you could do to make things better. But you won't because some bullshit on websites owned by the oligarchs tell you democrats are bad and boycotts don't work. Y'all gave up because the oligarchs told you to give up.
pnwpixel@programming.dev · 36 pts · 1d
GolfFoxtrotLima@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 22h
Yeah, same here honestly. It’s time to kill the rich
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 16h
It all starts with you! Don't be lazy, if it's time, then it's time, right? Get to work.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 35 pts · 1d
Did he do this? Hell yes.
Will he be meaningfully prosecuted for it? Hell no.
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 17h
Someone should just kill him.
Now watch me get banned for that while everyone wonders why nobody ever does anything other than protest.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 16h
"Someone"
YOU. Stop wishing.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 25 pts · 1d
It'd kind of adorable that there are people who still think legal justice is a thing.
Our eggs are all in one basket, which is vigilante justice, and frankly if that was going to happen, it would have by now.
Josey_Wales@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
I admire your optimism. Out of curiosity, what was it that stopped you from leading the charge?
Murse@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 1d
Same reason I don't reach for a drill when my teeth start to hurt: I go to a specialist and pay them to do it for me. I'm under no illusion that the state of my tactical training (read: none) is somehow sufficient to accomplish a task like that. For someone like me to have any hope of pulling that off, we'd need some winning-the-lottery tier luck for the circumstances to align in a way that a crime of opportunity becomes feasible.
If only we had large number of people who are specialized with that kind of training and are both paid and oath-bound to use it on behalf of the rest of the citizenry.
...Oh hey!
...huh... so far just crickets.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 3 pts · 1d
Tactical training can be improved with some time and effort.
And I highly recommend doing it. Because in the coming turmoil, it will be useful for a lot more than just vigilante justice.
(And 'tactical' doesn't just mean 'gun'. Even if you can't currently own a gun for legal or mental health/safety reasons, you can still train. Figure out what self defense tools you are allowed/willing to use. Get them. Train on how to use them. Exercise -- weightlifting, cardio, agility. (At least be good at running away!) Take some first aid courses, then maybe even graduate to field medic courses if you can find them. Acquire and learn how to use methods of secure communication that don't depend on the internet and cell networks. Build a 'go bag' with all the essentials you need to survive for 2 weeks, which can be grabbed at a moment's notice without taking time to pack. Spend some time outdoors, familiarizing yourself with the local area and building up hiking/wilderness skills. Build a secret room in your house where you could hide persecuted people from the authorities. Learn how to build and fly drones. Learn the basics of cybersecurity and maybe even develop some hacking skills. Learn physical pen-testing skills; learn how to infiltrate enemy facilities. Familiarize yourself with likely threats -- learn to identify the enemy and their equipment, especially when they're trying to be covert; learn what you can about their strategy and tactics. If possible, identify weak points and plan ways to exploit them. All of those things can be done without ever even touching a gun.)
Murse@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 23h
Solid advice... although by 'tactical' I meant getting through the security forces in the service of evil people, and killing said evil people. And ideally, making it back out without being detected. For someone like me, the odds of success are zero.
My point though was that it should never come down to a person like me - we have a 1.3 million strong force of people who are obligated to engage people like Trump or Musk the same way engage any other enemy of the US. Don't get me wrong: that force isn't doing shit, so I guess it's on the peasants... It just shouldn't. Fucking maddening.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
At this point, that oath appears to mean nothing to the members of the US military.
They just plod along, obeying illegal orders (bombing girls' schools, bombing fishermen, bombing wedding parties), despite being treated like shit (USS Lincoln), and even having their deaths switched from column A to column B to make the numbers seem better.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 23h
100%. And despite the evidence of their inaction, I can't and won't believe the literal entire force is just okay with their peers dying to defend the reputation of a pedophile - surely at least some of them signed up over some sense of patriotism and loyalty to the country, not just loyalty to some orange shitstain. And for those servicemembers, they've got to be much closer to a snapping point than the average Joe Dipshit running in that 9-5 hamster wheel. And to them, I'll continue to say: better late than never, DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!
