• IninewCrow
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    1311 year ago

    “Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”
    ― George Carlin

    • Jaysyn
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      341 year ago

      He was really wrong about voting though. If it didn’t matter, the fascist GOP wouldn’t be fighting so hard to prevent people from voting.

      • flyoverstate
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        201 year ago

        Working from inside a system that has been corrupt from the beginning doesn’t work

        • NaibofTabr
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          1 year ago

          Many parts of the system were designed to disenfranchise various groups. One of the most effective of those parts is the message that your vote doesn’t matter.

          Refuse to be disenfranchised. GO VOTE.

          • @whereisk@lemmy.world
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            171 year ago

            And that they’re all the same.

            They’re not.

            Voting is like taking public transportation, it’s not going to take you to your exact destination but you get on the bus that gets you closer.

            Not getting on the bus because it doesn’t go exactly where you want to, or you don’t like the bus driver is allowing others to take you in the exact opposite direction.

        • norbert
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          1 year ago

          Voting alone might not but it’s an important part of the process. You should agitate and organize, but also go vote and get your friends to go with you.

      • @madcaesar@lemmy.world
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        161 year ago

        He wasn’t wrong. During this time the parties although different and Republicans being shitter, were much closer together. They were both pro corporate with differences on social issues.

        Today… The Republicans have gone full batshit trying to overthrow democracy. I guarantee you, if George was alive he’d be saying VOTE and vote for Democrats until we’ve gotten rid of the dangerous fascists.

      • @Ghyste@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I love that there’s always someone who brings this one thing up…

        Nobody’s right 100% of the time. But he was right far more often than not, and far more correct than most anyone else running their mouths about the same subjects.

    • Koordinator O
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      11 year ago

      So we need to make the machines complicated enough so we rise above the intelligence needet to not passivly accept our situation?

  • @Signtist@lemmy.world
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    691 year ago

    They’re not the only ones who forgot. It’s crazy how many people I know who shun the idea of any form of action beyond general protest in the face of corruption. I always ask them how they think change is going to happen when we have protest after protest and nothing to show for them, but they never have an answer. Things are going to get a lot worse before people realize we need to fight for our rights, and being angry on the internet - or even in person with a sign - is no longer enough to make a change.

    • @MajinBlayze@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When violence is used to maintain the status quo, announcing up front that you’re unwilling to use violence in response tells those in power that they need not listen to you.

      • DrTautology
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        271 year ago

        The sad thing is that we don’t even need to use violence. We have the power to bring this country to a halt with nothing more than a well organized revolt.

        • @FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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          121 year ago

          Just stay home and play board games for a week, don’t spend any money.

          Things would change quick fast and in a hurry if a hundred million people all just took the end of July off.

          • @hark@lemmy.world
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            101 year ago

            That’s not possible for a lot of people unless they’re fine with starving. Additionally, prisoner’s dilemma or some variant of that basically makes it impossible to do something like that, herding cats would be easier. World peace would be achieved if all soldiers refused to fight and yet that will never happen for a whole host of reasons.

            • @DragonAce@lemmy.world
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              111 year ago

              That’s not possible for a lot of people unless they’re fine with starving.

              This is why a network of support and organization during a protest is vital. Because you’re going to have a lot of people in this position, so having some sort of place for donations and distribution of food/funds and a team to coordinate so the protests can continue uninterrupted is important. How to organize such a support network is a problem for people other than me who aren’t introverts.

        • work is slow
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          311 year ago

          MLK was not the entirety of the civil rights movement and his legacy was whitewashed by Reagan to distort history. MLK also understood that, “riots are the language of the unheard.” Riots occurred because civil rights were not given when they asked nicely.

        • @Ruxias@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Perhaps the whitewashed, watered down MLK would beg to differ. He’s been reduced to like three quotes for people to slap on their Facebook profiles; for companies to paste on their messaging in February; to be trotted out once a year like Weekend at Bernie’s so people can feel the warm fuzzies inside and ignore actual, real-world racism and violence that is happening right now.

          It’s like anytime someone mentions anything above a megaphone and a cardboard sign there’s always one of you that comes out of the woodwork and is like “MLK… Checkmate 😎”. As another commenter said, MLK was not the civil rights movement of his time. The reason he is the poster child for that movement in that era is specifically because his personal convictions about non-violent protest are safe for the system as it is.

          Slavery can still exist, albeit in a different form. (Not chattel slavery) Racism can still exist, albeit in different forms. People who are victims of these systems are dismissed out-of-pocket because that’s the goal: the system never wanted to change, and by making MLK the summation of “the civil rights movement” in the eye of the public, they infused passivity into the discourse. They tell you to make your signs, and get your megaphones, and write your blog posts because that’s what is safe for the system to continue on as it has always been.

          • @rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I 100% agree with your position, but I just want to correct a long-standing whitewashing that still tricks folks on the left; his nonviolence theory was a political strategy, not a moral position

        • @DrOfMoo@lemmynsfw.com
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          131 year ago

          MLK, while crucially important, was only ever a small part of a much larger movement. A movement practically immersed in violence.

    • @Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      The whole point of a protest is to show that you have sufficient numbers that if you were to riot, it would get ugly.

    • @YashaB@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      So what are we supposed to do? Take up arms and start shooting?

      There is no alternative to peaceful protest.

      • Rikudou_Sage
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        61 year ago

        As a really great character once said: Get angry. Angry gets shit done.

        Peaceful protests are pointless.

      • @Signtist@lemmy.world
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        41 year ago

        As the original post states, peaceful protests were originally a warning - they were the last opportunity for nonviolent communication before the violence started. Their function relies on that being the next step - one that the organization wants to avoid.

  • SeaJ
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    661 year ago

    They got wise to that and called in the police and military to help them.

  • trainsaresexy
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    631 year ago

    I love this sentiment but I hope we can keep lemmy a nice place.

    Like I’m sure we all agree that a good billionaire lynching would be awesome, but I also don’t want to crow on about it day after day. Escalate or bust.

      • Move to lemm.ee
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        201 year ago

        Not just build up, but actual conflict.

        Revolutionaries aren’t spontaneous creations. It takes decades of conflict between the population and the state to harden the people into what eventually becomes the revolutionary army.

        Almost everybody here with their soft bodies and their soft minds is not capable of taking part in 6-48 months of revolutionary civil war tomorrow. You have to look at the conflicts of France over the last 10 years between its population and the state to understand what prolonged build up of radicals and radical forces looks like. Decades of a population actively doing battle with its state over various national things before ever reaching the point of “fuck it we ball”.

        • @RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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          171 year ago

          It feels that at this point, the ruling class has gotten so good at giving us just enough to keep us from outright revolution. It’s little bonuses here and there, it’s providing just enough to keep us afloat long enough to get through the next election, it’s information manipulation to have us arguing with each other rather than focusing our anger on them.

          It’s going to be extremely difficult to break that control.

          • I Cast Fist
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            131 year ago

            Don’t forget the endless money spent on propaganda, convincing people that companies are good and everyone fighting for workers’ rights are evil, painting the latter as greedy and corrupt assholes with subversive intents

      • trainsaresexy
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        41 year ago

        That’s true but I wonder if it translates to modern times.

        I should learn about the Arab Spring…

  • @Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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    461 year ago

    I feel like it’s the working class who forgot.

    The rich are well aware, which is why they put so much energy into making us think that isn’t an option.

    • Ataraxia
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      21 year ago

      I wonder if them gunning down union protesters would be suddenly legal if needed.

      • @Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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        61 year ago

        It already is with regular protesters.

        They just gotta kill one. They don’t want to kill their entire work force. They just want to subjugate them.

    • @_cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      Shit France is already leading the way this century and showing us weak Americans how protests are supposed to be done. No one protests like the French protest.

  • @TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    What gets me is:

    If people have more money to spend, they buy more things.

    The more things they buy, the more money goes into the pockets of corporations and the CEOs.

    It’s literally a win win situation that doesn’t end in the Uber Rich being chased down by hungry angry mobs.

    • @einlander@lemmy.world
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      71 year ago

      But that means more people have a chance to get wealthy (provided taxes aren’t raised to match). Why pay people more and have more wealthy people when you can pay less and have all the money?

    • Koordinator O
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      51 year ago

      Because all those CEOs will never think further than the next ten minutes. In short term that means only less money for them since for any extra unit of money they give to their worker it is not garantied they buy something from the own company. They only ever see what money they don’t get right now, and not what they could get potentially in long term.

  • @BigNote@lemm.ee
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    141 year ago

    “Redress.” It’s “redress of grievances,” not “address.” They can have similar meanings, but they aren’t quite synonyms.

    • “Redress” is typically used when referring to correcting or remedying a wrong or injustice. It implies a sense of compensation or restitution for something that has gone awry. For example, if a customer receives a faulty product from a company, they may seek redress by asking for a refund or replacement.

      “Address,” on the other hand, is a more general term that refers to dealing with or attending to a particular matter. It can be used in a variety of contexts, from addressing a letter to addressing a problem. It doesn’t necessarily imply any wrongdoing or injustice.

      https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/redress-vs-address

    • It took a lot of blood and violence to get to the point where we all think blood and violence isn’t required in some situations. Millions and millions of people struggle every single day while the rich look for ways to take away their rights. It’s literally human nature to want to fight back against that.

    • @Stoneykins
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      191 year ago

      It isn’t a fantasy, it’s history. It is how our comfortable world was built, and if you think it is eerie then you should reevaluate how you feel about the benefits it has brought you.

    • @eskimofry@lemmy.ml
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      111 year ago

      What do you suggest? Only the state can have monopoly on violence? Only the government which is controlled by rich people can use violence?

    • @ZodiacSF1969@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      It’s funny, I think they are all bark and no bite. When push comes to shove we often see their fantasies amount to nothing more than materialistic looting. They will never live out their dreams of lynching billionaires.

  • @Harpuajim@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    21 year ago

    I keep blocking work reform pages but more keep popping up from different instances. Is there a way to globally block any instance that contains a specific word or phrase?

    • XIIIesq
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      51 year ago

      I mean, each to their own, but do you have a greivance with workers collectively backing themselves and their colleagues?

      • @Harpuajim@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        31 year ago

        I have no grievance with them, I just don’t care for the grievances they share with their employers. It was easy on reddit since it was just one sub I had to filter but here they keep popping up.