Josey_Wales@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 1d
I appreciate the sentiment, but just to paraphrase what you just appear to have said…
This mentality is one reason nothing has happened yet. It’s not quite so bad that you (or I) or a critical mass of anyone else feels the need to put our lives on the line to respond.
I guess my point is, as bad as it is now, it’s nowhere near as bad as it needs to be to make happen what you appear to have already written off.
If you are going to rely on someone else’s oath to protect your rights, they were never your rights to begin with. You read that as an oath to an ideal. Those in power read that as an oath to them. The people that took that oath currently feed themselves and thier families by allegiance to power. The system is working as intended.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 23h
Yeah, silly me for expecting even a single person within group of over a million to do the job they signed up and are compensated for with a a solid third of my and every other tax paying US citizens' paychecks.
Kinda like how when I go to that dentist and pay them to drill and fill, and then they just send me home after an hour and a half of waiting in the lobby. Happens all the time, right?
But since we're pointing fingers at our fellow peasants, why haven't you stepped up? Even if you live in some other country, you're one plane ticket away from becoming a global hero, and this a global problem.
Josey_Wales@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 10h
You are expecting them to do the job you think they singed up for. They are doing the job they think they singed up for. What makes you think they are on your side or share your world views?
You keep making a dentist analogy. The problem with it is when you pay the dentist they work for you. When you pay your taxes the military works for the government. You are at odds with your government. Not a party. The entire government. Liberal Zionists Are Evil Shitbags CAITLIN JOHNSTONE The current fucked up reality we are in is a capitalist/western government creation. It’s not the fault of a single political party in one government in that system.
So assuming you are really calling for a physical overthrow of the current political order… my reason for not actively engaging in violence is it’s not bad enough for me yet. The only people who have come close to stepping up are either dead or in jail. Personally I am responsible for to many others that cannot take care of themselves to entertain any hero fantasies. My trip wire is when their wellbeing requires action on my part.
So instead I do what many people suggested in response to your comment. I train, I learn useful skills, I pass those on to my family, friends, neighbors. I don’t assume that some other group of people are going to magically come to my rescue because I pay taxes to a government that has been operating this way for its entire existence.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 8h
\1) I am expecting them to continue blindly following a domestic enemy, as they have been. Like I said in my very first post here, if it were going to happen, it would have by now. 2) This isn't some pedantic word game - what they sign up at the most basic level is established very plainly in their oath, and similar oaths for taking office or commissioning. I'm not projecting some ideal onto it, it just outright says it. And 3), "they" are not a hive mind. We don't need the entire military to turn and do what's right in unison - it'd be fucking amazing, but there is zero chance of that happening. "They" are 1.3 million individuals with their own world views, opinions, and threshold of bullshit they're willing to tolerate before finally taking their oath seriously. Even if what I'm saying only resonates with 0.01% of them, that's 13,000 candidates who have the training and moral/sworn/contractual obligation to do the deed. We need a single one of them to do their job.
I mean, generally you don't pay the dentist, you pay a clerk at the front desk, who forwards your payment to their organization, who then gives the order to the dentist to work on your teeth. That dentist is under obligation by whatever their employment agreement establishes. Not unlike how my my taxes are filed and processed by some finance employee working for the govt, gets added to their own pool of cash, and entitles me as a tax paying citizen to the services funded by those taxes. To include military protection from all enemies foreign and domestic.
As it stands, I'm paying that clerk at the front desk, but have been abandoned in the lobby with a festering tooth ache. Where the fuck is my dentist?
Yeah no shit. Actors like Trump and Musk are symptoms, not the root. Our issues won't magically disappear when they do. But the symptoms of this disease are severe enough that they urgently need to be addressed. An infection can be harder to treat than the fever it causes, but the fever can still kill you - when that's getting dangerously high, you need to prioritize the fever. Get that under control and then go back to fighting the infection. Or better, both simultaneously, but either way, we've got a hell of a fever right now.
Depends on what you mean by that. I definitely do NOT want the military to start a coup and seize power for themselves. Their action needs to be like a surgical excision - get in, chop that fucker out, then hands off. Even if that means power transitioning to some other villainous shit like Vance or Johnson, that person will then act with the understanding that a severe enough abuse of their power will be a mortal liability. ...and really, that needs to happen to some extent at all levels of government. Not by military intervention or anything, like look at Salem's approach recently to their city representatives bending the knee to data centers: a crowd showed up with an actual fucking guillotine... that turned out to be a nonfunctional prop, but still, when those in power feared for their lives, they stopped the oppressive shit and got the fuck out of there. I think the message was lost when it came out that it was a prop though... there needs to be tangible consequences. I digress.
Right... same... so what exactly are you criticizing? Am I somehow in the wrong for doing that and calling out servicemembers' hypocrisy? You don't see those as mutually exclusive, do you?
Congrats! You're not an idiot. If you're implying that my own assumption is said magical rescue, then I invite you to reread my first post here. Or any post here, being that I never expressed such an assumption. If that's what you're worked up about, then I think we're running circles around a miscommunication.
Edit - I think I see where the disconnect is. I'm going to highlight the distinction between contractual expectations and expectations established by pattern recognition.
With regards to the oath, the expectations are clear and established. We as a citizenry have a reasonable expectation that the oath will be fulfilled.
We can also see plainly that it is not being fulfilled, and as of now, have no reason to expect that will change.
Those are not mutually exclusive. Even after two hours in that dentist's waiting room, I may have abandoned any expectation of actually receiving care; but there's still a contractual expectation established by the transaction.
This is one of those weird instances of two different contexts of a word popping up in the same setting, so I can definitely understand why there's a disconnect here.
Town@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 1d
He did say if Trump loses he's fucked.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 19 pts · 1d
The fact that he bought and measurably weaponised Twitter and it doesn't even count as a campaign contribution seems kind of fucked, tbh.
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
What about TV Channels? Is buying and weaponizing them also a campaign contribution?
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · 11 pts · 1d
I live in the timeline where Reagan never gutted the FCC and it burned the Sinclair CEO at the stake last week, 9/10 pretty okay timeline.
TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social · 4 pts · 1d
Grab me before you go back, please
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 2 pts · 1d
Does your timeline still have Harambe?
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 14 pts · 1d
He won’t. He’s just gonna go even worse until either he gets a terminal disease or just die.
He pays people billions every week (to boot lick him) and yet he’s still the most rich cunt. Literally no one is ever stronger than him to prosecute him.
Apart from people revolting, no chance this is happening. They’ve realised the mistakr from feudal ages. they’re purchasing their private protection from instead forcing people. Protection comes in form of both mercenaries bodyguards and lawyers
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
It'll be like MK Ultra - disclosed decades later and the US will collectively shrug and move on.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 1d
What are we waiting for? MORE evidence?
jj4211@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I hate to say it, but waiting for some evidence.
This particular "bombshell" is pretty vague and unhinged. He purportedrly said he was sure of the election because of his space lasers....
That's really only evidence of mental illness and/or being incoherently drugged up.
Well unless you mean trying to bribe up votes illegally, but no one seemed to care about that one and it was just right out in the open.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
If I was on the jury, I know what my vote would be.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1d
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ced0d1g5zyno
https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/06/california-elon-musk-voting-lotteries/
I'm sure they made plenty of loopholes after setting him free to go ham on government agencies with an axe, it will have ensured the people who could have punished him for it were either powerless or on the payroll.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
If you play by THEIR rules then you have already lost because they are NOT playing, you are.
It has not been designed to be a fair fight. We don't have a justice system, we have a legal system.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 14h
Watching people still believe the system is going to work to make things right is like watching Jacob's Ladder and watching him convincing himself that he made it home from Vietnam.
DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 1d
After the last few years, nothing will ever again be "bombshell" level scandalous.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1d
I don't believe this, but I hope for this.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 1d
What's the actual allegation here?
makyo@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
It’s here but pretty vague: https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-named-in-bombshell-election-meddling-claim-in-alex-gibney-documentary/
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 1d
Yeah that's all I've seen ever seen on this. There's nothing anything specific or substantial. Did he influence the Twitter algorithm to help Trump. Sure. And his offering to pay people to vote in general was likely illegal. But these aren't what people are alleging in these discussions.
But the allegation is always that he somehow interfered with the actual votes and vote counting. You'll see bizarre tech-illiterate suggestions that he somehow hacked voting machines with lasers from spacex satellites. "Jewish space lasers" level of idiocy.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/she-won-they-didnt-just-change-the
This is a little different maybe? Still regarding the power supply's ability to wirelessly update.
Still scares the hell out of me, article is worth a read.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
This interview goes deeper:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oJSOUyaJeV4
The basic argument is that the voting boxes get audited but not the ups, the uninterrupted power supply, and that can get over the air updates from starlink.
Ashley St Clair makes a similar claim:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/elon-musk-s-ex-makes-explosive-claims-about-election-night-and-advanced-technology/ar-AA23I2dM
All claims no evidence. Very difficult if not impossible to do forensic analysis on.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
That just sounds completely tech illiterate. A UPS is just a battery. There's no integration with the actual electronics of a computer. This is just technobabble.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I mean I don't think either of us actually know that for these particular voting machines. There absolutely plenty of UPS systems where the system is in constant communication with its UPS.
fake@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
Something something tech illiteracy.
If the UPS monitoring is plugged in via USB that’s all the attack vector needed. Good chance they had ethernet as well.
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 8h
That would actually be easy to overlook in a large data center too. Those are not just batteries. There are at least some controls in it to report to monitoring and also to make all that abnoxious noise.
architect@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 1d
All i know is that they pulled a bunch of us election volunteers off from watching that election.
Also we just found out the jewish space lasers are real.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 1 pts · 1d
I mean, Starlink was the backend for some voting sites wasn't it? Plus several voting sites in swing states had bomb threats. Did someone stay behind to keep an eye on the machines?
Almacca@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 1d
Not sure what the OP is referring to, but everything he did at DOGE was a crime.
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 9h
People think he rigged the elections. The elections were rigged, but not sure he did it. There were bomb threats on election locations and mail-in votes burned by vandals in blue states. Now they gerrymander blatantly for sure, but not sure about the common belief that Elon hacked the machines or had them hacked.
A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 1d
Being optimistic is apparently considered uncool & unrealistic, but I do have hopes for the future!
OOP here saying "at some point in the next 5-7 years" can be read as "prosecution starting at some point in the next 5-7 years" - and that seems realistic to me. And not only Muskrat.
After all the Third Reich, which was supposed to last a thousand years, only lasted twelve.
I believe a sort of Nuremberg2.0 will happen at some point. Sadly, the Fuhrer himself probably won't be alive anymore for that.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
It's nice to believe in things.
I believe that they are ridiculously off the mark. If there's one thing I've learned about US politicians, it's that they adore billions of dollars. They take great delight in our two-party system, as it insures that even the side that loses is guaranteed substantially more income year after year. It's a sure thing.
I don't think our system will repair itself at this point, but would love to be wrong. In my opinion, Trump and Elon and every one else involved will make many billions of dollars, and never see a prison cell. They are the natural result of over a decade of Citizens United and "corporations are people!".
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 8h
Citizens United is more 40-50 years old now.
It just took this long for the power to become this unbalanced and to destroy the middle class.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Should be? Sure. Will be? [x[ Doubt
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 2 pts · 1d
Either the prosecutors will not take the case or a judge will scold them for annoying his highness with their petty claims. Bonus points if the people who reported and investigated are then indicted themselves for made up crimes.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 1d
Or their self driving fully electric taxi will accidentally crash into a bridge stanchion at 90, buckling the doors and starting a lithium fire, which will corrupt any recordings of the interior prior to the crash.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 1d
Great power comes great profits and more poor and homeless people that gave you all their money?